From a feminist standpoint, I’m thrilled that a candidate who is the mother of a very young child has been nominated. One of the standard tropes of social conservatism is that mothers of young children should not work outside the home. If Sarah Palin is the vice-president, one heartbeat (a septuagenarian heartbeat at that) from the presidency and also the mother of a special-needs toddler, that sends a powerful message about the compatibility of motherhood with career. However right-wing Palin’s politics are, the narrative of her life today reflects a deep feminism. She embodies, literally, the notion that women ought not be forced to choose between family and public duty. That’s a deeply progressive message, even if it’s sent by an ostensibly conservative woman.

"Responding to the ad, Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said the New York senator's "support of Barack Obama is clear. She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq, and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn't. It's interesting how those remarks didn't make it into his ad."

According to a Wired article the domain name ClintonsForMcCain.com was registered by the Republican National Committee on May 15. As far as I can tell the site was never activated. On June 4 someone registered the domain name Clintons4McCain listing Washington, D.C. as its address. The registrar was a company called Wild West Domains out of Scottsdale, Arizona. Wild West is a spinoff of GoDaddy. Wild West CFO Michael Zimmerman gave money to John McCain as recently as last year according to opensecrets.org and the Center for Responsive Politics.

Clintons4McCain is not registered with the Federal Election Commission. According to the blog site, Clintons4McCain was founded by Peter Boykin, Cristi Adkins and Anne Franklin. Although the founders claim to be Hillary Clinton supporters, only Franklin has contributed to her campaign. Adkins claims a vague involvement with the Clinton West Virginia campaign, but that is all.

As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, Obama opposed certain bills amending the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 while he was in the Illinois state Senate because he and other opponents of the bills said they would pose a threat to abortion rights and said they were unnecessary because Illinois law already prohibited the conduct supposedly addressed by the bills.

Indeed, as Media Matters noted, when tasked by the Illinois attorney general's office with investigating allegations that fetuses born alive at an Illinois hospital were abandoned without treatment, the Illinois Department of Public Health reportedly said that it was unable to substantiate the allegations but said that if the allegations had proved true, the conduct alleged would have been a violation of then-existing Illinois law. Obama himself has cited specific provisions of the Illinois Compiled Statutes in stating that the "born alive principle was already the law in Illinois."

The regulation is written to apply to a broad swath of the health care work force, not doctors alone. Accordingly, an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be covered. Also covered would be volunteers and trainees.

Funny you should mention that. I was in the supermarket yesterday with my 14-year-old son who asked "What's up with Cosmopolitan? What is that?" I replied, "It's a magazine for sluts."

"I'm for equal pay for equal work,'' said McCain to cheers. "I'm for equal opportunity in every aspect of our society.''