7.29.2016

It's Friday. Let's Get Out Of Here.



(I'm no video expert, but I think we have some tinkering with this one.)

(Texas vs. Dixie Chicks)



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He Just Ran Into A Great Big Hassle

Moral to the story: Hope that the feds decide that your attempted bank robbery case isn't worthy of their time and the case remains a state prosecution.
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Who Doesn't Love Katy Perry?

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Around 9:00 A.M.


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Funny


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Random Friday Morning Thoughts

  • These ladies (below, not above) are probably 30 feet from each other during this split screen broadcast, right? Oh, and who wore it better?
  • Katy Perry performed at the DNC last night. Donald Trump had some advice to her a few years back:
  • Funny:
  • Hillary's best line came when she paraphrased Jackie Kennedy: "War might be started not so much by big men as by the little ones . . . moved more by fear and pride."
  • We get the Jerry Jones opening-of-camp-press-conference today.  Sure Thing = Confusing Statements Coming.
  • Random sight this morning around the courthouse square: A guy smoking a cigarette while barefoot and while wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt. (Note to self: New "casual Friday" outfit for me?)
  • Every time Fox News has Charles Krauthammer on as a guest, I think he might die before the segment is over.
  • I drove into downtown Fort Worth yesterday. That I-35 construction is the ultimate beating. 
  • "AUSTIN (AP) — The Texas attorney general has filed suit against Austin, accusing the state capital of violating 'open carry' rules by banning guns inside city hall." And that crazy Paxton did it within five days of a certain 50 year anniversary.
  • The only GOP nominee that Hillary may be able to beat is the one they served up: Trump. 
  • Yesterday's Update can be interpreted in a couple of ways: " Bridgeport Band Boosters will host a hot dog dinner for current Mighty Marching Maroon students 5:30-7 p.m. Friday at the Pavilion in Harwood Park. Although not supervised by Bridgeport Booster Club, students have also been invited to swim at the Bridgeport City pool for free." It reads like, "Hey, kids. We just run this private group but why don't ya'll run over there and just swim in that public pool without paying. And, by the way, you're on your own."


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7.28.2016

Seen In Criminal Court Today


The guy wasn't a defendant but only a friend of a defendant.

That's a bold statement.
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Random Thursday Morning Thoughts


  • Trump yesterday: "I'm would renegotiate so much of everything." It's quotes like that which keep me smiling. 
  • In light of the SMU officer reportedly being swept away into Turtle Creek, the Dallas Morning News recounts when two students were pulled into the creek twenty years ago. One drowned. Her body, however, was found the next day. 
  • And another.
  • I think we all agree on something: The prosecutor in the now closed Freddie Gray cases, Marilyn Mosby, is a nutcase. (At least she didn't hide it.)
  • "STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) – A municipal court has cleared former Mississippi State quarterback, and draft pick of the Dallas Cowboys, Dak Prescott on charges of speeding and drunk driving."  I was prepared to explain how that was possible but the following sums it up:
  • But why doesn't the prosecutor just look at the case, put it in the "You-Gotta-Be-Kidding-Me" file, and reject it?
  • A lot of people are upset over the supervised release of John Hinkley, Jr.  Heck, thirty-five years is a long time for attempted murder.
  • Nancy Pelosi last night on Fox News on why a poll of "uneducated white men" overwhelming showed support for Trump over Hillary: "They voted against their own economic interests because of guns, because of gays, and because of God, the three G’s, God being the woman’s right to choose." Fox News did their best to make it an issue but their efforts seem to have failed. 
  • Someone believed they spotted the Liberally Lean Mobile yesterday. Get me that decal!!!:
  • One of the nutcases who comment on here cited Alex Jones' infowars.com yesterday as a source.  Oh yeah? Well, I have some pretty, pretty good evidence that the earth is shaped like a burrito. Top that. 
  • I say this once a year: Every person placed on probation in Wise County is required to donate $50.00 to Crime Stoppers.  I never hear of that fund paying out a dime, I have no idea who is in control of it, I don't know if it is independently audited, and (most importantly) I'm begging to learn what the balance of the fund is. 
  • An off duty Fort Worth police shot a guy this morning who allegedly came at him with a box cutter. There sure seem to be a lot of box cutters out there. And why can I never find one when I just want to assault a box? 
  • I'm conventioned-out. But I thought the President was just average last night, Biden was good, and Kaine had a fairly funny Donald Trump impersonation (that is, if Ned Flanders tried to do that impression).  
  • But the Democrats did have a secret weapon in the audience to appeal to women last night:
  • Wait a second! Brad Cooper's girlfriend is a Russian!! Get me Hillary on the horn! DEFCON 1! DEFCON 1!

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"Uh, Is It Supposed To Be Doing That?"


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7.27.2016

DPS Gives Escort To Some Guy Going To Work Ranger Player On I-35

More.



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For All Reasons To Be Concerned About What Trump Says, This Isn't One Of Them

Trump had a press conference today and, although it was as wheels off as usual, he said this:
Headlines, from CNN to the New York Times, immediately started appearing with this:

Trump followed up with this tweet:

I think Trump has you on a technicality. There's a big difference between asking the Ruskies to hack into emails written while Clinton was Secretary of State from asking them to turn over emails they already have.

After conferring with the judges, the split decision goes to Trump.

Copyright. 2016. Liberally Lean Graphics

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Bill Clinton Still Has It


That's the gal from Friday Night Lights.


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Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts


  • The Cowboys' Randy Gregory is facing a 10 day game suspension for violating the league's drug policy for marijuana and has checked into rehab. If he has in fact checked into rehab, he will be the only guy in his support group who says that he is addicted to weed.
  • Bill O'Reilly was in rare form last night. In responding to Michelle Obama saying she now has gone to bed in a house built by slaves only to see her children playing on its lawn the next morning, O'Reilly said the slaves who built the White House were “well-fed and had decent lodgings.” He's his own Saturday Night Live skit.
  • Number of black delegates at the Democratic National Convention: 1,182. Number of black delegates at the Republican National Convention: 18.
  • In light of this disparity, however, the great FiveThirtyEight.com says it is getting closer:
  • The bad news for Trump is that he is still losing in that projection even though he is currently predicted to win coveted Florida and Ohio - albeit barely.  The problem is that he's running out of states to conceivably win. And if either Florida or Ohio goes back to Clinton, it's over (and it may already be over).
  • The Ticket had a National Park Talk this morning. I'm embarrassed how few of them I have been to. I think I've got this mind block where I feel that even if I spent a week in one of them, I would still miss 99% of the hidden gems in it. 
  • NPR is reporting this morning that a "federal judge has granted John Hinckley, who shot President Reagan in 1981, his freedom under certain restrictions" reportedly being allowed to live full time with his mother. 
  • In related news per the Update, "The Hinkles will perform at 7:30 tonight at the pavilion at the Wise County Old Settlers Reunion." Wait. I think I messed that up. 
  • Hinckley was crazy. And that's a simplistic statement reflecting how our criminal justice system simply has a standard of "just don't do x or you will be punished" with no regard to the way someone's brain is formed -- unless it is so malformed that we don't even need science to tell us that it is. It's that grey area in the middle that we turn a blind eye to. 
  • I'm really amazed how the Democrats haven't opened up both figurative barrels on Donald Trump. He has given them an arsenal that won't end and they seem hesitant to go after him. That makes no sense. 
  • Someone asked me what bait I used. My preference has always been some type of yellow or green sassy shad.  (Nothing works better than live minnows, but I like to give the fish a fighting chance.) 
  • Someone draw me a Venn Diagram of the group who hates someone saying "Black Lives Matter" and the group who want all retail clerks to say, "Merry Christmas." 

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Above The Fold


Readable full page.

Regarding the chase story, shots were fired?
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7.26.2016

I'm Not Sure He Understands Unity



These political breakfasts for the Texas Delegation seem as exciting as looking for hanging chads. But the last speaker, a Bernie Sanders supporter, gives an apparant unifying speech and then decides to end it with, "But we want to be clear: We currently are condemning our current presumptive nominee." That livened things up just a bit. (Start with 1:45 to go.)
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Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • Someone mentioned Netflix's Stranger Things yesterday to me in the courthouse and then I it referenced two to three more times on the radio/Internet after that. I suppose there's a name for that mental phenomenon of having a memory in your brain triggered when otherwise you would just hear background noise.
  • I mention Cullen Davis here from time to time and he was vindicated yesterday in a fender bender in a one day trial in Tarrant County. Lots of little nuggets in that story if you can get to it. On whether he worried the jury would hold his fame against him, Davis told the paper, "To know me is to love me." In shaking the judge's hand after the case, he told him, "I've me a lot of judges in my time." And his lawyer told the jury that Davis should be responsible for nothing more than the Plaintiff's hospital co-pay of $20. "Give her the $20," he said. (Insurance payments are admissible?) Local connection: Davis' lawyer, who was most likely hired by his auto insurance carrier, is married to the daughter of a Bridgeport doctor. 
  • Wise County employees will be on a "new insurance plan [of] Blue Cross Blue Shield and . . . should see lower premiums but better benefits." The Obamacare Effect?
  • Here's advice from a Texas Supreme Court justice who believes everyone apparently has unlimited time and unlimited resources:
  • So someone who is already getting the very dicey law degree these days should also get a Master of Business, Master of Public Health, or a Master of Laws (a degree held by not a single person that I've ever known)? Please. 
  • Local radio host Mark Davis' tweeted last night during the Democratic National Convention. (He also said eight years ago, "Obama is unelectable.")
  • Parts of the DNC was a rowdy mess but it was certainly entertaining. (Sarah Silverman basically told the Bernie Sanders people to shut up, and Susan Sarandon looked like she might have a heart attack.) But Michelle Obama got rave reviews. 
  • Oh, and it wasn't a DNC email "leak" it was a DNC email "hack". 
  • How would you like to be 85 years old, worth $3 billion, marry a hot wife six years ago, and now find her mother to be kidnapped with a ransom of $37 million?
  • Frisco ISD will hold four high school games (they have a lot of high schools) on the first weekend of football season in the new indoor Cowboys practice facility. All games are now sold out.
  • We are coming up on the 50th anniversary of the mass killing by Charles Whitman from the UT Tower. The whole thing lasted 96 minutes. It would be a perfect 96 minute movie. Start with the first second of the movie being the first shot and you've got a locked in audience.
  • After 30 years, on my own, I figured out a way to make sure my tie is a perfect length after I tie it. I can now be a special contributor to Hints from Heloise or Lifehacker.
  • "Plano church welcomes Pokémon Go players." Shut it down. Let's go home. 


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7.25.2016

That Fighting Can Make A Man Hungry



Calm as can be. The guy just kept ramping up his order the more he watched.

Language warning.

And to prove I will forever be a skeptic: One of these days companies like Taco Bell will set this whole thing up. Just pay a couple of chicks to beat the crap out of each other while you pay another guy to film it while he places an order for a delicious quesadilla. And then hope it goes viral.  (Don't believe me? There's some evidence that the "kid smashes windshield of $250,000 car" is a set up.)

P.S. Did they not ask him if he wanted sauce? What kind of joint are they running there?
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The Most Chilling Thing You Will See All Day


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I Don't Know What This Is About But It's Funny


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Random Monday Morning Thoughts



  • "Two people are dead and up to 16 are injured following a deadly shooting during a teen night at Club Blu in Fort Myers." Any "teen night" in da club seems like a dicey proposition. (Oh, and the youngest person injured was 12.)
  • The Democrats only had one job this week: Don't screw up. They didn't get even to Day One before an email scandal broke costing the job of the DNC head.
  • That person taunted the head of the RNC one week ago foreshadowing a screwed up Republican convention:
  • Yesterday a three year old child was left in a car in Dallas and died while her family attended Bible study.  That got me thinking. Does it matter where the parent was going when he/she forgets about a child in the car? Should any punishment be different? What if it hadn't been Bible study but the person went into a bar? What about to cancer treatment? What if he was in a mosque?
  • Uncomfortable father/daughter pictures . . .
  • Over the weekend Trump proved he could work for Liberally Lean as a copy editor . . . 
  • What is the reason that NASCAR is in trouble? At the Brickyard 400 yesterday, they may have drawn only 50,000. Just a handful of years ago it would regularly have crowds of over 200,000. NASCAR doesn't even announce official attendance records any longer.
  • It looks like the Crazy Texas Mom blog (over there ---->) has gone private.  It's been a long pattern here at Liberally Lean: Referenced blogs either suddenly disappearing or going private. (One wants told me that her blog was doing fine until "your band of monkeys" showed up.)
  • I bought a Maytag washer about two years ago, and it now looks like the control panel is out. I was disheartened to see a krillion complaints on the Internet about the issue. Throw in what would be two service calls and a part that costs well over a $100 and you've got to think about replacing the dang thing instead.
  • 40 years ago this week: The last Super Bowl Champion vs. College All-Stars game. How unstable was that. Can you imagine that game being played today when the college players have already been drafted? The risk of injury is enough to avoid it.
  • Lake Bridgeport CSI: "Samples collected by the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) from Lake Bridgeport on June 6 were examined using cross polarized light microscopy and suspect veligers [of zebra mussels] were detected."  Just throwing in "cross polarized light microscopy" would almost make me believe anything.  If I heard, "Mr. Green, we have used cross polarized light microscopy and have diagnosed you with leprosy" I would head to a colony.
  • Breaking: Travis County Deputy shot and killed in his Round Rock home. Early reports say it might be the result of a robbery.
  • Yahoo!, the company that could have been Google, has been sold for $4.8 billion. Remember Yahoo! bought Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion and did nothing with it (because nothing could be done with it.) 
  • Mark Cuban on The Ticket this morning wouldn't rule out running for President in four years. And he also went on a rant on how hard it is to get on the ballot in Texas and other places as an Independent.





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Above The Fold


Full page pdf.
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