Having failed to convince three successive juries of John "Junior" Gotti's guilt (as TalkLeft reported here, here, and here), the government is finally admitting defeat. In a Friday news dump, embarrassed federal prosecutors announced that they won't pursue a fourth trial.

As of now, Republicans appear to be headed toward losing at least 20 House seats—perhaps 30 to 35 or even a few more. The competitive races are there: 45 GOP-held seats are vulnerable and another 18 are potentially so.

In the Senate, the Republicans will most likely lose five or six seats. Six, of course, would give Democrats control of the chamber. It’s possible— though less likely—that the GOP will lose as few as four or as many as seven Senate seats.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals held that compulsory DNA testing required by Minnesota law on persons charged with a felony. Court distinguishes all the cases involving those convicted of a felony. In re C.T.L., 2006 Minn. App. LEXIS 149 (October 10, 2006) (I know this case is 10 days old, but I get them from Lexis when Lexis posts them.)

This apparently is the first case to deal with such a statute. Cases have uniformly held that DNA testing after conviction for any felony are constitutional. Based on that, legislatures have tried to go one step further, to test everyone on arrest, apparently oblivious to the fact that most felony arrests do not result in convictions for a felony.

From the holding:

So WaPo and the NYTimes tell us the Iraq course will be changed after the elections:

The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking.

But the fact is atrios is right:

I don't know if they're saying this stuff to try to force a change or if they're saying this stuff to try to convince pissed off voters that maybe they're going to get a clue but either way nothing is going to happen. This is George Bush's game of Risk, and he's not going to quit.

Just ask Tony Snow:

Press secretary Tony Snow yesterday dismissed a dramatic about-face in policy -- such as a division of the country or phased withdrawal -- as a "non-starter" and called the idea that the White House will seek a course correction in Iraq "a bunch of hooey."

Michael DeWayne Johnson was 17 18 years old when he was charged in Texas with killing a convenience store clerk. He was sentenced to death.

Johnson was to have faced his Texecutioner last night. Hours earlier, despite 15 minute checks by guards, Johnson slit his own throat and used his blood to write on his cell wall, "I did not shoot him."

Prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Johnson cut his jugular vein and an artery in his right arm with a blade fastened to what appeared to be Popsicle sticks. He was last seen alive at 2:30 a.m. as guards made their regular four-times-an-hour death-watch check of his cell.

Lyons said the blade was small, possibly fashioned from a disposable razor. She said Johnson's cell had been searched for weapons several days before the incident.

Michael DeWayne Johnson died at age 29, beating the Texecutioner of the opportunity to kill him by mere hours. He had had no prior convictions.

Johnson always maintained his innocence in prison interviews. What if he was telling the truth?

Even if Democrats win both the House and Senate in November, and even if they have the courage to repeal the odious Military Commissions Act, the president would veto the repeal. That leaves the judiciary to stand up for the Constitution. After years of being seeded by conservative jurists, will the courts be up to the task? Professor Erwin Chemerinsky's answer: don't count on it.

It is not hyperbole to say that this act is among the worst ever adopted in its disregard for the Constitution. ... What is troubling in looking back at history is that courts have generally failed to stand up to the political process when such clearly unconstitutional laws have been adopted.

Arizona is stealing money from innocent people, then challenging them to prove their entitlement to its return. And this, the state's Attorney General says, is a "model of due process." It's more a model of thievery.

Arizona has been seizing wire transfers into the state, as well as some wire transfers into Mexico. So far, the state has taken about $17 million. It claims to grab only cash transfers that it deems "suspicious" -- those it believes facilitate the smuggling of immigrants into the country -- but it seems to regard any large transfer from or to someone with an Hispanic name as evidence of illegality. If your money is taken and you want it back, you have to satisfy the state that you acquired it legitimately. So much for the presumption of innocence.

Bush and Lieberman, h/t Stoller:

You know, the Democrat Party made a clear statement about the nature of their party when it came to how they dealt with Senator Joe Lieberman. He's a three-term Democrat from Connecticut who supports completing the mission in Iraq. He took a strong, principled stand, and he was purged from the Democrat Party.

. . . There's only one position in the Democratic Party that everybody seems to agree on. If you want to be a Democrat these days, you can be for almost anything, but victory in Iraq is not an option.

President George Joe McCarthy Bush and Senator Joe McCarthy Lieberman:

If we just pick up as Ned Lamont wants us to do and get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England and it will strengthen them and they will strike us again."

And don't forget Dick "Iraq is going remarkably well" Cheney:

[W]hen [the terrorists] see the Democratic Party reject one of its own . . . it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today."

You see Bush, Cheney and Lieberman have a plan:

Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do.

Why did GOP candidate Tan Nguyen, running for Congress in Orange County, California against Rep. Loretta Sanchez, pony up money for a list of Democratic voters? One possibility: to discourage foreign-born Democrats from voting by advising them in a letter that it's illegal for immigrants to vote. That bit of advice is a lie, of course -- immigrants who are citizens have the same voting rights as Americans who are citizens by birth -- but Nguyen refuses to take responsibility for the letter. He blames his office manager while disavowing any knowledge of the use to which the mailing list was put.

Finger pointing and playing the blame game is a Republican way of life, but in this instance, not a very effective one.

In an interview today, Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh said representatives of the Huntington Beach mail house that produced the letter told him that Nguyen was directly involved with the letter, calling and asking that it be sent out as soon as possible.

Minnesota state senator Paul Koering asks a salient question: "How can you be gay and be in the Republican Party?" The answer: you can't -- at least not if you're openly gay and want to hold a public office.

Never more than a tiny fraction of GOP politicians, openly gay Republicans are about to disappear from Congress with the retirement of Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, and Koering is the lone openly gay GOP state legislator -- out of 7,382 seats nationwide.

There's no room for tolerance in the GOP.

Instead of an all-welcoming "big tent," the GOP "is more of a revival tent," [Chuck] Wolfe said. "It has chased out more and more gay Republicans."

Kevin Drum is, as he generally is, sharp and to the point today, cutting through Jonah Goldberg's platitudes to get to the essential question:

But Jonah says that even though it was mistake to go in, we still need to see it through.

. . . The conventional script requires that those who think we should stay need to suggest a way in which we can win.

. . . So what's the plan? It may be true that "if we can finish the job, the war won't be remembered as a mistake," but even if the Iraqis vote to keep us around, how do we finish the job?

Would that even one sentient being in the Media could even think to ask this obvious and essential question.

I'll be in court and with clients most of the day. Let's try another open thread, now that so many of you are registered and have mastered the comment area of the new site.

Feel free to let me know what you think of the change, whether you are getting accustomed to it, and whether you have found it speedier to load and to comment.

You can also weigh in on other subjects. Just remember, no profanity here. I can't edit your comments, so those with profanity or blazing attacks on other posters will just be deleted. I still intend to keep the site civil.