Beach Peanuts

"Buycott" Makes Boycotting Koch, ALEC, As Easy As Scanning A Barcode

Last year when I was attending Netroots Nation, Darcy Burner, then a candidate for Congress, spoke of an idea she had that was pretty exciting for anyone who is painfully aware of the Koch brothers far reaching influence over politics and consumers. She had an idea for an app that would make it easier for consumers to avoid buying products with any ties to Koch Industries. Burner, a former programmer for Microsoft, had a mock interface that she hoped to build on.

Now it appears she was unaware there was already a group trying to develop a similar idea, and it's just been introduced.

Called Buycott, the app is pretty amazing in all that it can do. I downloaded it as soon as I heard about it, and it's pretty impressive. (I wasn't the only one who thought so. The developers have had some problems keeping up with demand.)

Not only can you "join" campaigns as per your interests, like sustainable and local food initiatives, those which allow you to avoid plastic bottles, and the big favorites like avoiding products made by Koch Industries, Monsanto, and even any with ties to ALEC. (The American Legislative Exchange Council.)

For instance, say you want to join a campaign that demands GMO (genetically modified organisms)
food labeling. Once you join, you can read more linked details about the campaign. If you touch "focus"
on the app toolbar, it calls up an extensive list of companies to avoid who donated more than $150,000 to oppose GMO labeling in California. Select Cargill, Inc. for instance, and you'll see a "family tree" option at the bottom. Touch that and up pops the company tree. There you'll see that Diamond Crystals and Truvia products, among others, are two of the brands you can refrain from purchasing. You can also use the integrated social media to Tweet or share information on Facebook.

Say you're out shopping for paper products and want to know if a certain brand of paper towels is a product from one of the campaigns you've joined. Choosing the scanner on the bottom allows you to scan the barcode in just seconds, and it will tell you if it's a brand to avoid. Scan a package of Brawny paper towels and it will trace back up the family tree to show you it's made by Georgia Pacific, which is part of Koch Industries.

Since company information is always changing and new products come on the market, the app also lets you add unknown products by scanning them. You can contribute information and contacts that you discover and add them to the Buycott database. 

Of course another great thing about the app, it's free! The only problem that I can see with it so far is that you may have difficulty finding brands you CAN buy, depending on how many campaigns you're following. Between Koch, Monsanto, and ALEC, just to name a few, their industry and product range is vast and encompassing. You'll have to do your homework and shop around to find products to reward companies who share your views, but this app sure makes it a lot easier.

 

 

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Florida Watch Protests Koch's "Tentacles Of Influence" Into Florida Newspapers

The Florida GOP And Sick-Time: "Small Government" Hypocrites

Florida Watch Protests Koch's "Tentacles Of Influence" Into Florida Newspapers

Florida Watch Action will be protesting the potential sale of the Orlando Sentinel and other Tribune Company newspapers to the Koch Brothers in Orlando this afternoon. 

Protests have been held at other papers owned by the Tribune Company recently as well. At the Los Angeles Times, half their staff threatened to quit, should the Koch's buy the paper, and around 300 labor union members and activists protested earlier this week at an investment firm that holds a 20% stake in the Tribune Company. Last week another protest was held at the Chicago Tribune.

From Florida Watch:

The “billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch have bought more politicians, think tanks, colleges and universities, and media outlets than you can shake a stick at," the group says in a promotion of the planned protest outside the Sentinel set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

"And their tentacles of influence are spreading further," the group said. "Now they are trying to purchase eight daily newspapers, including the Orlando and Sun Sentinel, to further their libertarian anti-government, anti-union agenda.”

The Tribune Company's CEO went on the defensive yesterday and sent an email to employees Wednesday calling speculation about a transaction premature:

“A sale transaction is only one of our possible strategic options, and there are many others.”

The Koch Brothers caused a similar stir when they began funding at Florida State University, funding that was subject to their approval of chosen professors, even though they claimed they would have no agenda or economics influence over the curriculum. They also fund the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party groups and the Cato Institute.

If they were to buy the newspapers in Florida, it would push much of the news influence far to the right, especially in the I-4 corridor, the more progressive part of the state. As Progress Florida puts it, it would be tantamount to a Tea Party takeover of Florida news:

The Koch Brothers are chief architects and funders of the extreme right wing political machine. They're behind corporate front group "think tanks" like the Heritage Foundation and the CATO Institute. The Kochs are also the largest funders of the Tea Party movement and are notorious peddlers of falsehoods about Medicare, Social Security, worker’s rights, climate change, and more.

It's important that local newspapers like the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel remain unbiased sources of reliable news, not as propaganda outlets for the Koch Brothers' extreme ideological machine. But if the Koch Brothers are allowed to purchase the Tribune Company, that is exactly what will happen.

There's a reason why freedom of the press is mentioned in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The health of our democracy is based on a well-informed citizenry. The Koch Brothers' attempt to subvert local media is a direct attack on this fundamental foundation of our country.

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The Florida GOP And Sick-Time: "Small Government" Hypocrites

Marco Rubio Has Shown His True Colors, And They Aren't Red, White, And Blue

Why The GOP "Autopsy" Should Actually Be Called The "Government Outsourcing Project"

David Koch, Fleeing The Press At The RNC, Tampa 2012

(Photo: Martha Jackovics)

If you've read the GOP's "autopsy" of their losses in the 2012 election (re-branded as the "Growth and Opportunity Project") but haven't come to the conclusion that it's mostly nonsense just yet, this could do it for you.

One of the things that stood out for me was a small section buried in the Campaign Finance, and State Campaign and Finance Laws and Regulations recommendations. It's just a couple of sentences, but it's in conflict with a majority of the other recommended policies in the report. Or rather, what they would have people believe they want to do to woo voters.

Here's the snippet, which is listed twice, word for word, on pages 69 and 97:

3. Model legislation should be developed by interested organizations and state legislative leaders to improve state campaign finance laws. Organizations such as the RNC, the RSLC, and ALEC may wish to take a leading role. To turn ideas to action nationwide, experts should develop model statutes that can be replicated across states.

The two paragraphs are identical, almost as if they were a cut and paste job from something like, oh, I don't know, an ALEC "model" maybe?

If you're not already familiar with ALEC, that's the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is the corporate funded group who work with lobbyists and conservative politicians to write the "model legislation" that legislators then bring home to their states and pass into law. They get a large amount of their funding from the Koch brothers. (I've written more about them and their involvement in Florida here, here, here, here, here, and here, just to link a few of those posts.) ALEC has brought Florida laws like the Stand Your Ground gun law, election laws, and were behind many of the Amendments on the 2012 ballot. That's just a small sample.

ALEC largely operated in secret, and many elected officials passing off their cut and paste legislation did too. But when ALEC's behind the scenes operations were exposed to a little sunlight, corporations who had quietly worked with them began getting push back from activists, angry consumers and voters. Many of them quit working with ALEC because of it.

But there are plenty of those who still work with ALEC, lawmakers, and work "for" Koch, and not in the best interest of voters and consumers.

According to the GOP's new recommendations, they're practically saying they are fully prepared to hand over governing to ALEC, and the Koch's for a price. No more secret dealings. They're indicating right there in black and white for everyone to see that they're willing to sell out the country. "ALEC may wish to take a leading role?" There's no "may" about it. They want the whole ball game and the GOP knows that. They've already made a big investment as it is. 

Shamelessly outsourcing "Democracy." Welcome to the GOP's real model for America.

It's not like many of us weren't already aware that it was really the Koch brothers and corporate America who were pulling our elected officials strings, but this is blatant. It's like the GOP is saying: "Yeah, you actually elected the Koch brothers, corporations and lobbyists, and guess what? From now on we're just going to cut to the chase and hand everything over to them for a price. We're going to let them write any old law they want. Hey, it's not like we work for a living anyway, and we certainly don't know what we're doing. Now excuse us while we jet off for another taxpayer funded vacation." Boom. No pretense about it anymore.

And of course, who is behind a lot of the laws and policies that earned the Republican Party losses in the last few elections? That's right, all of the above.

So while they claim they're going to change their ways and tinker with their policies and their messaging, the biggest "message" of all is really contained in that one little paragraph found on pages 69 and 97. Combined with even more leeway in campaign finance laws, that pretty much cancels out the rest of the report as merely window dressing.

Any questions?

Weatherford's House Medicaid Rejection Brought To You By AFP And ALEC?

Will Weatherford (R-ALEC) New Man For The Job?

Americans For Prosperity, the Koch funded so-called "grassroots" Tea Party group may have lost Rick Scott on the Medicaid expansion issue last week, but they still had plenty of cards to play in the Florida legislature. By "cards," I of course mean members who have ties to ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, also funded in part by the Koch brothers. ALEC is the group that writes legislation that it passes on to lawmakers in cookie cutter form, which is basically copied, pasted, and passed into law in whatever state it goes to.

Yesterday, AFP got part of their wish when the Florida House Select Committee on PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), led by House Speaker Will Weatherford (R-ALEC), voted to reject the Medicaid expansion before today's legislative session began.

Of the reasons given for the rejection, some sounded extremely familiar in comparison to AFP's objections to Medicaid, as shown on their website. They even penned a press release commending Weatherford and the committee for seeing it their way. In that release, entitled "The Florida House Got It Right: Reject Medicaid Expansion, AFP wrote this:

Today, the Florida House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act voted to reject Medicaid expansion.

Americans for Prosperity’s Florida State Director Slade O’Brien commented:

“I applaud the Florida House’s decision to reject Medicaid expansion and urge the Florida Senate to follow their lead. The majority of House members agreed that expanding the costly and broken Medicaid system is not the correct way to provide quality healthcare for Floridians, and that the financial risks associated with expansion are far too great to force on the taxpayers.”]

[Mr. O’Brien continued, “Floridians demand opposition to the expansion of the broken Medicaid program and the Florida House of Representatives has agreed.  Expanding this costly program would increase costs for everyone and force a million people into a failing system that provides subpar healthcare services. I can’t believe that the Florida Senate would be willing to expand Medicaid now despite the huge financial burden it will create for future generations of Floridians.  This is not a decision that can be made in a vacuum — the future costs of expanding Medicaid today will have a devastating impact on the welfare of our state, our children and our grandchildren.” 

Weatherford echoed that sentiment in his statement on the rejection, saying:

“I am proud of the thoughtful, thorough and deliberative approach that our Select Committee took on the important issues related to Medicaid expansion and health exchanges. I received their recommendations and agree that expanding Medicaid and setting up a state exchange is not in the best interest of our state. We simply cannot count on the federal government to pay 100 percent of the cost for expansion. The facts show that healthcare costs will go up for many Floridians, while access to and quality of healthcare will go down. The 'all or nothing' approach that the Obama administration is offering will not work for our state. I know there will be continued discussion about this matter, and I look forward to exploring better policies for our state.” 

Weatherford cites that "the facts show" their reasons for the rejection are correct, but he doesn't say what those facts are, nor where he got them. When the actual legislation comes out, those "facts" will probably look very similar to the ones on this list from the AFP website: The Top Ten Reasons Florida Should Reject Medicaid Expansion. We've already heard several from the Capitol already when Rick Scott and others recited them. AFP also makes the claims that they speak for Floridians who feel the same way, and cite polls from like minded think tanks that show this. They also have ready made letters to send legislators and "facts" to convince followers that accepting Medicaid would be the ultimate power grab, disaster, and things of that nature, because that's what AFP does. You, "grassroots" and all.

Below is the Florida House Select Committee on PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) members who voted on the rejection. The members that we know of with ties to ALEC  are in bold:

Corcoran, Richard [R]   Chair                                 
Hudson, Matt [R]   Vice Chair                                   
Schwartz, Elaine J. [D]   Democratic Ranking Member    
Cummings, W. Travis [R]                                                     
Dudley, Dwight Richard [D]   
Harrell, Gayle B. [R]   
Jones, Mia L. [D]   
Magar, MaryLynn "ML" [R]   
Nelson, Bryan [R]                                
Passidomo, Kathleen C. [R]   
Pigman, Cary [R]   
Roberson, Kenneth L. "Ken" [R]   
Rodríguez, José Javier [D]   
Stark, Richard [D]   
Thurston, Jr., Perry E. [D]   
Trujillo, Carlos [R]                      
Wood, John [R]                         

Will Weatherford also has ties to ALEC. 

ALEC is well known for working to undercut health care reform as well as AFP, as seen in this report.

As fast as Republicans moved to vote against the expansion, you can almost bet the bills against it will be written up just as quickly, because after all, for those legislatures that work with ALEC, we know the legislators who push them have little to do with the paperwork beyond cutting and pasting the minor details. Sometimes, if they're lucky, they even remember to remove "American Legislative Exchange Council" before presenting them.

AFP Calls Rick Scott's Medicaid Expansion: "An Extremely Disappointing Flip-Flop"

Rick Scott may have claimed his decision to back Medicaid expansion in Florida wasn't a "white flag of surrender to government run health care," but his Tea Party supporters don't see it that way.

Americans For Prosperity, the Koch brothers so-called "grassroots" Tea Party group issued this statement on their website following Rick Scott's Medicaid reversal:

Governor Scott Flip-Flops on Medicaid Expansion

Support of Expansion a huge threat to Florida’s financial future 

Tallahassee, Florida— Today, Florida Governor Rick Scott flip-flopped from his long-held stance opposing Medicaid expansion.

AFP-Florida’s State Director Slade O’Brien had the following comments:

“Governor Scott’s announcement today is extremely disappointing.  Governor Scott had been a national leader in the fight against President Obama’s healthcare takeover.  He was elected because of his principled conservative leadership against ObamaCare’s overreach, and led the charge, with Attorney General Pam Bondi, to take ObamaCare to the Supreme Court.  But today he came out in support of the Medicaid expansion he vowed to oppose.”

“At every level of government, it is too easy for politicians to spend other people’s money. For far too long, states have fallen for the promises of “free” federal money ignoring the insidious federal strings and the long-term effects on state budgets.  Florida’s Medicaid program already costs the taxpayers more than $20 billion a year, and the financial burden will only grow if a million new people are added to the program. Hopefully our legislative leaders will not follow in Governor Scott’s footsteps and will reject expansion of this broken system.”

And to think Scott spoke as if he was certain he would still be in office in three years when the expansion will sunset.

Let the games begin....

Meteorite Triggers Immediate Hearing In Congress, Yet We're Still Waiting On Climate Change

In the wake of the meteorite that exploded over Russia, the Chairman of The House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Lamar Smith (R-Texas), will hold a hearing on how to “better identify and address asteroids that pose a potential threat to Earth.”

“Today’s events are a stark reminder of the need to invest in space science,” Smith said. “Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed just 17,000 miles from Earth, less than the distance of a round trip from New York to Sydney. And this morning, a much smaller meteorite hit near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, damaging buildings and injuring hundreds."  

"Developing technology and research that enable us to track objects like Asteroid 2012 DA14 is critical to our future," Smith said. "We should continue to invest in systems that identify threatening asteroids and develop contingencies, if needed, to change the course of an asteroid headed toward Earth.”

While events like these are a real cause for concern, it's a shame that there is very little concern about another real danger that we should be addressing: climate change.

While Smith does acknowledge that the climate is changing, he does not mention the overwhelming consensus within the scientific community that humans are responsible.

As Think Progress noted when he was chosen to chair the committee, over his political career, Smith has received $500,000 from oil and gas. And just last year, he received $10,000 from Koch Industries.

 

Rick Scott Claims He'll Drop His Opposition To Health Care Law

The man who has made a career out of trying to kill the Affordable Care Act, Florida Governor Rick Scott, now says he's willing to drop his opposition to the law.

Color me skeptical, because I'm finding this a bit hard to swallow.

"The election is over and President Obama won," Scott said. "I'm responsible for the families of Florida ... If I can get to yes, I want to get to yes."

Scott had previously stated that he would not go along with any parts of the health care overhaul that the state controls.

But his newfound willingness to have a "conversation" about putting it in place in Florida comes at a critical time.

States have until Friday to notify federal authorities whether they plan to set up health insurance exchanges, a marketplace where individuals and smalls businesses can shop for the most affordable coverage and where many will get help from the government to pay their premiums.

Florida so far has taken no steps to set up its own exchange.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced an extension last week. She still wants to hear if states will be setting up health insurance markets under the law. But governors can now take another month, until mid-December, to submit detailed blueprints.

Most states have been on the fence awaiting the election outcome. They now have three options: running their own exchanges, operating an exchange in partnership with the federal health officials, or letting the feds handle everything.

Scott said he still has concerns about the exchanges, including the cost of running one and whether it would increase the cost of health care for families. But he said he's sure federal officials want to find ways to provide affordable health care to people.

Certainly this is a move for Scott to appeal to voters in Florida given that his popularity is so low and he's one of the most unpopular Governors on record.

He devoted his entire career before running for office to blocking the health care laws, so a quick turnaround even for political purposes leaves me wondering how his actions will compare to his talking points now.

He campaigned on bringing jobs to Florida, which translated more into giving large corporations huge tax breaks to create jobs, which haven't exactly  materialized in promised numbers. He also slashed education from his first budget while claiming he was doing great things for education. After public outcry, this year he put back a fraction of those cuts back into education, but it remains that cuts are cuts.

Let's hope that there's no catch to this sudden flip-flop and that he does more than just "have a conversation." The Affordable Care Act was "the law of the land" long before now. Scott decided he didn't have to implement it only because he thought Mitt Romney would win the White House, and he was perfectly happy to say "no, no, no" before, even when critics said otherwise. Surely his backers, the Koch brothers won't like his sudden new found fondness for the law.

Just as he tried so hard to suppress the vote in Florida, and then turned around and claimed not to understand why our election last week was such a disaster, we'll have to wait and see what he actually does on both issues.

ALEC On The Ballot: ALEC's Influence In Florida Amendments

How About ALEC, The Koch Brothers, The Florida Legislature And More?

Eleven constitutional amendments appear on Florida's ballot in the upcoming election, and many groups including Progress Florida and the League of Women Voters of Florida, along with several newspapers, are urging voters to "just say no" to all of them, and for good reason.

Now there may be more reason for voter skepticism. Many of those amendments placed on the ballot by the Florida Legislature appear to have come directly from ALEC. (The American Legislative Exchange Council.)

From The Tampa Tribune:

Critics suggest several of the high-profile amendments Floridians will consider may have come directly from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or at least from its playbook.

May have come? One thing the Tribune article doesn't mention is a well publicized incident involving Florida Republican Rep. Rachel Burgin. Burgin introduced a bill in 2011 that would reduce taxes for corporations which she got from ALEC. Normally legislators will rewrite parts of the bills, but not Burgin. Nope. She cut and pasted her bill, written by the Tax Foundation, exactly as it was given to her by the ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy task force.

Burgin wasn't nearly as clever as she thought she was, because she pasted the boilerplate ALEC language right into the bill. You can see a copy of that brilliant piece of "editing" by Burgin here. Realizing her mistake the next day, she quickly withdrew the bill and re-introduced it a day later without the language. Sadly for Burgin, not quickly enough.

More from The Tribune:

The council, known as ALEC, bills itself as a nonpartisan membership association for state lawmakers who share a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism and individual liberty.

"I hate to be cynical, but when you start looking into these things, you start to see who's pulling the strings behind the scenes," said Susan Smith, head of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida. "I don't think voters are going to like this."

The American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate funded group who work with lobbyists and conservative politicians to write "model legislation" that legislators then bring home to their states and pass into law, are partially funded by the Koch brothers.

The article goes on to quote Lisa Graves, executive director of Center for Media Democracy, the watchdog group which has followed ALEC for years. Graves says that Amendment 1 and Amendment 3 in particular "are spawn of the corporate bill mill known as ALEC." Amendment 1 would block parts of the Affordable Care Act, and 3 imposes a state spending cap on the Legislature. Smith agrees, and says additionally that Amendments 5, 6, and 8 also appear to have come from ALEC model legislation:

Amendment 5, which would give the Legislature more power over the courts; Amendment 6, which would prohibit public funding of abortions and erase privacy rights that courts have used to overturn abortion restrictions; and Amendment 8, which would repeal a ban on public funding of religious groups.

"We just don't think it's fair for outside corporate interests to come in and have so much power in our state government," Smith said.

The Tribune article quotes Kaitlyn Buss, a spokeswoman for ALEC, saying if the legislation resembles ALEC model bills, they merely provide "policy suggestions" and says if lawmakers introduced any of those bills, they have done so on their own initiative and they're in the best interest of their constituents.

Really? Not so fast. When the resolution for Amendment 1 was passed in 2011, ALEC boasted about it in a press release, claiming that it was a triumph over the Affordable Care Act's federal mandate.

In the Tribune article, some lawmakers claim they merely have "discussions" with ALEC, that this is just a conspiracy theory, and one claims he's never spoken to ALEC about this legislation. On that 2011 press release above:

That doesn't mean Florida's amendment is an ALEC product, said Mike Haridopolos, the outgoing state Senate president from Melbourne and a sponsor of Amendment 1.

"I've never spoken to anybody from ALEC about this," said Haridopolos, a Republican. "I don't know where people pull in stuff like this."

As to ALEC's boasts, he said, "I don't play he-said-she-said types of games. I'm just glad they support what we do. I don't think ALEC is a pariah, either," he said, adding that groups such as the National Conference of State Legislatures and Southern Republican Leadership Conference provide valuable exposure to other states' issues and solutions.

Dig a little deeper and there's plenty of evidence out there that there's a great deal more ALEC influence on them than they let on.

Haridopolos says ALEC is no "pariah," and that he doesn't "know where people pull stuff like this?" Really?

How about here, for starters, when Haridopolos voiced his support of the Repeal Amendment at a press conference at the ALEC conference in Washington DC on Nov. 30 2010, when they  announced the support of 10 States who were currently filing for the Repeal Amendment in their state legislatures? You can see the video of Haridopolos' ALEC press conference here, put out by the Repeal Amendment movement themselves.

The Repeal Amendment group's website lists Haridopolos as a supporter along with others like Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, members of Tea Party like Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), and FOX News contributors like Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. Also a sponsor, Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. Americans For Tax Reform is the group that have been carpet-bombing the state of Florida the past few weeks with campaign fliers and ads targeting Obamacare, Medicare, and those containing misleading information on government spending in China, green jobs, high unemployment and outsourced jobs.

But Haridopolos has no idea where "people pull this stuff?"

As for Haridopolos' claim that ALEC is little more than a group that "supports what Florida legislators do," it's much more than that. The group Common Cause even asked Pam Bondi to investigate ALEC back in May of 2012. Still waiting on that investigation.

The Tribune article quotes another Florida lawmaker, Rep. Dennis Baxley, who sponsored Amendment 6 on abortion. Baxley agrees with Haridopolos' views, saying:

"The conspiracy theory goes on," said Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican.....

......"This whole concept of some kind of clandestine entity spreading these things throughout state legislatures …" he said, his voice trailing off. "These are membership-driven organizations, and we do have discussions. It makes sense for people to come together and share ideas. That's a good thing. ALEC isn't some bogeyman monster entity. It's 2,000 legislators coming together to talk about issues."

Conspiracy theory, Rep. Baxley? Bogeyman? It's neither of those, but it's a great deal more than just "legislators coming together to talk about issues" as Baxley claims. In addition to the abortion amendment, Baxley was recently featured in a CNN report on the Florida voter suppression and Rick Scott's voter purge. ALEC has been tied to election law legislation, influencing purges in both Florida and Texas, and voter ID legislation in other states.

Of course, Baxley is most famous for his legislation of the Florida Stand Your Ground gun law. The Ocala funeral home owner not only wrote the Stand Your Ground legislation, but he was also appointed to Governor Rick Scott's task force to investigate that law in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting. ALEC, along with the National Rifle Association, were behind the push for SYG legislation all across the country. After coming under pressure from civil rights groups, watchdog groups and media coverage, ALEC announced in April of 2012 that they were disbanding their own task force on the gun laws as well as the voter ID laws, but that was too little too late. The damage was already done.

As I wrote in August of 2011, during the ALEC annual meeting in New Orleans that year, Baxley admitted that that was his fourth or fifth time attending an ALEC event to Wisconsin State Rep. Mark Pocan, who attended the meeting and wrote about it for The Progressive. At the time, ALEC was still operating largely in the shadows, but in talking to Pocan, Baxley bragged about his gun law and working together with ALEC:

"It's a great place to share model legislation and a great place to learn what's going on in other parts of the country," said Baxley, who sponsored a major rewrite of Florida's election laws that's under challenge in court.

Baxley said his so-called 2005 castle doctrine bill, which allows people in Florida to use deadly force to defend themselves in their homes or cars, became a model for other states.

"A lot of ideas get shared and aired there," Baxley said. "It's a very collaborative process."

This hardly suggests a "conspiracy theory" as Baxley claims in the Tribune article.

But it's not just Baxley. During that same ALEC meeting in 2011, several other Florida lawmakers freely admitted collaborating with ALEC and more:

Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, said she will use district office money and possibly ALEC scholarship money to pay her registration fee. She's paying for her travel and hotel personally.

Rep. Jeanette Nunez, R-Miami, is covering conference expenses with campaign money, and will hold a campaign fundraiser today in New Orleans.

"Obviously there are going to be lobbyists there, and I figure it would be an easy place, if they have checks, to come by," Nunez said.

Rep. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, is at his first ALEC conference.

"I don't buy any legislation off the shelf," Brandes said. "We like to tweak it here and there and make it our own. But it's a good starting point to have legislation that's already been somewhat vetted."

Yet Haridopolos and Baxley would have you believe heavy influence from ALEC is nonsense?

The Amendments on the Florida ballot have ALEC footprints all over them, and voters need to take heed when they vote on them. With an unpopular governor who puts big corporations needs over those of Floridians at every turn, and a legislature that has been giving in to nearly everything he wants, it's no wonder they wrote the Amendments in a deceptive way.

The amendments include allowing religious organizations to use tax dollars to fund their own religious schools, allow politicians to interfere in women’s personal medical decisions, allow Tallahassee politicians to protect an unfair system that benefits large corporations at the expense of public schools, small businesses and working families, and one that gives politicians more power over our courts and is opposed by the people who know what works and doesn’t in our justice system - judges and the people that work in courthouses all across Florida.

Also on the ballot: "merit retention" for three Florida Supreme Court justices, in an attempt to politicize the courts by Republicans for not making decisions favorable to their agenda, and could allow Florida Governor Rick Scott to hand pick their replacements.

With all the corporate influence Florida is under as it is, the last thing we need is a partisan Supreme Court beholden to the man who acts as if he's the CEO of Florida, Inc.

Voters who aren't paying close attention this election may well be giving up rights they won't get back anytime soon in a state already controlled by an extreme group of Republicans.

Are Romney And The NFIB Also Instructing Florida Workers How To Vote?

In the past week or so we've heard of several instances where employees in large corporations have been strongly encouraged to vote for Mitt Romney instead of Barack Obama by their employers, who have "warned them of the consequences for them" should Romney lose the election. First it was Koch Industries, then Florida billionaire David Siegel, CEO of Westgate Resorts, followed by Arthur Allen, CEO of ASG Software Solutions.

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a lobbying group for "small businesses," is the latest to push voting for Romney, but this time, businesses were instructed to vote for Romney, by Mitt Romey himself.

Back in June Romney addressed employers how to vote in an audio address posted on the NFIB website. In the address, Romney can be heard telling them how "bad for business" Obama's policies are, how it's perfectly legal for them to tell their employees how to vote, and provided them with the talking points to do so.

From In These Times: (Emphasis mine)

Romney was addressing  a group of self-described "small-business owners." Twenty-six minutes into the call, after making a lengthy case that President Obama's first term has been bad for business, Romney said:

I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, I hope you pass those along to your employees.

Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.

I particularly think that our young kids--and when I say young, I mean college-age and high-school age--they need to understand that America runs on a strong and vibrant business [sic] ... and that we need more business growing and thriving in this country. They need to understand that what the president is doing by borrowing a trillion dollars more each year than what we spend is running up a credit card that they’re going to have to pay off and that their future is very much in jeopardy by virtue of the policies that the president is putting in place. So I need you to get out there and campaign.

You can listen to the audio here.

The NFIB is well known in Florida politics. I've written before how they were behind the push back against the Affordable Care Act when they joined the lawsuit started by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum as co-plaintiff in May of 2010, and they endorsed McCollum's replacement Pam Bondi, who continued to fight the ACA all the way to the Supreme Court.

Of course the NFIB are big fans of Florida Governor "Run-Florida-Like-A-Business" Rick Scott and they make no secret of that. Here's some of what they say about Scott on their website:

He’s [Scott] urged lawmakers to reform the state’s unemployment insurance system, demanded that government workers contribute to their own retirement benefits that are now funded solely by taxpayers and called for lawsuit reform. 

Your efforts to elect NFIB-supported pro-small-business candidates last year helped elect governors who are shaking things up in their state houses. We’ll soon share the progress being made by Alabama’s Robert Bentley, Maine’s Paul LePage, Michigan’s Rick Snyder, Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, Tennessee’s Bill Haslam and Virginia’s Robert McDonnell. They’re also working to hang out “Open for Small Business” signs.

Also on that website is their list of candidates they've endorsed for the upcoming Florida House and Senate races, because their "priorities align with those of the small-business community, and we’re confident they will be effective allies to our members in the fight to create jobs and improve the economy." They also endorsed Florida U.S. Senate candidate Connie Mack IV in September, and have run ads in the state targeting the Senate race.

What are the chances that Florida businesses are following Mitt Romney's instructions to urge their employees to vote for him, in the best interest of their employer, rather than themselves?

Probably a pretty good chance, because during and since the ACA fight, the NFIB have been recipients of millions in funding from Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, and from the Koch brothers group Americans For Prosperity. Employees who vote in favor of these groups and Romney, who vows to repeal the ACA, will make it so much easier for their bosses to cut costs like employee health care plans. The NFIB is also involved in fights against minimum wage, paid sick leave, and collective bargaining. They're anti-union and anti-regulation.

We've already seen the bully-businessman tactics of Mitt Romney on full display, especially in last night's debate. He's a man who is used to getting his way, and can get ugly when he doesn't. The Republican Party who didn't want him as a candidate in the beginning have certainly warmed to his no-core, ruthless, anything for profit policies since then.

Are Floridians also being pushed by their employers and the candidate himself to vote for Mitt Romney, or "face the consequences?"

That's aside from the consequences of facing a future of working longer hours for less pay, no paid sick leave, no unions, and no benefits like health care, or losing their job entirely when it's outsourced, should Romney win?

As Romney himself would say: "Want to make a $10,000 bet" that they are?

Report: ALEC Exerts Unprecedented Influence Over Florida

Today Progress Florida, Florida Watch Action, People for the American Way Foundation, Common Cause and ALEC Exposed released a new report detailing the influence of the corporate front group ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) has over Florida’s policy makers. The report, entitled ALEC in Florida, documents the growing footprint that ALEC has in Florida, including its unprecedented access to elected officials and the drafting of ‘model’ legislation which compliant lawmakers then push into law.

The release of the report coincides with ALEC’s 39th annual meeting being held in Salt Lake City.

It also comes amid the news that two more coporations, General Motors and Walgreens have just cut ties with ALEC, bringing the total to 30 corporations and four non-profits, 34 total private sector members that have cut ties to the right-wing corporate bill mill. (You can see the entire list here.)

ALEC has a huge influence over Florida's legislators who have passed significant "cookie-cutter" legislation in the state, most notably and recently in the news, the Stand Your Ground gun law being used in the Trayvon Martin case.

ALEC's influence also made news when Republican Rep. Rachel Burgin introduced a bill in November of 2011 calling on the federal government to reduce taxes for corporations. She had received the bill from the ALEC, which was written by the Tax Foundation, corporate members of ALEC’s ‘Tax and Fiscal Policy task force” and a group founded and funded by major corporate interests, including the billionaire Koch brothers. She introduced a bill that was the same as the model word-for-word, forgetting to remove the paragraph naming ALEC and describing its principles. Burgin is now involved in an ugly race for the state Senate against Tom Lee.

Some of the key findings from the ALEC in Florida report:

• ALEC model bills introduced across the country have devastating impacts upon public education, consumer protections, environmental protections, workers’ rights, equitable healthcare systems, just tax policy, and voting rights.
• ALEC has a strong and growing presence in Florida. Out of Florida’s 160 state legislators, 60 have had ties with ALEC since 2010. Florida lawmakers’ attendance at ALEC’s 2011 annual conference held in New Orleans was “one of the strongest delegations in years.”
• ALEC’s corporate-funded scholarship fund contained, as of January 1, 2011, $46,467. This fund is used to sponsor ALEC members to attend ALEC conferences, and is also spent – as documented in the report – to wine and dine ALEC Florida members alongside corporate lobbyists. Corporations’ expenditures for the fund can be written off as 501(c)(3) charitable donations on their tax returns.
• ALEC provides Florida members with “issue alerts,” “talking points,” and “press release templates” expressing support or opposition to state legislation, despite its claims that “ALEC does not lobby in any state.” The organization also tracks the status of its model bills in legislatures and bills it does not like, and sends its employees to testify in support of its bills in state houses across the country. ALEC model legislation has been introduced in Florida’s legislature, at times word for word, with devastating results. Last year, ALEC member Rep. Rachel Burgin (R-56) made an embarrassing and revealing mistake when she introduced HM 685 – she forgot to remove ALEC’s insignia on the bill, leaving the ALEC’s footprint fully intact.
• After Florida lawmakers passed the NRA-sponsored Stand Your Ground law in 2005, ALEC took it and ran with it. The dangerous law was made notorious in Florida by the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Today, due to the influence of ALEC and the gun lobby, Stand Your Ground laws are on the books in 32 states.
• In response to ALEC’s extreme agenda, 26 for-profit corporations – including Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and Kraft – four non-profit groups and over 50 lawmakers have dropped ALEC in recent months. This report concludes that Florida-based corporations and Florida ALEC members should do the same.

While ALEC prefers to operate in secret, last year several Florida members admitted to participation with ALEC, one saying she was there to meet with lobbyists and fund-raise while charging her expenses to her campaign.

Dennis Baxley, the man behind the Stand Your Ground law at the time said this:

"It's a great place to share model legislation and a great place to learn what's going on in other parts of the country," said Baxley, who sponsored a major rewrite of Florida's election laws that's under challenge in court.

 The report highlights Florida members:

Out of Florida’s 160 state legislators, 60 have had known ties to ALEC since 2010. In the House, 46 representatives have been affiliated with ALEC; in the Senate, 14 Senators. And ALEC’s presence in Florida is on the rise – according to released documents from Representative Jimmy Patronis’ office, Florida lawmakers’ attendance at ALEC’s 2011 annual conference held in New Orleans was “one of the strongest delegations in years.

In keeping with its secretive nature, ALEC does not publicize its membership, thus making complete and accurate membership rolls nearly impossible to obtain. However, we know the following Florida lawmakers paid membership dues or attended at least one ALEC conference since 2010 (lawmakers believed to have been dues paying members at least once from 2010‐12 are denoted with an asterisk):

*Sen. Michael Bennett (R‐21) *Sen. Larcenia J. Bullard (D‐39) Sen. Lee Constantine (R‐22) *Sen. Nancy C. Detert (R‐23) *Sen. Mike Fasano (R‐11)

*Sen. Anitere Flores (R‐38) *Sen. Rene Garcia (R‐40)
Sen. Mike Haridopolos (R‐26) *Sen. Alan Hays (R‐25)

*Sen. Dennis Jones (R‐13) *Sen. Garrett Richter (R‐37) *Sen. David Simmons (R‐22) *Sen. Ronda Storms (R‐10) Rep. Larry Ahern (R‐51) *Rep. Ben Albritton (R‐66) *Rep. Frank Artiles (R‐119) *Rep. Dennis Baxley (R‐24) Rep. Michael Bileca (R‐117) Rep. Jeff Brandes (R‐52) *Rep. Jason Brodeur (R‐33)

*Rep. Rachel Burgin (R‐56) *Rep. Matt Caldwell (R‐73) *Rep. Dean Cannon (R‐35) Rep. Richard Corcoran (R‐45) Rep. Fred Costello (R‐26) Rep. Steve Crisafulli (R‐32) Rep. Daniel Davis (R‐13) *Rep. Jose Diaz (R‐115)

*Rep. Chris Dorworth (R‐34) *Rep. Brad Drake (R‐5) *Rep. Anitere Flores (R‐114) *Rep. Clay Ford (R‐3)

*Rep. James C. Frishe (R‐54) *Rep. Rich Glorioso (R‐62)
Rep. Eduardo Gonzalez (R‐102) *Rep. Denise Grimsley (R‐77) Rep. Gayle Harrell (R‐81)

*Rep. Doug Holder (R‐70) *Rep. Mike Horner (R‐79) *Rep. Matt Hudson (R‐101)

Rep. Clay Ingram (R‐2)
*Rep. Paige Kreegel (R‐72)
*Rep. John Legg (R‐46)
*Rep. Ana Rivas Logan (R‐114) *Rep. Debbie Mayfield (R‐80) Rep. Charles McBurney (R‐16) Rep. Peter Nehr (R‐48)
Rep. Bryan Nelson (R‐38)
*Rep. Jeanette Nunez (R‐112) *Rep. Jimmy T. Patronis, Jr. (R‐6) *Rep. Ray Pilon (R‐69)
*Rep. Scott Plakon (R‐37)
*Rep. Stephen L. Precourt (R‐41) Rep. Lake Ray (R‐17)
*Rep. Ron Saunders (D‐120) *Rep. Kelli Stargel (R‐64)
Rep. John Tobia (R‐31)
Rep. Carlos Trujillo (R‐116)
Rep. Will Weatherford (R‐61) *Rep. John Wood (R‐65)
Rep. Dana Young (R‐57)

You can read the entire report here.