Amid the sudden uproar over sexual assaults in the military following a Pentagon report Tuesday that 26,000 members of the military were assaulted last year, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, released portions of a Facebook page, “F’N Wook,” denigrating women in the Marine Corps.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Marine Corps Commandant James Amos and deputy inspector general Lynne Halbrooks, Speier said she is confident that “you would also be horrified by the culture of misogyny and sexual harrassment depicted on the website.”
A whistleblower called the page to Speier’s attention Tuesday.
Speier has been working for two years, with no results, to call attention to military rapes. She has done 25 speeches on the topic on the House floor. She has introduced three pieces of legislation to address the issue, but the House Armed Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County) has refused to hold a hearing.
Speier said there are many similar pages such as “Just the Tip, of the Spear,” “U Suckers Missed Christmas -USMC,” and “POG Boot F..ks.”
The “F’N Wook” page and others like it “promote the idea that women are inferior and only useful as sexual objects and sandwich makers,” Speier said in her letter.
“There are too many examples to recount them all here, but a few of the attached pictures and memes should give you an indication of the tone of the site,” Speier wrote. “You’ll find pictures captioned, ‘This is my rape face;’ ‘She burned my bacon only once,’ above a woman with a black eye; ‘I can bang even when I’m not on my back!’ for a picture of a woman holding a gun….”
Speier asked for a review of the pages and demanded “planned actions or responses” by May 31.
These are the bills Speier has introduced according to her office:
The STOP Act (HR 1593) will take all cases of rape and sexual assault outside of the chain of command by creating an independent office within the military to handle the reporting, investigation, and prosecution of these crimes. The bipartisan bill has 122 cosponors.
The Military Judicial Reform Act (HR 1079) is a bipartisan bill that will strip commanders of the authority to overturn convictions or lessen sentences handed down by judge or jury at a military court martial.
The Protect Our Military Trainees Act (HR 430) is a bipartisan bill that requires the military justice system to acknowledge the power imbalance between trainer and trainee and strictly penalizes any instructor who engages in sexual acts with a trainee during the time of instruction and for 30 days afterward.
On Monday, President Obama took to Twitter to discuss the fiscal cliff. Twitter followers submitted questions using #My2K and Obama tweeted his responses from @whitehouse.
President Barack Obama might have won yesterday’s election thanks to his ground game, but the 44th president also dominated the race on social media.
The Tweetelection
As the clocks announced the beginning of Nov. 6, the worldwide promoted trend on Twitter for the day became #VoteObama. Not only did Obama for America purchase the worldwide trending topic for the day, but they paid to have a variety of their tweets promoted throughout the day.
As early as 5:30 a.m. ET, before many of the polls opened, the campaign tweeted out a link that enable @BarackObama Twitter followers to locate their polling station. The tweet was promoted and for most of the day appeared as the top tweet on the account’s Twitter feed. Later on in the day, as lines at polling places became long and many were concerned about voters becoming impatient and tired, the campaign tweeted: “If you’re in line when the polls close, stay in line to vote. It could help make the difference.”
The campaign also promoted this tweet making it appear on their followers’ feeds, various searches and the top of @BarackObama‘s account.
While Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney did not seem to promote tweets from his feed and had not purchased trending topics on Nov. 6, he also tweeted a link containing information regarding locating one’s polling station to his followers.
Obama Romney tweets election
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The last tweet to be promoted by @BarackObama‘s campaign this election day was the tweet sent out when the networks called the election in his favor. Within minutes, this tweet became the most re-tweeted tweet by President Obama.
The tweet contained a photo of President Barack Obama embracing his wife Michelle Obama with simple “Four More Years.” Within two hours, the photo was re-tweeted 456,845 times and shared on Facebook 207,348 times.
A photo shared by Obama for America on Twitter and Facebook. (Jana Kasperkevic/Houston Chronicle)
President Obama’s re-election was also the most tweeted moment of the 2012 election, reaching 327,453 tweets per minute at 11:19 p.m. ET, reported Twitter. About 31 million election-related tweets were sent that day.
How It Played:
The popular vote might have been close, but the vote on social media was overwhelmingly in Obama’s favor. Having tracked both Romney’s and Obama’s followers on Facebook, Twitter and Google plus, we were able to see Obama surge forward and leave the Republican nominee behind in the dust.
Not only had Obama’s campaign built a loyal core of followers on social media over the 2008 campaign as well as the first term of his presidency, but they have been making significant strides in adding to it throughout this campaign season. Not only did Obama start election day with 20 million more Twitter followers, but while Mitt Romney was only able to gain 44,550 new Twitter followers, Obama added more than a quarter million of new followers to his already high numbers.
Similar trends emerged on Facebook and Google Plus, as can be seen in the graphic below:
(Jana Kasperkevic/Houston Chronicle)
In an interesting turn of events, after the networks called the election for President Obama, Romney actually began to lose followers on Facebook. At 11: 30 p.m. ET on Nov 6., the number of his Facebook followers was 12,135,972. By 2:00 a.m. ET on Nov. 7, that number dropped to 12,131,785 and by 6 p.m. ET on Nov. 7, it was 12,103,112 with Romney having lost over 30,000 followers.
On Twitter, Romney’s number of followers continued to climb through Nov. 7.
Mitt Romney has changed his relationship status
In a world where break ups and heartbreaks as well as upcoming nuptials and other happy occasions are announced on a variety of social media platforms, Mitt Romney has only admitted to his heartbreak on Facebook.
His new cover photo features him on the stage as he delivers his concession speech and the last post is a photo with signed “Thank You.”
His Google Plus and Twitter accounts, on the other hand, remain silent.
Youth vote amplified through buzz on Facebook
According to Facebook, the 2012 election received a record breaking level of buzz. On a 10-point scale, it scored 9.27. The 2008 presidential election scored an 8.95.
This is due to the younger voters on Facebook, who were more engaged on Nov. 6 than throughout the campaign season. Older Facebook users were responsible for majority of the buzz created during the national political conventions and the debates. The top scores for buzz during Nov. 6 were earned by men aged 25 to 34, at 9.47, and women aged 25 to 34, at 9.27.
Individually, both Obama and Romney had the most buzz among both men and women aged 18 to 24. The two candidates beat their highest scores earned during the first presidential debate – Obama went up a full point from 7.41 to 8.41 while Romney earned just half a point, going from 7.38 to 7.83.
“There were 71.7 million election-related mentions across Facebook posts and comments in the United States on Election Day,” reported Facebook. “There were 88.7 million mentions across Facebook posts and comments globally.”
What the Trend
Yesterday’s election might not have given rise to any of those trends that we have become so fond of such as “Binders full women,” “Big Bird” or “Horses and bayonets,” but the day warranted its own set of trends. Most notably, “If Romney” trended throughout the day in various areas implying that number of people were speculating on the possible results and the aftermath.
Additional, the most frequent trending topic was “I Voted” as many Twitter users proudly announced that they have done their civic duty.
Here are the topics that trended as the networks called the election for President Obama:
Trends called election
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In the hours that followed, the most notable Twitter trend was “Bout Damn Time,” which at first was aimed at Romney as the nation awaited his concession speech. Later on, the same trend was aimed at President Obama as his tired supporters stayed up to see him deliver his victory speech.
Here are the topics that trended during President Obama’s victory speech:
Trends Obama speech
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Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper political event if we did not come away with at least one meme/gif. And we present you with the flaglady — an Obama supporter, who had a flag stuck in her hair as Obama delivered his victory speech.
(Michael Hayes/Buzzfeed)
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As previously mentioned “I Voted” was a frequently tweeted phrase yesterday. Often times, the tweets containing these words would accompany a photo. Sometimes this would be a photo of an “I Voted” sticker, like this:
John Vandermark wears his ” I Voted” sticker after voting on primary day as Michigan heads to the polls at Royal Oak Farmers Market on February 28, 2012 in Royal Oak, Michigan. Voters head to the polls as the Republican party continues the process of deciding who will be their general election candidate against President Barack Obama. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
However, a new trend emerged across variety of social media platforms as voters began to share photos snapped of their ballots and voting machines inside of the voting booth.
As the Instagram, Twitter and Facebook became flooded by photos of ballots, Gizmodo reported that taking such photos is actually a misdemeanor in number of states, including New York. In Texas, recording devices are prohibited within 100 feet of a voting station.
So next time you want to tell everyone that you voted, snapping a photo of that “I Voted” sticker might be safer bet.
Today, millions of Americans head to the polls to cast their vote for the general election. People have been showing their support for candidates for months using social media. So which candidates have taken advantage of this unique sharing tool?
Here are our picks for the best social media candidates for the 2012 campaign. (Note: likes and followers may increase or decrease throughout the night.)
Barack Obama
The leader of the free world is also the leader of social media. With 32 million likes on Facebook and 21.8 million followers on Twitter, Obama has had over two presidential election cycles to build his brand. His sites are run by his campaign staff, but personal tweets from the president himself are signed “bo.” Tweets are shared thousands of times by followers, but Obama’s social media team has begun retweeting its followers too.
Mitt Romney
Romney had a much later start than Obama, but voters shouldn’t count him out of the social media race yet. He has quickly gained 12 million likes on Facebook and 1.7 million followers on Twitter.
Although Romney has less followers on Facebook and Twitter, he is dominating the president on the up and coming picture sharing platform Instagram. Romney has 77,068 followers to Obama’s 9,785, and his campaign has used the app to illustrate Romney’s life before and on the campaign.
(Mitt Romney Instagram)
“Soulmates” (Mitt Romney Instagram)
Ron Paul
Although he is out of the presidential race and giving up his seat in Houston, Paul has been the social media darling this campaign season. His strong following among the millennial generation won him a strong following on all of his social media accounts. On Facebook, Paul has 1.1 million likes on Facebook and gave Republicans enough of a scare that his delegates were given worse seats than Guam and Samoa at the RNC.
@RonPaul, the Twitter account Paul used for his campaign during the Republican primary, 370,853 followers even though it hasn’t been used since August. His official Twitter account, @RepRonPaul, has 190,780. He doesn’t use it frequently, but when he does, his posts are retweeted hundreds of times.
John Boehner
Speaker of the House John Boehner has run a strong social media campaign. His official Twitter account, @SpeakerBoehner has 371,102 followers and his personal account has 207,212 followers. With 317,503 likes on Facebook, Boehner is not only one of the most vocal voices in Congress, he’s one of the most listened-to politicians on the internet as well.
Gary Johnson
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson picked up a significant amount of Paul supporters after their candidate didn’t make the cut. Although Johnson has received relatively little media attention throughout his campaign, he has gained an impressive 108,339 followers on Twitter and 347,661 likes on Facebook, showing the power of social media.
Ted Cruz
The Republican nominee for Kay Bailey Hutchison’s seat in the U.S. Senate has gained an impressive 97,742 likes on Facebook and 33,439 followers on Twitter. And since early voting began in Texas, Cruz’s campaign has been busily retweeting followers who proudly proclaim their votes went to the Republican candidate.
Claire McCaskill
McCaskill was an early adopter of Twitter. The Missouri Senator has three accounts – one for her office, her campaign, and herself. McCaskill’s personal Twitter account has 80,626 followers, even though she’s following a grand total of zero. She talks to her followers about her campaign, feeling nervous before debates, and even the health of her mother.
Linda McMahon
The Republican candidate for Connecticut’s senate seat has 36,861 followers on Twitter. Not only is her account updated multiple times per hour, McMahon uses her twitter to thank and retweet followers who showed their support for her online and at the polls.
Bill Flores
When MTV began its Fantasy Election, Bill Flores was the only member of the Texas delegation to make its list of top social media users. His two Twitter accounts, @Flores4Congress and @RepBillFlores have won him nearly 6,000 followers. Flores makes our list for high levels of engagement with his constituents. For the past few days, his campaign account has been personally thanking followers for giving him their vote. Honorable mention: Cory Booker
He’s not on the ballot this year, but the Newark, N.J., mayor has always been active on social media. He raised the bar for tweeting pols in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. New Jersey residents tweeted the mayor about their needs and concerns after the tropical storm destroyed homes and left millions without power last week. In response, Booker has used his Twitter account as a direct helpline, sending supplies and words of comfort to his constituents.
He has used Twitter to paint himself as one of the most accessible elected officials, and even invited a neighbor without power to hang out at his home.
“There is someone at my house now (Eric). I’ve got space u can relax in, charge devices & even a working DVD player. Come by @my_serenelove,” Booker tweeted on November 1.
When a few New Jersey residents decided to take advantage of his offer, Booker had lunch delivered:
The tone of media coverage of President Obama and Mitt Romney changed dramatically after the first presidential debate, a new study by Pew Research Center has documented.
Before the Denver debate, which voters overwhelmingly believed that Romney won, 22 percent of all stories about Obama had a positive tone, while the ones about Romney were positive only half as often.
Then things changed.
As Romney gained in the polls in the aftermath of the debate, he got substantially more favorable media coverage: 20 percent positive, 50 percent mixed and 30 percent negative. Obama’s coverage suddenly became more negative. Nearly three times as many Obama-related stories had a negative tone than a positive one: 13 percent positive, 51 percent mixed and 36 percent negative.
Overall, however, Obama still has received slightly more favorable coverage this year. The reason, Pew discovered, is that much of the TV coverage of the campaign involved polling and the daily “horse race.” Since Obama led for much of the year, much of the positive coverage reflected his advantage in the polls.
Excluding such horse-race stories, the tone of media coverage was very similar for both candidates, Pew found.
When looking at the different media types, more distinctions become clear. The so-called mainstream media maintained a pretty balanced tone in their coverage, Pew reported. But the tone tended to get more negative with blogs and social media. Facebook and Twitter posts and conversations were particularly negative — with Romney at a big disadvantage there.
Network news viewers received a different narrative about the candidates depending on when they watched. The morning shows on CBS, ABC and NBC set up a tone that favored Romney more. On the evening news shows, though, Obama was better off.
Cable coverage on Fox News was far more negative toward the president than its positive stories. Still, Pew found that MSNBC was even more one-sided: against Romney.
Chris Christie addresses a gathering Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012, in North Wildwood, N.J., as he lays out preparation plans for Hurricane Sandy. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
The morning after Sandy struck the East Coast, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was not about to get involved in any politically charged games.
While providing FOX and Friends with an update on Hurricane Sandy, Christie, one of many Romney/Ryan surrogates, was asked about the possibility of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney coming to tour the affected area with the governor. Christie was pretty blunt in his answer, when he said:
“I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested. I have a job to do here in New Jersey that is much bigger than presidential politics. And I could care less about any of that stuff. I have a job to do. I’ve got 2.4 million people out of power. I’ve got devastation on the shore. I’ve got floods in the Northern parts of my state. If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, then you don’t know me.”
Later on in the segment, Christie was also asked about the assistance he has been receiving from President Barack Obama. Christie did not hesitate before launching into his answer, praising President Obama:
“I spoke to the president three time yesterday. He called me for the last time at midnight last night, asking what he could do. I said if he could expedite designating New Jersey as a major disaster area that that would help us get federal money and resources in here as quickly as possible to clean up the damage here. President was great last night. He said he would get it done. At 2 a.m., I got a call from FEMA to answer a couple final questions and then he signed the declaration this morning. So I have to give president great credit. He has been on the phone with three times in the last 24 hours. He has been attentive and anything I have asked for, he has gotten to me. So I thank the president publicly for that, he has done, as far as I am concerned, a great job for Jersey.”
Christie also shared his views with his Twitter followers when around 12 p.m. ET, he tweeted: “I don’t give a damn about Election Day after what has happened here. I am worried about the people of New Jersey. #Sandy.” About an hour later, in another tweet, he once again mentioned working with president on cleanup efforts in New Jersey: “On conf call with POTUS discussing post-Sandy cleanup efforts in partnership with the feds. He is instructing Gov’t to lean forward to help.”
Chris Christie has been pro-actively on storm duty all day long. But New Jersey’s governor may have shocked the his Twitter followers on Monday night, when during the Superstorm Sandy at about 8:30 p.m. ET, he tweeted: “If conditions are not safe on Wednesday for Trick or Treating, I will sign an Executive Order rescheduling #Halloween.”
Younger New Jersey residents now can ride out the storm without having to worry about missing out Halloween, dressing up and consuming unhealthy amount of candy. This tweet was also not the only one sent out by Christie to reassure his younger constituents. Earlier that day, he tweeted: “For all the kids at home, there is no reason to be scared. The adults are taking care of business. #Sandy”
Halloween is not the only thing that might be rescheduled.
According to POLITICO’s Alex Guillen, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is exploring whether or not Superstorm Sandy will affect voting in impacted areas.
“We are anticipating that, based on the storm, there could be impacts that would linger into next week and have impacts on the federal election,” FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said during Monday’s conference call with reporters.
While federal law does require that the elections take place on a Tuesday following first Monday in November, there is an exception for when states fail to make such decision as could happen following Superstorm Sandy.
“It’s really too early to say what will be the impacts of the storm, and that’s why it’s again important that we’ll be supporting the governors’ teams and their supervisors of election or secretaries of state as they determine what … assistance they may need,” said Fugate.
Gov. Christie seems sure that he can reschedule Halloween, but Guillen reports that “the Federal Election Assistance Commission advises state election officials to “review existing State law to determine if the Governor has the power to cancel an election or designate alternative methods for distribution of ballots.””
Nobody in Hollywood has been clamoring to make “Ishtar 2.” Or re-imagine “Howard the Duck.” Why? Because they were BOMBS, that’s why.
So why in the name of “Gigli” would Mitt Romney’s campaign — er, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads superPAC – dust off Clint Eastwood to make a campaign commercial touting Mitt? All it does is remind people of the great Eastwood’s royal bomb at the RNC just two months ago. Yes, his ad-libbed “conversation” with a chair.
But in politics, attention spans are Tweet-short these days. So here’s Clint coughing up his full-throat-of-gravel Clintyness backing Mitt. If this ad looks and smells familiar, it’s because it sounds JUST LIKE Clint’s highly-touted Super Bowl “Halftime in America” commercial for Chrysler, which many thought came off like an endorsement for ….HORRORS!….Obama. You remember that spot. It’s the one where Clint says that “we all pulled together and Motor City is fighting again.” Indeed it is, no thanks to Romney’s tough love prescription for Detroit. But those are the facts, and the Romney camp has said its campaign won’t be “dictated” by what fact-checkers say.
Despite Clint’s appearance for more on how the 2012 campaign just doesn’t have the pop culture wallop that 2008 did, check out our story that appeared Wednesday.
Here’s the Mitt ad:
Here’s Clint’s Super Bowl ad:
And just for laughs….grimaces?….here’s Clint doing some serious #Eastwooding while chatting up some furniture at the RNC. As former Romney and Meg Whitman adviser Mike Murphy tweeted: “Note to file: Actors need a script.”
Of course, this sets up a battle of the Hollywood voiceovers. Here’s Morgan Freeman — Clint’s co-star in “Million Dollar Baby” and known more famously in our house as The Easy Reader on “The Electric Company” — somber-toning it for President Obama. Must make for some fun on-set chats:
