Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• There didn't seem to be a big crowd yesterday at the funeral of Atatiana Jefferson, the woman who was shot and killed in her own home by a Fort Worth Police officer. I was curious how the media would handle that. The Dallas Morning News went with the very clever word of "dozens" and said this: "Dozens of Jefferson’s family and friends, as well as elected officials from around the Dallas-Fort Worth area, paid their respects . . . ." 
  
• A line I heard which has really stuck with me: "Eventually all of our graves will go unattended." 
• I think stuff like this happens more than what we hear about. Carnival says this one looks like a suicide. 
  
• Well this has started off a little dark for a Friday, hasn't it?
• With the news of the Confederate Umpire yesterday, this guy asks a great questions since analytics are now such a big part of baseball:
  
  
• Some have been wondering where Kellyanne Conway has been, but she reappeared in the news yesterday after the ultra-conservative Washington Examiner released a recording of phone call of her berating a reporter. Spoiler which shouldn't be a spoiler: She considers herself a "powerful woman" whose husband "gets his power through me." 
  
• Callback from earlier this week: See, I'm not the only one who thinks this. 
  
  
  
• He's actually talking about a process which is required by law immediately after an arrest but is completely ignored. (It's not actually an "arraignment" but is informally called a "magistration") When a judge sets bond in a case where the arrest was made without a warrant, he is supposed to review a sworn affidavit prepared by the arresting officer and determine whether there is probable cause to believe the person arrested committed a crime. If he doesn't make that finding, the defendant is to be immediately released. In real life, probable cause is found 99.99% of the time and the vast majority of judges never even look at the affidavit. 
• This will interest only a few, but look at this old Cowboys versus the Rams clips for two reasons: (1) Cliff Harris throwing his hands up in exasperation after being burned and then taking a huge tumble after tripping over Charlie Waters, and (2) the craziest play you've ever seen that results in an incompletion. (Both plays are back to back in the clip and can be viewed in less than a minute.)
  
• Also worth a watch: The look on Mitch McConnell's face when a guy shakes everyone's hand except his at Elijah Cummings' service yesterday. (It gets better after this.)
  
• For all the Republicans who are mad at the Impeachment Inquiry "process", welcome to the world of a grand jury which is essentially what is going on. Side note: Here's my award winning post from 2014 where I explained the Texas grand jury process. It's still accurate but for the grand jury commission part which has been changed. 
• I may have mentioned this, but one of my guilty pleasures is the Twitter account which posts screen shots of the old Batman TV series and points out the great signs in them. That show was ridiculously clever. 
  
• He might not care about the slaughter of the Kurds, but protecting the oil with troops is a different matter. Hey, "reconstituted"? I thought he defeated ISIS personally?
  
• Update: He's talking crazy this morning. The soldiers aren't coming home (he just said that.) ISIS is not secured (he just said that, too.) And the U.S. is not "getting" Syrian oil. Sheesh.  
  
• OK, who forgot to sweep the forests again?