FLORIDA SUPREME COURT JUSTICES– ORIGINALISTS?  Absolutely, unequivocally not.  I get the chance to set the record straight on a report I authored, commissioned by the Federalist Society, about 3 Florida Supreme Court Justices– Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente, and Peggy Quince–who are facing retention election this November.  Early media reports put their liberal “spin” on my report, claiming I had concluded these three justices were “not activist.”  WRONG.  I assiduously avoided using the “activist” word because I think it’s vastly overused and accordingly difficult to make stick.  But my report made abundantly clear two things:

1.  These 3 justices do have a discernible pattern of voting in accord with their (liberal) ideology; and

2.  It is perfectly acceptable for voters in Florida to cast their retention vote based on their belief that the justices’ ideology is “wrong” or out-of-step with Floridians.

Is that clear enough for everyone?

OBAMA: “WE LEAVE NOBODY BEHIND”:   Yep– you heard that right.  Our commander-in-chief, he of Benghazi-gate, told reporters at a photo-op at the Red Cross today that “we leave nobody behind.”  At least not after a hurricane a week from the election.  But in far away Benghazi, well, that’s another question entirely.  I know this is graphic, folks, but sometimes graphic pictures drive a point home in a way words never can:

EVEN MORE MITTMENTUM:  OREGON POLL PUTS OBAMA AT ONLY 47%:  The newly released Oregonian poll has the presidential race at 47-41 for Obama, with 8% undecided and a 5% margin of error.  Says the paper:

Obama’s lead is considerably smaller than his margin of victory in Oregon four years ago and is a sign of how tight the presidential race has become across the nation.

C’mon 8% undecided Oregonians!  Can you really stand 4 more years of the same???

FORMER HEAD OF PACIFIC FLEET CALLS BENGHAZI NON-RESPONSE “UN-AMERICAN”:  Retired Admiral James Lyons in his own words:

Having been in a number of similar situations, I know you have to have the courage to do what’s right and take immediate action. Obviously, that courage was lacking for Benghazi. The safety of your personnel always remains paramount. With all the technology and military capability we had in theater, for our leadership to have deliberately ignored the pleas for assistance is not only in incomprehensible, it is un-American.

He’s right.  The truth about Benghazi-gate will come out, sooner or later.  Let’s hope it’s sooner.  Lamestream media, are you listening?  Do you even care???

WAPO’S RICHARD COHEN WILL VOTE FOR OBAMA “WITH REGRET”:   Ouch!  Liberal columnist Richard Cohen writes a scathing piece in the Washington Post, in which he admits that Obama is an indifferent President who hasn’t fulfilled his promise. 

History was draped over Obama like a cape. His bona fides in that sense were as unimpeachable as Bobby Kennedy’s. The crowd adored Obama, although not as much as I think he adored himself. Liberals were intolerant of anyone who had doubts. Obama was not a man, but a totem. A single critical column from me during the campaign triggered a fusillade of invective. The famous and esteemed told me off. I was the tool of right-wing haters, a dope of a dupe.

. . . .

On the movie screen, Robert F. Kennedy’s appeal is obvious: authenticity. He cared. He showed it. People saw that and cared about him in return. With Obama, the process is reversed. It’s hard to care about someone who seems not to care in return. I will vote for him for his good things, and I will vote for him to keep Republican vandals from sacking the government. But after watching Bobby Kennedy, I will vote for Obama with regret. I wish he was the man I once mistook him for.

C’mon, Cohen, we Republicans won’t “sack” the government.  We’ll demand that it stay within its proper constitutional bounds (something all Americans should support), we’ll get rid of wasteful programs, and we’ll reform those entitlements you love so that they’ll actually be around for your children and grandchildren.   Come over to the light side, Richard.  We don’t bite.

LIFELONG JEWISH DEMOCRAT: WHY I’M VOTING FOR ROMNEY:  In yesterday’s Jerusalem Post, longtime and active Democrat Bryna Franklin explains why she is voting for Mitt Romney:

No Democratic president has ever been so fiscally irresponsible. President Clinton worked together with Congress to balance the budget and erase the deficit; President Obama has run trillion-dollar deficits every year, and we are now $6 trillion deeper in debt than when he was elected. Over 40 cents of every dollar we now spend is borrowed from China.

Future generations are being saddled with this burden.

Past Democratic administrations have records of high economic growth and high employment. Yet, under Obama, millions more Americans are without jobs than before he took office, and half of recent college graduates are unable to find work. Far too many of the jobs that Obama claims to have created or saved are in the public sector, and small businesses, the backbone of our economy, are hurting. Property values have not rebounded, and home foreclosures continue at a frightening pace.

On the international level, President Obama has proven himself to be a weak leader. Where has any of his diplomacy succeeded? Presidents Truman and Kennedy stood strong against the tyrannies of their time; President Obama bows down to the king of Saudi Arabia, and does not stand up to the president of Iran.

Mittmentum.

MORE MITTMENTUM:  ENDORSEMENT LOSS IS MAJOR:  Investor’s Business Daily reports that 1 in 5 major metro daily newspapers that endorsed Obama in 2008 have now concluded that 4 more years of his policies cannot turn our economy around, and have endorsed Mitt Romney for President.

A SANDY CLAUS FOR OBAMA?:  The hurricane may deflect attention away from other issues.

NYU HOSPITAL BEING EVACUATED:  The backup generator has failed.  This is a big hospital with a lot of beds.

KRAUTHAMMER SLAMS OBAMA FOR SANDY POSTURING:  Charles Krauthammer tells Fox News tonight that Obama’s briefing room appearance was a “photo-op” that stands in start contrast to Obama’s silence on Benghazi:

It’s hard to look at this, playing the president, playing the Commander in Chief in what’s a natural disaster that really doesn’t require a lot of from the White House. It’s up to the governors mostly. The White House and the government release money. That’s all they do and he’s really good at releasing money.”

Exactly.

TED KENNEDY’S WIDOW SPEAKS OUT AGAINST ASSISTED SUICIDE BALLOT MEASURE:  Voters in Massachusetts will be faced with Question 2, a ballot measure that would allow physician assistance with suicide for individuals deemed terminally ill (defined as 6 months or less to live). According to Catholic Culture:

Proposition 2 is unjust, Kennedy wrote, because it is “intended to exclude family members from the actual decision-making process to guard against patients’ being pressured to end their lives prematurely.” She added that the bill also places undue weight on a doctor’s diagnosis that a patient has less than 6 months to live. Speaking from experience, the Senator’s widow notes that Ted Kennedy’s terminal cancer was discovered, he was told he had 4-5 months to live. “Because that first dire prediction of life expectancy was wrong, I have 15 months of cherished memories,” Victoria Kennedy said.

The Massachusetts Medical Society opposes the measure for various reasons, including its agreement with Kennedy’s concerns about the “terminal” diagnosis, saying,

Predicting the end of life within six months is difficult; sometimes the prediction is not accurate. From time to time, patients expected to be within months of their death have gone on to live many more months — or years. In one study, 17 percent of patients outlived their prognosis.

Polls on the measure show that it enjoys broad support, however, and is likely to pass.

HOW MIGHT HURRICANE SANDY AFFECT THE ELECTION?:  There are lots of speculations, as The Blaze reports.

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE– LEADING FROM BEHIND:   And its consequence in Benghazi:

AFRICOM CHIEF GENERAL HAM IS LEAVING:  But the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Martin Dempsey, claims Ham’s departure is “part of a routine succession” planned since July.  This is in contrast to rumors that General Ham had recommended (and was prepared to use) military force to help rescue Ambassador Stevens and his colleagues at the consulate in Benghazi.

ECONOMIC LIBERTY–LESS IMPORTANT?:  The Supreme Court is being asked to review a very interesting case coming out of Arizona, in which a milk producer, Sarah Farms, is challenging the constitutionality of a federal law, the Milk Regulation Equity Act of 2005, which required them to abide by a minimum price for milk (they were previously exempted from this federal minimum milk price because they were “producer-handlers” who bottled and distributed their own milk).  There is evidence that the 2005 federal law was passed at the behest of large, competing milk producers, who wanted to subject Sarah Farms to federal minimum pricing.  The owners of Sarah Farms assert that the federal law represents an unreasonable (and hence, unconstituitonal) interference with their business.

Under today’s jurisprudence,  lawsuits alleging infringement of  economic rights are presumed constitutional, and the citizen must prove that there is no rational basis for the law.  As a result, laws that regulate the economy are rarely overturned.

The important question posed by the dairy farm case is this:  Can citizens in an economic liberty case present evidence of government malfeasance, or must the court rubber stamp the government’s proffered “rational basis” for the law, even if it wasn’t what actually motivated its passage?  In other words, is a law unconstitutional if evidence demonstrates that it was actually motivated by an anti-competitive purpose?

One would hope that the answer to that question is “yes”–that courts would not turn a blind eye to such evidence of nefarious, anti-competitive motives.  But the case law on point is slim, with only one clear court opinion holding this to be the case, Craigmiles v. Giles, decided in 2002 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Fingers crossed the Supreme Court agrees to hear this important case.

H/T to Damon Root at Reason for this story.

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE & SHARIA:  Middle East scholar Nonie Darwish at the Gatestone Institute explains why the Obama Doctrine in the Middle East (apology and appeasement) is doomed to fail under the terms of Sharia law.  Darwish asserts:

Obama, since his inauguration, seems to have chosen to be this kind of a peacemaker and friend of Sharia, a trap that Muslims always count on: a fantasy that goes something like, I will make the Muslims love and accept me by respecting and accepting their Sharia law, because anything less might make me seem to them a hostile, anti-Islamic enemy, worthy of slander, attacks and more terror. It is possible that Obama did not want to aggravate a war on terror, which he refused to acknowledge existed, by concluding it in Pakistan and Afghanistan by withdrawing troops, and therefore being reluctant to send any military aid to Libya, which he thought he had just liberated. After all, he was probably counting on the end of Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi to secure his legacy as the peacemaker with the Muslim world.

Obama was willing to pay a heavy price in the hope of receiving acceptance from Islamists who never have, and possibly never will, accord acceptance to any non-Muslim. The President may have thought that the best solution to win his upcoming election and appease a war-weary electorate was not to respond to Islamic terror, and cover up his failure to protect American lives by blaming his inaction as a justified response to a mob reaction to some video. Of course, such an evasion only invites an even larger attack later, which will cost even more in lives and treasure. The President may well have been hoping that at least this new assault would take place after he was safely re-elected.

Read the whole thing.

PEW POLL:  DEMS ARE ANTI-ISRAEL:  A poll conducted by Pew Research asked, “Do you think the United States is not supportive enough of Israel?”  A shockingly low percentage of Democrats–9%– answered yes.  This means that 91% of Democrats think the Obama Administration’s current policies towards Israel are “supportive enough.”  Yikes.  By comparison, 46% of Republicans answered yes. For those Jewish readers still clinging to the Democrat party and Obama:  Take notice, you are not among friends when it comes to U.S. policy toward Israel.

JOBS NUMBERS DELAYED UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION?:  The Department of Labor announced today that it might delay the latest jobs report (expected to be released Friday).  The supposed reason? Hurricane Sandy.   Yeah, um, right.   What’s that smell?  Fear?  Desperation?  Is there anything the Obama Administration won’t do to get reelected?

BENGHAZI-GATE: COVERUP FOR CIA GUN-RUNNING IN SYRIA?:  As more and more leaks develop about Benghazi, an intriguing theory is emerging:  That Ambassador Stevens was involved in recruiting Al Qaeda jihadists–and providing them weaponry–to fight Assad’s regime in Syria.  If true, this could provide some context for an Obama Administration motive to cover up and deny military  aid to Stevens and his colleagues at the consulate compound.

RASMUSSEN POLL IN OHIO:   Romney 50%, Obama 48%.  Romney’s lead on the economy is +12.

WHAT HAPPENS IN BENGHAZI:  Stays in Benghazi.  That is, until the lamestream media starts to take seriously the Obama Administration’s apparent decision to let Americans to die at the hands of terrorists.

ABORTION EXTREMISM:  By the progressives.  Timothy Carney’s column in the Washington Examiner explains why it’s the Obama, not Romney, campaign that is extreme on the issue of abortion.   And I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again (because virtually no one understands this):  Overruling Roe v. Wade would not–I repeat not–make abortion illegal.  It would only make abortion something that would be decided state-by-state rather than imposed from the Supreme Court down, in a one-size-fits-all solution for the country.

Many lawyers I know oppose Roe v. Wade because–as Carney points out– it is a truly awful opinion, in terms of legal reasoning (or lack thereof).  But they don’t necessarily, as a political matter, think that if Roe is overruled, their state legislatures should then make abortion unavailable.

The constitutional right ssue and the “legal availability” issue are apples and oranges.

MEMORY, WITHOUT A BRAIN?:  Seems impossible, but scientists at the University of Sydney claim their recent research shows that at least one type of slime exhibits a memory without a brain.    Making slime in the kitchen with my daughter now makes me think twice.

THE SILENCE ON BENGHAZI IS DEAFENING:  Of the 5 major Sunday news shows today, only Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace thought it was important enough to raise.   Absolutely disgusting.

HARRY REID’S GRAVEYARD:  A damning editorial by the Wall St. Journal about the U.S. Senate under Harry Reid’s leadership and the imperative of gaining Republican control of that chamber.  The editors conclude:

But if it’s big and bold that voters want, House Republicans have passed it. What stands in their way are Senate Democrats. One reason the Reagan policy revolution became law in 1981 is because Republicans scared enough Democrats into cooperating by picking up a net gain of 12 Senate seats in 1980 to gain control 53-46.

If voters want to break the gridlock of the past two years and start addressing the country’s urgent fiscal and economic problems, they’re going to have to elect a Republican Senate as well as Mr. Romney.

The Republicans need a net pickup of 4 Senate seats.  The Massachusetts race between Republican incumbent Scott Brown and challenger Elizabeth Warren may be the key.