Oh look, Waffle House gave $100,000 to American Crossroads in May. Want a 30 second attack ad with that ham and cheese omelet?

Also, watch this great new video from Wednesday's rally at Amerian Crossroads' office.

Campaign Finance/Fair Elections
Politico: Senate: No taxpayer cash for conventions
"A bipartisan push to eliminate millions of federal dollars earmarked to each party’s conventions was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate on Thursday, handing a win to critics who say taxpayer money shouldn’t be spent on orchestrated presidential nominating coronations at a time of severe budget constraints." Public Citizen release.

The Nation: With new burden on unions, court tips the balance toward corporations
Corporations have the same speech rights as people, according to SCOTUS, but in yesterday's Knox v. SEIU ruling, "the same Court has now said that groups of actual human beings—trade unions that have organized public-sector workers—must sacrifice their flexibility in order to meet standards never before demanded of labor organizations."

Missoulian: Campaign finance initiative expected to qualify for Montana ballot
News in Montana: "Backers were confident Thursday they had enough signatures to qualify Initiative 166. It is a policy statement saying that corporations aren’t human beings with constitutional rights and that money isn’t speech."

Congress/2012
TPM: Romney super PAC's 30+ billionaires meet Pinterest
Hey, TPM picked up the Public Campaign Action Fund pinterest board on Romney's billionaire backers.

Politico: Left gird for voting rights battle
"Democrats, labor unions and civil rights groups are convinced Republicans are scheming to steal the election from President Barack Obama by suppressing the liberal vote, and they’re girding for battle. Groups on the left are spending more than they have in any previous election to lawyer up, get voters registered early and flood polling locations with trained poll workers and election watchdogs."

PCAF Blog: Why won't Mitt Romney release his bundlers?
"Congress, the FEC, and the Supreme Court have made a mockery of our campaign finance system. In the current environment, disclosure is one tool that’s left to let the American people know who is trying to buy influence with politicians. The Romney campaign isn’t required by law to release these bundlers, but it’s the right thing to do."

New Yorker: Democracy for sale
"If you managed to buttonhole the big campaign contributors, many of them would say they are simply expressing their support for candidates and principles they believe in, and that they aren’t seeking any rewards or favors in return. In some cases, this may be true. But it would take a very credulous person to believe that there isn’t an element of quid pro quo involved."

Bangor Daily News: Send super-PAC money packing from Senate race
Maine editorial: "If the Maine race joins the one in Massachusetts in rejecting super-PAC money, it would send a strong message to Congress that the very people supposedly benefiting from anonymous money don’t want it. Candidates in more states may follow suit."

BuzzFeed: Romney's Cold War strategy to defeat Obama
"Mitt Romney has adopted what top Republicans describe as a Cold War strategy to defeat President Barack Obama: To spend him into oblivion."

HuffPost: Bob Bauer, Obama campaign's top lawyer, demands retraction from Karl Rove
The Bauer-Rove battle is heating up! "The Obama campaign's top lawyer fired off a letter to Karl Rove Thursday, demanding a retraction of 'mystifying' comment Rove made and raising questions about his upcoming appearance at a Mitt Romney campaign event."

USA Today: Donors' push strengthens behind Romney
"Republican donors rallied to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in May. Scores of his allies wrote five-figure checks to fuel his joint fundraising with the Republican Party, and hundreds more contributed for the first time, newly filed campaign-finance reports show." NewsHour.

Boston Globe: Warren's money machine has helped her raise more money than any other congressional candidate
"Since September, she has hauled in nearly $16 million, more than any of the 1,613 candidates officially running for Congress on the March deadline, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."

PCAF Blog: Pro-Obama super PAC accepts lobbyist campaign cash
Highlighting a nugget in yesterday's LA Times story: "The Los Angeles Times reports that Priorities USA 'accepted $500,000 from Perennial Strategy Group, which has lobbied for commercial banks and the MGM Mirage, among other clients.'"

New Republic: Dough-faced
"One might think this juggernaut would jolt Democratic donors into opening their wallets. Instead, it has prompted an outbreak of soul-searching. 'So, is this how far we’ve stooped? Is this what we’ve come to?' Burton recalls a wealthy Chicago supporter telling him when he came calling on behalf of Priorities. It turns out that the Democrats’ biggest problem this cycle isn’t financial, but existential."

Politico: Hollywood donors ignore Mitt Romney
Celebrities have no interest in Mitt Romney.

AP: Obama faces growing GOP super PAC financial power
"The national campaigns backing President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are drawing even in their fundraising prowess, but new financial filings released show that the 'super' political committees supporting the GOP candidate and his party are widening the money gap over struggling pro-Democratic party organizations."

ThinkProgress: Rove "makes a mockery" of campaign finance laws
TP looks at the fact that Karl Rove, who runs an independent outside group, will attend the Romney bundler confab this weekend. Common Cause's Mary Boyle: "seems to make a mockery of the rule that bans coordination between a super PAC and a candidate." Martin Bashir calls the event a "hot tub cash machine."

Boston Globe: Big money is changing the way campaigns are run
Joshua Green writes: "The 2012 election will measure a lot of things, but one of the most important is whether we’ve reached a point in politics where money is the chief determinant of who wins a race or just a big advantage that can still be overcome with effort and planning."

Roll Call: Shareholders urge google to drop US Chamber of Commerce membership
"A group of shareholders planned to urge Google Inc. at the company’s annual meeting today to drop its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce."

NaJo: The "silent" communication between campaigns and super PACs
"Thanks to the super PAC era, silent movies are making a comeback. These days, campaigns are using some tricky tactics to (cheekily) comply with campaign finance laws preventing outside independent expenditure groups from coordinating with candidates. While the maneuvers don't break any laws, they are worthy of a closer look."

NPR: New super PAC financial reports reveal more big spenders
So who were the new names in May fundraising?

Daily Beast: Stop the Obama "enemies list" GOP lies
Good piece from Michael Tomasky on the "enemies list" nonsense.

Roll Call: Wealthy democrats still ignoring super PACs
"Campaign finance reports filed Wednesday yet again point to the basic problem facing Democrat-friendly super PACs as they struggle to catch up with their GOP counterparts: Wealthy liberals are still not playing the big-money game."

The Hill: Twitter fundraising coming soon to political campaigns
"A social commerce platform wants to bring campaign fundraising to tweeting. Chirpify opened up their platform to political campaigns on Tuesday, in a move that would allow campaigns to accept donations through the microblogging website."

New York Times: Prisons, privatization, patronage
Paul Krugman writes once again about prison privatization and: "But the main answer, surely, is to follow the money. Never mind what privatization does or doesn’t do to state budgets; think instead of what it does for both the campaign coffers and the personal finances of politicians and their friends. "

Other/States
TPM: Lobbyist Mike Williams, suspected FBI informant, asked to leave GOP fundraiser
"A lobbyist suspected of working for the feds in an FBI corruption sting was asked to leave a fundraiser for two state Republicans that was attended by Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin (R), TPM has learned."