The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a catch-all conservative policy outfit that right-wing activist Paul Weyrich founded in the ’70s and which specializes in quietly transforming clients’ feverish wish lists into legislation that pet Republican state legislatures pass more or less verbatim. Notable hobby horses include vote suppression by way of voter ID laws, reduced early voting, etc., NRA wet kisses like the infamous ‘stand your ground’ law, lax environmental protection, restricting women’s reproductive options, plus the usual focus on changing tax policy and government programs to transfer power to the wealthy and wealth to the powerful. Needless to say its leadership leans Republican in the same way that a klan meeting leans white.
The trick with this game is that even captive legislatures have a vestigial trace of self-respect, so you should at least pretend that a law printed on Natural Gas Alliance stationery was thought up by the local lege to address some theoretical local concern. Ears perked up when some of ALEC’s dimmer pets submitted laws without bothering to change any language from model bills posted on its website. Then a racist dude made national headlines for murdering a black kid in a way that no sane person could defend, and he looked likely to get away with it thanks to one of ALEC’s special gun laws. Would you want to be an official corporate sponsor of George Zimmerman? Surprisingly at least ten sponsors so far have said no.
ALEC’s first response looked promising: they reorganized their guns, gays and ‘ginas division, and they swore to get out of social issues and focus from here out on nothing but transferring wealth to the wealthy. Don’t get me wrong. I would love to hear that one star in the vast constellation of rightwing social policy outfits might have blinked out. Still, does that sound stupid or belligerent enough for today’s conservative movement?
Duh. Of course not. Go to C&L for the whole sordid tale, but to summarize ALEC has asked the children of a lesser Breitbart to coordinate an online rightwing ragegasm against the, um, shadowy liberal conspiracy to discredit their good name.
ALEC is looking specifically at Democratic strategist Karen Finney (who appears daily on MSNBC as a contributer), journalist Lisa Graves and organizer Van Jones. They are advising these wingnut bloggers to go after them in the comments of articles, on social media and throughout the blogosphere.
Now there’s behavior that I expect from folks who still mark William Buckley threatening, unconvincingly, to punch Gore Vidal in the nose as a high point in history. Never retreat. Never surrender. Countertop inspection team go!
Napoleon
Awesome!
MikeJ
C&L link borked.
Rick Massimo
“We’ll show THEM we’re not a bunch of shadowy political operatives who are sent into a complete and utter panic at the prospect of the public understanding what we do!”
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
C&L linky fixed.
ETA: Also fixed in post.
rlrr
Wikipedia says Levon Helm died…
Mickey
The company that runs KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut just dropped them.
http://goo.gl/ueWk9
Brachiator
SF Gate
Rest in peace, up on Cripple Creek, and in the hearts of fans.
Raven
@Brachiator: Cripple Creek
General Stuck
This is sorta off topic, but I think is generally related to today’s utterly depraved GOP.
Something I did not know was the Eric Cantor was the only Jew in the House GOP caucus, and when pressed in an interview by Mike Allen on whether there was anti-semitism, he went silent.
And if you watch the video, Cantor tries to turn back the conversation to economic policies that unite the GOP.
And at the same Politico event, re focuses that common wingnut cause, above and beyond irrelevant bigotry in the gooper House.
And Cantor
And with putting the garble through the trusty wingnut bullshit decoder, he means , we need to tax the poor to be able to give the rich more tax breaks.
And the cherry on top
We are talking about taxes for the MC and poor people, WHO FUCKING WORK OFTEN FOR AN UNLIVABLE WAGE. With these priorities, and it’s still A HANDOUT to cut their taxes.
The party of racism, anti semitism and Cantor only cares about soaking the poor.
Update
MikeJ
Oh goody. Another day of dead old guy in every fucking thread.
Napoleon
@General Stuck:
Yet the guy was elected whip of the caucus.
Suffern ACE
@General Stuck: Well, the way interview question is structured the question may have put it in a difficult place. Had he said “No”, he may have lost as many GOP voters as he might have gained by answering “yes.”
Citizen_X
In the words of Pee Wee Herman, “I love that story!”
The Bobs
“William Buckley threatening, unconvincingly, to punch Gore Vidal in the nose as a high point in history”
Those of us who are sane recognize this as Buckley losing the argument.
jl
@General Stuck:
Is ‘soak the poor’ going to be the GOP’s new wedge issue for the rest of campaign? Make sure the middle class knows it will be everyone else against the poor (and brown and browner), so they will be safe with the GOP?
Not sure it will work. The spite pandering is too blatant for one thing. The fact that I think more people are worried more about becoming poorer than richer in this recovery for another. And it will make GOP vulnerable to truthful charges that they are in fact going after the working and middle class as well on income taxes and programs.
TooManyJens
I look forward to trolling the shit out of this when it goes online:
http://istandwithalec.com/
jl
@Napoleon: No matter how problematic the out group in question, there are always a few ‘good’ ones, useful ones, a few ‘exceptions’, except only for the most psychotic racists.
Bigots have a few best friends scattered around, and they are not always lying about the bare bones facts that they have ‘good’ ones as friends.
Suffern ACE
@jl: Might work, I suppose. Make the poor pay $500 per year. Give the middle class a $20 cut, tack on a trillion more in cuts for the rich and pretend that you care about that hole you just made by publicly sponsoring a balanced budget amendment that won’t ever pass. Has worked for the Republicans for 30 years. Why do you think middle class schmucks have caught on now?
Amir Khalid
@MikeJ:
If you’re griping about people remembering Levon Helm’s life and art, that’s rather petty of you.
Southern Beale
Hullo!
And here we thought Huntsman was the sane, responsible Republican …
General Stuck
@Suffern ACE:
American Jews vote something like 70 to 80 percent democrat in this country. And he is the only Jew in a House majority of Christian wingnuts, that talk up Israel due to pure biblical reasons. I would posit he didn’t answer ‘no’ for other reasons, such as he knew the true answer was ‘yes’ and a big wingnut frog caught stuck in his throat.
Ash Can
@General Stuck:
Too fucking bad, Eric. You (helped) break it, you bought it. This sorry mess of bigots and loons is yours, all yours.
Virginia Highlander
Fly, inspection team, fly!
Obligatory.
mrlwing
Some links not working in the above, looks like the http part is doubled up?
Mnemosyne
@General Stuck:
So why is it that the poor have to have “skin in the game” but the rich don’t?
Amir Khalid
On topic, Charles Pierce raised the possibility a couple of days ago that ALEC might just be lying low for the time being.
Off topic again, the little village of Fucking, Austria (population 104) has about had it with the vulgar jokes, thank you very much. The japery started with GIs stationed there after WWII.) Fuckingers are considering a reversion to an older spelling of the name, Fugging, but I’m not sure if that will help.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
Let me ask my dog Charlie. He says it’s because the republicans are flaming assholes. And I agree.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Amir Khalid:
__
We are all Fuckingers now
/John McCain 2008
jl
@Suffern ACE:
Might not work now because too many middle class are worrying that, assuming they believe the GOP, that the chances are high that they will soon be the suckers who have to pay more.
And might not work now, since not enough will believe the GOP, since the GOP has it down in their various plans, Ryan, Mitt and otherwise, the the middle class will be paying more, not less.
And now the GOP has put Medicare on the table for chopping.
4tehlulz
@General Stuck: Damn it’s only April. I’m going to miss the halcyon days of 2008, when everyone was civil.
It must be lonely for Eric, being the only member of the Judenrat.
Origuy
I’m hoping Diageo drops ALEC. They make a lot of the whiskies I like, including Talisker, Oban, Lavagulin, and Bushmill’s. Not to mention Guinness and Smithwick’s. What am I going to get at the pub now?
Richard
Squealing like a stuck pig. How appropriate for such a loathsome organization.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
This is a big fucking deal to them!/Biden
Gus diZerega
Scratch an oligarch find a thug hiding behind the expensive clothes and digs.
Fallsroad
I thought Buckley threatened to punch Noam Chomsky in the face on TV. Not that I’d be much surprised if this was in addition to threatening Vidal.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Fallsroad: He did it to Vidal first, but yeah, he said it to both of them.
Miss Waterlow
Amazon is a “member,” or whatever, or ALEC. So far refusing to pull out. Their spawn is golden.
Also, ALEC plays a huge role in public education policy – vouchers, charters, for profit online schools, anti-union legislation…. There is huge public money to be pilfered from this sector. Watch out.
You all need to write more about public education.
blutroopr
shouldn’t you unwashed morons be out crapping on police cars? it’s about the extent of your intellectual heft.