Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Wise County has tricked up its government website as part of a renovation. Right now the fix prevents access to the criminal and civil court database or the jail database. (It's designed to be available to the public by Tyler Technologies and, up until yesterday, it had been. I noticed the old link is actually hidden under "Bond Information" on the Sheriff's page but it's no longer functioning.) Fix this, boys. And knowing our County Judge, it will be. 
• I've been warning you that Texas' bonding system to get out of jail (if you've got money, you get out -- if you're poor, you stay), is on the rocks. Federal courts are gutting it left and right, and yesterday Galveston County got hit with a wild twist: An injunction was issued that now requires everyone to be appointed an attorney at the bond hearing which normally occurs within 24 hours after the arrest. 
  
• Someone named Megan Fahey has been appointed to fill a vacant district court judgeship in Tarrant County. She's the third former assistant U.S. attorney in a row to be appointed as a Tarrant County judge. That's odd. (Note that the jobs are completely different with one dealing exclusively with federal law and the other exclusively with state law.) She was also a member of ultra-conservative Federalist Society -- which isn't odd if you want an appointment. 
  
• Why did John Bolton get canned by Trump? Well, one of the reason is that Trump's buddy Kim Jong Un didn't like him: "And he wanted nothing to do with John Bolton."  Who would have thought that Rocket Man got to influence who is on the president's staff?
• Trump, out of no where, came out with a desire to ban flavored e-cigarettes yesterday. This clip made my head spin. 
  
• I have a theory on this vaping news.  One of the (positive) hallmarks of the right wing is small and limited government. Obviously, government banning any product flies in the face of that. But I noticed about six months ago that a very conservative local radio host, who thinks government shouldn't force restaurants to have non-smoking sections, suddenly went bonkers against the vaping industry. That guy has a teenage son.  Trump also has a teenage son. I wonder, and this is pure speculation without any evidence to back it up, if those kids just happened to have been caught vaping and their mommas didn't like it. Now the right wing daddies (1) are getting pressure from their wives, and (2) looking for someone else to blame other than their sons who might be doing hood rat vaping. 
• At least I think Trump has a teenage son. He caused some confusion when, in announcing his vaping plan, he said Melania was for it because: “She’s got a son...that is a beautiful young man.”
  
• A "Florida woman was sentenced to more than three years in prison and ordered to repay $1.6 million after concocting a 'fortune telling' fraud." In other news, this guy claims to have the inside track to some secrets as well:
  
• Watch this federal judge nominee get crucified at his confirmation hearing yesterday. Even Lindsay Graham had to jump on him for not answering questions.  It was brutal. Here and here are examples. 
  
• Uber might be mismanaged, but this development which they couldn't control, is a major blow. It's amazing they can lose money using independent contractors, but if you transform those independent contractors into employees the problem gets exponentially worse. 
  
• T. Boone Pickens has died. Yesterday, New York sports talk show host Mike Francesa (who once ask a local Ticket personality on the air if he "wanted to compare paychecks") called him T. Bone Pickens multiple times.