Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• I had a congressional candidate stop by my office yesterday stumping for Max Thornberry's soon-to-be vacant seat. This is quite the flyer if you read it closely. (Look for the stream of consciousness as it goes from Virginia gun laws -to- Guns are good -to- Venezuela and eating dogs! -to- She likes dogs -to- She's raised chickens. )
  
• Lee Harvey Oswald's last paycheck form the School Book Depository is up for auction. It looks like they put an estimated value of $20,000 on it. Side note: In the 1990s, one of only two or three AP wire feeds still in existence announcing the bulletin of Kennedy being shot was also up for auction. I remember it being estimated at $20,000, too, and I thought that was under-priced. (I found a story about that auction here behind a paywall so I don't know if my memory is correct about the price.)  A 40 foot printout of the UPI wire is at the University of Virginia and can be read here.
  
• You know, I wouldn't have said this a month ago, but now I think Michael Bloomberg has a serious, serious shot at winning the Democratic Nomination. 
• Want to see Meatloaf fall at a hotel in Dallas which prompted him, of course, to sue the hotel? (The link is from TMZ so it is not quick-loading.)
  
• With little fanfare, DPS just released its "Texas Domestic Terrorism Threat Assessment" for 2020.  White Power and Guns are a major player. 
  
  
• Did Rudy Guilini's associates have Trump-fired Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch under surveillance and discussing her security team? Do these text messages between his buddy Lev Parnas and Robert Hyde sound like a hit? Remember when Trump said in his "perfect" phone call that "she's going to go through some things"? Remember her testimony before Congress that she was ordered to leave Ukraine "on the next plane"? Remember Trump attacked her by tweet while she testified giving rise to claims of witness intimidation? I used to think the concept of a "Deep State" was a joke. All of this is being submitted to the Senate for Trump's impeachment trial. 
  
  

  

  Robert Hyde

• This, of course, actually turned out to be a lie. Just 10 years ago this would be a front page scandal. Now you don't even hear about it because it happens every single week. 
  
• Art Briles might get the head coaching job at tiny Missouri State today. Edit: The same web site, which I'm now very skeptical of, has just said it'll by Bobby Petrino.
• Texas has over 145,000 people in cages prison.  Last year, 33 inmates killed themselves. There were 1,380 who tried to kill themselves. Natural deaths accounted for 358 fatalities.  The government intentionally killed 8 of them. There's got to be a better way.  Source.
  
• For those who care about such things, the 2020 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was just announced. 
  
• Cliff Harris was just announced to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (he's part of the 15 member Mega-Class.) Drew Pearson was passed over. 
• Messenger: Above the Fold