6.14.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




The actual killing occurred on June 9th. It made headlines two days later. Within a week, the DA had the case in front of the grand jury who declined to indict the man. It's a crazy story.

  • Call me nuts, but what happened in Duncanville yesterday should be national news. "Around 250 children were at the camp at the Duncanville Fieldhouse, which went on lockdown after the gunman fired shots. Police said the gunman attempted to enter a classroom, but the door was locked."

  • 13 DPS Troopers? Wow. This gets worse with each passing day.


    • We've got a long wait to find out the answers, especially when all law enforcement is fighting the release of the bodycams.

    • Your reminder that his guy still has a job at $300,000 a year. His unusual press conference throwing the Uvalde ISD Police Chief under the bus now makes a lot more sense if 13 troopers failed to act.  

  • January 6th Committee quick hits from yesterday's hearing.
    • The flick of the first flame of the The Big Lie was a drunk Rudy Giuliana on election night when everyone else knew is was over. 

    • AG William Barr thought Trump might be delusional when he listened to Rudy and, later, to the nutcase Sidney Powell.  (Make no mistake, Barr is no saint here. He contributed to the fiasco by doing nothing other than resigning via a letter which did not alert us to the attempted coup that was coming. Instead, he saved it all for a book deal.) 


    • And Trump wasn't delusional. He knew it was a lie. That's what makes what he did a crime. But, of course, he used that lie to rake in over a quarter of a billion dollars. 
      • Trump hotels were directly part of the grift.

      • As was Junior's girlfriend who got $60,000 for less than three minutes.



  • John Cornyn, who was one of the Republicans who struck the "gun deal" over the weekend, now wants you to know that he still worships at the foot of the Second Amendment.


  • This confrontation in Arlington outside of Texas Live over the weekend is something else. Extreme language warning. Video.

  • If you've got a trip planned for Yellowstone, you might want to call ahead. It has lost a bunch of roadways over the last couple of days.  This helicopter video is pretty incredible. 

  • Funny.


  • That commercial did have a snake oil feel to it. 

  • Here's a high-tone opinion of myself: Justice Gorsuch and I write with the same style and flow. 

  • Very legal nerdy stuff: Yesterday the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed a conviction of a man for Indecency With a Child for insufficient evidence based upon the corpus delicti rule. The case is, uh, different. "Thoughts, however inappropriate or disturbing, do not constitute a crime."

at 8:30 AM

6.13.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




The Jerry Sandusky trial was going on back then. It gave rise to this photo which was really weird, and I don't think I've seen it since. But the trial ended like we expected . . . 


  • The economic news of skyrocketing inflation and the Fed raising interest rates is exactly like the 1970s -- with the exception of the crypto part which might be in a free fall this morning.

  • Breaking. The mob got to someone.  

  • "COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — Dozens of members of a white supremacist group the Patriot Front were arrested on Saturday in Idaho before they could act on plans to riot at a local Pride event, the police said." 

    • Six of the Patriot Front members who were arrested were, amazingly, from Tarrant County.

      • Josiah Daniel Buster, 24, of Watauga, Texas
      • Connor Patrick Moran, 23, of Watauga, Texas
      • Kieran Padraig Morris, 27, Haslet, Texas
      • Thomas Ryan Rousseau, 23, of Grapevine, Texas
      • Steven Derrick Tucker, 30, of Haslet, Texas
      • Graham Jones Whitsom, 31, of Haslet, Texas
    • Imagine driving 27 hours to Idaho just to terrorize gay people. 
    • Trivia: That town is in the same Idaho county as is Ruby Ridge so the boys were taken to the same jail that held Randy Weaver (who looked remarkably like Phil Dunphy from Modern Family back in the day.)

    • Flashback: Random thought from two years ago.

    • The arrest has some great Scooby Doo type moments (below), and the video of the cops opening up the back of the U-haul truck to find the Klan member wannabees is right out of a comedy/crime movie.


    • Hot legal opinion: It will be next to impossible to prove the charge of "conspiracy to riot." It wouldn't surprise me if the prosecutor rejected the cases. 
    • This Twitter thread is great. He's collected screen shots of headlines of the metroplex's own White Supremist Bermuda Triangle.


  • Yes, it's hot. 
    • Did you know ERCOT was a real time dashboard to show energy usage and capabilities? It's pretty cool.  
    • We've got a high pressure system parked over us which is exactly what happened during the 1980 Texas summer where we had that crazy string of 42 straight days of 100+ degrees. It began back then on June 23rd.  (We almost beat that streak in 2011 when we had 40 days of 100+. That streak began on July 2nd.)

    • It's hot across the entire Southwest, and you know it's really scorching when they set a record in Death Valley.

  • Friday news which should be on the front page: We've got a Supreme Court justice married to a woman who actively tried to overthrow the United States government. This story on Friday was in addition to the previous revaluations that she was in direct contact with Trump's Chief of Staff as Trump was planning the coup leading to January 6th. This is so bizarre.


  • There was almost a disastrous stampede of people at an Anti-Gun Violence rally in D.C. (Video.) Big credit to the lady on the mic who screamed "Do not run!" and stopped the crowd in its tracks.

  • By the way, all these headlines are meaningless. The "gun deal" is a big bag of nothing. 


  • @Fox4Terry was at it last night. 

  • Junior is selling steaks (another odd video of his.)

    • Flashback. Grifters gonna grift.

  • A great random Twitter thread of photos. 

  • There was a hit and run last night in Fort Worth that left two people on a motorcycle dead.


at 8:31 AM

6.10.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




This shook people up in Bridgeport. 

  • If you don't watch the January 6th Committee hearings because you think it's partisan, you are doing yourself an extreme disservice.  What happened from election day through, and culminating on, January 6th was an attempt to overturn a national election and, thus, overthrown the United States government. It is not hyperbole to say it is the equivalent of Hitler's Nazi Beer Hall Putsch in Germany in 1923. And if we don't condemn it, crush it and punish it, it will come again just like in Germany 10 years later.  

  • The footage of January 6th will never not be sickening to watch. The mob had the full intent to stop the electoral count by Mike Pence, and they would have killed Pence to accomplish it. The committee last night played new video of that horrible day last night complete with a timeline.  You can watch it here. 
    • And never forget this tweet by Trump, at 2:24 p.m.,  as the crowd beat police officers in their attempt to get to Pence. It was read by one of the mob to the crowd over a bullhorn to encourage their further breach of the Capitol. (Video cued up.)

    • And then as Trump watched it all unfold on TV he says, and no one disputes this, "Mob doing what they should be doing" and "Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it."
  • The committee outlined how Trump's efforts in furtherance of the attempted coup went down. It was a Seven Part Plan. This is an orchestrated plan that went on for two months: 
    • #1 Create a false propaganda campaign that the election was stolen. (Which AG Willaim Barr told Trump to his face was "bullshit." )
    • #2 After Barr quit in disgust, Trump tried to put in place an interim AG who was Trump's crony so that the Justice Department could be his puppet to help overturn the election (including seizing ballot machines.)
    • #3 Pressure, time and time again, Mike Pence not to count and certify the electoral votes on January 6th. (It was so bad that Pence's Chief of Staff on January 5th went to the Secret Service agent in charge to warn him that Trump was putting Pence's life in danger.)
    • #4 Pressured select states, especially Georgia, to change their vote count.
    • #5 Had state Republicans in selected states actually send in a slate of Fake Electoral Ballots to the National Archives for Pence to count instead.
    • #6 When all else failed, summoned a mob to Washington D.C. on January 6th, the day Pence was to count the real electoral votes. On December 19, 2020, Trump tweeted, “Big Protest in D.C. January 6th. Be there, will be wild.”

    • #7 After being riled up by Trump and his henchmen, including John Eastman, the crowd attacked the Capitol to stop Mike Pence. Then Trump stood back and did nothing despite desperate pleas for others begging him to tell the crowd to go home. 
      • “Trump [also] gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day, and made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets," Rep. Liz Cheney said of Jan. 6, 2021. "“But Mike Pence did each of those things.”
  • One thing I heard one time which has stuck with me: "In any other country in the world, a mob attacking a government's capitol in an attempt to overthrow it would have been machine-gunned down by the military and everyone would have fully expected that to happen."
  • How much the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers were big players in the coup is amazing. And never forget Trump, when asked to condemn the Proud Boys in a debate on September 29th said, "Stand back and stand by!" Watch that moment.

  • And, man, last night was just a teaser from the Committee. People to need to go to prison. 

  • The embattled Uvalde ISD Consolidated Police Chief spoke to the Texas Tribune. He really didn't help himself much. And I hope he didn't pose for that photo, but I think he did. 

  • This is crazy: The Official Liberally Lean Girl got married but not before the guy she married in Vegas years ago tried to crash it and was arrested.  That Vegas wedding, which occurred in the Little White Chapel, got annulled after about three days. (Side note: Mrs. LL tells everyone we got married in the exact same place in her honor.  Which is kind-of-sort-of, well, basically true.)


  • Shout out to Decatur lawyer Paul Belew for volunteering to help me out on a case this week. That was a show of extreme generosity which I'm not sure I've ever experienced before. 
  • The missing baby of couple found murdered in Houston has been identified, and found alive and well, 40 years later. It's a crazy story. DNA and the use of family/genetic genealogy did the trick yet again. (Although no one seems to be asking how the baby ended up with a new family.)


  • 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: 1,073 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:32 AM
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