Put aside existing remedies for a second--which, among other things, would take too long to matter even if they mattered--what's the best crowdsourcing response to this claim? I truly admire factcheck; they do heroic work. However, false information is best responded to with true information (instead of just rebuttal of false), en masse, and politely. So, in other words, when a false claim like this occurs, there is a group of people who do not simply post on factcheck but swarm sites that repeat the false claim with sourced, factual claims.

But then I come against another problem; who IS Barack Obama's Chief Economic Advisor, and where would I find this? If I search Google, I come up with various claims about Raines and about Austen Goolsbee, who was his Chief Advisor through the primary, and we know is still involved. I remember an article about Jason Furman, but he's a senior advisor, not "the Chief."

I now where to go for falsehoods; what's the best place to go for truth?

Ron Paul 2008 supporters and Howard Dean 2004 supporters played an important role in the failure of the bailout bill in Congress. Both campaigns ran highly decentralized campaigns, leaving in their wake organized persistent groups, groups that were not waiting for campaign instructions, but scheduled their own ongoing meetings. And both cultures were strongly opposed to the shift to massive executive power over the purse as imagined by the bailout proposal.

The active citizens created by the Dean and Paul campaign were confident, curious, and capable of contacting their legislators. And they did; they were making phone calls and writing letters immediately, more confident in their skepticism than others because they had not just taken orders, but acted as leaders in their local groups.

People ask me sometimes why candidates should run decentralized campaigns, as the only purpose is winning, and decentralized power (instead of tasks) is more difficult to manage. I think history may show that this week's powerful rebuke to the powershift is one reason why.

Furthermore, the crisis has revealed the power of an interesting alliance between progressives and libertarians; none of us want a government run by the executive.

The email they are forwarding purports to be from a woman from Wasilla who knew Palin. It includes lots of claims about her record as mayor and governor along the lines of this:

What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved!

The subject line of the email is often something like "did you hear this about Sarah Palin..." or "Palin info" or "Important on Palin."

Its well-written and very detailed. I don't know that it is false, and am in no position to judge it. What strikes me is that I also don't have any real reason to know that it is true. It is forwarded to me from friends who got it from friends who got it from friends--for all I know Kevin Bacon's inbox influx is crashing his computer.

In other words, it bears some resemblance to the demonstrably false emails about Barack Obama that have circulated for the past year, some of which were forwarded to me by friends whose friends' friends or family received them, with titles like "important information about Obama...."

They are not the same. The claims made about Obama are patently false; the claims made about Palin may well be true, but I need more to confirm it. The claims about Obama are obviously inflamatory; the tone of the Palin emails are much quieter. But I think, for those who have received or forwarded these Palin emails, its a good moment for some empathy to understand how the Obama emails move, and to reflect on how we should take in information.

We can feel, as citizens, as if we're between a scylla and charybdis of information.

On the one hand, the post-modern political reporters and bloggers act as hack theater critics, judging performances not by how they as individuals respond, but by how they believe the mythical "american people," "independent voters," and "women" (and most bizarrely "the media") will respond. The standard role of the most prominent commentator and reporter is theater critic first, fact-checker second, independent questioner a distant third. (The inverted triangle reflects this--five paragraphs of post-modern critique; two paragraphs of fact-checking; an unanswered question dangled like a preposition going nowhere at the end.) The pictures accompanying the articles are not post-modern but pre-modern, either submissive glorious shots of the intended frame, or grotesque caricatures.

On the other hand, we have emails like the Palin ones, which purport to tell us real information about what she did, from a real person, and in our hunger for political storytelling in the classic sense (stories that answer this question: "what does she do when she has power?"), that feel thick and rich and have the added sheen of authenticity.

There's lots of good reporting, too--I heard a great interview with David Kilpatrick of the NYTimes on Fresh Air last night, really "reporting"--that is, describing--what McCain, as an adult, has done: how he has lived, how he has used power, how he has thought.

But when I sit at my computer screen trying to finish an article on extraterritorial electioneering for a law review, and an IM or email pops up, someone twitters, someone texts, someone calls--I check the home page of a few blogs and papers--it can feel exhausting to row firmly between these two crags, to do the work of a citizen, give myself a good diet of information, resist forwarding unconfirmed rumors, resist battling the theater critics on their own terms.

All of which is a long way of saying, I understand the impulse to forward these messages when we are hungry for narratives about power instead of theater. The Palin emails have helped me understand, too, how the Obama emails moved so far and so fast. And, relatedly, I am both horrified by the emails and unwilling to dismiss or hate those who hungrily pass on rumors. Some sympathy seems in order--not too much--but enough to resist painting other emailers as rubes or rogues.

The Obama campaign is doing the right thing by answering the false claims about him on the facts, and calling lies lies. But we have all become responsible for political truth, like it or not. One of the costs of the information era is that we all have a very high level of responsibility when it comes to forwarding information; a level that can test even the best of us.

Last year I implored journalist friends to go, and I do so again. Its the biggest meeting of the godbloggers, its in Las Vegas, and its at a moment when both Christian religion and the internet are transforming elections. While the godbloggers may be interested in "how the internet is shaping christendom," I'm interested in how the Christian internet is shaping politics. In the words of Matthew Anderson at Mere Orthodoxy:

"Don’t forget also that GodBlogCon is coming up soon. Go forth and register."

More later on godblogger reactions to Palin.

I looked into this a few years ago, but since then I haven't followed the most recent developments. What models from city government do we have?

Along the lines of http://exit133.com/ in Tacoma, I'm interested in groups or individuals that are doing hyperlocal political reporting efficiently, in a way that's readable--any suggestions on who might have the best current list of experiments?

In particular, I'm curious about who/where groups of people who are not bloggers and would not otherwise cover politics in a way others could read have used twitter to collectively cover non-private, but not easily accessible public hearings.

Thanks.

I got an email this morning from United, asking me to go to a petition site, which asks me to enter my zip code and send a note to my MOC to "Stop Oil Speculation" and lower energy costs. Tracy Russo reports she got the same email from Northwest. The entire coalition list is at the bottom of this post, and includes the Petroleum Marketers Association of America and Agricultural Retailers association, as well as Delta, Continental, US Air, American, Airtran...

I don't think this is big news in the good way, mind you--its important because it signals that corporations are willing to use their massive databases to try to leverage political will in Washington. I'm sure this isn't the first of its kind, but its the first of such a scale that its caught my attention (I'm happy to be rebutted in the comments). We're talking tens of millions of emails (possibly nearing a hundred million? Jose Antonio Vargas, can you find out?) if all the airlines' lists are involved. This is clearly just the beginning, and its a crude one--a few years from now you'll see more organizing, including international organizing, to leverage corporate databases to influence policies that help corporate wealth. At least as of 2004, the airlines were among the biggest email/database owners in the country (along with casinos). As someone concerned about concentrated power in any form, this is not a great development.

It will be interesting to see how, indirectly, this massive list weighs in on other matters, including big topics in the Presidential race. You could easily see "SOS" sending out an email a day after a big debate, mentioning neither Clinton nor Obama, but stressing some issue that is politically important to their coalition, and was mentioned in the debate.

A few years ago, I argued that there were three powerful forces in modern society--civic democracy, corporations, and religion--and which ever of these learned how to harness the collective action power of the internet would, in effect, win--would define the basic framework for society for generations to come. Its an oversimplified argument, but has a serious refrain; one of the pieces of hope, for those of us rooting for civic democracy, has been how slow corporations have been to leverage collective action power of the net for political purposes.

They're getting faster. What this means, I think, is that there is even greater urgency on the part of those of us who want a society organized around groups of interest, not groups of corporate interest, to figure out how to do it better, more, and bigger.

The list of SOS supporters:

ABX Air, Inc.
Agricultural Retailers Association
Air Carrier Association of America
Air Line Pilots Association, International
AirTran Airways
Air Transport Association
Alaska Airlines, Inc.
American Airlines, Inc.
American Association of Airport Executives
American Bus Association
American Trucking Associations
Association of Corporate Travel Executives
ASTAR Air Cargo, Inc
Atlas Air, Inc.
Continental Airlines, Inc.
Delta Air Lines, Inc.
Evergreen International Airlines, Inc.
Federal Express Corporation
Frontier Airlines, Inc.
Gasoline & Automotive Service Dealer's of America
Hawaiian Airlines
National Business Travel Association
National School Transportation Association
Northwest Airlines, Inc.
Petroleum Marketers Association of America
Regional Airline Association
Southwest Airlines Co.
Spirit Airlines, Inc.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
United Airlines, Inc.
United Motorcoach Association
UPS Airlines
US Airways, Inc.

The other day I was registering voters and a big shaggy blonde fellow, surrounded by about 4 small shaggy blonde children, came over and shook his head. “I can’t vote,” he said. “Are you 18?” I asked. Yes. “Are you a citizen?” Yes. “Are you currently serving a sentence for a felony you committed?” No. “Then you can vote.”

He grabbed the clipboard, a little sheepishly at first. “I’m not a hardened criminal,” he said, looking at me sideways. “It was just stolen property.” He told me he finished up his sentence ten years ago. His coworkers, helping fix up an old restaurant, walked by and he yelled out at them, “Hey Jimmy, you know you ex-felons can vote now! Hey, Darrell, you know ex-felons can vote now!”

He was right and wrong. Ex-felons have been able to vote for a long time in North Carolina. But until last week, when he wrongly believed he was forever denied the privileges of citizenship, he was not about to talk to those four kids about politics, or read about voting deadlines, or write letters to the editor, or think about who he’d support, except in shame.

The bingo we’re playing with voter registration laws in this country is very, very high stakes. Not only are we actually disenfranchising over five million Americans, millions more wrongly think they can’t vote, or are married to and friends with still millions more who no longer think politics is something to be talked about in polite conversation. If we want an active, engaged polity, we need to change the voter registration laws.

Even for those not inclined to give convicted murderers or securities fraud-feasors the vote, the default assumption must be that everyone can vote, with only the smallest set of exceptions.
I’m writing here on the off-chance that some unemployed web wizard will start a national petition campaign to change the laws, state by state. Unfortunately, this is an area where few ex-felons are going to lead the charge.

In the meantime, you can download the bingo boards here.

Six years ago there is no way I’d have dared stand in front of a dollar store with registration cards. I didn’t know it was something you could do. And now, apparently, I’m committed to doing it the same time next week.

You've probably heard whispers about Propublica, the new nonprofit investigative news service, that is staffing up with some of the country's best investigative journalists to develop great stories and deliver them to the biggest news outlets in the country. They'll do the digging, and the writing, and the newspapers and television shows will put them on for free. Its a fantastic model.

Drew Sullivan created a similar model in Bosnia a few years ago (The Center for Investigative Journalism--click on the union jack to read in English), and his 10-person staff of journalists has already written stories that led to the Minister of Health resigning, two judges being replaced, a high ranking investigator being prosecuted, the food inspection process being changed--and more. All the stories are placed in traditional news outlets, but also put on the CIN website.

Now Drew and his cohorts have started a project networking the investigative journalism centers around the region. The web home of the project is here:

http://www.reportingproject.net/

Its goal is to become a one stop site for organized crime and corruption stories and resources for journalists in the region--networking is especially important because so many of the bad actors move across national lines, and in order to understand tobacco trafficking in one country, it helps to understand it in another.

Its an aggregated set of stories from CIN and the Romanian Center for Investigative Reporting, the Bulgarian Investigative Journalism Center, the Caucasus Media Investigative Center, Novaya Gazeta in Moscow, Media Focus in Serbia and reporters and news outlets in another half dozen countries.

I think its brilliant. If organized crime is global and networked, investigative journalism ought to be, too.

The lede follows this logic:

1. McCain advisors believed that he had a romantic relationship with a woman
2. He spent lots of time with that woman, who was a lobbyist
3. Even the appearance of impropriety shows McCain’s shakey judgment

What message does this send? If you are an older man, in a position of power, don’t have close relationships with younger women. Don’t go out to dinner with them, like you do with male colleagues. Don’t mentor them. It doesn't matter whether or not you have an affair.

Granted, as a technical matter, the Times did not say that the impropriety was that she was a woman, but that she was a lobbyist, but the logical sequence of the story strongly suggested otherwise.

The panicked advisors of the notorious lead are not heard giving any evidence that they were romantically involved. Instead of suggesting that advisors--or newspapers--need more than age, gender and proximity to make a story, the paper implicitly endorses their panic.

You will not going to find any more anti-lobbying person than me, and I think McCain should rightly be investigated—as should all Presidential candidates—for close ties to big money.

But the idea that an older, powerful male had a close relationship with a woman gives The Times license to lead a front page story with eight year old rumors is not good news for gender equality on the job, especially in the political world.

But without that ask, he'll have millions of people who can't give money but really want to act, so they'll have to do something: organize, strategize, canvass, go door to door, street canvass, research, make movies, make music, create sports teams? The campaign will want to direct some of it, but having put its toe in the water with the "supporter created video" of Will.i.am, and no longer having fundraising to fall back on, it may become more comfortable with citizen creativity. Limits on spending will force massive, exciting experimentation with the people formerly known as the "grassroots," and I'm very eager to see what happens.

(1) Superdelegates ought affirm popular vote. I tend to think they should affirm the total vote numbers around the country, but I'd be happy with the affirmation of the delegate count. Consensus around this needs to be decided before the popular vote is decided, so that the process is not subservient to the political needs of either candidate. Will someone make a petition for this, one that we can then distribute, along with thoughtful signators comments, to all the superdelegates?

(2) Count every vote in Washington. The Washington Republican chair seemed comfortable declaring a winner when Huckabee was only 242 votes behind, with thousands of votes yet to count.

These situations--where elites breezily assume power--create something approaching democratic horror (is there a word for this, the gut-grippling fear that we are really not in charge?) I've talked with people at poker games and marches, and been flooded with the real fear of friends, frozen by the prospect of superdelegates making the Democratic party decision this year. I have the highest respect for Howard Dean, but I'd vastly prefer a brokered convention between people's representative delegates than a brokered deal between superdelegates--lets show some sound and fury for those that signify nothing.