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Today President Obama will be inaugurated for the second time (ceremonially to be sure, as he was formally inaugurated yesterday, January 20, as the Constitution requires.) Daily Kos Radio, with Netroots Radio, will be covering it.

Starting at 10:00 a.m., I will be offering an hour of thoughts on President Obama's challenges for his second term, the history of second inaugural addresses, from Lincoln to FDR to Clinton, and the "civil war" that the president will face at the outset of his second term (a civil war on our very philosophy of government.)

Please join us.

President Obama begins his second term.

The Ravens battle the Patriots for the AFC Championship.

500,000 people signed up yesterday for Mega. They have added a human rights counsel to their team. Already there are traffic issues with the site being difficult to access and slow upload times. That's because of the unprecedented demand. [More...]

Kim Dotcom and partners have launched the new Mega, a global Cloud file sharing system. Accounts are free up to 50 GB and encrypted. You can check it out here.

Today is launch date, and there are already 250,000 user registrations in just 2 hours.

It may be the most "lawyered-up" internet startup launch in history. And Mega lawyer Ira Rothken says in an interview with Ars Technica, anyone who comes after it has no case: [More...]

Lance Armstrong, Part 2. Thursday's interview didn't seem to resonate favorably with too many people. Did they even tune in again for Part II? I did. It was like a deja-vu of John Edwards admitting his affair (but denying paternity.)

It seems to me this interview is part of some legal-related master plan, as opposed to personal redemption or being able to compete again. I don't think it's just the Floyd Landis case, but I have no idea what else it might be. Some lawyers who have represented other athletes share their thoughts here.

Who besides Robert Luskin is on his legal team? Elliot Peters, of Keker and Van Nest, who has been in the news all week as the lawyer for Aaron Swartz. [More...]

Ray Nagin, the former mayor of New Orleans, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on corruption charges, including bribery, money laundering, wire fraud and filing false tax returns. The indictment is here.

Key players in the case are here.

In the George Zimmerman case, Mark O'Mara has requested a subpoena to ABC News for Matt Gutman's recordings of interviews with Witness #8, who Gutman refers to as "Dee Dee" (not her real name.) You can read the motion here.

Dee Dee is the witness who claims to have been on the phone with Trayvon Martin moments before his fatal encounter with George Zimmerman. Her existence was revealed on March 20, 2012 at a press conference called by Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump, at which he played snippets of what she told Crump during an audio interview the night before. Gutman has said he has a recording of the interview and interviewed her several times that week.

Here is the backstory. (More here.) Diwataman has the videos of Gutman's and Crump's statements on Dee Dee.

TSA has ended its $5 million contract with OSI, which makes the Rapiscan Backscatter, one of two "people screening" machines using advanced imaging technology at airports.

OSI could not meet a deadline to come up with software that rendered the images generic. Instead, TSA will use machines by L3 Communications which produce generic passenger images. Here's the L3 page for the Provision II. L3 Communications announced a $245 million contract with TSA in November. Also in November, at a congressional hearing, allegations arose, which OSI denied, that it had falsified test results.[More...]

Mass. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz answered some questions at a news conference about Aaron Swartz yesterday. She acknowledged the office knew he had mental health issues at his arraignment, 18 months ago.

Ortiz said “some issues about his mental health came up” about 18 months ago, but they were addressed during his arraignment.

As I wrote here, they were addressed by the Court ordering "medical or psychiatric treatment as directed" as a condition of bond.

But Aaron's father today, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, denies Aaron had a longstanding problem with depression. [More...]

Lance Armstrong interview on Oprah is airing now. It took me 10 minutes to find the channel (220 on Denver's comcast.)

He says the last time he "crossed the line" was in 2005. He did no blood transfusions or doping in 2009 and 2010.

He denied that he expected or required his top riders to dope.

Three police officers in Schaumburg, Il, a suburb of Chicago, are in jail with bond set at $750,000 on charges they ripped off drug dealers, put the drugs back on the street, and pocketed the proceeds.

Three Schaumburg police officers conspired to steal drugs they had seized during legitimate busts, then split the profits after their informant put the drugs back on the streets, with one of the officers later admitting he did it for “the thrill of it," according to prosecutors.

John Cichy, 30, Matthew Hudak, 29, and Terrance O’Brien, 47, were captured on video surveillance and audio recordings stealing money and drugs from the dealers, and all three have made incriminating statements, prosecutor Audriana Anderson said in court this morning.

[More....]

The Chicago City Council today unanimously approved payments of $32 million to pay two claims of police misconduct.

A mentally ill woman, Christina Eilman, will get $22.5 million.

Christina Eilman now suffers severe brain damage after police ignored pleas for help from her out-of-town family and turned the mentally ill woman lose in one of Chicago's most crime-ridden neighborhoods. She was raped and either fell or was pushed out of a seventh floor window.

Alton Logan will get $10.2 million for the 26 years he spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit. did not commit. [More...]