1.11.2019

It's Friday. Let's Get Out Of Here.
















at 2:00 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • I understand any newspaper being behind a paywall (the industry's failure to embrace that concept from the beginning might have been their undoing), but if it is, it cannot have tech failures like this which could be fixed in five minutes. 
  • A Houston lawyer screws up a $2,000 purchase for tickets to Hamilton on Ticketmaster.com so he sues them for a refund. (Looking at his website, I'm more stunned that a two man firm has four "paralegals" and one "law clerk".) 
  • I've heard crazier things:
  • Sports (and Baylor has a 1-11 season factored in there):
  • We learned where Trump found a big word yesterday.
    A Fox News reporter. (Note the time.)

  • Yahoo has some lifestyle advice for us all this morning. (Extreme side note: Are tapas a thing?)
     
  • The fact that the Tarrant County Republican Party took two hours to decide whether to kick out a member for simply being a Muslim (a trauma surgeon, no less) tells you all you need to know about that Tarrant County. Republican Party. And the vote was 139 to 49! Yep, 49! Here's one of the nutcases mocking Muslims last night:
  • In Kansas, the family of murder victims are footing the bill for their own lawyers to help the state prosecutors. That gives rise to a ton of issues -- especially ethical ones.
  • We had a directed verdict in district court in Decatur this week. (The defendant ended up pleading to a misdemeanor once the felony went away.) I think the last time that happened in Decatur was when I was a prosecutor. 
  • I don't know why I was looking at briefs filed in the Fort Worth Court of Appeals yesterday, but I saw both parties in a civil case say the right to a jury trial in a Texas county court-at-law was guaranteed by Article III Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. It is a right, but that section dealing with federal courts ain't it.  Once again, both parties didn't know this simple fact.
  • Trump showed up at the border yesterday on his Failed Wall Tour '19, but this guy won the day:
  • Also quality humor: 
  • Before he left for McAllen, Trump proclaimed that he never said Mexico would pay for the wall. It literally was on his campaign site that Mexico would make a one time payment of $5 to $10 billion dollars. He lies to his base time and time again. #WhereAreThePesos
  • The half-Asian and self-proclaimed Vietnam expert BagOfNothing guy  has called me out on my Nixon/Treason/Vietnam revelation. It looks like he's been on it for two years. (Another side note: I may spend the rest of the day flying over his house in a Huey yelling "Get some! Get some!") 
  • We will get more on this bizarre story later today . . . 

at 8:33 AM

1.10.2019

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • With the Cowboys playing the Rams this weekend in the playoffs, past playoff games between the two teams have been revisited. Some QBs weren't always as great as we thought: In 1976, the Cowboys lost with Roger Staubach going 15 of 37 for only 150 yards with no TDs and three interceptions. 
  • The NBA is offering front row seats via virtual reality for $6.99 for a handful of games this season.  The technology apparently works like a charm. Will one day teams be playing in empty arenas but making just as much (or far more) money by selling virtual reality tickets?
  • Does this sound like a man who would throw a temper tantrum?
    That's right! No slamming!
  • I mentioned this on Monday and then this showed up on my timeline yesterday. (This whole story just came to light in 2016 so I don't feel so dumb now of just finding out about it.)
  • Pretty close call for those houses in Aubrey.
  • "A Waco man was placed on deferred probation and ordered to make restitution Wednesday for trying to bilk a cheating husband out at least $17,250 by threatening to release a video showing him having sex with a stripper." There's a lot going on there. 
    My investigation reveals this is the club where she worked.
  • Two men, utilizing Grindr, allegedly kidnapped, assaulted, robbed and beat at least nine men in Dallas because of their sexual orientation and . The indictment this week caught my attention because of a word I wasn't familiar with. For a second I thought I had been mispronouncing it "finagle" all these years. (Both are words and both mean basically the same thing.) 
  • The pastor in Fort Worth, who praised God about the mass shooting in the Orlando gay club, but had to resign because he hooked up with strippers while smoking weed, has issued a video statement. He says it all happened in a "casino" in Jacksonville. Google casinos in Jacksonville. That alone is enough to question his judgment. 

  • Dear Mrs. LL: Feel free to divorce me and marry this man. According to Texas law, you'll just owe me $1 billion once you say your vows. (Trust me on this -- no need to consult with anyone. I'll send you wire instructions.)
                                       
  • Is all this press about Bird Box a little weird to you? Reviews put it as nothing more than an above average movie, but we are inundated with references to it. 
  • When three Texas politicians have a press gathering on the governor's lawn and the family dog "just happens" to get loose and make an appearance in front of the cameras so they can lovingly shower it with attention. (If you don't think that was staged, you are very naive.)
  • He is detached from reality:
  • There is going to be some huge news regarding a Texas high school football player today according to this guy of Dave Campbell's Texas Football. He normally is just breaking news left and right this time of year about coaching changes. It won't be about college recruiting because he doesn't cover that. I can't imagine what it could be for him to promote it like this.



at 8:31 AM

1.09.2019

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • I heard Mark Cuban is do a radio commercial for some Low T center yesterday. How spare is that? I'd rather make the news because I bought a yacht.
  • Trump was pretty calm last night as he read off a teleprompter. Prediction: He won't like the reviews of him being "subdued" and a Twitter rant is forthcoming. That is, unless he is getting bored with the whole thing. 
  • The optics of the Democratic response weren't any better. 
    "Your mother and I want to talk to you about flag addiction."
  • Overheard in the DA's office from one out-of-town lawyer to another: "Are you one of the prosecutors or are you on the court appointed list?"  He seemed to have a good grasp of the landscape. (And, trust me, those people are everywhere in the courthouse come docket day.)
  • Also overheard from a different out of town lawyer to another: "If you plea the felony, they'll probably just dismiss the misdemeanor." It was all I could do to keep from saying, "You're new around here, aren't you?"
  • My award-winning rant yesterday of how we are developing into a society where we just believe what we want to believe and discard anything we don't like as "fake news" prompted one faithful reader to direct my attention to this book which pretty much sets forth that point.
  • Kliff Klingsbury as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals? I don't know if it will work or not, but that's one weird promotion after being fired by Tech. (Side note: I'm not sure Baylor's coach doesn't get named as head coach of the Jets in the next two days.)
  • This was from a random story in the Morning News yesterday about a tech company in Fort Worth being sold. Look at what they do. (And there's no way that technology is being limited just for that. We are all being watched and tracked.)
  • Trump in 1999:
  • I haven't mentioned the disturbing story of the comatose patient giving birth in the health care facility in Arizona, but a development yesterday also got my attention. A judge has ordered every male worker in the facility to give a DNA sample. That's flat out a 4th Amendment violation. The judge issues a search warrant because he thinks there is probable cause to believe that every male worker possesses evidence of a crime? (And, no, you don't get to search someone to exclude them as a suspect. That would be like a search warrant being issued for every home in Wise County because a TV was just stolen from Walmart.)
                                                 
  • Trump and his associates have the dumbest lawyers. Yesterday, the lawyers for former campaign manager and felon Paul Manafort couldn't properly redact a pleading they filed which accidentally revealed that he is accused of conspiring with Russia. That's a big story.
                                                      
  • Random smart guy stuff: Bridgeport's own Chance Pierce, a running back at Abilene Christian, has been named to the All Academic Southland Conference first team. (He has a 3.40 in Kinesiology.) Oddly, he played on the defensive line in high school. 
  • Is he OK this morning? 
  • Messenger: Above The Fold



at 8:30 AM

1.08.2019

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts


  • I went to Denton yesterday and there were four Denton County Sheriff's office SUVs running traffic at the Wise County/Denton County border. What a waste. Assuming you accept that a sheriff's office should be involved in traffic enforcement (I don't), that divided strip of 380 in rural Denton County is probably the safest in that county. Think about I-35 or the eastern side of 380 which is notorious for wrecks. 
  • The layoffs at the Dallas Morning News are disturbing. When I first discovered the Internet in 1996, I told a friend, Lisa, that one day "we would all have our own online TV stations." I was a little off the mark about the delivery mechanism, but the vision is becoming deadly accurate. I fear a day when we will live in a society where we are overwhelmed by disinformation with the reliable sources of credible information no longer existing. From there, the masses just accept what they want to believe. It is becoming an America, as Kellyanne Conway accidentally admitted, of "alternative facts." And the government will have the biggest bullhorn with no one to fact check them.
  • Speaking of . . . 
  • Again, speaking of, Martina has a message . . .  
     
  • And all of that leads to this: Tonight, from the Oval Office, Trump will lobby for The Wall. And once you get by the past lie of "Mexico is going to pay for it",  he will deliberately lie to you again and tell you there is suddenly a "crisis" at the border. There is not. It is propaganda. It is misinformation. He had two years with a Republican controlled House and Senate and there was no sense of urgency. 
  • I rarely look at Facebook, but it was called to my attention that a Wise Count "rant" page went off on the service that you get in the local DPS driver's license office. 
  • In what was the worst attempted fake field goal in college football history last night, Alabama decided to have the holder run the ball right up the middle against this formation with the kicker leading the way. And it was 4th and 6.
  • There was a fake Internet story that went around years ago about Mark Cuban buying a mega-yacht, but this one, regarding Jerry Jones, comes from Business Insider.  (A credible outlet of information.)
  • As I continue to watch Ken Burns Vietnam, I was stunned last night to learn of then presidential candidate Nixon colluding with South Vietnam to pull out of the peace talks with the North days before the election. (If the public thought there was no end in sight for the war, the more likely a switch from a Democrat to a Republican president.)  That was 100% treason. LBJ knew it. The FBI knew it. The CIA knew it. But they decided to not disclose it. Nixon won by a razor thin margin with 43.4% of the vote over Humphrey who garnered 42.7%. (George Wallace got 13.5%.)
  • Lady goes crazy at JetBlue counter.
  • Per the Update: Murder in Decatur. Edit. There is a guy on Facebook who has the same name as the suspect who lists Decatur as his resident who has this as the first available post. I don't know if it is him. 
  • Wait a second, as Americans struggle with stagnant wages, who is "flush with cash" . . . ?
at 8:30 AM

1.07.2019

Random Monday Morning Thoughts



  • Yes, this caused my head to explode on Friday night:
                                         
  • I wasn't familiar with Pastor Donnie Romero of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth but he became quite the sensation over the last week. He first caught some attention after the Orlando mass shooting by saying this on video: “These 50 Sodomites were all perverts and pedophiles and they are the scum of the earth, and the earth is a little bit better place now, and I’ll even take it a little further. I heard on the news today that there are still several dozen of these queers in ICU, and I will pray that God will finish the job that that man started.” Good grief. Well, he resigned last week after “grievous sins” were discovered involving being with prostitutes, using marijuana and gambling. (Star-Telegram story, with video, here.)
  • As little as five years ago, Mountain Ceder would knock me down. Now, despite Mrs. LL having multiple sneezing fits yesterday, I'm not impacted at all. Weird.
  • Saw someone suggest The Muppets should host the Oscars. I'd be all in. (Even put the two grumpy old men in the balcony to mock everyone.)
  • Another freeway shooting in Dallas this morning. (People are crazy.)
  • I'm not sure how much Fox pays for the rights to the NFL, but you would think the league would at least be able to refer viewers to the network at the start of a playoff game.
  • Pretty good chance he was in the stands at Jerry World (or at least in the Party Pass area.)
  • In case you missed it, here are people running when the stadium doors opened in order to get the best "standing" area for the party pass. (Someone referred to it as the "Running of the Poors.")
  • Not messing around:
  • In had no idea that a nation of taxpayers were completely oblivious as to how our marginal tax rate works. (If you don't, she wants to tax every dollar you earn over $10,000,000 at 70%. The horror!)
  • The only thing giving Fox News one ounce of credibility is Chris Wallace. Yesterday, he called out Sarah Sanders for lying about the "border crisis" with numbers that simply weren't true. No, Sarah, there are not 4,000 known or suspected terrorists who have been caught trying to cross the Mexican border. The number, according to the State Department, is zero. It's airports you are talking about. 
  • Things that I had no idea even happened:
  • The government remains shut down because Trump can't get taxpayer money for The Wall after he promised you that Mexico was going to pay for it.
  • Messenger: Above The Fold.





at 8:30 AM
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