Amazon is the 16th Corporation that Quits ALEC - Sunshiny News on a Rainy Thursday

 I've referred here before as the member corporations and corporation/ industry lobbyists as Corp-o-rats.  The image at left personifies that perfectly.
The image on the right - feel free to enlarge, print, and color - is holding a cup full of money,
which brilliantly represents the collection of corp-o-rat welfare that ALEC does so well for their corp-o-rat members. 

Thanks to our commenter Democommie for calling my attention - and now yours - to something I did not realize, a fact which has been under-reported.  THIS week is National Small Business Week!   The cartoon below reflects how the corp-o-rats, including WalMart as one of the core companies running ALEC, impact small businesses owned by individuals who are part of our communities on Main Street.  WalMart is of course involved in scandals about Bribery and cover ups in other countries; they're involved in ALEC corruption (by the World Bank definition) here in the U.S.

People for the American Way just issued this press release, with some really great news in fighting the good fight to push back corporate greed, special interest money and corruption in government.  Unfortunately, there is no indication other core business interests will abandon their ALEC activity, and there are indications that other activities which had been pursued by these interests with the cooperation and apparent corruption of conservative legislators under cover of other conservative organizations.  The World Bank describes corruption as the use of public office for private gain.  That appears to describe ALEC and a large number of conservative, almost exclusively Republican politicians.  Those politicians who get rewarded directly and indirectly through ALEC and related entities operated by the same people, are out to push this agenda they call freedom, but is another word for slavery to corporations, including deregulation that damages us all, and which pushes corporate costs of doing business on all of us without our consent, from too few food inspectors to protecting energy companies engaging in fracking, to trying to gut the EPA, hoping to sell harm to the public by re-labeling it as 'freedom'.  If there were truth in advertizing, it would be spelled 'freedumb'.:

From People for the American Way:

Amazon.com Drops ALEC, PFAW Encourages Others to Follow

Amazon.com is now the 16th major corporation to cut ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), according to reports. The announcement came after more than 500,000 petition signatures– collected by People For the American Way, ColorOfChange.org, CREDO Action, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, SumOfUs and Fuse Washington – were delivered at an event outside the company’s shareholder meeting in Seattle. The petition called on Amazon.com and other corporations to stop funding ALEC, of which Amazon.com had been a member since 2011.
Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way, issued the following statement:
“Amazon.com has heard the voices of the half million people who signed this petition, and today they did right by their customers. But the ALEC agenda continues to harm many more people across the country. Responsible businesses have no reason to fund ALEC’s agenda, which hurts the working families they depend on. The corporations that have yet to leave ALEC should realize that standing up for their consumers is the best business decision they can make.”