9.04.2023

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




One of the first Twitter viral sensations was "@Vodka_Samm" who ran onto the field during an Iowa game, blew an 0.341, got arrested, tweeted it out as it happened, and earned a story in the New York Post and Deadspin.

  • Wise County capital murder update. We have a somewhat shocking preliminary ruling in the District Attorney's attempt to get an answer on whether the judge properly removed Tanner Horner's court appointed lawyers on July 13th and replace them with the the group named the Regional Public Defender’s Office (RPDO) -- the group which had previously signed a contract with Wise County to represent all capital murder defendants. The higher court ruling came down hours after the request was filed, and  . . . 


    • Quick background: Recall that last week the D.A. went directly to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to try to get the court to rule on the propriety of the attorneys' removal. If he could get it, he wanted an answer now instead of years after the trial.  And he took the additional unusual step of asking all Wise County proceedings be stayed until the court could rule. 
    • The court has now granted the first request: Proceedings stayed.

    • I think this is a big deal. Even though the court did not decide the issue of whether the removal of the lawyers was proper, it did grant the stay. I'm not sure I've ever seen this happen before. If I were reading the tea leaves, that is probably a message that they will put the original court appointed lawyers back on the case. Maybe. This is uncharted territory for everyone involved. 
    • But the court didn't make a final ruling just yet. Before it does, it wants to hear from others within 20 days. Those include: The judge ("respondent"), the lawyers taken off the case, and the lawyers who were newly appointed. 

    • I'll post the responses once they show up on the court's docket. They will be public records and you can monitor it here, too. Developing . . . . 
  • Incredible that Texas towns are actually doing this (free link): "Designed by the architects of the state’s 'heartbeat' ban that took effect months before Roe fell, ordinances like the one proposed in Llano . . . make it illegal to transport anyone to get an abortion on roads within the city or county limits. The laws allow any private citizen to sue a person or organization they suspect of violating the ordinance."


  • Crazy rain has stranded thousands at the always wild Burning Man event in Nevada. It's hard enough getting in and out of there when it is bone dry. It looks like a mess. (And, no, there is not an Ebola outbreak as the nutcases would have you believe.)


     
  • Last Friday was very deadly in the metroplex.
  • Well, this is nuts. A plane hired to spray blue or pink in a gender reveal party crashes seconds afterwards in front of the guests. Video.

  • I'm personally indifferent about her, but it's time to realize that Taylor Swift is more popular than anyone who has come before her. More than Elvis. More than the Beatles. She sells out stadiums for days in a row. And now she is releasing a movie of that concert and people are knocking each other down for tickets.

  • Business quick hit: I'm no expert, but I think the employment rate is clearly back to normal. 

  • College football: Baylor (27.5 favorites over Texas State), Texas Tech (14 point favorites over Wyoming) and  TCU (20.5 point favorites over Colorado) all lost straight up. 

    • It's a new day in college football. With the blossoming of NIL and immediate transfers, Colorado, with a new coach, had 87 new players.  Texas State, with a new coach, was second with 71 newcomers. See a pattern to success?
  • It's Labor Day. This production brought to you by The Hardest Working Man in Show Business.™ 



at 8:30 AM

9.01.2023

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Former Bridgeport and TCU great became lighter in the pocket book. I couldn't find video of the hit back then, and I still can't. 

  • SMU just got invited to the Atlantic Coast Conference. That's was something I wouldn't have believed just three decades ago or even three months ago. 
    Previous version of ACC (Notre Dame is basketball only.)

  • Who knows if this will ever become law, but it's wild you can just buy an AR-15 at a gun show just like you are at a garage sale. 

  • An play in three acts yesterday:
    • Act I: Proud Boys Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl, who had earlier been convicted of Seditious Conspiracy for their roles on January 6th, cried in open court and said that the they were just following their leader, Donald Trump. As Rehl said in open court:  “It’s my fault . . . I’m done peddling lies for other people that don’t care about me.” 
      Rehl, left. Bigg, right. 

    • Act II: Sentences were then handed down by the federal court.
       
      Biggs in happier times

    • Act III: Trump, who did in fact not care about them, was simultaneously grifting off of the Big Lie  in a new video -- a lie which had motivated Biggs and Rehl. 

  • RIP Cowboys legend Gil Brandt. Now to turn on him: It's always driven me nuts about how everyone talks about how Brandt "used computers!" back in the day to evaluate draft picks. A while back, I finally found a book that explained it: He graded a player subjectively from 1 to 9 in 16 categories and then (1) added the total and (2) sorted the totals highest to lowest. That's it. But he had to bring in a guy from India to do simple math on a spreadsheet. 

  • What a statesman! So big of you!


  • The cake reference, although monetarily insignificant, is funny because it was sent over by H-E-B grocery as a gift for the whole office, but Paxton barred anyone else from eating it and took it home: 


  • Does this count as a warehouse for my business show?

  • There might be a double jeopardy question here (it's complicated.) Although the jury had deliberated 21 hours, they had never told the judge they were deadlocked and neither the State or the defense had requested a mistrial. She just hauled off and did it on her own. 

  • Remember this weird reversal of a marijuana possession case from the Fifth Circuit? Yesterday the entire court announced it will rehear the case en banc (the whole court instead of just the three judge panel that made the decision.) From the original decision:

  • 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: 4 years and 57 days.



at 8:32 AM

8.31.2023

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




It was very Breaking Bad-like when a Taurus caught fire in Lake Worth and burned five occupants, but no charges were ever filed.

  • Incredible. I don't know the exact reason for this man's resignation, but it should be noted that we have seen a mass exodus of great superintendents across North Texas because they weren't going to put up with school boards, heavily funded by big money outsiders, who were obsessed with culture wars. Once again, I don't know if the two are related. But this isn't good for Decatur ISD. He started the job in November 2021.

  • The Messenger has a very good story today about a very unusual legal development in the Tanner Horner capital murder case in Wise County.  (Link not up yet but it is in the PDF of the paper.)

    • Recall that the judge, after discovering Wise County had signed a contract to farm out representation of capital murder defendants to an agency in Lubbock, removed Horner's court appointed lawyers of Bill Ray and Steven Gordon.
    • Now the D.A. is taking the very unusual step of immediately appealing that ruling and asking that all proceedings in the district court be stopped until the appellate court rules. 
    • So what's going on? As I understand it, the D.A. fears that the judge might have been wrong. So the last thing he wants is to have the case go to trial and then get reversed on appeal years down the way.  He wants to get a ruling on that issue now. 
    • I'm not sure he actually cares whether the judge was right or wrong, he just wants to find out now instead of years later. If he gets a ruling that the judge was wrong, the problem can be fixed ASAP.
    • The legal question here is: Can the D.A. do this? That is, can he file the appeal now? He's gone about it through the only arguable vehicle that exists: A a "writ of mandamus" directly to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals who has jurisdiction of death penalty appeals.  Will this work, or will the court tell him to go away? I don't know. I doubt he's 100% sure. But there is no harm, in his view, of trying. The best case scenario is that he gets  a ruling. The worst case is that his efforts get dismissed for want of jurisdiction and he's right back to where he is now. 
    •  But we did get a bonus insight in to the case. Attached to the D.A.'s motion (available here when state website isn't down) is a transcript of the hearing on the removal of the court appointed lawyers. They talk about the case at length before getting to the removal issue. 

  • If you haven't see Sen. Mitch McConnell freeze in front of reporters due to a health issue - again - here you go. I'm worried about the guy. 

  • Let me tell you, a jury is going to absolutely financially crush Rudy Giuliani for lying about two ladies tampering with the election count in Georgia by falsely claiming they were "quite obviously . . . passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine."  And I do mean crush. After yesterday's ruling (pdf), the only thing the jury will be asked to do is to fill in a dollar figure of actual and punitive damages. 

    • And look at this jury instruction they will get!

  • The Justice Department just keeps coming. Good. 

  • For the life of me I don't understand the ultra-MAGA extremists support of Paxton. Do not character, truth, and crime by their own matter to these people? I'll say it again: The normal Republicans need to take their party back. 

  • Uvalde continues to be a cluster long after they buried 19 children. 

  • Nebraska says the attendance at last night's volleyball game was 92,003. I don't doubt it based upon the photos. But when rabid Nebraska fans, once the word went that the goal was to set an attendance record, would have shown up to watch a card game. 

  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:30 AM
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