ALECers Are Taught - Your Consitutents are Liars

When ALEC legislators aren't focusing on the legislation ALEC corporate profit members are telling them to pass in the state legislatures - it appears that they sit around in little groups looking for boogeyman issues.  Issues that really aren't issues.  Issues that aren't really problems until ALEC makes them a problem.

Well - that is what happened with this issue - asbestos litigation.

And the sad part about it is - that state legislators aren't the only people who attend ALEC meetings.  You have congressional members and employees of state and federal agencies that are ALEC members also.

The sad part is that ALEC believes that they can and will mess with legislation in the states, in the country, in the world. 

When the ALEC Asbestos Bill Comes to Your State

AND IT WILL (if it hasn't already)!!!
Remember this - the core belief of ALEC, the propaganda that was sent to all ALEC members
- - - - - The first sentence:

Studies have shown that up to ninety percent of recent asbestos claimants are not sick.

That's what ALEC teaches your legislator.
ALEC teaches your legislator to disregard the issues/needs that your state constituents are facing - cause their loyalty must be to ALEC corporate members and their needs - cause they pay the ALEC expenses - free trips for legislators.
ALEC teaches your legislator that their state constituents are liars.
This is how they brainwash your legislator to introduce and pass ALEC tort reform legislation that protects "INNOCENT"  ALEC corporate profit sector members.

ALEC teaches your legislator that their state constituents are liars.
ALEC teaches your legislator that ALEC corporations hold the only truths.

Be prepared, this legislation is introduced in state, after state after state, year after year, until it finally passes - protecting ALEC corporate members at the expense of citizens who are suffering from asbestos related illnesses - caused by working in unsafe corporate conditions.

There is a really good overview about ALEC's Asbestos legislation in a diary at Daily Kos.

AND
Remember these words after you read the Daily Kos diary:

“The only thing transparent about this bill is the blatant support for the industry’s decades’ long effort to run out the clock on a victim’s ability to collect a claim before he or she dies,” said Heather White, chief of staff and general counsel for the Environmental Working Group.

An estimated 10,000 Americans die each year from asbestos-related diseases. Many live only months after being diagnosed.

EWG has documented the asbestos epidemic and the industry’s aggressive campaign to hide the dangers from the public and deny justice to those who have died.

White has written the chairman and ranking members of the House Judiciary Committee where the legislation will first be considered:

 “Touted as a sunshine proposal, the bill fundamentally fails to understand health problems related to asbestos exposure and how the legal system compensates victims of asbestos disease. If signed into law, the FACT Act would significantly delay or deny justice for thousands of victims of the great asbestos tragedy. The public deserves better.

"The public deserves better.”
YES WE DO

AND NOW 
Congress is siding with the Asbestos Companies
and
Against the People

Why?  because of "perceived fraud"
the ever present Republican boogeyman
If they find one person who committed fraud - then they conclude that everyone commits fraud and they have to strip everyone of their rights based on one alleged act of fraud.

As was said in a statement before Congress this week:

Testimony

Before Congress

On HR 982  “Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2013

Out of the millions of trust claims filed and considered by trusts since 1988, defendants have identified just one case where a trust claim was filed by a plaintiff after judgment and paid by a trust. In that case the judgment was on appeal and had not yet be en paid when the trust claim was filed. Thus, despite asbestos companies’ claims, there is no “double - dipping” problem that needs to be fixed.

To fix this non - problem, front organizations for asbestos defendants have proposed “transparency” laws and regulations at both the federal and state levels. One such law was recently adopted in Ohio. While these proposals masquerade as mechanisms designed to advance evenhanded justice, they are, in fact, obvious efforts by asbestos litigation defendants to do an en d - run around uniform rules of discovery in the tort system and reverse principles of tort law established hundreds of years ago, including the principle that the plaintiff is the master of his case and may choose which of multiple wrongdoers to sue and wit h which to settle.

These front organizations include the American Legislative Exchange Council (“ALEC”) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform. ALEC is funded by a variety of corporations, including those facing liability for injuries and deaths caused by their asbestos - containing products. ALEC is also busy advancing the interests of the tobacco industry, health insurance companies, and private prisons — the latter particularly through legislation requiring expanded incarceration of immigrants. While ALEC purports to be a nonprofit, it is little more than a group of corporate lobbyists who write model legislation and then fund free trips for state legislators to luxury resorts, seeking to have them introduce model anti - civil justice legislation in their home legislatures. xliv  Outrageously, ALEC is funded as a tax - exempt charity, although the IRS has recently received formal complaints challenging the group’s nonprofit tax status on the basis that ALEC's primary purpose is to provide a vehicle for its corporate members to lobby state legislators and to deduct the costs of such efforts as charitable contributions. xlv In addition, ALEC coordinated the state effort through introduction of the “Asbestos Claims Transparency Act,” which seeks to further limit the ability of victims to recover.

ALEC busy advancing the interests of corporation

ALEC purporting it is a nonprofit

ALEC providing a vehicle for its corporate members to lobby state legislators

ALEC limiting the ability of VICTIMS to recover

"The public deserves better.”
YES WE DO
We have to abolish ALEC!!!!

ALEC profit sector members
and
ALEC legislators

Don't give a damn about the public!
They only care about corporate profit!!!!
    Work in their factories/office  - live in their factory neighborhoods
    Breathe in all those toxins and absorb the chemicals into your body
 All the stuff corporations do not tell us about -

And then One Day when you aren't watching:
Legislative members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), will remove every  legal recourse you have against ALEC Corporate Profit Sector members - for anything!!!!!