6.09.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts


  • Holy crap. Trump just did this. If you had "old man bleeding out of his ears had it coming" on your bingo card, you win.  He's a madman. He's a disinformation machine. The comparisons to Hitler losing his mind during the final days aren't that funny anymore. And he's getting his information from OANN!: 
  • There's no limit to the amount of contempt I feel for that man. And if you support him, you own him. All of him. He is your leader. You have no excuses. 
  • Now on to what I had written . . . 
  • As the Coronavirus now fights to regain headlines over protesting for social justice, this post about the combination of the two made me laugh. He ain't wrong. 
  • Wise County 'rona numbers: 55 total. 5 active.  But we've had two new deaths hit the books which brings that total up to 5 as well.  
  • Texas numbers for Monday was enough to cause the seven day average to trend upwards again. More importantly, we beat the record for the current number of hospitalizations which had been set on May 5th.  So the numbers were enough for us to shut down in April, huh? 
  • This report got lots of attention yesterday, but the headline also got roundly criticized as misleading. You might want to put it in your "I'm not sure about that" category -- a category which should be bulging at the seems. 
  • You think the stock market makes any sense? Yesterday the S&P recovered to such a point that it's the same now as it was on December 31, 2019. So it's just like 2020 never happened. 
  • It won't be a lot of peoples' cup of tea, but this week's episode of  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about policing in light of the murder of George Floyd is getting a lot of buzz -- especially the way the show ended. It's chilling. (Language warning.) 
  • We are seeing lots of police departments doing lots of 180s on these arrests.  And, note, they weren't arrested in Fort Worth for "rioting" they were arrested for being on the 7th Street Bridge and being tear gassed by police. One of them was from Bridgeport, but  I never did get a name. (My Faithful Reader Army failed me.)
  • I might enjoy her more than Sarah Sanders because she's more likely to give us gold. From yesterday:
  • Man, Drudge loves sticking it to Trump.
  • The new Wall (no, not that one that hasn't been built which Mexico isn't paying for) really is ridiculous.
  • AG Bill Barr is probably in trouble this morning. 
  • UT, which still plans on holding in-person classes this Fall, says students and instructors will wear masks. Assuming that fans are allowed at football games, how will that work out there? 
  • A couple of screenshots from over the weekend. 
    DPD screwed that one up.
    Fox apologized yesterday for this one. 
  • The Colonial has the greatest field in its history this week. After experiencing the heat and humidity, most may never come back. 
  • With Cary Bohn dropping out of the Decatur's mayoral race, Decatur's next mayor will be a graduate of Bridgeport High School. (The same year as me, by the way). I'm guessing that has never happened before. 


at 8:34 AM

6.08.2020

Random Monday Morning Thoughts



  • A weekend of massive protests without a violence. The images were stunning. This feels different, but the length of the public's attention span does not have a good track record. 
    Random Philadelphia Image
  • BagOfNothing posed a great question: This weekend, did your pastor address the George Floyd situation and all that it implies? If not, why not? 
  • A Wall Street Journal poll reveals that 80% of Americans think the nation is spiraling out of control.  Just 80%?
  • Heck of a weekend. Colin Powell says he won't vote for Trump because he lies with impunity, Mitt Romney marches with Black Lives Matters, and AG Barr says "Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. It's not chemical"


  • Here's a list of the 17 people arrested in the big cockfighting "raid" this weekend in Wise County. I suppose this is all about animal cruelty but, then again, I hope no one had chicken fried steak for dinner last night. 
  • "Defund the police?" Good lord. Can I offer my services as a marketer of your message?  How about "Rethink Policing", "Demilitarize the Police",  or "What Would Sheriff Andy Taylor Do?"
  • Going back to my not-so-original theory of the coded language of racism, I re-watched 13th this weekend. I couldn't believe I had forgotten that the prominent phrase of coded racism by politicians throughout the last few decades has been "Law and Order". It's a not-so-subtle "us vs. them" or, at its core, "white vs. black."  (You have to see the film to understand.) Right now it is being used as code for "cops vs. black looters." It's the phrase Trump has latched onto as the nation crumbles around him. 
  • His message should be one of unity: There are some bad cops and there are some bad protesters (when they result to looting), but we have a systemic problem of racism in this country that we need to finally confront. That's simple. That's easy. But no. He wants people to choose sides. And today, as Houston holds a massive memorial service for George Floyd today, Trump will meet only with law enforcement and then hold a photo-op where where he'll frame the issue as one of either supporting the police or not. Once again, making it a "choose your side" issue.
  • And he does it another way with the false equivalency of  "Country and Flag vs. Black NFL Players." It's a messaging of division. It's a messaging of taking sides. (And never forget he called those players who kneel "sons of bitches.")

  • Coronavirus update. 
    • Wise County: Can't help ya there.  We get no updates over the weekend. 
    • Texas: We'll have the slight dip due to the typical slow reporting of weekend numbers and then we'll see if the disturbing trend continues. 
  • Speaking of, do we need to issue a Silver Alert? Somebody at least needs to check on him.
  • I'd like to report cheap packaged oatmeal with milk is a krillion times better that with water. 

at 8:35 AM

6.05.2020

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






at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • If you haven't seen police shove down the 75 year old man in Buffalo, you need to. A quick loading video of it is here. Pay attention to both the seeping blood and how his injuries are ignored. And take a look at this video from a different angle from across the street. In that video, the sound of the guy's skull hitting the pavement is enough to stop the rest of the militarized police in the street in their tracks. Then we have one the leaders, acting like he is Maximus in Gladiator, yell at them to "Hold the line!" against a non-existent crowd. Then, to make it all worse, the cops lied about what happened.  
  • The same location 24 hours earlier:
  • Trump's grasping for a new message has led him to those of "domination" and "law and order." With all these bad police looks coming out, he might want to pick a different one.  
  • In fact, he's really struggling with his messages. And history.


  • I was pleased to notice that the White Supremacist sticker on a pole near downtown Decatur that I saw yesterday had mysteriously disappeared by the time I walked by its location after work. (Side note: A very faithful reader, and a history buff, pointed out that the symbol in the sticker was prominent back in Mussolini's socialist Italy.)
  • This was circulating yesterday. I thought it wasn't real but it is. And it reminds me of how much I loved Reno 911.
  • Speaking of videos, this one really got my attention this week.
  • Once Trump is allowed to have packed rallies again, picture this image: Standing in front of a roaring all white crowd as he holds up a Bible as a prop to celebrate the time he walked to the Episcopal Church, he says something like, "They liberals and the media hated me for holding this up this, but you and I will never be ashamed of the Bible!!!"  The crowd will go nuts and it will be the closest thing to a Hitler moment as (hopefully) this country will ever get to. 
  • Barr will straight up lie to you without reservation. 
  • The new Quinnipiac poll has Trump at 44% and Biden at 43% in Texas. No, I don't think that Biden will beat Trump in Texas, but the fact the polls are that close tells you it is a matter of time that Texas turns Blue.  (And if I'm a Tarrant County Republican in a county wide contested election this Fall, I'm extremely nervous.)  
  • I can't stop looking at this. 
  • If you're mad at Saints' QB Drew Brees backtracking on his comments, that crowd you are standing with is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. It's time to realize you were . . . 
  • Coronavirus. Wise County: I was joking yesterday about how we doubled our number of active cases by going from 1 to 2. Uh, this morning the number has gone to 5.  
  • Texas: Everyone still so cock sure everything is fine? "The state reported 1,796 COVID-19 hospitalizations Thursday, a one-day increase of 309 and the third-highest Texas total of the outbreak." And the chart:
  • It's not been a good week for Texas GOP chairs. 
    • In Bexar and Nueces counties, the chairs said the death of George Floyd was a "staged event." (Gulp!)  The Bexar County post is here. Nueces here. 
    • Then the "GOP chairman-elect in Harris County, Keith Nielsen, posted an image on Facebook earlier this week that showed a Martin Luther King Jr. quote — 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere' — on a background with a banana." 
    • Finally, Sue Piner, chair of the Comal County GOP, shared a post on Sunday that included an image of liberal billionaire George Soros and text that said, "I pay white cops to murder black people. And then I pay black people to riot because race wars keep the sheep in line."
  • "Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall on Thursday said she would not charge the 674 protesters who were detained on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge after previously defending the mass arrests."  Wouldn't it have been smarter never to arrest them in the first place?  (Very legal and technical question which might interest only a handful of people: How do you you handle that on the Texas CJIS form? The arresting agency has to fill out the top portion after an arrest and there's no place in the form to check a "We changed our mind" box.)
  • Looking through this week's Messenger, I see they've updated some of the photos of their staff. I think their Wise County history columnist has been "done wrong" for years. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold (With pick of Boyd ISD vandalism.)


at 8:34 AM

6.04.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts


  • The "charges" against the officer who caused the death of George Floyd were "upgraded" yesterday to a Second Degree Felony under Minnesota law. This will be a little tricky for prosecutors and may end up being a horrible decision. The State now alleges the cop intended to kill Floyd. Previously the allegation was that he he didn't intend to kill Floyd but recklessly committed an act which caused his death -- basically what we call Manslaughter under Texas law. 
    • I kind of love Minnesota's definition of "intentional" though. They define it as the defendant "either has a purpose to do the thing or cause the result." The phrase "to do the thing" is pretty hip. 
    • This "changing" of the charges at this early stage is mostly just lip service and for show. Until the grand jury returns a specific indictment, the naming of the "charge" by police or prosecutors means nothing at all.
    • If a jury convicts him of Third Degree Murder (basically manslaughter) instead of Second Degree Murder, the masses won't care about the nuances of intentional vs. reckless even though a conviction on the lesser charge seems like a reasonable possibility right now. 
    • Minnesota has a more serious charge of premeditated murder which was not alleged.  Impress your friends: There is no such thing as "premeditated murder" in Texas. We don't care whether you thought about it beforehand or not.
  • The Star-Telegram reported a list of home cities of those arrested in the Fort Worth protests, and one of them was from Bridgeport.  It didn't list a name, but I need it. They can be next week's Liberally Lean Protester of the Week.  (With an arrest out of Dallas and Fort Worth this week, Bridgeport has been doing some serious representin'.) 
  • As I was walking the streets of Decatur this morning, I saw this sticker on a street sign pole. I snapped a picture and then looked it up an Wikipedia to get a quick answer.  If you wonder if there's a White Supremacy element in the county, ask the Sheriff's Office if there is a presence of the "AB/AC" -- short for "Aryan Brotherhood" or "Aryan Circle" and hear what they tell you. 
  • The Patriot Front actually is a splinter group from Vanguard America which was a big player in the Unite the Rally in 2017 in Virginia. You know, the "very fine people on both sides" rally. And remember my point yesterday of spotting modern day racists by their coded  language? The motto of The Patriot Front is "Reclaim America." Sound familiar?
  • This will be wild. A new book coming out next week, Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers, might very well lead to the removal of the statue of the Texas Ranger at Love Field in Dallas. Why? It "depicts Capt. Jay Banks, who was 'the Ranger in charge when then-Texas Gov. Allan Shivers sent the Rangers to block integration of a high school in Mansfield and a community college in Texarkana in 1957,' despite court rulings that should have prevented him from doing so."  And a photo, showing Banks leaning against a tree with a lynching of a black man depicted in effigy in the background, seems to back it up. 
    (I'm invoking Fair Use! Fair Use!)
  • Legal stuff which is only Wise County related: I've mentioned before that former Wise County Attorney Todd Durden was raising hell against a judge in his new county of Kinney.  While I was watching a "webinar" yesterday, the speaker referenced the two cases Durden was involved in last year. The title of this Power Point slide made me laugh.
  • Durden update: After this legal fights, he ran against the sitting district judge in a three county judicial district. He lost in the primary in March. There's not a lot people in those three counties apparently. 
  • Military leaders, both past and present, began to strongly push back yesterday on Trump's threats to use the military against Americans. (Did I really just have to write that sentence?) First, the Secretary of Defense (soon to be former Secretary of Defense) says there's no reason to use American troops. Then, former Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis absolutely torched Trump: "I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled . . . .  Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us."
  • The words "systemic" and "systematic" technically have different meanings. I didn't know that until this week. I've always said "systematic." I think this will trick me up like effect and affect. 
  • Coronavirus update. Wise County -- Active cases: 2. (Red alert! A 100% increase in less than 24 hours!) 
  • Coronavirus update #2. Texas -- When the guidelines for states "reopening" were first announced, the standard was supposed to be 14 straight days of decreased new cases before we could enter "Phase 1". Texas has never met that standard. And can someone explain to me, when our chart looks like it does below, the announcement yesterday by Gov. Abbott that we can immediately go from 25% capacity to 50% capacity for darn near everything. And he also said we can go to 75% effective on June 12. Isn't this basically an announcement by him that he believes it was all a "hoax"? Otherwise, wouldn't we be in the strongest lockdown possible right now?
  • More legal stuff: They all look pretty much the same, but every county in Texas had to submit a "reopening plan" to the state for approval for every county funded court (district courts, county courts at law, JP courts). They are all collected here.


at 8:36 AM
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)