Fair Elections/Campaign Finance Too much money in politics Great op-ed from Christie Todd Whitman on the need for Fair Elections. Groups to hold Coffee Party rally on Thursday Coffee Party-Houston, Public Citizen, and Americans for Campaign Reform will be hosting a Fair Elections rally on Thursday. Secret donors fuel American Crossroads media buy American Crossroads will launch a $4.2 million ad buy today – a massive amount, fueled by anonymous donors. The article talks about the complaint filed by Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21. Here’s the AP article on the complaint: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013082609_crossroads06.html

• And interesting email Mike Allen received on all of this: “We are telling all of our clients, do not give a cent unless you accept the possibility that one day your contribution will be well be public. ... i do not think you will see many blue chip companies, this is more for the wealthy."

Congress Chamber: We have a system Responding to yesterday’s report, the Chamber of Commerce says “hey, we have a system in place!” David Donnelly responds, “They basically say, ‘trust us’ when there's mounting evidence they're outsourcing the funding of their political attacks ads? Yeah, right,” Watchdog responds to troubling new report on U.S. Chamber of Commerce funding Here’s the Public Campaign statement. MoveOn demands federal investigation of foreign contributions MoveOn is demanding the Department of Justice look into the allegations of foreign spending. Clean and open American elections The NYT is not happy about the Chamber’s foreign money. “The government needs to make sure that the tax code — and American control of American elections — is not being violated.” CA-03: Dan Lungren, stimulus hypocrisy case study Daily Kos picks up the Campaign Money Watch report on Dan Lungren’s earmarks