The Justice Department seems to be running out of patience with Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Already-contentious negotiations over addressing DOJ’s findings of systematic civil rights abuses by Arpaio’s department have broken off. The next step is for the feds to file suit to, among other things, seek a court-ordered appointment of an independent monitor to oversee Arpaio’s operations. Ryan Reilly has the latest salvo from DOJ.
CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo blows it trying to hammer Gene Sperling on the Obama budget — but doesn’t let that get in the way of being truly obnoxious.
As noted last night, Campaign 2012 has fallen into another one of those temporary, mindless, and mostly meaningless outrage-a-thons. Ann Romney will be going on Fox this morning to defend her honor against Hilary Rosen’s criticisms of her not having worked outside the home. The Romney camp has a conference call with reporters later in the morning to try to keep the fire burning. Read More
Hilary Rosen clumsily suggests on CNN that Ann Romney is an unreliable adviser to her husband on economic issues because, as a stay-at-home mom, she’s “never worked a day in her life.” The Romney camp flies into high dudgeon. Obama camp chieftains call for Rosen to apologize. Here’s the rundown.
The Seminole County Jail has released a mugshot of George Zimmerman after he was taken into custody earlier this afternoon.
Ryan Reilly reports on the first day of pre-trial hearings at Guantanamo for one of the accused bombers of the USS Cole. At issue: Will the defendant be allowed to testify publicly about being tortured while in U.S. custody?
George Zimmerman is in police custody, to be charged with 2nd degree murder.
The consensus of the reporting is that the special prosecutor in Florida will announce her decision in the Trayvon Martin case today — and that her decision is to charge George Zimmerman criminally. We’ll have the latest when it happens at TPMLivewire.