iPhone Photo of Hurricane Sandy Makes the Cover of Time When superstorm Sandy was approaching, New York photojournalist Ben Lowy, 33, didn’t grab his high-end camera equipment. He grabbed his iPhone 4S, put it in his pocket, and headed out on assignment for Time magazine. (read more)

iPhone Photo of Hurricane Sandy Makes the Cover of Time

When superstorm Sandy was approaching, New York photojournalist Ben Lowy, 33, didn’t grab his high-end camera equipment. He grabbed his iPhone 4S, put it in his pocket, and headed out on assignment for Time magazine. (read more)

abcnews.go.com

Republican SuperPACs Were the Real Losers of the 2012 Election

The big losers on Tuesday were the Republican SuperPACs. They poured a billion dollars into this race, and they lost House and Senate seats, as well as the race for the White House.

This tells me that the law of diminishing returns applies to money in politics. Eventually, you get to a point where it doesn’t matter how many more ads you run against your opponent. The voters have heard it all and made up their minds, and you’re just wasting money.

All that wasted money could have been spent helping others. That’s the real tragedy here. How many schools or hospitals could it have funded?

…and the “Hillary 2016” memes begin. Three thoughts: I’ve always loved this photo of her. I get to start using the election2016 tag. I’m betting that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden will work out, behind closed doors, which of them is going to run for president in 2016. The other one won’t run, because neither wants their last political race to be a loss to the other. current: #Hillary2016 is trending on our Social Dashboard, and we think we know why…

…and the “Hillary 2016” memes begin.

Three thoughts:

  1. I’ve always loved this photo of her.

  2. I get to start using the election2016 tag.

  3. I’m betting that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden will work out, behind closed doors, which of them is going to run for president in 2016. The other one won’t run, because neither wants their last political race to be a loss to the other.

current:

#Hillary2016 is trending on our Social Dashboard, and we think we know why…

My Election Night Tweets

Below is just a listing of all my tweets from last night. It does not include tweets from others that I reposted. To see those, view my entire Twitter stream.

twitter.com

Obama Defeats Romney to Win Second Term (I snapped this photo of my TV screen to mark the occasion.)
Obama Defeats Romney to Win Second Term

(I snapped this photo of my TV screen to mark the occasion.)

Negotiating with Iran is perceived as a sign of beginning to forsake Israel. That is where I think the basic difference is between Romney and Obama. What Romney is doing is mortally destroying any chance of a resolution without war. Therefore when [he recently] said, he doesn’t think there should be a war with Iran, this does not ring true. It is not consistent with other things he has said. […] Obama does think there is still room for negotiations. It’s a very courageous thing to say in this atmosphere. In the end, this is what I think: Making foreign policy on Iran a serious issue in the US elections — what Romney has done, in itself — is a heavy blow to the ultimate interests of the United States and Israel.
Former Israeli Spymaster: We Need To Talk to Iran (via azspot)

Obama to Romney: We Also Have Fewer Horses and Bayonets…

Mitt Romney Style (Gangnam Style Parody)

The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.
President Barack Obama responding to Mitt Romney’s comments that Russia is the United States’ biggest geopolitical foe (Presidential Debate on Foreign Policy, 22 October 2012)

Candy Crowley Fact-Checks Mitt Romney: Obama ‘Did In Fact’ Say Libya Attack Was Terrorism

This was my favorite part of the debate last night. The moderator (Crowley) understood that her job was not to simply ask questions (or have the audience ask them) and allow the two candidates to respond however they pleased. She also had a responsibility to correct the candidates or ask follow-up questions when she knew that they were either lying, dodging, or simply wrong on the facts.

In this case, Mitt Romney was not telling the truth. Whether he knew it or not makes little difference. I especially love how President Obama, knowing where Romney was going with this, said, “Please proceed, governor.” He let Romney walk right into it, and Crowley took it from there. This required an amazing amount of courage on Crowley’s part. If she had been wrong, she would never — ever — have lived it down. It would have followed her for the rest of her life. All journalists should be proud of the job she did.

This should be a lesson to Mitt Romney, and he needs to learn it fast, because he’s only got one debate left. Lying, whether intentional or not, is not acceptable when you are presenting your case to the American people. The first presidential debate was filled with statements from Romney that all reputable fact-checkers rightly exposed as having been either false or half-true. The problem, during that debate, was that we had a moderator (Jim Lehrer) and an opponent (President Obama) who were unwilling to call Romney out. That was not the case last night.