The House voted on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, yesterday, and the Twittersphere noticed, with uncommonly long hashtag #ObamaCareInThreeWords trending through last night.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) kicked off the avalanche of left and right-wing-aimed Tweets with this:

Hey folks, #ObamaCareInThreeWords — go!

— Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 16, 2013

Well, “folks” from all over took to Twitter to describe Obamacare in (mostly) three words. Here are some of the top Tweets from inside the Beltway.

Vince Coglianese of The Daily Caller opted to make an observation about the hashtag itself instead commenting on the healthcare bill.

A Long-ass Hashtag #ObamacareInThreeWords

— Vince Coglianese (@TheDCVince) May 16, 2013

Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) decided the hashtag wasn’t long enough, so he made up a new one while dutifully informing Twitter users of the proper terminology.

Not So Affordable & Hurting Small Businesses.#Obamacareinthreewords #butidontcallitobamacarebecausethatispejorative #affordablecareact

— Rep. Scott Rigell (@RepScottRigell) May 16, 2013

Unfortunately for Rigell, the hashtag didn’t catch on.

WaPo blogger Greg Sargent made up a new word as to not go over the three-word limit.

Drove conservatives batsh*tcrazy #ObamacareInThreeWords

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) May 16, 2013

Read more

Back on May 3, the world commemorated “World Press Freedom Day.” Everyone except North Korea, that is. They decide to wait until May 15 to celebrate by running an editorial in the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun. The piece is called “Mockery of Press” and it takes several shots at American media and the so-called ”Freedom of report.”

WaPo reports on the rambling editorial, which seems to make the argument that American media is both too restricted and too free. While it seems to be a generalization of ALL of American media, two reporters get glowing reviews from The Dear Leader.

Who are Kim Jong-Un’s approved reporters? Read more

Oh what a little time outside the Beltway will do for a person. On Tuesday afternoon, Adam Weinstein, a former engagement editor and national security reporter for Mother Jones and a former contestant on Survivor Baghdad, exposed his real feelings about the AP-DOJ scandal, including a sarcastic crack at National Journal national reporter Ron Fournier.

Weinstein, who did a stint for Mother Jones in Washington last year, is always a bit of firecracker. In October of 2012, he called FNC and Daily Caller‘s Tucker Carlson a “dickbag” after lashing out at him on Twitter for once wearing bow-ties. Now Weinstein’s based in Miami and working as an editor, writer and media consultant.

Fournier, who tweets at least once an hour, didn’t lob any comment back at him.

Atlantic Media Prez Justin Smith announced today that it’s launching Defense One, a new media brand for the national security community, later this summer. Defense One, according to a morning release, aims to deliver “high-quality news and analysis” to defense leaders and stakeholders navigating “the unprecedented” transformation of U.S. defense strategy and operations. Ken Doctor broke the news of Defense One in a column about the “newsonomics of influentials” for Neiman Lab on May 9. Adweek wrote about it early this morning at 12:14 a.m. Adweek reports that the site has yet to hire an editor. The launch, as stated in the release, will be underwritten by Northrop Grumman.

The operation will start out small, says Atlantic Media spokeswoman Linda Douglass, but they ultimately plan to build a team of 18-20 staffers.

The product is geared to the national security leadership community — Defense leaders (military flag-officers, civilian DoD leadership, National Security Council and staff), Congress (House and Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees), and others who play an influential role, such as contractors and think tanks.

“Defense One will bring to this important market the disruptive combination of intelligent, indispensable journalism and leading edge digital expertise that is the hallmark of all of Atlantic Media’s properties,” said Smith in the release. “We see Defense One as a major growth venture and a core Atlantic Media brand.”

Also “unprecedented” in the defense media market, they say, Defense One will launch an iPhone and Android App in the fall and a special eBook Series by the end of the year.

But some are skeptical that this will be that different from what already exists. Read more

In this week’s edition of “What’s Weingarten Writing?,” it’s Man vs. Machine. Gene ventured into the wilds of an Apple Store to fix a very serious problem he was having with his word processor. This classic setup sets the stage for a showdown between an Apple store employee and WaPo’s “humorist,” Gene Weingarten. In Gene’s weekly column, Gene lets us know that he is having a problem with his computer. What’s wrong with his device?

He writes, “When my computer finishes each save … it registers this operation by displaying the time of the save in year, date, hours and minutes, like this: ’2013-04-16-09.17. ‘ My problem … is that on the next line it gives me a two-digit number that seems to fluctuate almost at random.” She leaned in, nodded, and I detected a faint smile. This was pleasing her; a good technician must thrill to a good challenge.” Can you imagine fielding THAT customer? Gene probably just calls his computer an “email machine.”

How does the “genius” at the Apple store respond? Read more

With the steady stream of bad news for the Obama administration, Drudge kicks POTUS when he’s down. To begin, the top story is this piece by Politico’s Jake Sherman and Lauren French. The piece highlights the scandalous couple of days that POTUS has been facing. The Drudge headline reads “When It Rains…,” and has a photo of Obama in a downpour.

He then takes it a few steps further and adds three more shots of POTUS getting caught in the rain. Get it? Like a downpour.

National Journal‘s “The Hotline” went under the knife this week for a makeover. In journalistic terms this means an “upgrade” and “redesign.” The upside: The bandages are off and Hotline gets a new look, a user-friendly interface and “powerful” political tracking tools. The downside: Some employees lost their jobs in the process. How many is unclear. We know at least two names of Hotline employees — Chris Peleo-Lazar  and Dan Roem — who had their duties eliminated.

“Fun fact, it’s Dan Roem and my last day at NJ’s Hotline. Loved working here but alas they’re moving to a new system,” Peleo-Lazar wrote FBDC. “Don’t know what’s next. I don’t know exact details of the new thing but they are ending my section entirely.”

NJ Publicist Ben Fishel told FishbowlDC: “A few jobs were eliminated and two people were reassigned to other positions at NJ.” He declined to offer specifics on exactly how many jobs were eliminated.

The new “Hotline”… Read more

After a serious cyber-attack, www.WTOP.com and www.FederalNewsRadio.com are back online. This began last week when they discovered that the websites had been attacked. After authorities were notified, access was blocked on Internet Explorer browsers until they could complete a thorough investigation. They added new security measures and examined the incident to find out how an attack happened.

Service was officially back on the evening of Saturday, May 11.

In a press release, Joel Oxley, Senior VP and GM of WTOP and Federal News Radio, says, ”getting the websites back up and running safely for all users has been our top priority. We take our users’ privacy very seriously, and we have taken steps to prevent similar occurrences. We apologize to our user community for any inconvenience that this incident has caused.”

More from the press release on what users ought to do. Read more

(A Sprinkling of Things we Think you Ought to Know…)

Crawford Commemorates Mother’s Day – To celebrate Mother’s Day, Craig Crawford is giving his readers the chance to vote for “Favorite TV Mom.” Crawford has an extensive list of 15 different TV Moms. Some are timeless, like Edith Bunker from All in the Family and Marion Cunningham from “Happy Days.” Others are a little less conventional, like Marge Simpson and Nancy Botwin from “Weeds.” Vote now at www.craigcrawford.com.

Cicada Nation – Yes, the cicadas are coming. Yes, people will freak out. No, it’s not the end of the world. Just don’t mention that to Mother Jones, which lists their story on the political history of cicadas as the “Top Story” in their Political Mojo newsletter. While everyone seems to be talking cicadas these days, it’s hardly a POLITICAL news item.

Major Garrett Continues to Battle Illness – Earlier this week, CBS’s Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett announced on Twitter that he was feeling a little under the weather. Even Twitchy noticed.

Tweeps, was off the air & off the grid yesterday & will be for a few days. I need to wrestle this case of double pneumonia to the ground.

— Major Garrett(@MajorCBS) May 7, 2013

Double pneumonia sounds pretty hardcore. Since it’s been a few days, we reached out to Garrett, who tells FBDC, “I’m on the mend. I’m taking more drugs than Elvis but doing fewer shows. I also have a sinus infection with the reach and aggression of the 19th century British Navy. Between the twin maladies, I feel older than 50 and slightly younger than Yoda.” Rest up, Major. And if you just read this, you might want to Lysol your computer. Just to be safe.

Better to be safe than sorry when tweeting about the Secretary of Homeland Security on the Acela. Just before 8 a.m. this morning, like any good journalist, Mother Jones Bureau Chief David Corn began noticing who was in his midst.

On the Acela to NYC. Janet Napolitano just got on–with a security detail. A little unnerving. (At least, she’s not riding first class.)

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) May 9, 2013

Then the foreshadowing.

Janet Napolitano does not have a Twitter account? Would it be a security risk?

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) May 9, 2013

And then Corn starts wondering aloud.

“I wonder if they’ll bring the bomb-sniffing dogs past Napolitano and her entourage? I imagined the person in charge of protecting the entire homeland would have her own transportation system. (‘Fire up the Lear jet!’)”

Is he possibly crossing lines?

I’d go up and ask Janet Napolitano some questions, but she’s surrounded by men with guns, and the Acela is a unsteady ride. #oops

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) May 9, 2013

Oh no, Corn, watch out!

I can see Napolitano’s laptop. There’s a memo open. OMG, this is unbelievable, the government has a secret plan to….

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) May 9, 2013

And the dismal conclusion… Read more