Judge Debra Nelson has rejected the state's second request for a gag order in the George Zimmerman case. The two page order is here.

By now, Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump should have disclosed to the defense everyone who was present on March 19 when he recorded a telephone interview with Witness 8, referred to as "Dee Dee." ABC News reporter Matt Gutman has previously said he was there, as were the parents of Trayvon Martin, whom he described as "ashen-faced" while listening to the call. At the hearing on Friday, October 19, the Judge told Crump to disclose the names to Zimmerman's defense team within 10 days. Background here. [More...]

Here's an open thread, all topics welome.

A new Mitt Romney ad began airing over the weekend,

The 30-second spot shows cars being crushed as a narrator says Obama “sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.”

At a campaign event last week, the one at which Meatloaf butchered America the Beautiful, Romney said "he read a story somewhere" that "Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China... “I will fight for every good job in America, I’m going to fight to make sure trade is fair.”

Jeeps production is not being outsourced to China. Chrysler says it has no intention of moving production, even for the new Jeep Patriot. To the contrary, it says it is increasing production at its Toledo and Detroit plants, with up to 2,200 new jobs.[More...]

Mitt Romney is pathetic. He's holding a "storm relief" campaign event tomorrow -- in Ohio, with NASCAR driver Richard Petty and singer Randy Owen. Is there anything the shameless know-nothing won't exploit in his attempt to win the election? AmericaBlog has more.

Earlier today, as his MittMobile van drove around, supposedly collecting supplies, he asked people to donate canned goods and blankets. Had he bothered to check the Red Cross website, he would have seen this is exactly what the relief agencies advises against doing. It can actually impede aid efforts.

Hey, Mitt, if you want to help, how about writing a check and making a personal donation? Or better yet, staying out of the way.

On a lighter note, check out #romneystormtips and #mittstormtips on Twitter -- some funny ones below: [More..]

Here's the flooding of the Battery Tunnel earlier today. Lower New York is flooded. There are three feet of water on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. [Added: Reports now say that is false.] There was an explosion at a Con Ed plant in lower Manhattan.

What's happening at MCC New York, on Foley Square, and MDC Brooklyn, New York's federal detention centers? [More...]

Update: 13 dead, 5 million without power.

The National Hurricane Center has downgraded Sandy from a hurricane to a post-tropical storm. The eye has just made landfall in Southern New Jersey.

Con Ed has cut power to all of lower Manhattan. More than 600,00 are without power in NYC, Westchester, Long Island and CT and will be for days. CNN says 2.2 million are without power in all of the affected states. The flooding is extensive and is expected to get worse.

How big is the storm surge?

"We are looking at the highest storm surges ever recorded" in the Northeast, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director for Weather Underground..... "The energy of the storm surge is off the charts, basically."

(Jackson Browne and Joan Baez.) Hurricane Sandy is expected to hit landfall today. Let us know how your are doing.

At least you don't have to deal with this group in charge:

Please send good thoughts to the inmates at Rikers Island and MCC Manhattan and MDC Brooklyn, and the thousands more in local county jails in the affected regions..

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Sending good thoughts to all of you in the path of Hurricane Sandy. Let us know how you are doing, especially if you were asked to evacuate but decided to stay put.

Although I'm safe and dry here in Colorado, TalkLeft's servers are near LaGuardia airport. If they go down, here is TalkLeft's backup site -- you may want to bookmark it now because otherwise it will be hard to find.

Some links: National Hurricane Center Sandy Advisories; The weather channel's Hurricane Sandy page; the Wall St Journal live updating page. On Twitter: The Weather Channel's Hurricane Central; @FEMA @CraigatFEMA @Readydotgov @RedCross @NHC_Atlantic

Mayor Bloomberg's response to a question about the protecting the inmates on Riker's Island: "Don't worry about anybody getting out." Is he term-limited yet? [More on the Rikers prisoners][More...]

Here's the same performance with better video but not as clear audio. Here's a Dylan/Rolling Thunder version from Norway, 2011. And an audio only version from the Live at Budokan album. [More...]

Hurricane Sandy could be the biggest storm to ever hit the United States. It could cover 800 miles and 50 to 60 million people.

A Tsunami has hit Hawaii. Evacuations are underway.

[Update 4:50 a.m.] Gerard Fryer, senior geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to reporters:

– "The tsunami is arriving right now. I can't say how big it is because it's coming in as we speak."
"Typically the first wave is not the largest. Having inconvenienced everybody by making them evacuate in the middle of the night, I was hoping it would be bigger. The following waves I am sure will be bigger."

To all our friends on the east coast, and those in in Hawaii please be safe, and let us know how you are doing.

The New York Times has endorsed President Obama. It leads with the dangers of a Romney win:

• The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold.

• The United States is embroiled in unstable regions that could easily explode into full-blown disaster.

• An ideological assault from the right has started to undermine the vital health reform law passed in 2010. Those forces are eroding women’s access to health care, and their right to control their lives.

• Nearly 50 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, all Americans’ rights are cheapened by the right wing’s determination to deny marriage benefits to a selected group of us. Astonishingly, even the very right to vote is being challenged.

As to Mitt:

President Obama laid out his second-term agenda in an off the record conversation with the Des Moines Register, which his campaign provided to the paper today with permission to publish. He says he will get immigration reform done in 2013. The full transcript is here.

"The second thing I'm confident we'll get done next year is immigration reform," Mr. Obama told the newspaper. "And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community. And this is a relatively new phenomenon.

[More...]