Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

You would have thought that DPS firing 19 shots from a helicopter into the bed of a pickup killing two men would be more (in)famous. Article from last year here. The unedited DPS video used to be here but is gone.

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• Is there any chance that inflation is a ruse and what actually is going on is that we are being ripped off by increasing corporate profits fueled by the jacking up of prices while using inflation as a cover/excuse? And is it also possible that the Fed doesn't realize this (or is in bed with them) and is screwing us over with higher interest rates?
• Exhibit A is the earnings just announced:
  
  
  
  
  
• Expected Exhibit B was yesterday:
  
  
  
• Early voting in Wise County has picked up the pace this week. Total so far is 13,017 which is about 26% of registered voters.
• New Fox News poll on what might possibly be the race for control of the Senate. As expected, the debate changed nothing.  
  
  
  
• He agreed to 20 years to do in this case. Unless the State conceded some allegations in the plea bargain, he'll have to serve at least 1/2 of of it.
  
  
  
• Protestors of the Dobbs abortion decision interrupted oral arguments inside the Supreme Court yesterday. I didn't ever remember that happening but apparently protestors were removed on two different occasions in 2015 according to that link.  You can listen to what happened yesterday here, but I was distracted how incredibly fast the lawyer was talking before it happened. 
  
  
  
• Another indication that the Justice Department might seriously be considering indicting Trump over the document scandal.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Emails of John Eastman, one of the main architects of the Trump Insurrection, delivered to the January 6th Committee were released yesterday by Politico after Eastman's lawyers accidentally disclosed them in a court filing by failing to deactivate a Dropbox link. 
• Most of the headlines were about how the emails revealed how they were relying on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to steal the election for them. Who knows, Ginny Thomas was probably telling them that.
  
  
  
• But my favorite email was this one was from Eastman to Trump where he felt it was necessary to explain to Trump -- probably rightly so -- who Neville Chamberlain was. 
  
  
  
• City of Fort Worth grandly announced about six months ago that it had its own bit-mining project. I said at the time it was a big bag of nothing.
• I predicted it would make about $270 on the high end. 
  
  
  
• It actually made $1,019 after six months. I was a little off, but that still constitutes a stunt. They admit it now, but didn't then. 
  
  
  
• Very nerdy legal stuff for criminal practitioners only: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals finally resolved an issue and it wasn't in the State's favor yesterday. And it is a big one since it impacts a common excuse that cops use to stop a driver for a highway traffic violation. The holding: For a Failure to Maintain a Single Lane violation to occur, it must be done "unsafely" or it is not a violation at all because the statute requires it. The opinion begins in a way that I love -- they answer the question right off the bat:  
  
  
  
• Note: This isn't the same violation as Driving on an Improved Shoulder When Prohibited or crossing the yellow no-passing zone line. This situation normally involves two or three lanes going in the same direction on a divided highway and a car drifts out of one lane partially into the other.
• Extremely nerdy stuff: Look at the shocking concurrence by Justice Slaughter where she actually coaches prosecutors on how they might win next time. 
• Triple extremely nerdy stuff: Look at footnote 35 in the majority opinion explaining the difference between a "plurality opinion" and an opinion resulting in a "tie."