Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• It was a shockingly bad day for the President and All Of His Men:
• Michael Cohen admitted his guilt in federal court yesterday and is willing to go to prison for five years. And that admission was to paying for the silence of Stormy Daniels and a Playboy model with the intention of influencing the election "in coordination with and at the direction of " Trump. Yep,  thrice married Trump directed his lawyer to commit a federal crime because he had affairs with at least two other women.
• At the same time of the plea, Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was found guilty in federal court of eight counts. 
• And moments later Republican Duncan Hunter, one of the first Congressmen to voice his support for Trump, was indicted for illegal use of campaign funds. The indictment is insane. Sample:
  
• And, to wrap it up, Trump started the day tweeting support for a Wyoming Governor candidate: "“Go VOTE TODAY for Foster Friess - He will be a fantastic Governor! Strong on Crime, Borders [and] 2nd Amendment. Loves our Military [and] our Vets. He has my complete and total Endorsement!” Friess ended up losing BIGLY last night.
• Trump with unintentional comedy this morning:
  
• He doesn't have any credibility, but the Colorado guy who is alleged to have killed his pregnant wife and two young kids has come up with a explanation. He claims he was having an affair, his wife got angry and killed the two kids, and then he killed her in a rage. With three dead bodies, that's about as creative as you can get. 
  
• I feel like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction whenever I walk in to the courthouse entrance security room, see no one in my direct line of sight, and then immediately hear, "Come on in, Barry." 
   
• Here's my own interesting twist on the story of the guy who killed his 18 month old outside of the apartment complex in Lewisville last Sunday while shouting Christian verses. Did you know last Monday was the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) which celebrates and commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son?  The guy wasn't Muslim, but seems to be a religious guy with a screw loose. Connection? [Edit: BagOfNothing made reference to the Abraham theory yesterday. I just saw it. He didn't reference Eid-al-Adha -- that's mine.]
• I'm not saying someone found a real (not figurative) snake in the courthouse, but someone found a snake in the courthouse. 
• I was involved in a flower bed project with small retaining walls the other day. With an axe in my hand and a crowbar, mallet, chisel, and level nearby, Mrs. LL walked up and asked, "What's the plan, Phil?" (That's a Modern Family line.)
• The death of Mollie Tibbetts is already being politicized.  Compare and contrast:
  
  
  
  
• Note: The aforementioned Colorado guy who killed his family was a white U.S. citizen. 
• This police chase in Dallas in the middle of the day through a residential neighborhood left seven injured in five cars. (Police deny it was a "chase".)
  
• Messenger: Above The Fold.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• I watched CNN's docu-series The 2000s episode on music Sunday night. Let me tell you something: Not a bad little decade for music. 
• I didn't watch the VMA's last night, but it looks like Madonna's tribute to Aretha Franklin got ripped: 
  
• I'm seeing this video of the cop running down a suspect everywhere. It's over four years old. 
  
• Does Rudy Giuliani stay drunk?
  
  
• Is not spending money you don't need saving taxpayer dollars? (Maybe the DA's budget in Tarrant County is too high: $25 million a year.)
  
• He said that? He started off investigating a penny-ante real estate deal about Whitewater and ended up spending $70 million with nothing to show it for. (And he had a steady hand on the wheel during the Baylor scandal, didn't he?)
  
  
• WFAA's sports guy Mike Leslie really gets on my nerves for some reason. 
• The number of Beto O'Rourke yard signs in Decatur has got my attention.
• Every teacher should be offended by this grandstanding from a governor who could not care less about public education. And what's this "wants" business? There is nothing more meaningless. How you gonna pay for it, hoss? 
  
• More concern about the Star-Telegram's home page: This morning four of the five "latest" news stories concern the Rangers -- a team that is in last place with the season almost over. (They later updated it to make it three Rangers stories, a story about beach volleyball, a food story, and an ad.)
  
• The AP Top 25 came out yesterday.  It dawned on me that we live in a day when once perennial powerhouse Nebraska no longer even receives a single vote.
• Trump honored a border patrol agent yesterday but ended up going Full Trump. He always goes Full Trump. 
  
• Paul Manafort trial: Day Three completed and still no verdict. 
• I'm not following this Arlington City Council term limit debate all that closely, but it appears they will have to put the issue to voters after a petition requiring the vote was presented to them. "The city council  members [on Monday at a council meeting] made it clear they're against term limits and will join together at the polls to fight." They better be careful using public funds or public time to advocate a position. If my memory serves me correctly, the Decatur School Board ran into trouble in the 2000s when they used public funds to encourage a bond passage. I would think the same rule would apply if a city council used public funds to encourage the defeat of a term limit proposal.  
• Breaking:  Missing Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts is found dead.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• In an incredible moment yesterday morning, Rudy Guiliani, Trump's wheels-off lawyer, told Meet the Press that "Truth isn't truth." Consider Kellyanne Conway's, "Alternative facts" and Trump himself saying "What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” and then remind yourself that these people are saying everyone else is lying.
  
• The rain on Saturday night in Arlington was insane. The Rangers' game was delayed over two hours and finished up moments before 1:00 a.m. 
  
  
  
  
• I don't know why this doesn't lead the news in every outlet in the metroplex: Millions of dollars collected for the families of the officers killed in the attack in Dallas in the summer of 2016 never made it to them. The man in charge: A cop with the Dallas Police Association who paid himself an administrative fee. Additionally, last year 74% of all donations to his "fund" went to telemarketers -- one of which is described as "his friend." 5% went to the families of the fallen officers.
• Almost every trial I see on the news shows a prosecutor making an "argument" during opening statement while the defense lawyer just sits on his hands letting him get away with it.
• The Balch Springs trial of Officer Oliver continues. Note to conservative talk show hosts: Murder in Texas does not require "premeditation" of "malice aforethought."
• I finally saw all of Get Out over the weekend. Verdict: It was really good until it devolved into a typical American horror film. (But I sure do understand the Dak Prescott mural now.)
  
• The amount of torn ACLs in the NFL is amazing. There were 51 last year and we are already up to 11 (and counting if you add this weekend), and we are just halfway through the preseason.  
• The lawyer in the story below was Frank Branson. He has been winning ridiculous verdicts for over thirty years: 
  
• Oh, Williamson County. The judge who told the Sheriff not to bad mouth him on social media got slapped down. 
  
• UT had three players transfer from the football program last week. Baylor has been hit with transfers lately as well. We are seeing a whole lot of, "If I'm not playing, I'm leaving" from today's college players. (Unrelated: Look at the Morning News' "All Area Preseason Football Team" and notice that six of the eleven offensive players have committed to Oklahoma.)
• I told you there was something weird about that Manafort trial. The jury has deliberated for two days and has asked for a clarification of "reasonable doubt." 
• I'm worried about the Star-Telegram. Its six lead stories on its home page this morning  include three about food, one about high school cross-country, one about an average Cowboy, and traffic (with the generic "we want to hear from you."
  
• Remember that bomb that hit a bus in Yemen and killed 40 children? It was made by Lockheed Martin and sold to Saudi Arabia by the U.S.
• He is terrified:

  

  (This Morning)

  

  (Yesterday)

• Melania Trump will take part in a "summit" today on "cyber-bullying." 
• Yesterday afternoon, a father stabbed his 18 month old son to death in an open area of an apartment complex in Lewisville. "During the attack, the father was yelling 'Jesus is coming,'  a witness told police." Radical Christian Terrorism? What would you be saying if he had yelled, "Allahu Akbar"?
  
• The Messenger reported a child drowning in today's Update.  In this world where nothing is hidden, the name is listed on the website of the Tarrant County Medical Examiner. 
• Messenger: Above The Fold

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

Genius. And those lines are tremendously straight.

Get me these kangaroos!

"Not the white pants! Not the white pants!"

The only thing better than her dress bit is her joy of executing it. 

Lady, that's a Demon Cat in your back seat.

What the heck is going on here?

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• A guy died in a plane crash at Rhome Meadows air strip last night. How many air strips are in that part of the county? I know of four. 
• If you don't vaccinate your kids, you are a flawed guy.
• My favorite guy on Hard Knocks is Carl Nassib who gave out financial advice on Episode One. "You have a million dollars and after seven years of getting 10 percent on that money every single year, you’re gonna double it.” That's pretty much the Rule of 72 so I can't argue with him.  But that 10% is the tricky part. One player asked him if "all I have to do is put [it] in the bank and let it sit there?" Nassib said, "Yep." Uh, can I have the name of that bank? 
• Here's a pic of the tree going out of the side of the third floor of the Wise County Courthouse.
  
  
• The former Chancellor of UT, Admiral William H. McRaven, who I am already a fan of because of his stance on "make your bed", went up another notch in my eyes when he went after Trump. Hook 'Em!
  
• The fact that the Worst DA in Texas still doesn't have a single conviction in the Twin Peak Biker Cases is even more shocking once we learn that one of the bikers' defense lawyers said this in court this week: "Metzger, who has been [the biker's] attorney for two years, asked for the second time to withdraw from the case and to allow [another lawyer] to take over. [He] told the court he has never tried a felony case before and would be incompetent in his representation of [his client]. He also said his life, his family and his practice would be ruined if [the judge] forced him to stay on the case."
• Per the Update, a Wise County man was sentenced to two years in prison for Agg Assault. I watched just a little bit of the trial, and I'm surprised he wasn't probated. (And he'll have to serve the full two years in prison. See Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. §508.145(d)(1).)
• This is like the lead singer of a rock band yelling, "We love you Dallas!" to the audience:
  
• And it reminded me of . . . 
  
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• Baylor and Auburn will play a home-and-home. I'm going to Auburn on a road trip! I just have to wait until 2026.
• Aretha Franklin had her first child at age twelve.
• Yesterday the entire Senate unanimously passed a resolution that the press was not the "enemy of the people." Someone is gonna be maaaaaaaad. 
• The blonde on Fox and Friends had a "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" moment yesterday.
• Fox News put Patti Label in the background of an Aretha Franklin graphic and had to apologize. The Onion quickly jumped on it by doing a parody graphic with the larger Aretha image being replaced with Gladys Knight. Quality humor.
  
  
  
  
• Yesterday we learned Trump's "military parade" would cost $92 million. The Pentagon then said, "Let's put that thing on hold, buddy." But, of course, this morning he claims he cancelled it.
  
• I'm no property tax expert but a ruling out of the Fort Worth appeals court is getting lots of attention. (Even the Harris County Appraisal District filed a "friend of the court" brief warning of a "Substantial and unanticipated losses in local revenue" if the property owner won.) That property owner, a Denton lawyer who practices in Wise County quite a bit, did win: The 10% limit on the increase in an appraised value for a residence (the "homestead cap") is applicable for the first full year after the property was purchased so long as the "homestead exemption" was claimed during that first full year. (You property experts will understand the opinion more than me.)
• I'm surprised Colt McCoy is still in the NFL. He won't be for long if he keeps taking non-flagged hits like this. 

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.