Who’s Really Behind Recent Republican Legislation in Wisconsin and Elsewhere?

[L. Coyote]

Who’s Really Behind Recent Republican Legislation in Wisconsin and Elsewhere? (Hint: It Didn’t Start Here)
Copyright 2010 William Cronon
http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/15/alec/


A Study Guide for Those Wishing to Know More

After watching the sudden and impressively well-organized wave of legislation being introduced into state legislatures that all seem to be pursuing parallel goals only tangentially related to current fiscal challenges–ending collective bargaining rights for public employees, requiring photo IDs at the ballot box, rolling back environmental protections, privileging property rights over civil rights, and so on–I’ve found myself wondering where all of this legislation is coming from.

..........

[iwishiwas]

1. Conon is an acedemic who is being hit on by Walker and Repug poodles

in WI.

[L. Coyote]

2. DETAILS: Wisconsin's most dangerous professor

Friday, Mar 25, 2011 15:12 ET
How The World Works
Wisconsin's most dangerous professor
Why are Republicans desperate to see Bill Cronon's emails? Because ideas and history matter
By Andrew Leonard
http://www.salon.com/news/wisconsin/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/03/25/wisconsins_most_dangerous_professor


I just bought two books by the University of Wisconsin historian William Cronon: "Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England" and "Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West."

A week ago, I had never heard of Cronon. This is embarrassing, since it doesn't take much digging around to discover that he is one of the most highly regarded historians in the United States (not to mention president-elect of the American Historical Association).

But that was before Cronon's fascinating opinion piece in Monday's New York Times detailing how Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's political agenda flies in the face of "civic traditions that for more than a century have been among the most celebrated achievements not just of their state, but of their own party as well." A devastating new broadside in the battle for Wisconsin, Cronon's Op-Ed deservedly went viral.

But in today's political climate, ... http://www.salon.com/news/wisconsin/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/03/25/wisconsins_most_dangerous_professor

[ewagner]

6. The Salon article

is a great read with important links. It's worth your time to read it in depth.

We have, INDEED, been asleep at the switch while the right wing has, brick-by-brick dismantled the progressive movement.

[iwishiwas]

18. Walker just gutted the WI land stewardship program where

folks can set aside farmland for conservation rather than for capitalist developers. This had been in place for decades--both Repug --Tommy thompson and Democratic governors had supported this program.

[L. Coyote]

20. Time to recall them all ASAP for sure, without doubt, gotta happen, can't wait, a must

[SugarShack]

23. Bush, et, el.

[DefenseLawyer]

3. 2012

Public employees unions support Democrats, not just with money but organization and manpower. It's really as simple as that. The fact that it pleases the union busting goals of their corporate benefactors is just gravy.

[AzDar]

4. K & R

:kick:

[L. Coyote]

5. ALEC: The Behind the Scenes Player in the States' Fight Against the Middle Class

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/alec-states-unions_b_832428.html

It is no coincidence that Republican legislators and governors -- not just in Wisconsin, but in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Tennessee and many other states -- are rushing to pass laws to undermine the collective bargaining rights of both public sector and private sector unions and pass budgets to drastically cut funding for education and other services that serve the broad middle class. It is part of a concerted corporate-funded campaign to continue shifting power and wealth from middle class majority to the richest 1%.

It includes conservative think tanks, lobbying organizations, corporate campaign cash, and corporate-funded astroturf organizations. While the Koch Brothers are poster boys for this campaign, it goes far beyond the Koch Brothers and includes some of the largest corporations headquartered in America from the energy sector to health care to telecommunications.

One of the most influential organization which connects state legislators with corporate money and corporate think tanks to influence pro-corporate, anti-union state legislation is the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council, often known as ALEC. Funded by ............

[midnight]

7. Thanks for the link... When I went to the home site of

Alec I found a message : Server Error...

If you’re as impressed by these numbers as I am, I’m hoping you’ll agree with me that it may be time to start paying more attention to ALEC and the bills its seeks to promote.
You can start by studying ALEC’s own website. Begin with its home page at
http://www.alec.org

Server Error

The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.
JRun closed connection.


The home site is blocked, but this is a lot of other info. for me to study...

[L. Coyote]

9. ALEC took down the site, so you have to go to Google cache to see it.

[highplainsdem]

10. And if you look at my posts in the long topic about ALEC, you'll see some quotes from the site and

ALEC publications.

[midnight]

22. Ok.... thanks..

[highplainsdem]

8. ALEC is, as I posted in this topic started on the 8th, which has over 100 replies with more links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230

And as you'll see if you check that topic, the Daily Kos diarist, Hector Solon, who's been posting much of the information about ALEC on DKos, is posting information and links, too. See reply #81 there and some more recent replies.

[L. Coyote]

11. Thanks. REC reading. I kicked it up.

:kick:

[highplainsdem]

12. Thanks for kicking it. I've been adding more info to keep the topic active and out of the archives.

And I posted the link to it in a reply to Professor Cronon's blog post about ALEC, too. Hector also posted a link to his Daily Kos diary there.

[WillyT]

13. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

:yourock:

:hi:

:kick:

[L. Coyote]

14. GD Compilation: ALEC: Bringing the vast rightwing corporate conspiracy to a legislature near you

Primary Compilation Thread on this topic is still alive here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230#724350

[highplainsdem]

16. Thanks for adding the link here! I have several other topics about ALEC, most linked to that,

and some in my Journal as well. I'll check to make sure I have all those links included in the compilation.

[L. Coyote]

17. The great thing about compilation threads, in addition to the obvious, is search rank

because of the number of times keywords repeat and because of the numerous links to key resources in high-ranking media.

[highplainsdem]

15. ALEC's "State Budget Reform Toolkit," which I posted about elsewhere, is still avalable:

http://www.alec.org/am/pdf/tax/Budget_toolkit.pdf

And this is the Google Docs Quick View, in case the PDF file above vanishes:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:srtgDPYyVzoJ:www.alec.org/am/pdf/tax/Budget_toolkit.pdf+alec+tookkit&hl=en&gl=us

[whattheidonot]

19. solutions cause problems

These solutions cause unemployment problems. Sound great on paper but. more and more workers are let go and not hired by anybody. The private sector hires as few as possible and so does the government. Theoretically this should free up credit for the private sector to expand. The private sectors wishes to expand with as little as possible. Without a tax system to reintroduce money into the economy in one form or another many are left out. very efficient but maybe not. Value added by labor only goes to the top.
A private firm running a public park is too worried about cost to keep up the park. It is kept up after the fact and all kind of fees for everything show up. Is it really cheaper? Proper taxation is usually cheaper.

[stockholmer]

21. here are ALEC model legislation(members only) PDFs directly from their site (links still work)

I back-doored in awhile back :evilgrin:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=594422&mesg_id=595306

this one is from the right-wing Heartland Institute

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=594422&mesg_id=595940

added bonus video

Heartland nuke shill Jay Lehr on Sean Hannity-that he can attest "with the utmost confidence there will not be any health impact of anything that's going at at the Fukushima power plant."

WTF!!!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/index.html#/v/4585259/nuclear-plant-on-verge-of-nuclear-meltdown-part-1/?playlist_id=86924



cheers