Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

I don't think this Facebook feature in the print edition of the Messenger lasted very long. 

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• The Messenger has a good article recapping the Decatur City Council meeting on Monday regarding joining forces with ICE along with some great pictures. Here's one:
  
• From what I heard yesterday, the ICE proposal is dead and won't come up again. 
• But I refuse to believe the Chief of Police was behind all of this. He's too good of a guy, and too smart of a guy, for that.  But someone at City Hall thought it would be a good idea to try and steamroll this thing through by placing it on the agenda when anyone with half a brain would have known it would turn into a political cluster and a legal disaster. 
• And when the public input and open City Council discussion at the meeting began to turn south, it was a more than a little curious that the new mayor suddenly decided the council needed to go into executive session. 
• I really don't know what the defense strategy was in this case.  They had three choices (all which were amazingly submitted to the jury by the judge as options without any evidence to support them): Self defense, which would result in an acquittal, and two options which would have at least capped the possible sentence at 20 years: Manslaughter and "sudden passion" (submitted in the punishment charge). But the lawyers never really road any of those three horses. You have to pick one. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Oh, my. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• News alert: We are not, in fact, "close to a deal with Iran." It turns out that the Apache helicopter was taken down by an Iranian drone. In response, the U.S. struck Iran.  And then Iran retaliated against the region.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Uh, oh. We just got a numbers release on inflation. 
  
  
  
• She went crazy along the way and left Congress to run for governor in South Carolina. Last night she came in fifth.  
  
  
  
  
• He just wanted to live peacefully in retirement. 
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Good lord. They are going to do the UFC press conference and the weigh in at the Lincoln Memorial? 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It's good that the Star-Telegram is still doing deep dives into stories like this. (Gift link.)
  
  
  
• New York takes its basketball very seriously. (And still manages to take a jab at the D.A.)
  
• Former Dallas Cowboys receive Lance Rentzel has died. He was forever tied to his arrest in 1970,

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

A grand jury decided to not indict two cases but, in one of the cases, the DA just planned to wait for a new grand jury and try again. 

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• After impassioned pleas from the public as well as pointed questions to the Chief of Police by at least two city councilpersons who had actually read the egregiously one-sided proposed agreement with ICE, the Decatur City Council tabled any action on allowing designated Decatur police officers to become "limited" ICE agents. It took over an hour in executive session to get there, but local democracy actually still lives. 
  
  
  
• Shout out to these four brave women of Decatur who came forward to speak against the ICE agreement. With very short notice, they came prepared with polished presentations.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• You can watch last night's city council meeting here. You can jump to the public speakers in Open Forum and/or the discussion of agenda item #5. 
• In a much more low-key affair, the Wise County Commissioners Court has begun broadcasting its meetings online for the first time. The new video page is located here where yesterday's meeting is already posted. 
  
  
  
• The jury begins deliberations today. I'd be stunned if there is anything other than a guilty verdict.  If that happens, the case will move to the punishment phase where probation will not be a legally available option for the jury. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• We better keep an eye on this.  Side note: The Texas count is officially at four - three cows and a goat. One of the three new cases reported yesterday included a dog which tested positive at a vet's office in Andrew County but "is from a household in Lea County, New Mexico", so that state gets the "credit" for him. 
  
  
  
• The town of Trinidad remains in chaos.
  

  
  
  
• DPS wants money or they won't continue. 
  
  
  
• New this morning: Apache Down.
  
   
  
  
  
• A district judge granted a temporary injunction in Lubbock yesterday which will allow a transfer quarterback, who has admitted to gambling on games involving his own team, to play for the Red Raiders this season.  
  
  
  
• The blowback was unlike anything I have ever seen. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The NCAA immediately appealed the case but it will go to the Amarillo Court of Appeals which has four judges -- all of whom graduated from Texas Tech Law School. 
  
  
  
• It became official yesterday. Trump wants his own personal defense lawyer to run the Justice Department as his own personal law firm. 
  

  

  
  
• They're planning on not letting any members of the House who win in California this fall (and there will be a bunch of them, as always) officially take their seat in Congress, right?
  
  
  
• The Business Second™. How much more land is down there to develop? We'll never be able to get into Fort Worth again on 287. 
  

  

  
  
• The Second Business Second™. The company behind ChatGPT is going public. 
  
  
  
• Cities and towns can "ban" data centers, but counties cannot. 
  
  
  
• There appears to be actual boxes and files finally being moved into the Wise County Courthouse.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

Make that 40 years ago for the movies.  And Sgt. Nick went back to his normal police duties 

six months later. 

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• Alert: This is a Special One Topic Edition of Random Thoughts.
• We have big updates on the Decatur City Council's plan to vote tonight on voluntarily having the Decatur Police Department team up with ICE under ICE's "Task Force Model." Stay with me here, 
  

  
  
  
• A memo was prepared by the City Manager to the City Council last Thursday attempting to explain the proposed adoption of the proposed 287(g) Task Force Model Agreement. The public saw the memo for the first time on Friday which was also the first time the actual proposed Ice Agreement, and the proposed Resolution to adopt it, were posted online.  That's a very short fuse.
  
• The complete City Manager's memo is posted here (with my annotations.)  Within it contains the most carefully worded, yet meaningless, sentence ever. It basically says, "Don't worry - The new ICE Agreement won't change a single thing the Decatur Police Department is currently doing except for the parts of the ICE agreement which definitely changes the ways they are currently doing things.":  
  
  
  
• So let's take a look at parts of the actual proposed Ice Agreement.  The complete Agreement is posted here (with my annotations). Excerpts include the following: 
• Good grief.  Local officer(s) will "be approved by ICE to perform certain functions of an immigration officer under the direction and supervision of ICE within [Decatur's] jurisdiction."
  
• And if that wasn't clear enough, the agreement says it again: "Immigration enforcement activities conducted by participating [Decatur officers] will be supervised and directed by ICE." And when Decatur officers are in the field as directed, they "shall" contact an ICE supervisor for "guidance."
  
• The Agreement actually spells out the exclusive ICE duties that Decatur PD officer(s) will perform.  Here are some of them (and that first one is an all-encompasing banger of a power which Decatur PD does not currently possess): 
  
  
  
  
• And then there's this weird and disturbing provision which dictates that Decatur officers can be "assigned and/or co-located" with ICE.  Co-located?! 
  
  
  
• And, if that's not enough, the city's own proposed Resolution expressly says that the ICE duties performed by Decatur PD "will expand" the agency's powers (as well as saying Decatur PD "desires to work in conjunction with ICE on immigration enforcement matters." Really?)

• And let's talk about money. 
• The City Manager's memo says that the city will receive "Up to $7,500 per [designated] officer per quarter." That is misleading. First, the only source of that number is a one page flyer ICE sends out. And even that flyer says the "up to $7,500" amount is for equipment.    
• But you would think that the actual ICE Agreement would clearly spell out exactly how much compensation the city will receive for delegating an officer(s) to ICE, right? It does. It says ICE pays the city nothing.  There's not even a single reference to "up to $7,500" or any other dollar figure anywhere in the Agreement. 
• And how is this paragraph in the Agreement not a deal breaker? I thought Decatur had a full-time city attorney to review such things?: 
  
• I'm not saying ICE hasn't unilaterally paid some money in the past under 287(g) agreements. For example, I've seen some evidence of police agencies in Texas having received $100,000 for "vehicles/transport" for ICE purposes, but I have no idea how many officers those police departments have had to dedicate to ICE to get those dollars (or how many "illegals" those officers had to first round up.) Since ICE isn't obligated to pay under the Agreement, it will want to see "results" before it is writing any checks, right? 
• Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT to compare the City Manager's memo to the text of the proposed ICE agreement. What it produced is at this link. 
• Finally, the fact that someone (the brand new Mayor, perhaps?) is trying to bully this thing through, with only four days notice to the public, is unconscionable. Decatur is better than this. 
• You only have a few hours left to educate yourself. 

• Decatur City Council meetings are broadcast live at this link.
• Thank you for your attention to this matter.