Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• This is beyond bizarre: A FEMA "Presidential Alert" test will be sent to your cell phone on Thursday at 1:18 p.m. CST.  
• Bryson, west of Jacksboro, had a tough time Friday night: "BRYSON – Strawn is the defending Class A Division II champions and looked the part Friday in a 72-7 shellacking of Bryson. The game was called at halftime for the 45-point mercy rule."
• The Coast Guard removed this member (in red circle) after flashing a White Power symbol on MSNBC last week. If you watch the video, there is no question it is intentional.
  
• 
  
• I don't know anything about this mega-church in Grand Prairie but the fact that a former pastor can win $4 million from it in a lawsuit doesn't exactly seem what Jesus had intended. 
• A Harvey joke by Red Raider fans (which probably didn't go over well):
• 
• And Trump wants the border patrol to protect us against MS-13. Who knew we needed protection from the border patrol instead?
  
• And lord knows I'm no journalist, but I don't have any problem with the AP referring to the women as prostitutes. They backed off of that even though they believe the assertion to be accurate. If he was targeting prostitutes, that's relevant to the story. 
  
• For local media fans only: WFAA has blocked TV Critic Ed Bark on Twitter. Some in local media are the biggest babies. 
• TCU lost to Ohio State, 40-28, but they looked so good I don't who would win between OU and TCU right now.  (And I'm always amazed by the Vegas Line. Ohio State was a 12.5 point favorite.) This week it is TCU vs. Texas and TCU is a 3 point favorite which seems too low.
• I'd be remiss in not celebrating UNT's win over the Root Hogs without reflecting back to the the great 1970s "Flying Worm" helmet.
  
• Legal but very shady: 
  

• The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of groping her came forward and identified herself over the weekend. (The nomination may now actually be in trouble.) She also named an accomplice: Mark Judge. Someone found his high school year book, and he seems like a real charmer. 
  
• The details don't matter, but the Dallas Morning News endorsed someone named Williams for a state district judgeship after saying this about her: 
  
• Texas! And, Snowflake (yep, that's the cat's name) was stabbed 12 times.
  
  
• "The US State Department issued a new travel warning for Mexico on Wednesday night after authorities found eight dead bodies in the popular resort town Cancun within the span of a few days." This isn't going to help tourism. 
• Soon coming to Arlington. But, man, that name and graphic.
  
• I had no idea the comic's mother sang, "Lovin' You" -- that crazy 1970s hit which has her hitting a note that no one else can hit. 

• Happy Constitution Day (to what's left of it.)
• Every time I hear the name of the victim Botham Jean (pronounced JON), the victim in the Mistaken Apartment case in Dallas, I hear "Elton John."
• Messenger: Above The Fold.

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

 What you picture when you go to get a cat.

 This is what you get.

 I would have done this all day as a kid. Heck, I'd do it all day right now.

 Nope. Nope. Nope.

 Bits are fun.

 It's a Liberally Lean blog metaphor. (Me pictured on right. Trumpsters on left.)

Exclusive footage from Whispering Wheels in  Decatur.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• It's been a wild week. A Fort Worth police officer was shot in the head last night after a robbery attempt at a "sports bar" on Biddison off of I-35. He is in critical condition.
  
• Let me says this with 100% conviction: I don't care. (And, man, Fox 4 News got crushed for this Twitter post seen below. Nice job posting it on the day of his funeral, by the way.) Fox 4 ran with the story live at 6:03 p.m., Steve Eagar anchoring, even though the tweet had well over 3,000 angry replies at that point. (The number has since increased to 32,000 as of this morning.)

                                       

• Some people wrote that the cops "leaked" the fact there was marijuana in the apartment. It was no leak at all. It was contained in a document which is a public record. 
• Here's a response from the son of the Dallas Mayor:
  
• A reader emailed me to point out I was wrong about the arrest warrant affidavit in the above case. I said yesterday it was not the Texas Ranger's recitation of the facts, it was only the Ranger reciting what the off duty cop had told him. Nope. It wasn't written that way. The Ranger wrote it as if it was his belief of what the facts were. Why? I don't know.
• Can we have a report on the Uniform Instability in this pic, too?
  
  
• In Bexar Country (San Antonio), there have been 19 deputies arrested this year.
• Nike stock closed at $83.47 yesterday -- an all time high.
• Either the Russian bot invasion is still alive and well or the Cruz campaign has taken a lesson from their playbook:
  
  
• Wait. Someone found more: 
  
• Uh, they thought Willie was a Right Winger?
  
• The most depressing cover series you'll see if you're a teacher (and maybe even if you're not.)
  
• In a very bizarre case, the Tarrant County D.A.'s office lost a sexual assault trial yesterday. The prosecutor's blamed the jury. The office spokesman blamed the judge. It didn't help that the alleged victim, a psychiatric patient, "began rambling [during cross-examination] about being awoken in the hospital by the voice of the angel Gabriel and being used as a tool by God for 'work for the United States of America'.”
• I recorded Tucker Carlson last night as soon as I learned Stormy Daniel's lawyer was going to be on. Fox News went with this shocking graphic from the get go, and the segment didn't disappoint. The lawyer eventually asked Carlson, "How do you have a show if you're this ignorant?" and asked Carlson if he watched porn. Watch it.

                                             

• Is it to early to say Hurricane Florence was a dud? BagOfNothing linked to this live cam off of Cape Fear yesterday. (Cool name. Cool movie.) I just checked it. It is an absolutely beautiful morning. Edit: A faithful reader has already pointed out that the camera may have failed and something else, although beautiful, is being broadcast.

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Hurricane Florence has been downgraded to a Category 2 this morning. Our interest level is about to plummet (which occurs immediately after every hurricane hits anyway.)
• But the Weather Channel is at DEFCON 1:
  
• Al Roker giving me predictions on Hurricane Florence makes me realize what a professional a teleprompter reader he is. He's good at that aspect. But to think he is some weather expert is beyond belief. 
• I was talking yesterday  to a guy who works in the current oil boom in Odessa. It sounded insane. There are so many people that an Allsup burrito goes for $6.50 and pallets of water bottles are bought here and shipped since you can't find them there. He told me he went to Walmart the other day at 1:00 a.m. to avoid the crowds and it was packed and the shelves were picked over.
• I just noticed this story in the Dallas Morning News. (And I'm reminded of that New York Times op-ed that says this current oil boom is the next dot.com bubble or mortgage crisis.)
  
• When a guy who likes storm tracking is also an art lover and is reminded of something:
  
• The University of Hawaii travels to Army this week to play a game starting at 12:00 Eastern. So the trip includes a 10 hour flight and a 6:00 a.m. kickoff Hawaii time. 
• These news stories of advisory panels recommending that Texas school curriculum not refer to the Alamo defenders as "heroes" or that the law of Moses playing no role in the forming of the Constitution cause are nothing more than a Tempest in a teapot. And the right-wingers are wound up.
  
• This random story disturbs me so much. Asleep in bed, a tree falls, and a wife and dog die.
  
• Someone said I picked The Under for total Ranger wins but I can't find the post where I did it. (I'm sure I did.) It looks like the line was 77.5. They sit at 62 wins with 16 to go.
• Call me cheap, but $1,099 for an iPhone (announced yesterday), seems a little pricey. Shouldn't phone prices be going down?
• It's back to Orwellian speak this morning. 3,000 is just some made up number? Remember folks, “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
  
  
  
  
  
• In the Dallas Wrong Apartment Case everyone keeps referring to the arrest warrant affidavit that the Texas Rangers obtained as "their version" of the facts. Nope. The affiant simply swore that the off-duty police officer said x.  

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• I can't believe I missed it, but more than one person told me there were three people carrying AR-15 looking weapons around the courthouse square in Decatur on Monday while shopping. It's perfectly legal, but it got everyone's attention. 
• Tarrant County DA Sharen Wilson told an ultra-conservative crowd that there was no "mass-incarceration" problem in Texas. That prompted a leading expert on criminal justice in Texas to call that opinion "uninformed" and bordering on "ludicrous." 
• Whoa! Jerry and Dez together last night.
  
• Earlier this year, Fox 4's Jenny Anchondo left the news station and joined CW33's "Morning Dose". The program has been killed.  Her twitter feed would indicate no one has told her yet.
• The family member of the officer involved in the Dallas Wrong Apartment Shooting is denying he was flashing a white power hand sign in this photo.
  
• Yesterday I mentioned there was a race problem in America as evidenced by a political cartoon of Serena Williams. I was wrong. Not about a race problem but implying that the cartoon was American based. It was from an Australian paper. 
  
• The guy who caused the death of a woman in a car crash in the stockyards has been charged with murder. How can that be when murder requires the "intent to kill"? There is a a weird aspect of Texas criminal law called "Felony Murder" that says if, while in the course of committing a felony (in this case Evading With a Vehicle) a person commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual." (The stories by the Morning News, Channel 11, Channel 5, and Channel 8 didn't explain this. I couldn't find the story at all on Fox 4 or the Star-Telegram) 
• Headline Facts vs. Paragraph Facts. I guess 1% is arguably "cooling off."
  
  
• Ken Starr on NPR, claiming the Clintons are inherently dishonest, said he had written his new book partly because he was "freed" of his duties at Baylor.  Freed? That's one way to put it when you lose your job due to turning a blind eye to a sexual scandal.
• And I've always said Starr was clueless. He just casually admitted this morning on Fox and Friends that, based upon the evidence, he had a doubt about Clinton's guilt and that doubt was reasonable to him. 
  
• I didn't understand how North Carolina State opened as a 3.5 favorite over West Virginia (who has been playing fantastic).  Others were confused as well as the line made a dramatic shift to making WVU a 3 point favorite. But it doesn't matter because the game was cancelled yesterday due to the hurricane. 
• Yesterday after tweeting this with a weird exclamation mark . . .
  
• He arrived at the Pennsylvania memorial and did this . . .
  
• And then later he talked about Hurricane Florence and said this: "They haven't seen anything like what's coming at us in 25, 30 years, maybe ever. It's tremendously big and tremendously wet."
• Advice from the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association below. Better advice: Know your case and your judge before waiving a jury trial.
  
• This is making the rounds this morning. I can only think of Sharon Stone's very cunning character in Basic Instinct saying, "I'd have to be pretty stupid to write a book about killing and then kill him the way I described in my book. I'd be announcing myself as the killer. I'm not stupid."
  
• "The Rev. Mack Morris took a hold of an old Nike headband and a wristband, held them both up before a packed church, and cut them. 'I ain't using that no more,' said Morris, the senior pastor at Woodridge Baptist Church . . . during his weekly Sunday sermon . . . " in . . . wait for it . . . Alabama.
  
• Messenger: Above the Fold (We had three Wise County agencies, including two SWAT teams, raid a home in Bridgeport only to find less than a gram of meth?)

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• America loves to watch an incoming hurricane.
• Sports: "If you can touch it, you can catch it" is 100% not true.
• Most of the cost is due to rentals by Secret Service agents. It's amazing it never occurred to Trump to just simply comp the rentals since they are all at his resorts.
  
• Here's a hot legal opinion in the Wrong Apartment Dallas Police Shooting case: She will not be convicted of murder or manslaughter, and she might not be convicted of anything. This may very well be an incredibly tragic accident but no crime. 
• But the Dallas DA seems hell bent on pursing the case. She's already thrown the Texas Rangers under the bus for arresting the off duty officer "only" for manslaughter and implied she'll get the grand jury to indict her for murder. Here's why she might technically be correct on how to charge the case, but will still lose . . . .
• Murder is the intentional killing of another. True, that's what the off duty officer did. But there are defenses to murder and she has a fantastic one of defense of "mistake of fact" that she thought she was in her apartment and feared for her life. It might be a horrible mistake, but a true and reasonable mistake on her part (all those apartment hallways look alike and she was simply on the wrong floor after 15 hours of work.) Here's the kicker: The State will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she didn't think she was in the wrong apartment or was not reasonable in thinking that.  Good luck with that.
• If her 911 call even remotely backs up her "mistake" defense, she's home free.
• One final thought about Manslaughter - that is, reckless killing. It seems to make sense as an appropriate charge at first blush, but it really doesn't. It applies to an unintentional killing which was caused by someone doing something incredibly stupid which he knew could kill someone. (Traveling 80 mph through a school zone at 8:00 a.m. and ignoring the risk.) That's an example of a reckless act. What are the reckless acts in the Dallas case? Going in the wrong apartment? Nope. Going through / opening the door didn't kill the guy. No, she intentionally killed him. It's a difficult distinction to wrap your head around but a critical one. That's why this case is such a mess. 
• The bottom line is this: Why would she kill him other than it was a horrible mistake? Does anyone believe she wasn't mistaken?
• The arrest warrant affidavit is public record. Here it is.
• Racism is alive and well in America. (The cartoon even depicts Naomi Osaka as a blonde who is not blonde): 
  
• I've been following former Baylor receiver K.D. Cannon who went undrafted last year and then cut from three different NFL teams before the start of the season. This year, the Cowboys signed him but cut him a couple of weeks ago. Cannon was a superstar in high school and star at Baylor. It's hard to make the NFL.
• When you print out hurricane projections for the sole purpose of a staged photo op:
  
• Texas is a 3.5 point favorite over USC? Yet as crazy as that team is, the Longhorns might win.
• Remember when I told you that I had noticed his sales pitch always seem to include a "secret"?
• 
• Flashback 2013:
  
• I had forgotten the six time elected DA of Rockwall County was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2008. He got out in 2010.
• Today, the BagOfNothing guy says he heard the term "navel gazing" for the first time ever last night on Better Call Saul. I wrote on 11/11/16 that I had never heard the term until recently.
• Lots going on with this lede: "Victor Carrillo, once Texas’ top oil and gas regulator, is out as chief executive of Zion Oil and Gas, a Dallas-based firm that looks to the Bible for clues about where to drill for oil in Israel." But the story wraps up in a funny way in reference to the company's struggles: "But so far, the Promised Land has been richer in milk and honey than in oil."
• Messenger: Above The Fold. (I forgot yesterday.)