5.16.2025

It's Friday -- Let's Get Out of Here

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Random Friday Morning Thoughts




And now we are down to none. 

  • The bill to create the Wise Regional Water District, the only bill Wise County rep Andy Hopper has gotten to the House floor, went down in flames last night when it was royally defeated by a vote of 41-78. Hopper's entire presentation last night, including some brutal questioning, is here. It's 9 minutes long, but it is wildly entertaining .  It looks like Hopper has made some enemies along the way (see at 6:39)

    • But Hopper did spend time on social media yesterday fighting the repeal of the crime of homosexual conduct - a Texas law that was declared unconstitutional and invalidated 22 years ago. 

    • In other legislative news, the House voted to put air-conditioning in all Texas prisons like a federal court has told them to.  Hopper voted against it. 
  • Still on the run.


  • Denver Airport is now competing with Newark for the award of pilots flying blind.

    • So let's check in on what the Transportation Secretary was doing yesterday to see if he is working hard to solve the problem. Oh, he was posting this video message:

  • Walmart made the announcement yesterday morning during an earnings report.

  • Former FBI Director James Coney posted this picture of shells arranged on a beach yesterday, and now Republicans want him jailed because of it. 

    • And the new FBI Director, Kash Patel, is acting like he will do it. Welcome to Authoritarianism.

  • The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in a birthright citizenship case which was actually more about when a federal district judge should be allowed to issue a nationwide injunction.  Prediction: They won't rule on birthright citizenship (yet) but will fashion (make-up) a rule which allows nationwide injunctions only when a "basic and core fundamental constitutional right" - or some other flowery language - -  is involved.  And they will let the nationwide injunction against Trump stand in this case. 


  • Tell me this isn't real. 

  • Trump quick hits from the Middle East:
    • Oh, good grief. 

    • Someone explain to this man that "groceries" isn't some historical term. Video.

    • Stephen Miller runs the government, and Trump wants a palace. 

  • Graduate of Groesbeck High School and North Texas State, actor Joe Don Baker has died.  I remember him most from Cape Fear:

  • The Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed a Wise County criminal case yesterday involving a prolonged detention case. 
  • Lauren Whitener Clock: 5 years and 318 days.


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5.15.2025

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts





This crazy scene ended up killing three.


  • Oh, my! A sentence of one year in a state jail is an actual and real one year. No good time. No parole.  However, she will be able to bond out while the cases are being appealed.  It looks like the defense lawyer was Heath Hyde out of Sulphur Springs. 


  • That's a lot of full offering plates.


  • Yay-Boo.  Yay: The Messenger publishes an opinion piece today calling out the voucher scam. Boo: The piece fails to mention that Wise County's Rep Andy Hopper voted for vouchers.

    • By the way, the voucher folks promoted their bill by appeasing opponents by supporting a companion "multibillion-dollar public school funding bill." The voucher bill has already passed and become law. The school funding bill is now on the verge of dying. 

  • The video is widely available online but here's just a screenshot of it from the second before it happened. 


  • But don't call it genocide.


  • We are the dumbest state.


  • Trump is going full Stalin. (Newly hung banner on Department of Agriculture building.)

  • Video.

  • The Business Second™:  They finally figured out that removing the iconic name of HBO was a bad idea.


  • Messenger - Above the Fold

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5.14.2025

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




The Fox 4 weatherman's flooding "joke" wasn't received too well, and he took it down after about 30 minutes. 

  • That theft trial of the former D.A. of Montague County was quick! Yesterday saw all the testimony take only four hours, and the jury reach a guilty verdict before the day's end.  "After 16th District Court Judge Sherry Shipman read the verdict to the court, Hall was observed hanging her head in disappointment. She was later observed crying and leaving the courtroom in an emotional state." The punishment phase is today beginning at 8:30 a.m.. She could receive anything from probation to 10 years in the pen. I would think that the verdict will be probation, but I'd be a little nervous if I were her. 


  • Dateline: Comanche, Texas. Good grief.

     

  • A judge just resentencing someone from the bench years after the trial? It doesn't work that way in Texas. 


  • I really haven't followed the P. Diddy trial very closely this week, but that's a heck of a sketch of singer Cassie who is eight months pregnant and testified yesterday.

    • I think that judge is considering blocking the public and media sitting in the gallery from seeing the sex party videos which will be shown to the jury.  That seems like a violation of the right to a public trial.

  • This was quick, too. I wish AG Pam Bondi was the one who was forced to personally try the case. 

  • Start paying attention to how often Trump talks about peace and stopping wars.  He's decided he  wants one thing: The Nobel Peace Prize. In that regard, yesterday he lifted sanctions on Syria, extended an "olive branch" to Iran, and gave a (shocking) speech which basically said, "The U.S. will leave the Middle East alone in the future."
  • I thought it was weird how Trump just decided to take the Houthi's at their "word" that they would stop bombing ships in the Red Sea. Gift link.


  • A federal judge has finally said Trump can use the Alien Enemies Act to snatch people off the streets.  That makes it 3 to 1 on rulings on the issue so far.  "District Judge Stephanie Haines, a Trump appointee in the Western District of Pennsylvania, wrote Tuesday that Trump’s proclamation describes a 'predatory incursion' by Tren de Aragua . . . . ” 

  • "The Ellis County District Attorney’s Office has agreed to serve as special prosecutor in the ongoing investigation of McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara on allegations he improperly ordered a deputy to work at his Bosqueville farm over a three-year period while the deputy was on the county payroll."

  • Just announced: The Cowboys will host the Chiefs on Thanksgiving Day. 



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