Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

I had forgotten that Deion Sanders live tweeted a domestic disturbance 10 years ago. And his wife actually got arrested. The cops came back the next day and gave Deion his own citation for the incident but didn't arrest him.

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• A Decatur family found a big rattlesnake on their couch. The video, shown on Channel 8, shows the rattler giving out a loud what-for sound with its rattling tail:
  
  
  
• Just happened: American, and Fort Worth native, Trevor Reed has been released by Russia in exchange for a swap of a convicted drug trafficker. That would be a good deal if Brittney Griner was included. She was not.
  
  
  
• Video and story. There were over 50 shots that could be heard as everyone hit the ground. That's wild:
  
  
  
• Kevin McCarthy sold his soul in hopes of becoming next Speaker of the House -- going from Trump denouncer after January 6th to kissing his ring a few days later at Mara. Well, more tapes  are being released of his one-time honorable conversations acknowledging the horror of the Trump Insurrection and hoping the far right Trump sycophants would hopefully shut up in the days after January 6th.  Well, the Trump Worshipping Wing of the Republican Party, who may just now control the party, turned on him yesterday:
• Tucker Carlson last night:
  
  
  
• Insurrectionist Supporter Congressman Matt Gaetz last night: 
  
  
  
• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis led a knee jerk reaction to punish Disney for opposing his "Don't Say Gay" bill by revoking its tax friendly district. Disney was unusually quiet during the ordeal and last night we learned why: Disney knew that the district couldn't be dissolved if any bond debt was still outstanding. Now Disney's lawyers say you either have to restore the district or Florida has to pay off the debt. The front page story of the Miami Herald this morning: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The corrupt Sheriff of Las Angeles was called out on a cover-up of misconduct by his jailers so yesterday, in response, he announced his own criminal investigation into how the reporter got her information. He even went so far as to hold a press conference and target the reporter by putting her picture on a poster board. This is Nazi stuff.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• There's still a greater interest in Bridgeport than in Decatur in the city council/school board election after the second day of voting. (Side note: We did have the weird anomaly of exactly 384 people voting two days in a row.)
  
  
  
• Extra note: I've been getting reports of a candidate's wife making multiple appearances inside the voting building in Bridgeport. If you think anything inappropriate is going on, you can call the Wise County Election Office at (940) 626-4453
• Rep. Madison Cawthorn is having a heck of a week. He got stopped with a loaded gun yesterday at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, 
  
  
  
• Listen lady, after you sat idly by while Trump was suggesting we inject ourselves with bleach in order to cure COVID, I don't want to hear from you now as you try to hawk your new book.  (And saying you were ‘paralyzed’ at that moment is no excuse.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I've almost got a feeling that Elon Musk backs out of the Twitter merger once he finds out what a headache it will be to implement his "free speech" policy -- something  he has no understanding about and hasn't thought through. (For example, he doesn't understand that "the law" actually allows computer generated virtual child porn or animal crush videos. Is he going to allow that?) But to get out of the deal would cost him a $1 billion fee as a penalty in addition to the stock fallout which he still owns 9% of.
  
  
  
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

And it happened in Tennessee. You know, I think there's a greater chance of getting away with it today than there was back then.

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• This is awful out of Parker County. "DPS investigators say a group of young children got off the bus when it stopped on Copper Canyon Circle [near Brock, Texas]. As the driver of the bus began to pull away, a 6-year-old girl was struck. Police say she was pronounced deceased at the scene by paramedics."
  
  
  

  

  Entrance to Copper Canyon subdivision

  
  
• On the first day of early voting in the school and city elections, there's an abnormal interest out of Bridgeport.  I'm guessing that's because of one particular Bridgeport School Board seat race. Voters need to pay attention over there.
  
  
  
• Of all things to spend $48 billion on, this guy decided to buy a website. I still can't believe it. 
  
  
  
• Flashback: 
  
  
  
• The Court of Criminal Appeals decided that a last second appeal by death row inmate Melissa Lucio should be explored and sent the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on her claims (i.e. State withheld evidence, actual innocence, and whether new scientific evidence exists).
• For everyone saying this is the equivalent of a new trial being ordered, you need to tap the brakes.  This process needs a sympathetic district court judge, and I don't know if that's true at all. We do know that the D.A. will probably fight the ordering of a new trial at the hearing.
• In fact, there is a pending Motion to Recuse the trial judge, Gabriela Garcia, filed because "Judge Garcia’s court administrator, Irma Gilman, worked on Ms. Lucio’s defense in this case when Mrs. Gilman was the paralegal for Ms. Lucio’s lead defense counsel, Peter Gilman." I don't think that will work. 
  
  
  
• If the trial court, after that hearing, thinks that a new trial should be granted, the case will then go back to the nine member Court of Criminal Appeals who will then have to agree to it as well. This is far from a done deal.
• Showboat Rep. Jeff Leach got to be the one to call Lucio yesterday to tell her about the stay of execution. (You can hear the phone call here.) He told her that "the order was very strong and that it appears you are going to get a new trial at the very least."  Man, that's really overselling what happened. 
  
  
  
• In Gov. Abbott's press release yesterday about this man's body being found, he didn't say anything about those who he was attempting to save were initially claimed to be drug traffickers. That omission is glaring to me. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I was trying to find out if Abbott promoted the drug trafficking claim anywhere yesterday, and found that he was on some spare Fox News radio show called the "Guy Benson Show". In his interview, Abbott at first didn't say anything about the drug connection at all just saying the Guardsman tried "to save someone else's life"  Then Benson asked him directly to "confirm" (at 21:30) they were drug traffickers and Abbott said, "That's what I've been told by by the Director of the Department of Public Safety." He then curiously said he was also told they "were arrested" but then said they "will be arrested" if that were the case. (So were they or weren't they arrested? I don't know.) He then pivoted and oddly said "everyone" trying to cross the border is being "helped" by the drug cartels. So is that the drug connection? They weren't transporting drugs but were just "probably" be helped by the cartels for a fee? Is that the connection? I'm telling you: Something is very off about that initial drug trafficking story line.  
• We learned yesterday that QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene texted Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows urging him to have Trump declare "Marshall Law" in order to execute the coup and overthrow the election. Not only is the overt act of treason shocking, but the date is eye-opening as well: This was two weeks after the January 6th Insurrection at the Capitol. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I definitely know what this guy is not spending money on. (See above.)
  
  
  
• Topic suggested to me yesterday: Encourage the Messenger to publish a list of salaries of every principal in every school in Wise County. 
• I'll say it again, I don't understand why Johnny Depp has filed the defamation suit. It's a bad look. Especially after yesterday.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

I consider that to be a prediction of the acquittal which eventually happened.  (I had to look up exactly who I was talking about, and it turned out to be a special prosecutor appointed by the governor. The local prosecutor, who had originally filed the case and obtained the indictment, abruptly recused himself because he wanted to "tone down the rhetoric."  He must have seen the acquittal coming, too, and decided to jump ship.)

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• Oh, my. (From Friday.)
  
  
   
  
  
  
• He told everyone it was going to happen on Facebook.
  
  
  
• From all the rumblings this morning, this might just happen. I'll still be surprised, but some people are saying it's a done deal.   
  
  
  
• The testimony of Marjorie Taylor Greene was unproductive on Friday because the lawyer cross-examining her didn't know what he was doing. She would give speeches instead of answering the question, and then the lawyer took it upon himself to admonish her. That's not the way do it. You get the judge involved. Cut her off and object as nonresponsive the second she begins to ramble. Then the judge will shut her up and instruct her to answer only the question. If she does it again, then it is the judge, who is now invested in it, who will get pissed off that she ignored his instructions.
  
  
  
• Congressman Madison Cawthorn, who got in trouble with leadership about his drugs and orgies comment, had to explain these photographs of him wearing lingerie. He said they were just "goofy vacation photos." 
  
  
  
• That was some ripping off of a lot of hard working employees by a BBQ place in Roanoke.
  
  
  
• Here's another example from Friday of DPS serving as a campaign pawn for Gov. Abbott.  The $300,000 man was by his side. 
  
  
  
• Keep an eye on the "illegal drugs" aspect of the case.  DPS is dedicated to promoting Abbott's "Operation Lone Star" and to claim that drugs were involved in this story, even if that isn't true, serves that narrative. Hey, maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but DPS' credibility when it comes to the border is now an issue. (The Rangers are part of DPS and were just called out for jumping to a conclusion in the foster home abuse case that also served the governor's purpose.) 
  
  
   
  
  
  
• I bet they recommend clemency be granted. Today we will find out.  
  
  
  
• Legal nerdy stuff #1: The Fort Worth Court of Appeals reversed a case last Thursday because the Young County Sheriff's Office "misplaced" a laptop of the defendant in a sexual abuse case and didn't figure it out until the second day of trial. Then the DA's office refused to turn it over to the defense despite the judge's order. It sounds like a cluster. 
• Here is something strange about the case: Because of COVID, appellate courts have had a lot of time on their hands. That is, because of the lack of  trials in 2020 to 2021, there were few appeals.  Despite this, for some unexplained reason the Fort Worth court had retired judge Lee Ann Dauphinot assigned to this case who ended up authoring the opinion. Why?  Does this have anything to do with the fact they would be reversing the conviction of an alleged child sex offender and none of the sitting judges wanted to be the author?  Have things gotten that bad politically? 
• Legal nerdy stuff #2:  I was curious why what looked like an Intoxication Manslaughter case in Wichita Falls was being tried as a Murder case. I got my answer, and I should have figured it out. Since there was someone under 15 in the car while the lady was committing DWI, she was committing a felony (a State Jail Felony of DWI With Child < 15 years old) before the car wreck. Once someone died in that wreck while she was committing that particular felony, however, they were able to charge her with Murder under the Felony-Murder Rule. That law allows even unintended deaths to classified as murder if they occur during the commission of a felony and if the death were the result of "an act clearly dangerous to human life." She was convicted of murder as charged on Friday despite the defense asking for a lesser Intoxication Manslaughter conviction.
  
  
  
• Well look what topic CBS Sunday Morning had yesterday. (For those new around here, I mentioned a few years back that the richest guy I know told me that this was how he was making money. Since then, they seem to have exploded.): 
  
  
  
• OU Spring game. Where's Waldo?:
  
  
  
• Former TCU coach Gary Patterson at UT's Spring game. That seems so strange. 
  
  
  
• I told you it would turn into a bunch of SuperPACs.
  
  
  
• I just have a gift, I guess. #SportsGenius. From Friday: