1. Monthly archive
  2. May 2017

May 2017

Silicon Valley is 'officially a retirement community for DC political vets' starting fresh outside the nation's capital

Veterans of high-profile political campaigns and White House administrations — who in years past would have turned their public-service resumes and connections into jobs as lobbyists on K Street, advisers at Fortune 500 firms or leaders of nonprofits — are increasingly heading west, attracted by the opportunities to put their political skills to use in the technology industry.

It can lead to strange bedfellows: Democrats and Republicans who fought each other while working on opposing campaigns find themselves working on shared goals and trying to effect change outside the nation’s gridlocked capital. It’s a new gold rush — to social media companies, tech start-ups, incubators and key players in the sharing economy.

Democratic operatives unveil new progressive tech incubator

Fearing a tech deficit, a trio of leading Democratic operatives is set to unveil a new organization which will push their party to focus on building political technology that’s not just centered on presidential campaigns. The initiative, named Higher Ground Labs, intends to provide fellowships for up-and-coming progressive political tech entrepreneurs and to invest in young projects that can help benefit down-ballot Democratic candidates as well as presidential ones.

The group will be led by former President Barack Obama's 2012 online organizing director Betsy Hoover, private equity executive and former Obama White House special assistant Shomik Dutta, and Obama White House deputy chief technology officer Andrew McLaughlin — a former top official at tech companies such as Google and Tumblr. Higher Ground Labs says it’s already brought in its first $1 million in commitments.

Writers Guild of America Hot Over FCC’s Stephen Colbert 'Investigation'

A Federal Communications Commission spokesperson confirmed that it is vetting the viewer complaints it received about Stephen Colbert's Late Show riff on President Donald Trump, which did not sit well with the creative community. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has said the FCC would look into any complaint it received and apply its rules to the facts presented and take "appropriate action." "Appropriate action" almost certainly means no action for a couple of reasons: 1) the comments—a bleeped oral sex reference, an unbleeped body part and some name calling—came in the FCC's 10 pm to 6 am safe harbor, where anything short of obscenity is not actionable, and 2) the bar for obscenity is very high. But even the talk about investigations has the creative community on edge, particularly with those already wary about the Trump Administration's threats to other kinds of media.

“As presidents of the Writers Guilds of America, East and West, we were appalled to read recent remarks by Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai," said Writers Guild of America East president Michael Winship and Writers Guild of America West president Howard Rodman, in a joint statement. "He said the FCC would investigate a joke about Donald Trump by Writers Guild member Stephen Colbert, 'apply the law' and 'take appropriate action' if the joke were found to be 'obscene.'"

How TV has trivialized our culture and politics

A Q&A with Lance State, a professor of communications at Fordham University.

The author of "Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman’s Brave New World", Strate has written extensively about Postman’s legacy, and about the cultural impact of television. He argues that our desire for entertainment has become “positively toxic” and in this new world defined by TV, the power of the image has overwhelmed our capacity to think and reason carefully. In this interview, Strate is asked what Postman meant when he wrote that our culture had “descended into a vast triviality.” He is also asked if TV has trivialized our politics and made us all dumber as a result.

CBO Scores the MAIN STREET Cybersecurity Act of 2017

The MAIN STREET Cybersecurity Act of 2017 (S 770) would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to provide resources to small businesses to help them reduce their cybersecurity risks. Under the bill, NIST would be required to provide and update tools, methodologies, guidelines, and other resources to small business to use on a voluntary basis.

Based on an analysis of information from NIST, CBO estimates that implementing S 770 would cost $6 million over the 2018-2022 period, including $2 million in 2018 for NIST to consult with several federal agencies and develop such resources and an additional $4 million over the 2019-2022 period to update those resources; such spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds. Enacting S 770 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. CBO estimates that enacting S 770 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028. S 770 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal governments.

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