Random Friday Morning Thoughts

When the Messenger took on the War on Drugs. 

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• Not sure what the update is on this . . .
  
  
  
• Senate update:
• Nevada: Republican leads by 8,988 with 130,035 left to count. 
  
  
  
• Arizona: Democrat leads by 115,037 with 527,715 left to count
  
  
  
• This occurred last night by a the same Trump district judge in Fort Worth who who is always making the news because of his wild decisions.   This one will be appealed to the Fifth Circuit which is also full of Trump judges. Opinion is here.
  
  
  
• On a related note of the sad state of our judiciary, watch a smiling Justice Alito, author of Dobbs, appear before the right wing Federalist Society at a dinner last night as the crowd gave him a rousing ovation.  This is really disturbing. 
  
  
  
• Elon Musk's decision to allow any account to get a "verified" check mark for $8, is going really well. Examples below (all which went live -- and then Twitter can't ban them fast enough because everyone has been fired or quit): 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Inflation might have tailed off just a bit yesterday, but I really liked this chart showing inflation over the years.  The period of 1973-1985 was wild, and then we had a generation that didn't even know what inflation was. 
  
  
  
• We have a winner in the Dallas County district judge's race which required voters to write-in a name. So how many votes does it take? 38,865 is number it took to win over two other write-in candidates. In the other "normal" judicial races on Tuesday in Dallas County, there were around 400,000 votes cast in each which meant you needed 200,000+ to win. 
  
  
  
• Trump declared war on fellow Republican Ron DeSantis last night.  The first sentence of the statement was 88 words. It's the kind of thing that would cause an immediate family intervention to be called if your crazy uncle posted it. 
  
  
  
• Seriously, what are the Republicans going to do with Trump? He may be about to destroy the party's best chance to win the Presidency in 2024.  And the Republican primaries and the debates would a wheels off circus. Let's do it! 
  
  
  
• I present to you a very confusing photo posted on the Messenger's twitter account last night as they covered the Alvord playoff game. (Click to enlarge.) I love this so much. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Remember yesterday when I made fun of 300,000 in Tennessee for voting to approve slavery for prisoners?  I missed a very big related story: 
  
  
  
• College NIL flashback and news: 
• I said this the day after NIL payments were authorized:
  
  
  
• Yesterday we had the equivalent of a SuperPAC (or probably a combo of already existing SuperPACs):
  
  
  
• I've got a bad feeling about TCU on Saturday. 
• Cyrptocurrency exchange FTX just declared for bankruptcy. 
• Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office, despite having a full male DNA profile, has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 3 years, 129 days.
• Messenger - Above the Fold

Remember, the have gun boats!