The Day ALEC Died

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Today on Google Search at 1:55pm central time
Search terms:  "American Legislative Exchange Council"

Why Are Taxpayers Paying for ALEC Legislator's Travel?

This morning I found the infamous minutes from the South Dakota legislature Executive Committee that had been in the news three weeks ago regarding ALEC.

And while reading the minutes I found this paragraph:

A LEGISLATOR, WHO HAS BEEN SELECTED AS A MEMBER OF A COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATORS, THE COUNCIL OF STATE GOVERNMENTS, THE AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL, OR THE MIDWESTERN LEGISLATIVE CONFERENCE WILL BE REIMBURSED FOR EXPENSES. ANY MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNING BOARD OF THE NCSL, CSG, , ALEC, OR MLC WILL BE REIMBURSED FOR TRAVEL EXPENSES TO ATTEND BOARD MEETINGS.

Can someone, anyone - please - please - tell me

after all the documentation that is out there

Why are taxpayers paying for ALEC legislators to go to meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council?  

Corporate funded "scholarships" pay the legislator's expenses to ALEC meetings.

Why are ALEC legislators dipping into the state funds to pay for expenses that have already been paid for with a "scholarship" from ALEC corporate lobbyists?

Corporate funded "scholarships" pay the legislator's expenses to ALEC meetings.

AGAIN

From the files of Common Cause:

ALEC Spring Task Force Summit:

1. Spring Task Force Summit Reimbursement Form: ALEC Task Force Members are reimbursed by ALEC up to $350.00 for travel expenses. Receipts must be forwarded to the ALEC Policy Coordinator and approved by the Director of Policy.

2. ALEC Task Force Members’’ room & tax fees for up to a two-night stay at the host hotel are covered by ALEC.

3. Registration fees are not covered; however, Task Force Members may submit registration expenses for payment from their state scholarship account upon approval of the State Chair.

  

ALEC Annual Meeting :

State Scholarship Reimbursement Form: State scholarship funds are available for reimbursement by approval of your ALEC State Chair. Expenses are reimbursed after the conference, and may cover the cost of travel, room & tax, and registration. Receipts are to be submitted to the State Chair, who will then submit the signed form to the Director of Membership.

ALEC States & Nation Policy Summit:

1. States & Nation Policy Summit Reimbursement Form : ALEC offers two scholarships per state to cover the cost of travel, room & tax, and registration not to exceed $1,000.00 per person for a total of $2,000.00 per state. ALEC scholarship recipients must be named by the ALEC State Chair. Expenses are submitted to the State Chair and reimbursed after the conference. The State Chair submits the signed form to the Director of Membership. 

Possible Scenarios

How much double dipping is going on?

     Legislator can present his expenses to the State - and get reimbursed.

     Legislator can present his expenses to ALEC "scholarship fund" and get paid.

     Legislator can list ALEC meetings on his campaign finance expenses and reimburse themselves.

Double Dipping?

Triple Dipping?

Going to an ALEC meeting could become a way for legislators to supplement their income.

Wake up people!
Why are taxpayers paying for ALEC legislators to go to meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council?  Corporate funded "scholarships" pay the legislators expenses to ALEC meetings.

STOP IT!

Why are ALEC legislators dipping into the state funds to pay for expenses that have already been paid for with a "scholarship" from ALEC corporate lobbyists?

STOP IT! 

Don't believe me?
Need proof that ALEC corporations pay the expenses for your ALEC legislator to go to ALEC meetings?
READ THIS REPORT 
from the Center for Media and Democracy

And then sit down and calculate how many tax payer dollars have needlessly gone into the pockets of ALEC members.

My Blog is Broken - Can You Help Me?

Don't know why I'm writing this - nobody will probably see it
But here goes.

I'm looking for some helpful comments on this.

Since everything I publish is extremely time sensitive
– I have hit an issue with this blog
- that I can’t get any usable help on.
Any suggestions left in the comments would be appreciated (but not posted).

I've tried just about everything and can't figure out how to fix it - default that needs to be turned off, toggle that needs to be switched, setting in the wrong position, etc. ...

Here’s the issue:

Two weeks ago

Google was indexing everything I wrote   - every single post - hit Google search within seconds of me hitting the “publish” button –

Anyhow - - - - - 

About two weeks ago Google quit indexing me on a timely basis.

I would publish, then go do a search of my entry and nothing would show up.

Sometimes it would take four - six hours to post - sometimes it would not post at all 

So - - - - - -

NOW

I started forcing the indexing to Google search by using the Fetch as Google function in Webmaster.

EVERY entry has to be put through Fetch as Google

– some have posted – some have not – 50/50 shot at getting into Google search.

So - - - - - -

I’m getting pissed – because of the extra work I have to put in and only a 50/50 chance of any of my blog entries hitting Google Search.

Every single entry I wrote this morning has not hit Google search – even though I have forced the indexing on all three entries - - - three times using Fetch as Google.

I wasted my time even writing - cause they are old news now and f#cking useless and a waste of my time.   Three hours of f#cking  wasted time - researching and writing stuff that isn't posting to Google search.

Just checked - it took NINE hours for Google to index my entries today on Google Search -  even though I have forced the indexing on all three entries - - - three times using Fetch as Google over six hours ago.

I’m getting pissed

So - - - - - -

I tried Google Community and got nothing back except snippy replies that showed they had neither read my problem – nor did they want to help me.  It was evident – they just wanted me to “go away”. 

If I don’t get this fixed - - - - -

I’m going to have to abandon this blog – cause it is doing me no DAMN GOOD.

PLEASE HELP!!!
I've got a lot of writing invested in this blog and my good
becauseican-2old2care name!!!

Here’s info you will want to know:

I've checked:
Webmaster and have no malware on my account.

Webmaster shows no messages for my account.

Webmaster shows no blocked URL's

I have some crawl errors from pages I deleted last year - but that has been true for months.

Webmaster Index status is showing all of my entries.

I have done multiple  site:http://becauseican-2old2care.blogspot.com searches on Google each day for the past 24 hours.

Depending on the day 

– sometime 25% of the posts will be in Google search

 – sometimes 50% of the posts will be Google search

– and then there are more times 

like today when none of the posts I did this morning are there.

So - - - - - -

I’m getting pissed – because of the extra work I have to put in and only a 50/50 chance of any of my blog entries hitting Google Search.

My traffic has dropped by 50% in the last two weeks - cause a lot of the hits I get are off of Google search.  If they aren't indexing me - I lose 50% of my traffic.

Every single entry I did this morning has not hit Google search – even though I have forced the indexing on all three entries three times using Fetch as Google.

I’m getting pissed - really pissed.

REMEMBERS

Two weeks ago

Google was indexing everything I wrote   - every single post - hit Google search within seconds of me hitting the “publish” button –

Don’t leave any trite comments
– I need honest help.

– if you’re not willing to really give me some useful help/suggestion 

– don’t comment, just go away.

I got enough abuse yesterday in the Google community and I don’t need any more on this - - now - - worthless blog.

The Bad Part of Bachmann's Bye-Bye

When Bachmann was in the race - everyone in the sixth district knew she was a nut job and crazy - even the ones who voted for her.  In the last election moderates pretty much kicked her to the curb.  In the last election her main campaign slogan was "I'm Back" - after spending over a year running for president.

NOW
With Bachmann not running - we will not be able to tell if Jim Graces opponent is a nut job.

It would have been easier - no problem - to win the 6th against Bachmann.

Now we don't know who we will be up against - or how crazy they are.
It could be ALEC-er Tom Emmer and he's one seriously angry and crazy right-wing nut job.

Names being thrown around on the nightly news include
Emmer - ALEC
Dean - ALEC
Kiffmeyer - ALEC  (She's a Michele wannabe)


That tells you a lot about this district - bunch of exremist right-wingers.

And there is this
The 6th congressional district is the strongest Republican home in Minnesota. The partisan voting index gives it a 10 point advantage to the GOP.

So this could be a challenge now for Jim Graves - cause he's no longer running against the crazy nut job Bachmann.

Let's turn this district blue.

DONATE TO GRAVES
PLEASE

Will MO Send an ALECer to Congress Next Tuesday?

There's a special election in Missouri next Tuesday.

Special elections always mean low turnout - it would be nice if the turnout included only ANTI-ALEC voters.

Jason Smith is a dedicated member of the extremist highly partisan American Legislative Exchange Council.

Former Rep. Jason Smith (R-150), State Chairman[12] and Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force member [16]

The art of self-dealing? Mr. Smith has that down pat. He led the charge to overturn the will of the Missouri people after they voted in 2010 to protect animals by implementing humane regulations on puppy mills. Mr. Smith and his family owned a puppy mill at the time. And not just any puppy mill. It had been identified by the Humane Society as one of a “dirty dozen” facilities that regularly failed state and federal inspections.

Oh – one of the ag-gag supporters, I presume?

Sen Smith to Congress and he can join the other 96 ALECers in Congress and probably put together FEDERAL legislation limiting our 1st amendment rights - with a FEDERAL ag-gag bill.

Glad-handing with lobbyists? According to Missouri Ethics Commission reports, Mr. Smith has become good friends with the corporate lobbyists who run the Washington, D.C.-based American Legislative Exchange Council. The folks at ALEC have flown Mr. Smith to conferences in Atlanta, New Orleans, Los Angeles and, of course, Washington, D.C., just to name a few.

No Marriage Equality in ALEC's Top 10

Last week ALEC released one of their partisan biased reports and the news jumped all over it.

IMHO - ALEC's report is nothing more than conjecture - based on a biased and skewed data set.

In the past, two separate reports have debunked the validity and reliability of ALEC's annual report of economic benefits - but the mainstream media is too lazy to look for opposing viewpoints and they print the ALEC pablum without reviewing it.  We have to do more about that - cause ALEC is not all that and neither is their biased reports.

Rich States, Poor States purports to provide a recipe of state policies to achieve economic growth and prosperity. These policies entail cutting or eliminating progressive taxes, suppressing wages, and cutting public services. The evidence and arguments cited to support the beneficial effects of these policies range from deeply flawed to nonexistent.

In actuality, the Chapter 8. Policy Conclusion book provides a recipe

for economic inequality and

declining incomes for most citizens and

for depriving state and local governments of the revenue needed to maintain public infrastructure and education systems that are the underpinnings of long-term economic growth.

ALEC’s policy prescriptions don’t work. 

Anyway - - - this morning
I found this short article about the ALEC report - a short paragraph that questioned - what is more important social or economic equality.  IMHO - how can or why would you separate the two?

Two snips from the article

No state with marriage equality made the American Legislative Exchange Council’s ranking of the top 10 states with the best economic outlooks. 

And seven states that do recognize same-sex marriages are among the bottom 10 states with the worst economic outlooks: Maryland (35th), Maine (41st), Connecticut (43rd), Rhode Island (45th), Minnesota (46th), New York (49th) and Vermont (50th).

I consider this analysis - just as valid as any biased report that ALEC distributes.
After all - ALEC reports data that is biased to red-state policies and the seven states noted don't fall into that category. 

BTW - Utah has been #1 on ALEC's list for six years and they have a constitutional amendment forbidding same sex marriage.  Aothher key point - this is the sixth edition of this ALEC biased partisan report and Utah has been on top EVERY year - #1.  Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Coincidence - maybe.  Causal connection - nope.
But then proving causality is not part of what the ALEC reports purports to do - the purpose is to spread biased information.  So why should I have to prove causation?

I don’t think the authors help their credibility by stating their conclusions with such certainty. Can’t the American Legislative Exchange Council hire an economist or political scientist or statistician who can tell them about causal identification?

Why? Cause based on what others have written - ALEC uses biased and possibly questionable data sets and statistics - to further their agenda. So, maybe, just maybe  - hidden in ALEC's biased calculations is a unreported coefficient for marriage equality.

And that is always a possibility.
Based on a report that ALEC released in 2004 - I think it's safe to predict that EVERY state that enacts marriage equality laws could probably end up at the bottom the American Legislative Exchange Council's list.

Why?

A quote about ALEC's 2004 report from extremist Judith Reismann - THE advisor on the ALEC report

AN ANONYMOUS ALEC STAFFER DELETED A SENTENCE PUBLICIZING THE EFFECTS OF KINSEY'S FRAUD ON THE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE DEBATE FROM HAYNES' INTRODUCTION:

"Today Kinsey's "junk science" is the unquestioned foundation for all the legal, legislative and media debate on marriage and civil unions."

NONETHELESS, THE MONOGRAPH IS A POWERFUL DOCUMENT WITH LEGISLATIVE CREDIBILITY AND CLOUT. THIS IS MY COPY OF THE FINAL SO YOU NEED TO CALL ALEC IF YOU WANT COPIES OF THE ORIGINAL. 

Evidently in 2004 - ALEC didn't think that marriage equality would be an issue of the future and didn't need to be included in the report.

Thank goodness that they were wrong.

It would be interesting though to do a survey - just on ALEC members - on their acceptance of marriage equality.  I think it would be an eye-opener.