Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

I think it was a cacomistle.

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• This is bad. Very bad.  
  
   
  
  
  
• Trump imposed the greatest peace time tax in American history yesterday by assessing outrageous tariffs on imports from basically every country on earth.  He's a madman. And Congress, which has the constitutional power to impose tariffs, could change all this today. But they won't. 
  
  
  
• Here's one of the charts of what tariffs the other countries impose on the U.S. and what Trump will impose "on them" as a consequence.  ("We will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us because we are being very kind,” he said.) If those numbers in the middle column seem wrong and incredibly high, you're right because . . . 
  
  
  
• . . . this is what he did to come up with the middle column numbers.  It's comical. We're doomed. 
  
  
  
• And even though there are no tariff's imposed on Russia, North Korea or Belarus, Trump did impose a 10% tariff on the Heard and McDonald Islands which have no one living on them except penguins. 
  
  
  
• Trump had this guy speak at the tariff announcement who basically just said he loved Trump. Trump just stood by and nodded. Kim Jong Un would be pleased with this staged praise. 
  
  
  
• Great moment from the event yesterday in the Rose Garden. Video. 
  
  
  
• Oh my gawd.  Trump's very bad personal lawyer, Alina Habba, who he named as Interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, immediately played cosplay cop and brought along the New York Post.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Oligarchy update:  
• Zuckerberg joins Amazon's Jeff Bezos in having a mansion in D.C. to be closer to the center of government.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• And Jeff Bezos wants to buy TikTok -- which faces a deadline to be banned again on April 5th.
  
  
  
• Elon Musk is suggesting that the Wisconsin Supreme Court race was stolen, and he is using Alex Jones as his source.  Yep, we're doomed.
  
  
  
• Oh, my.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Legal nerdy stuff for criminal practitioners: State rep Jeff Leach's HB 1762 would eliminate the option for deferred adjudication and straight probation for plea bargains and even trials if the defendant is an illegal alien. Incarceration would be the only option for all crimes. The bill was heard in committee yesterday. 
• Messenger - Above the Fold

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

Argyle ISD would release a video of multiple angles of the building's collapse. And five days after this accident, another worker would be killed at the work site. 

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• Celebrity death overnight:
  
  
  
• The Star-Telegram has a new long article about sewage in Runaway Bay still running into Lake Bridgeport.  I bet this ends up as the full page cover story in the Sunday in print edition. 
  
  
  
• Elon Must spent $26 million of his own money on a Wisconsin court race, attended a rally there where he jumped around in a cheesehead hat, and gave out $1 million checks. Results: His candidate got crushed last night.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  The Wisconsin election "might decide the future of America
  and Western Civilization." - Elon Musk three days ago.

  
  
• Wise County's state rep thinks it is a good idea to ship certain Texas inmates to that El Salvador prison. 
  
  
  
• Wise County's state rep also isn't familiar with basic provisions of the Texas Constitution. 
  
  
  
• Great moment in Congress yesterday. Video.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Authoritarianism in America update:
• After the Trump administration acknowledged they had sent the wrong guy to the El Salvador prison, its response was "We don't care -- he was probably a bad guy anyway." And they once again are ignoring court orders. It's over.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Another big law firm bowed the knee yesterday. But this time it was one that employs Doug Emhoff, former Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband. 
  
  
  
• The effort to take over the conduct of private universities continues.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I don't often tell you to watch videos of the Texas House floor, but the Look-At-Me representative and the House Speaker really got into it yesterday. Video.
  
  
  
• Big wreck on I-35 by Argyle yesterday afternoon. 
  
• It's "Liberation Day" where we will get hit with a ton of new tariffs, and gas has shot up to $3.09 overnight. So much winning. 

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

The end result was a little artistic in its own right. 

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• And to think Zelensky was disparaged for not wearing a suit in the Oval Office. (But there was a funny line by Fox News Steve Doocy, who was in the room, told them both that Kid Rock is dressed like he is about to be shot out of cannon.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It's so Idiocracy. Seriously, here a still shot of the president in the movie Idiocracy.
  
  
  
  
• Elon and his fourth Baby Mama are fighting online. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Big tariffs kick in tomorrow. The fact that Fox News is using a question mark tells you a lot. 
  
  
  
• As a testament to how weird politics has become in America, today we have Elon Musk vs. The Democrats in a state supreme court election in Wisconsin. 
  
  
  
• Pete Delkus is tricking up his weather forecasts by adding "WFAA Weather Alert Days" and placing them in red.  That's unnecessary and silly. 
  
  
  
• Scenes from the legislature
• This is the same guy who forced the House to go home for lack of a quorum on Friday and Saturday. He's got a lot of "look at me" in him. 
  
  
  
• If Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson  are going to be at the witness table in a committee hearing, you just knew that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick would position himself behind them so he would be seen on camera. 
  
  
  
• The Business Second™. Hooters has fallen. But not gone.
  
   
  
  
  
• Sports: Micah Parson might hold out for off season work outs and training camp, but he will never hold out for the entire season.  Just look at how much he is scheduled to make this season on his "option year." Compared to what he has been being paid, he's not walking away form $24 million. Years one through five: 
  
  
  
• A video of a brutal fight (more like a beating) at a junior high in Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD went viral not only for its ugliness but also because an adult, presumably a teacher, not putting his coffee down while trying to break it up.