The Saga Of Tom Delay

My take on the news on January 10, 2011 

And today there is a complete acquittal:

And, for good measure, the way Texas Monthly viewed him in 2006:

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• I know nothing about video games but even I couldn't miss that Grand Theft Auto V was released this week. Get this: Rockstar Games reportedly spent $115 million developing the game and $150 million on marketing it. So what are the sales in the first 24 hours? A shocking $800 million.
• Syria is still there, right?
• I lost the DWI trial earlier this week but it was a spirited fight. The jury was engaged and had very insightful comments - and compliments - after the trial (or so I'm told by the other participants).  Beforehand, I evaluated it 60/40 in favor of the State. That's good enough to take a chance since the prosecutor refused to budge off of a plea bargain that didn't include a DWI conviction.
• Someone dogged me yesterday for allowing the prosecutor to lead a witness to move things along. Trust me, if you've got an experienced trooper (who I've seen testify more than a few times) being questioned by an experienced prosecutor (who I faced countless times) about field sobriety tests that the jury will later actually see performed via DVD, there ain't no harm in moving that testimony along. 
• I had another trial scheduled for today but a full afternoon of client meetings, phone calls, prosecutor meetings, further video reviewing and negotiating got the thing settled at 5:20 p.m.  (I had the court administrator hounding me after 5:00 as to whether she could call off the jury via web posting so as to save the county juror fees.)
• Beyond funny for Breaking Bad fans: Jessie was once on The Price Is Right. (How'd I miss that?) And he was fantastic. Heck, he acted like he was on meth. On second thought, is there any chance game shows plant aspiring actors as contestants?
• Local Sports Radio News: The Fan (struggling) has moved the very irritating Gavin Dawson from nights to midday to be paired with former Ticket employee Mike Bacsik. (Bacsik is famous for being the Major League pitcher who gave up a home run to Barry Bonds in 2007 to break Hank Aaron's long time record, and for getting fired from the Ticket for tweeting "Congratulations to all the dirty Mexicans in San Antonio" after the Spurs beat the Mavericks in a playoff game in 2010.)
• And whomever the girl was who did the sports updates for Randy Galloway's radio show has been fired.  The radio business is brutal. 
• I can't tell you how many conversations I have with people who want my promise it won't be repeated in this space. (And I always honor the request.)
• The "cold front" will arrive at 2:30 p.m. today. Bank on it. Temperatures will "plummet" to the low 70s overnight. 
• Texas has the crazy "improper photography" criminal statute (otherwise known as the don't-take-pictures-of-anyone-without-their-permission-if-they-jazz-you statute)  but the highest criminal court in the state yesterday ruled the cops can't detain you for taking photos at a public pool because everyone does that. 
• The House's decision to vote on funding the government without Obamacare (that most certainly will not pass the Senate) is just like voting to repeal Obamacare: I waste of time and grandstanding. 
• John Force and Brittany Force will make an appearance in Bridgeport today. Yeah, me neither. (But she's got a little "Hey, Now" in her.)
• Former heavy weight champ Ken Norton has died at 70. I heard this morning that, in addition to being known for breaking Muhammad Ali's jaw, that he was also voted "Father of the Year" twice by a Los Angeles magazine. But didn't I hear once that at one time he basically had no relationship with his son (and former Dallas Cowboy) Ken Norton, Jr.?
• NFL: Isn't the trade by the Browns to the Colts of last year's first round draft pick Trent Richardson shocking? (The Colts gave up next year's first round pick to get him.) But do you remember that last year the Browns traded up to get Richardson by swapping first round positions with the Vikings and giving them a 4th, 5th, and 6th round pick? 

Prosecutors Being Brought In Line

#Texas #prosecutors give Michael Morton a standing ovation after his keynote address at #TheAnnual pic.twitter.com/HaaxOFuyu1
— TDCAA (@TDCAA) September 18, 2013

Prosecutors statewide are attending a week long convention in Galveston this week. This happened moments ago. Michael Morton was the man wrongfully convicted and imprisoned by a Williamson County prosecutor who withheld evidence (Morton's story was featured in Texas Monthly last year.)  Now free, his name is on the "Michael Morton Act" passed this summer by the Texas legislature which forces all prosecutors to open up their case files to the defense.

Yep, some had to be forced to do so. (Wise County has never been a problem, however.)

Dallas Zoo Brings In Lab To Calm Down Cheetah Cubs

Fox News - An unlikely playmate has been brought into the Dallas Zoo to help calm two male cheetah cubs: an 8-week-old black Labrador retriever puppy named Amani.

Amani is joining two 8-week-old feline brothers, Winspear and Kamau, born July 8 at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.

According to a zoo statement, Amani means "peace" in Swahili.

Since Labs are easygoing in public settings and since the pup will grow with the cubs, zoo experts believe he'll provide a calming influence for the cats. More.

Uh, I'm no Marlin Perkins, but isn't there a chance this could go horribly wrong?

"We haz black lab for dinner?"

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Rain and cooler weather are coming. About time. 
• Do I have this right? The Bridgeport, Paradise and Boyd high school football teams are each 0-3?
• Within two weeks this semester, there were three sexual assaults reported at the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house at UTA. The home office of the frat told that chapter to shut down yesterday. 
• The story of the man killed by the train in Bridgeport is a sad one. It sounds like he was just a homeless man roaming around town. 
• Celebrity news that even I think is entertaining: Lindsay Lohan is dating former UT "football star" Matt Nordgren. If you ever saw Nordgren on Bravo's Most Eligible Dallas from 2011, you know this has disaster written all over it. (For Ticket fan's he's a real life Chris Chris.)
• I expect to hear from the fake Chris Davis today. The former Texas Ranger cast off and official Liberally Lean player set an Oriole record last night with his 51st home run this season. 
• Random movie tweet I saw last night that I agree with 100%: "I still think the movie Signs wins the prize for 'Best setup resulting in the worst payoff'." (Maybe the movie was on cable or something.)
• On the heels of the discussion of whether college athletes should be paid, aTm announced it had a record year in fundraising at $740 million, and the chancellor cited the football program's success as a reason. 
• The devastation of the highway and road system around Boulder due to the flooding is incredible. "On average Boulder receives about 1.7 inches of rain during the month of September. As of 7 AM on September 16, Boulder had received 17.17 inches of rain so far in the month . . . ."
• Last time I'll mention the DWI case against Alice Walton that was dropped. The D Magazine blog had this: "The Walmart heiress was pulled over way back in 2011, but the trooper who pulled her over is on paid suspension and won’t be able to testify by the October 7 deadline." No! No! No! There is no October 7th testimony deadline. The case just has to be filed in court by the 7th. 
• The County Attorney and I, after many years and many trials, have come to an almost 99% agreement on what is and what is not admissible. I bet we have the smoothest running trials in the state. (And we basically agree to let each other improperly lead our own witnesses during direct examination so long as neither one of us goes overboard.)

Above The Fold

Insane. Five Six Bodies Submerged For Years.

In Oklahoma.

And they think three of the bodies might be teenagers that went missing in 1970.  Story.

GIF Of The Day

Just a glimpse of a streaker last night, but Washington's expression is priceless.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Tomorrow, Lake Bridgeport should break the twenty foot low mark. It stands at 816.02 this morning down from 836.00.
• The Rangers have gone seven games without ever even having a single lead. That has never happened in Rangers history. (Or in the history of its predecessor, the Washington Senators.)
• Mark Cuban is on Forbes list of richest American at no. 222 with an estimated $2.3 billion.  Didn't he used to have much more than that?
• I'm not sure I've ever been as disinterested in the NFL than this year, and I'm not sure why. 
• Told the story to the Kids In The House last night about how throwing water balloons and eggs was common place on Halloween back in the day. And they looked at me with wild eyes when I told them we'd also get chased by the cops. 
• Not sure why I'm thinking about Halloween, but former Bridgeport Chief Walter Dale would have a big announcement in the paper before October 31st about how water balloons would not be tolerated. It was like war drums banging.
• I was at a hearing in Fort Worth yesterday and the other lawyers began joking about the lack of diversity in Wise County. Not sure what prompted that. 
• The entire Family Unit is going down to the Baylor game on Saturday.  I've spent a lot of time trying to downplay to Mrs. LL what she's about to see (her last two games were LSU and Ole Miss.)
• Remember about three years ago when I watched the first two episodes of Breaking Bad and initially "meh'd" it?  (Obviously love the show now. And I laughed yesterday when someone said the baby deserves an Emmy for the last episode for simply saying "Mawwm! Maaawma!")
• It seems that every time I walk though the living room that Dance Moms is on. 
• So the mass killer in the Naval Yard in Washington was a practicing Buddhist? Who has ever heard of a rampaging Buddhist?
• We're in the process of replacing our backyard fence with neighbors on all sides.  I may need to bring in the United Nations to negotiate. 
• And mark this as the possible beginning of the end: New York teen dies after helmet to helmet football hit. 
• Might be a little slow around here today unless a last second deal is reached: Jury coming in to Decatur this morning. The case? DWI. 

Didn't realize it was that bad!

	The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast)
9/16/13, 1:54 PM At least 12 dead in Washington Navy Yard shooting thebea.st/1eW1FOC #NavyYardShooting

FBI officials confirm that Navy veteran and former Happy Bowl Thai waiter Aaron Alexis is the Navy Yard suspect. pic.twitter.com/jv0jBP1PHt
— Bud Kennedy (@BudKennedy) September 16, 2013

And I Bet Aggie/Alabama Crushed The Rangers, Too

	Barry Horn (@bhorn55)
9/16/13, 10:40 AM DFW ratings scoreboard for Sunday afternoon: Cowboys-Chiefs 25.2; Rangers-A's 1.9. In homes, that's 652,176 vs. 49,172.

Fight! Fight!

There's nothing particularly remarkable about this, but it's still pretty funny. I just don't know how you can be a tough guy when wearing full uniforms in a softball game.

GIF From The Weekend

The funny . . . 

And the not funny  (and exactly the kind of hit that the NFL is trying to ban) . . .

And although not a GIF, an LSU fraternity had some inappropriate humor when Kent State came to town:

Also from LSU:

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• I've gone back to jogging which I had really missed. But I learned how I've changed in the last five years: A dog ran from its owner to come over to me yesterday as I passed by. In the past, I had a mentality of "don't stop running" until finished. Now I stopped down and rubbed the dog's head. Dog's happy. Owner's happy. I'm happy. 
• Mrs. LL has now become obsessed with Weeds. From what I've seen, that show is insane. (But I got to point out from memory that Jennifer Jason Leigh and I share the same date of birth - down to the year. And for the life of me I can't recall the name of a popular physic who predicted the anti-Christ was born on that day.)
• Sports: (1) I said the Rangers would fade down the stretch but grab the last wildcard spot. I might have given them too much credit. (2) The Evil Empire is in dire straits. (3) The Aggie/Alabama game was fantastic -- Johnny Football may be an idiot but he's a great QB. (4) Sport's Illustrated Peter King tweeted that Manziel would be playing in the NFL "for a very long time." What an idiot. (5) I told you to bet the house on the Cowboys going under  8 1/2 wins. I feel really good about that. 
• During the Texas game, I felt embarrassed for the team that they have to always run out under a banner of "Joe Jamail Field" -- a plaintiff's lawyer. Then I remembered Baylor's Law School has been renamed for a plaintiff's lawyer. 
• The Fifth Grader In The House and I were watching the news on Friday night when she began to give me details of an upcoming story. "How do you know that?" I asked. She replied, "Fox 4 News at Six!" It would have been a great commercial for the station. 
• The signs in Aggieland in the background of ESPN's GameDay were beyond funny. (Deadspin has a roundup here.) I thinking my favorite was one that read "Heismanburg" and "Breaking Bama" in the appropriate font. 
• Speaking of, Mrs. LL and I watched Breaking Bad live last night. Best TV show ever?
• The University of Minnesota's head coach suffered a seizure during the school's game and had to be taken off in a stretcher. That's the second time that's happened. 
• Four people, including three teenagers, were found shot to death on a rural Tennessee road. And no one knows why. 
• The Parker County Attorney again tried to explain why he is utilizing the excuse of the two year statute of limitations for not filing a DWI case against the Walmart heiress.  For those of us in that system, his explanation is laughable. 
• Mrs. LL, unbeknownst to me, was watching Legends Of The Fall yesterday. When I saw a particularly peculiar scene I asked her, "What are you watching here?"  Her reply: "Brad Pitt."
• Mrs. LL and I were sitting in our cheap lawn chairs in the back yard on Saturday evening. I was thinking to myself, "These are the salad days." Really.

Worthy Of Channel 8 Coverage?

Story and video.

Ton of comments on Facebook about this story.

Above The Fold

I'd Hate Having Friday Night Duty At The Messenger

But someone over there is not very familiar with how a box score works. (Original page.)

Fire

Structure Fire (Wise County, Newark) Multiple departments are working a structure fire off CR 4847 and FM 718.... http://t.co/y2hv3mZue6
— DFW Scanner (@DFWscanner) September 13, 2013