The political action committee formed by the company, which is now largely owned by taxpayers, cut McConnell a $5,000 campaign check in September, a small piece of the $190,000 it donated to campaigns in the past month.

Although GM suspended its contributions while it solicited the government for financial help, it is now back in the game of political giving, increasing donations from its federal PAC steadily over the past few months.

It is not alone: Companies that received federal bailout money, including some that still owe money to the government, are giving to political candidates with vigor. Among companies with PACs, the 23 that received $1 billion or more in federal money through the Troubled Assets Relief Program gave a total of $1.4 million to candidates in September, up from $466,000 the month before.

The two top recipients of money from companies receiving TARP funds are the top two House Republicans, Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) with $200,000 and Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) with $187,000. They are followed by the ranking members of two key House committees, Spencer Bachus (Ala.) on Financial Services and Dave Camp (Mich.) on the tax-writing committee.

All four of these Republicans split from the majority of their party and voted in favor of the 2008 bailout. They also all voted against the financial reform bill that imposes new regulations on financial companies and attempts to prevent future bailouts. As far as the TARP recipients are concerned, these are their key allies for the next session — powerful Reps. who are most likely to lead their party against new regulations and in favor of more bailouts when the time comes.

The most-viewed bill in the past few weeks is Rep. Chaka Fattah’s [D, PA-2] Debt Free America Act, which would replace the income tax with a new tax on all financial transactions, including paying with cash. The second most-viewed bill is Rep. Bobby Rush’s [D, IL-1] Blair Holt Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act, which would set up a nationwide gun licensing system and prohibit the ownership of unlicensed guns. As we’ve discussed several times on this blog, the attention paid to these bills is mainly the result of a gross misunderstanding of what bills in Congress are.

This bill-view data is just one illustration of how misinformation, propaganda and irrational fear drives politics. Of course, there’s nothing new about this. It stems from long-standing issues in our society — the inadequacy of our civics education programs, the corruption in government that leads to general mistrust, the failures of the mainstream media, and the lack of openness in government data that has stunted the development of online civic engagement.