11.01.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts






The daughter of Aransas County Judge William Adams had videotaped the beating in 2004, but it went viral for some reason in 2011. The daughter then went on a weird publicity tour appearing on the national morning shows and later Dr. Phil. The judge failed to win re-election, losing in the Republican primary in 2014.



  •  The Texas Abortion Bounty Law is before the Supreme Court today. Kind of. The court will hear oral arguments on a complicated federal procedure question that no one I know understands  -- including me. Roe v. Wade is not at issue. That comes next next month in another case out of Mississippi. 

  • Tarrant County prosecutors have quietly thrown in the towel after getting a hung jury in September in this Improper Relationship case.  They dismissed it without comment on October 19th.

  • Bridgeport will get a Whataburger after all. It will go just to the east of Brookshires. 

  • Hero?

  • "Texas inmate on Death Row found dead" is just weird to write.

  • A failed state senator who wants to be governor has pulled out the Trump playbook to explain his last election loss. (He has since deleted the tweet.) 

  • Fun pic circa 1980. The Cowboys headquarters and practice field were off Central Expressway with the Playboy Club right by it. And note the Expressway is two lanes each way with very little traffic. Click to enlarge. 

  • Lawyer mishap (story is behind paywall):

  • Come on, that's a funny costume. Especially the addition of the dog which was allegedly left behind.

  • I'm not sure I knew that Bridgeport High School had a Bass Team. 

  • Gary Patterson (shockingly) getting fired by TCU, but refusing to stay for the rest of the season when asked, seems like a very Gary Patterson thing to do. But I wouldn't do it either. Side note: Any chance his towel girl enters the Transfer Portal?


  • Beating the Evil Empire must never go unmentioned. 

  • If you want to see a text book example of an illegal detention after the purpose of a traffic stop is over, here you go. This happens all the time. 

  • Weird fun facts.

  • If Texas can block abortion by using civil lawsuits, why couldn't another state ban gun possession using the same tool? 

at 8:29 AM

10.29.2021

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




I actually watched that moment from Game Six from the balcony shown in the picture I took below.  I was in Las Vegas, and a show I had purchased tickets for months in advance was starting precisely at that very second. (Game Six was supposed to be played the night before but had been rained out.)

  
  • There aren't many details on this story, but it's even more newsworthy because she posted a video of her finding what she thought was a "tracking device" on her car a few days before. 


  • Probably a smart move by the judge. 

  • Oklahoma resumed the use of its death penalty yesterday afternoon.

  • It actual is pretty rare to see a death sentence handed out by a jury in Texas these days, but we had one yesterday. It as a bizarre case out of Smith County where a nurse injected four patients with air causing their deaths. 

  • There's a civil case going on in Virginia against the white supremist organizers of the 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville. You know, the one where there "were very fine people, on both sides." A guy in the courtroom was live-tweeting the trial and fired this off when one of the defendants, who is representing himself, made his opening statement: 



  • Facebook, Inc. changing its name to Meta is not what people think.  Facebook, the site and the app, will remain named as "Facebook." This is just like Google Inc. changing its name to Alphabet but keeping the name of the search engine as Google -- something that most people don't even remember happening in 2015.

  • Because all the Wise County JPs were in some sort of training yesterday, Judge J.D. Clark ran out to the jail yesterday and set bonds for those newly arrested.  Fun fact: Did you know that any mayor has that authority as well?
  • A faithful reader sent me this link to a recent podcast of NPR's Planet Money as to why prescription drugs are advertised on TV. 
  • Here is a cool old pic of the old Rangers ballpark.  That's Six Flags in the background and, I think, a water park named Seven Seas just to the ballpark's upper left. (That's a lot of parking, but how do you get to the lots once you go through the those ticket booths?) 
  • I'm beaten down by all the references to Ted Lasso because I've never seen it. Do that many people have Apple TV?  The last announced number of subscribers is "under 20 million." Netflix, by comparison, has 74 million. (US and Canada numbers.)  Anyway, Mitt Romney was screwing around yesterday posting re-creations, I guess, from the show. 

  • Have I ever mentioned they DPS has enough money to waste on gun boats?

  • Lot of people perked up to my reference to the Candace Montgomery case yesterday. Here is the UPI story announcing the verdict in the case. 
  • Two Trump Insurrectionist wanted their sentencing to be done via Zoom instead of in person. The federal judge did a quick order via a docket entry yesterday evening: 

  • What are the chances for failure on this? It's too small for a music hall (only 1,000 capacity), they had to change the original name because of a "trademark issue", its opening was delayed by three months, and the first two acts cancelled. It's off I-35 in the Design District.

  • In 1933, directories were available which would tell you where Supreme Court justices lived. 

  • Another discovery using genetic genealogy DNA.

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 849 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:31 AM

10.28.2021

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




Ten years ago yesterday, Fox 4 news had a misfire near the end of game six. 

  • Wise County actually hosted a "governor debate" last night between Don Huffines, Allen West, and Chad Prather with Shelley Luther doing the moderating. You can watch everyone try to out-conservative themselves here. They claim they invited Greg Abbott who they said declined. That's probably true. 


  • BagOfNothing is back up. I knew what was going on but certainly wasn't going to say anything. That's a beating for anyone who has been through it. 
  • So we learned it was a live round that killed the cinematographer on the set with Alec Baldwin. (Again, he's home free on this deal.)  But I've got serious questions about Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza. If he thinks he can just gather up 500 rounds of ammo from the "crime scene" and send them to Quantico for "analysis", he's in for a rude awakening.  Those boys will laugh at him for such a generic request (and from his press conference, he was exactly that generic sounding.)


  • In this five second video of a tornado in Orange, Texas yesterday, you can see an ATV go flying through the air. 

  • I didn't have Ted Cruz defending the Nazi Salute on my Bingo card, but he did it yesterday. (I know the point he was trying to make, but that was a dumb move which was guaranteed to become a soundbite. It's the same kind of judgment that led him to take a trip to Cancun.)

  • Texas book ban update: State Rep. Matt Krause's book crusade included a letter providing "a 16-page list of about 850 book titles and asks the districts if they have these books, how many copies they have and how much money they spent on the books."  They included:
    • Life, Death and Sacrifice: Women and Family in the Holocaust 
    • We the Students: Supreme Court Cases For and About Students 
    • Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints 
    • Women's Rights 
    • The Cider House Rules
    • And this one!

  • Idiocy by the city to volunteer pay it. Robbery by the law firm to charge it. Big law firms run some of the greatest scams in America.  

  • Here is the promo which debuted last night where Tucker Carlson appears to have produced an upcoming program that will suggest/urge that The Trump Insurrection on 1/6 was a "false flag." This looks like Alex Jones type stuff. 

  • And another case solved by genetic genealogy.  "In 2019, officers sent one of the infant’s rib bones to a private lab in Texas for forensic analysis. The lab recovered human DNA from the bone and conducted a genealogical profile, which led to Poole and Bynum — a married couple living in the small town of Taylorsville, police said."

  • Rusty Hardin out of Houston is a really good lawyer. But even the greatest lawyers can get their arse handed to them.  He was the lead defense lawyer on this multi-million verdict. (And I've never really thought you can be an expert in both criminal and civil law.) 

  • Lost puppy dog alert.  Edit: Cancel this. They were actually found. 

  • I'll be locked into this just like I was locked into this case when I was a teenager. There's a great book on it called Evidence of Love. You'll like it to if a suburban housewife, a seedy affair, and an axe taken to her lover's wife gets your attention. 

  • Unlike Jerry Jones who is currently making a fortune in oil and gas, real estate, a national concession company, and more, Mark Cuban is just Barnum Bailey trying to associate himself with smoke and mirrors.

  • For the umpteenth year: No one is giving away their weed candy on Halloween. 

  • Waco legal news only because her name got my attention. It seems that her last name is referenced as "Hunting Horse" even though she doesn't use a hyphen. If it's a native American name, it would normally be strung together as Huntinghorse. 

  • For the life of me, I don't understand why there are TV commercials for prescription drugs.

at 8:29 AM
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