== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Election Protection Wiki: The One-Stop Website for Guarding the Vote

== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. CIA Contractor Offers to Keep the Peace on Election Day
2. Bush Pushing Anti-Consumer, Anti-Environment "Midnight Regulations"
3. Secretary of State Project Gives Dems a Bigger Say in Key Battleground States
4. Weekly Radio Spin: Boo! It's Rick Berman Behind the Mask
5.  Market Crash Hits Political Attack Groups
6. Lobbyist's Front Group Joins the Anti-ACORN Bandwagon
7. Iraqi Party Comes to the United States
8. Who's Behind the Council for a Democratic Iran?
9. Industry Tries to Sell Congress on Drugs

== UPCOMING EVENTS ==
1. Brown Bag Lunch with the SourceWatchers

--------------------------------------------------------------------

== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. ELECTION PROTECTION WIKI: THE ONE-STOP WEBSITE FOR GUARDING THE VOTE
by John Stauber
       What went wrong with voting in last night's U.S. elections,
  and what went right? The election itself is over except for a few
  recounts, but the election process is still being scrutinized.
       The Election Protection Wiki, online at
  http://www.EPWiki.org, is the Center for Media and Democracy's
  non-partisan collaboration of citizens, journalists and researchers,
  a one-stop-shop for exposing voter suppression and other threats to
  election integrity. We collect just the straight facts that are
  fully referenced to external, verifiable sources.  You can get
  directly involved; we need your help!
       On Election Protection Wiki you'll find links to sites such
  as Voter Suppression Wiki and TwitterVoteReport, a non-partisan
  coalition using real-time text-messaging to reveal what's working,
  what's not, and what needs to be done at polling places to ensure
  that everyone's vote is counted.  See the full list of Election
  protection and reform organizations and go to our Election
  Protection map and click on the state of your choice to find its
  election protection and reform groups.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7893

== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. CIA CONTRACTOR OFFERS TO KEEP THE PEACE ON ELECTION DAY
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7896
  Evergreen Defense & Security Services (EDSS), an Oregon-based
  aviation company and military contractor with a history of working
  for the CIA, recently offered their services on Election Day. EDSS
  "has recognized the potential conflict that could occur on November
  4," firm president Tom Wiggins wrote in an email to Oregon county
  clerks. "EDSS proposes to post sentries at each voting center ... to
  assure that disputes among citizens do not get out of control. All
  guards will be unarmed but capable of stopping any violence that may
  occur, and detaining troublemakers until law enforcement help
  arrives." EDSS's offer "baffled county clerks and the Elections
  Division, who did not solicit the security help" and didn't
  anticipate security problems, according to PolitickerOR.com. The
  offer's especially strange, as the state has "no actual polling
  places, since Oregon went to vote by mail several years ago," noted
  the News-Review of Roseburg, Oregon. Counties do set up areas where
  voters can drop off their ballots. EDSS "didn't get any bites from
  the counties," reported The Oregonian.
SOURCE: PolitickerOR.com, October 31, 2008

2. BUSH PUSHING ANTI-CONSUMER, ANTI-ENVIRONMENT "MIDNIGHT REGULATIONS"
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7891
  In the final months of his administration, George W. Bush is
  working to enact a flurry of new federal regulations that will
  weaken rules protecting consumers and the environment. The so-called
  "midnight regulations" aim to relax standards that protect drinking
  water, loosen controls on global warming pollutants, remove
  obstacles to ocean fishing and ease restrictions on mountaintop coal
  mining activities. The new regulations would be difficult to undo,
  since the law mandates lengthy periods for re-drafting, re-analysis
  and public comment. Such activity by an outgoing president is not
  unusual, nor is the number of regulations being considered. But
  Matthew Madia of OMB Watch, a group formed to "lift the veil of
  secrecy surrounding the White House's Office of Management and
  Budget," called Bush's deluge of rules "a last-minute assault on the
  public ... happening on multiple fronts."
SOURCE: Denver Post, October 31, 2008

3. SECRETARY OF STATE PROJECT GIVES DEMS A BIGGER SAY IN KEY BATTLEGROUND STATES
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7890
  Politico.com notes that Democrats have gained "control of
  secretary of state offices in five key states -- Iowa, Minnesota,
  Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio -- where the difference between victory
  and defeat in the 2004 presidential election was no more than
  120,000 votes. ...  With a Democrat now in charge of the offices,
  which oversee and administer their state's elections, the party is
  better positioned than in the previous elections to advance
  traditional Democratic interests -- such as increasing voter
  registration and boosting turnout -- rather than Republican
  priorities such as stamping out voter fraud.  Perhaps more
  important, in those five states Democrats are now in a more
  advantageous position when it comes to the interpretation and
  administration of election law -- a development that could benefit
  Barack Obama if any of those states are closely contested on
  Election Day."  The Secretary of State Project is "affiliated with
  Democracy Alliance. ... 'We were tired of Republican manipulation of
  elections,' said Michael Kieschnick, a founder of the group who is
  also the president of Working Assets, a company that provides credit
  cards and mobile phone services to progressive organizations."
SOURCE: Politico.com, November 2, 2008

4. WEEKLY RADIO SPIN: BOO! IT'S RICK BERMAN BEHIND THE MASK
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7887
  Listen to THIS WEEK'S EDITION of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the
  Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind
  the news. This week, we look at PhRMA's ad buys, spinning Iran and
  Iraq, and attacking ACORN. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," the
  tobacco, fat, and alcohol laden career of Rick Berman. The Weekly
  Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use.
  Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or
  via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station,
  please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!
SOURCE: Center for Media and Democracy, October 31, 2008

5.  MARKET CRASH HITS POLITICAL ATTACK GROUPS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7885
  NPR reports, "In a presidential race that seems to include every
  possible political strategy ... [t]here have been no high-impact
  independent groups along the lines of the Swift Boat Veterans for
  Truth, the group that played a prominent role in attacking John
  Kerry four years ago.  ...  After the Dow Jones industrial average's
  record 777-point plunge last month, wealthy donors didn't have so
  much wealth. In contrast, one donor to the American Issues Project
  gave nearly $3 million for an ad in August linking Barack Obama with
  former militant Bill Ayers.  Chris LaCivita from Swift Boat Veterans
  for Truth produced the ad. He says they had more ideas for going
  after Obama, but they were stymied.  ...  Even if the money is
  there, this sort of attack ad may not work as well as it used to.  A
  veteran of liberal groups, Tom Matzzie, says these ads can't get a
  good media ride anymore, thanks to Internet-based fact-checking.
  'The swift-boaters of the future are not going to be broad spectrum.
  They're going to be narrowcast, is my view,' he says. That is, aimed
  at demographic niche groups, where they might not draw so much
  scrutiny."
SOURCE:  National Public Radio, October 30, 2008

6. LOBBYIST'S FRONT GROUP JOINS THE ANTI-ACORN BANDWAGON
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7884
  A full-page ad in the New York Times "accuses ACORN of a list of
  abuses that suggest hypocrisy on some of the group's signature
  issues: intimidating and firing its own employees if they try to
  unionize, misappropriating millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded
  government grants and advocating minimum wage hides while paying its
  own employees less than minimum wage." While the ad "does not
  indicate who or what organization paid for it," it comes from one of
  lobbyist Rick Berman's many front groups, the Employment Policies
  Institute (EPI). For years, Berman "has been fighting ACORN's
  efforts to increase the minimum wage at the state and federal
  levels." Tim Miller, the spokesman for EPI and Berman's Center for
  Consumer Freedom, said they placed the ad because after the
  election, "a lot of the coverage of ACORN is going to go away, but
  they are going to continue the same corrupt and fraudulent
  practices." ACORN says the charges in EPI's ad are untrue. For
  example, ACORN "pledged complete neutrality" when one of its offices
  "wanted to form a union," said ACORN's Steve Kest. The employees
  eventually "decided not to pursue [the union], so nothing came of
  it."
SOURCE: ProPublica, October 29, 2008

7. IRAQI PARTY COMES TO THE UNITED STATES
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7879
  The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is launching a public campaign
  in the United States, "to educate and raise awareness of the goals
  of the leading Shiite political party that opposes Muqtada al-Sadr's
  group." The Council will spend an estimated $20,000 per month, to
  educate U.S. policymakers and the general public on "Iraqi Islamic
  culture." The U.S. representative of the group, Karim Almusawi, "has
  appeared at various forums such as the U.S. Institute of Peace event
  earlier this month that dealt with Iraqi recommendations for the
  incoming Administration," reports O'Dwyer's. The Islamic Supreme
  Council of Iraq maintains "a somewhat incongruous dual alliance with
  the U.S. and Iran," according to the International Crisis Group.
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), October 27, 2008

8. WHO'S BEHIND THE COUNCIL FOR A DEMOCRATIC IRAN?
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7878
  CMD's Diane Farsetta digs further into the Virginia-based Council
  for a Democratic Iran (CDI) and its major new contract with the
  Livingston Group lobbying and PR firm, which Lauri Fitz-Pegado is
  working on. CDI's founder, Dr. Behrooz Behbudi, "seems to be aligned
  with military hawks." In 2007, he "bought $250,000 worth of ads in
  major North American newspapers denouncing Iran's Muslims leaders
  and 'terrorists' and 'fascists' and warning they are a direct threat
  to the U.S. and Canada." Also last year, Behbudi said he opposed a
  military invasion of Iran, but warned that if President Mahmoud
  Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders don't change their stance,
  "What happened to Saddam Hussein ... will happen in Iran, too." In
  2004, Behbudi founded the "Iranian Democratization Foundation" with
  disgraced defense contractor Mitchell Wade, one of the people who
  paid bribes to former Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham.
SOURCE: WIMN's Voices, October 24, 2008

9. INDUSTRY TRIES TO SELL CONGRESS ON DRUGS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7877
  A $13.2 million ad campaign thanks 28 members of Congress, 25 of
  whom are Democrats, "for supporting a children's health-care bill
  vetoed twice by President George W. Bush in 2007." The ads are by
  America's Agenda: Health Care for Kids, a new non-profit group whose
  sole funder is the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
  America (PhRMA). The ads are one example of the drug industry
  group's attempts to adjust to a Democratic-controlled Congress.
  PhRMA's also "working with unions through another America's Agenda
  group to push universal-health-care bills in states and cities
  across the country," and "is now splitting campaign contributions
  between the political parties."  In addition, PhRMA's trying "to
  restore the drug industry's tattered image," through its own ads
  "touting programs to help needy patients pay for their medicines;
  hurricane hotlines for drug supplies; and the syndicated TV show
  'Sharing Miracles,'" which features PhRMA president Billy Tauzin.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub req'd), October 24, 2008

== UPCOMING EVENTS ==
1. BROWN BAG LUNCH WITH THE SOURCEWATCHERS
       John Stauber, Bob Burton and Dave Johnson of the Center for
  Media and Democracy (CMD) www.PRWatch.org will demonstrate how CMD's
  high-traffic wiki-based website SourceWatch   has become one of the
  most successful online tools for powerful progressive collaboration
  and information.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7892

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
further information about media, political spin and propaganda. It
is emailed free each Wednesday to subscribers.

PR Watch, Spin of the Day, the Weekly Spin and SourceWatch are
projects of the Center for Media & Democracy, a nonprofit
organization that offers investigative reporting on the public
relations industry. We help the public recognize manipulative and
misleading PR practices by exposing the activities of secretive,
little-known propaganda-for-hire firms that work to control
political debates and public opinion. Please send any questions or
suggestions about our publications to editor AT prwatch DOT org.

To subscribe to the Weekly Spin, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/sub

CMD also sponsors SourceWatch, a collaborative research project
that invites anyone (including you) to contribute and edit articles.
For more information, visit:
http://www.sourcewatch.org