5.21.2025

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




And 10 years later, Jim Goldstein is still doing it. 

  • Legislature wars: The Texas House is holding the bill banning THC hostage until the Senate moves on the education budget bill which includes raises for teachers - a bill which Dan Patrick has been slow walking in that chamber.

  • We have the official launch of a campaign for judge of the 271st District Court for Wise and Jack Counties. (The term of the current judge,  Brock Smith, who can't run again, runs though the end of 2026.)

  • Kind of wonky: With three members of the school board losing in the last election and scheduled to leave office in a week, the board hurriedly meets and votes to give the superintendent a contract extension with a salary of around $365,000,

  • From the P Diddy trial: That's creative. 

  • The amount of the settlement was learned by the USA Today examining Liberty's tax records. 


  • This was incredible yesterday. "Noem: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country." And, man, she said it so confidently. Video.


  • She's crazy, but she really didn't follow through with this.



  • So after having Trump's Justice Department dismissing a criminal charge against the New York mayor, Eric Adams, they are now opening a criminal investigation into Adams' upcoming opponent in his re-election campaign, Mario Cuomo. 


  • We're doomed. 
    • Two major newspapers over the weekend published a special section for summer books that was not only written by AI but also listed fake books:


    • Google unveiled yesterday that its AI can make movies better than real life.

  • After the headlines that Musk was taking a step back, he's now back in. 

  • We are a strange state.

  • From the new DA in far, far West Texas: 

  • Legal/Political nerdy stuff: If you want to see how bad Judge James Ho on the Fifth Circuit wants to appease Trump in hopes of getting a Supreme Court nomination, look at this short concurrence he wrote from yesterday.
  • Dear Wise County Sheriff's Office: Your PDF of the jail roster is still not updating. 
  • A sitting Democratic congressman passed away overnight,  Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.  The last eight congressman to die while in office have been Democrats. 

at 8:30 AM

5.20.2025

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




It was actually a shot of Runaway Bay, but there was significant flooding in Bridgeport as well.

  • Dear Wise County Sheriff's Office: Your PDF of the current jail roster is not updating.

  • This story involves a head-on crash around noon on Sunday that was allegedly caused by the guy passing in a no-passing zone on a country road near Anna. No drugs. No alcohol. And I think I found the spot on Google Map's streetview. Side note: His bond is $3 million which is way out of whack for an auto accident case under these circumstances. 


  • Story. "When reached for comment, Delkus referred a reporter to the station’s news director." Oh, come on!

  • Says a guy who wears a vest in 2025.

  • There is no definitive word on why.

  • Trump has just arrived at Capitol Hill to try to get the House to pass the "One Big Beautiful Bill." But, instead, he started ranting about immigrants from "the prisons in Congo" and "Biden's autopen."  


  • In one her first official acts, the former Trump personal lawyer, Alina Habba, has charged a Democratic member of Congress with a crime.  Get ready for more of this. 


  • Ridiculous. 

  • Stay with me here: Paramount owns CBS.  Last year, Paramount reached an $8 billion deal to sell itself to a third party, but the sale needed federal approval.  Trump then won the election and also sued CBS News on a silly claim against 60 Minutes.  CBS News wants to fight the lawsuit but Paramount, which calls the shots, still needs the federal approval for its sale so it is planning to settle (bribe) Trump's lawsuit for a reported $30 to $50 million.   The boss of 60 Minutes has already quit in disgust. Now the head of CBS News is out.   The free press is always crushed by an autocracy. 


  • Going 0-23 probably had a lot to do with the decision. (By the way, the Madison Mallards "are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Madison, Wisconsin.")  

  • Gift link. It's a long one, but it is newly published.  
     

  • Legal nerdy stuff: The Texas House passed a bunch of "bond reform" bills yesterday, some of which will require voter approval, but there is no way they know what they are voting on. This story has the links to the bills if you are interested. 

at 8:30 AM

5.19.2025

Random Monday Morning Thoughts





No one was ever convicted. No one. 

  • After Wise County representative Andy Hopper suffered the humiliating defeat of his Wise County Water District bill, he remained silent over the weekend about how it happened. Well, he did take time to call Ken Paxton a "patriot."

  • Former President Biden has been diagnosed with cancer.
    • Junior immediately sent his best wishes. 

  • A Mexican ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night. Obviously, it was fleeing the unfriendly waters of the Gulf of America. Multiple videos.

  • A 25 year old died with his car bomb that rocked a fertility clinic in Southern California. On a 30 minute audio he left behind, he said he was doing the bombing because he never "consented" to "exist."


  • The Nottoway Plantation in White Castle, Louisiana, described as "the largest antebellum mansion in the South", burned on Friday. 

  • In a scene right out of Shawshank, ten inmates escaped from a jail in New Orleans on Friday. Three have since been captured. 


  • The Supreme Court has yet to rule whether Trump can use the AEA to snatch suspected gang members off the street, but it did say on Friday that he needed to give them more than 48 hours to challenge the government's claim that they are, in fact, Tren de Aragua gang members.

    • Trump gave an Idiocracy-like explanation of the ruling. It's just a matter of time before he ignores the court. It's over. 

  • Let's see what those nations "who want peace" are up to over the weekend:
  • The Business Two Seconds™.
    • After Walmart said it would raise prices because of Trump's tariffs, Trump told the company just to "eat" them instead. (Which is odd because Trump has always told us that the "other country" would be paying the tariffs and not Americans or American companies.)

    • The credit rating of the United States was downgraded late Friday.

  • Trump quotes which I had to pick between: (1) Calling Taylor Swift no longer "hot", (2) Calling Bruce Springsteen a "dried up prune", (3) Wanting both of them plus Bono and Oprah "investigated", (4) Posting a weird AI video of him as a rock star, (5) Explaining the N-word, or (6) Yelling at ABC for exposing his $400 million illegal gift from Qatar.


  • The Wall Street Journal wanted to focus on air traffic safety. but this glamor shot they used for its artice is a funny choice to me. 

  • A civil appellate opinion last Thursday gave the inside scoop on this Decatur mansion in a lawsuit brought by the owners against Zillow.

  • Sports:
    • Hockey news.

    • The Aggies became the first ever #1 softball seed to not reach the super-regionals. 
  • A 40 year old man was found dead in a water hazard at the the Fossil Creek golf course in Fort Worth on Saturday morning. 

at 8:30 AM

5.16.2025

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

at 2:30 PM
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