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- The Board. New cases Tuesday: 33,436. New cases yesterday: 31,395.
- Deaths. On Tuesday: 1,971. Yesterday: 1,941.
- Wise County: 4 cases (although state records still show 3.) One of those has fully recovered. Question: Were any of them ever hospitalized?
- Texas Deaths. On Tuesday: Tuesday: 16. Yesterday: 28.
- Hannity was promoting the Rural Uprising™ last night.
- Coronavirus image of the day:
- Last week's unemployment claims were just announced.
- How does any restaurant survive this shutdown? They all seem to live by a thread to start with.
- No one is gonna cry for criminal defense lawyers, but new clients come in for two reasons: Recent arrests and court dates. And neither of those are happening. (I just looked at the Wise County Jail list and no one was arrested in the last 24 hours. That's becoming routine. I'd guess five to ten new arrests is the number you would normally see before the shutdown.)
- Linda Tripp has died. Politics aside, recording a private conversation of a young person who believes you to be their friend is the definition of sorriness.
- Since 2011, Texas law has allowed you to use certain specified words in order to bypass a notary public altogether. I thought that law was a "bombshell" when it was passed back then, but that turned out not to be the case because no one knows about it. Like the Governor. Or a judge on the Texas Supreme Court. So instead we hear about how the governor just changed a different portion of the law to allow notarization by video.
- Texas Monthly has taken down it's paywall during the pandemic. If you've got some time, this may be the best article I've ever read.
- I think I could win a competition for speed in the self-check out line. I'm great. But for some reason I always get behind a person who, after taking each item out of his basket and holding it with both hands, stares at the machine for three seconds each time as if has never scanned anything before.
- I took advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program, and obtained a loan I don't have to pay back. I submitted the application and documentation online (took less than an hour) and had a banker call me in less than 48 hours to tell me it had been submitted. I never left the office. I can't believe the program is real. And it confounded a person in my family who has preached to me all my life that "There ain't no free lunch."
- Legal stuff: The Supreme Court on Tuesday continued to erode the 4th Amendment when it held that an officer can stop you if a computer check shows the registered owner of the vehicle you are driving has a revoked license. (They called it a "limited holding" but it never is.) Remember how I mentioned yesterday that constitutional law is 100% making stuff up? They made up a rule that a detention requires a "reasonable suspicion" in 1968 and now "reasonable" is defined by whatever particular judges are on the court.
- The Texas Supreme Court held oral arguments by Zoom yesterday which reminded me that in every oral argument I've watched or participated in that most of the judges act like they haven't even read the briefs. And I'm not sure that's an act.
- CenturyLink catches some heat in Wise County but the three times I've had them send a tech to my home or office over the last decade they've been fantastic. Here's something wild I learned yesterday: A few versions of a school issued Chromebook, when it tries to update itself when you don't even know it, can destroy bandwidth for a house in some limited situations. I was skeptical, but I saw with my own two eyes the bandwidth get wiped out by 80% by simply turning its wifi connection on and off. It's rare, but it can happen.
- I missed that the Carolina Panthers released Bridgeport great Colin Jones after signing him to a two year contract last year. The Athletic says that Jones asked for the release which seems odd. (Baylor's Matt Rhule became the new coach earlier this year.)
