 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
A lot of former congressional staffers agree that the best way to make your voice heard is to call your representatives rather than emailing them. And a new website makes that easier than ever. 5 Calls streamlines the calling process to make it user friendly and convenient. Simply enter your zipcode at the top left and you’ll be given a personalized list of numbers to call about the most pressing issues of the day. Click through topics on the left hand column to access a brief overview of each issue, a script to use when placing the call, and an explanation of why you’re calling a particular office (i.e. it’s one of your Senators or the Army Corps of Engineers is conducting an environmental impact report on the Dakota Access Pipeline)....
More than 60% of US cable TV political ad spending is coming from political action committees (PACs) and issues advertisers, according to data from Viamedia on ads served on its platform between January and August 2016. Twice as much political ad spending is coming from PACs and issues advertisers than from down-ballot campaigns, which mostly includes spending by candidates for the US House of Representatives and Senate. And more than six times as much spending is coming from PACs and issues advertisers than from presidential campaigns. TV is still the dominant destination for political ad spend, and research from Nomura Securities indicates that cable TV, which makes up the second-largest share, is estimated to see $1.10 billion this year, or 10.8% of total US political ad spend.Generally, internet users learn most about politics from TV. Indeed, a survey from YuMe revealed that 69% of US internet users find TV news to be the most effective political marketing channel. And while TV may be a significant channel for candidates to advertise on, not everyone is doing so....
In the wake of yesterday's mass shooting at a college in Oregon, a visibly distressed President Obama challenged to media to analyse deaths from terrorism and gun violence, publishing the numbers side by side. Over 10,000 people are killed in gun violence in the United States every year. After 9/11, the number of U.S. citizens killed in terrorist attacks each year has never surpassed 75.
Fox News contributor and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be launching her own digital video channel, tentatively called “Rogue TV,” a source familiar with the project told Capital.
The channel will be available through Tapp, the digital video service founded by former CNN chief Jon Klein and former NBC Universal entertainment executive Jeff Gaspin. Subscriptions will cost $10 per month.
Rogue is expected to launch in April or May, and it would be one of the first of the digital channels offered by Tapp.
Palin’s channel will feature video commentaries from the former Republican vice-presidential candidate, discussing current events and political issues....
Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald broke the NSA surveillance scandal wide open, and at least one member of Congress wants him arrested for it. Congressman Peter King has been very clear that he wants Greenwald prosecuted for the information he’s revealed and for threatening to reveal the identities of CIA agents. However, Greenwald has said no such thing, and responded on CNN tonight, telling Anderson Cooper that King is targeting him for “the crime of doing journalism.”...
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) may be new to Congress, but he's making a splash with a new bumper sticker sure to get the left all riled up. "If babies had guns they wouldn't be aborted," the pro-gun and pro-life sticker reads....
...The lack of consistent correspondence between Twitter reaction and public opinion is partly a reflection of the fact that those who get news on Twitter – and particularly those who tweet news – are very different demographically from the public.
The overall reach of Twitter is modest. In the Pew Research Center’s 2012 biennial news consumption survey, just 13% of adults said they ever use Twitter or read Twitter messages; only 3% said they regularly or sometimes tweet or retweet news or news headlines on Twitter.
Twitter users are not representative of the public. Most notably, Twitter users are considerably younger than the general public and more likely to be Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. In the 2012 news consumption survey, half (50%) of adults who said they posted news on Twitter were younger than 30, compared with 23% of all adults. And 57% of those who posted news on Twitter were either Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared with 46% of the general public. (Another recent Pew Research Center survey provides even more detail on who uses Twitter and other social media.)...
In light of the $2 billion J.P. Morgan Chase debacle, it occurs to me that accountability is dead and buried. In the good old days, a CEO would hold himself accountable for such a calamity and resign. As Harry S Truman was famous for saying of the presidency, 'The buck stops here.' But, the buck never seems to stop anywhere anymore....
The science against BPA isn’t very convincing, yet the left-wing onslaught from environmental groups, activist scientists and the media has convinced many consumers that soup cans, soda bottles and plastic storage containers are going to make them sick. In the case of BPA, perception and reality are far different, but false perceptions can still cost businesses millions -- or put them out of business altogether. The infamous Alar scare cost apple farmers $100 million according to a 1989 Associated Press report. Even growers who weren’t using Alar were devastated. By March 31, 2012, the FDA will announce a decision on the use of BPA in food and beverage packaging. As in the case of Alar, such perceptions have even prompted government agencies to regulate or ban chemicals that served a useful purpose. That could happen again at the end of March, the deadline for the Food and Drug Administration to respond to the left-wing group NRDC’s petition to ban bisphenol A from food and drink packaging.... [Interesting to see how business interests attack activists - JD]
Agency spent $234,000 for three-months’ communications help handling alleged contamination at facility. A nearly quarter-million-dollar public relations contract was badly mismanaged by the General Services Administration, which allowed the vendor to write the statement of work, failed to clearly define specific deliverables and did not seek competitive bids, according to a Senate subcommittee investigation....
Sifting through the falsehoods and half-true sentiments popping up left and right online is Truthsquad, a journalist-driven, community fact-checking experiment of NewsTrust, in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity. The site (NewsTrust.net/Truthsquad) aims to help viewers decipher what’s fact and what’s fiction on the Internet, and is gearing up for an especially active 2012 election season. Truthsquad’s goal is to give readers new tools for checking information on the Web — and, in the process, help build media literacy skills with the guidance of professionals, as stated on Truthsquad’s home page. The underlying concept is to combine the center’s newsroom of investigative journalists with crowd-sourcing and partner contributions while engaging visitors. Truthsquad doesn’t just target politicians, but media pundits and public figures as well....
|
What we’ve got here is [NOT] a failure to communicate” to slightly alter the famous line from the movie Cool Hand Luke. That line best describes public response to the Trump inauguration, the massive DC and national Women’s March, and the public and social media response to the first six days of the new administration. The Trump campaign and transition teams, and the new White House advisors all pride themselves on their social media savvy. Led by the newly sworn-in POTUS and Twitter-in-Chief, social media is now alive with the sound of truth, lies, statistics and “alternate facts.” And the new administration is scrambling to respond....
I challenge each of the remaining candidates for president. Do you have the courage to make this speech and save America from Donald Trump?
My fellow Americans, today’s speech is not about me. It is about you.
I speak to you today about the greatest threat to America’s future. It’s not ISIS. It’s not gun violence or drugs. It is Donald Trump.
The reason is simple. Unlike every other candidate in this race — and unlike the committed people that make up our government — Donald Trump has only an empty hole where his conscience should be....
This Data Visualisation by @iantsommers. should be required reading for all US voters. As should is data source Politifact.
It happened with the Washington Post‘s initial PRISM story, it happened with Glenn Greenwald’s story in which he wrote that the NSA has “direct access” to servers owned by the various tech giants and, over the weekend, it happened in spectacular fashion with a bombshell article posted on CNET by chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh.The headline that dispersed through social media and political blogs like the swine flu: “NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants.”When I spotted the headline, tweeted by a reporter who I otherwise respect, my first reaction was, “Wow. Okay.”
But as I read the article, the headline became less and less accurate — a trend we’ve witnessed several times recently. In fact, McCullagh’s reporting almost entirely disintegrated under just cursory scrutiny… but not before it went viral.McCullagh reported that during a House Judiciary Committee hearing featuring FBI Director Mueller, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) revealed that the NSA, during a previous secret briefing, admitted that thousands of NSA analysts could to listen to phone calls without warrants. That was the thrust of McCullagh’s story. But the quotes were awkwardly truncated, the tic-toc of the story was unclear and there were highly speculative paragraphs that jumped to conclusions not supported by the reporting....
On Sunday, New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer explored how the Sunday network interview show producers and politicians “collaborate in a seductive ritual” to book the most powerful guests. But there’s a great sameness on the guest list: Sen. John McCain’s done 60 Sunday shows just since 2010.
Steinhauer says he’s a “dream guest” in part because he “compares members of his own party to deranged fowl” (wacko birds), at least at liberal networks: When it comes to a dream guest, program hosts say, Mr. McCain checks almost every box: a senior Republican senator who can speak authoritatively and contemporaneously on many issues, flies secretly to Syria, compares members of his own party to deranged fowl and yet is a reliable opponent of most Obama administration policies.
“What makes a good guest is someone who makes news,” said Mr. Wallace, the Fox host. “To make news, you have to be at the center of the news and willing to talk about it in a noncanned way, someone who always come to the shows ready to play.”
The reaction on Twitter to major political events and policy decisions often differs a great deal from public opinion as measured by surveys. This is the conclusion of a year-long Pew Research Center study that compared the results of national polls to the tone of tweets in response to eight major news events, including the outcome of the presidential election, the first presidential debate and major speeches by Barack Obama. At times the Twitter conversation is more liberal than survey responses, while at other times it is more conservative. Often it is the overall negativity that stands out. Much of the difference may have to do with both the narrow sliver of the public represented on Twitter as well as who among that slice chose to take part in any one conversation....
Each major federal agency is required to make two key government services available via mobile phones. Okay, newsrooms: The race is on. Think you can innovate faster and better than the federal government? Major federal agencies are getting 12 months to implement new mobile strategies, the White House announced on Wednesday. President Barack Obama says each major agency has to pick two “key government services” to make available on mobile phones. Obama said in a statement that “Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device.” Exactly what that means will be up to individual agencies. The idea is to make sure the federal government finds ways to “keep up with the way the American people do business,” as U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said in a statement....
Over the course of writing a single article, the author received emails from several sources claiming pink slime is being treated unfairly. ...These efforts to educate me must be understood as a tiny fraction of the effort that is going into lobbying in favor of BPI and its product. Yesterday, the governors and lieutenant governors of five states toured BPI's facilities and participated in a heated press conference, which also included the undersecretary of the United States Department of Agriculture for food safety. This is breathtakingly high-level -- and perhaps unprecedented -- support for the public relations troubles of a private food company....
The ongoing struggle over the Keystone XL pipeline underscores a real sea change in how legislative decisions are now being made. Suddenly we see that a well-integrated grassroots initiative driven by superior digital strategies can trump the conventional inside-the-Beltway politicking of even so formidable a presence as the oil industry....
Have you ever tried to get information from a government website about a specific topic? Did it make you wonder if anyone at that government office understood how to make content available to consumers?While governmental entities do not market products or services in the same sense as most businesses do (many government services are not duplicated in the private sector), by their very nature they compile a great deal of information.... [Useful tips and 3 great website examples - JD]
When I started hacking you were just one layer above the bare metal. You were typing into this wonderful emptiness, waiting to be populated with minds. The thrill of getting into top-secret websites quickly became addictive for Julian Assange. Here he describes all-night hacking sessions, a cat-and-mouse game with a computer administrator and the arrival of the police... Riveting reading
|
