"The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising."

So reports a headline story in the New York Times (10/21/2010) about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's increasingly secretive and partisan fundraising and lobbying efforts. The Chamber, once an institution that supported small and family businesses, increasingly does the bidding of a few large corporations.

In the final weeks of the 2010 election, the blog ThinkProgress.org, and then President Obama himself, charged that the chamber took money from foreign corporations to fund ads attacking Democrats. 

You’ve heard all the media hubub, now watch the THE LOADED CHAMBER to find out the truth about Washington’s most powerful lobbyist.

This special investigative series on GRITtvDIGS, hosted by Laura Flanders, is reaching over 50 million households on television and many more on the web.

If you believe in the value of this kind of investigative reporting, please help keep The Loaded Chamber on air by clicking here!

EPISODES SO FAR:

Part 1 -- SECRET MONEY debunks the biggest myths about the Chamber and shows how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and the failure to pass the DISCLOSE Act delivered a one-two punch to the idea of open government.

Part 2 -- THE WATCHDOG DOESN'T BITE, reveals how Tom DeLay's former lawyer, Brian McGahn -- who is now the right-wing's ringleader at the Federal Elections Commission -- is one of the main reasons why the U.S. Chamber and other groups have been able to flood this election with secret corporate cash. He may also be why the Chamber's head, Tom Donohue, isn't behind bars.

Part 3 -- FOREIGN MONEY tell the real story behind the whole "foreign money" scandal. Pundits have been so preoccupied with how this story plays in Peoria that they've failed to address the evidence and follow it where it leads.