Presidential race jumps the dog

[stilltrucking]

Misjudging our capacity for the absurd.


Dog Bites Campaign

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs?hpid=z6

[Steve Plonk]

Woof Woof ! Who let the dogs out to get jumped? Romney!? Obama & the
Democrats look like, in the cartoon, that they are ready for a meal...

[stilltrucking]

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/29/151646558 ... believe-it

The death of facts.
Where is Joe Friday when we need him.
"Just the facts, ma'am".

Romney went on vacation trip one year and strapped the family dog to the roof of the car. Obama ate dog meat. In the mean time 81 members of congress are card carrying members of the communist party.
And Joe McCarthy is alive and well in Wisconsin.
And we are still looking for Sadam's WMD's last seen under the rug in the Oval Office.

Happy Mayday

[Steve Plonk]

It is my sincere hope that Obama & the Democrats steamroll Romney the
way he steamrolled Santorum. Oh hell, yeah!

Oh, reactionary politics are alive & well in spirit. Meanwhile, Joe McCarthy is
mouldering in his grave...No doubt about it, however, these wedge issues
have not translated into primary votes so far. Imagine trying to outlaw
contraception & restarting "commie hunting". Like the early fifties...

Except that dog doesn't hunt anymore: "My dog's more neo-con than
your dog, my dog's more neo-con than yours, my dog's more neo-con,
'cause he wears the sign of Santorum, my dog's more neo-con than yours..."
Hey, my dog's got the Gingrinch itch...moreover...

I doubt anyone in Congress is a card carrying communist. However, a few are socialist...There is a difference. Sweden is a socialist country. May the bright light of shared prosperity shine on you all this month.

May the waves of oil raise all boats. We've drilled more during four years of the Obama administration than in eight years of Shrub. Let the "fracked
soil" pass some natural gas in upper northeast Tennessee. Let 'em drill where
folks want 'em to drill! Roll drilling rigs, roll to Tennessee...Oh hell, yeah!

[stilltrucking]

Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I listen to the election campaign rhetoric as much as I can stand.

I like to keep a warm fuzzy norman rockwell saturaday evening post state of mind about our elections.

But I can't help having a lot of envy for the French system of elections. The whole freaking campaign is two weeks. And that is it! They allow two weeks for campaigning and then they vote, two weeks and done with it.

Oh well I guess we are stuck with what we got.
I think it is still his to loose. I am still undecided if I will even vote this time.

[jimboloco]

It is all of us wannabees. our election to lose. FLORIDA now has draconian colonial voter registration laws. Many older, particularly black folks once again have lost their right ro vote because they were birthed by midwives and have no legal birth cerfiticates. The Grand Old Patriarchy party will continue parsing about stimulating the economy with their ideology of privitization, the new plantation economy. Don't vote, please. You want to leave a legacy of despair indiffidence and poverty?

[stilltrucking]

cutting and pasting


We’re a nation whose leaders are pursuing policies that amount to economic “suicide” Chomsky says. But there are glimmers of possibility.


In the US, first of all, the electoral system has been almost totally shredded. For a long time it’s been pretty much run by private concentrated spending but now it’s over the top. Elections increasingly over the years have been [public relations] extravaganzas. It was understood by the ad industry in 2008 -- they gave Barack Obama their marketing award of the year. This year it’s barely a pretense.

The Republican Party has pretty much abandoned any pretense of being a traditional political party. It’s in lockstep obedience to the very rich, the super rich and the corporate sector. They can’t get votes that way so they have to mobilize a different constituency. It’s always been there, but it’s rarely been mobilized politically. They call it the religious right, but basically it’s the extreme religious population. The US is off the spectrum in religious commitment. It’s been increasing since 1980 but now it’s a major part of the voting base of the Republican Party so that means committing to anti-abortion positions, opposing women’s rights… The US is a country [in which] eighty percent of the population thinks the Bible was written by god. About half think every word is literally true. So it’s had to appeal to that – and to the nativist population, the people that are frightened, have always been… It’s a very frightened country and that’s increasing now with the recognition that the white population is going to be a minority pretty soon, “they’ve taken our country from us.” That’s the Republicans. There are no more moderate Republicans. They are now the centrist Democrats. Of course the Democrats are drifting to the Right right after them. The Democrats have pretty much given up on the white working class. That would require a commitment to economic issues and that’s not their concern.

LF: You describe Occupy as the first organized response to a thirty-year class war….

NC: It’s a class war, and a war on young people too… that’s why tuition is rising so rapidly. There’s no real economic reason for that. It’s a technique of control and indoctrination. And this is really the first organized, significant reaction to it, which is important.

LF: Are comparisons to Arab Spring useful?

NC: One point of similarity is they’re both responses to the toll taken by the neo lib programs. They have a different effect in a poor country like Egypt than a rich country like the US. But structurally somewhat similar. In Egypt the neoliberal programs have meant statistical growth, like right before the Arab Spring, Egypt was a kind of poster child for the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund:] the marvelous economic management and great reform. The only problem was for most of the population it was a kind of like a blow in the solar plexus: wages going down, benefits being eliminated, subsidized food gone and meanwhile, high concentration of wealth and a huge amount of corruption.

We have a structural analogue here – in fact the same is true in South America – some of the most dramatic events of the last decade (and we saw it again in Cartagena a couple of weeks ago) Latin America is turning towards independence for the first time in five hundred years. That’s not small. And the Arab Spring was beginning to follow it. There’s a counterrevolution in the Middle East/North Africa (MENAC) countries beating it back, but there were advances. In South America [there were] substantial ones and that’s happening in the Arab Spring and it has a contagious effect – it stimulated the Occupy movement and there are interactions.

[stilltrucking]

Only thing cheers me up these days is the news from Argentina. The hell they been throug to get to where they are now.

Our mutual friend friend introduced me to the word "neoliberal" I had no idea what it was. Now I wonder is that what Obama is, not liberal but neo liberal, Clinton too.

neo conservatives and neo liberals
the sun so hot I neary froze to death
argentina don't you cry for me.

[jimboloco]

Where does this leave us? Texas versus Florida?
Who gets the military bases? Voters are being disenfranchised
from voting. The Democrats are forced to play ball with PAC's.
You and I are getting social security, some protective health care and food stamps. Yippie! How can we overturn the masters? Fees on carbon emissions.
Incentives to invest in domestic employment and not to invest in 3rd world employment. Taxing then wealthy. Supporting the unions.
What else are we gonna do? Not vote and watch the privatization continue?

[stilltrucking]

Beats me Jim. I don't know what I should do about voting again.

The voter ID laws are brought to us by A.L.E.C. the same people who brought us the "Stand Your Ground Laws" and the prision labor industry

History of ALEC and Prison Labor

Prison labor has already started to undercut the business of corporations that don’t use it. In Florida, PRIDE has become one of the largest printing corporations in the state, its cheap labor having a significant impact upon smaller local printers. This scenario is playing out in states across the country. In addition to Florida's forty-one prison industries, California alone has sixty. Another 100 or so are scattered throughout other states. What's more, several states are looking to replace public sector workers with prison labor. In Wisconsin Governor Walker’s recent assault on collective bargaining opened the door to the use of prisoners in public sector jobs in Racine, where inmates are now doing landscaping, painting, and other maintenance work. According to the Capitol Times, “inmates are not paid for their work, but receive time off their sentences.” The same is occurring in Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida and Georgia, all states with GOP Assembly majorities and Republican governors. Much of ALEC’s proposed labor legislation, implemented state by state is allowing replacement of public workers with prisoners.

“It’s bad enough that our companies have to compete with exploited and forced labor in China,” says Scott Paul Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a coalition of business and unions. “They shouldn’t have to compete against prison labor here at home. The goal should be for other nations to aspire to the quality of life that Americans enjoy, not to discard our efforts through a downward competitive spiral.”

Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News, says prison labor is part of a “confluence of similar interests” among politicians and corporations, long referred to as the “prison industrial complex.” As decades of model legislation reveals, ALEC has been at the center of this confluence. “This has been ongoing for decades, with prison privatization contributing to the escalation of incarceration rates in the US,” Friedmann says. Just as mass incarceration has burdened American taxpayers in major prison states, so is the use of inmate labor contributing to lost jobs, unemployment and decreased wages among workers—while corporate profits soar.

http://www.thenation.com/article/162478 ... ison-labor

Boycott ALEC's Corporate and Non-Profit Sponsors


ALEC's Corporate, Legal, Non-Profit and Scholastic Sponsors

Corporate Board

• Altria Group, Daniel Smith
• American Bail Coalition, William Carmichael, Jerry Watson
• AT&T, William Leahy
• Bayer Corp., Sandy Oliver
• CenterPoint 360, W. Preston Baldwin - Chairman
• Diageo, Kenneth Lane
• Energy Future Holdings, Sano Blocker
• ExxonMobil Corporation, Randall Smith
• GlaxoSmithKline, John Del Giorno
• Johnson & Johnson, Don Bohn
• Koch Companies Public Sector, Mike Morgan
• Peabody Energy, Kelly Mader
• Pfizer Inc., Michael Hubert
• PhRMA, Jeff Bond
• Reed Elsevier, Inc., Teresa Jennings
• Reynolds American, David Powers
• Salt River Project, Russell Smoldon
• State Farm Insurance Co., Roland Spies
• United Parcel Service (UPS)[2], Richard McArdle
• Wal-Mart Stores, Maggie Sans

For-Profit Corporations

• Alkermes, Inc. (biotechnology company), Exhibitor at ALEC's 2011 Annual Conference
• Allergan, State corporate co-chair of Tennessee, "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference ($50,000 in 2010) and member of Louisiana Host Committee
• Altria Group, ALEC Private Enterprise Board member co-chair of the International Relations Task Force and "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference ($50,000 in 2010)
• Amazon.com, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conferenc ($10,000 in 2010
• Ameren sponsor during the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting
• American Electric Power, member of ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force
• Arizona Public Service Company
• AstraZeneca, State corporate co-chair of Delaware
• AT&T, Private Enterprise Board member , State corporate co-chair of Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force member
• Atmos Energy, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Bayer Corp., Private Enterprise Board member, State corporate co-chair of Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Texas and "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• BlueCross BlueShield of Louisiana, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• BP America, Inc., "President" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Bristol-Myers Squibb
• Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF), "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• CashAmerica "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Celgene Corporation, State corporate co-chair of Illinois
• CenterPoint 360, ALEC Private Enterprise Board member
• CenturyLink "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Chesapeake Energy, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Chevron Corporation, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Civic Initiatives, LLC ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force member
• Cleco, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference and member of Louisiana Host Committee
• CN (Canadian National Railroad), "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Comcast, State corporate co-chair of Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri and Utah and recipient of ALEC's 2011 State Chair of the Year Award
• Connections Academy
• ConocoPhillips, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Corrections Corporation of America
• Cowart Group member of ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting Louisiana Host Committee
• Cox Communications, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• CQ Roll Call Exhibitor at ALEC's 2011 Annual Conference
• CSX Corporation, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Dell, Inc., ALEC Education Task Force member
• Diageo
• Dow Chemical Company, ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member and "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Duke Energy Corp., State corporate co-chair of Indiana and South Carolina
• Eli Lilly and Company, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Emerson Electric Co., ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force member
• EnCana Corporation, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Energy Future Holdings
• Energy Transfer "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Entergy, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Express Scripts (pharmaceutical retailer), sponsor of during the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting
• ExxonMobil Corporation, Private Enterprise Board member, "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• EZCorp "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• FedEx, Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Executive Committee member, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• General Motors Corporation, ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force member
• Genesee & Wyoming Inc. ("short line and regional freight railroads in the United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium"), "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Georgia-Pacific (owned by Koch Industries), ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting Committee member
• GlaxoSmithKline, Private Enterprise Board member and State corporate co-chair of New Mexico, New York and North Carolina
• Guarantee Trust Life Insurance
• Gulf States Toyota, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Harris Deville & Associates (public relations & lobbying), "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• HP, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference[7] ($5,000 in 2010)[8]
• Hunt Guillot & Associates (engineering firm with offices in LA, TX & PA),
• International Paper, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Jacobs Entertainment (film marketing firm), "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• John Deere & Company, ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force member
• Johnson & Johnson, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• K12 Inc.,
• Kansas City Southern (an "international transportation holding company" that owns, among other things, the Panama Canal Railway Company), "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Know Who (political contact information company
• Koch Industries and Koch Industries Public Sector, Private Enterprise Board member, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Leadership Directories, Inc. (political contact information business
• Leavitt Partners (Utah healthcare and food safety business firm)
• LifeSaver Interlock Holdings, Inc. (manufacturer of ignition interlocks to be installed in the vehicles of DUI offenders
• LouisDreyfus Commodities, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Mars Inc
• McDonalds Corporation, ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Committee
• McKinsey & Company (Partner Jeffrey Lane, Private Enterprise Board Member 2008)
• McMoRan Exploration Company ("exploration, development and production of oil and natural gas offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and onshore in the Gulf Coast area... focused on the 'deep gas play,' drilling to depths of 15,000 to 25,000 feet... and on the 'ultra-deep gas play' below 25,000 feet,"), "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Merck[16], "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Micron Technology (semiconductor company),
• MV Verisol (motor vehicle insurance verification company
• Norfolk Southern, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Northwestern Energy ("one of the largest providers of electricity and natural gas in the northwest quadrant of the United State)
• Novartis, given ALEC's 2011 Private Sector Member of the Year Award[23]
• NV Energy, Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member
• OptumInsight (previously Ingenix, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group and was sued for fraud by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in 2008 and "agreed to put $350 million into a class-action restitution fund to pay physicians and policyholders for services provided by out-of-network providers. The Optum health service businesses have a new name but are still subsidiaries of UnitedHealth Group.),
• Parquet Public Affairs (Orlando, Washington and New York PR firm)
• Peabody Energy, Private Enterprise Board member, 2011 winner of ALEC's Private Sector Member of the Year Award and "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Pfizer Inc., Private Enterprise Board member, State corporate co-chair of Colorado, Nebraska and Wisconsin[3] and "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Pinnacle West Capital
• Progress Energy, State corporate co-chair of South Carolina
• QEP Resources ("natural gas and oil exploration and production company"[46]), "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Reed Elsevier, Inc.
• Reynolds American, Private Enterprise Board member, recipient of ALEC's 2011 Private Sector Member of the Year Award, "President" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Robert Huff Designs (manufacturer of State, County, and City seals),
• Salt River Project, Private Enterprise Board member
• Sanofi/Sanofi-Aventis, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• SAP America, awarded ALEC's 2011 Private Sector of the Year Award
• Shell Oil Company, ALEC Civil Justice Task Force member, "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Spectra Energy (natural gas infrastructure company), "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• State Farm Insurance Co., Private Enterprise Board member, recipient of ALEC's 2011 Private Sector Member of the Year Award and "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• State Net (private company reporting on state legislation, with clients including "five of the nation's ten largest companies"), "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Takeda Pharmaceutical (global pharmaceutical company based in Japan, recipient of ALEC's 2011 State Chair of the Year Award, "President" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Taser International Inc. (stun gun maker), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force member
• Thomson Reuters Accelus (created by the Thomson Corporation's purchase of Reuters in 2008),
• Time Warner, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• TogetherRX Access (an LLC with 18 pharmaceutical member corporations), "Vice Chairman" level sponsor at 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Gulf States Toyota, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Unilever (owner of Axe deodorant, Dove soap, Pond's cold cream, Suave shampoo, Vaseline petroleum jelly, Signal toothpaste, Surf laundry soap, Slim Fast weight loss foods, Lipton tea, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Breyers ice cream, and Country Crock margarine),
• Union Pacific Corporation, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• UnitedHealthcare, "Chairman" level sponsor of and exhibitor at 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• United Parcel Service (UPS), Private Enterprise Board member, Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Executive Committee member
• UPS Airlines,
• Verizon Communications, Inc., Private Enterprise Board member
• Visa, "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference and sponsor of the Plenary Session of FreedomWorks' Dick Armey
• Walgreens, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Wal-Mart Stores, "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• WellPoint, "Director" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• The Williams Company (natural gas company),
• Xcel Energy, State corporate co-chair of Wisconsin
• YUM! Brands (owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's and A&W), State corporate co-chair of Kentucky and Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee member

Law Firms

• Adams and Reese LLP (law firm in the southern United States and Washington, D.C.),
• Avenson, Oakley & Cope (Iowa lobbying firm
• Bryan Cave (St. Louis, MO law firm
• Capital Connections, LLC (Vermont lobbying firm,
• The Capitol Group (Louisiana lobbying firm representing Reed Elsevier's Lexis-Nexis,
• Casteel and Roberts (Austin, TX lobbying firm
• Hamilton Consulting Group (Wisconsin lobbying firm
• Hein Law Firm (Kansas law and lobbying firm,
• Jim Dunlap Consultants (Oklahoma lobbying firm
• Jones Walker (law firm in the Gulf South
• Lindsay, Hart, Neil & Weigler LLP (Oregon law and lobbying firm),
• Mullikin Law Firm (South Carolina law firm
• Nelson, Mullins, Riley and Scarborough (a nationwide law and lobbying firm),
• NH Government Solutions Group, LLC (New Hampshire lobbying firm
• Nickles Group (Washington, D.C. lobbying firm with clients including Bristol-Myers Squibb, CIGNA Corporation, Comcast, Eli Lilly and Company, Exxon Mobil and Monsanto
• Preti Flaherty (Maine law and lobbying firm
• Roedel, Parsons, Koch, Blache, Balhoff & McCollister (Louisiana law and lobbying firm[74]
• Serlin Haley, LLP (Boston public law firm
• Southern Strategy Group (division of US Strategy Group, network of lobbying firms
• TE Williams & Associates LLC (Louisiana lobbying firm
• Vogel Law Firm (a North Dakota and Minnesota law and lobbying firm

ALEC Board of Scholars:

• Kay Coles James - President and Founder of the Gloucester Institute; and formerly Senior Fellow and Director of "The Citizenship Project" at the Heritage Foundation, Dean of the School of Government at Regent University, Secretary of Health and Human Resources for former Virginia Governor George Allen (where she implemented Virginia's controversial welfare reform initiative), Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management during George W. Bush's administration, Senior Vice President of the Family Research Council, Associate Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during George H.W. Bush's administration, member of the National Commission on Children during Ronald Reagan's administration, and Boardmember of Focus on the Family
• Arthur B. Laffer - Inventor of the "Laffer Curve," often called "the father of supply-side economics," Co-chair of the Policy Council for the Free Enterprise Fund, a lobbying organization founded by Stephen Moore and other Club for Growth members; and formerly member of the Economic Policy Advisory Board during Ronald Reagan's administration and active in his 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns, and Chief Economist at the Office of Management and Budget during Richard Nixon's administration
• Stephen Moore - Founder of the Club for Growth and member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board[8] who has been called "a voodoo economist";[9] and formerly: Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, senior economist at the Joint Economic Committee under Chairman Dick Armey (TX) and Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Budgetary Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.[10]
• Victor Schwartz - Partner at the Washington D.C. offices of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP -- a law and lobbying firm that has represented big tobacco companies such as Philip Morris (now Altria Group), big pharmaceutical companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline, and big technology companies such as Sprint Nextel, Microsoft and Sony. He has been very active in the arena of tort reform and has been called "the undisputed king of tort reform and considered one of Washington, D.C.'s 50 top lobbyists; Formerly a lawyer and lobbyist at Crowell & Moring for 21 years; Director of the Federal Insurance Administration from 1978-1980, and a professor and dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.[
• Richard Vedder - Economics professor at Ohio University, and Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute and theAmerican Enterprise Institute; and formerly a commentator for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy on such issues as spending on public schools,[ , for the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution on issues such as immigration and labor, and Board member of the National Taxpayers Union.
• Bob Williams - Founder and Senior Fellow of the Freedom Foundation-- previously known as the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a libertarian organization whose mission "is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government"--[23] Board Member of the State Policy Network and a "visiting fellow" at the Mercatus Center; and formerly an auditor for the Pentagon and Post Office, and a five term state legislator in Washington State.

Not-For-Profit Organizations/b>

• Alliance Defense Fund,
• American Civil Rights Institute and Coalition,
• American Enterprise Institute
• American Federation for Children, "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• American Principles Project, ALEC Education Task Force member
• American Stewards of Liberty (a private property rights organization)
• Americans for Tax Reform,
• Americans United for Life (pro-life advocacy group),
• Better Education for Kids (B4K) (a 501(c)4 advocacy group whose tax exempt status was revoked by the IRS June 9, 2011) - Derrell Bradford, Executive Director, spoke on "Enacting a Comprehensive K-12 Education Reform Agenda" at the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting
• Capitol Commission (a non-profit that "exists... to be a vehicle of God in transforming the hearts and lives of elected officials with the gospel of Jesus Christ"),
• Cato Institute,
• Center for Competitive Politics, Public Safety and Elections Task Force Executive Committee member
• Center for Security Policy,
• Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member
• Citizens in Charge
• Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation,
• European Conservatives and Reformists ("multinational grouping of 56 Members of the European Parliament"),
• Family Research Council,
• Florida Justice Reform Association, ALEC Civil Justice Task Force member
• Foundation for Excellence in Education (a Florida 501(c)3 focusing on education reform -
• Foundation for Fair Civil Justice[22]
• Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of and exhibitor at 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Fraser Institute Global Resource Center', ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member
• Freedom Foundation, Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force and Public Safety and Elections Task Force member[24] and recipient of ALEC's 2011 Private Sector Member of the Year Award
• Free State Foundation (think tank promoting free markets, limited government and rule of law principles in telecommunications and information technology policy) -
• Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice,
• Heartland Institute[28], Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force member, Education Task Force member, Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Financial Services Subcommittee member and Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member
• Heritage Foundation,
• Illinois Policy Institute ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force member
• Independence Institute, ALEC International Relations Task Force member
• Innosight Institute (in its own words, "a not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank whose mission is to apply Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen’s theories of disruptive innovation to develop and promote solutions to the most vexing problems in the social sector"), ALEC Education Task Force member
• Institute for Energy Research, ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member
• Institute for Justice, ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force member
• Institute for Policy Innovation
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Utility Department -
• Iowans for Tax Relief (lobbying group, PAC and foundation),
• Lumina Foundation for Education ("private, independent foundation... committed to enrolling and graduating more students from college"), "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Mackinac Center for Public Policy
• Mercatus Center at George Mason University,
• National Association of Charter School Authorizers, ALEC Education Task Force member
• National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Education Task Force member
• National Organization for Marriage,
• National Popular Vote (a non-partisan 501(c)(4) devoted to guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states while retaining the Electoral College; ALEC has published model legislation specifically opposed to the national popular vote, but in August 2011 hosted a debate on "Electoral College v. National Popular Vote"), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force member
• National Rifle Association, former co-chair of ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force in 2011, "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (the lobbying arm of the NRA),
• National Right to Life Committee, Inc. (the largest anti-abortion organization in the U.S.),
• National Right to Work Committee,
• National Taxpayers Union
• Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, ALEC Education Task Force member
• Prison Fellowship Ministries
• ProFamily Legislative Network (a subdivision of David Barton's WallBuilders),
• Reason Foundation, ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force and Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force member
• The Republican Legislative Campaign Committee (dedicated exclusively to electing more Republicans to state legislatures),
• RestoringFreedom.org, Inc. (Texas nonprofit corporation proposing a Constitutional amendment "which imposes economic discipline to stop our decline into economic failure, and makes our government more accountable, open, and transparent"Trustee" level sponsor of and exhibitor at 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Science and Public Policy Institute, ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member
• Solar Alliance ("works with state administrators, legislators and utilities to establish cost effective solar policies"),
• State Budget Solutions,
• State Policy Network, "Chairman" level sponsor of and exhibitor at 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Stop Child Predators, Corporate Co-chair
• Tax Foundation, ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force member
• Texas Public Policy Foundation
• United Services Automobile Association ("a diversified financial services group of companies [providing] financial planning, insurance, investments and banking products to members of the U.S. military and their families"), "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• Walton Family Foundation, "Chairman" level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference
• WallBuilders (founded by "Christian historical revisionist" David Barton),
• Washington Policy Center Public Safety and Elections Task Force member
• Where's the Line America? Foundation,
• Youth Villages,

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gar ... t-sponsors

[stilltrucking]

"Against stupidity even the gods struggle in vain."

http://quotes.dictionary.com/against_bo ... iQiik1J.99