ILYA SOMIN: Oral Testimony on Drones and Targeted Killing Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights.

WELL, THIS DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE: Fox News poll: Majority says legal immigration should be reduced.

While most voters favor citizenship for illegal immigrants who meet certain requirements, there is widespread agreement that new border security should come first.

In addition, more than half say we should cut the number of legal immigrants allowed into the United States.

A just-released Fox News poll finds 55 percent of voters think fewer legal immigrants should be accepted into the U.S. That’s up from 43 percent in 2010.

Majorities of Republicans (67 percent) and independents (53 percent) as well as a plurality of Democrats (47 percent) want to decrease legal immigration.

Overall, 28 percent of voters say the U.S. should increase legal immigration.

So if the voters aren’t clamoring for this, why the hurry?

MAKES SENSE. IN THIS TIGHT LABOR MARKET, WHO ARE YOU GOING TO FIND TO REPLACE THEM? Fast food workers’ campaign goes national with strike in Chicago.

THIS CASE ISN’T LOOKING SO GOOD: Ricin suspect freed, describes ‘nightmare.’

I, FOR ONE, WELCOME OUR NEW ROBOT OVERLORDS: Don’t fear the robo-apocalypse, yet.

MICHAEL WALSH: The Memory of Beslan, the Shame of Boston.

ROSS DOUTHAT’S PIECE ON “LIBERALTARIAN DEMOCRATS” AND WHY GUN-CONTROL FAILED sounds kind of like my USA Today column on guns and gay marriage. Key bit:

Obama isn’t the Marxist of conservative paranoia, but his economic vision is far more dirigiste than libertarian — which is a big reason why many of the economic libertarians who had soured on the Bush-era G.O.P. ended up returning to the Republican fold. (Though not Lindsey himself, I should note.) On national security, meanwhile, the Democratic Party is plainly much less libertarian — and the Republican Party, mostly thanks to Rand Paul, slightly more so — than it was when Lindsey was drawing up his form of fusionism.

But on most cultural issues, the Democratic Party clearly has grown steadily more, well, “liberaltarian” since Lindsey coined the term. Again, if you look at things on a right-left axis, as the Politico piece quoted above does, the resistance to even modest gun control measures among many swing-state Democrats seems like the exception to the Obama-era party’s leftward shifts on gay marriage, immigration (where the party’s Byron Dorgans are all but extinct), and recreational drugs. But if you look at things from a libertarian perspective instead, it’s all perfectly consistent — the freedoms of gun owners being of a piece with the freedoms of migrants and pot smokers and gay couples — and an indication that the Democrats are simply becoming more culturally libertarian across the board.

When you combine this trend with the Republican Party’s sharp libertarian turn on economics and modest libertarian turn on civil liberties, you could argue that libertarian ideology has never enjoyed more bipartisan influence than it does right now.

Which isn’t to say that we’ve gone all that far. . . .

On a less cheerful note, on Twitter, Douthat also recommends James Poulos on The Pink Police State. “So citizens of a Pink Police State (I should say subjects) are apt to surrender more and more political liberty in exchange for more and more cultural or ‘personal’ license. And the government of a Pink Police State tends to monopolize and totalize administrative control while carving out a permissive playpen for the people. This tradeoff has a creepy economic component.”

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Did Boston Have It Coming? The United Nations Says Yes.

HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: Samurai sword-wielding Mormon bishop comes to aid of woman being attacked. “Kent Hendrix woke up Tuesday to his teenage son pounding on his bedroom door and telling him somebody was being mugged in front of their house. The 47-year-old father of six rushed out the door and grabbed the weapon closest to him — a 29-inch high carbon steel Samurai sword. . . . ‘His eyes got as big as saucers and he kind of gasped and jumped back,’ Hendrix said by phone Tuesday afternoon. ‘He’s probably never had anyone draw a sword on him before.'”

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Grocery & Personal Care.

BACK IN 2001, MICKEY KAUS POINTED OUT A WELFARE-TERRORISM CONNECTION. Kaus wrote: “The point isn’t simply that many terrorists take advantage of Western welfare states, the same way they take advantage of Western freedoms and Western technology. The point is that extreme anti-social terrorist ideologies (radical Islam, in particular) seem to breed in ‘oppositional’ cultures supported by various government welfare benefits.”

Now this: Tamerlan Tsarnaev got Massachusetts welfare benefits.

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. . . .

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.

Mickey, maybe you should do a followup piece.

PEOPLE SAID THAT EMAIL SCAMMERS WOULD COME OUT AFTER THE BOSTON BOMBINGS — and, apparently, they were right!

AND WITH REASON: House report critical of Obama administration over Benghazi.

Senior State Department officials, including Clinton, approved reductions in security at the facilities in Benghazi, according to the report by GOP members of five House committees. The report cites an April 19, 2012, cable bearing Clinton’s signature acknowledging a March 28, 2012, request from then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz for more security, yet allowing further reductions.

“Senior State Department officials knew that the threat environment in Benghazi was high and that the Benghazi compound was vulnerable and unable to withstand an attack, yet the department continued to systematically withdraw security personnel,” the report said.

Release of the report comes as dozens of House Republicans separately have pushed for Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to create a select committee to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attack. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report Tuesday.

The report also is highly critical of President Barack Obama and White House staff. In the days following the attack, White House and senior State Department officials altered what the report said were accurate “talking points” drafted by the U.S. intelligence community in order to protect the State Department.

And contrary to what the administration claimed, the alterations were not made to protect classified information. “Concern for classified information is never mentioned in email traffic among senior administration officials,” according to the 43-page report.

They were trying to protect the pre-election narrative that terrorism was no longer anything we had to worry about. Meanwhile, filmmaker/scapegoat Nakoula is still in jail, even though nobody believes that his YouTube video had anything to do with Benghazi anymore.

Related: Report Says Hillary Signed Off On Benghazi Security Reduction.

THE MOST IMPORTANT ECONOMIC CHART IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION. And how it happened.

YOUR DAILY CUTENESS: 10-week-old puppies trying to figure out how to herd ducks.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “[W]hen you pull a gun the implication is that you will use it. All subsequent actions proceed on that basis. When you raise your interactions to that level here in Wisconsin you should bear in mind that Wisconsin is a concealed carry state. You better be prepared to play for the stakes you wager.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: An Occasional Drink Is O.K. During Pregnancy. Although the Authorities are loath to admit it.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Parents should beware of borrowing too much to pay for children’s college education. “Borrowing programs designed to help parents raise money for their children’s education — such as PLUS loans — could potentially hurt the families they are intended to help. The loans are remarkably easy to get, yet nearly impossible to get out from under when families bite off more debt than they can chew.”

Yes, student loans are dangerous; parent loans are in some ways moreso.

BUT “PUBLIC HEALTH” PEOPLE ARE BUSY WITH TRENDY POLITICAL TOPICS: Hospital Bedbug Infestations Skyrocket. “More than a third of pest-management companies treated bedbug infestations in hospitals in 2012, 6% more than the year before and more than twice as many as in 2010, according to a survey released today by the National Pest Management Association. The percentage of exterminators dealing with bedbugs in nursing homes has also almost doubled since 2010, to 46%. Bedbug experts also report seeing them in ambulances.”

Then there’s the rise of antibiotic-resistant “super” gonorrhea. But by all means, focus on sugary soft drinks and firearms.

GOOD ADVICE, from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon: “Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker’s game because they almost always turn out to be — or to be indistinguishable from — self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.”

THE BOOK THIEF: Did Zosa Szajkowski save precious documents from the Nazis, or did he steal the cultural patrimony of French Jews?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why You Should Stay Inside During A Firefight. People need to be told to do that? Really?

UPDATE: Related: Women shot by LAPD during Dorner manhunt to get settlement.

AT AMAZON, 40% Or More Off On External Hard Drives.

Also, 50% or more off on USB Flash Drives. Some as big as many hard drives . . . .

SUPREME COURT: The Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action case is now the only undecided case argued in October.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Atomically precise placement of dangling bonds on silicon surface.