4.11.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




The most outrageous home run moving sculpture ever, named "Homer", debuted in Miami a decade ago. It was taken out in 2018 and re-appeared outside the stadium in 2020. 

  •  Let me spend a second on a story which broke on Friday, took a twist on Sunday, and for which one man needs to lose his job. 
    • The story on Friday afternoon was this. A lady was in Starr County was sitting in jail on $500,000 charge for "murder." Specifically, the Sheriff said the charge was that she had caused the death of an individual due to to a "self-induced abortion." Yep, you read that right. 

    • But that's all we knew. The story was reported locally by "MyRGVnews.com" and picked up by the AP, New York Times, and Washington Post. But what jumped out at me was that she had been indicted. This wasn't a simple arrest by some rogue cop. Nope, the DA had taken the case before a grand jury and obtained an indictment. 
    • But how was that possible? Ok, we've all heard that the "Bounty Bill" had basically made abortion illegal in Texas, but she could not have been charged with that. That law allowed for her to be sued in civil court for $10,000 by any private individual, but even that over-the-top law imposed no criminal penalties. The DA could not have obtained an indictment under that law. 
    • So let's go back to the Texas murder statute in the Penal Code. Does that work somehow? The most basic part says you can't intentionally "cause the death of an individual."

    • And look at the definition of "Individual":

    • So was that it? Had she been indicted under that law? Nope, that's not legally possible. There is an exception a little bit further down in statute which exempts abortion from the murder statute. Subsection one clearly prevents prosecution. (This particular statute has been on the books since 2003.)

  • So what happened? How she was indicted? Well we got this press release on Sunday afternoon by the DA:

  • This cluster is outrageous. And his attempt to brand himself as the good guy is deceitful and shameful. He says he will use his "prosecutorial discretion" today and dismiss the case because "in reviewing the applicable law" it is "clear" that she "cannot and should not be prosecuted."  Hey, buddy: It was your office that went to the grand jury, which you control, and got them to indict her!  The grand jury doesn't have a word processor in the room. You typed it up in the words you wanted and persuaded them to vote in favor of charging her with a First Degree Felony of Murder in district court. But now you act like some type of hero in taking the high road because you have "reviewed" everything and decided it was a mistake? No. You did this. You caused this.  
  • So how could such a mistake be made? I think there are two options:
    • The first, an most probable option, is that the DA is an idiot. He had heard about "abortion now being illegal" in Texas and just assumed that the criminal law had changed in addition to the Bounty Bill. Does that sound next to impossible? It shouldn't. Some prosecutors, and some lawyers, are just that dumb. 

    • The other option, which is a remote long shot, is that we had a rouge grand jury. That is, the group, which probably meets every week or so, heard about the "illegal abortion" and they decided on their own to indict her even though the DA begged them not to because the law didn't allow it. (You hear about that happening once in a blue moon, but it is incredibly rare.)  But here's the problem.  If that is what went down, the DA has the "prosecutorial discretion" to dismiss the indictment the second the grand jury left the courthouse. But he didn't. Instead, he allowed for a warrant to be issued for her arrest because of the indictment and allowed the woman to sit in jail for 48 hours before she paid a fortune to a bondsman to get out of jail.  All of this falls on the lap of the DA. He needs to be torched today.  
      Starr County Courthouse

    • If I'm that lady, I'd sue the DA into oblivion.  The Supreme Court basically cleared the way last week for prosecutors to be sued when there is a clear constitutional violation, and it doesn't get any clearer than what just went down in Starr County.  And she has damages. She sat in jail and had her picture posted nationwide -- hell, worldwide -- for everyone to ridicule her. 
    • Also, the State Bar needs to sanction the DA. Hard. I'd vote to disbar him (but I'll admit I'm probably in the minority on that.) 
    • The press is going to be all over his office this morning asking for an explanation.  He must have had a bad weekend to issue the press release on a Sunday, and it's about to get worse. Good. 
    • It should be noted that the Bounty Bill is also very responsible for this woman's hardship as well.  Because of it, she couldn't find a doctor to obtain an abortion and decided to take it upon herself. As expected, she botched it, and had to go to the hospital. From there, her world caved in on her even more. (How and why the hospital "reported it" to the Sheriff's Office is another aspect of the case that needs to be investigated.)
  • The clubhouse at The Cliffs at Possum Kingdom burned down Saturday night. (Credit Bud Kennedy.)


  • NFL quarterback Dwayne Haskins was killed over the weekend when he was struck by a dump truck in Fort Lauderdale at 6:00 in the morning on Saturday. Less than five hours later, former Cowboys "draft guru" was asked about it as he was appearing on a radio show. He shouldn't have said anything. Audio.  (Her also questioned his "work habits" while at Ohio State. Amazing.)

  • Someone allegedly got liquored up in Dallas on Friday night, and Fox4Terry somehow snuck back there and grabbed a few pics. 

  • On Friday, the government failed to get a conviction of the guys who allegedly planned to kidnap the Michigan governor. I really don't know anything about the facts of the case, but someone emailed me once and told me the case was similar to what I've ranted about in the years after 9/11: FBI agents finding people online and baiting them into a plan to do a crime when they don't have the ability or inclination to do it on their own. I don't know if that's what happened here. 

  • And the news gets buried on Friday that Junior was plotting to overthrow the election after the election but even before Biden was declared the winner.


  • Trump had a rally this weekend in North Carolina. 
    • The guy who got in trouble for his orgies and cocaine comment was there. Video.

    • Random photo from the rally.

  • Top school superintendent salaries in Texas:

  • Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin had an odd recruiting (#ComeToTheSip) tweet this weekend, and it made you wonder if there were any black girls in Oxford, Mississippi.


  • The Wichita Falls tornado in 1979 will always stick with me. It was just so wide. And it was the last time, due to my parents demands later that night, that I was in an underground storm cellar  when everyone was on guard in Wise County thinking it might happen here. 


at 8:31 AM

4.08.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Wise County Commissioner Kevin Burns took this picture in Decatur on 4/6/2012. No one really had an explanation as to what it was. 

  •  Do you recall the Pharr Police Department in Texas announcing back in February that they had made an arrest of a man hauling 700 gallons of meth worth $10 million? “This stemmed from a patrol officer’s attention to detail when he observed something out of the ordinary and he used our resources to further investigate. This is great policing!” the police chief told us. Well, no it wasn't. A lab report revealed it wasn't meth after all. The man spent six weeks in jail. 

  • The Tarrant County DA's run-off is heating up as more people find out that Matt "Book Banning" Krause has never tried a case before a jury.  But he's now covering for his lack of experience with deceit: 


  • The video yesterday of Republicans walking out of the Senate instead of applauding the historic confirmation of a black female to the Supreme Court is right out of 1950s Alabama. Mitt Romney stayed behind to honor Ketanji Brown Jackson. 


    • Maybe it's actually worse than the 1950s. 

  • I remember when Bassmasters actually had a tournament at White Rock Lake one time. The current conditions would add a new dimension of difficulty. 

  • Our Wise County Congressman is making headlines again. 

    • Flashback: "Trump nominated Jackson to serve as secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2018. But Jackson ultimately withdrew from consideration after allegations of misconduct emerged, including accusations he drank on the job, sexually harassed a female subordinate and casually dispensed prescription drugs. A Defense Department inspector general report released last year further alleged that Jackson belittled subordinates and took Ambien on long flights while he was on duty. Jackson has denied the allegations." But we elected him anyway. 
     

  • I looked at this story out of East Texas because of the headline, but the photo of county officials was more entertaining.  Does that look like a place in the piney woods where everything is on the up and up? 

    From left: County attorney Jay Garrett, county judge Jason Murray and Sheriff Ricky Smith

  • So I've heard. 

  • There's cleaning house and there's really cleaning house. 

  • As predicted, the extent of Tiger's leg injury (have you heard his doctors "considered" amputating his leg!!) was a fraud perpetrated on the golf world. And his seemingly last second decision to play the Masters now seems to be nothing more than an orchestrated plan for the purpose of hype. 

  • Time is slipping away from us that grew up with holding a newspaper. From this morning:


  • You guessed it: "Greenwell was identified through a process known as investigative genealogy, which involves uploading crime scene DNA to genealogy databases to find any genetic relatives and locate the offender through their family tree."

  • 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: 1,008 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:30 AM

4.07.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts






Still a crazy story. The head football coach in Arkansas appeared in front of the cameras to explain that his injuries were from a motorcycle accident. But what he failed to disclose was that he had a 25 year old employee on the back of it. It cost him his job. 

  •  Abbott continued his transformation into Trump yesterday with "tough on the border" rhetoric which is making the news this morning. The headline is that "Abbott Will Ship Illegal Immigrants to D.C." which is exactly what he said in his press conference.

    • But there's a little sentence in the follow-up press release which is being ignored. The press conference, it turns out, was nothing more than a campaign commercial ruse.

    • I noticed, once again, that the head of DPS was right there by his side at the press conference serving as his de facto role of campaign manager and personal servant. All these guys are on the taxpayer payroll including the four troopers serving as props in the background . . . 

  • This is a wild story and no one knows the answer as to "why." Two men, posing as agents from the Department of Homeland Security, started to befriend Secret Service agents and, more disturbingly, "lavished them with penthouses, iPhones, drones, and even a $2,000 rifle."

  • This is a big, and pretty rare, malpractice verdict out of Tarrant County.  "The anesthesiologist injected tranexamic acid — a medication used to control bleeding — into her spine instead of a spinal anesthetic, attorneys said."  And it sounds like no one disputes this. In a statement after the verdict, the hospital's press release said: “We acknowledge Ms. Davis has suffered a significant and devastating injury as the result of preventable human error. We are so sorry for her suffering." Oh, my. 

  • The University of Texas has authorized living in sin within its own dorms!

  • In general, Hood County seems to be more wheels off that Wise County. (This story, involving a 37 year old middle school teacher, made it all the way to CNN, CBS, and the New York Post.) 

  • Montana legalized weed sales on January 1st.  We now have the first quarter numbers. Have I ever mentioned Texas, instead of collecting tax money, still puts people in cages for possession of less than 2 ounces?  

  • You don't see this very often. Stay with me here (if you like political stuff).
    • Democratic State Senator Beverly Powell had been an incumbent in Texas ever since she beat Republican (nutcase) Konni Burton.  Yep, in North Texas a Democrat beat a Republican. So what did the Republican legislature do last term? They gerrymandered her district to politically kill her. 
    • The District went from encompassing only southern Tarrant County to a sprawling seven counties which now included conservative rural counties. Parker, Palo Pinto, Stephens, and Johnson were all added to her district.

    • Immediately after the lines were changed, State Rep. Phil King, who has always been part of the committee to redraw the lines, saw his opportunity to move from the Texas House to the Texas Senate. 

    • Powell countered by suing with an allegation that the redrawn lines were unconstitutional. She did that in November. But with the Supreme Court having gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, that was now a long shot. 

    • The next step was to have the primary election last month where Powell won on the Democratic side and Phil King's master plan worked out with him winning on the Republican side. 

    • But the third step was a little surprising: Powell simply gave up this week and withdrew from the November election because, once her lawsuit failed, she knew that redistricting had screwed her and there was no way to win. 

    • The Pro-Life group immediately celebrated the orchestrated gerrymandered victory:

    • I'll say it again. The most important political story is one that happens every 10 years and which is is basically ignored by the public: What political party is in power in any given state when the Census number are released because that party gets to redraw that state's voting lines.  It decides everything for the next decade. 
  • Legal nerdy (and political) stuff out of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals yesterday as one judge takes an out-of-the-blue shot at AG Ken Paxton's recent verbal attack on the court: 


  • Random federal legal opinion leads off with a paragraph right out of Better Call Saul. If you're going to go bad, go all out.  

  • The long beat down of a seven month baseball season begins today at 1:20 p.m. in Chicago. Forecast: "50 percent chance of rain and temperatures in the mid-40s."



at 8:31 AM
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