Offering asides, recommended links, blogworthy quotations, and more, In Brief is the Northwest Progressive Institute's microblog of world, national, and local politics.
— via abcnews.go.com
The Republican Noise Machine is, hilariously, at war with itself over its presidential candidates. Many right wing media outlets and pundits support Mitt Romney and don’t want to see Newt Gingrich win in Florida - so they are attacking him. Gingrich supporters are furious, and are turning the likes of Matt Drudge, who are running anti-Gingrich headlines and stories.
Poland protests ACTA, the evil cousin to SOPA and PIPA
Thousands of people are marching in the streets of Poland to protest the signing of ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), which is a treaty that shares some similarities with SOPA and PIPA. ACTA has already been signed by the United States, Canada, and several other nations.
Unusual disaster in Brazil: High-rise buildings collapse in Rio de Janeiro
Two buildings - one nearly 20 storeys high - have collapsed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, filling streets with masonry and covering cars with debris, the BBC reports.
Navy SEALs rescue two aid workers in Somalia in daring raid
Hurray for the U.S. Navy! A U.S. special operations team of Navy SEALs conducted a rescue mission into Somalia Tuesday night to free two aid workers, including thirty-two year old Jessica Buchanan, who had been held hostage for three months by Somali criminals. ABC News has more.
Mitt Romney among the wealthiest Americans
Tax returns released by Mitt Romney show that his family fortune makes him one of the wealthiest individuals in the United States. In 2010, Romney’s effective tax rate was 13.9 percent. He paid about $3 million in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $21.6 million.
The White House has just announced that President Barack Obama will travel to Las Vegas on Wednesday following the State of the Union address. He won’t be there to gamble, though: The administration says he’ll be delivering remarks at UPS Las Vegas South on Thursday morning after spending the night in an undisclosed location. No other public events have been announced, but we suspect the President will be attending a fundraiser or two while he’s in Sin City.
Last week, the President stopped by Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida to unveil his administration’s new tourism strategy for the United States.
Tumblr’s Rachel Webber has more on the success of last Wednesday’s Internet protest:
Two days ago, you guys stepped up once again to show the world just how much we care about protecting the Internet. Together, we generated more than 140,000 calls to Senators, spent more than 4,200 hours on the phone with their staffers, and blacked out 650,000 of our blogs to make our point and inspire others to get involved. And what’s more, this was on top of the 90,000 calls we sent to members of the House of Representatives a month ago. Incredible.
It’s now becoming clear just how much impact our action is having. On January 18th, only 31 members of Congress opposed these bills. Just one day later, 101 members of Congress publicly stood with us in opposition. We are being heard.
And as of today, it looks like both the Senate PIPA and House SOPA bills have been shelved, for the moment. It seems pretty likely that the bills won’t pass as written—a big first win. We now hope that Internet companies, the creative community and the content industry join together to innovate and devise new partnerships to combat online piracy. We’re confident there are effective ways to do this without damaging the Internet or diminishing our freedoms.
You’ve made a big difference in keeping the Internet a safe and open place for creators. Thank you again.
Use Mozilla’s new speed tool to see if your Firefox is as fast as it should be. The latest version of Firefox is 30% faster than previous versions.
Apple's mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement
Ed Bott blasts Apple for drawing up a horribly one-sided license agreement for its new electronic book authoring initiative, which restricts what authors can do with their own creative works.
In Brief is authored by the staff of the Northwest Progressive Institute, a strategy center fighting to restore the American promise.
Catch NPI announcements and highlights from the NPI Advocate on our Twitter feed.
Show support on Facebook by becoming a fan.
Got breaking news to share with us? Use our contact form or send a message to tips (at) nwprogressive (dot) org. We accept photos and video clips from mobile phones.
Home
NPI Advocate
About NPI
Contact NPI
Copyright Information
Permanent Defense
Olympia Newsriver
In Brief Feed (RSS)
Advocate Feed (Atom)
Advocate Feed (RSS)
NPI Multimedia Feed (RSS)
In Brief is powered by Tumblr
