[posted by Justin Levine — not Patterico]

I wanted to vote Republican. Honestly, I did. But in the end, I just couldn’t do it.

I admit that I didn’t follow the specific campaign for Congress in my district, but I figured that anyone has to be better than Maxine Waters. So my plan was to vote for whoever the Republican candidate was in this instance.

Imagine my surprise when I got the ballot at the polling booth, only to discover that the Republican party didn’t even bother to run a candidate against her. Not even a symbolic candidate. Nobody! Pathetic…

If I had known that, I would have run myself. (I wouldn’t have actually campaigned mind you, but I would have called up the Republicans and offered my name on the ballot just so that they could save face.)

In the end, I blindly marked the ballot for the Libertarian candidate. Pretty much sums things up…

Meanwhile, I suspect that the Libertarian party here will have one its biggest showings ever in terms of the percentage of the vote for a Congressional race.

[posted by Justin Levine]

I’m going to vote now, and we’re going out to dinner afterwards, so I won’t be online until much later. Leave your thoughts on tonight’s election below.

UPDATE: I changed the time stamps to reflect Standard Time, which may screw up the ordering of comments on other threads. If it looks like your comment got swallowed, check up the thread an hour.

Which is a technical way of saying that Baquet has been fired.

When things happen at the L.A. Times, the place to read about it is L.A. Observed. Today is no exception; go here for details.

According to the L.A. Observed post, people at the paper are not happy. L.A. Observed reminds us that top editors had pledged to leave if Baquet were forced to step down. I don’t know whether there will be mass resignations or not, but it’s safe to say that the paper will experience some tumult in coming days, as staffers and editors express their disgust with Tribune — by word, deed, or perhaps both.

UPDATE: This was posted from my Treo. I didn’t know that See Dubya had already broken the news below. Ah well. I’m closing comments on his post; you can comment here.

UPDATE x2: Here is the L.A. Times story on the resignation.

(A post by occasional guest blogger See-Dubya; to be cross-posted at Junkyard Blog.)

Straight from the horses’ mouth: the Editor of the L.A. Times is cleaning out his office. He wouldn’t agree to further staff cuts, but the publisher insisted on them.

We now take you back to your regularly scheduled election freakout. If you’re like me you’ve taken everything you’ve heard with so many grains of salt that your blood pressure is redlining.

See-Dub, over and out.

UPDATE FROM PATTERICO: I posted a post of my own breaking the news, not realizing that See Dubya had already done so.

Just so there is no confusion about where to comment, I’m closing comments here. Leave your comments on my post.

This sounds promising:

Gannett Co., the nation’s largest newspaper chain, plans to create stories with information from bloggers, people who post in Internet discussion groups and other non-journalists in hopes of winning readers from the Internet, television and other news sources, officials with the company said.

You can generally trust newspapers to screw up a good idea — but at least in theory, this sounds like a good idea.

[posted by Justin Levine]

The FCC issues what is likely its most important ruling on broadcast indecency in nearly 3 years.

If I’m interpreting this correctly (?), morning radio would still need to be cautious as usual – but it can now be a bit less nervous about discussing the intimate details of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, since that was/is a bona fide news story.

Some serious hair-splitting is taking place with this policy, but that has always been the case with broadcast indecency. If you are going to have rules against indecency, hair-splitting will always be a practical necessity on some level. Its just important to note that the hairs in this instance have gotten a tad bit finer in recent years. The same basic rule applies though: Context is king.

A partial dissent worth reading here.

[posted by Justin Levine]

The partial-birth abortion case is about to come before the Supreme Court. So I want to revive an issue I have raised here before.

This question is only for those of you who support partial-birth abortion. There must be some of you out there.

Here’s the question:

Assume the following facts. The fetus is viable. A doctor testifies that the safest method of abortion is to begin the delivery, and then abort the fetus. On cross-examination, he is asked whether delivery would be safer still for the mother — and he answers yes.

In other words, partial-birth abortion is the safest method of abortion — but delivery is safer still.

With those assumptions: in your view, may the state force the mother to deliver the baby?

If not . . . why not?

Show some guts. Assume all the above facts to be true and answer the question based on those assumptions. Then, and only then, question the assumptions if you like. But first, humor me and answer what I asked you — based on the assumptions I gave you.

When I asked the question before, I got 101 comments. Virtually nobody answered the question; most abortion supporters blew smoke. Which, frankly, is what I expect again — because it’s a tough question to answer.

But we pride ourselves on having some of the most intellectually honest leftists around. So . . . does anyone dare answer??

P.S. I have to give credit to the L.A. Times when credit is due. Despite the editors’ previous false suggestions to the contrary, today’s paper makes a shocking admission about partial-birth abortion (or D&X):

Only 1% to 2% of abortions take place after the 20th week of pregnancy.

Of these, about 3,000 to 5,000 per year are done with D&X. Doctors say only a small percentage of those are done because of medical complications or fetal deformity.

You’ll hear hacks on the “pro-choice” side argue the contrary — but even the L.A. Times says they’re wrong.

Every so often, the paper’s editors surprise me — and when they do, I have to give them credit. This is one of those times.

But don’t let that side observation distract us from the debate. I have a question for you supporters of partial-birth abortion, and I’m eager to hear the answer.

In a wonderfully understated post, Glenn Reynolds writes:

HUGH HEWITT is warning Republicans against excessive optimism.

It’s a very funny, subtle post — at least until you click on the link.

Of course, when you do, you learn that Hugh’s point is not that you should despair. It is that you should get out and vote. And I agree — at least if you live in a state with a contested Senate race. After all, what are we going to do if a new Supreme Court slot opens up? If you care about the judiciary the way I do, you want the Senate in our control if and when that happens.

So get out and vote.

Then despair.

P.S. Allah plans to be drunk tonight to ease the pain.

P.P.S. If you’re really looking for optimism, go to Big Lizards and keep scrolling. Dafydd ab Hugh has been looking at the polls and thinks things may not be that bad.

Me, I think Allah has a more realistic take.