2.09.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




You think gas prices are high today? We have short memories. It was $3.40 a gallon this week ten years ago. And it had been $3.40 all the way back in 2008 before peaking at $4.12. Then the financial crisis hit and Obama was elected. Gas prices have always been a wild ride.  

  • In little Alto, Texas (near Nacogdoches) last night: 

  • The guru of high school football news from Dave Campbell's Texas Football has posted a Decatur coaching update.

  • Five years in prison for a probation officer in Wichita Falls who coerced sex from a person on probation by threatening to take action to have her probation revoked if she didn't comply.  According the story, lots of probation officers in Wichita County have been charged with a variety of crimes. 

  • This story about the feds seizing over $3.6 billion in bitcoin and arresting a thirty-something couple who allegedly stole it by hacking is pretty crazy. But . . . 

    • . . . it gets weirder once you see this:  Video. Someone who made that should not be capable of hacking billions of dollars. (Language warning.)


  • As astute federal court watcher noticed a pleading filed about a week ago in California by the U.S. Attorney's Office against someone in the "boogaloo" domestic terrorist movement. It's relevant to us around here because, in giving the history of the boogaloos, it stated that the guy who famously fired shots in downtown Dallas near the federal courthouse was himself a member of that group. That had never been made public before. 

  • You can tell the moment she realized she just said the silent part out loud. Video.

  • West Texas oil money is at it again. (Side note: That PAC has also given Shelley Luther $85,000. That's 74% of all the money she has raised.)

  • Austin American Statesman reporter: 

  • Random Fox News graphic: 

  • Random OAN graphic: 

  • There were a whopping 23 deaths listed in the Update yesterday. That might be a record. 
  • Random fun(?) fact. It wasn't that long ago:

  • Legal nerdy stuff I stumbled across: I guy gets arrested for DWI after an accident and blows 0.00 on the Intoxilyzer. Cop won't relent and accuses him of being on drugs. The guy agrees to also submit to blood test because he proclaimed he hadn't taken any drugs either. But he can't bond out of jail (because he can't afford it), and the DA actually indicts him for DWI - Causing Serious Bodily Injury.  The defense lawyer begs to see the lab report and the prosecutor won't give it to him. After three months, the case is suddenly dismissed for "insufficient evidence." The defense lawyer still wants the lab report, but the DA still won't give it to him claiming he has no obligation to do so since the case was no longer pending. Undeterred, the defense lawyer goes to the county judge and "administration" who manage (somehow) to get the DA to release the results. The lab showed absolutely no drugs and no alcohol. Here is the lawsuit. 

  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:30 AM

2.08.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts






This was a wild story which received nationwide coverage (even made Drudge). The guy who got impaled was Clay Carpenter out of Springtown who later sued the golf course. I could have sworn there was a Decatur connection to all of this, but I can't find it. 

  • Thought I'd check in on the COVID fall.

  • Here's what the Corsicana killer looked like.

  • This is a good discovery, and picture, by the Dallas Morning News. A sign not authorized by law faces witnesses in the grand jury room in Dallas County. District Attorney John Creuzot  said he knew nothing about it. 

  • The hog contest over in Bridgeport is throwing around some big figures.

  • Yesterday's meeting between Putin and France's Emmanuel Macron was held at a very large table.

  • Late yesterday evening, the new Supreme Court confirmed that the Voting Rights Act which they previously killed is indeed really dead. 

  • For the life of me I don't understand how they got past the various governmental immunity protections. 

  • Very, very unconfirmed rumor I heard: Former Decatur AD and football coach Mike Fuller is a strong candidate for the open Coppell High School job. 
  • A sixth Texas National Guard member assigned to the border has died. That is four suicides and two accidental shootings. All have been with their own personal weapons according to the story. 

  • The Tarrant County DA's office released its "Annual Report" yesterday which was predictably boring, but I found this chart interesting. Back in the day, police just submitted their offense report, witness statements, lab reports, or other paper in their case report packages to be considered for potential prosecution. But now look at the amount of video which is being included in those packages. With bodycams and dashcams, there's now a ton of it. Videos in a case used to rare. Now it's an avalanche.   

    • Here's a dirty little secret: There is a 100% chance that prosecutors do not look at every video before they file the case in court.  I bet most cases are filed without the videos being watched at all. 
    • And let's be honest. The pressure to ignore some of the video in some cases is high.  Say you've got a DWI case where the bodycam of the arresting officer shows the defendant was really drunk.  You watch all of it, and it looks like a slam dunk.  Are the prosecutor and defense lawyer going to also watch the bodycam video of the backup officer who was just watching from the side before trying to resolve the case by a plea bargain? What if it's an hour long? Two hours? 
  • In an under-the-radar case last week, wheels off lawyer Michael Avenatti was convicted of stealing $300,000 from his client Stormy Daniels. 

    • But it didn't look like it was going to happen.  The jury sent out a note that they were deadlocked because one juror was refusing to further deliberate. The judge read them an instruction to continue to try and reach a verdict and then this happened:

    • But they did convict, although the verdict form looked like this.  The "Not Guilty" space had been checked and then marked over. 

  • Legal nerd stuff: Disgraced Trump lawyer Sidney Powell's appellate brief on why the district judge should not have referred her for possible disbarment because of her false election claims is just as bad as you would expect. She argues that her claims might have been, or possibly been, true because other people believed them. 


  • We were told that former Ranger's pitcher John Wetteland's criminal trial in Denton was supposed to start last week, but it's been rest to August based upon online court records.  
  • Fun fact: Ronald Reagan's birthday is now closer to Thomas Jefferson inauguration than it is to today. 

at 8:31 AM

2.07.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




I was slow to find it back then, but a brawl from the Decatur/Castleberry football game from the the 2011 season found its way to Youtube. I just looked, and it is still there today after 2.5 million (!) views. 

  • Well, I never dreamed I'd see this. The storming of the Capitol and the attempt to overthrow the results of the election were officially labeled as "Legitimate Political Discourse" by the Republican National Committee. 


    • We are living in dangerous times when the Insurrection is not universally condemned. This isn't hard.  Does the National Republican Party want a violent revolution? If they do, that's the language they would use. And if you think it can't happen here, you are wrong. 
    • Liz Cheney wasn't having any of it.

    • Neither was Mitt.

    • And this gal is spot on.

  • A killing outside a club in Uptown last night. For such a high tone area, this seems to happen a lot.  


  • Mass murder in Corsicana over the weekend. 


  • I'd care more about the Josh Rogan controversy if I was even vaguely familiar with who he was. 
  • There was an item in Friday's Update about a car sliding off the roadway and going into the Trinity River at County Road 4757 near Newark (at "Inman's Bridge") leaving the driver in critical condition. And the rescue sounded pretty dramatic. Here's a Google Streetview of the bridge.



  • From Friday morning:

  • The girl from Denton was "found safe." No other explanation was given. 

  • Go down the Brittany Dawn rabbit hole some day. Here's the last sentence of this article: "Her more recent videos have tapped into popular QAnon talking points and conspiracy theories in general, like the debunked theory that furniture company Wayfair was trafficking children inside of its furniture shipments."


  • Here's the video of Jordan Speith's shot from the edge of cliff at Pebble Beach on Saturday.


  • The Star-Telegram endorsed Mollie Westfall for DA in Tarrant County.

  • The Texas Tribune has an interesting article today of how far right candidates in Hood County are running for, and winning, local elections.   Even non-partisan positions who don't have to pick a party (like city races and school boards) are having candidates identify as "far right conservatives" and Republican where "elections serve as a purity test . . . ." They candidates are hard core disciples of the Fox News/OAN gospel, and being White and Christian just happens to be the norm.  The candidates have no intention of representing everyone if elected because those on the other side "don’t believe in the same America that you and I grew up in." And a lot of these people are interlopers to the county. Sounds a little familiar.
  • The Sunday cover to the Star-Telegram (below) reviewing the icy road disaster from one year ago surprisingly does not have a photo of the actual wreck like this one.
at 8:30 AM

2.04.2022

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

at 2:30 PM
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