10.31.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




It was a pretty bad one. 

  • It's Halloween so be on the look out for Beto skateboarding through your neighborhood and handing out rainbow colored fentanyl to your children.
  • I've mentioned this before: It's not trampling which cause people to die in these situation. No.  People die because they get so packed in that their chests and abdomens can't expand to get air. Here's a video taken from within the crowd just as it was beginning.


  • We learned that the attacked of Nancy Pelosi's husband, who underwent surgery on Friday, was most certainly looking for her, had zip ties, was an election denier, COVID denier, QAnon supporter, and ranted about "Jews, Black people, Democrats, the media and transgender people" in his blog.

    • The reaction was at least normal in the beginning. 


    • But it didn't even take the weekend for the nutcases to start a lie that these days now runs quicker than the truth.  I heard a WBAP talk show on Friday afternoon irresponsibly speculating that it was staged, but the crazies found a new leader when Elon Musk responded to Hillary Clinton on Sunday morning supporting the conspiracy/fantasy/lie. And his reply spread like wildfire. This is crazy. 





    • Hit with criticism, Musk deleted his conspiracy tweet within a few hours. 

    • Reality can’t exist anymore because it can’t keep up with the lies on the internet. Musk will now contribute to this. And how is he a man who doesn't hate baseless rumors?

    • But proving there is no bottom, Junior weighed in with a "joke" about the violent attack on the 82 year old man.  This is the new fascist playbook: Invite the violence, muddy the truth when said violence occurs, and then parody it to make it seem less important. Incredible. 

       
  • Meanwhile, a text scroll was projected onto the side of the stadium during the Florida/Georgia game that said, “Kanye was right about the Jews.” Here's the video.  It later moved to a downtown building. Video. 

  • I hate to break this to you, folks, but I don't think America is going to make it.
  • As democracy dies, early voting in Wise County is trailing off. Total so far is 9,017 or around 18% of total registered voters. That's normal, though. 

  • Re: Last Friday's Heavy Rain. How much raw sewage did the City of Runaway Bay dump into Lake Bridgeport?
  • All the political ads make my head hurt, but one of them which most people don't notice is the one that begins with a scare tactic about crime, and then urges you to vote for Republican Texas Supreme Court judges.  But the Texas Supreme Court doesn't hear any criminal cases.


  • In Dallas, there are three "declared write-in candidates" who will appear on the ballot for the 301st Judicial District Court and that's it. For the life of me I don't know why. 
  • Another edition of Laws Don't Matter Any Longer.

  • OK, I believe in TCU. 
  • From a Ticket host who just saw the birth of his second child. This hurts my heart.

    • This is what he posted in the hours after the birth.

  • Brazil had a presidential election yesterday where Trump's far-right candidate was thrown out of office. 


at 8:31 AM

10.28.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Natalie Portman at Baylor/Texas. And the game looked entertaining. 

  • Re: Yesterday's weather prediction. Here is the radar as you woke up this morning. I've once again proven to be the Most Trusted Man in Weather™.

  •  This is most heat I've seen on the $300,000 Man so far. 





    • I've decided that the powers-at-be made the decision that McCraw wouldn't be fired or resign until after the election.  Abbott's campaign probably thought that his exit would give Beto a talking point so keeping the status quo was the safest court of action. 
  • New this morning. 

  • Trump will be back by Monday, right?


    • Twitter is now a private company. If you owned a share as of the close of business yesterday, you'll be paid the amount Musk upon which agreed to buy you out: $54.20 a share. Five days ago, people still weren't sure the sale would go through. You could have bought it for $50 on Monday.

    • I find it almost inconceivable that some merger and acquisitions lawyer pushed a button last night and $44 billion was electronically transferred. But that is what happened. 
  • Meta's (Facebook's) stock plummeted yesterday. It is down a jaw-dripping 70% this year. 

  • Good. And what a weird name.

  • Dateline: Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. They think the fire was set to cover up a homicide. 

  • I like hot mics in general. 

  • Pageant drama.

  • Man, that's a wild jump.

     

  • Very legal nerdy stuff: This perjury case was reversed yesterday by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals because of a jury instruction was given about a specific section of the law that is on the books but which most criminal lawyers, including me, have never heard of. (CCP 38.22 §4.) And it had absolutely no application to the trial. How screwed up was the trial?: (1) There was "expert testimony" before the jury as to whether the language of the that law applied to the case. That's bizarre. And the court of appeals didn't exactly like it. See footnote 23. (2) And the jury was given a "special issue" on that law in addition to the guilty/not guilty verdict form. Say what? 


     
    • Here are the players. There were special prosecutors brought in. 

    • For those of you who take a deep-dive into that case, that's a heck of a probation disqualification provision buried in the statute which governs the admissibility of written confessions, isn't it? 
  • 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, 115 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:32 AM

10.27.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




A Rupert Murdoch newspaper.

  • The fallout over 19 dead children in Uvalde continues. The head of the Texas Rangers quietly retired last month without so much as a whimper. 


    • Gov. Abbott was caught off guard yesterday with a question about the resignation.  He said he didn't know anything about it and, shockingly, also said that he couldn't even remember "talking to the him" in the past.  

  • After doing nothing for months, I woke up my highly paid Liberally Lean First Alert Weather Center, and they alerted me that it will be a very heavy line of storms going through Wise County about the time you go to work tomorrow.  And the high will only be 55 degrees.

  • Early voting in Wise County after three days is still pretty heavy. Grand total is 4,780 which is just under 10% of all registered voters. 

  • Kind of legal nerdy: I keep seeing reports that the alleged nurse killer at Harris Methodist was subject to a minimum 25 year sentence for his past case where he received only 8 years and for which he was out on parole at the time. That may be right, but I've yet to see the specifics on him. In Texas, in order to be subject to a 25 year minimum there needs to be two final felony convictions that (1) occur in a sequence and (2) which did not involve a probation. To put it an easier way, it gets triggered if a person is convicted, goes to prison, then gets out, commits another felony, gets convicted, goes to prison, and then gets out. Then the next time he commits a felony then he is subject to the 25 year minimum.  It sounds crazy when you write it out, doesn't it? 

  • Quick hits about this story and headline.

    • The guy was a member of the Pagans motorcycle group. The only time I had ever heard of the Pagans was in the very bad 1987 Dragnet movie starring Tom Hanks and Dan Ackroyd. Definitely not the same Pagans.

    • The headline is weird when it says he was sentenced to a "total [of] 180 years and will run concurrently." What's the point of totaling up concurrent sentences? They were 50, 50, 50, and 30. 
    • It happened at Eight Ball Billiards and Bar on Jacksboro Highway. In this street view image, the bar has a big sign saying it supports the constitution and free speech. I wouldn't want to test that free speech part inside there. 

  • The Dallas Morning News has a front page chart on the number of people sitting in prison on pot cases in Texas. That's kind of misleading. Most marijuana cases are misdemeanors where people are subject to the local jail and not state prison. Heck, Wise County has 13 people right now in the local hoosegow with pending misdemeanor pot charges. 

  • Oops.

  • Corporate Office Invasion. He's doing great. 

  • Corporate Office Invasion 2.0. I'm not sure this guy is all that far behind Kanye in the nuts department.  (He interestingly posted this morning to advertisers that he won't let Twitter become a "free-for-all hellscape." It was also just announced that Twitter will be de-listed from the NYSE tomorrow. I'm not real sure what either of those things really mean.)



  • This is how democracy dies: Calling an election fraudulent in case you lose. It's now in the playbook. Supported by Fox News. Video.

  • I'd care more about the new Herschel Walker allegations if Gloria Allred was not involved. She taints anything she's involved in. 

at 8:31 AM
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