My partner is doing a lot of organizing and canvassing for Obama. The conservative area and even the Democrats with feminist leanings/pasts are conservative by coastal standards. The universal response this morning among these women was (1) this choice is insulting to women (2) how could she take a job like that when she has a special-needs infant?

Mind you, these are almost all 30-60ish working women who use/used day care and while conservative still have a feminist core.

I am guessing this boomarangs on Rove/McCain, not Obama.

sPh

Posted at August 30, 2008 1:45 PM in response to Vice President Sarah Palin: It Is Over!

I see two or three names I recognize. Any other oldtimers lurking out there shaking their heads and laughing?

sPh

Posted at August 17, 2008 9:52 PM in response to First Draft of New TPM Community Tools

> It has to be the media - if he were under the
> microscope as much as Obama, more Americans would
> know how bad a candidate he is and the polls would
> reflect this.

This is as darkly amusing as the traditional media refusing the even mention the Iraq War vote as a key factor in Senator Clinton's primary loss. Do you think, just possibly think, that Senator Obama's **FISA capitulation vote** might have something to do with his reduced standing among independents?

sPh

Posted at July 20, 2008 4:46 PM in response to McCain Campaign Declines To Disavow Top Surrogate's Remarks About "The Muslims"

> After almost two decades in existence, the
> enforcibility of the GPL has yet to be tested in
> US courts.

I don't have citations handy, but I believe that is incorrect. Over the last 2 years several federal district courts have rejected "GPL is invalid" defenses and at least one of those cases was affirmed by an Appeals Court. I don't think any have been to the Supreme Court yet, but I have to think that is in large part due to Eban Moglen's observation that when GPL violators call in their lawyer after the fact and the lawyer reads the GPL his advice to his client is always 'settle now'.

sPh

Posted at June 18, 2008 10:18 PM in response to Norms of Reciprocity in Free Software and the Blogosphere

Please drop the hypothetical and tell me exactly at what point Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Addington were indicted and under trial in a criminal court in a proceeding under which a prosecutor had authority of subponea. Because we know what _did_ happen the one time a prosecutor was able to subponea documents from Mr. Cheney's man-sized safe.

sPh

Posted at April 12, 2008 1:19 PM in response to Berkeley Law Dean: Yoo Was Not The Decider

I actually see some long-timers in this post, but the few times I have stopped by since the software downgrade I really haven't seen any names I recognized. Whatever the goal for the downgrade was it seems to have been accomplished, but IMHO as a charter contributor I think it is too late.

sPh

And whaddya know - even though I had gone through the whole "try to post - not recognized - log out - log in" cycle on Friday I get the "not recognized" error with this post. Luckily I learned my lesson and had done a copy of my text before trying to submit.

Posted at April 6, 2008 10:45 AM in response to Ask Not What TPMCafe Can Do ...

=== That data comes from information collected by the Departments of Justice (the FBI, via things like National Security Letters), Homeland Security and Treasury. ===

sPh

Posted at April 3, 2008 8:10 PM in response to Interview with The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau

> After all, New York was attacked and
> Hillary is the Senator of NY, so I
> think she should agree to defend our country.

So, New York was attacked by a team with no Iraqis on it from an organization that had, at that time, very few Iraqi members and was hunted mercilessly by the dictator of Iraq wherever it appear in his nation. Hillary voted to give George W. Bush authorization to attack Iraq and this protected New York.... how?

sPh

Posted at February 29, 2008 10:55 PM in response to Hillary Ad: Who Do You Want Answering The White House Phone At 3 a.m.?

> On the other hand, there is a big difference
> between a Secretary of State and a Commander in
> Chief.

Has anyone ever done any research to try to pinpoint when this "Commander-in-Chief" fetish got loose in our society?

sPh

Posted at February 19, 2008 8:44 PM in response to The Commander in Chief Question

> I want these folks to realize that
> some people who want to ban religion
> (or keep it private, etc.)

As Ronald Reagan said, there you go again. I don't think more than 0.00005% of the secular population wants to "ban" religion - no more than the percentage of the religious (or any other group) who hold bizarre extreme beliefs. Yet you immediately conflate the two and then take it upon yourself to apologize for the secular.

Many people both religious and non-religious as well as secular (religious is not the opposite of secular by the way) do want religion kept separate from the daily operations of government. It might be well to consider that the first generation descendants of the _Puritans_ signed off on that in the Constitution and ask yourself 'why did such a strongly religious people agree to that provision?'.

And to forestall the next misargument this has nothing to do with how an individual legislator makes his decisions. If he wants to campaign on the basis that he will make his voting decisions based on his religion, and he wins office, fine. But using the government to impose a specific religion on the general population is very bad for the Nation and also very bad for the religious.

sPh

Posted at February 15, 2008 4:55 PM in response to Getting the Bigger Story