Year: 2012

Intuit Becomes Fourth Company to Quit Right-Wing Push Group, ALEC

Jon Ponder

sceenshot-intuit-turbotaxJust in time for tax season:

A stampede seems to be on the way as more and more groups break ties and dump ALEC. Intuit, Inc. (maker of Quicken and QuickBooks accounting software) told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Intuit also decided not to renew its membership after it expired in 2011. That comment came from Bernie McKay, Vice President of Government Affairs. He gave this response when CMD identified that Intuit was no longer listed on the board and contacted the company. CMD began its effort to spotlight Intuit and other corporate funders and tie these corporations to the ALEC agenda when it launched ALECexposed.org in July 2011.

Kraft Foods also announced that it won’t renew its membership in ALEC when it expires this spring, according to an email from Kraft Corporate Affairs Director Susan Davison. These announcements follow on the news that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are out.

Intuit’s McKay explained to CMD that the company doesn’t “usually issue statements about membership in any organization” and declined to comment further. According to Reuters, Kraft’s emailed statement explained, “Our membership in ALEC expires this spring and for a number of reasons, including limited resources, we have made the decision not to renew.”

Here is a list of some of the best-known consumer brands who pay ALEC to push a right-wing agenda in the states by writing laws designed to suppress minority voting rights, expand gun ownership and restrict health care access and women’s rights:

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Kraft Foods and Coca-Cola Reps Were ALEC Board Members

Jon Ponder

The fact that Kraft Foods and Coca-Cola resigned their memberships in ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council — the push group behind the voter suppression movement, Stand Your Ground Laws and similar right-wing efforts — this week is perhaps an even more significant blow to the group than was first reported.

Dozens of mainstream, otherwise respectable corporations — like Microsoft, Sara Lee and even Mary Kay Cosmetics — are members of ALEC, but representatives for Kraft and Coke sat on the ALEC board.

ALEC has two boards of directors. One board is made up of Republican elected officials from state legislatures; the other is comprised of representatives from the corporate members. According to Right Wing Watch, members of ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board include:

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Birther Queen Orly Taitz Leads in Early Polling in California’s GOP U.S. Senate Primary

Jon Ponder

Taitz
Taitz
Talk about the silly season! Last month, right-wing clown Joe the Plumber won the Republican primary in Ohio’s heavily Democratic 9th Congressional District. Joe — whose real name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — will run against veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who has represented the district for 30 years.

Now it appears that another Republican joke, birther queen Orly Taitz, could well win the Republican primary in the California U.S. Senate race in June. She is, by far, the best best known candidate in a field of 23, including 14 Republicans, who are vying to take on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has served in the Senate since 1992.

Calbuzz got a quote on the matter from the poor sap saddled with the job of being chairman of the California Republican Party:

“We’re aware (Taitz) has name ID,” state GOP chair Tom Del Becarro, who’s doing all he can to boost the candidacy of little-known but party-endorsed Elizabeth Emken, told us bravely. “We think the party’s endorsement will carry the day.”

Ha! As if:

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Pay to Play: After Meat Industry Donation, Tea Party Rep. Steve King Defends Pink Slime

Pensito Editors

I’m on the phone today and throughout the weekend and into last week trying to establish a congressional hearing before the Ag Committee for Beef Products, Incorporated, so that we can put into the congressional record the nutritional value and the safety and the tastiness of their product which is an enhancement to hamburger. I’m working with Governor Branstad on that. At this point, there will be a decision made today I think on whether we’re able to get a hearing.

– Rep. Steve King, GOPT-Iowa, after taking donations from meat industry trade associations and meat producers, promising to have a hearing in Congress on the benefits of pink slime, which he calls “lean finely textured beef.”

George Bush: When Unelected Judges Make Law, It’s ‘a Threat to Our Democracy – and It Needs to Stop’

Jon Ponder

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

GEORGE W. BUSH, 2007: When the Founders drafted the Constitution, they had a clear understanding of tyranny. They also had a clear idea about how to prevent it from ever taking root in America. Their solution was to separate the government’s powers into three co-equal branches: the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary. Each of these branches plays a vital role in our free society. Each serves as a check on the others. And to preserve our liberty, each must meet its responsibilities — and resist the temptation to encroach on the powers the Constitution accords to others.

For the judiciary, resisting this temptation is particularly important, because it’s the only branch that is unelected and whose officers serve for life. Unfortunately, some judges give in to temptation and make law instead of interpreting. Such judicial lawlessness is a threat to our democracy — and it needs to stop.

Romney Hires Bush White House Political Czar

Jon Ponder

George W. Bush with Ed Gillespie
George W. Bush with Ed Gillespie
Politico:

Moving to broaden his campaign organization beyond his close-knit cadre of advisers, Mitt Romney is bringing on former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie as a senior adviser, POLITICO has learned.

Gillespie will be a sort of strategist without portfolio to the likely GOP presidential nominee, offering counsel on planning for the Tampa convention, the candidate’s message and a general election strategy for a campaign that is already moving beyond the primary.

Gillespie joined the Bush White House as a top political operative — officially “counselor to the president” — in June 2007. Later that year, after Karl Rove jumped ship, Gillespie took over political operations at the White House, a job that, as had also been the case with Rove, he unofficially shared with Roger Ailes, president of Fox News. Here’s how the New York Times described Gillespie back then:

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Petition by Civil Rights Group Prompts Coca-Cola, Kraft and Pepsi to Cut Ties with ALEC

Jon Ponder

Efforts by by ColorOfChange and others are paying off. Via NPR:

logos-coke-kraft-pepsiCoca-Cola Co. has terminated its relationship with a conservative group seen by some as an incubator for a string of new state voter ID laws and a marketer of laws like Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense statute.

The Atlanta-based soft drink maker said its focus with the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, was on combating “discriminatory” food and beverage taxes, not on issues “that have no direct bearing” on its business.

The decision to “discontinue its membership” came Wednesday, just a few hours after the black online advocacy group ColorofChange began a campaign against the company’s support of ALEC.

Kraft Foods also dropped out tonight. Pepsi — an ALEC member for 10 years — informed Color of Change in January that it would not renew its membership for 2012.

The corporate leader for ALEC is, of course, the Koch brothers industries, and many energy and industrial companies are major funders of the group. What is more surprising is that dozens of the best known consumer brands are also big donors. A few of these include:

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Republicans Flip-Flop on Federal Power: No on Obamacare Last Week, Yes on DOMA This Week

Jon Ponder

Andrew Cohen at the Atlantic:

Congress has no constitutional authority to punish people who don’t want to have health insurance, Paul Clement argued last week before the United States Supreme Court. This week? The heralded attorney is arguing, to another panel of federal judges, that Congress has plenty of constitutional authority to punish people who don’t want to marry someone of the opposite sex. Last week, Clement defended states’ rights and labeled as “unprecedented” the federal health care policy. This week, he says that Congress can dictate terms of a federal marriage policy over the objections of states which have legalized same-sex marriage.

Welcome to the forlorn world of the Defense of Marriage Act, the teetering federal law which defines marriage as solely that between a man and a woman and thus deprives same-sex married couples of certain federal rights and privileges.

Mainstream Republicans Support Romney Because They Assume He’s Faking Right-Wing Views

Jon Ponder

Stu Rothenberg:

Nobody — not his critics and not his allies — really believes Mitt Romney.

Romney’s great problem in the GOP race, as pretty much everyone has already observed, is that conservatives don’t really believe that he is one of them.

Despite all his conservative rhetoric — on taxes, government spending, traditional marriage, immigration, abortion and health care — conservatives aren’t buying it. They believe that Romney is simply pandering to them because he knows that is what he needs to do to lock up the Republican nomination.

Whether it is his multiple positions over the years on abortion, his support for an individual mandate in Massachusetts, his Mormon faith or simply his profile as a wealthy, impeccably dressed businessman, the most conservative Republican voters (many of whom are evangelicals) don’t believe that he is a passionate conservative who is ready to take on the political establishment.

What’s interesting about Romney and his supporters is that, despite his conservative rhetoric, moderates and country club conservatives continue to support his candidacy.

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