1.21.2022

It's Friday -- Let's Get Out of Here

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




We didn't learn her name because she was a juvenile, but she would be 26 years old now. 
I wonder what happened to her. Seriously.    

  • As you may have heard, Dallas' own Meat Loaf has passed away. TMZ, which is normally right about things, says it was COVID.

  • COVID numbers
    • Maybe we have seen the peak. Maybe

    • Hospitalizations always trail.

  • I've met lots of people involved in the criminal justice system, but I have never been as emotionally rocked as I was after my visit yesterday with a distressed court appointed lady on a little criminal trespass case. 
    • She's being held in solitary confinement in the Wise County Jail, which I admittedly understand due to her unique mental state, but this is a bad, bad situation for her, jailers, society, and common decency. 
    • There's lot of issues going on, but I've got to get her out of there. And she's really there only because she can't afford a very cheap bond and no one on the outside is willing to help her. 
    • And, yes, I want this to be seen by all those who have the power to get this done as I try to get it accomplish that this morning. 
  • Here's the lady who got hit by a car yesterday. 

    • There's been a lot of blowback from reporters who decry having to do "live shots" all by themselves. (Sometimes they even set up the camera.)

  • Business quick hits:
    • Here's an unpopular opinion: I think Netflix's subscription rate is too cheap.

    • Another hot opinion: As an avid stationary biker who uses a reasonably priced and bare bones product, I think you are nuts if you've spent (at least) $1,500 for a Peloton with a $39 monthly subscription fee. 

  • Oh, my.

  • Everyone needs to read yesterday's letter of the January 6th Committee sent to Ivanka Trump. They want to talk to her because they know she was in the Oval Office when Trump made one last attempt to strong arm Pence on that morning to overturn the election.  They now want her cooperation. Other highlights:
    • Trump's failure to call off the mob for 187 minutes concerns the committee. Trump obviously finally released a video message telling them to go home but ended it with "Go home. We love you." Now the committee suggests they may be, or will be, in possession of video footage not used before the final video was released.

    • Sean Hannity tried to talk sense into Trump the next day via texts to his Press Secretary. "No more crazy people" around Trump, Hannity begged. 


       
  • And Trump's problems didn't end there yesterday.

    • I know I rage against Trump constantly, but do you remember just how insane his January 2nd phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was? Trump actually said, "So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state." Followed by, "And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated." Good lord.
    • How is that alone not enough to cause the country to stop what it's doing and demand he be charged?
    • What if you told a bank teller, ""So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 more dollars," followed by, "And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated."
  • I don't follow the D.A.'s race down in Waco, but it sure is heated. 

    • From the challenger who is a criminal defense lawyer: "[T]o my knowledge, [D.A.]. Johnson has never tried a criminal case in a courtroom in front of a jury." Side note: Really?
    • From the D.A.: His opponent uses "his best efforts to put child molesters, wife beaters, perverts and violent criminals back on the streets of McLennan County, where they can continue to prey on you and your family. Luckily, for our citizens, he is not too good at what he does and his efforts usually lead to failure and a jail cell for his clients,” 
  • That's a heck of a house.

     

  • Nerdy legal stuff: This was crazy yesterday. A judge on the federal Ninth Circuit penned and opinion striking down a COVID restriction on gun dealers on Second Amendment grounds. But since he is certain that the whole court will decide to overturn his ruling, he went ahead and wrote that opinion for them and attached it -- complete with sassy footnotes.  (The judge is a Trump appointee who the ABA called "arrogant, lazy, an ideologue" in its assessment of him as "unqualified.") 

  • Republican on Republican violence: Yesterday, this Texas legislator attacked Texas' all Republican highest criminal court after it had struck down a law which gave AG Paxton jurisdiction of cases that that Texas Constitution expressly grants only to locally elected D.A.s:



  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 931 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:32 AM

1.20.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




After a couple of primaries, Rick Perry gave up his presidential hopes this week 10 years ago. That left only Newt Gingrich to challenge Mitt Romney in the fight to prevent President Obama's second term.    

  • Texas numbers:
    • Cases:

    • Hospitalizations:

  • Reporter hit by car. She's fine and kept going. Video.

  • President Biden press conference review:

    • Positive: He went for almost two hours yesterday which was longer than any held by Trump (1 hour, 26 minutes) or Obama (1 hour, 27 minutes).
    • The negative: The Ukraine comments which are in the headlines.
      • The comment under examination:  "It's one thing if it's a minor incursion [by Russia] and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do."
      • The reaction: What's a "minor incursion" that we won't care about? And did that just give the go ahead to Russia?
      • The scramble: The White House had to immediately release a statement afterwards saying there is no such thing as a "minor incursion" if it involves troops.

      • The reality: It's never a good look to have to fix a statement.
      • The real reality:  We are never going to war with Russia over Ukraine. Nor should we.
      • Edit: Sheesh. There was just another official "clean up" issued about whether the 2022 elections will be "legitimate."
  • This was from the official clerk of the Texas Supreme Court yesterday. (But it really doesn't explain the exact scam that was going on.)

  • Texas campaign reports were released yesterday. One single oil man from Midland gave Gov. Abbott $650.000.  In what democracy does this make sense?


  • Yesterday evening, the Supreme Court, over Trump's objection, allowed the National Archives to release its January 6th documents. Only Justice Thomas, as he always does, sided with Trump. 


  • We had Supreme Court silliness earlier. Three justices took the time to issue statements about the report that there was a spat between Sotomayor and Gorsuch. 
    • The first statement: 

    • The press reaction was that the report never said that Justice Sotomayor asked Gorsuch. The report was that it was Roberts who asked Goruch:

    • So another statement comes out, this time from Roberts:

    • I'm old enough to remember when the Supreme Court could not care less about what the press said about them. 
  • If you haven't noticed, BagOfNothing.com is backed to regular posting. Some have been a little different. 
  • Mark Cuban prediction from 2014: "I think the NFL is 10 years away from implosion . . . . pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And [it’s] getting hoggy.”

    • The reality:

    • The numbers are really insane. The top 10 games:

  • Compare and contrast.
  • We hear lots about school board chaos and angry audiences, but in Wichita Falls it is about, uh, mascots (that's even former state senator Craig Estes pictured below) . . . 
at 8:31 AM

1.19.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



The post from 1/16/12 was too long to reprint, but it said that Fort Worth cops got into a vehicle chase with a guy who headed towards Wise County on 287.  Once stopped, he got out but "lunged" towards the vehicle and one officer fired. The suspect later died. But not from the gunshot. He wasn't hit. He just collapsed in the patrol car and died from what the ME called "METHAMPHETAMINE INTOXICATION Due to: INCAUTIOUS CONSUMPTION OF TOXIC DRUG." He was identified as a 24 year old man from Newark. 

  • Numbers:
    • Seven day average of new cases:

    • Current hospitalizations

  • Get your free COVID home testing kits here. (Warning: Since they are free from the government, you may become a Socialist by placing your order.)
  • Liberally Lean Guaranteed Weather Center Alert: The temperature will rise until about 11:45 today when it will top out at 50 degrees. From there, it will begin to drop.  It'll be 39 degrees by 6:00 p.m., and then will hit a low of 22 degrees overnight. Tomorrow we will barely crack freezing with a high of 33 degrees.  Book it. 
  • This is a long article which is the product of a year long investigation by the Marshall Project and distributed by newspapers nationwide yesterday, including the Dallas Morning News. It has Wise County ties and focuses on a particular Parker County murder case. (To be clear, "lying" during an investigation is both legal and common, and the article doesn't claim otherwise.)

  • I think I mentioned Crosby, Texas for the first time ever yesterday, and now I see this: 

  • The January 6th Commission has subpoenaed the three most deceitful lawyers in the country:

    • This is really all coming together. Stay with me here.
    • One of the craziest parts of the attempt to overthrow the election was done in plain sight. An election, since our nation's founding, has been carried out without a hitch by the formality of a two part process no one really pays attention to: As part of the Electoral College process: (1) Governors are required to sign a formal "certificate of ascertainment," verifying that the statewide winner's slate of electors are the legitimate electors, and (2) Those electors then individually sign a second certificate, formally affirming their votes for president. 
    • Both the Governors' certificate and the corresponding Elector's certificate are sent directly to the National Archives (that was news to me) which will then make them available every four years on January 6th for the Vice President to do the only thing the Constitution allows him to do: Count them.
    • The National Archives makes the Certificates viewable by the public here.
    • Here they are being taken to the Senate Chambers on January 6th of last year:

    • But here's the shocking part: The Trump group sent a slate of fake elector Certificates to the National Archives. They were fake in that no single State authorized them. Here are those fake certificates for all to see. These are the ones Trump wanted Mike Pence to use an an excuse not to count the real elector certificates on January 6th. 
    • And Trump wanted the mob in D.C. on January 6th to make it happen. 

    • The fake electors plot was the brainchild of lawyer John Eastman who appeared on stage on January 6th with Giuliani. This was the "Trial by Combat" speech. 

    • Then Trump took the stage and told the crowd to march to the Capitol because Mike Pence was not going to follow their plot. This is directly from Trump's speech where he tells them that Pence will fail them: 

    • Pence, in fact, wouldn't follow the plot and he released a statement during Trump's speech at 12:02 P.M. EST saying he would count the real electors votes later that day.
    • The crowd riots with shouts of "Hang Mike Pence" and the real electoral votes are ushered to safety.
  • This video is pretty entertaining. A 12 year old girl [Edit: Turns out she is 18] confronted Rep. Dan Crenshaw on a statement he once made which could be interpreted as saying Jesus was a fictional hero.  He then went after her. The crowd then went after him. "The crowd erupted in a chorus of boos, shouts of 'wow,' 'you moron,' and other heckling. 'Don’t talk to a kid like that, jerk,' one man yelled."

  • Bastrop State Park seems to catch fire a lot. 

    • Flashback to Bastrop Park in 2011:

  • All the Justices on the Supreme Court having been wearing masks during oral argument except Gorsuch who refuses to. Now we have a judge fight. 

  • Gary Patterson was in Austin last night at the UT basketball game wearing a Longhorn shirt and talking to the school's athletic director (who just happens to be his former AD at TCU.) After the photo came out, it was announced later that night that he has been hired as a "special assistant to the head coach."

  • The Big 12 continues to say it will not let OU and UT leave for the SEC until current contract allows it in 2025.  They now have plans for the 2023 and 2024 season to be played with both schools as well as the new four members of Houston, UCF, Cincinnati, and BYU.

  • They are pretty much the same guy. 

  • Messenger: Above the Fold (link fixed)

at 8:33 AM
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