10.26.2018

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











at 2:00 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • Christmas is two months away -- from yesterday.
  • I've never been a fan of the printing the photos of registered sex offenders in the paper before Halloween. It's not legally required at all. 
  • I bet this is going on all over the country. Just legally buy the stuff in a state and move the product. That would seem to be exponentially easier than getting dope from Mexico or Columbia. (Throw in the fact that private airports exist -- or even small public airports with no security -- and interstate importation would be easy.)
  • While America was sleeping, he was babbling at 3:14 a.m. EST. 
  • Here's the Tarrant County Sheriff using an official/verified Twitter account to promote Ted Cruz along with a some other taxpayer paid officials who were presumably on the clock yesterday. The Sheriff took it down about an hour later.  (h/t Bud Kennedy)
  • Time magazine has a "Guns In America" issue this week with an expanded cover. I've circled Texas' goofball legislator and open-carry-even-without-a-license proponent, Jonathon Stickland.
  • Speaking of, you never see a person with a concealed handgun license "open carry" a handgun which they are legally allowed to do in Texas since 2016. I had one CHL holder tell me one time you would have to be an idiot to do so.
  • A member of the white nationalist Proud Boys wasn't so proud once he got to court.
  • Fox News' Lou Dobbs, who is certifiably insane, deleted this tweet yesterday shortly after it went out. (Lots of deleting going on these days.) Most journalist would get fired for this.
  • After Dobbs went off the rails with that tweet, who would possibly want to be on his show yesterday? Wait. I know a guy. 
  • I saw Fox 4 tweet (again) yesterday about Blue Bell but without any reference to it being a paid ad. A quick Google search found at least 79 media outlets pretending the ad was news. Edit: WFAA just did it, too. #Shame
  • Lake Bridgeport: After all this rain, it is still not at capacity (but it is less than one foot low.)
  • An actual footnote in a pleading yesterday of a Russian company charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller:
  • Megyn Kelly didn't get fired for the "blackface remark". She got booted because NBC wanted a reason to get rid of her. They paid her a fortune and then decided they didn't want her on the Today Show or send her to the Olympics. 
  • As America goes full throttle in its attitude of not making marijuana a crime, I'm still amazed at the Wise County Attorney in the 1990s who refused to prosecute those cases. At the time, we all thought he was a nut. In the end, he might have simply been way before his time. 

at 8:30 AM

10.25.2018

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • The stock market plunged over 600 points yesterday wiping out the gains for the year. 
  • You know me, I despise racism. That being said, a year in a federal prison for this seems a little harsh. 
  • The Official Liberally Lean Girl's hit, "Baby, One More Time" was released 20 years ago this week. Let us all take time to reflect upon her career and feel old.
  • Bombs were sent to George Soros, the Clintons, President Obama, John Brennan, Maxine Waters, Eric Holder, Joe Biden, and CNN. Who on Earth is in a position of power that constantly characterizes those people as dangerous?
    "Who? Me?"
  • I know. I know. We have no idea who sent the bombs or what cause, if any, they support. But it is fitting that it looks like that at least one bomb was wrapped in a Larry the Cable Guy Sticker with a faux ISIS font. Those stickers actually exist. Even mudflaps are made with it.
  • I watched about five minutes of the old You've Got Mail last night. I remember people saying back then that AOL's email notification was grammatically incorrect (literally: "you have got mail") but when Tom Hanks' character signs onto the online service in the beginning of the movie the computer voice simply says, "You have mail." That's the most interesting thing about the movie.
  • That caption took a hard turn at the end.
  • Remember two years ago when the City of Dallas decided to go all high and mighty and ban the Exxxoctica convention based solely on its content? Well, the legal bills continue to mount as the Fifth Circuit held yesterday that the lawsuit against the city can continue. It's back to district court.
  • I'm about 10 episodes into the West Wing. It's great. And so much of the show is how the president's staff carefully crafts, word by word, every statement released to the media.  (I'm still waiting for the episode where the president just randomly hauls off and calls a porn star he cheated with "horseface." Naaaah. It wouldn't be believable.)
  • I would work in the West Wing for any president in any capacity for free.
  • This is in Austin and not fake. Yep, $9.45.
  • I'm trying to figure out what the Navarro County DA died of. He was only 48 and passed away after a "brief illness" is all I can find. 
  • The Dallas Morning News endorsed Beto over Cruz this morning, but I'll admit that newspaper endorsements mean next to nothing these days.
  • There are a ton of campaign signs on the grassy area to south of the Wise County Elections Office where early voting is ongoing. You can't have a sign "100 feet of an outside door through which a voter may enter the building" according to Texas law. (A sign qualifies as "electioneering.")  I guess that grassy knoll area is outside the 100 feet limit. 

at 8:34 AM

10.24.2018

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • Just now (I have no idea what the facts are).
  • Edit: Updated. Looks like it was found in D.C. by a mail screener. Obama a target as well. Edit: White House responds. Edit: CNN offices in NYC evacuated. Just a normal morning in America, it seems. 
  • A model World War II Nazi plane crash landed on the 101 in Los Angeles yesterday. Thanks, Hitler. 

  • NBC's Megyn Kelly got in trouble for supporting dressing up in "blackface" yesterday.  (NBC Nightly News really chastised her last night proving they would not protect one of their own.) But I had forgotten, while at Fox News, Megyn assured us that both Santa Claus and Jesus were white. Really.
  • Who said the following about a murder, Tony Soprano or Trump?: "They had a very bad original concept. It was carried out poorly and the cover-up was one of the worst cover-ups in the history of cover-ups. It's very simple. Bad deal. Should have never been thought of. Somebody really messed up."  
  • Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced yesterday that she "had been diagnosed with dementia," "probably Alzheimer's disease" and is "no longer able to participate in public life." She joined the Court in 1981, and we never ever once learned if she liked beer.
  • There's a murder-for-hire going on in Dallas and that judge is heavily leaning to the prosecution. On the first day she allowed character evidence from the victim's family which, although relevant in the punishment phase, is absolutely inadmissible in the guilt/not guilt phase. Plus, she has allowed prosecutors to hang a picture on the wall of the victim. (Trust me, the government doesn't need any help in that case from the bench.)
  • Random Actor Thought: Whatever happened to Darryl Hannah?
  • It's a weird world we live in when the wife of a U.S. Supreme Court justice posts on Facebook a photo from 2012 claiming the current "caravan" is responsible. 
  • I fear Ebola more than I fear The Caravan, and I don't fear Ebola at all.
  • Almost 24 hours after the rest of us learned about the Cowboys' trade, the Star-Telegram posted this. I told ya, there is something weird about the paper's online presence: 
  • Up in the bell tower of the Wise County Courthouse. Pretty glamorous, no?
  • This was in Los Colinas yesterday morning. Yep, wild hogs. 
  • For years I've been suspicious about and have written about Chris Faulkner, a self proclaimed "Frack-meister", who I believed was nothing but a con man. Yesterday he pled guilty in federal court and now faces 12 years in prison. Credit to this blogger who was after him from the start. I first heard of Faulkner when he was a sponsor of the Mark Davis radio show.
  • Hey, I got a shout-out from the U.S. Attorney
  • The only political ad I think is effective is the one which starts with Pete Sessions at his own town hall meeting saying to supporters, "I think I now understand why you're so frustrated: You don't know how to listen!"
  • The fiasco that is the Waco Twin Peak Biker cases is even funneling down to a local JP election. The incumbent JP is being attacked for signing 177 arrest warrants based upon identical affidavits and setting a bond of $1 million for each one. Unfortunately, the challenger is a Libertarian so people will blindly vote against her. 
  • The DA for Navarro County (Corsicana) died overnight. 
  • Messenger: Above The Fold


at 8:35 AM

10.23.2018

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts


  • The stock market is set to drop hugely again this morning. (Down 374 points as I publish this.)
  • Last night a man  was "grazed" in his head by a bullet after stopping because of a "road rage" incident in South Arlington. Both cars had stopped after side-swiping one another. Something is fishy about this incident. 
  • The early voting turnout was insane for both Democratic and Republican Texas counties. I wonder if one of these days we will have smart TVs that won't play political ads once we vote. (I wrote that in jest, but I can see that happening. It makes sense. We won't be bothered and candidates save money by targeting their ads on others.)
  • TCU's Gary Patterson might have some explaining to do. His star player was arrested over the weekend for an alleged assault of his girlfriend. Ok, that's bad. But then the news broke he "was arrested last spring in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on multiple charges including battery against a woman who is believed to be the same girlfriend." A warrant has been out all season for his arrest for missing a court date in that case. 
  • Local sports anchor and recent social activist Dale Hansen hadn't voted in 46 years.
  • For sale at the Trump rally yesterday in Houston.
  • Trump at the rally: "There's this word -- nationalist. I'm not supposed to use it, but I'm a nationalist. I'm a nationalist. Use that word."  No, you're not supposed to say you're a White Nationalist. You're getting close. I'll give you time.
    "I'm sorry. My wife is ugly and my dad did help kill JFK."
  • Weirdest Trump line at the rally: He said people with “little boats” wanted to go out into the storm during Hurricane Harvey to “show their wife how great they are.”
  • I'm not familiar with this political race but this is funny.
  • Former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth was released from prison yesterday after 18 years. I've been hearing good things about this seven part podcast about the whole crazy case. 
  • Bridgeport High School has Boston Dynamics in its cross-hairs.
  • The lottery being up to $1.6 billion is a perfect Idiocracy moment for this day and time.
  • The Dallas Observer has a long story about the trend of THC edibles being brought back from Colorado via 287. Amazingly, there is no reference to Wise County.



at 8:38 AM

10.22.2018

Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • You've probably seen the dance floor collapse at Clemson which left dozens injured, but it was nothing compared to the wedding reception disaster in Israel in 2001 where 23 died. 
  • Here's the explanation from the NFL with video of the penalty right before the missed final field goal.) I told you boys to take the Under on season wins at 8.5.
  • The next time you think the Star-Telegram is liberal, remember this political cartoon from last week.  Good lord.
  • Ted Cruz and local radio guy Mark Davis tried to do a Facebook Live presentation, and it was a technological meltdown of biblical proportions. 
  • Early voting in Houston this morning -- a Democratic stronghold:
  • I wrote a while back about the prosecution of several people associated with Schlitterbahn after the death of a young boy at a park in Kansas City. The prosecutors in that case seemed a little over the top in my opinion (the 47 page indictment read like a seedy novel). Well, last week they started their crusade with prosecuting two lower levels employees for lying during the investigation. Result? Not Guilty on both. 
  • Well the Saudis are now saying that Jamal Khashoggi died during a fight. No one is buying that lie. And we want to sell millions worth of arms to a country that stupid?
  • Dude, Trump hasn't even bothered to appoint one. 
  • For defense lawyers: We have a new case on the issue of "Is a defendant entitled to an evidentiary hearing on a violation of the terms of a pretrial intervention [pretrial diversion] agreement before the agreement may be terminated? No."  The scary part is that prosecutors could unilaterally kill a PTD agreement for no reason whatsoever. Practically, that is never going to happen for two reasons: (1) If a prosecutor offers PTD, he wants it to be successfully completed, and (2) No prosecutor wants his reputation ruined by doing such a thing. The news would spread to every lawyer, judge, clerk and staff in a New York minute.
  • I love the look of the Oregon's strength coach.
  • I'm convinced no one is in charge of the Star-Telegram's web site on weekend nights. Compare the large (and outdated) lead story with the automated update (circled) on their homepage on Saturday morning.
  • College football: (1) The funniest thing you'll see over the weekend. (Quick loading video.) (2) Nebraska was 0-6 and still 90,000 showed up. (3) OU will win the Big 12. (4) The best unconventional Star Spangled Banner you will ever hear. 
  • The very ethically challenged and far right wing Heritage Foundation had been holding a secret training program for clerks of federal judges where the clerks had to sign an agreement not to disclose what they "learned." It has now been shut down. It sounded like a Star Chamber training ground.
  • I said a week ago I said there is something very fishy about the "caravan" appearing just days before the mid-terms. Marco Rubio thinks it is manufactured. I do to. He is just confused as to who did the manufacturing.  
  • Want to get a hotel during the West Texas oil boom?
  • Messenger: Above The Fold. 

at 8:32 AM
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