Mick Jagger and Fergie are on fire on this version of Gimme Shelter -- Bono and Will-i-Am are good too. What a great concert -- the 2009 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Same concert: Patti Smyth, Bruce Springsteen and Bono and U2 in Because the Night:

[More..]

KBCO in Boulder is playing Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant at noon and 6pm, MT. You can listen live here. It was November 28, 1965 that Arlo was convicted of littering in Stockbridge, MA. You can read the backstory here.

Why is Alice's Restaurant such a ritual, especially for those of us who remember the '60's? Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, explains: [More...]

Just a little something to tide you over till tomorrow when radio stations around the country will play the full 18:37 second version of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant.

Alice, by the way, is now an artist. I still have my hardcover edition of her 1969 cookbook -- easiest recipes ever, and really, really good (Especially the red chile and her mother-in-law's corn pudding.) [More...]

Using its emergency powers, the DEA today banned five chemicals used in synthetic marijuana. They are JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol. The federal register notice is here.

Except as authorized by law, this action will make possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the U.S. for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) further study whether these chemicals and products should be permanently controlled.

....The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to allow the DEA Administrator to emergency schedule an abused, harmful, non-medical substance in order to avoid an imminent public health crisis while the formal rule-making procedures described in the CSA are being conducted.

The chemicals are used in smokable herbal blends like “Spice,” “K2,” “Blaze,” and “Red X Dawn.” Eric Sterling says there's no evidence the chemicals or herbal blends are dangerous. [More...]

No happy Thanksgiving for Tom DeLay. The jury found him guilty of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The penalty on one count is 2 to 20 and from 5 to 99 years on the other. He could also receive probation. Texas has jury sentencing, but DeLay previously opted for the judge to sentence him.

His attorney, Dick DeGuerin, says the verdict won't withstand appellate scrutiny:

Mr. DeGuerin said Mr. DeLay would try to convince an appeals court the money-laundering statute should never had been applied to the money swap — because the original donations were legal and also because the donations to the state candidates came out of a different account than the one in which the corporate donations were deposited. “It will never stand,” Mr. DeGuerin said.

I'm going to brave a trip to the supermarket and Office Depot. If I haven't posted again by dinnertime, you can assume it's as bad out there as I think it's going to be. In addition to the anticipated checkout lines at the market, we're getting an artic front and the mountains are getting a blizzard.

Air traffic seems to be proceeding normally. Not surprisingly, people care more about getting to their destination than they do their privacy.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome. And please let us know what you are cooking tomorrow, or most looking forward to eating.

Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam has lost his motion to suppress wiretaps.

Thousands of conversations between Mr. Rajaratnam and more than 130 colleagues, employees, friends and family were secretly recorded by federal agents over a nine-month period in 2008.

The Judge did sever some of the conspiracy counts:

Mr. Rajaratnam and Ms. Chiesi are among 24 people charged criminally in a broad probe into insider trading on Wall Street. So far, 14 people have pleaded guilty in the case.

The day before Thanksgiving, the feds have arrested Don Chu in the hedgefund insider trading investigation. He is charged by complaint (no Indictment yet.)

Why today? CNBC says he was planning on traveling to Taiwan next week. Via the Wall St. Journal:

Here’s the WSJ’s ongoing coverage of the arrest and what it means. Read here, here, here, here and here for LawBlog stories on what’s happened so far in the investigation.

Highlights from the complaint are here.

LA District Attorney Steve Cooley has conceded the California Attorney General's race to San Francisco DA Kamala Harris.

The decision means that San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris will assume the post of California's top law enforcement official, giving Democrats a clean sweep of the statewide offices.

This is good news for medical marijuana patients in California. Harris' position:

As the chief law enforcement official of this great city, it is my duty to protect the most vulnerable among us from harm. That includes those who are sick and seek care through medicinal marijuana. I pledge to continue this important work.

Harris is far more progressive and smarter about crime than Cooley. This is good news for California.

Update: The jury has now asked for DeLay's interviews with reporters. The judge has told the lawyers to be prepared to work late tonight.

After prosecutors played the tape of the Wallace interview during the trial, DeLay said it told his side of the story so well that he didn’t need to testify. In the Statesman interview, DeLay said, “I could have stopped it, but why would I?” He added that he considered the money swap a legal transaction that both political parties had done in the past.

The Statesman says it's back to what DeLay know and when did he know it. Have they rejected his defense that the money swap was legal? [More...]

Glenn Greenwald's new book shows promise of being his best one yet. The proposed title, part of which I stole for the title of this post, is With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. I suspect Glenn will, as he mostly does, concentrate on civil liberty issues but there are indications he will go further:

The book's central theme -- the legal immunity which political and financial elites have bequeathed to themselves even for egregious illegality, contrasted with the merciless system of punishment and coercion imposed on ordinary citizens -- was potently highlighted by two very recent events and necessitated substantial work to include them: (1) the mortgage/foreclosure fraud scandal and the political class's reflexive attempts to immunize the banks from the consequences of wrongdoing [. . .]

Marcy Wheeler (who with David Dayen, is doing a great job on the story), covers the latest:

Busiest travel day of the year. A NYTimes reporter is live blogging her travel day. And I thought I was in a blogging rut.

Open Thread.