HUGE Miss on ALEC

ALEC

States & Nation Policy Summit 2012

November 28-30, 2012

Washington, D.C.

AFL-CIO

Washington DC, Nov. 27– Local AFL-CIO leaders from across the country and other working family advocates from 33 states are in Washington on November 27 and 28

Huge opportunity missed here.

HUGE!!!!

Too bad we can’t get people to talk with one another.

ALEC - Bunch of LOSERS!

As I wrote this I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that almost seven months ago ALEC 

hired a PR firm (Edleman) to clean up their image.  

Hey guys: “How’s that working for ya?”

I’ve looked at a lot of ALEC documents and webpages over the past years and there is something definitely missing this year – about this time.

The slimeballs in ALEC Muckety Muckville are missing something this year – and it is evident in their press releases and their webpage.

This week while they are in Washington DC for their “Summit” – a meeting that originally was designed to indoctrinate 2 new legislators, on full scholarship, from each state into the ALEC cult – there will be no celebrating in ALEC Muckville – cause this has been a bad year – a very bad year.  

As the slimeballs of ALEC descend into DC on their brooms this evening and tonight - there will be no sugarplums dancing through their vacant heads.  Tonight, there will be great sadness in ALEC Muckville. 
This year there is no joy in ALEC Muckville - because the mighty ALEC has struck out. 

While ALEC is hiding behind increased security guards, in locked rooms with hidden corporate agendas, pushing forward the implementation of the Paul Weyrich/Mark Rhoads “shadow government” – the US Capitol will be taunting them – laughing at them – silently calling them – LOSERS!

Every election cycle – about this time – 
ALEC puts out a press release
congratulating their state legislative members that have infiltrated the US Congress. 
Usually, by now, ALEC is braying like a jacka$$ about their congressional victories. 
Slapping each other on the back, smoking fine cigars, drinking amazing liquor, and eating the best steaks money can buy  -  at the ALEC Policy Summit - celebrating "ALEC seditionist Federalism".  

This year not so much –
So I wondered why not??????????

For a list of ALEC US Congressional members – go >>>HERE<<<<

And then add on the names at the bottom of this post.

If you check the list of ALEC US Congressional legislators that were up for election or re-election or check  this list of those ALEC US Congressional legislators that resigned/retired you will find the following information:

These ALEC-ers resigned from the US Congress and did not run for re-election:

ARIZONA

Jon Kyl

CALIFORNIA
Jerry Lewis

INDIANA
Dan Burton

NEBRASKA

Ben Nelson

OHIO

Steve Austria

OKLAHOMA

Dan Boren

PENNSYLVANIA

Todd Platts

These ALEC-ers were running for re-election to the US Congress and did not get re-elected:

FLORIDA

U.S. Rep. David Rivera (R-26)

IOWA

U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-3)

This ALEC-er was running for re-election to the US Congress and is demanding a recount:

NORTH CAROLINA

Sen. David Rouzer (currently R-12) is running for U.S. Congress in district 7

These ALEC-ers were running for election to the US Congress and did not get elected:

MAINE

Secretary of State Charlie Summers (R) is running for U.S. Senate

NORTH DAKOTA

U.S. Rep. Rick Berg (currently R-at large) is running for U.S. Senate

VIRGINIA

Former Sen. George Allen (R) is running for U.S. Senate

WISCONSIN

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) is running for U.S. Senate

If you check opensecrets.org for new members to the 113^th US Congress you will find a listing that includes these ALEC-ers who were elected to the US Congress this month.

ARIZONA

Matt Salmon (Republican, District Z05)

  attended the 1993 ALEC Annual Meeting

CALIFORNIA

Paul Cook (Republican, District A08)

  received ALEC scholarship reimbursement in 2007,

  and paid 2 years of dues on 2/8/2011

GEORGIA

Doug Collins (Republican, District A09)

  Paid two years worth of ALEC dues 11/27/2011

INDIANA

Jackie Walorski (Republican, District N02)

  Served on the 2010 ALEC CommTech Task Force

NEBRASKA

Deb Fischer (Republican, Senate)

  Served on the 2010 ALEC CommTech Task Force

NORTH CAROLINA

Robert Pittenger (Republican, District C09)

  Paid for a registration to attend the ALEC States and Nation Summit

  in 2006 while running for Lt. Governor

TEXAS

Randy Weber (Republican, District 14)

  Served on the 2011 ALEC International Relations Task Force

And then there is Ted Cruz – who attended and spoke to the 2010 ALEC States and Nation Policy Summit meeting and was referred to (in the first 45 seconds of this clip) by Rick Perry as “the future of America”.

And of course, this is not accurate – because according to opensecrets.org 34 new Republicans were elected to Congress.  They could all be ALEC members - we have no way of really knowing who are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council because most hide their membership to this extremist right wing organization.

ALEC net loss of two seats if you count Rouzer as a LOSER and Cruz as ALEC-er.

   Any way you look at it - ALEC was  a LOSER THIS YEAR in Congress.

Gotta get rid of more of those buttwipes in the next election.
Without legislators - ALEC will implode - and there will be no one to run their fascist shadow government.

Strachota (WI-ALEC) LIES about ALEC Involvement

And this is how they lie.

ALEC LYING 101 – a core course required of all ALEC legislatures.

This course will teach you how to mislead the public by using ambiguity, to intentionally mislead and confuse the media and obscure the facts surrounding your involvement with the ALEC

Posted today (my emphasis):

The Left’s war against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) continues: Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy now claim in a lawsuit that five Republican members of the Wisconsin legislature have violated the state’s public records law by allegedly withholding emails that may or may not have referenced ALEC, which encourages lawmakers to promote pro-free market model legislation. State Rep. Pat Strachota (R-West Bend), who is named in the lawsuit, said she has never introduced ALEC-backed legislation and doesn’t understand why she was targeted. “I don’t feel this is a real complaint,” she said. “I feel it’s a political witch hunt. I think it’s unfortunate they’re wasting people’s time and energy. It just dumbfounds me.”

Now the Truth:

FROM CMD:

In the 2011-2012 legislative session, Rep. Strachota co-authored 12 bills that reflect ALEC models, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy.

Budget Earmark Transparency Bill Co-Sponsorship

Strachota co-sponsored Senate Bill 114 (the non-partisan WI Legislative Reference Bureau Bill Summary): "The bill requires the Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) to prepare an earmark transparency report on each biennial budget bill and on each amendment thereto. The report must contain all of the following: a list of all earmarks; the cost of each earmark; and the beneficiary of each earmark. If the beneficiary is an individual, LFB must identify the assembly and senate district in which the beneficiary resides. If the beneficiary is an entity, LFB must identify the assembly and senate district in which the beneficiary is located, incorporated, or organized. With respect to an amendment to a biennial budget bill, LFB must identify the representative to the assembly or senator who proposed the earmark."[5] (SB-114)* (Compare with ALEC's "Act Relating to Creating a Searchable Budget Database for State Spending Model Language")

Rep. Strachota and Introduction of the ALEC Model “Prevailing Wage Repeal Act”

Strachota was a co-introducer of Wisconsin Assembly Bill 183[6] (AB 183)* (Compare with ALEC's “Prevailing Wage Repeal Act.”)

The American Legislative Exchange Council is so heinous that ALEC legislative members (state and federal) refuse to acknowledge their involvement with this right-wing extremist organization.

ALEC's Private Prison Buddies - Looking for More Inmates

THIS should scare ever single person who reads it.

This is America's nightmare.
No public servants doing the "protect & serve"
- private corporations actually helping put people in jail
- the very same private corporations whose livelihood
     depends on people being in jail.

ALEC private prison company seen as "law enforcement"
instead of a the for profit - private sector
tax dollar sucking parasite that it is.

According to Casa Grande Police Department (CGPD) Public Information Officer Thomas Anderson, four “law enforcement agencies” took part in the operation: CGPD (which served as the lead agency and operation coordinator), the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Gila River Indian Community Police Department, and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

It is the involvement of CCA — the nation’s largest private, for-profit prison corporation — that causes this high school “drug sweep” to stand out as unusual; CCA is not, despite CGPD’s evident opinion to the contrary, a law enforcement agency.

READ THE WHOLE THING
>>>>>>HERE<<<<<<<<<<

Here we go
   First we use the ALEC private sector as part of "law enforcement"
  THEN the ALEC private sector prison parasites BECOME law enforcement
      CCA makes a shitload of money as private law enforcement
      Public law enforcement is dismantled
      Public law enforcement unions are dismantled
      YOUR tax dollars go to paying ALEC private sector members
           at inflated prices
       - for a service that was provided perfectly well
           prior to ALEC's fascist interference in government.

ALEC and ALEC profit sector members
Destroying America
Destroying the American commons.

Dammit - what has to happen that is going to be big enough, bad enough, extreme enough
that America finally starts really paying attention
to the destruction being caused by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

DAMN - I hate ALEC and
ALEC profit sector members.
DAMN! 

ALEC VOIP Legislation - Screws the USA

As you read this - think of the new TV show "Revolution"
'cause that is what is going to happen
     - when ALEC corporations control all the infrastructure
        in the United States through ALEC legislation.
When the TV's, radios, lights and phones finally go out and the US is filled with decaying and rotting infrastructure - you can thank the American Legislative Exchange Council for the fate of the US.

"Revolution" is what an ALEC Corporate Profit Sector United States looks like.  It is not fiction - it is our ALEC future - what the ALEC States of America WILL look like.
The United States of America burned and pillaged by US and multinational corporations - cause ALEC legislation/legislators protected the corporations, instead of the the nation.

(Comment up front  – I hate VOIP.  The transmission sucks compared to copper based systems.  Voice clarity sucks on VOIP.  VOIP is crappy technology that we are now –being FORCED to accept – because ALEC legislators are passing laws that take away our choices as consumers – because the ALEC telecomm corporations wined them, dined them at an ALEC meeting.  The telecomm companies also paid for ALEC legislators to fly to the ALEC meeting. The telecomm companies also paid for the ALEC legislators hotel room at the ALEC meeting usually  held at a luxurious hotel or posh resort.  They call it scholarships - I call it payola.)

Found an article this morning that is very easy to read

makes sense

and gets across CLEARLY the danger of the ALEC /AT&T/Verizon VOIP legislation.

If this legislation has not come to your state yet – it will – probably this session.

This ALEC legislation has flown under the radar and has been passed in many states already  – because most legislators and almost all citizens – don’t understand what VOIP is –

That new fangled technology – VOI-what?  ...  of course we have to support it by doing whatever the telecoms want – VOIP what??????????

Hurricane Sandy has accentuated why this is BAD legislation and this article articulated it fabulously.

For example, suppose the City of Los Angeles (which has had phone outages triggered by torrential rains before) looks at what happened in Hurricane Sandy and says “crap, we better get some safety standards in place that would let us make sure providers get phone service working again after a disaster.” They are – to use a highly technical term – “screwed.” S.B. 1161 prevents them. as a “political subdivision” of the State of California, from making any kind of regulation — including a public safety or emergency preparedness regulation — for any kind of IP or IP-enabled service.

Sure, Los Angeles (or California generally) can continue to regulate legacy telephone service.  But because Verizon and AT&T, California’s largest providers of traditional telephone service, are converting to all IP networks,  Californians are not going to have any kind of plain old telecom service (aka “POTS”) back up. In other words, California, all your current telecom-based emergency preparedness and coordinated disaster response is going to “bye bye!” What you will have in its place is whatever the private sector chooses to do, supplemented by whatever the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adds to it.

You, California, the largest state by population, the third largest by geography, the home of Silicon Valley, the sixth largest economy in the world, will have absolutely zero control over one of the core functions of government – making sure people can communicate in a crisis and restoring communications after the crisis is over. You cannot set response time standards. You cannot mandate that your network providers inform consumers when service will be restored. You cannot even make these guys develop any actual emergency plans. And why? Because your good buddies at ALEC   … 

Oh Senator Padilla, when will you ever learn that ALEC is not your friend? Well, maybe ALEC is your friend, but it is not really the friend of the People of California.

Every one

Every state

PLEASE

PLEASE

PLEASE

Read >>>>>THIS ARTICLE<<<<<<

and fight ALEC VOIP legislation!!!!

(BTW – The real purpose of this legislation is to save telecoms money.  They will no longer have to maintain copper based systems – systems that many people still rely on to communicate with others!  Many rural and poor people can’t have / don’t have VOIP availability.  People get screwed and the telecoms are allowed to let their infrastructures decay  - just walk away  from their landline systems – just leave it where it is –the unmaintained infrastructure becomes someone else’s problem – taxpayer expense to clean up corporate trash.)

(Again, BTW – I hate VOIP.  The transmission sucks compared to copper based systems.  Voice clarity sucks on VOIP.  Crappy technology that we are now – all being forced to accept – because ALEC legislators are passing laws taking away our choices as consumers – to save corporations money.)

RWNJ - Eats Their Own: Entree is ALEC

God bless America!

ALEC

"It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, and corporations had pushed the people out the door."

From the RIGHT WING!!!!

Bear Witness Central is a member of Florida’s TEA PARTY NETWORK and TEA PARTY PATRIOTS, has affiliations, partnerships and works also with other non-partner Pro-Constitution groups that share the same principles and values.

These right-wingers completed a serious - way serious - review of one of ALEC's reports and as their comments show below - they were NOT impressed with the ALEC report or ALEC's attempt to defend their arguments in the report.

Snips from Bear Witness Central's analysis of  ALEC’s new report:

“Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States”

Reading the Handbook is like watching mainstream news: disinformation, spin and lies at every turn.  However it gives us an understanding as to how the legislators are being harangued, goaded and shamed into taking this action.

Natelson states that the amendment convention is not an assembly with…

    “… wide authority, such as one charged with drafting or adopting a Constitution. Thus, it is simply incorrect to refer to a convention for proposing amendments as a ‘Constitutional Convention’. They are different creatures entirely”4

The source to which his 4th footnote refers is the book Natelson himself wrote! He quotes himself. Maybe Natelson is the only constitutional expert who conjured up this notion.

Section V. consists of two pages attempting to prove The Myth of a Runaway Convention. None of it holds water because it can’t be proven.

The answer is an outright lie.

He makes a false statement on page 18, refers to Appendix(C), Appendix (C) refers to footnote ’22′ which once again refers to his own book as the source of information. One reader called it incestuous. 

State legislators who’ve bought into this trap of “moving fast” to sponsor the resolution should be aware of the following disclaimer in the Handbook. You’ll find it in small, fine print at the very bottom of the “About ALEC” section on the first page of the Handbook. Caveat emptor!

“Nothing in this Handbook should be construed as legal advice; seek competent counsel in your own state.”

Paul Weyrich, was one of the most powerful conservative leaders of his era. Weyrich lamented the fact that we have no “shadow cabinets” like those in Europe who have parliamentary government. The only way that will happen is if the process (34 states call for a convention) is successful.

It is possible that ALEC was formed for that purpose above all others.

ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, and corporations had pushed the people out the door.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

WHERE THE ANIMALS EAT THEIR OWN KIND!!!

Right wingers throwing the American Legislative Exchange Council under the bus 
- soon they will be throwing ALEC legislators under the bus.
The end is near! 

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. Pray - ALEC - Pray