Facebook may give Barack Obama a slight edge this coming presidential election while creating a wide misperception about who’s actually pulling ahead in the Republican Party. A new partnership between Facebook and Politico announced last week will reveal users’ private messages if and when they relate to their feelings about a political candidate.

Liz Gannes of All Things D enlightens us about the new dual effort, reporting that:

It will consist of sentiment analysis reports and voting-age user surveys, accompanied by stories by Politico reporters. Most notably, the Facebook-Politico data set will include Facebook users’ private status messages and comments. While that may alarm some people, Facebook and Politico say the entire process is automated and no Facebook employees read the posts.

Rather, every post and comment — both public and private — by a U.S. user that mentions a presidential candidate’s name will be fed through a sentiment analysis tool that spits out anonymized measures of the general U.S. Facebook population.

Apparently, the fact that “no Facebook employees read the posts” is supposed to assure us that the quotes are not being hand picked to prefer one candidate over another. After all, since the posts will be published worldwide it can’t possibly be referring to privacy (plus, the quotes are “anonymized” so they can’t be attributed to any particular Facebook user).

But here’s the thing.

Whether or not the quotes are actually being hand picked or being “fed through a sentiment analysis tool” (whatever that means) isn’t really that relevant because we all know that more young people than old use Facebook. That means that in all likelihood those candidates that appeal to younger voters (namely Barack Obama–surprise, surprise, Mark Zuckerberg’s apparent favorite) will be getting lots of play on the pages of Politico as the national favorite.

And here’s something else: Don’t be surprised if the Republican Party’s quirkiest candidate, Ron Paul, also comes out the GOP front runner. After all, it’s no secret that Paul’s young followers have been passionate about vocalizing their support perhaps hoping to convince Americans that Paul really is the front runner.

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Keeping his oath to the public trust Rand Paul returned money he didn’t need to the U.S. Treasury.

Critics will contend that this is a drop in the bucket, but many drops can help fill up that bucket. From today’s Politico:

Freshman Sen. Rand Paul is making good on his promise to cut federal spending. The Kentucky Republican and tea-party favorite said Thursday he’s returning $500,000 to the U.S. Treasury — money from his operating budget that his office never spent.

The half million dollars represents about 16 percent of Paul’s annual budget, and he contends no senator has returned as much to taxpayers.

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Accusations of antisemitism are building against the Center for American Progress (CAP), the left-wing umbrella organization that serves as a “brain trust” for Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the Obama administration.

The latest to weigh in are the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, two leading American Jewish organizations, which have joined the Simon Wiesenthal Center in criticizing CAP and its offshoot, Media Matters for America, for attacks on Israel that go beyond legitimate criticism and may cross the line into antisemitism.

Last month, Politico reported that CAP and MMfA have both taken anti-Israel positions that “are challenging a bipartisan consensus on Israel and Palestine that has dominated American foreign policy for more than a decade.” These stances include downplaying the threat of a nuclear Iran, and suggesting that pro-Israel groups have pushed the U.S. into confrontations in the Middle East.

In addition, Politico cited extreme and inflammatory comments about Israel made by CAP employees at the Middle East Progress and ThinkProgress blogs, as well as by senior MMfA staff on Twitter and elsewhere. MMfA Senior Fellow M.J. Rosenberg, for example, has railed against pro-Israel Americans whom he calls “Israel firsters,” echoing old antisemitic tropes of “dual loyalty.”

In 2010, Rosenberg spoke at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC on a panel discussion with Stephen Walt, who co-wrote The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with John Mearsheimer–a book widely panned for its inaccuracy and its use of conspiracy theory to attribute malevolent influence to pro-Israel groups and individuals. Rosenberg was even less careful with his language than Walt and Mearsheimer, referring repeatedly to “the Jewish lobby”:

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Politico writes today that both parties have much to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving holiday.

For Democrats: Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, Ohio’s SB 5 referendum, Operation Neptune Spear (which killed Osama bin Laden), Kentucky governor Steve Beshear, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

(Letting Democrats take credit for the bin Laden mission is like letting the Pilgrims take credit for Indian corn. And arguably, Republicans should also be thankful for Pelosi and Warren…)

For Republicans: American Crossroads, Rep. Bob Turner (NY-9), Solyndra, Marco Rubio, and… Andrew Breitbart:

No one played a higher-profile role in taking down Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner than Breitbart, the 42-year-old conservative media entrepreneur who posted a series of sexually charged electronic photos the disgraced former congressmen sent to women. And Breitbart, the founder of the popular conservative site Big Government wasn’t shy about claiming credit: On the day Weiner acknowledged his wrongdoing in a news conference, Breitbart actually beat the Democrat to the podium, from which he boasted of his success in front of rolling cameras.

Breitbart is no garden-variety provocateur. Media-savvy and eminently quotable, he revels in skewering liberals — and conservatives love him for it. Just a year earlier, Breitbart came under fierce criticism for taking out of context Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod’s remarks, in an attempt to claim an administration scalp, but the Weiner episode proved he’s still a force to be reckoned with.

Republicans are thankful he’s back and eagerly await his 2012 adventures.

Why only Republicans?

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Yesterday, I wondered how Nancy Pelosi and her husband were able to participate in Visa’s IPO in March 2008. It is very difficult for an individual investor to participate in IPOs, especially those which are heavily ‘oversubscribed’ as Visa’s was. It was the hottest IPO of the year, drawing what one analyst described as “extreme demand.” So, this tidbit from Newsweek’s story on Visa’s campaign to curry favor with Pelosi caught my attention:

Separately, Pelosi’s husband, Paul, a major investor in California, got a lucrative phone call from his personal broker—a pre-screen invite in March 2008 to take part in Visa’s $17.9 billion public stock offering, at the time one of the hottest stock offerings in an otherwise soft market. The initial-public-offering price was $44 per share and was limited to institutional investors and a group of specially selected individuals. Almost $18 billion was made available in public stock to preselected investors. Paul Pelosi made the cut.

Wait, what? He was called and ‘invited’ to purchase shares in the IPO? Seriously? Let’s isolate one particular sentence from this graph:

The initial-public-offering price was $44 per share and was limited to institutional investors and a group of specially selected individuals.

Specially selected individuals? Selected by whom? And, for what reasons, specifically?

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Last night, 60 Minutes aired its report on possible insider trading by Members of Congress. A principal focus of the report was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her participation in an IPO of Visa, one of the hottest IPOs in recent years. Reporter Steve Kroft questioned Leader Pelosi recently at a press conference about her investment and its possible impact on credit card legislation before the House during her term as Speaker.

I will have much more to say on this soon, as the legislative maneuvering around the recent credit card bill is a rich narrative and suggests there may be something to Kroft’s suspicions. For now, though, I have a more fundamental question: How did Nancy Pelosi get access to Visa’s IPO in the first place?

Participation in a stocks IPO, i.e. Initial Public Offering, is one of the more sought after trades on Wall Street. Often, an IPO investor is able to get into a stock at a relatively low price and realize an almost immediate gain once trading commences, especially if the IPO is “hot” or, rather oversubscribed, meaning more investors wanted shares than were available. Visa’s IPO was blockbuster-level “hot.” As reported by The New York Times:

Visa‘s blockbuster initial public offering is currently oversubscribed for its expected trading start on March 20, Scott Sweet of the research firm IPO Boutique told MarketWatch.

Mr. Sweet told the publication that the I.P.O. is drawing “extreme demand.”

It is very difficult for any individual investors to participate in an IPO, as most of the shares are reserved for major brokerage clients, institutional investors and pension funds. It is so difficult, in fact, the SEC has published an “FAQ” on why it is so difficult for individual investors to participate in IPOs:

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The latest mainstream media narrative designed to push a Republican candidate out of the presidential race is the idea that Texas governor Rick Perry was somehow drunk or incoherent when he gave a stirring speech in New Hampshire a week ago.

Unfortunately, some of Mitt Romney’s supporters have piled on, such as Michigan’s Republican National Committee representative, Saul Anuzis, who told Politico that Perry was “unpresidential” and could seem “incoherent.”

After watching highlights of the speech, I was puzzled. The only thing that stands out about it is how good it is.

Perry seemed more relaxed than we have seen him in any of the presidential debates. He had wit and rhetorical flair. He related well to his audience–uncharacteristically well.

As a former professional speechwriter, I was impressed. He was exciting to watch. “Where has that Rick Perry been?” I wondered. (more…)

UPDATED.

From Politico:

Less than 24 hours after Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government posted a video of New York Times freelancer (and former POLITICO/occasional On Media blogger) Natasha Lennard speaking on a panel about Occupy Wall Street, the Times defended her reporting, but says it has “no plans” to use her on future stories on the protests.

Lennard became one of the first journalistic stars of the growing protest movement when she was arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in the course of covering the protests for the Times – an experience she blogged about on the Times’ City Room blog under the title, “Covering the March, on Foot and in Handcuffs.”

Last night, Big Government’s Lee Stranahan posted a video from an Oct. 14th panel discussion on the protests at Bluestockings bookstore, organized by Jacobin magazine.

[...]

The New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy responded to questions about Lennard’s status and the Times’s policies on freelancers with a statement:

This freelancer, Natasha Lennard, has not been involved in our coverage of Occupy Wall Street in recent days, and we have no plans to use her for future coverage. We have reviewed the past stories to which she contributed and have not found any reasons for concern over that reporting.

All our journalists, staff or freelance, are expected to adhere to our ethical rules and journalistic standards, and to avoid doing anything that could call into question the impartiality of their work for The Times.

Lennard defended herself on Twitter this morning, quipping, “ugh. last time i offer a post-structuralist critique in public!” (more…)

As the opposition to CSPAR (Cross-state Air Pollution Regulations) spreads across state lines and various groups, there have been over 30 lawsuits filed to challenge the rule. The groups include power companies, cities, states, industry groups, as well as labor organizations. Meanwhile, Luminant continues to push the Administration to carefully consider the inevitable job loss that will result from this rule.

The opposition continues to grow and crosses party lines. In fact, the Austin American-Statesman recently published an op-ed by the Texas Chapter of the AFL-CIO. The piece, entitled, “Cross-State Air Pollution delay would help Texas workers,” emphasized the tough times that workers are facing in Texas and criticized the timeline of CSPAR. Becky Moeller, Texas AFL-CIO President, chastised the EPA for failing to provide an adequate public comment period.

It is important to remember that most parties involved, including Luminant, have made significant efforts to meet Clean Air standards and are willing to work together to ensure that future generations of Texans will have clean air to breathe. In fact, as Ms. Moeller points out, AFL-CIO and Luminant have worked closely together to do just that. This is not an all-out attack on the EPA or environmental standards, but the fact is that the specifics of CSPAR simply do not provide Luminant with the appropriate timeframe to meet the new standards. It’s not just a matter of making changes to equipment – people’s jobs and livelihoods are at stake. Anywhere between 500 and 1000 jobs will be lost. Texans cannot afford this, and the AFL-CIO has spoken out in support of working families who have the most to lose from this unreasonable restriction.

While Luminant continues to push for a stay to the regulation in order to allow the proper time and resources to make the adjustments, last week the Administration asked a federal appeals court to dismiss Luminant’s petition to curb CSPAR. Politico’s Darren Goode recently featured a story that highlighted the ongoing battle between the EPA and Luminant. The Administration’s appeal claims that the EPA “provided detailed and extensive notice and opportunity to comment on the methodology, assumptions and data it used to determine which states would be included in the rule.” The fact is that the updated rule that included Texas was not released until July, thus allowing less than six months for Luminant to comply with CSPAR when the changes required will take years to put in place.

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From today’s Politico:

The White House wants to make it clear that President Barack Obama is on the same side as the Occupy Wall Street protesters – and that Republicans are not.

“If you’re concerned about Wall Street and our financial system, the president is standing on the side of consumers and the middle class,” Obama’s senior adviser David Plouffe said on “Good Morning America” Tuesday morning when asked about the demonstrations. “And a lot of these Republicans are basically saying, ‘You know what? Let’s go back to the same policies that led to the great recession in the first place’.”

[...]

“Taxpayers won’t be on the hook for a bailout any more, we’ll be more transparent,” he said. “Consumers will be protected on hidden fees on mortgages and credit cards.” (more…)

JAY CARNEY:  Sir, word from the Senate on your American Jobs Act.  Majority Leader Reid is complaining of constipation.  Says he’s been pushing since yesterday, but he can’t pass the bill.

OBAMA:  Merde!  After I did all the heavy lifting.  Damn do-nothing Congress.

VALERIE JARRETT:  Good thing you’re leaving the country next week, sir.  No one can blame you if the measure tanks when you’re abroad on official business.

OBAMA: Where am I off to?

BILL DALEY:  You’ll begin your working tour of Scotland’s golf courses on Monday, sir.  Meanwhile, the First Lady and several dozen close friends and family members are already aboard the presidential yacht, Alinsky, en route to the Galapagos for a holiday.

OBAMA:  Message her confirmation that we’ll rendezvous a week from Friday on the Côte d’Azur.  When do I return home?

DALEY:  Um, we want to be flexible, sir.  Tell him, Poll Boy.

CHUCK TODD:  Recent surveys indicate hiring spikes and an uptick in consumer confidence when you’re away, sir.  It’s as if some great weight was lifted from. . . . .

OBAMA:  I get it, Chuck.  All right.  Add Ireland to my itinerary.  Inform Michelle I’ll join her on the Riviera October 1^st.  Eric, do you have this “Gunwalker” thing under control? (more…)

I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I do, it isn’t usually cable news. Living, as I do, in new media, I’m already generally up to speed on what they are talking about. CNBC has good financial news, even if they do conflate the health of the stock market with the state of overall economy. CNN will give you an accurate pulse of the median views of the mainstream media. Fox will give you a moderate to very slightly center-right take on the day’s events. I always had a vague sense that MSNBC was very left-of-center. Last night, that vague sense was confirmed. But, I also realized that MSNBC lives in an alternate universe.

Today, it was reported that jobless claims spiked higher…yet again. The CBO reported that, through the last 11 months, the federal government has spent almost $1.3 Trillion more than it took in. European banks are on the edge of collapse and the entire world economy balances precariously on the edge of a global depression. If the US economy hasn’t technically yet entered another recession, it is only a matter of time before it does.

The housing market is set for another downturn. The number of Americans in the labor force is at historic lows. There is no prospect for economic recovery at any point in the future. I could go on and on, but you get the point. The economy is teetering on the edge of another collapse and government debt has so suffocated us that we are flirting with a period of permanent decline.

And yet, at last night’s GOP debate at the Reagan Library (!), neither John Harris with Politico nor Brian Williams with NBCMSNBCCOMCASTGE, asked a SINGLE question about these issues. Nothing about government spending, debt or the economy. Instead, we were treated to almost 90 minutes of questions on HPV vaccines, immigration, FEMA, TSA, welfare, poverty programs (more in need after 2+ years of Obama than ever) and science. Science?!?

Seriously, do John Harris and Brian Williams need an up-to-date calendar? Are they stuck in the 90s, when the economy seemed fine and all we had to worry about were so-called ’social’ issues, ’smart growth’ and school uniforms. We thought we were fat and happy then and could afford the luxury of the ’small’ issues. We aren’t anymore, but that is all they fed us. If I closed my eyes, I don’t know that I could have told you whether this ‘debate’ was for President of the state legislature.

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“Science!”: Beyond the Pose, Mr. Huntsman, What Would You DO?

When that silver-haired Republican candidate weighs in on the ‘climate’ debate I want to stick around until the end of the video. I love that line, “Good heavens, Miss Nakamoto, you’re beautiful!”

Wait, that’s not Magnus Pyke?

Seriously. Mr. Huntsman, beyond the pose: what would you do? “Science!” is a talking point. More of a pose, really, of being the thoughtful man while its success depends on no more than Pavlovian nodding and clucking in response. Anything else ultimately arrives at the question Hunstman’s pose begs:

What. Would. You. Do.?

What’s your point? You’re down with the kidz on campus and your media base can rest easy because you’re not, you know, ‘crazy’ as you say? Or you’re going somewhere with this? Is it cap-and-trade? Kyoto? Kyoto II? Carbon (dioxide…meaning ‘energy’) taxes?

What? And after you answer that, well, without using the word “science(!)”, please then state why?

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I give all but one of the GOP candidates an “F” for last night’s performance.

The very premise of the Republican presidential debate, hosted by NBC/Politico and broadcast by corporate welfare queen MSNBC proves that conservatives don’t understand the power the media is trying to exert over the next election.

It is an insult to the house of Reagan that MSNBC would try to pass itself off as a fair news organization with the eight Republican candidates giving the sneering, snobby and snide enemy a certain imprimatur of legitimacy.

The only reason the GOP is in a fighting stance in the 2012 presidential election is the Tea Party. The alternative narrative-drivers at MSNBC have spent much of the last two-plus years trying to frame millions and millions of patriotic and concerned Americans as violent, racist knuckle-draggers.

To dignify those habitual and unaccountable slanderers by appearing on that stage shows that apparently these Republicans and daily MSNBC punching bags don’t comprehend the scope of the media problem.

Barack Obama was elected due to the work of the media in 2008. Barack Obama will not cross the finish line in 2012 without the help of that same media–with MSNBC leaning forward as it pushes their wildly unpopular President from behind. (more…)

Virginia’s Former-Governor George Allen again rises to defend Right To Work and the principles of liberty embraced by our Founding Fathers against attacks from the Obama Administration and the acquiescent U.S. Senate.

It is time for all freedom-loving people to stand up against the forces of tyranny that have taken hold of numerous government agencies such as the NLRB. It is time that elected officials and candidates for office to declare their positions for or against individual liberty. If for liberty, then they must act to oppose the tyranny of forced unionism and its suppression of the individual. (For Governor Allen’s full Op-Ed in Politico click here.)

President Thomas Jefferson defined the sum of good government as, “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Those words are the uplifting principles of a free society.

Unfortunately these principles are being ignored by the powers in Washington.

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***UPDATE: The DNC just released a video that makes my case perfectly. CNN asks a series of dumb questions that have little to do with the important issues of the day and the DNC exploits this with a viral-video mocking  our candidates for ignoring the most important issues of the day.

If you think this is by accident, you haven’t been paying attention:

—–

ABC’s Jake Tapper sees through this but unfortunately there’s only one Jake Tapper.  END UPDATE

Laugh at Democrats all you want but their decision during the last election to stay away from Fox News’ debates was brilliant. No one at Fox would’ve been unfair, but they most certainly would’ve asked tougher questions than anyone in the MSM. That’s not a cowardly decision on the Democrats part, it’s a tactically brilliant decision. Why would anyone interested in winning an election willingly put themselves in a less than ideal situation? Unfortunately, the only people who can answer that question are those currently running for the GOP nomination.

Nothing is more important than getting our failed president out of office in 2012 and therefore nothing is more important than nominating someone who can win. This is why the number one quality we should be looking for among our otherwise superb field is someone who understands that when it comes to removing Barack Obama from office, the MSM is the existential threat of 2012 — not the President. In a just world, Obama would have almost no chance of winning re-election, but we don’t live in a just world. We live in a world where Obama’s MSM Palace Guards have set their phasers to kill and intend to take out any threat to Their Precious One without prejudice.

And so last night when I saw our esteemed candidates voluntarily lined up like so many ducks in a MSM shooting gallery, I died a little bit inside.  It’s a trap, GOP!, and you can laugh at moderator John King’s questions all you want but I’m guessing that’s exactly what the MSM wants us to do. That way we don’t see the Matrix of what they were really up to. Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air:

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“No it wasn’t deceptive, that’s what everybody’s saying about it. I saw the first version of it, and it told pretty much the whole story, of how that woman had gone through an epiphany of understanding how race works.”

Related:
Nolte: Who Got to Chris Matthews?: ‘Hardball’ Defense of Breitbart Memory-Holed (July 30, 2010)
Marlow: WaPo’s Kurtz “dishonestly suggests Matthews had gotten his facts wrong regarding Breitbart including footage of Shirley Sherrod’s redemption” (August 3, 2010)

With the exception of Jonathan Allen and Ben Smith of Politico, who both deserve credit for covering the Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) story we broke here at the Bigs on Friday night, the mainstream media’s silence on this objectively important story has been deafening. And now that 24 hours have passed since the story originally broke, there’s simply no way to blame the MSM’s lack of interest on the holiday weekend.

After all, this isn’t just any story. Regardless of how it all eventually breaks, what we have here is either the story of a high profile, recently married New York Congressman who’s seriously considering a Mayoral run in Manhattan, tweeting his “junk” to a young woman two decades his junior — and lying to the media about it. Or we have a story involving a high-profile Congressman’s Facebook and Twitter account being hacked with pornographic pictures.

So ask yourself: how does the MSM justify all but ignoring something so juicy? And then if you’re still not convinced of the story’s newsworthiness, remind yourself that these events are not unfolding in one of those odd, square-shaped states our journalist-class fly over every once in a while. This is a New York story that involves the trifecta of politics, sex, and a rising political star. Furthermore, the icing on the cake is Bill and Hillary Clinton. Last July, in a ceremony officiated by former President Clinton himself, Rep. Weiner married Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin.

Now, please don’t bother to answer any of the above questions. They were rhetorical and answered by the “D” after Rep. Weiner’s name. Naturally, the hacking of a Facebook account connected to one of the best known and most outspoken Democrats in Congress is a bonafide story … unless you’re afraid of where that story might lead. And if you’re interested in what a WeinerGate story looks like when a news outlet is terrified afraid of where it might lead, read this.

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In their ongoing crusade to target and silence decent, everyday Americans as racists, some in the MSM love to use the term “dog-whistle” in order to ascribe racial motives to words like, say, “basketball.” Well, lately I’ve been hearing a dog-whistle of my own — a dog-whistle of the journ-o-list variety that tells me that in their relentless campaign to destroy Sarah Palin and undercut her as a serious political force, the MSM is preparing to up the ante when it comes to using the Governor’s own family and children as a political weapon against her.

First, a little background…

Why the Media Whips Up the Palin-Fury

Watching the MSM react to Governor Palin over the last few years has been an illuminating crash course in Alinsky 101. Like elite, elbow-patched community organizers, the media collectively targets, polarizes, demonizes and intentionally creates a perpetual storm of personal drama around the Governor in the hopes of exhausting even those of us who support her. I call it whipping up the Palin-Fury.

This is a common tactic from the Left, but one we usually see played out in the streets with the idea being to so toxify the atmosphere that decent people give up the fight and go home just to get away from the awfulness of it all. The last few months of ugly and relentless pro-union protests in Wisconsin — though a failure for the left — were a textbook example of this. However, when it comes to Governor Palin, what we’re seeing is this tactic practiced by almost every so-called “objective” news outlet in America.

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It may just be wishful thinking but Politico’s ‘Morning Energy’ today was dropping heavy hints they expected President Obama to use this morning’s presser to defend against any culpability of his policies in ’skyrocketing’ gas prices.

Yeah, any such connection between Obama policies and energy prices is a pretty hard case to make, what with the Obama administration having immediately upon taking office canceled oil and gas leases, placed more areas off limits for domestic exploration and production, changing the Minerals Management Service to an offshore windmill permitting agency since all we need is some offshore windmills (not one but two senior administration officials have said this, including a cabinet secretary), then not letting the Gulf spill ‘go to waste’ by seizing it to strangle our biggest domestic source of oil.

Of course, there is also that long trail of aspirational comments, well beyond vowing to cause electricity prices to ’skyrocket’, indicating this steady gas price hike is their objective, even if overseas developments are causing problems for them [helping the rise advance too quickly such that people pay attention, with these developments adding to the price hikes the admin have built in, with much more obviously undone but hopefully on the way]. As I detailed with many more admissions ten months ago in Power Grab.

Obviously, this is one of the items worrying Team Obama, along with their foreign policy fecklessness. And — in lieu of gimmickry to redirect voters’ gazes from policies that contribute to this, such as by releasing Strategic [NB: not 'Political'] Petroleum Reserve crude — Obama cheerleaders (like Politico) note he could take the opportunity to push his “Clean Energy Standard”.

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