3.13.2024

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




Just a random photo that caught my attention. The ball was actually captured in the frame.

  • We now officially have another Wise County murder charge. I need to create a list of all of them over the last few years. There's been a bunch. 

  • Wait a second. She is not the one suing, Dak is. (This is from a Fox 4 reporter).

  • The days of Ken Paxton and others filing federal lawsuits in specific courts because the results are a foregone happy conclusion are over.  Judges Matthew Kacsmaryk (Amarillo) and Reed O’Connor ( Fort Worth) are about to have some free time. 

  • Please, please, please make the Rodgers thing happen. 

  • I really can't imagine this going through both the House and the Senate. 

  • This investigative piece was just released by The Washington Post this morning. It looks insane. (Gift link.)

  • Trump:
    • Nothing like the family of a dead girl smiling with a guy who wishes to exploit her -- all the while holding an autographed photo where he misspelled her name. I don't understand this at all. 

    • Four years ago on March 11th the NBA shut down due to COVID and Tom Hanks announced he had contracted it.  Trump had it all under control two days later. 



  • I don't think a D.A. has any business at a crime scene.  And he sure doesn't need to be getting in front of the cameras to give a "statement." Plus, in these cases, he comes across more like the defense lawyer for the officers than an independent screener of crime. 

  • The Business Second™. No exact locations were announced.

  • Former Alabama coach Nick Saban was at Congress yesterday complaining about NIL.  “All the things I believed in for all these years -- 50 years of coaching -- no longer exist in college athletics.”  He's moaning the death of a system which allowed him to make millions off the backs of unpaid players.

  • I finally watched the Lorena Bobbitt documentary on Amazon Prime. Big thumbs up. Anyone who was involved in it (the Bobbitts, the cops, the surgeon, the D.A., the defense lawyers) all give interviews 30 years later. It's really good.  

at 8:30 AM

3.12.2024

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




Not to be a downer, but I was glancing at an election results story in the Messenger from 10 years ago and saw this -- which stopped me down. Four of those six have since passed away. And very suddenly for each.

  • This is a wild story.  The defendant killed himself during the trial so he obviously didn't show up the following morning for closing arguments. Unaware what had happened, the judge then started the case back up without him, and the jury actually retired to deliberate. Thirty-two minutes later, the jury was discharged once everyone figured out the defendant was dead.  And there's another crazy aspect: The defendant was represented by his lawyer brother. 

  • Dak is making headlines, but it isn't contract related. "Here we go . . . ." 
    • Wait, this "threat" came from a law firm?  

    • WFAA has the story this morning with a lot of details. If I understand it correctly, she alleges sexual assault while Dak, acknowledging that he hung out with her one night, denies that. "Levin McCathern, Prescott's attorney, confirmed in an interview with WFAA that Prescott had a relationship with the woman, but denies doing the things she alleges." "She was a waitress at a bar he frequented," McCathern said.
    • Dak's lawsuit says the statute of limitations had expired on any civil suit that the woman could have brought so she tried to do an end around by threatening to go to the police if she didn't give her $100 million.  
    • Oddly, Dak's lawsuit attached  to the lawsuit the 11 page demand letter from her lawyer which included lots of seedy allegations. So it is now a public record. I'd link to a copy but I haven't found it yet. 
    • I don't like this for Dak: He is represented by the same guy who represented Michael Irvin in his weird lawsuit against Marriott (which just quietly went away.)

  • Considering that the "new norm" is for Paxton to target any judge in the the next election when they rule against him, that's a bold move by this judge. 

  • Compare and contrast. It is happening all over again:
    • Trump in 2024 a couple of years after his failed Insurrection:

    • Hitler in 1924 a year after his failed Insurrection: 

  • You want to know how MAGA extremists have taken over the Regular Republicans in Texas? I think I figured it out. This is a stunning decline in voter participation: 

  • Trump taking over the RNC by Trump's daughter-in-law now being in charge, and the amount of money he will syphon from it, is a significant story. And the purge of Regular Republicans began yesterday with 60 people in the RNC being fired. Thing about it: You worked at the RNC for a living, and you weren't MAGA enough. 


  • What is Truth Social worth? $99.95?

  • Kirk Cousins signed as a free agent with Atlanta yesterday in a deal for four years and $180 million with $100 million guaranteed. For a guy who was drafted in the fourth round by Washington, after they had already taken RG3 in the first round, he has parlayed the system into a gold mine. 


  • We thought Hamas is holding six Americans in Gaza. That number became five this morning when we learned that Itay Chen, 19, was actually killed on October 7th. His parents attended the State of the Union message. 
at 8:30 AM

3.11.2024

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




I had forgotten J.D. got over 50% in a three man race. (This was technically from 10 years ago last week, but I'm going to be scrambling for material because a decade ago I took off for vacation so there aren't any posts to choose from.)

  • In a Liberally Lean Exclusive™, my intrepid team of reporters has learned that Decatur lawyer Paul Belew has taken the first steps to run for election as judge of the 271st Judicial District which covers Wise and Jack counties.  The election is two years away. 

  • I think this is an example how local newspapers and local media affiliates -- all of them -- are suffering due to staff cuts.  This criminal case against the Affluenza Mom was pending for eight years and it, along with the case against her son, Ethan Couch, made headlines everywhere. But she quietly pled guilty and received 180 days, credit for time served, last November and we are just now finding out about it.

  • The Texas Tribune notes the Wise County race, which is headed to a run-off, and its Texas Oilman PAC connection.  And this is the first time I've seen in mainstream print that Hopper's son works for the Jonathan Stickland's Pale Horse Strategies (since renamed) whose offices were the epicenter of the Nick Fuentes brouhaha. 


  • Katie Britt's cringe-worthy Republican Rebuttal to the State of the Union took a wild turn this weekend.
    • There was on part of it where she said she had spoke with a woman immigrant who had been trafficked and how we wouldn't accept that in a "third world country" much less in America. Video.

    • A TikTok sleuth quickly found out that she was lying. The woman does exist but she isn't someone who quietly confided in the Senator. Nope, she has speaking engagements everywhere, even in front of Congress, about being trafficked. But, get this: It occurred over 20 years ago when she was 12 and when George W. Bush was President, and had nothing to with America  -- it happened deep in Mexico. This guy did a fantastic job. Video. 

    • Scarlett Johansson then gives and Oscar-worthy performance recreating this whole mess on Saturday Night Live. Video. (Side note: Look how well they recreated the imagery of the whole thing.)

    • Even Fox News had to confront her with the lie yesterday -- all because a TikTok guy is doing what journalists should do.

  • Fox4Terry was on the job this weekend. That was one heck of a wreck.

  • Oh, my. Carey Birmingham, 60, was sentenced last week in Harris County for shooting his wife Patricia, 48, after discovering she had an affair.  It was an all-female jury (pretty wild for Texas) and, if I'm reading the story correctly, they also found that he acted in "sudden passion" which would have capped the sentence at 20 years anyway. Here's the video (which ends before the shot.)


  • Trump news:
    • He mocked Joe Biden's stutter over the weekend. Video.

    • He sounded like a drunken uncle last night when he got mad during the Oscars.

    • Jimmy Kimmel then read the Tweet on stage and responded with a very funny retort. Video.

  • Rare Royal Family News from me: Questions surrounded the health of the Princess of Wales over the last two months so the Royals decided to release a photoshopped picture of her. They were quickly busted for it. She released this statement this morning: "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused." Sheesh.


  • Junior's not wrong. The normal and regular Republicans have been conquered.

  • Women's College Basketball fight yesterday! Kind of. Video.

  • Hot Sports Opinion: There's no way I pay Micah Parsons the big money. Once paid, his motivation, which wanes as the season goes on anyway, will be gone.  Think Albert Haynesworth from back in the day who was once signed as a huge free agent by Washington, and was immediately a shadow of himself.

at 8:30 AM

3.08.2024

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

at 2:30 PM
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