3.16.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




This happened outside of a Beaumont courthouse. I looked for a follow-up and it's pretty interesting: The shooter was actually a criminal defendant in a case being tried in that courthouse, and he was trying to kill his daughter who was a witness against him.  It's a capital offense in Texas to kill a person in retaliation for being a witness, but he didn't kill the daughter -- he missed and killed someone else. Nevertheless, he still got the death penalty for the shooting in a later trial under the doctrine of "transferred intent." (A concept you heard a lot about in law school but practically never see it used in real life.) 

Wild fact #1: The defendant actually shot at and hit his daughter "multiple times" and "then ran over her with his truck before fleeing the scene but she survived." Wild fact #2:  Cops fired 50 shots that day, but the defendant was only wounded. 

  • Hurry up and enter the Liberally Lean Tourney. We are up to 88 entries. Get down on it. 
  • Lots of updates for bullet points over the last two days:
    • The 25 year old who fell to his death off of a rooftop bar in Dallas was Chris Hill -- a Paradise High School graduate and employee of the City of Bridgeport. 
    • The man who led police on wild police chase that started at Decatur's Quik Trip and ended up at the Oklahoma border has now been identified: "When Decatur police officers approached the vehicle, the driver, Tristan Almanzar, 26, fled, according to DPS. Troopers later joined the chase. Almanzar lived in Midlothian." He killed himself at the end of the chase. 
    •  It wasn't a murder-suicide after all. It looks like a hit.

    • (Not) Gone Girl. The Russian reporter who protested on live TV is alive and well, and she actually appeared in court yesterday in connection with a different protest she engaged in. She was fined around $300.  I wouldn't feel too comfortable if I were her.

  • This was in Andrews County last night. The golf coach was killed, but they still haven't released the number of students who have died.  But it sounds like there is at least one. Edit: Wow. Six students killed.

  • And we have yet another case solved by familial/genetic genealogy DNA testing. 

     
  • This is going on right now. Let's keep our emotions in check. It's just WWIII hanging in the balance if we haul off and do something stupid. 

     
  • Profiting off of war is almost as old as war itself. 
  • That guy is right. Fox News really does have a lot of bad graphics. 

  • It's been 20 years and we still haven't given these guys a trial? We need to just admit that we can't prove anything but that we just feel safer keeping them locked up. 
  • I'll admit to a little confusion about the NCAA Tournament games in Fort Worth. There are eight teams in town, but they aren't all from the same quadrant. For example, Baylor (from the East) and Kansas (from the Midwest), and who are both #1 seeds, are there. So if they both win, they won't meet on Saturday. The only way they'll ever face each other is in the championship game a month from now. Maybe that always happens and I've never noticed. 
  • Sportsy. If you've ever wondered about all the small schools in the Tournament, look at how many were automatic qualifiers and where they are seeded.

  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:29 AM

3.15.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




It was March Madness week 10 years ago as well. And, yep, that actually happened.

  • Come on, you slackers. Enter the 2022 Liberally Lean Pick 'Em Tourney. Time's a wastin'. 

  • The last update I saw was that he made it all the way to the Oklahoma border on I-35 then was stopped. Shots were fired and a medical helicopter was summoned. Edit: The Update is all over it.

  • I don't know if the margin being down to 88 votes is true, but he is now seeking a recount -- at least for the Denton County votes.  That normally doesn't work out. 

  • This seems like a big deal. It happened at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday in a pretty decent looking neighborhood.  The victims have yet to be identified, and the Tarrant County ME's office strangely doesn't list them on its public website.  More pics here.  Speculation: If this happened to be a murder/suicide, that would at least explain the lack of any news of a manhunt going on. 



  • There sure seems to be a lot stories these days that put judges in the media cross-hairs for setting bonds. And it's only going to become more prevalent since a new law requires any magistrate who sets a bond to first have his hands on a background report about an arrestee.  (Legal nerd stuff: They are called "Public Safety Reports" and required under TCCP 17.021 starting on 4/1/2022.) The "I didn't know that about him" defense for judges is about to evaporate. On the flip-side, the report is also supposed to state whether an individual is legally eligible to be released on his own personal recognizance. 

  • For some reason, a Denton County Sheriff's Investigator was in the Sanger Police Chief's personal driveway a few months back when he backed out and struck the Chief's undercover vehicle.  The Chief figured it all out by looking at home security footage. The incident got the investigator fired because he allegedly "purchased a new liability insurance policy online from [his vehicle] approximately 4-5 hours after backing in to and damaging [a] Sanger Police Vehicle  . . .  and presenting the policy to [police] after being asked for information about the Defendant’s [vehicle] for the accident report with the intent to defraud or deceive the Progressive Insurance Company and the City of Sanger.”  
    • The Denton Record Chronicle is all bent out of shape because Sheriff Tracy Murphree, wouldn't, as he tends to do, promptly turn over the arrest warrant affidavit which contained the facts of the case. Here's a tip: Ask for the affidavit from the judge who issued it instead of the arresting agency. 
  • Incredible. 

  • Gov. Abbott's "Task Force" on the teacher shortage is just for show. As proof, someone tracked down the work history of all of those appointed to be on it, and it turns out that none of them have been in a classroom for years. 

  • What's it called when wealth is redistributed? Does the term change when it is only redistributed to the most wealthy? (The owner of the Bills is Terry Pegula with a net worth of $7 billion.)

  • Let's remember the net profit of Exxon and the like next year. 

  • Update: Gone girl. 

  • Star-Telegram employees, who have organized, are mad that they have to pay for parking in downtown Fort Worth. The garage attached to their building charges $15 a day.

  • And another.

  • NFL star Lamar Jackson asked a very philosophical question yesterday after Apple released its new emojis. For some reason, I find his wording very funny. 

  • Rural election news update: Clay County will have to have a run-off in the JP race where one of the three candidates had been disqualified. I know you were dying to know that. 
  • Another reminder for the slackers. Enter here. 

at 8:33 AM

3.14.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




Remember this? It became known as the Kandahar Massacre and led to a life sentence. Here's a long read on the incident that appeared in GQ magazine.



  • It's Liberally Lean Pick 'Em Tournament time. Sign up here. Once again, I'm tricking up the scoring system to give great weight to the early rounds with even more points awarded this year for upsets. The idea is that if you do well in the opening rounds, you might be able to hold on and win it all. We'll see how this works out.  I'm kind of interested in that myself. 

    • Lots of local flavor in the first four left out which you won't get a chance to bet on.

  • There was a fire near Boonsville yesterday which caused some evacuations. I'm stating the obvious, but we didn't get any rain in the Fall and none this Spring. It's really dry. And the high wind months are starting. 

  • Liberally Lean Weather Expert Bulletin: If we have any storms, they'll be in a window between 4:45 p.m. and 5:15 p.m., but my boys don't seem to be worried putting the odds at 1 in 4. The more east you go, the greater the chance for rain. In downtown Dallas for example, chances go to about 70% an hour later. 
  • The Ukraine images have only become worse. And we've got an update on one picture from last week and it's not good. 

  • A 25 year old guy fell off the roof top area of this bar in Dallas on Saturday night and did not survive. It's an "Irish bar." It was St. Patrick's Day parade weekend on nearby Greenville Avenue. 

  • "Prostate cancer lives as it is born: slow-growing and benign or fast-growing and dangerous."

  • A bullpen catcher for the University of Texas was caught on cell phone video drinking from a fan's flask during a game. He was kicked off the team. 

  • Lock your guns up. 
  • Trump being Trump this weekend. One relatively harmless. The other promoting a race war to be led by the Critical Race Strawmen. 
    Video.

    Video.
  • Random musical/play which everyone raves about once they see it. 

  • The standard funny line about this announcement is: "It took him about two months of 'family time' for him to figure that out."

    • This really happened on the day before Brady's announcement:
  • This is behind a paywall, but I warned about it the moment that selling your "name, image, or likeness" became legal in college sports. We now have the equivalent of Super PACs buying athletes for schools. I not against players finally getting paid, but college football as we knew it will soon be gone forever. 
  • You think that would be a bigger crowd. 
  • Legal nerd stuff: Fifth Circuit rejects a First Amendment challenge to Texas's anti-barratry law prohibiting lawyers from soliciting legal work from already-represented criminal defendants. 



at 8:33 AM

3.11.2022

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

at 2:30 PM
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