I'm not seeing much news yet today, here's an open thread for you to chat away.

Good news for Democrats in Texas: a federal judge has ruled Tom DeLay must stay on the ballot, even though he isn't running for Congress.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, a Republican appointee, ruled that DeLay must appear on the Nov. 7 ballot as the GOP nominee for the congressional seat that DeLay abandoned last month. Sparks ruling was confirmed by Texas Democratic Party spokeswoman Amber Moon.

Republicans will now appeal to the 5th Circuit.

Alan Newton will leave a New York jail after being imprisoned for 22 years for a rape DNA has shown he didn't commit. What took so long? New York police kept insisting there was no DNA to test. The Innocence Project took up his case and got a DA to find the evidence the police insisted didn't exist:

The rape kit, it turned out, was in its original storage bin from 1984, Barrel No. 22, in the same police warehouse that the authorities said they had searched at least three times since Mr. Newton first asked in 1994.

The long-delayed DNA tests proved the innocence of Mr. Newton, who had refused to participate in a sex-offender treatment program in prison, ruining his chance for an earlier parole. He plans to come to court today dressed in one of the suits he wore to work half his lifetime ago.

17 more inmates in New York are facing the same dilemna. With viable claims of innocence, police say they can't find evidence to test.

Sens. Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer and Ken Salazar are headed to CT to help Joe Lieberman in his primary battle against Ned Lamont.

Check out what Jane of Firedoglake has been doing in CT to oppose him, along with a group of dedicated local bloggers and Lamont staffers. Some prime quotes from Jane:

"It's all about [Supreme Court Justice Samuel] Alito for me," she said, referring to Lieberman's vote to prevent a filibuster and allow the right-wing judge's confirmation to proceed. "We're this close" -- she took her hand off the wheel to demonstrate just how close with two fingers -- "to having another judge who will seal our fate for the next 20 years. We can wind up permanently stacked and unable to swing the pendulum back.

"This is a fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party," she said, the state police headquarters passing in a blur outside her window. "Are we going to rubber-stamp judges like Alito? Or are we going to say that Republican Lite isn't good enough?"

You go, Jane, we're all following and cheering for you -- and Lamont.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

And, at our southern border, we will build a wall to keep you out. If we can't keep you out, we will jail you.

We will deny you any social benefits, even if you are a taxpayer, until you can pry citizenship loose from the government.

Let's just be honest about it: We should build a wall around the Statue of Liberty, too, to keep people out as a symbol of our suddenly discovered election year "immigration problem."

She is, after all, becoming merely an historical artifact.

A Miami federal judge has denied bond for the 7 men accused in the aspirational Sears Tower bombing plan.

Each of the men faces four counts: two counts of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and one count each of conspiracy to destroy buildings by explosives and sedition against the U.S. government. The counts carry maximum sentences of between 15 and 20 years.

Rush Limbaugh's shrink has copped to writing a viagra presecription for Rush in his own name. So...Rush's deferred prosecution stays.

The state attorney's office said Dr. Steve Strumwasser's name was on the Viagra bottle, not Limbaugh's. Strumwasser, who is Limbaugh's psychiatrist, told authorities he "agreed to have his name on the label in an effort to avoid potentially embarrassing publicity for the suspect," according to a filing by the prosecutor's office.

"Thus, the medication contained in the subject pill bottle was legitimately prescribed to the suspect by his physician," the filing said.

But, what about the doctor?

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld didn't want to answer questions of a congressional committee investigating allegations of a whistleblower at Abu Ghraib. So, Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) has supboenaed him.

Shays, chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, is investigating allegations made by Army Spec. Samuel Provance that his attempts to provide information to investigators about prison abuses were rebuffed and that he then was retaliated against for providing unclassified information to the media.

"The bottom line is it's critical that our oversight inquiries be taken seriously by executive branch departments and that we get timely access to the information we need to do our job," Shays said. "Today we are demanding that the Department of Defense provide information that is critical to our investigation."

Government officials must report gifts from foreign governments. The Washington Post details some today. George Tenet made out pretty well while working for the CIA. In some cases, the gifts were turned over to the GSA or the CIA. The Post outlines the rules for keeping gifts from foreign governments. Here are some tidbits of who got what:

Italian President Silvio Berlusconi gave $540 in silk ties to senior presidential adviser Karl Rove on June 4, 2004. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) received a Versace leather wallet and purse from Shobha Oza, secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Mahila Congress in July 2004. (The purse and wallet were turned over to the secretary of the Senate.) Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, gave the New York senator a rug -- value unknown -- that is displayed in her office.

Enron's Ken Lay has died of a heart attack at his home in Aspen.

Pitkin County sheriff's deputies and an ambulance were dispatched to the Lay vacation home in Old Snowmass, Colorado, early Wednesday morning and transported him to Aspen Valley Hospital. He was pronounced dead there shortly after 3 a.m. Mountain time (0900 GMT).

"A coroner's autopsy is pending. There will be no further information or press release from this office until autopsy results are available later this week," the county said in a statement.

More details here. The family issued a short statement.

With the immigration hearings beginning today, more details of the Korean missile launch and Joltin' Joe still in the news, there should be plenty for you to talk about while I'm in court this morning. You choose the topics, these or others, and I'll be back this afternoon.

The investigation into former soldier Steven Green, charged with raping a teenage Iraqi girl and murdering her family, is taking a new turn:

Military officials initially had believed that the three soldiers attacked in the town of Yousifiya were selected because they were in a vulnerable position when separated from the rest of their unit. But as information about the alleged rape-killing has emerged, so have new theories about the kidnapping-murders.

"Was it a target of opportunity or was it a warning: don't do this to our women?" said the military official.

Were the June kidnappings, murders and beheadings of U.S. soldiers in Yousifiya revenge for the March rape and killings in Mahmoudiya? It makes sense to me. The towns are very near each other. But what I don't understand is why only Green was charged. Another soldier, referred to as KP1, also allegedly raped the girl.