- The Board:
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| New yesterday: +24,713 |
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| Total deaths: 69,921 |
- Texas (we continue to head the wrong way):
- Tarrant (red - down) / Dallas (blue - up) /Denton (purple -down). Dallas County had a record day of 237 new cases:
- Wise County: 27 total. 5 active. You know, the total number of cases has been sneakily on the uptick lately.
- Here's an interesting twist: What are the national numbers if you back out New York state which is now seeing a reduction in new cases? Here ya go:
- The big news yesterday was the revised projections for total deaths. For a while, the projections were at 100,000 deaths and then they were revised downward in April to 60,000. That changed dramatically yesterday. That same model, which Trump had trumpeted before, "nearly doubled its prediction Monday for how many people will die from the virus in the U.S. by August – primarily because states are reopening too soon. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine is now projecting 134,000 coronavirus-related fatalities . . . ." Oh, my.
- There are good bits, and there are bad bits.
- We had new guidelines issued by the state of Texas yesterday for any in-person court proceedings in June and beyond. Presiding judges must submit a plan for approval before anything can happen. And that plan must include how the following will be handled:
- Have you ever been in the Wise County Courthouse? The elevator is smaller than a hotel closet, the stairwell is narrow, and "common areas" are few and therefore packed during any dockets. I don't know how you pull this off because "social distancing" isn't physically possible. Not that I'm for it or against it, but the county might have to rent the big conference room of the Decatur Convention Center.
- Wait, there's more. How do you pull the following off? Seriously, say you've got a misdemeanor case pending and have a court date. Is court security going to ask if you have a headache, and if you answer "yes" you will not be allowed to enter? And someone is going to be taking peoples' temperatures? The submitted plan must explain:
- The mayor and mayor pro tem in the city of New Fairview (Wise County's version) were yelling at each other last night. Expect more of that in the future.
- I championed this photo by Tom Fox of the Dallas Morning News from last year from the moment I saw it, and now it is a finalist for a Pulitzer. (Side note: There are a million stories on the home page of the News this morning, and this is not one of them.)
- A couple of faithful readers pointed out the Texas sales tax numbers I posted yesterday were for March and not April. The big dip will be April.
- They are fighting in Hood County. Apparently, the County Attorney announced he would not prosecute those which violated coronavirus orders and allegedly went to work out in a gym that should have been closed. This made the county judge mad. (h/t Bud Kennedy.)
- The Thirsty Armadillo in the Stockyards and the Katy Trail Ice House in Dallas received citations after opening up.
- My very unofficial observation of the restaurants on the courthouse square around 6:00 p.m. yesterday: Not that busy at all.
- There are absolutely no details about this other than the arrest was at 2:15 a.m. But the "while on duty" got my attention.
- I didn't expect Jason Witten, the hero of the common man, to have a 8,841 square foot house in Westlake that he is selling for $4.6 million. And why sell it? He'll play one or two years in Las Vegas at the most.
- I'm predicting something crazy out of Trump today -- a fairly easy prediction on any given day. But he'll be on Air Force 1 for a long time to get back and forth to Phoenix just to tour a mask production line. Once there, he'll get to free style in front of the cameras.
- The Board.
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| Total cases: 1,188,122 |
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| Total deaths: 68,598 |
- Texas (we headed in the right direction?)
- Tarrant (red), Dallas (blue), Denton (purple)
- Wise County: 24 total but with only 4 active cases. Have I missed it, or have none of the 24 agreed to be identified and interviewed? If I caught it, I'd talk about it in a New York minute just to let people know what it was like. Side note: As the most trusted newsman in the southwest proper, I'm going to need more updated stats than this:
- He's a punk, but he doesn't need to be locked up (assuming he'll now say the right things.) Although even my first reaction is to have him sit in the hoosegow for a little while. Video.
- If you want to vote by mail because you fear contracting the 'rona, Texas AG Ken Paxton says you can't because you're just being an emotional big baby.
- I appreciate a young reporter actually handing the mic over to the Grim Reaper on a Florida beach. (The guy in the outfit is some lawyer who likes bits.)
- These "very good people" showed up to protect the hair salon in Dallas which opened in violation of state and county orders. Is there some kind of Dog Protective Services that we can call to check on the welfare of the good puppy dog?
- Texas sales tax collections were down 9% from April compared to a year ago. And although that's a heck of a blow to the budgets of governmental entities, I'm stunned it's only 9%.
- How do the airlines survive this?
- The Grab Em By The P crowd was pretty excited about the sexual assault allegations made by Tara Reade against Joe Biden. However, that seemed to have petered out over the weekend after Biden's appearance on Morning Joe and Reade's cancellation of her interview on Fox News. Oh, by the way, this tweet below which was shared thousands and thousands of times, shows Biden with Zoe Baird. (Side note: I had completely forgotten about Zoe Baird, but her claim to fame was the first Nanny-gate.)
- The family of Otto Warmbier probably doesn't feel the same way.
- It's the anniversary of the Kent State Massacre. We've all seen the famous photo, but I don't think I had ever seen the pictures of all the victims.
- A Houston PD helicopter crashed and killed one. Video. No one knows the cause, but the police chief wouldn't rule out the aircraft being shot down by saying, "It is not commonly known that law enforcement aviation comes under fire on a regular basis across our country."
- Andy Dalton is now the backup quarterback for the Cowboys. Flashback: I'm still amazed Dalton wasn't scarred for life.
- It's May 4th and time for my sporadic reminder that I've always thought Star Wars was a boring dud. And I actually saw it the first time in a theater. Give me any TV episode of Captain Kirk looking at the big video screen plotting his strategy any day of the week.
- I'm sorry, but I think Vernon's thermometer is on the fritz. There's no way it was 108 on Saturday.
- Very random thing I watched this weekend: Texas losing to Kansas (which had lost 19 Big 12 games in a row) in Charlie Strong's last year in 2016. Odd notes: Texas scored on the first play of the game with a 75 yard touchdown pass, and they had a running back that carried the ball 51 times for 251 yards. And lost.
- I'm not particularly stressed by the Coronavirus Problems, but I've been dreaming like nobody's business lately. And although they aren't my usual back-in-school-and-unprepared dream, in all of them I'm in a situation facing a massive problem that I can't solve.
- The Blue Angels will waste your taxpayer dollars in Fort Worth on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m.
- Messenger: Above the Fold
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| (Yeah, I know.) |
- The Board:
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| Total: 1,095,023 |
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| Total deaths: 63,856 |
- Texas (That doesn't exactly look like a chart for a state which "opens up" today. And it doesn't show that we set a daily record with 50 new deaths reported on Thursday.):
- Tarrant County (and throwing in Dallas since they had a record high for new cases reported):
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| Dallas |
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| Tarrant |
- Wise County: Oh, my! Right after 10:00 p.m last night we were updated to six active cases. (20 total. 12 recovered. 2 deaths.) Remember that the threshold for 50% opening vs. 25% opening is five active cases. As of last night, per KXAS, we haven't been cleared for the 50% number and the numbers are in a state of flux:
- I noticed that Brandi's Country Kitchen on the square in Decatur was open for business this morning at 6:00 a.m. There weren't many people there yet so I don't know how they are going to handle the restrictions.
- Every time I even remotely consider that it might be time to "completely open up" I change my mind by simply at looking at the people which strongly support it. Michigan was bizarro world yesterday.
- They are, in fact, his people. Very good people. Not to be confused with "very fine people."
- Trump said yesterday at his press conference that he seen "convincing evidence" that the coronavirus was created in a Wuhan lab. So what is it that proof? “I can't tell you that. I'm not allowed to tell you that." He just makes stuff up on the fly every day -- especially when it comes to blaming others. (Moments earlier, his own Office of the Director of National Intelligence had issued a statement saying the intelligence community “concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified”.)
- I have no idea how they are going to handle fall sports. And that's not the most optimistic projection from the Big 12 commissioner.
- One thing is certain: There is no portion of I-35 that isn't under construction at any date in history. And this project from Round Rock to South Austin will be a nightmare. (But at least there is that tollway to loop around it if you aren't headed into downtown Austin.)
- Amber Guyger has awakened in a cage for the last 213 days since this happened.
- Cities, towns and the State are bracing themselves for a shocker today: "Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said on a Thursday call with the Texas GOP that his office will release on Friday state sales tax revenues for the past month. Hegar said his office would have normally held off on releasing the total until next week, but, as he noted on the call, 'they are unprecedented numbers — how quick they have gone down.'”
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