@amzam

propublica:

We need your help tracking how Congress votes on the first major gun control bill since the Newtown shootings.

CLICK HERE to get involved by contacting your Senator.

Our latest Get Involved project. Help us track the gun control vote.

Unsurprisingly partisan, an interactive look at where Congress stands on gun control by Lena Groeger. Find out where your representative stands: http://propub.ca/Vld2Gq

source2012:

In just 16 days, outside spending groups (like super PACs and 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 Wolfram 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).

Clever.

officialssay:

The Obama campaign reblogged this post on Tumblr yesterday. It has since been taken down because, as a campaign official told BuzzFeed, it didn’t go through their “regular review” process.

eek!

staff:

LIVE-GIFFING THE 2012 DEBATES!

This Wednesday evening marks the first presidential debate for the 2012 American elections. Elevating the discourse as only Tumblr can, we’ll have a crack team of GIF artists cranking out instant animations of the best debate moments, from zingers to gaffes to awkward silences. Flooding the GIF zone will be our own Topherchris, as well as Bobby Finger, Lacey Micallef, and Mr. GIF. And joining us to further enhance our coverage will be Election blog guest editor Adam Gabbatt, whose liveblog at the Guardian will bring you the full stories behind the GIFs

The place to take it all in will be the purpose-built Gifwich live-GIFfing blog. Fair warning: Follow Gifwich at your own risk! After all, once each debate begins, your Dashboard could be flooded with animations on a minute-to-minute basis. Your mileage may vary, but if you prefer to just sample the flow, perhaps check out Gifwich directly during the debate and reblog your favorites piecemeal. You can even sample curated real-time selections from the Guardian’s liveblog or Tumblr’s official Election blog.

All debates (and our Gifwich GIF coverage) begin at 9pm Eastern Time:

• Wednesday, October 3 - Presidential debate on domestic policy
• Thursday, October 11 - Vice-presidential debate on foreign and domestic policy
• Tuesday, October 16 - Presidential town meeting on foreign and domestic policy
• Monday, October 22 - Presidential debate on foreign policy

Hellz yea. 

If you haven’t checked it out yet, you should: ProPublica readers are helping us crowd-source thousands of documents to log millions of dollars in ad spending in the final days of the 2012 campaign. So far, we’ve freed 852 files and $54.3 million in ad buys. If you have a minute, it’s easy to do. And fun. AND good for democracy. Help us Free the Files!

While more Democrats tend to find social networks important for political activity, people don’t seem to be posting much political content on their social networks. According to latest Pew Internet & American Life report on politics and social:

The vast majority of SNS users (84%) say they have posted little or nothing related to politics in their recent status updates, comments, and links. Only 6% of these users say that most or all of what they posted recently on social networking sites is related to politics, issues, or the 2012 campaign. Another 10% say some of what they have recently posted has been about politics.

Again, social seems to be more important for journalists and politicos — IE the politibubble — than others.

officialssay:

Justin Elliott has the full scoop on how politicians and the press are overstating military budget cuts by more than $100 billion.