Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• ABC News found two of the Amber Guyger jurors. I was pleased to see that neither of them said anything particularly dumb, but we didn't learn anything about their thinking regarding the self defense and mistake of fact issues. It was a horrible interview of these two. 
  
• Trump's defense theory on impeachment took a dramatic turn yesterday: Admit on the White House lawn what you've been accused of doing. Think I'm wrong? Let's check in on Fox News' Shepard Smith: 
  
  
  
  
   
• He's not the only one at Fox who is breaking with The Party.
  
• And his base is not pleased when State TV turns on their leader.
  
• Nothing says "holy worship" like an interview during Sunday services of someone who is so toxic that Fox News fired him after you talked with him about Democrats worshiping a pagan god. 
  
• The Baylor scandal all started with one allegation. The guy was convicted at trial. The Waco court of appeals reversed it. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals then reversed the Waco appellate court and sent it back for further consideration. The Waco appellate court then reversed the conviction again. On Wednesday, the Court of Criminal Appeals said it wants to review that decision. 
  
• Whenever I use two factor authentication and have that three second wait before I get a code on my phone, I feel like a CIA spy when it arrives.
• There appeared to be a mentally disturbed woman at an AOC rally yesterday who said we should all "eat the babies" in order to stop global warming. Something doesn't seem right. I'm not ruling out that she might be a plant.  Edit: That didn't take long. 
  
• Tarleton State will move to Division I football and join the WAC. Over the next ten years they'll make millions of dollars playing away games at Top Ten teams. It'll be brutal, but they'll get rich. (You should have seen me and two other guys at the courthouse trying to figure out Tarleton's move to the WAC when we finally figured out the WAC doesn't play football any longer. Tarlton will compete as an independent in football.)
• I didn't mention it yesterday, but I saw this official complaint coming. I noted that one of the boys on The Ticket's afternoon show even objected to the judge's actions. "I wonder what the reaction would be if she handed her a Koran," he said. 
  
• When Mrs. LL and I went to see Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, one of the previews was the yet-to-be-released-on-the-Internet trailer for Joker. I hadn't even heard anything about the movie. We both rated the trailer a collective "meh."
• Legal nerd stuff: Yesterday the the Fort Worth Court of Appeals took the extraordinary action of  issuing an opinion on the State's Motion for Rehearing for the sole purpose of adding a footnote to slap down the State's appellate lawyers. It might seem like nothing to the man on the street, but this is the equivalent of an Appellate Public Execution. 
  
  
• Concerning that slap down, I first thought the court was going after the Tarrant County DA's office who was first involved in the appeal. But it wasn't. After the court issued an opinion striking down a statute as unconstitutional, the State Prosecuting Attorney's Office out of Austin made an appearance in the case to flex its muscles and filed the Motion for Rehearing. It is that Motion that the court took to task. So the smack down is basically: Before you ride north to come up here to tell us we were wrong, you might want to at least first read the local DA's original brief. Edit: I faithful reader sent me an alternative theory. Maybe it is at least an "implied slap" at the DA's office for not arguing that the defendant had waived the overbreadth complaint in the first place. 
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• It's good to see that the 1918 massacre of 15 men and boys by Texas Rangers is getting the notice it deserves. (The site finally got a historical marker last year.) Now there's a documentary . . .