Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• The Board (quite a few deaths over the last two days):

  

  Total cases: 1,064,194

  
  

  

  Total deaths: 61,656 

• Texas (not exactly a downward trend). And one other thing about this chart: You see that huge unnatural spike on April 10? "That's the date [Gov. Abbott] picked in order to claim 'the COVID-19 infection rate has been on the decline over the past 17 days' and Texas is safe to reopen."
  
  
  
• Tarrant County:
  
• Wise County (holding steady): 17 total, 5 active.
• Trump had a moment of quiet contemplation late last night as he reflected on more people dying in two months than in the entire Vietnam War:
  
• But he's in a bad mood because his poll numbers are awful. That'll happen when you don't act like an adult during a crisis. But he did give us a great quote:
  
• Trump has tweeted or retweeted 45 times this morning! And he retweeted this guy six times. (Not this particular tweet, but this guy.)
  
• The rebel salon owner in Dallas had some supporters show up yesterday:
  
• GDP numbers were announced yesterday which were, as expected, down. But someone went into the weeds to find this surprising nugget about the healthcare industry. I'm beginning to see articles saying the same thing. 
  
• New this morning: Add 3.8 million more who sought unemployment last week. That brings the total to 30.3 million in the last six weeks. That's a staggering 1 out of every 5 American workers since February. 
• Watching the apology is almost as good as the headline. 
  
• Random Thought: I've been preaching that Uber is a "house of cards" for about a year. I wonder how they are doing?
• Some people get under my skin and drive me crazy to a degree I can't really explain. One of them is State Rep. Jeff Leach who comes across as the most phony and stereotypical politician in the history of ever. As proof, just look at the way he begins his letter to Gov. Abbott asking that salons be allowed to open at half capacity like everyone else. (I don't have an opinion on his position, it's just his suck up attitude which is embarrassing.)
  
• The Official Liberally Lean Girl just casually mentioned that she burned down her gym. 
  
• I'm no doctor but . . . 
  
• A faithful reader near Knoxville, Tennessee saw my post yesterday regarding the book Dirty Dealings about the assassination of federal judge John Wood. Recall I mentioned that so far its a great story of drug dealing lawyers in El Paso. He said one of those lawyers appears in this book despite the fact its based in Kentucky. The reader needs to be a writer because he began the description this way: "Sometime in the mid 1980s a man in Powell, Tennessee (Knoxville TN for all practical purposes) woke up one morning and went outside to get the newspaper. There in his driveway was a dead man attached to an obviously defective parachute and a bulging duffel bag full of money." I'm in. 
  
• Look below at the facility McLennan County is considering for jury selection once jury trials return. Let me tell you something. Jury trials are going to be one of the last things to return. And even if a county tried to pull it off prematurely, the number of no-shows would be justifiably astronomical.