Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

Ten years ago this week, Dave Barnett, during a game, suddenly uttered an incoherent sentence: "Go-ahead run is at fifth, on what Adams is insisting on calling it a botched robbery. What actually happened was his henchman, took a piece, literally, out of my . . . . "  It came out of nowhere. Listen. He strangely never worked for the Rangers again although he did find gigs elsewhere.

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• They "would not confirm if the leave was paid or unpaid." Story.
  
  
  
• The reaction to the Senate clearing the way for the "gun bill" (which really has nothing to do with guns) was about what you would expect in some circles. 
• Fox News' Carlson Tucker was handling it well. 
  
• As did the Jewish Laser QAnon Princess who has somehow become a Republican leader. Video.
  
  
  
• The January 6th Committee's fourth televised hearing today will focus on Trump trying to strong arm the Justice Department to overturn the election. It's a crazy chapter in an unfolding crazy book.  And you'll also get to learn the name of Jeffrey Clark who took part in a bizzaro meeting in the Oval Office. 
  
  
  
  
• He was a spare environmental lawyer inside the Justice Department who gullibly would accept Internet rumors and "was the butt of the joke, a guy who — in spite of his education — lacked the ability to discern fact from fiction on the World Wide Web." He also wanted to overturn the election. Trump found out about him, loved him, and invited him to the Oval Office to consider appointing him as the Attorney General to lead the attempted coup. (Bill Barr had just resigned over Trump's craziness.) 
• When "acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen [learned of the meeting] he tracked down his deputy, Richard Donoghue, who had been walking on the Mall in muddy jeans and an Army T-shirt. There was no time to change. They raced to the Oval Office." They would threatened Trump with mass resignations in the Justice Department if Clark was appointed. 
• That showdown meeting also led to one of the greatest all-time lines, issued by Donoghue, during that tense showdown: “You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.” 
  
  
  
• Pretty dramatic pictures of a two-time American Olympian being rescued by her coach during training.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Not only was the actual Vietnam war helicopter used for "tourism", it also "appeared in a number of films, including Die Hard, The Rock,  and Baywatch."
  
  
  
• In Harris County during "jury appreciation week", the District Clerk decided to bring in speakers to briefly address potential jurors who had been called in for jury duty. Think that's a good idea before they head off for formal jury selection in individual courts? How about if one of the speakers basically gave a prosecution pep talk and said, "I’ve seen juries bring justice to many families in Harris County who have lost loved ones to senseless violence.” 
  
  
  
• A West Virginia town came up with an alternative plan for speeders. They could either go to court and handle the case there, or they could just, up front, make a "donation" of  toys,  gift cards, or cash which would then be "provided to the needy."  What could possibly go wrong? Especially if there was no oversight or auditing of the donations. You guessed it: 
  
  
  
• I'll admit I didn't even know the Fox News mogul was married to Mick Jagger's ex.
  
  
  
• I also just learned Jerry Hall had a cameo in Urban Cowboy. 
  
  
  
• Texas being Texas again.
  
  
  
• I'm really surprised by this. (The story isn't online yet. I want to know what they were paying.) 
  


• A landlord can't discriminate when it comes to renting housing, but what if you have the weird situation where it's not the landlord who wants to discriminate but the HOA doing it? In Providence Village in Denton County, an HOA enacted a rule which "fines landlords $300 per week as long as they participate in the federal voucher program"-- a program which provides financial assistance to renters who are historically low income minorities.  And the whole town town is covered by HOAs. The new rule will cause 150 families to move out. How wild.  Story. 
  
  
  
• Very, very nerdy legal stuff: (1) A criminal case on appeal, which I had mentioned here before because it had been reversed by the Fort Worth court of appeals, is now going to be heard by Texas' highest criminal court. Defense lawyer Ray Napolitan has the case which has taken on a life of its own. (2) That highest court took strange action on two cases yesterday which, after deciding to hear them, abruptly changed is mind and dismissed the appeals as "improvidently granted." And the two were high profile cases: Roy Oliver, the Balch Springs cop convicted of murder, and a crazy case out of Houston involving Sandra Jean Melgar which had been featured on 20/20.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

I've received lots of tips over the years. 

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• Uvalde revelations from yesterday continued to stun:
• The classroom door was unlocked. In fact, it couldn't even have been locked from the inside. 
  
  
  
• Did anyone check the door? Not according to DPS Director Steve McCraw yesterday: "We've gone back and checked -- did anybody touch the door? . . . How about trying the door and see if it was unlocked? Okay? You know, what we used to call a 'clue.' Why not? And of course, no one had."
  
  
  
• There were officers from eight different agencies in the hallway waiting for an hour. 
• Three minutes. 
  
  
  
• McCraw also testified to this yesterday:
  
  
  
• And McCraw threw Chief Pete Arredondo even further under the bus: “The on-scene commander chose to put the lives of officers before the lives of children. The officers had weapons, the children had none.” Holy cow. That's as harsh as I've ever heard one police officer speak of another. 
  
  
  
• McCraw released the transcript of Arredondo's phone calls to dispatch.
  
  
  
  
  
• Firing back, the mayor of Uvalde called McCraw a liar last night at a city council meeting. I was halfway expecting him to call him the $300,000 Man.
  
  
  
• He's got a good point. How many troopers and Texas Rangers were on the scene?
• Here's more from the mayor as he scorched DPS last night. 
• We got a pretty good diagram from DPS of the layout of the school and the shooter's movements (in red.)
  
  
  
• Recall that it was just 28 days ago Gov. Greg Abbott told us officers displayed "amazing courage by running toward gunfire." 
• The January 6th Hearing yesterday was shocking. 
• We heard from three honorable men who stood up to Trump's plan to overturn the election in Arizona and Georgia.  These are what normal Republicans look like. Good and decent men.  And the harassment and threats that they were subjected to by mobs inspired by Trump's lies was sickening. 
  
  
  
• If you do anything, please watch the testimony of Rusty Bowers, the Speaker of the House in Arizona.  (I've got it cued up for you.) He was almost in tears as he described how the President of the United States directly tried to get him to lie.   This info was all new. And There's a reason Fox News is ignoring it. 
  
  
   
• It is becoming increasingly clear that in a normal country, at the very least, Trump, Rudy Giuliana, Jenna Ellis and John Eastman would be in jail.  Ninety-five percent of the people I have personally represented in my career who had been indicted by a Wise County Grand Jury have done far less than them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The fake electors scheme is jaw-dropping.  
• And we got a new tidbit yesterday when we learned a legislative aide of Rep. Rob Johnson (R-Wisconsin) texted VP Pence's legislative director on the morning of January 6th in order to arrange for Johnson to personally hand Pence a fake elector document. "Do not give that to him," was the response. 
  
  
  
• After the hearing, watch Rep. Johnson flat out lie about not knowing anything about it.  Video. “We got handed an envelope that was supposed to go to the Vice President. I don't know." But he says he didn't know who delivered it, didn't know what was in it, but still his staff tried to arrange where he could hand it to Pence. It's gold. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• I got more of a feeling of Trump having a private army of 1930s brownshirts and stormtroopers after listening to what this woman was subjected to. A plain little Georgia election worker -- a private citizen --  trying to do her job during a pandemic.  Destroyed due to Trump propaganda. 
  
  
  
  
• Seems appropriate.
  
  
  
• The Supreme Court tore down the wall between church and state yesterday when it approved taxpayer funded vouchers going into the pockets of private church schools. Justice Sotomayer's last paragraph of her dissent: 
  
  
  
• There's an 80 story high rise probably going into downtown Dallas. It will be the city's tallest building ever. 
  
  
  
• That's was a weird way to introduce your press release:
  
  
  
• The Messenger has a good story today about the Wise County Sheriff's Office investigation into the murder of a Chico man.  They may or may not have arrested the right guy, but they relied heavily on a "presumptive blood test" which I can tell you is more often wrong than right. And there is a weird trend of the Sheriff's office running off to Montague County to have a district judge up there sign arrest warrants or search warrants instead of going to a Wise County judge. They did that in in the botched Lauren Whitener murder case, too. Why?
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

Forgot that he was so young when he died. If my math is right, he would have been 26 when the famous video of him was filmed in 1991. 

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• Oh, my! This just keeps getting worse and worse. 
• The Austin American Statesman has obtained a screenshot of video footage from inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde showing officers with long guns and shields at 11:52 a.m.   
  
  
  
• The Texas Tribune has a screenshot of more officers and guns at 12:04 p.m.
  
  
  
• Everything we are learning about Uvalde comes from the press. The mainstream media is the lifeblood of democracy and government accountability.  And here is a video from yesterday of the press being kicked out of Uvalde City Hall (a public building) by Uvalde police. The desperately need a PR person. 
  
  
  
• Last second Edit/Update: There will be some public hearings today (including DPS head Steve McCraw for the first time since he threw the police chief under the bus) so at least something in the open is going on. But I'm not sure I see a "part of the door" in this photograph:
  
  
  
• The burning of the Balsora Baptist Church has made national news (well, at least Fox News) because of its remains. 
  
• In a shocking campaign ad yesterday (video of it here), the leading Republican candidate for the Senate out of Missouri, and former governor, encouraged others to join in "RINO hunting." He's literally going to get people killed. Facebook took it down. Twitter kept it up but put a warning label on it. 
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Actual text: "Join the MAGA crew! Get your RINO hunting permit.
  There's no bagging limit!" 

  
  
  
  
  
• People need to wake up. The Republican party is being taken over by a faction of fascists.    Encouraging violence while openly willing to defy the norms of democracy is straight of early 1930s Germany. It's the equivalent of Hitler and his brownshirts  (the Sturmabteilung or Storm Troopers) rising to power after a failed insurrection -- and finally achieving their goal despite never getting a majority of the vote.  I know it makes me sound like an over-the-top alarmist but, right now, what's the difference between that and the efforts of Trump and the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers and those who sit back and nod in approval?  These are dangerous times. 
  
  
  
• The January 6 Committee will continue to present its case at noon today. It will focus on Trump trying to find and strongarm elected officials in the state governments in Arizona and Georgia who might be sympathizers to overturn the vote. ("I just want you to find 11,780 votes!")  In addition, the shocking scheme of the submission of "Fake Electors"  will be explored. Once again, faithful Republicans will be the damning witnesses. 
  
  
  
• One of those witnesses will be Russell Bowers. He is a state Republican from Arizona and an American hero. This press release, written by him way back on December 4, 2020, proves he is basically the first person to alert us that there was a crime and a coup afoot by Trump and his henchmen. "As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him," he wrote. "But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election." More golden language:






• The medical examiner's office in Tarrant County has had a rough couple of years. 
  
  
  
• Anyone got their summer electric bill yet? Throw this on top of the price of gasoline, grocery, and housing increases and we are in trouble.  Story.
  
  
  
• Texas seceding from the Union was in the news yesterday as the Texas Republican Convention floated the idea at its convention. All the news stations jumped on the "Texas can't secede! It would be illegal!"  I've fought this for over a decade.  Secession talk is dumb, but if a state wants to leave the United States there is no law that is going to stop them. Succession is, by its definition, a declaration that an entity no longer wants to be abide by the laws and rules of its motherland. Can you imagine England telling the colonies: "You can't declare independence! That's illegal!" But there are contrary voices: 

• Update from yesterday: I had a bullet point of a not guilty verdict out of Wichita Falls. A faithful reader tells me the defense lawyer was Michael Valverde.