11.09.2021

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




The scandal at Penn State broke out 10 years ago this week.  I had forgotten that Joe Paterno announced he would retire at the end of the season only to actually get fired two days later.    Jerry Sandusky, who is now 77, is still in prison. 


  • You can watch it here. It's probably more stupid than it is offensive. 

  • Bridgeport hired a new City Manager (from Westworth Village) and a new Fire Chief (from Highland Village) last night. Lots of changes going on over there. 
  • Breaking Tarrant County news: District Attorney Sharen Wilson will not run for re-election. Wow.

  • For people placed on probation for misdemeanors in Denton County, at least some judges allow for all the required community service hours to be wiped out if the person provides proof of a COVID vaccination. Wise County should do that. 
  • I hadn't looked at the Wise County vaccination numbers in a while: 

  • The attire of the prosecutor in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is getting attention. A tie clip and a pocket square is a little over the top. And it that some kind of Star Wars lapel pin?


  • I also watched a little bit of the Ahmaud Arbery trial yesterday which is a cluster since the State decided to try three men in one trial. (Why??!!) But I'm also worried a little about the prosecution when I saw them call a police officer, Adam Jackson, to the stand as their last "quick witness." The prosecutor asked him, in a very routine manner, "You've reviewed your bodycam footage since then, right?" Answer: "No." Question (with a bit of surprise in her voice): "You've not seen your bodycam video?" Answer: "No."  Uh, does anyone there want to prepare in a once-in-a-lifetime kind of trial?

  • Missed this last month: Of the 17 million registered Texas voters, 2 million have registered in the last four years
  • Put me in the group of people who think federal district judges shouldn't try to be cute. From yesterday:

  • If this report is correct, 52 out of 58 Texas local school bonds failed in last week's election. (I don't know if it is true because it comes from The Texan which is run by Konni Burton and constantly screwing things up.) 
  • MSNBC's Willie Geist ran the New York City Marathon on Sunday to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation and saw Fox, who had a cane and is looking pretty fragile these days, along the course and stopped to give him a hug. Video.

     
  • This seems like it should be a bigger deal. We knew about the big Dallas PD "loss of data" scandal but it now has a new twist where the the deleted data actually ended up  in the hands of hackers.  (If you want to download 1.8 terabytes of helicopter footage, here's a link.) What else do they have? 

  • Rest assured, no one has asked him that.   Side note: Any boss who thinks it's a good look to announce he would be "wearing [his staff] out" is a horrible boss. (He's a former U.S. Attorney appointed by Trump, Dan Patrick's son, and apparently loved to stick the Fed's nose in what would otherwise be a state investigation.)


  • An "encounter with SWAT" is a weird way to word this headline

    • Legal nerd stuff: This was actually a pretty crazy case out of Montague County which I had been following. It's a growing trend where prosecutors can't legally prove someone was intoxicated so they use the fall back charge of regular manslaughter and claim the defendant was reckless for drinking and driving even without being intoxicated. It worked here.

    • More legal nerd stuff: The "SWAT team" got involved in the arrest after the mandate was issued by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals once the PDR was refused by the Court of Criminal Appeals in August. She was out on bond and then allegedly on the run when the appeal failed. 
  • Did Dennis Prager sleep through the 1980s?  

  • It's kind of sad that the Pole Assassin and her monkey are already old news.