Having grown up in the 1960′s and 1970′s, I always assumed that when the South lost the Civil War, that unfortunate matter was pretty much settled. After all, slavery had ended, and while de facto segregation and and racist disenfranchisement were proving to be stubbornly difficult to eradicate, a steady progression of court cases and civil rights laws seemed to mean that such peculiar institutions existed less and less de jure.

ALEC is playing defense due to the fact that, almost every day, another ALEC member corporation and funder decides to quit. With Blue Cross Blue Shield’s announcement yesterday that it was pulling out of ALEC, the number of companies that have decided to cut ties with ALEC grows to 11. The list also includes Mars Inc., Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Intuit, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, American Traffic Solutions, Reed Elsevier and Arizona Public Service. CMD and other groups are now urging State Farm, Johnson & Johnson and AT&T to reconsider their membership with ALEC.

A variety of links to articles/interviews/speeches on current issues that may be of interest.

In what at first glance looks like a major concession, ALEC, the embattled right-wing legislation factory for state and local government, announced they would refocus their efforts solely on economic issues, and eliminate a task force they had devoted to social and cultural issues, like guns and voter ID laws and abortion.

Dayen’s news roundup from April 16, 2012, with stories about ALEC, White House lobbyists, Too-Big-To-Fail, mortgage settlement enforcement, GSA, humble Mitt, World Bank, Saez and Piketty, Corey Robin, Allen West and Silvio’s stripping nuns!

A coalition on the left, including Color of Change, People for the American Way, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy and others, have been targeting large corporations to drop their underwriting for ALEC, the right-wing model legislation factory. Because nobody had spotlighted the source of ALEC’s funding in this way before, they have been successful.

The more mainstream businesses that leave ALEC, the higher the concentration of those businesses known to be run by right-wing activists, such as Koch Industries, and the harder it is for ALEC to pretend that they aren’t a right-wing outfit.

As I’m sure you know, George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder yesterday, a charge that surprised many legal experts who expected something more like manslaughter.

Dayen’s news roundup from April 10, 2012, with stories on lawless banking, Trayvon Martin, gun control, JP Morgan, Shaun Donovan, Harold Koh, ALEC, marriage equality, extradition, Ozzie Guillen, Sheldon Adelson, David Cameron and much more.

A variety of links to articles/interviews/speeches on current issues that may be of interest.