I was on Kagro in the Morning for Daily Kos Radio today. You can listen here.

Big Dog on Mitt Romney:

Open Thread.

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

Update: Jerry Sandusky sentenced to 30 to 60 years.

To date, the public has only seen George Zimmerman's legal team playing defense - fighting for bond and against the negative perceptions of their client created by the selective discovery released and the Martin family and their media team of lawyers and consultants.

Yesterday, that began to change. Mark O'Mara filed a notice of hearing for subpoenas he wants issued for Trayvon Martin and his phone friend "DeeDee"'s cell phone accounts for the period of 1/1/12 to 6/1/12, and for their Facebook and Twitter accounts,.

In another motion, Mark O'Mara says he wants the original recordings of Witness 9, George's cousin, brought to court because despite repeated requests, the defense may not have received accurate and audible copies and they want to make sure what was submitted to the court at the bond hearing is the same as what they received. [More...]

Barrett Brown, a vocal supporter of Anonymous, was arrested by the FBI three weeks ago. The raid occurred during an online chat at his home in Dallas. He was ordered detained without bail as a flight risk and danger to the community, but no charges were publicly available for weeks.

Brown has now been indicted on three counts, including making Internet threats, conspiring to make restricted personal information of a government employee publicly available, and retaliation against a federal law enforcement officer. The maximum sentence is 20 years. The Indictment is here.

His lawyer has filed a motion to determine his competency, which has been granted. From the docket: [More...]

I'll be putting up open threads for a few days as things are really busy at work.

All topics welcome.

Various news outlets in the Netherlands began reporting yesterday that Joran van der Sloot is going to be a father, having impregnated his girlfriend, since identified by Peruvian news as Leydi Figueroa Uceda, during an unsupervised conjugal prison visit. Joran reportedly told his lawyer the pregnancy was not intentional. The AP says:

He could resist extradition to the United States, where is wanted in the Holloway case, if he obtains Peruvian nationality. That would be a possibility if he becomes the father of a Peruvian child or if he marries a Peruvian citizen.

I'll be offline the rest of today, so here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Ten years ago today, October 7, 2001, then President G.W. Bush announced we launched military strikes in Afghanistan. Here is the text of his speech.

It's now the longest war in U.S. history. More than 2,000 U.S. service members and several thousand civilians have died. Here's the cost of the wars in dollars.

According to Pro Publica, here are the differences between Obama and Romney on Afghanistan. Here are Mitt Romney's positions Iraq and Afghanistan over the years.

17 of Romney’s 24 special advisors on foreign policy served in the Bush-Cheney Administration.

Apparently, things did not go smoothly for many of those who paid to watch the John Stewart - Bill O'Reilly rumble online through Roku. There were troubles logging on to the debate and staying logged on for the first half hour.

At the Speakeasy blog of The Wall Street Journal, what was supposed to be a real-time account of the Rumble instead recorded for 42 minutes a blogger’s inability to connect to the online stream. On Twitter, Roger Ebert complained that he could not get coverage of the debate from the video-streaming service Roku, writing: “I promote Stewart vs. O’Reilly on ROKU on FB and Twitter and can’t log in myself. Bad image for ROKU.”

Roku is going to replay the mock debate and make it available for download-- and offer refunds to those who want them. But it is a good reminder that the internet needs a backup plan when it comes to anything important with a firm deadline. [More...]

What kind of identification does your state require to vote? Here's a handy map by Headcount.org, just click on your state or scroll down to the text.

Also, different states have different policies on the type of identification college students need to vote. If you know a college student, here's a really handy color-coded map to pass along.

What's Headcount.org? It's a non-partisan organization that works with musicians "to promote participation in democracy." Their volunteers stage voter registration drives at concerts. They get the artists involved as well. [More...]

Cleric Abu Hamza, aka Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, aka Abu Hamza al-Masri, made his first court appearance in New York today, following his extradition yesterday from the UK.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's press release is here. The 2006 Second Superseding Indictment is here.

Along with Abu Hamza, four other alleged terrorists were flown to the U.S. Two will be tried in Connecticut, and three in New York. The other four are Khaled al-Fawwaz, Babar Ahmad, Adel Abdul Bary and Syed Talha Ahsan.

In exchange for allowing the extradition, the U.K. obtained a promise from the U.S. that all five would be tried in civilian courts and not face the death penalty.

The charges against Abu Hamza include conspiring to set up a training camp in Bly, Oregon. His co-defendant Oussama Kassir, from Sweden, was convicted at trial in 2009 and received life in prison, which he is serving at Supermax in Colorado. Kassir's conviction was upheld on appeal in 2011.[More....]

The picks (all 2 units unless otherwise indicated, best bets in BOLD):

TCU -7 over Iowa State (4 units), Georgia Tech +10½ over Clemson, Stanford -10 over Arizona (4 units), North Carolina -6 over Virginia Tech (5 units), Kentucky +10 over Mississippi State, Southern Mississippi +10 over Boise State, Auburn -7½ over Arkansas (3 units), Kansas +25 over Kansas State, Rutgers -7 over Connecticut (3 units), Penn State -3 over Northwestern, Boston College -7 over Army, Navy +8 over Air Force, Indiana +15½ over Michigan State, North Carolina State +16 over Florida State (4 units), Washington +24½ over Oregon (3 units), California +3 over UCLA, Nebraska +3½ over Ohio State (4 units), Miami (Florida) +14 over Notre Dame (7 units), South Carolina -1½ over Georgia (5 units), Texas -7 over West Virginia (5 units), Texas A&M -14 over Mississippi (3 units), LSU -3 over Florida (3 units), Missouri -7 over Vanderbilt (3 units), Maryland -7 over Wake Forest, Washington State +15 over Oregon State, Oklahoma -4 over Texas Tech (5 units), Wisconsin -15 over Illinois.

Open Thread.