2.10.2020

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




  • Baylor suspended 14 baseball players two games each for "hazing" last year. I'll never understand why one human being wants to inflict cruelty on another for "fun."  And I don't understand the Baylor press release telling us that it's "important to note" that drugs or alcohol weren't involved. I suppose it must be better to engage in ungodly acts while completely sober. 
  • The Dallas Morning News keeps promoting this story about the "tiny" skyscraper in Wichita Falls which was allegedly built after a con man duped investors by using misleading plans: It called for a height of 480" instead of 480'.  But the story then tells us "there's no documented proof" about the scam and that "no one has ever been able to disprove the story about inches and feet." 
  • Someone made an Open Records request to the Tarrant County DA's office, the DA's office complied, then the DA's office said we gave you some stuff that we weren't supposed to so give it back or we'll sue you. I'm not sure it works that way. 
  • There's not a criminal law practitioner with half a brain who doesn't have alarms going off with this one. And I know one Wise County prosecutor who has preached and preached to the cops about this. 
  • I went to an "Escape Room" this weekend and learned something: I'm not smart enough to go to an escape room. 
  • I also ended up in downtown Roanoke. Good lord. When did all that happen? It's the restaurant capitol of the Southwest proper. I remember when Roanoke had one grocery store and basically nothing else. 
  • Trump retaliated against impeachment witnesses Sondland and Vindman (who was escorted out of the White House) on Friday. I'm still waiting to hear if someone ended up with a horse's head in their bed. 
  • You might have missed this over the weekend.
  • The Ticket has a segment called Homer Call of the Week. The winner this year was the booth from Dumas High School in their 38-35 last second playoff win over Decatur. It has some "send 'em home", "thank you, Jesus", "shock the nation", a mysterious $5 bet, and Journey's Don't Stop Believing. (You can hear it here at the 8:00 mark.)  No Wise County school has a dedicated play-by-play and color man for any type of broadcast, right? 
  • And another. (Louisiana).
  • The case of the Yogurt Shop Murders in Austin is now almost 20 30 years old, and they still don't know who did it. (They got a couple of convictions based upon coerced confession but those men were later freed, and new DNA testing matched an unknown individual.)  I read a book about the case recently and was struck by the initial lead detective's position in the case when it was first assigned to him: Despite his standard being probable cause, he was going to take his time and wasn't going to make an arrest until there was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. He wasn't going to be wrong. He got thrown off the case, and a cluster of an investigation later followed which would ruin and taint the careers of many prosecutors and cops. (I thought about it again this weekend because the Austin American Statesman had a new story about the case.)
  • No way I'm watching any of the XFL. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold.


at 8:32 AM

2.07.2020

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






at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • I'm still in a funk about my missed snow forecast. Here's a map of the ultimate snowfall. Look how close we were. It was as if there was a force-field around Wise County's borders.
    My graphics team made that little yellow arrow thingy.
  • “We were treated unbelievably unfairly, and you have to understand we first went through Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all bullshit.” - The President of the United States before his cabinet and members of Congress in the White House.
    That's an extremely white audience for a very diverse nation.
  • Trump is going to be Trump. But I can't get over the audience just fawning over him like he's a Supreme Ruler as he rants like a madman. (Rhetorically and historically speaking, haven't we seen this before?) They just waited out in the audience like children waiting for their king to say their name and praise them. It's just flat out weird.
  • What's next? Is every Valedictorian of every high school going to use the word "bullshit" in their Valedictorian speech because the President of the United States has gas-lighted them to do so? Why not? 
  • I think its a big deal that the hospital in Bowie closed. 
  • One faithful reader took at the Pat Mahomes photo I posted yesterday of him wearing the photoshopped Kansas/Missouri mix-up shirt and noticed the necklace of his girlfriend. That man is in control of his scene. 
  • The attack from big money on Kay Granger is real and just a little sleazy. This is all funded by a Super PAC.


  • Speaking of big money, one candidate for Congress a Texas House seat Dr. Glenn Rogers, withdrew from a public forum yesterday because of the Empower Texans Super PAC connection. He's right. Empower Texans is basically two rich guys out of West Texas, and now the son-in-law of one of them is running against Rogers. Roger then learned that the moderator of the forum works for Empower Texans and had already done a hit piece on him.  
  • Legal stuff which became a way-too-long-bullet-point-which-will-only-interest-two-of-you all because I saw a Washington Post story: Little Tom Green County made national news  in a Prosecutors vs. One Defense lawyer battle. 
    • The defense lawyer filed an appeal in a case involving a guy named Carpenter after his probation was revoked. She argued that the original lawyer who negotiated the plea bargain was ineffective  because, in her view, all plea bargains are unconstitutional. It's a novel argument, but the DA's office had to use resources to fight the appeal.  Importantly, the defense lawyer lost but is still pending further review. 
    • But the DA's office had a plan: Hey, Ms. Defense Lawyer, if we reach a plea bargain with you with any of your future cases and clients, we want you to sign a waiver that says,  “In no way do I believe this defendant’s plea of guilty in exchange for the State’s punishment recommendation in this case to have violated my client’s constitutional rights, including his due-process rights.” 
    • She wouldn't do it and had to withdraw from ten cases since the DA's office wouldn't try to work out the cases unless she signed the waiver as part of the deals. That's not fair to the clients so she got out. 
    • She then filed a federal civil suit against the DA's office.  I appreciate her spunk. 
    • So here's what I think is going on: (1) The DA's office wants her to sign the waiver to foreclose her trying to appeal the current plea bargained cases - most which would be probations which would only be appealed if the defendant screwed up and got revoked. (2) The  DA's office would also try to use her affirmation against her in the still pending Carpenter appeal. It probably wouldn't work, but worth a try.  (3) The defense lawyer is suing in federal court saying the policy targeting her is a violation of her Free Speech rights which, I think, has a heck of a lot more merit than you would think. 
  • I've said it before: I think there's a good chance Michael Bloomberg catches fire in the next two months and wins the Democratic nomination. 
  • This morning we learned, thanks only to journalism and a free press, that the Secret Service has been paying Trump's properties up to $650 a night for a room when he goes golfing. 

at 8:33 AM

2.06.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • If you haven't seen the police chase along the parade route for the Kansas City Chiefs, you need to. It's amazing someone wasn't killed. 
  • A close second was a guy climbing a tree with his pants falling down with an unfortunate (?) ending. Watch.
  • I had to explain the concept of "Baptist Guilt" to Mrs. LL yesterday: The nagging guilt, however slight, created due to doing anything at any given point in time which is not considered to be fulfilling responsibilities or expectations created by a self-imposed and unrealistic moral and ethical code. (My definition.)  Example: Mrs. LL stayed home yesterday when she probably could have made it to work. She then voluntarily did a lot of work from a laptop when her boss didn't expect it. So I told her, "That should help you without your Baptist Guilt." I then learned she has no Baptist Guilt. She also then pointed out that would be a miserable way to live a life. 
  • This was floating around yesterday. I think the answer is easy. No. Freaking. Way. 
  • Trump escaped impeachment 48-52 with Mitt Romney becoming the first Senator in American history to vote to impeach a president of his own party. My respect for Mormons just went up. He summed it up perfectly in a nutshell:  "There is no question in my mind that were their names not Biden, the President would never have done what he did." The Salt Lake City Tribune supported his decision this morning. 
  • Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning. 
  • Speaking of prayer and faith, I'm not familiar with Christopher Harris but he wasn't joking this morning. Watch. 
  • Get me that T-shirt. 
  • I've said it before, if you drive down I-35 from Denton to Fort Worth, the number of gigantic warehouses that you see is mind-boggling. I always wonder what's going on in each of them. 
  • Credit to BagOfNothing for posting a "Why don't you go back to Mexico then?" video. Incredible. 
  • As we wrap up impeachment talk, it occurred to me that what started it all was Trump wanting a story put "out there" that contained the words "Biden" and "corruption" in it. The details didn't matter. He got what he wanted a million times over. 

at 8:31 AM

2.05.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




  • Yes, I pegged the temperature exactly (33 degrees at 7:00 then dropping slightly), and, yes,  I predicted Wise County schools will be closed, but I'm off by a handful of miles on my snow prediction.  We've had sleet and some freezing rain, and snow is still possible between my closing window of 9:15 a.m., but at this point I'm prepared to accept the "L."  I mean I was soooo close! It's right there to the west! 
    I'm sorry I misled you, lady.
  • WFAA even showed up right outside my office at 3:58 a.m. to talk to me. (Hey, at least the poll was frozen.)
  • I think I'm now beginning to understand why local reporters are quitting. "Hey, Kalee, we need you up in Decatur at a live shot for our 4:00 a.m. newscast. And can ya get up their a little early so we can have a web clip or too?"
  • We had dueling pettiness at the State of the Union last night. Trump refused to shake Nancy Pelosi's hand in the beginning, and Pelosi tore up Trump's speech at the end. I'll be glad when we get back to normalcy. 
  • By my count this morning, Trump has tweeted or retweeted about Pelosi 23 times since he woke up. He mad. 
  • This guy served his wife with divorce papers while she was receiving cancer treatment, was having an affair while he was impeaching Clinton, was fined $300,000 by the House for ethics violations, and lost his House speakership to a pedophile because the pedophile was more likeable. 
  • I'll tell you one thing I actually despise about the State of the Union speech: Human props. Trump did it. Obama did it. Bush did it. Heck, I'm not even sure when it started, but I think it is so cheap. 
  • Rush Limbaugh ("I'm getting this award? Are you kidding? I had no idea this was announced five hours ago!") did his best Garth Brooks impersonation ("There are people here at this concert? I'm not alone here on stage? People paid money to see me?")
  • This doctor and his girlfriend were all over the news last year after a D.A. had a press conference to announce they had been charged for "drugging and sexually assaulting multiple women." A newly elected DA dismissed the charges yesterday saying there is no evidence to support the charge.  In America, how one person views the evidence can be the difference between incarceration and freedom. 
  • Anyone else think it's amazing that gas just above $2.00 a gallon? If you would have told me that when I was in high school and sitting in a gas line (yep, I did), I would have told you we were crazy. For a brief period of time back then, we weren't a hundred percent sure gas was going to even be available the next day. 
  • Put this in the Smithsonian.

  • House of Cards update:  Uber claims that it will have 3,000 very high paying jobs in Deep Ellum by the end of 2023. By the end of 2019, they said they would have 400 people hired. The now say they've "hired" only 150. And maybe these two are competent, but Uber has brought in a 25 and a 27 year old to do all the hiring. 
  • I don't care about Michigan State's long time coach suddenly retiring yesterday, but this got my attention:
  • Just as Jesus did, Jeffress is now hawking a new book online. He's even made it his masthead of his Twitter account. 
  • I'm off to look out the window and pray for a last second snow storm to save my impeccable track record. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold.

at 8:35 AM

2.04.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • I've emerged from my Wise County No Bits Allowed Expert Weather Lab wearing flowing robes and carrying a scroll. I now open it and shall read the following proclamation: "(1) It will snow. (2) The snow will primarily come down from 6:00 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. and then slowly taper off. (3) Here's the interesting part: At around 7:00 a.m., it will be slightly above freezing but the temperature will drop just below freezing after that and remain there all day. (4) And here's my boldest prediction in the history of ever: Schools will close." So let it be written. So let it be done. 
  • It's the year 2020, and we can't run an election of sparsely populated Iowa? How hard can it be? And they have to use an badly designed app?  It was already time to kill the Iowa Caucuses altogether so let's do it. 
  •  But CNN gets the Clever Graphics award
  • Tanner Brock of Alvord has been in the news lately after being indicted for murder in Denton County.  His name caught my attention when I saw that he was officially charged yesterday in Wise County for the misdemeanor offense of  Class B Theft. (CR-80258). I was going to create this bullet point with a "that's the least of his problems" comment, but then I saw something else: He was placed on probation on June 21, 2019 for Possession of a Firearm by a Felon. (CR-21321). He allegedly committed the Denton murder on October 25, 2019. 
  • If a mayor of a small town did this at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, everyone in the room would look at him and think, "What's wrong with him?" . . . . 
  • I heard an anti-Kay Granger ad on the radio and it was brutal. (It was a fake voice tree with things like, "Push 1 for Corruption." (Paraphrased.) It was paid for by "Club For Growth" PAC which I guessed was funded by Empower Texans but, after checking, I don't think it is.  Man, she is really in the cross-hairs of a lot of people with a lot of money. 
  • The new data is out for criminal prosecution in Texas for 2019.  In a continued trend of declining crime, misdemeanor prosecutions continue to reflect that. But why are the felony cases going up? Drugs. We are prosecuting more drugs. Exactly 1/3 of all new felony cases were for drugs. Source: Grits For Breakfast.
  • Man, the far right wing was really upset with that Super Bowl halftime show. 
  • Rush Limbaugh announced he has "advanced lung cancer." He's obviously not my cup of tea, but he's certainly talented. I don't know how anyone can do what he does. Try going into a room and talking to a wall for three hours. Then do it an make it entertaining. That takes talent. 
  • The Cowboys are leaning to putting the "franchise tag" on Dak Prescott. That would keep him a Cowboy for one year without a contract at a salary of $33 million.   It's a horrible position for the Cowboys to be in. You really don't want to pay a slightly above average quarterback a fortune in a long term deal, but what do you instead? But placing the tag on him doesn't bode well for the Cowboy/Dak relationship. 



at 8:32 AM
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