I'll be flying solo on Daily Kos Radio from 11 to noon Eastern today.

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Open Thread.

The iPhone 5 debuts.

The X-Factor premieres, pitted against The Voice and Big Brother. Does anyone want to see Brittany Spears as a mean judge or Demi Lovato? I'm not expecting much from either of them. Simon and LA Reid will be more interesting. But three nights of The Voice in one week is a little much.

In more important matters, the Marines are headed to Libya, the US is launching a terrorist hunt there, and Mitt Romney has interminable foot in mouth disease -- and no comprehension of foreign policy.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest (SDNY) has granted a permanent injunction against the provision in the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act that allows the indefinite detention of individuals (including U.S. citizens) who substantially support Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or their “associated forces." The 112 page ruling is here.

This Court rejects the Government’s suggestion that American citizens can be placed in military detention indefinitely, for acts they could not predict might subject them to detention, and have as their sole remedy a habeas petition adjudicated by a single decision-maker (a judge versus a jury), by a “preponderance of the evidence” standard. That scenario dispenses with a number of guaranteed rights.

[More...]

The House of Representatives today reauthorized the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which allows the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and emails. The Supreme Court will hear the ACLU's challenge to the 2008 law in October.

The ACLU says:

“Yet again, the House has rubberstamped a law so broad and vague that, despite its passage four years ago, we still have little idea how the government is using it,” said Michelle Richardson, ACLU legislative counsel. “It is at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment that Americans and their communications are fiercely protected from government intrusion. This law should be amended to include much stronger privacy protections when the Senate takes it up later this year.”

Sen. Ron Wyden has put a hold on the Senate's consideration of the bill until later this year. Voice your opposition now.

CBS News' Steve Kroft asked President Obama to respond to Mitt Romney's criticism of the Administration regarding the Libya situation, The President's response:

Fred Hiatt's Editorial Board!!!

it was stunning to see the GOP nominee renew his verbal offensive Wednesday morning, when the country was still absorbing the news of the first death in service of a U.S. ambassador since 1988, as well as the loss of three other Americans. Though reports were still sketchy, it appeared that a militant jihadist group, Ansar al-Sharia, took advantage of the Benghazi protest to stage an armed assault that overwhelmed the Libyan security force at the consulate.

At Outside the Beltway, Doug Mataconis writes:

The statement issued last night was ill-advised and dumb, but at least the campaign had the excuse of not being aware of the facts behind the embassy statement. Nearly twelve hours later, after we not only knew the truth behind the Cairo Embassy statement but also knew that four Americans, including an Ambassador, had died was there any attempt by the Romney campaign to walk back their ill-advised statement? Of course not. Instead we got [Romney's morning appearance.] A worse response to the news of the deaths of four Americans who were serving their country I cannot possibly imagine. Worse yet for Romney, it was sandwiched between televised statements by Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama that made his attempts to characterize the Obama Administration in the manner that he did look foolish and ham-handed[.]

Mataconis' post is titled "Could Foreign Policy Cost Mitt Romney The Election?" I think what he is really asking is "Could Romney's Lack of Judgment And Honor Cost Him The Election?" The answer, I submit, is yes.

Who said this?

[We] reject the reported message of the movie. There is no room for religious hatred or intolerance.

Compare that to this:

[We] condemn[] the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims—as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.

Sounds similar no? The difference? Mitt Romney's campaign is circulating the former talking points AFTER the news of the death of the US Ambassador to Libya. The latter was issued by the US embassy in Cairo before the unrest faced the embassy. So who did the "apologizing?" My timeline says Mitt "No Apologies" Romney.

CNN reports on the Romney campaign's planned damage control talking points:

Questions & Answers:

Don’t you think it was appropriate for the embassy to condemn the controversial movie in question? Are you standing up for movies like this?

– Governor Romney rejects the reported message of the movie. There is no room for religious hatred or intolerance. [..] But we will not apologize for our constitutional right to freedom of speech.

[...] If pressed: Governor Romney repudiated this individual in 2010 when he attempted to mobilize a Quran-burning movement. He is firmly against any expression of religious hatred or intolerance.

[More . . .]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking now.

President Obama to speak at 10:35 a.m. from the Rose Garden at the White House. Watch here.

Mitt Romney, speaking before the President, after expressing condolences, quickly pivots to making a political statement. In my view, Governor Romney's political statements are ill timed, at best. Now he is taking questions about the midnight statement his campaign released attacking the U.S. consulate in Cairo. Romney's appearance is, to me at least, a disgrace. Tomorrow is plenty of time to play politics. Today is not the day for this. Poor taste, to put it mildly.

I'll be flying solo on Daily Kos Radio from 11 to noon Eastern today. The topic of discussion will be the events in Egypt and Libya, and the terrible film championed by Terry Jones, the infamous Koran burner, that ignited them. I'll also discuss the responses to events by the Obama Administration and the Romney political campaign.

How to Listen to Daily Kos Radio:

Can't see the Flash player? Click here to download the stream directly.

Open Thread.

NYTimes:

The United States ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed along with three of his staff in an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi Tuesday night by an armed mob angry over a short American-made video mocking Islam’s founding prophet, the White House and Libyan officials said on Wednesday.

In a statement confirming the four fatalities, President Obama said he strongly condemned the killing — the first death of an American envoy abroad in more than two decades — and had ordered increased security at American diplomatic posts around the world. Previous accounts of the events in Benghazi had spoken of only one death among State Department officials.

“While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants,” Mr. Obama said, calling Mr. Stevens “a courageous and exemplary representative of the United States” who had “selflessly served our country and the Libyan people at our mission in Benghazi” and, as ambassador, “supported Libya’s transition to democracy.”