6.06.2019

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • I'm really torn about the criminal prosecution of the deputy at Parkland who didn't enter the building to stop the school shooter. Fire him. Take his commission. Humiliate him. But we are really getting out there when a bunch of guys in suits want to put a cop in a cage because they second guess his bravery. 
  • I don't know why I think is sounds so cool when I hear a college football player has "entered the Transfer Portal."
  • Nerdy stuff: After I read this about a federal appellate opinion that came down yesterday, I wanted to know about the judge who bizarrely authored it. Guess what? A Trump appointed judge who was confirmed 49-46.
  • I'm always stunned by how those who complain of courts filled with "liberal activist judges" who "don't interpret the constitution but re-write the constitution" are actually full of judges which, for all my life, have whittled away at the Fourth Amendment to such an extent that there isn't much left. Judge Lee Ann Daughinot out of Fort Worth, now retired, once referred to it as the Salami Theory: "You may slice the salami often, but if you slice it thin each time, no one notices until the salami is mostly or entirely gone." See Williams v. State, 172 S.W.3d 730, 738 (Tex. App.-Fort Worth 2005, pet. ref'd)(J. Dauphinot, dissenting).
  • Random weird memory: I've never forgotten when I a friend told me, "I don't think Ferris Bueller had that much fun on his day off." It's always made me contemplate the definition of "fun" and whether he was right or not. 
  • I didn't know about the website which tracks posts of police officers who make racists post on social media. 
  • I had no idea about this either. It makes sense.
    (Cue Cartman's "No kitty! That's my pot pie!")
  • If a draft dodging Democratic president ever so much as stepped foot at Normandy, Fox News would condemn him every day for the next six months. Even moreso if he minimized this anniversary with a hashtag.
  • Getting reports that some moron ran over a huge turtle in Decatur. That could have been avoided. It's not like he darted out in front of them. 
  • Bad Fox Graphics has a great bit of monitoring how the producers react when Sean Hannity puts on his reading glasses. Those guys have strict orders to not show Hannity and cut to graphics or other guests. Every now and then they screw up. Here's an example.
  • I can't wait to find out who it is. I hope it's a Civil-War-Was-Really-About-State's-Rights lawyer who can't come up with the money.
  • The Star-Telegram might want to put the note that the couple is from Fort Worth either in the headline or the lede. (It didn't show up until paragraph 11.)


at 8:31 AM

6.05.2019

Random Wednesday Morning Thought



  • The Dallas Murder County went up last night after a killing in Pleasant Grove. (I think this is #91 for the year.)   A separate drive by shooting in Oak Cliff and a shooting into a car just caused injuries. 
  • My continuing bit of "Are there too many cops" also needs to be supplemented with "Are there two many lawyers?" Yesterday I learned there are 91,244 active lawyers in Texas. 
  • One of those folks who goes to government buildings to try and draw government employees offsides (you know, by just walking into a police station and start filming to see if they'll get pissed off) tried it at a Tarrant County "Facilities Management" office but found it empty. No one was there, however, but they had forgotten to lock the door when they went home.  But she decided to sit down and do a little comedy by pulling up her youtube channel on a government computer (which also hadn't been locked down).  In an over-the-top government crackdown, she was later arrested for the felony on an overly broad computer hacking law. 
  • Hey, I just looked at her website and found she posted a video four days ago about her visit to Rhome PD. (After watching it, I don't feel so bad that Tarrant County is picking on her. That's a bad bit she's got going.)
  • A couple in Southlake is alleged to new have stolen a woman's purse while she was shopping and then purchase $18,000 in gift cards in less than an hour. (How do you pull that off?) I'm normally not a fan of cops doing comedy, but Southlake has a pretty funny twitter thread in order to try and capture the two. 
  • We've got an new Wise County speed record case for 2019. (It was a DPS stop in Precinct 1) :
  • How they heck have we forgotten about this case?: "A South Carolina father accused of brutally slaying his five children then driving their bodies around for more than a week was found guilty of murder on Tuesday. Timothy Jones Jr., 37, was found guilty on five counts of murder for killing his children, who ranged in age from 1 to 8, inside their Lexington mobile home on August 28, 2014, before burying them in Alabama a week later."
  • The murder-for-hire trial involving a dentist and Uptown was broadcast live by Fox 4 on their website yesterday. That got me thinking.  There's is no reason why every court shouldn't have a live feed running at all times. The cost would be next to nothing these days.
  • Trump, during an important state visit to our most important ally and in the middle of the night, finally took the dramatic step of calling out Putin and Kim Jong Un.  Oops. I got that wrong. It was someone else:
  • Emails now reveal who was behind the Lets-Purge-Some-Voters-In-Texas-With-Hispanic-Surnames-With-A-Hoax-Voter-Fraud-Scandal: Gov. Greg Abbott. (You may recall that the Secretary of State took the fall last month once he the legislature didn't confirm him after the fiasco. Where is he now? Abbott just hired him to work in the Governor's office at a salary of $205,000. There is no greater swamp than than the Abbott/Patrick/Paxton/Sid Miller crowd.)
    Photo Credit: The great AP photographer Eric Gay.
  • If you haven't seen the helicopter rescue video, you have to. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold. 


at 8:31 AM

6.04.2019

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts





  • This was a headline from four days ago. Since that time they've had three shot and one  killed at a car wash, a body found in White Rock lake, and a guy shot dead in his car in downtown Dallas last night. 
  • Happy 30th anniversary to the guy in this photo which has been hanging on my office wall for more than half of that time. 
  • I can almost forgive this teacher for not knowing how private messaging works. I can't forgive her for being so dumb that she thought she expected to have a personal private conversation with Trump online.
  • Baylor isn't telling the truth in an era when they especially need to tell the truth. That "Final Four" win and "College World Series" win ain't right. 
  • It's been a rough UK trip for Trump. Baby Trump is back along with new projections on the Tower of London and Madame Tussaud's:


  • And what's up with that tux?
  • This year's Dave Campbell's Texas Football is out. High expectations for Texas is the best Texas:
  • The Fort Worth SWAT team shot and killed a man holding a flashlight on Saturday. I've had questions about their SWAT team ever since I noticed that  they show up at every evading arrest scene like its a war zone.
  • I saw a couple of stories this morning out of Houston that the "Zone d'Erotica in Galleria area to be replaced with restaurant." That reminded me of the Dallas Morning News story last year which had this disturbing tidbit about a business with the same name: "On July 10, an undercover Dallas Police Department officer visited Zone d’Erotica, according to another affidavit. The officer said he approached the sales counter at the store and asked the employee if he could rent a porn video and watch it there . . . . .While speaking with the employee, the officer said he was approached by a male customer who was with a young female. The man offered the female to the officer and said she would accompany the officer in one of the private rooms and perform any sex act for $50, according to the affidavit." Now that's trafficking.
  • A murder case out of Bridgeport starts today in Wise County. I don't think there will be any surprises. (Here's the original report in the Messenger and the follow-up.)

at 8:30 AM

6.03.2019

Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • Since it has already left the news cycle, you might have missed that 12 people were shot dead on Friday in Virginia. The Onion now runs this headline every time there is a mass shooting. This is at least the eighth time.
  • "Wichita Falls - Deputy City Manager, Jim Dockery, resigns after a search warrant issued for his home resulted in authorities finding marijuana."  In my continuing series of "Are there too many police?", they ran a search warrant on the guy after picking up and searching his trash on four separate occasions looking for weed.  They finally found  "a clear plastic bag containing what later tested positive as marijuana." But, wait. You know how we know he's a drug kingpin? "They also discovered an empty bottle of Clear Eyes Redness Relief."
  • I replaced one of these bad boys this weekend and might be making a run for Wise County Electrician of the Year. (By her lack of being impressed, Mrs. LL apparently will just give me the Meh Award.)
  • The Family Unit are big fans of the College Softball World Series and it is basically on the entire this weekend this time of year. And one thing I've learned that is a no-brainer: In double elimination, you don't want to lose that first game. (Otherwise, you've got to win four straight in two days to get to the finals.)
  • Trump landed in England this morning. This is what he did moments before he touched down.  
  • A ball bounced off a speaker at the Tampa Bay/Yankees game on Friday night and an outfielder caught it off the deflection. I had no idea the ball was considered in play. That's an out.
  • His capacity to lie knows no bounds. It is literally on tape. Everyone was mocking his campaign on Saturday for trying to deny it.  Always remember 1984: "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
  • A nerdy patent researcher found this. It's from an actually issued patent. 
  • This picture that was floating around online over the weekend. He scared of something?
  • I like softball strategy because its a bit different than baseball. For example, in the Katy/Keller high school semis, Katy won (1-0) because of a double steal with runners on first and third with two outs. Do you throw it to second there? If the runner going to second hits the brakes, like she did, you're doomed. And they were. Quick video of the play -- screenshot below.  (Side softball note: Anna, who beat Decatur, lost their championship game 12-0.)
  • A guy with a man bun rushed a stage over the weekend and grabbed Kamala Harris' mic. He wasn't arrested and this is him after the incident. Video.  (He's some animal loving dirty lib.)
  • This seems next to impossible.
  • Here is, once again, your reminder that a bill becomes law in Texas without the governor's signature, and every time he brags about his signature it is just for show. (And Abbott actually said in this video that "It is now law." That's a lie. It become law on September 1st.)
  • One thing you never see: A GM Hummer on the road. 


at 8:31 AM

5.31.2019

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






at 2:00 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • The Decatur girls softball team will remember that state semi-final forever. Outhit their opponent 15-4, left the bases loaded with one out in the final inning, committed six errors, and lost by two runs. 
  • UNT will have four football games airing on Facebook this season. A decade ago we would have thought that was insane. What's it going to be like in 2029? Virtual reality 50 yard line seats on pay-per-view seems to be very likely.
  • If you're an assistant U.S. Attorney and your wife threatens to call your boss about you consuming edibles so you freak out and decide to go ahead and confess to your boss about the marijuana use as well as lying about it on federally mandated forms, you won't get prosecuted. (Probably fired, but not prosecuted.)
  • You see that guy in the background in this pic from the Oval Office this year? Well, we just learned Kim Jong Un executed him because the summit in Hanoi didn't go well. 
  • From a school in El Paso:
    This is the heritage of which they speak.
  • I saw an acquaintance at the courthouse yesterday talking on a cellphone in a prohibited place. I faked taking a picture of her and jokingly threatened to make her a bullet point to publicize the error of her ways. Her response? A very dismissive "I don't care as long as I don't look fat."  We need more attitude like that in this world. 
  • If I had moved a bit this morning, I could have captured chicken tenders or a Whopper at the end of the rainbow in Decatur.  
  • The National Spelling Bee (which ended in a weird eight way tie) was on ESPN last night but one of its alternate channels had a "play along" split screen where multiple choice answers were given. You could watch how the nation was voting as the time was running down. Even with Google, the nation was often wrong.
     
  • A guy set himself on fire near the White House this week. I'm not sure you want to Google the name Arnav Gupta. It's the craziest fire image since the monk set himself ablaze in Saigon in 1963. 
  • Trump has announced new tariffs on Mexico so we'll all be paying a new tax to the treasury.  We've gone so far off the rails no one even cares. 
  • "Uber posted losses of $1 billion on revenue of $3.1 billion for the first quarter of 2019 in what was its first earnings report as a public company." For the life of me, I don't understand this. Doesn't this mean they had $4.1 billion in expenses?  How? They don't have stores. They don't have cars (or the accompanying insurance and maintenance.) They don't have factories. Every driver is an independent contractor responsible for their own cars, maintenance, insurance and gas.  How does Uber have that much in expenses?


at 8:34 AM
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