Congressional members and Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart receive threatening letters

Three members of Congress have received threatening mail containing a suspicious powder later found to be harmless and law enforcement officials on Wednesday warned that more may be coming.

Another U.S. law enforcement official said letters sent to television personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert threatened biological attacks on U.S. senators.

Other letters to a number of news organizations and postmarked Oregon warned that 100 letters had been sent to the Washington or home-state offices of U.S. senators and that 10 of those contained a deadly pathogen, a law enforcement source said.

Read more of this story filed by Richard Cowan, Thomas Ferraro, Michelle Nichols and Mark Hosenball

Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa is currently tweeting from a forum on the Stop Online Piracy act with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Congressional representative from California Darrel Issa. The conversation is being held at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Follow along on Twitter.
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Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa is currently tweeting from a forum on the Stop Online Piracy act with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Congressional representative from California Darrel Issa. The conversation is being held at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Follow along on Twitter.

shortformblog:

Gabrielle Giffords’ resignation letter, in Scribd format. (thanks Matt)

(via shortformblog)

Source: producermatthew.com

Word Cloud: A visual representation of tonight’s State of the Union address as prepared. Live blog: President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address
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Word Cloud: A visual representation of tonight’s State of the Union address as prepared.

Live blog: President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address

President Barack Obama will pitch new initiatives on jobs, taxes and housing in an election-year State of the Union address on Tuesday, making a sweeping case for a second term despite the slow U.S. economic recovery and high jobless rate. Read: Obama to make pitch for second term in State of the Union address
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President Barack Obama will pitch new initiatives on jobs, taxes and housing in an election-year State of the Union address on Tuesday, making a sweeping case for a second term despite the slow U.S. economic recovery and high jobless rate.

Read: Obama to make pitch for second term in State of the Union address

newsweek: Behold! What the Stop SOPA blackout managed to accomplish in 24 hours.
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newsweek:

Behold! What the Stop SOPA blackout managed to accomplish in 24 hours.

(via thedailyfeed)

Source: propublica.org

shortformblog: How Congress reads your e-mails Earlier this week, we posted this wonderful Vice Magazine piece called ”Dear Congress: It Is No Longer OK To Not Know How the Internet Works,” which took Congress to task for not understanding the ramifications of SOPA and bending too quickly to lobbyists. But a funny thing happened on the way to ripping Congress a new one: Clay Johnson wrote a brilliant response titled “Dear Internet: It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How Congress Works,” in which he points out the structural problems that might cause Congress to focus more on lobbyists than actual constituents. “Lobbyists can manage the attention of our Representatives because they have the time and the resources,” Johnson writes. “But I’ve never met a member of Congress who liked constantly begging for money so that they could get re-elected. Nobody wants that.” He points out that this horrifically-designed software above, a Lockheed Martin product called Intranet Quorum, is how Congress reads constituent letters, and that contracts prevent them from going with something else. Not nearly as sexy as Gmail, is it? No wonder lobbyists get more mindshare than voters, right? There is a huge lesson here to take from BOTH articles. Read them both, if you haven’t.
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shortformblog:

How Congress reads your e-mails

Earlier this week, we posted this wonderful Vice Magazine piece called ”Dear Congress: It Is No Longer OK To Not Know How the Internet Works,” which took Congress to task for not understanding the ramifications of SOPA and bending too quickly to lobbyists. But a funny thing happened on the way to ripping Congress a new one: Clay Johnson wrote a brilliant response titled “Dear Internet: It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How Congress Works,” in which he points out the structural problems that might cause Congress to focus more on lobbyists than actual constituents. “Lobbyists can manage the attention of our Representatives because they have the time and the resources,” Johnson writes. “But I’ve never met a member of Congress who liked constantly begging for money so that they could get re-elected. Nobody wants that.” He points out that this horrifically-designed software above, a Lockheed Martin product called Intranet Quorum, is how Congress reads constituent letters, and that contracts prevent them from going with something else. Not nearly as sexy as Gmail, is it? No wonder lobbyists get more mindshare than voters, right? There is a huge lesson here to take from BOTH articles. Read them both, if you haven’t.

(via shortformblog)

Source: informationdiet.com

pulitzercenter: How frequently has “Darfur” been mentioned in Congress? A timeline.  You can search and explore all of your favorite keywords (example: health care reform, win the future) entered into the Congressional Record with the Capitol Words tool via the Sunlight Foundation.
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pulitzercenter:

How frequently has “Darfur” been mentioned in Congress? A timeline. 

You can search and explore all of your favorite keywords (example: health care reform, win the future) entered into the Congressional Record with the Capitol Words tool via the Sunlight Foundation.

Source: pulitzercenter

The corporations that occupy Congress. - David Cay Johnston
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The corporations that occupy Congress. - David Cay Johnston