Beto is going to win.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who's planning an October fundraiser for Cruz at Washington's Capital Grille restaurant, said he had a simple directive to GOP givers.

"We're not bluffing, this is real, and it is a serious threat," Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said in an interview. "If Ted does his job and we do ours, I think we'll be fine. But if we have donors sitting on the sidelines thinking that, `Well, this isn't all that serious,' or `I don't need to be concerned,' then that's a problem."

According to an arrest warrant, Guyger told investigators that she went to what she thought was her third floor apartment. Instead, she went to Jean's fourth floor apartment directly above hers. Guyger says her door was "ajar" and saw a "large silhouette" inside. After giving "verbal commands that were ignored," she fired her handgun twice, striking Jean once in the torso. It wasn't until Guyger "turned on the...lights" and "called 911" that she realized she was "at the wrong apartment."

According to Jean's family lawyer, witnesses disagree...

"They heard knocking down the hallway followed by a woman's voice that they believe to be officer Guyger saying, 'Let me in. Let me in,'" attorney Lee Merritt said.

The family's attorneys say one of the witnesses then heard gunshots followed by a man's voice.

"What we believe to be the last words of Botham Jean which was 'Oh my god, why did you do that?'" Merritt said.

Kaepernick said that he is aware of what he is doing and that he knows it will not sit well with a lot of people, including the 49ers. He said that he did not inform the club or anyone affiliated with the team of his intentions to protest the national anthem.
"This is not something that I am going to run by anybody," he said. "I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed. ... If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right."

The national anthem is a special moment to me. It's a point of pride. That is a really important moment. But we also have to understand the other side, that people do have rights and we have to respect those. -- Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner

It's their individual right. We don't have a rulebook on what's right to protest and not protest. You don't know those things until the course of time. Whether it's sitting for the anthem, whether it's raising your fist, whether it's speaking out, whether it's a walk to Washington, who's to say whose protest is good or bad, you know? -- Todd Bowles, New York Jets head coach

[The NFL Players Association] will never back down when it comes to protecting the constitutional rights of our players as citizens as well as their safety as men who compete in a game that exposes them to great risks. -- DeMaurice Smith, NFLPA executive director

and finally, let's hear from Beto himself. His response was to a question, do you agree with me who is offended?

"My short answer is no, I don't think it's disrespectful," the El Paso Democrat replied. "Reasonable people can disagree on this issue -- let's begin there. And it makes them no less American for them to come down on a different conclusion."

He then invoked the nonviolent civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., noting that players started the protests to call attention to police brutality involving unarmed black men, women and children.

"So, nonviolently, peacefully, while the eyes of this country are watching these games, they take a knee to bring our attention and our focus to this problem to ensure that we fix it," O'Rourke said. "That is why they are doing it. And I can think of nothing more American than to peacefully stand up, or take a knee, for your rights, anytime, anywhere, in any place."

The highlighted quotes all show footballers and a politician who seem quite aware the protests are "offensive" to some.

Not one footballer or politician has the integrity to assert that protest can be offensive and they stand by the shocking nature of their protest because they feel the issue is important.

The issue for those that protest and their defenders is not about their free speech rights and whether they can use "offensive" actions to protest. Yours is but another form of distraction from what the players are actually protesting - use of unnecessary violence by law enforcement when interacting with black people.

I found myself irritated by all the 9/11 remembrances yesterday because it reminds me of all that America (and that sacred flag) has done in response to that attack...and most of it has been horrible. In less than 2 decades we have destroy much of what it took 200 years to create.

The US deficit grew by $222 billion from this time last year, reaching a total of $895 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  The increase, in largest measure, is due to the Republican tax cuts, primarily benefiting corporations/wealthy/elimination of inheritance taxes, and increased spending at the rate of 7 percent as compared to revenue growth of l percent.

 The deficit will approach $1 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019.  At the end of FY 2018 it is estimated that the gross US government debt will be $24.48 trillion.

Trump is considering tax cut 2.0, by bypassing Congress to provide to the wealthy a $100 billion cut in capital gains taxation. The deployment of regulatory power to cut capital gains by changing  the definition of cost is legally questionable, but the Secretary of the Treasury says he is looking into it.

Kidding Is Jim Carrey's Best Performance in More Than a Decade

Yiu can feel anything at all," Jim Carrey's Jeff Pickles sings in the opening scene of Kidding. He's transported an entire adult Conan audience (and a delightfully giddy Danny Trejo) instantly back to their childhoods with a puppet guitar and a song. His eyes are gentle, his smile soft and comforting and contagious. Even the camera man is grinning.

And over the next 30 minutes, Carrey's performance makes that sing-along statement immediately true--you can feel anything at all while watching Kidding. For me, that feeling was often distress. Not because the show is tragic (it is) or because it juxtaposes childhood innocence with the horrors of adulthood (it does) or because it makes you feel guilty for laughing (absolutely). It's because Carrey so wholly channels the man who inspired his character, Fred Rogers. His voice is soothing, his mannerisms slow and non-threatening. He's pure, in every sense of the word, like the Mr. Rogers who raised generations of PBS viewers. But, in the world of Kidding, Carrey's Jeff Pickles--host of Mr. Pickles' Puppet Time--is a good man in a broken world. He's also a broken man who's an icon of goodness.

The discovery of a black Labrador named Lucy led to the unraveling of a criminal case Monday against an Oregon man who had begun serving a 50-year prison sentence.

Joshua Horner, a plumber from the central Oregon town of Redmond, was convicted on April 12, 2017, of sexual abuse of a minor.

In addition to the sex abuse allegation, Horner was also accused of killing the minor's dog.  Finding the dog alive and well undermined the minor's credibility which led to the judge dismissing the case.

Norm Macdonald's appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" was hastily canceled Tuesday after the comedian stirred controversy with remarks about the #MeToo movement and the treatment of Louis C.K., Chris Hardwick and Roseanne in recent scandals...

...In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, Macdonald said he was "happy the #MeToo movement has slowed down a little bit." He further opined: "It used to be, `One hundred women can't be lying.' And then it became, `One woman can't lie.' And that became, `I believe all women.' And then you're like, `What?' Like, that Chris Hardwick guy I really thought got the blunt end of the stick there."

All of the episodes were biased against George Zimmerman but only the last one was completely anti GZ.  It talked about some of the police related incidents, auctions and other things he's been involved with after the trial but failed to mention the one where someone shot at him.  But then again, this wasn't a GZ documentary, it was one about Trayvon Martin and the people inspired by him.

One teenager died and at least two dozen people were injured.  They don't know what the cause was yet, but MA has a lot of old infrastructure.  This could be a user error or it could be a matter of small things going unaddressed for years, it's not yet known, although they had just started working on upgrading the lines yesterday shortly before this happened.

Link to article

Mandy makes it clear in its opening minutes of neon-drenched colors and unnerving score that it's not a movie for everyone. But if you can get on the wavelength that co-writer and director Panos Cosmatos is throwing out, then you'll want to hold on tight and enjoy the ride. The film is an unabashed phantasmagorical ride through an eye-popping hellscape that always embraces its heavy metal and dark fantasy influences. Movies like Mandy are rare, and yet for all of its surreal imagery and tonality, Cosmatos always plays fair with the audience and doesn't break the narrative spell despite the twisted realities where the story takes place. At its core, Mandy is a straightforward tale about love, loss, and revenge, but dressed up in the most trippy and mind-bending visuals it can find.

With Mandy, Cosmatos has taken a fairly simple story about love and loss and transformed it into something unforgettable. Mandy is a movie that will sear itself into your brain with its astounding visuals, twisted hellscape, gruesome violence, and yet there's a beating heart beneath all of it. Yes, there are wild Nicolas Cage hijinks, but there's much more happening with Mandy, and while you'll enjoy Cage's performance, you'll get lost in the marvelous movie that surrounds him.

Rating: A-

Not really a Cage fan but he is excellent here.  He has almost no dialog.

Amazing story

OUSTON, Texas -- Texas authorities charged a U.S. Border Patrol supervisor with murder following what they called a two-week serial killing spree that left four female sex workers dead and ended when a fifth woman escaped at a gas station and found help.

Juan David Ortiz, 35, an intel supervisor for the Border Patrol, was charged with four counts of murder as well as aggravated assault and unlawful restraint, Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz said in a tweet.

Ortiz was arrested after the fifth woman managed to flee. State troopers found Ortiz hiding in a truck in a hotel parking lot in Laredo at around 2 a.m. Saturday. The border city about 145 miles (235 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio

President Donald Trump's administration released a statement demanding the Department of Justice release all documents pertaining to the Russia Investigation.

"In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr," the statement reads.n Monday, President Donald Trump's administration released a statement demanding the Department of Justice release all documents pertaining to the Russia Investigation.

"In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr," the statement reads.

While Peter Donat certainly wasn't a marquee player or household name, it's also safe to say that most film and television productions simply wouldn't work without competent journeyman actors like him to fill critical supporting roles. Always in demand, posing no real threat to oft-inflated Hollywood egos, and perfectly content with his otherwise relative anonymity to movie and TV audiences, Donat did his job and did it very well.

"Miguel was the first of 11 high schoolers to go missing in a single Long Island county in 2016 and 2017, as the street gang MS-13 preyed with increasing brutality on the Latino community. As student after student disappeared, often lured out with the promise of smoking blunts in the woods, their immigrant families were stymied by the inaction and inadequate procedures of the Suffolk County police, according to more than 100 interviews and thousands of pages of police reports, court records and documents obtained through freedom-of-information requests.

"Many of the families came from countries where officials have historically looked the other way as gangs and death squads disappear young people. Now they felt the same pattern was playing out again, in the woods of Long Island. The officers they asked for help dismissed their children as runaways instead of crime victims, and they repeatedly failed to provide interpreters for witnesses and parents who only spoke Spanish. Their experience points to a larger breakdown between the Police Department and Latino immigrants. Too often, Suffolk detectives acknowledge, police have stereotyped young immigrants as gang members and minimized violence against them as 'misdemeanor murder.'"

"The Disappeared." For all the GOP right's huffery and puffery about MS-13, it's readily apparent that this criminal gang likely poses a much greater threat to the public safety and well being of our country's Latino immigrant communities, than it does to white people.

This marks the second time the Cook Political Report has moved the advantage in the Senate Texas race leftward in less than two months and is the latest indication that U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke has a legitimate chance of taking down GOP Sen. Ted Cruz this fall.

Probably being summoned to grovel

It not this really could be an interesting week.