9.20.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




She was actually indicted but the Tarrant County DA's Office dismissed the case after she paid "$1,900 in restitution and [wrote] an apology letter to the owner of the home which was reportedly defaced with toilet paper, food and markers in July 2012 as part of a prank." But the case got a little weird after that when she posted a different "apology letter" to her Facebook page denying responsibility. That made the D.A.'s office -- childishly in my opinion -- angry.

  • Of all the coverage of the Queen's funeral, it's the Corgis waiting on her that really got me.

  • These are being paid for by a PAC funded by West Texas oil money from the Christian Nationalists. At least one of them is in Wise County on along 287.   By the way, what exactly is the Alamo reference supposed to mean? 

  • The fact that I haven't mentioned this case doesn't mean it's not one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

  • The man who was the focus of the Serial podcast was released from prison yesterday. You can now rest assured that if you are wrongfully convicted because of prosecutors withholding evidence, and you are lucky enough to have a national following clamoring for your freedom, then you, too, will only spend 23 years in prison.  He was put in a cage at age 17.


  • I don't know if these three are related.
    • Texas leads the nation in book banning.

    • Fort Worth library system had a bomb threat last night.

    • Image from 1933 of a Nazis book burning event from Ken Burns current documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust.

  • Probably only interesting to Bridgeport folks: It took me forever to figure out where the new planned residential development in Bridgeport would be (the Messenger tricked me in a story last week by using the word "west of" 16th Street -- it's actually east of 16th Street.) 
    • In the graphic below, the yellow portion is only highlighted because that was the topic of rezoning for townhomes which was before the city council. But that's not the big story.
    • Look at the other homes which are also part of the bigger development which were revealed in documents submitted to the city council. My top notch graphics department outlined them in blue below. 
    • They are going to go in an area which would wipe out the thickest group of trees in Bridgeport. (I know. I grew up playing in them.) And they'll probably extend further east than what is shown since all of that property was sold in one big chunk earlier this year. 



  • I never thought this got enough coverage. The guy is accused of starting a fire of the billion dollar USS Bonhomme Richard which was docked in San Diego for repairs. It was totally destroyed and and had to scrapped. 


  • Not many people know of a federal law which prohibits someone from "receiving" a firearm if under indictment for an offense which has a punishment range of more than one year in prison. Not convicted, mind you. Just under indictment. Yesterday, a Trump judge struck it down. 

  • Random scene from Monday Night Football last night.

  • Legal nerdy stuff: A law firm respectfully asked that a second year law student at Yale be allowed to handle arguments before the Texas Supreme Court. Friday the court said "no."

at 8:32 AM

9.19.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




Sean Lee got de-cleated (and the GIF that went along with it was great.)

  •  This got buried on Friday, but the Fifth Circuit handed down may be the most shocking court opinion of my lifetime: In what should have been a 100% slam dunk no-brainer, the Court went the other way and upheld the Texas legislature's recent law which allows you to sue private social media companies for censoring what you write on the Internet on their private platforms. I cannot begin to tell you how wrong this is.

    •  The first two pages of the decision tell you it's going to be nuts.


    • Shorthand summary of opinion:

  • (1) I think he'd get crushed if he made this run. (2) Does this mean we get to get rid of him as Wise County's Congressional house rep rep? (3) How in the world is he even in politics after the drug, alcohol and sex scandal?

  • Trump had a rally on Saturday night and it got weird (even by Trump rally standards.) As he was reading mindlessly from the teleprompter, there was mood music playing in the background. And while that was going on,  the crowd silently and hypnotically held up one finger. It was like the invitation at the end of a service at a Southern Baptist church where the Charismatics snuck in. Video. It was really, really strange.



    • This explains the song. And holding up one finger would be symbolic of the Q motto of  “Where we go one, we go all.” (New York Times story.) 

    • And then yesterday, MAGA follower and GOP nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, urged his crowd to raise up one hand "as one!" (He yelled the words "as one!")  Video. What's going on?

  • Speaking of, everyone should watch Ken Burns' three part series which began last night called The U.S. and The Holocaust on PBS. Part one focused on our attitudes on immigration in the early 1900s as well as Hitler's rise to power. The similarities between then and now, without now being mentioned at all, jumped off the screen. 
    Scroll back up and take a look again at the three pictures above this one.
     
  • A Baylor sophomore is seemingly in big trouble after being arrested for Intoxication Manslaughter near campus. It looks like he played football at one of the Frisco high schools. Baylor

  • I've seen signs for Blue Mound Road going into Fort Worth, but I didn't know exactly where the town of Blue Mound was. It's a little thing to the east of Saginaw. Related story,


  • Saw this post on Twitter on Friday, and I still don't know what was going on. That's a lot of cops behind two SWAT vehicles.


  • I absolutely despise Dennis Prager. He seems like a perpetually unhappy and miserable human being. Video. This isn't taken out of context. He even took calls to defend his belief that every life apparently is not precious. 

  • Trump fat shamed Chris Christie on Friday night.

     
  • A Decatur BBQ food truck got some love in Texas Monthly.

  • We had a call in the OU game on Saturday which clarified something which has confused me a little bit over the years.  Stay with me here. 
    • Below was not a touchdown even though his lower torso crosses over the corner of the end zone and inside the pylon. Almost always, we see a touchdown scored by a runner when the ball breaks the plane of the goal. The problem here was that the ball traveled outside of the pylon never went "over" the air space of the end zone. 
    • But he still could have scored if the runner had simply got that foot down cleanly in the end zone. In this situation, the runner is basically like a receiver in the end zone catching a ball where he is required to have one foot (college rule) down in that end zone before it can be a touchdown. Here this OU player never cleanly touched inside the end zone with his foot. He just stepped over the corner and came down with his toe out of bounds. 
    • Now if he had put his foot down inside the end zone, does it matter where the ball is? Yes. It must still break the plane of the goal line but in these situations the "plane of the end zone extends around the world." So the ball doesn't have to go over or inside the pylon when a player has a body part down in the end zone -- instead it is allowed to break the plane while it travels over that wide white area below.




  • This cover story in the Star-Telegram got my attention. Was the right man convicted of murdering a woman in 2011 in Arlington via stabbing her multiple times and then setting her apartment on fire? It was a circumstantial case.  The unsolved murder case of Lauren Whitener is remarkably similar in that it, too, involved her being stabbed multiple times and then her duplex set on fire in Lake Bridgeport. For what it is worth, she also lived in Arlington before moving to Lake Bridgeport.  (Legal nerd stuff: The Star-Telegram case was affirmed by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals, but the beginning of Justice Dauphinot's dissent is a thing of beauty.)


at 8:30 AM

9.16.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Yep, that happened. He tricked her into meeting him by impersonating someone else on social media. Because of the murder, Franklin Davis got the death penalty  in the following year.

  • The shipping of immigrants like cattle to Martha's Vineyard is exactly like the Reverse Freedom Rides of the 1960s. Blacks were shipped to the northeast to give the Yankees a taste of what it was like to hang out with "those people."  The JFK Library, in a tweet that went viral yesterday, pointed out this old practice while implicitly throwing a haymaker at Abbott and DeSantis as the two continue to treat Hispanic immigrants like second class, inferior citizens human beings. 


    • Gov. DeSantis, who is simply giddy in using the most vulnerable among us as pawns for fun, is particularly despicable since the two flights to Martha's Vineyard originated in Texas and only one made a quick stop in Florida. He went out of his way to grab credit and be cruel for the cameras. 

    • And, I'm way out of my lane, but  I'm not sure why this doesn't qualify as federal human trafficking under 18 USC 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii).
  • And they might want to be careful as to how they treat Hispanics because it has finally happened.


  • In an interview with the Austin American Statesman. The seat of the $300,000 Man got a little hotter. But if Abbott doesn't fire him before the election, he never will.

  • Trump told the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers (the modern day Nazi Brown Shirts/Stormtroopers) and others to "Stand back and stand by" again as he threatened violence if he is indicted. (Audio from Hugh Hewitt radio show.)

    • But, go ahead, Fox News, keep catering to the MAGA crowd . . . 

  • Uh . . .

     

  • I may frame this picture from D Magazine because of the presence of Robert Jeffress.

     

  • Both Paradise and Bridgeport won at Jerry World last night.

  • UNT's starting quarterback from Argyle is 29 years old. 
  • I was all excited to see that the Evil Empire spent $280,000 in one weekend to recruit Arch Manning, then I read the story and found out that the figure included eight other recruits. (Story link - paywalled.) 

  • Southlake PD twitter account posted some pictures of high school students when homecoming mums. When did this get out of hand? More pics here. 


  • The Wise County Sheriff's Office server is still down. 

  • 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, 73 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:30 AM
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