The Institute disingenuously calls itself “impartial and unbiased” on its About web page, but also attributes to “free markets” all manner of progress. SourceWatch reveals that the Institute is founded by the Koch brothers, has a president who was formerly an executive with Enron and is tied to the Koch brothers’ infamous American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that literally writes extreme Right bills for state legislatures.
Research Cited
It’s Business as Usual for Georgia-Pacific’s Talladega Plant Despite Company Changes Elsewhere
A story published in Business Alabama, citing a report published earlier this week by PR Watch, said the company “announced a retreat from its commercial paper, particle board and wood products business … (while) renew(ing) its focus on bath tissue.”
Why Did Trump’s ‘Judge Whisperer’ Buy a House on the Maine Coast?
“Leo is promising his allies that he’ll return the law to the pre-New Deal era, the robber baron era, and here he is managing to buy the cottage of one of the great robber barons,” says Lisa Graves, a former chief counsel on judicial nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee and board president of the Center for Media and Democracy, a liberal-leaning government transparency watchdog group.
Letter: In the Minimum Wage Debate, Beware of Lobbyists
It is no surprise that Samantha Summers insists a $15 minimum wage hike is detrimental to the workers. The Employment Policies Institute is a very conservative organization, and one of several front groups created by Berman & Companies. Berman & Companies lobbies for restaurants, hotels, alcohol, and tobacco industries.
They own two domains, LivingWage.com and MinimumWage.com, which portray the idea of a living wage as some kind of insidious conspiracy, according to SourceWatch.org.
Arizona Republicans Flocked to Austin This Week for ALEC’s Annual Conference
In the past, ALEC has paid for legislators to attend its conferences, the Investigative Center for Media and Democracy has reported. Legislators who serve as state chairmen for ALEC are expected to collaborate with corporations to raise “scholarship” funds to help pay for legislators to attend ALEC events.
ALEC Fails to Denounce Dangerous and Racist Views of Its Leaders and Members
ALEC has remained conspicuously silent about the dangerous and racist statements and ties of its legislative leaders and members Shea, King, Nearman, Stringer, and Keller.
Environmental Justice: Moving Equity from Margins to Mainstream
The focus of Big Green environmental and conservation groups that emphasize biodiversity and protecting wildlife and natural habitats like oceans, rainforests, grasslands, and desert ecosystems is different, however. Who gets included as part of “Big Green” is not always consistent, but helpfully the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy’s SourceWatch identifies 10 lead organizations. These are: Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, and World Wildlife Fund. (A more extensive list of the 25 largest environmental groups is available here.)
Protesters Crash ALEC Conference to Resist Bill Criminalizing Pipeline Activists
Extinction Rebellion’s protest against ALEC’s “Critical Infrastructure Protection Act” legislation comes as watchdog organizations Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and Common Cause released a new report this week comprehensively detailing ALEC’s influence in Texas. The report identified 58 Texas legislators with known ties to ALEC — the largest of any state’s delegation, representing almost a third of the Texas Legislature. In fact, the authors of both the House and Senate versions of the recent critical infrastructure bill both attended ALEC conferences in recent years.
Public Notice: The Wrong Way, The Right Way
That’s press day here at the Chronicle, so I likely won’t make it down there, but I’m proud that this current Pride issue is the one that’ll be on the stands representing us there, because ALEC has a history of taking on gay rights as well. The Center for Media and Democracy recently documented how ALEC “is actively working with Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian Right litigation nonprofit that pursues an anti-LGBT agenda” and is identified as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. …
Letters to the Editor: I’ll Take Canada’s Health Care System over America’s Any Day
Charen neglected to mention that her think tank is funded by foundations created by big corporations, including big pharma, oil, Forbes and the Koch brothers, according to sourcewatch.org.