people and corporations do respond to embarrassment. more to follow!!!

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) describes itself as a nonpartisan champion of free markets. But if you spend some time at an ALEC conference you will be hard-pressed to find many Democrats. 

And the council doesn’t really support free markets, either. It supports the companies that fund it. This is an important distinction, because the corporations that donate to ALEC aren’t doing so to protect markets. 

They’re protecting favored tax treatments and pushing regulations that lock in their market positions. As best as we were able to determine in reporting our piece last year, corporations propose bills at the state level and then push them up to ALEC, which has both corporate and legislative members. ALEC pushes the legislative members to the foreground, stamps the bills as “model legislation,” and then the corporations push them back out to other state legislatures. 

So ALEC is not what it says it is. If the American Legislative Exchange Council operated with complete openness, it couldn’t operate at all. ALEC has attracted a wide and wealthy range of supporters precisely because it does its real work in a black box. Membership lists are secret. The origins of the model bills are secret. Deliberations and votes on model bills are secret. The model bills themselves are secret. The council has designed its entire structure to disguise industry-backed legislation as grassroots work from state legislators. If this becomes clear to everyone, there’s no reason for corporations to use it. And that is exactly what has been happening.

Since last year, the National Urban League, Common Cause, and ColorOfChange have been pressuring companies to drop their membership in ALEC. The council’s library of model bills includes legislation that tightens voter identification requirements, making it harder for students, the elderly, and the poor to vote. Since the death of Trayvon Martin last month, minority advocacy groups have made another complaint against ALEC: In 2005, the council turned Florida’s Castle Doctrine bill into model legislation (PDF). The doctrine allows the use of deadly force in a public place if someone “believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm,” and removes the duty to flee a confrontation.

This week, ColorOfChange announced that Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and the personal financial software maker Intuit, among several other brand-name companies, have declined to renew their memberships with ALEC. McDonald’s confirmed for Bloomberg Businessweek that it left ALEC in March, and elaborated only that it was a “business decision.” Intuit confirmed as well, but explained that the decision had come out of its normal budgeting process in 2011. Coca-Cola has yet to respond to a request for comment.

In July 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive activist group, published ALEC’s full catalog of legislation. Coca-Cola and McDonald’s were then no longer just members of a nonpartisan organization that championed free markets; they ran the reputational risk of endorsing everything that ALEC does.

It’s hard to come up with a reason the council keeps its model legislation secret other than to avoid embarrassing incongruities for its corporate members. If the council’s model bills promote free markets, why not proudly display them? If private and public members working together produce better solutions, why not open up their deliberations to the public, or at least reveal their names? The simplest answer is the most likely: Some of what ALEC does looks bad for its members. McDonald’s, in its response to an e-mail about ALEC, wasn’t obfuscating. Dumping the council was, in fact, a “business decision.”

But people and corporations do respond to embarrassment. Embarrassment is impossible without disclosure. ALEC should be free to advocate for whatever it likes, and people should be free to support the candidate who pleases them. In ALEC’s case, it’s been interesting to watch embarrassment do its work once disclosure showed up. It might be a rule for campaign and super PAC contributions as well: You can do whatever you like, as long as you are honest about it through transparent disclosure.

What could Mitt not want us to see?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today requested a six-month extension to file his 2011 federal income taxes, said Andrea Saul, his campaign spokeswoman. Saul said he would file his taxes and release the return before the Nov. 6 general election.

Mitt Romney the doomsday presidential scenario

Mitt Romney has a different, and frighteningly familiar, view.

He thinks you grow our economy from the top down.

He'd take us back to an economy based on outsourcing, risky financial schemes, and massive tax cuts for the wealthy. He'd return to the policy of allowing Wall Street, Big Oil, and other special interests to write their own rules.

But that's not all. Below are five other things that should give Americans pause.

Forward this email -- and if you're ready for this fight, become the newest member of the Truth Team today and help get the facts out from now till Election Day.

1. Romney's positions are the most radically anti-women of any candidate in a generation: He supports banning all abortions, backed a so-called "personhood" amendment that could make certain forms of birth control illegal, and says he would "get rid of" federal funding for Planned Parenthood that provides preventive services like cancer screenings for millions of women.

2. Romney would repeal Obamacare. Insurance companies would once again be allowed to run up premiums, unjustifiably deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, drop patients when they get sick, discriminate against women by charging them more for coverage than men, and spend more of your premium dollars on CEO profits and bonuses instead of your actual health care.

3. Romney is a risk when it comes to foreign policy and national security. On many of these questions, he has shifted his position for political reasons, even within the same campaign. His only clear commitment is to endless wars: He has no plan to end the war in Afghanistan and would leave our troops there indefinitely. He called the President's decision to bring our troops home from Iraq by last Christmas "tragic."

4. Despite the lessons of recent history, Romney would double down on the disastrous tax policies that handed windfalls to the wealthy, but stacked the deck against the middle class. Under Romney, millionaires and billionaires would get a $250,000 tax cut, while families with kids making less than $40,000 a year would, on average, actually see their taxes go up. To the surprise of no one, Romney also opposes the Buffett Rule. He would allow millionaires to continue to take advantage of loopholes and special deals that often allow them to pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. And he supports tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

5. Romney would end Medicare as we know it -- replacing it with a voucher scheme that would drive profits for insurance companies by forcing seniors to purchase private insurance, paying whatever costs a voucher wouldn't cover out of their own limited budgets.

Romney and his special-interest allies are going to spend the next seven months trying to deny, downplay, or hide these facts from voters. It's on us to speak the truth.

American Apartheid? The Republican "Dream" Scheme!!!

The Senate GOP seems to be banking on the assumption that Latino voters are stupid, or don't read the fine print -- or are not paying any attention at all.

Panicking from a series of polls that show their years of bashing Latinos haven't been endearing them to Latino voters, prominent Republicans are scrambling for a solution. They seem to have found one, at least for now, in a new attempt by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to rewrite the DREAM Act, the widely popular bill that the Senate GOP derailed in late 2010.

Rubio has come up with a "non-citizen-for-life" concept as he rejiggers the DREAM Act to make it pretty much dream-free. It's a tough trick: how do you create the illusion of a law that looks like it's giving something to Latinos, but which the Tea Party know means nothing?

The authentic DREAM Act offers a path to citizenship for children who were brought to the country without documentation, who graduate from high school and go on to college or the military, allowing them to create a stable life and give back to the country that they call home. Rubio's dream-free proposal gives these young people a nebulous legalized status, so that rather than become American citizens, they will have permanent second-class status - allowed to live, work and pay taxes in the only country they have ever known, but never permitted the ability to vote or exercise any of the rights of full citizenship.

The real cruelty of this Republican proposal is that it seeks to take advantage of the desperation of some DREAM Act-eligible youth to avoid deportation. The Republican proposal offers them that in the short term, but at the price of second-class status for the rest of their lives.

They deserve better. Of course, it doesn't have to be this way: not long ago, before the Tea Party drove the GOP's agenda, the authentic DREAM Act enjoyed the support of many Republicans in the Senate. The GOP has paid the price for abandoning the authentic DREAM Act and promoting numerous anti-immigrant policies. Senate Republicans are living in a fantasy land if they believe they can win back Latino voters by inventing a new second-class status for these young people.
  

Republicans have perfected a method of legalizing discrimination by inventing new classes of citizenship for those on whom they don't want to bestow full rights, creating a unique and disturbing American Apartheid.

• Republicans want gay people to have a form of citizenship that doesn't include marriage rights -- and if they had their way gay Americans wouldn't be allowed to serve their country in in the military either.

• Muslims can be citizens, but must fight legal and PR battles just to exercise their First Amendment right to the freedom of religion. 

• People who have served their time in jail for felonies are citizens - but in many states, they aren't allowed to participate in our democracy by voting. 

• And Republican-controlled state legislatures pass laws that make it harder for young people, the elderly, and low-income people to vote -- again, all citizens, legislated out of one of their fundamental constitutional rights.

How about an America with equal rights and equal justice for all and a fair path to citizenship for hard-working people who play by the rules?

With the new dream-free DREAM Act, Republicans are trying to create one of their patented new levels of citizenship while pulling a fast one on Latinos and others who care about the fate of immigrants.

Priorities USA !!!!

We believe the stakes for protecting our country’s core values have never been higher.   

Any agenda that rewards only the wealthiest few Americans at the expense of middle class Americans is UNAMERICAN...

• Jobs and the Economy: We support meaningful job legislation that will build the foundation for our future prosperity by investing in infrastructure, clean energy and American innovation.
• Taxes: We oppose the “Romney Rule” whereby millionaires pay a lower tax rate than many middle class Americans. We believe tax cuts should not favor corporations, millionaires and billionaires, placing a crushing burden on the American middle class. 
• The Judiciary: With two possible Supreme Court appointments at stake, we cannot afford a Republican president who will appoint leaders with an anti-choice, anti-gay rights and anti-middle class agenda.
• Income Inequality: We oppose the permanent extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and support economic policies rooted in fairness and opportunity.
• Education: We believe education is the most essential investment in our future. We oppose efforts to slash America’s commitment to its future by gutting education. We support policies that strengthen our public schools, support community colleges and make higher education affordable for the daughters and sons of all working Americans.
• Health Care: We support the Affordable Care Act and oppose attempts to repeal it. We support the requirement that health insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions. We support allowing parents to carry coverage of their adult children until age 26. We support shrinking the “Donut Hole” for prescription drug costs, and the other consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act, and will oppose efforts to roll back these hard-won consumer protections.
• Medicare: We believe in strengthening the existing Medicare system, and staunchly oppose the proposed Republican destruction of the system outlined in the Republican/Ryan budget.
• Right to Choose: With the Republican effort to defund assistance at the federal level, we stand for continuing the program which provides critical health services for women across the country.
• Environment: We believe that protection of our air, our water, our Earth is a national priority that requires a national commitment. We oppose the radical right-wing agenda to abolish the E.P.A. and allow corporate polluters to write their own rules of the road. We oppose giving big oil tax subsidies and oppose allowing oil companies to drill in America’s most precious and fragile ecosystems.
• Climate Change: We believe in science. We therefore accept and embrace the overwhelming international scientific consensus that the earth’s climate is warming and that human-generated pollution is a central cause. We support efforts to limit the pollution that causes global warming.
• Energy: Republican energy policies left Americans more dependent than ever on Middle East Oil, while allowing our lead in clean energy technology to erode and, in some cases, even disappear. We are committed to energy independence. We are committed to clean energy. We are committed to American leadership in the clean energy jobs of the future.
• Social Security: We oppose the Republican-proposed privatization of the system, which would make it far less sound and secure for future generations. We believe in strengthening the current system by reform in a sustainable fashion.
• LGBT Issues: We believe in freedom, in equality, in dignity for all Americans. We vigorously oppose divisive right-wing attempts to divide the American family and to besmirch the Constitution with amendments that would single out gay Americans for discrimination. We support gay and lesbian service members who risk their lives for our freedom, and we oppose any attempt to discriminate against them by reinstating “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

Hong Kong....time for a great leap forward => Democracy

Leung Chun-ying, a former property surveyor, pledged to address Hong Kong’s wealth gap and demands for universal suffrage as the city’s next chief executive after winning a poll in which only one in 5,900 people could vote. 

A 1,193-member panel of Hong Kong billionaires, academics and professionals chose Leung over two other candidates to lead the city for the next five years. Crowds outside the election venue protested the lack of democracy in the former British colony, with one waving the colonial-era flag and others holding signs opposing China’s ruling Communist Party. 

Leung, 57, will help shape the city’s economy and relationship with China through 2017, when Beijing has pledged to allow Hong Kong to elect its own leaders. He must also address anger over rising living costs spawned by an influx of money from mainland China and surging property prices that have made Hong Kong the world’s most expensive place to buy a home. 

“Rule of law, human rights, integrity, lack of corruption and press freedom are all part of our life,” Leung told reporters after his selection. “This election has helped build a foundation for universal suffrage in 2017.”

PACs, Super PACs do not represent the PEOPLE they represent the 1%; a vote for Republicans is a vote for Dictatorship USA

The evolving nature of campaign funding was particularly evident in January with Mitt Romney's campaign and its ally, the aggressive Super PAC known as Restore Our Future.

Financial reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Romney's campaign spent $19 million in January -- nearly three times as much as it raised -- as the former Massachusetts governor defeated Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire, lost to him in South Carolina and then topped him in Florida.
Restore Our Future, meanwhile, raised $6.6 million and spent $13.5 million, mostly on ads attacking Gingrich that helped Romney win the Florida primary. By the end of January, Romney's campaign had $7.7 million on hand and the pro-Romney PAC had $16.3 million.

The campaigns of Gingrich and Rick Santorum stayed in the game by raising $5.6 million and $4.5 million, respectively. But in Gingrich's case, the PAC supporting him -- called Winning Our Future -- was at least as influential as his campaign.

The pro-Gingrich PAC attracted $10 million in donations from the family of Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and funded attack ads on Romney that helped Gingrich, a former U.S. House of Representatives speaker, win South Carolina's primary.

America in the year 2012 = 13 million living below the poverty level

The conditions aren't sanitary; they're unhygienic at best. But those who have been unable to maintain a job or those who simply can't make enough to afford rent have resorted to these uncomfortable living conditions.

Poverty has become a painful reality for those hit hard with the economic downturn over the past couple of years.

If you've passed through the town of Ann Abor, Michigan, perhaps you also noticed an untidy mini-housing establishment of about 30 tents in the woods nearby.

Those woods have become home for local residents who can no longer afford the cost of rent due to joblessness or extreme wage-cuts.

Imagine a home without heat, electricity, or toilets...

Black mould plagues these people on a regular basis, tainting their bodies, clothes, and bedding.

For at least 5,000 desperate Americans – out of the 47 million living below the poverty level – this is the best home they can get in these tough times; singles, couples, and families alike.

According to Panorama, the latest tent-city trend has popped up in at least 55 cities throughout the United States.

One of the largest tent-homes houses approximately 300 individuals in sunny Florida. New Jersey and Portland now harbor some sizable tent communities as well.

With recent budget cuts affecting a great deal of some of America's poorest residents, there has been too much pressure on homeless shelters to let everyone in.

Because of the increase in homelessness, city residents generally run these tent camps with help from a local charity group.

Census data reveals that America hasn't seen poverty like this in more than 50 years. Years of high unemployment has caught up with ordinary Americans all over the nation.

Right now, there are at least 13 million unemployed Americans.

The scariest part of this story is that many of these desperate, homeless tent-dwellers were very recently living comfortable lives as part of America's middle-class...they were good, honest, hard-working people.