4.28.2023

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

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Random Friday Morning Thoughts




If a case was a dog back in the day, I just killed it. 

  • Not related to above. I think.  

  • The brouhaha over "woke" in the Decatur ISD school board elections got people fired up yesterday in early voting. 

  • It wasn't the guests on the Jerry Springer Show that convinced me we were headed towards Idiocracy, it was his live audience. They might have represented the real America all along.


  • And then he posed for a picture with her and signed her backpack that she had with her at the Capitol. “Listen, you just hang in there,” Trump told the woman. “You guys are gonna be okay.”   It's just all so inconceivable.

  • I don't know how or why schools put up with nutty parents. And I don't know why they are so scared of loud-mouths who think they are the arbiters of all of standards and the rulers of all other parents. 

  • And then there are times I just stare at my screen in amazement. 

  • Nerdy political stuff which I find kind of interesting. 

  • Random photo published today by the Jimmy Carter National Library this morning. 

  • Other than the Cowboys drafting someone named "Mazi", the only other interesting thing was watching Kentucky's QB all evening fail to get drafted while his girlfriend, who dressed like she was going to the Academy Awards, grew concerned. 

  • 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, 297 days.


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4.27.2023

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




Out of Weatherford 10 years ago.

  • Oh, my! (In a good way). The Superintendent of Decatur ISD has fired back against "a mass text message accusing Decatur ISD of teaching 'WOKE POLITICS'" which was the feature of my first bullet point yesterday.  He writes: "I want every staff member and citizen of Decatur to know that they have a superintendent who will back them when they are unjustly called out as a group for actions or activities that are false and damaging to their personal reputations and that of Decatur ISD." (PDF link.)

  • Early voting in Decatur's school and bond (and city) elections remains heavy.

  • Ok, this verdict in the "crane case" in Dallas seems ridiculous. According to this story, the mother got $340 million (that's silly) and the dad got $20 million. The biggest hit was in punitive damages which were $500 million (also silly.)  I don't know if state damage caps effect the verdict at all.  The lead attorney for the defendant which got hit was a guy named Christopher White but I'm not sure which Chris White.

  • The Wise County Sheriff's Office jail and courts website remains down. This is day four. Let's fix this!!
  • It was hard to miss this video of hail coming down in Dublin, Texas around 5:30 yesterday. If you did, here ya go.  

  • We've got some inmates on the run in Mississippi. 


    • Side note: I don't think near enough was made of the Texas inmate which escaped last year and hid out under the noses of law enforcement for three weeks as he slaughtered a man his four grandsons, ages 11 to 18 who had gone to their vacation cabin.



  • Hey, I'm no fan of Trump, but I'm not so sure about this lady's claim. She testified yesterday on day two of the defamation trial which included her (damage-control) admission that she didn't now if the assault occurred in 1994, 1995 or 1996. On opening, Trump's lawyer, who has yet to cross-exam her, had said, “She can’t tell you the date that she claims to have been raped. She can’t tell you the month that she claims to have been raped. She can’t tell you the season. She can’t even tell you the year that she claims to have been raped by Donald Trump.” 

  • Disney finally sued the governor of Florida for targeting them based upon speech.  I don't know what took them so long. This is a slam dunk for Disney. It's government targeting free speech. 


  • I've never seen so many people so scared of people who are simply different than them. 

  • Legal nerdy stuff: The Houston DA sent out a press release press release which contains something which I think is not true. There's no question that a grand jury only needs nine votes in order to return an indictment. And it's true that they only need to find "probable cause" (not "probably cause" as seen below). When they do, that's called a "true bill." But if the grand jury has a vote on a case and does not have the nine votes, that should be a "no bill." This press release says that a person is no-billed only if nine members find there was not probable cause.   Hey, there's nothing to prevent a DA from referring a no-billed case to another grand jury -- there should be a law, but there's not -- but a vote without nine votes to indict is a "no-bill".

  • Other kind of legal nerdy stuff. The top three scorers from the February Texas bar exam were announced and all of them graduated from out-of-state law schools.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



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4.26.2023

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




Bob Gill out of Fort Worth was eventually appointed as special prosecutor.

  • I was tipped off to this last night in connection with the Decatur School Board elections.  I'll present it without comment, but it's obvious what's going on. 

    • Early voting numbers by the way:

  • The Wise County Courts/Jail database website continues to be down for the third day. 
     
  • The Liberally Lean Wise County First Alert Weather Team™ tells me that the best window for storms today is from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. 

  • After four months, the trial of the Proud Boys for their major role in January 6th has ended and has now gone to the jury. Yesterday in closing arguments, they blamed the Trump Insurrection on Trump.

     

  • Oddly worded Fox News headline. Twice.
  • Uhhhhh.

  • At the United Nations yesterday, the Russian Foreign Minister commented on Tucker Carlson being fired.  "It'd be useful to consider how things are with freedom of speech in the U.S. I've heard Tucker Carlson has left Fox News. It's curious news." Now isn't that odd? Video. 

  • Headlines like this are artfully worded to be attention grabbing. Prices are actually still going up, just not as fast.  

  • Turning to something unartfully worded, this very random post, and especially its first reply, that I saw on Twitter last night made me laugh. 


  • Nerdy legal thought: The civil "crane trial" is still going on in Dallas, and Fox 4 keeps putting this guy on as an expert commentator. One thing he says every single time is that "Juries normally get it right." So, I thought, what does that mean exactly? The answer is that a jury gets it "right" when it does what is to be expected. But what's to be expected? Well, we expect juries to act like previous juries. So a jury "gets it right" when it acts like a typical jury. Ergo, with that being the standard, aren't they guaranteed to "almost always get it right." It's like saying, "Juries almost always act like juries."

  • So the new ultra-MAGA County Judge in Tarrant County runs off the Elections Administrator and won't rule out replacing him with an election denier? . . . 

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4.25.2023

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




The George W. Bush Library opened 10 years ago, and we had a 
reunion of current and former presidents. 

  • Wise County Tax Appraisal notices have arrived, and the screams can be heard across the land.  Property taxes were already a problem and now it's been ramped up. (Prepare yourself if you have not received yours yet.)  And as far as the timing is concerned, how about the notices being mailed out right before big school bond elections? 

  • Speaking of bond elections (and school boards), here are the first day turnouts around the county:

  • Wise County Sheriff's Office court and jail database is down again. Ugh. 
  • At 5:00 a.m. this morning, President Biden released a three minute video announcing his re-election bid. It's really good.  The theme is "Normal vs. Crazy" and that's probably all he needs to run on. 


  • The host of the most highly rated show on Fox News was fired yesterday.  


    • He was an Insurrectionist apologist and an election liar. 

    • Flashback: Just days ago, upset that someone could be convicted in this country for murdering a BLM supporter, he strong armed Greg Abbott into saying he would pardon the killer. 

    • Checking in on Fox News last night three minutes before Tucker's old show was to air. 

  • I don't think they should have the right to block anyone.

  • I keep hearing about a weird True Texas Project meeting over the weekend in Farmer's Branch that had Kari Lake speak and an odd appearance by Kyle Rittenhouse.

  • Random local history: I was speaking to someone who shall remain nameless (my dad) who I showed a couple of pictures to which I had seen of 1930s Bridgeport.   He told me that, as a young boy, he had known the people in these photos. Amazing. One of the men at the gas station was the local men's softball umpire (softball was a big pastime back in the day), and "Crack Jack" at the bottom would take a wheel barrel around town selling tamales in the winter and homemade ice cream in the summer. I figured Crack Jack was quite the character, but apparently he didn't care for chit-chat and was "all business."


  • I'm telling you, this will not work at Colorado.

  • I never thought CNN's Don Lemon was objectionable, I just thought he was bad at his job . . . 

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