ALEC Members - Why Would You Want a Member List?

ALEC Members - Why Would You Want a Member List?

by 2old2care

Many of us were very excited this week when the Center for Media and Democracy released their expose on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  Their site ALEC Exposed, not only contains a drop of approximately 800 pieces of ALEC legislation, but also includes a growing list of politicians that are members of ALEC.

For years many of us have been working to expose ALEC and their nefarious actions – now that is done! Yippee!  So the question begs to be asked – what's next?

What is next – we HAVE TO REMOVE all ALEC members from state and federal government.  It is our role to make sure that they don’t get re-elected.  Now is the time for “boots to the ground” to use the information we have compiled on ALEC members and legislations to prove to others that ALEC members MUST be removed from public service at any and all levels.

ALEC members are not serving the public – they are serving the corporations.  It does not matter how ALEC or their members spin this story over the next couple months it is important for you – to remember and to talk about the following fact -

When was the last time YOU got to sit with your legislator for two or three days and tell your legislator what YOUR needs are and help your legislator write legislation that benefited YOU.

Your ALEC legislator does this multiple times a year with corporations – so when push comes to shove – it is evident who your legislator is representing – the ALEC corporations.

In line with this thinking I want to share with you a post from Daily Kos, done in May of this year.  In retrospect this post was premature – but now it has amazing insight for future actions that need to be taken.

For your enjoyment  - - - - - from MnDem999 at Daily KOS

I’ve done a lot of research over the past 4 months trying to find out who are ALEC members.  I have visited blogs and diaries, searched ALEC documents, searched the web, search documents that have nothing to do with ALEC - but have names I recognize in them.  I spend hours and hours looking for ALEC member information.

And last night when I was updating my list of past and present ALEC members – I had to ask the question.

So what – what if people had a list – what does that accomplish? 

What would happen if people had a list - what will it accomplish? 

Does it really hurt ALEC if a list were available or would ALEC just go on – business as usual?

How would this information be used in a constructive way?

Having a list of names means nothing – it’s just a list of names.  It has no meaning.

The lists will always be incomplete – ‘cause the only place that has the full list is ALEC and new members join every session – every ALEC meeting.

It’s also important to acknowledge that other non-ALEC legislators KNOW who the members of ALEC are and yet they have chosen not to use that information in their campaigns.  So we have to ask the question, “Why not?”

One of the things I have found during my research is that in general ALEC members are embarrassed to acknowledge their membership in ALEC.

The ALEC member bios will show that they are a member of the NRA, the VFW, AARP, their place of worship, the PTO, the Legion, the “Y” – organizations that have little or nothing to do with their legislative work – nothing! But very seldom do they acknowledge that they belong to ALEC.

So my question to ALEC members is:

Hey, ALEC members – why don’t you mention ALEC?

    You don’t mention the organization that puts pre-written

       legislation in your grubby little hand just by visiting the

       ALEC “Members Only” webpage?

    You don’t mention the organization that reaffirms your

       commitment to free-market philosophy at the expense

       of representative government?

    You don’t mention your membership in an organization

       whose corporate sponsors wine and dine you at all

       the ALEC meetings and help you write

       legislation – legislation / government by the

       corporations and for the corporations?

Are you embarrassed to acknowledge

your relationship with ALEC?

I would be –

but then, I wouldn’t be a member of an organization

that in my opinion subverts democracy in the United States.

Well what would you do if you had a list?

Having a list of names means nothing – it’s just a list of names.  It has no meaning.

Would you confront them and ask them “Are you a Member of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council?

  If they said yes – what would you do with that information?

  How would you educate people about what that means and why it’s

  an important question to ask?

  If they said, no.  How would you respond??

Would you write editorials about their membership in ALEC?

  If yes, how would you phrase it so people would understand what that means and

  why it’s important that they know that information?

Would you write about the ALEC member in a diary or a blog?  What would you write?  It has to be more than their name and that they are an ALEC member – some people already know that and don’t care.

If a journalist contacted you – what would you tell them?  What does it mean, can you provide proof, do you have local examples you can give them?

Would you tell others about the ALEC member? 

If yes, what would you tell them? 

How would you explain to them what being

an ALEC member means and if their response was 

‘That sounds okay, doesn’t

really seem like a big thing.”

Could you explain to them why being an ALEC

member is really important?

Would you have materials ready to give them,

to further educate them or

web pages that you could refer them to?

What would you do if you found out one of your favorite legislators was an ALEC member?  Would that make a difference?  Would it be okay for that legislator to be a member – because you like them?

It’s important to remember that other non-ALEC legislators KNOW who the members of ALEC are and yet they have chosen not to use that information in their campaigns.  How can we make a difference?

So we have to ask the question – as we move forward –

How can I make a difference? 

How can I share this information in a way that is meaningful and will

    truly make a difference in the next election?

The only way that we can be assured that ALEC will fold

is if they no longer have legislators as members –

which means that current ALEC members and

ALEC Alumni members in the US Congress

can not be re-elected.

THAT is the only reason to want to know a list of names.

But, elections take time -  this will be a long process - it won’t happen overnight – it will take time and energy. Are you in it for the long haul?

So what?  What if people had a list – what does that accomplish? 

What would happen if people had a list - what will it accomplish? 

Does it really hurt ALEC if a list were available?

How can that information be used in a constructive way?

What will I do with an ALEC member list?

Reposted from Daily Kos, MNDem999, 5/14/2011

ALEC Exposed going Viral and MSM:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/21/996959/-ALEC-Exposed-going-Viral-and-MSM?via=siderec

Here is a video interview of Lisa Graves by Thom Hartmann on his program from July 20th.

Thom closes by saying, "I've got to figure out how to get a membership to this thing!"

At midnight last night, Bloomberg News published an article titled: "Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws."  In the article journalist, Alison Fitzgerald provides and in-depth look at the financing of ALEC by the likes of Koch, ExxonMobil, Reynolds American, Inc and an arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (does that come as a surprise to anyone?).

ALEC's Annual meeting is being held in New Orleans this year, and we have a huge protest planned to greet ALEC corporate and legislative members as the enter and leave the Marriott hotel adjacent to the French Quarter.  For an idea on how this kind of event is set-up and paid for by this "non-profit" organization, let's take a look at what Bloomberg uncovered about last years Annual Meeting ALEC held in San Diego:

"At ALEC’s annual meeting in San Diego last year, three companies -- pharmaceutical manufacturer Allergan Inc., telephone giant AT&T Inc. (T) and cigarette maker Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) -- each paid $100,000 to be “President Level” sponsors. Another 11 groups, including Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and the Institute for Legal Reform, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce arm that advocates for jury award limits, wrote checks for $50,000, according to documents distributed at the meeting that were given to Bloomberg."

Hmmm...$850,000.00 in corporate donations - just from the big boys.  We have no idea how much was contributed by Koch Industries, Altria, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, PharMa, GlaxoSmithKline, and 250 other members contributed...They must have had one hell of a shindig out there in Sunny California while they held workshops developing the crop of Model Legislation that was intended to be disseminated throughout the nation, last year.  Of course they also had training seminars to teach as many as 2,000 attending legislators about these proposed legislative measures, instructing them how to carry them back to their individual states and introduce them as proposed legislation to "benefit" their constituents.  Of course we now know how well that worked out for them this year with implementation of legislation addressing: Right To Work, Voter ID, school vouchers, repeal of healthcare, deregulation of the EPA, ending collective bargaining, withdrawing from the Western Climate Initiative, privatization of state prisons, schools and utilities.

All of this "Model Legislation" was helped along in many states by Republican Governors, many former ALEC members themselves - like John Kasich in Ohio, Scott Walker in Wisconsin,  LePage in Maine and Haley Barbour in Mississippi.  From the paragraph above about last year's ALEC shindig in San Diego we begin to get a feel for the money involved in all of this "educating" provided by ALEC as a 501 (c)(3) exempt corporation.

In New Orleans next month, Fitzgerald provides some information on who is funding that meeting - as well as a few tidbits about previous contributions to these meetings from my favorite "Charitable" donors, Ol' Chucky and Davy Boy Koch and others:

"Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, through its foundation, donated $30,000 in 2005 and again in 2006, according to the foundation’s tax forms. Alan Jeffers, an Exxon Mobil spokesman, said the company paid $39,000 in dues last year and sponsored a reception at the annual meeting in San Diego for $25,000. In August, Exxon will spend $45,000 to sponsor a workshop on natural gas, he said.

“We try to provide our views on legislation to anyone who will listen, including legislators and non-governmental organizations,” Jeffers said. He said Exxon supports a range of public policy groups including the Washington-based Center for Clean Air Policy.

Wichita, Kansas-based Koch was one of 14 “Vice Chairman” level sponsors at the 2010 annual meeting, which requires a $25,000 donation to the group, according to the documents. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, founded by the energy conglomerate’s chief executive officer, gave $75,858 to ALEC in 2009, the latest year for which the foundation’s tax information is available."

What is the incentive for these large corporations to make such substantial "donations" to ALEC?  Reagan Weber, ALEC's PR spokesperson, says it's because they support ALEC's smaller government, free market philosophy, federalism and "good conservative policy."  Wow, that's a lot of money to share in a collective philosophy, huh?  This article provides some insight as to the real reason the likes of Koch, ExxonMobil, Reynolds American, Inc. and others are involved with ALEC in this cozy conservative shadow government.

The Republican speaker of the Virginia House, William Howell, received $2,862 in reimbursements after attending the San Diego ALEC meeting and a policy meeting in Washington last year, according to his state ethics disclosures.  Under his leadership in Richmond this year, the state Assembly passed two ALEC bills opposing labor unions, one that requires union votes to be by secret ballot and another that would put the state’s “right to work” law in its constitution. Both measures died in the state Senate.

Howell also supported an ALEC-originated “Repeal Amendment,” which would enable states to repeal any federal law or regulation if two-thirds of the state legislatures vote to do so....just a little tit-for-tat, there.  An even larger return came to the likes of Koch, ExxonMobil and BP in the form of the ALEC legislation sent out with their legislative members to all states regarding the withdrawal - state by state - from the Western Climate Initiative.  So far 13 states have introduced this legislation with nearly identical wording and phrases.  Fitzgerald informs:

"An Oregon effort to remove the state from the Western Climate Initiative, a regional carbon cap and trade program, offers a case study in how the ALEC alliances work together.

"The eight-paragraph resolution, which was introduced in March, said “there has been no credible economic analysis of the costs associated with carbon reduction mandates” and “a tremendous amount of economic growth would be sacrificed for a reduction in carbon emissions that would have no appreciable impact on global concentrations of carbon dioxide.”

The model resolution was adopted by ALEC’s Natural Resources task force in April 2010, according to minutes from the meeting obtained by Bloomberg.  Of the 13 states mentioned as having introduced this same model legislation, all have adopted the resolution.

The group drafting and endorsing it included 13 legislators from states including Texas, Kansas and Indiana and 21 private sector members representing companies such as Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries and BP Plc (BP/), and trade groups including American Electric Power, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy."

We now get some insight what was happening inside the Hotel at the ALEC Spring Summit in Cincy while hundreds of us were protesting and marching outside the hotel.  We were sweating in the sun while they sat inside in air-conditioned comfort, deciding our future fate as they wrote and adopted legislation that would allow more carbon emissions designed to make us sweat even more in New Orleans and beyond.  This Model Legislation is but one of five they passed regarding climate control and 95 others that fall under the Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force..

Legislation with the exact language as the original resolution introduced in Oregon has now been introduced in dozens of other states, including Montana, New Hampshire, Washington, and New Mexico. Oregon's resolution is still pending.

How about the new Healthcare act?  Florida filed suit against the US Department of Health and Human Services as soon as the Bill was signed into law by President Obama.  Every Republican state signed onto that suit through their Attorney Generals.  While this suit is being litigated (now under appeal) ALEC hasn't been sitting on their hands. ALEC drafted legislation banning states from enforcing the new federal health insurance coverage mandate last year and 10 states so far have enacted it.

The Bloomberg analysis and article informs:

"In Missouri, the bill was introduced by its state ALEC Chairwoman Jane Cunningham. The measure asked for a referendum to add language to the state’s constitution that read, in part, “A law or rule shall not compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system.”

In Louisiana, the “Health Care Freedom Act” language said: “relative to preserving the freedom of all citizens of Louisiana to provide for their own health care; to provide that no law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer or health care provider to participate in any health care system or health insurance plan.”

As we at Exposing ALEC have steadfastly complained and written for months, this legislation provided by ALEC is nothing more than cut-and-paste legislation designed to spread the wishes and desires of their corporate members throughout the United States.  These legislative efforts in states across the nation containing exact wording demonstrates that cut-an-paste is precisely what is going on - one agenda by 300 corporations disseminated by 1/3 of all state lawmakers to individual states.

No matter what the constituents of Maine, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Louisiana, Washington, Montana and the 42 other states want - or need and no matter whether a particular state is being affected by smog, pollution, or object to use of energy from coal - the discussion is taken out of the hands of the public, as ALEC members in each particular state argue for such legislation.  Those opposed within the General Assemblies, are then swayed by the money flowing in from the corporations, filling campaign coffers in exchange for support and votes.  Though the public thinks they have a voice in this process through letters, phone calls and town halls, they're wrong.  If ALEC's members and the corporate money prevail in garnering support from a majority of the state legislative members, it passes and becomes law upon signing by Republican Governors now holding office in 21 states.

The deck is further stacked against the public in that as Bloomberg reports, nothing leaves ALEC and goes on to be proposed as legislation in any state, unless the Corporations grant their approval:

"If the final language doesn’t turn out the way they like, industry representatives have the power to block it from being posted in ALEC’s online library where it can be downloaded by state lawmakers."

This assessment by Bloomberg is confirmed by The Nation's John Nichols in a report released today:

""But once they're in(corporations), they sit at the same table," he says. "On the board of ALEC, you have an equal number of legislators and corporate members. ... They then set up task forces to deal with topics like health care, education, election law and you have an equal number of legislators and corporate and/or interest groups [and] think tanks in each grouping. They have to agree on any model bill or model resolution.

"What that means, says Nichols, is that corporations can veto proposals and ideas that aren't to their liking — and can also propose measures that are then written into model bills. Those model bills, he says, are often introduced in multiple places — creating consistent messages across the country.

"In Tennessee, a [news]paper found a bill where the second half of it was verbatim from the ALEC model bill," says Nichols. "Now that's not always the case. The legislation will have variations on a theme — it won't always be verbatim. But the core concepts are there."

In simple, easy to understand terms, if a legislator - or group of them - suggest legislation to ALEC's task forces that would be beneficial to the public and/or a particular state and the corporations don't like it, or oppose it, the idea or proposal is tabled and the legislators are not allowed to present that legislation back in their states unless it is raised again and passes corporate (Private Enterprise Board) approval.

I'm going to close this for now as there is something I've found that may assist Common Cause in their pursuit of revoking ALEC's 501(c)(3) and need to follow up on what I've found...this could be a BIG development and blow all of ALEC's claims of not lobbying right out of the water! Stay tuned...

...Please help us turn out the numbers in New Orleans at our Protest.  Visit Protestalec.org forhousingor other assistance if you want to attend.  They also have put up a "RideShare" link for those who would like to carpool to the event and back.

If you can't attend you can help those who are by clicking on donate at the Protest site and contribute.

DK's Exposing ALEC & Protest ALEC efforts pay off big time this week!

DK's Exposing ALEC & Protest ALEC efforts pay off big time this week!+*

byBob SloanFollow

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As most Progressives are now aware there has been a huge development this week concerning the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  On Monday In These Times (ITT) published an in-depth and well written article by Beau Hodai on ALEC - "Publicopoly Exposed".  There were links provided by Hodai to some of the Model Legislation ALEC had developed over the years.

While readers were still devouring this expose, The Nation announced a full court media blitz upon ALEC on Wednesday with a series of articles by their top political journalists such as John Nichols, their Washington Correspondent.  A simultaneous announcement from the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that they had launched an "ALEC Exposed" site consisting of research, facts, articles and links to The Nation's ALEC articles, various other sites and materials all about ALEC.  The announcement provided that the site was dedicated for the use by professional journalists, progressive writers, bloggers and every citizen interested in democracy.  CMD sponsored a webinar for journalists and those who were already involved in the articles and document dump as their ALEC Exposed site when active. On Thursday's show, Ed Schultz had Lisa Graves from CMD and John Nichols of The Nation on and talked at length about ALEC and their Model legislation (no video file available yet). Yesterday DBA Press released: “Legislative Laundry:” Investigative report on the mechanics of the ALEC scholarship fund" and hundreds of articles were similarly spun off into the WebSphere from all of the above.

At the core of the "ALEC Exposed" site is a section filled entirely with more than 800 of ALEC's Model Legislation, mostly with innocuous sounding titles, described as "Acts" and "Resolutions" and bearing "copyright by ALEC" somewhere within each document.  What most are unaware of is that members of "Exposing ALEC" - formed right here on Daily Kos - were responsible for acquisition of the complete ALEC Model Legislation library.

For reasons of security and concerns about push-back from ALEC and their members, the name of the two groups involved - Exposing ALEC and Protest Alec.org - were not released or mentioned prominently in the articles.  The Nation and CMD referred to their acquisition of the documents as having come from a whistleblower through "an Activist Group."  In this situation - as in most instances involving the release of high profile and damaging materials showing corruption - the name(s) of whistleblowers need to be kept secret when the information they provided becomes public.  Because of this necessary protective need, the names of everyone involved in acquisition of the ALEC materials has been kept low profile in the news.

What I can say, without identifying any one person, is that great courage was shown by the whistleblower that contacted one of our protesters (A Kossack) in Cincy with a willingness to turn over everything to those of us marching and trying to bring ALEC into the light of day.  The whistleblower saw the speeches, a march and "Teach-Ins" where anyone could stop by and learn about ALEC and their impact upon our democracy and specifically manipulation of the laws implemented there in Ohio and elsewhere.  I'm told by a source that once others were seen to be speaking out and trying to stop this madness of boilerplate legislation to advance ideology, the decision was made to step up and help us save democracy...and the wealth of documents were the outcome.

Rumors abounded since the Cincy rally about these important documents from ALEC and whether they existed or not.  We now know they did but were kept under wraps while stories were written, the documents studied one by one by media and political experts, looking and comparing these legislative documents from ALEC against current and past state proposed legislation and actual laws that have been passed in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Indiana.

The comparisons revealed that much of the anti-union and voter disenfranchisement legislation ongoing now in many states tracks back to ALEC and their corporate members.  In addition research found many corporate funded or linked outfits like Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, Heartland Institute and their founders or funders of those entities like Charles and David Koch are also members of ALEC and their representatives hold seats upon ALEC's Private Enterprise Board.

As most know, I have been working on issues involving prison industries, exploitation of prison labor, privatization and immigration legislation for more than 8 years now and counting.  Once I discovered the money trail on exploitation of prisoner's labor led to and then through ALEC, I began to crunch my research, expanding it from the limited scope of prison related issues and looking at the wide assortment of other issues ALEC was also involved in.  When I had a firm grasp of what was going on and how insidious this "organization" is, I began trying to expose them to the public through my website, a blog on Blogger and couldn't generate the interest I wanted on these important issues.  I contacted Maddow, Olbermann AG Holder, President Obama and wrote and sent in an article to The Nation.  None of these efforts paid off, no one it seemed knew about ALEC, their involvement in increasing prison populations, or issuing their Model legislation state by state to allow corporate members and affiliated companies access to those prisoners as a slave labor workforce.

So I brought the issues here to DK back in November of last year in the first segment of myCorporatocracyseries.  I immediately began to receive questions from other Kossacks about these corporations and ALEC.  Since that day I posted no less than 83 subsequent diaries on these issues and most of them referred to ALEC and their activities involving prison issues.  I was not the first to raise the flag of warning about ALEC, there have been others.  The first ALEC "tag" was in 2006, though they weren't mentioned in the diary. In the 4 years between that original use of the ALEC tag here at DK and my first use of it in Corporatocracy, there were a total of 9 other uses of the tag.  Today I checked and the count for ALEC tags on DK now stands at 483!  This is not my trying to be egotistical, rather pointing out - as you'll see below - the power of Daily Kos when Progressives pay attention to important issues and begin to spread the word across the vast internet.  I had been writing and blowing whistles, horns, throwing rocks at my Representative and others every chance I got from 2003 through my first posting to DK in 2010 mentioned above.  Seven years passed as ALEC continued to eat away at our democracy from the inside, unnoticed and without challenge or question as state by state enacted their corporate friendly legislation.

Once the word - and call for attention to and help on exposing ALEC - came to DK last year Kossacks reacted!  You came together and analyzed the issues and problems.  We looked for ways to spread the word about their existence, their agenda, their ideology, their members, their Model bills and in general every aspect of ALEC was put under a microscope by one Kossack or another.  All the time this analysis was going on more and more came together and began lending their insight and assistance, helping dissect ALEC and how to stop them, while we looked we kept writing and waving to others to come and take a look at what we'd found...urging them to take part and write about them also and help spread the word.  MNDem999 put hours into compiling a list of corporations, legislative members - past and present - alumni and other information about ALEC and posted it here for others to use as a reference.

In my diaries in March I began asking others in the comment section if they thought a protest against ALEC at their Spring Summit in Cincy was a good idea.  Many Kossacks responded with  responses of "Hell yes!" and "I'll be there!" and before I knew it others joined their voices to ours and by the end of March students and others in Ohio put their time and effort into organizing and the thought grew into reality as more and more joined us and agreed to come toCincyfrom other states and take part in "Exposing ALEC".  One of the Organizers (and possibly more) ManfromMiddletown put together a group here on DK with that title and on April 29th all of us involved here at DK and union members, students from Ohio, Indiana, Louisiana and possibly more showed up.  A Huff Post documentary producer sent a cameraman down to interview activists, film the march, teach-ins and Rally on the Square.  Many from all walks of life, social and work classes attended and helped us make the rally a success.

April 29th, 2011 is going to have to be a date that will be remembered as an historic event - not only for it being the first public acknowledgment of ALEC's existence and open protest against them - but because though it was the first protest...it also produced the environment that allowed the whistleblower to come forward, hand extended - with all of ALEC's secret materials handed over!  So it was not simply the first protest - historic enough - it was the beginning of the end for ALEC.

This week another truly historic event in the history of American politics, that will be remembered as a part of American history occurred with the release of the full "menu" of right wing ideology and agenda to the public.  This historic release providing us a look into the dark recesses of a corrupt right wing organization with an agenda of despoiling legislation as we know it, will probably be written and heretofore referred to as "ALEC-gate" in future conversations and publications.  

This past week and the eruption of material being released, the viral spread of that information across the country by progressives and others of different political affiliations, has kept myself and most of the Exposing ALEC Group busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest (and you know who that ass belongs to) so this is the first opportunity I've had to report about the events since Cincy and upon the ALEC Exposed site set up by CMD and The Nation.  There is so much more news, but much of it still is being kept under wraps for the time being.  This is not going to be a one-time flash upon the political landscape that draws attention which wanes as the brightness dissipates...this is going to stay in the headlines possibly through the 2012 election.  It has to when we realize that two of the Republican candidates in that election for President of the United States are affiliated with ALEC.  Newt Gingrich is an ALEC Alumni and Herman Caine a bobble-headed lackey who has spoken on behalf of ALEC and at some of their event activities - and proudly uploaded by ALEC to YouTube (if you have the stomach to watch them, they're available there).  So not only is ALEC deeply involved in thoroughly corrupting the General Assemblies of each and every state in the country, they have two of their most powerful Alumni sitting at the head of the U.S. House of Representatives.  Republican Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (you know, the one who stands to make tens of millions of dollars if the American economy collapses by his investment in betting that will happen) and House Speaker, John Boehner who continues to refuse to budge on repealing any tax loopholes for the rich.

I have to put that into proper context so everyone understands how important it is to abolish this cabal now that it has been exposed: 2,000 plus Legislators - fully one third of all U.S. state lawmakers - are members of ALEC.  The top Republicans in our U.S. Congress are Alumni of ALEC and two of the Presidential Republican Candidates are either ALEC Alum or are closely affiliated with ALEC.  To me this demonstrates that ALEC and the corporate elite see themselves on the cusp of realizing total control of the White House, U.S. Congress and control of a majority of state General Assemblies and state Governorship.  This is simply too damn important to downplay or ignore and pass of as not possible, as Gingrich and Caine don't have a chance of winning.  My answer to those with that attitude is that in every national election cycle the front runners going into the primaries are usually not those who come out as a clear winner.  If Gingrich or Caine manage to prevail at that level...ALEC will be only one step away from realizing their dream.  Just think about that for a moment as you read through the vast documents at ALEC Exposed.

We at Exposing ALEC and other Kossacks have done our part and will continue to work overtime to put an end to ALEC and their aspirations to control us and our country.  Now we need youto step-up and lend us your voice and and assistance.  Spread the word and keep doing so, until the MSM is forced to pick this up and report on it, join us in New Orleans or donate to the Protest Alec event we're holding on August 5th in New Orleans.  Many of us are traveling down there and will need housing, travel and other assistance with organizing, permits, posters, protest signs, handouts and much more.  We are going up against the most powerful and influential in this country and we're doing it on a shoestring against those with Koch money and influence behind them.  Help us make our voices and message as loud as theirs.  There is a "Donate" button right there on the right at the Protest webpage...please click on it and help us stop this vile feces in their tracks - once and for all.

Stay tuned for further updates and again accept my apologies for keeping a couple of hundred followers hanging without a diary for so long.  As this diary indicates, we have all been very, very busy on making this happen and working toward the August Protest.  There is more news available, but simply no time or security issues prevent it from being put out here.  Just stay with us as this moves along and I promise, the prison issues on imprisonment, prison labor and privatization that led me to ALEC and the exposure of ALEC this week is in the works and you'll be able to read about it soon in a national forum.

4:27 PM PT: Here is a link to the Ed Schultz segment on ALEC, provided by shantysue. Kudos:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO BOB SLOAN ON SAT JUL 16, 2011 AT 02:34 PM PDT.

~ Make Them Pay! TAX DAY ACTION COALITION ~

Tax Day: Make Them Pay

The right wing is on the attack: slashing public services, eliminating workers' rights, and destroying jobs. Their excuse? "America is broke"—and yet big corporations and the wealthy are raking it in, and continue to get tax break after tax break. Something doesn't add up.

America is not broke. The right-wing wants to convince us we're broke so that they can push through their radical agenda. And well-connected corporations continue to use their political power to dodge their taxes. In 2009, after helping crash the American economy, Bank of America paid $0 in taxes. GE had a tax bill of $0 in 2010. Republicans want to give a $50 billion tax bailout to big oil companies—and at the same time take away food aid to hungry pregnant women and children. This is immoral and un-American.

Enough is enough! On Tax Day, April 18, as millions of Americans patriotically pay their taxes, we will call on corporations and millionaires to pay their fair share. At hundreds of events from coast to coast, we'll present tax bills to corporate tax dodgers for the billions of dollars their legions of lobbyists helped them avoid. We'll organize a peaceful, dignified, and powerful day of action to call on corporations to pay their fair share. And we'll demand that our elected leaders make them pay.

It's time to demand that everyone pays their fair share to rebuild the American Dream. We invite frustrated taxpayers, underwater homeowners, vilified public servants, job-hunting students, and unemployed veterans—everyone facing cuts or cutbacks, a pink slip or a shrinking paycheck—to join in.

Host your own Tax Day: Make Them Pay event or sign up for an event near you.