Speaking to a gathering of the Federalist Society (where he was preaching to the choir), Judge Dennis Jacobs, chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, told the crowd that pro bono work is an anti-social activity. He particularly dislikes pro bono work for environmental causes, which he considers "legal activism."

"No public good is good for everybody," Jacobs said.

Perhaps Judge Jacobs meant to distinguish the helping hands that lawyers lend to the indigent in divorce and domestic abuse cases, landlord-tenant disputes, social security disability and veterans benefits cases, and all the other kinds of legal work that help individuals rather than the broader public. Even if that's so, it's shocking to think that a federal judge would disparage pro bono representation in lawsuits against the government. Making the government obey the law isn't an invitation to judicial "activism."

Helping society for free, rather than corporate clients for a healthy hourly rate, isn't anti-social. It's in the finest tradition of the bar to use the judicial system to help improve lives. Lawyers who do so should be praised, not scolded.

As Gov. Sarah Palin makes the round of Republican strongholds in Colorado today, the Aspen Daily News issues its endorsement of Barack Obama. On John McCain, the paper says:

McCain's own behavior has been cause for concern. He has clearly abandoned the 'maverick' platform that made him popular in 2000, and has shamelessly catered to the religious right, which has its party in a headlock.

It's hard to say what McCain's true colors are, but they were clearly evident in his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. While it was a tactical success in energizing the Republican Party, it was a reckless move that would put our country in danger should she ever become commander-in-chief. Not only is she inexperienced and unworldly, Palin just doesn't seem that bright. She dodges too many questions and fumbles too many answers to lead the free world.

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The Bush administration's recent "get tough" philosophy with regard to undocumented workers (as opposed to its more lenient attitude toward the employers who hire them) might soon require revision. In the past, undocumented workers were deported but usually were not aggressively prosecuted, at least if they had not reentered the country after an earlier deportation. The most recent approach is to charge or threaten to charge identity theft if the worker obtained employment by using another person's name and social security number.

The workers who acquire false documents do not necessarily know whether they are using a real or a fictitious identity. The government insists that it need not prove the worker's knowledge that he or she has misappropriated a real identity. Some courts have agreed with the government while others have held that identity theft requires proof that the worker knew the fraudulent documents contained a real person's information.

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In addition to the national polls cited here by Big Tent Democrat, there's a Suffolk Ohio and Missouri poll out today.

Barack Obama leads John McCain by 9 in Ohio and McCain's ahead by 1 in Missouri.

I think Ohio is critical. If McCain loses there, I think he loses the election.

"If Ohio goes for Obama, it may be lights out for McCain,” said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University in Boston. "At least today, the probability of an Ohio win is supported by the high-single-digit lead in the statewide poll coupled with the Perry County bellwether, which showed Obama leading by 4 percent.”

Joe the Plumber didn't help McCain in Ohio, his home state.

I give Gallup major props - they keep giving the RV totals with their LV models in their polling results. Their latest polling shows Obama leading among registered voters by 11 and by 9 among likely voters (expanded model). DKos/R2000 has Obama up 8, 50-42 among LVs (no RV number made available.) Hotline, IBD/TIPP and CNN have Obama by 5. Ras has Obama by 4 as does Battleground. All of these are LV numbers.

Still Obama's election.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Yesterday, I wrote about Jon Meacham's article about our Center Right country. In particular, I scoffed at Meacham's suggestion that FDR's Presidency provided an example of his thesis - that somehow FDR failed to win the ideological battle for Progressivism. Such talk is generally centered on FDR's failure to win primary battles in his own party in 1938. But it seems incredibly wrongheaded to me to judge FDR solely on that basis.

It would be ignoring everything that came before - when FDR revolutionized national government. Similarly, Matt Yglesias underestimates the power of the Presidency:

There’s a tendency to attribute FDR’s and LBJ’s achievements to something inherent to their character or their approach to governing, but the truth is simply that in 1933-34 and 1965-66 you had a lot of liberals in congress so a lot of liberal legislation passed.

This is simply not correct in my view. FDR had a lot of DEMOCRATS in his Congress, but they were not particularly liberal, even for the time. What there was was this new FDR creation, and in some ways, a very bad one, an Imperial Presidency:

photo from L.A. Times

After weeks of jury selection, the Fort Dix Six terror trial begins today, with five of the original defendants, four of whom are pictured above. (One pleasded guilty to lesser charges.) They are charged with "conspiring to gun down military personnel at the sprawling South Jersey base in a jihad-inspired attack last year."

Keep your eye on the snitch testimony. The FBI is using two "cold insert" informants, Mahmoud Omar and Besnik Bakalli, to make the case.

A Justice Department official admits the two men are 'not squeaky-clean.' The trial, which starts Monday, will test the FBI's controversial tactic of using 'cold inserts' to infiltrate groups. [More...]

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller will join Fox News as a commentator on free speech issues, as well as those pertaining to foreign policy and national security.

"I get to spout my views, I will NOT be joining the news team," she stressed. "I care about First Amendment issues and free speech and I will talk about that and foreign policy if and when we ever stop talking about the economy, which is going to be going on for a while."

Rolling Stone has released an investigative report on Republican vote stealing in the 2004 election by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast. It's findings:

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted - enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

How it happened and what it meant:

“The new registrations thrown out, the existing registrations scrubbed, the spoiled ballots, the provisional ballots that were never counted - and what you have is millions of voters, more than enough to swing the presidential election, quietly being detached from the electorate by subterfuge.

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ABC News reports a new Washington Post/ABC poll shows:

Likely voters overwhelmingly reject his effort to make an issue of Barack Obama's association with 1960s radical William Ayers. Fallout continues from McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for vice president, with 52 percent saying it weakens their confidence in his judgment. And on optimism, it's Obama by 2-1

60 percent say Obama's relationship with Ayers is not a legitimate issue in the presidential campaign; 37 percent say it is.

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Ted Stevens will return to the witness stand Monday as prosecutors continue their cross-examination. Although two senators testified for Stevens as character witnesses, a third has been in the audience lending his support: Larry Craig. You can understand why Craig wasn't asked to testify in support of Stevens' good character.

You can review trial coverage in these posts: 9/29, 10/2, 10/9, 10/14, 10/17. The New York Times has this preview of the trial's closing days.

Sen. Barack Obama will concentrate on states that voted for George W. Bush in 2004. His schedule:

He and his aides appear so confident of his prospects that apart from a brief stop in Madison, Wis., next Thursday, Obama currently has no plans during the next 10 days to return to Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New Hampshire or any other state that voted for John Kerry in 2004.

Instead, he intends to spend two days this week in Florida, where early voting begins on Monday, and travel to Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico and possibly Nevada and Indiana. Those states hold 97 electoral votes combined, and Bush all in 2004.

Obama strategist David Axlerod says:

"I don't want to say he won't go to a Blue State, but we're certainly concentrating on expanding the map."

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