Jan Resseger, who lives in Ohio, has written s useful summary of ALEC’s direction of state legislation to privatize schools and eliminate the teaching profession. She explains succinctly that ALEC is funded by the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, and other wealthy friends of privatization. Legislators introduce ALEC model laws in state after state.
ALEC is considered non-political by the IRS. Strange.
It is a force for undermining democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
ALEC is a corporate funded political machine that has already installed itself as the Shadow Government Of The United States (SGOTUS).
so scary….
I’m reading Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money” (actually listening to the audiobook). Two cliches book reviewers use are “urgent” and “compelling”, often with books that are neither. “Dark Money” is both, and a scary and grim report. and does an excellent job of fleshing out this endeavor to subvert democracy.
The games that are played to falsely give the impression that privatization makes for better schools are a disgrace and destuctive to kids. http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-stupidity-of-school-competition-and.html We must not only expose them but provide a vision for the future. A vision that shows that fully certified, public school teachers are the best innovators in the world. And innovation, not memorization and political game playing, will be the future. The future for the true education that will take every child on this pathway to success.
It’s not just destroying the public sector. It’s damaging the private sector, too. 90% of “crony capitalism” is government contractors. They’re creating more and more wholly publicly-funded private sector entities and then political patrons follow the contractors.
All the energy and money in the private sector is directed at replacing public services that already exist. They’re not creating anything new and they’re not investing in anything new. They’re just replicating services that were provided by the public sector. There’s no net gain- not in employment, not in added value, nothing.
YES. It feels as if the only goal of ALEC is to suck up every penny otherwise slated for public services.
I think the inequitable access is the most damaging part of this as far as self-governance.
No ordinary person has anywhere near the kind of access ALEC gets to state lawmakers. It’s not just giving business interests equal access, because they always had that- they can contact lawmakers just like anyone else.
It’s giving them exclusive, privileged, private access that NO ONE else gets. It isn’t really a mystery why there’s so little that benefits ordinary people- they’re never in the room.
DFER and Kochs – don’t judge a book by its cover (story)
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13065/how-dfer-leaders-channel-out-state-dark-money-colorado-and-beyond
What Is DFER, Really? Hedge Funders for “Education Reform”
DFER is a PAC, a Political Action Committee, which means it can (and does) play a direct role in state and local elections. Public school advocates like Diane Ravitch have been spotlighting concerns about DFER since its beginning.
Because DFER is not a charity, money given to it does not result in a tax write-off but–if successful in changing laws–that money could get the hedge funders who back it a return on investment through politicians and policies that redirect tax dollars from truly public schools to “education reforms.”
Ed reform is fueling non-profit corporations paying lucrative for-profit style salaries to their executives and for-profit firms, such as the controversial K-12 Inc., which has made hundreds of millions while traditional public schools have faced budget cuts.
The Center for Media and Democracy has calculated that the federal government alone has spent more than $3.7 billion in U.S. tax dollars propping up the charter school industry, in addition to enormous amounts spent by states.
DFER has supported a number of Democrats in elections but its name could have been “Hedge Funders for Education Reform” (HFFER)–in much the same way that David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity could have been called “Billionaires for Prosperity,” or Americans for Greed, names with less popular appeal.
– See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13065/how-dfer-leaders-channel-out-state-dark-money-colorado-and-beyond#sthash.5wTHdgxW.dpuf
Here is an article that expands on how the Kochs limit and conceal what we all read and absorb. This is another death knell for democracy, and shows how far along the US has come in this spiral into fascism.
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” On The Supreme Court, The Republican Senate Kneels Before Its Koch Masters
By Dartagnan
Friday Mar 18, 2016 · 6:26 AM PDT
22 10/ 10 Comments 4146 Shares Tweet
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No one elected them. But they own the Republican Party.
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If it wasn’t clear before, by now there should be no doubt. The attempt to block President Obama’s appointment of the next Supreme Court Justice is being spearheaded for the most part by two Billionaires who have never held elective office or performed a day of public service in their lives.
The Republican-controlled Senate has consciously and deliberately abdicated its Constitutional duty—a duty each member of the Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee responsible for the confirmation process swore an oath to uphold upon attaining office—having been ordered to do so by its largest political donors, most prominently the “dark money” political action network of oil, gas and energy magnates Charles and David Koch.
Jane Mayer, writing for the New Yorker:
The Kochs are intent…on preventing President Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice who could be at odds with their views. There are multiple ties between the Koch network and two dark-money “social-welfare” groups that have already mobilized against any Supreme Court nominee that Obama might choose—America Rising Squared, which is digging for dirt on potential nominees, and the Judicial Crisis Network, which has started airing ads aimed at intimidating Democrats who would push for confirmation hearings.
There is nothing more powerful in politics than money, and no one has used it to warp our political process more than Charles and David Koch. They know that they stand to lose hundreds of millions—even billions, if the Supreme Court upholds this President’s—or any future Democratic President’s– attempts to regulate or curtail their industries’ fossil fuel pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, all accelerating the planet’s warming at an unheard-of rate of speed. The ideological orientation of the next Justice means more to the Koch brothers’ bottom line than most Americans could imagine in their wildest dreams. And the recipients of their dark money, the Republican Party, and every Republican member of the House and Senate, knows it as well.
In this case it’s apparent that every Republican Senator — each of whom lives in abject fear of a primary challenge funded by the Kochs — has decided to cravenly kneel before these unelected billionaires and allow them to assume control of the entire process, effectively ceding all duty and responsibility they owe by virtue of their office to the American public, and instead giving the Kochs and their ilk free rein to intrude and manipulate our government for their interests alone. From the Washington Post:
[W]here the Senate itself would typically take the lead role in vetting a Supreme Court nominee, there are no plans this time for the Judiciary Committee to hire its usual complement of additional staffers to conduct such checks. Beth Levine, a spokeswoman for the panel’s Republicans, confirmed Wednesday there are no plans to hire additional investigators to probe Garland.
That has given outside groups a central role in the coming fight, especially on the Republican side. Most prominent among them is the Judicial Crisis Network, which has coordinated the conservative response to the Scalia vacancy and has pledged to run millions of dollars in television ads to derail Obama’s nominee.
The group issued talking points Tuesday that said Garland would support “a laundry list of extreme liberal priorities, like gutting the Second Amendment, legalizing partial-birth abortion, and unleashing unaccountable bureaucratic agencies like the EPA and the IRS.”
The “Judicial Crisis Network” is a secretive right-wing organization which exists primarily to defeat judges that it perceives are unfriendly to the interests of its funders. It is the brainchild of lawyer Ann Corkery and a California real estate magnate named Robin Arkley II, the President and CEO of Security National Corp. With the substantial assistance of Charles and David Koch around the time of the 2008 election, it has drastically expanded its influence, particularly in state judicial elections, and has operated as a primary channel for Republican “dark money:”
To fill its own coffers, JCN has increasingly relied on funding—to the tune of nearly $4 million, according to IRS documents—from another non-disclosing group, the Wellspring Committee, that’s run by Corkery and was founded seven years ago with the help of conservative donors in the network led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.
Corkery’s organization overlaps with other conservative Billionaires not directly responsive to the Kochs (such as hedge fund manager Paul Singer and little-known Pennsylvania “philanthropist,” John Templeton), but there is no doubt that the JCN owes its existence in large part to Koch largesse:
Corkery had a breakthrough year in 2008. Koch operatives gave her the reins to their fledgling Wellspring Committee, a dark money conduit that began pumping funds to other dark money Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity. At the same time, Corkery served as a finance vice chair for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The other Koch-tied organization that Mayer mentions–one that Americans would not know or recognize– is “America Rising Squared.” This is an “Opposition Research” organization that exists primarily to “dig up dirt” and smear any judicial nominee who is perceived to be unfriendly to “conservative,” i.e, corporate interests. America Rising Squared was formed by a longtime aide to John McCain named Brian Rogers.
America Rising Squared, a GOP-aligned opposition research organization, has been working with the Judicial Crisis Network and the Republican National Committee to investigate potential nominees. Brian Rogers, the firm’s executive director, said Wednesday that he had about a dozen researchers digging into Garland’s background; some will be deployed across the country to vet the judge.
Here are the joint talking points issued on Tuesday by these two Koch-tied groups, which are being carefully parroted by Republican Senators asked about their opposition to the the appointment of Judge Merrick Garland, the President’s proposed appointee. The Kochs’ (and other billionaires affiliated with these groups) strategy is to portray Garland as an “anti-gun zealot.” For example, the groups urge Republicans to say that Judge Garland will “gut the Second Amendment”. And here is just one of their puppets, Republican Senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, yesterday:
I’ll meet with the guy, but trust me: We’re not going to let the Supreme Court flip,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said. “And this nominee obviously would flip the court, particularly on an issue that is pretty important in Wisconsin — the right to keep and bear arms.”
The “anti-gun” trope has been repeated over and over through various conservative outlets in the last 48 hours. It will likely be the primary talking point for the GOP over the weekend, as they line up, one by one, reciting the Koch line chapter and verse.
The relationship of the Republican Party to the interests of these oil billionaires is now so established they are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable. Perhaps the best known Koch Front group, Americans for Prosperity, has already cemented its master/servant relationship with the Republican Party. As Mayer notes:
On issue after issue, Republican candidates have sworn fealty to the Kochs’ ultra-free-market positions. The study calculates that Republican members of the House and Senate largely voted as Americans for Prosperity told them to eighty-eight per cent of the time last year, up from seventy-three per cent of the time in 2007.
Americans have a right to know who is really responsible for hijacking their Democracy.”
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We all use Koch products in our homes. Let’s stop that.
Good piece about how privatization means bigger, less efficient, more expensive government:
“A 2011 report by the National Academy of Public Administration and the Kettering Foundation concluded that programs operated by civil servants receive “significantly higher” scores for management and effectiveness than those run by “grant- and contract-based third parties.” Efforts like the one underway at the Department of Transportation to reduce the number of information-technology contractors, for example, are promising. Over time, hiring more federal workers while pruning proxies will not only reduce the size of government, but will produce a federal government less beset by grant-seeking and contract-mongering special interests, one that is more faithfully executed by the executive branch, and one that is less bungled by Congress and its dozens of dysfunctional administrative oversight committees and subcommittees.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-better-smaller-governmenthire-1-million-more-federal-bureaucrats/2014/08/29/c0bc1480-2c72-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html
See also my earlier warning (below) about “ALEC’s new influence on county, municipal, and other local governance structures, which can also mean local school districts, school boards, water services (think lead in the water of Flint Michigan and in many other municipalities).
ALEC has lost some major contributors but they are simply infiltrating government at the local level in addition to the state level. That is one reason why ALEC set up the American City County Exchange (ACCE)–a local conduit for ALEC’s preferred policies. Another is the proliferation of public-private “partnerships” and contracting off local public services to for-profit companies who set up contracts that can stick it to local officials. Fiascos are not hard to find. Parking meter contracts, for example. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/infrastructure-projects-p3-contracts-chicago-parking.
Here are a few examples (edited) of the 2016 agenda for the American City County Exchange (ACCE).
A RESOLUTION TO ESTABLISH A LOCAL TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS FOR RESIDENTS OF (INSERT JURISDICTION)
The resolution calls for government services to meet the test of “what a needed governmental service is,” and “to levy taxes carries with it the responsibility to operate that government in an efficient, cost effective manner, devoid of pork barrel projects and political favoritisms.” Also calls for public comment periods beyond what is required by state law (a good stalling tactic), passage of any tax increase by a 60% vote (or supermajority), and for taxpayers to receive tax rate reductions for excess revenues in the general fund.
Here is another. A RESOLUTION TO ESTABLISH A LOCAL TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS FOR RESIDENTS OF (INSERT JURISDICTION)
The resolution calls for government services to meet the test of “what a needed governmental service is.” It states: “to levy taxes carries with it the responsibility to operate that government in an efficient, cost effective manner, devoid of pork barrel projects and political favoritisms.” The resolution also calls for
public comment periods beyond what is required by state law (a good stalling tactic), passage of any tax increase by a 60% vote (or supermajority), and for taxpayers to receive tax rate reductions for excess revenues in the general fund.
And here is another
RESOLUTION OPPOSING UNFAIR FEDERAL CONSENT DECREES, PURPOSE:
To support policy ensuring that federal consent decrees are narrowly drafted, limited in duration, and respectful of state and local interests and policy judgments.
Example: Special education in New York City has been governed by a consent decree since 1979, thwarting efforts by successive mayors and schools chancellors to implement new reforms and updated policies for implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
In other words, it is not enough to be mindful of ALEC. It is just as important to watch out for the takeover of local governance by ALEC’s progeny, the American City County Exchange (ACCE)… including contracting for school services.
The IRS abdicates its responsibility when it fails to make clear that a statement, “…reformers…declare ‘We’ve got to blow up the ed schools’ “, posted at the Philanthropy Roundtable, is an attack by plutocrats, on American democracy. It is an affront to the public, not a benefit to anyone except those seeking to profit at the expense of the values essential to a civilized society.
Linda…are you speaking of the same IRS that found no fault with SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas when he failed to report about $710,000 of his wife’s earned income at her Right Wing religious non-profit employer? The same Justice Thomas who got not even a slap on the wrist after claiming that for about 14 years he did not think his wife’s earnings were taxable income?
Of course, it you or I did that we would probably be lingering in a cell in a Federal pen and all our assets would have been taken. Seems this IRS is comfortable with such a vast disparity in true justice.
Agree, Ellen.