12.06.2023

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




Ran across this in the Messenger from a decade ago. Figured some local guys, now in their late twenties, would like seeing their names. 

  • Quite a lot of action around Austin yesterday. It started with a shooting at a school where a school resources officer was injured. He was finally arrested deep into the night.

  • Blurred the faces to protect the insurrectionists from law enforcement? Video of him saying it. (His office later issued a statement saying he actually didn't mean that.) Plus, he can't be very smart if he thinks the FBI didn't already have the footage. 

  • A combative divorce, alcoholism, and lawsuits filed which were full of grievances? That checks all the boxes.

  • Time's Person of the Year was revealed this morning. Hey, I'm sick of her, too, but she had a year that rivals the Beatles. Heck, she probably surpassed even the group's biggest year. 

  • The UIL has released new attendance figures. Here are the largest high schools in DFW. These are single campuses, by the way. 
  • Pro-Publica does such great work. Yesterday they released a comprehensive Uvalde piece to go along with the Frontline documentary.  It should be noted that all bodycams and recordings featured in the two have come from all agencies except DPS which has refused to release them.

  • The failed football coach from the South finally threw in the towel.

  • This headline is a wrong and it bugs me. What actually happened was a current employee, Mr. Y, referred Mr. X as new hire as a detention officer. Mr. X was hired, then Mr. Y, the current employee, received the $500 for the referral. Mr. X then immediately quit. Mr. Y continued his employment albeit $500 richer. 
     
  • Today in "Things are expensive":  That's not $1.9 million for a new building. That's $1.9 million to design the renovation of an existing building. 

  • Let's check in on Fox Business. Yes, he actually said that last night, but I expected the channel to say he was taken out of context. Instead they embraced it.

  • One of the men from the West Texas Oilmen's PAC is about to get richer.
     
  • Breaking entertainment news: TV icon Norman Lear has died at age 101.


at 8:32 AM

12.05.2023

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




A decade ago, Texas Monthly profiled had bad things were bad for the Longhorns after another bad season.  

  • I think there is an interesting Intoxication Manslaughter case going to trial this morning in the district court in Decatur. If I remember correctly, it involves a head-on collision on FM 730. 
  • This truck driver had quite the scare yesterday near downtown Dallas.  They were able to hoist him out of the cab after he spend hours dangling off the bridge.  


  • There's video of this event that went down last night and it is indeed something. 


  • There really aren't any details about what happened in this domestic disturbance last night on I-30 near Eastchase Parkway other than the person who fell was on the hood of the car. Don't do that. 

  • The video (on YouTube) has been released of the shooting of the Tarrant County deputy during a planned robbery in Fort Worth that happened last week. It's pretty wild. The deputy returned fire despite being hit. (But if you look closely at the 53 second mark, you can see his gun accidentally fire when he first tries to get up.)

  • This story has been around about a week, but we still haven't seen a picture of the trigger happy homeowner. An 80 year old had a medical incident at 8:00 in the morning, crashes through a fence and into the home of someone, and then that homeowner comes out an open fires.


  • A bunch of conservative white dudes on the Fifth Circuit are about to have a new bunkmate.  She was confirmed in an unusual 80-12 margin.  

  • He's a very strange guy.

  • The field is getting cut down in the battle to go head to head with Trump as the primaries  in Iowa and New Hampshire are right around the corner.  I'm guessing Nikki Haley will end up being Trump's main foe. I don't know if she can ever catch him, but very weird things always happen between March and May in election years. 

  • Cowboys 3.5 point favorite over the Eagles. The Evil Empire is a 4 point favorite over Washington.

at 8:30 AM

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
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