3.04.2024

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




This was a shootout by the Wise County Sheriff's Office that had occurred a year earlier in 2013, but it was the Denver Post which finally obtained the dashcam video of the DPS trooper and released it 10 years ago this week. Evan Ebel had been wanted in Colorado. 

  • The Wise County candidate who is trying to unseat Rep. Lynn Stucky made an editorial in the Dallas Morning News this weekend for being a Texas successionist. 



    • Here's the key paragraph from above.. It references Andy Hopper and what I refer to as the Texas Oilman PAC. Hey, you can vote for whomever you want to, but you need to be aware of what is going on.

    • I downloaded the finance reports for Hopper for the last two years. Here are his top donors and at the top, with staggering numbers, is Tim Dunn's oilman PAC. Throw Defend Texas Liberty in there, too, since it is also funded by Dunn. (I'm not sure about Darlene Pendery but a Google search has her come up multiple times as a "Texas Mega Donor." Mike Olcutt is running for the House as well and has received $50,000 from Dunn.)

    • And if I haven't said it enough, Dunn is on the cover of Texas Monthly with a cover story of how he buys elections, I even included the "money paragraph" for you as to how Dunn targets incumbents who don't vote as he demands.  



  • Wise County's final early voting numbers. Four years ago there were 5,136 who early voted in the Republican primary. If my math is right, this year we've got 7,172. That's a massive jump.  

    • The above numbers buck the trend in Texas statewide where early voting is down. Is it the Sheriff's race or Hopper/Stucky which is causing the Wise County turnout?

  • There was an authorized private burn in the Boonsville area on Saturday afternoon, but it sure got a lot of attention as a potential wildfire since the smoke could be seen county wide.



     
  • The Supreme Court might bail Trump out today. We will know in a few minutes.  

  • There was some kind of gala at the Alamo to celebrate Texas Independence Day. The outfits left a little something to be desired:
    Dan Patrick

    Failed governor candidate Don Huffines

  • There was a 35 year plea bargain entered into last week in Wise County for a David Biggers who was charged with "Evading Arrest or Detention With a Vehicle with a Previous Conviction or Serious Bodily Injury" in cause number CR25026. That's one of the longest plea bargains sentences ever. I couldn't find anything about the case in the Messenger's archives, but there had to have been a long criminal history involved.
  • Trump came on on top in a new New York Times poll, but national polls in a presidential election are meaningless. For example, this poll involved 980 likely voters.  But say the race comes down to Michigan, which it might.  If the poll mirrored the number of voters by each state (doubtful), that means they polled 29 people in Michigan. For the critical state of Wisconsin, it would mean they talked to 19 likely voters from that state.

  • The Business Second™: This would be not far from the Speedway -- on the other side of I-35 and a couple of miles south.

  • Very legal nerdy stuff: Here is a fantastic Twitter thread uncovering the little experience that a candidate for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Lee Finley, has by examining online Texas appellate records.
  • Dak has a new look. 

  • NCAA Softball: Oklahoma's amazing 71 game winning streak came to an end against the Ragin' Cajuns, 7-5, in extra innings.

at 8:30 AM

3.01.2024

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts





In the same week, UT announced beer sales at Memorial Stadium and former Aggie great Bucky Richardson got arrested for DWI. 
  • I've said it before, Israel will pay for decades for the way they've killed innocent people in Gaza instead of just targeting Hamas. Gaza now puts the death toll at over 30,000.  Our Defense Secretary yesterday said the dead at least numbered 25,000. 


  • As I predicted, the bill co-sponsored by Rep. David Spiller (R-Jacksboro) giving state agents the right to arrest migrants and ultimately deport them has been declared unconstitutional. It never had a chance. PDF of yesterday's opinion here.


  • I was tipped me off to the open mic session of the ultra-MAGA extremist Keller School Board last night and, let me tell you, it was wildly entertaining.  Some time this weekend just put the YouTube event on in the background and watch to see if you don't sucked in. I've got it cued up for you. But if you just want a taste, watch this gal here. But the guy below was after my own heart -- he's holding up the cover of Texas Monthly of the man who is trying to buy the Wise County election. 

  • We had a duel at the border yesterday. Compare and contrast.  

    • What's he talking about again? Video.

    • This drives me insane. His daddy is rolling over in his grave. 

    • Fox News's Neil Cavuto cut away from Trump's speech at the border after Trump started ranting about the 2020 election. “He still lost that election. That is not in doubt anymore. That’s not being debated anymore,” Cavuto said. It's amazing to watch, but this is what you get when you had to pay $787 million in a defamation lawsuit for previously repeating Trump's lies. Video.
  • The Liberally Lean Weather Team asked me if I knew about the crazy snow storm which will hit the eastern part of California and adjoining states this weekend. The numbers below are in feet, not inches.


  • A fine? That's it? He indicted her back when abortion was legal in Texas because it was considered a constitutionally protected right. You know, just a few months ago.


  • Legal PR stuff: I cringed hard watching this lawyer's prepared remarks. He represents the Chiefs' fan known as "Chiefsaholic" who just pled guilty to bank robbery.  Video. It's worth a minute of your time. It begins, “From the beginning of this case, folks, the government has been blitzing.” Groan.

  • Want to see a tattoo of the box score of the Ranger's winning World Series game?

  • I'm heavily linking to video today. I try not to do that. 
  • 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 249 days.

at 8:30 AM

2.29.2024

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




Yep, that was the Decatur Walmart. 

  • The Supreme Court said late yesterday afternoon that the D.C. Insurrection case will remain on hold and, for some reason, thinks it is necessary to decide if a President gets to do anything he wants while in office with impunity. Sheesh.  The quickest we can have a decision is May, and the latest is around July 1st. 
    Felt like there should be a couple of commas in there. At least two.

    • Heck, I'm resigned to just put all the criminal trials on hold.   If Trump wins, and America wants an authoritarian form of government, so be it. He'll kill the federal cases and somehow kill the state cases. If that's what we want then we deserve everything we get. 
    • Even assuming the D.C. Insurrection trial gets to start before the election, there is no way it's over before then. And what does it really matter? A criminal conviction, with an appeal of it, isn't going to change a thing from an election standpoint. 
  • Overlooked in everything, is that the State of Illinois kicked Trump off the ballot last night. I don't think there's any question that the Supreme Court, which is already about to decide this issue in a Colorado case, puts him back on all the ballots. 

  • The Texas government killed a man last night. This was a picture of him from yesterday.
     

  • What's the real point of this? It's not financial. She's an adult and is entitled to nothing from Jerry Jones even if she is his biological child. Just write her out of the will and she gets nothing. 
    Alexandra Davis
  • Trump may have remade the Supreme Court, but he couldn't do it without the procedurally maneuvering of this man. Good riddance

    • There is a belief that John Cornyn could replace McConnell as the new Senate majority leader. That speculation gave rise to this wild exchange below yesterday. More Republican on Republican violence. 

  • Wise County made this month's Texas Monthly.  Honestly, there's a lot weirder stuff than that happening around here on a weekly basis.

  • Here's a  Houston mega-church pastor with 18,000 members and six campuses. Just like I wonder what happened to the Republican Party of days gone by, I wonder what has happened to the Church.

     

  • My graphics teams added a red arrow to this graphic to point out when the iPhone was released.

  • The fact that a bunch of billionaires place an arbitrary "salary cap" on workers' salaries -- and everyone is just fine with it -- is mind-boggling to me.  Not to mention a "draft" where workers are forced into set salaries for set employers which they have no voice in. 

  • Messenger - Above the Fold

at 8:30 AM
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