12.04.2023

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




That was a serious ice storm for early December. 

  • HCA Healthcare finalized its purchase of the hospital in Decatur on Friday.  I suppose that makes lots of workers nervous regardless of what the new owners say. 
  • Israel has pulled out of any cease-fire negotiations with Hamas and now has started bombing south Gaza -- an area which had heretofore been safe for Palestinians to flee to.


  • Just like a federal district court said, the buoys on federal waterways must go. This was so obvious that even the Fifth Circuit told Texas it was wrong on Friday. (There was one dissent, but that judge is a former head staff lawyer for Gov. Abbott when Abbott was AG.)

  • The Republican controlled House rightfully voted to kick out habitual liar (and indicted) George Santos on Friday.  
    • Of all of the Republican Congressman who took the side of  the despicable Santos and voted to keep him, you knew Wise County's Ronny Jackson would be among them. Here is how all of the reps in Texas voted:



  • The executive committee of the Texas Republican Party met this weekend. They can't get out of their own way as they went pro-Nazi. (The meeting between the white supremacist at the offices of Pale Horse Strategies owned by Jonathan Stickland -- who ran the  Texas Oilman PAC at the time, apparently didn't teach them their lesson.) Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick condemned the vote.

  • You can Google  "viral wedding" if you can swim through all the ads of every site which has written about it.  The criminal case, however, is pending in Tarrant County. "Jacob LaGrone, 29, was indicted Aug. 3 on three felony counts of aggravated assault against a public servant, according to Tarrant County court records. He is accused of firing at a Westworth Village police officer and two officers from Westover Hills on March 13." But I'm betting that prosecutors are bluffing on the 25 year offer. 

  • A new documentary, “Inside the Uvalde Response,” premieres Tuesday at 9 p.m. on PBS stations and will be available to stream on the PBS App, YouTube and Frontline's website. Frontline always does good stuff. 
  • Out of Amarillo:


  • At a Christmas party at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night: Marge, Trump's New York lawyer Alina Habbas, and Junior's girlfriend Kim Guilfoyle.
     


  • Failing to respond to a State Bar complaint will do it every time.
     

  • These are what the largest firms in America are paying their newest lawyers.  There is no bigger scam that "Big Law."

  • The Business Second: 

  • As many problems as the F-35 has, that contractor might be doing the country a favor.

  • College Playoffs: Make no mistake about it, the winner of the SEC Championship game was going to make the final four. That was always going to happen. Once it was Alabama, then the committee had two sets of options to choose from - and either way they were screwed in trying to explain why they left the #5 team out: 
    • Option 1: #1 Michigan, #2 Washington, #3 Florida State, #4 Alabama, and #5 Texas out. In this option, they would say they left everything the same but Alabama's win over #1 Georgia was just so great that their "body of work" justified leap-frogging Texas despite Texas winning head to head. But they wouldn't even have to justify keeping an unbeaten Florida State in. "We didn't even think about changing the top of the order and keeping any unbeaten team out," they would say. (I thought they would choose this.)
    • Option 2: #1 Michigan, #2 Washington, #3 Texas, #4 Alabama, and #5 Florida State out. In this option, they are left with trying to blame the broken leg of the quarterback of (still) unbeaten Florida State for somehow causing the team to just not "look the same." But they wouldn't have to justify putting Texas in since they just stayed ahead of Alabama like they had been. (They chose this.)
    • Side note: What would have happened if Georgia had beaten Alabama? That would have left four unbeaten teams. You think Florida State would have been left out then? No way. 
    • Unrelated sidenote: OU's quarterback and Ohio State's quarterback announced they are entering the transfer portal this morning. I support the players, but the portal is awful for college football as we knew it. 


  • The Decatur Eagles are headed to the semi-finals for the second year in a row. And it was a barn-burner with the Eagles scoring in the final seconds at Baylor.  This year is eerily similar to last year -- slow start with a blazing finish. They will face Anna (13-1), who beat Stephenville, in Denton on Friday. 

at 8:29 AM

12.01.2023

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts



As if the Mavs weren't given a fair warning. 

  • Israel has resumed bombing of Gaza. The pause is over. 


    • The New York Times has a front page story today revealing that Israel knew for a year exactly how Hamas was going to execute its attack on October 7th but didn't believe that Hamas had the guts to do it. 


  • I'm not saying we have another pandemic brewing, but you might want to keep your eye on this:

  • Ken Paxton has sued Pfizer over the COVID vaccine. Sheesh. He embarrasses us almost as much as Ronny Jackson.  And the anti-vaxxer/COVID vaccine conspiracy nutcases make me want to pull my hair out. 

  • Bad Sheriff:

  • Speaking of, I bet we get a new Wise County Sheriff's candidate today.
  • Now that is quite the headline - especially when you learn that the wife is part of the menage.  Ron DeSantis, who is not involved in threesome, has called for Ziegler's resignation.   


  • Give this headline writer the day off. 

  • Former NFL great Von Miller was arrested in Dallas but . . . 

    • . . . that case is going nowhere.

  • Elon Musk officially unveiled the Cybertruck yesterday and you have got to see the guy he had on stage to "throw" a baseball at it. Video  I can't say "throw like a girl" anymore, right? 

  • Wait a second. Wichita Falls police currently do not have bodycams?

  • Cowboy random notes:
    • Brad Sham, the Cowboys radio play-by-play game, got sick on the way to the stadium and missed the game. (Side note: That radio broadcast is awful. Sham forgets that his audience can't see what's going on.)

    • Fun fact about there being no punt in the game last night. 

  • The Business Second™:

  • Very, very nerdy legal stuff: A case out of Jack County was affirmed yesterday. It's weird. Stay with me here. 
    • The jury gave him 55 years on aggravated robbery, and he appealed saying the evidence was insufficient. 
    • The victim then suddenly died. The State, who still wanted to prosecute a co-defendant,  wanted to cut a new deal with this convicted guy because they wanted his testimony and cooperation. The new deal would change the conviction to simple "robbery" which would get him out of prison years earlier than "aggravated robbery" because of different parole laws. The appeal was abated to try to get the deal cut. 
    • The deal happened and was approved over in Jacksboro.
    • His lawyer then dismissed his appeal.
    • The defendant then said he didn't know the new deal meant his appeal (which would result in an outright acquittal if he had won) would be dismissed so he got another lawyer to ask another higher court to reinstate that appeal.
    • But that court went further and said "Yeah, we'll let you continue that appeal because that new deal you cut was not authorized under the law. We are putting that original jury verdict for aggravated robbery back in place. So go knock yourself out with that appeal." (Paraphrasing, as you probably guessed.)
    • Now, several months later, he loses that reinstated appeal and ends up with the original jury sentence of aggravated robbery which carries the stricter parole law.  
    • The news story after the jury verdict happened is here.

    • I don't know what happened to the co-defendant. I'll try to find out. 
  • 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 148 days.

at 8:32 AM

11.30.2023

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




I liked the early days when Fox 4 leaned heavily into publicizing input they got by social media and emails.  (The "Jenny" referred to was the then recently hired Jenny Anchondo.)

  • Man, everyone had a lot of hot sports opinions about Kissinger on social media once his death was announced last night. He's never really been on my radar. He's never been on my radar, pro or con. 

    • The Rolling Stone sure went hard:

  • Once again, I don't know anything about the Young Thug trial going on in Atlanta, but there was a bit of a problem yesterday when the TV cameras inadvertently broadcast the faces of some jurors.

  • One more day of the cease fire. I'm guessing this is the last one and then Israel will let loose on Gaza again. 
    3-year-old Yahel Shoham was released this week

  • I've been notified that the annual Wise County Toy Run scheduled for December 3rd is in dire need of donations after a named sponsor may, or may have not, reneged on a title sponsorship.  Information here and here if you want to help. 
  • After advertisers left Twitter because of Elon Musk's anti-Jewish posts, he had a message for them yesterday while on stage. He even called out the head of Disney by name. Video.  It's mind-boggling to think that he paid $44 billion for a company he hell-bent on running into the ground. 


  • Home and auto insurance rates in Texas skyrocketed last year, and now I see this from Fox 4 News weatherman: 

  • I bet they actually kick him out tomorrow.


  • Not that it matters much any longer, but Sports Illustrated just announced its "Sportsman of the Year": Deion Sanders. I said it when he was first hired by Colorado, the decision to hire him will turn into an unmitigated disaster. And it is well on its way. 

  • Fans of the Evil Empire will want to study the various odds and possibilities of this week's conference championship games. I think that unless Florida State loses, UT will be left out. But the 4.6% scenario below is what I'm hoping for. Absolute chaos for the committee if that happens as they would have to chose the final slot to go to either one-loss Texas, Alabama, Ohio State, or Georgia:

  • The next hearing date for the Tanner Horner capital murder case of Athena Strand in Wise County is set for February 15, 2024.  No trial date has been set yet.  
  • Messenger - Above the Fold

at 8:31 AM
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