Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• So what the heck is going on with Iran? They shoot a drone down (which may or may not have been in their air space), and Trump then ominously tweets that "Iran made a very big mistake!" Uh, oh. Is a war coming over a drone? But he then turns right around and tells the press hours later that it was a mistake because "a general or somebody" did something they "shouldn't have been doing" and the move was "loose and stupid." So that's what you meant? 
  
• Edit: Trump said he called off the strike (we were "cocked and loaded") with "10 minutes" to spare because a general told him "150 people" would die. (Side note: The New York Times was absolutely right on its scoop this morning.)
• But wait, there's more. Overnight he then decides to bomb Iran over that "mistake" and then changes his mind.  
  
• I watched When They See Us, the Netflix film on the Central Park Five. It's pretty good, but I'm sure there was a great deal of poetic license taken with the truth. I expected that. But one thing I believe: The portrayal of prosecutor Linda Fairstein. I've known prosecutors like that. It's this weird mindset where they convince themselves someone is guilty when no rationale person would believe it. At the very least, they should have a reasonable doubt about it. I used to think they were just guided by their own blind arrogance, but I'm not so sure now. Prosecutors like Fairstein want to see the world as black and white. That there is no gray. That from the moment they pick up a new file they just know it must contain the facts of good versus evil.   
• The Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells is (finally) getting restored at a cost of $65 million.  Man, that seems risky.  And I wonder what the cost would be to tear it down and recreate it versus renovating it. Look at that mess . . . 
  
• That Houston drug raid where the cops lied to get a search warrant and then went in and killed two innocent people in their home (and their dog) keeps getting messier: 
  
• I think I'm becoming a Justice Gorsuch fan. Yesterday he dissented to a decision allowing Congress to basically let the Attorney General create federal sexual offender registration laws. It began: 
  
• I don't feel strongly about whether the Supreme Court's other significant ruling that a World War I memorial consisting of a giant cross doesn't violate the Establishment Clause, but I am concerned that the basis of whether or not something is Constitutional is based upon whether some Americans will get their feelings hurt. I didn't know that was the standard. 
  
• The Navy SEAL who might get pardoned by Trump if convicted for the alleged war crime of stabbing a prisoner to death made the news yesterday with sensational headlines like the one below.  I'd tapped the brakes on that. The testimony came from a medic who testified that "he himself held his thumb over a breathing tube that had been inserted into the militant's mouth" and that's what killed him. Is that a big deal in this military court? I doubt it. Why did he do it?: “Because I knew he was going to die anyway,” Scott answered. “I wanted to save him from what was going to happen next to him."  
  
• Roy Moore from Alabama has announced that he will again run for the U.S. Senate. (Someone quipped that "At least there's a big mall in Washington for him.")  The video link for the flashback from below is here. 
  
• Even Trump Jr. is distancing from Roy Moore. But in doing so he shows how the Trump family has dishonestly bastardized the term "Fake News."  He may question Moore's intentions, but it is not fake news to accurately report that he said, "I'm not going against President Trump." 
  
• "LEGISLATIVE UPDATE – State Senator Pat Fallon will give a legislative update at 4 p.m. today at the RB Golf Club and Resort in Runaway Bay." On a Friday at 4:00? Doesn't he know we'll be out of here?