3.28.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




Civil War veterans - from the Confederate side - pose in front of the still-in-use Wise County Courthouse in 1906. Source with background info.

  • Updated standings in the Liberally Lean Pick 'Em Tourney. Trey and Paul might be able to catch John even with my tricked up scoring system.  


  • If you haven't seen it, here is the video, unedited, of the footage of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock last night. (The American audience saw this as ABC was hitting the mute button.)  Here is slow motion video of the slap. Man, this is wild. 




    • All of this was instigated when Rock jokingly addressed Will Smith's wife from the stage: “Jada, I love you: G.I. Jane 2 -- can’t wait to see it.”  Quality humor, by the way, but we have to factor in that Smith's wife has suffered from alopecia, a condition of hair loss. She has a buzz cut because of it. 

    • The odd part is that Will Smith initially laughed at the joke. I think this is a big deal that he didn't take offense at all about it.
       
    • I'm siding big time with Chris Rock on this one. Will Smith was way out of line. 
    • Prediction I heard this morning: Next year Rock and Smith will be joint presenters at the Oscars. I bet that happens. 
  • The White House walked back Biden's off-script comment which I think is something they absolutely shouldn't have done. Then again, if they didn't subsequently tone it down, President Biden would be asked about exactly what he meant every time he comes in front of reporters for weeks to come. 

  • There are continuing to be reports of Russia being willing to settle the "conflict" if Ukraine were to be cut in half as was done with Korea. Little known fact: This isn't a new plan.  Stay with me here. 
    • You probably don't recall Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, oddly shared campaigning polling data to to a Russian named Konstantin Kilimnik.  Why he was doing that was never known.
    • Kilimnik, during the campaign in 2016, flew all the way to the U.S. just to meet with Manafort to get the data and to discuss something which he believed to be very important. The meeting occurred at Grand Havana Room in Manhattan. 
    • Kilmnik, during the meeting, was actually trying to persuade Manafort to get on board with the divided Ukraine plan. (They wanted that part of Ukraine because that's were the oil and the coastline is.) He later told Manafort in an email,  “[A]ll that is required to start the process is a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push) from" Donald Trump. 
    • This was all buried in the Mueller Report, and the only way I found out about it was when just finishing this book written in 2020. The prosecutor/author only spent a few pages on it, but my ears perked up because those pages dealt with Russia and Ukraine.   

  • There is security footage of the tornado hitting the gym at Jacksboro elementary. Here. 

  • A guy sent a drone up to take a look at the windmill damage in Jack County as well. It seems like a handful of them were damaged (but it's also a great way to see the number of them that have gone up over recent years. 

  • The only way this is true is if Columbia has far greater drug screening techniques than the U.S.  

  • I'll say it again, for such a high town area, there are sure a lot of shootings in Uptown. And they have this weird shared characteristic of occurring on Sunday evenings. 

  • What's up with hookah lounges? You'd think they'd be a pretty laid back place. We first had a shooting at one in Las Vegas, then I noticed we had one in Dallas, and then I saw this story from the weekend.

  • A faithful reader sent me this pic of  a T-shirt for sale in, of all places, a thrift store in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

  • The Tech - UT rivalry bled over into baseball this weekend when Tech won Friday's game via a player stealing home. Video. 

  • The Clarence Thomas failure-to-recuse scandal has already become yesterday's news. Now we can expect Ginni Thomas to be the featured speaker at CPAC. That's the way things work these days.



at 8:33 AM

3.25.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




I just happened to post this grainy courtroom picture back then of an ongoing burglary trial. It now makes me realize how quickly things change. The judge, John Fostel, has passed away. As has the defense lawyer, Jim Shaw. It makes me sad and nostalgic.

  • Here's the Liberally Lean Leader Board. Not a lot of changes after last night. 
    • Nice effort by Tech. I like Tech. What's not to like about Tech?
  • This story, which broke late yesterday, is insane. We learned the wife of a Supreme Court justice is a borderline QAnon nutcase who tried to help overthrow the government of the United States. And now the January 6th Committee has her texts.


    • Even Trump had to distance from nutty lawyer Sidney Powell during the planning of the coup, but Ginni Thomas was all in. 

    • Heck, this is pure QAnon. Just spreading junk from the start with no regard to whether it is true. 

    • Also, this is pure insurrection. She was a party to an attempted coup. 

    • And just a couple of months ago, the Supreme Court had to decide if Trump's documents in the National Archives related to the Insurrection and attempted coup had to be turned over to the January 6th Committee. They ruled 8-1 that the documents must be turned over. And guess who didn't recuse himself but instead went further and said said he wanted to help Trump out? You think he could have been a little worried that his wife's name just might be within those documents? 

    • And guess who was in the two judge minority when the Supreme Court refused Trump's attempt to overthrow the election by using the Court? 

    • The New Yorker tried to warn us in January. 

    • Mark Meadows texted Ginni Thomas that this was a battle between good and evil, spouting Christian Nationalism which always seems to be at the heart of it all. Thomas replied that was discussing it all with her "best friend" -- an obvious reference to her husband.

    • He's right. It is a battle between good and evil. It's about battling those who conspired to overthrow our democracy. Meadows just got the jerseys wrong. 
  • Denver's Mile High Stadium caught on fire yesterday. 

  • If you can find one. Heck, I drive by the car lots of the two big dealers in Decatur in Wise County and there inventory is still struggling -- both new and used. 

  • I'm suspicious of the motives of guys like Rep. Jeff Leach, who having bent over backwards making it easier for Texas prosecutors to obtain convictions, suddenly thinking that something might actually have gone wrong in a criminal case. 


  • Three current and former school superintendents met in Austin yesterday to talk about Critical Race Theory among other things. They were all in agreement: You've been conned. 

    • "There definitely is something that is critical race theory. It's not taught in schools. That was the narrative that was crafted last summer, and it caught on like wildfire. I've never seen anything like it." - Former Richardson ISD Supt. Jeannie Stone
    • "This is a manufactured crisis. This is not real. This is a national playbook by some very smart, organized people who pay people to go out and create havoc," Former Dallas ISD Supt. Richard Hinojosa
    • "I don't think you need to inject truth serum into legislators. I think you just need to a conversation with them individually behind closed doors. And they understand this is a manufactured crisis." - Fort Worth Supt. Kent Paredes Scribner
  • The misdemeanor section in the Tarrant County DA's office had a tough week. And there's still two cases to be decided. 

  • Now someone tells me "the boxes in the back are Reagant narcotic presumptive tests that all officers use before the drugs are sent to the lab" and that they just happen to be in the background.  You know, it has been years since I've read a police report in Wise County where a drug "presumptive test" was used. 

  • Very nerdy legal stuff:
    • If you are a person who likes to read transcripts, this hearing from a couple of days ago where the judge bears down on the lawyers representing conspiracy monger Alex Jones, who was trying to avoid a deposition, is painful to read. (It's never a good sign when the judge says, "God help everyone" if she finds out she's been lied to.) 
    • For criminal law practitioners only: Say you got the judge to release a felony defendant from jail under art. 17.151 because he wasn't indicted within 90 days. Could the judge impose a bond requirement of an expensive GPS ankle monitor if the defendant can't afford it? A new case says "no."
  • Every single week I read about another case solved by familial/genealogical DNA. Yesterday was no exception.  

  • 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: 994 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:31 AM

3.24.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




We forget how bad Iraq was. This was a string of simultaneous car bombings that "left at least 45 people dead and 216 wounded, officials said."

  •  We could save everybody a lot of time and taxpayer money if we could eliminate the confirmation hearings and instead have each Senator just go record their sound bites for campaign videos in private. We then wouldn't have to go through this dog and pony show.


  • We strangely haven't heard an update on the health of Justice Clarence Thomas. 

  • A weird vertical light in the sky was seen in Houston last night. What was it? No one knows. 

  • Here's the original story of the school shooting. He was serving a 40 year sentence. 

  • Turned on right wing radio yesterday and learned the sky was falling over this training page found at Home Depot in Canada.  Based upon the callers, lots of people were never shopping at any Home Depot ever again (but don't call it "cancel culture.")

  • That was pretty bold of her.  The big money behind the CRT Strawmen from Southlake and Colleyville will be gunning for her at the next election. 


  • I want to watch this trial out of Temple. Here's the video which led to the criminal charges. She might want to reconsider rejecting the deal.  

  • I don't know anything about this case which just concluded in Fort Worth, but it is a huge government loss. You don't hear about many acquittals in federal criminal cases, and this guy, who lives in Keller, was facing 80 years in prison. The defense lawyers were out of Houston. 


  • This is the driver of the red pickup which got spun around like a top by a tornado and then who just drove off. He's sixteen. "I didn't feel it. I didn't saw it." 


  • This is just the run of the mill story out of Wichita Falls. But its always a bad sign when the cops have you sit on a curb in front of their car. That's one beaten down guy.


  • Previous bullet point updates from reader input. 
    • Those things with the marijuana leafs, I'm told, are just hermetic sealed baggies for your weed to cover the odor. Another guy told me they were just the professional packaging for over the counter edibles from Colorado. As for the packages in the back, one person believes it's ephedrine (used in the old school cooking of meth.)

    • A longtime reader was quick to point out to me yesterday that she has had the Calvary Crosses license plate on her vehicle for years, and she sent me proof.  

  • "Price, who was making about $100,000 a year in the DA’s office, will start out making $38,380 in the clerk’s office" as a deputy clerk. He campaigned for the DA's opponent in the primary election.  Setting aside he might have a lawsuit available to him, I'm guessing he got a job within county government in order to let his retirement account to vest.

  • Notable death. And, yes, he pronounced it "jif". (Just like "giraffe" is pronounced "jiraffe"). Also, we aren't talking about an "animated gif" but instead one of the very first digital formats for the internet. 


  • I missed this. That's just weird. And so was the wording of the statement from the University of Arizona: "While he does not recall any contact, he has attempted to reach out to the TCU student through their Athletic Department to apologize." Video.
  • Russia might be being beaten back from Kyiv, but that war is going poorly for both sides. No one is "winning." 

at 8:31 AM
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