4.09.2025

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts





The accident was at the Williamson-Dickie building off of 287 at Blue Mound Road. His lawyers had asked the jury for $15 million. 

  • Texas AG Ken Paxton announced he will challenge Sen. John Cornyn. And we are a still a year away from the primaries. 

    • Cornyn's team responded. This is going to be nasty.  And can you imagine the number of TV ads we will see? : 

  • There is some video coming out from inside the club before and during it was happening.


  • This was in the Tanglewood area on Overton Park Drive.

  • Is Ronny Jackson moonlighting? "The experienced agent . . .  was cuffed last Monday after becoming irate when staff at the iconic Hotel Amigo refused to reopen the bar after hours." 

  • Trump gave a nearly two our "dinner speech" last night. 
    • The man who single-handedly is wrecking everything with tariffs still has no idea who pays them.  

    • Followed by this. And although I seriously doubt this is true, it's the best answer as to why Trump has imposed the insane tariffs. He just wants to be the center of attention. 

    • Breaking News Edit: China didn't take too kindly to those remarks. New this morning . . .


  •  Guess who was playing dress up again yesterday? And the guy to her left seems to be in a bit of danger. 

  • For all those illegal immigrants who paid taxes and were promised by the U.S. government that their data would be kept away from any other agency or third part, the government is about to sell you out. 
  • Yesterday, I tried to get a tiny bit into the weeds of the ongoing immigration cases at the Supreme Court.  I should have just posted this dystopian headline.
  • Trump went on a big push for coal mining yesterday. 
    • But he had to go into cartoon mode.

    • And we had to have the obligatory North Korean-like worker take the mic to sing Trump's praises. 

  • The Business Second™.  Someone need to check on the West Texas oil patch? The price of oil:
  • After the clean toxicology report, his attorney asks for a PR bond or a bond of $1 for each charge.  I'm stunned to see he was still in jail. 
  • The actual logistics of setting and collecting the correct tariff on, say, a single box in a shipping container on a massive cargo ship sitting in a U.S. harbor, would seem to be a very difficult task these days. 

at 8:30 AM

4.08.2025

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




And with that, a decade of problems for Ken Paxton had begun.

  • Final Liberally Lean Bracket Standings:

  • The University of Houston again failed to win the national championship last night after blowing a late lead. I think we all know why:

  • Trump vs. The Courts had a big day yesterday.
    • Case #1. In using the Alien Enemies Act to sweep up and immediately deport anyone the Trump Administration claims is a gang member, the Supreme Court avoided  made two rulings . . . 

      • The first ruling is that anyone swept off the street does have the right to challenge their removal in court and must be given a "reasonable" time between being snatched up and moved out of the country to do so. Practically, I don't know anyone swept off the streets is going to be able to quickly find, much less hire, a lawyer to make the court challenge so that pretty means 95%(?) or more will just be summarily deported. 

      • I was a little surprised that the government actually conceded the due process point -- that those detained under the Act were entitled to a court hearing. (See below) That's not what the Trump talking heads have been saying. 

      • And Trump has to be happy with the second ruling: The court said any challenge to deportation must be made where the detainee is held.  So now the plan will be (as Trump has already done), to immediately ship them to a holding center in Texas where a Trump-friendly judge will be waiting for any of them wishing to challenge their imminent deportation. So that 5% which can mount a court challenge are doomed anyway. 
    • Case #2. In the case where the federal judge had ordered the Trump Administration, by midnight, to bring back the guy who was wrongfully deported to the El Salvadorian prison, Trump had a loss and then a victory all in the same day.

      • The loss occurred early in the day when the D.C. Court of Appeals upheld the district judge's ruling. And they were very blunt about it. 

      • The win came later in the day when the Supreme Court put everything on hold. I have no idea what's going on here. 
         


  • Tariff wars: Trump had a message to you - "Don't be stupid!"

    • Let's check in on Fox News.
  • I don't think this is getting enough coverage: All over the country, student visas of college students are suddenly being revoked. 
  • With crises breaking out everywhere, Trump was excited about at least one thing yesterday. 
    • Later, as the Dodgers were welcomed to the White House, this happened:
  • Just a bit too far.
     
  • Go Team Roundup!

  • I've mentioned before that the company which is trying to create a woolly mammoth has Decatur ties (Ben Lamm and the Armes family). Well, the company just created a living and breathing dire wolf right out of Game of Thrones. The event was featured on ABC's World News Tonight last night and now on the cover of Time magazine. 



at 8:30 AM

4.07.2025

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




A state prosecution would end in a hung jury. A subsequent federal prosecution resulted in a 20 year sentence. 

  • A weekend timeline regarding the Trump Tariffs and his self-inflicted gunshot wound to the economy.  
    • On Friday, the stock market crashed, and Trump headed off to the golf course. The Wall Street Journal summarized it: 

    • His henchmen, meanwhile, tried to do damage control. Stephen Miller makes Joseph Goebbels seem charming as he lies with anger.

    • The White House provided a statement on Saturday: Was the news going to be that Trump was backing down on tariffs? Nope. We were told that Trump had advanced to the club championship for Sunday. Very Kim Jong Un.

    • On the Sunday morning talk shows, Trump administration officials floundered in  trying to justify why the tariffs were being imposed in the first place.  Get your little screwdrivers ready:

    • Yesterday on Air Force One, after four days of golfing and with the Monday morning stock market futures plummeting, Trump got to the important stuff. 

    • Then he fired off this tweet to indicate that he's not backing down on the tariffs as he threw in a few lies. 

  • Watch this development: A federal judge has ordered the Trump Administration to return by midnight tonight the man who was wrongly sent to the El Salvador prison.  The White House responded Friday night with a shocking retort:

    • And on Saturday: 


  • Protests occurred across the nation on Saturday. (And I found my favorite sign.)


  • Never mind that Congress passed a law banning it which was then upheld by the Supreme Court. But what do laws mean these days, right? 

  • Measles update.
     

  • Man, that's one big root system. 

  • Remember that big pile up in Austin where the truck driver was arrested for DWI?. The toxicology report came back and found no alcohol and no drugs.  The police have said the are "aware of the report" and  they are working with the DA to figure out the "appropriate charges."
    ™

  • The Business Second™.

  • Texas Tech spring football practice on Friday afternoon: 

  • Stock market opens right now with the Dow down 1,125.



at 8:30 AM

4.04.2025

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

at 2:30 PM
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