Billy Donovan is a top candidate for the OKC Thunder job. Very nervous bout this.

You can talk about actual things that actually matter here.

Open Thread.

Update: This may be the best season yet. (I won't give the plot details about characters for a few days to give people a chance to watch it.) Some non-spoiler details: Season three begins 4 years after season 2 ended so everyone's lives have changed. There's a more valuable commodity than cocaine -- uranium in Venezuela. As with last season, there are Venezuelan generals working with FARC in the Colombian jungle at the cocaine labs (which produce coke for the Mexican drug lords.) What's new is that the Iranians have entered the picture and are making deals with all of them to get their hands on Venezuelan uranium. The uranium is to be transported to Mexico and then the U.S. The CIA now wants to take control of Aurelio from the DEA because now it's a matter of national security.[More...]

The Government gave its opening statement today in the death penalty trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Live updates are here. At the end of her opening, the prosecutor giving the opening displayed a screengrab of a security camera video of Tsarnaev in his cell raising his middle finger to the camera. It hasn't been admitted into evidence, so there isn't a copy, but the media reports it was taken a year ago and shows his face was scarred and he was very angry.

The defense deferred their opening until the start of their case. Several witnesses testified as to their injuries in graphic detail. Victim impact testimony in these cases is always horrific. Over defense objection, the judge admitted a video of one victim on the ground, with constant blood curdling screams. [More...]

For those of you who do not like to read my posts, here is an Open Thread for your comments.

Hillary Clinton will be the Dem nominee for President. Now Martin O'Malley or Jim Webb may not agree, but, will, she is.

That said, if Webb or O'Malley want to make a splash, there is 1 issue that might work - opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP.) I'm not going to pretend I have a substantive opinion on it, have not seen the terms (I'm generally pro free trade), but I recognize the political potency.

Greg Sargent's interview with Labor Secretary Thomas Perez highlights the difficulty of arguing for trade agreements:

Haven't read book attacking Clintons. But if, as reported, it charges that Obama Admin moved Colombia FTA to reward CGI donor, that's nuts!

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) April 20, 2015

So now the NYTimes is openly in the business of doing steno for the GOP. Just awful:

The Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have exclusive agreements with the author to pursue the story lines found in the book ["Clinton Cash."

Who cares if the author writes for Breitbart and worked for George W Bush? It's hit piece on Hillary Clinton! Does anyone at these news organization care about ethics anymore?

And the awfulness is patent even in this prelude piece. Consider this:

CNN Poll:

Marco Rubio fares best against the former first lady, trailing Clinton by 14 points, 55% to 41%. Bush trails Clinton by 17 points, 56% to 39%. Christie and Paul fall 19 points behind Clinton, each putting up 39% to Clinton's 58%. Huckabee, Walker, Carson and Cruz each trail Clinton by more than 20 points.

eGhazi!!!

In a fairly confusing 29 minute video (I'm not providing the link), ISIS militants in Libya executed several Ethiopian Coptic Christians. Here's Reuter's article on the killings.

Why is it confusing? There appear to be two sets of killings, one at a beach and one in an un-scenic field. The beach killings are similar to those a few months ago of Egyptian Coptic Christians. At first I thought it was a flashback, but the killers are wearing different clothes, and the victims are different. There's no indication of when the men in the field or the second beach group were killed.

The White House has issued this statement.

The leader in this video is the same American sounding English speaker in the Egyptian Coptic video. [More...]

Welcome to Colorado. CNN's new series High Profits airs its first episode tonight. It's about the burgeoning marijuana industry, and tonight's episode is in Colorado.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, for which Timothy McVeigh was executed in June, 2001.

On April 19, 1995, President Clinton said during his first national address [More...]

On Twitter, ISIS is claiming credit for the car bomb attack today outside the U.S. embassy in Erbil. They say it was done by fighters in their Kirkuk division.

According to McClatchy:

A Kurdish security official told McClatchy that three attackers approached a checkpoint near the consulate in an SUV apparently with the intention of attacking it on foot to make room for a suicide bomber, who was either on foot or in the car. They were spotted by peshmerga security forces stationed outside the consulate, who opened fire. The security official said the three attackers were killed, though whether they were killed by gunshots or detonated explosives was unclear.

More photos here. [More...]

I'm still busy with work stuff. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.