7.11.2025

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

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Random Friday Morning Thoughts




So it is now 20 years of Liberally Lean, I used Enterprise on this year's vacation, too, and still love it, and the guy behind Silk Road is now out of prison via a Trump pardon. 

  • Trump heads to Texas today. I'm guessing he won't say anything as dumb as Gov. Abbott's football analogy the other day.

    • Meanwhile, Texas will prevent catastrophes like Camp Mystic in the future by . . . . creating a couple of committees.

    • Weekend read: I'm seeing lots of people rant, in a good way, about this article in Texas Monthly which is a first-hand account of the flooding. 



    • The EPA released a website to debunk the silly claims that the weather is geo-engineered, but its chairman announced it in a post in such a manner that it sounded like he's a conspiracy theorist.

    • This is not true.

  • DFW local news coverage is in bad shape. Case in point, a woman is found dead earlier this week in a high-tone apartment complex in Plano, and then yesterday her alleged killer was gunned down in a police shootout in Euless. Want to know more? Me, too.  But that's all the information that is out there. 


  • What took her so long?


  • From the official White House account.  We are the dumbest country.

  • They need to bring back The Wire. 

  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth found the time to shoot this very bizarre self-promotion video. 

  • OpenAI's ChatGPT is already a better search engine than Google, but Google's Chrome is still a really good browser. This will be interesting to watch.



  • Texas Tech has been making the news as one of its alumni, Cody Campbell, is throwing money around to buy players.  Campbell made his money in oil with a partner named John Sellers.  They first hit my radar in 2021 when Sellers rented out the Fort Worth Zoo for his fortieth birthday and hired Pearl Jam as the entertainment. So what's their origin story? I wrote . . . 

  • Lauren Whitener Clock: 6 years and 6 days.

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7.10.2025

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts





A wreck after the finish line was quite the sight in NASCAR. Video.

  • Whoa. It was just announced that The Dallas Morning News has been sold to the Hearst corporation -- the same entity that owns  the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Austin American-Statesman. This is not a good development. 

  • Photos of many of the victims of Texas flooding so far. (Gift link)

  • New information from the New York Times. (Gift link.)


  • It seems like lots of ambulances are stolen in the DFW area. This was from last night.


  • Two people in a vehicle ended up dead when hit by the train that runs between Fort Worth and Dallas. .



  • We had another "Blue Alert" go off across Texas yesterday evening. They are looking for a former Marine in that strange ICE ambush in Alvarado which has already led to the arrest of 11 people. 

  • And I just had to spend two hours in Tulsa the other night. Story.


  • This is a little weird. Trump has endorsed every Republican in the Texas legislature who voted for private school vouchers. The whole thing has an odd "approval by the Fuhrer" feel to it. 

  • Gov. Abbott announced congressional redistricting will be part of the special session. Make no mistake about it, this is an attempt to create more Republican seats in hopes of keeping the House of Representatives during the mid-terms. 

  • Trump quote of the day yesterday while visiting with African leaders. Video.


  • This is just the beginning. It will end with those on Trump's political enemies list being rounded up.  

  • The Business Second™: I'm not sure I understand this.

  • Messenger - Above the Fold

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7.09.2025

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



A scandal that wrecked a long running ad campaign.

  • After a weather delay and rerouting of a flight, I got into to DFW at 1:30 a.m. this morning. But I'm back to reclaim the title as THWMISB™.
  • I was in the northeast United States for a week, but that Camp Mystic/Hill Country story was front and center of the news up there. 

    • And let me tell you something, Greg Abbott is completely wrong when he says rescue teams won't leave until every person is found or recovered.  There are some of those bodies which will never be found. 


  • And flooding also struck North Carolina and Ruidoso, New Mexico.  Perfectly normal, right?

  • So what else happened while I looked away for a few days?:
    • The Big Beautiful Bill became law which proves Trump is 100% in charge of the Republican Party. 
    • 60 Minutes paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit about a run-of-the-mill edit. Incredible.
    • The Trump Administration, through AG Pam Bondi, announced that there is no "Epstein list", and MAGA lost its mind in response.
    • Elon Musk is so angry at Trump that he wants to start a third political party. 
    • Trump announced there will be a UFC fight on the White House lawn in 2026.
  • Quotes I missed:
    • Afraid that the Big Beautiful Bill will cut your Medicaid? Just go find a job with "good healthcare benefits" and the problem is solved. Video.

    • The federal government felt "helpless" after the Hill Country flooding. That's comforting. Video.

    • Skedaddle was defined. Video.

    • Gov. Abbott added to the list yesterday. Video.

  • The government retweeted Fox News this morning. It's officially State TV.

  • Actor Michel Madsen died last week. I was looking at his filmography and saw that he appeared in an episode of Real Detective, a police docudrama from Canada (2016–2017) on Netflix, where he played the role of Texas Ranger Phil Ryan who is also a former Wise County sheriff. And the real Phil Ryan is even listed in the cast. 


  • Movie I just saw a few weeks back that stuck with me: The Florida Project - a 2017 film.



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