Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• This is a crazy case out of Colorado: We had a pregnant wife and her two young kids missing --  it was just featured on NBC Nightly News last night with an interview of the husband. He has since been arrested. Before the arrest: "[Detective] Baumhover said nothing appeared out of place at the house and officials are unaware of any mental health issues associated with Shanann Watts . . . . Shanann Watts' phone, purse and wallet were all found inside the home [with the car in the garage]" "Chris Watts told KUSA that the couple had an emotional conversation early Monday."
  
  
• After the SMU/North Texas football game in a couple of weeks, there will be a "professional wrestling match." Dear SMU, you are better than that. Dear UNT, you are better than that. 
  
• Cricket Infestation Warning: I'm predicting Moderate unless they love humidity in which case I'm predicting the End Of The World Via Crickets.
• There was some very late legal move yesterday in an attempt to stop the trial of the former Balch Springs police officer who shot and killed the unarmed kid leaving the party. The cop had talked to Internal Affairs and the defense now claims the prosecutors are illegally using information obtained from those conversations. According to the Morning News, the issue concerns a "Garrity warning." I can't say that doctrine readily came to mind. A quick Westlaw search indicates those words have only appeared in two Texas appellate cases -- both unreported. (Basically, if your government employer compels you to cooperate with IA, your cooperation can't be used against you in a criminal case.)
• Twenty year old Braves slugger Ronald Acuña Jr. had hit a lead off home run in three straight games. Last night, on the very first pitch, he was intentionally hit by Marlins starter Jose Ureña.  There is nothing more cowardly than that. And equally cowardly was the Braves players on the bench which didn't storm the field to go after Ureña. (They just did the typical baseball standoff.)
  
• Cowboys' Travis Frederick saw a specialist because of a hurt neck. If that turns out to be a problem, my prediction of "take the under" for Cowboys' season wins becomes more of a lock than it already is. 
• Remember the news item where the newspaper published information regarding the Parkland shooting because the Parkland school board was too dumb to properly redact portions of it? Well, the judge, who must have never taken a First Amendment class, is mad. "In the future, she declared, she will consider listing exactly what the newspaper can and cannot print." You kidding me? When she was appointed, the governor said, "Liz is committed to the principle that the judiciary must say what the law is, and not what it should be." It helps if you know "what the law is."
  
• Speaking of First Amendment Idiots: He's upset again this morning. 
  
• A Travis County jury took less than an hour yesterday to decide that a punch that left a TCU football player with a broken jaw outside of a West Sixth Street bar last summer was justified. When you have a "defense of third person" argument involving a late night incident on Sixth Street, you're in a pretty good position. (It probably didn't hurt that the defendant was 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 168 pounds. The "victim" was 6'6" and 260.)
• This is the most Donald Jr. pic in the history of Donald Jr. pics: 
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• Steve Perry has a new album coming out. I'm more shocked that he is 69.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The new "letter grades" for Texas schools were released moments ago.
• This case is being tried in the Wise County District Court this week.
• Funny:
  
• The Wise County DA's office is getting another clerical position. 
• Ted Cruz has asked Trump to campaign for him in Texas against Beto O'Rourke. Here's a flashback from 2016:
  

  

  Trump on "Lyin' Ted"

• We currently live in Tattooed America. Irving PD had to change its policy by no longer requiring officers to cover up their tattoos. It's simple reality: As the population ages, we now have a ton of middle aged people all tattooed up. 
• Something seems a bit odd about the Pennsylvania "grand jury report" which "implicates" over 300 Catholic clergy in the sexual abuse of what they "believe [to be] ... in the thousands" of individuals. Hey, that kind of abuse certainly exists in the Catholic church, but putting together one case of sexual abuse is a daunting task for police and prosecutors. For a grand jury to just sit in a room and issue such a sweeping report seems to be fraught with peril. (Almost all of the priests names were redacted and will not face charges -- which makes it easier to throw allegations around.)
• I can't keep a bush alive for over three years and there's a tree growing out of the side of the third floor of the Wise County Courthouse. (I had someone take a photo two days ago but she hasn't sent it to me.) 
• Yesterday at the courthouse a young lady walked up to me and asked, "Are you a lawyer?" Me (with Slumped Shoulders), "Yep." Her: "What happens if a lawyer doesn't show up for court?" Me: "If you were in the courtroom just now when the judge called roll, you won't get in trouble . . . " Her (interrupting): "No. What happens to the lawyer?" Me: "I just first wanted to make sure you understood nothing bad was going to happen to you." Her: "Hey, thanks. You are a very good lawyer." Mercy. The standards these days are incredibly low if that's all it took.
• Sarah Huckabee Sanders was par for the course yesterday: (1) She looked like a deer in headlights when she said she couldn't "guarantee" that a tape of Trump using the n-word does not exist, (2) She had to come out late last night and apologize for lying about "President Trump [creating] three times as many jobs for black workers as President Barack Obama did."
  
• I always grip about prosecutors not understanding the intricacies of "recklessness" in Texas criminal law, and here is a "fantastic example." (This guy teaches younger prosecutors in seminars.) Below, in my opinion, is a faulty and simplistic explanation of the term "recklessness" and is certainly not a "fantastic example" of it. Heck, it might not even qualify as criminal negligence if that were part of the Agg Assault statute.
  
• There are new apartments being built in Decatur by Lowe's and some kind of "super tractor supply" type store going in where the old drive-in theater used to be. (That's code for "across the street" for you youngsters.)
• Messenger: Above The Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

•  I've ranted that "movies" are nothing like they used to be. Case in point, Meg made $44,500,000 in its opening weekend.
• Quality comedy from Maury:
  
  
• Trump has, ironically, gone Unhinged on Omarosa. Here is a rant from this morning ("that dog!") followed by a couple from yesterday (once again calling an African American "not smart"):

  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
• So let me get this straight, she was paid $180,000 a year, wouldn't show up for work, but Trump kept her around because she said "GREAT things about me . . . . "
• Completely missed this on Sunday night in the Cubs/Nationals game: Bottom of the ninth, down by three, bases loaded, two outs, 2-2 count. Quick loading Twitter video here. (And to make it Texas relevant: Cole Hamels pitched seven innings and gave up only one hit/one earned run.)
• They don't have a Thunder Truck, but Fox 4 was tooling down the highway yesterday and captured a pickup getting a little loose. 
  
• Whenever there is news of a WWE death, I never have the foggiest idea of who the guy was
• Happy Birthday to the great Gary Larson.
  
• We've got another odd airplane story. A guy in Utah gets arrested for domestic violence, gets released, and decides to fly his small plane into the house where his wife was. He died. She didn't.  
  
  
• Breaking: If you look closely you can see a huge section of a massive bridge is gone. It's in Italy and the death toll has been estimated in the "dozens" but so far the official count is eleven. 
  
• Talked to a lady yesterday who swears by the "grocery pickup" at the Walmart in Haslet. It sounds like there are a million ways for it to get screwed up, but apparently it works like a charm. 
• Dak Prescott's dad got arrested for less than two ounces of weed. Let's all collectively yawn. (the number of news outlets that refer to it as less than "two grams" when it is less than "two ounces" is amazing. Copy and paste. Copy and paste.)

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• The manufacturer of Roundup, the greatest weedkiller in the history of weedkillers, was hit with a $289 million jury verdict in San Francisco based upon an allegation that the product caused cancer in a man. That award will never hold up. Well, it would never hold up in Texas.
• I mentioned these drawings a couple of weeks back. I can't wait to look at them to see how things have changed -- and they have definitely changed with impromptu remodeling projects over the years.
  
  
  
  
• Fair and balanced: Fox News' Sean Hannity turned his entire radio show over to Trump's two lawyers on Friday. Amazingly, those two didn't say anything crazy.
  
  
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• The guy who stole the plane out of Seattle and went on a suicidal mission demonstrated two things: (1) He's the calmest craziest guy ever, and (2) that man, for not being a pilot, can fly a plane like nobody's business.
  
   
• You think everything is going well for Trump when he tweets, from his New Jersey golf course no less, that his own attorney general is "scared and Missing in Action"?
  
• The Teen Choice Awards, for whatever reason, was on the Family Unit TV last night.  I took some comfort in not knowing a single person on the screen while thinking, "The nation is doomed" for most of the show.
• The office microwave is on fritz which, in my life, is like going to DEFCON 1. 
• I'm not sure Omarosa's new book has much credibility.  But the jury is still out since Trump promised us he would "hire only the best people." 
  
• No-Longer-Sheriff Joe decided to campaign by pointing out he loved Trump during his presidential campaign while the former Sheriff's current Republican senate opponent hung out with that Never-Trumper Ted Cruz.  I need a program to keep all of this straight. It's like an episode of Modern Dysfunctional Family.
  
• I've been warning about the Proud Boys, a group of White Nationalists who refuse to call themselves White Nationalists, for a long time. Twitter finally banned them on Friday. 
• The neo-Nazi rally in D.C. turned out to be a big bag yesterday. It was planned for months but only a couple of dozen Unite The Righters showed up. So sad.
  
• It looks like one of the players on Bridgeport's state basketball championship team who went to aTm has transferred to a Division II team in Oklahoma. 
• I saw a Crown Royal commercial yesterday while watching the the PGA Championship and thought to myself that it was the first liquor commercial I had seen on TV in decades. Quick research reveals there was a "voluntary ban" of liquor ads on TV in 1948 but it has very slowly gone to the wayside beginning in the last 1990s. I must have missed a few.
• Some bikers "visiting" Trump this weekend gave us one of the greatest photos of his presidency.
• Messenger: Above The Fold.

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

I think I'll do this tonight. But with me in the shrink wrap.

Ariel is all grown up.

"I told you I want to stay in the jungle in Costa Rica!"

Some Idiocracy is quality Idiocracy.

 Like the deleted scene from The Exorcist. (Look it up.)

File that under the "Why didn't I think of that?" category.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• The craziest story you'll hear all day: An assistant Wake Forest basketball coach has been arrested for punching a tourist on Sunday after the tourist thought he was his Uber driver. The punch caused the tourist to fall and hit his head on the concrete. He's dead.
• Yesterday Justice Sotomayor strongly dissented to the Court not staying a death sentence out of Tennessee. I would link to the facts of the case but that would cause any inclination you have to agree with her to quite probably vanish.
  
• Like clockwork, I tried to give Trump credit yesterday for not tweeting about the "Witch Hunt" for three days and within three hours he did it.
  
• I picture him in pajamas and jumping on his bed when he fired this one off:

                                       

• The government will let you pick the logo for Space Force! Logos which appear to have been designed by a Fifth Grade class from Muleshoe. (No offense to the Fifth Graders of Muleshoe.)
  
• And Space Force ($8 billion), just like The Wall ($25 billion), will never happen.
• That Manafort case just got weirder. The prosecutor asked the judge to instruct the jury to not hold it against them that the judge scolded them yesterday. The judge amazingly did so and told the jury that he was wrong when he did it. So odd -- especially for a federal court. I don't think I've ever seen that even in state court. 

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  I want a courtroom sketch of me!

• Laura Ingraham stepped into it a couple of days back by showing (again) she's a racist on Fox News. You know you've done a fine, fine job when America's best known Klan member, David Duke, backs you up. (I hadn't heard from Duke since he backed Trump for saying there was blame "on both sides" in Charlottesville.)
  
  
• I understand how grand juries work. They don't work this way. That many indictments in one day is ridiculous.
  
• Woodward and Bernstein watch Nixon's resignation: 
  
• Nerdy college football stuff: A fantastic interactive graph showing which teams go for it the most on fourth down and their success rates. 
•  Put down your phone! (Better quality.)
  
• More random college football stuff: Since 2000, the number of true non-conference road games (not a neutral site) played by Alabama is six. That's amazing. 
• I'm insane now: 
  
• I'm "hip" enough to know Weezer covered Toto's Africa, but now I learn we have Weird Al joining Weezer on stage yet not changing the lyrics. (It's like a Twilight Zone episode.)
• Add this to the list of Dumb Texas Laws: Gaming machines. (We had a raid in Bridgeport where ten were seized.)