5.15.2020

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







at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • The Board:
  • Texas (this remains bizarre):
  • Wise County: Total: 36. Active: 11.
  • Since the Texas numbers continue to trend up, of course they do this: 
  • The leader of the free world: 
  • I'm in the minority here, but I think we could all learn a lesson from the baseball players union: No, we're not going to let my employer make me work at half pay, in completely unconventional working conditions, and be exposed to a disease for which there is no cure. (And the amount of the "half pay" involved is absolutely irrelevant to that principle.)
  • How long will this recession last? I have no idea. The problem is that it wasn't a natural occurrence. So will the recovery be unnaturally fast as well?
  • This is the food line in Dallas yesterday. I'm sooooo uncomfortable saying this, but I still think we have to factor in that people will come out of the woodwork for free stuff regardless of need. My anecdotal evidence of this was when the First National Bank of Bridgeport had a grand opening after it remodeled one time and decided to give away free hot dogs in the middle of the afternoon. The length of line was insane. It was like they were giving away CDs (the money kind).  That has always stuck with me. 
  • Ransomware update: The web sites of the Texas courts of appeal are still held hostage this morning. This makes one week. 
  • This is a picture of a Come and Take It guy showing up at the capitol for an Open Michigan protest.  Actually, it's a protest on the street where Ahmaud Aubery was killed. You feel the same, right? 
  • Speaking of the Aubery case, the guy who videotaped the event showed up on CNN with his lawyer.  A law firm across the street from that lawyer decided to roast him by posting the interview on youtube with a scathing critique. 
  • Very random note: I've been eating instant oatmeal lately -- the kind where you measure the water in the empty bag and then shove it all in the microwave. I've discovered that changing the cook time by seconds and changing the water mixture by a tablespoon can make dramatic difference. At this point I'm like Walter White cooking meth looking for the perfect combination of the two.
  • Legal stuff: The Fifth Circuit is temporarily moving from oral arguments to basically "take home tests." Look at these questions and the crazy deadlines they issued in a case yesterday. (Hey, I do criminal law, but I have no idea what this stuff means. It's the specialty of federal post-conviction writs of habeas corpus after state claims are exhausted. All the questions are procedural and they make my head spin. And a majority of the questions have a feel of "we just want to jack with you and make you work" instead of "we'd really like to know the answer.")
  • For some reason I get a lot of enjoyment of watching Snoop Dogg sitting in his car listening to the Frozen soundtrack.
  • The Far Right Winging Trump Worshipers don't understand the concept of "unmasking." Hint: It has occurred over 26,000 times in the last two years.
  • Adding to the total from earlier this week, there were 31 class A and B criminal misdemeanors filed in Wise County yesterday. 

at 8:34 AM

5.14.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • The Board (I'll might discontinue the national graph in the next week or so unless the trend changes.)
  • Texas (This graph remains intriguing. Have I said "any day now" before?): 
  • Wise County: Total - 36. Active - 11. And another active case! 
  • A buddy of mine told me yesterday his brother (a non-Wise County resident) contracted the 'Rona. In highly technical medical terms he basically said: He's not going to die, but he sure feels like it and wouldn't wish it on any of us. 
  • Ransomware update: All Texas appellate court websites still aren't working. I'm telling you, they are going to have to pay regardless of how much they claim they won't.
  • I've mentioned this before: The Wise County Sheriff's Office was hit by ransomware a couple of years back and ended up writing a check (or sending bitcoins). I never heard the exact figure other than it was "substantial". That number would have to be disclosed by an Open Records Request or someone could just email me. 
  • And I noticed that a law firm that represents Lady Gaga, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Bruce Springsteen, and Mariah Carey confirmed it had been hit by ransomware where the hackers want $21 million. Now that's a chunk of change. 
  • We had an odd Intoxication Manslaughter case in Wise County -- odd because it occurred just before noon.   Although the man charged is from Azle, he had some history in Wise County but only a game warden case and some minor drug paraphernalia case over 10 years ago.  
  • The federal judge in the Michael Flynn case isn't messing around.
  • If you had bet 10 years ago you'd see a headline like this, how much would you have wagered? (Stern's quote that got the most attentions was, “The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most. The people who are voting for Trump, for the most part ... he wouldn’t even let them in a [expletive] hotel. He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience.”)
  • So having a racket as a DA where you tell people on probation they can "buy out" their community service by running down to the local store and buying gift cards and then giving them to the DA's office only causes you to not seek re-election but doesn't put you in prison?
  • Girl, if someone is bullying you, the full power of the Liberally Lean Legal Team is standing by on the runway of Decatur Municipal Airport to assist you in any way possible. 
  • Montgomery County has a lot of Williamson County in it, but seems to be more old school in its controversies: "Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough has filed a police report on 457th state District Judge candidate Eric Yollick after allegedly catching The Woodlands-based attorney egging his car in the county parking garage in March."
    Alleged Egg Chunker
  • I've got no opinion on the Did-the-guy-in-the-casket-wave controversy. Video here. 
  • I only part of The Masked Singer I see is the last three minutes, but I continue to believe it's the dumbest show on TV. And why is there so much excitement from the judges and the crowd? Of course, the answer is that it's mandated by the stage directors just like contestants had to scream "No whammys!" back in the day. Heck, any game show is full of fake energy (except Jeopardy.)
  • The front pages are kind of boring around the nation today, so I went to Georgia to see if I could find anything on the Ahmaud Arbery case. But the headline I got was another DA funneling money to himself. 



at 8:35 AM

5.13.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • The Board. The death projections have been all over the place the last few weeks, but some think 110,000 is now a pretty good estimate.  Then we have the corona and flu season this fall. 
    Total cases: 1,408,636. Total deaths: 83,425.
  • Texas (Maybe if we turned the graph upside down we'd feel better.)
  • Wise County: Positive tests - 30. Active cases - 10.  Hey! It was just 7 yesterday. Isn't that technically a 42% increase?
  • This appears to be legit, but I'm not sure what the social distancing rules would be at a prom.
  • Ken Paxton threatened Clay Jenkins yesterday. No one is an adult any longer. 
  • Paxton was on the Mark Davis Show on Friday to talk about Shelley Luther (since obviously there is nothing more important to the the State of Texas.) What got my attention was that three separate times he referred to Judge Moye sentencing Luther to seven days in "prison."  This wasn't a simple mistake. The Attorney General of Texas does not know the difference between jails and prisons. 
  • Trump news: (1) Paul Manafort was released from prison overnight because of  'rona fears. (2) The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday on whether his tax returns, which he promised to give us four years ago, are subject to subpoena. (3) And the judge in the Michael Flynn case issued a weird "what do the rest of you guys out there think" order about Barr's justice department wanting to drop charges. 
  • College football season is in jeopardy. With many California colleges already announcing they will go to online classes this fall (and with Cal and UCLA leaning that way), there is also talk of the PAC-10 moving its football schedule to the spring or just playing conference games. That'll cause some major problems.  Potential cancellations have already caused speculation of TCU and Alabama scrambling to meet at JerryWorld in the season opener if both of their California opponent games get called off. (Then again, why would they play at JerryWorld if there won't be any fans?)
  • All of the Texas court websites are still being held hostage by ransomware this morning. The state still not going to pay?
  • Me: Elon Musk is also a "genuine nutcase."
  • I haven't watched a second of the Michael Jordan documentary. I understand the interest, but I don't really care about the man. 
  • Dak Prescott ought to give serious thought to taking the path of Kirk Cousins -- an average quarterback who continues to make big money despite having the Redskins place the Franchise Tag on him for the maximum two years. With Franchise Tag salaries being predetermined,  Cousins got $19 million his first tag year and $23 million the second. He then move on to short term deals with a 3 year $84 million deal with the Vikings and then a 2 year $65 million extension. If Dak goes that route, he starts out with $32 million for this year's tag and then $37 million for next year if the Cowboys franchise him again. 
  • With the Wise County courts basically shut down, there were 32 Class A and Class B misdemeanors filed yesterday.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold (link fixed)


at 8:33 AM

5.12.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • The Board:
    Total cases: 1,385,834. Total deaths: 81,795
  • Texas. (Any day now, I'm sure.):
  • Dallas County. (At least it has kind of plateaued. A high plateau, but a plateau nonetheless):
  • Wise County: 31 total cases. 7 active cases. (I think that's a new high.)
  • Here's a interesting tidbit about about Judge Eric Moye, who got caught up in the Shelley Luther mess, and a forgotten Texas Senator. Moye was once recommended by the senator to President Clinton for a federal judgeship, but Clinton never nominated him.  What senator mad the recommendation? That would be Bob Krueger. Who, you say? I had forgotten about him, too. When Sen. Lloyd Bentsen resigned to become Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Gov. Ann Richards appointed Krueger to takes his place. He only served for five months before being trounced in a special election by Kay Bailey Hutchison.
  • Speaking of Shelley Luther, did you know she admitted on The View that she received $18,000 in a PPP loan (which is a forgivable government loan so long as you primarily spend it on employee salaries.) You might recall how everyone was scrambling to get one of those loans before the money ran out. It's certainly not a big deal that she applied for and got one, but this is:  “There was $18,000 dropped in my bank account with no notice of what it was. So I get no instructions," she said in addition to noting that she doesn’t “know how I’m supposed to spend it.” Puuuuhleeese.
  • And speaking of past senators, whatever happened to Phil Gramm? You never hear a peep out of him. 
  • Mega law firm Thompson & Knight doesn't mess around
  • Ransomware!: The array of court websites that have* been hit are primarily used to find out  everything going on with cases in the appellate courts in Texas. The state said yesterday it won't pay the money, but the sites have been held hostage since Friday and that hasn't changed as of this morning.  I'd like to wager they end up paying the money. (*Have? Has? Is "array" singular or plural?)
  • Breaking: He, and the federal government, are our lord and savior.  And he wants you to know it during another tweet storm this morning.
  • Trump has been dropping the "transition into greatness" line time and time again over the last week as he tries to convince us everything will be fine once the pandemic has passed. He'll probably stop doing that since they forgot to buy the domain name. 
  • That video of people running from the gunfire in Fort Worth over the weekend is pretty wild, but I'm not sure why Fox 4's Steve Eagar needed to tells us that some of those who had gathered "were reportedly drinking and riding ATVs." That's a weird detail.
  • A sports note that got my attention. I'll always think Tony Romo was pretty spare. 
  • More sports: This kid was suspended and sent home from the state title game last December because he wouldn't give up his phone. I'm sure he and Gary Patterson will get along just fine. 
  • We love lists: The 50 Best Shows (old and new) on Netflix right now. 
  • The Update has a report of a crazy wreck in Chico involving two vehicles driven by a 17 year old and a 16 year old. They might have buried the lede: Both drivers allegedly fled on foot. 

at 8:33 AM
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