Here’s a cool new toy. A popular article on Forbes today details a new smart phone app called “Buycott,” which is catching the attention of shoppers who want to make sure their money spent on groceries and other basic products isn’t enriching corporations with bad records on social and environmental responsibility.

What is the State Policy Network, aka SPN?

Florida may soon become the fourth state with a law on the books enforcing hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) chemical disclosure. The Florida House of Representatives’ Agriculture and Natural Resources Subcommittee voted unanimously (11-0) on March 7 to require chemical disclosure from the fracking industry. For many, that is cause for celebration and applause.

What bill sponsor Rep. Ray Rodrigues (R-76) didn’t mention: the law was written by what investigative journalist Steve Coll referred to as a “private empire,” ExxonMobil. Like its federal-level predecessor, it still contains the “trade secrets” loophole.

President Obama called for a modest raise in the federal minimum wage to $9 in his State of the Union Address, and several Democratic legislators have upped his bid with a proposed increase to $10.10.

But an insidious effort to lower the wage floor is already underway much closer to the ground—in the state legislatures where right-wing lobbyists have been greasing the skids for years for an onslaught of anti-worker policies.

Illinois is the next state on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)‘s target list for putting the oil industry’s interests ahead of the public interest.

Three national organizations offered a scathing criticism of policies endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, in a conference call with reporters last week. Their findings strike a stake in the heart of ALEC claims that its view of the world — lower taxes, fewer workplace protections, and diminished public investments — is good for the public.

For your entertainment, you are asked to determine which bill pushed by a Republican state legislator is stupider: This one or this one?

States that follow the economic policy agenda promoted by ALEC risk weakening state economies and harming middle class families. That’s the message of a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which outlines American Legislative Exchange Council’s policy recommendations and their negative effects.

he American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – known by its critics as a “corporate bill mill” – has hit the ground running in 2013, pushing “models bills” mandating the teaching of climate change denial in public school systems.

January hasn’t even ended, yet ALEC has already planted its ”Environmental Literacy Improvement Act“ – which mandates a “balanced” teaching of climate science in K-12 classrooms – in the state legislatures of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona so far this year.

I’ve often wondered what on earth it is that drives people to become Republicans.  Is it personal wealth and privilege?  Sometimes, undoubtedly.  Deep-seated bigotry?  That tends to play a role as well.  Stupidity?  Yes, but that only applies to voters, not the politicians themselves.

The likeliest answer, however, isn’t grounded in such subjective, and ultimately unknowable, value systems.