3.25.2022

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

at

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




I just happened to post this grainy courtroom picture back then of an ongoing burglary trial. It now makes me realize how quickly things change. The judge, John Fostel, has passed away. As has the defense lawyer, Jim Shaw. It makes me sad and nostalgic.

  • Here's the Liberally Lean Leader Board. Not a lot of changes after last night. 
    • Nice effort by Tech. I like Tech. What's not to like about Tech?
  • This story, which broke late yesterday, is insane. We learned the wife of a Supreme Court justice is a borderline QAnon nutcase who tried to help overthrow the government of the United States. And now the January 6th Committee has her texts.


    • Even Trump had to distance from nutty lawyer Sidney Powell during the planning of the coup, but Ginni Thomas was all in. 

    • Heck, this is pure QAnon. Just spreading junk from the start with no regard to whether it is true. 

    • Also, this is pure insurrection. She was a party to an attempted coup. 

    • And just a couple of months ago, the Supreme Court had to decide if Trump's documents in the National Archives related to the Insurrection and attempted coup had to be turned over to the January 6th Committee. They ruled 8-1 that the documents must be turned over. And guess who didn't recuse himself but instead went further and said said he wanted to help Trump out? You think he could have been a little worried that his wife's name just might be within those documents? 

    • And guess who was in the two judge minority when the Supreme Court refused Trump's attempt to overthrow the election by using the Court? 

    • The New Yorker tried to warn us in January. 

    • Mark Meadows texted Ginni Thomas that this was a battle between good and evil, spouting Christian Nationalism which always seems to be at the heart of it all. Thomas replied that was discussing it all with her "best friend" -- an obvious reference to her husband.

    • He's right. It is a battle between good and evil. It's about battling those who conspired to overthrow our democracy. Meadows just got the jerseys wrong. 
  • Denver's Mile High Stadium caught on fire yesterday. 

  • If you can find one. Heck, I drive by the car lots of the two big dealers in Decatur in Wise County and there inventory is still struggling -- both new and used. 

  • I'm suspicious of the motives of guys like Rep. Jeff Leach, who having bent over backwards making it easier for Texas prosecutors to obtain convictions, suddenly thinking that something might actually have gone wrong in a criminal case. 


  • Three current and former school superintendents met in Austin yesterday to talk about Critical Race Theory among other things. They were all in agreement: You've been conned. 

    • "There definitely is something that is critical race theory. It's not taught in schools. That was the narrative that was crafted last summer, and it caught on like wildfire. I've never seen anything like it." - Former Richardson ISD Supt. Jeannie Stone
    • "This is a manufactured crisis. This is not real. This is a national playbook by some very smart, organized people who pay people to go out and create havoc," Former Dallas ISD Supt. Richard Hinojosa
    • "I don't think you need to inject truth serum into legislators. I think you just need to a conversation with them individually behind closed doors. And they understand this is a manufactured crisis." - Fort Worth Supt. Kent Paredes Scribner
  • The misdemeanor section in the Tarrant County DA's office had a tough week. And there's still two cases to be decided. 

  • Now someone tells me "the boxes in the back are Reagant narcotic presumptive tests that all officers use before the drugs are sent to the lab" and that they just happen to be in the background.  You know, it has been years since I've read a police report in Wise County where a drug "presumptive test" was used. 

  • Very nerdy legal stuff:
    • If you are a person who likes to read transcripts, this hearing from a couple of days ago where the judge bears down on the lawyers representing conspiracy monger Alex Jones, who was trying to avoid a deposition, is painful to read. (It's never a good sign when the judge says, "God help everyone" if she finds out she's been lied to.) 
    • For criminal law practitioners only: Say you got the judge to release a felony defendant from jail under art. 17.151 because he wasn't indicted within 90 days. Could the judge impose a bond requirement of an expensive GPS ankle monitor if the defendant can't afford it? A new case says "no."
  • Every single week I read about another case solved by familial/genealogical DNA. Yesterday was no exception.  

  • 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: 994 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at

3.24.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




We forget how bad Iraq was. This was a string of simultaneous car bombings that "left at least 45 people dead and 216 wounded, officials said."

  •  We could save everybody a lot of time and taxpayer money if we could eliminate the confirmation hearings and instead have each Senator just go record their sound bites for campaign videos in private. We then wouldn't have to go through this dog and pony show.


  • We strangely haven't heard an update on the health of Justice Clarence Thomas. 

  • A weird vertical light in the sky was seen in Houston last night. What was it? No one knows. 

  • Here's the original story of the school shooting. He was serving a 40 year sentence. 

  • Turned on right wing radio yesterday and learned the sky was falling over this training page found at Home Depot in Canada.  Based upon the callers, lots of people were never shopping at any Home Depot ever again (but don't call it "cancel culture.")

  • That was pretty bold of her.  The big money behind the CRT Strawmen from Southlake and Colleyville will be gunning for her at the next election. 


  • I want to watch this trial out of Temple. Here's the video which led to the criminal charges. She might want to reconsider rejecting the deal.  

  • I don't know anything about this case which just concluded in Fort Worth, but it is a huge government loss. You don't hear about many acquittals in federal criminal cases, and this guy, who lives in Keller, was facing 80 years in prison. The defense lawyers were out of Houston. 


  • This is the driver of the red pickup which got spun around like a top by a tornado and then who just drove off. He's sixteen. "I didn't feel it. I didn't saw it." 


  • This is just the run of the mill story out of Wichita Falls. But its always a bad sign when the cops have you sit on a curb in front of their car. That's one beaten down guy.


  • Previous bullet point updates from reader input. 
    • Those things with the marijuana leafs, I'm told, are just hermetic sealed baggies for your weed to cover the odor. Another guy told me they were just the professional packaging for over the counter edibles from Colorado. As for the packages in the back, one person believes it's ephedrine (used in the old school cooking of meth.)

    • A longtime reader was quick to point out to me yesterday that she has had the Calvary Crosses license plate on her vehicle for years, and she sent me proof.  

  • "Price, who was making about $100,000 a year in the DA’s office, will start out making $38,380 in the clerk’s office" as a deputy clerk. He campaigned for the DA's opponent in the primary election.  Setting aside he might have a lawsuit available to him, I'm guessing he got a job within county government in order to let his retirement account to vest.

  • Notable death. And, yes, he pronounced it "jif". (Just like "giraffe" is pronounced "jiraffe"). Also, we aren't talking about an "animated gif" but instead one of the very first digital formats for the internet. 


  • I missed this. That's just weird. And so was the wording of the statement from the University of Arizona: "While he does not recall any contact, he has attempted to reach out to the TCU student through their Athletic Department to apologize." Video.
  • Russia might be being beaten back from Kyiv, but that war is going poorly for both sides. No one is "winning." 

at

3.23.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




That license was briefly controversial 10 years ago as being a potential violation of the Establishment Clause. But it was approved, and then we never heard anything else about it. And I'm not sure I've ever seen one in the wild.

  • It looks like 60 to 80 homes were damaged in Jacksboro. 
    • Bridgeport PD has loaned two officers and two police cars to Jacksboro PD to get through the recovery phase. 
    • Abbott made the obligatory photo-op yesterday.  And, yes, I would have dogged him if he didn't show up. 

    • The standings.

    • And it's a crazy tornado season. New Orleans got hit pretty hard last night. The DallasTexasTV twitter account posted a handful of insane videos of it yesterday evening. 

  • Overnight, a car went off of highway 287 in Mansfield and slammed into a natural gas pipeline causing quite the commotion. Homes a mile around were evacuated until they could get the fire out. 

  • The family of the Paradise man who fell off the rooftop bar in Dallas has sued the restaurant. And we've got a father/daughter lawyer team out of Bridgeport involved. 

  • Horrible.


     

  • In reading this tweet about the tornado damage in Montague County, my brain heard an abrupt record scratch sound effect after the first sentence. 

  • We shouldn't let the public complain to the governing body which provides almost all of the funding to the courts and the district attorney's office? They should be silenced? That's ridiculous. 

  • The confirmation hearing of Judge Jackson became predictably stupid yesterday:
    • Lindsey Graham had to get the "Christian qualification" box checked.

    • Ted Cruz will always embarrass us. 

    • It's the 1960s? 

    • The QAnon fascination with child porn and pedophilia made an appearance through the man who encouraged the January 6th Trump Insurrectionists. 

  • You know what it means if there is a $25 billion surplus? It means you were overtaxed. And $25 billion is almost the annual property tax bill on all single family homes combined -- a tax bill which is already ridiculously high. 

  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at