In an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan this evening, Romney Campaign Co-Chair and former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R-NH) offered a surprising theory on why General Colin Powell endorsed President Obama for reelection today — because both men are black:

SUNUNU: You have to wonder whether that’s an endorsement based on issues or that he’s got a slightly different reason for President Obama.

MORGAN: What reason would that be?

SUNUNU: Well, I think that when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud of being President of the United States — I applaud Colin for standing with him.

For the record, John Sununu is an intelligent and accomplished white man. He has also decided to endorse Mitt Romney, who is white, over Barack Obama, who is black. No one believes that Sununu made this decision for any reason other than the fact that he prefers Romney’s policies to Obama’s, and it would be absolutely inappropriate to suggest that Sununu joined the Romney campaign because he wanted a president of his same race.

Colin Powell is also an intelligent and accomplished man. Suggesting he is unable to see beyond the president’s race is no less insulting.

Rebecca Edmonds with her father after being commissioned

Weeks before being commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, Rebecca Edmonds found out she was pregnant. But she was unmarried, so the Air Force removed her from the ranks and accused her of committing fraud because, as Edmonds would learn, single parents are forbidden from enlisting in the Air Force, according ton CNN:

Thirteen weeks into her pregnancy, she was sworn in by her father as a second lieutenant and started making plans to go to Virginia to begin her military service. Nearly six months into her pregnancy, she said, she told her new commanders that she was going to have a child, and they told her they didn’t think it would be a problem.

But they were wrong. Citing a contract she signed in 2007 when she enrolled in ROTC at age 18, the Air Force said she committed a fraud by not reporting a change in her medical condition, as indicated in the contract. [...]

Edmonds said she asked the officer who informed her that she was being ejected from the Air Force, “Had I terminated the pregnancy before my commissioning, would I have been able to commission at that point?” And, according to Edmonds, “He said, ‘Well. Technically, yes.’ That was the hardest part of all of this. Someone telling me to my face that had I gotten an abortion, then I would be eligible for service.”

After she was “dis-enrolled” from the Air Force, Edmonds challenged the decision and appealed to her congressman, Rep. Paul Ryan. According to CNN, Col. Kelly L. Goggins wrote in response to Ryan’s inquiry into the case that Edmonds would have been able to stay in the Air Force if she was married or gave the child up for adoption. Another officer told Edmonds that she would have been able to be commissioned as an officer if she had had an abortion. “That was the hardest part of all of this. Someone telling me to my face that had I gotten an abortion, then I would be eligible for service,” she said.

In a statement to CNN, an Air Force official said non-married service members would never be told to give up their children. Currently, Edmonds’ case is being reviewed “at the highest levels.”

Edmonds’ removal from the military because she refused to give up her child or get married is not the first example of female service members having difficult with the military culture and regulations — two active-duty women were reprimanded after being photographed breastfeeding in uniform. But Edmonds’ mother, Karen Edmonds, said she hoped that when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta praised the end of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and committed “to removing all the barriers that would prevent Americans from serving their country,” that applied to mothers in the military as well.

Former U.S. Rep. Rick Hill (R-MT)

A Montana judge Wednesday halted a plan by former U.S. Rep. Rick Hill (R), currently his party’s nominee for Montana governor, to evade state campaign finance limits and take a $500,000 contribution from the state Republican Party. The contribution had been made in a brief six-day window when a federal judge’s ruling prohibited Montana from enforcing its limits on campaign contributions — a ruling now on hold, as a federal appeals court determined a challenge to his order was “likely to succeed.”

District Judge Kathy Seeley issued a restraining order, stopping Hill from spending any of the party’s donation and ordering him to cancel any pending ad buys he has made with those funds. She ordered a hearing to consider the case for Monday morning, just eight days before the election. A federal judge also rejected on Wednesday an attempt by the Hill campaign to move the case to federal court.

On October 3, U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell threw out Montana’s campaign contribution limits, writing that they prevent candidates from “amassing the resources necessary for effective campaign advocacy.” On October 9, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily stayed his ruling and later ordered that the state’s campaign finance rules be operative for this year’s election.

The Montana Republican Party opted to use the six-day gap to make a large transfer — $500,000 — from its coffers to Hill’s campiagn. The Hill campaign accepted the money and said it would keep and spend the cash, as it was a legal contribution at the time it was made. Democratic nominee and current Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock filed suit claiming the contribution was still illegal — well over the state’s $22,600 maximum aggregate limit. While the state party could have spent the money on ads of its own rather than contribute it to Hill, federal law allows candidates to buy them at a significantly lower rate.

Alleged dog torturer Sean Janas.

Mary, a German Shepherd/Lab mix, was allegedly poisoned for months by her owner’s girlfriend, who kept a diary chronicling her joy at causing Mary extraordinary pain. Sean Janas, the woman in question, has been charged with animal abuse for routinely feeding the dog bleach, drain cleaner, and pills, and may face up to five years in jail. Pages of her diary are some of the key evidence presented in the criminal complaint:

I need to find a way to kill her without it looking like I killed her. I’ve done lots of things already. I’ve given her drano bleach & a lot of pain pills lol one night she got all tweaked out because of it, it was so funny. I beat the living shit out of her a few days ago & shes got a huge like sack on her head and she won’t stop puking on everything. So imma give her more pills & hopefully that dumb bitch dies. Because Steve thinks she ate something outside & that’s why shes sick. …

I just wanna beat her till she fucking dies. Which I mean I have beat her I mean. I tell you I don’t care how long it takes I’m just gonna keep feeding her pills & shit till she croaks because shes already sick & we don’t have any money to take her to the vet so hopefully she just dies so I don’t have to ever see her dumb ass again. I have never hated an animal so much in my life, much less hate one or beat one. But the pleasure I get from watching her whimper in pain & cry out for help as I shove drano & bleach down her throat is like no other.

The brutality of Janas’ actions has galvanized a petition campaign asking the Marathon County District Attorney to seek the maximum punishment allowable by the law in question. Brutal abuse of dogs and other pets is sadly common around the United States, in part because several states have very weak legal mechanisms for prosecuting animal abuse. The abuse of animals is even more routine in factory farms. Both problems are aided and abetted by federal inaction on animal welfare issues.

New Jersey’s highest court has denied parental rights to an infertile woman who arranged with her husband to a have a child carried by a surrogate. A 3-3 tie vote forced the court to accept the opinion of the lower court, and reject arguments that a New Jersey law unconstitutionally discriminated against women when it granted rights only to infertile men.

The New Jersey Parentage Act (N.J.S.A.) allows infertile men parental rights to a child carried by their wife via artificial insemination, even though the sperm come from a different man. It does not, however, grant parental rights to infertile women like the plaintiff, who similarly seek to have children through alternative means using their husband’s sperm.

In distinguishing between the two scenarios, the majority opinion noted that surrogates also have a stake in the outcome, with the option to seek parental rights. In a famous New Jersey case involving “Baby M,” the same court found that a surrogate carrying a child with her own egg could not be forced to relinquish her parental rights, even though she had already agreed to give the baby away. But as the New York Times points out, couples rarely now use the egg of the surrogate, instead relying on an anonymous egg donor and the sperm of the father in what is called “gestational surrogacy.”

The surrogate in this case had already relinquished her parental rights, and was not disputing that issue. Instead, it was the state’s Department of Health and Human Services that intervened, claiming the woman’s name had improperly been included on the child’s birth certificate, and that the wife (A.L.S.) would have to go through the time and expense of the adoption process.

A three-justice dissent lamented the majority’s reliance on hypothetical scenarios, when the rights of the surrogate were not at issue in this case:

Although the purpose of the Parentage Act was for “all children and parents [to] have equal rights with respect to each other,” see Sponsor’s Statement, Statement to Senate Bill No. 888 (Jan. 19, 1982), that is not the case when one set of rights is granted to an infertile husband and his intended child, and a lesser set of rights is granted to an infertile wife and her intended child. In light of the rights conferred on an infertile husband by N.J.S.A. 9:17-44(a), there is no legitimate State interest in denying the infertile wife the ability to become the natural parent of the child conceived by her husband’s sperm when the surrogate, seventy-two hours after the child’s birth, lawfully relinquishes her parental rights. The surrogate’s surrender of her rights places A.L.S., if not in the same shoes, in similar shoes as the infertile husband.

As the case of “Baby M” shows, this is not an easy issue. State lawmakers have been wary to enter the fray of regulating surrogacy agreements, and the majority’s hesitation to question the legislature’s judgment reflects the cultural uncertainty surrounding this issue. In New Jersey, for example, a bill that would have put the names of infertile parents almost immediately on the birth certificate was vetoed by Gov. Chris Christie in August.

But as the dissent points out, this challenge is about whether this particular woman was discriminated against, not whether a third party might have a claim to parental rights in some other case. New Jersey’s law rightly attempts to keep up with the modern familial realities and to ensure that all parents have “equal rights.” Unfortunately, it falls far short of that goal by failing to provide any comparable mechanism by which an infertile woman — or an individual in a same-sex couple for that matter – can gain automatic legal rights to a child. Instead, because the plaintiff contributed no genetic material to the equation, she will be asked to go through the legal hoops of earning the right to the child she has now been mothering for three years.

Left: OH-SEN nominee Josh Mandel (R). Right: IN-SEN nominee Richard Mourdock (R)

Ohio Senate nominee Josh Mandel (R) defended neighboring Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (R) for his comments that pregnancies resulting from rape are a “gift from God,” calling Mourdock a “gentleman” and a “class act.”

Mandel was initially asked on Wednesday whether he agreed with Mourdock that “God intended” for pregnancies from rape, but the Ohio Republican was unwilling to take a position at the time. A day later, Mandel stuck up for Mourdock on the Laura Ingraham Show, defending his character and claiming that the Indiana GOPer had apologized for his comments:

INGRAHAM: What’s your take on that whole deal yesterday?

MANDEL: [...] I’ve gotten to know Richard because we’re both state treasurers. We’re treasurers in states next to each other. He’s a gentleman. He’s a class act. He’s a thoughtful guy. He’ll make a great United States senator. Yesterday he apologized for his comments and I think he was right in apologizing for them.

Listen to it:

In fact, Mourdock pointedly and repeatedly refused to apologize for his comments during a press conference yesterday. It was this very refusal that led Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to withdraw his endorsement of Mourdock.

The Republican caucus has been split over Mourdock. Some prominent GOPers are continuing to back the Indiana Republican, including Mitt Romney, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and NRSC Chairman John Cornyn (R-TX). Others haven’t been as willing to stand with him. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), running for governor of Indiana, said yesterday, “I strongly disagree with the statement made by Richard Mourdock during last night’s Senate debate. I urge him to apologize.” Former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman (R) was equally critical, saying, “Mourdock’s comments damage all Republicans and especially Romney as the fight for the woman’s vote intensifies.” Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) also cancelled a planned trip to campaign with Mourdock in Indiana.

Two weeks before election day, the TV airways are abuzz not just with presidential and Congressional campaign messages, but also with ads focused on ballot initiatives, referenda, and state constitutional amendments. These often-overlooked plebiscite votes have a huge impact on public policy. Of the 174 questions on the ballot, here are nine of the most important:

1.Immigration (Maryland and Montana). Maryland voters will vote on Question 4, deciding whether a state DREAM Act, passed by the legislature, should go into law. Recent polling shows that 59 percent of state residents support the proposal, which would allow eligible undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state universities. Montanans will vote on LR-121, a proposal to deny state services to undocumented immigrants — including state permits, licenses, and services for crime victims.

2. Marriage equality (Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington). Voters in Maryland (Question 6), Maine (Question 1), and Washington (Referendum 74) will vote on whether to enact marriage equality for same-sex couples. Polling in all three states indicate majority support for the measures. Minnesotans will consider a proposed marriage inequality amendment (Amendment 1). Polling there shows it is very close and, under state law, opponents of equality will need a majority of all voters who show up — even if they don’t vote on Amendment 1 — to amend the state constitution.

3. Marijuana (Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana, Oregon, and Washington). Colorado’s Amendment 64 and Washington’s Initiative 502 would legalize and regulate sales of small quantities of marijuana to residents 21 years and older. Both efforts are polling fairly well, though Oregon’s less-restrictive Measure 80 appears to be trailing. Arkansas (Issue 5) and Massachusetts (Question 3) will both consider proposals to allow medical marijuana and Montana (Initiative Referendum 124) will vote on whether to allow the state legislature to substitute its own medical marijuana law for one enacted by voters in 2004.
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