Scott Brown, Massachusetts’ new senator, opposes legislation in Congress that would strengthen regulations for Wall Street.

But when a reporter recently asked him why he’s against this bill, Brown couldn’t give an answer. He’s against financial reform, but he has no idea why.

Let me help Senator Brown: During his campaign last year, Brown received half of his campaign contributions from Wall Street and business executives. He benefited from another million dollars in issue ads by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They oppose the bill, so Senator Brown opposes the bill. It’s no wonder Pew recently found that trust in Congress is at its lowest point ever.

I focused on Scott Brown, but the influence of special interest money pervades both parties in both chambers. Americans are right to suspect that their representatives are merely doing the bidding of those funding their campaigns.

Last week, I recorded a new episode of the Change Congress Chronicles, talking about Scott Brown, the economy of influence in Washington, and the path to reform. Take a few minutes to watch, and then please share it with anyone you know who is fed up with our electoral system:

Congress can fix our campaign finance system right now by passing the Fair Elections Now Act, which would create an opt-in system of citizen-funded elections. But to get this bill written into law, we must build enough grassroots support so that Congress has no choice but to listen.

Whatever your party affiliation, whatever change you seek — it won’t happen until we Change Congress.

So head over to Fix Congress First and take action.

Rachel Maddow also had similar sentiments.

(For the slow learners out there, climate and weather are not the same thing. You were supposed to have learned this in second grade.)

Then, again, last night there were similar similarities (yes, that’s intentional) between The Daily Show and The Colbert Report’s reports on the response of Republicans (and Admiral Ackbar) to President Obama’s invitation to participate in a televised bipartisan summit on health care reform.

Well, it’s funny anyway.

And for fun, watch Stephen Colbert’s take on it.

And finally, do something about it.

Update: Added Colbert video and link to Change Congress.

The man has become a caricature of himself… well, at the very least Jon Stewart has become a caricature of him.

This is pretty funny too.

Update: Yesterday the New York Times published an article about Dr. Collins.

Yes, Olbermann is practically hysterical, but his point should still be well taken. There are those who do not want a public option. They are not the American public, 65% of whom support a public option (see question 57). It is the health insurance companies. They have the expected allies, those spreading lies, fear (it works), and bullying.

The health insurance companies’ allies should not include “centrist” Democrats, since Democrats were overwhelming voted into office last fall on a platform of affordable health care for all that included a public option. Nonetheless the health insurance companies do have allies in the Democratic Party: Democratic Congresspeople whose palms they have kept well greased over the years. Of course, the agenda of health insurance companies is also greatly aided by the completely feckless Democratic Party leadership.

Oh well, what’s the big deal with health care reform anyway? What’s not to like about the current situation? It’s not like is could get any worse. Of course, if it does bother you that interest groups can so easily buy legislative favors, head over to Change.org, sign up, get informed, get active, and maybe donate some money.

You can find audio remixes of the interview on ccMixter and indabamusic and video remixes on YouTube. Here is a clever video remix.

It seems all this remixing has angered Mr. Colbert enough to create his own video for one of the audio remixes that included clips from his audio book as a warning to all not to do any more remixing, especially with clips from his audio book.

Update: Added links to remixes.
Update2: Added link to Colbert warning.

Below is an interview of Nate Silver on The Colbert Report where Nate explains some of the different graphs and statistics on his site. For more detailed information about his site, you can read the site’s extensive FAQ.

Update: Added link to NPR’s interactive electoral map and The Colbert Report video.

Update2: Added link to CNN’s interactive electoral map.

Update3: Added link to RealClearPolitics.

Below are The Daily Show and Colbert Report takes from last night. To get to the meat, skip to about the 6 minute mark on The Daily Show clip and watch the first 5:30 of the Colbert clip.

Here’s one thing I don’t understand: why the knock on community organizers? The Republicans want the federal government out of local business. They want local people to have a say over local issues. So why belittle people who are trying to do just that?