7.01.2024

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




I tracked down two indictments (CR17829 &CR17827) but found out that both were dismissed four years later.

  • The weekend was dominated by "Should Biden step aside or not," but that narrative is about to be buried in the American news cycle. We have the Trump "absolute immunity" opinion being issued this morning in the 9:00 o'clock hour, and next week he will be sentenced in the Stormy Daniels/Business Records case.

  • The son paying for the sins of the father.


  • There was a lot of cars driving badly into buildings on Friday. One in the metroplex, one in south Texas, and a bad one in Long Island. :



  • That's not overtime -- that's an abuse of power and funds. A patrol sergeant made over $300,000.

     

  • Whenever you see that a grand jury "no-billed" a defendant, it normally means the D.A. told them to but every once in a while a grand jury will revolt and go against a D.A.'s recommendation to indict. But you can never really figure out what happened.

  • We've got the earliest Category 4 Hurricane recorded in history. There had never been one recorded in June before.  And it's a big vacation disrupter because Jamacia is in its path first, and then it heads towards anywhere south of Cancun to all of Belize. 


  • Not only is that a big sentence, the criminal courts move fast down there. That incident, which was pretty big news at the time, happened less than 14 months ago. 
     

  • Trump quick hits:
    • He's just casually suggesting that his enemies, even fellow Republicans, be tried by military tribunals. 

    • Trump will be announcing a VP nominee in the next couple of weeks. It is absolutely mind-boggling to remember that he has to choose a new one because the old one refused to go along with his planned coup to overthrow the U.S. government. 

  • The Business Second™:


  • The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the "Chevron doctrine" on Friday which means the rule-making power of federal agencies is about to be greatly curtailed. It, not Dobbs, is the golden goose that the Federalist Society, and its rich donors, has been gunning for all these years. That aside, Justice Gorsuch had a huge embarrassment that he had to scramble to fix after the opinion's release:


  • The Evil Empire and OU join the SEC today. As a by-product, the Longhorn Network is officially gone. Its last day went exactly as expected:

  • Extremely nerdy legal stuff:
    • For criminal legal practitioners: Everyone thinks that the State can avoid having to release a felony defendant on a PR bond by indicting him within 90 days and thus avoiding the consequences or art 17.151.  But a new case says that if after that the state announces "not ready", that the PR requirements if 17.151 kick back in again. 
    • If you are a civil practitioner, you might want to look at this thread about the ramifications for broad form jury submissions issued by the Texas Supreme Court on Friday. 
    • A criminal trespass case out of the county court at law in Gainesville has made its way to the Supreme Court for consideration. Petition for Cert PDF here.



at 8:30 AM

6.28.2024

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Still a weird photograph and story about J.D. Granger who was then the well paid Executive Director of the Trinity River Vision Authority and a former Tarrant County prosecutor. He is also the son of then U.S. Rep. Kay Granger.

  • Debate quick hits:

    • Yes, that was a disaster for the President. It started with a raspy voice and reached a a crescendo about 15 minutes in when he had "the moment" of confusion and silence. It was bad. Very bad.

    • But I knew something was really wrong when the question was about abortion -- a softball for Biden -- and for some reason the President deviated off into immigration in his answer. That was bizarre.


    • Trump was a sitting duck going into the debate because of all he has done and said. And President Biden didn't even try to land a glove on him because he didn't seem capable of it.
    • Biden actually got better as the debate went on, but it was too late. The first 15 minutes was, and is, all that mattered. 
    • Substantively, what Trump was saying was insane. But it was completely overshadowed by Biden seeming very, very old.
    • The Democrat reaction thus far has been a full blown panic with open cries to have Biden replaced at the top of the ticket.  I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen. 

    • But let me be bold: I don't think last night matters.  Trump's "grab-em-by the p" moment -- a moment after which everyone was 100% convinced we had seen the death nail of his campaign -- didn't kill him for one reason: Republicans were going to turn out to vote against Hillary. In the same way,  last night won't deter Democrats from walking across broken glass to vote against the most hated man in America. 
    • If you stuck around for all of it, the state of American politics was summed up when Trump and Biden began arguing like two old men at a country club about Biden's golfing handicap. Video.
  • A man was tried in district court in Wise County this week for Sexual Assault, was convicted, but received probation from the jury. And the defense lawyer was this guy: 

  • But for the debate, this news would be a top headline:

  • This would probably be big news, too.

  • Another reason to fear the small plane. Side-note: Back before local journalism wasn't gutted, we would already know the names of the passengers, where they were from, and where they were headed. Now, nada.  Edit: A faithful reader tells me the plane was registered to Hunger Relief Ministries out of Forney, Texas (N414BS).


  • Oklahoma takes imposed Christian Nationalism yesterday. By edict, no less.


  • The Business Second™: The franchisee declared bankruptcy so the parent company bought the theaters all back.

  • The Real Estate Second™. This is on front page of the Wichita Falls Times Record News. I think they have a different definition of "mansion" up there.

  • 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: 4 years and 359 days.

at 8:30 AM

6.27.2024

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




A $24 million yacht burned off the coast of San Diego, but most of the news was of how a drone flew over it and captured video of it. It is still up on YouTube.

  • We've got the final totals of how much the West Texas Oilman PAC spent to buy Andy Hopper the election in Wise County to unseat Rep. Lynn Stucky. Incredible.


    • Here's the background on how the PAC was named shortly after it was formed:

  • The presidential debate will happen tonight hosted by CNN.  Yesterday, the network demonstrated how the mic of the non-speaking candidate will be off while the other man is speaking, and you truly can't hear a single thing from muted mic. (Video - it's really eye-opening.) I'm surprised Trump, who lives and dies by interruptions, agreed to the format. Throw in that there is not an audience, and I don't know how this will go at all. 

  • Fox4Terry was on the job last night. That photo seems like something big went down in Cedar Hill. 

  • You can't even go to a Chick-fil-A now?  Police call it a "targeted" shooting, but that doesn't make me feel any better. 

  • The Supreme Court accidentally posted a decision yesterday which will dismiss an abortion case as "improvidently granted."  It was taken down within seconds. Here's a PDF of what was released and it hadn't even been finally formatted yet.

    • Legal nerdy stuff: I saw someone write that if they only named finished opinions as “final-final-use-this-one.doc” then it would have never been accidentally released. 
  • In an opinion that they actually intended to release, they Supreme Court gutted a public corruption statute by allowing bribes after the fact so long as there was no agreement beforehand. So if you want to dump a public official a check for $13,000 every time he awards you a big government contract, feel free to. 

    • There were three dissents.  You know who they are. From the dissenting opinion. 


  • Woah. From Texas Monthly: "Texas has more than 7,000 licensed hemp dispensaries. We visited eight, then tested what we bought. All eight were above the legal limit for Delta-9 marijuana."

  • The defendant in one of the many, many mass shootings -- this one occurred on  July 4, 2022, and congratulations if you can keep them all straight --  backed out of a plea deal in open court yesterday. It would have given him a life sentence. 


  • Good. And I agree with her. In order to prove criminal trespass, you have to prove the person received actual notice that their presence was forbidden.   Proving that they should have known about a university announcement won't cut it.  That wasn't going to happen in these cases. 

  • I'm not exactly sure how this guy became the unofficial lawyer of players of the Dallas Cowboys.

  • Look out. Lauren Boebert and Ronny Jackson are sharing love on Twitter. Pray they don't meet up for happy hour because who knows what would happen. 

  • Messenger - Above the Fold



at 8:30 AM
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