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It was on March 28, 2011, that 54 year old Smith County Deputy Robert Britton passed away. "Britton had responded to a report of a stray cow struck by a vehicle and was directing traffic on Farm Road 344 when the cow charged him. Bullard Police Chief Gary Lewis tells KLTV in Tyler that few noticed the cow started to stand until it was too late." The Texas legislature honored him two years later with a resolution.
- Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz is in trouble. The New York Times has reported, and The Wall Street Journal has confirmed, that the Justice Department is looking into conduct which is, uh, inconsistent with family values.
- This all started last year during an investigation by the Trump Administration's Justice Department when they were focusing on a guy named Joel Greenberg, a simple county tax collector in Florida, for sex trafficking. Greenberg was subsequently arrested.
- During the investigation, it came to light that Gaetz may have had a 17 year old girlfriend he had sex with and, here's the tricky part, paid for a plane ticket to cross state lines. That's what makes it a potential federal crime. (There would also be a state crime problem because the age of consent in Florida is 18.)
- Here's a picture that Greenberg posted on Twitter of himself and Gaetz.
- Here's a another great picture that Greenberg posted of himself, Roger Stone, and Gaetz. (The fact that Roger Stone gets thrown in is an added bonus.)
- Gaetz reaction yesterday was pretty bizarre. After denying he has dated underaged girls, he added this piece of gold in an interview with Axios:
- He then went on Tucker Carlson and got oddly specific by saying he never "traveled" with a 17 year old girl. "That is verifiably false. You can look at my travel records," Gaetz said.
- Then it got weirder. Gaetz told Carlson that "You and I went to dinner about two years ago, your wife was there. I brought a friend of mine,... You'll remember her." Gaetz then said this person was "pressured" by the FBI to say he was involved in a "pay for play" scheme. That was all we got because Tucker ran away from the comment immediately by replying, "I don't remember the woman or the context at all, honestly." (Video.)
- Carlson might as well have screamed, "Hey, don't drag me into this!" He later told his audience that the interview with Gaetz was "one of the weirdest interviews I've ever conducted." (Video.)
- Gaetz is also saying he was recently subject to an "extortion" attempt for $25 million by a "former" Justice Department employee. No one knows what he is talking about.
- This may all end up being nothing. There ain't no Republican going down for having sex with a 17 year old.
- Gaetz raised eyebrows last summer when "he announced that he had a son, Nestor Galban, 19, though Mr. Gaetz said he was not Mr. Galban’s biological father, nor had he adopted him. Mr. Galban had been 12 when they met and had come to the United States from Cuba; Mr. Gaetz was at the time dating Mr. Galban’s sister."
- Back to normal Random Thoughts . . .
- I'm not following the Derek Chauvin trial in the case of George Floyd all that closely, but I have no idea why the defense lawyers keeps letting the prosecutor get away with asking witnesses how it made them "feel" when they were watching the the incident. That's irrelevant. They are there to only tell what they saw.
- Second Chauvin trial thought: The prosecutors better be careful. The witnesses seem to all have a pro-prosecution agenda instead of just being disinterested fact witnesses. And they seem coached. All this could backfire.
- An official in the Gonzaga/USC game last night dropped like a rock, but he will be OK. That was scary looking especially when he hit his head. Video.
- I'm not saying that there is a COVID resurgence, but there are some rumblings out there.
- There were indictments yesterday of two Williamson County deputies involved a case which was filmed by Live PD and which the Sheriff tried to cover up. But for the dogged work of the The Austin American Statesman and the local ABC affiliate in Austin, these indictments would not have occurred.
- Random Letter to the Editor in the Messenger this week by a decades long critic of the town:
- Despite my tricked up scoring system, the leader in the Liberally Lean tourney is a guy who picked three of the Final Four. He would have gone four for four if Michigan hadn't been upset last night. Full leaderboard here.
- The former football coach of SMU and the University of Arkansas just took the head coaching job at . . . Allen High School.
- Messenger: Above the Fold
