4.14.2023

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts



A year before, a small riot happened when all the bluebonnets had been mowed down at Oaklawn Cemetery in Decatur. Their return prompted this headline. 

  • We had a long sentence handed down on Wednesday in Wise County of 42 years in prison for Evading with a Vehicle.  From what I can tell, Randy Gordon had an extensive criminal history which created the potential for the enhanced sentence.  He also still has a ton of cases still pending: 

  • The murderer, who Gov. Abbott said he wanted to pardon within 24 hours after a jury's verdict, authored text messages that showed he had a desire to kill, was a blatant racist, and chatted with underaged girls. 

  • There were multiple hoax "active shooter" 911 calls yesterday morning. So dumb. Schools included Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Baylor University, Texas A&M University in College Station, Del Mar College Heritage Campus in Corpus Christi, Galen College of Nursing in San Antonio and Tyler Junior College in Tyler.  On Friday night, OU was hit by one which caused a small panic. 

  • Justice Clarence Thomas is in more potential trouble. Just watch how the following ramps up.
    • Thomas is supposed to report any real estate transaction, other than his own home, where the value is over $1,000. Despite this requirement, he sold property he owned on a Georgia street for $133,363 nine years ago yet he didn't report it. (The deed.)
    • But it gets stranger: His mother actually lived in the property that was sold. The new owner then began to make "tens of thousands of dollars" of improvements to the home. But get this: His mom continued to live in the home and still does. 
    • Now the kicker? The guy who bought the home was Harlan Crow -- the same guy who has been funding his extravagant vacations and private jet trips for years.
       

  • An arrest was made in the military document scandal. The guy was a 21 year old member of Massachusetts Air National Guard who had access to the documents as part of his job. Sheesh. How many spies are out their who simply apply for and get routine jobs just to get similar access and more. It's like The Americans but simpler. 





    • And somehow, the QAnon Jewish Space Laser representative found a strange way to make this political. 

  • We had another sentence yesterday from the Trump Insurrection. Robert Wayne Dennis, 63, of Garland was given three years for attacking a cop during the riot.  That's not enough. 


  • Look, they already have an image problem with the town name so why in the world do they want to make it look worse? "Police Chief Christopher Cook authorized all police officers to wear western-style hats while on duty to 'capture the western history of the town.'"


  • I saw this headline three days ago and thought it was fake or a gross exaggeration. 

  • Man, I found this wildly entertaining. Here is audio of the Republicans in Tennessee in a private meeting who are royally pissed that they didn't all stick together causing them to look racist in expelling two black lawmakers. They call one of their own in the room on the carpet. Big time.  (Audio includes transcript). 


     
  • A Bridgeport kid is fast. But that only gets you second at the district meet?  

  • 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, 283 days.

at 8:28 AM

4.13.2023

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




The disposition on this case was shockingly fast and a little harsh since it didn't involve a probation. One week after her arrest, she agreed to a 45 days sentence and a $4,000 fine. She ultimately served 22 real days. The video of the field sobriety tests was also released. 

  • Overnight, the abortion drug ban by the Amarillo federal judge was mostly blocked, for now, by 2-1 vote by a Fifth Circuit Panel. The dissenting judge would have blocked everything the district court judge did. The most concise summary seems to be:

  • The second expelled black Tennessee legislator has been sent back to the state house by his home district. Remember this all happened because three legislators violated "decorum" for protesting a mass gun violence slaughter at a Christian school in state.

  • I remember this when it happened. That lady is as crazy as an outhouse rat.

  • This business negligence wrongful death case seems a little complicated because of the issues of contractor and subcontractor liability and employee status. It also occurs to me that there are probably a bunch of lawyers involved which have very little trial experience because 95% of all "civil trial litigators", especially on the defense side, have never been in front of a jury. 



  • The disturbing and under-the-radar Texas House Bill 20 was up for public debate deep into the night last night. If passed, it would allow state-sanctioned private vigilante groups to roam the borders looking for "illegals." And I wonder if they now have the extra bonus of being able to murder brown people at will since Tucker Carlson and Gov. Abbott will make sure they are pardoned. 

  • A lot of buzz this morning about a new Washington Post article about the source of the government document online leak.  (Gifted article link.)



  • Kinda of legal nerdy: The Houston DA doesn't want people arrested for under 4 grams of drugs unless there's a lab report confirming they are actually illegal drugs. I wonder if there is a rash of fake dope in the Houston area?


  • Extremely legal nerdy follow-up: A few months back there was a crazy DWI case where an appellate court found no probable cause to arrest someone for DWI who is found passed out in a school pickup line in a running car. As expected, yesterday the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed it. 
  • Cowboys Trevon Diggs has also received a crazy tattoo. There's a lot going on there. 

  • Today, the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays have a chance to tie the all-time modern major league record by starting a season with 13 straight wins. The play the Red Sox at 12:10 p.m. CST.
  • Messenger: Above The Fold



at 8:31 AM

4.12.2023

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




"An eye-opening experience for Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) as he is confronted by a topless demonstrator during a tour of the Hanover Fair in Hanover, Germany, on April 8, 2013. He was accompanied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel [in green jacket.]"

  • Auto vs. Motorcycle chaos in Wise County yesterday afternoon. 


  • Shocking tidbit from one of the press conferences after the Louisville bank shooting. The AR-15 is going back on the streets.

  • The D.A. in Manhattan is trying to stop the subpoena to appear before Congress to explain his Trump indictment. Interestingly, he is also trying to prevent the former assistant D.A. who wrote a book about the investigation from testifying as well. That might be hard to stop. 

    • Speaking of that book, I'm actually reading it and am halfway through. Quick thoughts . . . 

    • The book is surprisingly fun to read, but it doesn't make me think too much of the prosecution.
    • He spent three chapters on the Stormy Daniel case (written when he didn't think there was ever going to be a prosecution.) He refers to it as the "Zombie Case" and, shockingly, of all the theories of prosecution that he proposed that were rejected, not one of them was the False Business Records theory. It never even came up. 
    • I'll admit that I was really disturbed by how cavalier he is about how he was hired "to see if there were any laws broken" by Trump.  That ain't good. Prosecutors shouldn't be targeting someone and looking for crimes. Yep, I'm defending Trump here.
  • Texas Pardon Update: The District Attorney in Austin wrote to the parole board asking them to hold off on making a recommendation on the Austin murder case where Gov. Abbott is trying to play judge and jury. The DA was way too nice. I would have thrown in a "Don't be a puppet of a wannabe authoritarian Puppet Master who wishes to replace our jury system."

  • When you are resorting to randomly digging up concrete slabs, you really have no idea where the person is. 


  • Not a chance in the world this actually happened. 

  • The Tarrant County Sheriff spoke to the media yesterday about what a great job he thinks he is doing. But he also said that his office had seized enough fentanyl "to kill every man, woman and child in Tarrant County . . . ."  I keep seeing similar headlines everywhere -- of how a seizure was "enough to kill [insert millions]." That's just such a lie.  We can assume that cops seize less than 1% of all fentanyl. If these potential mass casualty figures were true, you would think there would be bodies laying around on every sidewalk because of the 99% that got through. Fentanyl is a problem, but they don't need to lie to convince of us that.


  • The self-appointed leader of the DFW MAGA Trump worshipers (and the head of the West Texas oilman PAC) just casually mentioned yesterday that school vouchers are intended to kill public schools. 

    • But I loved how someone threw a past tweet of his in his face:

  • Youtube is paying the NFL $2 billion a year for the right to broadcast the "Sunday Ticket." They are now passing that cost along . . .  

  • Shohei Ohtani is the greatest baseball player in the history of the sport and it's not even close. 
  • The shocking Abbott Pardon news finally made the front page of the Dallas Morning News. But that's a lukewarm headline. 


at 8:31 AM
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