Dallas Lawyer Shows Up In Wise County To Read Declaration of Independence

All 1,300+ words of it. (I guess our founding fathers couldn't have just written, "It's not you. It's me.")

The local Tea Party read the Declaration on the courthouse square within months of President Obama's election. I remember watching it from the courthouse balcony with an assistant DA who went on an anti-Obama rant. "I'll tell you one thing," he said. "He will never get a second term."

Edit: The reading wasn't as dramatic as it was in Tyler where one criminal defense lawyer (and, amazingly, past president of the State Bar of Texas) embarrassed himself by refusing to participate because a "defendant" was reading the Declaration as well. That defendant?:  Kerry Max Cook who will soon become the next poster child for the Wrongfully Convicted.

Email Scandal? Not So Much

MAGIC:  SHE'S CLEARED! https://t.co/iphtdFyC6E

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) July 5, 2016

Director: FBI won't recommend criminal charges in Hillary Clinton email investigation... https://t.co/yJEkOZ6AVW pic.twitter.com/rgoWe1Rbcg

— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) July 5, 2016

Ouch

A Polish breakfast television presenter hit the nail on the head, or in this case her hand, after a magic trick demonstration didn't go as planned.

Question for Breakfast presenter Marzena Rogalska was helping a Poland's Got Talent semi-finalist perform a Russian roulette-style magic trick.

The illusionist had Ms Rogalska hold her hand over three paper bags and slam it down onto the one he said did not contain a hidden nail.

Ms Rogalska then slams her hand down onto the brown paper bag chosen by the illusionist - only to recoil in horror and pain as it becomes apparent that she had pounded her hand onto the one bag which did actually contain a nail.

She was taken to hospital where she was treated for superficial hand injuries and administered a tetanus shot.

She seemed like a sweet lady. If only . . .

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• "Mom accused of being drunk, dumping baby near Arlington creek." She had been acting crazy for over a week. I'm guessing there is more than alcohol involved.
• 
• Let me check where the "Kevin Durant to sign with Warriors" news is on my radar . . . Nope . . . Can't find it.
• If you drink half of a Five Hour Energy drink do you get full energy for 2.5 hours or 1/2 full energy for five hours?
• Headless body. Naked. Floating Off Sound Padre Island. Cocaine. Cash. "How a South Texas murder mystery led investigators to a US Border Patrol agent"
• After first issuing e-coli warnings for the Trinity River at Panther Island, authorities gave the all clear signal yesterday. Let me tell you something. I wouldn't get in the Trinity River if you provided me proof that the entire body of water had been boiled and purified. 
  
• "Georgia newspaper publisher jailed over open records request." This story really is amazing. And the ridiculous arrest was apparently spearheaded by a judge who was the focus of the request. “I don’t react well when my honesty is questioned,” the judge said. Poor baby. 
• Speaking of, the Montague County DA has still not released the records associated with the killing of a man and the Wise County Sheriff's Office drug dog. Why not? 
• Someone said yesterday that Bill O'Reilly doesn't make any money off of his Killing books -- that it all goes to charity. I seriously question a claim that O'Reilly would do something without personal benefit. I found where he told the New York Post that all royalties go to charity but, even if true, that's far different than not receiving any money due to the slapping of his name on the book. I mean, he could cut a deal for a $1 million advance with a royalty of .000001%. 
• I appreciate a couple of you pointing out that what I heard at Twin Hills during the Fourth was not like the sounds of Syria. I must have been delirious when I wrote that. I would, however, like to point out you need to discern between literal speech and figurative speech. Or, as Sgt. Hulka would say, "Lighten up, Francis."
• I'm finished with Season One of Game of Thrones. Get me that baby dragon!!!
• Hillary and the President will travel on Air Force One today to a campaign stop for Hillary. I always thought it was weird that a President could use the plane during his campaign for re-election but this gets ramped up with the "she's the Secretary of State" excuse. 
• In the middle of the night last night a car was reportedly swept off the road into Turtle Creek in the Highland Park area. (He called 311 beforehand saying that the water was rising.) As of this morning, they can't find the guy or even the car. That's weird. It's Turtle Creek. Not the Mississippi. (First responders, oddly, have already gone through a shift change.)
• There were four drownings in area lakes over the weekend.
• At 10:00 last night, The Rest of the Family in the House was blowing crap up outside while I was in the bed with trembling dogs. What's wrong with that picture?
• Donald Trump now says it was a sheriff's badge and not the Star of David in his tweet making fun of Hillary. The Internet then responded with a ton of these pictures 
  
• With my renewed past-time of fishing, I'm now concerned with the size of treble hooks. If a fish swallows one of those, you're screwed. Not as badly as the fish, but screwed nonetheless.

Firing It Up!

Not Lake Bridgeport

Happy 4th from us to you! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/uExGg7CiSO

— Sybil Summers (@sybil1037) July 3, 2016

Sybil from KVIL (formerly of The Fan).

Double Take

So we have an Independence Day parade cancelled because of a little rain, and KXAS throwing in that Finfrock, their own weatherman, predicted sun. 

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• It's the Fourth of July, all county offices are closed, and there is no Update. Yet . . . wait for it . . . I'm here to defend my title of Hardest Working Man In Show Business.
• I'm actually reading one of Bill O'Reilly's books, Killing Reagan. It's a pretty good scratch-the-surface history lesson. (And I understand that O'Reilly didn't do anything but agree to put his name on it and promote it in exchange for $$$.)
• Cutting edge media - KXAS sent out a tweet today which read: "Retweet if you are driving to work this morning!"
• I spent Saturday night out at Twin Hills on Lake Bridgeport. Man, it was like listening to the civil war in Syria out my door. And it went on past midnight.
• Sunday night brought the weird combo of fireworks while lightening was coming in from the west.
• The Family Rescued Pup freaks out at fireworks. She wants to dig a hole -- in the couch. (And then eventually took cover in the safe room. Yes, the safe room.)
• Hot opinion: Fireworks are a beating after five minutes.
• Most accident prone area in Fort Worth: I-35 and Western Center Boulevard which has had 595 accidents since the start of 2013.
• On Saturday, the Wise County Sheriff's Office received a 911 call of someone shooting fireworks in the breezeway of a duplex. Here's an idea: Walk out the door yourself and tell the guys to cut that out. 
• Bomb attack in Baghdad killed  at least 165. I miss Saddam.
• Shoutout to Decatur Tire for solving my tire problem late on Friday (I completely forgot about my tire while at work and it returned the favor by going from a small link to a massive link by late Friday afternoon.) And I ran into four people I knew in the waiting area.
• Austin: "It was a tragic start to the holiday weekend in Austin, which began when a plane crashed into Lake Travis Saturday afternoon. Later in the day, a two-year-old girl drowned after falling from a private dock into the water, and ten people were rescued from the lake after a boat crash."
• The fact that Trump used a graphic of Hillary accompanied by the Star of David and "raining money" doesn't show he is anti-semitic. It does show his social media staff is clueless. (Trump revised the tweet later.)
• NBA free agency should make any NFL player go crazy. The NFL has a horrible players' union because their careers are so short that no consensus to go on strike can be achieved.
• I have an incredible ability to keep outdoor flowers alive. Then again, there's not much to it other than planting them correctly and then having a disciplined water routine.
• "A man was fatally shot during a disturbance early Sunday at a northwest Dallas sports bar, police say. The shooting was reported about 6 a.m. at the La Victoria bar in the 2900 block of Walnut Hill Lane near Harry Hines Boulevard. The victim was dead when police arrived."

Firing It Up Timeline From Sunday Night

Up until 9:35:

Until 9:50:

Until 10:00:

Up until 10:15:

And then we wake up to this the next morning:

Above The Fold

Readable front page.

It's Friday. Let's Get Out Of Here.

Today's Metroplex People Mover News

Six Flags:

That time you got stuck on the Shockwave at Six Flags over Texas https://t.co/7N0BzUYjRE pic.twitter.com/ekeyxCu8Yz

— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) July 1, 2016

Still safer than . . .

PIC - Two vehicle crash working at Preston Road and Belt Line Road in Dallas. (Picture: Mark Morgello) #dfwtraffic pic.twitter.com/7m18zAmbE3

— DFW Scanner (@DFWscanner) July 1, 2016

Let's Begin Our Celebration Of America

We were denied an epic beat down because the reporter who just happens to be African American (remember, I don't see color) kept her cool.

Side note: Can anyone make out this t-shirt that this salt of the earth lady is wearing?:

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• "Over the past 18 months, more than 40 percent of the 450 participants in DPS' grueling six-month trooper academies identified themselves as Hispanic." 
• CBS 11 did a spot on the Aurora alien. It's about time we have some evidence of the alien kingdom coming back to get the body. Someone get on that. We need some new life in that story. (And there was a hot opinion given in the piece by a resident indicating that some local folks in our Bible Nelt didn't like the legend because it couldn't be explained.)
• Nancy Grace is out at CNN's Headline News. No one deserves to be unemployed more than her. She is the poster child of how a prosecutor could wrongfully convict someone. (And I miss the days when Headline News was headline news.)
• The bribery case in the Dallas DA's office now is focused on the dismissal signed by a prosecutor. But even if the prosecutor was corrupt (no one has said that yet), any investigation will probably go no where. The case that was dismissed was Failure to Register as a Sex Offender. No area of criminal law is more screwed up than that area. Residency. Intent. Travel. Grace Periods. Registerable Offense. I could see how a run of the mill prosecutor would accept the case and how a run of the mill grand jury attorney would get it indicted only for another run of the mill prosecutor, rightly or wrongly, believe the facts didn't support a prosecution at all. (The irony is that some defendant paid $50,000 to make a charge "go away" when it might not have been guilty in the first place.)
• I'll be dang. You can get behind the Dallas Morning News paywall by opening up the page in Chrome's incognito mode. And it works on the Star-Telegram website as well. (I don't know if I feel like a trespasser or going in a secret entrance that they know exists.)
• As I was fishing in my kayak yesterday (slaying them like Jimmy Houston, by the way), a guy comes by in a boat and says, "Hey, Barry. How you doing?" Second time that has happened in as many weeks. 
• And a faithful reader sent me this link: "‘Alarming’ number of kayak-related deaths reported in Texas."
• Walked out this morning and discovered I had a low tire. One of my best investments ever was the the electric/cigarette lighter powered air pump. When you need it you need it. 
• Matthew McConaughey will teach a class at UT. You know, I bet he might be able to teach you something. I'd rather listen to him than some spare marketing professor who has never had a job marketing anything. 
• Fox 4's Clarice Tinsley the other night said she had "always liked Pat Summitt's last name" because she reached the summit. [Groan.] I'd bet money Clarice didn't know who Pat Summitt was before she read the teleprompter that night. 
• For some reason I picked one random recent oral argument at the Fort Worth Court of Appeals to listen to since it involved a State appeal. The defense lawyer didn't have a grasp of the central issue: If a cop makes an arrest for DWI but didn't have probable cause to arrest, is the arrest still justified if there was another objective reason to arrest him (for example, expired tags.) And even the assistant DA didn't jump on that theory until one of the judge's asked a question to tip her off.
• Donald Trump is considering Chris Christie as VP. Good lord. What a bombastic combo. I hope it happens.
• Me on the couch is more exciting than Mav's free agency. And more productive.

Decatur Held Hostage:

Most of Decatur's Internet service has been out all day today.

When you have an office that is paperless, phones that are VOIP, and most courts require e-filiing, it kind of makes it tough to get things done.

Not to mention the millions deprived of Liberally Lean entertainment and cutting edge insights.

Brawl At Dallas Mexican Restaurant

"A fight erupted at the El Paisano Mexican Restaurant in Dallas, Texas, at around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday . . . ."

Pretty big crowd for 2:30 a.m.

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• More Texas county judge problems: "A state panel suspended Montgomery County Judge Craig Doyal without pay Tuesday after he was charged with violating Texas' open meetings law while developing a bond measure for new and improved roads.The move by the State Commission on Judicial Review came four days after a grand jury indicted Doyal, two county commissioners and an adviser, alleging that they circumvented the Texas Open Meetings Act by talking in private about . . .  a $280 million [bond] proposal . . . . " I didn't know that Judicial Review panel had jurisdiction over a county administrative judge.  (By the way, he makes over $170,000 a year.)
• Add that to the Rockwall County judge getting a DWI and it looks like our own Wise County Judge J.D. Clark needs to step up his game. 
• Johnny Football says he will start sobriety on July 1st once he is through partying in Cabo. I have full confidence that he will stop drinking on July 1st. I also have full confidence he will start drinking again later on July 1st. 
• The great Fivethirtyeight.com has come out with its first prediction for the presidential election. They give Hillary an 80% chance and Trump a 20% chance. It's over. (And the data on that site is amazing.)
• "A Democratic candidate for Dallas district attorney signed a dismissal motion in a criminal case that has led to allegations of bribery [and a soon-to-be-conviction of a DA investigator who took the money], WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reported Wednesday." The prosecutor isn't accused of wrongdoing but that's a headache he didn't need.
• "Clock boy" Ahmed Mohamed is back in the U.S. after being in Qatar. Trump's response:
  
• Heisman runner-up and number one overall NFL pick Andrew Luck signed a new contract with the Colts with $87 million guaranteed. Heisman winner and second overall pick Robert Griffin III's contract signed a few months back has $6.75 million guaranteed.  
• DPS has issued their annual Fourth of July press release that has this safety tip: "Do not use personal fireworks."  Explain to me why they are telling me I should not engage in legal activity? 
• The Chico High School principal resigned after one year?
• The High School Graduate In The House (sheesh) and I ran into each other in the kitchen this morning at 5:15 a.m. I pointed out she was all decked out and ready to go (as to where I had no idea). She replied, "Ya gotta get up early if you're gonna rob a bank."  
• Crazy legal opinion of the day: Two Texas lawyers are married. Man cheats. Wife "purportedly" sets up fake online profile to bait him. Other men respond instead. She has sex with four of them. Man finds out and then extorts a ton of cash out of the men. Both end up being convicted for "theft by coercion."  Interestingly, the two have quite the history which includes a bankruptcy and big cash being tossed around.
• I have been of the belief for quite some time that people of of all ages and backgrounds are being shaken down in elaborate schemes after trysts involving online meetings.
• Thirty years ago I took a bus ride from Dallas to Waco. I was young and stupid and a cheapskate. Never again. 

I've Never Hated A Paywall So Much

11 women indicted, 15 pounds of meth seized in Dallas-area drug bust https://t.co/9aFx75EKOI pic.twitter.com/3Y0X7pHmzI

— Dallas Morning News (@dallasnews) June 29, 2016