Joran Van der Sloot's attorney expects he will plead guilty today to the charges of murder with aggravated circumstances (homicidio calificado)and simple theft (hurto simple), for which the prosecution has asked for 30 years.

So far, we are headed in that direction (of a guilty plea), nothing special has changed," said Jimenez, who said he would have a final meeting with the accused before the hearing Wednesday. "You don’t have to be very smart to know where it’s going," he said.

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The votes from New Hampshire are coming in. No surprise, Mitt Romney is ahead.

If you are following the primary, here's the vote tally in progress.

Voters in Oklahoma approved a ban of Sharia law that said:

State courts "shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia Law."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations sued.

Today, the 10th Circuit blocked the law from taking effect. The opinion is here. [More...]

I'm laughing my a** off. DemfromCt has the roundup. The choice bit is, of course, from Newt Gingrich:

"Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money?" Newt Gingrich asked Monday. "I do draw a distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and then leaving a factory that should be there."

This reminds me of the Family Guy episode where Michael Moore was secretly Rush Limbaugh. What also has me laughing is Erick Erickson's reaction:

One of these days I'll start writing about stuff again. Today is not that day.

In the meantime, read David Brooks. Seriously. An interesting, although not novel, premise. There is some truth in what he writes.

Open thread.

The ACLU today published this handy graphic after crunching the numbers on Guatanamo detainees.

Among the stats:

• 92% of the detainees were never al-Qaeda fighters. 86% were turned over to coalition forces for a bounty. Only 5% were captured by U.S. soldiers.
• Number of children detained at Gitmo: 21 (the youngest was 13.)
• The oldest detainee was 98.
• More than 200 FBI agents reported abusive treatment of detainees
• At least 16 were tortured in overseas secret prisons before getting to Gitmo
• 8 detainees have died. 6 were suicides, including a detainee who arrived at Gitmo at age 16 and killed himself at age 21.

There are 171 detainees still at Guantanamo. 89 have been cleared for release. The amount it costs per year to keep the 89 detained at Gitmo: $70 million.

You've all been waiting with bated breath for my pick in tonight's BCS championship game (wait, what?) featuring Alabama and LSU. I like Alabama (7 units). The line is pick.

I got some props as well - Trent Richardson to score the first TD (3/1 1 unit), Alabama QB McCarron under 15 1/2 completions (1 unit) and he throws a pick before he throws a TD (1 unit.)

Open Thread.

Update: The DEA has released a statement defending the money laundering stings.

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The New York Times details the extradition papers of Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega, presumably in an effort to show another example of how the DEA is involved in money laundering stings. So what else is new? If you want more details, check out the 15 page magazine article of the magazine that obtained the documents (it's in Spanish.)

What the Times doesn't mention is that Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega is charged in federal court with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise under 21 USC 848, the "kingpin" statute, and facing a potential life sentence when he gets here. [More...]

Busy.

Open Thread.

Open Thread.

I've got a lot of errands to run before a big TV nite: the premiere of John Grisham's The Firm, the series finale of Desperate Housewives, the season premiere of Shameless and new episodes of Pan Am and The Good Wife.

For those of you watching football or with other things on your mind, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Guantanamo will turn 10 years old Wednesday -- it was January 11, 2002 that the first 20 detainees arrived. In the New York Times, Akhdar Boumediene, imprisoned there for 7 years, now living in Provence, France with his wife and children, tells his story.

Boumediene has left his mark on Supreme Court jurisprudence. In his case (opinion here), the Supreme Court ruled that those imprisoned at Gitmo are entitled to their day in court.

Petitioners have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus. They are not barred from seeking the writ or invoking the Suspension Clause’s protections because they have been designated as enemy combatants or because of their presence at Guantanamo.

[More...]