Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• While you were sleeping: Trump strapped more tariffs on China at midnight. And he still doesn't understand who pays a tariff.
  
  
• The huge music festival, Kaaboo, is going on the weekend at Cowboys Stadium. I'll be interested in the ticket sales for that thing because they aren't cheap. I really haven't heard a lot of buzz about it at all.
• The "bottom" was during the mortgage crash in 2008-2009. And how many Americans under 40 working in the private sector have a 401(k)? 
  
• I had no idea high school playoff baseball games were played at the Rangers ballpark.
  
• The New Yorker has ranked the nightmares (with a little comedy on the summary of each one following the "you wake up and . . . .") Longtime readers will know I clock in at #9.
  
• This was from the official White House web site yesterday. They are the laughing socks of all White Houses: 
  
• This was one of my bullet points from last June. Yesterday it was announced that no case would be filed. (Once again, I have proven I'm a legal genius.)
  
• The missing Houston girl has not been found but the "stolen" car that she had been in with her step-dad has been. This story is convoluted because the step-dad says he stopped on the highway when he thought he had a flat, was approached by some guys, got knocked out, and then woke up a few miles away and the car and the girl was missing.   The cops are not calling the step-dad a "suspect" or the dreaded "person of interest" but they might as well be doing so. 
  
• One of my favorite follows on Twitter is a guy who monitors attorney disciplinary proceedings across the nation. He posted this blurb from a ruling where the respondent/attorney had been accused by the state bar of practicing law while suspended. She failed to attend a hearing:
  
• Here's a pretty funny(?) one where a prosecutor knowingly listened to an attorney/client privileged phone call recorded at a jail. What was his punishment? A "public reprimand" which is no punishment at all.
• I don't know much about golf etiquette, but Tony Romo walked to the first tee to applause and commotion at the Bryon Nelson while one of his playing partners was already into his waggle.
• This Tarrant County case just got reversed hours ago. (For some reason, the judge didn't let the jury consider self-defense when it was the only issue in the case. Even more amazing is that the defense attorney didn't ask for the jury instruction at trial. Did anyone there understand how a trial works? The error was so bad the appellate court had to reverse despite no objection.)
  
• In another rare reversal by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals late yesterday, an aggravated assault on a public servant case was overturned because the State argued to the jury that the assault "recklessly" occurred but forgot to indict him on that charge -- alleging an intentional and knowing assault instead. In more basic terms, the D.A.'s office screwed up the indictment, the trial prosecutors didn't notice the screw up, the trial court didn't notice the prosecutor's screw up and charged the jury with recklessness, and even the defense attorney didn't notice anything was amiss and didn't even object to the charge. Still, the screw up was so bad the appellate court, once again, had to reverse. Sheesh.
• Both of those defendants would be in prison unless smart criminal defense appellate lawyers hadn't figured out they were screwed over in trial. Edit: Well both are actually in prison. But at least they now have a chance -- a chance that they should have already had at their first trial.
• From the Update: A guy threw a puppy out of a truck but didn't throw out his meth?
• Did Houston use to flood as often as it does now?