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If you’ve been following the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the term “reverse-racist” has undoubtedly appeared in a story you’ve read. Rush Limbaugh branded Sotomayor a ‘reverse-racist’ on his radio show, while Newt Gingrich labeled her a racist when he posted a statement on his Twitter account.

Some right wing groups claim that Sotomayor is a judicial activist who will bend the law based on her own personal views.

Wendy Long of The Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative-leaning organization involved with judicial nominations, sent a letter to Senators yesterday outlining these concerns:

“Judge Sotomayor challenges the belief that the law needs to be knowable and predictable . . .” 

Long accused Sotomayor of embracing judicial activism, and claims that “when judges drive such change, based not on the written Constitution and laws enacted by the people, judges use their own sense of personal "justice," based on their own experiences, personal views, feelings, and backgrounds.”

Sadly, the facts get in the way of Long’s argument. Take, for instance, Sotomayor’s ruling in the case of Pappas v. Giuliani. In short, the case involved Thomas Pappas, an employee of the New York City Police Department, who was fired for mailing racially offensive, anonymous letters to organizations that had solicited him for donations.

A reverse-racist, judicial activist, such as Sotomayor, must have ruled in favor of the city, claiming that Thomas violated the rights of others through his offensive remarks, right?

Wrong. It turns out that Judge Sotomayor did exactly what Wendy Long would have wanted?"she made her ruling based “on the written Constitution and laws enacted by the people.” Citing the NYCLU’s briefing on the case, Sotomayor and her Second Circuit panel concluded that: 

“The reduced free-speech protections accorded to public-employee speech related to the workplace also extended to private and anonymous speech by employees that took place away from the workplace and that was unrelated to the workplace” 

 Rather than let her personal beliefs get in the way of her ruling, Sotomayor upheld one of America's oldest laws by defending a bigot’s right to be a bigot.

Time is definitely beginning to slip away.  According to a new report from Israeli military intelligence, Iran has sped up its nuclear development and may have enough nuclear fuel to produce a bomb by the end of this year.

Iran already has a delivery system The Seji-2 missile, a two-stage missile, with a 2,000-kilometer range missile which is powered by solid fuel:

President Obama has said that he wants to give his "out reach" to the Iranian despot at least until the end of the year. It looks as if Ahmadinejad is racing ahead to make that deadline moot:

 Military Intelligence: Countdown to Iranian Nuke Bomb

by Hana Levi Julian

(IsraelNN.com) The head of the IDF Military Intelligence Research Division informed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday that Iran is only one year away from obtaining enough material for a nuclear weapon..

"By the end of the year, Iran may have enough fissile material for their first nuclear bomb," Brigadier-General Yossi Beiditz told the committee during the briefing. He added that Iran is developing its nuclear weaponry at a faster pace than before and that negotiations are unable to halt the process.

"Iran is extremely troubling due to its speed," he said. "It has missiles which can reach Israel. The Iranian clock precedes the international diplomacy clock." He added that for the time being, "The United States is determined to pursue diplomacy" with the Islamic Republic.

The information was not news to IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who had already warned the same committee a week earlier that he was preparing for any possibility.

"Iran continues with its plans," he told the MKs. "Its possession of nuclear weapons could destablize the entire Middle East. There is dialogue between the U.S. and Iran, with the prospects for success doubtful. For us as well, [diplomacy] would be the preferred way to stop [Iran's nuclear development] project. But as the chief of staff, I have to be prepared for any eventuality, and so this is what we are doing,"

While Western military and intelligence officials debated whether Iran has the capability to produce a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile, the Islamic Republic surprised the world last month by launching precisely such a weapon.

The Seji-2 missile, a two-stage missile, reached its intended target, according to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The 2,000-kilometer range missile is powered by solid fuel, and is reported to be a more advanced weapon than the country?"s previous Shihab missile series.

Beiditz told the committee that Hamas is continuing to successfully smuggle arms into Gaza, adding that Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is expecting U.S. President Barack Obama to pressure Israel into making more security concessions.

He also warned that the Hizbullah terrorist group remains a threat to Israel's north as well. "Hizbullah has deployed north and south of the Litani with missiles that can reach deep into Israel," he said.

Its deployment is a direct violation of United Nations Resolution 1701, the ceasefire agreement which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.The Litani River, located 12 miles from the Israel's northern border, was to be a marker point below which Hizbullah terrorists were not allowed to re-group.

The U.N. Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were deployed in a buffer zone that was to be free of "any armed personnel" -- both Hizbullah terrorists and IDF soldiers -- between the river and the U.N.-drawn Blue Line in the southern sector of the country. The agreement also calls for "no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its governPlease email me at yidwithlid@aol.com to be put onto my mailing list.

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St. Paul's Webster Magnet Elementary School changed its name last month to the Barack and Michelle Obama Service Learning Elementary. What's wrong with that? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editor David Shribman makes an impassioned plea on behalf of the school's namesake:

Webster was the greatest orator in the age of great oratory; some of his words remain in the American memory, even in this ahistorical age. He was probably the most eminent Supreme Court lawyer in American history, having argued 249 cases before the court, including several of the landmark cases of the early 19th century that shaped constitutional law in the United States for generations. And he was one of the greatest secretaries of state ever (and the first to serve non-consecutive terms, one under William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, another under Millard Fillmore).

"He achieved great distinction," says Kenneth E. Shewmaker, editor of the "Diplomatic Papers of Daniel Webster." "Barack Obama may have greater distinction because he had the chance to be president. A senator doesn't have that kind of power, but if we understand his legacy, including his role in creating the sense of American nationalism, we wouldn't wipe Webster's name off our buildings."

After pleading Webster's case, Shribman makes the larger case for the preservation of historical memory:

Changing the name of a school from Webster to Obama is a symptom of a larger problem in American life.

"The kind of present-mindedness that wipes out historical knowledge is a cultural fault of American society," says Hyman Berman, an emeritus history professor at the University of Minnesota. Alan Berolzheimer, a Norwich, Vt., historian who as a young man worked on cataloging and publishing the "Webster Papers," adds: "You don't make light of a long-standing historical figure whom a community honored in the first place."

Americans like to name schools after political figures. In Minnesota, there is an elementary school in St. Paul and a high school in Minneapolis named for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash while running for re-election in 2002. The University of Minnesota has the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, named for the mayor, senator and vice president who is the state's greatest historical figure. And the University of Minnesota Law School is housed in Walter F. Mondale Hall, named for the former senator and vice president. Mondale is very much alive.

"There should be room for Daniel Webster on our schools," says Mondale, who is 81. "He would want it that way, and he deserves a place. And though I know names can go up and they can go down, let's leave Mondale Hall alone for a while."

In working on the column, Shribman found the powers-that-be at Webster Magnet School present a case study in historical amnesia:

There is no trace at all of Webster in the Obama Service Learning Elementary school today, not even a picture of Webster, who may have been the subject of more formal portraits of any man of his time, if not of all American history. Indeed, in the period leading up to the vote on the name change, the principal of the school, Lori Simon, actually had to figure out for whom the school was named originally.

If Webster had been remembered at the school, I am quite certain that what was "remembered" would have been wrong. Such is certainly the case with what high school students are taught, for example, about Lincoln, whose political hero was Webster, when they are taught anything at all.

Despite enormous gains in the last few months, Obama has failed to move the right track-wrong track numbers into positive territory. And in the last few weeks, the wrong track has risen (and his favorability and job approval rates have begun to come down to earth).

Favorable graph after the jump:

Steve Levitt makes an astounding discovery.