http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/01/04/the-conservatives-legislative-puppeteer-alec Comments On: The conservatives' legislative puppeteer — ALEC by Max Brantley en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:15:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by Jabberwocky]]> Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:25:00 -0600 Arkansas Times
Y-mb, you take the [radicalists'] interpretation. If we are not fervently, [UnGodfully] enthralled with your belief system, we must be agents of the devil and are, therefore, your enemies.
Posted by PaleRider]]> Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:07:57 -0600 Arkansas Times
p-r, you take the fundamentalists' interpretation. If we are not fervently, prayerfully enthralled with your belief system, we must be agents of the devil and are, therefore, your enemies.


Posted by YossarianMinderbinder]]> Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:50:43 -0600 Arkansas Times Re: contact with impressionable apes? All I can say about that is I'm blogging on a liberal website, so draw your own conclusions there.
The fact is, bigdambridge is spot on. NCSL exerts as much, if not considerably more, liberal influence over various (incl. AR) state legislatures than ALEC does conservative influence. It's quite amusing that we don't hear Mr. Brantley or you complaining about that. NCSL purports to be bi-partisan (or 'ostensibly neutral' as YossarianMB says) but it leans hard left. I disagree that NCSL policies are "more likely to address the general good of the constituents (us)." That sounds like a "Trust us! This is for your own good!" Well, one man's 'good' legislation may be another man's detriment. Moreover, it's quite disingenous to say ALEC 'indoctrinates' but NCSL "addresses the general good."
Posted by PaleRider]]> Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:10:33 -0600 Arkansas Times
ALEC is designed to promote the "greed is good, no-tax (on wealthy), control the peasants" ideology. NCSL participants have a full range of viewpoints represented and design potential legislation with that in mind. That illustrates another fundamental difference. In ALEC, the process is determined from the top of the cabal, with few divergent views permitted. In NCSL, the issues are determined, discussed and voted upon by the elected officials from our home states.

Model Legislation developed at NCSL is more likely to benefit most of the people of the state. Proposals sponsored by ALEC are aimed at preserving and promoting welfare for the wealthy.
Posted by YossarianMinderbinder]]> Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:42:26 -0600 Arkansas Times
Posted by bigdambridge]]> Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:35:58 -0600 Arkansas Times
Printed propaganda and CDs are handed out and strategy sessions are conducted on how to pass the model legislation. With the legislators meeting out of state, I'm not sure how the FOIA can be applied.

All in all, the major difference between ALEC and NCSL is that policies developed at NCSL are more likely to address the general good of the constituents (us). The ALEC-driven policies are for the benefit of the conservative and corporate sponsors, not the general public, and more likely written by those sponsors rather than the legislators attending the meeting.
Posted by YossarianMinderbinder]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:37:49 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by ozarkrazo]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:36:32 -0600 Arkansas Times
Arizona Immigration Law written in hotel room in Washington, D.C.

http://www.npr.org/2010/10/28/130833741/pr…
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"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
--Paul Weyrich, founder of ALEC, co-founder of Moral Majority, co-founder of Heritage Foundation, from wikipedia
Posted by eLwood]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:25:18 -0600 Arkansas Times
"In Virginia, a group has put a pencil to ALEC influence and found a "disturbing" level of influence in that legislature, 50 bills since 2007."
Disturbing that elected LEGISLATORS passed 50 bills? I'd be curious to know how ALEC's ostensible 'disturbing' influence is measured. By the number of cups of coffee they bought for legislators? Or maybe by the number of guns they held to their heads, forcing them to vote for those 50 disturbing bills? Quick - confiscate all the guns of law-abiding citizens!
And exactly who is "a group"? I'm sure it's just a harmless, warm-and-fuzzy, all-American 'group' of nice folks with our best interests in mind. And what I really want to know is - did they use a No. 2 pencil? If not, I'm afraid I have to disqualify their findings.

"I bet the number here is higher than you might think."
Yeah, there's probably one lurking around the next corner! And another one hiding in the alley!

"Arkansas legislators even brought in ALEC staffers to testify for the legislation they pressed on the local yokels."
How dare they bring in witnesses to testify & answer legislators' questions! Off with their heads!


Posted by PaleRider]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:51:11 -0600 Arkansas Times
"... ALEC is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy shops that, with infusions of corporate cash, has evolved to shape American politics. Inspired by Milton Friedman’s call for conservatives to 'develop alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive and available,' ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations on corporations and making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful to account. Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces. The task forces cover issues from education to health policy. ALEC’s priorities for the 2011 session included bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws and more. In states across the country they succeeded, with stacks of new laws signed by GOP governors like Ohio’s John Kasich and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, both ALEC alums."

http://www.thenation.com/article/161978/al…

Most of The Nation's August 1-8 issue was given to articles about ALEC under the rubric "ALEC Exposed":

* "Sabotaging Healthcare"
* "The Koch Connection"
* "Starving Public Schools"
* "Rigging Elections"

http://www.thenation.com/issue/august-1-8-…
Posted by Snapback]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:42:41 -0600 Arkansas Times
"What just happened here? I board the plane and settle back to watch the Arizona landscape disappear. The dry, dusty beige and the achingly lush green. The baronial resorts and the desert shacks. The conference too has dispersed, and the hotel resumed the even tenor of its ways. Business as usual. And I think of ALEC and the Constitution it reveres.

The First Amendment.

“Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.”

The 99 per cent, and the 1 per cent. A nation divided under God."

http://www.truth-out.org/americas-secret-p…

...

“They said they were throwing me out and that they would escort me to the room to get my belongings,” he tells me. “I had to leave right then and there — or be arrested.” Off-duty police, it appears, were moonlighting as security for the conference, but no less determined to do their duty as they saw it.

(Back in Toronto I reach the hotel’s managing director, Bruce Lang, by phone and am told, “Mr. Hodai was considered to be a persona non grata from the conference.” But he adds, “not by the hotel, not by the police. . . He clearly presented a threat to the conference, based on his history.”) That would be the threat of investigative journalism?"

Posted by bejeeus]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:28:52 -0600 Arkansas Times
Rep. Linda Collins-Smith (R)
Sen. Michael Lamoureux (R)
Ted Mullenix, AT&T.

Now we know who to watch for!
Posted by oldmaninthesea]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:17:23 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Citizen1]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:14:10 -0600 Arkansas Times It must be great to be so dumb that you can be bought by out-of-state characters who obviously aren't smart enough to work in the private sector. Maybe, the state should demand that they register as a lobbiest so their money trail becomes more visible (probably hide behind The Markham Group or other RICO-type enterprise). It is hell to live in a right-to-deny-money-to-workers state and be paid as little as our legislators are paid (and actually, really overpaid for the stuff they do).
Posted by couldn't be better]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:44:15 -0600 Arkansas Times
http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
Posted by BrotherWolf]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:59:23 -0600 Arkansas Times