- It Christmas Eve. Almost all offices are closed. Locat TV stations have a skeleton crew. The Messenger building is empty. There is no Update. But look who is the HWMISB.
- I've never understood the news stations doing a Santa Radar showing Santa's sleigh filling up 1/3 of the screen. Why not make it a blip? Kids would actually get sucked in by that.
- I don't care at all about the new Star Wars movie, but I can't avoid people arguing about it. But I've got a question. What's so great about J.J. Abrams? Look at this list. There's not a "great American movie" on it. (The cable friendly Joy Ride might be the most entertaining one on the list, and it's a low-budget guilty pleasure.)
- I used to do my Christmas shopping every year on the 23rd. It was just me. Then came along a wife and online shopping. I haven't been in a store at Christmas time in a decade. And one of those has saved me a ton of money.
- Draining the Swamp update.
- Good thing Trump never uses the presidency for profit. You know, like Mar-a-Lago hosting an expensive dinner for a "non-profit" conservative group charging $2,500 a ticket.
- Or that
Biden's son Trump Jr. is speaking for a fee simply because of his last name.
- Or that "family values" isn't under attack since he's bringing his ex-Fox News girlfriend which he left his wife and five kids for.
- Or that Fox News' Mark Levin is there to attack the media for being biased while being paid to support a political candidate.
- Or that the lead speaker is Jerry Falwell Jr. who has endured a Pool Boy Scandal this year.
- (Sure it's Christmas. But these folks should never, ever get a break.)
- Why did Ted Cruz decide to light a cigar and smoke it during his online video blasting the new spending bill? Attacking the bill is great, but why the cigar? Did he want to look like a Washington fat cat? He's smarter than that.
- The next bullet point is completely wrong. I spent 10 minutes researching UTEP football before I wrote it. And why did I do that? I saw the graphic and thought they were talking about today's Hawaii Bowl. I'm an idiot. The graphic referred to a basketball game. (By the way, UTEP went 0-11 this season.)
- Everyone talks about Baylor's turnaround, but UTEP's season slipped past me. After going 0-12 and 1-11 the last two years, they went 8-3 this year and will play in a bowl game in Honolulu.
- Ticket fans only: Speaking of online mistakes, Former Morning News TV critic Barry Horn tweeted this morning that the Cowboys next game in Washington will be the late game on Fox. So I thought I'd make a funny since the game is in Dallas. He then deleted his tweet. Come on. Media guys are the most sensitive people in the world.
- Tech Flashback: In 1994, I created a Microsoft Access Database for the DA's office. (I had just authorized, for the first time ever, a desktop for all employees with a server, and I was hell-bent on making the office as cutting edge as I could.) There was one problem: I designed the thing at home on my free time and the final file was so large that there was no way to move it. DVD drives didn't exist and, even though I had a CD burner, the new Access program wouldn't fit on a CD. The solution? I had to go buy something that existed for only a blink of an eye in the tech world: A Zip Drive. (Pic below). It cost almost $200 and could write a file that held 100 megabytes. I was reminded of that this week when I bought a portable 1 terabyte hard drive for $50. (Side note: I bought the Zip Drive out of my pocket because I thought it was too extravagent of a purchase for the taxpayers. And you guys think I'm a liberal, huh?)
- Messenger: Above the Fold
- Cowboy Tears for Christmas is not what you wanted.
- Flashback:
- About three months ago, a man was arrested by federal marshals on a Wise County murder charge for an incident occurring at a cockfight outside of Bridgeport. He's still in jail, but I noticed that he is no longer being held on a murder charge but instead is charged with Tampering of Evidence of a Human Corpse.
- I watched some of the Texas high school playoffs, but none of the games were nail-biters. Other than Waco La Vega, the team that beat Decatur in the semis last year, losing in the finals, and the "greatest trick play in kickoff return history" (which even my Bridgeport Freshman team ran), this was the only other thing that was entertaining was . . .
- I know I'm defending a case that just may have reasonable doubt written all over it when, last Friday, a guy comes to visit me at my office and hands me this card:
- On Friday we learned that 90 minutes after Trump's "perfect call" to the Ukraine president, the White House withheld the military aid. Let me say it again: Why don't the Republicans just admit he did what he did but just say they think it was no big deal? At least be honest.
- I noticed that Robert Jeffress money-changing side gig, Pathway to Victory, was aired at midnight on, appropriately, the Fox Business Channel.
- I don't know what I think about Gov. Abbott doing bits.
- Speaking of Cruz, he fired off a hot opinion about the federal government raising the cigarette smoking age to 21 because adults should "make that choice" whether to smoke because of "liberty." Uh, Ted, now do weed.
- Someone check on Santa.
- For those who remember my bullet point about the lawyer suing Allstate who fired off a bunch of over-the-top profane emails to opposing counsel, well the federal judge hauled him into court. The entire audio of the hearing is here. Highlights: The lawyer was sitting in the gallery and didn't make his presence known until about six minutes in, and the judge saying, “This is not the day to be cute. And I am not that guy.”
- I've always thought it was odd that ignition interlock devices (those "blow devices" required in cars normally because of a DWI probation) not only require you to blow into it to start the car but also blow into it while you are driving (called a "rolling test.") Apparently I had a reason to be concerned per the New York Times:
- Messenger: Above the Fold
- I have never, ever considered a hamburger a sandwich, yet yesterday my favorite radio station crucified someone for saying that exact thing. Afterwards, Google was not my friend. I'm disturbed by this revelation.
- This story is getting a lot of attention. Woman dies. Husband, who has been dead ten years, found in freezer. Wife may have cashed VA checks. But everyone is going nuts over this: "In another strange twist, officers found a letter signed by [the dead husband] and notarized on December 2, 2008, stating that Jeanne was not the one responsible for his death. Police say the notary said she did not read the letter before notarizing it." That's the way it is supposed to be. A notary's purpose is to provide later proof that the signature of John Q. Public was indeed signed by John Q. Public, and she knows it was John Q. Public because she saw his ID or knew him personally.
- Every day that exists where Trump stands impeached but not yet acquitted in the Senate is a day that drives him insane.
- Christianity Today came out with an article stating how ridiculous it was for Christians to support Trump, and that he should be removed from office. Predictably, Trump was not happy and responded this morning. There's a lot going on here. The magazine is far left? It supports someone who wants to take your guns? What's guns got to do with this? And he won't be reading "ET" any longer? Did he mean "CT"? And if he did mean Christianity Today, does he think we believe he was actually reading it?
- I didn't watch the Democrat debate, but I see that there was a battle over "wine caves." I had seen the photograph of Buttigieg having a big time fundraiser in a fancy room, but I had no idea that's what the high-tone room was called. I was just couldn't get past the guy wearing shorts.
- Sarah Sanders deleted a tweet last night and then apologized after she made fun of Joe Biden during the debate showing sympathy for those who stutter -- an ailment he has suffered from. #BeBest
- I saw this photo captioned only with "43 Years Ago Today." I didn't remember it and had to look it up. That's from a NFL playoff game in Baltimore as the crowd was filing out.
- Christmas in Fort Worth in 1924. That's not that long ago. Heck, my grandfather was a young man in 1924.
- A Texas prosecutor is here because of President Obama's DACA program. He will also be deported if the Supreme Court agrees with Trump to kill the program. (I wonder if Mexico will also pay for a wall to keep him out once we kick him out.)
- Speaking of Obama, what's he been up to? The video reminds you of how it used to be.
- There is a crazy case out of Austin right now involving a woman who went missing along with her three month old. Overnight her body was found in a trunk of a car at "a home" outside of Houston, but the baby was found alive inside. Fox 4 had a Twitter post about it early this morning, but I was stopped down by a comment.
- I looked at MDG Austin MAGA's account out of curiosity. It's so strange. Most of it is just retweets of right wing propaganda with a ton of retweets of Q Conspiracy theories. It has all the hallmarks of a Russian Bot, but I can't explain how it could specifically respond to a Fox 4 post. Maybe a keyword generated response, but even that doesn't make sense. "Discernment."
- Here's another funny one from the "Batman Signs" twitter account. Batman was in a pickle, but at least the Joker had applied for a patent.
- It seems like there are a lot of missing women out of Austin. The story on the front page isn't related to the woman found in the trunk overnight.
- Like it or not, a U.S. president has been impeached for only the third time in history.
- The Impeachment of Trump has a weird twist to it when compared to Clinton. With Clinton, the Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate. Although the Senate didn't have enough votes to convict, the Republicans controlled the "hand off" of the Articles of Impeachment from the House to the Senate. That's not happening here. The House gave notice last night that they won't present the Articles to the Senate until there is some indication as to how the trial will be handled. This is exactly like a DA getting an indictment from the grand jury but not "presenting" it to the District Clerk. Until he does, the indictment doesn't have a cause number and the court doesn't have jurisdiction. It doesn't happen very often, but it can happen.
- Nancy Pelosi, quickly admonishing the few Democrats who cheered at the announcement of the vote on Trump's impeachment, reminded us all what if felt like to be a child:
- Trump blew off steam in Michigan last night.
- Oh, I should have known. The government is not tracking your vehicle to bust you for having weed legally purchased in Colorado in your car -- it's all instead for the greater good.
- Very random tangent:
- I mentioned Kidd Kraddick just the other day (after for some reason thinking about "Butterfly Kisses") and now the headline below is on the home page of the Dallas Morning News. This is happening more and more to me -- the random and obscure reference which then pops into my life in some way in the next few days. Seriously, after I wrote the Kraddick bullet point, even I thought it was extremely weird. And now the name is relevant. (But I think this phenomenon has a name.)
- Speaking of that phenomenon to the extreme: I had a very weird experience earlier this year when I was cleaning out my office and made the decision to throw away an old 2014 issue of Texas Monthly. I had saved it because it had the story of former Montague County DA Tim Cole's reflections about the prosecution of the killers of an Oklahoma cheerleader. I walked to the office kitchen and put the magazine in the trash. Less than fifteen minutes later, I met with a DWI client who, out of nowhere, brought up how he grew up "in that area where the Oklahoma cheerleader's body was found" and asked, "You ever hear about that?" I went and dug the magazine out of the trash to show it to him in order to prove I was just thinking about a murder from 1996.
- The other weird experience this year was when an investigator up at the courthouse just casually asked me if I had ever heard of a "Ladybird Deed." (Nope. Never. I'm a criminal guy. Not a real estate guy.) The next morning, out of nowhere, my one and only assistant came in and asked me to look at a deed for a friend because of one particular paragraph. "I know you don't do this stuff, but could you look?" She had never asked me to look at a deed before. I read it, Googled the deed provision's terms, and "Ladybird deed" popped up. The two (the investigator's question and my assistant's question) were 100% unrelated.
- And if you want to see Mrs. LL go all slump shouldered on me, just watch me ask her, "Do you think it's possible we are all living in a computer simulation and there's now a glitch in my system?" You know, things I "think" affecting my "reality."
- But it kind of freaked her out last September when I had a bullet point that I "had no idea who Hammurabi was" (I had read it in the book Texas) and then, two days later, she was watching Better Call Saul on Netflix. As she watched Season 1, Episode 2, she witnessed Saul defuse a situation by asking a potential killer if he was familiar with the "Code of Hammurabi."
- Unrelated, but I should have watched the Six Man football game I referenced yesterday. Sounds exciting.
- This has not aged well.
- A Bowie City Councilman and the Mayor got all hot and bothered at each other in the office, and it's on tape with a grainy murky video. It's about as entertaining as you would expect. (We even got the ol' that's-not-a-threat-that's-promise thrown in.)
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