5.23.2025

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




After one of the wettest Mays ever, Lake Bridgeport went from a shocking 23 feet low to full in just a matter of days. And it continued to rise past 836 feet, the conservation level, by week's end.

  • Kudos on the Wise County Messenger for calling out Rep. Andy Hopper in an opinion piece this week for ineptly handling the only piece of legislation that directly impacted Wise County - the creation of a Wise County water district.

  • The leader of the "small government" Republican Party continues to lose his mind. Now Trump wants to put "tariffs" on a single private American company.  From this morning:  


  • That's 27% of the private university's student body. And this is 100% authoritarian crap. 

  • This is weird. And scary. A guy shows up for immigration court in court in Dallas for possible deportation. (You know, trying to follow the law.)  Once there, the United States dismisses its case in open court, and then judge kicks him out of the public courtroom into the waiting arms of ICE agents who disappear with him.


    • And that exact same thing appears to have happened all across the country yesterday. Thread of related stories here. 
      Those aren't immigrants. Those are the ICE agents.

    • Edit at Friday at 10:30:  Ten people were rounded up by ICE in the same way this morning in Dallas per a Dallas Morning News reporter. (Photos.)
  • Follow-up to Trump's ambush of the the president of South Africa with claims of "genocide." Facts don't matter. Truth doesn't matter. Character doesn't matter.


  • Trump held a private dinner last night at his nearby golf course for the top 220 purchasers of his "$TRUMP coin.'  Corruption in plain site.


  • He's not leaving.
     

  • Look at all the stories above this bullet point. This is authoritarianism.  It's happening right before our eyes. It's over. 
  • Did Jared take this picture?

  • The sometimes topless District Attorney in West Texas sure has some hot opinions.  (She also dismissed a weed/THC case yesterday and publicized it.)

  • Lauren Whitener Clock: 5 years and 325 days.

at 8:30 AM

5.22.2025

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




As the dust cleared on the Waco Twin Peaks Biker Shoot Out, news that they were holding all of those guys at a $1 million bond each was my first clue that the Waco justice system had no idea what it was doing. 

  • The House budget vote was taken around 6:00 a.m. this morning, and it passed 215-214. What Trump wants, Trump gets. Side note: Remember that a Democratic House member died yesterday?



  • In Texas, the House voted late last night to ban any amount of THC, 86-53.  The current law allows THC with a concentration of less than 3% and Delta-8.  Wise County Rep. Andy Hopper voted for the ban. 

  • Horrible news last night out of D.C.

     

    • Video of shooter immediately afterwards.  There's no question his motive is what has happened in Gaza. 

  • The South African president was ambushed in the Oval Office and shown a video depicting "mass graves" while Trump denounced the "genocide of white farmers" in South Africa -- neither of which exists. 


  • We live in a time where we don't know if a foreign leader is joking or feels comfortable bribing the President of the United States in broad daylight. Video.

  • Speaking of. 


  • It's a new day.  By the way, the five year anniversary of the death of George Floyd is Sunday.


  • No more transcripts on the White House web site. 

  • Why is Bill Clinton catching strays for this?


  • The Business Second™. "On Wednesday, Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said the company was paying $6.5 billion to buy IO, a one-year-old start-up created by Jony Ive, a former top Apple executive who designed the iPhone." The plan is to create "AI devices" which haven't been conceptualized yet, but which will go far beyond a cell phone. It's like the opening scene of a Black Mirror episode.


  • That looks like a hard 65.


  • Messenger - Above the Fold

at 8:30 AM

5.21.2025

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




And 10 years later, Jim Goldstein is still doing it. 

  • Legislature wars: The Texas House is holding the bill banning THC hostage until the Senate moves on the education budget bill which includes raises for teachers - a bill which Dan Patrick has been slow walking in that chamber.

  • We have the official launch of a campaign for judge of the 271st District Court for Wise and Jack Counties. (The term of the current judge,  Brock Smith, who can't run again, runs though the end of 2026.)

  • Kind of wonky: With three members of the school board losing in the last election and scheduled to leave office in a week, the board hurriedly meets and votes to give the superintendent a contract extension with a salary of around $365,000,

  • From the P Diddy trial: That's creative. 

  • The amount of the settlement was learned by the USA Today examining Liberty's tax records. 


  • This was incredible yesterday. "Noem: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country." And, man, she said it so confidently. Video.


  • She's crazy, but she really didn't follow through with this.



  • So after having Trump's Justice Department dismissing a criminal charge against the New York mayor, Eric Adams, they are now opening a criminal investigation into Adams' upcoming opponent in his re-election campaign, Mario Cuomo. 


  • We're doomed. 
    • Two major newspapers over the weekend published a special section for summer books that was not only written by AI but also listed fake books:


    • Google unveiled yesterday that its AI can make movies better than real life.

  • After the headlines that Musk was taking a step back, he's now back in. 

  • We are a strange state.

  • From the new DA in far, far West Texas: 

  • Legal/Political nerdy stuff: If you want to see how bad Judge James Ho on the Fifth Circuit wants to appease Trump in hopes of getting a Supreme Court nomination, look at this short concurrence he wrote from yesterday.
  • Dear Wise County Sheriff's Office: Your PDF of the jail roster is still not updating. 
  • A sitting Democratic congressman passed away overnight,  Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.  The last eight congressman to die while in office have been Democrats. 

at 8:30 AM
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