9.28.2020

Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • Texas hospitalizations:  3,217. Notice the curve for the 7 day average is trending up, albeit slightly, for the first time since mid July. 

  • We now know Trump's taxes and finances. The big story is not only his personal income taxes, but how he's about to be hit with crushing debt that is soon coming due. A man whose only claim to fame is being a great businessman is nothing but a New York con man. 

    • He has paid $750 in 2016 and 2017. In 10 of the last 15 years he has paid zero taxes. (He's paid more to Stormy Daniels than he has in those 15 years.)
    • He received a $72.9 million refund beginning in 2010 that the IRS is auditing for and which he might have to pay back.
    • He uses expenses like paying Ivanka $747,622 in "consulting fees".
    • The biggest takeaway: He has $421 million in personally guaranteed debt coming due in the next four years. 

    • The only money he's made is playing a business guy on The Apprentice which gave rise to this great line in the Times: "Ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life."
    • Not a bad idea.

    • The story is 6 1/2 pages long in The New York Times. Moral of the story: Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel and paper by the ton. 
  • If Jeffress thinks Paul was talking about American law enforcement in Romans 13, he also must believe Paul was also writing about any entity of authority throughout history. “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities which exist have been established by God." Shout out, I suppose, to Hitler and Pol Pot. 

  • This is wild. He was replaced after the rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma that turned out to be a fiasco. Also there was an alleged $170 million money laundering scheme came which came to light last week. 

  • Oh, come on. Don't back down. We know you caused it and not the effects of long-term pancreatic cancer on a 87 year old woman. 

  • The heck with taxes and failed businesses, Trump is a bad human being. When questioned about this rambling allegation later in the day, he said "a lot of people say that" just "check the Internet." (Watch.)  How do words like this come out of the President of the United States?

  • Sports pics from the weekend (after you take a look at this quick clip of an Army player head-butting a coach and knock him for a loop, or one of the worst passes in college football history in the TCU game):
    I thought the UT player broke his neck

    Southpark was re-created in Denver

    Baylor failing at social distancing

    Ouch

  • Something doesn't seem quite right about this story. 

  • Is there some distillery in Bridgeport I don't know about? I came across an $80 per person "whiskey dinner" at a high-tone restaurant in Plano and a whiskey apparently made in Bridgeport was part of the first course. 

  • I've created a thread of links for those interested in the Lauren Whitener murder case here.


at 8:31 AM

9.25.2020

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 
  • Texas hospitalizations: 3,204 (+9)

  • Due to the crazy rescheduling, Bridgeport will now have a Monday and a Wednesday football game this season. Add that to the list of things you would have never predicted in 2020.
  • When I was a kid, no extra-curricular activities of any kind were ever scheduled on Wednesday nights because that was a "church night."  The devoted/hard-core church goers always had a Wednesday evening "bible study" to go to in the main church sanctuary which was led by the pastor. You didn't mess with that. 
  • Watch a lady get tased for not wearing a mask at an 8th grade football game in Ohio. What is it you guys always say? "If an officer tells you do something then you do it. That way nothing bad will happen."

  • Uh, oh. Trump has competition for a major award.

  • A former Playboy model sued Fox News' Tucker Carlson for defamation. She lost yesterday because her lawyer's successfully argued that no one could possibly take him seriously. Really. Yet old white guys watch him every night and think what he is saying is gospel.

  • They stole my idea! I suggested it this week! (I said 20 years, but I'm still claiming it.)


  • Gov. Abbott, trying to calm down the Trump base who hates him because he won't declare COVID a hoax, proposed new penalties for rioting yesterday. Since I've never seen a rioting criminal case in Wise County, I had to look up the definition. What a mess. After reading the definition below, does anyone feel comfortable knowing what's a crime and what's not? The only thing clear is the "seven or more persons" part. And what about the requirement that it's an offense only if you "knowingly" participate in the riot. Does that mean you just knowingly engage in an assemblage of seven or more people where someone then suddenly goes off half-cocked on someone or does the State have to also prove you knew someone would go off half-cocked?

  • The following news story makes more sense now. Flashback: 

  • Legal technical stuff: Hey, it's none of my business and this has to be a mistake, but in looking at the Wise County district court's docket entries for a case set for hearing today (CR-16509), that "Satisfactory Order of Termination" of probation being filed before the State's Motion was filed would seem to be a problem. 

  • Below is a very obscure and random fun fact after last night's NFL game.  And I just like posting his picture:


  • My award winning appearance on the Messenger's podcast is now up on Facebook in video form. 
    Is that Brad Pitt?
  • It has now been announced that the DNA which solved the 46 year old Fort Worth cold case was actually extracted from sperm cells found on the victim's bra. Imagine that. Law enforcement in Tarrant County believes that sperm cell DNA found on the victim in a capital murder cases belongs to the killer. The Wise County Sheriff still won't admit that in the unsolved Lauren Whitener case. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:32 AM

9.24.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 


  • Texas hospitalizations: 3,195 (-12)  I think we now have leveled off.  But if it has, will we see the crazy rise again? And, man, that late June to July rise was incredibly steep. 

  • There have quietly been some small school districts in Texas which have announced they will completely end remote learning. I saw a notice from Edna ISD and Roosevelt ISD as a couple of examples. 
  • Democracy doesn't die in darkness after all. It's in the process of being be murdered right on Fifth Avenue.  This is chilling. But it also is an admission of how terrified he is about election day. 

  • From absentee voting to extended early voting, why are they so scared of making voting more convenient?

  • I'm fascinated with the ransomware attack. Fort Worth ISD just paid $337,000 to hackers in order to get them to release their servers. I guess before you would pay it you would check with other governmental entities/previous victims who paid the ransom who could confirm the hackers kept their word. And, as odd at is sounds, the more "credibility" the hackers get with keeping a track record of keeping their word, the greater the ransom they can demand from the next victim.

  • The lack of indictments in the Breonna Taylor case are not surprising. In America, we have a system in place where cops can do half-assed search warrants, complete with lies and omissions, which are then often half-assed reviewed by rubber-stamping judges who are supposed to be  "detached and neutal magistrates". And then armed with that warrant, the cops can explode into your home in the middle of the night and, while confused with fear, you're suppose to cower down and take no action in the midst of mass confusion.  And if you don't, you die. And it's all legal. 

  • My favorite photos as Justice Ginsburg's casket arrived at the Supreme Court.




  • This made me laugh when the news came out that the Los Angeles Chargers team doctor had accidentally punctured the lung of the starting quarterback.

  • Around Lake Bridgeport in the Twin Hills area, I saw an ADT Security Services van yesterday. I'd bet big money that is 100% related to the realization that the killer of Lauren Whitener has not been caught. 
  • Speaking of Lauren Whitener murder and the Aric Maxwell fiasco, the Wise County Messenger was gracious enough to invite me onto their podcast to talk about the case. The audio is here. The video isn't up yet which is sad because I'm pretty good-looking. 



at 8:32 AM

9.23.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

 
  • Wise County active (as of yesterday): 17.  All school districts across the state should have their COVID data published here sometime today. 
  • Texas hospitalizations: 3,207 (+75).  Have I mentioned I've got my eye on this? 

  • I've got some pretty wild Wise County real estate news fed to me by a faithful reader. In June, 7-Eleven became the proud owner of tract of land in Chico, Texas. I've got the receipts. 

  • Just saw that Gayle Sayers has died. It's been 50 years since Brian Piccolo died. (I wonder how many readers have no idea who I'm talking about.)
  • In Senate District 30 race (the one that Empower Texans is trying to buy for Shelley Luther), Wise County's share of registered voters is only a measly 3%. But so far we have 9% of the total of early votes cast. (Source.)

  • You know what's really wild about that chart? Look at the two columns for the total number of voters registered now vs. the total number of votes cast in 2018. Wise County is 51% (44,341/22,718) as are almost all the counties. But look at those percentages for the two big counties: Collin is only 9%. Denton is only 8.5%.  That seems so out of whack that is seems wrong. 
  • Trump, over the last year, has finally overtly revealed himself to be an all-out racist because he simply quit hiding it. What turns my stomach is this all-white crowd cheering to stuff like this that happened last night. Rep. Ilhan Omar is a United States citizen.  Over the next decade and beyond the Republicans are going to pay dearly for letting Trump get away with moments like this.

  • Whenever Trump tells a "Sir story" at one of his rallies (as in "And the general turned to me and said, 'Sir, I've never heard . . . . '") he's lying. Everyone knows that.  Whenever he makes up a story with Melania, he always uses the term "Darling" (as in, "And she turned to me and said, 'Darling, why don't . . . . '" Last night, he mixed them together. 

  • The 46 year old "cold case" out of Tarrant County is pretty wild (assuming everything the cops are saying is legit.) They solved it by DNA but by using "familial DNA" tracing. As I understand it, you can have a complete DNA profile extracted from the evidence but you might hit a dead end when it doesn't match anyone in the CODIS criminal database. (i.e. the Wise County Lauren Whitener murder case.) You can still send that profile through an expensive (?) genealogical database known as GEDmatch -- the same tool California police used to identify the Golden State Killer -- which might get you in the area of a particular family. It's all based on looking at the male Y chromosome. From there it takes footwork to track down the one individual who will then match the DNA definitively. 

  • Extra thought: CODIS is the national criminal database. I had always thought that it only contained samples of the DNA of convicted felons. But I was shocked to learn from representing Rodney "Aric" Maxwell that if you voluntarily provide your DNA via a cheek swab to police because you wanted to be excluded as a suspect, the lab will test your DNA and then upload it to CODIS even if you didn't match who they were looking for! So, even though you are completely innocent, your DNA is now in CODIS. Here's proof where the lab said they'd do it with Aric's DNA and three other poor saps:

  • Mitt Romney has decided to turn on Trump and will vote on his Supreme Court nominee before the election. You could see that coming. Mormon. Abortion. No brainer. (Or is he just tricking Trump and will actually vote "no" on the actual nominee to really screw him over?)

  • The Wise County District Attorney's office is now sending out a "Brady notice" -- notice of evidence which might benefit a defendant -- about a particular former officer if he was involved in the case. I've never seen them do that before. But I applaud it. 
  • I'm late to the party on this one, but I'm not going to let Williamson County criminal justice news get by without pointing it out. 



  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:32 AM
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