Designing Obama

Barack Obama Is the First Nerd President

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

More from the White House on Cybersecurity

President Obama on Cybersecurity

Bonus: Bruce Schneier’s comments on the speech.

Ridiculous

Dear MoveOn member,

This is ridiculous. The media has been obsessing about President Obama's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans—from 35% to 39.6%—even asking if that makes him a socialist.¹

But do you know what tax rate the wealthiest Americans paid on the top portion of their earnings at the end of Ronald Reagan's first term? 50%.

Under Richard Nixon? 70%. Under Dwight Eisenhower? 91%!

Shocking, right?

And for all the whining about rolling back Bush's irresponsible tax cuts, the truth is that Obama's plan cuts taxes for 95% of working Americans. Further, it closes huge tax loopholes for oil companies, hedge funds and corporations that ship jobs overseas so that we can invest in the priorities that will get our economy back on track.²

We saw a great chart in The Washington Monthly³ that shows just how absurd Republican complaints about Obama's budget are. Check it out and pass it on:

Thanks for all you do.

–Daniel, Eli, Laura, Matt and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "A socialist? Obama calls back to insist no," The International Herald Tribune, March 8, 2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/08/america/barack.php

2. "Tax Cuts," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-tax.html

3. "Soaking the Rich (Redux)," The Washington Monthly, March 8, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51234&id=15734-5548613-gzmXQjx&t=2

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

---

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent to Michael Sauers on March 13, 2009.

Obama’s Elf

Inside the Transition: Technology, Innovation and Government

This video was released back on January 16th, but I just watched it last night. There’s nothin’ like someone in government talking about mashups!

Barack O’Bama

Wazzup 2000 vs. Wazzup 2008

wiki.whitehouse.gov

In the article “America Online” in the latest issue of Wired (#17.02 which isn’t online yet) I cam across the following paragraph:

The incoming administration is still working to assess the implications of the Presidential Records Act, the post-Nixon legislation requiring the preservation of all White House written communications. But that means that once any page goes up on the White House site, it can’t be altered, only archived and replaced, greatly slowing down the process of modifying and enhancing pages.

So, ok, I understand this and think it’s a good thing. But I instantly thought that this would be the perfect  use for a wiki. Just have Wiki software be the underlying system that ran www.whitehouse.gov and you’d instantly have a traceable record, and archived copy, of every version of the page that’s ever been from day-one forward.

I’d like to think that at least one of the smart people on the transition team had already thought of this but I’ll be submitting it to the folks at www.change.gov just in case they haven’t.

How the Obama campaign logo was designed

We're in the process of rebranding some of the output of the NLC (for launch in the new year) and today we're deciding on the new logo. So, these videos were not only interesting but relevant to what we're going through right now.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Change.gov changes to a CC license

I just want to officially state how happy I am that the content of Change.gov has been officially licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. I also have a response and a concern.

The response is to those that ask "but aren't creations of the federal government automatically in the public domain?" Well, yes, but the content of Change.gov is coming out of the "office of the president-elect" which isn't officially part of the federal government. Additionally, Obama has given up his Senate seat so he's no longer part of the federal government either. That is, not until January 20th. Then, he gets control of Whitehouse.gov and that's in the public domain.

The concern is about the page on Change.gov that has the license: http://change.gov/about/copyright_policy. The CC license is listed under the heading of "Copyright Notice". Trouble is, CC isn't Copyright. Copyright is a law, Creative Commons is a license. A picky detail I'm sure, but an important one.

Obama wins one electoral vote in Nebraska

Nebraska politics.. In the words of Hunter S. Thompson: when the going gets weird, the weird go pro.

Did you know that Nebraska has a unicameral legislature? In other words, there’s just the Senate, no house. (To me it makes sense (I almost wrote a paper on it in college) but that’s a completely different post.) Also, we’re one of just two states that splits it’s electoral votes. (The other one is Maine.) Thing is, it’s never happened before in the history of the state! This evening it was announced that John McCain got four, and Barack Obama got one.

How does it work? Let me see if I can explain it.

Step one: The winner of the popular vote for the state gets two electoral votes.

Step two: The winner in each of our three congressional districts gets one electoral vote for each district they won.

In the past, the man who won the whole state did so by winning all three congressional districts. This time John McCain won just two of the three districts. So, he got four, and Obama got the other one.

My only disappointment is that I live in one of the other two congressional districts.

Free Obama Sticker

MoveOn.org is offering free “Yes We Did” stickers for a limited time. Get yours @ http://pol.moveon.org/shepstickers?id=15080-10226106-YaBATEx&t=5.

Yes we did!

Blueprint for Change: Technology

• Provide universal broadband access
• Raise broadband speed standards
• Connect schools, libraries and hospitals.”

Ferris says…

Dance off!

Robots Attack!

Obama campaign goes viral

Actually, in this case they used a video that previously went viral online and adapted it to their needs. I’ve got to say, it’s but amusing and creative.

BARACKY II

Obama’s FISA opportunity

Here's Keith Olbermann's special comment from last night:

Obama to forgo public funding of his campaign

Repost of an e-mail I just received.

Barack Obama recorded a video message with an important announcement that he wanted you to hear first:

https://donate.barackobama.com/bignews

We have made a crucial decision that will impact how we compete in the general election, and it's important that you understand the decision, its implications, and the challenge ahead.

Barack Obama on Religion and Scripture

Obama on Countrywide Financial

Lessig @ UPenn 4 Barack

Clinton pwned by girl in 3AM ad