11.18.2025

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts





Wikipedia entry of the Paris 2015 Massacre here.  I had forgotten that France even bombed targets in Syria in retaliation for the attacks. 


  • There appears that a significant portion of the Internet is down across the nation this morning. Ever feel like it is all just a house of cards? 

  • Oh, my. A Sunday wreck in between Jacksboro and Bryson on highway 380 left five dead. From what I gather (with help from this information on Facebook), a car full of teens was allegedly passing in a no passing zone and had a head on collision with a vehicle occupied by a married couple and their four year old and one year old.  The husband and the one year old were will killed.  Three of the occupants, including the driver, of the other vehicle are deceased. 

  • Unless something changed yesterday, a felony jury trial will begin today in the district court in Decatur of former reserve Rhome Police officer and a former reserve Montague County deputy Robert Gillock. 
  • After allegedly robbing a bank in Bedford on Friday, he left the bank on a bicycle and was apprehended shortly thereafter. 

  • It looks like former Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin has a new fiction book coming out.  But the basic storyline facts have striking resemblance to a real very real criminal case in Decatur in the 1990s: From a summary about the book: "[A] handgun wielding masked man committed an aggravated robbery of the Supreme Salon down the hill from the courthouse square. The community, Sheriff Bill Bryan, the Sheriff’s Office and a newly promoted Texas Ranger relentlessly sought the criminal’s identity ... Dedicated Wise County residents, law enforcement officers, and prosecutors presented the Texas Criminal Justice System at its best and convicted the defendant in the 271st District Court."

    • For you legal nerds, further reading about the "very real criminal case" can be found at Cox v. State, 931 S.W.2d 349 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 1996, pet. dism'd), pet. dism’d, 951 S.W.2d 5 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997) but it amazingly had absolutely no recitation of the background facts. 
  • "U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio in Portland, Oregon, sentenced Joseph Emerson to time served [46 days] and three years’ supervised release"  Emerson told police he was despondent over a friend’s recent death, had taken psychedelic mushrooms about two days earlier, and hadn’t slept in over 40 hours.


  • This guy was nuts from the start after Trump appointed him. In his first address to FEMA staff, which was caught on video, he brazenly said, "Don't get in my way… I will run right over you." He lasted just a few months.

  • Voters might want to bookmark this. 

  • It will pass with flying colors, maybe unanimously. But I'll believe the files are released when I see them, and who knows if we will ever get them all. I'm very skeptical. 


    • Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie, both obviously Republicans, have already appeared with the Epstein victims on the capitol steps this morning in anticipation of the vote. 

  • There's a lot going on here:

  • The SMU law professor who went missing along the Appalachian Trail is still missing