We’ll have an election-eve special, with Laura Wells, Green Party candidate, the League of Conservation Voters’ Dirty Dozen list of candidates on environmental issues, and an in-depth analysis of some of the most vicious election attack ads flying around.

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This week on Uprising:

* Big Election Spenders Violating Campaign Finance Laws
* Understanding the Latino Vote
* Why Independents are Tilting Rightward
* Wikileaks Releases 400,000 Iraq War Documents – Media Ignores Story

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Big Election Spenders Violating Campaign Finance Laws

The record amounts of money being spent on next week’s mid-term elections was described this week by the group Public Citizen as a “prelude to something far worse in 2012″. The non-profit consumer advocacy organization released its analysis of who the big spenders are among …

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California, the most populous state in the US, is watched for its stance on controversial topics as an indication of which way national opinion will go. But races for congressional and state legislative seats rarely even garner the attention of locals. There are 53 Congressional districts in California, 80 State Assembly and 40 State Senate districts. Aside from the big races for Governor and US Senate, many smaller offices are up for grabs on November 2nd. In Orange County, Progressive Democrat Melissa Fox is running against Don Wagner, a Republican who is being called the “Invisible Man” for making virtually no effort to campaign after winning the primary. In Northern California’s Folsom area, the State Assembly seat in District 5 will be filled by one of two newcomers, Dr. Pan …

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A little over a month ago Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart announced a rally on the National Mall in Washington DC, called The Rally to Restore Sanity. In his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, the host of the Daily Show termed his October 30th “Million Moderate March,” as one where people would take to the street to make a “clarion call for rationality.” On the same day, Stewart’s colleague, Stephen Colbert, of the Colbert Report announced his Rally to Keep Fear Alive also on October 30th. Colbert and Stewart have joined forces for this Saturday’s gathering for which more than 200,000 people have already RSVPd on Facebook. The event, just three days before the mid-term elections, is ostensibly a response to Glenn Beck’s Rally to Restore Honor event held this past August in DC. …

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Within the past decade, independents have become the fastest-growing group of voters in the United States. Forty percent of Americans register as “independent” voters each year, and at least 3.4 million Californians alone have registered as “decline to state” voters instead of choosing a political party to belong to. In some states, such as Massachusetts, the number of independent voters outnumbers registered Republicans and Democrats combined. Not surprisingly, the independent vote has been decisive in several major elections, most notably the 2008 Presidential election. Two years ago most independents supported President Obama and leaned toward progressive politics after the 8-year long Bush era. But now, according to a poll released by Politico and George Washington University on October 25th, independents favor Republicans over Democrats by 14 points. The same poll …

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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

Monsters

It’s Halloween, the perfect time for a good old-fashioned monster movie. Or, in the case of Gareth Edwards’ film MONSTERS, a decidedly new-fashioned monster movie, partially because of its sci-fi slash monster slash road trip slash romance story, but mostly because of the way the movie was made, utilizing all that affordable digital technology has …

“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” — Robert Hutchins

We’ll speak with Robert Cruickshank of Calitics.org about some of the more interesting local election races happening under the mainstream radar. And, two comedians join us for a spirited discussion about Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and the affiliated event at MacArthur Park on Saturday. Plus, Jim Mangia of Independent Voice.org joins us to analyze where independent voters are veering politically and why. Plus this week’s Rethink Reviews by Jonathan Kim.

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Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has died unexpectedly of a heart attack. He was 60 years old. Kirchner, whose wife Cristina is currently president, served as his nation’s head-of-state from 2003 to 2007, in the wake of Argentina’s severe financial crash. He was planning on running again for president in the next election. Argentineans remember his role in helping their country emerge from its worst economic crisis in recent history. Kirchner is also credited with helping make serious changes to the country’s judicial system, which set into motion hundreds of trials of human rights violators from Argentina’s dictatorship era. Kirchner also served as Secretary General of UNASUR, the Union of South American Republics. Among his achievements in that role was mediating recent disputes between Venezuela and Colombia. But while Argentineans mourned …

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The record amounts of money being spent on next week’s mid-term elections was described this week by the group Public Citizen as a “prelude to something far worse in 2012″. The non-profit consumer advocacy organization yesterday released its analysis of who the big spenders are among organizations that are independent from a political party, and what motivates them. Public Citizen found that $176.1 million has been spent by outside groups to influence November elections. The majority of that money, over $114 million (or 65%), was contributed by only 10 groups, revealing that national opinion is being influenced by a small number of well-funded voices. The top 10 spenders favor Republicans, raising $79 million on behalf of the GOP versus $28.5 million for Democrats. One-hundred-and-five-million dollars (or 60%) has come …