3.08.2024

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




I short summary won't do this one justice. A boy found dead in a bathtub in Frisco, the mother arrested before an ME's report put the case in complete doubt, and then seven months later both the lady and her husband were dead. Here's a long read on it. 

  • Biden did really well on the State of the Union although in this day and time no one is sitting through an hour long speech. But I did.

    • Let's check in on some GOP images. 


    • Was Rep. Ronny Jackson feeling uncomfortable as he was on his phone in the audience? 

    • If you want to see 21 seconds of the Republican response, check this out. It is like the first day of acting school. 

  • Oh, before I forget, we learned yesterday that Ronny Jackson has been lying about his military rank.
    Editor's note: This is not the photo that ran with the story, but it seems like a good time to remind everyone of that incident. 
     
  • The metroplex was far worse than Wise County yesterday.

  • I'm not sure what the purpose is of acknowledging by a press release "that its facilities appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire" while denying any negligence. 

  • "UVALDE, Texas (AP) — An independent report commissioned by the City of Uvalde into a deadly 2022 school shooting found that none of the city’s officers violated department policy, infuriating families of some of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed in one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history." If the "department policy" was to stand around while kids die, I suppose it is right. 


  • The last thing we need is this on the State Board of Education. 


  • Speaking of vouchers, that's a big bullet point for the Texas Oilman PAC. They want to gut public education and move tax dollars to private, unregulated Christian schools. Andy Hopper, who the PAC has thrown a ton of money at with more to come, fell in line yesterday.  

    • Sidenote #1: That voucher proposition on the Republican ballot was horribly worded. It might as well have begun with, "Do you want to follow God's Word and have your personal hard earned savings follow your precious child instead of going to cross-dressing devil worshipers?" 
    • Sidenote #2. You are not "the representative of #HD64."
  • Let's check in FBC Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress to see what message of Christian love he was spreading last night. 

  • 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: 4 years and 289 days.

at 8:30 AM

3.07.2024

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




That Farmer's Branch lawsuit was over an ordinance which prevented private landlords from renting to undocumented aliens. It never went into effect, but legal bills cost the city over $8 million. And it was all spearheaded because of Mayor Tim O'Hare who is now the administrative County Judge of Tarrant County.

  • We've got an Anti-Gaza Invasion protest in Fort Worth this morning outside of General Dynamics.

  • I said yesterday that I didn't know much about the newly elected Brandon Gill who will become Wise County's Congressman along with Ronny Jackson, but yesterday Wired magazine educated me. Good lord.



  • "The armorer faces up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine after the involuntary-manslaughter conviction, according to the AP."  I'm not too bent out of shape about the conviction, but she doesn't need to be put in a cage for this mistake. 

  • I'm not sure I've ever heard of this guy.  When he ran for Congress in Tarrant County he got less than 3% of the vote. 



  • Having a ton of drama students show up at a school board meeting and passionately tell you that you are out of your collective minds apparently works:

  • I haven't followed this case at all (I hate the Eagles), but it somehow got derailed because, of all things, a document dump in the middle of trial by singer Don Henley. Prosecutors had to dismiss it shortly after it started. (That's a free link to the story.) 



  • I asked on the Monday after Paxton's acquittal why the House Republicans risked the impeachment if they were not 100% sure the Senate would convict. I still wonder that. 

  • State Rep. Glenn Rogers (Parker, Palo Pinto, and Stephens Counties) was defeated by the Oilmen PAC and went scorched earth yesterday in the Weatherford Democrat. He's not wrong. 


  • When I first saw the plans for the proposed new baseball stadium for the A's in Las Vegas, I thought I was being punked. Nope, it's legit.


  • I don't think I ever mentioned that the big bucks for jury service went up starting last year.
  • Legal Nerdy Stuff: Florida passed an "Anti-WOKE" law which is as dumb as it sounds because it prevented private employers from engaging in any type of diversity training. Well, the 11th Circuit struck it down on Monday on First Amendment grounds (infringing private speech based upon content), and it has one of the greatest first paragraphs ever: 

  • Extremely legal nerdy stuff for practitioners only: I complain about people being prosecuted for traffic accidents all the time, and yesterday a Texas court overturned a manslaughter conviction in an auto-pedestrian case because the State failed to prove the often misunderstood legal standard of criminal "recklessness." 
  • Messenger - Above the Fold

at 8:30 AM

3.06.2024

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



I was right about that election and everything else about this still holds up. And that strategy is now even being used at the local level. 

  • Welcome to my post Super Tuesday voting update. The big takeaway is that the Republican Party in Texas, and in Wise County, moved further to the far right. And that Ken Paxton is somehow turning out to be the most powerful politician in Texas. Here we go . . . 
  • First up is the Wise County Sheriff's race where we have, in my opinion, a shocker.  The choice of the renegade Wise County Conservatives, who have taken over the Republican Party of Wise County, was the top vote getter. Cary Mellema is a a former Rhome Police Chief and tows the MAGA line. He'll be in a run-off with Craig Johnson, the current Chief Deputy in the Wise County Sheriff's Office. I honestly thought it would be a run-off between Johnson and Hoskins. 

  • In my closely watched State Rep race between Andy Hopper and incumbent Lynn Stucky, if I thought Wise County would be put off by the Oilman PAC trying to buy this election, I was sorely mistaken. (Does anything matter anymore?)  Hopper almost won outright, but he and Stucky will go into a run-off where I think Hopper will have a distinct advantage.



    • Any my apologies for basically ignoring Elaine (Taylor) Hays throughout this race. We lived a stone's throw away from each other when we both grew up on the mean streets of Bridgeport. 
  • The biggest stunner statewide was the little watched Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Three incumbent pro-prosecutor and tough-on-crime judges were thrown out simply because Ken Paxton targeted them (after they correctly ruled that DAs, and not the AG, had exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute voter fraud.) This is absolutely nuts. How does the disgraced Paxton have this much power? And these races ended up not even being close. Amazing. 



  • I was worried for David Spiller (R-Jacksboro) after he led Paxton's impeachment as a House Manager, but Paxton, for some reason, never put him on blast. And the big money never lined up against him.  As a result, he cruised easily. 

  • More proof that the ultra-MAGA extremists and the Texas Oilman PAC are gaining power is the victory, over an incumbent, by a COVID protesting hairdresser. Remember her?

  • More Paxton power: One of his impeachment defense lawyers defeated an incumbent by just a hair.

     

  • To our north, an incumbent District Attorney was defeated in Montague County. (Shout to the lawyer who told me yesterday in the Wise County district courtroom that this was gong to happen based upon what he had seen.) Man, this was a beat down. 

  • I don't know anything about the guy, but the southern part of Wise County will be represented in Congress by Brandon Gill.  To clear 50% and avoid a run-off with that many candidates is amazing. He will replace the retiring Michael Burgess.  The rest of us will still be stuck with Ronny Jackson who did not have an appointment. 


  • Trump rolled in Wise County (88%), in Texas (78%), and all across the nation. As you sat in your homes on the evening of January 6th, in your wildest dreams did you think this would happen?  
    Wise County (above)
    National Margin of Victory


    • The above was so bad than Nikki Haley will (finally) drop out of the race today at 9:00 a.m.

  • I doubt he can beat Ted Cruz in the Fall, but Colin Allred will be the best chance ever.  (And who wouldn't want a former Baylor linebacker over a Harvard graduate?) Breaking 50% an avoiding a run-off is, once again, impressive.

  • The Paxton forces had Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan in their cross-hairs big time. They might still take him down since that race is headed to a run-off.

  • As depressing as all this stuff is, I love it all. 

at 8:00 AM
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)