Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

PGA player Justin Dufner became a brief internet sensation as he visited a school in Dallas as part of a promotion for the Bryon Nelson. 

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• This happened before midnight last night. Moments ago the death toll was placed at nine soldiers. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Texas private school voucher program, which will gut rural schools by sending tax money to Christian private schools, is gaining serious traction. Wise County's representative appeared at a private school in Denton with Gov. Abbott this week to promote the bills.
  
  
  
• Kudos to the Wise County Messenger for making this issue a front page story. 
  
  
  
• New Fox News poll. Are the normal Republicans really going to allow his clown car to take the Party over the cliff?
  
  
  
• Good lord. 
  
  
  
• Yesterday, the Republican majority Texas House passed a bill which would give the jury the option of finding a defendant, after they had found him guilty of capital murder, to not be eligible for the death penalty because they also believed the defendant was suffering from "severe mental illness" (defined in the statute) at the time of the crime. The finding would instead cause the defendant to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.  Amazingly, Wise County Rep. Stuckey and Jacksboro's David Spiller voted against it. Have they lost their minds? 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Here's a nutty story. The U.S. Attorney's office says that the head of the San Jose Police Union has been dealing drugs, including fentanyl, from overseas using the police union's computers and office. 
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Above from the press release from the U.S. Attorney

  
  

  

  She was allegedly shipping to customers using the "SJPOA" -
  the San Jose Police Officer's Association mailing account

  
  

  

  Texts with her overseas suppliers

  
  
• Before the Nashville school shooing fades from our memories . . . 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Instead, our politicians vow to protect and nurture the AR-15 . . . 
  
  
  
• Kind of nerdy legal stuff about the Trump judge in Amarillo.  Here's the article. Here's the opinion it references. 
  
  
  
• I really haven't watched much of the Gwyneth Paltrow trial, but apparently the plaintiff's lawyer keeps referring to himself as "a simple country lawyer", and it's driving people crazy. 
  
  
  
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

I'm always curious how these cases turned out. This one was resolved over six years later when he pled to the misdemeanor of assault-bodily injury and received two years deferred adjudication. 

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• I'm not sure what's going on here, but the Wise County Sheriff's Office released this yesterday for an adult who went missing way back on February 9th. 
  
  
  
• I'm sure you've seen the bodycam video of the Nashville cops stopping the mass shooter. If you haven't viewed the full six minute version, do yourself a favor and do it. The incredible bravery of the cops, and just the chilling feeling of what America has become. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• AR-15 use in American carnage:
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Another local connection.
  
  
  
• I guy stole a highway patrol car in California yesterday and then decided to jump out of it and run while it going 45 miles an hour. He didn't understand what would happen once his feet hit the pavement. It did not end well.
  
  
  
• If you followed the Serial podcast about Adnan Syed, it probably caught your attention yesterday when you saw that his conviction had apparently been reinstated after it had famously been vacated by a trial judge after 23 years.
  
  
  
• But this is a non-story. Maryland has some law that requires the notice be given to "victim's" families of any hearing. It wasn't done here so the appellate court just sent the case back to do it all over again with another hearing. It's just a procedural do-over and the same result will happen.
  
  
  
• Another Trump Insurrectionist was sentenced and, once again, it was not enough.  And we've grown numb about how those "peaceful" protestors all came to D.C. with their assault gear. Although this guy was wearing a fashionable Austin-centric jacket as well.
  
  
  
• I appreciate Chris Christie trying to be the voice of reason in the Republican Party, but he stands no chance of winning. 
  
  
  
• Wise County's troubled congressman Ronny Jackson went viral yesterday after the Internet mob accused him of looking like he was doing drugs on the House floor. It is one strange video, and the comments are wild.
  
  
  
• I very bad wreck in West shut down I-35 for hours yesterday. An 18-wheeler plowed into two troopers and a firefighter who were working a previous wreck. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Sports: The Mean Green just knocked off Wisconsin to get the the NIT finals.  Amazingly, Wisconsin didn't score a single point in the last nine minutes. 
  
  
  
• The Party of limited government wants to control your locally elected prosecutors and judges if they don't act the way the Party wishes in Texas . . . 

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

This rocked everyone. A couple of months earlier an assistant district attorney in the same county was gunned down. We would only later learn it was the same shooter: A former Justice of the Peace. 

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• Edit: Sorry, I forgot to hit "publish" on time.  
• We once again prove the the United States values guns more than children.  Three nine-year-olds are dead  -- killed as they attended school.  

• When you drop your kids off for school today, you have no assurances you will see them again. No where in the world do you face so much risk. This should not be normal.  

• One of the victims is Hallie Scruggs. Here she is with her father in 2019 when they lived in Dallas while he was an associate pastor at Preston Avenue Presbyterian Church. He now works for the church where she died. 
  
  
  
• Here's the chilling surveillance video of the shooter arriving at the school, shooting out the glass doors, and then going into the hallways. 
  
  
  
• Here are the guns. 
  
  
  
• This is last year's Christmas card from Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles. The school sits within his district.
  
  
  
• This front page really says it all about priorities in Texas. 
  
  
  
• A car was left running in the garage last night. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• What's this lady's deal? Claiming she is Jones' daughter from an affair, she filed that weird lawsuit last year to be released from a non-disclosure agreement her mother made. "Jones’ attorneys asked the 2022 lawsuit, which was filed in Dallas County, to be dismissed and described the suit as an extortion attempt. Davis’ lawyers repeatedly denied extortion allegations and had argued that she was not legally bound to the settlement." So the lady who denies she is an extortionist now files a new lawsuit to get, uh, money? (Side note: She works for Wise County's crazy and troubled Rep. Ronny Jackson.)
  
  
  
• So an assistant DA decided to charge and try a man for the most heinous offense imaginable based upon the word of one other person when a guilty verdict would have meant a minimum of 25 years in prison without parole.  But when a jury, which looked at the very same evidence as the prosecutor, couldn't reach a verdict, the prosecutor just walked away onto the next case. Probably didn't even say, "Sorry about all that." 
  
  
  
• Good grief. This happened last night. 
  
  
  
• Still can't stop thinking about this moment. 
  

  

  
  
• The Rangers beat me down every year at this time by announcing some ridiculous food option. It's a stunt for free advertising that every media outlet falls for. I'm not linking. I'm not posting a pic. 
• Oh, yeah. We've got three dead children . . .