Random Monday Morning Thoughts

That was a serious ice storm for early December. 

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• HCA Healthcare finalized its purchase of the hospital in Decatur on Friday.  I suppose that makes lots of workers nervous regardless of what the new owners say. 
• Israel has pulled out of any cease-fire negotiations with Hamas and now has started bombing south Gaza -- an area which had heretofore been safe for Palestinians to flee to.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Just like a federal district court said, the buoys on federal waterways must go. This was so obvious that even the Fifth Circuit told Texas it was wrong on Friday. (There was one dissent, but that judge is a former head staff lawyer for Gov. Abbott when Abbott was AG.)
  

  
  
  
• The Republican controlled House rightfully voted to kick out habitual liar (and indicted) George Santos on Friday.  
  

  
• Of all of the Republican Congressman who took the side of  the despicable Santos and voted to keep him, you knew Wise County's Ronny Jackson would be among them. Here is how all of the reps in Texas voted:
  
  
  
  
  
• The executive committee of the Texas Republican Party met this weekend. They can't get out of their own way as they went pro-Nazi. (The meeting between the white supremacist at the offices of Pale Horse Strategies owned by Jonathan Stickland -- who ran the  Texas Oilman PAC at the time, apparently didn't teach them their lesson.) Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick condemned the vote.
  
  
  
• You can Google  "viral wedding" if you can swim through all the ads of every site which has written about it.  The criminal case, however, is pending in Tarrant County. "Jacob LaGrone, 29, was indicted Aug. 3 on three felony counts of aggravated assault against a public servant, according to Tarrant County court records. He is accused of firing at a Westworth Village police officer and two officers from Westover Hills on March 13." But I'm betting that prosecutors are bluffing on the 25 year offer. 
  

  
  
  
• A new documentary, “Inside the Uvalde Response,” premieres Tuesday at 9 p.m. on PBS stations and will be available to stream on the PBS App, YouTube and Frontline's website. Frontline always does good stuff. 
• Out of Amarillo:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• At a Christmas party at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night: Marge, Trump's New York lawyer Alina Habbas, and Junior's girlfriend Kim Guilfoyle.
   
  
  
  
  
• Failing to respond to a State Bar complaint will do it every time.
  
   
  
  
  
• These are what the largest firms in America are paying their newest lawyers.  There is no bigger scam that "Big Law."
  
  
  
• The Business Second: 
  
  
  
• As many problems as the F-35 has, that contractor might be doing the country a favor.
  
  
  
• College Playoffs: Make no mistake about it, the winner of the SEC Championship game was going to make the final four. That was always going to happen. Once it was Alabama, then the committee had two sets of options to choose from - and either way they were screwed in trying to explain why they left the #5 team out: 
• Option 1: #1 Michigan, #2 Washington, #3 Florida State, #4 Alabama, and #5 Texas out. In this option, they would say they left everything the same but Alabama's win over #1 Georgia was just so great that their "body of work" justified leap-frogging Texas despite Texas winning head to head. But they wouldn't even have to justify keeping an unbeaten Florida State in. "We didn't even think about changing the top of the order and keeping any unbeaten team out," they would say. (I thought they would choose this.)
• Option 2: #1 Michigan, #2 Washington, #3 Texas, #4 Alabama, and #5 Florida State out. In this option, they are left with trying to blame the broken leg of the quarterback of (still) unbeaten Florida State for somehow causing the team to just not "look the same." But they wouldn't have to justify putting Texas in since they just stayed ahead of Alabama like they had been. (They chose this.)
• Side note: What would have happened if Georgia had beaten Alabama? That would have left four unbeaten teams. You think Florida State would have been left out then? No way. 
• Unrelated sidenote: OU's quarterback and Ohio State's quarterback announced they are entering the transfer portal this morning. I support the players, but the portal is awful for college football as we knew it. 
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• The Decatur Eagles are headed to the semi-finals for the second year in a row. And it was a barn-burner with the Eagles scoring in the final seconds at Baylor.  This year is eerily similar to last year -- slow start with a blazing finish. They will face Anna (13-1), who beat Stephenville, in Denton on Friday.