Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

The disposition on this case was shockingly fast and a little harsh since it didn't involve a probation. One week after her arrest, she agreed to a 45 days sentence and a $4,000 fine. She ultimately served 22 real days. The video of the field sobriety tests was also released. 

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• Overnight, the abortion drug ban by the Amarillo federal judge was mostly blocked, for now, by 2-1 vote by a Fifth Circuit Panel. The dissenting judge would have blocked everything the district court judge did. The most concise summary seems to be:
  
  
  
• The second expelled black Tennessee legislator has been sent back to the state house by his home district. Remember this all happened because three legislators violated "decorum" for protesting a mass gun violence slaughter at a Christian school in state.
  
  
  
• I remember this when it happened. That lady is as crazy as an outhouse rat.
  
  
  
• This business negligence wrongful death case seems a little complicated because of the issues of contractor and subcontractor liability and employee status. It also occurs to me that there are probably a bunch of lawyers involved which have very little trial experience because 95% of all "civil trial litigators", especially on the defense side, have never been in front of a jury. 
  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• The disturbing and under-the-radar Texas House Bill 20 was up for public debate deep into the night last night. If passed, it would allow state-sanctioned private vigilante groups to roam the borders looking for "illegals." And I wonder if they now have the extra bonus of being able to murder brown people at will since Tucker Carlson and Gov. Abbott will make sure they are pardoned. 
  
  
  
• A lot of buzz this morning about a new Washington Post article about the source of the government document online leak.  (Gifted article link.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Kinda of legal nerdy: The Houston DA doesn't want people arrested for under 4 grams of drugs unless there's a lab report confirming they are actually illegal drugs. I wonder if there is a rash of fake dope in the Houston area?
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Extremely legal nerdy follow-up: A few months back there was a crazy DWI case where an appellate court found no probable cause to arrest someone for DWI who is found passed out in a school pickup line in a running car. As expected, yesterday the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed it. 
• Cowboys Trevon Diggs has also received a crazy tattoo. There's a lot going on there. 
  
  
  
• Today, the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays have a chance to tie the all-time modern major league record by starting a season with 13 straight wins. The play the Red Sox at 12:10 p.m. CST.
• Messenger: Above The Fold

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 . . .