Boycott ALEC Corporations

Please stay tuned...this blog will evolve and will include contact information for each of the listed corporations. If you have an opinion with regards to this situation, please comment below. If you have additional questions that I can investigate and report for you regarding ALEC, please include that as well.  Thanks!

What is ALEC? ALEC is American Legislative Exchange Council, which was established in 1973 in Washington DC.  Their motto, then and now, continues to be "Limited Government, Free Markets, Federalism". Based upon their ongoing actions, this can actually be interpreted to mean a far right wing agenda that infringes on the rights of all Americans. ALEC is a very powerful non-profit 501C organization that is actually much more powerful than a traditional lobbying group.  ALEC is funded by a variety of profitable and influential major US corporation, as listed below on the boycott list. What is ALEC trying to do? ALEC is attempting to influence legislators at the state level to initiate legislation that supports a far right wing agenda. This influence is done via heavy-handed funding of selected politicians. ALEC has nine task forces that are designed to influence legislators to back measures that support their corporate interests. The organization indicates that they have 2,000 legislative members and 300 or more corporate members. Corporations benefit from the efforts of ALEC in that legislation is enacted that support their best interests. This includes  tobacco legislation, Health Savings Account laws and the privatization of education. Their efforts are very far reaching and they have been successful in their efforts to buy the politics of this great nation. ALEC actually drafts legislation themselves and forwards to lawmakers for implementation. Recently this has focused on voter ID laws which is seen by most political analysts as a method to suppress the democratic vote as it targets the poor and elderly. It should come as a surprise to no one that ALEC and Koch Brothers work very closely together, to the detriment of our political system. BOTTOM LINE: ALEC IS MANIPULATING THE POLITICAL CLIMATE OF OUR COUNTRY BY ENGAGING IN FISCAL TERRORISM BOYCOTT ALEC: Here is a partial list of their main and largest corporations. This listing will be updated as companies back away from the group and completely sever ties Altria Group American Bail Coalition American Traffic Solutions **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES Amway AT&T Inc. Arizona Public Service **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES Bank of America Bayer AG Bell Atlantic Blue Cross/Blue Shield **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES Chevron Cargill Cash America Citizens Insurance Coca-Cola  **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES Coldwell Banker Coors Brewing Diageo PLC Energy Future Holdings Corp. Exxon Mobil FedEx Gates Foundation **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES GlaxoSmithKline Intuit Inc. **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES Johnson & Johnson Koch Industries Kraft Foods **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES McDonalds **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES Peabody Energy PepsiCo**UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES Pfizer Inc. PhRMA Proctor and Gamble **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES Reed Elsevier Inc. Reynolds American Salt River Project Shell State Farm Insurance United Healthcare United Parcel Service UPS Visa Walgreens Wal-Mart Stores YUM Brands (Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut) **UPDATE: COMPANY HAS CUT TIES

Dear Michelle Bachmann

UPDATE: PLEASE NOTE THAT WE WILL DOING THIS PROJECT WEEKLY NOT DAILY, SO YOU HAVE UNTIL AUGUST 12th TO SUBMIT YOUR MESSAGE TO MICHELLE BACHMAN. THANK YOU!

Folks, today we will be sending our letters to Michelle Bachmann. Thank you so much for your response yesterday regarding Allen West -- I am sending the comments from this page, Facebook (Left Leaning Liberal Ladies) and Twitter (@theliberallady) to his office at 2108 North Federal Highway, Boca Raton, Florida 33432 (no kidding, I used to live just a few miles away from this address before I moved back to the Chicago area). He will get a letter from me, with all of the comments printed up in a nice tidy format for him to review.

Please see the instructions for this little project on my post yesterday entitled, Republicans Take Note.

Thank you for participating and let's work together to get our collective voices heard in Washington.

Now....finish this thought... ==>>

Dear Michelle Bachmann:

Republicans, Take Note

In all likelihood, you are viewing this blog because you are left leaning yourself and would like very much to see a significant change to the political direction of this great country. You are unwilling to sit silently while the likes of Michelle Bachmann, Eric Cantor, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell and others try to hold us hostage while relaying to their base a message that is warped at best and criminal at worst. You are concerned not just with the re-election of President Barack Obama, but want to ensure that a democratic congress is elected in 2012 and that the American dreams remains alive and well for all Americans....not simply select Americans.

You may, however, feel limited in what you can do and where to place your enthusiasm, energy and focus.  While volunteering for a political campaign is obviously the most productive thing to do, many people do not have the time to do so or are not comfortable doing this. Donating money is another superb way to help out, but that is not doable for many individuals in this dicey economy.

What I am now launching on my site is something called "Republicans, Take Note". Each day (yes, every day) I will be posting the name of a republican politician and I am asking you to give me a message that you would like delivered to that individual. I will gather all the comments,  remarks and sentiments and commit them to paper. Then, I will mail them to their offices and get our collective message across to them.

You may relay your message to me here on this blog, via my Facebook page at "Left Leaning Liberal Ladies" or via Twitter @theliberallady. I would like to respectfully ask that you do not use profanity during the course of your communication. I know, this will be super hard with some republican politicians who strike us as particularly vile. However, I think this is important in getting our message across in the most effective manner possible.

When you leave your comment please also let me know your initials and where you live. You do not need to provide a full name, unless you would like to. I am committed to doing this whether I receive 3 responses per day or 300 or 3,000.

There will also be some days that I may ask that you direct your comments to democrats as well. Not only do we occasionally needs to give these heroes an "Atta Boy", but we also may need to hold their feet to the fire and make sure that they take our vision of a perfected America to Washington and make it a reality.

Thank you for listening and I look forward to your comments.

THE POLITICIAN FOR THE DAY IS: ALLEN WEST

The Evil Of Grover Norquist

If you do not know who Grover Norquist is, then chances are that you have been ... (a) Living under a rock for the last month; (b) Watch Fox News exclusively; or (c) Been in a coma since spring (in which case, I cannot help but welcome you back to the world and hope that the current state of affairs do not cause a relapse of your symptoms).

Grover Norquist is a hostage taker and a blackmailer. It truly is just that simple. The sad part of the story is that Republicans actually gladly sign up to be held hostage by this loon. Grover Norquist decided decades ago that taxes are bad. Period. No qualifier, no exception, no wiggle room. Sound extreme? To quote the Barbie Of The Right -- "You Betcha!!" (wink, wink).

Grover Norquist is the founder and president of a group called Americans For Tax Reform. While the name may sound benign, it is clearly misleading. This group believes that government is too big and that no new taxes should be levied on the American people. None. Ever. No matter what the circumstance, no matter what happens in the future, no matter how befitting taxation is for the current climate -- no means no, to Grover Norquist.

To this end, he asks (read: coerces) republicans to sign  piece of garbage entitled the Taxpayer Protection Pledge indicating that they will never vote for any piece of legislation that would allow for new taxes. Insanely enough, this even includes not allow the Bush tax cuts to expire since this would net an actual, and much needed, increase in governmental revenue.  In fact, he is opposed to the ending of any tax breaks at all, including those for big business. The republicans that sign this pledge do so under duress and do it to ensure their continued electability. If they fail to sign it, Grover Norquist and his gang of thugs run a republicans opponent in the non-signers race and ensure, via campaign funding, that The Defiant One loses the election. Talk about holding one by the...well....private parts.

Norquist is coy in saying that the pledge is not made to him, but is made to the American people. But the fact of the matter is that Norquist created the pledge, he threw it in the face of republicans and failure to sign has negative repercussions that he and his group will be sure to enact. How is this different than any other blackmail scenario? Better yet, how is this good for the country?

There is no doubt that tax reform is greatly needed in this country. However, blackmail and barely veiled threats is no way to accomplish anything in the US government. Republicans need to gather their troops and decide, as a whole, to walk away from Grover Norquist and his pledge. In doing do, the tiger will then have no teeth and real tax reform can actually occur.