President Obama lobbied a group of big business leaders in Washington this week with his views about the looming fiscal cliff. But at least one of the most important heads of a major American business, Ford CEO Alan Mulally, was taking no guff either from Obama or from the leaders of the Senate and House with whom the president is deadlocked — and apparently willing to push to the edge, if not over it, in a political stand-off.

"It's a concern to all of us, because this is a very, very fragile recovery," Mulally said on MSNBC this week. "It's just so important that we come together on a plan to deal with both the revenue side, but also the expense side, because really what we're talking about is keeping the economic development going. That's the most important thing about this issue."

And while so far the U.S. auto industry has more than carried its weight in the nation's sluggish economic recovery, Mulally said that he couldn't guarantee that it would be able to post continued sales increases if Obama and Congress don't deal quickly and decisively with the fiscal cliff.Continue reading...

What does $2,000 mean to you? Tell us with #My2k twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…

— The White House (@whitehouse) November 28, 2012

"Call your members of Congress. Write them an email. Tweet it using the hashtag #My2K." —President Obama

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 28, 2012

In July 2011, President Obama warned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that he would pressure Republicans to compromise and make a deal by "going to the American people" in order to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, and he's doing just that.

The White House (with more than 3 million Twitter followers) and Obama (with 23.9 million followers) created a trending topic on Twitter today by promoting the #My2K hashtag to rally support for the president's call for legislation before the year-end fiscal cliff deadline for former president George W. Bush's tax cuts package.

Obama is stepping up his effort to get Americans to lobby their elected representatives to pass the middle class tax cuts, personalizing the message with "My 2K" as a reference to the $2,000 (well, $2,200) that may be coming out of their pockets: "If Congress fails to act before the end of the year, every American family’s taxes will automatically go up. A typical middle-class family of four would see its taxes rise by $2,200 starting in 2013."Continue reading...

The fight against AIDS is on track to achieve the first AIDS-free generation by 2015.

Tomorrow celebrates the 23rd World AIDS Day. Since its beginning in 1988, 30 million people have died from the disease and 2.5 million children younger than 15 are living with HIV. But in four years, the world can realize the end of HIV transmission from mothers to babies delivering a key milestone for the beginning of the end of AIDS.

Major brands are continuing their support with limited edition (RED) products to help raise funds for the charity.

Apple is selling a (RED) iPad and iPod Nano; Nike a (RED) collection including trainers, a destroyer jacket and backpack; Gap is selling a t-shirt by French fashion designer Isabel Marant; Lauren Bush's FEED project created a tote bag; and Converse made 500 pairs of (RED) Chuck Taylor All Star shoes with the ‘Ephemeral Pitches, and Notes, Rhythm and Phonetics’ print design from José Parlá.

For the third year in a row, Starbucks will make “your handcrafted beverage an agent of change. They will be turning all handcrafted beverages (RED) on World AIDS Day, December 1st, across the US & Canada, making a five cent donation on every handcrafted beverage sold."Continue reading...

“I am Barbara Bush, and I am a New Yorker for marriage equality. New York is about fairness and equality. And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love.”

With these words, the daughter of George W. Bush today broke with her father's presidential platform. Her 22-second PSA is part of a new campaign by the Human Rights Coalition, a national gay rights organization.

According to the New York Times, HRC "plans to show it Saturday at its annual gala in New York City. Advocates said it would show elected officials and voters that, in many cases, young people are not following in their parents’ ideological footsteps." “No matter what party they belong to, young Americans believe in basic fairness and equality,” said HRC's Brian Ellner to the Times. 

Other New York-based celebrities calling on the state of New York to legalize gay marriage in the campaign include Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Whoopi Goldberg, Kenneth Cole, Fran Drescher, Mayor Bloomberg, Moby, Julianne Moore, Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (an activist and the widow of Arthur Ashe), and singer/actress Daphne Rubin-Vega.

Liberals and conservatives agree: the Obama Administration's recent campaign to delegitimize Fox News Channel as a news source is a huge boost to the Fox News Channel brand.

Fox's success shows the rewards for cable news networks of building engagement among a dedicated base of diehards, following the vaunted "80-20 rule" that says that 80% of a channel's ratings come from 20% of its audience. Keeping the core audience tuned in for repetitive programming that confirms their beliefs turns out to be the recipe for success. That it has transformed US politics is a mere side-effect. (The 80-20 rule probably caused Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998, when FNC rode the Lewinsky scandal to ratings glory.)

The latest controversy began in early October, when White House media advisor Anita Dunn rounded the talk shows to argue that Fox -- which has been attacking Obama all year -- "often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."Continue reading...

As one CEO-turned-politician, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC, cruises to a third term, the run for California governor by ex-eBay chief Meg Whitman is stumbling at the starting gate, while her successor at the online auction giant abandons Whitman's strategies as fast as possible. Is the CEO politician brand still viable?

Writing in Ad Age, Simon Dumenco notes that Whitman's announcement she's seeking the Republican nomination for governor was spoiled by London legal proceedings involving the fraudulent sale of millions of dollars of golf clubs and other counterfeit goods over eBay -- as well as a lawsuit by the founders of Skype, whose questionable 2005 purchase by eBay, like the golf fraud, took place during Whitman's reign. Writes Dumenco:

Meg Whitman still believes in a formerly powerful media myth: the omnipotence of the Celebrity CEO. Meg Whitman got rich -- she's a billionaire -- running eBay, and during the boom years, at least, she got endless gushing coverage from the then-hagiographical business press. Back then, of course, CEOs were pretty much automatically rock stars (particularly tech CEOs). They were gods, "wealth creators," kings and queens of both the economy and the culture -- choose your metaphor.Continue reading...