Sam Stein of HuffPo reports:

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani acted improperly and appeared to be covering something up when he charged the cost of his and his girlfriend's security detail to obscure New York City agencies, former mayor Ed Koch told the Huffington Post.

. . . "There is something improper about charging costs to a department other than the NYPD," said Koch. "They are the ones who are supposed to pick him up no matter where he is whether or not it's in the city."

Koch, who served as the mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, said that the episode gave off the appearance that Giuliani, who was at the time married to his second wife Donna Hanover, was trying to hide his affair. He also suggested that Judith Nathan received her own personal protection, which would have been, according to Koch, a flagrant misuse of taxpayer money.

"I found it strange that his lady friend was given protection," said the long-time New York politico. "That was bizarre. She's not the city's responsibility. Rudy is the city's responsibility. Your wife and his children get protection, and that's understood. But certainly not your lady friend."

Government funded trysts.

Via Digby:

In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Barack Obama's biography that gets the most attention is not his race but his connections to the Muslim world.

Since declaring his candidacy for president in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address assertions that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10. While his father was an atheist and his mother did not practice religion, Obama's stepfather did occasionally attend services at a mosque there.

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.

This is about as low as I have seen an Establishment paper go. This is shameful stuff.

TalkLeft has been named one of the top 100 law blogs by the American Bar Association Journal.

Here's the catch. You get to vote for your favorites. TalkLeft is named in the "politics for sport" category.

I'm coming a day late to this news, so don't be put off by the large number of votes other blogs have gotten. There's still time for your vote to count. Voting ends January 2, 2008.

Three of the five blogs named are or tilt right -- Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt and Bench Memos (National Review.) The other two are Glenn Greenwald and TalkLeft. I hope you'll vote for TalkLeft or Glenn Greenwald-- just go to this link and select your choice. It takes less than five seconds. No identification is required.

As far as I can tell, only TalkLeft is written by practicing lawyers. The others in our category used to be practicing lawyers or in Instapundit's case, is written by a law professor. Thanks, I hope we get to keep this award on the progressive side of the blawgosphere.

I'm off to Key West for the annual NORML legal seminar where I'll be speaking Saturday on "Building Your Online Presence: Tech Tools for Lawyers." The full agenda is here.

It's just about my favorite seminar of the year, between getting together with other drug defense lawyers, the Pier House Resort and Spa (check out my favorite room) and the free-spirit, laid back style of Key West itself.

So wherever you might be today and this weekend, I hope you have as much fun as I will in Margaritaville. Here's an open thread to get you talking.

Sen. Trent Lott's brother-in-law and nephew, both lawyers, were indicted for bribing a state court judge in an effort to obtain a favorable ruling in a case involving Hurricane Katrina claims.

Prominent Mississippi trial attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, the brother-in-law of outgoing GOP Sen. Trent Lott, was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on charges that he and four ther men tried to bribe a Mississippi state court judge. According to the 13-page indictment, Scruggs and three other attorneys -- including Lott's nephew Zach -- attempted to bribe Mississippi Third Circuit Court Judge Henry L. Lackey with at least $40,000 in cash.

Lackey was assigned to hear a lawsuit in which Scruggs' firm was named as a defendant in a dispute involving $26.5 million in attorneys' fees stemming from a court settlement with State Farm Insurance over Hurricane Katrina claims. The indictment alleges that the bribe was intended to resolve the case in Scruggs' and his firm's favor.

What does this have to do with Trent Lott? Maybe nothing. Or....[More]

Politico has a major story about Rudy Giuliani. Through a freedom of information act request, it obtained copies of Rudy's Amex bills and billing records that show Rudy billed the city using obscure agencies for hundreds of thousands of dollars for his and his detail's travels, including many trips to Southampton, during the early days of his and Judith Nathan's relationship.

The point is not that he was married. Everyone knows he cheated on his wife. The point is the unusual billing to other agencies and his office's refusal to provide the documents to the comptroller's office investigating the expenses and billing, citing "security concerns." The comptroller then alerted Bloomberg's office who forwarded the matter for investigation.

One thing I find unforgivable is his billing of $400,000, including his 2001 Southampton expenses (he went there every weekend in August and the first in September and none of the trips were listed on his official schedule) to the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office -- the office that provides lawyers for the poor. As if they aren't already underfunded, Rudy took more money out of that till.

More...

Larimer County, Colorado District Court Judge James Hiatt ordered the cops to return 39 seized marijuana plants and a grow system to a couple who grew the plants as caregivers for themselves and a few other patients.

Brian Vincente, lawyer for the couple, hopes authorities have taken care of the plants as provided by the state's medical marijuana law, which was approved by voters in 2000.

"If they've allowed these plants to die, they've broken the law," said Vincente, executive director of Sensible Colorado, a non-profit advocacy group of medical marijuana patients. He described the ruling as the largest return of medical marijuana to a grower since the law went into effect.

If the plants were destroyed, Vincente said his clients will seek compensation for the plants, which he estimated to be about $100,000.

The prosecution is deciding whether to appeal the judge's order. [More...]

The New York Times re-examines the 2000 Senate race between Hillary and Rudy Giuliani.

One interpretation: Leopards don't change their spots. The Rudy who lost interest when he couldn't do it his way in 2000 is the same Rudy who will lose if nominated by Republicans in 2008.

As spring arrived, Mr. Giuliani had yet to give a major speech on federal issues. He was barely campaigning upstate. Mr. Giuliani dismissed the concerns of Republican leaders, explaining that he, unlike Mrs. Clinton, had a full-time job.
Mr. Giuliani’s campaign began to falter in March.

A typical Rudy faux-pas: [More...]

A new Strategic Vision Iowa poll among likely Democratic caucus voters in Iowa show Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 29% with John Edwards trailing at 23%.

Poll results are here.

Also noteworthy:

• 85% of Dems polled say they favor a full troop withdrawal from Iraq within 6 months (compared to 51% of Republicans)
• 33% say experience is most important in picking a President
• 29% say ideology is most important, 27% say charisma.

It's common to see signs on courtroom doors instructing those who enter to shut off their cell phones. Often those signs are accompanied by a warning: if your cell phone rings audibly, it will be confiscated. (The judicial authority to steal an offending cell phone is unclear, but who wants to fight that battle?)

Fortunately, it isn't common for a judge to arrest everyone in the courtroom when nobody will admit ownership of a ringing phone.

[Robert] Restaino, who became a full-time judge in 2002 after serving part-time since 1996, was hearing domestic violence cases when a phone rang. "Everyone is going to jail," the judge said. "Every single person is gong to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now. If anybody believes I'm kidding, ask some of the folks that have been here for a while. You are all going."

When no one came forward, the judge ordered the group into custody and they were taken by police to the city jail, where they were searched and packed into crowded cells. Fourteen people who could not post bail were shackled and bused to the Niagara County Jail in Lockport, a 30-minute drive away.

A judge who thinks mass jailings are the best way to respond to his own irritation -- without probable cause or even an individualized suspicion that each of the 46 detainees had done something wrong -- deserves to lose his job. Thankfully, Restaino lost his.

Action Alert: Contact your Senators today and urge them to refuse to pass the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. As I wrote a month ago, it's a thought crimes bill aimed at preventing domestic terrorism by judging the thoughts, including those expressed on the Internet, of American citizens.

From the National Lawyers Guild and the Society of American Law Teachers:

On October 23, 2007, the House of Representatives passed the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 by a vote of 404-6. The bill will be referred out of committee this week and will then go to the Senate floor. The National Lawyers Guild and the Society of American Law Teachers strongly oppose this legislation because it will likely lead to the criminalization of beliefs, dissent and protest, and invite more draconian surveillance of Internet communications.

This bill would establish a Commission to study and report on "facts and causes" of "violent radicalism" and "extremist belief systems." It defines "violent radicalism" as "adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change." The term "extremist belief system" is not defined; it could refer to liberalism, nationalism, socialism, anarchism, communism, etc.

More....

If there's news today, I won't see it until later. Here's a place for you to fill us in.

• Text of the Israel-Palestinean peace talk agreement.

• David Cole's review of Jack Goldsmith's book, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration. Goldsmith doesn't get a pass.

• The Center for Constitutional Rights files an amended complaint (pdf) against Blackwater with new death, injury and drug allegations.

• Raw Story's part two of the Don Siegelman investigation and prosecution.

• Jesse Jackson says John Edwards is the only candidate not ignoring African Americans.

• A convicted moneyman played host to Rudy at a fundraiser last night.