Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

"An eye-opening experience for Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) as he is confronted by a topless demonstrator during a tour of the Hanover Fair in Hanover, Germany, on April 8, 2013. He was accompanied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel [in green jacket.]"

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• Auto vs. Motorcycle chaos in Wise County yesterday afternoon. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Shocking tidbit from one of the press conferences after the Louisville bank shooting. The AR-15 is going back on the streets.
  
  
  
• The D.A. in Manhattan is trying to stop the subpoena to appear before Congress to explain his Trump indictment. Interestingly, he is also trying to prevent the former assistant D.A. who wrote a book about the investigation from testifying as well. That might be hard to stop. 
  
  
  
• Speaking of that book, I'm actually reading it and am halfway through. Quick thoughts . . . 
  
  
  
• The book is surprisingly fun to read, but it doesn't make me think too much of the prosecution.
• He spent three chapters on the Stormy Daniel case (written when he didn't think there was ever going to be a prosecution.) He refers to it as the "Zombie Case" and, shockingly, of all the theories of prosecution that he proposed that were rejected, not one of them was the False Business Records theory. It never even came up. 
• I'll admit that I was really disturbed by how cavalier he is about how he was hired "to see if there were any laws broken" by Trump.  That ain't good. Prosecutors shouldn't be targeting someone and looking for crimes. Yep, I'm defending Trump here.
• Texas Pardon Update: The District Attorney in Austin wrote to the parole board asking them to hold off on making a recommendation on the Austin murder case where Gov. Abbott is trying to play judge and jury. The DA was way too nice. I would have thrown in a "Don't be a puppet of a wannabe authoritarian Puppet Master who wishes to replace our jury system."
  
  
  
• When you are resorting to randomly digging up concrete slabs, you really have no idea where the person is. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Not a chance in the world this actually happened. 
  
  
  
• The Tarrant County Sheriff spoke to the media yesterday about what a great job he thinks he is doing. But he also said that his office had seized enough fentanyl "to kill every man, woman and child in Tarrant County . . . ."  I keep seeing similar headlines everywhere -- of how a seizure was "enough to kill [insert millions]." That's just such a lie.  We can assume that cops seize less than 1% of all fentanyl. If these potential mass casualty figures were true, you would think there would be bodies laying around on every sidewalk because of the 99% that got through. Fentanyl is a problem, but they don't need to lie to convince of us that.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The self-appointed leader of the DFW MAGA Trump worshipers (and the head of the West Texas oilman PAC) just casually mentioned yesterday that school vouchers are intended to kill public schools. 
  
  
  
• But I loved how someone threw a past tweet of his in his face:
  
  
  
• Youtube is paying the NFL $2 billion a year for the right to broadcast the "Sunday Ticket." They are now passing that cost along . . .  
  
  
  
• Shohei Ohtani is the greatest baseball player in the history of the sport and it's not even close. 
• The shocking Abbott Pardon news finally made the front page of the Dallas Morning News. But that's a lukewarm headline. 

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

Oilfield generator fell off a truck in downtown Boyd.

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• Another day in America. We can now add banks to yet another place that we aren't safe from madmen with AR-15s.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Of course, he live-steamed it. 
  

  
  
  
• Ted Cruz solved our mass murder problem just two ago. It didn't age well. Yep, it is real
  
  
  
• There have been rumors for days, but now we know an extremely right-wing Texas legislator is accused of inviting an under 21 year old intern to his apartment and trying to get her liquored up and more.  Speculation is that criminal charges might follow. Story. (This is why little Briscoe Cain called him a "sexual predator.")
  
  
  
• They always have a tell.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Well, that didn't take long. The other lawmaker will be put back in place tomorrow. And there's nothing the Tennessee legislature can do about it. They really played this well, didn't they?
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Out of San Antonio. Story.
  
  
  
• There is some outcry about Abbott's insane intend to pardon a man before a judgment has been signed and even before sentence has been imposed. (No sentencing date yet.) But it's not enough of an outcry.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Abbott hasn't given up on vouchers and gutting and defunding public schools. Don't let him do it. When a community loses its school, it loses its identity.
  
  
  
• The abortion drug ban single handedly imposed by the activist judge in Amarillo was appealed yesterday to the Fifth Circuit which is heavily laden with activist judges.  
  
  
  
• Remember these words by Justice Kavanaugh in his concurrence in Dobbs which overruled Roe v. Wade? 
  
  
  
• Legal nerdy stuff:  The Plaintiffs in the case have to file a response "by midnight." If the stroke of midnight begins a new day, wouldn't you be a just a tiny bit nervous your response was due last night when the first second of April 11, 2023 occurred? 
  
  
  
• Sports quick hits: (1) Kliff Kingsbury to USC, (2) A Rangers pitcher tied an American League record last night -- in a good way, (3) Decatur's Bryce Elder pitched 6.1 innings and gave up no earned runs for the Atlanta Braves. 
• Back to reality, the death toll is indeed five. One person died last night after the USA Today went to press . . . 

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

A charter bus in Irving headed to Oklahoma.

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• The nuttiest and scariest event I've ever seen in Texas criminal justice history happened this weekend, and the press is slow to understand the gravity of it: Less that 24 hours after a jury convicted a man of murder in Austin, and even before punishment has been assessed, Gov. Abbott announced he will pardon the man.  Why? The victim was a part of Black Lives Matter. It is stunning. 
  
  
  
• The basic facts are that an Uber driver, Daniel Perry, drove into a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin. Some of the marchers, including a guy who will soon be dead, approached the vehicle. The victim, like everyone and their dog these days, was carrying a weapon. Without even the gun being pointed at him, Perry opened fired five times at close range and killed him.  Perry then fled. 
  
  
  
• The trial took over a week. And more than 40 witnesses were heard from. The jury rejected self-defense and found him guilty of murder after after 18 hours of deliberations. It wasn't unexpected. Perry had written on social media of his desire to kill protestors. From the Fox affiliate in Austin covering the trial:
  
  
  
• The deceased victim, in case you care, with his fiancé: 
  
  
  
• Hours after the conviction, the far right-wing "law and order" crowd amazingly started calling for a pardon of Perry. The reason was simple: A white guy on "our side" killed a BLM protestor. Tucker Carlson went all in. 
  
  
  
  
• And then Saturday afternoon, Gov. Abbott, a former Texas AG and Supreme Court judge, stunned me when did just that as he instructed his self-appointed parole board to recommend a pardon that he would rubber stamp. The trial was not televised. There were no transcripts yet to review. No appeal had been filed. Hell, the trial is still going on until a sentenced is assessed and the judgment signed, and that hasn't even had time to happen. We don't know if the killer is getting 5 years or 99 years. Nevertheless, an edict was issued to overturn the jury's less than day-old verdict.
  
  
  
• Let's call this what it is: This is now state sanctioned murder and a call to arms for others. It's the authorization of a private army of storm troopers, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and the like. Remember "Stand back and stand by"? They now have their marching orders: We've got your back if you just "happen" to kill the other side. 
  
  
  
• This is the absolute conduct of a fascist state.   I cannot scream the alarm louder than this. 
• More lawlessness of a different nature: As expected, a Trump appointed district judge decided Friday night that, despite an abortion drug safely being on the market for 22 years after FDA approval, in his medical opinion it wasn't safe and banned it nationwide.   By the way, the judge is the kind of guy who puts his toddler in an anti-abortion t-shirt. From the Washington Post:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• So now in Texas, a woman can't get the abortion drug, can't get a medical abortion under any circumstances, and there's a $10,000 Bounty law out there to make doubly sure it doesn't happen. 
• The Pantego standoff, which turned out to be a 72 year old woman who had some kind of warrant, came to end Friday morning this way:  "She was observed smoking a cigarette on the back porch with a gun sitting beside her. As she was outside, SWAT officers moved in with less lethal rounds and took her into custody." But before that, police used a tank to punch a hole in the side of the house. That's very Waco-like.   ,
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Weird Easter messages.
• Wise County's troubled representative, Ronny Jackson, posted an Easter picture on Twitter but for some reason said the stock photo was "paid for" by supporters.
  
  
  
• Trump was in the Easter spirit:
  
  
  
• And he later in the day got even more in the spirit. He just posted this without any context or explanation:
  
  
  
• One of my favorite representatives was really mad on Friday that the Texas House voted on a budget which prohibits school vouchers:
  
  
  
• In case you have forgotten, this is Briscoe Cain:
  
  
  
• They won't quit on school vouchers though. Kudos to the front page of the Dallas Morning News pointing out that school vouchers is a thinly veiled attempt to fund private Christian schools with taxpayer money with no strings attached.
  
  
  
  
• You've probably seen the trees fall at the Masters. But here's one showing how close a photographer came to death as trees fall on both side of him. Video.
  
  
  
• You might guess I'm really torqued up over the forthcoming pardon in the Austin case. But just look were we are in the last two years.  A jury's verdict now doesn't matter if the killer is on "our side."  If that side loses an election, they lie about the election being stolen and try to overturn it. In Tennessee, two minority duly elected reps on the "other side" are thrown out because of rules of "decorum."   And books are being banned and librarians threatened. We are headed to a dark, dark place.  Look at every graphic I posted above (but for the trees). They could all be from a Christian Nationalist Authoritarian State.