These are my links for February 28th from 08:46 to 09:15:

• Social media not so hot on the Hill – It raises the question: Are lawmakers putting too much time — or staff resources — into social media?

  Currently, only 8 percent of American adults who use the Internet use Twitter, according to a December 2010 study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

  “The ease at which constituents can communicate with their member has really diluted the quality of communications overall,” said one legislative director quoted in the study. “We get way too many e-mail inputs that forward the congressman some e-mail or YouTube link with ‘Is this true?’ as the only message.”

  But that hasn’t stopped new members such as Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from embracing as many social media outlets as possible.

  “We have Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook — we’re trying to be in any medium we can,” said his spokeswoman, Stefani Zimmerman. “If it means he’s going to stay up an hour later checking his Facebook, that’s what he’s going to do.”

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  Read it all.

  Probably because the Reps and Senators REALLY don't want to hear a critique of their jobs in real time.

  Social media also makes them more accountable to others outside their district who may fund opposition party candidates or a primary challenge.

  The Emperor Has No Clothes with social media.

• Speaker John Boehner rips bid to regulate Internet – House Speaker John A. Boehner lashed out against efforts to regulate Internet traffic before an audience of evangelical Christian media leaders and pointedly responded to President Obama by comparing the challenge of the burgeoning national debt to the Sputnik-era space race.

  In a speech to religious broadcasters that received a sustained ovation at his conclusion, he said free expression is under attack by a power structure in Washington populated with regulators who have never set foot inside a radio station or a television studio.

  “We see this threat in how the FCC is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the Internet,” Mr. Boehner said.

  “The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over local broadcasters who have been serving their communities with free content for decades,” he said to loud applause from members of the National Religious Broadcasters, a trade group holding its annual convention here.

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  Read it all

  The Obama Administration is going into overdrive to regulate more of the economy, including the internet.

• Cuban vs. Bissinger: NBA owner and journalist have Twitter smackdown – What happens when a billionaire entrepreneur and NBA team owner uses Twitter to criticize an outspoken Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist?

  Followers of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and author and Daily Beast columnist Buzz Bissinger found out Sunday. The result: A profanity-laced, 86-tweet rant by Bissinger that took place over a span of four hours. The two then set up — using Twitter, of course — a face-to-face meeting for Tuesday.

  It started Sunday when Cuban tweeted that Bissinger was "a coward." The tweet was sent in response to Bissinger's Feb. 17 column titled "NBA All-Star Game: White Men Can't Root." The piece doesn't mention Cuban, but argues that there's a race problem between the NBA and its white fans.

  "Are whites losing interest in a game in which the number of white American players not only continues to dwindle, but no longer features a superstar?" Bissinger wrote. "Yes."

  After Cuban's "coward" comment, Bissinger rattled off a couple dozen tweets and responded to users in true Bissinger form (plenty of cursing).

  Cuban eventually returned to Twitter with a comment directed at Bissinger's column: "Yr editor asked you to write about a topic you dont know & had no interest in researching…"

  At this point Daily Beast editor, and former Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz chimed in: "Hey, @mcuban, I asked @buzzbissinger to write *something* about basketball, but he chose the racial topic, knowing it'd be controversial."

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  Ha Ha!

  I blocked Mark Cuban early in Twitter adoption.

  As Yoda would say: A JERK he is.

• Chris Christie on Wisconsin, Scott Walker and Collective Bargaining – Asked if Gov. Scott Walker has "gone too far," Christie responded:

  Bob, let me tell you what — what went on in New Jersey. My predecessor, Governor Corzine, stood on the front steps of the Capitol at a public-sector union rally and said, "I'll fight to get you a good contract." And I thought to myself, watching that, who's he fighting with? Once he says that, the fight's over. What I believe in is true adversarial collective bargaining. And so, every state is different. I'm not going to micromanage Wisconsin from Trenton, New Jersey. I know Scott Walker. I like him. And I trust him. And I think he believe he's doing what's in the best interest of Wisconsin, the same way I'm going to do what I think needs to be done for New Jersey, which is, to reform the pension system and roll back health benefits for public-sector workers, to put them more in line with the rest of the population in New Jersey, to put us on a long-term path to fiscal stability.
  But aren't collective bargaining rights inviolate? Christie, a former U.S. attorney reminds us:

  Now listen. All these rights are legislatively created. They didn't come down from tablets at the top of a mountain. And so, political things change and go back and forth. And every state is going to make their own determination on that. Wisconsin is in the middle of making that determination. As you know, Bob, there are plenty of states in America where that right doesn't exist. And so, each state has to make their own determination on that.

  But it's not the legal precision of the answer that is exceptional. What stands out is his utter candor. I frankly can't imagine another politician debunking the notion that public employees have a God-given right to collectively bargain.

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  Read it all.

  Agreed