- Texas Hospitalizations:
- I don't have an update on Judge Cude, and I didn't want to bug anyone over the weekend to get one.
- Notable people diagnosed since Friday:
- The Tarrant County Sheriff who keeps allowing inmates to die in his jail got some news.
- Junior!
- In addition to insider trading to profit off of COVID, Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler was also diagnosed with it.
- Legendary coach Lou Holtz joined the list. When teams were considering cancelling the season earlier this year, Holtz said: "Let's move on with our life. When they stormed Normandy, they knew there were going to be casualties and there would be risks."
- Ted Cruz has not caught the COVID, but he was still being Ted Cruz over the weekend. Compare and contrast:
- It's hard to summarize, but let me try. Here is what has happened in connection with Trump's hopeless and desperate attempt to hold onto power by a coup.
- My rant over the coronavirus on Friday temporarily distracted me from mentioning the insane Rudy Giuliani melting-hair-die-press-conference where it was announced that an "Elite Strike Force" team of Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Texas lawyer Sidney Powell were there to save the day. I want you to remember crazy Powell for a second. Her name is coming back up.
- Trump then invited Michigan legislators to the White House to try and strong arm them to change the election results. They declined and then drank $500 a bottle champagne at the Trump Hotel. (I wonder if Trump paid for it before he could cancel the comp.)
- On Friday, the Pennsylvania court in which Rudy Giuliani rambled in front of last week, dismissed the case in a scathing opinion. It was brutal.
- Trump golfed.
- Remember crazy Trump lawyer Powell? I told you to! Anyway, she appeared on Newsmax and said that the reason Trump lost Georgia is because Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has been bribed by a Venezuelan front company in cahoots with the CIA to throw elections to Communists. Seriously. She said it. Watch it.
- Then last night, the Elite Strike Force team broke up when Giuliani and Ellis distanced from Powell because, and I didn't think it was possible, she was too crazy for them and Trump.
- Make no mistake about how dangerous Trump's election fraud claims are. America is young. And right now it, through Trump, America is acting like a reckless teenager behind the wheel. She should know, but doesn't know, how her life can all end suddenly.
- But people believe the fraud claim. In fact, a lot of people believe it. Get this: 77% of those who voted for Trump believe his baseless fraud claims.
- I did some number crunching: 77% of Trump's 73,775,569 voters = 56,791,788. The total number of votes at this moment is 153,578,855 (79,803,286 voted for Biden + 73,775,569 Trump voters). So 56,791,788/153,578,855 means that 36% of the total voting population believes the fraud claim. That's exactly the percentage of America who make up Trump's very hard core base -- the exact same people who would have voted for him if he shot a man of 5th Avenue. Those people are extremely gullible.
- I learned a frightening fact about America over the last four years: People believe what they want to believe.
- A buddy was joking to me that the easiest way to win a DWI trial in the future is to simply suggest, despite having no evidence, that the Intoxilyzer machine was made in Wuhan, China and, thus, cannot be trusted. At least I think he was joking.
- This story got my attention. A DA in the Texas Panhandle is offering pre-trial diversion in THC cases (those cases involving legally purchased edibles in Colorado which magically become a felony, regardless of amount, when you enter into Texas.) There's one issue: The DA makes the defendant donate money to the DA (generally $3,500) to "enter" the program and then the DA turns around a donates the money to a various community charities. Apparently, she likes seeing her name on the checks to the charitable organizations. The story questions its legality since "entry" fees to pre-trial diversion programs are capped at $500 by statute.
- There was lots of JFK posts yesterday including this photo taken seconds after the shooting. shooting. I'm not sure I was familiar with. (The Book Depository in the background is ominous.) But that got me thinking. Who was the driver of the limo? About 10 minutes later I was reading his testimony in front of the Warren Commission as to what he saw. You can learn anything if you want to.
- The NFC East is doing a bit:
- I was little scarred by this yesterday.
- Decatur's high school volleyball team won the State Championship on Saturday. Here's a video of the celebration on the courthouse square late that night
- It is time.
- Over the last few weeks I have, half-jokingly, upgraded Wise County's DEFCON level in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. I make no such light-hearted remarks today. I do not consider myself to be an alarmist. If anything, I'm much too slow to act by nature. But I now believe -- no, I know -- we are watching a disaster unfold in this place we love and call home.
- We are now at DEFCON 1 in Wise County.
- Over the last three weeks, you all have a friend or a relative who has contracted the disease. It can kill. It has killed. And it will kill again. I realize I bring no credentials to the table, and no one has selected me to be a county spokesman. But I have a bullhorn and with that bullhorn I make an appeal to you for the greater good. It is an appeal to those who care about the place that we call home, who care about their friends, their family, and strangers. But it is also a desperate appeal to those who don't seem to care at all.
- We've all heard it: "If I get it, I get it. I've got to live my life." Can I stop you right there for a second? The disease is not about you because it does not stop with you. Judge Melton Cude is clinging to life because someone gave him the virus. It took a ride on that someone and then looked for other carriers and victims at the quickest and earliest opportunity -- duplicating itself silently and in the blink of an eye with horrifying success. It found him. And the next person it finds, and it is finding someone at this very moment, may or may not be you, but it will most certainly be someone who is loved by others. And it might, just might, go through you to get there.
- Wise County is more susceptible to spreading the disease than others. Even in large communities where the virus has actively spread, people have their work circle and then their social circle, but those circles do not interact. Not here. We go to work with one another and then go socialize with one another. The two groups intersect everywhere and anywhere and at all times. It is a perfect storm for the spread of the virus. We remained virtually unscathed in the first wave in the spring and the second wave in the summer. Not now. It is everywhere, and it is on the move. From schools, to the courthouse, to a car dealership, and everywhere in between -- we are in a state of emergency.
- I received the following message earlier this week, and I cannot stop thinking about it. The individual took issue with my disdain for those who I had seen not wear a mask in Brookshires. I'll just leave it here: "I don’t consistently wear my mask but I promise I will when we see society as concerned about other issues that claim more lives than Covid has or will. DUI, tobacco, abortion, domestic violence, the list can go on forever."
- My appeal ends with a very uncharacteristic harsh plea from me. It is time for the bullshit attitudes to stop. Put on a mask. Take precautions. Treat yourself as an active carrier.
- <Deep breath. A cautious, frightening deep breath.>
- From the local hospital:
- Brian Hand out of Chico reached out to me yesterday with his own personal experience. It's moving and carries with it an admission we should all be willing to make: "I was wrong."
- Texas hospitalizations: +24. A misleading number for what we are about to see.
- Tarrant County hospitalization numbers which are more applicable:
- Messenger: Above the Fold
- Texas Hospitalizations: +117.
- I'm going to address an elephant in the room: It is no secret that Wise County Judge Melton Cude is in the hospital because of COVID and is in pretty bad shape. The news has rocked us all pretty hard. The judge has been a fixture of honest and integrity in the courthouse for over 30 years, and I'm proud to call him my friend. Heck, he might be my most Faithful Reader of all. Whether it be prayers or simply a good thought towards him and his family, he deserves it today.
- Of all the words and charts and debate about COVID that have been expended over 2020, they all mean nothing when you face the cold hard reality that this virus has the power to kill you. And it doesn't care who you are.
- But, go ahead, by all means, endanger others by not wearing a mask. If you think they don't do any good, I simply believe you're making a judgment you are probably not qualified to make. Why note err on the side of caution? But if you aren't wearing a mask because you want to make some petty political statement because you need some sense of self-worth, I'm dumbfounded and horrified and a little more than pissed off right now.
- Tarrant County set a record in new cases and hospitalizations yesterday, and Mayor Betsy Price and her husband have contracted the disease. Cook's Children's Hospital announced it had 20 COVID patients -- its highest number ever.
- It's not going to get any better through the end of the year. The new Time cover:
- Rudy's legal filing in Pennsylvania to try and "fix" their allegations did not go well yesterday.
- Why had they dropped some of the earlier claims from their Petition? Uh, they have an explanation . . . .
- We know you love the Second Amendment, but it doesn't have anything to do with this case, Rudy.
- Never -- and I mean never -- submit a proposed Order with the judge's signature already affixed.
- If you want to go down a rabbit hole, research attorney L. Lin Wood Jr. and how he gets involved in every high profile case in America. Examples include Richard Jewell, JonBenet Ramsey, Nicholas Sandmann (the kid who smirked at the native American), and Kyle Rittenhouse (the kid who killed two people during a protest in Wisconsin.) I'm not sure why he is the actual plaintiff in this silly election challenge in Georgia, and it looks like the federal judge might want to know the same thing as well.
- Not the "easy way?" She was literally given her Senate seat by appointment and then lost in the next election.
- I don't know anything about Florida A＆M University, but they now have the coolest mascot statue in the nation.
- In discussing the fired superintendent of Lancaster ISD suing for $2 million after he was let go early into his five year contract, the Musers on The Ticket got it horribly wrong this morning. They got way off base by calling it a "golden parachute" and that the payout must have been written into his contract. This is completely wrong. All he is suing for is what he would have been paid on his contract had he not been fired - something the school board even put in writing when they let him go. (It's the same thing with South Carolina coach
Lane Kiffen Muschamp this week who was fired and will received $13.2 million which is the balance left of his contract.) It's not a "golden parachute" at all. You just get the balance of your contract if the other side breaches the contract by firing you. (Lancaster ISD is now backtracking because they found out that the State penalizes a school district by withholding funds when they fire a superintendent with more than a year left on their contract.)
- If I write about criminal law, I'm 100% confident in what I say. The above bullet point did not deal with criminal law.
- It may feel like it sometimes, but DPS "Troopers" are not DPS "Troops." You shouldn't just "send 'em in" when you want. No word on whether they'll bring in their gun boats currently on the Rio Grande.
- Oh, my! The Star-Telegram has a great story on how Ellis County is treating an African-American constable. His now shares a room with two deputies in the basement of the courthouse and has to walk by a particular old sign to get there.
- Countdown: Within the past couple of days, TxDOT repaired the guardrail at the exit of westbound 380 to to northbound 287 in Decatur. Because the exit is so horribly designed, it has been knocked down literally dozens of times. I predict it will be destroyed within two weeks and that's a pretty easy prediction to make.
- If you're a judge, you probably shouldn't refer to a black female juror who has just voted to acquit a defendant, as "Aunt Jemima," or speculate that her “baby daddy” was probably “slinging heroin himself.” (It's in Pennsylvania.)
- Texas Hospitalizations: +373.
- Closer to home, Wise County has a record 27 people in the hospital. And we aren't alone in setting records. Our neighbors are right there with us:
- More on Wise County: The state dashboard says we have an "active case" count at 97 but that is probably a ridiculous undercount. It also shows only 11 deaths which I know is incorrect. Meanwhile, four Bridgeport police officers have contracted the COVID. I have a friend in the hospital.
- When the Cowboys play at Minnesota this weekend, the Vikings won't allow any fans. Meanwhile . . .
- Shot from Decatur's volleyball win last night in Aledo:
- Hey, I was exactly right about comparing the COVID vaccine competition to Something About Mary's scene about the "7 minute abs." First, Pfizer came out and said its vaccine was 90% effective. Then Moderna came out on Monday and said it has a vaccine that is 94.5% effective. So guess what the breaking news is this morning?:
- I can't believe Rudy Giuliani showed up to argue in a Pennsylvania federal court yesterday. It was, as could be expected, a disaster. The judge is expected to throw the silly challenge out on Friday.
- When the judge wanted to know whether Rudy's constitutional challenge should be reviewed under the "strict scrutiny" test or the "rational basis" test (without using those words because it is Constitutional Law 101 and it shouldn't have to be explained in federal court), here was Rudy's answer:
- This is some serious legal nerd comedy:
- Fox News' Sean Hannity said last night that he heard Rudy Giuliani was “absolutely brilliant in his arguments today.” This is getting sadder and sadder. (Watch.)
- If you were delusional enough to contribute to the Trump Campaign you get the satisfaction of knowing your money is going to pay Rudy $20,000 a day. There is no angle where they won't work a con.
- Remember the Boeing 737 which has been grounded for 20 months after it fell out of the sky twice -- one time killing 189 in Indonesia and another time killing 157 in Ethiopia? The FAA will officially "unground" it today.
- Random close election result in Wise County: Ken Kilpatrick won over Janice Sivley for a Runaway Bay council seat, 281 to 280. Now that's close. What are the odds that she has a very close friend who didn't take the time to vote and now has to keep that a secret from her forever? (Last January, Sivley was level-headed enough not to vote for a silly and needless Second Amendment resolution, and I'm guessing that also probably cost her at least one vote.)
- I don't know how Texas AG Ken Paxton survives this latest scandal. He released a statement yesterday to defend himself but in the second sentence he went off the rails and bragged about child support collection by the Texas AG's office. That might be called "deflection."
- Hold on! Hold on! Who is this guy weaseling in on my official Liberally Lean girl?
- This morning: When the most pathetic man in America accepts and uses the election results to argue that the those same election results can't be believed. So sad. He never was the sharpest guy in the room.
- The fact he won't concede would be seen as absolutely crazy and unthinkable only a handful of years ago. But then somewhere along the way America lost its mind.
- Messenger: Above the Fold.
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