New York changes focus in tackling the sex trade -- pimps and johns get arrested, hookers get a pass. Oh yeah, it's hard out here for a pimp (winner best original song, 2006 Academy Awards, Hustle and Flow.)

France elects a Socialist President, Francois Hollande. Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy is out.

Connecticut legalizes medical marijuana. The Senate passed the bill, the Governor says he'll sign it and it goes into effect Oct. 1. CT is now the 17th State to allow medical marijuana.

The transcripts from yesterday's hearing at Guantanamo for the 9/11 Defendants are up on the Military Commission's website. There are no individual urls to link to, but you can access and download each one. Go here, click on KSM et al (2) (active), then click on transcripts.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Your turn. President Obama officially launched his bid for reelection today.

I haven't read any George Zimmerman news today, but feel free to discuss the case here.

It doesn't look like the Government is going to call Rielle Hunter in the John Edwards trial. Hampton Dellinger says the Government told the court yesterday afternoon it anticipated concluding its case by next Thursday. It provided its next six witnesses and Rielle wasn't one of them. While that's no guarantee, I don't see any benefit to the Government from calling her. All the money she got went though Andrew Young. And since two of the lawyers who represented her in the state civil case against Andrew Young are now representing Edwards at trial, with her approval, I think she'd try to help Edwards, even though the Government gave her immunity from prosecution in exchange for her telling its the truth.[More...]

The allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn keep coming, here's the latest from France.

Bunny Mellon's lawyer, Alexander Forger, will testify this afternoon in the John Edwards trial.

The ACLU files suit over 9/11 defendants' arraignments set for tomorrow. The Government plans to censor any statements regarding torture while in U.S. custody.

What's on your mind today? Here's an open thread to discuss it, all topics welcome.

President Obama made a surprise trip to Afghanistan on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death.

Newt Gingrich is finally giving up his bid to become President.

For those following the Roger Clemons retrial, Andy Pettitte testified today.

New Zealand has a big campaign contribution mess developing, and it involves donations from Kim DotCom.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Today, ManU v. Man City for control of the Premier League race. It's at 3 EST on ESPN. Sadly, I won't get to watch it live. If you want to give soccer a try, this is not a bad one to start with. It should be bedlam.

Open Thread.

Amazing Race is in India tonight. I haven't watched this season before tonight. I'm glad to see that Brendon and Rachel from Big Brother are still competing. One of competing pairs are Border Patrol Agents. I hope they go home before Brendon and Rachel. Has anyone been watching?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

I'm still participating at a Yale Law School conference on Constitutional Interpretation on Jack Balkin's book "Living Originalism. I wrote about it last week. Some previous posts on the subject: Constitutional Interpretation, Originalism and a Living Constitution and Dred Scott, Originalism and a Living Constitution..

You can watch a live stream of the conference. It should be fascinating.

I'll be part of the panel asking the author questions. Our segment begins at 1 pm:

I know a lot of people want to continue dissecting the facts (as opposed to law) in the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case. I cleaned several comments from an earlier thread about today's hearing, after asking commenters to copy and save them for an open thread, or a new thread about the evidence in the case. My post today was about the court hearing.

If anyone wants to continue the discussion of Zimmerman, on any facet of the case, you can do so here.

Comments on other topics are also welcome.

I haven't even gotten around to opening my email yet today. I'm also trying to watch American Idol. Katy Perry was just on singing her catchy "Part of Me" song and now I can't get it out of my head.

George Zimmerman's lawyer today said the now-defunct website Zimmerman set up raised $200.000. He said he'll inform the court. Here's the video of O'Mara's comments to Anderson Cooper Our Zimmerman threads are full, so you can comment on that case, and any other topics, here.

I'm going to a conference on Constitutional law the next two days. I'll probably write about it over the next few days.

Open Thread.

Down goes Altmire! Maybe andgarden and I will be the only TLers who care.

Also, too, Chelsea shocked Barca yesterday in the Champions League. Madrid must beat Bayern today to redeem the reputation of La Liga (not really). Go Los Merengues!

Down goes Madrid on PKs.

Go Chelsea!!

Open Thread.

I'm speculating J will write some stuff today. No sourcing,

Update (TL):: Just shows how important it is to source speculations. I'm busy at work, nothing from me for a while.

Open Thread.