The headline sounds like it was written by Eric Pusey.\u00a0 The rest of the editorial isn’t much better.\u00a0 And the fact that the Strib runs it – ergo <\/em>folds it under their own editorial umbrella – is something we need to highlight.\u00a0<\/p>\n The “Senator” involved is Dick Durbin – the guy who wants to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine”, among his many other atrocities.\u00a0<\/p>\n And it shows the Democrats, and the Strib’s, <\/em>hypocrisy on many levels.\u00a0 Pardon, as always, the redundancy.<\/p>\n Selective Indignation – Yet Again<\/strong>.\u00a0 The “scrutiny of ALEC”, as we’ve noted in the past, is itself intensely hypocritical – but we’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n On Aug. 6, Durbin sent a letter to about 300 current or former corporate members of ALEC to ask a couple of simple questions. The assistant minority leader wanted to know whether the organization or corporation was still a supporter of ALEC and whether they backed \u201cstand your ground\u201d laws (\u201cFor Minnesota think tank, ALEC haters\u2019 witch hunt hits home,\u201d Aug. 14).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, just think for a moment what’d happen if, say, Mitch McConnell sent letters to companies asking if they supported Planned Parenthood?\u00a0<\/p>\n Think about it for a minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Strib <\/em>editorial board would lose bowel control from the sheer anger.\u00a0 Keri Miller would devote a week of her “Daily Buzz” or whatever they’re calling “Mid-Morning” these days.\u00a0 It’d be one of those “Chilling Effects on Democracy” that seems to accompany any conservative activity in the minds of the media, only worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dance, Boogeyman!\u00a0 Dance!<\/strong> – And why is Durbin so concerned about ALEC?\u00a0<\/p>\n In September, Durbin plans to convene a subcommittee hearing to study [“Stand Your Ground”] laws in light of the Florida verdict acquitting George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Inasmuch as ALEC\u2019s support was critical to Florida\u2019s 2005 decision to pass the nation\u2019s first stand-your-ground law, it seems reasonable to ask ALEC\u2019s members and funders whether the Trayvon Martin case changed their minds.<\/p>\n The bad publicity ALEC received after an unarmed Martin was shot dead by Zimmerman led many corporations to withdraw their support for ALEC.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I’m not sure – and I can’t find the data at the moment – but I’m going to say this is likely BS; I doubt they lost any significant revenue, at least not for long\u00a0 Maybe I’ll find out more soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n But what Durbin is doing is trying to is…:<\/p>\n ALEC and the groups are right to tell Durbin to stick his request from whence he got his “Fairness Doctrine” proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Proof That the Strib knows DFL Voters are Incurious Lemmings Who Are Content To Let Others Do Their Thinking For them<\/strong> – The Pospatch, <\/em>via the Strib<\/em>, does the “Wizard of Oz” schtik for the low-information NPR-listening voter:<\/p>\n The group creates cookie-cutter legislation with the primary goal of enriching the corporate bottom line.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As opposed to the National Education Association, or the Teamsters or SEIU or AFSCME, which create cookie-cutter legislation to enrich their leadership.\u00a0 Or the “Violence Policy Center”, which creates cookie-cutter gun grab legisaltion for state legislators – like the bills Representatives Paymar, Martens and Hausman wasted four months introducing in this past session, all of which were to one degree or another copied and pasted from laws in New York and California<\/a>.\u00a0 Or the Joyce Foundation, which not only supports gun control groups like the VPC and “Protect Minnesota” (which provide cookie-cutter legislation on Second Amendment issues to ignorami like the Metrocrat Caucus) but also partisan media outlets masquerading as “objective” media, like the MinnPost<\/em>, to carry Joyce’s proxies’ water in the public information sphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n “They May Be An Untransparent Hack Pressure Group,\u00a0But They’re\u00a0Our <\/em>Untransparent\u00a0 Hack Pressure Group!”\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> – This next part is comedy gold, provided you have the capacity to laugh at the bald-faced\u00a0 disingenuity of\u00a0the media.\u00a0 I’ll be adding emphasis:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This is what makes this war of words so interesting. The real purpose of ALEC is to allow corporations and wealthy benefactors to avoid state ethics disclosure laws. As the nonprofit group Common Cause<\/strong> has meticulously noted in its complaint to the Internal Revenue Service, ALEC pretends it\u2019s a nonprofit charity when really it\u2019s a highly sophisticated lobbying organization that allows corporations to launder their donations without showing taxpayers which lawmakers they are buying and selling<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As opposed to “Common Cause”, which – in deep<\/em> contrast – pretends it\u2019s a nonprofit charity when in fact it <\/em>is a highly sophisticated lobbying organization that allows liberal plutocrats and “progressive” advocates and groups to launder their donations without showing taxpayers which lawmakers they<\/em> are buying and selling.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s how the corporations want it, and that has nothing to do with freedom of speech or other constitutional protections. It\u2019s deceit, plain and simple, and it has a negative effect on the legislative process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Catch that?\u00a0 The media – it’s the Pospatch<\/em>, officially, but this editorial is no less cookie-cutter than a Lori Sturdevant article or an AFSCME-sponsored bill, let alone the ALEC bills it yaps about – is leaning on the purported “deceit” of “ALEC”, which acts, in every way, exactly like every group like it anywhere in American politics<\/em>, but has been selected as the boogeyman by the Big Left, to draw media attention away from groups like…<\/p>\n …Common Cause, for one, which actually is everything that this editorial claims ALEC is, <\/em>with\u00a0comprehensive dishonesty about its own motivations thrown in for good meaure.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCorporate America has the right to express its opinion,\u201d Durbin said in an interview. \u201cThe difference here is this is a secret operation and they\u2019ve become a major political force.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Unlike those plucky outsiders at Media Matters.\u00a0 Or the Joyce Foundation.\u00a0 Or AFSCME.<\/p>\n Or the “Alliance for a “Better” Minnesota”.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/DFLMinistryofTruthLARGE.png\" "\\"DFLMinistryofTruthLARGE\\"")
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