Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 

• Wise County active cases: 25 (-1 from yesterday)
• Texas hospitalizations: -62 from yesterday.
  
  
  
• It's hard to keep up with, but there looks to be about a dozen Texas high school games canceled for Friday. The number of schools who have just up and canceled their entire season rose to 12 yesterday.
• Mask or no mask? It should be a no-brainer but it has become part of the culture war. Robert Redfeld, the director of the CDC, said it was an absolute must in front of Congress yesterday and then Trump reacted by saying he must have misunderstood the question because he was wrong. “As far as the mask is concerned, he made a mistake,” Trump said.
  
  
  
• I understand why Trump would lie about a vaccine being developed in two months, but why does he take this stand on masks? What's in it for him?
• Trump for some odd reason said (incorrectly, no less) that the number of COVID deaths in the U.S. wouldn't be that bad if you subtracted the blue states: "If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at."  Look what someone dug up the The Atlantic from last May which now seems hauntingly true. 
  
  
  
• I'm not sure how Gov. Abbott will reduce the COVID restrictions today in his noon press conference, but he will. The far-right in the state has been killing him. 
• AG Bill Barr last night:  “You know, putting a national lock down, stay at home orders, is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.” Good lord. 1. Slavery. 1A. Stay at home orders.
  
  
  
• I don't want to be a jerk here, but my reaction to this story is "So?!"  He's just a city judge (there are 1,278 of them in Texas) and 10 years isn't a long time. 
  
  
  
• Aric Maxwell Wrongful Arrest and Prosecution Update:
• I've now got a rough copy of the longer version of the CBS11 segment which I've put on youtube. You even get to see the Liberally Lean Headquarters.
  
  
  
• Thanks so much to those yesterday who wanted to engage me about the facts of the case.
• Everyone asks "What's this 'other evidence' against Aric the Sheriff keeps talking about?" That's a great question. There are no witnesses, there is no confession, there's no physical evidence,  and Lauren Whitener's blood and/or DNA was not found in Aric's house nor was Aric's DNA found on the removed smoke detectors/batteries from the victim's home. 
• Many people seem to think the "other evidence" is blood being found on lighter fluid in Aric's home. Nope. That's not true. But they believe it because a of a falsehood in the affidavit used to obtain the arrest warrant.The following sworn statement from the affidavit is 100% not true (it was contradicted by the sheriff's office official report in the case which said the test was negative):
  
  
  
• As always, there's more! A swab was collected from the floor by the lighter fluid, where a small particle of DNA was detected. It could have been from anything -- sweat, saliva, skin, or blood. However, Lauren Whitener was absolutely excluded by the lab as a donor to that DNA. This was memorialized in a lab report dated July 25, 2019 -- a date which is two weeks before Aric's arrest warrant was obtained. That critical fact was not mentioned in the affidavit to get the warrant. Instead, the above false statement was included to give the wrongful impression that Lauren's blood was found on the lighter fluid.
• See why I'm so mad about all this?! Again, my full press release is here. 
• Big Tex is now a dirty lib. He's wearing a mask . . . 

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

 

• Wise County active cases: 26 (+14 from yesterday. Say what?) The Update is reporting that Decatur, Paradise, Chico and Slidell schools now have confirmed cases. Oh, my!
• Texas hospitalizations: 3,311 (-14)
  
  
  
• Big news in not-so-far-away schools. Keller Fossil Ridge has shut everything down and going exclusively to remote learning after there were over a dozen COVID confirmed cases. 
• Does all football, from high school to college, just implode over the next three weeks?
  
  
  
• Breaking seconds ago: The Big 10 is coming back beginning October 24th. What a mess. Edit: this update . . . 
  
  
  
• Who thought it would be a good idea for Trump to do a town-hall last night on ABC with George Stephanopoulos? He doesn't do well outside the humble confines of Fox News or OANN. George stepped in when he started lying to a lady about wanting to keep protection for pre-existing conditions when he's at the Supreme Court right now trying to kill Obamacare's provision doing just that with no plan in place to fix it once it is gone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• This has a disturbing historical ring to it: Female immigrants being held in one specific detention center (Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia) are receiving possible unnecessary hysterectomies from one specific doctor (gynecologist Mahendra Amin.)  Yeah, in the United States.
  
  
  
• The Tarrant County Sheriff is killing people because he doesn't know how to run a jail: Yesterday the Star-Telegram reported that the ninth inmate died this year over the weekend.
• Someone needs to check on Kanye this morning.
  
  
  
• Aric Maxwell DNA Fiasco notes/updates: 
• I'm really confused about how CBS11 handled their television package. There was a longer version of it that aired (including a very stylish shot of me walking into my office past my Tank Man/Tiananmen Square print, but it is nowhere to be found on their website.) Why? Is web server storage space in short supply or something? They've now got a print story up about the whole case, but still no extended video. I don't get it.
• But after I wrote yesterday about how I paid careful attention to what would appear in the background of my shot with the CBS11 camera, many faithful readers sent in screenshots of another backgrounds of the other participants.  Trust me, these guys know their constituents. (And I've always thought Lowery's T-shirt was funny. Not sure I'd put it on camera, but it is funny.)

Ronald Reagan T-Shirt caption: "I smell hippies"

• Boyd's own Kelsey Pierce is a producer at CBS11.
• Funny moment as I sat down with the CBS11 crew before they put the mic on me: I pulled down the back of my jacket and sat on it. The cameraman noticed and smiled. I looked at him and said, "I learned that from William Hurt in Broadcast News."  He laughed and said, "It really does work." 
• In all seriousness, I've got a small window to publicize this whole fiasco. In case you missed it, my press release is here. Youtube links and a ton of other links are in the end notes. 
• I've talked to the Dateline producer again, and please note it is them calling me. They will do a story on it. And I've got an extended family member who is a Dateline fanboy who says it might get two hours. Even apart from the massive arrest/DNA exoneration screw-up, the underlying facts of the case are insanely fascinating. It could be a best selling book or movie. And I might beg Skip Hollandsworth of Texas Monthly to take an interest in it. 
• Beside the unknown killer, no one -- and I mean no one -- knows more about this case than I do. I dedicated the entire last year of my life to learning every tiny detail about it. And I'll talk to anyone about it. 
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

 

• Wise County active cases: 12. Decatur had a high school kid test positive. 
• Texas Hospitalizations: (+6)
  
  
  
• This is pretty wild. (And it might explain how Houston Baptist almost beat them last weekend.)
  
  
  
• Aric Maxwell Fiasco news coverage: Channel 11/CBS led with a story last night by reporter Jason Allen about it.  Our Sheriff, D.A., and I all made appearances. Two of three didn't sound crazy. I can't find it on the station's website despite it being the lead story. Edit: Got it. (Thanks to a faithful reader.)
• If you ever see the clip, you'll notice a book intentionally placed behind me on my bookshelf. It is Who Killed These Girls? by Beverly Lowry about the Austin Yogurt Shop murders. I bought it right after I was court appointed to help Aric because I thought it would help me. I even teased it back then in a bullet point (see below). See some parallels between the Aric Maxwell case and the Yogurt Shop murders? I could feel it all coming back then. 
  
  
  
• This is my favorite paragraph from Who Killed These Girls?  Both of the investigators, Huck and Jones, were eventually removed from the case when they didn't make a quick arrest. Their replacements did just that and the case turned into a disaster.  Huck and Jones are what you would call, "good police."
  
  
  
• Bad deputy. (Allegedly).
  
  
  
• So offensive you had to watch the whole thing, huh? 
  
  
  
• I'm sure this story checks out. (Very random side note: I've never understood people who go to the trouble of putting on a suit and then allow their tie and collar area to look like a train wreck.) 
  
  
  
  
• Tiger King's Carol Baskin was on Dancing with the Stars but the family of her dead ex-husband bought air time to run this commercial in Tampa and Jacksonville. (It wasn't a national commercial.) 
  
  
  
• This weekend I was up on the roof trying to adjust a high def antenna as I communicated with Mrs. LL via phone who was watching the TV inside to advise about the picture quality. The key is to lock onto a station where there is no digitization in the picture. Me: "Can you get Fox?" Mrs. LL: "Yeah, but it's cutting out a little bit." Me: "Ugh. What about NBC?" Mrs. LL: "Yeah! There's a soccer game on." Me: "How is it?" Mrs. LL: "I don't know but there aren't many people in the stands."  (It was literally like the scene out of Green Acres where Mr. Douglas asked: "How's the picture?" and Eb answered, "It's pretty good but I've seen this one before." )
• This one made me really stop down. Trump lap dog Lindsey Graham demanded his opponent release his tax returns (sounds familiar) and decided the best place to make that demand was, for some reason, a gun shop.  The South is gonna South. 
  
  
  
• BagOfNothing saw the CBS11 piece on the Aric Maxwell fiasco and noticed I would look away from the interviewer and glance at the camera from time to time. That was intentional on my part because that's what I see people do who are accustomed to being interviewed. You know, a "let the audience know you know they are there" kind of thing.  But he noticed it so now I think I didn't pull it off quite like I thought I did. 

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

 

• Wise County active cases: 18 (with no update since Thursday.)
• Texas hospitalizations. My "flattening out" prediction between 4,000 and 6,000 has officially failed.
  
  
  
• Yes, we will return to "It's Friday - Let's Get Out of Here" on, well, Friday. The Aric Maxwell case has understandably been a whirlwind which caused me to miss it last week. Speaking of, I've got more on that at the bottom of this since our Sheriff seems to have lost his mind. 
• Two Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputies were ambushed and shot and it was caught on video. Both will survive. It's horrible. It's disgusting. But how that turned into a political issue is amazing. The shooter is an evil guy and needs to be prosecuted and incarcerated. There are bad guys among us. And there were four or five unbelievable jerks who showed up at the hospital to taunt cops which was also caught on tape. We will always have the fringe nut cases who will do stuff like that (i.e. see Westboro Baptist Church.) And , no, it wasn't a mass crowd of BLM supporters at the hospital.
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• Trump was out there promoting voter fraud on Twitter, Twitter called him on it, but decided to let the tweet remain so you could know he's promoting voter fraud. 
  
  
  
• I don't think that extra-judicial executions by federal agents based upon "retribution" is the way the criminal justice system works and it especially is not "the way it has to be."
  
  
  
• "Masks are required."
  
  
  
• Like these responsible young men:
  
  
  
• I think I could pull of Cam Newton's look from yesterday. 
  
  
  
• Dallas went 3 of 12 on third downs last night. There's your ballgame. But they had their moments.  Here's one for those of you who were boycotting the NFL last night (but not engaging in "cancel culture") and didn't get to see it. 
  
  
  
• Now to the Aric Maxwell case. Out Sheriff pissed me off even more: 
• Mitch Mitchell of the Star-Telegram had a very good story about the dismissal of capital murder charges which focused on how outrageous all of this is. 
• To quickly bring those up to date: Aric Maxwell was arrested by the Wise County Sheriff's Office for capital murder on a non-existent circumstantial case. He was indicted for murdering Lauren Whitener while sexual assaulting her. But when the sperm cell DNA analysis came back, it cleared Aric. (The wild part of the story is that the Wise County Sheriff's Office had that DNA report since September of last year but didn't know how to read the report.) Full press release here.
• With that in mind, this quote from Wise County Sheriff to the Star-Telegram story is flat-out delusional. It makes me seriously wonder if he needs to step down. 
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• He's out of his mind. His own private expert -- who taxpayers have payed thousands of dollars to -- says the sperm cells were left during a time frame the corresponds exactly to the time of the murder -- the early morning hours of July 5, 2019.
• So during that time frame, sperm cells were left, the Sheriff doesn't know who left them, yet he doesn't consider that person to be a suspect?!  Are you kidding me? 
• As one of the avalanche of emails I received this weekend said: "Have you even noticed how in every documentary on Netflix or HBO where someone is cleared by DNA that the cops and prosecutors never admit they were wrong?"  That's exactly what is going on here. A Texas Sheriff refusing to admit he botched a case, arrested the wrong guy, and a killer is on the streets. 
• What could he possibly think happened? That some guy just casually came over in the middle of the night to have consensual sex - a guy who Lauren had never texted and never contacted on social media? A guy who has just stayed in the shadows all this time? Every conceivable partner, no matter how far fetched, has given their DNA sample in this case and all have been cleared. Their DNA did not match the mysterious sperm cell DNA. 
• So if you left the sperm cells and killed Lauren, don't worry. The Sheriff has your back. He doesn't believe you were "involved." 
• And you know what's worse? Sheriff Lane Akin, because of this fiasco, has created the perfect alibi for the killer: Say they accidentally find out who killed and sexually assaulted her and left the sperm cells. You know what the killer now says? "Yeah, it was consensual sex. And then I left. And, by the way, when I left her duplex in the middle of the night, I think I saw Aric Maxwell standing on his porch looking at me! I think I even saw a knife in his hands!" And you know who his first witness is: Lane Akin. Because Lane is promoting that theory in order to save his own ass. 
• Did I mention I got even madder of the weekend?
• You want to see how much the Sheriff's Office jumped to conclusions in this case? They brought in Texas Ranger James Holland to grill Aric for over nine total hours less than a week after the killing.  And you know what Aric told him? The DNA evidence would clear him. Watch some of the excerpts here. 

  

  
  

• "The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned." - From an email to me sent by a total stranger on Friday. Thanks to all of you who reached out to me this weekend. 

Random Friday Morning Thoughts - Special Edition

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n9VddIkptVc" width="459"></iframe>

Link to video if it doesn't work. (And it should appear below this post as well.)

• I'm doing things a little different today because I'm angry. 
• But first for what I am not angry about: For over a year, I have represented Aric Maxwell on charges of Capital Murder. Yesterday, all charges against him were dropped because a DNA report exonerated him. 
• My full press release about the case is here. If you care about Wise County, read every word. The background on what has happened is insane. 
• I'll admit to going full throttle in that press release, but what I read yesterday after the dismissals were signed is what has put me even further over the edge this morning.
• Yesterday I read in horror the comments of Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin in the Wise County Messenger where, despite the D.A.'s office taking the unprecedented action of dismissing a capital murder case, he refused to acknowledge the travesty of justice he and his office had committed. He said: “We’re not saying this clears Maxwell. It still doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. It means there’s another person of interest, and we need to find out who that person is.” Edit: The comments may have been made by the D.A. which Akin acquiesced in. Akin, like the D.A., implied it was a consensual encounter. (This was a joint effort by them to get in front of the story on Wednesday when they met with a Messenger reporter before the formal dismissals.)
• I'm livid. 
• There is a DNA report exonerating Aric. He was indicted on the charge of murdering her while sexual assaulting her. The DNA was unquestionably left at the time of the murder. It is the kind of bombshell evidence you see all the time which allows people wrongfully imprisoned for years to go free. And what's worse, the Sheriff's Office had that DNA report since last September but didn't know how to read it. 
• His office screwed up this investigation, they didn't know how to read a DNA report, and when people tried to explain it to them, they still didn't understand.  And while the Sheriff was  slapping himself on the back after the wrongful arrest, a killer slipped through his fingers. A killer that, based upon his comments, he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in now finding. 
• You want to know what a cluster this is? His office arrested Aric without even waiting for the results of the DNA report on the sperm cells! And, coincidentally, the Sheriff just happened to announce his re-election campaign on the same week that Aric was arrested. 
• Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin's malfeasance is going to cost Wise County an untold amount of money for what he has done to Aric. And his continued assertions that Aric might be guilty are only going to cause Wise County to add extra zeros to the check they are going to write. The Wise County Commissioners and their legal advisors would be wise to protect the taxpayers from further damage by our Sheriff by telling him to stop talking. He's done enough harm. And after that, they might want to tell him to find the killer of Lauren Whitener. 
• Yep, I'm angry. 
• As for the video, here's what you are seeing. The first part is Aric's last interview with a Texas Ranger at the DPS office in Decatur. The Sheriff's Office already had the arrest warrant in hand. They could have simply and easily arrested him in the DPS office, and he would have certainly cooperated. Instead, they allowed him to get into a truck with his elderly father and ambush him just feet away from that DPS office. When you see Aric walk through the jail door at the end, he would not exit for almost six months. 

 

The Wrongful Arrest and Prosecution of Aric Maxwell

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 

• Wise County active cases: 14 (Alternative headline: "Wise County reports 75% Increase In Cases in 24 Hours!")
• Texas hospitalizations: -97.
  
  
  
• The Alvord Bulldogs game was cancelled early yesterday and then Chico High soon followed. Unless I'm wrong, the largest schools in the state just started practicing. Get ready for a wave of cancellations from them in the next two to three weeks. And if that happens, the UIL will shut the whole thing down. 
• It's stuff like this that freaks people out. 
  
  
  
• I've learned that a Wise County Sheriff's deputy was reportedly fired after getting into a over the top verbal confrontation with an agent from the Census Bureau who came to his house. This wasn't just a census "worker" but a census "official." The official was not to pleased with the incident and reported it. 
• So Trump knew that the Coronavirus was incredibly lethal in February but he intentionally downplayed it because he "didn't want to panic" us?  He thrives on panicking his base. Imaginary caravans coming to the border. MS-13 waiting outside your door. The black man (gasp) coming to the suburbs (gasp). 
  
  
  
• Flashback for Liberally Lean old-timers: Back in the wild west days when there used to be comments on here, didn't we have a big player on here named "Rage?" Do I have that name right? I never knew who he was, but he and WordKyle would get into the massive wars. I miss those days. And I don't. 
• This really is amazing: On the exact same day that Trump was freely admitting to Woodward that he was downplaying the COVID virus despite knowing it was deadly, Joe Biden was pointing out the New York Times story that Trump had been, uh, downplaying the virus and misleading the public.
  
  
  
• Some wonder why Trump would be dumb enough to be recorded for hours with Bob Woodward. Fox News, instead of relying on Occam's razor,  has decided to blame Lindsey Graham for "brokering the deal."  But I guess since they can't blame "anonymous sources" that someone has to be sacrificed at the Trump Alter. 
  
  
  
• Meanwhile, let's check in on Lou Dobbs audition tape last night for North Korean State TV.
  
  
  
  
• I don't care about baseball but look at this real score from last night: 
  
• Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit was released on this day 29 years ago. Some say that began the transition of alternative radio stations from new wave to grunge, and that was certainly true for DFW radio. Look at the playlist for The Edge back then. I loved the new wave stuff. And The Edge's playlist was littered with a wonderland of bands you had never heard of. (Side note: I can't figure out the three columns on the right. They can't be popularity ranking nor can they be "weeks released.")
  
  
  
• Just for fun, here's a 1989 clip of Deion Sanders returning a punt return for a touchdown when with the Atlanta Falcons. 
  
  
  
• Great photo: