Random Friday Morning Thoughts

This Texas case became even more noteworthy when two months later a grand jury declined to indict the man for the shooting. Years later, the New York Times covered the whole thing extensively here.

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• For a second there last night we thought we had another mass shooting as cops swarmed to the mall in Arlington. A spokesman "said shots rang about 7:30 p.m. The gunfire followed a fight between two groups of people on an escalator between Dick’s Sporting Goods and the skating rink."
  
  
   
  
  
  
• Yesterday evening, Trump was barred from Maine's ballot and, unlike Colorado, this one actually goes into effect. (In other news yesterday, Michigan and California decided Trump was not barred by the Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment.)
  
  
  
• I'm really torn by Maine's decision. It just gives so much ammo to the MAGA Extremists. Then again, you read the ending of the opinion and it makes sense.  I'm just not real hip on a Secretary of State getting to make this call.
  
  
  
• I wondered if there was an actual hearing before the ruling and there was. All eight hours of it are even online here.
  
  
  
• This is weird. A woman was evicted in a Justice of the Peace court after a hearing -- a hearing she later said she didn't get notice of. She got a lawyer to ask the court for a copy of the notice letter, and he was provided one. But now a clerk has been indicted for creating it after the fact in Microsoft Word. Kind of makes you wonder how many other people were evicted without notice? If it were a one time thing, why not just admit you screwed up?
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Bold move.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Insurrection social media banter yesterday:
• Her:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Also her:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Now that's a headline that will get your attention.
  
  
  
  
• The great Twitter account Traces of Texas posted this undated photo from Jacksboro. It's a store owned by H.H. McConnell who opened it after writing "Five Years a Cavalryman" in 1888. (Although I question his claim in that book that " I have seen the mercury 13° below zero more than once" in Jacksboro.) 
  
  
  
• The Business Second in Warehouses™:
  
  
  
• The greatness of the Pop Tarts Bowl was on full display last night when the mascot came out of a toaster to open the game.  At the end of the game, he went back into it and an edible version then appeared which, was in fact, eaten by the winners. Video.
  
  
  
• Legal nerdy stuff: A big law firm was sued by another law firm because it claimed it created a copyright violation by copying verbatim its Motion to Dismiss. That's a thing? Apparently yes. There's even demand letter responses in this great thread. 
  
  
  
• 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: 4 years and 186 days.