1.25.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




We may be in a drought right now, but this was the view in Haltom City exactly 10 years ago, right down to the moment of 8:36 a.m. It had rained hard all over North Texas all night long. 

  •  Numbers:
    • Cases continue to trend down. 

    • Little dip in hospitalizations.

  • This is a wild video.  
    • That story has a pretty good Wise County connection. The Chief of Police is Bridgeport's own and WCSO alum J.T. Manoushagian (who does a really good job in front of the cameras), and former WCSO Deputy James O'Bannon can be heard on the video saying, “Probably shouldn’t have run. A lot of people think we can’t chase motorcycles. That’s wrong. We can and we will. Welcome to Lake Worth.”

  • Yesterday, the President said under his breath that a Fox News reporter was a stupid s.o.b. 


      • Debate Point: See, he's just like Trump (who called the entire media the "Enemy of the State.")
      • Counter-Point:

  • This story seems very suspicious. And the chances of the State proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she wasn't just kidding are minimal at best. I'm guessing the prosecutor rejects the case. (The story says the lady offered the stranger $250,000 in the self check-out line, and then "allegedly waited in the parking lot and screamed at her that the offer was now $500,000.")

  • I think this story is weird. A fire just happens to break out in a parking garage at 4:00 in the morning, burns nine cars, kills a tow truck driver, and cops are calling it an accident? 



  • I thought this was pretty big SAT news this morning, but then I read that 80% of four year colleges will not require it at all for this Fall. 

  • You know this video is 100% staged, right? You're first clue should have been that no other skiers were around. 

     
  • Bar exam prep course for the law of Criminal Procedure.  This tip is 100% spot on. 

  • This is actually pretty good: Laura Ingraham doing her impression of Kate McKinnon doing an impression of Laura Ingraham.  Video.

  • NFL overtime rules unfair? The number crunchers are on it:

  • Collin County College fired a professor over a personal tweet. You can't do that when you are the government. The school just agreed to pay her $70,000.

  • I think everyone would understand NFTs if they were properly named: Digital Beanie Babies.



at 8:30 AM

1.24.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts





This was a Decatur school bus "on Heritage Creek Road, about one mile north of County Road 4421." No one was injured. It took eight weeks to repair the bridge.

  • Most recent numbers:
    • Probably on our way down, but we've got a long way to go:

    • Hospitalizations should peak this week or next:

  • We aren't going to war with Russia over Ukraine, we were never considering doing so, and the American people don't want to do it either. Nothing has changed. 

  • The guy who is charge of deciding on Open Records Requests doesn't like your Open Records Requests to him.  (How weird was it that he was there on January 6th anyway?)


  • A weekend of bad news for officer deaths.
    Houston shooting

    New York shooting

    Car crash on the border

    Houston, again. Standing next to motorcycle. 

  • Count the red flags from yesterday. This is the place visible off the highway between Aledo and Fort Worth. 


  • When I saw the news of two men being found shot yesterday in the parking lot of a Taco Bell in Fort Worth, I figured it happened in the middle of the night. Nope, it was in the middle of the afternoon in an area of town that doesn't look that bad. One has died. 


  • This was Friday news.  So why not release the confession or, at the very least, quote it?

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger got in a pretty big wreck on Friday.

  • The Four Seasons in Los Colinas will no longer be the Four Seasons. 

  • 49th Anniversary yesterday of LBJ's sudden death and Roe v. Wade. Pretty big news day.

    • Speaking of Roe, it constitutionality doesn't hinge on its popularity, but this Fox News poll is interesting. 

  • There is an option on Amazon to "Request My Data" but do they really keep all the audio recordings of your Alexa requests and send them to you?

  • Say what?

  • I actually managed to watch the fourth quarter of every single NFL game this weekend. Everyone is saying it is the greatest playoff weekend in history, and they ain't wrong. Side note: 

  • Thanks so much to the people who reached out to me on Friday about my court appointed lady in jail. I had people offering to bail her out and others sending me legal motions they had used in similar situations (quality ones at that.)  Also credit to someone who in the County Attorney's Office who was bending over backwards and making calls during her lunch hour.  

at 8:31 AM

1.21.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




We didn't learn her name because she was a juvenile, but she would be 26 years old now. 
I wonder what happened to her. Seriously.    

  • As you may have heard, Dallas' own Meat Loaf has passed away. TMZ, which is normally right about things, says it was COVID.

  • COVID numbers
    • Maybe we have seen the peak. Maybe

    • Hospitalizations always trail.

  • I've met lots of people involved in the criminal justice system, but I have never been as emotionally rocked as I was after my visit yesterday with a distressed court appointed lady on a little criminal trespass case. 
    • She's being held in solitary confinement in the Wise County Jail, which I admittedly understand due to her unique mental state, but this is a bad, bad situation for her, jailers, society, and common decency. 
    • There's lot of issues going on, but I've got to get her out of there. And she's really there only because she can't afford a very cheap bond and no one on the outside is willing to help her. 
    • And, yes, I want this to be seen by all those who have the power to get this done as I try to get it accomplish that this morning. 
  • Here's the lady who got hit by a car yesterday. 

    • There's been a lot of blowback from reporters who decry having to do "live shots" all by themselves. (Sometimes they even set up the camera.)

  • Business quick hits:
    • Here's an unpopular opinion: I think Netflix's subscription rate is too cheap.

    • Another hot opinion: As an avid stationary biker who uses a reasonably priced and bare bones product, I think you are nuts if you've spent (at least) $1,500 for a Peloton with a $39 monthly subscription fee. 

  • Oh, my.

  • Everyone needs to read yesterday's letter of the January 6th Committee sent to Ivanka Trump. They want to talk to her because they know she was in the Oval Office when Trump made one last attempt to strong arm Pence on that morning to overturn the election.  They now want her cooperation. Other highlights:
    • Trump's failure to call off the mob for 187 minutes concerns the committee. Trump obviously finally released a video message telling them to go home but ended it with "Go home. We love you." Now the committee suggests they may be, or will be, in possession of video footage not used before the final video was released.

    • Sean Hannity tried to talk sense into Trump the next day via texts to his Press Secretary. "No more crazy people" around Trump, Hannity begged. 


       
  • And Trump's problems didn't end there yesterday.

    • I know I rage against Trump constantly, but do you remember just how insane his January 2nd phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was? Trump actually said, "So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state." Followed by, "And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated." Good lord.
    • How is that alone not enough to cause the country to stop what it's doing and demand he be charged?
    • What if you told a bank teller, ""So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 more dollars," followed by, "And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated."
  • I don't follow the D.A.'s race down in Waco, but it sure is heated. 

    • From the challenger who is a criminal defense lawyer: "[T]o my knowledge, [D.A.]. Johnson has never tried a criminal case in a courtroom in front of a jury." Side note: Really?
    • From the D.A.: His opponent uses "his best efforts to put child molesters, wife beaters, perverts and violent criminals back on the streets of McLennan County, where they can continue to prey on you and your family. Luckily, for our citizens, he is not too good at what he does and his efforts usually lead to failure and a jail cell for his clients,” 
  • That's a heck of a house.

     

  • Nerdy legal stuff: This was crazy yesterday. A judge on the federal Ninth Circuit penned and opinion striking down a COVID restriction on gun dealers on Second Amendment grounds. But since he is certain that the whole court will decide to overturn his ruling, he went ahead and wrote that opinion for them and attached it -- complete with sassy footnotes.  (The judge is a Trump appointee who the ABA called "arrogant, lazy, an ideologue" in its assessment of him as "unqualified.") 

  • Republican on Republican violence: Yesterday, this Texas legislator attacked Texas' all Republican highest criminal court after it had struck down a law which gave AG Paxton jurisdiction of cases that that Texas Constitution expressly grants only to locally elected D.A.s:



  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 931 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:32 AM
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