Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

"One person was killed and three others were injured in a fireworks accident Thursday in Comanche. Kiwanis Club members were setting up fireworks for Friday's celebration on a baseball field west of a high school when the trailer holding most of the fireworks exploded around 9 a.m."

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• Bridgeport! "A resident of Bridgeport has claimed a second-tier Mega Millions prize worth $1,000,500 for the drawing held on June 21, according to the Texas Lottery. The winning ticket was purchased at Raceway #6973, at 101 U.S. 380 in Bridgeport."
  
  
  
• President Biden thoughts: 
• I still don't think it will happen, but there sure seems like a growing drumbeat for President Biden to drop out of the race. 
  
  
  
• The President offered an explanation yesterday for his poor debate performance: "I didn't have my best night. I  wasn't very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, going through I don't how many times zones. I didn't listen to my staff. And then I came back and I nearly fell asleep on stage. It’s not an excuse but an explanation."  Uh, the debate was 12 days after that traveling ended. 
  
  
  
• One of the first post-debate polls is out.  You should ignore the national polls, but pay attention to battleground polls. 
  
  
  
• The last time a president dropped out of a race it did not go well. And LBJ dropped out in March, not July, of that election year. 

  

  "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for
  another term as your president." - March 31, 1968

  
  
• Story. "In November 2001, a resident picking up cans between Alvarado and Burleson came across the body of a newborn, wrapped in a jacket with the umbilical cord still attached." But I already see two problems with the prosecution of the case:  (1) The autopsy, which claims the baby was alive when abandoned, was done by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office which has since had a full turnover because of incompetence, (2) It's the Texas AG's office which is prosecuting the case instead of the Johnson County DA's office. I don't know why and don't even know how they have jurisdiction, but there is a 99% chance that office will screw it up. 
  
  
  
• Ken Paxton's attempt to shield the public from PornHub is going to the Supreme Court.
  
  
  
• I came for the story, which turned out to have no facts, but got distracted by the lack of editing. 
  

  
  
  
• We have the first fall-out from the immunity decision.  Some of the evidence in that trial came from when Trump was President and that may now very well be inadmissible per the Supreme Court ruling. (Legally nerdy stuff: Error waived because of failing to object on immunity grounds?)
  

  

  
  
  
  
• I pointed out a story on Monday about overtime abuse by the Dallas Police Department. Now there's a story about overtime pay for the Dallas County Sheriff's office.
  
  
  
• The Big 12 Media Preseason Poll and All Big 12 Team was announced yesterday, and this guy was the first string running back.
  
  
  
• Messenger - Above the Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

The Dow closed at 39,511 yesterday.

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• Presidential Immunity? Let's see how the papers are handling it:

  

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• Hey, I am not even remotely smart enough to try and understand yesterday's ruling. And, quite frankly, no one is. Only time will tell. But it gets my attention when the dissent starts off like this. Trump got more than he asked for?:
  
  
  
• But for now, the very vague rules appear to be as follows:
• #1 There is absolute immunity for "core official acts" - but who knows what acts are "core."  
• And even if you can identify a "core" act, things get complicated. Certainly a "core act" is firing and removing department heads within the executive branch. But does the president have absolute immunity to fire them if the method he wants to use is, say, murder? You laugh, but Justice Jackson actually mentioned this is a dissenting footnote:
  
  
  
• #2 As far as "official acts" that aren't "core", there is a presumption that the acts are legal and absolute immunity will apply. This seems like a very, very big deal, and is what everyone is freaking out about. 
• What constitutes an "official act" that isn't "core"? That's the million dollar question. We didn't even get one example. 
• How does the prosecutor overcome that "presumption" of immunity? The court did answer that and it might be the most troubling thing of all: The prosecutor would, "at a minimum",  have to prove that criminalizing the act “would pose no dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” That seems impossible to meet. And if not met, any murky "official act", core or not, is immune from prosecution.
• #3 And the weirdest part is that a new evidence rule was invented.   Under the ruling, any evidence related to official actions for which Trump is immune cannot be used as evidence of another crime. I honestly have no idea how that works. 
• Sotomayor had an ending to her dissent to end all dissents: 
  
  
  
• Let's not forget that Justices Alito (who flies the American flag upside down) and Thomas (whose wife was a big player in the Insurrection) did not recuse themselves.
• Is everyone overreacting? The Speaker of the House told us all on Fox News last night to calm down. This did not calm us down: 
  
• For the life of me I don't understand the charge of murder. I want to see the indictment. Big prediction: There is absolutely no chance these guys get convicted of that.
  
  
  
  
• We had the equivalent of a Nazi rally outside the prison where Steve Bannon surrendered to yesterday.  And, yes, that Marjorie Taylor Greene by his side.
  
• The hurricane has gone from category 4 to a cat 5 with 165 mph winds.  I bet the cruise lines are having fits. 
  
  
  
• I saw this headline but found out the story is more interesting.  The State of Texas improperly collected sales tax from an unnamed major corporation and now certain cities, where the tax was originally collected, now have to give it back.  Lancaster got crushed when it was "smacked with a $30 million adjustment . . . .[t]hat wiped out its entire sales tax revenue share in February." (I don't know who the corporation is, and the state apparently doesn't have to tell us.)
  
• This national article correctly points out the rural conservative Republicans aren't pleased with the push for school vouchers. That will be the next war in the Texas legislature and Wise County just elected a state rep who is all-in for vouchers.
  
• Overshadowed by the presidential immunity case is that silly Texas social media case, involving a law which mandated what the private companies can post, got sent back down. This is from the official syllabus, but that's quite the smackdown of the 5th Circuit: 

• LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act sixty years ago today, and a great many people are still upset about it. 

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

I tracked down two indictments (CR17829 &CR17827) but found out that both were dismissed four years later.

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• The weekend was dominated by "Should Biden step aside or not," but that narrative is about to be buried in the American news cycle. We have the Trump "absolute immunity" opinion being issued this morning in the 9:00 o'clock hour, and next week he will be sentenced in the Stormy Daniels/Business Records case.
  
  
  
• The son paying for the sins of the father.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• There was a lot of cars driving badly into buildings on Friday. One in the metroplex, one in south Texas, and a bad one in Long Island. :
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• That's not overtime -- that's an abuse of power and funds. A patrol sergeant made over $300,000.
  
  
   
  
  
  
• Whenever you see that a grand jury "no-billed" a defendant, it normally means the D.A. told them to but every once in a while a grand jury will revolt and go against a D.A.'s recommendation to indict. But you can never really figure out what happened.
  
  
  
• We've got the earliest Category 4 Hurricane recorded in history. There had never been one recorded in June before.  And it's a big vacation disrupter because Jamacia is in its path first, and then it heads towards anywhere south of Cancun to all of Belize. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Not only is that a big sentence, the criminal courts move fast down there. That incident, which was pretty big news at the time, happened less than 14 months ago. 
  
   
  
  
  
• Trump quick hits:
• He's just casually suggesting that his enemies, even fellow Republicans, be tried by military tribunals. 
  
  
  
• Trump will be announcing a VP nominee in the next couple of weeks. It is absolutely mind-boggling to remember that he has to choose a new one because the old one refused to go along with his planned coup to overthrow the U.S. government. 
  
  
  
• The Business Second™:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the "Chevron doctrine" on Friday which means the rule-making power of federal agencies is about to be greatly curtailed. It, not Dobbs, is the golden goose that the Federalist Society, and its rich donors, has been gunning for all these years. That aside, Justice Gorsuch had a huge embarrassment that he had to scramble to fix after the opinion's release:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Evil Empire and OU join the SEC today. As a by-product, the Longhorn Network is officially gone. Its last day went exactly as expected:
  
  
  
• Extremely nerdy legal stuff:
• For criminal legal practitioners: Everyone thinks that the State can avoid having to release a felony defendant on a PR bond by indicting him within 90 days and thus avoiding the consequences or art 17.151.  But a new case says that if after that the state announces "not ready", that the PR requirements if 17.151 kick back in again. 
• If you are a civil practitioner, you might want to look at this thread about the ramifications for broad form jury submissions issued by the Texas Supreme Court on Friday. 
• A criminal trespass case out of the county court at law in Gainesville has made its way to the Supreme Court for consideration. Petition for Cert PDF here.