Background:

There is no single factor that undermines our democracy more than the influence of big money. Curbs should be put in place, not because our candidates and officials lack integrity, but because the race for campaign cash forces priorities and practices within our system of elections that collide with the very essence of democracy.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that free speech for corporations trumps legitimate constraints on corporate political spending in the interest of democratic governance,  the issue of fair elections and the role of big money has taken center stage.

• Candidates agree that far too much of their time is spent “dialing for dollars” to a select few rather than talking with a wide range of voters about their beliefs, hopes and needs.
• Endless competition for funds from special interests weakens the role of civic dialogue and corrodes effective governance.
• Pennsylvania is one of only five states that have no contribution limits, no public financing of elections and limited disclosure and filing requirements. Some have likened it to the “Wild West” of electioneering, a free-for-all for raising money that has eroded public confidence and left us with a legislative process that often seems impervious to the voices of average citizens.

The time for change is now. Let's make the political process in Pennsylvania truly accessible to citizens of average means who seek either to run for office themselves or make their voices heard in the corridors of power. Let’s begin with a petition to our legislators calling for an end to the pollution of the political process by financial interests.

Click here to sign The Election Reform Network's petition.

Discussing the ramifications of investigating CIA torture, Rove told Reuters:

Karl Rove, who was a top aide to former President George W. Bush, accused Obama of seeking to conduct "show trials" a day after the president left open the possibility of prosecuting officials who provided legal analysis of interrogation procedures.

Rove told Reuters: "If the Obama administration insists on criminalizing policy disagreements, how can they place any limits on who they prosecute?"

"Everyone in the interrogation process would have to be treated the same," he said, including the CIA agents, the physicians who monitored interrogation sessions, and the lawyers who researched and wrote the memos.

The chain could reach "to the leadership of the intelligence community to the legislators in both parties and the Bush administration officials who were briefed on these memos and agreed to them," he said. [Emphasis added. - Ed.]

"It is now clear that the Obama White House didn't think before it tried to appease the hard left of the Democratic Party," Rove said.

So be it, says I! Throw them all out and start fresh is rapidly becoming my new mantra.

By Steve Strahs, Election Reform Network -

Last week’s Board of Commissioners meeting was the scene of some bizarre political twists and turns as the three commissioners continued their jockeying over what could be a new and improved ethics ordinance authored by Democrat Joe Hoeffel.  While the proposal itself is pretty straightforward, like just about everything in county politics, the story behind it and what it means is not.

During the Fumo trial, Republican Comr. Bruce Castor, former Montco District Attorney, noted during the course of his testimony that he had had some conversations and used email at the DA’s office related to his bid for state attorney general back in 2003.  This was the springboard for Hoeffel’s proposal; he asserted that Castor’s casual admissions reflected a focus on politics at the courthouse (including county government), or the potential for it, at the expense of the people’s business. Hence the need for ethics reform.

This is actually old political ground merely undergoing some new cultivation techniques.  A somewhat comparable ethics ordinance was passed back in 1998, during Hoeffel’s first tenure as part of the Montco governing majority (while also being the lone Democrat on the three-seat board).  The ordinance at that time banned all political activity – running for office, fundraising, speech making, serving on a political committee, etc., for about ten key department heads and top staffers, while Hoeffel’s version last week prohibited only running for office and fundraising, but for a much larger group of officals.  Not covered were existing political office holders, including the county commissioners and row office holders, and all staff of the row offices, including Assistant DAs.

But when the current chairman, James Matthews, took over in 2000, his Republican majority got the ordinance dropped, and there things stood.

WASHINGTON, DC- Following a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing today on Rebuilding Economic Security: Empowering Workers to Restore the Middle Class, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) released the following statement:  

“In my judgment, it is appropriate at this hearing to discuss the Employee Free Choice Act, but also the trauma that the American family is living through in this recession.  We need to talk about helping to provide economic security for families who don’t have it.  One of the best ways to ensure economic security for workers and their families is for that worker to be a member of a union.

I can walk down the street with my head held high knowing I'm not affiliated with a party whose public position is that my president and country should fail just to make their point.

Frank Schaeffer Author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back visits D.L. Hughley to talk about What's Left of the GOP :

I've been a bit of a left-wing rabble-rouser for a few years now, and I can attest that no one in that movement ever prayed for George W. Bush to fail. (Drop dead, maybe.) We did not want him to fail in Iraq. We prayed that he would find the wisdom to choose a different course, but when that didn't work out, that he would spare the lives of countless Iraqis and US soldiers and cease hostilities as soon as possible. We would have all sat down and shut-up if our troops had, in fact, been greeted as liberators and not as occupiers, and the caches of WMD that President Reagan had sold to Saddam Hussein had been found. No one would have been happier to be wrong than I. Anyone that tells you otherwise is prevaricating, to be polite.

We didn't have to do anything, it turns out, to ensure Bush's failure. He saw to that himself.

Mr. Schaeffer's letter to Republicans as published on The Huffington Post:

Dear Republican Leaders: The Republican Party has become the party dedicated to sabotaging the American future. Check out the sermon I just delivered about the Republican Party on CNN when being interviewed by D.L. Hughley -- and/or read on.

Bev held a great fundraiser for Patrick Murphy this past weekend. Patrick was tied up in DC and with the economic rescue bill and could not attend, unfortunately.