VRWC news: gonna be a long thread

[boutons_deux]

ALEC and ExxonMobil Push Loopholes in Fracking Chemical Disclosure Rules

One of the key controversies about fracking is the chemical makeup of the fluid that is pumped deep into the ground to break apart rock and release natural gas. Some companies have been reluctant to disclose what's in their fracking fluid. Scientists and environmental advocates argue that, without knowing its precise composition, they can't thoroughly investigate complaints of contamination.

This weekend, as part of a story on ALEC's political activity, The New York Times noted that the group recently adopted a bill passed in Texas last year as "model legislation" for fracking chemical disclosure. According to The Times, the model bill was "sponsored within ALEC" by ExxonMobil, which runs a major oil and gas operation through its subsidiary, XTO Energy. The advocacy group Common Cause, which provided the do ents on ALEC's lobbying efforts to The Times, describes model legislation, in many cases identifying by name the company that proposed it to ALEC's task forces.

http://www.propublica.org/article/al...sclosure-rules

[boutons_deux]

ALEC Says It Plans To Craft Legislation To Take Down State Renewable Energy Targets

Last July, Bloomberg News acquired tax do ents showing that Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil and other energy companies paid membership fees to ALEC in order to help write legislation repealing carbon pollution reduction programs in states around country.

Bloomberg now reports that ALEC is looking to take aim at renewable energy programs in states:

ALEC, a group of state lawmakers and corporations recently criticized for its support of Stand-Your-Ground laws highlighted in the Florida shooting of Trayvon Martin, may write model legislation for state lawmakers to repeal or weaken the mandates later this year, said Todd Wynn, energy, environment and agriculture task force director for the group, in an interview. Stand-Your-Ground laws allows citizens to use force when threatened, even when they can retreat.

The group may also develop an “energy freedom” index that ranks states based on regulation, market intervention and taxes.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...nergy-targets/

[boutons_deux]

ALEC Says It Plans To Craft Legislation To Take Down State Renewable Energy Targets

Last July, Bloomberg News acquired tax do ents showing that Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil and other energy companies paid membership fees to ALEC in order to help write legislation repealing carbon pollution reduction programs in states around country.

Bloomberg now reports that ALEC is looking to take aim at renewable energy programs in states:

ALEC, a group of state lawmakers and corporations recently criticized for its support of Stand-Your-Ground laws highlighted in the Florida shooting of Trayvon Martin, may write model legislation for state lawmakers to repeal or weaken the mandates later this year, said Todd Wynn, energy, environment and agriculture task force director for the group, in an interview. Stand-Your-Ground laws allows citizens to use force when threatened, even when they can retreat.

The group may also develop an “energy freedom” index that ranks states based on regulation, market intervention and taxes.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...nergy-targets/

[boutons_deux]

Anti-Wind Strategy Memo Envisions News Corp. Ally


The Guardian reported on Tuesday that several conservative groups met earlier this year to coordinate a campaign to turn public opinion against wind power. A confidential memo distributed at the meeting outlined a PR strategy that would, among other things, use media outlets including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal to disseminate anti-wind messaging. The goal of the media campaign is to provide "cover" for elected officials to vote against wind power:

The coordinated effort stretches across multi-channels and multi-voices, and appears to come from as many as a dozen separate sources, but the message is the same and stays on point. The created barrage of voices provides enough cover that the elected officials have a way to vote no because they can clearly see they have support for our position.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012051...=Google+Reader

[jack sommerset]

The troll promised us a long thread even though nobody else seems interested. God bless

User Name Posts
boutons_deux 164
Wild Cobra 15
Winehole23 10
ChumpDumper 2
The Reckoning 2
FuzzyLumpkins 2
z0sa 2
CosmicCowboy 2
ManuBalboa 1
coyotes_geek 1
cantthinkofanything 1
Stringer_Bell 1
spursncowboys 1
Show Thread & Close Window

[boutons_deux]

ALEC To Formally Oppose Common Education Standards, Leaving Struggling Students Behind

The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is planning to formally oppose the Common Core Standards, which set benchmarks for what students should know and be able to do in reading and math at each grade level. Though ALEC misleadingly describes the Common Core as a “federal intrusion” into state education, these standards were actually created and voluntarily adopted by a consortium of states to improve our failing and fragmented education system. By opposing the Common Core, ALEC is choosing to promote local control at the expense of preparing students to be college- and career-ready.

Understanding the importance of the Common Core requires acknowledging the problems with our current education system — an area where ALEC has turned a blind eye. In 2011, only 35% of eighth grade students scored at the “proficient” level or above in math, and only a third of eighth grade students scored at the “proficient” level or above in reading on the nation’s reading and math report card.

These low achievement levels are not always obvious because states like South Carolina currently set their own standards and assessments. This results in a patchwork education system where students could perform well on their state test but not on the nation’s reading and math assessment.

http://thinkprogress.org/education/2...ion-standards/

ALEC is also involved in killing public schools by providing states with charter school frameworks

http://alecexposed.org/w/images/5/57...ct_Exposed.pdf

the objective? transfer taxpayer funds (aka follow the money) to for-profit, non-unionized charter schools.

[boutons_deux]

How the Corporate Right Hijacked America's Courts to Enrich the Top 1 Percent

For a generation, America's political-economy has been gripped in a vicious cycle. Those at the top of the economic pile have taken an ever-growing share of the nation's income, and then leveraged that haul into ever-greater political power, which they have in turn used to rewrite the rules of “the market” in their favor. Wash, rinse and repeat.

It's the result of years of ins utional investments by the corporate Right to advance a reactionary legal regime in America's courts. In the process, the richest Americans now have their hands in both our legislative and judicial branches, while working America has become a voiceless stepping stone.

“The more pernicious effect of economic inequality comes indirectly through its impact on political inequality,”

“a general pattern throughout history”:

When economic inequality increases, the people who have become economically more powerful will often attempt to use that power in order to gain even more political power. And once they are able to monopolize political power, they will start using that for changing the rules in their favor.

In almost every instance, senators appear to be considerably more responsive to the opinions of affluent cons uents than to the opinions of middle-class cons uents, while the opinions of cons uents in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent statistical effect on their senators’ roll call votes

A 2005 study by Yale University law professor Paul Gewirtz and Yale Law School graduate Chad Golder showed that among Supreme Court justices at that time, those most frequently labeled "conservative" were among the most frequent prac ioners of at least one brand of judicial activism -- the tendency to strike down statutes passed by Congress. Those most frequently labeled "liberal" were the least likely to strike down statutes passed by Congress.

A 2007 study published by University of Chicago law professor Thomas J. Miles and Cass R. Sunstein... used a different measurement of judicial activism: the tendency of judges to strike down decisions by federal regulatory agencies. Sunstein and Miles found that by this definition, the Supreme Court's "conservative" justices were the most likely to engage in "judicial activism" while the "liberal" justices were most likely to exercise "judicial restraint."

Spurred by their overlapping grievances, informed by an increasingly sophisticated of how to produce legal change, and coordinated by strategically shrewd group of patrons, conservatives began investing in a broad range activities designed to reverse their … organizational weaknesses. While similar kinds of organizational development were happening in other domains … in no other area was the process of strategic investment as prolonged, ambitious, complicated and successful as in the law.

In 2005, the Olin Foundation actually declared “mission accomplished” and closed up shop. The New York Times reported that after “three decades financing the intellectual rise of the right,” the foundation’s services were no longer needed.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/155379

The VRWC/1% has won the war on the 99%.

GAMEOVER and no way to reverse the outcome.

Enjoy your sterile, academic debates, signifying nothing.

[boutons_deux]

Conservative Thinktanks Launch Campaign to Turn Americans Against Wind Energy


A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama's energy agenda.

A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.

Now a confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using "subversion" to build a national movement of wind farm protesters.

The strategy proposal was prepared by a fellow of the American Tradition Ins ute (ATI) – although the thinktank has formally disavowed the project.

The proposal was discussed at a meeting of self-styled 'wind warriors' from across the country in Washington DC last February.

"These do ents show for the first time that local Nimby anti-wind groups are co-ordinating and working with national fossil-fuel funded advocacy groups to wreck the wind industry," said Gabe Elsner, a co-director of the Checks and Balances, the accountability group which unearthed the proposal and other do ents.

Among its main recommendations, the proposal calls for a national PR campaign aimed at causing "subversion in message of industry so that it effectively because so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it."


http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/155359

[boutons_deux]

How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education

Conducting research requires funding, and today's research follows the golden rule: The one with the gold makes the rules.

A report just released by Food and Water Watch examines the role of corporate funding of agricultural research at land grant universities, of which there are more than 100. “You hear again and again Congress and regulators clamoring for science-based rules, policies, regulations,” says Food and Water Watch researcher Tim
Schwab, explaining why he began investigating corporate influence in agricultural research. “So if the rules and regulations and policies are based on science that is industry-biased, then the fallout goes beyond academic articles. It really trickles down to farmer livelihoods and consumer choice.”

a broader look at all corporate agricultural research, $7.4 billion in 2006, dwarfs the mere $5.7 billion in all public funding of agricultural research spent the same year.

In 2005, nearly one third of agricultural scientists reported consulting for private industry. Corporations endow professorships and donate money to universities in return for having buildings, labs and wings named for them. Purdue University's Department of Nutrition Science blatantly offers corporate affiliates “corporate visibility with students and faculty” and “commitment by faculty and administration to address [corporate] members' needs,” in return for the $6,000 each corporate affiliate pays annually.

“We know from a number of meta-analyses, that corporate funding leads to results that are favorable to the corporate funder,”

I thought very deeply about whether my research plan was going to be relevant, and one of the indicators of relevancy would be if the ideas I put forward would get the attention of trade associations, private industry, benefactors, etc.”

it is not so much that the land-grant university has been corrupted by modern agro-industrial influence, as it has been historically successful in focusing on its mission in the context of our Cons utional framework of governance.

Thus, practically from the start, the elites in this country served the interests of those who peddled chemical fertilizers and other agricultural inputs –

The unholy trinity of industry, government and academics promoting industrial agriculture and de-emphasizing or dismissing sustainable methods has a long history and it continues today.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/155375

UCA gets the govt policies from the research it buys to increase its profits.

[boutons_deux]

red-state Christian Taleban in Louisiana destroying their public schools for "Christian" hate, right-wing indoctrination, anti-science, other dumb-down .

Louisiana's bold bid to privatize schools

Louisiana is embarking on the nation's boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children.

Starting this fall, thousands of poor and middle-class kids will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools.

The following year, students of any income will be eligible for mini-vouchers that they can use to pay a range of private-sector vendors for classes and apprenticeships not offered in traditional public schools. The money can go to industry trade groups, businesses, online schools and tutors, among others.

Every time a student receives a voucher of either type, his local public school will lose a chunk of state funding.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8501G020120601

Following ALEC's strategy of destroying/privatizing public education.

[boutons_deux]

How Top Law Professors Are Working To Expand Corporations’ Cons utional 'Rights'

Corporate America is hijacking the First Amendment.

In the political world, the Supreme Court continues to expand corporate speech rights, opening one more avenue for big money to flow into elections. And in the business world, federal courts have also cited commercial speech rights to block all kinds of government efforts to add health warnings on products or change the way unhealthy products are advertised.
The list is startling. America has an obesity crisis, but food producers and broadcasters beat back voluntary advertising guidelines. Tobacco beat back adding images to cigarette boxes. Milk companies beat back milk hormone labels, as did cell phone makers with radiation labels and video game makers with violence and sexual content labels. These defeats were based on asserting corporate speech rights—arguments with which the courts have all too often agreed.

But behind this depressing trend—which could change if there were more fair-minded federal judges—is an eyebrow-raising corporate ally: esteemed law professors who have been paid by business to expand on their scholarship as private consultants.

They develop pro-corporate strategies in papers and are far better paid than their liberal counterparts. Their work is cited by lobbyists and judges. Whether conservative scholars see the social costs of using the First Amendment as a deregulatory tool is debatable, but what is indisputable is that they are a key pillar in America’s ongoing "war of ideas."

“The work of many of these legal scholars has indeed undercut common-sense standards of free speech rights,”

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/155876

[boutons_deux]

The Loch Ness Monster Is Real; The KKK Is Good: The Shocking Content of Publicly Paid for Christian School Textbooks

Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.

Have you heard of the `Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? `Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all."

Extract from Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc. (1995)

Some scientists speculate that Noah took small or baby dinosaurs on the Ark.... are dinosaurs still alive today? With some recent photographs and testimonies of those who claimed to have seen one, scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence...

, 5 Even Worse Lies from Accelerated Christian Education),

- Science Proves sexuality is a Learned Behavior
- The Second Law of Thermodynamics Disproves Evolution
- No Transitional Fossils Exist
- Humans and Dinosaurs Co-Existed
- Evolution Has Been Disproved
- A Japanese Whaling Boat Found a Dinosaur
- Solar Fusion is a Myth

Like the ACE curriculum, A Beka and Bob Jones textbooks promote Young-Earth creationism, are heavily laden with political bias, and at times verge on racism. As shown in the following video, among the dubious, factually incorrect, politically tendentious, and racially and culturally insensitive claims in A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press textbooks are the following:

- Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.
- "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."
- "God used the 'Trail of Tears' to bring many Indians to Christ."
- It "cannot be shown scientifically that that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere's ozone layer."
- "God has provided certain 'checks and balances' in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists."
- the Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda.
- "Unions have always been plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created."
- Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential win was due to an imaginary economic crisis created by the media.
- "The greatest struggle of all time, the Battle of Armageddon, will occur in the Middle East when Christ returns to set up his kingdom on earth."

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/155926

[Big P]

lol...desperation

[boutons_deux]

Exposed: The Other ALECs' Corporate Playbook

he Most Powerful Lobby Firm of Which You've Never Heard

Founded in 1988, Stateside is self-described as the "industry leader" in state and local governmental affairs counseling. The company's home page tempts potential clients with a program that "transcends the conventional categories" of lobbying. The page further explains:

"State and local government relations - done well - protects the bottom line, promotes brand awareness, builds champions among policymakers and safeguards the ability of corporations and associations to succeed."

Stateside's corporate clients are a testament to the success of its strategy. They include the likes of Visa, FedEx, Intuit, Microsoft, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and United Technologies. Past clients have described the firm as "essential," "proactive" and "unmatched."

A lobbying behemoth - the self-proclaimed largest firm of its kind - Stateside has enough tricks up its sleeve to tackle even the most difficult, and often delicate, lobbying cases.

"We came to Stateside Associates asking them to accomplish a complex, nationwide task in a very short time frame. Stateside came through with flying colors, sooner than expected and needed almost no direction after getting the assignment," testified Thomas Kerr, vice president and assistant general counsel for Bayer Corporation.

Despite the complexities inherent to its acclaimed case-by-case lobbying approach, Stateside's successful strategy begins and ends with the same corporate playbook.

In fact, Stateside's founder, CEO and President, as well as former Executive Director of ALEC, Constance Campanella, was among the first to turn the unspoken playbook of corporate America into a concrete lobbying practice.

The playbook's related service at Stateside is now called "Groups Practice" and is run by none other than Behm himself.

So, what exactly is "Groups Practice"?

"Groups" - ALEC, CSG, NCSL, and More

"Groups" is the bland euphemism coined by Stateside's Campanella to refer to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that provide education and networking opportunities specifically to state-level elected officials. "Groups Practice" is Stateside's name for a stealth lobbying strategy oriented around these Groups.

If advocacy happens through the Groups, then expenses for what is in effect lobbying are considered tax-deductible charitable donations, unlike all other lobbying expenses. In addition, stealth lobbyists don't have to be registered to influence and sometimes even vote on model legislation.

By far the best-known of the Groups is ALEC, infamous for its role in promoting Castle Doctrine and voter ID legislation. ALEC has also been influential in spreading charter schools, tort reform, union-busting and overall deregulation.

But ALEC is far from alone in this game.

The three largest "other ALECs," and the most influential Groups in state politics are the Council of State Governments (CSG), the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation (SLLF). There are similarities in processes and structure among these organizations, but there are also several important differences.

Some, like CSG and NCSL, are essentially professional associations with automatic membership for all state-level elected officials. Though they are supported in large part by public tax dollars, both of these Groups also receive a substantial amount of support from private donors.

ALEC, with its selective membership of a primarily Republican Party membership base, has a right-wing ideological edge that the others lack. SLLF, like ALEC, is a purely corporate-funded Group, but it specifically targets legislative leaders in both the mainstream parties.

However, the shared structure of all the Groups - their nonprofit tax status - allows them all to be exploited, albeit to varying degrees, by their corporate sponsors. Groups are granted their nonprofit, tax-exempt status due to their declared educational purpose. This tax exemption is just icing on the cake for corporate sponsors that gain access to Group legislative membership.

Part One of this series described each of the largest Groups, providing information about membership, meetings, policy positions and in some cases model legislation. This part focuses on how corporate lobbyists use this network of Groups to turn a private agenda into public policy.

Powerful, but Far From Unique

The niche of stealth lobbying is so profitable that in addition to Stateside, other firms also participate. One is MultiState Associates. This firm, founded four years before Stateside in 1984, employs the same overall strategy of using the Groups to promote corporate agendas.

MultiState offers a flexible, "full range" program to respond to the changing needs of corporate clients, which in the past have included Honda North America; Bechtel Enterprises, Inc.; the American Automobile Association; Engineering THE LAW, Inc.' and others that are unlisted. The firm employs a unique, nationwide network of lobbyists that "can assist quickly and efficiently in helping clients strategize."

Just as Campanella has had prominent roles in both ALEC and Stateside, some of MultiState's lobbyists are involved in the same revolving-door of leadership between the Groups and stealth lobby firms. MultiState's Senior Adviser Daniel Spargue, for example, served as the executive director and CEO of CSG for 19 years before jumping ship to accept his current position.

But how exactly do lobby firms like Stateside and MultiState use the Groups (NCSL, CSG, SLLF and ALEC) to advance corporate agendas? What "expertise" did Spargue and Campanella pick up during their time working as CSG and ALEC senior staff?

It is time to turn to the lobbyists' playbook itself.

The Playbook

The objective of the Playbook is to begin with a private agenda and end with a public policy with bipartisan support. These are the six simple steps to achieving that goal.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9889-...ponent&print=1

[boutons_deux]

Media dominated by liberals? GMAFB

The VRWC/Repug proganda and slander machine has been sliming and slandering non-stop.



REPORT: Media Overwhelmingly Focus On Rulings Against Health Care Reform Cons utionality

Individual Mandate Invented By Conservative Heritage Foundation, Supported By GOP In '90s. In an article for The New Yorker, Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein wrote:

The mandate made its political début in a 1989 Heritage Foundation brief led "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans," as a counterpoint to the single-payer system and the employer mandate, which were favored in Democratic circles. In the brief, Stuart Butler, the foundation's health-care expert, argued, "Many states now require passengers in automobiles to wear seat-belts for their own protection. Many others require anybody driving a car to have liability insurance. But neither the federal government nor any state requires all households to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement." The mandate made its first legislative appearance in 1993, in the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act--the Republicans' alternative to President Clinton's health-reform bill--which was sponsored by John Chafee, of Rhode Island, and co-sponsored by eighteen Republicans, including Bob Dole, who was then the Senate Minority Leader.

Message Received: Americans Now Overwhelmingly Believe That The Individual Mandate Is Uncons utional

http://mediamatters.org/research/201206220002

Americans are ing stupid and ignorant, which is exactly how VRWC/UCA can lie to them so successfully ABOUT EVERYTHING.

[boutons_deux]

8 Ways America's Headed Back to the Robber-Baron Era

1. Unregulated Corporate Capitalism Creates Economic Collapse

2. Union Busting

3. Income Inequality

4. Open Purchase of Elections

5. Supreme Court Partisanship

6. Violations of Civil Liberties

7. Voter Repression

8. Anti-Immigration Fervor

The Gilded Age was a horrible time and I fear the nation slipping back into this of poverty, violence and hate. I believe that young people largely reject the extremist agenda that is hurtling us through a time machine to the bad old days of the 1890s, but they don’t have the power right now. Republicans know the demographics do not favor them and are trying to fix the game through voter suppression, packing the courts with extremists, and concentrating wealth and power so they can control politicians and the media.

During the Gilded Age, people throughout society began organizing for reform: labor unions, farmers, middle-class reformers. After 1900, this organizing paid off as government began passing reforms to alleviate the most extreme problems of the Gilded Age. Child labor laws, worker compensation for injuries at work, government regulation of the railroads, and the direct election of senators all took power away from corporations and put it back in the hands of the people. It wasn’t perfect, but it started the social reforms that created the American middle-class.

Like in the late 19th century, we need to take back our country from corporate control. We need to create well-paid jobs in the United States, revitalize the labor movement, and pass legislation to respect civil liberties, give undo ented immigrants legal status, and ensure that voting rights laws are enforced. Like our ancestors, we can fix these problems. First we need to recognize that the 1% has declared war upon the middle class and then we can start organizing to create the better tomorrow we crave.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/156111

[boutons_deux]

Obamacare Opponents Are Fat Cats Masquerading As Small Business

The lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the National Federation for Independent Business (NFIB), is a highly partisan front group masquerading as the "nation's leading small business association," critics say. The nation's highest court is expected to rule on the federal health care law Thursday.

Bankrolled By Big Donors, Not Small Business

NFIB Ties to Right-Wing, ALEC

Who Represents Small Business?

Despite the NFIB's right-wing ties and possible financial support from big business interests, it purports to represent small businesses, and says it is challenging the Affordable Care Act because of the law's purported impact on the "small business community" (despite tax credits that help small business provide insurance for employees).

Another small business association, the Small Business Majority, conducted a poll showing that around half of small-business owners want to preserve the Affordable Care Act, while just 30 percent want to repeal it.

Who does the NFIB really represent?

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/156053

[boutons_deux]

How Climate Change Is Worsened by Attacks on the Public Sector, Science and Regulation

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/156164

AGW deniers are really shills for the VRWC/1% who don't want any disruption in their control of wealth.

[boutons_deux]

How A Koch-Affiliated Group Is Infiltrating State News Coverage in Mainstream Papers

he Franklin Center is a multimillion-dollar organization whose Web sites and affiliates provide free statehouse reporting to local newspapers and other media across the country. Funded by major conservative donors, staffed by veterans of groups affiliated with the Koch brothers, and maintaining a regular presence hosting right-wing events, the organization boasts of its ability to fill the void created by state newsroom layoffs.

The group's editors claim that their "professional journalism" work is walled off from the organization's more nakedly political operations and say that their "pro-taxpayer, pro-liberty, free market perspective" doesn't compromise their accuracy or independence. But many journalism professionals -- even newspaper editors who reprint the work of Franklin Center affiliates in their own pages -- speak warily of the group's ideological bent.

All but one of the IdahoReporter.com stories quoted Franklin Center parent the Idaho Freedom Foundation and highlighted its opposition to the bill -- which would have barred those under 18 from commercial tanning beds -- a restriction that 38 other states have already ins uted because of the dangers of skin cancer and other health concerns.

A March 6 story even based its angle on the Freedom Foundation's opposition to the bill and touted its reasons in the lead paragraph.

"They covered the tanning bill because it is one of those pieces of legislation that impacts the free market,"

But the website's coverage of the tanning issue clearly figured into the Idaho Freedom Foundation's efforts to stop the measure and protect that industry's business owners,

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/156278

VRWC LYING, LYING, LYING.

[jack sommerset]

I have been waiting for someone to report this story here for awhile now. It appears something is going on here, something not quit adding up if you know what I mean. God bless

[Yonivore]

I have been waiting for someone to report this story here for awhile now. It appears something is going on here, something not quit adding up if you know what I mean. God bless

What story?

[jack sommerset]

This story. Nice find by Boutons. God bless.

How A Koch-Affiliated Group Is Infiltrating State News Coverage in Mainstream Papers

he Franklin Center is a multimillion-dollar organization whose Web sites and affiliates provide free statehouse reporting to local newspapers and other media across the country. Funded by major conservative donors, staffed by veterans of groups affiliated with the Koch brothers, and maintaining a regular presence hosting right-wing events, the organization boasts of its ability to fill the void created by state newsroom layoffs.

The group's editors claim that their "professional journalism" work is walled off from the organization's more nakedly political operations and say that their "pro-taxpayer, pro-liberty, free market perspective" doesn't compromise their accuracy or independence. But many journalism professionals -- even newspaper editors who reprint the work of Franklin Center affiliates in their own pages -- speak warily of the group's ideological bent.

All but one of the IdahoReporter.com stories quoted Franklin Center parent the Idaho Freedom Foundation and highlighted its opposition to the bill -- which would have barred those under 18 from commercial tanning beds -- a restriction that 38 other states have already ins uted because of the dangers of skin cancer and other health concerns.

A March 6 story even based its angle on the Freedom Foundation's opposition to the bill and touted its reasons in the lead paragraph.

"They covered the tanning bill because it is one of those pieces of legislation that impacts the free market,"

But the website's coverage of the tanning issue clearly figured into the Idaho Freedom Foundation's efforts to stop the measure and protect that industry's business owners,

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/156278

VRWC LYING, LYING, LYING.

[boutons_deux]

ALEC, Tech and the Telecom Wars: Killing America's Telecom Utilities

One of most insidious, but least reported, campaigns that ALEC has undertaken is to further deregulate and privatize America's telecom system controlled by AT&T, Verizon and Centurylink. It has done this through a series of coordinated programs intended to end state regulatory oversight over the telecom industry, prohibit public broadband services and kill-off the telecom infrastructure, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

Worse, as we will discuss in upcoming articles, the plan to close the PSTN is also being played out at on the national level, where the phone companies have convinced the FCC's Technical Advisory Council to 'sunset' the PSTN into oblivion.

ALEC, working closely with AT&T and Verizon, creates model telecom laws that various elected officials, "water carriers," aggressively promote in state legislatures across the country. To accomplish this it teams up with a host of non-profit influence peddlers such as TechAmerica, one of the leading high-tech lobbying groups, or the Von Coaltion.

These efforts, combined with the policies and programs promoted through the FCC, determine the nation's telecommunications system. No wonder why the U.S. ranks 17th in broadband. Short-term gains have long-term goals. Today, regulatory capture is business as usual.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-...comm_ref=false

[boutons_deux]

Murdoch toilet paper doing the VRWC dirty work

The Wall Street Journal Covers Up ALEC Link To Anti-Union School Privatization Law



The Wall Street Journal this morning failed to report ties between the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and controversial "parent-trigger" legislation that would allow parents to take over and convert public schools to charter schools. They also failed to report that the Journal's parent company, News Corp, is a member of ALEC. The Journal's treatment of the legislation also cited no criticism of the proposal, which has been described as an effort "to manipulate parents into letting [the charter school lobby] privatize more public schools.

In the July 23 article, the Wall Street Journal reported on legislation that, according to the article, "empowers parents to take control of a school if enough of them sign pe ions" and convert it into a charter school. But the article failed to mention that the proposal is based heavily on model legislation developed by ALEC, a controversial right-wing group that was recently exposed as a significant influence in the pro-charter movement in Georgia.

ALEC has also been behind such controversial legislation as voter ID laws and "Stand Your Ground" legislation. After the group's involvement in these efforts were made public, several of their corporate members left the organization. One of the corporations who remains a member of ALEC, however, is News Corp, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal. The article did not disclose the paper's relationship with ALEC and similarly did not disclose their relationship even while shielding ALEC from critics.

In addition to not disclosing their conflict of interest, the Journal reported on the claims of "advocates" of the legislation, but made no mention of opposition by several parent organizations, including parents who wanted their initial pe ion signatures in favor of that legislation revoked, because "many parents said that they had been misled about what the pe ions called for" as well as "harassment by some signature gatherers." In addition, the nonprofit group Parents Across America pointed out:

According to Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters and a public school parent in NYC, "The Parent Trigger was devised as an underhanded trick by the charter lobby to manipulate parents into letting them privatize more public schools. The fact that it has aroused huge controversy and has so far failed to achieve any results in California is one more reason legislators should be wary of passing it here in New York State. Parents want to be involved from the ground up in devising positive reforms to improve their children's schools, like class size reduction or offering a more well-rounded curriculum. They do not want their schools either closed, converted into charters or half their staff fired."



http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07...link-to/187296

ALEC enabling shovelling of taxpayer dollars to corporate schools. Neither ALEC nor corporations GAF about education.

[boutons_deux]

When Is a Phone Call Not a Phone Call? (When ALEC Says So)

SB 1161, co-authored by State Senator Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Steven Bradford (D-Inglewood), has passed the CA State Senate and will come before the Assembly later this summer.

The bill proposes eliminating statewide supervision of all Internet phone service (VOIP) -- until 2020.

As big telecom corporations like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner rebrand themselves as VOIP providers, the ability of California to hold them to basic service guarantees and fair business practices vanishes under this proposed legislation.

But the truth is, there is almost no regulation of Internet phone service (VOIP) being imposed. This is a preemptive strike to prevent future actions on behalf of California consumers, and state-by-state, consumers across the country.

The telecom industry is trying to dictate the terms of their own future regulation as the industry shifts to VOIP networks and make themselves exempt from requirements for telephone service to be affordable, available to everyone, safe, and reliable in an emergency.

This is not just a California issue. Senator Padilla's bill has origins in a model bill by ALEC, The right-wing American Legislative Council, where is it is called The Regulatory Modernization Act.

Similar bills have been brought to many state legislatures, passing in Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Utah. However Kentucky, New York, Maine and New Jersey have fought and won against IP deregulation,


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-...comm_ref=false