For those following world and national events today, as opposed to the George Zimmerman trial, or who just want to talk about life in general, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

For those of you not interested in the George Zimmerman trial, here's an open thread for all other topics.

June went really fast. The Fourth of July is around the corner. I'm quite a bit behind at everything, due to my fascination with all things related to the George Zimmerman case.

For other news, you are on your own today. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

I am still focused on the George Zimmerman trial.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Obviously, I'm mostly following the George Zimmerman trial this week, which along with work, leaves little time for anything else.

I'll be offline most of the day. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Here's an open thread to discuss Supreme Court rulings and whatever else you find of interest today.

There's lots of news I haven't gotten to this week.

It looks like the court didn't issue its Frye ruling today on expert voice/speech testimony in the George Zimmerman trial. Opening arguments are Monday. How do you effectively prepare and deliver opening statements without knowing whether there will be expert testimony on the issue of who was crying out for help in the background of a 911 call?

The defense filed a motion this afternoon following up on this morning's hearing on statements George Zimmerman made at the scene that it says are res gestae and not covered by the court's order excluding self-serving hearsay. The motion is here.

Enough law for the week. This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

I have been glued to the George Zimmerman jury selection for the past 10 hours and have to take a break from the computer.

Our "recent comments" section has now been fixed thanks to our webmaster Colin. The site crashed altogether around 2 am, and even though it is 2 hours later where he is, he got my text and immediately started fixing the problems that caused it, so the site was restored by morning. (Something got corrupted and had to be rebuilt on both TalkLeft and the Forums.) Major thanks to Colin.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

It's hard to find time to work, follow the Zimmerman trial, and read the news and blog on other topics. Since I have to choose, I'm giving up on "blogging on other topics" for the day.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Big immigration news day: The Supreme Court strikes down Arizona's law requiring additional proof of citizenship for voter registration, and ICE raids and seizes 14 East Coast 7-Eleven stores .

On the Supreme Court Case, the court held

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 trumps Arizona’s Proposition 200. The federal law “precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

I've been writing the next "chapter" of what I call the "DEA's Most Excellent African Adventures" for days but keep getting pulled in by databases I run across while trying to connect more dots. Some I've used for a while, but others are new to me.

If you are interested in world wide drug busts and seizures, here are a few that can suck up a weekend of reading time (they are updated daily and you can set your own search terms):

• InfoPig (cocaine, drugs, seizures)
• Global Drug Interdiction Map (scroll down for running list of busts)

For free federal and many state court decisions, check out CourtListener. It's an academic, open source project with more than 800,000 opinions, with internal hyperlinks to other cases. It's searchable by keywords, names, dates and court. In addition to all federal circuit opinions, here is the list of other federal and state court opinions that are included. It's updated daily. [More....]

TalkLeft turns 11 years old today. Wow. The time has just flown by. I wonder if I would have began this endeavor if I knew then I would be writing every day for the next 11 years.

While it's only natural that we ebb and flow, we still work really hard at keeping you up to date with the latest news on politics, crime, and injustice, tracking down actual court and legislative documents so you can read them yourselves -- and making sure the conversation stays civil by weeding out the blog-cloggers and drive-bys who try to hijack or dominate the discussion or insult our commenters. [More...]