Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

And 10 years later, Jim Goldstein is still doing it. 

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• Legislature wars: The Texas House is holding the bill banning THC hostage until the Senate moves on the education budget bill which includes raises for teachers - a bill which Dan Patrick has been slow walking in that chamber.
  
  
  
• We have the official launch of a campaign for judge of the 271st District Court for Wise and Jack Counties. (The term of the current judge,  Brock Smith, who can't run again, runs though the end of 2026.)
  
  
  
• Kind of wonky: With three members of the school board losing in the last election and scheduled to leave office in a week, the board hurriedly meets and votes to give the superintendent a contract extension with a salary of around $365,000,
  
  
  
• From the P Diddy trial: That's creative. 
  
  
  
• The amount of the settlement was learned by the USA Today examining Liberty's tax records. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• This was incredible yesterday. "Noem: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country." And, man, she said it so confidently. Video.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• She's crazy, but she really didn't follow through with this.
  

  

  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• So after having Trump's Justice Department dismissing a criminal charge against the New York mayor, Eric Adams, they are now opening a criminal investigation into Adams' upcoming opponent in his re-election campaign, Mario Cuomo. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• We're doomed. 
• Two major newspapers over the weekend published a special section for summer books that was not only written by AI but also listed fake books:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Google unveiled yesterday that its AI can make movies better than real life.
  
  
  
• After the headlines that Musk was taking a step back, he's now back in. 
  
  
  
• We are a strange state.
  
  
  
• From the new DA in far, far West Texas: 
  
  
  
  
• Legal/Political nerdy stuff: If you want to see how bad Judge James Ho on the Fifth Circuit wants to appease Trump in hopes of getting a Supreme Court nomination, look at this short concurrence he wrote from yesterday.
• Dear Wise County Sheriff's Office: Your PDF of the jail roster is still not updating. 
• A sitting Democratic congressman passed away overnight,  Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.  The last eight congressman to die while in office have been Democrats.