Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

And I was sent a photo (below) within 24 hours. But I'm not sure I've heard much of Ned since then. I hope he wasn't in the fire at Aurora City Hall a couple of weeks ago.

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• Day 5: Still on the run!
  
  
  
• But you won't be getting alerts on your phone any longer.
  
  
  
• Not related but relevant: They found him after three hours.
  
  
  
• The potential for the Decatur School Board to actually fire Athletic Director and Head Football Coach  Mike Fuller seems really bizarre. But I'm hearing the current head count on the vote would be 3-3 which means the school board president would cast the deciding vote.  From the buzz I heard yesterday, this whole fiasco is turning an unexpected spotlight on the Board.
• Fuller's football team has made the playoffs seven straight years including a deep run all the way to the state semi-finals just three years ago. That was one win away from the championship game. Most schools can only dream of that. 
• The school board just renewed his contract less than three months ago by a unanimous vote. What exactly has changed since then? Has Fuller done anything to breach his side of the agreement? 
• A firing would cost lots of taxpayer money (money which, by the way, was collected from your outrageous property tax bill which we complain about all the time), and the reason for that taxpayer expense would be what? 
• A meeting is scheduled for Friday morning. The Messenger recently railed against the abuse of "executive session" as a tool to hide from the voters. Those voters have a reason to know what has prompted the hastily called meeting and who is spearheading it. And why.
• The House yesterday approved Juneteenth as a national holiday by a vote of 415-14. Yes, 14 representatives actually voted against it. One of them belongs to Wise County.  Yep, our own Ronny Jackson. You may remember him:
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Greg Abbott held a press conference on his Wall project yesterday, but was instead asked about the ERCOT warnings we've received.  His answer was less than truthful. 
  
  
  
• Despite the WFAA headline, this law is window dressing only. It has no teeth. There is no "offense" or penalty in the new statute for turning off a bodycam. 
  
  
  
• The NFL has issued guidelines for those players who don't want to get the COVID vaccine. You think they are encouraging vaccinations? 
  
  
  
• The Athletic ran a story rocking the Mavericks, Mark Cuban immediately called the story "total" BS (as he hid behind the protection of a tweet), and one day later their long time general manager is told to his the road. Don't worry, though. There will be a new episode of Shark Tank.
  
  
  
• There are still big Supreme Court opinions to come, and time on this term is running out. More will be released in 30 minutes.  The SCOTUSblog twitter feed is what I monitor since it is almost instantaneous with an accurate summary of what is released. 

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

My memory is a little fuzzy on this and all the links to supporting stories are now dead, but I think the Sheriff's Office got tipped off that a gun safe taken during a burglary had been thrown into Lake Bridgeport off of the bridge in Runaway Bay. And divers found it. 

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• Day Four: On the Run!
  
  
  
• According to today's Messenger, the very aggressive Decatur School Board is going to consider firing the football coach and AD on Friday morning.  I hinted about this one week ago:
  
  
  
• And the story in today's Messenger about the school board meeting over in Bridgeport on Monday is wild. The board president quit before the meeting. What's going on over there? Part of the brouhaha is about the number of recent resignations. Reporter Austin Jackson published this list during that meeting: 
  
  
  
• Private donations for the Wall? (Didn't Steve Bannon rip off donors doing this?)  But this whole PR campaign by Abbott is getting sad. The next thing you know, he will beg Trump to show up for a dog and pony show at the border.
  
  
  
• Oh.
  
  
  
• And this tweet yesterday by Abbott is just more con man type of stuff. He might has well have said, "Today I have read the Constitution." (I'm surprised he didn't use all caps.)
  
  
  
• This darkening of Reunion Tower should become a Texas distress signal. 
  
  
  
• That time that Sen. John Cornyn tweeted out an article from a conservative satire site in an effort to troll California who was having energy problems. 
  
  
  
• From the rumor mill: I'm hearing that a recent suicide of a young person in Wise County can be attributed, at least in part, to bullying. 
• Right now, President Biden and Putin are meeting. Some pre-closed door photos:
  
  
  
  AP Photo
  

  

  From Russia state media.

  
  
  
  
• Safe to say that afterwards Biden won't announce to the world that he is taking the word of Putin over our Intelligence Agencies as was done in Helsinki in 2018. What a bizarre day that was. (And, unlike Helsinki, there will be official notetakers from both sides present during the meeting.)
  
  
  
• Louisiana just reduced the penalty for possession of a personal amount of marijuana to a maximum fine on $100. Jail time is no longer part of the penalty.
• For something I thought for most of my life was unique to Texas, Juneteenth is about to become a federal holiday. 
  
  
  
• Real name. Real school announcement. The comments were what you would expect. 
  
  
  
• The UIL announced yesterday that it will continue to allow Internet broadcasting of high school football games -- something that they allowed for the first time ever during last season.  This announcement comes about 20 years too late. 
• Texas Motor Speedway fun fact: When it opened in 1996, the stands held 160,000. In 2013, facing declining attendance,  they removed the stands from the back stretch. Now they are removing more seats (and will widened the space for each remaining seat from 18" to 22") to lower the capacity to 75,000.
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

I stumbled across this bit of forgotten history 10 years ago. Worth re-issuing.  "An Air Force C-119  en route from Sheppard AFB, TX  to Carswell AFB, TX  collided in midair with a C-124C Globemaster II. The Globemaster was on a flight from Kelly AFB, TX  to Tinker AFB, OK."

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• Day 3 and still on the run!
  
  
  
• I'm not sure why law enforcement is being tight lipped about the name of the officer that was shot in the leg and who will recover just fine. I'm hearing it it was Rex Richie. 
• Fox 4 had a report where they obtained home security footage which actually picked up the audio of the gunshots. I heard around 10 pops. 
  
  
  
• That same footage even picked up the gunman running moments later. 
  
  
  
• WFAA had this: "The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Wood, who lives in Azle, previously served prison time for robbery and burglary of a habitation. The Lubbock County District Clerk's office confirmed those convictions, stemming from incidents in 2012. He began a 10-year sentence in 2014, however served only half of it, and was released in 2019."
• WFAA also said "they" found meth "in" his motorcycle. Fox 4 had photo of that motorcycle after the guy fled.
  
  
  
• WFAA said a "non-profit in Tarrant County had previously helped" the guy -- whatever that means -- and had this video of him. (That's him in the flag shirt.)
  
  
  
• Side note: Rhome PD definitely needs a new building. 
  
  
  
• The Messenger's Austin Jackson did a good job covering the Bridgeport School Board meeting last night. His coverage is here. It was a large crowd which included some firing off of some hot opinions towards the superintendent.  And in a split vote, the Board followed Decatur's lead of requiring Board approval before the superintendent can make any new hires during the summer.

  

  That's a huge crowd for a June school board meeting.

• ERCOT issued a "Conservation Alert" yesterday and told us to keep our homes warm and not run dishwashers and other large appliances in order to avoid rolling blackouts. Uh, it's June. In Texas. 
  
  
  
• Flashback: Words for our governor from one week ago. (Abbott's gonna mess around and get himself beat if he's not careful.) 
  
  
  
• Flashback: Ted Cruz got into a Twitter fight with a dirty Lib from California last year and told him the only reason you can't run the A/C during the summer is because of a "dysfunctional state government."
  
  
  
• Don't worry about keeping the electricity on. We've got Critical Race Theory and Permitless Carry taken care of, and they'll have a special session to make sure the very pressing issue of transgendered kids involved in sports are covered.
•  Amazing: We learned that the craziest member of Congress just found out about the horrors of the Holocaust after visiting the museum in D.C.   (Oddly, when she actually visited Auschwitz as a teenager it apparently didn't make much of an impression on her.)
  
  
  
• After my mention of Jeterville the other day, a faithful reader sent me this picture of a coozie they own. 
  
  
  
• Why is anyone surprised that Mark Cuban would hire a prominent NBA gambler to play a key role in the Mavs organization in another failed attempt to try to prove to himself he's the smartest guy in the room. I'll say it again: He's got a lot of Trump con man in him.

  
• I don't know anything about this college football recruit, but I'd be wary of any kid who decommits from OU and tweets out this graphic with, oddly, a "horns down" to announce it. (I'm guessing he used that photo when he first committed to OU and for some reason decided to re-issue it.)
  
• Here's a wild one to end on: As crazy as it sounds, someone emailed me about a body allegedly being found in the old Bilby's Marina in the Twin Hills area of Lake Bridgeport. Email me or DM me if you know anything.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

There were lots of bullet points about the Mavs winning the championship 10 years ago, but I had forgotten that this famous LeBron quote was made right after that series. 

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• Cops are on the lookout for a man who allegedly shot a Rhome Police Officer in the leg along 287 near FM 407 and then fled on foot.   It looks like this is Facebook page. He grew up in Lubbock and lists Decatur as his current residence.  I'm not seeing any prior Wise County arrests.
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• I suppose he'll be caught today and probably will just give himself up.  You can't stay on the run forever. (Then again, the alleged killer of his two daughters who was finally captured in Haslet escaped authorities for an amazing 12 years.) 
• Some reports say a female was with him and was arrested. The only female booked into the Wise County Jail overnight was a Tiffany Caswell out of Rhome on an outstanding drug warrant for an alleged probation violation. I don't know if she was with him or not. 
• Side note: I tried to see if Wood had any arrests out of Lubbock, but you can't access court records without submitting an application and paying a fee -- which is absolutely mind-blowing and backwoods in this day and time. 
  
  
  
• Gunfire on Sixth Street in Austin over the weekend left 13 injured and this 25 year old University of Michigan graduate dead.
  
  
  
• Reminder: Texas' permitless handgun carry law will take effect September 1st.
• Breaking political news: I told you it was weird she just up and quit the Texas Supreme Court last week. 
  
  
  
• Those are some wild temperatures predicted this week. 104 in Montana? 109 in Sacramento? 119 in Phoenix? 
  
  
  
• We were back to normalcy on the world stage over the weekend. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Random thought over the weekend about Greg Abbott's border wall: The legislature just passed the Texas budget for the next two years and there's not a single dime in it for a wall.
• Random thought over so-called Critical Race Theory legislative proposals: Is there a book burning provision in these laws since we are going back in time?
• This outfit in financial stress actually owns Northeast Mall and Irving Mall. 
  
  
  
• I didn't know child labor was still a thing. 
  
  
  
• College baseball quick hits: (1) The Evil Empire advances to the World Series, (2) The Red Raiders got swept, (3) #1 Arkansas was suddenly bounced, (4) DBU and UVA meet today at noon for a deciding game three. (5) In the first DBU/VUA game, DBU won but only after a four hour rain delay where they came back and completed the game in seven minutes. (6) Long Suppressed Evil Empire Sports Cockiness has kicked in:
  
  
  
• A plane safely landed on highway 287 in Clay County yesterday. He was headed to the Bowie airport.