Fundamentally, my objection is to having non-citizens, special interests, corporations paying off legislators in direct and indirect ways writing the legislation of this state, often nowhere near our legislatures.
The people we elect should be working for us - NOT THEM.
ALEC is not honest, nor have the right wing blogosphere been honest, about ALEC - not about who it is, what is does, or how much money is involved. Corruption is when our government - public office - is hijacked by getting legislators to pass legislation that benefits THEM, at our expense.
And that is what is happening over and over and over. Not original bills, not bills by Minnesotans for Minnesotans. Bill after bill has been introduced and continues to be introduced that is written somewhere else, by someone else, to benefit someone other than the state of Minnesota. That is inherently corrupt. When it is done so secretively, so utterly without full and honest disclosure, it is the worst kind of deceit on the part of our legislators.
So, it is with great delight I post the following, and with keen interest that I will be watching to see who the ALEC apologists are that try to spin a factually dishonest story to their readers on the right. Some of those bloggers are clever enough to have gotten some form of payoff for their dishonesty. Others are just so eager to be one of the insiders in the right wing politics, hoping maybe someday to advance to party hack, or stooge in a comfy and lucrative patronage position, they'll parrot anything they're told without verifying if it is true or not.
Arrrrggggggggggghhh. Yes! We have the latest addition to the pirate theme cast of characters. We have the Corp-o-RATs, we have the pirate crew of politicians, we have the hostage victim thrown overboard aka John Q. Public.........and now we have the pirate parrots in the blogosphere - let's just watch and wait, to see who they are!
Here is the latest news release tracking the ALEC scramble through their rigging - their rigging of our legislatures, but the play on nautical terms is apt! You can recognize the right wing blog parrots - the term echo-chamber was getting tired and worn - by the failure to present accurate information, replacing it with ideology and spin. Arrrrrgggh, Matey!
It would be more amusing if they weren't helping to rip us off, and promote corrupt government. The more birdbrained among them work for peanuts...or crackers?....or for nothing but a little hope of advancement and a pat on the head.
From PR Watch News:
ALEC Sends Out an SOS to Breitbart Bloggers
Shortly after issuing a press release announcing that it was disbanding its "Public Safety and Elections Task Force" after 30 years, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) held a training for the right-wing blogosphere.
The "Bloggers Briefing," which was started by Heritage's Rob Bluey and "a dozen conservative online entrepreneurs" six years ago, was broadcast online on "Breitbart TV," a project of the late Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart's team of bloggers and apparatchiks most recently gained notoriety for getting U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod fired. Breitbart released a clip of a speech given by Sherrod deliberately edited to create the false impression that she was prejudiced against white farmers. Her actual speech was a personal tale rejecting prejudice. Sherrod was later offered resinstatement by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, with apologies.
"We Haven't Been the Subject of Many Headlines"
The blogger briefing was in response to an effective campaign by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and allies to convince ALEC corporate funders to drop the organization due to its extreme agenda, an agenda made apparent when CMD published over 800 ALEC cookie cutter "model" bills in the summer of 2011.Panic in the ALEC camp was evidenced in recent days by a series of increasingly defensive press releases, which included whoppers like ALEC supports "transparent, accountable government." (The ALEC origin of bills moving in state legislatures is rarely disclosed.)
Korb briefed the friendly audience by handing out a new ALEC "Frequently Asked Questions" giving bloggers the ALEC party line. She noted that they might not have heard of ALEC because "we haven't been the subject of many headlines in the last 35 years."
It is not surprising that ALEC has not gotten much ink. ALEC operates behind closed doors and keeps many members of the press and the public from attending its meetings.
ALEC's new FAQ is riddled with errors, including:
- "The potential solutions discussed at ALEC focus on free markets, limited government and constitutional division of powers between the federal and state governments." It is hard to discern what voter suppression bills, tax breaks for big tobacco, bans on unionization, protections for companies whose products injure or kill, and "Stand Your Ground/Kill at Will" laws have to do with free markets.
- "The organization respects diversity of thought; it is a non-partisan resource for its members, which include more than 2,000 Republican and Democratic state legislators." Diversity of thought apparently refers to Republicans talking to Republicans. Although touted as "nonpartisan," when CMD launched ALEC Exposed, out of 104 legislators in leadership positions in ALEC, only one was a Democrat. It's hard to believe that ALEC phone briefs on redistricting are totally nonpartisan.
- "Unlike in many private sector groups that offer model legislation, elected state legislators fully control ALEC's model legislation process." As ALEC's public "Task Force Operating Procedures" (PDF, p. 8) and other documents reveal, corporate members vote alongside legislators in ALEC task forces.
- "Each state legislator and their constituents then decide which solutions are best for them and their states." For the most part, constituents have no way of knowing that corporations wrote or approved ALEC legislation behind closed doors.
ALEC's PR Counter-Offensive
Korb outlined ALEC's PR counter-offensive. She told bloggers that ALEC will launch a website called "I Stand with ALEC" in the next few days. The phrase is familiar to Wisconsinites, as it tracks the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) campaign on behalf of the embattled governor, whose slogan is "Stand with Walker." AFP is also an ALEC member.Korb referenced the coalition-building and outreach being spearheaded by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR, another ALEC member) and asked the bloggers for "any and all institutional support."
Korb pleaded for help on social media: "We're getting absolutely killed in social media venues -- Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest (I didn't even know Pinterest was a forum for a lot of political opposition, but now it is) -- so any and all new media support you guys can provide would be so helpful, not just to us but to average people who don't know much about this fight but are seeing us get really heavily attacked with very little opposition."
The use of such Twitter hashtags as #ALECexposed and, more recently, #dumpALEC, has multiplied exponentially in the last few weeks.
ALEC has a Facebook page where it posts its news releases and what little favorable press it receives. There is also a new Pinterest board called "Anti-ALEC Comments" that documents many of the negative comments ALEC staffers delete from its Facebook page. The Facebook pages of corporate members are being swarmed with comments about ALEC.
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