One of the more encouraging current developments is that ALEC has been flushed out into the open, and many of its corporate sponsors are bailing out — “Wendy’s, Intuit, McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi, Kraft Foods and the Gates Foundation.”
And, y’know, it’s kind of stunning that ALEC has been off everyone’s radar for so long. They’ve been around since 1973, founded by the same over-moneyed heirs to vast wealth that gave us the Heritage Foundation and so many other bricks in the rightie firmament. It’s not clear to me whether they’ve been doing something different in recent years that caught our attention, or if we were just too distracted to notice it.
Sorta kinda related — Krugman takes on Chris Christie.
Update: Also don’t miss “Big Companies Collecting State Taxes From Workers And Keeping The Money.” (Thanks Bill B.)
WHAT – NO COKE?!?!?!
What will the corporate lobbyists do now that they won’t have coke for politicians to snort off strippers’ asses?
What?
Oh – cola!
My bad…
Catering to all your legislative needs since 1973
All praise be to FSM!
Speaking of ALEC-associated groups, Romney just made a speech to the NRA, whoring himself out for their votes with the idea that Obama would erode the rights of gun owners. I can’t wait till he speaks at a COYOTE convention! Or how about at the AVN convention? And his remarks at Gay Pride parades will doubtless be sincere, too.
It’s not clear to me whether they’ve been doing something different in recent years that caught our attention, or if we were just too distracted to notice it.
My guess is that with the far right power grab at the state house level in 2010, and all the coordinated extremism that’s come out of it, someone finally connected the dots.
OT..but great story….It’s the tale of a young Tea Party foot soldier who got caught up in believing in the DON’T TREAD ON ME nonsense.
“I only regret that I have but one military career to give for my Tea Party”?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/obama-gary-stein_n_1424684.html?ref=politics
Swami — one of the reasons Rush Limbaugh needs to be taken off armed forces radio, IMO. I don’t know that this guy got his ideas from Rush, but Rushbo certainly is trying to poison people’s minds against the commander-in-chief.
Mitt to NRA:
‘Shhhhhhhhhh… Be vewy, vewy quiet… I’m huntin’ vahmints!’
The soldier was a Marine Corps meteorologists?
Was he a competent one?
Because, ‘It doesn’t take a weatherman to know which way Rush’s wind blows…’
Maybe Rush wasn’t responsible for this, but he’s responsible for a lot of the harm done to this country, by propagandizing to his listeners, the “Mega-ditto’s” simp’s, who then follow their leader and vote against their own best interests.
Which I wouldn’t give two sh*ts about, except for the fact that they’re helping to unravel the entire 20th Century.
Rush’s success set the stage for FOX News. And between them, they’ve done more harm than any “Fifth Column” ever could have.
They want to ‘take this country back’ – to the 1850’s.
China is starting to beat the pants off of us in the field of “Green Technology.”
But we’ll be ahead of them in one category:
Since we’re not doing anything to improve the infrastructure of this country, we’ll soon be leading the world in reading at night by whale-oil.* And with the way our education system is going, that’s going to be fewer and fewer people every year.
2008 was a pivotal election.
But then, 2010 was a pivot back.
2012 may very well be THE most important election in our lifetimes. If the D’s win, if we don’t move very much forward (because R’s will still wield enough power to throw monkey-wrenches into the works), at least we won’t be in a headlong rush to move backwards.
*And yes, I’m aware that using whale-oil, is not at all “green.”