2.21.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts





  • After being convicted a couple of months ago, the officer who, by all accounts, accidentally shot and killed a black motorist was sentenced to 24 months in prison on Friday. 

    • Some are yelling that the sentence is too light, but I have always been opposed to our society's new willingness to readily, and harshly, impose criminal sanctions for unintentional acts.
    • I don't understand the criticism of the judge for becoming emotional during sentencing. Man, the criminal justice system is a gut wrenching business. I don't care which side you are on, or even if you are neutral, if you are involved in that world and haven't had the core of your soul rocked on occasion, you aren't invested in what you are doing. 
  • I've got my Liberally Lean Weather Team working overtime on the forecast.  You know, this one is tricky. There's a chance of two seperate brief waves of icing for Wednesday morning and Thursday morning.

  • Oh, my. This happened on Saturday. 

  • Russia may very well invade Ukraine, but I'm beginning to think that Putin really likes the attention. (There's a lot of Trump in him.) I mean, for weeks now every newscast leads with a story about him and what he, alone, has decided to do -- all the while showing video footage which he has authorized. Press like that would cost a fortune.


  • For 99.99 percent of federal employees, the discovery of classified materials in their home after leaving government employment would lead to a criminal investigation and prosecution.

  • Someone needs to get control of the local Wise County Republican Party. They have precinct chairs using their titles to campaign against long-term Republican incumbents in the county. That violates every unwritten rule there is. 
  • Seemed to be a little problem on a Dallas freeway on Friday afternoon. 

  • No way!

  • Ted Cruz continues to devolve into a child. 

  • Speaking of. The official national Republican Party Twitter account:

  • I'm not sure I've seen the Twitter mob turn on a girl quite like this in a while. The gal, who is part of the Young Conservative Texans at UNT, posted a video of a guy who she says had a "meltdown" and "stormed out" and "screamed" at her for printing flyers with an anti-transgender theme. Link.

  • Here's a good one minute video of the full free-for-all at the end of the Michigan-Wisconsin game yesterday. 

  • Here's a good sports long read for a Monday quasi-holiday which came out late Friday . And for you Ticket fans, it has a couple of hot quotes from the Old Grey Wolf.

  • The Winter Olympics are over, and America ended up with 8 gold medals. Or so I've been told.

at 8:32 AM

2.18.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




This is a random newspaper image posting from ten years ago. There's two things of note: (1) The past D.A. who imprisoned Michael Morton in Georgetown by withholding evidence was about to have his life turn upside down, and (2) look at those gas prices. 

  • Decatur has hired a football coach from a larger school -- a school where the coach won a state championship in 2017 (beating powerhouse Aledo) and lost in overtime in the championship game last year and ended up 15-1 for the season. In eight seasons, he led his team to to an 88-19 record. That's as big of a splash of a Wise County coaching hire as I can remember. 


    • How did they pull it off? This is a pretty good explanation:

  • The Little Ball of Insurrection is free after spending 60 days in the hoosegow. No word yet on whether she dropped a few pounds as she had hoped.

     
  • In the Tarrant County D.A.'s race, we now have access to the candidates campaign financial reports for the "30 days before election" deadline, and they have some interesting tidbits. Here are the links to the reports: Mollee Westfall (which includes a $20,000 donation from one Fort Worth criminal defense lawyer) Matt "Book Banning" Krause (who received $25,000 from the West Texas Oil Men Far Right Wing PAC) and Phil Sorrells (a $20,000 donation from a "Call me first, call me last . . . " car dealer, and an insane amount of expenditures)
  • The Olympic games broke a 15 year old girl last night. Engulfed in a doping scandal brought upon her by her overlords, Russian  Kamila Valieva fell and stumbled through a performance last night only to be berated by her coach when she made it off the ice. And the NBC cameras couldn't get enough of it. 


  • Video.

  • This is real. 

  • The clubhouse at a famous golf course in Michigan burned to the ground yesterday, and the video is pretty dramatic. 

  • This is a wild story out of Midland where all the higher-ups at a Christian School were arrested for not disclosing to law enforcement an alleged sexual assault -- an assault by a student in a locker room during a "hazing incident" in January which included, ugh, a baseball bat.

  • A Wichita County deputy was indicted yesterday on official oppression and civil rights violations for "inappropriately touching a female inmate and sexually harassing her and three others by making unwelcome sexual advances." It was so bad the Sheriff had to have a news conference where he said, "I do not believe this is the end of it."

     
    • Here's a nerdy legal note: In Wichita County, when they actually have live witnesses testify before a grand jury, they will release the list of witnesses to the public. (That's actually an obscure legal requirement, but it's routinely ignored by almost every D.A. because there is no penalty for ignoring it.)

  • Today in Critical Race Theory history: The City of Memphis, TN use to had "Negro Thursdays" where African-Americans could visit the city zoo. This was in 1959.

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 960 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:29 AM

2.17.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




I missed this one in the archives last week. We had a Kardashian visit Wise County. And two days later, First Lady Michelle Obama got close when she ate at the Olive Garden at Alliance Town Center in north Fort Worth. 

  • Well, I guess we know why the Cowboys PR director suddenly retired a couple of weeks ago: An ESPN bombshell was coming out. And it's a long story.


    • We should have know something was wrong when the Cowboys didn't even acknowledge his retirement on the official team website. He's like family out there. 
    • There are two allegations: The first is that he was hiding in a cheerleaders bathroom/changing room and videotaping four of the cheerleaders in states of undress. 

    • And the wildest part was the other allegation that he was caught on a live "war room feed" during the 2015 draft taking upskirt pictures of Jerry Jones' daughter. (That video isn't public but this video from that draft, at around the 1:40+ mark, seems to get pretty close as to how he could have pulled it off.)

    • This is the guy who witnessed it by watching the live stream an then notified Charlotte. 

  • The shooter, a 20 year old male, and the victim, a 21 year old female, were "former college roommates" but that's about all the information that was released. 


  • Good luck with all that.

  • It will drop to 34 degrees by noon before we then rebound to a balmy 39 this afternoon. It will bottom out tonight at 27 degrees. 
  • Gov. Abbott has endorsed incumbent Dr. Lynn Stucky to represent Wise County as state representative. (Phil King is our former rep but redrawn lines have taken him elsewhere.)  

  • The attempted book burning, er, banning, continues. 

    • Note: Those 282 books come from a list compiled by the the originator of this crusade: Mark Krause -- a guy who is running for Tarrant County D.A.   I've said it before: If Krause wins the Republican nomination, the chances of a Democrat becoming D.A. in Tarrant County becomes a real possibility. His opponent will make it the campaign issue that he is The Book Banner. And that is something which will gain traction in moderate Tarrant County.  

  • Five feet? What is this? Top Gun?

  • Ted Cruz continues to sink to new lows. This judicial nominee, Nina Morrison, works for the Innocence Project -- a group dedicated to freeing innocent people! She has been first chair or co-counsel in cases that have freed more than 30 innocent people from prison and death row.


    • And this is part of her her work!

  • This former ESPN reporter suddenly took a hard right turn. 

  • This congressional candidate has had a bad couple of weeks.
    • First this news broke.

    • Then yesterday a law firm he once hired in an employment dispute tried to tap into his campaign funds in an attempt to collect on a $1.2 million judgment for fees he owes it. (I had to go down a rabbit trail to try and figure out how a $70,000 legal bill turned into a $1.2 million judgment in favor of a law firm after a jury trial, so I tracked down the appellate opinion. Spoiler alert: It's way too complicated.) 

  • If you are interested in Congressional races impacting Wise County, we are split in two. One half of the county is stuck with incumbent Ronny Jackson. In the other race, our new incumbent is Dr. Michael Burgess. (All this redistricting makes things complicated.)  Link to the story below:

at 8:34 AM
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