7.31.2019

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • Zeke Elliott and the Cowboys are being sued for $20 million after a 2017 wreck that Zeke was involved in.  The lawyer is Lawrence Friedman out of Dallas. Here are the opening paragraphs of the lawsuit and a photo of the wreck. Spare me. 
  • It dawned on me that the small law firm even made a Liberally Lean bullet point last month. Yep. same lawyer. 
  • There was a great brawl at an MLB game last night and it's worth taking at a look single-handedly going and attacking an entire team. (Video.) That's Amir Garrett who is 6'6".
  • DFW Airport is raising it's "pass through" airport fee to $6 -- that's where you go straight through and use it as a tollway. I'll swear in the 1980s that there was no fee so long as you could get through the airport in, say, fifteen minutes or less. 
  • Wise County game wardens have been busy based upon these cases filed yesterday.
    (Not a smooth perator?)
  • I didn't watch the Democratic debate last night, but I heard Elizabeth Warren killed John Delaney as the power of the split screen of the two was dramatic.  Someone also created this after that moment. 
  • There was a very weird Trump moment in Virginia yesterday which isn't getting much press. Trump has names spelled out phonetically on his teleprompter from time to time so he won't mispronounce them. That's not unusual. What is weird is for Trump, for some unexplained reason, to say out loud the phonetic spelling to the audience. In this case, the teleprompter told him to pronounce "George Wythe" as "George With." But he then spelled out "With" as "W-I-T-H." Watch it. What's even more bizarre is the official White House transcript didn't even bother to protect him and actually pointed out his error.
  • We have another crazy crime story out of my two favorite criminal justice places: Williamson County and Waco. I love the defense lawyer's comment: "They arrested him for sending a candy bar." That case is DOA. 
  • I've liked Elton John ever since I was a kid. I had no idea about this:
  • Buried in the Messenger: There are nineteen current active health insurance claims by county employees for $50,000 or more. Insurance reps say the number should be around five based upon the size of the insured group. (Support local journalism.)
  • Another Zeke Elliott contract note: He is scheduled to make $3 million this year. Nothing can be done about that. This contract year can't be torn up or renegotiated. It's part of the mandatory four year rookie contract deal which had a non-negotiable salary slot. It's the player's union who needs a new contract. (Side note: Dak Prescott is stuck with $2 million this year.) 
  • The Cowboys are valued at $5,000,000,000.00.
  • On the way to Colorado I saw a sign for the Ludlow Massacre Memorial. I had never heard of it. Good lord. Just the government murdering U.S. citizens for striking over working conditions. (One of life's modern miracles was simply turning to Mrs. LL and asking her to Google it as we passed by.)
  • Messenger: Above The Fold.


at 8:34 AM

7.30.2019

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts


  • There are no details yet, but it appears a husband shot and killed his wife in a room at the Hotel ZaZa in Uptown last night. I was in Hotel ZaZa once. I did not belong in Hotel ZaZa.
  • The Messenger has a story of a "Man shot in back" in three different formats and they've never named him. Come on. 
  • Trump signed a 9/11 bill yesterday and said this about being at Ground Zero: "Many of those affected were firefighters, police officers and other first responders. And I was down there also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you." That, of course, is a lie. He was actually calling a radio show to shockingly brag about now having tallest building in Manhatten (which also was a lie.)
  • He also made a joke about the bill being so big the stage might fall "but if it does it's not falling very far." His brain is a wonderland.
  • Police in Arizona made the news yesterday. First, it's illegal. Second, if the cops see a bag of cocaine in the passenger seat, a conviction is impossible. Third, who wants to be bugged by the cops when you're trying to get somewhere? Fourth, it's government promoting a private business at taxpayer expense. 
  • The Messenger also had a story of a guy who was hit by a car on 287 in Rhome early Saturday morning. About four hours earlier, Mrs. LL almost hit a guy in the exact same area who was only inches from the fog line. No way to know if it was the same guy.
  • Anyone else uncomfortable with a 25 year old teaching a 21 year old to fly? 
  • A faithful reader sent me this picture of a bird who "fell onto a car right in front of" a Decatur resident. That thing looks very weird. (It looks like it was plucked and placed there, but they swear they saw it fall from the sky.)
  • Yesterday in the Messenger's Update: "Funerals - None pending." I haven't seen that in forever.
  • I've gone into a weird study of early 1800s U.S. history over the last year and now I'm simultaneously reading Michner's Texas, watching Ken Burns old documentary The West, and listening to the audiobook of H.W. Brands' Andrew Jackson. (I listened to the latter on my isolated Colorado hikes which was perfect.) Why is it I didn't care about the subject at all in my early life, but now can't get enough of it?
  • (1) No. (2) I never did think that.
  • More Zeke Elliott thoughts if the Cowboys don't pay him: Sit out this year and forego $3 million, but come back the next year at the contract salary of $9.1 million.  Then after that he's a free agent with -- and this is the key -- fresh legs. If the Cowboys then threaten to hit him with the franchise tag, I'd threaten to sit out again. He's proven he will. (Or, worst case, take the franchise tag money which will probably be at least $13 million by then.) In any event, not playing this year makes the most sense without a long term deal. $3 million is not worth the wear and tear on the short life of a NFL running back of his caliber.
  • He's up an whining like a toddler this morning and begging people to watch State TV.
  • And we learned he promoted the 1890 racist manifesto titled Might is Right or The Survival of the Fittest (but there is no way he was able to comprehend it) . . . . 

at 8:31 AM

7.29.2019

Random Monday Morning Thoughts



  • I'm back, but I must force the equivalent of a vacation slideshow upon you:
    • We drove to Colorado which might be one of my first road trips in year. At one point I fired up Vacation's "Holiday Road" which gave me great joy yet received a collective "meh" from the rest of the Family Unit.
    • We stopped at Amarillo on the way up because Mrs. LL wanted to see a friend, and I didn't mind seeing the Sod Poodles (the San Diego Padres' fantastically named AA team) as well as the Amarillo courthouse (the scene of Fort Worth's Cullen Davis' first trial and the almost-forgotten Oprah Winfrey beef defamation trial.)
      Davis at the Amarillo courthouse
      I was one of 6,811.
    • I didn't smell weed one time in Colorado and we even had lunch a BBQ joint in "Weed Town, USA" -- the home of 23 dispensaries.
    • Sixteen Year Old In The House after contemplating legalized weed: "That sounds real smart. I'm going to smoke some weed and then go ski off a mountain." Mrs. LL: "Mark that." 
    • And I'm very disappointed in law enforcement. We were in a rented SUV with California plates and wasn't profiled one time for weed trafficking on the way home. And I had prepped the occupants of the car to shut up if we got stopped because we weren't answering any questions regarding, "We're ya'll coming from today?"
    • I found the greatest brief stretch of desolate land just north of Amarillo and east of small town called Channing.  It was right out of No Country for Old Men.
    • I took a long hike to some place called Mohawk Lake and was rewarded with seeing the water's edge just feet away after climbing up the last steep incline. It was like seeing an infinity pool with infinity interrupted by a mountain. (That's my finger in the corner.)
    • I'm now part of the 14ers' Club having hiked to the top of the 14,265 foot Quandary Peak. Side note: It ain't easy. It took around 4 hours up to the peak, and the air is a tad thin up there.
  • Things I missed while away:
    • I saw that the Republicans mocked the "performance" of Robert Mueller - a Republican who was appointed by a Republican AG under a Republican president to investigate a Republican president.
    • A former Fort Worth Country Day kid was accused of murdering a classmate at Old Miss. (I want to know that guy's background among Fort Worth's high tone social circles.)
    • A defendant on trial in Johnson County slit his throat during trial -- and I later found out he was represented by Wise County's own Paul Belew. 
    • Trump, after watching a segment on Fox News, went on a racist rant against Baltimore and the elderly African-American Congressman Elijah Cummings. (He's really doubling down on the White Supremacist vote.) Ironically, even Fox News' Chris Wallace was taken aback the next day:
    • A lawsuit, which was laughable when it was filed, was dismissed.
    • A U.S. citizen and Dallas resident was held captive by ICE for three weeks because he had brown skin. (But no high-ranking Texas official objected since Chick-fil-A wasn't involved.)
    • Trump's base cheered a Supreme Court ruling which allowed him to steal $2 billion from the military to allegedly build a tiny sliver of  The Wall which he had promised that Mexico was going to pay for in the first place. 
  • Great question:
  • I'm giddy about the new Texas Monthly cover story on my nemesis: Pastor Robert Jeffress.
  • Oh, Mike. 
  • Here's a six-year old victim of a mass shooting in California last night.
  • So Zeke Elliott is holding out. If you want to know how bad the players' union is in the NFL, look at how he is bound to the Cowboys simply because he was "drafted" by them -- an event he had no say in: He's under his initial mandatory four year contract for this year, the Cowboys have already exercised the team's option to keep him from being a free agent next year, and they could slap a franchise tag on him for at least three years for the 2021 through 2023 seasons. After all that time, his value will be nothing. 

    at 8:29 AM

    7.22.2019

    Random Monday Morni . . . [insert sound of record scratch]

    Well, faithful readers, it is the worst week of the year. The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, who is always here for you, is on a week's vacation. It'll be tough for for you, I know. Sure at this moment you consider yourself just like the girl who is sick of her boyfriend's act and rejoices once he's gone, she nevertheless will miss him.

    But don't fret. I'll be back in a week.
    at 8:30 AM

    7.19.2019

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







    at 2:00 PM

    Random Friday Morning Thoughts




    • I haven't mention much about the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 this week, but I am old enough to remember it. Sorta. I don't remember the launch at all, but I do remember hurrying home from Vacation Bible School commencement to watch the moon walk. (But it's all a little fuzzy.) One memory is clear: Staring up at the moon that week and trying to wrap my head around how we were there. 
    • As Michael Collins watched Armstrong and Aldrin leave to go to the moon's surface, you know it crossed his mind multiple times that he might have to go home alone. He had to have been trained for such an event since every scenario had been considered. Even Nixon had a speech written in case all three men died on the journey. It's here. 
    • It looks like Wendy Davis will run for Chip Roy's congressional seat which covers an area near Austin. She'll beat him. Each of the last three Republican vs. Democrat race in that district has gone to the Republican but the margin has been shrinking each year. Roy won last time by a margin of 50.3% to 47.5%. She has name recognition and will benefit from the anti-Trump wave. 
    • How do you get away from a storm of controversy of being a racist and news that you used to party with Jeffrey Epstein? Start a war with Iran.  
    • There was a shooting at Fort Worth Buck's Cabaret in north Fort Worth last week. Now police have made some public lewdness arrests (names and ages in link.) 
    • When you've lost The Mooch, you've lost America.
    • Sports or Sports-like: (1) Former Aggie coach Jackie Sherrill has settled a lawsuit against the NCAA that he filed in 2004. (2) David Duval shot a 15 on one hole at the British Open. Then it was changed to a 13. Nope. They changed it to a 14. Explained. (3) The open weekend of college football season has College GameDay coming back to Sundance Square. 
    • Here's a followup on The Washington Post's opiod/pain pill analysis of DEA data because I can't believe it is this detailed: "From 2006 to 2012 there were 14,175,520 prescription pain pills supplied to Wise County, Tex." Below are the top five pharmacies, ranked. (For any county in the U.S. go here and scroll down until you see "Find the data for where you live.")
    • More proof of Idiocracy.  (For those who aren't has hip as me, A$AP Rocky is a rapper who got in a brawl in Stockholm.)
    • So you  think "Go back home!" or "Send her back!" yelled by a white crowd in North Carolina isn't racist?  Or Lindsey Graham using the shortcut code word of "communist" isn't racist? The Klan in North Carolina would like a word with you.   
    • He lied. Again. He let it go for 13 seconds and never told them to stop. Watch the exchange here (it has a split screen of the 13 seconds with a timer which makes you realize 13 seconds is a long time in that context.) 
    • This is fascinating. Bob Sturm of the Ticket was watching the 1977 NFC Championship Game of the Cowboys/Vikings played at Texas Stadium because he's a nerd. Out of the blue, the broadcast cut to a guy on fire in the stands. (Watch that portion here.) Sturm posted it on Twitter and the Irving Fire Department saw it. Yesterday, two guys from the department who had researched the case went up to the studio for a couple of segments. They explained that the guy who caught on fire was in a snowman outfit which the department still has (photo below of the snowman head.) The guy caught on fire when a sixteen year old high school student, who was involved in a concession fund raiser but was walking up the aisle carrying a lit container of Sterno to keep warm on the very cold day, bumped the snowman. 
    • That Cowboys' clip begins with Tony Dorsett being run out of bounds. Dorsett, who might be my favorite running back of all time, could look cool even on a play like that. (The Cowboys won that game which was actually played on January 1, 1978.)
    • Also on The Ticket yesterday, this guy called in. 
    • Former left winger and now Fox News golden boy Alan Dershowitz has been linked to Jeffrey Esptein and he's fighting back in the weirdest of ways. (David Boies is a famous lawyer who is representing one of the victims in a civil case): 
    • A 24 year old inmate in Bexar County has died after two weeks in jail. He was incarcerated on a possession under a gram charge which requires mandatory probation for first time offenders. But he didn't have the money to make bail. 
    • Greg Abbott, who doesn't know the first thing about criminal law, instructed locally elected prosecutors to go ahead and file marijuana cases without a lab report even thought proving the case requires a lab report. Incredible. He will be ignored by DAs and CAs. Stay in your lane, bro.

    at 8:30 AM

    7.18.2019

    Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



    • In a disturbing scene last night in North Carolina, Trump stood back, soak in, and relished in his base screaming "Send her back!" after he attacked Rep. Ihlan Omar. And make no mistake, "send her back" (forcible removal of an American citizen) is a big step from the simply racist "go back home" (voluntarily leave).  Watch it. 
    • I'm one of those who are very reluctant to compare Trump to Hitler but this is getting seriously disturbing. We've all seen the footage of Hitler going on rants in front of rambunctious all white crowds and then staring out at them as the Smug and Angry Leader as they applaud. But name the last time an American president whipped an all white crowd into a frenzy as they screamed for the forced removal of a minority from the country? It's never been close to this.
    • Exactly.
    • And he also dropped two GD bombs last night in his speech to the Family Values crowd.  I'm sure Robert Jeffress and Franklin Graham will be on with Lou Dobbs later to say, again, that God has anointed Trump. 
    • Doing a 180: It seems the very wheels off Facebook page of "Wise County Rant and Rave" has been "archived" and will no longer accept new posts or comments.  From people parking in handicapped spaces, to the outing of alleged infidelity, to a neighbor's cow eating a person's trees, it's was bizarrely entertaining.
    • Shout out again to West Wise Special Utility District. The guys showed up bright and early, found the leak, and fixed it. It took a backhoe, but they were as careful as they could be. (I don't think I would have found this thing with a shovel -- assuming I could have gotten past a couple of gallon sized rocks.) 
    • Someone brought up Dakota Fanning yesterday, and I wondered what she had been up to. Well, I'll be: She is playing former Manson Family member and attempted assassin of Gerald Ford, Squeaky Fromme, in Quentin Tarantino's upcoming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
    • There's been a lot of discussion of the DWI history of Jonathan Moore who is in jail for two counts of Intoxication Manslaughter in the death of a former Dallas city councilman and her daughter. Amazingly, both Dallas PD and the Dallas DA haven't figured out they could charge the guy with first degree murder. It's a creative legal theory to get there, but it's been around since at least 2006.
    • It appears that The Ticket's Junior Miller is dating (and possibly engaged to) Fox 4's Natalie Solis. 
    • This "property hearing" is going on in Wise County's Justice of the Peace #3 this afternoon. Those are weird proceedings where the government gets to forfeit and keep property if the property was acquired by theft and the rightful owner doesn't make a claim for it. Of course, when no one knows who the rightful owner is, the State gets to win these proceedings almost all the time. 
    • Hey, the Wise County judge has his picture in the Wichita Falls paper. I hope he brings a load of that broadband home with him. (I'm trying to remember Wise County's first Internet provider. Was it Webfire or something like that?)






    at 8:34 AM
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