Former tobacco industry spokesman Tom Lauria Old tobacco industry PR flacks don't go away, they just defend different products for money. So it is for former Tobacco Institute spokesman Thomas Lauria, who is now defending bottled water.

Seems benign enough. After all, fighting for water -- even in an over-commercialized, overpriced and polluting form -- instead of cigarettes would seem to be an improvement for Lauria. But just as he battled efforts to educate people about the health hazards of secondhand smoke, Lauria is now battling efforts to educate people about the hoax that is bottled water.

A new right-wing group, "American Action Network," has entered the 2010 election with ads attacking Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. The American Action Network (AAN) was created by right-wing politicians and their funders around the time the Supreme Court issued the Citizens United decision that expanded corporate rights to spend more money than ever influencing elections. AAN does not disclose its funding sources for the $25 million it plans to spend this fall, but its board is filled with politicians and millionaire businessmen on the right.

The ad is grossly misleading and blames Senator Feingold for the federal deficit, with the tag line "18 years, 9 trillion more in debt." The ad ignores the budget surplus created in the Clinton Administration during Senator Feingold's first terms in the Senate, and the squandering of that surplus through President George W. Bush's economic policies and wars. And then it tries to blame Feingold for the deficit increases through the Wall Street bailout that was led by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, even though Senator Feingold voted consistently, not once but twice, against the Wall Street bailout and voted not once but twice to end the TARP. He also pressed Congress expressly to use the TARP funds to pay down the deficit. (For more information on the true cost of the Wall Street Bailout check out our Wall Street Bailout Cost Table.)

The accolades for Elizabeth Warren keep rolling in on the BanksterUSA.org petition. If you have not had a chance to sign it or leave a comment, click here. While you are at it, check out the amusing video produced by the Main Street Brigade to promote her candidacy for the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Washington Post reports that Warren has been spotted meeting with bankers. No, I don't believe she has gone to the dark side, however I do believe that this indicates the administration is serious about her nomination and has asked her to build some bridges.

Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall when she meets with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: "so Lloyd, are you still selling securities that are designed to fail?" Or with Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf: "have you stopped juggling customer late fees to maximize the pain for consumers?" These are just some of the big bank tricks featured in our last column.

Charles (left) and David KochThe grassroots pressure group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), that actively fought health care reform, boasts "our citizen activists" are "the heart and soul" of the organization. So AFP wants the public and the media to believe. But an exhaustive report in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine, shows that the heart and soul behind AFP are really the oil billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, whose privately-owned oil enterprise has made them among the richest men in America. In addition to petroleum interests, the Kochs also own a host of familiar products like Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet and Lycra. Their massive combined wealth makes them the third richest people in the country, behind only Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who are better known to the public. The Kochs have intentionally obscured their involvement on the American political scene through the creation of an elaborate network of front groups, think tanks, foundations and astroturf organizations, but the public is quickly getting to know the Koch brothers better. Given their extreme wealth and pervasive efforts to manipulate the American public, it is a name everyone should get to know very, very well.

Some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen – Woodie Guthrie

Like mushrooms popping up in a damp basement, a slew of court settlements have been registered recently involving the big banks and their role in the financial crisis. An informal review of settlements over the last two years reveals about 16 multi-million dollar payouts from the big banks amounting to some $1.6 billion in fines and restitution and $13 billion in buybacks of auction-rate securities that were represented to be as safe as cash.

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? But when fines are stacked up against an elite white-collar crime spree worth trillions, it is a little less impressive.