Former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin goes on trial tomorrow on 21 charges of bribery, honest services wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy and filing false tax returns. Essentially, he's charged with accepting bribes and kickbacks in exchange for granting lucrative city contracts,

As is typical in these cases, the Government's witnesses include plenty of wrongdoers singing for their supper.

NOLA.com's live trial coverage page is here.

The Grammys are tonight, but most of the awards are given out this afternoon. You can watch live here.

The Red Carpet begins at 3pm ET.

The full nominee list is here. Some of the major categories for tonight:[More...]

I won't catch up on the days' news for a few hours as I'm finalizing a motion I've been working on yesterday and today.

In the meantime, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Justin Bieber was released on bond in Miami yesterday, following his arrest for drunk driving, resisting arrest without force and driving on a an expired license. His manager retained Miami uber-defender Roy Black to represent him. Roy complained to the judge that his partner hadn't been allowed into the jail to see Justin before the hearing. After being released, Justin flew back to California. The Miami Police Chief said:

Bieber "made some statements that he had consumed some alcohol, and that he had been smoking marijuana and consumed some prescription medication," Martinez said.

I think predictions this may lead to his deportation are overblown, if not just false. The D.U.I carries a maximum penalty of 6 months. By itself, it's not a crime of moral turpitude, a crime of violence or an aggravated felony. [More...]

I've got another really busy work day. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

I was on with David Waldman for most of the 2 hours today of Daily Kos Radio. We talked about Christie, Richard Sherman, and other matters.

Open thread.

The group "Vilayat Dagestan" which is part of the Caucasus Emirate, has claimed credit for the recent bomb attacks in Volgograd, Russia, and threatens more for the Olympics.

"We've prepared a present for you and all tourists who'll come over," the video says. "If you will hold the Olympics, you'll get a present from us for the Muslim blood that's been spilled."

The two men in the video, identified as Suleiman and Abdurakhman, claimed to be the suicide bombers from the recent bombings and showed pictures of themselves with explosives strapped to their bodies.

Doku Umarov, the leader of the Caucasus Emirate, initially called for attacks on the Olympics, but later rescinded them.

Here is the Google-translated version of their statement that accompanied the video. [More...]

The New Yorker has an extensive interview with President Obama, on a variety of topics.

On marijuana:

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

Is it less dangerous? I asked. Less dangerous, he said, “in terms of its impact on the individual consumer. It’s not something I encourage, and I’ve told my daughters I think it’s a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy.”

On Colorado and Washington's legalization laws: He said it's important "they go forward." [More...]

In case you are wondering, I like the Pats (+5 1/2) (and on the moneyline (+200)) and the Niners (+3) (+110) today.

In soccer, Chelsea, Athletico Madrid and Barcelona are my choices.

Open Thread.

Via Marty Lederman, the government's opening brief (PDF) in Hobby Lobby and the plaintiff's opening brief (PDF) in Conestoga. The government is the petitioner in Hobby Lobby and the Conestoga plaintiffs are the petitioners in their case.

Bone up as we will be discussing these issues during the week.

This terrific piece by Bart Gellman explains how President Obama's speech was woefully lacking in what I think of as one of the most important issues regarding NSA spying:

[T]he NSA is gathering hundreds of millions of e-mail address books, breaking into private networks that link the overseas data centers of Google and Yahoo, and building a database of trillions of location records transmitted by cellphones around the world.

Those operations are sweeping in a large but unknown number of Americans, beginning with the tens of millions who travel and communicate overseas each year. For at least as many Americans, and likely more, the structure of global networks carries their purely domestic communications across foreign switches.

[MORE . . .]

Hello all. While I haven't written a post in a year, I did rant about Benghazi and Bridgeghazi this morning on Daily Kos Radio. You can listen at this link. I start around the 41-42 minute mark. I rant for about 45 minutes.

Open Thread.