11.18.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Texas Monthly featured the crime blotter one time, and it is still there.  

  • The death of the teenager in the ATV accident in Chico is awful. We already knew it, but the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office has identified her at thirteen year old Maycie South. 

  • TxDOT actually treated Highway 287 in Wise County last night. 

  • Elon Musk is gonna whiz away $48 billion isn't he?

    • From the Washington Post:
  • This Idaho murder of four college students has me very, very confused. All four were stabbed to death in the middle of the night in their home. There were two other people in another room who aren't suspects but didn't call 911 until noon. And two of the victims were last seen around 1:30 a.m. at a sidewalk food stand in no distress and with no one else with them. 


  • Denton County:

  • Didn't I tell you yesterday the man needs a PR person? One day after a press conference calling unwanted attention to the allegations, it is backfiring. He played an 11 second audio clip of one of his accusers, but the Morning News discovered that full interview "with then-prosecutor Fallon LaFleur shows she told Willis in spring 2021 she was sexually harassed during the nearly three years she worked for him." (And if for some reason you want to listen to the 20 minute exit interview between the two, here ya go.) Edit: I actually listened to it. It helps him for than hurts him. 

  • I think I'm prepared to say that Taylor Swift is the most popular singer I've ever seen in my lifetime. I can't remember any act who could sell so many tickets to so many people at any price.  The Beatles, U2, The Rolling Stones, Madonna, and Garth didn't do what she is doing. (Although Garth at his peak in the 1990s comes the closest.)

  • I'm not real sure why it's a 4:00 p.m. kickoff.

  • Historical review of how many seats are normally lost in the mid-terms by the governing party during the president's first term in office.

  • The new House majority held their first press conference yesterday and they locked onto the only issue that they think is critical to every American family: Hunter Biden's laptop.    (They are hell-bent on walking off the cliff even after last week's results. Knock yourself out.)

  • Of course she did. Please, please let them team up. 
     


  • Larry Brock, 55, from Grapevine has been found guilty in the Trump Insurrection. He will be sentenced on February 14th. He is subject of up to 20 years in prison. But he should face extra time for simply being a grown man playing dress-up. 

  • The Tarrant County Sheriff has killed another one. That's the 11th person this year. 


  • The NFL has deprived us of great joy. 

  • TCU being only a 2.5 favorite over Baylor seems to be wildly out of whack. But, remember kids, never bet on sports. 

  • 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, 136 days.
  • Messenger - Above the Fold

at 8:31 AM

11.17.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts





Four were killed and 16 injured in Midland when a train struck a parade float carrying 12 veterans and their spouses.  After its investigation, the NHTSB created an animation of the reconstruction of the accident which is on YouTube.


  • An earthquake hit West Texas yesterday at 3:30 p.m.  The boys on my afternoon radio station in downtown Dallas swore they all felt it, and that it lasted for almost 20 seconds.

  • It turned out to be a false alarm, but a potential active shooter caused quite the commotion in Fort Worth yesterday.

    • This is what started it.


    • The view from someone inside the building during the confusion. 

  • Until yesterday, most people probably didn't realize the Collin County DA had been sued for sexual harassment. He needs a PR guy. 

  • Same sex marriage will be federally protected by statute before the end of the year.

    • Neither of the Texas senators stepped up.

    • The action was taken because of Justice Thomas concurrence in Dobbs where he threatened to come after other constitutional protections next.  

  • Current abortion ban states after the last election. It's kind of hard to keep up with. 

  • Fun race in Pilot Point. If I understand it, there will now be a required "run-off" even though there were only two candidates to begin with. In the (unlikely) event they are tied again after the second vote, they will "draw lots" to decide the race.


  • Whenever you support the "government should be run as a business" mantra, you get a government with "profits" of $27 billion.   Most reasonable people would call that being unnecessarily overtaxed by $27 billion. 

  • I think Fox News might really be done with Trump.

  • I can't believe this is possible. (The Supreme Court refused to hear a different "judicial override" death penalty case out of Alabama in 2020.)

  • (1) How is this possible when you have a budget of $742.3 billion?  (2) That Lockheed-Martin project is a boondoggle so far, anyway. 

  • And another.

  • The Cleveland Browns at Buffalo at noon on Sunday has quite the potential. 

  • Former Governor Rick Perry has been hired to help in the legalization of mobile sports betting in Texas. 



at 8:30 AM

11.16.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




There were few details given other than he was found with his family. But little did we know then that a few years later that player would make the news for a ghastly crime against a jogger near White Rock Lake. 


  • For a second there yesterday, we thought the Russians had bombed Poland. It turned out to be a Ukrainian defense missile that went off course. It hit a farm and killed two. 

  • Combine the missile strike with people up in arms for not being able to buy Taylor Swift tickets through Ticketmaster online because of servers crashing, and you got this:
  • A man climbed on top of a tractor-trailer in Houston and danced as it went down a freeway. It did not end well. 

  • Elon sent an email last night. (Actual text here.) 

  • Trump's presidential announcement last night -- which seemed strangely "low energy" -- was met with brutal honesty by the "lame stream media." 
    • Washington Post and the New York Times


    • NBC News

    • National Public Radio

    • But the conservative New York Post was downright brutal:


  • My hot expert political thoughts on Trump:
    • He can't win the presidency. He is, and has been, the most hated man in America. People didn't turn out to vote for Biden -- they turned out because they will crawl across broken glass to vote against Trump. And in light of January 6th, that number next time will be even larger and have even more passion. It would be like the Democrats running Hillary. 
    • But can he win the Republican nomination? The numbers work better for him there. That's assuming he fields a multitude of opponents. There are at least half of all Republicans who are his disciples and who will follow him to the end of the Earth (or the nation). And even if that number is a third, that's enough to win almost every state in the primaries when you start divvying up the votes.  
    • I don't know if he wins if it was only a DeSantis vs. Trump in the primaries, but I don't see just DeSantis being the only one to challenge him. That would take a concerted effort of all non-Trump Republicans to rally around DeSantis, and that's just not going to happen. 
    • And Trump holds the ultimate Trump card and nuclear option: If he ends up losing a couple of primaries, he could threaten to run as his own third party.  And he's nutty enough to do it and the establishment Republicans know it.  If he actually did that, the Republican Party is literally destroyed in the next election.  In that regard, he holds them hostage. 
    • What a mess for the GOP. 
    • All that being said, I know better than to underestimate that guy. 
  • DeSantis fired back at Trump yesterday.  But he had quite a bit of shake-voice when he did it. I hear others says that he does not have the personality to deal with Trump one on one. 

  • Attorney news from up north a bit.

  • A Georgia judge yesterday ruled that the state's abortion law was unconstitutional because it was passed when Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land. If it was unconstitutional when passed, he wrote, it is forever void and Dobbs could not revive it.  I honestly have never thought about that, and have no idea if that's right. 

    • But what a footnote.

  • It keeps getting worse. 

  • Speaking of Republican problems, Marge thought it was a good idea to go on Infowars with Alex Jones yesterday before going to vote for Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker. 

    • The Republicans might end up with only 220 seats. With 218 needed as a majority, small coalitions can be a voting block. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and our own Ronny Jackson could be a crazy theoretical threesome.

  • In light of the shooting, UVA has cancelled Saturday's football game against No. 23 Coastal Carolina. 
  • Messenger - Above the Fold

at 8:31 AM
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