Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., says he recently utilized the Sunlight Foundation's Politwoops site that monitors deleted tweets from politicians to stage an elaborate trick on the media (or ethics lesson, depending on how you see it), saying, "The best way to get a message out is to tweet and delete." The quote, documented by Washington Post and Politico reporters, came during the press conference Cohen held on Friday afternoon to discuss the recent deleted tweet that read: "@cyndilauper great night,couldn't believe how hot u were.see you again next Tuesday.try a little tenderness. http://t.co/zz4Orccryf"

In a press release issued following the news conference, Cohen said:

“On Tuesday night, the President and Mrs. Obama, along with the Grammys and PBS, hosted a musical tribute to Memphis Soul at the White House. Wanting to promote this great program, which will air this coming Tuesday on PBS, I realized the best way to do this was to tweet and delete. I knew the Sunlight Foundation would highlight the deleted tweet as a Politwoop and knowing how some in the media report deleted Politwoops as nefarious, it occurred to me that a perfectly innocent, factually-correct tweet, once deleted, would receive great media attention. And that is exactly what happened [...]"

We're flattered Politwoops is becoming more a part of the political message machine, but this is hardly the first time deleted tweets surfaced by Politwoops were deleted specifically to appear in Politwoops. Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif.,  gave a holiday greeting by politwooping "Merry Christmas to Byron and the politwoops crew" and Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Penn., once deleted "This one is for Politwoops." House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rep David Schweikert, R-Ariz., even tried to turn Politwoops into a hashtag, saying "You know what else has been deleted? Jobs in the Obama economy. Where are the jobs? #politwoops" and "Wish #politwoops would hold Obama and Holder accountable for their missing facts on #FastandFurious just as it does missing tweets." As members of Congress learn about the existence of Politwoops, we've seen tweets simply reading "test" which may imply they are checking if the site tracks their particular accounts. Politwoops is a project to document messaging changes from politicians and it's fascinating to see how the site's role has developed since launching last May, including being named one of the 50 Best Websites of 2012 by TIME Magazine.

For things politicians can't delete, check out their Influence Explorer and Party Time profiles to see who gives them money or holds fundraisers for them.

Update: Cohen's statement on deleted tweets is surfaced by Politwoops after the tweet was deleted:

My statement on deleted tweets http://t.co/xkg8Ub9Vek #CyndiLauper #MemphisSoul

‘Tis the season for application programming interfaces. Sunlight is in a festive mood. Not only are we hosting a pretty rad open house this week, but we have the perfect present for the open data developer in your life: a Sunlight Labs API key!

Here are our “12 days of APIs,” with a few bulk data sets thrown in to round it out. No singing required! Be sure to also check out some new additions and better accessibility we’ll have available in 2013.

12 minutes spent researching our API offerings on Sunlight Academy, which includes a brief tutorial video.

11 television markets reported more than 1,500 political ad filings this election. Download data about who bought more than $3 billion in political ads in 2012 from Political Ad Sleuth.

10 methods provided in the Sunlight Congress API. Our most popular API includes basic information on members of Congress, legislator IDs and lookups between places and the politicians that represent them.

9 political races had more than $20 million in outside spending this election. Download the bulk data on the money spent by super PACs, unions, corporations, nonprofits and other groups this cycle at Follow the Unlimited Money.

8 data sets covered by the Influence Explorer API (neé TransparencyData), which includes federal and state campaign contributions, federal lobbying, government grants and contracts, EPA violations, federal regulations and more.

7 collections presented in the Real Time Congress API. Get as close to real-time data as possible on bills, votes, amendments, videos, floor updates, committee hearings and documents.

6 standard arguments to query in the Capitol Words API. Search the Capitol Record since 1996 and filter your results by state, party, chamber, date, start date or end date.

5(0) states available in the Open States API, which also covers D.C. and Puerto Rico. Use the RESTful API or bulk download to access the only comprehensive collection of state legislative data in the U.S.

4 ways to get Political Party Time data. Use the JSON feed, CSV file, RSS feed or relational zip file to know when politicians are fundraising and who is hosting the events.

3 mobile apps powered by our APIs: Real Time Congress for iPhone, Congress for Android and OpenStates for iPhone and iPad. (And check out Call on Congress if you don’t have a smartphone.)

2 options to get Scout alerts, by email or via text message. Scout uses a variety of Sunlight APIs—Capitol Words, Real Time Congress and Open States—to deliver real-time policy alerts on state and national issues, as well as has special user option for developers.

And a listserv to follow what’s happening in Sunlight Labs.

Flickr photo of partridge in a pear tree light display by K. van Santen.

The folks who enjoy actively researching the influence behind the election turn to Sunlight's tools like Follow the Unlimited Money, Ad Hawk or our Elections hub page. For everyone else, there's Inbox Influence: a passive research assistant that uncovers the political contributions of people and organizations mentioned in emails you receive. Inbox Influence is a lightweight browser extension that works for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

This simple tool that originally launched in 2011 is powered by our Influence Explorer project (dubbed "brilliant" by NYMag) and reveals what's lurking in your inbox with the click of a mouse. Discover the background on the sender of that latest fundraising solicitation, corporate correspondence or forwarded news article - it provides relevant information as we rapidly approach the 2012 elections. Don't take our word for it: Engadget said it will out that closet-lobbyist in your life, Forbes confirmed it will de-astroturf your inbox, Nieman Lab said it could "help people make better decisions about whom they do business with" and another just orders "If you do anything else today, you have to check out ‘Inbox Influence’."

An article in the New York Times last week reported that T-Mobile USA’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, bought Metro PCS, another cell service provider. According to the Times’ reporting, this merger could strengthen T-Mobile against competitors like Sprint Nextel, and the buy was intended to help T-Mobile to better provide low-cost service to customers.

Companies within the Telecomm Services and Equipment industry make significant contributions to political campaigns and committees. The industry as a whole gave a total of $13.5 million so far this election cycle. Here’s a look at the contributions and influence of the industry players mentioned in this article:

• Employees of T-Mobile USA and their family members made $722,175 in campaign contributions so far in the 2011-2012 election cycle. They donated to both individuals and political action committees, and 55 percent of contributions went to Republicans, while 44 percent of donations went to Democrats.
• In 2011, during an attempted merger with AT&T, T-Mobile reported spending over $6 million lobbying issues including taxes, broadband spectrum and the merger with AT&T. The company is on track to spend about the same amount this year. In the first two quarters of 2012, T-Mobile reported spending about $3 million to lobby Congress and government agencies on taxes, broadband, mergers and other issues.
• Employees and others associated with Metro PCS have contributed a total of $28,535 to campaigns since 2000.
• Employees of Sprint Nextel and their family members donated a little more than $500,000 so far during the 2011-2012 cycle.

‘Influence Explored’ takes an article from the day’s headlines and exposes the influential ways of the  entities mentioned in the article. Names and corporations are run through Sunlight’s influence tracking tools such as Influence Explorer to remind readers of the money that powers Washington.