- Wise County active cases: 21 (+1)
- Texas hospitalizations. I bet that curve will start flattening out instead of plummeting.
- Breaking: UConn will announce today it will not have football this Fall -- the first FBS school to skip the season due to COVID.
- A faithful reader, recalling a post of mine a few weeks back regarding a white supremacy sticker I had seen near the Wise County courthouse square, sent along a new story regarding the group Patriot Front. From the new story: "The Parker County Sheriff’s Department arrested the three men on Saturday after watching them place stickers on two different signs on the Parker County Courthouse lawn, according to the men’s arrest warrants." I have no idea if the two stories are related. (Here's a second article on the arrest.)
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From the new story
- There's not much to say about the Beirut Boom other than "wow." Of course, there might be someone out there goofy enough to call it an "attack" based upon him speaking with "our great generals."
- A new meme which inserted a 1982 Far Side cartoon into it yesterday caused me to learn that the cartoon was so confusing back in the day that the author tried to explain it.
- Below: Just a random sentence I took out of this week's Messenger from a column from their intern who flies and back and forth to college several times a year. As Ticket fans would say, "Cue the Vivaldi!"
- Sheriff Joe, assuming he's not out prematurely locking up brown people this morning, is still watching the election results to see if he'll get a shot at getting his old job back. The last numbers I saw:
- I've dogged this lawyer ever since I learned he used to be in Texas with a scam of drafting anti-immigration ordinances for cities and then rake in lawyer fees defending them when they were challenged in court. He would almost always lose those cases. Then he ran off to Kansas where, as of last night, he has now lost his second big state race in a row.
- Trump was on Fox and Friends this morning explaining why he thinks schools should open: "This thing's going away. It will go away like things go away."
- Didn't I just ask "What's the deal with Fort Hood?" Here's something new.
- Messenger: Above the Fold
- Wise County active: 13. That's -7 from yesterday. We must have had a someone selling a miracle elixir on the courthouse square that I missed.
- Texas hospitalizations:
- Nothing to see here. Just Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. "posting a picture of himself with his pants unbuckled, underwear showing, a glass of 'wine' in his hand, and his arm around a woman’s waist?" He deleted it. (It was apparently from a party on a yacht with a theme of some TV show named "Trailer Park Boys" which doesn't clear things up one bit.)
- New York magazine is taking no prisoners.
- I don't run into Fort Worth that often, but has anyone else noticed the wrecked car on 287 sitting at a 45 degree angle under the overpass at the Saginaw cutoff? It's been there for weeks.
- Another 287-into-Fort Worth observation: I'm no apartment mogul, but anyone else think it's weird to shove in a ton of new apartments in between the Williamson-Dickies plant and and a new monstrous self-storage warehouse?
- It's election day in Arizona which means my long time nemesis Sheriff Joe, 88, is trying to get his old job back. He's running to be the the Republican nominee to get the chance to face the incumbent who beat him by 11 points four years ago. Thoughts and prayers.
- Trump seemed about as interested in Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick earlier this week as the rest of us are.
- I don't know who on his staff is letting him do these interviews, and he got killed in the new Axios interview on HBO last night. All 35 minutes of it is on YouTube. Spoiler alert: It ain't Frost/Nixon.
- TCU coach Gary Patterson had a team revolt yesterday when he used the N-word. He didn't call a player the word, he just uttered it when he told a player not to use it. And he did it on two separate days. The whole thing is a little weird, but I've bet his players have been looking for an excuse to dogpile him for years. He's said to be a royal jerk.
- It's been out for a while, but here is Texas Football's Preseason Top 10 for 4A. This might be the only rankings you ever see. Decatur is #10. Random observations: #1 Waco La Vega beat Decatur in the state semis a couple of years back. Argyle is good at everything. I went through Dumas a couple of years back and it didn't look like a 4A town. I had never heard of El Campo. According to wiki, it looks like a consolidated school district between Houston and Victoria and has been 4A for over 40 years.
- Ringtones have gone away, haven't they?
- Say what?
- A Rockwall police officer and SRO has died of COVID.
- Wise County active cases: 20. Or so they say.
- Texas. I'll go with the hospitalizations chart for the next week or two. It was what first tipped most of us off in June that something was going very wrong. Anyone want to place any bets as to what happens in September?
- By the way, all those people are in the hospital because of BIG testing. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead. I learned that this morning:
- Men's clothing blood bath this morning: The parent companies of Men's Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank, and Lord & Taylor have filed for Chapter 11. Let me tell you something, ain't nothing wrong with the Men's Wearhouse. (Pop quiz: What's the difference between George Zimmer with George Zimmerman?)
- From a female soldier getting murdered, to bodies being found on base, to a mass shooting, what's the deal with Fort Hood?
- Alan Dershowitz, who has been protesting a little bit too much whenever he is mentioned as part of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, made my head spin because of this camera angle on Friday. (Here's the mystery solved.)
- We had a great jail escape by two prisoners in of Oklahoma on Friday. After leaving from the 12th floor, one jumped or fell when he got to the 4th floor and broke his leg. The other was captured later in the day. (If you click it, you can get a better look at the make-shift rope they used.)
- So I guess it would be wrong to hold this kid out an example if I want to go into a "So what have you done with your life?!" rant to the Senior in the House, huh?
- Not sure how they are going to enforce this. (But the picture does accurately reflect every UT girl going to a party.)
- Trump quick hits:
- Two weeks and one day ago to Fox News' Chris Wallace regarding a replacement for Obamacare:
- That was not a big crowd in Froida last Friday.
- He's not banning TikTok. He says crap like that all the time. (See Health care promise, above.)
- He golfed both Saturday and Sunday. (And here's a quick video of him on Saturday taking four practice swings off the tee and then shanking his drive.)
- I was well aware of his name, but I don't recall ever listening to Bill Mack, the "Midnight Cowboy", who died on Friday. But I didn't hear until this morning that he died of COVID.
- I'm only five episodes into Schitt's Creek, but I'm putting at The Office or Arrested Development level of quality. Very, very funny.
- Here's a "fun" legal question from an opinion that was just released. May police in Texas legally stop and detain you as you pull into your driveway for the alleged traffic violation of failing to use your turn signal if the red line below represents your undisputed path of travel through your neighborhood into your driveway? The court actually put that photograph in the opinion. (I added the red line for clarity.) The law says you have to use your signal if you "turn" -- and "turn" is not defined.
- Answer: The trial court judge ruled, "You don't have to use your turn signal." Then the appellate court reversed him and said using the turn signal was required. So what's the big deal? If they didn't have the right to stop the driver, any evidence discovered as a result of the illegal stop couldn't be used against him. In this case, it was methamphetamine. Side note: Your answer shouldn't change now that you know meth is involved. That plays absolutely no role in determining whether it was a legal or illegal stop.
- COVID cant' touch them: SMU and Texas State just announced they were moving up their game to August 29th. (Then again, your high schoolers will be playing the day before.)
- Wise County active cases: 22 (-8 from yesterday). Hey, that gets us close to the "under 20" threshold were state mandates don't apply to us if the county elects to be exempted.
- Texas numbers: I was right yesterday! The death numbers are officially wonky this week due to both the way the are counted and an "automation error". That's was I'm the most trusted man in 'Rona Reporting.
- Speaking of lack of trust in the numbers, a faithful reader pointed out that Wise County briefly had a resurrection yesterday according to the official state numbers when we went down from five deaths to four. It's back up to 5 this morning.
- We may have nine marines dead in a training accident.
- I cannot believe that 4A Texas high school schools are starting practice next week and plan to play a full schedule beginning August 27th. I'm on record saying there is no way that's going to happen, and I still think their plan is going to derailed in the very near future.
- Breaking: The Brewers/Cardinals game just got cancelled for tonight due to a COVID outbreak on the Cardinals side.
- Even in the SEC, where football comes before guns and Bibles, they announced yesterday they would modify their season and delay the start until September 26th. Heck, even those boys aren't even crazy enough to start in games in late August/Early September. They want to see how the NFL and other conferences are going to pan out first.
- The death of Herman Cain from COVID-19 should shock some people into reality.
- Compare and contrast yesterday.
- Trigger Warning: Every NBA player took a knee last night during the National Anthem as the season resumed.
- The Parker County Commissioners were not kneeling when they voted on this.
- When he poisoned those trees, I seriously feared for his life in Alabama. But I had forgotten he was outed because he was dumb enough to call into a radio show and admit doing it because "I guess I got too much 'Bama in me."
- Legal Probation Revocation Crash Course:
- This Wichita Falls story got my attention because of this sentence: "A 34-year-old Holliday man who seriously injured another person in a drunk-driving crash was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday, according to court records. The man who was later convicted spent 15 minutes at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that day before going to a bar, according to court filings."
- What actually happened was that he actually had been placed on probation but was now having his probation revoked. He had negotiated a six year prison term but that sentence was probated. (The story doesn't say how long the probation was -- it could have been for a maximum of 10 years. He didn't last long.)
- He had that probation revoked because of the following alleged violations.
- The State just had to prove one of those violations. If done, the the guy was subject to the prison time that had been probated: 6 years.
- He's was entitled to a hearing before a judge. He's couldn't get a jury.
- The judge could have found that he violated the probation and still not revoke his probation. He could modify him to additional terms. It's completely the judge's call
- This is what he was looking at: If the judge did want to send him a prison (he did) he doesn't have to sentence him to the six years in prison that was probated (he didn't). He can pick a number of years from the maximum (6 in this case) to the minimum sentence allowed by law for his offense (in this case, 2 years for DWI-Serious Bodily Injury.)
- The guy got a 3 year sentence. I can't actually tell from the story if the judge sentenced him to that or if that was part of a plea bargain. Yep, you can even plea bargain at the probation revocation stage.
- Some people just admit to the violations (they are normally easy to prove with just a probation officer taking the stand) and beg for mercy. This is called a "Plea But." Yes judge, I'm pleading true to the violations but please don't send me to prison.
- Could he have been revoked if the State just proved "admitted to using alcohol?" Yep, there are a couple of cases out there which allow an admission alone to be sufficient proof to revoke. Drinking alcohol isn't illegal. But not drinking alcohol was a condition of his probation.
- Could he have been revoked for "testing positive for methamphetamine?" Technically, yes, assuming the test results are admissible. They rarely are.
- Can he be revoked if the State just proved he failed to pay probation fees? Haven't we outlawed debtor's prisons? Yes, he can be revoked for that, but only if the State proved he had the ability to pay, and even then there are more restrictions before someone can be revoked. You rarely see someone get revoked just for money issues.
- Very technical: Can paying the fine be a "term of probation?" I don't think so. That's should be separate obligation to the clerk which you can't be revoked for.
- What's the one allegation this guy was accused of that makes a judge and prosecutor (and even the defense lawyer) shake their heads at? Failing to report.
- Messenger: Above the Fold
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From the new story
