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VIDEO: President Obama at 2013 White House Correspondents’ Dinner (C-SPAN) (by CSPAN)

Fast forward to about 19:00 into the video. Obama speaks about the role of the media in covering crises like the Boston Marathon bombings.

“We also saw journalists at their best… If anyone wonders for example whether newspapers are a thing of the past, all you needed to do was log on to or pick up papers like The Boston Globe.

When their communities and the wider world needed them most they were there, making sense of events that might at first blush seem beyond our comprehension. 

That’s what great journalism is and that’s what great journalists do.” 

youtube.com
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theatlantic: 5 False Assumptions Political Pundits Make All the Time What has happened to the American electorate in recent decades is sorting. A few decades ago, there were thriving factions of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, among both voters and their elected representatives; that is to say, the parties themselves were internally diverse. Nowadays, however, ideological consistency is the rule. This is the real reason behind many phenomena commonly, and incorrectly, attributed to “polarization,” Fiorina points out, such as the massive decline in ticket-splitting.  Read more. [Image: MSNBC]

theatlantic:

5 False Assumptions Political Pundits Make All the Time

What has happened to the American electorate in recent decades is sorting. A few decades ago, there were thriving factions of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, among both voters and their elected representatives; that is to say, the parties themselves were internally diverse. Nowadays, however, ideological consistency is the rule. This is the real reason behind many phenomena commonly, and incorrectly, attributed to “polarization,” Fiorina points out, such as the massive decline in ticket-splitting. 

Read more. [Image: MSNBC]

theatlantic
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In Olympia with our editorial board for the annual AP Legislative Preview! #politics #WALeg (at Cherberg Building)

In Olympia with our editorial board for the annual AP Legislative Preview! #politics #WALeg (at Cherberg Building)

explore-blog: Politics explained in vintage infographics by Otto Neurath, father of ISOTYPE, the pictogram visual language that gave rise to modern infographics. 

explore-blog:

Politics explained in vintage infographics by Otto Neurath, father of ISOTYPE, the pictogram visual language that gave rise to modern infographics. 

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I love this film. Our leaders must channel #Lincoln’s courage.

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Allen Stone — “Unaware” (Live from his mom’s living room)

Conscious soul. Washington boy. All good things.

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thedailywhat:

The Final Debate Gets Songified of the Day: Previously: Debate 1, Debate 2, and the VP Debate.

[gregbros]

thedailywhat
470 Notes
source2012: In just 16 days, outside spending groups (like super PACs, various breeds of nonprofits) spent $212.8 million on ads, starting Oct. 1. As Politico’s Dave Levinthal points out, that’s enough to buy every person living in Flint, Mich., or Green Bay Wis., a “high-end” LED flat screen TV. That got us thinking, and playing with Wolfphram Alpha, what else could 16 days worth of political ads buy? (Arranged in order from serious, to decidedly less serious.) 1,363 packs of ramen noodles ($334.58 worth) for each homeless person in the U.S. (using 2011 stats). Four years’ tuition and board at Harvard University for 976 students. A full tank of gas for 5,728,129 cars (using national average of $3.71, and assuming a 10-gal. tank). A year’s salary for 3,795 full-time, public school teachers (using U.S. average). The 2012 season salary for every active player on the New York Yankees — plus Derek Jeter and Joe Girardi — with roughly $3 million to spare. First of all, a $32,000 fixed-gear bicycle exists — but even for that price, you could buy 6,650 of ‘em. A binder (like this) for every woman living in the state of California. One of these giant gummy bears on stick for every child 4-years-old and under in the U.S. 5,600,000 shares of Facebook stock when company first went public … or 11,211,801 shares today (stock value is $18.98 now, $38.00 at IPO).

source2012:

In just 16 days, outside spending groups (like super PACs, various breeds of nonprofits) spent $212.8 million on ads, starting Oct. 1.

As Politico’s Dave Levinthal points out, that’s enough to buy every person living in Flint, Mich., or Green Bay Wis., a “high-end” LED flat screen TV.

That got us thinking, and playing with Wolfphram Alpha, what else could 16 days worth of political ads buy?

(Arranged in order from serious, to decidedly less serious.)

  • 1,363 packs of ramen noodles ($334.58 worth) for each homeless person in the U.S. (using 2011 stats).
  • Four years’ tuition and board at Harvard University for 976 students.
  • A full tank of gas for 5,728,129 cars (using national average of $3.71, and assuming a 10-gal. tank).
  • A year’s salary for 3,795 full-time, public school teachers (using U.S. average).
  • The 2012 season salary for every active player on the New York Yankees — plus Derek Jeter and Joe Girardi — with roughly $3 million to spare.
  • First of all, a $32,000 fixed-gear bicycle exists — but even for that price, you could buy 6,650 of ‘em.
  • A binder (like this) for every woman living in the state of California.
  • One of these giant gummy bears on stick for every child 4-years-old and under in the U.S.
  • 5,600,000 shares of Facebook stock when company first went public … or 11,211,801 shares today (stock value is $18.98 now, $38.00 at IPO).

(via opensecretsdc)

politico.com
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Drop everything and watch PBS Frontline’s “The Choice” next Tuesday, Oct. 9. Most important television program of the year. Better than any of the debates. 

I’m serious. Check your local PBS listings. 

life: LIFE.com remembers the legendary Kennedy-Nixon debates in the fall of 1960 — and the look and feel of a contest often cited as the first “modern” presidential campaign. Pictured: Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon (right) speaks during a televised debate while opponent John F. Kennedy watches, 1960.

life:

LIFE.com remembers the legendary Kennedy-Nixon debates in the fall of 1960 — and the look and feel of a contest often cited as the first “modern” presidential campaign.

Pictured: Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon (right) speaks during a televised debate while opponent John F. Kennedy watches, 1960.

(via brooklynmutt)

life
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"It was not oppressive government policies, but decisions of the people, under the influence of technologies that sped up human experience too much, that undermined humanistic values and intellectual curiosity in the first place. Not state censorship, but a more general failure to value the mind, the imagination, nature, and a civilization’s hard-won insights, is the main target of criticism in that novel."
-

Lauren Weiner, reflecting on once-banned Fahrenheit 451, on the real issues at the heart of Ray Bradbury’s twist on the dystopian novel. Bradbury, indeed, was a tireless champion of the imagination as a prerequisite for democracy. 

More Banned Books Week meditations on censorship. 

(↬ Andrew Sullivan)

(via explore-blog)

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PLEASE watch/listen to this week’s Moyers & Company: “How corporations and state legislators are colluding to write laws and remake America, one statehouse at a time.”

The conversation with Kathleen Hall Jamieson about what the presidential debates can still tell us about Romney and Obama is also worth viewing.


This is from my story in the Tribune and The NY Times last Sunday! liberalsoul: “There was a stomach-churning article in the Texas Tribune this week about abortion access now being so restricted in Texas, that Texas women are crossing the border into Mexico, visiting unregulated Mexican pharmacies and then self-medicating with drugs that they hope might induce abortion, taking these drugs without doctors’ prescriptions without instructions from doctors on how to use them, at risk to their lives and their health. For women living near the border of Mexico, back-alley abortions are back. And the new back alley is across the border in Mexico.” -Rachel Maddow

This is from my story in the Tribune and The NY Times last Sunday!

liberalsoul:

“There was a stomach-churning article in the Texas Tribune this week about abortion access now being so restricted in Texas, that Texas women are crossing the border into Mexico, visiting unregulated Mexican pharmacies and then self-medicating with drugs that they hope might induce abortion, taking these drugs without doctors’ prescriptions without instructions from doctors on how to use them, at risk to their lives and their health.

For women living near the border of Mexico, back-alley abortions are back. And the new back alley is across the border in Mexico.”

-Rachel Maddow

spirited-collective
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Looking to Mexico for an Alternative to Abortion Clinics

Abortion providers have noticed more and more women crossing the border to buy misoprostol, to be used as abortion pills, at Mexican pharmacies.

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