Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 

• Texas Hospitalizations: Steady.
  
  
  
• COVID has crushed football for this weekend. Texas vs. Kansas State is off. Oklahoma vs. West Virginia has been cancelled. And Baylor/Oklahoma State is on the brink. At least five high school bi-district football games have been forfeited. 
• Medical Examiner Controversy Alert: At the request of prosecutors in Tarrant County, they are going to have to dig up a body in Tarrant County because they believe a bullet is still in a victim's body that the coroner overlooked. This seems like a really big deal. 
  
  
  
• The federal government was in the business of death last night as it executed a man. The Supreme Court denied a last minute stay, with three members dissenting. I'm glad Sotomayor dissented but I don't like the way she worded it. It kind of sounds like, "We should at least listen to him before we kill him." 
  
  
  
• Texas Republican infighting over the Drew Springer and Shelly Luther SD30 race is crazy.  Now Allen West is mad about this mailer from Luther. It'll be interesting to see if Luther, funded almost exclusively by far right wing West Texas oil money, pulls this off. 
  

• Yesterday, 106 members of Congress signed off on Ken Paxton's pandering for a pardon lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court in his effort to overthrow democracy. That's the equivalent of signing the Southern Manifesto back in the day.  There were only 12 Texans willing to go along with it but they include: Michael Burgess, Dan Crenshaw, Louie Gohmert,  Kenny Marchant, Roger Williams, and Ron Wright.  
  
  
  
• Some Texas Republicans have not lost their minds:
  
  
  
• Prediction: The Supreme Court kills Paxton's lawsuit today. That will make it 56 court cases lost. It's all a farce. A dangerous farce, but just a farce. 
• Another prediction but one which doesn't involve the fate of Democracy: A cold front comes through today. My charts tell me that at 2:50 p.m. in Decatur,  you'll notice the winds begin to blow from the north. It's nothing dramatic, but temperatures will then drop 10 degrees by 6:00 p.m. From the most trusted source in weather, me, bet on it. 
• It's a weird world when you think about it. The government is going to take away money from a homeless man for killing a wild turkey. (In addition to a fine, the game warden will also seek "restitution" for the value of the turkey which also goes directly to the government.) You think the founding fathers would understand all of that?
  
  
  
• ESPN has stolen the SEC away from CBS in a 10 year deal estimated to be $300 million a year.  But the players, which will all be predominantly black and from the South, won't be paid. 
  
  
  
• If this is the best shot the cameraman could find, that project seems to be off to a slow start this year.  And, besides, I don't even see a single tot in there. 
  
  
  
• A 13th person has now died in the Tarrant County Jail this year.  Sheriff Bill Waybourn does not know how to run a jail, but no one seems to care. 
• Incredibly nerdy legal stuff that (truly) only I care about: Yesterday, there was a very rare en banc opinion out of Houston's 14th court of appeals which affirmed, in a crazy 4-1-4 breakdown, the trial court throwing out cell phone evidence because the search warrant affidavit did not establish probable cause. 
• Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 525 days.
• Messenger: Above the Fold

I think we've got a Blink 182 fan who wrote that COVID headline