3.04.2022

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

(There is a back story on the last one.)
at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




What a difference a decade makes. Unemployment falling to 8.3% was actually great news, and I thought Trump was absolutely irrelevant. 

  • Breaking news this morning is that unemployment has fallen to 3.8%. 

  • For about 45 minutes last night, we thought the world was about to implode. Literally. 

  • It's over. A guy whose mom won the lottery and paid her son's lawyers at least $600,000 to defend him -- lawyers which then made the strategic decision to sit silent in trial and do nothing, will now spend the rest of his life in prison without even presenting a defense or challenging the State's evidence. (I last outlined that case here.) "They questioned no witnesses, made no opening or closing statements, and registered no objections with the judge." There's a Texas Monthly story worthy of being written about all of this. 

  • An apartment building blew up in a D.C. suburb yesterday, injuring ten and leaving "several" unaccounted for. And it was caught on video.

  • This seems like a very big deal. Less Democrats voted in the Texas primary than four years ago while Republican numbers were up significantly. 

  • I don't know, but if I guy is trying to hit on you with this type of text exchange, I think you should be able to figure out that something is amiss.

    Click to enlarge

  • Thought I would check in on our familiar COVID graph.

  • Pointing out alleged "gaffes and blunders" while not knowing how apostrophes work. 

  • "Sure thing, I'm available for an interview . . . as long as we can do it at dusk while I stand in my front yard holding a horse."

  • I still can't get over how close this was. 



  • The NFL combine is going on which I will casually pay attention to, and this caught my eye yesterday. That guy weights 336? I remember when William "The Refrigerator" Perry was the only guy in the NFL over 300 pounds, and even then he was a big blob of goo. Look at this guy.

     
  • Extremely legal nerd stuff: A couple of months back I highlighted a search and seizure case out of Fort Worth. Not only had the defendant been charged with a new crime, that offense was used to revoke his current probation (he'd run into a bit of "rough patch" in his life).  Anyway, because of the illegal search, the court killed the new offense and, likewise, held it couldn't be used to revoke the guy's probation. Well, the court issued an opinion on rehearing yesterday which, although still holding that the police engaged in an illegal search, now allowed the defendant's probation could be revoked but for a different reason. 
    • It's pretty simple: The state filed a Motion to Revoke because of (1) committing a new offense and (2) failing to report to his probation officer. As stated, the court held it was a bad search on the new offense so it couldn't be used to revoke his probation. But what about failure to report? Can't he be revoked for that violation alone even if the new offense couldn't be used? Sure. And that's what the State argued in it's original brief and even cited to the record to support it:

    • In its original opinion, the Court, in a footnote, said "nope, you didn't offer any evidence proving he failed to report. You lose on that ground, too!"  (Paraphrased.)

    • Now, after stringent urging by the State, the appellate court has decided in a revised opinion that the State did offer evidence on failure to report (which they most certainly did), but still tried to blame the State in a footnote for originally saying they had not. 

  • 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: 974 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:31 AM

3.03.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




It was the unveiling of the cool bridge in Dallas, but look at the economic news headline on the side: Struggling incomes and high gas prices. Everything old is new again. 

  • If Russia slow walks this invasion, Americans will simply get bored and move on. 
  • I'm not sure what the details are on this. Edit: Sounds like four Paradise area kids were injured. 

  • Has Trump not taught this guy anything about the new world of politics? You never apologize, and you never admit a mistake. Instead you attack your accusers and just ride it out. If you do that, you can survive anything. 

  • That Messenger photo of the train/truck collision makes me think that the train must have been moving forward at a snail's pace. Those things don't exactly stop on a dime. 

  • This is probably suicide. Sheesh, check on your friends. 

  • Speaking of mental health. 

  • State of the Union images I didn't have time for yesterday:
    • Ugh.

    • That behavior looked a little familiar.

    • This was weird, too. Video.

  • Criminal justice election fun facts:
    • Every county court trial judge in Dallas County, both civil and criminal, is now female.
    • Of the 50 DAs up for election in the November, only 7 will be contested. 
  • The race for County Judge in Tarrant County will be interesting. On one side you'll have personal injury lawyer Tim O'Hare (famous for almost bankrupting Farmer's Branch for trying to ban immigrants, more recently for making Southlake the racist capitol of Texas, and for sending out flyers like below), and on the other you will have a black female, Deborah Peoples, on the Democratic ticket. And, remember, Tarrant County voted for Beto over Cruz, and Biden over Trump. 

  • Anyone else want to talk about how the propositions at the end of the Republican ballot were insane?  Take this for example.  Do people not realize that the one below would absolutely destroy the public school system? It's the equivalent of saying "You should have the right to not pay school property taxes so long as you use that money on, say, Kenneth Copeland Academy."  On second thought, maybe it is the point to destroy the public school system. 

  • The man thinks the score on the Law School Acceptance Test for Biden's Supreme Court nominee is important. I wonder what it is about her that would make Tucker Carlson think she might not be bright? 

  • The criminal case against Ken Paxton is ridiculously in limbo.  Normally delayed by special prosecutors whining they are not getting paid enough, the other delay has been due to the case being transferred back and forth between Collin and Harris counties. That latter delay just got longer yesterday.

  • I thought this story was overstated, but it wasn't. Here's the detailed criminal complaint. It is, after all, the land of Jeffrey Dahmer. (She supposedly has "ties to Texas" but I haven't found exactly how that is true.) 




  • Random traffic observation: These two might be right. 

  • NASCAR's Tony Stewart has a $30 million home on the market which looks a lot like a Bass Pro Shop. 

at 8:30 AM

3.02.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




And to think he never got to see the Trump years. 

  • Warning: I'm going election intensive.
  • County Judge J.D. Clark won over Chad Miller (who was the darling of the very far right Wise County Conservatives.) I was watching this one simply to see how many Chad Miller could draw in. He is a really polished speaker and good politician. But, more importantly, he was selling the hot button issues (CRT, Trans, the Border, Vaccine mandates) which has absolutely nothing to do with being county judge. He knew what red meat to throw at the masses. Some bit. 

  • I mentioned last week that the someone needed to get control of the local Republican Party because it was going very far right (censoring Greg Abbott, for example.) Well, that isn't going to happen. 

  • A disturbing shocker almost happened in that Andy Hopper nearly beat incumbent Dr. Lynn Stucky for our state house rep.
    • After the new maps were drawn, which freed Wise County from Parker County and put us in a district with parts of Denton County, I spent way too much time one day explaining how Wise County could, for the first time ever, actually control who was our state rep. I didn't have anything against incumbent Dr. Lynn Stucky -- he's a good guy, I was just looking at the map and the numbers. (Because, as faithful readers know,  I'm a political genius.)
    • I had in mind J.D. Clark running for the job. He passed on the chance. But Andy Hopper, who calls Wise County home, decided to run despite not doing well at all when he last ran in a special election for Senate District 30. This is what happened in 2020 in that race:

    • So Hopper wouldn't stand a chance last night against Stucky, right? Hold that thought. Hopper almost pulled off a stunner, losing by only 102 votes!


    • I was curious how the break down of Denton/Wise County votes would go in that race. Here it is. As I thought there would be, there were more Wise County voters than Denton County voters in our newly drawn district:

    • You want to know the big secret? When Wise County was added to Stucky's district, Denton County was redrawn for the race as well. But then the Denton part was redrawn again at the last second. The final map put the very conservative and heavily voting Robson Ranch area precincts back in the district. Last night, in those three Denton County precincts alone (4184, 4185, 4186) Stuckey beat Hopper 1809-818. That's what did it. 

  • The only other contested race involving all of Wise County was the County Clerk's race where long time incumbent Sherry Parker Lemon decided to retire. It will be headed for a run-off between Blanca Tuma and John Curry. 

  • Speaking of Governor, Greg Abbott slaughtered all comers and will avoid a run-off. This is how Wise County voted: 

  • State-wide, embattled AG Ken Paxton will be forced to a run-off with George P. Bush. Here is how Wise County voted. The only odd thing is how poorly Eva Guzman did here: 

    • Here are the state wide results to compare:

  • In the Republican Party race for Tarrant County Judge, I was right.  Tim O'Hare won and even avoided a run-off. But he is such a nut that Democrat Deborah Peoples at least stands a chance of beating him in November. 

  • The book-banning Matt Krause, who has never tried a criminal case to a jury, will be in a run-off for D.A. in Tarrant County. Amazing. Long time district judge Mollee Westfall will now be out of a job. 

  • Jacksboro's own, and Blog friend, David Spiller had his district completely redrawn. Nevertheless, he killed it last night. 

  • Hair-stylist Shelley Luther lost in her second attempt to break into politics. 

  • Our old state rep Phil King will now be a Texas state senator. 

  • No offense to Wise County Commissioner races. I ran out of time. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:27 AM
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