- It's been a while since the Denton County Sheriff's Office has shot and killed someone. "The individual, identified as 58-year-old Kenneth Wayne Jones, reportedly pointed a handgun at deputies and failed to comply with commands."
- You knew this was coming. (PDF of lawsuit is here.)
- We had something wild happen in federal court yesterday that transpired so quickly that barely anyone had time to notice. Here's the headline, but there's more to it than that. Stay with me here.
- For over twenty years, Texas law has said that undocumented aliens who had been in the state for a set amount of time and had been accepted for enrollment by the University of Texas, would be assessed a tuition rate equal to that of Texas residents who were also U.S. citizens. Without the law, they would instead pay the "out-of-state" tuition rate.
- You don't like the law? Ok, you get the Texas legislature, controlled by Republicans then and now, to repeal it. But the current legislature just tried to do that but was unsuccessful.
- So what happened yesterday? Pam Bondi's Justice Department filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the Texas law was unconstitutional.
- But here's the shocker: Texas AG Ken Paxton, who took an oath to defend any Texas law in court, immediately agreed with the Justice Department.
- A judge would have every right to ask "What's going on here?" and make an independent ruling as to whether the law is really unconstitutional or whether this was just a sham lawsuit to kill a law by bypassing the legislature (which it is).
- But the judge didn't do it in this case! The Justice Department had filed the lawsuit in the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas so that it would automatically be assigned to the Trump-friendly judge named Reed O'Connor. That judge amazingly immediately signed a Final Judgment - not just a temporary injunction - killing the law and declaring it unconstitutional. The whole case went from start to finish in under four hours!
- And look how Paxton insanely frames what happened in his press release:
- You may like the result, but that process should scare you to death. And we'll see more of it. It's yet another sign that "It's over."
- Speaking of. The last time this happened there were protests at airports. Now we just shrug.
- Elon's assault on Trump and his "Big Beautiful Bill" continues.
- And according to the Congressional Budget Office yesterday, Elon is right.
- ProPublica did a big piece on this guy last night, but I can't get over that John Belushi eyebrow.
- That's a big tree. Those are rescue worker in yellow.
- I noticed a Wise County Aggie baseball player has hit the transfer portal. But the beginning of that second sentence from Sports Illustrated is a doozy:
- In a bizarre moment last night in the collrhr softball world series, the Evil Empire was able to score the ultimate winning runs off an unhittable Texas Tech pitcher with a two run hit on the fourth pitch of an an intended intentional walk. Video.
- Messenger - Above the Fold
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