Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• America loves to watch an incoming hurricane.
• Sports: "If you can touch it, you can catch it" is 100% not true.
• Most of the cost is due to rentals by Secret Service agents. It's amazing it never occurred to Trump to just simply comp the rentals since they are all at his resorts.
  
• Here's a hot legal opinion in the Wrong Apartment Dallas Police Shooting case: She will not be convicted of murder or manslaughter, and she might not be convicted of anything. This may very well be an incredibly tragic accident but no crime. 
• But the Dallas DA seems hell bent on pursing the case. She's already thrown the Texas Rangers under the bus for arresting the off duty officer "only" for manslaughter and implied she'll get the grand jury to indict her for murder. Here's why she might technically be correct on how to charge the case, but will still lose . . . .
• Murder is the intentional killing of another. True, that's what the off duty officer did. But there are defenses to murder and she has a fantastic one of defense of "mistake of fact" that she thought she was in her apartment and feared for her life. It might be a horrible mistake, but a true and reasonable mistake on her part (all those apartment hallways look alike and she was simply on the wrong floor after 15 hours of work.) Here's the kicker: The State will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she didn't think she was in the wrong apartment or was not reasonable in thinking that.  Good luck with that.
• If her 911 call even remotely backs up her "mistake" defense, she's home free.
• One final thought about Manslaughter - that is, reckless killing. It seems to make sense as an appropriate charge at first blush, but it really doesn't. It applies to an unintentional killing which was caused by someone doing something incredibly stupid which he knew could kill someone. (Traveling 80 mph through a school zone at 8:00 a.m. and ignoring the risk.) That's an example of a reckless act. What are the reckless acts in the Dallas case? Going in the wrong apartment? Nope. Going through / opening the door didn't kill the guy. No, she intentionally killed him. It's a difficult distinction to wrap your head around but a critical one. That's why this case is such a mess. 
• The bottom line is this: Why would she kill him other than it was a horrible mistake? Does anyone believe she wasn't mistaken?
• The arrest warrant affidavit is public record. Here it is.
• Racism is alive and well in America. (The cartoon even depicts Naomi Osaka as a blonde who is not blonde): 
  
• I've been following former Baylor receiver K.D. Cannon who went undrafted last year and then cut from three different NFL teams before the start of the season. This year, the Cowboys signed him but cut him a couple of weeks ago. Cannon was a superstar in high school and star at Baylor. It's hard to make the NFL.
• When you print out hurricane projections for the sole purpose of a staged photo op:
  
• Texas is a 3.5 point favorite over USC? Yet as crazy as that team is, the Longhorns might win.
• Remember when I told you that I had noticed his sales pitch always seem to include a "secret"?
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• Flashback 2013:
  
• I had forgotten the six time elected DA of Rockwall County was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2008. He got out in 2010.
• Today, the BagOfNothing guy says he heard the term "navel gazing" for the first time ever last night on Better Call Saul. I wrote on 11/11/16 that I had never heard the term until recently.
• Lots going on with this lede: "Victor Carrillo, once Texas’ top oil and gas regulator, is out as chief executive of Zion Oil and Gas, a Dallas-based firm that looks to the Bible for clues about where to drill for oil in Israel." But the story wraps up in a funny way in reference to the company's struggles: "But so far, the Promised Land has been richer in milk and honey than in oil."
• Messenger: Above The Fold. (I forgot yesterday.)