Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• I told you that Texas Monthly cover story on Robert Jeffress wasn't very good. And here's huge confirmation: Jeffress is promoting it. (And, dude, you want to at least make a little bit of an effort on your appearance if you're going to appear on TV?)
  
  
• I used to rattle of "Oh, my!" quite a bit but I haven't used it lately. It officially needs to come out retirement based upon this photo that somehow made it to print in the Austin American Statesman. (Or, on second thought, maybe it needed to make it to print as a commentary on society.)
  
• State Rep. Dan Crenshaw promoted that he'll "run his district" but inadvertently revealed how he's only elected due to gerrymandering. 
  
• There was a motorcycle death in Grand Prairie last night after a collision with car. The car looks maybe worse. 
  
• Greg Abbott did a photo op yesterday for the new "task force" in light of the El Paso Massacre. Make no mistake about it -- they'll do absolutely nothing. This is only for show. He did the exact same thing after the Santa Fe School Massacre.
• And it was discovered Abbott sent out an anti-immigration fundraising letter days before the El Paso mass shooting urging people to "DEFEND TEXAS NOW" and to "take matters into your own hands."
  
• This is the actual opening paragraph in an opinion released yesterday out of the 11th federal circuit court of appeals. That's just a super-casual judge. 
  
• Luke Wilson will star in the film adaption of 12 Mighty Orphans which is a fantastic book if, for anything, a lot of Fort Worth history.  
  
• The good: The public will now have online access to every piece of paper electronically filed in every civil case in Texas. The bad news is that it costs 10 cents a page just to see any individual filing with a cap of $6 per document filed. That's robbery. Lawyers are already paying ridiculous fees for the "convenience" of e-filing. And now the public has to pay to see those e-filings? And, according to the story, "that money goes to the court clerk where the document originated." Why? 
• The alleged murderer of the girl whose body was found in a burning SUV on lower Greenville is so fat that he can't fit into a jail jumpsuit.
  
• That case is disturbing but a dismissed misdemeanor assault case involving a shove isn't exactly a predictor of capital murder. This tweet is a reach. (I don't think Fox 4 even aired anything about it.)
  
• My desire to immediately walk away and retire to a humble jungle shack in Costa Rica was revived yesterday with the news of the death of 21 year old Luke Laufenburg: "The family’s statement said that Luke had been declared cancer-free on May 3, 2018. In January 2019 he was awarded a scholarship by UTEP, and was expected to start at tight end for the school’s football team this fall. But the cancer recurred on April 5 of this year, and on July 12th his condition was diagnosed as terminal."  
  
• I absolutely hate Google's new search results layout under its news tab. They completely destroyed it. 
• While it was no surprise that it was announced yesterday that Sarah Sanders was joining Fox News (what's changed?), it dawned on me we've heard nothing from her replacement. 
  
• Last night the media gathered around New York Giants rookie quarterback. To the right is Eli Manning putting on his shoes.
  
• In one of the weirder stories yesterday was the CEO of Overstock.com being fired for revealing a relationship with Russian agent turned convict Maria Butina and for oddly talking about the "deep state." And then it got even more bizarre as he appeared on Fox News and CNN last night claiming the affair and "political espionage" was ordered by FBI agent Peter Strzok. (He was so crazy and confrontational on Fox Business that one of the panel of reporters taunted him with, "Hows it feel to see the stock of Overstock climbing since you got fired?" That's in the link.) 
  
• This morning: A Koch brother has died.