9.04.2020

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 


  • Wise County active cases: 25 (-1)
  • Texas hospitalizations: -74 

  • The Star-Telegram has a story about a doctor who is back in the news. She had a Wise County connection. I had completely forgotten that Judge Cude sentenced her to the hoosegow for a year back in 2004. 


  • Those who live in the Sigma Chi frat house at SMU are under quarantine after a COVID outbreak. Live look:  
    These really are SMU boys.

  • The Atlantic rocked the wires last night with a story on Trump  being Trump again. Now, to no one's surprise, it's being reported that he's made a series of comments demonstrating what he really thinks about those who give their life for their country. Here are the highlights:

    • Remember when he cancelled at the last minute a visit to the cemetery in Belleau, France and blamed it on the weather?: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” 
    • "In a 2018 White House planning meeting for [a parade], Trump asked his staff not to include wounded veterans, on grounds that spectators would feel uncomfortable in the presence of amputees. 'Nobody wants to see that,' he said."
    • On John McCain's funeral" “'We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,' and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. 'What the f--- are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking l----,” the president told aides.
  • Trump's defended himself as soon as he got off Air Force One last night:


  • Trump also immediately tweeted saying it was all fake news that he called John McCain a "loser" because he never called him a loser. Uh, here's a video where Trump literally called McCain a loser. 

  • UNT's quarterbacks coach has been arrested on an "Improper Relationship" between teacher and student for two incidences which occurred last year when he was a high school coach in Argyle. It sounds like the other party was 17 or 18. You guys can get married if you want, but you can't be doing that -- at least in Texas. 
  • Most of the headlines about this story point out that hours earlier he had given a recorded interview to Vice. What  got my attention was that it was the feds who killed him while trying to arrest him.  


  • The Messenger's great history column in today's Messenger is prompted by the question below from Decatur lawyer Paul Belew. Looks like he noticed one of the historical markers on our courthouse lawn pays tribute to a "respected negro." (Side note: And if case you wonder if we "give him the business" for his eye catching billboards, the answer is a resounding "Yes!!" But he's a good lawyer and a good guy who takes it all in stride.) 

  • We had college football last night. This made me laugh.

  • Also funny.

  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:30 AM

9.03.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 

  • Wise County active cases: 26 (+2)
  • Texas hospitalizations: +5.  It's way too early to tell, but that hard decline might possibly be ending. We've had two positive numbers in three days and that hadn't happened in weeks. Just a hunch. 

  • In case you missed it, Trump actually told voters in North Carolina to vote twice yesterday - once by mail and once in person. He wasn't kidding. Hours later, his lap dog AG told Wolf Blitzer he couldn't say that voting twice is illegal because it was somehow a very complicated legal question:  "I don't know what the law in the particular state says." Good lord. 

  • The Rock and his entire family got the COVID. The only thing I think about when I hear his name is to remember that he actually played for the Miami Hurricanes. He was almost set to start his sophomore year until Warren Sapp came in. 

  • Didn't expect to see this in my news feed today.

  • Nate Silver is a number crunching genius. And this is scary.  We don't live in republic if the majority never seems to get to elect those to represent them at the highest levels. 

  • But speaking of the Electoral College, here's Fox and Friends this morning: 

  • The Ticket had the organist for the Texas Rangers on the radio a few weeks back and he's, uh, a little different. I noticed via his Twitter feed that he was in Arlington the other day (he lives in West Texas and provides his musical bits via recordings) and was looking for strangers to go to lunch with him. He even pointed out what location restaurant he had made it to. There is no way I'm having lunch with a stranger and no way I'm putting out an open invitation over the Internet. 

  • This won't interest anyone but me and a couple of people who will now have to scramble to fix it, but I noticed this plea bargain and sentence yesterday in a low level Wise County drug case.  Two years is the maximum sentence for that offense. (Cause no. CR-22511).  Edit: A faithful reader from the courthouse called and said the offense was actually enhanced because of the defendant's criminal history to make it a third degree felony. (That would make the sentence a legal one since if falls within the 2 to 10 year range.) For some reason the the official county database does not reflect the enhancement. 

  • I see that Nancy Pelosi is catching heat for getting an unauthorized haircut in a salon that wasn't supposed to be open. 

  • Total population of the Wise County Jail this morning: 209.  If it has been higher than that over the last two years, I don't remember it. During the initial COVID lockdown in the spring, the number would average around 135. 
  • This is the front page of the city where we have another black man killed at the hands of police. They sure do love their front page ads in Rochester, NY:


at 8:32 AM

9.02.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

 
  • Wise County active cases: 24 (+7. Wacky.)
  • Texas hospitalizations: -59.

  • Apparently, some students really do need to get back in school. (It's like Hoover visiting a  Hooverville and blaming Roosevelt.)

  • The Don't-Mix-Sports-And-Politics crowd had a really tough day yesterday.

  • America 2020: She'll be on Dancing With The Stars.

  • I did not know this. Side note: I've never seen Citizen Kane.

  • At some point, instead of Zoom conferences, we'll use virtual reality headsets where we are all represented in 3D images in the same fake room, right? And that can't be that far away.  Heck, we could easily do what was in the old movie Disclosure right now.  But I'm talking about something which would feel mind-bendingly real. 

  • Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago we had back-to-back stories of cars driving into back yard swimming pools in Arlington? 

  • Conservative Drudge remains ruthless. 

  • If you've regurgitated a particular "6%" figure in the last week, you probably struggled in Health class in high school. 
  • Fun little high school football fact:

  • I  couldn't help but look up Cotton Center High School which turned out to be a six-man football school in West Texas. The most amazing thing about it is the satellite view around it.  Here (that's just the Google map view which lets you zoom in and out, but it's even wilder than the screenshot.)

  • Shout out to the Wise County Auditor. I made an Open Records request, something I never do,  and she responded to me within hours upon receiving it with the requested records. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold 


at 8:33 AM

9.01.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

 
  • Wise County active: 17 (the number has been cut in half since Thursday due to some type of Christmas miracle in August.)
  • Texas hospitalizations: +31 (a rare stop of the downward decline)

  • Remember the Baby Fern Theford case, one involving leaving a baby in a car, out of Collin County from two years ago? And remember how I constantly rant that no one in the criminal justice system understands the legal term "criminal negligence" and how people are prosecuted routinely prosecuted for tragic accidents? Well, the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed this conviction and entered and acquittal on Friday on basically that theory. 
    2018


    From court opinion

  • Not only am I The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, but I'm pretty sure I'm the first Respected Media Outlet to report on this new development in the Thedford case. Look for it to be in the metroplex news today since I've given everyone the head's up. And Texas Monthly will be coming with an update shortly since they had a story on the case by the great Skip Hollandsworth shortly after the conviction. 

  • Funny line about the Trump Boat Parades: "You have to question their judgment because, after all, they are boat owners." (As a former boat owner, I can say that. And attest to its accuracy.)
  • We've got two crazy Trump claims/statements from last night's interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham.
    • First he compares cops shooting a black man in the back seven times to just making a mistake or "choking" in golf. Ingraham tries to save him by saying, "You're not comparing this to golf because that's what the media will say." Yes, the media will say it because he compared it to golf! Watch.

    • And who knows what the heck he is talking about here. She asked him where this happened, and he said, "I'll tell you sometime." Watch. 

  • And Trump goes to Kenosha today after, as predicted, failing to condemn violence of all types yesterday and coming to the defense of  Kyle Rittenhouse.  No 17 year old needs to arm himself with an AR-15 and cross state lines to go looking for conflict.  Be calm, people. Everyone be calm.  Trump has the chance to say something absolutely bonkers while in the now-peaceful city today. 

  • I said from the beginning that Rittenhouse might have a legal self-defense claim for his second round of shooting.  But legally defensible does not always equate to morally justified. And often it doesn't. 
  • The NBA announced that several arenas will be turned into massive voting centers this November.  I may have missed it, but is this just going to magically happen somehow?  I mean, the AAC is in predominately Democratic Dallas County and has mass transit to get thousands in an out of there. The Republicans at the state level are just going to sit back and allow that?  Is this exclusively a county decision?  (I should know this but I don't.) 

  • We are going to see a lot of this. 

  • Official Liberally Lean Triple Confirmed Forewarn Weather Forecast: The heavy rain will hit Decatur at 11:40 a.m.  Edit: I obviously meant to say 10:15 a.m. Just a typo. 
  • "Confessing sins" is an odd headline, but those are her words from a Facebook post. She apparently committed suicide after posting about her five year relationship she entered into as a high school student with her band director. 

  • Here's a quick loading video of two women fighting on a skybridge at La Guardia in New York. Good morning.

  • Students on the third and forth floors of a Baylor dorm are confined to their rooms right now (Saturday through Wednesday) after COVID cases spiked. Food is delivered to the rooms from the cafeteria although some kids are ordering delivery from outside restaurants and rigging up a system to get it through windows.


at 8:35 AM
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