Via the New York Times: U.S. Rethinks a Drug War After Deaths in Honduras

All joint operations in Honduras are now suspended. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, expressing the concerns of several Democrats in Congress, is holding up tens of millions of dollars in security assistance, not just because of the planes, but also over suspected human rights abuses by the Honduran police and three shootings in which commandos with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration effectively led raids when they were only supposed to act as advisers.

DEA's FAST program began under George W Bush. (Obama has extended it.) FAST stands for Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team. In plain English, squads of commandos. It operates in Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize. Here's a powerpoint about it.

The Administration's total Drug War budget for 2013 is $25 billion. [More.]

Mitt Romney made a blood vessel in Jeralyn's eye pop with his demand she believe him and not her lying eyes. She's out of action because of Romney.

I'm out of action because I'm too nervous about my Yanks.

Will be back tomorrow with this week's disastrous college football picks.

Open Thread.

I'm watching the Yankees. You're on your own.

Go Yanks! Go Biden!

Ok, one quick comment on the debate - Biden kicked ass of course. But what really worked was he did it as Joe Biden, the authentic Joe Biden. That's why it really worked.

CBS snap poll - Biden 50-31 winner among Independents (uncommitted voters.).

Sorry CNN, Biden kicked his ass.

Looks like we need another open thread. I will be watching the debate and look forward to reading your comments tomorrow. I just got a broken blood vessel in my eye a few hours ago, and will be offline tonight to give my eyes some rest.

If Big Tent Democrat is available, he'll start a new thread for the debate.

For this thread, all topics welcome.

I mentioned this speech from FDR in my appearance with David Waldman on Daily Kos Radio yesterday, and Ed Kilgore dug up the You Tube:

Notice the similarities between Bill Clinton's lines and style in the You Tube below and FDR's speech. Our 2 best pols of the last century might be worth studying for the Obama/Biden reelection campaign.

I've often said Obama is a great politician, but maybe not so great in a slugfest filled with lying liars. Worth looking at a couple of the great ones in such a situation.

Open Thread.

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.