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That bullet point isn't that exciting, but it is just an example of lots of bullet points I was making 10 years ago about the Texas school funding crisis. You may not remember it, but schools were actually laying off teachers left and right because the real estate mortgage crisis/scandal had caused property values to plummet and, consequently, the ad valorem taxes which fund the schools had taken a hit as well. Now 10 years later, skyrocketing property values and skyrocketing property taxes have made school funding issues a distant memory.
- The Stimulus Package passed the House yesterday with not a single Republican vote. It's an interesting political dynamic. The majority of Americans (70%) support the bill. But with only 41% for those who identify as Republican supporting it, not a single Republican representative budged. I call it interesting because those 41% of Republicans didn't garner a single yes vote to represent their position. Maybe that's the way it should be. I don't know.
- Maybe the Messenger covered this but, if so, I missed it.
- But the official state vaccine map shows the only doses available in Wise County as of today are 200 of the Johnson and Johnson type at "Wise Health Community Health Center" in Decatur and 90 doses of the same at Brookshires in Bridgeport. It didn't even list Walmart as one of the five option locations. Bottom line: You can find the vaccine somewhere, you just have to work at finding it.
- The Rangers caused quite the blowback yesterday as they went full throttle by announcing the new ballpark will be at 100% capacity on Opening Day. They say they will require masks but there is absolutely no way that will be enforced.
- This coincides with a new ad featuring all former Presidents (except one) who urged everyone to get a vaccine. George W. Bush makes this oddly worded, and now interestingly timed, statement: "You know what I'm really looking forward to? Is going to opening day in Texas Ranger Stadium with a full stadium."
- Right out of law school and in my first job, I had a senior associate criticize my draft of a client letter because I had begun a sentence with, "Interestingly," (i.e. "Interestingly, the witness in his deposition stated . . . .") The lawyer told me, "If it is interesting then you don't need to tell them that it's interesting." I found that statement to be so stupid that I still remember it over three decades later. We're lawyers. It's our job to tell clients what facts of the case are noteworthy.
- Part of the set collapsed on this ESPN Columbia segment, and I thought the guy might be dead. Video. But he is ok.
- I heard an ad for FindAHouseChurch.com on WBAP this morning. That made me curious since there's always someone trying to make a buck behind stuff like this. I haven't figured it out yet, but the website it is run by John Stewart Hill, the somewhat strange guy behind The Good Contractor's List.
- In reviewing old home videos, I found this shot of new Hall of Famer Drew Pearson signing autographs at the Grand Re-opening of the First National Bank in Bridgeport in 1996.
- I was briefly in the video wearing a suit and sunglasses and looking like an obnoxious character from a John Hughes film. (And the wind was blowing.)
- All right, his is my proposal for a scoring system for the Upcoming Liberally Lean Tournament Pick 'Em contest. I want to make it where picking winners and upsets in the first two rounds might be enough to win the whole thing even if you tank after that. (The link to sign up should be here.) Under the default scoring system which I changed, first round winners would get you 1 point even if it was an upset.
- The crazy trading of Gamestop stock is at it again.
- I watched the Netflix documentary on Jeffrey Epstein, and one brief part of it focused on how no one is really sure how he made his bizarre amount of wealth. For fun, here's a link to the the front of the mansion which just sold on Google Street View. (One fun thing for me is to use that map feature for dang near any address I see in the news.)
- Legal nerd stuff: The federal judges on the Fifth Circuit are snipping at each other. See this dissent vs. a concurrence:
Dissent above, Concurrence below 
- On the front page of the Dallas Morning News: Man released from prison after 34 years because prosecutors withheld evidence. How many times must stories like this be written?
