Excellent story at the source… This decision is really terrifying. Corporations and Unions now can unload their resources on campaigns. We need public financing of campaigns ASAP! | n one swoop, the court did away with nearly everything in federal campaign finance law, allowing corporations free reign to inject as much money as they jolly well please into federal campaigns. The decision completes what Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick calls “The Pinocchio Project,” in which the Court transforms “a corporation into a real live boy,” complete with personhood, free-speech rights and the unfettered opportunity to drown the body politic in a tidal wave of perverse incentives.Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com |
An interesting study by some researchers at the University of Maryland on how Politicians are using Twitter. | Politicians’ Tweets Are Mostly Self-Promotional, Researchers Say |
A team of researchers from the University of Maryland plodded through more than 6,000 Twitter postings by members of Congress to study whether the social networking site promoted transparency in politics and dialogue between elected leaders and the public.
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| Eighty percent of the congressional Twitter postings reviewed by the U-Md. researchers fell into two categories: links to news articles and press releases, mostly self-serving and readily available elsewhere; and status updates that chronicle the pol’s latest trip to the sawmill or the supermarket. |
Culberson sees a coming revolution in online politics. But it might not happen on Twitter. Lately, the Texan has been spending more time on Facebook.
Read more at www.washingtonpost.com |
Wilson hires professional Tweeter |
| Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) has hired a new-media strategist to help with a vigorous defense he launched after heckling the president. |
David All, who bills his firm as the first conservative Web 2.0 agency, was retained Thursday afternoon amid the media storm surrounding Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst. Since then, All has been busy writing Twitter updates and reaching out to conservative blogs on Wilson’s behalf. Read more at thehill.com |
There was absolutely no reason for him to publicly comment on this issue. Health Care Stirs Up Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, Customers Boycott Organic Grocery Store |
“I will never shop there again,” vowed Joshua, a 45-year-old blogger, who asked that his last name not be published.
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Congress is being flooded with emails. Reminds me of the bail-out… | E-mails from public overload House Web site |
| Amid a boisterous debate on health care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House’s primary Web site. |
Every conversation at the bbq this summer is about health care and many folks I know who voted for Obama (including me) aren’t thrilled with this effort. And so the shock on the faces of Congressmen who’ve faced the grillings back home. And really, their shock is the first thing you see in the videos. They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs. |
The passions of the protesters, on the other hand, are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office, a huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver, sometimes a security detail, and a special pin showing he’s a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much. Really, that’s all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is, “You are terrifying us.” Read more at online.wsj.com |
Free Press (with approx $5 million operating budget) has beaten them on the ground by utilizing new media channels to win major policy battles (for instance, P2P case last year). Comcast needs to change their menu… Comcast’s lobbying budget soars |
The Center for Responsive Politics, which maintains a database on lobbying spending, says Comcast spent $12.5 million in 2008, a huge bump from $570,000 in 2001. |
The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the cable industry’s primary trade group, more than doubled its lobbying to $14.4 million over the same period. Read more at www.philly.com |
Obama’s public approval still rides high. However, what caught my attention in the article was - “only 21 percent of those surveyed said they identify as Republicans.” Obama Off to Solid Start, Poll Finds |
There is a warning sign for the GOP in the new poll: 21 percent of those surveyed said they identify as Republicans, the fewest to do so in a Post-ABC poll in more than 25 years. Last fall, Democrats outnumbered Republicans at the polls by the biggest margin in network exit polls going back to the 1982 midterms.
Read more at www.washingtonpost.com |
If it’s Thursday, it must be Obama. Or Friday. Or Saturday. Or just about any day. |
Barack Obama has gone from being historic to being ubiquitous. |
He doesn’t just control the news cycle, he is the news cycle. |
Need an auto exec fired? A pirate killed? A dog patted? A Cuba policy addressed? An Easter egg rolled? An economy stimulated? Hey, he also does Seders! |
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Supreme Court Decision is Terrifying…
