DOING A URIAH:  Thank you M. Simon.  I’ve been saying this since it happened.  The exact same story came to mind.  This is a Biblical-level betrayal.  Or like something out of Greek Myth.  One hopes Nemesis isn’t asleep.

OLD IS NEW: Glossy “MIttZine” Insert Included In Battleground State Sunday Newspapers.

MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: Illinois Retirement System Basically Broke.

On Thursday, the Teachers’ Retirement System announced its annual investment returns for fiscal year 2012. You may recall that it was predicting 8.5 percent returns.

So what kind of returns did it actually get? A meager 0.76 percent. For comparison, the S&P 500 grew 7.39 percent during fiscal year 2012, while the Dow Jones Industrial average grew 7.92 percent.

Of course, this isn’t the first time TRS investments have come in below expectations. Even before this year, the 5-year average rate of return was only 4.1 percent, and the 10-year average was just 6 percent. Even its long-term averages are below its projections.

And when investment returns come in under projections, it falls on taxpayers to make up the shortfall.

Ultimately, there are only two numbers that matter: the amount of money the pension fund will pay out for earned benefits, and the amount of money it has on hand. Between now and 2045, TRS will pay $376.5 billion to retired teachers. It has just $36.3 billion on hand. In order for these assets to cover future payouts, TRS would need to see average investment returns of more than 18.5 percent per year.

The simple fact is that TRS is broke. Under new accounting rules, TRS has less than 23 percent of the money it should have in the bank today in order to make its pension payments. The system doesn’t even have enough money on hand to pay out benefits to the people who have already retired. Pension experts and TRS’s own actuaries agree: the fund could soon be insolvent.

As goes Illinois, so would Obama have America go. But then, he’s admitted that he’s no good at math.

AND ANOTHER ONE: Daily News Endorses Romney.

REMEMBER THE EIGHTIES: How the Japanese top down model was going to outgrow our economy in no time?  Yes?  Well, about that: A declining Japan loses its once-hopeful champions.

READER BOOK PLUG: Scrambled Hard-Boiled, by E.R. White, Jr.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Establishment Press Won’t Cue Up Biden’s Outrageous Comment to Slain Benghazi Hero’s Father.

NOT COVERAGE, COVERING: A reader emails: “Just finished watching This Week on ABC. A full hour on the upcoming election and no mention whatsoever on Libya. Interesting.”

UPDATE: Reader Robert Mandel is disappointed in the NYT and WaPo. “Neither one of our supposedly national newspapers has the word Benghazi or Libya on their front page,and nothing I can find on the Op/Ed pages. Perhaps all this about our embassy never happened? At least to them it did not.”

PARENTING DOES MATTER: Who knew?  And as we know from Head Start, this is not the sort of thing solved with a government program.  How about making taxes less punitive, so that people can afford to raise their own kids?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE TIES?:  An interesting op-ed in the LA Times today about what happens, constitutionally, when there is a 269-269 Electoral College tie.   While liberals are quick to criticize and attempt to “get around” the Electoral College in favor of direct popular vote, the Electoral College serves extremely important interests–namely, federalism–and should not be discarded absent a constitutional amendment via Article V processes (proposal passed by 2/3 both houses of Congress, followed by ratification by 3/4 of States).

JIMMY WON’T FIX IT: Is New York Times Hiding Its CEO’s Role in Sex Abuse Cover-Up?

EARLIER (and for the backstory): Sandusky on the Thames.

I’LL TAKE “AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN” FOR SIXTEEN TRILLION, ALEX: Obama needs to come clean on Benghazi.

THE FAIL: ALLARD: Obama knew about the attack, ignored three requests for help.

HOW TO MAKE Award-Winning Guacamole.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: A Hurricane Approaches Washington, And So Does Sandy.

WHAT IF POWER IS OUT ON ELECTION DAY?:  Hurricane Sandy is expected to make landfall tomorrow in the area between DC and NYC.  Power outages are expected and may conceivably last through Election Day (Nov. 6).  Given the ubiquity of computerized voting, how will this affect the election?

The only salient language I can find in the Constitution is in Art. II, sec. 1:  “The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

Art. II thus requires a uniform day of counting the electors’ votes (but not necessarily the popular vote).  It would seem Congress could (and indeed, has)  enact a statute that would delay counting of electoral votes, to some day after Nov. 6.

UPDATE:  Under the current Electoral Count Act, electors cast their votes on the first Monday after the second Wed. in December (Dec. 17, 2012), and of course the votes are “counted” in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  From the North Shore Journal, a useful aggregation of statements from NY, NJ and VA about their plans to deal with Hurricane Sandy’s impact on Election Day.   H/T to Chuck Simmins.

MINNESOTA NOW IN PLAY? Romney, Obama In Statistical Tie.

SCARY: Some of the best Halloween costumes are the simplest.

NY POST FIRES FULL BATTERY AT OBAMA: On the fiscal cliff, Kyle Smith on his lack of a second-term agenda, Peggy Noonan on his debates and negotiations, Amir Taheri on how he lost the Middle East, John Bolton on that Nobel Peace Prize, Matt Welch on his lies, Edward Klein on his amateur governance, Michael Tanner on the cost of ObamaCare, John Podhoretz on his radical agenda, Amity Shlaes on his bad economic choices.  Apparently Michelle Obama could not be reached for a post on his bad eating habits, or Bo for one on how he’s an inadequate petter.  But even without those these op-eds make Obama a demolished man.

NOPE, IT WAS A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP, THEN VEGAS, BABY! Gingrich: Obama Cancels Campaign Trips Due to Hurricane, Didn’t Cancel Them Over Benghazi.

OBAMA’S PREGNANCY? Listen to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s hickenblooper (recorded very roughly, by me, from this morning’s “Meet the Press”).

IT’S NOT JUST THE DES MOINES REGISTER: All four major Iowa newspapers have now endorsed @MittRomney.

GAME CHANGER: DES MOINES REGISTER ENDORSES ROMNEY:  The editors apparently duked it out but concluded:

The Register’s editorial board, as it should, had a vigorous debate over this endorsement. Our discussion repeatedly circled back to the nation’s single most important challenge: pulling the economy out of the doldrums, getting more Americans back in the workforce in meaningful jobs with promising futures, and getting the federal government on a track to balance the budget in a bipartisan manner that the country demands.

Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.

After the endorsement, a transcript of the President’s discussion with the Des Moines Register editors was released.  Read it for yourself, but one word came to mind when I read it:  vacuous.

ROMNEY ERASES OBAMA LEAD IN OHIO:  The latest polls conducted by Ohio newspapers shows Romney surging in Ohio, erasing a previous 5-point deficit (in late September) to now be in a 49-49 tie.  A good indicator of how the tie may break:  The sample was D+3, and Romney leads 51-46 on the issue of the economy.