Elections

Some Facebook users may not need that cardboard voting booth this year -- CNN and Facebook are partnering up to put that bright social media spotlight on voting in the 2012 election.

The media behemoths announced the partnership today, which includes a "I'm Voting" Facebook app that lets users commit to voting while endorsing specific candidates and issues. The commitments will then be displayed on users' timelines, news feeds and real-time tickers.

The app, which will be available in English and Spanish, will show which of your Facebook friends also supported the issue or candiate you voted … Read more

Pets have proven problematic for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He has been widely (and rightfully) pilloried for putting the family pooch on the top of the car during a long vacation roadtrip. And now someone is claiming to have hacked into his personal Web-based e-mail account by guessing the name of his favorite pet.

It remains unclear if "Seamus," the Irish Setter whose kennel he tied to the top of the car, was his favored pet. If so, I'd hate to see how he treated less preferential pets. Whatever the word was, someone is claiming to … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--Former U.S. vice president Al Gore and Facebook's founding president Sean Parker argued passionately today that online communities must use the powerful tools at their disposal to save American democracy.

At South by Southwest (SXSW) here, Gore and Parker took the stage to tell an adoring crowd of several thousand that though they should be proud of the mass Internet activism that derailed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), there is still a huge amount of work to be done if Americans want to keep special interests from perpetually forcing their agendas down society's throat.

Fortunately, … Read more

The wife of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and the co-founder of Instagram are among the notable guests for tonight's State of the Union address by President Obama.

The presence of Laurene Powell Jobs and Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger signals that at least a part of the State of the Union will focus on technology, which President Obama has long argued can help improve the country's fortunes.

Releasing the guest list for the State of the Union address has increasingly become a way for the White House to call attention to an issue or initiative, using an individual … Read more

Having worked for years to connect with voters on the Internet, President Obama will actually hang out with some in a Google+ video chat.

Later this month, Obama will meet with selected members of the public in a videoconference chat using the Google+ hangout feature on January 30, said Ramya Raghavan, YouTube's news and politics manager, in a blog post yesterday.

It won't be just anybody, though. People must submit questions at the White House's YouTube page, either in text or 20-second video form.

"Your YouTube questions will drive the interview, and several participants with top-voted … Read more

Anticipating a nasty fight in 2012, President Obama's reelection campaign on Tuesday launched a site, called AttackWatch.com , which is designed to push back against attacks on the president's record.

"We all remember the birth certificate smear, the GOP's barrage of lies about the Affordable Care Act, and the string of other phony attacks on President Obama that we've seen over the past few years," Jim Messina, Obama for America's campaign manager, wrote in an e-mail to the president's supporters. "There are a lot of folks on the other side who are chomping at the bit to distort the president's record. It's not a question of if the next big lie will come, just when--and what we're prepared to do about it."

Currently, the site prominently features "lies" and "flawed" attacks regarding the president's record on jobs from the two Republicans leading the GOP presidential field--Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. It also counters claims regarding Obama's policies on gun rights, relations with Israel, the bank bailouts, and other flashpoints that are popular talking points among conservatives.… Read more

The Swiss might have been slightly late in giving women the vote (1971 was the year), but they still believe in certain progressive forms of democracy.

One of these seems to be helping a fascinating political party in its quest to have PowerPoint banned from the country.

The party is called the APPP. Yes, the Anti-PowerPoint Party. It's an organization that has, at its core, the firm belief that the Microsoft presentation software is a waste of fine Swiss resources.

Indeed, it believes that PowerPoint costs Switzerland 2.1 billion Swiss Francs (about $2.5 billion) every year. You … Read more

The state of Alaska is planning to release 24,000 of former Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mails, which are likely to be closely scrutinized as the 2012 election nears.

State officials told the Anchorage Daily News that they're sending the e-mails to a commercial printer so they can be copied, a process that should take about four days.

The request for the former governor's e-mails comes from the media and stems from as far back as the 2008 presidential campaign, in which the former governor was a vice presidential candidate. Multiple news organizations, including the New York Times, … Read more

The White House Correspondent's Dinner, an annual tradition where the media and political elite meet to roast/congratulate each other, with mixed results, just finished up. Seth Meyers of "Saturday Night Live" hosted the event, and you should be able to watch replays on C-SPAN if you're interested.

One new twist to the proceedings: The White House, which normally plays along with the event even though the chief occupant gets ribbed, has gone all in. Immediately after showing this video--a parody trailer based on "The King's Speech"--they released it on YouTube (via Twitter, of course).

The bit isn't LOL-worthy, IMHO. But it does contain jokes, and I think it's noteworthy that they're putting this out there for public consumption, at a time when much of the electorate seems particularly...susceptible to jokes. Even more so if they're easily accessible via Google.

Also, as The Atlantic.com's Gabe Snyder points out, the clip contains a Wu Tang Clan sample. Which is sure to upset someone (and please lots of us, too)

Meanwhile, you can see all 17 minutes of Obama's presentation here (much sharper, I think--good Fox News dig), via The Washington Post:

… Read more