By David Swanson

Michael Pertschuk's new book "The DeMarco Factor" is a guide to political activism in the form of a chronicle of the work of one man, Vincent DeMarco.  A lot of people may never have heard of him, especially if you're not from Maryland, but DeMarco led campaigns over the past 20 years that successfully passed legislation in Maryland strengthening gun control despite the opposition of the NRA, raising taxes on cigarettes despite the opposition of big tobacco, and providing more people with healthcare despite the vicious opposition to that agenda we should all be familiar with.  The strategies employed are worth examining.

By David Swanson

The United States today may be the planet's greatest ever war maker, but the wars are fought, the bases maintained, and the weapons manufactured against the will of the majority of U.S. citizens. We express our opposition to wars openly in ways that could not be done at all until around 1880, and in so doing we almost certainly prevent more war making and limit the tactics our government can employ. In fact, if wars were still fought in the way the U.S. Civil War was fought, with armies on battlefields, we would probably have ended war forever some generations back. Instead, the progressive blogosphere, what passes for our anti-war fourth estate, just gathered in Las Vegas with little or no awareness or notice given to the fact that wars half-way around the world were being fought from drone control booths just down the road.

By David Swanson

The DISCLOSE Act, a bill passed by the House that would regulate corporate election spending was blocked in the Senate on Thursday by a filibuster -- momentum is building to eliminate that anti-democratic tool.

And momentum is building, as well, for reforms of our campaign finance system that go beyond what the DISCLOSE Act would do. On Tuesday, Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, proposed a new Constitutional Amendment that he described as a response to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case earlier this year. That ruling allows corporations to spend unlimited money from their general funds to elect or defeat political candidates.

By David Swanson

On Tuesday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill already passed by the Senate that funds a $33 billion, 30,000-troop escalation in Afghanistan. The vote was 308 to 114. What could the good news possibly be?

Here's a type of story that may become so common it's no longer a story, or those pushing back and working for structural reform may prevail:

Target Corp. spending company money on candidates

By MARTIGA LOHN (AP) –

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Here's something Target Corp. isn't advertising in its Sunday circular: The discount retailer is now a major donor to a group backing the Republican candidate for Minnesota governor.

And that's not sitting well with every Target shopper.

Under new laws allowing corporations to spend company money on election campaigns, the Minneapolis-based chain gave $150,000 to a Republican-friendly political fund staffed by insiders from departing GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration. The group, MN Forward, is running TV ads supporting state legislator Tom Emmer, the presumptive GOP nominee.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is the latest in a series of major newspapers around the country that have announced a partnership with a group called PolitiFact which will aid them in the innovative practice of letting readers know whether statements made by politicians are true or not. Here's last Sunday's front page announcement:

Ninety congressional candidates and 31 national organizations are opposing any more funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, no matter what unrelated measures are packaged into the same bill, what amendments are offered, or whether the vote is a "procedural vote."

The 90 candidates are from 27 states and Washington, D.C., and include 29 Greens, 24 Libertarians, 22 Democrats, 5 Independent Greens, 4 Independents, 4 Peace and Freedom, 1 Republican, and 1 Socialist.  Seventy-eight are candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and 12 for the Senate.

Members of the Coalition Against War Spending do not all agree with each other on many topics, including their reasons for opposing war spending.  But they all back this short statement: