Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• That parking garage collapse in Irving (especially the second one caught on video) was insane. The rest of the cars in that thing are probably goners, because I don't know how you risk getting them out. If I'm the insurance company, just bite the bullet and write a check for the fair market value of the cars plus the loss of use and thank your lucky stars no one was hurt or killed.
• I'm assuming this is the new floor for basketball at TCU for the upcoming season. That's a little bizarre.
  
• Dad and mom(?), stepmom(?), sister(?) embarrass a kid at a ballgame. She's giving it the proverbial "what for".  Worth a watch.
  
• Here's an update from yesterday on the Change of Venue motion: I was right. 
  
• Update from yesterday on 3D guns:  (1) A judge stopped the distribution of the plans for the AR-15 type gun but it is practically too late. Once it is out there it's out there forever, and (2) Trump, your administration agreed to this! And why do you have to check with the NRA for marching orders!? 
  
• Seriously, Pete, how many people do you think called someone at 7:30 a.m. and asked, "You want to carpool today?"
  
• Random Big 12 thought: I don't know where to place West Virginia which has the best QB and WR in the conference. I've seen them projected as a Top 10 team behind OU, and I saw yesterday that a sport betting site places them behind OU, Texas and TCU.
• Other sports thought: All the sports talk radio shows are in Oxnard for Cowboys training camp. Do you think we want to hear countless interviews with players who never say anything of substance?
• Trump had a campaign rally in Florida last night, and this guy's observation is spot on.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I'm insane now. List of figures from left to right: Nikki Haley, James Mattis, Ben Carson, Trump, Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence, Melania Trump, Mike Pompeo, Sarah Sanders, Ivanka Trump, John Bolton, Kellyanne Conway, John Kelly.
  
• The Manafort trial began yesterday. The most impressive thing to me was in Day #1 they completed voir dire, opening statements, and got to the first witness. Federal courts don't mess around. (Speed is not a good thing sometimes.)
• Wait a second! That guy is an Aggie? 
  
• Worth a read by the great Skip Hollandsworth in this month's Texas Monthly: 
  
• This morning, Trump approved of the Florida crowd chanting "CNN sucks" last night and, shockingly, said AG Sessions "should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now . . . ."
• Messenger: Above The Fold [not available at the as of 8:31 a.m.]

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Fox 4's Mike Doocy cancelling an interview with Jerry Jones because Jones would not talk about the anthem controversy seems like the biggest non-story of training camp. 
• Jerry Jones seems to be getting angrier and angrier as time goes by. We all wondered when he would turn in to Al Davis and it might be happening right now. 

  

  Toe on the line, and cap on the head.

• The number of times Trump has tweeted the words "witch hunt."
  
  
• This motion will be denied if (1) the judge knows what he is doing, and (2) the State was smart enough to know the law that they have to file counter-affidavits. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure art. 31.04. 
  
• Things I simply do not understand: 
  
• This 3D Printable Gun issue gives me Legal Tired Head. A guy comes up with a way to create a printable gun (you have to buy a couple of metal parts), and wants to upload the plans to the Internet. He and President Obama's State Department get into a fight as to whether that's legal. And this is important: The government won at the Fifth Circuit in late 2016 declaring that the practice would be a crime. (Opinion here.) But the Trump Administration came in a couple of months back and said, "That's fine, go ahead and upload the plans." Now everyone is freaking out. The legal issues seem endless: (1) Can the parties simply ignore the Fifth Circuit opinion which, if not overturned, should be the law of the land? Was the appeal still pending or the judgment final? Does that matter? (2) Does anyone else have standing to sue the federal government and the 3D company alleging the practice is unlawful and cite the Fifth Circuit opinion as authority? (For a deep dive, this is a good article.) And if that gun works (it does), the availability of the plans to make it has world wide implications. 
  
• "So sad" this morning:
  
• Funny: Trust me.  
• A small Texas town's ISD voted last night to go to six-man football down from twelve-man eleven-man. Someone posed a concern which might either be ridiculous or spot on.
  
• Everyone thought Rudy Giuliani was crazy yesterday when he said he didn't even know if collusion was a crime. Now this morning Trump shockingly begins to float out that alternative defense as well. This is insane.
  
• What's the old legal defense logic chain? "My client's dog did not bite you. If he did bite you, it didn't hurt. If the dog did bit you and it hurt, my client did not know his dog was dangerous." And if all that fails you default to: "My client doesn't even own a dog."
• There are bandits everywhere: So the FBI raids Michael Cohen's office and a federal judge appoints a private law firm to review all the documents to give an opinion as to which documents are privileged and which ones are not. The bill? $368,081.56.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• The temperature was great this morning in Decatur, but the rain went heavy to northeast and heavy to the southwest.
  
• North Richland Hills P.D. now has a sniper. The chances of any police department ever needing a "sniper" is basically never. And the odds of NRH needing one is less than that. 
• Fishing talk: A buddy told me there are now trolling motors with GPS capabilities. You can basically put in the coordinates for a shore line and have it run itself. Kind of takes the sport out of it, doesn't it? (I found that Minn Kota sells one for $2,300.)
• Trump went on a Twitter rant on Sunday after he got through playing golf over the weekend. He fired off ten of them. The only one I'll mention is that the guy who promised you that he would build a wall that Mexico would pay for said he would shut down the government if the the American taxpayer didn't foot the bill.
• If I'm the U.S., I check the remains of servicemen brought back from N. Korea to see if they are real. "Remains that were returned in the past from North Korea were found to be mixed with those of unidentified individuals and even with animal bones."
• Six Feet Under was a great show that very few people seemed to have watched.
• A great moment on Friday when Trump Jr. (in the aqua shirt and camouflaged hat) and Special Counsel Robert Mueller (far left) were at the same airport gate in D.C.  That's a secret service agent behind Junior.
  
  
• This is where Junior he was headed: A fishing outing with the fired Fox News gal who has found her own scandal. 

  

  Posted by Junior.



Also by Junior.

• You know Ted Cruz is concerned when his campaign resorts to a staged "haircut" in Dallas as he answers questions. What a common man.
• 
• The Waco Biker Trials are now really heating up with a trial date for September 10th and . . . it has been continued. 
• My scam alert is going off:
  
• "Let me just chase down that soccer ball while the other player is contemplating kicking it back upfield . . . and I'M DEAD!"
• Messenger: Above The Fold

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

"Kids, momma is coming. Here's the story. Pay attention."

"I got wet for this? What kind of sorcery have I been exposed to?"

 This is old, but I'll never understand how the goofy mascot stayed on his feet.

 I don't know what is going on, yet I approve.

 I don't feel bad for the payoff.

All I can hear is Curly's frustrated voice from the Three Stooges.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• I don't think any news source has this story: Mark Cuban served on a DWI jury this week which returned a Not Guilty verdict.
• This one slipped through the cracks on me. Six hundred pounds is a lot of weed. Source: WFAA. (Which, by the way, may have the biggest train wreck of a web site in the metroplex.)

  

  (And DPS stole another sign!)

• The Travis County DA's office is losing murder cases, and the DA is trying to explain. "[She] said her office risks more trial losses than before, because she has encouraged her prosecutors to present more cases to juries rather than accepting plea agreements . . . .  Though risky, taking cases to trial is important, [she] said, because it can provide a litmus test into how severely members of the community think a crime should be penalized." Girl, I think the community is telling you that you are presenting crappy cases which can't be proven. 
• Late yesterday: "Amazon earnings explode to record profits." That company is going to rule the world and make Trump, who hates Amazon, so sad.
• I saw a Runaway Bay cop car running Code Three into Bridgeport and then turn onto 101 towards Chico yesterday afternoon. Why?
• "I'm insane now."
• The two officers who used a coin flip to determine whether to arrest a speeder (actually, they arrested her despite the results of the coin flip) were finally fired. Their attitudes on video, in general, were firing-worthy.
• This is a bad sign: The official temperature only got to a low of 86 this morning. 
• Trump is in panic mode again on Twitter this morning. (There was news last night his former lawyer is prepared to testify Trump knew beforehand about the Trump Tower meeting between the Russians, Trump, Jr., Kushner, and Manafort to get dirt on Hillary. Never forget that Trump Jr. even released emails -- right before the New York Times did -- that the meeting was to be "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump.") 
  
  
• Rudy Giuliani on May 6, 2018: Cohen "is an honest, honorable lawyer."
• The Rangers traded Cole Hamels to the Cubs last night after agreeing to send "a significant amount of cash to cover Hamels’ salary."  Would you start Hamels in a meaningful game? (And you would have thought the Cubs would have learned their lesson after signing Yu Darvish this year. Darvish has been on the disabled list since May and there "is no timeline for him to return.")
• I've yet to get the back story, but I saw some original architectural drawings of the Wise County Courthouse in its basement yesterday. I think County Judge J.D. Clark is behind a plan to put them on display. (The one of the second story which used to have a balcony fascinates me.)
• Big GDP numbers were just released. Trump is giddy. Says he will hold a press conference "soon". A "press conference" means he stands up there and takes questions. There is no way that is going to happen. 
  
• There is a football camp for grades 2 through 9  held on Decatur ISD property. The cost is $70 to $80. Question: Where does the money go? 
• That San Marcos fire has been kind of under the radar . . .

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Odd thing that happened to me when I walked into the courthouse on Monday: I was asked my opinion about the segment of "Second Date Update" on KSCS where the guy took a first date to a strip club for dinner since he was a VIP member. (I haven't listened to KSCS in years but the podcast of that segment is here.) I haven't listened, but transparently the guy thought it would be funny to do a bit since his date was a former stripper.  Being an expert on bits and relationships (but, of course, not strip clubs), I'm still forming an opinion. 
• This interactive map is fascinating. The New York Times breaks down in incredible detail the red and blue areas across the country based upon the 2016 presidential election. It looks like the most liberal area in Wise County is the Lake Bridgeport area where only 77% went for Trump.

  

  Nationwide

  

  Decatur (with the cursor hovering over Lake Bridgeport)

• I'm not sure about that cross with upside down flags draped over it that Sheriff Joe is sporting.
  
  
• The "State of the Team" by Jerry Jones was uneventful yesterday other than he said the organization will support the Flag and Papa John's.
• Prediction: Sean Lee will get hurt and miss a significant amount of time. 
• It looks like the "red flag laws" -- proposals in Texas to keep guns out of the hands of people who are dangerous and give indications of "red flags" about it -- are going no where. And I agree. There is no way you can craft a law which sets a standard of "he shouldn't own a gun." Heck, I know dozens of people I think shouldn't own a gun. 
• Legal nerd stuff: Texas' highest criminal court will decide if the state's Revenge Porn law, which a lower court struck down, violates the constitutional right to Free Speech. (The winning brief is here.) It's a great question as I've mentioned before. You say something to someone else, they can repeat it. You write a letter to someone, they can share it. It you send a scantily clad photo of yourself to them, why can they distribute it? 
• Just the other day I said we have heard nothing from the Maverick's new PR person who was brought in with pomp and circumstances to rid the Mavs of inappropriate workplace sexual practices. Well, she stepped in it. For some reason she managed to get involved in an area unrelated to her job and piss off the the Dallas PD.
  
• I watched the first episode of Sharp Objects on HBO with Amy Adams. Verdict: Dark, a little slow, but majestically filmed. And it left me wanting Episode Two. (I think I have a thing for Amy Adams.) 
  
• Newsweek cover 45 years ago:
  
• Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed yesterday. There is something poetic about his star being next to that of Kevin Spacey (which remains untouched.) 
  
  
  
  
• Nutcase Alex Jones is having some of his videos banned by Youtube. That's fine. A private company can ban whoever they wish. 
• Trump doesn't understand the relationship between a private company and the First Amendment. "Shadow banning", even if true, is not illegal by any stretch of the imagination. 
  
• On the other hand, you should be extremely disturbed by the White House banning a CNN reporter yesterday for asking tough questions about Trump trying to silence the Playboy model he "allegedly" had an affair with. It is the job of the press to ask tough questions -- especially tough questions directed towards the government. 
  
• No one hates Baylor more than the Star-Telegram's Mac Engel. But that is his right . . .