I am currently reading the newest book on the Cuban Missile Crisis, One Minute to Midnight, which reveals new info on the Soviets having positioned Cruise missiles with nuclear, Hiroshima-sized warheads just outside of Guantanamo.  The hawks here in the U.S. had no knowledge of the Cruise missiles and were planning a first strike on the long range missile sites in Cuba, to be followed by an immediate invasion of Cuba by the Marines and the First Infantry Division.  Guess what, the first strike would have failed to get the Cruise missiles, which would have--at minimum--been used on Guantanamo and the invading Marines and soldiers.....A first strike would have ensured a nuclear war....

Thank God the doves prevailed and JFK and Bobby overruled Curtis LeMay.

Now, we are zoning in on another confrontation, and McCain is the guy to make the call?.....Republican Senator Thad Cochran said he was not fit--too much of a hothead.....

My point (really: it's like three messages up) was that Obama would not appoint another Alito.  You understand the difference between voting to confirm and appointment, right?

It was in a WaPo article, and it was discussed here on TalkLeft

   It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds.

    And then Rouse, his chief of staff, spoke up. This was no Harvard moot-court exercise, he said. If Obama voted for Roberts, Rouse told him, people would remind him of that every time the Supreme Court issued another conservative ruling, something that could cripple a future presidential run. Obama took it in. And when the roll was called, he voted no.

"Sen. Barack Obama had hired Pete Rouse for just such a moment.

It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds.

A relative newcomer to the national scene, Barack Obama has assembled a team composed of seasoned campaign hands, confidants from his law school days and insiders who had worked with former Senate Democratic leader Thomas A. Daschle.

Obama's dismissal of 'mental distress' as one of the bases for which a third-trimester abortion is allowable is frightening.  Not just his opinion, but the way he discussed in the original report and later, after he got flack for it.  The just feeling 'blue' comment truly bordered on snark.  And sorry, you don't get to snark about my constitutional rights, buddy.  I can't tell if he was just reacting badly to being questioned (which he's done in several contexts) or truly believes the right-wing frame on 3rd trimester abortion that there are hordes of careless women who would get a late stage abortion to chirp themselves up just 'cuz they're feeling down, the same way they might go on a shopping spree for new shoes.

Even without the mental distress comment, the fact that he has repeatedly included the clergy as part of the 'consultation' process when discussing a woman's right to choose is repellant.  His lecturing the pro-choice community on their lack of understanding of the deeper 'moral' issues on abortion fits right into a plausible reading of his attitude toward women's right to choose as at best condescending and at worst just more patriarchal bullsh*t.  That's a right-wing frame, too.  For those who think history just started a few years ago, the phrases 'abortion on demand' and 'using abortion as birth control' are longstanding anti-choice rhetoric.

Obama's path to a Senatorship started in one of the most liberal districts in the country, in a Democratic-machine city.  His votes on abortion (aside from the 'present' and wrong button ones) could easily be not from principled belief in the right itself but just plain party-line votes.  Fast track to nowhere without them.  Or they could be real belief.

So the 100% vote record is an important factor, but it's just the start.  All he's done is vote.  He's never risked political capital for a pro-choice cause.  Now he's making statements that undermine his voting record.  To me, that makes it more likely that his pro-choice voting record is due to political opportunism than principle.

Has Obama ever voted in favor of an anti-choice bill?  Ever?  Has Obama voted the pro-choice position?

Why should we trust them now?

FISA is huge, no matter how they try to spin it.

Obama told a Christian magazine, Relevant, that only women with a "serious physical issue" should be able to get an abortion post-viability.

As I wrote yesterday, that's contrary to 35 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence on the issue, which has always demanded that abortion bans contain an exception to allow the procedure to protect a woman's "mental health," as well as her physical health. Only Justices Thomas and Scalia have expressed the view that a "mental health" exception is not required.

"It is not just a matter of feeling blue," Obama said.

...Obama is trying to restrict abortions after 22 weeks to those women who have a serious disease or illness. But the law today also covers some women who are in "mental distress," those women who would suffer emotional and psychological harm without an abortion.

This standard has long been understood to require less than "serious clinical mental health disease."  Women today don't have to show they are suffering from a "serious clinical mental health disease" or "mental illness" before getting an abortion post-viability, as Obama now says is appropriate.

But it depends a lot on the particular discipline, of course.  Some in the arts and professions such as journalism, for example, may hire extraordinary performers without Ph.D.'s., even in departments that award graduate degrees.  That may apply in some cases in art history, archaeology, etc., too.

But above all, it's supply and demand.  There are a lot of current and former journalists (and more all the time, with the massive layoffs and buyouts for early retirements from newspapers) who want to teach, and so there is rarely a dearth in that field.  Ditto in history, and especially in military history, with all the retirees at 40 or so.

And it's also about location, location, location.  Some small towns with two-year campuses beg for teachers with master's; many big cities have more than even many campuses in town can handle.

Basically, call and email around -- do the homework, find the correct departments at each campus -- and ask who does the hiring in a department (it can vary due to size) and ask for an information interview.  Send letters with c.v.'s.  And we have to plan 'way ahead -- we've already hired for next spring at my campus, for most courses.  But life happens, parttime hires fall through if they have other jobs that change, and it's always good to check in again and let them know you're available with a few weeks' warning.  Once you get a foot in the door, often that way, the rest will follow.

Doctors who have their own practices are self-employed businessmen, and it does not apply.  They do not need collective bargaining rights to negotiate with the bosses.  They are their own bosses.