The first shots have already been fired, but the 2012 super PAC war between Mitt Romney-supportive super PACs and President Obama is only getting started. Politico reports today on how President Obama plans to fight back against the expected huge spending by Republican super PACs, by outing those big money special interests and billionaires who are behind the negative ad's.

With much of the country (and surely many of their own constituents) suffering in a tough economy, the class of 2010 jets off to Florida to raise big money. CBS News reported this morning on a group 12 Republican freshman House members taking a nice little trip down to paradise to raise campaign cash from special interest lobbyists.

"Stop doing your job, and get to work!" That, of course, is not an actual quote from Republican party leadership, but after some members of the class of 2010 reported low fundraising numbers this quarter, one could imagine them hearing it. Open Secrets has a blog post today that delves into the fundraising numbers of the freshman class of lawmakers, who were sent here presumably to legislate, and have found that's not necessarily the priority. 

This week, the House will take up legislation that would effectively kill the presidential public financing system, a reform created after the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.The system is broken, we all know that. The answer, though, is not to kill it--but to update it.

In Tony Rudy's factual proffer, he stipulated that this was true:

9. The things of value corruptly given to Rudy and others included, but were not limited to, repeated travel, golf fees, frequent restaurant meals, entertainment, election support for candidates for government and employment for relatives of officials.

TPMMuckraker is on top of this as always. Here is the Information document, and here is TPPM's analysis. They think there's no conclusive evidence that DeLay, who is mentioned as "Representative #2" in the document, is on or off the hook. Rep. Bob Ney, though, is another matter. There's also no mention of Ed Buckham, for those of you keeping score at home.

We’ll likely see the Tony Rudy pleading document later today, and in it there will be more details. For now, here’s some quick analysis:

"Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one," company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin said when they announced the innovative IPO auction almost two years ago. Yet they are employing the same tactics that corporate behemoths use to influence legislation--hiring lobbyists and spreading around campaign cash.

Read David Donnelly's op-ed in CNET.com (also posted below) on how Google is playing politics as usual in our nation’s capitol.

When Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson came to Denver two and half weeks ago, how did he spend his time? At a Republican fundraiser featuring representatives of the very industries his agency regulates, including El Paso Natural Gas, theColorado Mining Association, and the Colorado Petroleum Association, reports the Denver Post.

Google is setting up a lobbying operation in Washington and collecting lobbyists and public relations consultants faster than, well, you can search for links to "Jack Abramoff."

Even while they are newcomers to Washington, they have apparently learned the lessons of the K Street Project -- the Republican effort to force businesses to hire only Republican lobbyists and to make donations to GOP candidates and committees, and to fill the major lobbying firms with Republican staffers from Capitol Hill.