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.

Nobody puts Baby in a Corner, after all. Congratulations, Jennifer and Derek.

Bristol Palin on DWTS tonight: Winning "would be like a big middle finger to all the people out there that hate my mom and hate me."

Time to drive that truck back home to Alaska. No trophy for you. Or your mother or her rabid fans.

Update: Disaster averted. Jennifer Grey wins.

Update: Sarah Palin, despite earlier reports to the contrary from TMZ, is a no-show. She's peddling her book in Phoenix. Probably avoiding the huge boo-ing that would ensue if Ms. Log to Broom actually won.

Update: 9:46 pm: Bristol scores the lowest again with the judges. Report: She was her usual wooden-legged self, getting pulled along by her partner. Jennifer gets a perfect 30, Kyle and Lacey 26. My latest prediction: DWTS will "adjust" the viewer votes if necessary rather than let Bristol win and destroy the show's reputation for future seasons. The bigger question is whether they'd admit they had to do that.[More...]

Why do a million things that require immediate attention always happen right before a big holiday?

In case I only have time DWTS tonight (which I will put on other threads) here's an open thread for all other topics.

Update: President Obama said tonight the U.S is going to hold "joint military exercises" with South Korea and is sending a carrier to the region. The purpose is to deter N. Korea attacks and " to signal to China that unless it reins in its unruly ally it will see an even larger American presence in the vicinity."

****

Are we going to enter yet another war? President Obama today addressed the crisis in South Korea. Does he mean diplomatially or militarily? So far, no troops have been repositioned. But, Obama wouldn't speculate on U.S. military options.[More...]

The jury in Tom DeLay's money laundering trial had a lot of questions for the judge today. The judge isn't happy. He thinks they are focusing on things outside the trial.

"I'm afraid you may be getting away from the decisions you must make," Priest told the jurors.

What kind of answer is that? Team DeLay views the questions as a good sign:

"They are zeroing in right on the weaknesses of the state's case," said Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's lead attorney.

[More...]

Here's the latest on DWTS. The two hour finale starts at 8:00 p.m. MT. Last night's show brought in the biggest numbers yet: 23.7 million views. It beat the football games both Sunday and Monday nights. And almost half of the viewers were women over 50.

The “Dancing” hosts labeled this edition of the show as the most controversial in its history, referring to an outcry among some viewers at Ms. Palin’s continued survival, thanks to support by viewer votes. ...almost half the audience for the show consisted of women over 50. The median age for “Dancing” was 56.9, the oldest for any show on the networks Monday night.

To make tonight's final winner even more unpredictable, ABC's voting system got overwhelmed last night, with people getting busy signals. ABC put out this statement:

I'm quickly losing interest in political discussion. Maybe it will snap back soon.

Friday, which will be a big day in deciding who plays for the BCS championship, I will post a rant about the BCS and the need for a college football playoff system.

Other than that, I got nuthin.

Open Thread.

A face in the crowd:

Velma Hart, who told President Obama she was "exhausted" of defending him and became the face of disappointed Americans this fall, has lost her job. [. . .] A spokesman for AmVets confirmed that Ms. Hart's layoff was "an economic decision that had nothing to do with her job performance."

Ms. Hart spoke for many when she asked President Obama whether this was the "new reality." I'm not sure what the Obama Administration has to offer: