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The natural gas bust was crippling Chesapeake Energy in 2012. I was curious what happened to the company which built a fancy building in downtown Fort Worth, had a former CEO mysteriously die in a car crash they day after he was indicted, hired another CEO during the crisis and paid him $23 million a year by 2018, and then ended up in bankruptcy. Well, they emerged and are doing just fine. This is a story in today's Dallas Morning News:
- If you saw lots of ambulances this morning in Wise County, there's a reason. There were at least three big wrecks between 7 and 8 a.m. First responders were scrambling.
- Ok, I'm calling it. Texas has officially peaked. And now watch how quickly the numbers are going to plummet. In a little over a week, I predict we will be under 20,000.
- Oh, my. This happened at home just off the Davis Boulevard and the Highway 26 split.
- According to the story, she just opened the door and the dogs attacked her, and there was a sign by the door that said "crazy dogs."
- I mentioned yesterday that I thought former Bridgeport resident and current Lake Worth Police Chief J.T. Manoushagian was good at speaking with the press. It's a good thing. He's doing lots of press conferences lately.
- Interim campaign reports were due January 18th. AG Ken Paxton filed one a day late. But it was flawed. It listed $2.8 million in donations but, for $2.1 million of that amount, he failed to list who the money was from. He said he would file an "amended report" to fix the problem, but failed to do so yesterday. But we'll just blindly keep electing this guy.
- Don Huffines, who was on with Fox News' Tucker Carlson last night, speaks in code. "Culture." "Virtue to the public square." "Promise of our founding." Either that, or even he has no idea what he is babbling about.
- Ok, this is dark.
- Elton John had to postpone both his Dallas concerts scheduled this week due to COVID. I saw him as a teenager at Moody's Coliseum on the SMU campus, and I was so close to the stage that I caught one of the dozens of roses that he threw out at the end of the show. It feels weird to admit I caught a rose thrown by Elton John.
- Official Liberally Lean forecast: Zero chance of snow.
- Legal nerdy stuff. This new policy really makes no sense.
- The D.A. says that his office, like all prosecutor offices, routinely make a recommendation to the grand jury as to whether a case presented to them should be indicted. But for some reason, his office was not in the habit of making a recommendation when the case involved a police officer who was a potential defendant.
- He wanted to eliminate that double standard. Ok, I'm on board.
- But instead of changing to policy to begin making a recommendation for police-as-defendants cases, his office now won't make a recommendation on any of the case. They will leave it completely up to the grand jury as to whether a case makes it to court.
- That's weird.
- First, 99% of the time the mere fact that a case is presented to a grand jury is because the prosecutor wants an indictment. If they didn't want to indict it, the D.A. could just kill it without even bothering the grand jury. So the mere presentment of a case to them is a tacit recommendation to indict even if a prosecutor doesn't utter the words, "I recommend an indictment in this case."
- Secondly, are they not even going to make a suggestion as to what the charge could be? Say they present a case of one guy firing a gun at another and missing by 30 feet, but don't make a recommendation. What's the charge if the grand jury wants to indict? Attempted murder? Aggravated assault? Deadly Conduct? Disorderly Conduct? Is there some other crime buried in the Penal Code that fits? Is the prosecutor not going to even recommend possible charges?
- Westlake resident Sean Payton has retired from the Saints, so it's almost a done deal that he'll end up with the Cowboys, right? Dallas will either be booted from the playoffs early next year or not make them at all, and then the Sean Payton will be named coach. And if that's basically a certainty, why not just do it right now? I think the problem is that the Saints could demand draft picks to let Peyton out of his four year contract despite his "retirement", and they would want a fortune right now. (Flashback: Jon Gruden was sold by Raiders owner Al Davis to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in exchange for two first round draft picks, two second round draft picks, plus $8 million. And that was 20 years ago.)
- Extremely random thought: This is a pretty good little invention. Pretty, pretty good.
- Messenger: Above the Fold
