We have a new update on the Pentagon Propaganda story we previously reported on here and here.

Congressional Quarterly is reporting today that the Federal Communications Commission is investigating this matter. The story says, "The FCC is looking into whether TV networks and certain on-air analysts broke the law by failing to disclose to viewers that the apparently independent analysts were in fact part of a Pentagon-funded information campaign, a spokesman for the commission said."

I moved two months ago and one month ago I sent in a new voter registration form to update my address in Washington, DC.

For the past month, on the DC Board of Elections web site, when I searched for my "voter registration status" I got the following message:Registered Voter
PENDING APPROVAL PER RECEIPT OF SIGNED APPLICATIONOf course, the signed application is what I sent in a month ago.  I called on Friday to see if perhaps the online database just wasn't updated.  The woman told me it was, but they'd gotten a ton of registrations and would be processing them through the weekend.  "Don't worry," she said, "but call back on Monday to make sure."

Today, Monday, is the voter registration deadline for DC.  I just called.  This time, I got a busy signal at the Board of Elections.

Our friends at the Brennan Center put it succinctly in a piece on The Hill's blog today:Wall Street routinely doles out large campaign contributions to members of Congress. In the current election cycle, the financial services sector (which includes insurance and real sector), contributed more money to candidates for Congress, the presidency and political parties than did any other sector, totaling $339.6 million from 2007 through today. Both chambers' banking committees also benefit handsomely. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, PACs and employees of the securities and investment industry are the second largest source of cash for members of the Senate Banking committee. During the 2008 election cycle, these contributors raised $11.7 million for the 21 members of that Committee. Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) received about $4.3 million since 2003, or half of all contributions to his campaign coffers.

Does campaign cash influence legislation and regulation? When Congress last debated regulation (or rather, de-regulation) of the financial industry in 1999, a study by the Center for Responsive Politics showed that members of Congress who supported the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act received twice as much money from commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies as those who opposed the measure. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was the product of many years of lobbying by the financial industry and allowed for the loosening of bank regulations that had been in place since the Great Depression.Gutting regulations that had been in place since the Great Depression, leading to a financial crisis that has us moving closer to a repeat of the Great Depression, all because of a pesky little privately-funded campaign system in which Wall Street used its financial might to keep Congress quiet.

When public attention shifts beyond the bailout to the longer term concern of our economy -- and who makes the decisions and regulations going forward -- we need to make sure we fix our political system so it's not a money game that continues to reward the wealthiest interests at the expense of the rest of us.  Here's how:Just last week, the Fair Elections Now Act, which would establish a system of voluntary public financing for Congressional elections, was introduced with bi-partisan support in the House. Last year, Senators Durbin (D-Ill.) and Specter (R-Pa.) introduced the Senate version of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would create a voluntary public financing system for Senate candidates. With the introduction of its House counterpart this week by Representatives Larson (D-Conn.) and Jones (R-N.C.) (both from Clean Elections states), lawmakers are presented with a bipartisan, bicameral effort to undertake serious and lasting structural reform. Public financing would eliminate the perils of special interest cash by establishing strict spending limits, enabling small donors and greatly increasing the power of ordinary voters to hold Congress accountable.

Joe Torres at Free Press posted a blog yesterday titled "Hate Speech Rises in the Media" which gives some examples of the increase of hate speech in the mainstream media.

ANY hate speech is more than our society should have, but it's especially alarming when it is increasing. So where are the voices to counter the hate speech? Silenced. Not by force. Not by intimidation. But by the media ownership structure.

People of color who are being attacked by talking heads in the media have little capacity to respond or frame the message themselves because they can't get into the media market.

On September 25th Common Cause President Bob Edgar, Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr., CC advisor Joseph Montville and I attended a dinner hosted by the United Nations Office of the World Council of Churches and other religions groups that featured Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Our involvement was a part of our upcoming public diplomacy visit to Iran to take place later this fall.  The theme of the event was, "Has not one God created us?," and the guest list included representatives from more than 20 world religions as well as other prominent figures such as UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockman and former Norwegian Prime Minister, Rev. Kjell Bondevik.

The event was held at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan and was not without the controversy one might expect from a visit from the current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Fewer than 100 protestors outside the Hyatt railed against Ahmadinejad and tried to antagonize those of us who were interested in having a dialogue with him (although some press reports suggested the turnout was much higher it wasn't a very big crowd).  The protests were sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America, Concerned Women for America, Arabs for Israel, American Maronite Union among others.  The groups were angry for what they believed was a feting of Ahmadinejad instead of the dialogue that it was.