8.29.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




I still think about how weird Clint Eastwood and the empty chair bit was at the Republican Convention. 

  • That was a wild Sunday:
    • A drive by shooting in North Forth Worth (very close to Saginaw) left two kids dead and baby hurt. The house wasn't far off the what we refer to as the Saginaw Cutoff.


    • I-35 northbound near downtown Fort Worth was shutdown a short time later because of police chase and the police shooting of a man. A female in the car was also killed but police say she was killed by that man. (This video taken by someone who was able to pass way too close to the car -- by going 10 mph in the adjacent express lane -- is pretty crazy.)
      Guns drawn on suspect vehicle as motorist drives by

      Somehow there are two people already dead in this car.

    • And it didn't involve a crime, but about the same time we had a dramatic shot of an 18 wheeler burning in Roanoke on 114.

  • On Saturday, there was a wrong way driver on 360 in Arlington in the middle of the afternoon.  After watching the video of it happen, tell me how there were only "two calls" about it to police. 


  • If this headline of a cheerleader at Prosper High School being injured seems familiar . . . 

    • . . . it should because the exact same thing happened one year ago. The girl in the wheelchair below, who showed up for the prayer vigil this weekend, was paralyzed in 2021 because of a cheerleading accident while a student at the same school. Anyone think there might be a problem here?

  • Houston did their part for crime early on Sunday when a guy who had been evicted set fire to his complex and then shot three dead as they fled. Two other people were hit but survived.


  • The redacted Trump affidavit was released on Friday. It told us some things but not much. He may never get indicted for anything, being he's flying close to the sun on this one. 


  • We've got a new crazy Herschel Walker quote. This one is mind-blowingly confusing.

  • The President made headlines on Friday for using the semi F word.


    • The again, summarily removing duly elected officials is a little semi-fascist. 

       

    • As is Lindsay Graham urging riots when his leader breaks the law and authorities consider holding him responsible. From yesterday: 

  • Random football nugget from the first weekend of college football, and Nebraska's loss of the biggest game of the weekend. 

  • Decatur's season did not start of well.

  • Why exactly are we preparing to go back to the moon? (The unmanned launch this morning will circle the Earth a bunch of times and return in 42 days. But that launch has been delayed and the window closes at 9:33 a.m. CST. Edit: It's been called off. )



at 8:30 AM

8.26.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




The Obama rage was pretty high back in the day.

  • I watched the two minutes video and, yes, it is bad. And although she didn't need to be arrested for using offensive words (she has a right to be offensive), she can't be hitting people.  But there feels like there is untold back story here. The video seemed edited so we don't see everything, and there just seems to be something not-quite-right with the lady.  It might be irrelevant, but others have noted her husband of nearly 20 years died in a bike accident about two years ago.


  • The redacted search warrant affidavit which led to the raid on Mar-a-largo will be released this morning. Based upon what the judge ordered to be sealed yesterday, I don't expect the redacted version will reveal much at all.

  • Mansfield ISD has been hit with a ransomware attack which has even shut down its phone system. They'll end up paying. 

  • I guess he learned every fake life is also precious. It was a sting operation by cops where an officer was pretending to be a minor. 


  • This is bad. And I think kids who inflict hazing are always the biggest meatheads of the bunch. 

  • The first sentence in this story in the Denton Record-Chronicle got my attention: "A trial of the century happened in Gainesville this week, involving a Denton protester and two Gainesville protesters." There was no qualification. No "an attorney said sarcastically" or "the prosecutor said with a smirk." Nope. It was a sentence of fact. But the prosecution of Confederate monument protestors does seem like overkill. The boys in the background in the photo below with the confederate flag and brandishing rifles were not the guys who were prosecuted. It was the other side.


  • Yesterday a Trump federal district judge sitting in Fort Worth struck down the Texas handgun carrying ban for those under 21 yet over 18 or over. In doing so he obviously cited the Second Amendment and a recent Supreme Court opinion. But this fine judge's attempted scholarly work also cited and quoted Frederick Douglass -- while also misspelling his name on the very first page. 

  • This is such an eye-opening story. It got a ton of time on MSNBC last night. The four districts are Southlake, Keller, Grapevine and Mansfield. 

  • Submit the sign in Arabic? What a great idea. The dumb law requires that if a sign is donated to a school which says "In God We Trust", the school must display it.   And if a sign in Arabic doesn't work, what if someone submits a sign with massive English letters with the exception that the word "God" is in tiny print? Would they have to display that? And what if a million of them, all 6' x 6', were submitted? I don't see a limit in the number of signs in the law.

    • Here's the actual statute. You just have to comply with the highlighted portion. That's it.

  • Very legal nerdy stuff: What a weird new appellate opinion out of Corpus Christi. A misdemeanor judge wanted the State to dismiss a bunch a penny-ante cases because the defendant was already in the federal pen doing federal time. The prosecutors wouldn't do it. So the judge, pissed off, tells them that if they were so excited about their cases they need to go to the trouble and expense of bench warranting the defendant back to the local jail. And he ordered a bench trial in 18 days. When the defendant wasn't there because the State didn't get him back, the judge dismissed the cases. The State, which has way too much time, too many prosecutors, and too much money, appealed. They won because the judge can never just "dismiss" a case without the State's consent (unless it's based on a defense Speedy Trial request which wasn't the case here.) So much taxpayer waste.
  • Shout out to Judge Don Pierson of the Tarrant County Court at Law No. 1 and his staff who I found out were faithful readers. 
  • Random crime story out of Galveston. 

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office, despite having a full male DNA profile, has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 3 years, 52 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:30 AM

8.25.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




That question* seems silly now. (*And I admit that wasn't technically in the form of a question.)

  • The Star-Telegram has a story on the salaries Texas high school football coaches with a particular focus on Decatur. After his hiring was announced, I remember asking someone in-the-know at the courthouse "How'd they pull that off?"  The response: "Wait until you see how much they are paying him."



  • This would appear to be a significant loss.

  • Lots of gnashing of teeth in conservative circles about the loan forgiveness news yesterday.  I really don't care if someone, who tried to better themselves, is getting a little help regardless of the "that ain't fair!" argument. However, I think there is a substantial chance the Trump federal courts knock this down as an overreach of presidential powers. 

  • A lot of people defending the loan forgiveness point to the massive PPP bailout to businesses over the last couple of years because of COVID. Did you know there's a database run by SBA which will list every business and the amount of PPP loans? You can even narrow your search down to zip code and more. (In glancing through the list from some local towns, I can see some outright fraud going on.)

  • It took forever, but the school board finally fired him as its chief of police last night. 

    • Arredendo finally released a long statement from his lawyer, but probably shouldn't have. He makes himself out as the victim by claiming he is going through a "public lynching". He also claims he wasn't the commander on scene and didn't  know there were children in with shooter. It also contains typos. 

  • I'm not trying to be harsh here, but $16 million for "emotional distress" over photos that she never saw and were never released online? And how exactly does a jury arrive at that figure? How about $100 million? How about $50,000? Nope. They thought it was exactly $16 million. And none of that figure is about punishing the defendants. It was all just to compensate her. "Ms. Bryant . . . sought damages for emotional distress brought on by worrying that the photos could surface publicly on the internet at any time."

  • "Hindering apprehension" is an odd charge out of Wichita Falls for a bondsman. Normally, they want someone to be apprehended so they can limit their financial responsibility.


  • Pete Delkus holds grudges. 

  • The University of Texas is partnering with Wrangler and the Longhorn's new starting QB, Quinn Ewers, is front and center of the campaign. Here's a promotional photo:

  • Very legal nerdy stuff: A few months back I pointed out a  new DWI appellate opinion which held that there was no probable cause to arrest someone who was asleep in their car in a school pick-up line. I also said I doubted it would stand up. Yesterday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided to hear the case. They'll reverse it in no time. The State always wins there. 

at 8:31 AM
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