Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The political career of Sheriff Joe is over as he finishes a distant third in a three person race for the Republican nominee for November's Senate election.
  
  
• When I'm wrong, I'm wrong: I didn't think the Balch Springs officer would be convicted of murder but he was. Now the jury is deciding punishment and they won't have probation as an option.  (The jury would have been informed of that in voir dire if everyone was doing their jobs, so a compromise verdict of "Let's convict him of murder but give him probation later" didn't happen.)
• I wasn't the only one wrong. Check out this headline from Fox 4 shortly after the shooting last year: 
  
• Our Governor immediately weighed in on the verdict and played the Race Card.
  
• Interesting thought: I think people who play video games are goofballs. I think people who play Chess are high-minded. That may not be fair at all. 
• Fort Worth PD conducted a prostitution sting and arrested 30 saps. The streets are safe again!
• In one of the weirdest marriages ever, Ken Starr will join the big time plaintiff's litigation group, The Lanier Law Firm. (That's the firm which has Christmas parties where Faith Hill, Miley Cyrus, Bon Jovi (and more!) have performed.) What an odd fit. Starr's as stuff suited as they come, has never tried a case, and knows absolutely nothing about Texas state civil law. That's the antithesis of good plaintiff's lawyers. (But Lanier has already had a bad year at times being involved in "unequivocally deceptive" conduct as noted by the Fifth Circuit.)
• I've been told by a very reliable source that Walmart is having a Best Maid pickle shortage. I don't care, but my source is in a panic. Girl needs her pickles. Edit: A faithful reader pointed out this in depth article that points out being a supplier to Walmart can crush your profits. Bottom line: It ain't easy being a supplier.
  
• I'm no constitutional scholar, but a court which gives preferential treatment to one group over another would seem to have some Equal Protection Clause issues.
  
• UT coach Tom Herman, for some reason, won't just come out and say who will be calling the plays this fall.  He said this week that "we'll all be calling the plays." There is no way that's true. It's going to be one guy, and that one guy needs to embrace the public scrutiny.
• Maybe Herman is distracted because Ohio State has announced that he was in a strip club with the guy who is the source of the school's current scandal. 
  
• We are living in an endless loop. 
  
• He's a true scholar of history.

  

  Wait a second. Didn't an "anonymous source" play a big role from inside our intelligence agencies one time?

  
  
  
• Messenger: Above The Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Trump backed down on not flying the flags at the White House by finally relenting yesterday afternoon. At least it's good to know he can finally be shamed into doing the right thing even if it is against his nature.

  

  Trump ignoring questions about McCain yesterday. (Really)

• The Wise County Courthouse flags were at half-staff after the commissioners' meeting yesterday morning. 
• It's time for the legislature to do away with the points/surcharge system. You get a ticket, pay it, get surcharges, don't pay the surcharges, you get your license suspended, you get stopped on a suspended license, you pay that ticket and get an extra suspension and more surcharges and on and on it goes. Prosecutors hate it more than I do. 
• I'd be awful at press conferences if I were a head coach because I'd eventually just go off on a reporter. 
• Fox 4 Shaun Rabb accidentally quoted the defense lawyer in the Balch Springs officer case as using "lol" during a closing argument which caused a reader to become offended.
  
  
• Reporters, understandably, misuse Opening/Closing and Statement/Argument. It works like this. At start of trial you have: (1) Opening statement by State (2) Defense opening statement. At the end of the trial you have: (1) State's opening argument, (2) Defense closing argument, (3) State's closing argument. 
• After Nebraska named a starting QB, his backup decided to transfer the next day. It's an epidemic of "picking up my toys and going elsewhere."
• I saw a lot of disgruntled clients with their lawyers in the courthouse yesterday. Obviously, I don't know the details of each case but most of the Defendant's seemed pretty cavalier. I didn't see a single lawyer say, in essence, "You call the shots but let me explain to you the horrible consequences of your strategy in the event you have misjudged your situation." I saw more of a "It's your life - I don't care" attitude.
• I'm now fascinated by the ever changing background of the new Messenger "Update Live."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mrs. LL is going to a Rangers game tonight. Cowboys on Sunday and Rangers on Tuesday? I'm worried about her mental health. What's next? Water-boarding date night on Thursday?
• I'll let you guess who attended an "Evangelical Dinner" with Trump last night. (I'm still awaiting word of any lightning strikes.) Jeffress is so in love he'll even post this high quality picture.
  

                                                                                  "Get behind me, Satan."

                                                                                   Robert Jeffress (American, 1955-present)

                                                                                   2018. Digital. 12 MP, printed 2018. Gift from Twitter.

• Stormy Daniels and her lawyer are in an upcoming issue of Vogue. (Photo by the famous Annie Leibovitz):
  
• There was nothing more Idiocracy than on Saturday night when NBC interrupted its network to announce the death of McCain. When the "we now return to our regularly scheduled programming" was said, NBC cut to what was showing: Two men in dolphin heads. (Youtube clip here.)
  
• A fake Warren Buffett account is giving life advice that everyone loves. It became famous last week with 10 things he thought were "cool" which were, indeed, cool. 
• Trump is mad at Google this morning because the search results for him aren't positive. He wonders if it is "illegal" and whether it needs to be "addressed."  He's a gift that keeps on giving. 

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• Across the nation, flags are at half-staff this morning because of the death of John McCain -- Except at the White House because of Trump. Incredible. (At 7:55 a.m., the flags were at full staff at the Wise County Courthouse. I presume that's an oversight which will be fixed very soon.)
  
• There were eight turnovers by the Cowboys last night in a meaningless pre-season game. Mrs. LL had a free ticket to a suite last night but left at halftime. (You would have to pay me to go to -- and my price would be high.) 
• On Friday, reporters started researching Twitter about references to John McCain. This 10 year old Tweet, found by this guy, did not have a SINGLE reply despite Obama asking for them. He would have been trolled to death today.
• 
• Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer had to issue an apology for the way he handled his first apology. He seems like a miserable human being. So do others . . . 
  
• I find this so weird: Fewer and fewer young people have a driver's license. "For example, the percentages for 20- to 24-year-olds [who had a license] in 1983, 2008, 2011, and 2014 were 91.8%, 82.0%, 79.7%, and 76.7%. . . . ." 
• Trump got to color with some kids on Friday. He colored the U.S. flag incorrectly. You've got those stripes wrong, buddy. Never be afraid to ask for help from those around you.
  
• It was such a busy news week that I'm not even going to mention Trump jokingly one time kissed Giuliani's cleavage while Giuliani was dressed in drag, or that Trump invited a QAnon conspiracy theorist to the Oval Office last week, or that Trump rejected a proposal to issue an official White House statement on John McCain's passing.
  
  
  
  
• While watching a very old OU/Texas game on Saturday on the Longhorn Network (I'm living full throttle), I heard the announcers say that the game between aTm and Houston was scheduled to kickoff at 10:30 p.m. in the Astrodome "after the baseball game." I had to look it up: It actually kicked off at 11:32 p.m on October 11, 1980. The Astros had a playoff game that day and it took a while to get the field ready
• And lets check in on Christian DFW radio host Mark Davis had to say while McCain's body was still warm:  

                                       

• I don't even have to click on the link to know who it is. 
• 
• The Texas prison system just voted to drastically slash the cost of inmate phone calls. The new contract will be 6 cents per minute instead of 26 cents. Texas has been exploiting prisoners through the phone system for years. I don't know what the rate is at the Wise County jail.
• There was a (very confusing) story in the Dallas Morning News about a lawsuit over an agreement on a cocktail napkin.  Sound interesting? It's not because the story was written so poorly.  But I was struck by this paragraph explaining why the fight over the napkin was ultimately resolved by a settlement. I question any lawyer who thinks appellate work is harder than trial work. It's not even in the same ballpark. How do they not know that? 
  
• There is no question there are thousands of lawyers in the "litigation section" of big law firms who have never been involved as first chair in a jury trial. I bet that number is 80%, and I might be undershooting it. 
• Audio of the shooting in Jacksonville yesterday. The shooter was a 24 year old white male from a gated community in South Baltimore, MD who lost a video gaming tournament. (Totally irrelevant: I hung out at Jacksonville Landing back on one of my football trips.)
  
• I became a grand-uncle (or whatever you call it) over the weekend.
• Messenger: Above The Fold

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

 Your Freshman year on this side. Graduation on the other. 

 I think I'd watch this over ESPN's constant Little League baseball games.

 I'm insane now.

 Bits are still fun.

 "I'm an owl. It's called a yawn. You got a problem with that?"

And Bob was just a litttttttle slow on that release.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• 
  
• From a faithful reader after I called out Fort Worth's Heim's BBQ yesterday: Check out the "HNIC" acronym on the owner's personal Twitter page.  Does that mean what Urban Dictionary says it means?
  
• 
  
• Hey prosecutors, the Texas Governor needs time to think about whether a criminal defendant should legally be able to cooperate with you against another defendant or potential defendant:
  
• Hot prediction on the Balch Springs cop murder trial: They will find him guilty of Agg Assault and give him probation. My alternative verdict is a complete Not Guilty.
• The prosecutor in the case is nicknamed "Bulldog" -- a sure sign that he's full of himself and doesn't understand nuances. At one point, he held up a picture of the dead kid and asked the defendant, "You shot him in the back of the head, didn't you?" A smart juror is offended by questions like that because that fact is not in dispute. The question is whether the defendant had a reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary to protect a fellow officer. Stop your cheap theatrics.
• DPS, which can afford freakin' gun boats on the Rio Grande, wants to close 87 DPS offices. Decatur is not on the list. Denton, which always has a packed parking lot, is. 
• "And Another" update from Plano: Probation (with 120 days in the county jail as a condition.)
  
• Ted Cruz, a sex scandal, Diamond and Silk, Michael Cohen and the National Enquirer: My head is spinning because of the following. Michael Cohen, Trump's ex personal lawyer, use to silence the women of Trump's affairs by funneling money to the National Enquirer who would then buy the story from the female and then never print anything. In fact, David Pecker, the publisher of the Enquirer, was granted immunity in this week's Cohen prosecution. But let's have a flashback to 2016 when Fox News' darlings Diamond and Silk promoted a story of a Ted Cruz sex scandal. (It was in the middle of the Republican primaries at the time.) Look what Cohen said when he chimed in to to conversation. What all was going on behind the scenes?
  
  
• The Rangers gave Cole Hamels to the Cubs for nothing. I was all for it because he was awful. My, how things have changed. He had a win with a complete game last night giving up only one earned run and has an ERA under 1.00 since being traded. 
• When you have a bad week you do the obvious: Decide to visit a children's hospital and tell the press about it. 

  

  A Barron spotting!

• Vote in local elections: 
  
• Look what conservative Christian radio host Mark Davis retweeted. This is Trump's hard core base. As is their right, they simply do not care. But don't hold up a cross and a Bible while proclaiming you are from the party of "family values." 
  
• "Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Thursday challenged Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera to a debate." Riveria accepted. Now that I want to see. Give me Geraldo.
• From the Update: "Five people were arrested on drug charges following a search of a Decatur home Thursday morning. At about 5 a.m., Wise County Sheriff’s deputies and investigators executed a search warrant on a North Cowan Street residence . . . . " (More).  It's kind of rare to see the Sheriff's office involved in bust within the city limits. I would think there were some Decatur cops involved. (And I wouldn't want to be the prosecutor who gets the message of, "Hey, since you went home yesterday you've got five new drug cases.")

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• "A 13-year-old Crowley Independent School District student died Wednesday night after collapsing during football practice, officials said."
• This was from Trump at 1:10 a.m. EST. He's up in the middle of the night and living in terror about the future.
  
  
• Pretty cool little chart: 
  
• Unreasonable irritation of mine: People who gush about Whataburger. (Hey, I like their burgers too, but it's no euphoric experience.)
• I'm very confused about the new "Update Live" that the Messenger has rolled out. It's the Publisher sitting at a nondescript table reading the Update out loud.
• Dear Fort Worth Baylor fans, Mr. Heim, of the over-hyped Heim BBQ, routinely attacks your school. This example was relatively tame as he made fun of person he doesn't know and probably faces a daily struggle which is a little more difficult than the fear of getting a bad Yelp review. He took it down. I invite you to go somewhere else for your BBQ.
  
• What? "This little piggy went to market" doesn't mean he went shopping? How was I not told!?
• Cowboys center Travis Frederick has been diagnosed with Guillain Barre Syndrome. Let me Google that for you. This does not sound good -- primarily because he seems like a guy who would be willing to walk away if there was any chance continued play would exacerbate the situation.
• It looks like a nude selfie of Dak Prescott is out there. Let me not Google that for you.
• I have never understood why judges on the Texas Supreme Court (and some other courts) take the entire month of August off (and then some.) Any you boys in the private sector get to do that at taxpayer expense? 
  
• Sarah Sanders had to walk out in front of the Washington press corp yesterday. She didn't disappoint.
  
• It took a while, but two officers eventually cost Dallas well over a half million dollars. 
  
• That's a lot of pills: "Denton County: Search leads to discovery of 120,000 pills (hydrocodone, oxycodone, fentanyl, morphine and dilaudid) and 14 firearms (6 stolen)."
• The worst Baptist pastor in America is at it again as he rolls out a new book to make money. And I'm seeing a theme: He always seems to know God's "secrets." That's the same marketing scheme that we've seen in infomercials for years. 

  

  These people know real estate secrets!!!!

  

  Jeffress knows God's seven secrets!!!!!

• I'll never get tired of Time magazine covers: 
  
• I wonder if Trump is taking comfort in that his top lawyer, Rudy "Truth Isn't Truth" Giuliani, is golfing in Scotland during the worst week of his presidency.