4.13.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




Ouch. 
  • It was a wild day for Decatur's own Bryce Elder as the Atlanta Braves minor leaguer was told he would be called up to big leagues and would start last night's game against the Nationals. Oh, my!

    • So how did he do? Fantastic.



    • The first inning got off to a rocky start. He gave up two back to back hits to start the game, but a double play ball and a strike out got him out of trouble. Only one run was surrendered.

    • Then he was incredible. Through innings 2 through 5, He retired 13 of the next 14 batters only giving up one hint. I was giddy for him, and I don't even know the guy. 
    • I was curious if they would bring him out in the sixth inning because his pitch count was getting close to 80, and he was looking a little tired. They did, but probably shouldn't have. After giving up back to back homers and then a double, he was pulled.  But he was pulled to a standing ovation (video.) 

    • That was tremendous performance.  I heard his parents scrambled and tried to get a last second flight in order to be in the stands and witness it first hand.   

  • If you haven't seen the Abilene youth baseball coach shove the umpire after he was thrown out of the game at The Colony, you need to. Video

  • When crazy Sid Miller thinks you're crazy, things are getting bad.

     

  • Hail pictures out of Salado yesterday evening:



  • Quick hit headlines from yesterday.
    • A guy fired 32 shots on a New York subway, injuring ten, but not killing anyone. He is still on the loose.

    • Oklahoma enacted a law to lock people up over abortions. It carries with it a 10 year prison sentence and has no rape exception. Does anyone not seem to understand that, at least for the time being, Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land? When was it that we just started ignoring it?

    • The South Dakota Attorney General was impeached for killing a pedestrian with his car, leaving he scene of the accident, and claiming he thought he hit a deer despite finding the guy's reading glasses in the passenger compartment of his car. (He was criminally charged but only fined $500.) It's a wild case. 


  • The local media outlet in Starr County is trying to get answers on the dismissed murder-abortion indictment in Texas.  The DA is in hiding. 


    • And that reporter at least got her hands on the dismissed indictment: “Lizelle Herrera, Defendant, or or about the 7th day of January, 2022, and before the presentment of this indictment, in Starr County, Texas did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause they death of an individual J.A.H., by self induced abortion.”
  • State Rep. Jeff Leach is everything bad about a pandering politician, and he is really seeking the  spotlight lately as he has taken up the cause of getting the death penalty overturned for Melissa Lucio.  (You can read about her case here.)  


    • Leach has gone on all in for a reason I'm not exactly sure of. Lucio may have been wrongfully convicted -- lord knows there are failures at every turn in the Texas criminal justice system -- but I'm not sure why he has taken up this particular case.


    • A Fifth Circuit panel actually overturned the conviction in 2019, but then the entire court, in an unusual move, decided to review the case and then overturned that panel's decision in a 10-7 ruling. She is scheduled to be executed on April 27th. 
    • The DA who prosecuted the case, Armando Villalobos, is now in prison (!) after being "convicted of bribery and extortion in 2014 for accepting more than $100,000 in exchange for favorable outcomes in criminal trials." He received a 13 year sentence. 
    • Back to Leach. Yesterday, to bring attention to the case, he empaneled the "Criminal Justice Reform, Interim Study Committee" which he is a the chair of (although having basically no experience in criminal justice and being an personal injury defense lawyer by trade).

    • Anyway, Leach managed to strong arm the new DA into testifying by Zoom, but that DA was having none of it -- even bringing a little sass to the hearing.

    • After the hearing, Leach posted pictures of him hugging the parents of the convicted killer. 

    • Hey, I support his cause, but I don't know what his motivation is. His motivations for anything are normally based on self-promotion, so that's why I'm so suspicious. 
  • The Tarrant County DA's office if off to rough start this week. Two of these losses are DWI cases where the breath/blood test was over twice the legal limit: 

  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:29 AM

4.12.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




The date on that is 4/11/12. We are still waiting. 

  • Inflation numbers were just released. I'll say it again: There is no worse news for a president (even though presidents have basically nothing to do with it.)  Of course, this news will just greenlight price gouging which is contributing to the problem. 

  • I feel like I'm in high school: The news is dominated by inflation and Russia invading another country.  Throw in a some gas lines, and I'm going to get all nostalgic. 
    • I've mentioned this before: As a sixteen year old driver, gas prices suddenly skyrocketed to over $1.00 a gallon. But all the pumps back then, with their rotating price and gallon gauges, weren't designed to ever go over $1.00.  So the owners of the stations in Bridgeport just set the price to a half gallon (say, 53 cents since the pump couldn't be set to $1.06) and put up a handwritten sign that read, "Pay double the amount." 

  • I'm disappointed in the lack of reporters trying to get an interview with the DA in Starr County. Camp out on the courthouse lawn. Wait for him. Ask him how this happened.  And I don't know why there hasn't been a copy of the indictment put into circulation yet. It's a public record, and this story says the Motion to Dismiss was filed at 9:30 yesterday so it's on file with a cause number. 

    • And the defense lawyer isn't helping. You are contributing to injustice when you don't speak out about it.  

  • Border news.
    • That publicity stunt backfired yesterday.


    • But the "fear the brown people" mantra, especially through lies, won't stop.  Why stop there? Why not say it "may" be 50%? 

  • Decatur's ex-football coach has a new job.  Did the prior coach, Mike Fuller, ever land anywhere?

  • Texas Ranger James Holland, formerly assigned to Wise County and now retired, is now "a CBS News consultant." That nugget was buried here in a 48 Hours segment. 
  • Just when I think I've had a bad day, I think again. Story here an here. 


  • I know nothing about the facts of this case, but I can tell you right now that this lawsuit is a bad idea. 


  • Fox4Terry was at it last night. I like that he got the sign of "HighWay To Heaven Baptist Church" in the background. 

  • I had more than one person send me this yesterday.

  • Hurricane names for the upcoming season:

  • So the Rangers want me to go to a four hour game, fight traffic to get to the heart of the metroplex, and pay what is now $40 for parking? And then have the game end on an "illegal slide" call after a delay to review it New York on instant replay? (Video.) No thanks.  It was the first time that the home opener for the Rangers wasn't sold out since 1996.

    That's the actual slide.

  • Liberally Lean Weather Forecast: It's next to impossible to predict this time of year. But the window for something to happen -- from rain to something bad -- is around 4:30 to 5:30 this afternoon and again after midnight with the peak at 4:30 a.m. 

at 8:31 AM

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
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