7.26.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




Three years before the Supreme Court would grant constitutional protection for same sex marriage, Chick-fil-A was in the spotlight. 

  • That was a jaw dropping fire in Balch Springs if you saw it live (or even if you didn't.) Twenty-six homes damaged with nine completely destroyed. It sounds like is started from a spark by a mowing crew next to an adjacent highway.


  • Yes, it is hot and dry but this happened overnight just a 10 hour drive away:

  • A lady shot into the ceiling shortly before noon yesterday at Love Field causing a panic. From just reading her criminal history and how she was handled, there's a 100% chance she's a crazy as a bat. (Please excuse that confusing legal jargon.) Question: Who just "dropped her off" at the airport?

  • This may be the nuttiest provision I've ever seen in an NFL contract.  The Arizona Cardinals feel the need to require QB Kyler Murray to promise he will spend four hours of "independent study" outside of the facility every week to prepare for games. And it specifically states he can't he playing video games during those four hours. And they still feel comfortable with the decision to pay him $230 million? 

  • There is absolutely no information about this. No details. No reason as to why. Every single story just quotes her lawyer's two sentence press release: "I can confirm that Ms. Gutierrez was placed on Administrative Leave With Pay today by Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell." The speculation is that she knew of the outside door not locking properly. But a woman has a scapegoat in a sea of incompetent men? It's classic Texas. 

  • Lots of questions on this case out of San Antonio.



  • Yesterday, we learned of Trump's redactions from his short speech on January 7th, a speech which he had to be begged to give.  He really loved his Insurrectionists.


    • He took out: "I am directing the Department of Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
    • He took out: "We must send a clear message -- not with mercy but with JUSTICE. Legal consequences must be swift and firm."
    • He took out: "I want to be very clear: you do not represent me. You do not represent our movement." 
    • He took out: "[you] belong in jail."
  • Insurrection and law enforcement headlines on the same day: 
    • President Biden told law enforcement: You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-cop."

    • Surprise. Surprise.


  • Ugh. 

  • Interesting aspect of the abortion ruling and leaving the state to get one: Almost all probation paperwork (and there are tons of good people on probation) says you can't leave the state without permission from your probation officer. But under what circumstances someone gets permission various wildly from county to county and is often left up to the individual whims and attitudes of a particular probation officer. 

  • Finally got through the first season of Severance. Big thumbs up. I've now started The Morning Show which seems to have a lot of promise.

at 8:30 AM

7.25.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




It looks like 10 years ago this week I went on vacation so, with no content to pull from, I'll have to scramble for this 10 years ago feature. This was the #1 song on July 25, 2012. It'll do. 

  • The same fire on the lake road north of Bridgeport fired up again yesterday. But if you want to see a bunch of pretty cool photos of planes dropping water on it, here ya go. (Facebook link.) For such a small fire, and with other more serious fires in Texas ongoing, I'm not sure what the planes were doing here or how they got here so quickly. 


  • Sports talk radio and lots of legal "experts" spent a lot of time pontificating over whether this man would face criminal charges for simply being in the same car where another man fired the gun. I told you it would never happen. Story.

  • This result in a Tarrant County trial last week seemed predictable. The defendant was locking up a church and had his wife and 80 year old mother with him. Self-defense is always a huge prosecutorial hurdle . . . 

    • . . . but this paragraph sure made me cock an eyebrow.

  • Over the weekend, the editorial boards of two major conservative publications turned on Trump.
    • The New York Post:

    • The Wall Street Journal:

  • Rep. Matt Gaetz spoke at the Turning Point USA shindig this weekend. Good lord. 

  • The California governor is spending money running ads in Texas newspapers to troll Gov. Abbott. (The California legislature passed its own "bounty bill" based upon the Texas law regarding abortions, but the California law is using the method for gun control.) But I'm not really sure I understand the point of this. 

  • Steve Bannon was convicted on Friday, and then immediately went on TV and basically asked to be put in jail. (Remember that this is the same guy who Trump pardoned for defrauding MAGA followers who gave money to to privately fund The Wall after Mexico would, in fact, not pay for it.)


  • This Tarrant County judge, David Hagerman, was recently ordered recused in a different case involving a murder charge against a Fort Worth police officer. Story on this most recent case here.
     

  • CNN's one hour special last night on how two rich oil men from West Texas control Texas politics by throwing around millions to support only White Christian Nationalists was fantastic. It really is amazing how they pull so many strings and yet 99% of voters aren't aware of them. 


  • Random viral news videos from the weekend:
    • It happened off the coast of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and there is video.


    • It happened in Moscow, and there is video.

  • The status of various interest rates (mortgage, home refinance, car, CDs). Source: Washington Post on Saturday.

  • Twitter lost $270 million last quarter, and I don't know how that is possible. (And we are talking profit/loss, not stock price.) 
  • The Wise County Messenger's Update was published online at 8:02 a.m. this morning, and I can't remember it ever being released that early.



at 8:31 AM

7.22.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Still not sure why someone in Runaway Bay cared about Sheriff Joe. By the way, since that time, the much-maligned Joe Arpaio lost his job in 2016,  was found guilty of criminal contempt by a federal court, and is now trying to become mayor of a small town called Fountain Hills.

  • Yesterday evening a U.S. Rep running for governor of New York was "attacked", but not hurt, by a guy holding some type of double pointed knife-like object.  Video and video (closer.)

  • The January 6th Hearing was in prime time last night.
    • I love the graphics they use. Trump spent three hours watching the Insurrection at the Capitol on Fox News from his private dining room which was right next to the Oval Office.



    • How easy would it have been to call off the Trump Insurrectionists who were storming the Capitol? Easy. In addition to having the simple option of tweeting from his phone, Trump could have walked to the the press room (in blue at the top) which has a TV broadcast up and running with the flip of a switch. And the Rose Garden, where Trump later gave his "we love you" broadcast, was a 15 second walk away.

    • Instead Trump tried to get Mike Pence killed. What a despicable and shocking act in furtherance of a coup: 

    • I sure wish we had those Secret Service phone records which have mysteriously disappeared. 


    • The contrast of Josh Hawley in the morning hours urging the soon-to-be-Insurrectionists on (from behind safe police lines) compared to the new images of him running like a school girl when the Insurrectionists attacked, is golden.

    • The crowd in the hearing room actually laughing out loud when the Hawley video of him running was broadcast was quite the moment.

    • The oozy DFW politician Jeff Leach, a state rep, finally came out last night against Trump.

    • I should read this 1935 novel now.


  • President Biden has tested positive for Covid. I checked in on MSNBC when the news broke and found seven people talking about it.

  • Every said we had nothing to worry about when Justice Thomas said in his concurrence in Dobbs that he wanted to next overturn the constitutional right to contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).)  The House yesterday, just to be safe, voted in favor of a federal law which would prevent states from -- and I can't believe I have to write this -- outlawing contraception. It passed. But look at the vote. What year is this?

  • What a waste of money, but what else are they going to do?

  • And another case solved by genetic genealogy when there is not a direct DNA match.

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office, despite having a full male DNA profile, has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 1,113 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:29 AM
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