7.18.2025

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts





After the shootings at a recruitment office in Tennessee earlier in the week, Cleburne responded as you would expect Cleburne to respond. 

  • The plea is actually 5 years deferred adjudication probation, 30 days in the Dallas County jail as a condition of that probation, and restitution of $115,000.


    • Bur I'm not sure the last time I saw a DA's official press release about a plea deal include an insert from the defense lawyer. That had to be part of the plea bargain.

  • The Wall Street Journal reported last night that in 2003 "Ghislaine Maxwell was preparing a special gift to mark the occasion [of Epstein's 50th birthday]. She turned to Epstein’s family and friends. One of them was Donald Trump. Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein’s other associates for a 2003 birthday album."


    • "The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly 'Donald' below her waist, mimicking pubic hair."
    • "May every day be another wonderful secret." Put that on a throw pillow.
    • Trump's response to the story last night, a call to release a small fraction of the Epstein files, had a lot of qualifiers with "pertinent" doing a lot of heavy lifting.  Man, he is really bent out of shape about this. But the best media manipulator in all of politics has misplayed this whole thing in a shocking way.

       
    • I don't understand why Trump has chosen the word "hoax" to deal with this scandal. Elon doesn't either.


    • But in the end, this new revelation will be a big bag of nothing. The old video of Trump and Epstein ogling at women seems far more damaging -- and that didn't move the needle at all. And if the "grab 'em by the P" video didn't hurt him, this certainly won't. 
  • Israel continues its haphazard killing of civilians in Gaza. And I'm not buying that it "deeply regrets" anything. 


  • It was not a "total obliteration", but the news cycle for the story is long gone. 
  • Say what?

  • Ten to 15 years ago I would never have dreamed this guy would become mainstream for Fox Sports.

  • Legal nerdy stuff: A felon in possession of a firearm case tried in Jack County, and prosecuted by the local DA's office, was affirmed on appeal yesterday. It's not legally significant, but two facts got my attention: (1) the defendant had a scope on his rifle that was capable of recording audio and video -- that sure didn't help him, and (2) the defendant's lawyer on appeal listed his address as being in Florida. 
  • Lauren Whitener Clock: 6 years and 13 days.



at 8:30 AM

7.17.2025

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




Hodgepodge of bullet points. 

  • Bad cop.

  • The accompanying video this company put out was pretty wild, and it kind of brings to the forefront the elephant in the room: There's no question that a small drone that fires the equivalent of a handgun would be easy to manufacture. But just wait until it gets combines with AI.


  • Trump doubles down on his very strange claim of a Jeffrey Epstein "hoax."

    • Even the crazies are turning on Trump.


    • He's even lost the Babylon Bee. 

    • This didn't help his case yesterday afternoon.


  • So long (?) PBS and NPR after a 2:30 a.m. vote.

  • The Oval Office, then and now.

  • Call me crazy, but the headline and the subheadline don't seem mesh. (This is on the front page of both the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News today.)
  • The Business Second™. There is no question this is true.

    • Yesterday and 2017: 

  • Messenger - Above the Fold


at 8:30 AM

7.16.2025

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts






Wikipedia entry.

  • Last night in Bridgeport:

  • "Border Czar" Tom Homan and Greg Abbott appeared at a Texas sheriff's convention in Fort Worth yesterday. Nothing good can come out of that.  Side note: They all need to rethink the obligatory cowboy hats.

  • If you headed down 114 near Trophy Club this morning, you found all westbound lanes shut down, and eastbound lanes backed up for miles, because a truck used to protect construction workers hit a guardrail on its own and flipped over. The driver was actually killed. 


  • Trump, for the first time ever, has no idea how to handle his MAGA base when it comes to the Epstein scandal. Yesterday, he only made it worse.
    • First, he said on camera that the files were "made up" by Obama and Biden and others. Video

    • And then he called the whole Epstein case "boring" and that only "bad people" care about it. Video. His base believing in a "cabal of pedophiles in the deep state running the county" beg to differ. 

    • Wired, which has been all over the release of the "raw footage" of Epstein's jail cell at the time of the "suicide", came out with a new revelation yesterday.

  • That death toll will continue to rise, but it will take months before we get the final count.

  • The National Weather Service is handling all the DOGE cuts well.

  • Crazy Trump stuff from yesterday.
    • Trump didn't take an IQ test. He took a basic cognitive test to make sure his brain was functioning. He doesn't know the difference.  Video

    • Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, never attended MIT.  Video

  • The Business Second™. I don't know what this means because the story doesn't say where in Fort Worth it will be built or how many jobs are involved.

  • Exactly how was the All-Star game decided?

  • It's hard to get over that we have a functioning concentration camp in the Florida everglades, and everyone just shrugs. 

at 8:30 AM
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)