Exposing the American Legislative Exchange Council

In our second hour, Christopher Renner connects with journalist Beau Hodai for a discussion of the American Legislative Exchange Council. What Is ALEC? They meet in secret. They write our laws. And they want to silence the American people.

On March 15th, University of Wisconsin Professor Bill Cronon posted a study guide on his blog on the history and actions of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He asked: What is behind the “sudden and impressively well-organized” wave of right-wing legislation targeting workers, students, women, immigrants, and the environment in state legislatures? He found that all roads led to ALEC.

ALEC is a conservative think-tank run by right-wing politicians and corporate and financial interests within the banking industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the big oil and gas industries, and others. They are aligned to many right-wing and conservative interests, including the election-manipulating Koch Industries. ALEC is funded by the Koch brothers to promote an agenda that curbs individual liberties, attacks unions, the social safety net and seeks to insure that corporations pay no taxes, but benefit from all sorts of tax-payer dollars in return. Much of the legislation passed in the during the 2011 Kansas Legislative session was ALEC inspired, including cuts to public education, the "administrative reforms" Governor Brownback has imposed on the state, and Kris Kobach's Voter ID bill.

Additional Links/Resources:

ALEC Exposed, website - a project of the Center for Media and Democracy.

Publicopoly Exposed: How ALEC, the Koch brothers and their corporate allies plan to privatize government, Beau Hodai, In These Times, August 2011.

Corporate Con Game: How the private prison industry helped shape Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, Beau Hodai, In These Times, June 19, 2010.

ALEC Exposed, John Nicholas, The Nation, July 12, 2011. 

ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection, Lisa Graves, The Nation, July 12, 2011.

ALEC Bills in Wisconsin, Mary Bottari, PR Watch, July 14, 2011.

The Latest Threat to Health Care, Andres Grimes, MS Magazine Blog, July 15, 2011.

ALEC Exposed: State Legislative Bills Drafted by Secretive Corporate-Lawmaker Coalition, Democracy Now!, July 15, 2011.

Billy Bragg website.

ACTION ALERT: Stop ALEC's end run around the law

From Common Cause:
The American Legislative Exchange Council is a secretive front group of hundreds of corporations that are investing millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly legislation at the expense of the middle class.

ALEC has drafted more than 800 model bills for state legislators, including efforts to privatize everything from schools to prisons, to weaken workers' rights, and to make it more difficult for citizens to vote. They even wrote a resolution in support of the horrendous Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates for corporate money in our elections.

Worse, they are lobbying in state capitals across the country, all while claiming to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that they are a charitable organization. That means that their corporate backers can take a tax deduction by giving money to ALEC to – guess what? – push for more tax breaks and less regulation for their companies!

Under the law, charities are allowed to lobby, up to certain limits, and they must disclose what they spend on that lobbying work. ALEC's annual filings state that they have engaged in zero lobbying activity.

Tell the IRS to launch an immediate investigation into whether ALEC is committing tax fraud. 

Clippings for 12 november 2009

Major Hasan and the Legacy of George W. Bush
Thom Hartmann writes on The Smirking Chimp: "If Bill Clinton - or, presumably, Al Gore (or even Ralph Nader) - had been President in 2001, the Ft. Hood massacre almost certainly wouldn't have happened. Because George W. Bush was president, it did. Here's why it's Bush's fault: One of the first lessons aspiring novelists and screenwriters learn is that the goodness of a hero is defined by a single quality - the evil of his opponent. From Superman's Lex Luthor to Batman's Joker to Indiana Jones' Nazis to Luke Skywalker's Darth Vader, for a hero to be perceived as larger than life, he must have a larger than life enemy."

Afghanistan's Sham Army
Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig.com: "Success in Afghanistan is measured in Washington by the ability to create an indigenous army that will battle the Taliban, provide security and stability for Afghan civilians and remain loyal to the puppet government of Hamid Karzai. A similar task eluded the Red Army, although the Soviets spent a decade attempting to pacify the country. It eluded the British a century earlier. And the United States, too, will fail."

A Morally Bankrupt Military: When Soldiers and Their Families Become Expendable
Dahr Jamail comments for Truthout: "The military operates through indoctrination. Soldiers are programmed to develop a mindset that resists any acknowledgment of injury and sickness, be it physical or psychological. As a consequence, tens of thousands of soldiers continue to serve, even being deployed to combat zones like Iraq and/or Afghanistan, despite persistent injuries. According to military records, over 43,000 troops classified as 'nondeployable for medical reasons' have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan nevertheless."

Scahill: Obama May Be Afraid of Blackwater
David Edwards and Daniel Tencer report for The Raw Story: "Despite news reports that the security contractor formerly known as Blackwater has seen its contracts dry up and its influence wane, the company continues to do brisk business in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and the Obama administration may be too afraid of the firm to do anything about it, says investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill."

Denying Responsiblity for the Wars One Cheers on
Glenn Greenwald writes for Salon.com: "David Brooks' column today perfectly illustrates what lies at the core of our political discourse:  namely, self-loving tribalistic blindness laced with a pathological refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions.  Brooks claims there is a unique evil that one finds in the 'fringes of the Muslim world':"

Drone Race to a Known Future: Why Military Dreams Fail -- and Why It Doesn't Matter
Tom Engelhardt writes for TOmDispatch: "For drone freaks (and these days Washington seems full of them), here's the good news: Drones are hot! Not long ago -- 2006 to be exact -- the Air Force could barely get a few armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the air at once; now, the number is 38; by 2011, it will reputedly be 50, and beyond that, in every sense, the sky's the limit."

Where's the Jobs Stimulus?
Rev. Jesse Jackson writes on CounterPunch: "nemployment has soared above 10 percent, but that figure doesn't count those forced to work part-time, those who have given up in despair, young people who were never able to get hired. There are now 25 million people unemployed. For African Americans, it is worse. African Americans are experiencing a silent depression. Unemployment is more than 18 percent; underemployment even higher. And among black teens, unemployment is more than 40 percent.

Where Have All The Good Jobs Gone?
David Moberg writes for In These Times: "People don’t just want a job. They want a good job. And over the past three decades the American economy has increasingly failed to deliver enough good jobs.  What is a good job? According Algernon Austin, an Economic Policy Institute economist and author of the brand-new report 'Getting Good Jobs to America’s People of Color,' a good job provides an above-poverty wage, health insurance and adequate retirement income."

Recommended Audio: Rachel Maddow: Corporations Are "Child Labor-Endorsing, Pro-Slavery Freaks" for Trying to Skirt Trade Laws

Rachel Maddow comments: "The new rules for Wall Street and the banks will also create a consumer financial protection agency.  So in the same way that regulation keeps off the market things that, when used as directed, have a good chance of killing you, things like long darts, or cars with the fuel tank right next to the bumper. "



The Tea Party's Takeover of the GOP
Stephanie Mencimer writes for Mother Jones: "You have to hand it to Michele Bachmann: She has succeeded in turning the GOP into one big Tea Party.  This past weekend, the Minnesota Republican went on Fox News and called on viewers to show up on the Capitol lawn on Thursday at noon for a press conference and a last ditch attempt to kill health care reform.  The gathering that resulted was marked by the now-routine extremism of the Tea Party conservatives.  'I'm a bitter gun owner who votes,' read one sign. Others questioned President Obama’s citizenship, portrayed him as Sambo, or called him a traitor. One said, 'Obama takes his orders from the Rothschilds.' Old ladies wore red T-shirts decrying 'Obamao care.' The crowd also took spirited swipes at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. At one point someone yelled, 'Put down your Botox and show yourself.'"

When Voters Disrupt the Tea Party
E. J. Donne writes for Truthdig: "Here’s a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose. This is what happened in two statewide referendums last week that got buried under all of the attention paid to the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey. In Maine, voters rejected a tax-limitation measure by a walloping 60 percent to 40 percent. In Washington state, a similar measure went down, 57-43."

The Dark Side of the Bright Side
Anis Shivani writes for In These Times: "In her new book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America (Metropolitan/Holt, October 2009), Barbara Ehrenreich traces the origins of contemporary optimism from nineteenth-century healers to twentieth-century pushers of consumerism. She explores how that culture of optimism prevents us from holding to account both corporate heads and elected officials."

The Stupka Stupor
Emily Douglas writes for The Nation: "We know that the House healthcare reform bill passed after an eleventh-hour compromise (you might say betrayal) on abortion access. We know the compromise, the Stupak-Pitts amendment, is bad. But do we know exactly how it's bad for women (and their partners)? Here's a quick primer on what the amendment actually means for any woman accessing healthcare through the newly-created health insurance exchange."

The Price of Health Care Reform:  Abortion Rights?
Rachel Morris writes for Mother Jones: "Will health care reform come at the expense of abortion rights? The Democrats’ historic health care bill squeaked through the House on Saturday only after pro-life forces scored a major victory. Despite months of wrangling over the public option and the price tag, in the end the legislation’s fate turned on an eleventh-hour push by conservative Democrats to broaden the bill's existing limits on government funding of abortion, in the form of an amendment authored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). Here’s what happened and what it means:"

Will the Stupak Amendment Affect Insurance Coverage for Miscarriages? I Think So
Robin Marty writes for RH Reality Check: "This weekend, a group of male pro-life Democrats gambled with women's health, and women lost. By broadly writing in that insurers can chose whether or not to cover abortion services, pro-life amendments don't just affect their intended victims - women seeking a way out of an unwanted or medically harmful pregnancy. They also affect another group of victims - women whose pregnancies have already ended but have not yet miscarried." 

Education Reform: Wrong Diagnosis, So Wrong Cure
Marion Bradly writes for Truthout: "Sooner or later, a reluctant Congress is going to have to do something about replacing No Child Left Behind. If senators and representatives will listen, they'll learn why Education Secretary Arne Duncan's "Race to the Top" initiative is a really bad idea, and why thoughtful educators think politicians, business leaders and wealthy philanthropists are bulls in the education china shop."

A Helping Hand
The Editors at the Columbia Journalism Review writes: "When in September President Obama said he would be “happy to look” at congressional proposals designed to help the beleaguered newspaper industry, the president’s throwaway line provoked a flurry of articles about how government help for newspapers would compromise editorial integrity and stifle innovation and competition rising from the digital frontier—and wouldn’t save the doomed newsrooms anyway. Even the Newspaper Association of America said it wasn’t looking for 'a specific handout, bailout, financial assistance, what have you.'"

Fort Hood Cover-up: A Dozen Tales of Disinformation
Mark Ames comments for The Exiled: "I don’t want to go too deep down the Fort Hood Rabbit Hole Of Weirdness, so I’m just going to get off my chest some of the incredibly weird shit that’s being thrown around in the media to confuse us or throw us off. It’s looking pretty clearly like there’s a cover-up in progress, and not a very professional cover-up either. But the sad thing is that all the confusion and bullshit thrown our way will probably succeed in its goal of steering the public away from whatever it is the military doesn’t want us to find out about the shooting massacre."

Public Media and the Decommodification of News
Jim Naureckas writes for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: "There have been various proposals to “save journalism” from the crisis brought on by digitalization. But by and large these ideas have less to do with meeting the information needs of a democratic society than with preserving the profit potential of existing media outlets.Take the various suggestions as to how to get news outlets to stop giving away their content for free. Among others, Walter Isaacson (formerly of Time), Steven Brill (formerly of Content) and Rupert Murdoch (formerly of Australia) have all offered suggestions for how newspapers can be saved by putting their content behind pay walls (Time, 2/5/09; PoynterOnline, 2/9/09; L.A. Times, 8/21/09)."

Feds Consolidate Last Two Broadband Stimulus Funding Windows into One
Andy Opsahl writes for Government Technology: "Agencies seeking broadband stimulus money now have only one more opportunity to apply because the two remaining funding windows have been consolidated into one, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and Rural Utilities Service (RUS), the two federal agencies tasked with distributing $7.2 billion set aside in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for broadband projects. This may surprise some, given the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the two agencies were being overwhelmed by the application process in late October."

Free Press Asks White House for a "Knight 2.0" Commission
Karen Everhart write for Current.com: "There’s been more than enough talk about restructuring public broadcasting as digital public media. The time to start walking the walk has arrived. So says Josh Silver, executive director and co-founder of Free Press, the media reform group that has had a seat at the table in talks about redefining public broadcasting as public media."

Does Murdoch Agree with Glenn Beck or Not?
James Rucker writes for the Huffington Post: "Rupert Murdoch is now trying to backpedal after saying in an interview with Sky News that Glenn Beck was right when he called President Obama a "racist." Now that he's been called out and the spotlight is squarely on him, Murdoch says he doesn't agree with Beck, but he won't explain what he meant or denounce Beck's rhetoric either."

The GOP's Looming (Media) Civil War
Eric Boehlert writes for Media Matters: "It's not easy to flip a congressional district that's been Republican since the late 1800s, but after being willingly hijacked by the right-wing media -- after getting steamrolled by Fox News' embrace of third-party candidate Doug Hoffman -- Republicans managed to hand Upstate New York's 23rd District to Democrats last week. And they did it just in time for the newly elected Democrat to help (barely) push health care reform through the House of Representatives during Saturday night's historic vote."

Clippings for 15 September

To read complete article, click on titles.

McCain Would Privatize Social Security
Dean Baker writes for Truthout: "The Republicans have already turned to sick sexual innuendo and nonsense about their vice-presidential candidate, pigs and lipstick in order to distract the public from the real issues in this campaign. One of the items that should be on top of the list of real issues is Senator McCain's plans to privatize and cut Social Security."

The $70 Billion Spectrum Rip-Off
Megan Tady reports In These Times that in February 2009, new digital TV channels on spectrum valued at over $70 billion will be handed over to the current 1,762 U.S. broadcast licensees. Local communities, entrepreneurs, nonprofit organizations, unions, schools and everyday taxpayers won't be allowed to set one foot in this new broadcasting game.

Tawdry Tale of Oil Drillers and "MMS Chicks"
Carl Hiaasen reports in The Miami Herald: "People always say the Bush administration is in bed with the oil companies, but it turns out to be literally true. According to the Interior Department, some government officials in charge of collecting oil and gas royalties smoked pot, snorted cocaine and had sex with employees of big energy firms. Meanwhile, the rest of us were getting screwed at the gas pump."

Rage on the Radio
What happens when America's airwaves fill with hate? BILL MOYERS JOURNAL takes a tough look at the hostile industry of "Shock Jock" media with a hard-hitting examination of its effects on our nation's political discourse. The JOURNAL traveled to Knoxville, where a recent shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church has left the pastor asking what role hateful speech from popular right-wing media personalities may have played in the tragedy. "A lot of people are hurling insults from the safety of television studios, the safety of radio studio, the safety of cyberspace," says Rev. Chris Buice, "So that's a void in our community — the chance to be in the same room and to have these exchanges and remember the humanity of the person on the other side." To watch the video of this segment, click here.

Military Industrial Complex 2.0
Frida Berrigan qrites for TomDispatch.com: "Seven years into George W. Bush's Global War on Terror, the Pentagon is embroiled in two big wars, a potentially explosive war of words with Tehran, and numerous smaller conflicts, and it is leaning ever more heavily on private military contractors to get by. Once upon a time, soldiers did more than pick up a gun. They picked up trash. They cut hair and delivered mail. They fixed airplanes and inflated truck tires. Not anymore. All of those tasks are now the responsibility of private military corporations."

Charles Darwin to Receive Apology from Church of England
Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent for the UK Telegraph, writes: "The Church of England will concede in a statement that it was over-defensive and over-emotional in dismissing Darwin's ideas. It will call 'anti-evolutionary fervour' an 'indictment' on the Church. The bold move is certain to dismay sections of the Church that believe in creationism and regard Darwin's views as directly opposed to traditional Christian teaching."

Impact of Big Box Stores on Taxes and Public Costs
Institute for Local Self-Reliance, reports that when evaluating retail development proposals, municipal officials often focus on only one side of the equation: the amount of new tax revenue that the project will generate. It's easy to overlook the fact that big-box stores and shopping centers also create new costs.

McCain's Court: Change We Don't Need
Cass R. Sunstein, writes for The Washington Independent: "John McCain has said that, should he be president, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito 'would serve as the model for my own nominees.' He regularly attacks what he calls 'activist judging,' and he described a recent ruling vindicating the right to habeas corpus as 'one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.' McCain has repeatedly said that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled. If McCain is elected, change would clearly be coming to the US Supreme Court."

Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote
Eartha Jane Melzer reports for The Michigan Messenger: "The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP's effort to challenge some voters on Election Day."

US Should Disclose Funding for Opposition Groups in Bolivia
The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) called on the US State Department, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and other agencies to release information detailing whom it is funding in Bolivia - where violent right-wing opposition groups have wreaked havoc this week in a series of shootings, beatings, ransacking of offices and sabotage of a natural gas pipeline - as well as in other Latin American countries, including Venezuela."

Rule Changes Would Give FBI Agents Extensive New Powers
Carrie Johnson writes for The Washington Post: "The Justice Department will unveil changes to FBI ground rules today that would put much more power into the hands of line agents pursuing leads on national security, foreign intelligence and even ordinary criminal cases. The overhaul, the most substantial revision to FBI operating instructions in years, also would ease some reporting requirements between agents, their supervisors and federal prosecutors in what authorities call a critical effort to improve information gathering and detect terrorist threats. The changes would give the FBI's more than 12,000 agents the ability at a much earlier stage to conduct physical surveillance, solicit informants and interview friends of people they are investigating without the approval of a bureau supervisor."

How Anti-Intellectualism is Destroying America
Terrence McNally writes for AlterNet: "'It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant.' Barack Obama finally said it. Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right's stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them - and us - unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society."

The Mukasey Doctrine
Scott Horton writes for Harper's Magazine: "Prior to his confirmation, Michael Mukasey fessed up, in a written response to Senator Dick Durbin, to a meeting the White House arranged with a group of movement conservatives. The team he met with had a simple agenda: They wanted his assurance that he would not appoint special prosecutors to go after administration figures involved in serious scandals at the Justice Department, including the U.S. attorneys scandal and the introduction of torture with formal Justice Department cover, and they wanted his assurance that Justice would continue to provide legal cover to 'the Program.'"

Learning the Wrong Lessons From the Bush Era
Andrew Bacevich writes on TomDispatch.com: "To appreciate the full extent of the military crisis into which the United States has been plunged requires understanding what the Iraq War and, to a lesser extent, the Afghan War have to teach. These two conflicts, along with the attacks of September 11, 2001, will form the centerpiece of George W. Bush's legacy. Their lessons ought to constitute the basis of a new, more realistic military policy."

Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?
Robert Scheer, Editor of Truthdig, writes: "Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the US presidential election?"

Don't Cage Dissent
Amy Goodman writes for Truthdig.com on the threat to free speech. Open opposition, the right to challenge those in power, is a mainstay of any healthy democracy. The Democratic and Republican conventions will test the commitment of the two dominant U.S. political parties to the cherished tradition of dissent. Things are not looking good.

Why Soldiers Rape
Helen Benedict writes for In These Times: "An alarming number of women soldiers are being sexually abused by their comrades-in-arms, both at war and at home. This fact has received a fair amount of attention lately from researchers and the press - and deservedly so. But the attention always focuses on the women: where they were when assaulted, their relations with the assailant, the effects on their mental health and careers, whether they are being adequately helped, and so on. That discussion, as valuable as it is, misses a fundamental point. To understand military sexual assault, let alone know how to stop it, we must focus on the perpetrators. We need to ask: Why do soldiers rape?"

Groups File Elections Complaint Against Wal-Mart
The Associated Press reports: "The AFL-CIO and three other labor-rights groups have asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. unlawfully pressured employees to vote against Democrats in November because their party would help workers to unionize. The groups - which include Change to Win, American Rights at Work and WakeUpWalMart.com - say in a complaint processed on Friday with the FEC that 'there is reason to believe' Wal-Mart broke federal election rules by advocating against Democratic candidate Barack Obama in meetings with employees."

ACLU Launches Web Ad Campaign
Tech Daily Dose reprots that the American Civil Liberties Union has unveiled an online advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness about the lawsuit the watchdog group filed last week in New York federal court, which seeks a permanent injunction that would bar the U.S. government from conducting surveillance operations under a major revision of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
To read the whole story, click here.

Bad Days for Newsrooms - and Democracy
Chris Hedges writes that the decline of newspapers is not about the replacement of the antiquated technology of news print with the lightning speed of the Internet. It does not signal an inevitable and salutary change. It is not a form of progress.
To read the whole commentary, click here.

As Papers Struggle, News Is Cut and the Focus Turns Local
Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times writes that almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study.
To read the whole story, click here.

A Test of Justice for Rape Victims
Sarah Tofte reports for The Washington Post: "Every two minutes, someone is raped in the United States. Every year, more than 200,000 rape victims, mostly women, report their rapes to police. Most consent to the creation of a rape kit, an invasive process for collecting physical evidence (including DNA material) of the assault that can take up to six hours. What most victims don't know is that in thousands of cases, that evidence sits untested in police evidence lockers."
To read the whole story, click here.

Bush Administration Plans End Run for Abstinence-Only Funds
Scott Swenson reports for RH Reality Check: "The Bush Administration Department of Health and Human Services isn't getting much rest these days, using every moment of its final few months to leave an indelible ideological mark on government."
To read the blog, click here.

Election Fraud and Tyranny: Part 1 & 2
Michael Collins, in a Scoop News column: "Mark Crispin Miller's new book, 'Loser Take All,' identifies and analyzes election fraud, the foundation of extremist power in the United States since 2000. Manipulated elections have enabled everything we've experienced from the Iraq war to the current economic meltdown. None of that would have been possible without the ongoing series of 'surprise' wins for extremists and their enablers following the outright theft of the 2000 presidential election."
To read the commentaries, click here.

McSexist: McCain's War on Women
Kate Sheppard, for In These Times: "McCain's campaign has been making a clear play for women voters in recent weeks, hosting conference calls with Republican women and touting that his policies on national security, the economy and healthcare appeal to women voters. But the suggestion that women - and feminist women, at that - will be lining up behind him is a fairytale. At least, it should be. McCain's record and policies on issues of importance to women are neither moderate nor maverick."
To read the whole commentary, click here.

The Real Legacy of the "Reagan Revolution."
Robert Scheer, editor of Truthdig.com writes a compelling column in which he states: McCain campaign co-chair Phil Gramm is right: We have “become a nation of whiners.” But who is whining more than the bankers that former Sen. Gramm’s financial deregulation legislation benefited? The very bankers who now expect a government bailout, such as those at UBS Investment Bank, where Gramm found lucrative employment.

To read the whole commentary, click here.

The House that Gramm Built
Marie Cocco, contributor on Truthdig.com also looks at Phil Gramm and his dismissal of America’s economic suffering that has forced him to the political sidelines, but as one of the congressional architects of Republican economics, the mess he made will haunt Americans no matter who the next president is.

To read her commentary, click here.

Drilling Without Oil, Tax Cuts Without Growth
Dean Baker, writing for Truthout, says: "Senator McCain is in the unenviable position of running on the track record of a president with the worst economic performance since Herbert Hoover. He has adopted the strategy of ignoring the record while embracing his predecessor's policies. McCain is betting the media will be so incompetent that they will not notice. He might be right."

For the complete article, click here.

New York: 50 Percent of Sequoia Voting Machines Flawed
Kim Zetter writes for Wired: "New York state is in the process of replacing its lever voting machines with new voting equipment, but the state revealed recently that it has found problems with 50 percent of the roughly 1,500 ImageCast optical-scan machines that Sequoia Voting Systems has delivered to the state so far - machines that are slated to be used by dozens of counties in the state's September 9 primary and November 4 presidential election."

To read the complete article, click here.

Birth-Control Denial the Height of Arrogance
Dan K. Thomasson, for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, says: "So when is a pharmacy not a pharmacy? Better yet, when can a licensed pharmacist not fill a legitimate prescription because of political or religious reasons? Should a state licensing authority permit the dispensing of male-enhancement drugs but not those that permit a female to guard her own health? Those are health, ethical and legal questions that most state authorities now find themselves facing with a growing number of pharmacists who refuse to honor prescribed contraceptives or sell those available over the counter on grounds it violates their consciences."

Read the complete column by clicking here.

Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column? Corporate media colludes with democracy’s demise
Bill Moyers rewrites his National Media Reform Conference presentation (video of which is available above) as a column in In These Times, opening with: "I heard this story a long time ago, growing up in Choctaw County in Oklahoma before my family moved to Texas. A tribal elder was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging within himself. He said, 'It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: anger, envy, sorrow, greed, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.'”

For the complete article, click here.

Price of Admission for Migrant Women
Tim Vanderpool, for The Tucson Weekly, reports, "According to experts, rape is now considered 'the price of admission' for women crossing the border illegally. But this scourge goes largely ignored, and is suspected to be vastly underreported. Not surprisingly, few women care to describe their ordeals to authorities in stark government detention facilities. And if they do, it's often as they're already being deported back across the border - sometimes back into the very situations where the assaults occurred."

For the complete article, click here.

FCC Chief Says Comcast Violated Internet Rules
John Dunbar, of The Associated Press, reports: "The head of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday he will recommend that the nation's largest cable company be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet. The potentially precedent-setting move stems from a complaint against Comcast Corp. that the company had blocked Internet traffic among users of a certain type of 'file sharing' software that allows them to exchange large amounts of data."

To read the complete story, click here.

Which Side Are We On?

By Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Read as the commentary on the April 19 edition of Community Bridge.

In early February, President Bush told a group of Wall Street executives that "income inequality is real; it's been rising for more than 25 years. And the question is whether we respond to the income inequality we see with policies that help lift people up, or tear others down."

It's ironic that this president raised the issue of income inequality because his own trickle-down economic policies have contributed to the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, a situation worse today than at any time since the '20S.

Despite Bush's professed concern, the budget he recently submitted to Congress will exacerbate the enormous gap between the rich and the poor, squeeze the middle class, reward war profiteers and hurt those most in need.

The president's budget cuts the number of children receiving childcare assistance by 300,000 and terminates food stamps for 280,000 families. At a time when veterans urgently need access to healthcare, the president's budget imposes a new enrollment fee for Veterans Administration healthcare as high as $750. And the list goes on and on.

Over the next decade, the Bush budget would cut Medicare by $252 billion and Medicaid by $28 billion. In 2008 alone, education will be cut by $1.5 billion and the Environmental Protection Agency will lose $509 million.

The administration claims-we just don't have the money to reduce childhood poverty or provide universal healthcare. Meanwhile, millionaires would receive an average tax break of $160,000 per year at a cost of $739 billion over the next decade. And, the president's 2008 defense budget - $6o8 billion - is more than at the height of the Vietnam and Korean Wars.

Class warfare is being waged in America and the wrong side is winning. It is time for the new Democratic majority in Congress to stand with the working families of our country. It is time we offer a budget that reflects the needs of working people instead of the wealthy.

And it is time for citizens across the nation to stand up and demand that their representatives and senators, Democrats and Republicans, do so and thereby represent the interests of all Americans, not a select few.

We must ask: Which side are we on? Are we for the rich and the powerful or the middle class and working families?

As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I see a pretty clear answer. I will not be voting for more tax breaks for the outgoing CEO of Home Depot, who recently received a $210 million golden parachute. Rather, I will be voting to substantially increase financial aid for low and middle class families so that every American, regardless of income, can receive a college education.

I will not support a tax cut for the former CEO of Pfizer, who received a $200 million compensation package. Instead, I will vote to substantially increase funding for childcare so that families can find affordable and quality care for their children.
The former CEO of ExxonMobil, who managed to get a $400 million retirement package, does not need more tax relief. It is far more important that we keep our promises to the veterans of this country who now find themselves on waiting lists to get the health care they need.

If we as a nation are serious about creating a more egalitarian society, we need to invest more federal resources in education, health care, housing, infrastructure, environmental protection and sustainable energy. We also have to reduce our national debt. Given that reality, Congress must develop the courage to stand up to the big money interests and roll back the tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent, stop corporate welfare, eliminate unneeded defense weaponry, and demand that the wealthy and powerful rejoin American society.

We should do nothing less.

-Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

This editorial appeared in the March 2007 edition of In These Times magazine. In These Times is dedicated to informing and analyzing popular movements for social, environmental and economic justice; to providing a forum for discussing the politics that shape our lives; and to producing a magazine that is read by the broadest and most diverse audience possible.

Visit them at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/