The lawsuit (.pdf) claims the president of KK Office Solutions’ pre-election e-mail criticizing Obama to company employees was no joke and instead resulted in the firing of a pro-Obama salesman, Elliot Snell, who openly made it known he supported and voted for Obama.

According to the lawsuit, “Mr. Snell was terminated for voting for his presidential candidate of choice. Voting for a president is acting in a manner that public policy would encourage as it is similar to civic duties/opportunities such as performing jury duty, seeking public office or joining a labor union.”

Naturally the owner of the company has responded that Mr. Snell’s termination was for cause, that being that he wasn’t selling any copiers. If true, that will be pretty easy to establish, and if so, Mr. Snell and his attorney should have to reimburse the company.

Further, I think there’s a lesson here for Mr. Snell, and all of us, that our rights to free speech and association are a bit limited when on company time. It appears from the story that Snell made sure everyone knew who he was voting for. I think people have the right to support whoever they want in whatever way they want, but there is some test of reasonableness when you’re at the office. Your company owns you during those hours, so leave it at home, and pull the curtain on the voting booth.

At my company, our HR director is a staunch Republican, and is well aware that I’m a big liberal. He loves to have discussions about politics with me. In fact, I’m at our headquarters this week, and he saw me yesterday and told me to be sure to stop by so we can discuss Florida politics. Generally, I’m fine with that, but I do guard what I say, and how far I go.

What do you think about bringing electoral politics into the workplace?

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Genres: Drama, Thriller and Politics/Religion

Running Time: 1 hr. 53 min.; Release Date: August 27th, 2008 (wide); MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense violent sequences, thematic material and brief language.

Cast: Don Cheadle, Archie Panjabi, Guy Pearce, Aly Khan, Simon Reynolds

Directed by: Jeffrey Nachmanoff

After having Lay’s nephews over for Saturday night, and the rest of the family for a day of swimming and a cookout Sunday, we relaxed with dinner and a movie Sunday evening of Labor Day Weekend. We both had wanted to see Traitor. Traitor is an intellectual espionage drama that will keep your attention. The director and actors convincingly portrayed a solid storyline centering on religion, terrorism and the government. It was tastefully done and should not offend anyone. Don Cheadle gave a brilliant performance, as usual. It’s one of the better movies of the year, so far.

This isn’t your normal action movie. Neither is it your normal dry political thriller. The acting all around was simply amazing and draws you instantly into the story. The visuals are well presented and done with substance instead of flash. The story is where it really shines. It’s not a mystery but it holds onto you with such a rich and powerful series of events. It may be a bit heavy handed at times, and it did drag a bit in a few places, but was a necessary part of the telling a believable story. It grabs you and makes you think, very nice film.

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We’ve gone through a couple of site redesigns, and we’ve tried to keep up-t0-date with the software versions and enhancements. I’ve learned a lot about PHP and the open source world through all this and we’ve written about a lot things over those four years.  

I went back to look at the first posts I added. Of course the first post was an introductory (Hello World) kind of post. The first real post was a story about a visit to New York City, and the observations I had about differences in lifestyle. 

Of course 2004 was an election year, so there was plenty to write about then, and the politicians have continued providing uninterrupted fodder every since. Now here we are in another presidential election cycle, combined with the expected anti-gay marriage amendment on the Florida ballot. 

I’ve tried to keep you up with family things, and the sometimes challenging weather here in Florida. We give you pictures of daily life around here, which is pretty normal most of the time.

I have certainly had my ups and downs with life and the job during that time. There have been some very active blogging times, and some when posting was slim. Traffic to the site has been pretty good, and it often gets a pretty high ranking in Google. In fact, it was discovered by a BBC radio show, and I was invited to discuss torture on the show. That was very exciting.

I guess the only disappointment has been a lack of comments on the articles. I know my friends have opinions as strong as mine, and I know some are very good writers. I just with they’d add to the commentary here. Oh well, if I keep begging, maybe some of them will start commenting.

In the meantime, here’s to the last four years of blogging on Deep Something, here’s to the unbelievable team of developers and the open source community that make WordPress and unbelievable software platform, and here’s to four more years of raising hell.

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The Tampa Tribune reports:

Her proposal caught other commissioners off guard. They said it’s premature to call for such a referendum.

Storms is quoted as saying, "This industry is very brazen and bold because the signal from local government is we are not going to treat you seriously."

Storms is such an incredible nut job. I sent the following letter to the Tribune…maybe it will get published.

In regards to Rhonda Storms’ most recent tirade about strippers, I think it was best said by the Bard, "Me thinks thou dost protest too much," or as my Grandfather said, "the bit dog barks first."

This lady clearly has an unnatural obsession with the sex lives of everyone else in the world. My experience is that generally, people like her usually have serious issues of their own. I wish the people in her district would quit foisting her embarrassing escapades on all of Hillsborough County, and let her go back to whatever it is she’s into that doesn’t involve everyone else.

This thing of throwing these major proposals at the entire Commission without warning is growing old. She needs to remember that she and her up-tight Puritan brethren are not the only people living in this County. There are much more critical issues than someone getting a lap dance in a motor home.

UPDATE: The letter above appears in the Sunday, Dec. 11 edition of the Tampa Tribune (Commentary).

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The right wing demanded the withdrawal of Harriet Miers so she could be replaced with a judge who met their rigid, ideological litmus test. This morning, the conservatives got what they wanted. President Bush will nominate Third Circuite Appeal Court Judge Samuel Alito as the replacement for swing-voter Sandra Day O’Connor. (In contrast, John Roberts replaced the very conservative William Rehnquist.) On NBC’s Today Show, law professor Jonathan Turley said there "will be no one to the right of Sam Alito" on the Supreme Court. Alito’s record supports Turley’s view. His history of right-wing judicial activism will be a key issue during his hearings.

ALITO WOULD OVERTURN ROE V. WADE: In his dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito concurred with the majority in supporting the restrictive abortion-related measures passed by the Pennsylvania legislature in the late 1980s. Alito went further, however, saying the majority was wrong to strike down a requirement that women notify their spouses before having an abortion. The Supreme Court later rejected Alito’s view and also voted to reaffirm Roe v. Wade. [Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1991]

ALITO WOULD ALLOW RACE-BASED DISCRIMINATION: Alito dissented from a decision in favor of a Marriott Hotel manager who said she had been discriminated against on the basis of race. The majority explained that Alito would have protected racist employers by “immuniz[ing] an employer from the reach of Title VII if the employer’s belief that it had selected the ‘best’ candidate was the result of conscious racial bias.” [Bray v. Marriott Hotels, 1997]

ALITO WOULD ALLOW DISABILITY-BASED DISCRIMINATION: In Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, the majority said the standard for proving disability-based discrimination articulated in Alito’s dissent was so restrictive that “few if any…cases would survive summary judgment.” Summary judgment allows a case to be dismissed before it goes to trial. [Nathanson v.Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1991]

ALITO WOULD STRIKE DOWN THE FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT: The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) "guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one." The 2003 Supreme Court ruling upholding FMLA [Nevada v. Hibbs, 2003] essentially reversed a 2000 decision by Alito which found that Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. [Chittister v. Department of Community and Economic Development, 2000]

ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES: In Doe v. Groody, Alito argued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip-searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]

ALITO HOSTILE TOWARD IMMIGRANTS: In two cases involving the deportation of immigrants, the majority twice noted Alito’s disregard of settled law. In Dia v. Ashcroft, the majority opinion states that Alito’s dissent “guts the statutory standard” and “ignores our precedent.” In Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, the majority stated Alito’s opinion contradicted “well-recognized rules of statutory construction.” [Dia v. Ashcroft, 2003; Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, 2004]

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It’s also been reported that we will be paying him to conduct an investigation into his own stupidity and incompetence as FEMA Head in the coming months. Can you believe the arrogance of this administration, and their determination for political payoffs at taxpayer expense?

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You won’t find anything about it in the American press, but Britian’s The Observer International says:

An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt. Yet since the appeal was launched earlier this month, donations to rebuild New Orleans have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.

The public’s reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration’s attempt to offer citizens ‘a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq’ has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.

This is the first time our government has ever made an appeal to taxpayers to privately contribute foreign aid money, and it looks like quite the flop. I guess all those war supporters aren’t too keen to pony up, evidently having used up their tax breaks to slather Support the Troops magnets on their bumpers. I mean, those are each a couple of bucks. Not only are the freepers unwilling to put their neck’s on the line, neither are they going to put their money where their mouth is.

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