Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 

The Treason Finale of Trump's America

• Let that image be seared into your mind. It is the legacy of Donald Trump. 
• So you thought I was being hyperbolic with all that Treason and Sedition talk? Yesterday a mob of thugs, who up until that point had been "standing back and standing by", came to D.C. at the direction of Donald Trump with the intent to overthrow the government. "It's going to be wild!" Trump had tweeted. Giuliani demanded "trial by combat" before the masses yesterday morning. 
  
  
  
• Mitt Romney said it best on the Senate floor last night: "What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States."
• Yes, it was an attempted violent coup on the United States of America led by Donald Trump. It was the most shocking day since 9/11 and, in some ways, more shocking because this time the enemy came from within. But Trump is not alone. These are the faces who instigated domestic terrorism: 

• I said yesterday the real Trump MAGA Republicans want a civil war, and now there's obvious proof for all to see. And it was so obvious that it was coming. Have you not listened to conservative talk radio since the election? It's hard to find a caller who does not advocate violence. And the hosts simply dance around the comments fully knowing their audience is advocating treason  -- an audience which all belong to the cult who worships one man. 

  

  They put it on a shirt yesterday

  
  
• The Capitol, a beacon of liberty, was desecrated. And a woman, who was a gullible QAnon nut, has died. Trump and his henchmen have blood on their hands. I've written before that Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States, and I was right about him all along. Hell, he told us who he was even when he didn't know he was doing it. Put it on his tombstone: 
  
  
  
  
• George W. Bush doesn't mince words: 
  
  
  
• To my Republican friends who never were part of The Cult, I feel for you. Donald Trump has destroyed your Party. And as Donald Jr. told the angry mob yesterday, it is now Trump's Republican Party. 
  
  
  
• No, Ted Cruz, you don't get to lead an insurrection by the very people you pander to and then do a 180. If you're going to start a riot, own it. You're a coward and a disgrace to Texas. 
  
  
  
• Ken Paxton is your Republican Texas Attorney General and an integral part of the insurrection. He traveled to D.C. and spoke yesterday morning before that mob.  He is a crook and a liar and now is involved in a cover-up for those who tried to overthrow the United States by denying who they were.
  
  
  
• The Capitol Police were a joke. I have a harder time getting into the Wise County Courthouse than thugs did getting into the Capitol.  (Video of the police removing barriers for them.)  And if you haven't heard Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe go off on them this morning, you have to. It's not often you hear an F Bomb dropped on morning TV at 5:15 in the morning. 
  
  
  
• How the hell did this moment even happen? (Video.) One cop against a mob. 
  
  
  
• And once they were in, I was thinking the same thing as this guy: 
  
  
  
• The National Guard was finally brought in. But it was Pence not Trump who had to order them in. This needs to be a bigger story. (But it's perfectly "clear" why Trump "did not give the order.") 
  
  
  
• The images on the attack on the United States will never go away. They will haunt Trump Republicans wherever they go and remind the rest of us of how dangerous they were to what we hold so dear. Let's look at some of them. Most can be enlarged with a click. 
  
  
  
  
• At its core, this is exactly what the Cult of Trump is all about. 
  
  
  
  
• There's the Stars and Bars again during this celebration of "Law and Order."
  
  
  
  
• They were going to take hostages with zip-ties. 
  
  
  
• A ceremonial (?) noose for lynching. 
  
  
  
  
• The American flag replaced with a Trump flag. 
  
  
  
• I have no words.
  
  
  
  
• Looting. And without a fear in the world. 
  
  
  
  
• Annuit Coepits: "He has approved our undertakings."
  
  
  
  
  
• "Camp Auschwitz"
  
  
  
• And, finally, remember how Trump's government reacted to a planed peaceful BLM protest? Here it is. An army defended the Lincoln Memorial from no one. Make no mistake about it, if the mob yesterday had been black they would have been shot in the face. If they had been Muslim, they would be at Guantanamo Bay to he held for years without a trial. 
  
  
  
  
• This is cause for multiple front pages, and I see a theme. I'm just a spare guy from "the humble confines of Wise County", but I've been trying to warn you all along. 

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

 

• Texas Hospitalizations: We continue to rocket further into already dangerous territory.  (Concerning "active cases", the Wise County dashboard was updated yesterday to show 392 cases which I think would be a record.)
  
  
  
• And Georgia sends control of the Senate to the Democrats!
  
  
  
• Please note: The Official Liberally Lean Election Prognostication Booth has not officially called the race for Ossoff, but my political scientists on staff tell me they feel pretty good about it. 
• To put last night into perspective:
  
  
  
• Trump's strategy of saying elections are fake and that Republicans leaders in Georgia are corrupt really paid off.  Fine job. 
• "I'm not going to lie to you. This is bad. This is terrible." - Mark Davis on 660AM this morning. 
• Trump's official statement this morning on Georgia:
  
  
  
• The official statement of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's replacement:
  
  
  
• And now we move on for some Light Treason in Washington D.C. today. 
• First we've got the disturbing Dog and Pony show in Congress this afternoon where a group of Trump Republicans commit and act of sedition as they object to the acceptance of electoral votes cast by the states of the United States.  How does noted dirty lib George Will feel about this?: 

• Even John Cornyn is not a treasonous nut:
  
  
  
• Nor is Liz Cheney:
  
  
  
• But we've got a ton of Proud Boys and the like in D.C. making one last stand for their Leader.   Every cult eventually dies. 
  
  
  

  

  Who pays for that set up? 

  
  
• I think every Republican needs to announce if they are a "Trump Republican" or not. Are they Ted Cruz or John Cornyn? Pick a side. Everyone deserves to know. 

  

  (Just a little mob violence being encouraged)

  
  
• Who would have thought that the civil war the Trump Republicans really wanted was one within the Republican Party. But I need to remind you again, Lindsey Graham predicted all of this. 
  
  
  
• And moments ago, Trump offered up one last delusional gasp of full fledged Treason. But it will be somewhat entertaining to see exactly how lap dog Mike Pence handles all of this. 
  
  
  
• Moment of Silence: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are headed for divorce. Flashback: 
  
  
  
• The Texas Highways magazine just released an article on six Texas daytrips and one of them starts in Decatur. 
  
  
  
• World record?
  
  
  
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

 

• Texas Hospitalizations: +398. That's a big jump from an already record high.  Dallas, Denton, Tarrant, and Collin Counties also set record highs yesterday. I presume the same thing is happening in Wise County. 
  
  
  
• Rumors of her death were greatly exaggerated.
  
  
  

• I'm hearing some long time employees are being let go at the Wise County Sheriff's Office without the dignity of being given an explanation. 
• Ok, this is funny. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• But even as I laugh, it is mind-boggling to think that in the history of the United States we have a president who won't graciously concede and instead is fighting to hold onto power.  It has never happened before.
  
  
  
• We've got the final list of candidates for legislative special election for the state rep seat that surrounds Wise County. Spiller is from Jacksboro, Brinkley is from Cooke County, Carter ran for SD30 and got only 5% of the vote, and I don't know about John Berry (other than I don't think it's the same guy I saw in concert at Billy Bob's back in the day.) I see there's a Charles Gregory running as a Democrat, but I don't know who that is. There was someone by that same name who ran as a Republican in a special election for SD 18 in 2014 (he got 2% of the vote), but I don't know if that is the same guy. 
  
  
  
  
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is in Washington D.C. to rally on behalf of Trump (and probably beg for a pardon), won't tell Texas taxpayers how much of our money he has spent on his silly lawsuits challenging the election -- lawsuits which were summarily dismissed. The only thing we know so far is that the Texas taxpayer has spent $12,000 on printing costs. 
  
  
  
• I don't even know where the 46th Judicial District is, but could you make the effort to put on a tie? (I'm seeing this more and more and it drives me nuts.)
  
  
  
• I'm beginning to think Trump is not going to show us the Republican health care bill he's told us for years was being unveiled "in a couple of weeks." 
• I was going through the Texas Monthly Bum Steer Awards and saw the one below. You know, the teacher probably shouldn't have been so blunt, but what she was trying to teach is valuable. That simple knowledge of a freshman in high school would have prevented the big embarrassment in Wise County criminal justice history. No one in authority understood that the lack of a match at any genetic location on a DNA report eliminates a person as the contributor. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• And it has happened elsewhere.  In the very same issue of Texas Monthly there was a story on the wrongful conviction of Lydell Grant.  What lead to his wrongful imprisonment? No one knew how to read a DNA report. (An "allele" is simply a genetic "location" and, once again, not having a match at every single location, much less 26 of them, eliminates the person as a suspect.) 

  

  (And she's being nice. She really didn't need an Excel spreadsheet to see
  that it "was pretty straightforward.")

  
  
• This is really amazing. The three wins are against Seattle in 2018,  Detroit in 2015 and Philadelphia in 2010. History is here.
  
  
  
• Ticket Fans: All morning long, the Ticket Ticker guy has been saying "Baylor is #1 in the latest AP poll." No they are not.  But he is right about Texas jumping to #4. 
• I don't believe the headline below about "high hopes for marijuana" (although it's clever.) On September 28, 2018, Gov. Greg Abbott looked you right in the eye during a debate and said, “What I would be open to talking to the legislature about would be reducing the penalty for possession of two ounces or less from a class B misdemeanor to a class C misdemeanor.” He lied.