Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

Was this the beginning of the book banning craze? (Although Highland Park put that particular book back on the shelves the following year.)

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• She didn't last long.  And the resignation looks like a compromise. If they had fired her, they would owe her on her full contract through July, 2026.  Instead, in lieu of being fired she was allowed to resign from her position as superintendent but continue her employment at her current salary through just the school year 2025. So she avoids a firing in exchange for giving up a year's salary. But at $335,000 a year, I would have told them to fire me. 
  
  
  
• In watching this video, I quickly went from "Is that it?" to "Oh, my!"
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The bees were in a hollowed out tree trunk, and officials think the hive had been there for years.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• As with most local news stories these days, we don't know any of the details. But this sentence from the article tells me there is a big back story that we don't know about: "Officers believed the alleged assault was isolated since the victim said he thinks 'he was targeted in retaliation for a previous incident.'”  Something weird is going on. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• I was wrong about how the newly created 15th Court of Appeals would probably side with Paxton. It didn't. It will now go to the Texas Supreme Court which is a wild card on something like this. 
  
  
  
• Missouri last night:
  
  
  
• Also Missouri:
  
  
  
• So you are involved in welfare scandals, get called in front of Congressional panel investigating welfare fraud, and then conveniently use that moment to change the headlines? Got it. 
  
  
  
• Trump:
• Trump on why Ukraine should just roll over to the Russians: “Somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon. That's what they do.” Video.  Someone want to tell him about Afghanistan in the early 1980s? 
  
  
  
• Trump's take on tariffs is mind-boggling. It's pretty simple to understand: Tariffs aren't paid by the foreign manufacturer like he says. Tariffs are taxes paid by the American consumer on the importing end. Trump either does not understand that or he continues to lie. Either is equally plausible. 
  
  
  
• Wow. UNLV is 3-0 and knocking on the door of AP Top 25 and now this happens. This sounds like a broken NIL money promise:
  

  

  
  
  
  
• You know, every year at this time we have a fluff piece on the local news stations where they cover the erecting of Big Tex at the state fair. Their newsrooms are now so strapped they can't even do that now.