Since ThinkProgress issued a report two days ago about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s foreign funding, there has been a considerable reaction. The New York Times published an editorial yesterday, saying that the report “raises fresh questions about whether they [the Chamber] are violating both the letter and spirit of the campaign finance laws.” Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has called on the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether the Chamber is in fact using foreign funds to pay for political attacks in the United States. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) called on his Republican opponent to denounce a Chamber ad that attacks Feingold.

Last night on Rachel Maddow’s show, former FEC chairman Scott Thomas — who was appointed by Ronald Reagan and re-appointed to the commission by George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton — said “if it turns out that any money in fact is being knowingly put into the process from foreign companies or from foreign government sources, that would be a serious problem.” Watch it:

Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, went further. He told ThinkProgress that there was “absolutely no doubt” that there is a potential for the Chamber to violate election law, and called for much tougher enforcement of campaign finance regulations:

To me there is absolutely no doubt that this is a back-door way to get around what are long-standing and legitimate restrictions. This is happening not just because of Citizen’s United, it’s also happening because we have an utterly worthless and feckless Federal Election Commission and an IRS code that needs serious toughening and revamping. We also have a very serious need to have the IRS look at the regulations involving 527s and especially 501(c)(4)s — regulations that are being flouted and abused even as we speak.

Good government groups are weighing in as well. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan organization that works on democracy and governance issues, said that the ThinkProgress report “raises a series of very important questions that must be addressed”:

The CAP article shows that we need an immediate investigation to determine whether the Chamber of Commerce is using foreign money to fund its $75 million campaign to influence the 2010 federal elections, since that would be illegal. If the Chamber wants to make the case that they are keeping their foreign funds away from being spent on campaign activities, they ought to do so publicly and disclose how they are accomplishing this since money is fungible.

David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund, said:

The Chamber opposes transparency in political spending. They support outsourcing jobs overseas. They’re taking foreign money. And now they basically say, “trust us” when there’s mounting evidence they’re outsourcing the funding of their political attacks ads? Yeah, right. They should immediately pull any ads they’re running, and any candidate benefiting from their spending ought to join us in demanding the Chamber come clean.

Not all groups agree, of course. The conservative Center for Competitive Politics asserted in a memo that the Chamber should simply be trusted. “[I]n America, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work. Individuals and groups are not presumed to have violated the law based on a bogus blog post from a political opponent which cites tenuous evidence to show ‘likely’ violations of the law.” When pressed during a phone interview with ThinkProgress, Jeff Patch, the group’s communications director and author of the memo, reiterated that the Chamber should simply be trusted. “It doesn’t seem to be that there’s any evidence they’ve used the funds for political activity,” he said. “I think the answer is generally, yeah, we do trust organizations unless there’s a clear indication they violated the law.” It’s hard to consider evidence, however, when the Chamber refuses to release any evidence whatsoever of their accounting methods. Patch acknowledged this, but said “I don’t know what they would do besides releasing a forensic audit of their funds.” If the outcry continues and the FEC does begin a serious investigation, perhaps that’s exactly what will happen.

Right before it recessed last week, the Senate passed a bill — the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010 — that could have made it more difficult for foreclosure victims to challenge banks that may have improperly approved their foreclosure. The legislation would have forced states to accept documents that were notarized in other states, under potentially different sets of notary standards, without verifying any of the documentation. The Senate passed the bill without debate and despite widespread reports of foreclosures across the country being approved by bank “robo-signers” (employees who weren’t verifying the necessary documentation to legally okay a foreclosure). This morning, The Wonk Room called on President Obama to veto the legislation. This afternoon, the White House announced that Obama will not sign the bill:

Today, the White House announced that President Obama will not sign H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010, and will return the bill to the House of Representatives. The Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010 was designed to remove impediments to interstate commerce. While we share this goal, we believe it is necessary to have further deliberations about the intended and unintended impact of this bill on consumer protections, including those for mortgages, before this bill can be finalized.

Notarizations are important for a large range of documents, including financial documents. As the President has made clear, consumer financial protections are incredibly important, and he has made this one of his top priorities, including signing into law the strongest consumer protections in history in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That is why we need to think through the intended and unintended consequences of this bill on consumer protections, especially in light of the recent developments with mortgage processors.

This will be the second pocket veto of Obama’s presidency. The Wonk Room explains how the bill was pushed quickly through the Senate and its potential ramifications for homeowners.

The main philosophical principle of the conservative-led tea party movement is an “aversion to big government,” with tea party organizers turning their ire on comprehensive health reform, clean energy legislation, and even mandatory trash collection.

Now, a group of Missouri tea partiers have found a new target: regulations that would mandate more humane conditions in the state’s puppy mills. This November, Missouri voters will go to the polls and decide the fate of Missouri’s Proposition B, which would place new regulations on puppy mills, including mandating that they provide “sufficient food and clean water, necessary veterinary care, sufficient housing, including protection from the elements, sufficient space to turn and stretch freely, lie down, and fully extend his or her limbs, regular exercise, and adequate rest between breeding cycles.”

As TPM Muckraker’s Jillian Rayfield reports, the Missouri Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots have begun organizing meetings against the proposition. One tea party activist described the measure as being about the “government or the big company trying to tell people what to do“:

The Tea Party has also gotten on board the anti-Prop B bandwagon. A meeting called “Vote NO on Proposition B” on October 12 is advertised on websites for the Missouri Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots. The event, held at Coach’s Pizza World, is being organized by the Mexico Tea Party, which activist Ron Beedle told TPM is a relatively new chapter of the Tea Party. This is their first meeting, he said, and Prop B is about the “government or the big company trying to tell people what to do.”

Also campaigning against the proposition is the local chapter of conservative Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and Samuel Wurzelbacher (“Joe The Plumber“). Wurzelbacher has teamed up with the Alliance For Truth, an anti-Prop B organization strongly backed by the kennells and mills across the state, to blog against the measure. One blog post by him features an animal rescue officer kicking down the door of a home. Meanwhile, the Missouri Cattleman’s Association is warning that if the Humane Society — which is a big booster of the proposition — manages to pass the measure, they may be able to succeed in bettering conditions for farm animals as well.

It appears that for certain segments of the conservative movement, any regulation by the government is too much regulation by the government. Even when it comes to protecting the welfare of puppies.