National News

• Big fundraising news out of Kentucky. Democratic Challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes outraised Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during the third quarter. McConnell still has a vast advantage when it comes to cash on hand, but also has a combative primary with a self funded opponent to worry about. (POLITICO)
• The government shutdown has caused the cancellation of many political fundraisers, but it hasn't plugged the flow of hysterical fundraising emails flooding email inboxes everywhere. Both sides of the aisle are using the shutdown in their digital pitches. (Public Integrity)

• Looking for an introduction to data journalism? The European Journalism Centre has a free class for you! Registration is now open for "Doing Journalism with Data: First steps, skills, and tools." (Open Knowledge Blog)
• Recent revelations that a major British drug company avoided more than $1 billion in tax payments are leading to calls for greater transparency around company ownership. (Open Knowledge Blog)

• California's court system operates under its own Rules of Court and some of that document's public records provisions have been interpreted in ways that have citizens, and even some judges, up in arms. (Voice of San Diego)
• Looking for news about government IT issues at a state level? Look no further than this new weekly roundup, launched by statescoop, fedscoop's state level equivalent. (fedscoop)
• Chicago launched a "comprehensive" data dictionary, including information on "every data set held by city agencies and departments, how and if it may be accessed, and in which formats" data is available. The city is hailing it as the first of its kind. (govfresh)

National News

• John Paul Farmer, the man behind the unique Presidential Innovations Fellows program, is leaving the White House after three years. The program brings entrepreneurs and technologists into the White House to work on short term, high impact projects. (Fedscoop)
• Edward Snowden has been given an award by a group of former intelligence officials and whistleblowers. The group gives the Sam Adams Award every year to a like minded individual that exhibits "integrity in intelligence." (POLITICO)
• The Obama administration is trying to defend itself after a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists released a report slamming it for being afraid of the press, taking extreme measures to prevent links, and generally having a chilling effect on journalism. (POLITICO)
• A new repository, Perma CC, aims to ensure that sites linked in scholarly works and legal documents have a permanent and persistent home on the internet. Recent studies have revealed link rot to be a significant problem as legal writing and scholarly research moves into the digital age. (ars technica)

• Policymakers met in Africa last week to discuss the need to crack down on corruption that funnels hundreds of billions of dollars out of the continent. (Financial Transparency Coalition)
• A unique alliance has come together to oppose a lobbying reform bill currently working its way through the UK parliament. Labor unions, professional lobbyists, and constitutional reform groups are all highly critical of the bill and have come together to oppose it in the house of Lords. (The Independent UK)
• The Egyptian government is turning to high profile K street names in an effort to convince the US to reopen the recently shut off aid flow to the embattled country. Egypt hired the Glover Park Group after more than a year without counsel on K street. (The Hill)

• Oakland, California is seeking a new Chief Information Officer, presumably to help them compete with San Francisco and keep up recent open gov and technological improvements. (GovFresh)

National News

• A phenomenon called link rot is gaining public attention recently following a report that many links contained in Supreme Court decisions are dead. Now, it turns out that the Federal government may have one of the worst cases of link rot. (FedScoop)
• Senator and former comedian Al Franken (D-MN) might not be laughing after his Republican challenger announced a big fundraising quarter. Mike McFadden, one of several potential challengers, raised $700,000 and has nearly $1.2 million on hand, which is impressive but doesn't match Franken's war chest. (Roll Call)
• President Obama talked about the McCutcheon v FEC decision during a press conference earlier this week, throwing a bone to his liberal base, but leaving much unsaid. (Public Integrity)

• Kenya launched an open data portal in the summer of 2011 and after a great deal of initial fanfare has settled into stagnancy. Update's have slowed to a trickle, traffic is stagnant, and it is losing clout. But all is not lost. (Opening Parliament)

• Every year New York's community boards put together wish lists of capital projects in specific neighborhoods, but they don't necessarily consult the community. A new mapping tool aims to give more people a bigger voice in these conversations. (Open Plans)
• The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission continued a program launched last year to detail and release data on energy usage in close to 450 municipal buildings, including over 130 controlled by the school district. (eWallstreeter)
• Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in prison for a variety of corrupt activities that took place during his tenure. One of the toughest public corruption sentences handed down in recent years comes for charges that Kilpatrick rigged contracts, accepted bribes, and more. (Yahoo/AP)

National News

• A Louisiana state Public Service Commissioner, and former member of the House, is tapping the utility industry that he regulates as he attempts to return to Washington. Former Rep. Clyde Holloway (R) counts a large number of utility related donors among his bankroll. (Roll Call)
• The Democratic and Republican National Committees are probably concentrating pretty hard to avoid drooling over news reports coming out of the Supreme Court as it hears arguments in McCutcheon v FEC. If the court strikes down aggregate limits on political giving to federal candidates and committees, which many expect it will, the DNC and RNC could stand to gain back some of the fundraising clout that they lost after the Citizens United decision opened the floodgates of dark money. (POLITICO)

• Democratic systems thrive when voters can see what their elected representatives are doing. This statement suggests that parliamentary broadcasting should be a priority, which in many countries may be true. (UN University)
• Singapore's National Environment Agency has an electrifying new app. Lightning@SG aims to provide users with a real time look at lightning strikes on the island nation. The data is pulled from the NEA's four lightning detection sensors.(Future Gov)

• Vermont is the latest state to test the open data slopes. After a recent Open Data Summit, the state is launching a pilot project aimed at compiling and opening data from its local governments. (CivSource)
• It is taking states and local governments almost a year to release audited financial statements. Regulators are looking to them to speed up the process as they try to help municipal bond investors get timely information. (Reuters)
• A group of campaign and government ethics regulators from across the country are coming together to launch a new website that provides information about campaign disclosure. The States Unified Network (SUN) Center will display legislation, news, enforcement cases, and more from states aas diverse as New York, California, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. (Lobby Comply)

National News

• Many members of Congress decided it was best to cancel their fundraising events during the first week of the government shutdown. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is apparently not one of those members. He reportedly attended a fundraiser in Massachusetts on Friday before making it back to DC. (POLITICO)
• Lawyers and Lobbyists are questioning decision's by several key regulatory agencies to take their websites completely offline during the government shutdown, closing access to regulations, filings, and other documents. The FCC, FTC, and others have gone completely offline. (The Hill)
• Tobacco companies have a new, lucrative, and growing way to keep people hooked on their wares and they are fighting hard to keep it free of government regulation. E-cigarettes are growing fast and may overtake real cigarettes in market share within the next decade. (Washington Post)
• Cory Booker has faced some roadblocks in, what many initially thought would be an easy, trip to the Senate. Some bad press and a lackluster campaign have allowed Booker's Republican rival to close a once insurmountable gap, but Booker has been able to rely on friends in shiny places, specifically Tinsletown, to keep his well funded campaign rolling. (Roll Call)

• Politician's have repeatedly hit on campaign themes around ending corruption, but often candidate's fail to follow through once they are elected to office. This post highlights a few prime examples as well as ways that citizen's can hold their politician's accountable. (Transparency International)
• The European Commission and Parliament are digging into potential changes to lobbying regulation in the European Union. A two year old transparency register has been criticized by activists for being voluntary and failing to capture information about lobbyists that operate in the dark. (EurActiv)

• The new Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti is taking some baby steps towards pulling the City of Angels into the 21st century. Notably, the city recently launched an open data pilot project. The project uses ESRI's ArcGIS platform, but includes a survey that allows people to request other types of data be made open. (E Pluribis Unum)

National News

• Some of the earliest causalities of the government shutdown have been the various Federal watchdogs. The GAO won't be publishing reports, the CBO will be drastically reducing their workload, and FOIA processing is being crippled by "nonessential" status.  (Washington Times)
• The Federal Election Commission may be down to only the four active commissioners, but they want campaigns and candidates to continue filing their campaign finance reports. While the servers are still up and running, there's no telling what might happen if the shutdown drags on, keeping the folks who make sure the computers are working away from their desks. (Washington Post)
• Lobbyists aren't letting the shutdown close their calendars. Despite logistical issues and the budget standoff sucking oxygen away from any other issue,  many lobbyists reporting attempting to keep up a normal workload around the hill.  (POLITICO)
• In non-shutdown news, a Nevada lawyer and lobbyist with close ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was sent to the slammer for two years after being found guilty of making more than $100,000 worth of straw donations to Reid's 2008 campaign. Reid has not been specifically implicated in the scheme. (POLITICO)

• A group in Madagascar is tracking presidential platforms ahead up elections later this month. Madatsara breaks election issues down into 9 topic areas and compares the various candidates stances on the issues. (Global Voices)
• Singapore is looking to open source solutions to push forward business analytics development for future projects. The government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with leading open source provider Red Hat recently. (Future Gov)
• Efforts underway in Wales will hopefully result in a better system to track transit access in Wales. The Welsh government commissioned Mapumental to figure out how to plot transit times to and from a variety of points. (My Society)

• A new app from a Code for America team in South Bend, Indiana takes aim at the city's vacant housing problem. CityVoice is a voice-based app allows citizens to report vacant houses by making a quick phone call. (Code for America)

National News

• A number of privacy advocates are urging the House bipartisan Privacy Working Group to hold their meetings with tech companies in the open. The working group held its first meeting last week and has 10 more scheduled. (The Hill)
• Former Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) clearly likes seeing his name in the newspapers, but isn't so happy when it pops up in fundraising emails sent by potential political opponents. Brown, who is reportedly looking to return to the Senate via New Hampshire, where he vacations, attacked a fundraising email sent by Current New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D), calling it "shameful" to use his potential candidacy to raise money. (POLITICO)
• There were plenty of stories yesterday detailing the varying effects of the government shut down, including which agencies and which websites would go dark. A spot check of 56 Federal websites indicates that only 10 will go entirely dark, although others will be partially inaccessible. (ars techinca)

• There are many dedicated hobbyists creating tools with open government data, but so far few of them have transferred their ideas into sustainable, successful business models. A recent workshop held in Uruguay by the World Bank Group's Open Finances Team aimed to provide advice for open data nerds looking to take their ideas into a new realm. (World Bank Open Data Blog)

• Looking for "a comprehensive history" of open data in Chicago? Check out this blog post. (Data-Smart City Solutions)
• Oakland keeps up its week of good open gov news with a new web app aimed at helping the city manage and track incoming public records requests. RecordTrac allows users to track the progress of their requests and publicly archives all fulfilled requests. (Code for America)
• Newly released emails appear to indicate that Michael Bloomberg has followed in the footsteps of numerous public officials and used a private email account for some not-so-private business. The outgoing New York Mayor and billionaire exchanged emails with a deputy mayor using an @bloomberg.net email address. (DNAInfo)