The following articles are courtesy of Truthout - one of the last standing publications that is willing to take risks, call out the powerful and fight back against the corporatization of the United States.

Foreign-Funded "US" Chamber Running Partisan Attack Ads
Lee Fang, Think Progress: "The largest attack campaign against Democrats this fall is being waged by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors. The Chamber has promised to spend an unprecedented $75 million to defeat candidates like Jack Conway, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). As of Sept. 15th, the Chamber had aired more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone, according to a study from the Wesleyan Media Project. The Chamber's spending has dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending." Read the Article
(Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

Finance Committee Chair Demands IRS Investigate Rove's American Crossroads and Other Corporate Front Groups
Kevin Zeese, Truthout: "Concentrated corporate power is corrupting the first post-Citizens United election, but citizens are responding. Six thousand people wrote Congress as part of our American Crossroads Watch campaign, demanding an investigation of Rove's American Crossroads, which is raising tens of millions in secret corporate donations to support big business candidates.... Corporate control of elections affects every issue with which the dysfunctional government is unable to deal." Read the Article
(Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

Citizens United Ruling Stirs Independent Fundraising Gold Rush
Peter H. Stone, The Center for Public Integrity: "The high court's ruling, which initial polls showed was opposed by 80 percent of the public, has helped to open the floodgates for potentially record spending by outside groups this year while creating a new fundraising landscape.... A look at both the older and newer GOP-leaning groups that are planning the most expensive drives this year makes this much clear: Many corporations seem inclined to give to groups that are allowed by tax laws to keep their donations anonymous. The desire for anonymity is attributable to several factors, say campaign finance lawyers and fundraisers, but arguably the most important is that the Supreme Court decision was controversial and unpopular. Some experts say the situation has prompted companies to fear reprisals from liberal groups for making large donations publicly." Read Article  (Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

Candidates Ignore the Media, but It's Voters Who Stand to Lose
David Lightman, McClatchy Newspapers: "Many major candidates are treating the news media as enemies this year, refusing to release schedules, admit the press to campaign events, give interviews or answer routine questions.  While Republicans appear to be shunning journalists more than Democrats, some Democrats are doing it, too, and journalists are finding it unusually hard to get routine information. While about a quarter of Americans in a July Gallup poll said they had confidence in newspapers or television news, only 11 percent expressed confidence in Congress.  Shutting out reporters could compromise voters' ability to get fair accounts of who candidates and their financial backers are and where they stand, leaving them dependent instead on propaganda packaged by the candidates and their supporters." Read the Article  (Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

Beware of Polls That Exclude Cell Phone-Only Voters
Steven Thomma, McClatchy Newspapers: "Watching the polls to figure out who's up and who's down this election season? Be careful. The poll may have a pro-Republican bias. The ranks of Americans who use cell phones only have skyrocketed. Some public polls don't survey them, however, and they miss a group of people who are more likely to vote Democratic, including the young, the poor, Hispanics and African-Americans." Read the Article (Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

Koch-Funded AFP Pushes Prop 23 at Official CA RNC Rally
Alex Seitz-Wald, ThinkProgress: "On Saturday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) held a large 'Victory Rally,' which ThinkProgress attended, just outside Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was the highlight of event, while RNC Chairman Michael Steele, several GOP congressmen, and right-wing media tycoon Andrew Breitbart also gave speeches to the excited, mostly-elderly crowd in a hotel ballroom. Notably absent were Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, California's GOP Senate and governor nominees. But curiously present was the conservative 'grassroots' astroturfing outfit Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which held a 'No Jobs Fair' to encourage people to vote yes on Proposition 23, a referendum on the ballot this year that would essentially scrap California's landmark global warming law. Interestingly, AFP appeared to be the only group aside from the RNC and candidates' campaigns with any major presence at the event, entirely occupying a large room across the hallway from the rally in the Anaheim Marriott." Read the Article  (Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

Partisanship Is Dead. Long Live Partisanship
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "With midterm elections nearing amid a flurry of polls predicting the demise of the Democratic Congress, and with it any realistic chances of progressive legislation, the question of just how jaded the current electorate is has come to the fore.... The Democrats' campaign message has been centered on the presumption that there is a fate worse than death - a Republican-controlled legislature - and it is in the voters' power to help avoid it. But consistently low approval ratings of the president, and a notoriously anti-incumbent mood, may mean that not being Republican is not enough to motivate support for the Democrats." Read the Article  (Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

Chris Hayes & Erica Payne: Our Dysfunctional Election (Video)
Laura Flanders, GRITtv: "'Vulnerable Democrats are begging donors for cash - $2,400 at a time, while their colleagues are sitting on millions of dollars they could unleash with a pen stroke.' So wrote Erica Payne of the Agenda Project, pointing out that the control of the entire House could be in the hands of a few Democrats in safe seats. That's just one of the problems with a severely dysfunctional election system overly dependent on private cash, notes Chris Hayes of The Nation, who joins Payne and Laura for a discussion of the campaign season thus far, and the potential for a little bit of money to go a long way in the right place." Read the Article  (Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

Special Interest Groups Spend Big on Missouri Senate Race
David Goldstein, McClatchy Newspapers: "If the 2010 campaign signals that the dam on political giving has burst, Missouri is already awash in campaign cash. Special interest groups have already spent more than $6 million to affect the outcome of the Missouri Senate race, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog dog. But according to the candidates' own tracking of outside spending, it is likely even higher. On top of that, the identities of a lot of the donors are secret."  Read the Article  (Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

"Natural" Gas Industry Shills Use the Media to Mislead the Public - Here's How to Spot Them
Maura Stephens, AlterNet: "In papers everywhere we hear arguments such as the one that appeared recently in the Rochester (NY) Business Journal, in an article by economist Raymond J. Keating, under the heading 'N.Y. is missing out on economic opportunity.' Keating wrote, 'Environmentalists are claiming that hydraulic fracturing threatens groundwater supplies and are using anecdotal evidence to support their claims. Yet years of evidence have demonstrated that the fracking process is safe.' This is not just misleading; it's artful misuse of the language. Or, as my mother would have put it in her habitually blunt way, it's a lie." Read the Article  (Courtesy of Truthout at www.truth-out.org)

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The following articles are courtesy of Common Cause - a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to restoring the core values of American democracy, reinventing an open, honest and accountable government that serves the public interest, and empowering ordinary people to make their voices heard in the political process.

Special Interest Groups - It's Not Pretty!
Here we are, less than two weeks before Election Day, and the impact of the Roberts Court's misguided Citizens United decision is clear: corporations are spending as much as they want to influence election outcomes. And it's not pretty.

From Big Oil to Wall Street banks and dozens of secretive new political groups formed specifically to capitalize on the Citizens United decision, all manner of special interests are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process.

The 2010 midterms are commanding just about everyone's attention at the moment -- including the corporate CEOs intent on buying their way to even more influence over our elected officials. But after the votes are counted and the acceptance speeches are delivered, the need for reform will be as strong as ever.

We have been pushing Congress to pass the Fair Elections Now Act from the moment the Roberts Court opened the floodgates to special interest spending with the Citizens United ruling. Once passed, Fair Elections would make elected officials accountable only to their constituents -- not corporate backers or big-money lobbyists.  We've already passed the bill through the House Administration Committee, and we believe we have the votes to win on the floor of the House. But we will need to make an aggressive push to get the Speaker to bring Fair Elections up when Congress returns to work in November.  (Courtesy of Common Cause at www.commoncause.org