RISKS OF TWITTER. Roll Call. “The explosion of social media has enabled government officials to share more information than ever before with the stroke of a thumb on a phone, but the boost in communication has raised more questions and security concerns than can fit in 140 characters.”
MEMBER TRAVEL IN THE NEWS. Story here. “Private groups spent almost $6 million to send Members of Congress and staff on trips last year, more than in any year since Congress tightened its restrictions on outside groups paying for travel in 2007.”
COLBERT AND CIVICS. Story here. “Who says a civics lesson has to be boring?”
BUCHANAN RECORDS. Roll Call. “A lawyer for Rep. Vern Buchanan said new records released from the Federal Election Commission show he was not involved in illegal campaign contributions.”
SOLYNDRA ATTACKS. The Hill. “Republicans wielding Solyndra as a political weapon against President Obama are also using the failed solar panel company to parry attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital.”
OBAMA AND THE SUPER PAC. Politico. “Obama’s campaign has pledged that neither the president nor his aides will raise money for super PACS, but his team recognizes the magnitude of the threat. For the first time, Obama’s senior campaign staff will allow their top bundlers to ask wealthy contributors for donations to Priorities USA Action, POLITICO has learned.”
COUNTRYWIDE ISSUES. Politico. “Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, a top member of the House GOP leadership, received a VIP mortgage from defunct lender Countrywide Financial Corp., making him the fourth current member of the House who has acknowledged getting a sweetheart deal.”
WHY ARE SOME SITES SHUTDOWN TODAY? The Times explains. “The bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate, are backed by major media companies and are mostly intended to curtail the illegal downloading and streaming of TV shows and movies online. But the tech industry fears that, among other things, they will give media companies too much power to shut down sites that they say are abusing copyrights.”
THE POST ON THE FIX. Editorial here. “Mitt Romney has a prescription for the super PAC problem: Allow political candidates to collect unlimited donations, instead of having the funds funneled to supposedly independent groups.”
GOP ON SUPER PACS. The Post. “To hear the Republican presidential candidates tell it, they’ve already lost control of their campaigns to outsiders.”
FIX NY? Opinion here. “Of the many ideas Gov. Andrew Cuomo discussed in his State of the State message, one that he needs to keep on the front burner is a push for voluntary public financing of political campaigns.”
LIU RELEASES NAMES. The Daily News. “A year after John Liufirst failed to file the names of his campaign ‘bundlers,’ a list of about three dozen fund-raisers was released Wednesday amid a federal probe into his campaign finances.”
HAVE A GREAT DAY.