- Texas Hospitalizations: +132. I'm officially taking us up a DEFCON level. It looks like the second wave is coming.
- COVID quickhits:
- Wise Regional announced that their beds dedicated to COVID-19 are full and are expanding the area dedicated to the disease. That seems like a big deal. (I don't see in today's Messenger story the actual number of beds which reached capacity.)
- Got a report that First Baptist Cottondale is shutting down due to an outbreak.
- The Indianapolis Colts announced this morning they had "several" players test positive and have shut down the facilities. They are (were) scheduled to play the Bengals on Sunday. Edit: Sounds like false positives now.
- If this second wave hits hard, the seasons of high school, college and the NFL will be completely shut down in a month.
- It's all drugs, all the time.
- If you missed Trump's Town Hall, here's a summary:
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Official nodder, right.
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- He claims he doesn't know (or can't remember) whether or not he tested positive for COVID before the debate with Joe Biden.
- Amazingly, wouldn't wouldn't condemn QAnon but said, "I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard."
- Oddly, wouldn't say if he was pro-life or pro-choice.
- Wouldn't retract a retweet saying that Obama and Biden and Team Seal Six didn't kill Osama bin Laden. "That was a retweet! People can decide for themselves!"
- The Coronavirus is "rounding the corner and we have the vaccines coming."
- Proclaimed that wearing masks cause you to contract COVID-19 since "just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it." (And if you think that was a misspeak, he said the same thing earlier in the day at a rally.)
- This morning, Trump thinks he did very well last night. He also woke up early to tell us the Babylon Bee is a real news site.
- Then the Babylon Bee immediately made fun of him.
- Would you also want the government to subpoena Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and Tucker Carlson for allegedly spreading of misinformation? I wouldn't.
- I was absolutely right about the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings. The Democrats decided it was a lost cause to go after her and didn't want to do anything to derail what looks to them to be a sure Biden win.
- Dave Campbell's Texas Football is running a weekly poll to ultimately decide the greatest all time high school teams. I think this week we can all agree that the 2005 Southlake Carroll team or Art Briles' 1994 Stephenville team can't hold a candle to the 1962 Jacksboro Tigers.
- How in the world have UT players not stayed on the field for the Eyes of Texas all season long but we just learned about it this week?
- Time that has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener at Lake Bridgeport: 1 year, 3 months, 11 days.
- Messenger: Above the Fold.
- Texas Hospitalizations: +78. I'm beginning to get that déjà vu feeling all over again.
- COVID quick hits:
- Breaking this morning: The Atlanta Falcons have shut down their facility after "multiple" positive tests. They are (were?) scheduled to play at Minnesota on Sunday.
- Alabama's Nick Saban has the 'Rona. He's 68 years old. Alabama plays Georgia this weekend.
- Despite the increase in hospitalizations, 45 Texas public schools have now announced they will end online classes. To add to the confusion, the Tarrant County public health director suggested yesterday that all schools return to virtual-learning only.
- Missed this one from a couple of days ago. It's not a courthouse crab infestation, but it'll do.
- So yesterday Twitter was blocking any discussion that Trump was actually impeached over his attempt to have Ukraine make up a story about Biden, or do I have that wrong?
- I never thought I'd see the Right Wing lose their minds about what a private company does, and then demand government intervention to force that company to do something they didn't want to do. Freedom!
- Related: Who "downloads" their emails?
- Saw this snake in the driveway last night. It was only about 18 inches long but I suppose it has family. Someone ID it for me. Email me. Let me hear from ya. I'll post the answer with an "Edit" once I get it. Edit: Got a couple of votes for "rat snake". Double edit: It's a landslide for a rat snake.
- I hid from the snake by running to my Super Secret First Warn Weather Basement and did some work while I was there. I'm putting the cold front "hitting" Decatur at 8:41 a.m. You'll notice it by the wind.
- Stuff like this doesn't bother me a bit. If I'm sitting at that table, I'd freeze up if a Senator asked me to "Name the last three District Attorneys in Wise County."
- John Cornyn posted a picture from 2018 to own the libs. (He then took the post down after realizing his screw up.) I can understand how Ted Cruz can gets elected in Texas, but what exactly is the appeal of Cornyn?
- This is insane. Both the mother and the child died.
- This seems like it would cause lots of consternation in Austin.
- It looks like oil prices have now stabilized around $40 a barrel. I think I remember reading that the price needs to be in the $55+ range to sustain the West Texas oil fields.
- Texas hospitalizations: +183. I'm about to move us up a DEFCON level. That uptick looks very familiar.
- Anecdotal observation evidence: Less and less people are wearing masks in Wise County. I have a personal policy of giving them the Stink Eye but for only two seconds.
- Democrat stronghold Harris County had a record turnout yesterday. A total of 128,000 votes were cast which doubled the prior record of 60,000 set in 2016. That's stunning. I wonder, sarcastically, what could possibly be the motivation?
- Wise County had 2,263 people vote yesterday which doesn't mean much to me because I don't know the past numbers. Edit: The Update just told me the prior record was 1,775.
- Trump tweeted this last night: A photoshop of Joe Biden in a nursing home. That's his winning strategy? Forget about Biden, that's Trump mocking the elderly. He's making fun of them. If you are in that demographic, how can you support this man? If you a child of parent who is in that demographic, how can you sleep at night if you vote for him? Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and he is destroying it right in front of your eyes.
- At least he could have waited until he was off the taxpayer clock. That's Double Theft.
- Lots to unpack here out of Odessa. The child was eight years old and not the biological child of the couple. Her mother, who hadn't seen her in three years, was able to make time to create a Facebook post about the death. (And, for long-time readers who know how much it drives me crazy when medical examiners give opinions which aren't medically related, at least the coroner in this case only said the cause of death was "dehydration." That's all he could possibly know.)
- Texas attorney obit. Since they put it in the same sentence, I just envision this guy walking towards the Pearly Gates firing off all sorts of hot political opinions. (And I love the Montgomery County's newspaper's name: The Golden Hammer.)
- A heartfelt post by Mitt Romney about the state of politics ruined by a weird sentence dedicated to Keith Olberman.
- I've got a problem with lights flashing on the track which have been programmed to keep a runner at a particular pace. But I wouldn't have a problem with a runner having 100 coaches around the track yelling out his time has he passed by. I think that makes sense to me, but I'm not sure why.
- Just the other day I mentioned that the former goofy tweeting judge is now on the Fifth Circuit. Well, he doesn't tweet any longer so he has to do something to get attention, and that happened last night. Every session, the Texas legislature passes some law that violates Roe v. Wade and every time it is immediately struck down in the courts. Last night, the most recent law was invalidated in the Fifth Circuit. The (former) Tweeting Judge Willett dissented. But in his attention seeking persona, he'll file his dissent later. And, trust me, it's going to be a dissertation on abortion law but with all sorts of witty and quotable tidbits.
- Willett, who will say in the upcoming dissent that the "right to privacy" is a just a made up constitutional right, once made up a "right to make money" in the Texas constitution in order to strike down a state regulation. The opinion was 49 pages with 220 footnotes (the last one quoting legal scholar Davy Crockett) of touchy-feely justifications.
- Wise County Real Estate News: So there's a new taxing district created in 2019 by the Texas legislature for the huge new real estate development on land that Hillwood bought from the Vinson family in Rhome, and there's is only one registered voter who gets to decide whether to issue $450 million in bonds that will be paid back by taxes? Do I have that right? If so, it's mind-boggling and just makes me scream, "So what's really going on?" This story in the Messenger doesn't answer two questions I really want to know the answer to: What's the name of that one voter and did he/she get there by chance or by design? I think I can guess the answer to the latter.
- Messenger: Above the Fold
- Texas Hospitalizations: +248 from yesterday. Is this about to explode again?
- I've got a buddy who keeps track of all Texas ISDs which have announced the end of online learning. The number increased yesterday to 31 districts.
- It was announced yesterday afternoon that 28 Baylor football players have the COVID.
- Denton Guyer and Southlake were to play on Friday and be broadcast on ESPN2. It's been cancelled.
- Bridgeport ISD had a (kind of) lively school board meeting with some parents criticizing the athletic program. One parent said the "had 11 freshman come out for football." Is that true? Back in the day, I could have been a star!
- The Fifth Circuit late yesterday evening permanently reinstated the "only one drop box" policy of Gov. Abbott for absentee ballot. Although it's clearly voter suppression, you've got other options: Drop the absentee ballot in the mail today, vote in person starting today through October 30th, or vote on election day. So the ruling is a big deal, but not that big of a deal.
- I really didn't know that the pre-COVID rules allowed for in-person drop off of an absentee ballot only on election day (which seems like a really, really dumb rule.) The new rule is still in place.
- Judge Ho's concurrence takes an interesting stance which, believe it or not, makes a lot of sense to me, too: Only the legislature, and not the governor, should be able to change election laws. Ho would have slapped down any of Abbott's changes, including the first change which allowed absentee ballots to be returned during the 40 day period instead of only on Election Day. But that issue wasn't before him. It was only Abbott's second change (the one-return-location vs. many-return-locations) that was before the court instead of the broader issue of "Can the Governor do any of this at all?"
- Here are the early voting locations in Wise County. The hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. except Tuesday, October 20th, and Tuesday, October 27th, when the hours are 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. You also have the next two Saturdays to vote. You can use any of these locations regardless of where you live in the county.
- I'm not sure I ever posted the specific Wise County results for Senate District 30. Shelley Luther won here.
- And I don't think I had ever heard Amy Coney Barrett speak before yesterday. That's a young voice that she has.
- This may interest lawyers only, but look at some of the responses to this tweet. I'd quit on the spot if they happened to me. (I've worked for a big Dallas law firm right out of law school. It was a horrible, horrible experience.)
- You would think fresh milk would even settle somewhat, but I never have to shake it.
- The Cowboys are going to sign former UT and SMU quarterback Garrett Gilbert. I bet I've posted this magazine cover three times on here in the past. I was in Barnes and Nobles in Southlake when I first saw it and couldn't believe the cockiness of the cover. But, then again, that was during the Peak Evil Empire Cockiness Period.
- Noteworthy since that magazine cover:
- There's some candidate for the Dallas Court of Appeal who is running an ad on The Ticket promising "to interpret the Constitution the way it was written in 1787." Someone needs to tell him about that 3/5ths thing. Edit: It's Bill Whitehill. He was with a big downtown Dallas law firm for 32 years. (See above bullet point.)
- Texas hospitalizations: Uh, oh.
- COVID quick hits:
- The Baylor/Oklahoma State scheduled for this Saturday has been moved to the end of the year due to an outbreak at Baylor.
- And although I feel like we are about to have a second wave, we sure aren't acting like it. Here's a list of schools ending remote learning.
- Slidell didn't like the state basketball tournament being cancelled because of COVID and, based upon the lack of masks, they don't think too much about the threat now.
- Speaking of.
- We had another killing at a protest over the weekend -- this time in Denver. Everyone is now acting like we live in a first person shooter video game. Good lord, people. What went down is complicated but start with this incredible photo. You can see the casing being ejected.
- There are an additional series of photos taken of the incident by a photographer with the Denver Post. We know there was a slap before the spraying.
- The shooter, by the way, was working security for a local Denver TV station although he didn't have an active license. The dead guy's T-Shirt reads "BLM. Ya Right. All ------- lives matter."
- And just when you think it all happened in slow motion, watch this 45 second video of the now dead guy arguing with someone else immediately before his death. He goes off screen at 36 seconds and you hear the very loud shot from feet away nine seconds later. Chilling.
- Trump has released a nationwide commercial which gives the impression that Dr. Fauci is talking about how great he is. We will be deceived until the very end.
- It just began. Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed, and I seriously doubt the confirmation hearing will be cantankerous. The Democrats, rightly or wrongly, believe that the White House will be theirs if they don't do something to screw it up in the next 22 days. They don't want to make any mistakes in a hearing they have no ultimate control over.
- Sheriffs are having a banner year.
- I'm guessing Tom Herman's reign at the Evil Empire is seeing its last couple of months.
- Dak should be able to make it back from his injury, but you never know. Financially, he should still be in good shape. He'll get his $31.4 million this year. As for next year, Jerry Jones is now in quite the pickle. If he doesn't want to give Dak a long term deal, his only choice is (1) slap the franchise tag him again for 2021 which means a guaranteed pay day of $38 million or (2) let him go to free agency. If he lets him go to free agency, someone will take a chance on a long term contract with a guaranteed deal of more than $38 million. I'd mangle my own ankle to be in that position.
- Thanks to the Fifth Circuit on Saturday, we are now back to the Greg Abbott edict of only one drop off voting box per county in Texas. All three judges who issued the ruling are Trump appointees. One of them is the former goofy tweeting Texas Supreme Court judge who got promoted for being an online Ward Cleaver. (He doesn't tweet any longer.)
- Mrs. LL had never seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest so we watched it on Saturday. I think she is still rocked by it. "I didn't expect it to end that way."
- At least John Cornyn's opponent doesn't beat around the bush. (Coincidentally, eight simple possession of marijuana cases, each carrying with it up to 180 days in jail in Texas, were filed in Wise County on Friday alone.)
- A Joe Duty photo makes an appearance. Cool shot.
- Big fan of the Messenger, but I don't think the emergency landing of a private plane by Bridgeport physician Dr. David Ray got the coverage it deserved. And, honestly, I just thought it was a guy with the same name as the longtime physician when I looked at the story.
- It's Columbus Day. Or not.
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