Posts tagged politics
media girl
Capturing bits & pieces on media, politics, culture & daily life
President, to president, to president: POTUS’ best confidant may be his predecessors.
This is a pretty fascinating op-ed if you’re into history, politics and/or nonpartisanship.
“You will be our president when you read this note,” George Herbert Walker Bush wrote to Bill Clinton, the man who defeated him in the 1992 campaign, denying Bush the provisional vindication that reelection provides until history has its chance to judge from a distance. Nonetheless, in Oval Office tradition, Bush left a note for Clinton to read on taking office, and it echoed the message of transitions past, even between bitter political rivals: “I am rooting hard for you.”
Photo: President Obama, right, and former President Bill Clinton talk during a game of golf at Andrews Air Force Base. Credit: Evan Vucci / Associated Press
Being in Congress sucks
They don’t make national policy anymore. They can’t earmark money for communities back home. The public hates them.
And perks little and big, from private jet travel to a little free nosh now and then, have been locked down by ethics rules.
As they head for the exits this year, many leaving Congress say the prestigious job of being a congressman sucks now, and that’s why lawmakers young and old are trading in their member pins for a new life in the private sector.
(Source: politico.com, via wonklife)
Maryland House Passes Same-Sex Marriage Bill
A bill to legalize same-sex marriage won approval in the Maryland House of Delegates on Friday night, capping a dramatic turnaround from a year ago and all but assuring the measure will be sent to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) for his promised signature.
After a day of emotional and contentious debate, the Democrat-led House voted 71-67 in favor of the bill, sending it to the Senate, which approved a similar measure last year. No senators have announced plans to change their votes.
— Same-sex marriage bill passes Maryland House of Delegates
A man who assisted in autopsies in a big urban hospital, starting in the mid-1950s, describes the many deaths from botched abortions that he saw. ‘The deaths stopped overnight in 1973.’ He never saw another in the 18 years before he retired. ‘That,’ he says, ‘ought to tell people something about keeping abortion legal.’
Sopa plans set to be shelved as Obama comes out against piracy legislation
The news is a major blow for Sopa’s backers in Hollywood, who had enjoyed broad support in Congress. But the Motion Pictures Association of America, one of the bill’s biggest sponsors, said it would continue to press for new laws.
(Source: , via guardian)
What would you rather be doing tonight?
Think Progress: 11 Facts From 2011
1. The CIA is monitoring up to 5 million tweets per day.
2. Income inequality in America is worse than in Ancient Rome.
3. Twenty-three straight polls find Americans overwhelmingly want to raise taxes to pay down debt.
4. 68% of millionaires support raising taxes on millionaires.
5. Wall Street’s recession cost 1.5 million times more than securing Occupy Wall Street protests.
6. Six Walmart heirs have the same net worth as the bottom 30% of all Americans.
7. Reagan’s ‘82 and ‘84 deficit reduction plans were 80% tax increases.
8. Since 2009, 88% of income growth went to corporate profits, just 1% to wages.
9. Average Bush tax cut this year for the 1% will exceed average income for the 99%.
10. Planned Parenthood Facts: 4 million STD tests, 1 million screenings for cervical cancer, 830,000 breast exams every year. Receives no federal money for abortion.
11. DEAD: Bin Laden, Quaddafi, and Kim Jong Il. OUSTED: Mubarak, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and Ali Adullah Saleh.
“Today, I can say our troops in Iraq will definitely be home for the holidays.”
- President Obama, announcing all US combat troops will come home from Iraq by the end of the year.
Photo credit: Jake Tapper
Chart of the Day: Contrary to everything you might have heard, the press is really not that into Barack Obama.
Last night’s Republican debate in 45 seconds.
Pretty entertaining.
In 2006, photographer Jonathan Torgovnik began work on what became a three-year project photographing and interviewing Rwandan women who had children as the result of being raped during the genocide. Torgovnik won the 2007 National Portrait Gallery’s Photographic Portrait Prize for an image from this work. The culmination of his project is an exhibition and book, Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape, published by the Aperture Foundation. Inspired by the people he met on this project, Torgovnik co-founded Foundation Rwanda, established to improve the lives of Rwandan children born of rape.
Courtesy MotherJones.com
(via ryking)
Cool time lapse.
brooklynmutt:
Here’s a nice New York Times graphic made with numbers from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, first tumbled by thenewrepublic this morning.
But we also like this nonpartisan remix by cogitativitae posted to ilovecharts:
Visualization of Twitter Town Hall topics
Press focuses on conflict/politics while citizens focus on jobs/issues. Shocked!
The disparity in questions about congress reinforces the notion that, despite being of enormous national import, congressional (dis)functionality isn’t on too many minds outside of the Beltway. The disparity in questions about jobs reinforces the notion that reporters aren’t always tapped into the issues most pressing for the general populace. The almost complete lack of questions about education is just depressing.
(via shortformblog)
