10.21.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




It was the great Kountze, Texas cheerleaders Bible verse controversy of 2012. The case went on to the Texas Supreme Court on a procedural issue (mootness and standing) where the cheerleaders won, but after that everyone seems to have lost interest. The last court ruling I can find is just an appellate court referring it back to the trial court for further proceedings. 

  • The greatest 44 days of work as Prime Minister ever.

     
  • I saw this story out of  Mississippi last week but finally tracked down and watched the video yesterday. It's about a million times worse that I imagined. In fact, it's horrifying. And I don't know how the parents didn't go all vigilante on the daycare workers after they saw it. 

  • A new and respected UT poll for Texas politics was released this morning. Nothing will ever change. Range of error is +/-3.3%
    • Governor:

    • Lt. Governor:

    • And, incredibly, Attorney General:

  • A local headline out of Wichita Falls I saw yesterday which seems to be worthy of more, if not national, attention.

  • A random press release which confused me. I Googled the place to see if it actually was in Bridgeport, and it came back to an address in the strip center by the new Scooter's coffee shop. 

  • A reminder that Runaway Bay is dumping raw sewage into Lake Bridgeport and the city doesn't plan to do anything about it unless others pay for it: 

  • All of this would have been so much easier if DPS would just have come clean about their screw-ups from Uvalde from the start. Story.

  • Steve Bannon is scheduled to be sentenced this morning for defying a subpoena to testify before Congress about the January 6th Trump Insurrection. He was convicted earlier this year.  The Justice Department wants six months. He wants probation. And he was fired up this morning:

  • I'm surprised that #2 is still Southern Baptist. I thought they it was independent. Story.

  • I've long said that school vouchers are nothing more than a ruse to use taxpayer money to fund private religious schools. Now Texas Monthly has a new article on how it would go down, and how it is trying to be implemented behind the scenes. It's money laundering:

  • Legal nerdy stuff that I don't understand which I'm posting because isn't really legal nerdy stuff: This footnote from a civil case decided yesterday by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals in Stedfast Baptist Church v. Fellowship of the Sword, Inc.:

  • I love this image from the NFL game last night. The guy in the background is starting a backflip as he completes his TD via interception. Andy Dalton, who threw it, is in the foreground. Video of the play.

  • Northwest ISD football was committing a crime last night. 

  • 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, 108 days.
  • Messenger - Above the Fold

at 8:29 AM

10.20.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




Messenger headlines seemed noteworthy.

  • Britain just got rid of Boris Johnson and now they may boot out the new prime minister who has just been on the job for a couple of months.  I'm not exactly sure what is going on, but every story I see says that things have come to a head after "a vote in Parliament regarding fracking descended into chaos."  Last Second Edit: She just resigned. 


  • News on Tonya Couch, the mother of the "Affluenza Teen." And the news involves a delay.  The State, in an effort to come up with something substantial to charge her with, chose "money laundering" of all things.  But her attorneys, in a brilliant move, found a creative way to challenge those charges before trial by using a free speech defense.  By doing so, they got to appeal immediately when their attempt to dismiss the charges was denied. Because of that, the case has been floating around in appellate orbit for years. And yesterday the highest Texas criminal court agreed to hear the case which will cause even further delay. (And get this: They aren't even deciding whether the case should be dismissed. They are only deciding whether Couch has the right to appeal before there is a verdict. This may never end.)

  • I proclaimed last week that Herschel Walker might be the dumbest man in America. I'm rethinking that.

  • You want to know one crazy conspiracy theory that I hold? I think the story below -- which is making the news this morning -- is an absolute lie made up by law enforcement.  In this case, every single news report about these 12,000 pills are all based solely only on this press release from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office. And every news report just regurgitates that press release with no confirmation or investigation. The release says the discovery was made at "around 7:30 a.m." at a security check point, but that the "suspect" fled but was "identified." But, mysteriously, no names whatsoever are given and no arrest was been made.  And you know what's really weird? The Los Angeles Sheriff's Office doesn't have primary jurisdiction over LAX. That airport, like DFW, has it's own police department. And the photos have all the makings of a PR stunt capitalizing on the silliness of fentanyl and Halloween candy. 

  • We are some numb to it that this big story yesterday doesn't even move the needle any longer.

  • Control of the Senate will come down to these races. Right now, if these polls are correct, there will be no change to the current 50-50 split. But I suspect they won't fall this way. 

  • This is a wild story out of Florida. 

  • Texas AG Commissioner Sid Miller's Instagram going into the home stretch. But I really don't think he's kidding if he had the power. 

  • Every story seems to just say he was found "at church" with no other explanation. It normally only means one thing when the cause of death seems to have intentionally been made vague.

  • Dallas Mavericks (0-1) stories will now beat me down, but I hear that Luca Doncic missed a game winning shot last night. 

at 8:31 AM

10.19.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




The closest I ever got to be on Fox News

  • Overnight.

  • This ESPN story is making headlines but . . . 

    • . . . this is what got my attention.

  • Update on the raid of the (possibly legal) poker club in Watauga: 
    • Cell phone video shows cops in masks arresting an elderly individual outside. 

    • I completely overlooked that Mayor Arthur L. Miner was there for the grand opening in March.

  • Fun fact: Because of a new Texas law, this year you won't have an opportunity to vote on any candidate who does not have an opponent in the general election.  They have already been declared "elected" -- and that includes local races. There names will appear at the end of the ballot like this: 

  • The beginning of the end for Dak:

  • Everyone got bent out of shape, justifiably so, when a child was seen on video in the audience at drag show in Plano over the weekend. 

    • But it should be noted that it was marketed for 18 and up. What we have is a parenting failure. 

  • Even Oklahoma. 

  • Texas voting projections per Gov. Abbott yesterday. We'll have over twice as many people vote as in the 2014 mid-terms.

  • That Durham Investigation ("We Are Going To Investigate The Investigators") that Fox News promoted over and over again turned out to be a disaster as the only two spare prosecutions -- where the FBI was the alleged victim, not the crook -- ended 0 for 2 after yesterday. 

  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:31 AM

10.18.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




Was this the beginning of the downfall of society?

  • The Dallas Morning News has a story today on the beginning of home construction on the massive Rolling V Ranch near Rhome which was sold a couple of years ago.


  • Update from yesterday: It did happen. What a time waste.



  • A different story update: The guys were shot and dismembered. Their bodies were also dumped not far from a salvage yard whose owner, after talking to police on Friday, has now gone missing and "considered suicidal."

  • We probably need to retire the phrase "officer involved shooting" and be more blunt about it. Side note: Four officers open fired.  It may all be justified, but you don't see that very often. 



  • What's going on here? "He has held discussions on gun issues . . . , sought to persuade the City Council to issue a proclamation for June to be Diversity Pride Month that he said went beyond the LGBTQ+ communities and made an unsuccessful run for the District 3 seat on the City Council in 2020." First they came for the books and then they came for . . . ?

  • For the life of me I can't find it, but I know I made a bullet point shortly after Trump was elected which said that no one on federal business would be able to stay at his D.C. hotel because he couldn't profit from it while president. How naïve was I? It was back at a time when I thought laws for presidents mattered.

  • Speaking of, the scale of the grift, and the gullibility of people, is incredible. 

  • These nominations happened last week, but I think it's amazing that we can go two years before a President gets around to making his picks for U.S. Attorneys.  And Texas has four of them, so one is still officially unfilled. And the one for the Northern District of Texas isn't some earth-shaking move -- it's  Leigha Simonton who apparently has been an Assistant U.S. Attorney in that office since 2005. That couldn't have been done before now?

  • Fox News dedicated an hour last night and turned Hannity into a one hour infomercial for the Herschel Walker campaign.  Amazing. If that guy gets elected, we might as well shut it down. We're all doomed. 

  • And maybe it's already too late. Sometimes when I sit down for a moment and reflect, I absolutely cannot believe this is where we are. Maybe Honey Boo-Boos really did lead us to this. 

  • If you haven't see the hiker fight of the bear, here you go.  I'd be certain that I was dead. 

  • The lady getting a flu shot below reminds me of journalist Cokie Roberts (who I just realized died in 2019) . . . 

at 8:31 AM
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