5.10.2024

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




The "inappropriate relationship" surge might have peaked at Odessa Permian 
when there were five allegations within one year.

  • Those storms went across the top of Wise County just missing Bridgeport and Decatur yesterday afternoon.
  • The testimony is now over. I still think it did more harm than good. 


    • The reason I hate this Trump prosecution is because the New York law is dumb. It's a crime to make a "false entry" in an internal business record even if (1) I don't present it, or intend to present it, to any third person and (2) there is no intent to deceive a third person.  That's silly. 
    • And the entries were false, the prosecution says, because they went down as "legal expenses" internally. To me, all Trump would have to say is that "the reimbursement to Cohen, plus payment for his work on the matter, was all legal expense it seemed to me. I routinely reimburse lawyers for any and all expenses they incur when paying their bills. So for everyone in my world, we called it a 'legal expense'. It wasn't false at all. We all knew what it meant." Then he's home free.
    • Side note: Today is Day 14 of the trial. It wouldn't have taken more than two days in Texas. For some reason, we have a different definition of "relevant evidence" down her. 
    • New this morning: The judge just denied Trump's request to subpoena Mark Pomerantz, the former prosecutor for the DA who wrote in People vs. Trump: An Inside Account that the Stormy Daniels file was referred to as the "Zombie case" while he was there since no one wanted to pursue the prosecution of it.
  • Ronny Jackson has embarrassed us again. No details have been released yet but the "committee has until June 24 to release more information on the Hunt and Jackson investigations."

  • This looks like a fascinating story ("dark web", "bitcoin", etc.), but all the news stories about it just quote the press release from the prosecutor's office. Back in the day, local media would have been all over something like this. Now we just learn about it directly from, and from the prospective of, the government once the case is over. 


  • Luka's post-game press conference last night was derailed with unexpected audio of, well, let's just say it could have come from Stormy Daniels in her prime. His expression was golden.  Video

  • I couldn't help but focus on the John Wayne picture on the wall. They realize he was just an actor, right? And that he lived in Beverly Hills and not Dodge City in the 1880s?


  • It's just an $11 million accounting error that ended up as bonuses. 

  • Cuban might want to be careful with this.


  • 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 311 days.



at 8:30 AM

5.09.2024

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts






He actually got a new punishment trial, but it backfired as he received 99 years in prison. Then the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent him back for good. 

  • This lawsuit was filed yesterday which involves a rodeo family in Decatur on both sides of it. I'm not sure what it is about.

  • Late yesterday, the Republican Jewish Space Laser congresswoman tried to take down the House Speaker, but she was defeated when almost all the Democrats voted to keep him.  The final vote count was 359 to 43. She was widely booed when she made the motion. Video.


  • Barron is going to be a Republican Convention delegate?  I would guess that he would be the one to get the microphone to announce Florida's votes for Trump. 

  • Story Daniels resumes her seat in the witness box today as cross-examination continues. I was looking over the transcript from her testimony two days ago and trying to see all the times that Trump's attorney's didn't object. What I found was that in the rare case they did object, it was to a question which actually helped them. (See below.) Why? I'll let a prosecutor break every evidence rule in the book if the evidence they are presenting helps my guy. 

  • This one is interesting. She was at the January 6th riot, and got really close to the capitol building during the insurrection, but never entered it and was never charged with any crimes. Nevertheless, she was fired from her Bexar County deputy job. Now she is entitled to civil damages for a free speech violation. That actually makes sense to me.

  • Lots of money grabbing going on here.  At least one of those cases was worth trying because those facts are really, really bad. 

  • The Dog Killer cancelled her apology tour yesterday and can't believe people are so upset with her. 

  • Updates on the handling of RFK Jr.'s claim that he had a worm in his brain.
    • Hannity brought in an obvious brain injury expert, Ronny Jackson. 

    • How far we've fallen. 

    • Hold that guy's beer:

  • This seems very convoluted. Young people who are charged with minor crimes and placed on pre-trial diversion in Dallas County are sometimes so poor that they can't afford to travel to meet their probation "obligations" (meeting with a probation officer, community service, etc.)  So the Dallas County DA's office got a $12,500 grant to help pay for their transportation. 

  • Legal nerdy stuff: Yesterday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled on whether a couple of "rap videos" should have been admitted into evidence in a capital murder trial (they shouldn't have been), and ended up quoting the Urban Dictionary and citing southern "trap" music in a footnote. 

  • Messenger - Above the Fold

at 8:30 AM

5.08.2024

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




I was curious what happened to him and found that Johnson County has great online records. It looks like he basically was mentally committed until the case was dismissed, finally, in 2022. 

  • I may be 100% wrong, but I now believe more than ever that the jury is going to acquit Trump in the ongoing criminal case. Bringing in Stormy Daniels to trash him is only going to create sympathy when it's already hard to get excited over the alleged crime of document falsification. I've got a really bad feeling about this. 

    • But Trump's lawyers are horrible. Despite the judge signaling that he didn't want the prosecution to go into the details of the Trump/Daniels sexual fling, the prosecution did just that. And then they let Stormy just ramble on with her answers. The judge finally had to do the defense lawyers' job for them. 



  • This is the same guy involved in the double sports car accident on Central. He might want to consider laying low for a bit.

  • The new mayor of Rhome sounds sensible per the Star-Telegram story.  If so, I'm going to miss the crazy council meetings. 

  • The Tarrant County DA showed up in the commissioners' court to defend his continued prosecution of the Crystal Mason for voter fraud after she had just been acquitted by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals. It went about as well as expected.


  • The guy who is gutting public schools, and who wants to gut them further with the implementation of school vouchers, wants teachers to think that he appreciates them. 

    • Speaking of, the megadonor involved in the Decatur ISD PAC from last year is doing big things in Princeton ISD. Thread.
  • This could explain a lot. 

  • Last night the judge in Florida finally killed any chance of the Trump documents case being tried this year. 

  • At the risk of going over-Trumpy today, let's see what's on his mind late last night with all the pressing matters going on in his life . . . .

    • It's craziness like that which might explain how a candidate who dropped out of the race months ago was able to steal 22% of the vote from him in the Republican primary in Indiana last night. 

  • I honestly had never heard of comedian Nikki Glaser before the Tom Brady roast this weekend, but that lady is funny. 

at 8:30 AM

5.07.2024

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




Today, people are camping on campuses in protest over Israel's alleged war crimes. Ten years ago people were camping for a chicken sandwich in Arlington. 

  • Yesterday was the year anniversary of the mass shooting at the outlet mall in Allen.  The most amazing part of the story is how the cop that single-handedly took down the shooter has never been publicly identified and has never given an interview.

  • Israel continues to displace Palestinians with a newly launched offensive in south Gaza.
     


  • Of course. 

  • I'm not a big fan of this criminal case against Trump, but the buzz this morning is that it is Stormy Daniels day in court.

  • Dateline Pennsylvania. He didn't "try" very hard, but it was still wild. Video.


  • Any of you want to go up on an inaugural flight of a rocket made by Boeing? It was scheduled to launch yesterday but had to be called off due to a "problem with an oxygen relief valve."


    • Sounds par for the course:

  • White people are fleeing to Idaho?

  • The Business Second™.  Over the last 10 years, few, if any, things in American society have changed as much as how we watch TV.
  • The older I get, the more disinterested I am in professional, for-profit sports. I just started to ask myself, "Why, exactly, should I care about this team?"



at 8:30 AM
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