Random Monday Morning Thoughts

This was a shootout by the Wise County Sheriff's Office that had occurred a year earlier in 2013, but it was the Denver Post which finally obtained the dashcam video of the DPS trooper and released it 10 years ago this week. Evan Ebel had been wanted in Colorado. 

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• The Wise County candidate who is trying to unseat Rep. Lynn Stucky made an editorial in the Dallas Morning News this weekend for being a Texas successionist. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Here's the key paragraph from above.. It references Andy Hopper and what I refer to as the Texas Oilman PAC. Hey, you can vote for whomever you want to, but you need to be aware of what is going on.
  
  
  
• I downloaded the finance reports for Hopper for the last two years. Here are his top donors and at the top, with staggering numbers, is Tim Dunn's oilman PAC. Throw Defend Texas Liberty in there, too, since it is also funded by Dunn. (I'm not sure about Darlene Pendery but a Google search has her come up multiple times as a "Texas Mega Donor." Mike Olcutt is running for the House as well and has received $50,000 from Dunn.)
  
  
  
• And if I haven't said it enough, Dunn is on the cover of Texas Monthly with a cover story of how he buys elections, I even included the "money paragraph" for you as to how Dunn targets incumbents who don't vote as he demands.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Wise County's final early voting numbers. Four years ago there were 5,136 who early voted in the Republican primary. If my math is right, this year we've got 7,172. That's a massive jump.  
  
  
  
• The above numbers buck the trend in Texas statewide where early voting is down. Is it the Sheriff's race or Hopper/Stucky which is causing the Wise County turnout?
  
  
  
• There was an authorized private burn in the Boonsville area on Saturday afternoon, but it sure got a lot of attention as a potential wildfire since the smoke could be seen county wide.
  
  

  

  
  
  
   
• The Supreme Court might bail Trump out today. We will know in a few minutes.  
  
  
  
• There was some kind of gala at the Alamo to celebrate Texas Independence Day. The outfits left a little something to be desired:

  

  Dan Patrick

  
  

  

  Failed governor candidate Don Huffines

  
  
• There was a 35 year plea bargain entered into last week in Wise County for a David Biggers who was charged with "Evading Arrest or Detention With a Vehicle with a Previous Conviction or Serious Bodily Injury" in cause number CR25026. That's one of the longest plea bargains sentences ever. I couldn't find anything about the case in the Messenger's archives, but there had to have been a long criminal history involved.
• Trump came on on top in a new New York Times poll, but national polls in a presidential election are meaningless. For example, this poll involved 980 likely voters.  But say the race comes down to Michigan, which it might.  If the poll mirrored the number of voters by each state (doubtful), that means they polled 29 people in Michigan. For the critical state of Wisconsin, it would mean they talked to 19 likely voters from that state.
  
  
  
• The Business Second™: This would be not far from the Speedway -- on the other side of I-35 and a couple of miles south.
  
  
  
• Very legal nerdy stuff: Here is a fantastic Twitter thread uncovering the little experience that a candidate for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Lee Finley, has by examining online Texas appellate records.
• Dak has a new look. 
  
  
  
• NCAA Softball: Oklahoma's amazing 71 game winning streak came to an end against the Ragin' Cajuns, 7-5, in extra innings.