Blog Posts by Phoebe Connelly

(Texts From Hillary)

Two photos of Hillary Clinton on a military C-17 plane taken last October, one by Reuters photographer Kevin Lamarque, the other by Time photographer Diana Walker, have resurfaced this week as the foundation of what we at Yahoo News have determined is the best political meme of 2012 thus far. (A senior editorial staffer at Politico, who declined to be named, agreed.)

Texts From Hillary is the brainchild of Stacy Lambe and Adam Smith, both communications professionals in Washington, D.C. The Tumblr features the sunglasses-adorned secretary of state using her Blackberry paired with various politicians also on their phones, along with imagined texts being exchanged.

Lambe and Smith dreamed up the site over drinks Wednesday night after watching the photos bounce around social networks that day. "We quickly decided it should be turned into a meme (that the two of us would have a laugh about)," Lambe told Yahoo News over email. "The site is meant to be a compliment to Hillary. Hopefully, everyone gets that."

On the final day of arguments, the court considered two issues: whether the rest of the health care law could stand without the individual mandate, and the legality of the law's expansion of the Medicaid program.

You can listen to the arguments below, and download the audio at the court's website.

Read Yahoo! News' full coverage of the case at The Ticket.

On the second of three days of arguments, the court considered the legality of the individual mandate, which compels everyone to purchase health insurance.

You can listen to the arguments below, and download the audio at the court's website.

Read Yahoo! News' full coverage of the case at The Ticket.

Tuesday: Oral arguments for Department of Health and Human Servs. v. Florida by Yahoonews

(Elise Amendola/AP)On Tuesday, the Romney campaign announced that Ann Romney started a Pinterest account. "Ann's way ahead of me on this one," Mitt Romney tweeted. And with that, the wife of the Republican presidential frontrunner (at least for the moment) cemented the social media sharing site as the internet sensation of the moment.

Pinterest is a visual link saving and sharing service. It's currently invitation-only, and has made waves for its exponential growth in both users and traffic referrals. The site has enjoyed wide adoption among women, who have populated the site by sharing everything from organizational tips to stylish frocks. Meanwhile, many social media experts and organizations have been left puzzling over how to employ it--and with good reason. If you aren't trying to share a compelling image, Pinterest doesn't offer much. There's also been a nasty undercurrent to criticism of Pinterest, discrediting it as a channel because its current user base--and their pins of kitchen mixers and artfully arranged food--are not "serious."

So what is Pinterest useful for? This reporter will admit to being largely stumped, although I have started a board to collect images of the candidates holding babies on the trail. Courtney Lowery Cowgill at MediaShift says part of the appeal is that it is not about sharing a status update: "There's no announcement of someone's kids winning a soccer game, no photos of someone's amazing vacation, no promotion of someone's projects. In short, no bragging--and that seems to be what sets it apart in some ways from other sites."

Ann Romney uses the service to share both the personal (recipes, and "Books Worth Reading") and the political (a selection of campaign photos, and a set of images labeled "Patriotic.")

Join us on Facebook this afternoon at 2 p.m. EST for a live chat with our Washington bureau chief David Chalian.

Chalian will be fielding your questions about the state of the 2012 race in advance of the Nevada caucuses and discussing Mitt Romney's to-do list for locking up the nomination.

You can join the Yahoo Ticket Facebook page here.

At Thursday's Republican debate in Jacksonville, FL (the last for nearly a month, for those of you following closely!) Newt Gingrich's proposed moon colony briefly took center stage.

Unsurprisingly, members of the Twitterverse were ready with the punchlines. We've included the five funniest (that we saw) below. Did you spot something better? Leave it in the comments!

Future historians will be hard pressed to explain how so much of the 2012 election focused on moon colonies.

--Mike Madden (@mikemadden)

Will people on the moon be required to have health insurance?

--Ralph Reed (@ralphreed)

We followed your reactions online to Tuesday's State of the Union address by President Barack Obama. On Twitter, you were talking about the women in the room--Gabrielle Giffords was the top trending topic on Twitter at the start of the speech after her touching embrace with the president, and Hillary Clinton and the phrase "First Lady" were top terms in "#sotu"-tagged tweets.

At the end of the speech we asked the Yahoo! audience if they felt Obama had made the case for a second term: Of the more than 16,300 respondents, 63 percent said he should get another four years.

Obama search switches from singing to SOTU

In the hours before the speech, the top Obama search was "Obama sings at Apollo," referencing the president's recent bravo performance at the Apollo theater where he sang Al Green's "Let's Stay Together."

At 9 p.m. EST, when the speech began, the top searches for the president's name were "President Obama" and "Obama State of the Union" and "Obama speech."

Obama more searched than GOP primary candidates

More people have searched for Obama today on Yahoo! than for all of the Republican candidates combined on the day of any recent GOP primary contest.

Yahoo! audience: Obama deserves more credit for Iraq; Bush tax cuts for wealthy should expire

Of nearly 13,000 participants in a poll of Yahoo! readers, 62 percent felt the president deserved more credit for bringing troops home from Iraq, and of 9,450 respondents, 84 percent agreed with Obama that it was time to phase out Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

America, we're turning this over to you (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

On Monday, we asked members of the Twitterverse to sum up what they expect to hear during the State of the Union address in advance of Obama's Tuesday speech--in 140 characters or less. We collected a trove of responses, and below we've shared 10 of our favorites. There's still time for you to get in the game! Tweet your take on the health of the nation with the hashtag #sotu140.

Below, your take on the State of the Union:

I'm a true moderate, tough anti-terrorist, have no personal baggage, & no scary social agenda. But say it tough! @YahooTicket #sotu140

Lesley Pratt (@prattlt)

They left us in a big hole. We're digging out but not all the way there yet. Oval working, as are American people. We'll get there. #sotu140

Paul Swider (@swiderman)