Facebook Expands Government Arm with Hire of Public Policy Director

Google to Charlie Rangel: You Are Dead to Me.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) might be facing particularly challenging reelection odds this year, at least acording to Google: based on its new Knowledge Graph interface, the search engine says that the very-much-alive Congressman died on November 20, 2004, as Colin Campbell first reported for Politicker via Azi Paybarah and Anthony Adragna. GO

Roemer to Americans Elect: Thanks Anyway

Americans Elect announced recently that it would suspend its online candidate selection process, leaving organizations in several states with an open slot on the ballot. Naturally, potential candidate Buddy Roemer is not enthused. "I am taking the next few days to review with supporters how best to proceed from here," he says. GO

Chris Anderson Says That Nixed TED Talk Was Rated "Mediocre," Links To It Anyway

TED's Chris Anderson responds to criticism of how his idea-spreading operation handled a talk about inequality — and posts video of the talk online. GO

Was the "Ricketts"/Fred Davis Obama-Wright Ad Pitch a Good Deal?

As if the content of the now-discarded plan for a new Super PAC-funded attack campaign against President Barack Obama wasn't controversial enough to grab attention — it would revive attempts to link President Obama to the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright just before the beginning of the Democratic National Convention this summer — the now-discarded plan featured a two-page pitch for a pricey social media component meant to boost its exposure. GO

Facebook's Growing Political Importance, Visualized

To commemorate Facebook's impending IPO, the Sunlight Foundation's* reporting group has a new story chronicling Facebook's increasing political spending. Accompanying the story, though, is an instance of their Capitol Words tool that shows Facebook's increasing relevance in Congress as well. GO

TED: Some Seattle Billionaires Have 'Ideas Worth Spreading'; Some Don't

A year ago, Microsoft mega-billionaire Bill Gates gave a talk at TED about state budgets and education funding, entitled "How state budgets are breaking US schools." It was an attack on state budgeting practices. All but one of the fifty states are supposed to balance their budget, but Gates argued that most states used gimmicks "that ... GO

Summer Olympics to Stream Live From the UK — For Some

The BBC announced its plans yesterday to broadcast its live Olympics coverage of London's Summer games to PCs, mobile-devices and Internet-connected televisions, Reuters reported.

With a free Olympics application for Apple and Android phones, the BBC says it will be offering up to 24 live streams and video highlights clips, and plans for over 2,500 hours of live programming ... that is only available to viewers in the UK. NBC also plans to stream online, but the majority of free viewing of the Olympics will only be available to existing cable TV subscribers.

CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" Will Have Some Tech-Politics Commentators

This should be interesting: CNN nightly news program Erin Burnett OutFront is out with its list of political commentators for the general election. Some of the names are familiar in Internet-politics-land. The gang includes Upworthy's Maegan Carberry, who was previously director of communications at Rock The Vote; Sasha Issenberg, who ventures into our corner of the political world frequently while documenting the new science of political campaigns for Slate; and Ben Smith, veteran political blogger turned BuzzFeed's top politics editor.