Fair Elections/Campaign Finance Actors hunt for Boehner at golf course, tanning salon, by Laura Bischoff The Dayton Daily News picks up our new Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) /founding fathers video. DISCLOSE Act will get second look, by Reid Wilson DISCLOSE will get a second look, dropping requirements that the policy goes into effect before 2010, in hopes of getting one of the Republicans. Presidential public financing 2.0 Editorial discussing new presidential public financing proposals and urging Congress to move forward with them. Congress DeLay touts DOJ decision to end ‘weak’ probe into ties to lobbyists David Donnelly, campaign manager for the Campaign for Fair Elections is quoted: The decision by the Department of Justice to drop its criminal investigation into former Majority Leader Tom DeLay's relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff is further evidence that the scandal is not what is illegal, but rather what is legally permitted each and every day in Washington, D.C...”

• - Also picked up: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/114467-after-its-end-delay-calls-justice-department-probe-weak
• http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-17/tom-delay-cleared-in-abramoff-investigation/
• http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/08/16/Justice-Dept-drops-investigation-of-DeLay/UPI-50801282005282/

DeLay: I’m mad they thought I was stupid

• "It shows that there's a limitations to changing elected officials' behavior by using the long arm of the law," David Donnelly of The Campaign for Fair Elections, a nonpartisan watchdog group, told TPMMuckraker. "Frankly, the problem is not that the scandal is what Tom Delay did, it's what he did is now determined to be legal. The whole system is the problem, not any particular actors in it."

Barclays to pay $298 million in bank case Barclays will pay a big fee for illegally engaging in financial transactions with foreign governments under economic and trade sanctions. - Here’s their PAC giving this cycle: http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2010&cmte=C00448852.  GOP reveals midterm blueprint Republicans have reserved ad buys in 54 districts this fall, including the districts of several Fair Elections co-sponsors Pressing corporations to swear off spending, by Ben Smith Quick piece from Ben Smith on NYC Public Advocate’s Bill de Blasio’s new database listing the positions of the country’s 100 largest corporations on the issue of political spending.

• Site is here: http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/corporate-spending.

The House and ethics: a reality check, by Fred Wertheimer Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, has a “myth vs. facts” piece up on the ethics process.