WikiLeaks, the Swedish website that publishes sensitive government and corporate information while preserving the anonymity of its sources, has come under serious criticism in recent days. Last week, authorities arrested Bradley Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst suspected of supplying WikiLeaks with 260,000 secret cables between U.S. diplomats and their contacts around the world. In addition, Mr. Manning is suspected of leaking footage of a U.S. helicopter gunning down a crowd of men in Iraq that included two journalists from Reuters. Most commentators find that WikiLeaks will drastically alter the government's ability to protect classified information. Whether or not that is a good thing is a more divisive question.

American Crossroads, a 527 group created in 2010 by right-wing political operatives and supported by Karl Rove and former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, officially entered into the political campaigning arena last week by airing attack ads on incumbent Nevada Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada). The week-long ad was the newly formed group's first foray into the race and it came at a cost of $120,000. According to the Washington Post, the group has raised a little more than $1 million to date. Slow fundraising hasn't slowed their plan of attack as American Crossroads recently announced the 11 races they plan to target in the upcoming election season.

In addition to Nevada, their targeted races include those in Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, Colorado, Arkansas, Kentucky, Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Washington state. The group plans to hire a pollster and media consultant for each race in hopes of crafting more tailored and effective campaigning messages. To that end, they have already hired the advertising firm Wilson Grand Communications and Jan van Lohuizen, former pollster for Elizabeth Dole, to be in charge of campaigning in Nevada. They also hired Carl Forti, former political director for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, as research director for the organization.

Today, U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas) was dragged into a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts). It was a pile-on to ask her to agree to weaken her strong derivatives reforms to accommodate Wall Street. Lincoln made it clear she was not pleased with the pressure. "There are some that are not as interested in being as aggressive in making sure that the possibilities of this financial crisis don’t happen again,” the Arkansas Democrat told Roll Call after the meeting. The issue of derivatives will be taken up tomorrow in the House-Senate Conference Committee which is pounding out the difference between the two bills. Will they adopt the Senate version (which covers 90% of derivatives, with a narrow exemption for legitimate end-users like municipal gas companies) or the House version (which is riddled with loopholes and covers only 60% of derivatives trading)?