11.18.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

 

  • Texas Hospitalizations: +373.   

  • Closer to home, Wise County has a record 27 people in the hospital. And we aren't alone in setting records. Our neighbors are right there with us: 

  • More on Wise County:  The state dashboard says we have an "active case" count at 97 but that is probably a ridiculous undercount. It also shows only 11 deaths which I know is incorrect. Meanwhile, four Bridgeport police officers have contracted the COVID. I have a friend in the hospital. 
  • When the Cowboys play at Minnesota this weekend, the Vikings won't allow any fans. Meanwhile . . .  

  • Shot from Decatur's volleyball win last night in Aledo: 

  • Hey, I was exactly right about comparing the COVID vaccine competition to Something About Mary's scene about the "7 minute abs." First, Pfizer came out and said its vaccine was 90% effective. Then Moderna came out on Monday and said it has a vaccine that is 94.5% effective. So guess what the breaking news is this morning?: 

  • I can't believe Rudy Giuliani showed up to argue in a Pennsylvania federal court yesterday. It was, as could be expected, a disaster.  The judge is expected to throw the silly challenge out on Friday.
    • When the judge wanted to know whether Rudy's constitutional challenge should be reviewed under the "strict scrutiny" test or the "rational basis" test (without using those words because it is Constitutional Law 101 and it shouldn't have to be explained in federal court), here was Rudy's answer:

    • This is some serious legal nerd comedy:

    • Fox News' Sean Hannity said last night that he heard Rudy Giuliani was “absolutely brilliant in his arguments today.” This is getting sadder and sadder. (Watch.)

    • If you were delusional enough to contribute to the Trump Campaign you get the satisfaction of knowing your money is going to pay Rudy $20,000 a day.  There is no angle where they won't work a con. 

  • Remember the Boeing 737 which has been grounded for 20 months after it fell out of the sky twice -- one time killing 189 in Indonesia and another time  killing 157 in Ethiopia? The FAA will officially "unground" it today. 

  • Random close election result in Wise County: Ken Kilpatrick won over Janice Sivley for a Runaway Bay council seat, 281 to 280.  Now that's close. What are the odds that she has a very close friend who didn't take the time to vote and now has to keep that a secret from her forever? (Last January, Sivley was level-headed enough not to vote for a silly and needless Second Amendment resolution, and I'm guessing that also probably cost her at least one vote.)
  • I don't know how Texas AG Ken Paxton survives this latest scandal.  He released a statement yesterday to defend himself but in the second sentence he went off the rails and bragged about child support collection by the Texas AG's office. That might be called "deflection."

  • Hold on! Hold on! Who is this guy weaseling in on my official Liberally Lean girl? 

  • This morning: When the most pathetic man in America accepts and uses the election results to argue that the those same election results can't be believed. So sad. He never was the sharpest guy in the room. 

  • The fact he won't concede would be seen as absolutely crazy and unthinkable only a handful of years ago. But then somewhere along the way America lost its mind. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold.

at 8:34 AM

11.17.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts


  • Texas hospitalizations: +194. 

  • I have concerns about what I'm hearing about the impact on one particular person at the courthouse. 
  • Here's the national "new cases" map. Remember when we freaked out in April? Also remember that the government was handing out free money back then? 

  • aTm has postponed another game this weekend. That's the seventh game overall taken off the college football scheduled for Saturday. (And it's just Tuesday.)  About four weeks ago I decided this season "doesn't count" and that belief is becoming fortified. 
  • Got quite a few comments about my hot opinion yesterday about the anti-mask crowd, but conservative Bill Kristol says it pretty eloquently this morning. If I were to have written that, I would have simply have said that "I feel a certain 'screw you' attitude coming from the guy who doesn't wear a mask in the grocery store." 

  • Trump's lawsuits challenging the election are all just a show for the audience of his most-gullible disciples. And the results will get uglier today. In the Pennsylvania lawsuit, the three Trump lawyers tried to quit very late yesterday. Two of them were allowed to and one was not. A motion for continuance for today's hearing was then denied with the judge noting the lateness of the hour and issuing a warning. 


  • That federal jury trial in Sherman that had to be put on hold last week after a lawyer and a juror got the COVID turned out to be a little worse than that: "The infected court participants include two jurors, two people from the plaintiff’s side and three on the defense side . . . "

  • Things I would risk in exchange for the chance to engage in "socializing": Nothing.  In fact, I think I've paid money in order to avoid socializing before. 

  • You Wise County folks think you are conservative? I'll show you conservative!

  • I've said this before and it makes me real nervous to even utter it, but do all of these people really need the food? And certainly those who can afford vehicles and gas money aren't the most destitute among us, right? 

  • Is this a big deal? It kind of feels like a big deal. 

  • I have questions about Ted Cruz's ability to calculate distance.  He didn't like Sherrod Brown calling out Dan Sullivan for not wearing a mask  "when nobody" was clearly within 50 feet of him. (The blonde female would like to protest this assertion.) 

  • I rarely post a picture simply because it came from the "Isn't this funny?" department, but this photo of a dog who got into an ink cartridge I saw yesterday qualifies. 

  • Sad to see the passing of former County Judge L.B. McDonald. He was a truly good guy. 
  • The soccer complex that is the subject of the story below -- which includes an 8,000 seat stadium for a "professional" soccer team -- would be at the northeast corner of Basswood and I-35 in north Fort Worth.

at 8:32 AM

11.16.2020

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

  • Texas Hospitalizations: 7,151. We didn't get an update yesterday for some reason. 

    • A national snapshot with data for the last 14 days: 

    • We've got another outbreak it the Wise County Courthouse and this time it has hit the judicial branch. The building, and other county officers, are closed today for cleaning. All of us in the county now know of someone who had died recently from the virus. It's as bad as we've seen it. 
    • States are now beginning to shut down or impose restrictions with the most stringent edict coming from Michigan. Trump's coronavirus "advisor", in response, wants Michigan residents to "rise up" against those safety measure. I suppose he is mindful of the arrests of the men who planned to attack and kidnap Michigan's governor last month.


    • I still think Texas schools will go exclusively online after Thanksgiving if not before. 
    • I went to Brookshires in Bridgeport over the weekend when it wasn't crowded yet still saw two different couples without masks. That happened despite a clear sign out front mandating their use before heading indoors. Do those kind of people simply not care? Is it some failed political statement? Are they just dumb?
    • Breaking news this morning: On the heels of Pfizer,  Moderna claims to have a vaccine that proved to be 94.5% effective in the first round of tests. Plus, it doesn't have to be stored in super-freezing temperatures like the drug from Pfizer. 
      • Am I supposed to have heard of Moderna? 
      • Moderna using the number 94.5%, when Pfizer had said its vaccine was 90% effective, makes be think of the "seven minute abs" bit from There's Something About Mary. 
  • Trump is sliding off the cliff to irrelevancy in record time, but I couldn't help but notice that he announced on Friday he was putting Rudy (!) in charge of his frivolous election challenges. Putting that guy in charge is the functional equivalent of announcing "I Give Up!"



  • The only other thing I paid attention to about Trump was his hair on Friday. 

  • Here's a quick loading super-cut of Tiger putting up a 10 yesterday at the Master's.
  • The newly elected QAnon following Republican from Georgia will prove to everyone that she is, in fact, a nutcase. 


  • Those rallies for Trump in D.C. went well apparently. 


  • This impromptu Proud Boy initiation is worth your time. (As with all my links to videos, they load right away.)

  • A much different kind of group showed up in Decatur over the weekend pledging to stand with Trump until the end. They've got a stick-to-it quality you just have to admire: 
    That's the same courthouse which is shut down today. 


  • Wise County economic stimulus news: 

  • I actually watched this remastered clip of the original news story on Youtube this weekend and was greatly entertained.  The line of "no respectable seagull" at the end of it deserves to be in some kind of journalism hall of fame. 

  • Remember when Muschamp was the defensive coordinator at the Evil Empire and was the head-coach-in-waiting behind Mack Brown? 

  • Funniest college football clip from the weekend: Lane Kiffin throwing his clipboard in disgust as he sees a wide open receiver. (Runner-up, but not funny to some of us, Baylor's Charlie Brewer getting killed as he thought he had an easy path into the end zone. He didn't.)

  • Fun facts.

  • President Abbott? The right wingers in Texas may not let him win another term as governor.

at 8:38 AM

11.13.2020

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 


  • Texas Hospitalizations: +146. The wildfire continues. 

  • Just a reminder that the time I spent on the above bullet point about COVID is more time and effort than Trump has expended on the virus over the last week. 
  • Remember when I mentioned yesterday that, as for now, jury trials can resume in Texas state courts beginning on December 1st? The feds tried to get a jump on us and . . . 

  • Edit: Just like clockwork, Texas jury trials have just been postponed until at least February 1st.
  • Warning: The following bullet point was going to just be a quick hit and then I really got sucked into it. 
  • The Fort Worth Court of Appeals issued an opinion late yesterday arising out of a Class C offense that occurred in the Grandy's parking lot in Rhome after a traffic stop. It was an appeal from an actual jury trial in the Rhome municipal court. The charge? "Disregarding a police officer’s lawful order."  Oh, my. 
    • The facts are pretty wild for a Class C case.  This is what the female defendant got arrested for after being stopped for speeding. (Pickler is the name of the officer.)

    • If you wonder how a the equivalent of a traffic ticket ends up in the appellate court, I may have an answer: I think the defendant in the case is this lady: 

    • Those facts + "activist" = You knew where this case was headed.  Spoiler: Her conviction was affirmed. 
    • The Defendant's twitter feed is here and Facebook page is here. If I'm reading it right, she recently "stepped into the race" for the Texas GOP chair against Allen West. 
    • The appellate opinion says she recorded her encounter with the Rhome police officer on her cell phone. Someone find that video for me! She had to have posted it. 
    • Legal nerd alert: The case really has some really great legal issues.
      • Is that statute unconstitutionally vague? Answer: No. (I'm so so sure about that. What's a "lawful order", and how is the common man supposed to know what is and what is not a "lawful"? What about the order of "Stop talking and put your hand over your mouth!"? Is that a lawful order?)
      • Was the length of her detention in the Grandy's parking lot before the order was issued an illegal "prolonged detention" because the officer deviated from the purpose of the traffic stop by confronting the son? Answer: The court says "no" because the evidence (the video) is unclear as to what exactly the officer was doing when he confronted the son. (Very technical legal point: This could have turned into a disaster if the court had addressed this issue on a really crappy record. But this issue is legit and could have been addressed: What does talking to and patting the son down have to do with a stop which is based on speeding?) 
      • Is that statute of complying with "lawful orders" only applicable to orders associated with traffic offenses since the statute is located in the Transportation Code? Answer: No (but that's not a bad argument.)
    • Here's a quirk about the case: The appellate court ordered that no briefs be filed by either side before it issued it's order. Why? This has some really great and complicated issues. 
    • Another quirk: There were four lawyers involved in the appeal who didn't get to do much. 
    • Kind of a side note: Did the officer have a legal right to stop the passenger/son from going in Grandy's? I don't think so. It was his mom who who was lawfully detained for speeding, not him. Assuming it is an illegal detention of the son, does that fact effect the "lawfulness" of the officer's order telling the defendant to get back in the vehicle? Probably not, but that's a great question. Is it a "lawful order" to tell someone to step back when they are questioning the illegal detention and pat down of her son?
    • Heck, now I wished I had this case from the start. 
  • I need to check and see if North Dallas came back last night:

  • The next episode:

  • What happened in Texas a couple of years ago happened in Florida this month: A mystery candidate with a name similar to someone who is running gets placed on the ballot but makes no effort to campaign. And, due to the name confusion, the candidate ends up getting a handful of votes just by chance but it's enough to tip the election. In this case, it looks like a PAC who supported Garcia went and recruited some spare guy named Alex Rodriguez to get him on the ballot. It worked:

  • I know that exact same thing happened in Texas, but I can't find a link even though I know I wrote about it when it happened. But that's a tough Google search if you don't know names or counties. I couldn't locate it. 
  • This was just got posted and I can't vouch for it, but if it is true wouldn't that make the third rapper murdered in Dallas in like a month? There was a wild one earlier this week where a guy was murdered on I-35.

  • Time that has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener at Lake Bridgeport: 1 year, 4 months, 8 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold (Includes a story on the first Wise County teacher to pass away due to COVID-19.)



at 8:35 AM
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