8.02.2017

At Least He Is Predictable: This Is Full Trump

In other news, he issued two statements this morning calling the Congressional bill sanctioning Russia unconstitutional. And then he signed it. Huh? And then he mentioned North Korea?



at 12:03 PM

A Russia Post! (But It Is Not Trump Related)


at 11:51 AM

Above The Fold


at 8:54 AM

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts


  • One thing I've noticed in watching police videos over the years is that they now talk on cell phones to other officers. Nothing goes out public over the radio. Burners?
  • I didn't even mention the Washington Post story yesterday that Trump "dictated" the statement for Trump Jr. to explain the Russian meeting because even I was skeptical. Then spokesperson Sarah Huckabee came out during the White House press conference and confirmed it after Trump's lawyer had denied it.  
  • Here's a story about a "senior" bull rider from Bridgeport traveling six hours to compete in Kansas. It's from the local paper up there. 
  • That's a crazy story about the DART train where a guy was beaten because he complained about them smoking weed. There are a lot of lessons to be learned. 
  • Per the Messenger, they have opened the gates at Lake Bridgeport to feed water to the metroplex. I bet it has been two years since that happened. 
  • Also in the Messenger: The Sheriff's office is getting a TxDOT grant for DWI enforcement on certain holidays. J.T. Manoushagian is overseeing it.
  • Mrs. LL texted me last night with the message: "The neighbor says there is a SKUNK outside!"
  • I called BS on this story in Random Thoughts when it first came out. Now the Houston Chronicle is on it. 
  • The Cowboys play a preseason game tomorrow. That's kind of hard to grasp.

at 8:37 AM

8.01.2017

For All Of You Who Hate Your Job . . .



. . .  it could be worse.

Edit: It you understand what is going on, this is a bomb. She will be fired within the week:



at 1:45 PM

I Used To Be Stunned By These Stories

"Some".

at 11:59 AM

This Certainly Won't Cause Any Problems






at 11:53 AM

Random Monday (oops, I mean) Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • Once again, proving I'm a Sports Genius, I told you Yu Darvish would end up as a Dodger.
  • Nothing makes me sadder than The Mooch being fired. He was a brief window into the White House. (And you realize his wife left him and had a baby during his 11 day stint, right?)
  • And he looks different without the aviator glasses.
  • Trump always said he would "surround myself with the best people.": (1) Mike Flynn: 24 days, (2) Sean Spicer: 182 days, (3) Reince Priebus: 189 days, (4) The Mooch: 11 days,
  • Sheriff Joe had a bad day, too:


  • "They won't make me wear pink underwear will they!?"
  • After seeing a colonoscopy and cataract surgery assembly lines over the last year, I'm convinced that is the way to make money as a doctor. Specialize, get referrals, and hire good people. 
  • I've never understood the phrase "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." 
  • I had to stop driving yesterday morning in Bridgeport because a big dog was just relaxing in the middle of the road on a pretty remote residential street. It was funny. He finally moved. 
  • And this morning Trump proves once again he just sits around in the morning and watches Fox and Friends: 
  • I failed to link to the West Texas oil field/drug use story yesterday. Here it is. 

at 8:37 AM

7.31.2017

Noooo! Trump Just Fired The Mooch!



at 2:16 PM

Is This A Common Sign?


Just saw it in Denton.
at 8:55 AM

Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • In case you missed it, DPS reversed its policy of charging counties and cities for their drug/blood testing. Our Sheriff might have played a greater roll in that than anyone knows. 
  • Mrs. LL and I watched an hour show (Reelz channel?) recounting the life of Anna Nicole Smith. That was one wheels off life. 
  • Adrian Beltre got his 3,000 hit yesterday, and I know people who went there to see it. I hate baseball but I had a buddy drag me to see Nolan Ryan's 5,000th strikeout, It it was fantastic experience.  (One odd thing: I think I was more excited to see a CNN live feed in the corridor after it happened.)
  • Trump, over the weekend, proved again he is not smart man: "When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon. You see them thrown in rough. I said, 'Please don't be too nice." My head is spinning. Two thoughts: (1) "Paddy wagon"? (2) Should police  abandon their policy of putting their hand on someone's head as they get in the police car and they tell them, "Be careful."
  • There's a story over the weekend about drug use and West Texas oil field workers. It's true. 
  • It's all funny until he gives a clear indication that he might bomb a country to get the attention away from his scandals. Wag the Dog. 
  • (For faithful readers, I'm waiting on the "Stay Woke" commentor")
  • Mrs. LL, thanks to a comment, learned she could feed humming birds (or is it "hummingbirds"?) by hand. Video. And she created her own water solution for them. 
  • Go back and watch Knocked Up. Quality comedy.
  • One thing I wasn't prepared for is that when kids get older they get smarter. Smarter than you were prepared for.
  • Goofy former Presidential candidate and former pastor Mike Huckabee (father of the stand in press secretary)  said this on Fox News yesterday about Trump's new Chief of Staff: "If you’ve got four stars on your shoulder, you’re not a slow learner.  You didn’t ride the short bus." He later apologized. 
  • I had no idea there was a company at Lake Bridgeport which rented pontoon and other boats (at a shocking rate, in my opinion). I'm guessing it is people from the metroplex. Not a bad business concept.
  • Is this real or Fake News? Did a B-25 crash into the Empire State Building in 1945? All of your Jeopardy dollars are now on the line as your prepare to answer.
  • There is no front page of a newspaper today. Instead I want everyone, at least those in Wise County, to read the post below. 
at 8:30 AM

7.29.2017

Above The Fold

I rarely do this (and this is not a paid ad). Go buy the Messenger and read the story on the JP appointment. Delicious. Wise County politics. Williamson. Lamance. Manning. Sosa. Clark.

Edit: This story has bothered me all day. If you are a county employee who works hard and has been told if you will work hard you will be rewarded, you need to be seriously concerned. 

Edit: Here's the link to the full story. Read every word if you care about Wise County.  (Credit: Kristen Tribe for a fantastic job of seeing what was really going on.)


at 8:10 AM

7.28.2017

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

Full gangsta.
I'll diagnosis it as an L4/L5 fracture and rupture.

"Momma! I don't want no stepdad!

Just when you think you know who you need to be worried about. 
Someone in that house is a comedic mastermind.

Special extra post below because it gives rise to a number of questions.

at 2:00 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




  • All last weekend I was all over new White House spokesman Anthony Scaramucci because he was a train wreck waiting to happen. Yesterday he called the New Yorker and fired off the most profane (recorded) interview that has ever occurred in modern day politics if not ever. When you think things can't get anymore insane, they do. This is not normal. (And the New Yorker printed it without edits.)
  • And he actually called himself "The Mooch." I love this man.
  • He tried to explain his profane comments later. Dude, you called a reporter for an on the record discussion!
  • Back when America was great, Lenny Bruce was put in jail for that kind of language. 
  • Very random thought: Back in 1996 I decided to finally go back to a Bridgeport football game and saw "the spread" offense for the first time. It was a playoff game in Graham. I was fascinated. But this also occurred: During the game I heard someone behind me talking about the Internet. I remember turning around and asking, "How do you get on that?"
  • How did I get on? I went to the one company in Decatur providing service who lent me multiple discs to install a Netscape browser. I couldn't figure it out. I finally had to take the whole home computer to them and they installed it for me. 
  • The Messenger post yesterday regarding the appointment of an interim JP has some golden nuggets of tension and insight in there if you know what you're looking for. It's even better if you know Wise County politics at this moment in time. 
  • People who were arrested on Wednesday/Early Morning Thursday in Wise County weren't "arraigned" and allowed to post bond until after 4:00 p.m. on Thursday. It all is based upon when the judge decides to show up.
  • Mrs. LL put out humming bird feeders which has led to the most fascinating visuals ever. I never believed I'd see a humming bird fight. 
  • A fake twitter account duped Sports Illustrated:
  • This is insane. A cop stops a city council person for DWI and lets him go.The cop was fired. And now this: "A Tom Bean city councilman who was let go after a Saturday evening traffic stop in which he appeared to be intoxicated was involved in a head-on collision Thursday morning." He was charged with Intoxication Assault.
  • Going back to The Mooch, last weekend I made fun of him bragging that Trump could "sink three foot putts." The following, however, is disturbing. The official released White House transcript has changed "three" to "thirty."  Modern day Pravda.




at 8:37 AM

And The Emmy For Best TV Drama Goes To




"Skinny repeal" of Obamacare failed in the Senate late last night by one vote.

And this video shows John McCain, walking up in the middle of roll call in front of Mitch McConnell, who is smiling. McCain holds his hand out and then gives the "thumbs down" sign. McConnell's face go from smiling to shock.


at 5:26 AM

7.27.2017

I Know Why Trump's Base Is Slow To Leave Him: Art Briles



Stay with me here.

I've come to the conclusion there is nothing that Trump can do to alienate his hard core base. At least for now. Polls show his approval rating is around 37%. It moved there pretty quickly. Having it move lower than that will be very, very slow. Why?

This was almost an epiphany to me last night. Baylor football, Art Briles, and me.

As a metaphor, Baylor football was down, really down, for a long, long time. Then a savior came along in the name of Art Briles. You know what he said in his opening press conference about arguably the worst team in the nation? "We will win the Big 12." That was like Trump initially saying, "I will win the Presidency." Yeah, sure you will.

Both were right.

I was ecstatic about Baylor's later success. We were, in the words of Trump, "winning."

And then the scandal happened. And here we come to the point of this post. You know what my reaction was? Denial. My leader could not be anything other than who I thought he was. If Baylor gives up on him the team might go back to where it was: Being a "loser" and not a "winner"! We could not let that happen! It was a long road to get where we were. We weren't going back.

Then the Board of Regents fired the greatest coach in Baylor history. The news reports kept pouring in.

But I defended him in person and on Liberally Lean. The firing and the awful news reports didn't mean anything, right?! He was being mistreated, I said. This had to be an ESPN conspiracy.  (I didn't know to use the term "Fake News" at the time.)

I took heat from everyone. BagOfNothing torched me every week. Commentors killed me. Finally, Mrs. LL actually took me aside one night and told me, "You are in denial about this and you need to stop. You have never looked at this from the perspective of those girls." (She doesn't do things like that.)

And they were all right. I was wrong. It just took me a year to realize it because it was so hard to do.
at 9:03 AM

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




  • A funny moment occurred in a DPS video that I was watching yesterday of a traffic stop in Wise County. The trooper, frustrated when a person wasn't following instructions, said, "Do you not understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" The guy being spoken to was black. But by the end of the video they were almost best friends. 
  • The insured Chico church that burned started a an effort to raise $50,000 on GoFundMe. It will fall a bit short. They seemed to have stalled at $4,500. 
  • At the same moment the Decatur Reunion is going on there was a death and injuries at a ride at the Ohio State Fair.
  • A teen was indicted for making up a kidnapping story. Back in the 1990s,  a false story was told in Wise County by a teenager which caused law enforcement to scramble. In the aftermath, law enforcement was not pleased. I was D.A. at the time. You know what I did? Wrote her, told her to give the letter to her parents, told her to consult with a lawyer if they wished, and then said she could avoid an arrest, indictment, and conviction if she would enter into a pre-trial diversion program and stay out of trouble for a year. She did it. She avoided embarrassment and a criminal record. It was the right thing to do. She was a good kid.
  • Justin Bieber hit someone leaving his weird new church (which is believed to be behind his decision to cancel his world tour) and it was caught on tape.
  • The Tarrant County D.A.'s office has indicted a former Southlake swim teacher after a 13 year old girl on the swim team drowned in the school pool a many months back. The charge is Endangering a Child By Criminal Negligence.  Prediction: There will never be a conviction. (Remember when I said a few weeks ago that very few criminal practitioners understand the definition of "criminal negligence."?) And if you are in the Tarrant County D.A.'s office, pray you aren't assigned to that case because you might be being set up for failure. Extra reason to fear: Dan Hagood is her lawyer.  
  • The Wise County Sheriff was making the DFW news last night for taking on DPS.
  • Weirdest headline of the morning: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions flies to El Salvador to talk about gang violence."  Huh?
  • White House Chaos: Late last evening the bombastic, take-no-prisoners new White House spokesman amazingly identified the White House Chief of Staff as the leaker. He then deleted the tweet. Drudge immediately jumped on it. Preibus will be gone. Bannon will be gone.  You are watching history.
    Screen shot
  • In a bizarre moment, Sarah Huckabee at the White House Press Conference yesterday read the following letter from "Dylan" and then released the letter.  There are so many questions. (And a Fourth Grade boy embracing the name of "Pickle" is one of them.)
  • And to think it was even part of a prostitution police sting: 
  • Lucky Whitehead was claimed by the Jets. 

at 8:37 AM

7.26.2017

This May Be My New Favorite Sports Moment




  • Wrong basket.
  • A complete organized team effort to put it in the wrong basket.
  • A three pointer at that.
  • The PA guy just yelling out the scorer's name like nothing was wrong. 
  • The refs initially not realizing anything was amiss.
  • The refs trying to figure out "Who gets possession and where do they throw it in?" after it happens.
  • In the background, we've got the woman with a kid too big to be sitting on her.
  • (Did this all begin when the Russian girl touched the ball out of bounds but somehow the Russian team ended up throwing it in?)
Edit: Great job from the commentor. That was a back court violation (assuming that exists in international rules) and the whistle should have blown when the Russians crossed half court going the wrong way. 
at 2:01 PM
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