Who will the deficit reduction “super committee” look out for, regular Americans, or their special interest campaign donors?

Millions of Americans rejoiced yesterday when a fierce negotiation involving billions and billions of dollars resulted in a deal that both sides are content with. No, I’m not talking about the debt ceiling impasse, which continues to threaten the economy, and America’s reputation all over the world.

This Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of the passage of the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” legislation passed by Congress to rein in the banks and protect consumers from the practices that led to the economic collapse. Since it’s passage, Wall Street interests have continued to exert influence over Congress in efforts to weaken, repeal, or as one bank lobbyist said recently, “reform the reform.”

Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch's British media empire is imploding with the news that his reporters hacked into the cell phones of a missing girl, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and possibly even victims of terrorist attacks. At one point, they deleted the voicemails of the missing girl, misleading investigators to think she was stil alive.

Pat Garofalo at ThinkProgress notes that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said today that anything Congress could do to slow down the implementation of Wall Street regulations passed in the wake of the economic collapse, “the better America will be.”

America won't be better off with delays, but I bet his campaign account will be by working to delay these regulations.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics:

There has long been a "wink and a nod" between our elected officials and many special interests (and their lobbyists), but as Norman Ornstein writes in Roll Call today, after the U.S. Surpeme Court Citizens United v. FEC ruling, that isn't even necessary any more.

Now even the threat of voting the "wrong" way can bring on a torrent of independent spending that can crush the reelection hopes of lawmakers in Congress.

From the Roll Call piece:

The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. The latest Ken Burns Civil War documentary. Sesame Street. According to Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), these programs and the countless others on PBS and NPR represent a "special interest." That's how Scott justified cutting all state funding to public television and radio last week.

Flaglerlive.com reported yesterday on Gov. Scott's veto of that portion of the state budget, noting that he called the action a "rejection of special interests."

"If only taxpayers had that kind of sway in Washington." The Mercury News hits the nail on the head in their editorial on the debate on tax subsidies for Big Oil. 

On top of paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas, we're also padding Big Oil companies' huge profits through tax subsidies. And just yesterday, despite huge public outcry to stop them, the House of Representatives voted to end debate on putting a stop to the corporate welfare. It's pretty easy to see why. As The Hill reports today, Big Oil poured huge amounts of campaign cash into lawmakers' campaign coffers and, SHOCK, they got exactly what they wanted.

Yesterday Think Progress's Lee Fang interviewed longshot Republican presidential candidate, former Louisianna Gov. Buddy Roemer, and he had some very poignant things to say about why Washington is broken.

From the interview: "Right now, too often the political debate has become about the money and not about the issues. And those who have the money have a vested interest in the results and you never know who they are...I have full disclosure and I challenge my opponents to do the same."