11.30.2018

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











at 2:00 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts



  • Breaking news from a trusted source: Some guy just lit himself on fire and jumped off the Bridgeport viaduct bridge. Developing . . . . 
  • Re: Saints vs. Cowboys. The NFL is ridiculous. No team can go from horrible to very good in college football in four games. There, you are what you are. Alabama is beyond great. Kansas is horrible. Baylor is barely average. TCU is average. Tech is below average. Clemson is great. Texas is good. Aggie is good. And it's been that way all season. But if you think the Cowboys can't turn around and go right back to being bad over the next month, you're crazy.
  • Stay with me here: In 2012, Sean Peyton was suspended as coach of the New Orleans Saints and, to find something to do, coached his son's Texas sixth grade team Pop Warner team, the Argyle Liberty Christian Warriors. (Peyton lives in Westlake, I think.) But we've got a Wise County connection! Liberty couldn't beat the Springtown that season which, oddly, eventually resulted in an article in Grantland. That article linked to Springtown's 2012 Football Facebook page and it turns out that same team played Boyd and Decatur. (Tons of photos in that Facebook link.) If Sean Peyton's Liberty played Springtown, they probably played Boyd and Decatur.  So the question: Do any of you Wise County parents remember NFL head coach Sean Peyton coaching against your sixth grade son when they played Liberty in 2012? 
Decatur vs. Springtown in 2012
(Those are sixth graders, right?)
  • Don't look now, but Michael Cohen's plea yesterday is one step closer to the Steele Dossier (yep, the one about that tape) being absolutely correct.  It's not simply about a hotel in Moscow (where Trump was going to give Putin a $50 million penthouse), it's about Cohen and Manafort having a pipeline to Russia, Russian hacking to help Trump, and Trump accepting it with open arms. Tweet your way through it in the middle of the night if you want, big man, but there's more coming: 
  • And this makes the Arrested Development "light treason" meme pure gold. 

  • I really don't know what to expect out of the Amber Guyer grand jury. The D.A. wants a murder charge, but Dallas grand juries are notorious for being independent -- as they all should be.
  • The Texas lawyer who just became head of the Proud Boys is no longer head of the Proud Boys. Oh, my.
  • As assistant superintendent abruptly resigned yesterday from Decatur ISD. On Monday, parents showed up at a school board meeting complaining about security. Something is weird.
  • Texas, are you next for this? (The database is really amazing. It will even auto-fill in an officer's name. Heck, type in the city of Trenton as an example.)
  • If you put together a baby/wedding shower registry on Amazon, you'll find three or more items in it that you didn't list (with a tiny "sponsored" text next to them.)  Amazon gets paid the product manufacturers to infiltrate your registry with items you didn't want. And your friends buy them and you end up getting them. 
  • It's hard to keep up with what appears to be a potential boondoggle of Fort Worth's Panther Island but you have no faith in the project once you learn that the son of Fort Worth Congressman Kay Granger is the executive director of of something called the Trinity River Vision Authority and makes $213,000 a year in public money. Shut it down. Let's go home. 
  • I don't know anything about girls high school basketball, but little Bridgeport beating 6A Keller Fossil Ridge 58-34 yesterday seems like a big deal. (And I still support "Sissies" as the greatest mascot name in the history of ever.)
  • Kid Rock making Fox and Friends very uncomfortable this morning. 

at 8:38 AM

11.29.2018

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • BagOfNothing news this morning:
  • There Tarrant County DA's office does the following on Twitter, and I think it's inappropriate. First, the case is still ongoing and shouldn't be commented on. Secondly, the use of a prosecutor's name is unwarranted office self-aggrandizing (we aren't talking Clarence Darrow here). Third, that quote is legally objectionable. That's fine for closing argument, but inappropriate of opening statements.
  • We have a weird standard for "crazy" these days. So OU's quarterback's uncle was at bat in a preseason game when a bird was killed and that's "crazy but true"? I suspect the dead bird would say, "That's what you think the crazy part is?"
  • Trump has had three panic induced tweets about Mueller since 11:39 EST last night and he's at it again early this morning. (Last week he said it was $10 million, three days ago he tweeted it was $20 million and now today it’s up to $40 million. Side note: Paul Manafort's prosecution has already led to a forfeiture of around $44 million to the government.)
     
  • Breaking!: The hits just keep on coming in this "Witch Hunt". This is a charge by Mueller. 
  • But most people are interested in this silly story this morning:
  • The Senate yesterday took a "procedural step" to end the U.S. support of Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen by a vote of 63-37. They use our weapons to recklessly kill civilians and last week it was learned that perhaps 85,000 children under five have starved to death. Cruz and Cornyn voted to let the killing continue.  
  • Something I learned from the radio: Deaths from the Hindenburg explosion on May 6, 1937: 36. New London, TX school explosion deaths on March 18, 1937 just 50 days earlier: 295. And which one do we talk about more? 
  • Legal nerds only: In case you thought the "incorporation doctrine" still needed to be fought over a few rights still not expressly ruled upon by the Supreme Court, yesterday's oral argument gave a vivid clue that we can assume they all are.
  • One year ago today the Today Show began with the news that long time host Matt Lauer was gone as a casualty of the #MeToo movement. And for some reason we never saw it coming. 
  • Not photoshopped. This is the United Methodist Building right by the Supreme Court. Apparently they do bits with the sign all the time. 
  • The Update has a story about a serious wreck on 730 under 287. I said before that place is a death trap waiting to happen when two cars, going opposite directions, both use the "protected" left turn lane at the same time. 
  • After Beto carried Tarrant County, you would think that the Tarrant County Republican Party wouldn't try to act like it lives in the back woods . . . 

at 8:36 AM

11.28.2018

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts


  • It's pretty bold when you see a defense lawyer accuse a prosecutor by name of withholding evidence. It is happening in Tarrant County right now.  
  • The Texas Rangers unveil the model of their new stadium yesterday. I've never bought anything worth over $1 billion before, but if I did I kind of would wanted to have a working model before I committed to build it.  

  • Can't say I've ever watched an episode of Spongebob, but it got my attention that its creator died yesterday at the age of 57.
  • "You do realize that no matter how important you are or what good you've done, most people at your funeral will walk out after it's over and go back to the office to answer Interrogatories in a mundane case?" -- A buddy said that to me this year as we both contemplative life at a funeral. It's stuck with me, and I now name it the 2018 Liberally Lean Quote of the Year.
  • As predicted, Cindy Hyde-Smith won the Senate seat in Mississippi -- a state with a school district which, last year, banned To Kill A Mockingbird.
  • You've seen Knickers, the gigantic cow, right?
  • NASCAR is in trouble. I saw this blurb yesterday and then went and found a chart for some historical perspective.

  • After a convoluted fight, a Texas Historical Marker will go up next Friday designating a site where a group of Texas Rangers massacred 15 unarmed Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in 1918.
  • The destruction of Fouts Field in Denton has begun. It was the home of a lot of bad football and the filming location of Necessary Roughness (a film which depicted the fictional college of Texas State -- because Texas State didn't exist at the time.)
  • More evidence we have entered into the Idiocracy era.
    "United Nations?" "Uh huh!" "Oh, that's right!"
  • The freak out continues this morning. (And I wonder what the odds are that the word "intimating" was used on Fox News within the last two hours. There's no way he came up with that on his own.)
  • And he just went on a weird re-tweeting binge including this one. This is not normal. Something has him really scared.
    His own deputy attorney general is in there.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold which has an interesting story on Wise County voter turnout history. 1992, not 2018, was a record year from a percentage standpoint. (Cutoff were the crazy presidential results for that year: Bush with 33.6% (4,555 votes): Clinton 33.0% (4,478 votes) and Ross Perot 33.4% (4,535 votes.))


at 8:37 AM

11.27.2018

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




  • I think it is very weird that the outgoing DA in Dallas is taking the Amber Guyger/Botham Jean case to the grand jury. She won't be in charge of prosecuting it so why not just leave it to the next DA as to how to charge it? (And one very odd note was that the deceased's mother was called as a witness yesterday. Not only are grand jury "live" witnesses rare, the mother has absolutely nothing of a factual nature to provide.)
  • Between their Sheriff's Office and now this, Parker County is having a stellar month.  (She's an Instagram model under "max_mcintyre"  as well. You're on your own.)
  • GM is slashing jobs and shutting down plants. #SoMuchWinning
  •  The guy wants to create State TV. Seriously. He wants an American version of Pravda in order to spread propaganda.

  • Saw a girl come to district court in Decatur yesterday in high heels and then change into tennis shoes later while she was waiting for her case to be called. (Really not that unusual.) But a blister was apparently bothering her so she asked me and a buddy of mine if she could go before the judge in bare feet. We said tennis shoes = OK. Bare feet = Not OK.
  • I'm extremely pro-prosecution in this case:
  • This is so Fox News: 
  • Dear lawyer who lost a cashmere jacket in the courthouse yesterday: You left it draped over a chair in the DA's office. The best I can tell it's about a 40 Short. 
  • Texas DPS made a drug bust of weed and THC products which were coming from California -- a state where all of it is legal to possess. The current War on Drugs in America is at an all time Idiocracy level. (Texas will just burn it all. Why not sell it back to California?)

  • Red Christmas trees in the White House seems appropriate. It has a nice Russia and/or The Shining feel to it. 
  • Well it's that time of year, so the First Baptist Church of Dallas and pastor Robert Jeffress will put on a Christmas program again. In true spirit of the birth of Jesus, they'll charge money to see it. 
    Rembrandt's Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple
  • OU and Texas is impossible to predict. OU has given up 700 yards of offense three times this year. They won those three games.
  • Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith told a prepared joke about shooting wives in the head. (She'll win today in a landslide. It's Mississippi. Trump was there last night at a couple of rallies and said of her African-American opponent, "How does he fit in with Mississippi? I mean, how does he fit in?" )
  • Paul Manafort, post-conviction, could have shed years off his upcoming sentence by cooperating with Mueller. Instead, Mueller filed pleadings yesterday saying that instead of cooperating all he did was lie to him and it's time to sentence him. (Manafort is proof positive that very dumb people can become very rich in America.)
  • He's scared again this morning. Really scared. Is something coming?
  • Dear new lawyers (and old lawyers): Never, ever throw in "Esquire" behind your name. 



at 8:30 AM

11.26.2018

Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • Dear Police Departments: Don't do this. You don't have the right to stop a driver unless there is a legitimate reason. Doing a good deed, even with good intentions, is not a legitimate reason. 
  • Around two years ago I started focusing in on the Proud Boys and noted that one of its members was a lawyer who made an appearance at the Wise County Courthouse. Now that lawyer is the new President of the Proud Boys.  He first got my attention when he got perilously close to being hired as an assistant D.A. in Victoria County. 
  • Decatur won another playoff game. Get this: In their two playoff games, their quarterback is an amazing 67 of 82 (a completion percentage of 80.7) for 882 yards, 10 touchdowns, and 1 interception. There was a time during the year where he looked horrible. 
  • I don't think I knew this:
  • Remember last week I said that a certain Star-Telegram sports columnist had turned into a cartoon? He's at again:
  • Breaking: Mack Brown will be hired by North Carolina.
  • As promised, here is my groundbreaking research proving that the Thanksgiving Holidays are not the busiest flying times of the year. (My only assumption is that all planes, all the time, are basically full. If you ever fly, you know that is correct.) And with that: Here are the number of passenger planes flying in and out of DFW by day.
    • Week Before Thanksgiving
      • 11/14 - 633 - Wed
      • 11/15 - 630 - Thur
      • 11/16 - 614 - Fri
      • 11/17 - 548 (Data for 11/17 unavailable. This is avg for 3 previous Saturdays)
      • 11/18 - 579 - Sun
      • Wednesday through Sunday total flights: 3,004
    • 11/20 - 606
    • Week Of Thanksgiving
      • 11/21 - 647 - Wed
      • 11/22 - 486 - Thanksgiving Day
      • 11/23 - 528 - Fri
      • 11/24 - 526 - Sat
      • 11/25 - 588 - Sun
      • Wednesday through Sunday total flights: 2,775
  • America celebrated the Thanksgiving weekend by firing tear gas at people standing in a sovereign nation seeking asylum in America pursuant to our laws -- people who are poorer than everyone who is reading this. And Trump doubles down this morning
    This child didn't get turkey and dressing -- just tear gas.
  • Trump gets back to work for America by doing two campaign rallies for this gal in Mississippi today.
  • Messenger: Above The Fold.

at 8:31 AM
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