Busy day. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

One year ago today George Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second degree murder for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Today, Zimmerman's brother posted a letter to the public from his mother on his Twitter feed. You can read it here.

The 5th District Court of Appeals has ordered the state to file a response to Zimmerman's petition for writ of cert to overturn the trial court judge's refusal to allow the defense to depose Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump. The response is due April 28. It also granted the defense 10 days to file a reply to the state's response.

The case against Zimmerman began with this affidavit for his arrest. As many, including me, said at the time: Affidavit: Fail. [More...]

Gun control legislation is on the agenda for the Senate tomorrow. Here's an opposing view from a 15 year old.

Today President Obama released his 2014 proposed budget for the Department of Justice. It's very disappointing. It includes:

• $8.6 billion, a 4.3 percent increase over the 2012 enacted level, for Federal prisons and detention facilities. These funds are provided to continue activation of newly completed or acquired prisons, and to provide additional
  contract beds to address growth by alleviating
  crowding in low security facilities and systemwide.

Translation: We're spending to build new prisons and give more money to private prisons, but when it comes to reducing prison time for non-violent offenders, that remains, according to the budget, "an option to be explored."

• $2.6 billion for drug enforcement and organized crime targeting programs. This funding includes an increase of $3 million for the International Organized Crime Center to help further implement strategies to combat major drug trafficking organizations and transnational organized crime syndicates.

[More...]

Saeed al-Shehri (also spelled al-Shihri) the second in command of AQAP in Yemen is not dead. He released a tape today critical of Saudi Arabia. This is the third time he's been declared dead and later surfaced, alive and well. (The first time was in 2009 and the second time was in 2012.) The former Guantanamo detainee, refugee from the Saudi reconciliation program, and co-founder of AQAP, seems to have as many lives as Ilyas Kashmiri.

What I really want to know is what happened to young Yousef, al-Shehri's stepson, whose father has been trying to find him since 2009. It reads like a soap opera, kind of like a terrorist version of Elian Gonzales. [More....]

The ACLU sent an FOIA request to the IRS to determine if it has changed its policy (in effect as late as 2009) about reading emails. The IRS believed that a warrant wasn't necessary.

Based on the response to its request, and reading between the lines, the ACLU is not convinced the IRS has changed its position. [More...]

Setting aside the policy implications of Chained CPI, what the President and his men have discovered today is that there is still a lot of juice in the Third Rail. There are protests against characterizations of President Obama's budget proposal as a "fumble." The protest is 'these are smart people. They know what they are doing." I think this misunderstands the "fumble" description.

I'm not someone who thinks President Obama made this proposal knowing it would be rejected out of hand. I think he thought he could get to a Grand Bargain from this proposal, picking up a little support from the GOP and a lot of support from The Media and these combined would let him muscle this through the Democratic caucuses.

More . . .

Last 2 spots in in Champions League semis filled today. I like Barcelona -1½ over Paris Saint-Germain (5 units) (and to advance to the semis) and Juventus -½ (+190) over Bayern Munich (Bayern to advance to the semis). (I have Dortmund to win it all at 8-1 (made the investment before they advanced to the semis.))

Open Thread.

Jeffrey Goldberg writes:

Was the Iraq Invasion Worthwhile? Ask an Iraqi

In a recent interview with the New York Times, the writer Toni Morrison said, “I dare you to tell me a sane reason we went to Iraq.” Her request is not unreasonable.

Indeed. Does Goldberg then provide a "reasonable" answer? Not in my mind. Instead he decides that to answer Morrison's question of whether the Iraq war was worthwhile for the United States, he needed to ask an Iraqi:

Jimmy Kimmel's latest threat to Germany to release Justin Bieber's monkey is pretty funny. So is Kid Rock who comes on at the end (and of course Guillermo in the middle blowing up a German chocolate cake.)

Why is the Voice so much better than American Idol? I think it's because the singers are more talented and memorable and the judges are better and much less scripted. They also have good chemistry with each other. New judges Shakira and Usher are more interesting than either Cee Lo Green or Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton is impossible not to like, and Adam Levine is so....earnest. Even Carson Daly is good in his role as hand-holder to the contestants' families backstage as they watch the performance. Or maybe it's just that the casting directors are better. Whatever, it's a the season is off to a great start. The blind auditions continue tonight.

On a more serious note, Reason TV has a video, "Tortured for Testimony: Anarchists Get Solitary Confinement for Not Snitching" about some young political activists/anarchists put in the hole at Seattle's federal detention center for refusing to comply with a grand jury subpoena ordering them to testify. Neither had been charged with a crime.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

While the rest of the nation is in financial straits due to the sequester cuts, the DEA soldiers on. It just finished spending months on yet another Most Excellent African Adventure, which ended with traipsing 5 Africans, who had never set foot on U.S. soil or planned to commit any crime here before the DEA suggested one to them, to New York where they face potential life sentences.

Once again, the case involves FBI informants pretending to be Colombian providers of cocaine offering to fly drugs from South America to West Africa. Had the drugs been real, they would been shuttled from Africa to Europe. For jurisdictional purposes, the informants made sure to tell the Africans that a minor portion of the drugs would go to the U.S. and Canada.

To make the case fit the DEA’s “narco-terrorism” meme, the informants also asked the Africans to supply missiles and weapons, telling them they wanted to use them in Colombia to shoot down U.S. aircraft destroying their cocaine fields.

There never were any drugs or weapons of course. It was just another sting. [More...]

So sayeth conservative blogger Patterico:

I am not a fan of the policy of prohibiting people from traveling to Cuba. I understand the purpose of the ban, but I am generally for freedom. My default position is that we should be able to travel where we want to travel.

But wait, there's more:

But if the ban should be lifted, it should be lifted for all — not just those who are friends with Obama.

Hmm. I' going to Cuba this summer and I'm not "friends with Obama." How am I managing that? Why I'm a Cuban- American that's how. If it should be ok for me to go, why shouldn't it be ok for Beyonce and Jay-Z?