ALEC - Very Important Threat To US Liberties Exposed!

[Magda Hassan]

Another ALEC trick at Federal Level EXPOSED
byBob Sloan


By now many thought they had heard everything to be heard about ALEC and their un-democratic activities. This is simply not true. As I said to a fellow Exposing ALEC member earlier today..."we once thought ALEC was the complete picture of an 'Evil Empire', but after all this research we have to realize that in reality ALEC is merely a single frame of a huge panoramic picture." ALEC only represents one tool in the arsenal of a well organized, well thought out, well funded and well oiled cabal. Using ALEC's ability to advance legislation beneficial to the collective is ALEC's purpose for existence. It is why Koch, Scaife, Coors' and DeVos' money is invested in their activities.

How is this money and participation between all these "Family" foundations coordinated? Twice a year Charles and David Koch hold secret, by invitation only "meetings". Last year's July meeting, the agenda and the attendants were discovered by accident and published for all to see by ThinkProgress.org. As can be determined by the documents, representatives of the Scaife's, Coors' and DeVos' foundations were in attendance. The Corporations were also represented along with members of the Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute and Koch funded universities such as George Mason University. The rest of those in attendance represent the upper echelon of conservative society. Through these meetings all are given their marching orders, the foundations told where to invest their considerable wealth and the elite and media representatives...? They're told to use key phrases developed by the cabal to describe in sarcastic terms, the Democratic efforts. They're told to use "socialism", "Obamacare" and "EPA Train Wreck" at every opportunity to reinforce the collective's pursuits against this leftist "ideology." ALEC quickly issues statements, "papers" on key issues and to the public, complaining that Obamacare is socialist medicine, the EPA Train Wreck is not working and each of these position papers is supported by statistics, graphs and professor-like documents provided to them by GMU, Heartland Institute, Reason Foundation or the Heritage Foundation.

The corporations dutifully attend meetings to provide an instructive voice - and purpose - to the legislators. Much of the money begins with the family money of those mentioned above, it is filtered through many of the below the fold listed organizations, foundations, institutes:

American Council of Trustees and Alumni
American Legislative Exchange Council
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Bill of Rights Institute
Center for Excellence in Education
Fund for American Studies
Heritage Foundation
Institute for Energy Research
Institute for Humane Studies
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
National Center for Policy Analysis
National Federation of Independent Business Legal Foundation
National Taxpayers Union Foundation
Reason Foundation
Students for Liberty
PARTNERS BASED OUTSIDE OF DC

Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions
Foundation for Economic Education
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Illinois Policy Institute
Jack Miller Center
John W. Pope Civitas Institute
John William Pope Foundation
Lucy Burns Institute
Sam Adams Alliance
South Carolina Policy Council
Texas Public Policy Foundation

ADDITIONAL PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
Partner organizations change from session to session; additional organizations the Foundation has worked with through the Koch Internship Program and/or Koch Associate Program include:

Acton Institute
American Enterprise Institute
American Spectator Foundation
Americans for Tax Reform Foundation
Boys and Girls Club of South Central Kansas
Cato Institute
Center for College Affordability and Productivity
Commonwealth Foundation
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Federalist Society
Free to Choose Network
Galen Institute
George C. Marshall Institute
George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center
Hudson Institute
Independent Women's Forum
John Locke Foundation
John William Pope Center for Higher Education
Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship
Philanthropy Roundtable
State Policy Network
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Washington Legal Foundation
Youth Entrepreneurs Kansas

Our research has shown that all of the foregoing are interconnected and thus much of the Koch ideology and conservative rhetoric is carried along through the above entities with their money. Koch does not simply give their money out without keeping an eye on what those dollars are being used for. Every year Koch provides "interns" to serve in several of these key "organizations:"

American Ideas Institute, publisher of American Conservative Magazine
American Legislative Exchange Council
American Spectator Foundation
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Bill of Rights Institute
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
The Fund for American Studies
George Washington Regulatory Studies Center
George Marshall Institute
Hudson Institute
Independent Women's Forum
Institute for Energy Research
Institute for Humane Studies
Leadership Institute
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship
Philanthropy Roundtable
Reason Foundation
Searle Civil Justice Institute at George Mason School of Law
State Policy Network
By doing this they accomplish two goals; first they provide workers for these organizations paid $10.00 per hour by Koch. This increases staffing for all of these organizations without costing them a cent in payroll (any doubts that this is all written off by Koch as charitable work for non-profits?). Secondly it gives Koch as many as ten sets of eyes and ears within each of those entities that can be used to ensure the messages and agenda are being met and followed.
Then we learned that Koch was involved in "Buying" the curricula and professorships at key public universitiesthrough the discovery of their 2008 $1.5 million "endowment" to Florida State University with strings attached:

The president of FSU, who defended the Koch deal, did not mention that such outside endowments are skewing the curriculum at state universities in unfortunate ways.
But here is the objectionable thing, which he admits, about the way the search for the positions was conducted:

These 50 applications were sent for input to an advisory board approved by the Koch Foundation. The advisory board, formed in 2008, consisted of two FSU faculty members, both Eminent Scholars in Economics, and a Ph.D. economist appointed by the Koch Foundation. (It is not unusual for a donor to have representation in an advisory capacity.)

This allegation is simply untrue. It is not the case that academic institutions routinely insert an outside advisory board into the middle of the search process. In fact, this way of proceeding is absolutely outrageous, more particularly because one of the members of the advisory board was not even on the faculty! Moreover, it is invidious for the Kochs to give some FSU faculty more of a voice in hiring than others.

On top of this shock to FSU students, their families and alumni...we learn that it has been done over and over again, university by university and in each case involves gaining control over economic departments in public universities. Another one is Utah State University:

Utah State University: The Charles Koch Foundation has given nearly $700,000 to Utah State University, mostly for the Huntsman School of Business. The money has been used to hire five new faculty members, and establish a program for undergraduates to enroll and learn about Charles Koch's "Science of Liberty" management theory. Professor Randy Simmons, the "Charles G. Koch Professor of Political Economy" at the school, helps select students who must provide information about their ideological interests in their application form to the Koch program. Simmons also works for several Koch-funded front groups, and writes papers against environmental regulations. Charles Koch's book, "The Science of Success," a book Forbes mocked for proclaiming a "Marxist faith in fixed laws' that govern human well-being,'" is part of the required reading list for the program. A representative for Utah State did not return ThinkProgress' calls about conditional strings attached to the Koch grant.
So here's the pattern and methodology used by Koch; first they use ALEC's influence upon legislators to attack funding of public schools and universities. As the colleges lose public funding and are faced with cutting back educational programs...in steps Ol Chucky and Davy Boy with hands full of money ready to step in and "save" the collegiate programs. All they want in exchange is the ability to instill their bullshit economics theory, pick the professors and the students. In this way the find fodder from within that generation to cultivate for positions within government, interns and for other conservative needs in the years ahead.
If you think this is merely a coincidence and does not represent a well thought out agenda...let me now provide the tiny piece of our research that corroborates just how devious these folks are. Devious, well thought out and executed precisely as intended.

In 2003 ALEC drafted their Animal EnterpriseTerrorism Act and adopted it as model legislation. This was introduced in various states and the core of the bill was designed to allow for prosecuting those activist that protest on behalf of animal rights. If money is lost to businesses operating chicken farms, pig raising facilities or laboratories using animals for research are protested against, the activists can be labeled as terrorists and prosecuted under terrorism laws. Bad enough they introduced this in the states, but worse they found a way through their alumni and sympathetic Republican U.S. Congressmen to introduce and pass this model legislation at the federal level.

ALEC Alumni, Senator Inhofe (R-OK) co-sponsored this ALEC written legislation with Senator Feinstein (D-CA) in the U.S. Senate (S.3880) and Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI)(HR 4239). In both the House and Senate the bills were put on "Fast Track" which is normally used for "non-controversial bipartisan legislation," these "fast track" rules limit debate to forty minutes, prohibit bill amendments, and require the approval of only two thirds of members present on the floor. First the bill was passed in the U.S. Senate by a voice vote then the House took it up and sponsors there found many objections to the legislation. Knowing passage was not assured but a vote was scheduled for 6:00 pm on November 13, 2006, the Republicans led by Representative Sensenbrenner R_WI) used the fast track provision three hours before the scheduled time for the vote when other members were unaware of the change in schedule. Once introduced Rep. Kucinich (D_OH) walked in and protested the way in which the fast tracking was being used and asked Sensenbrenner to withhold the vote until the 6:00 pm time originally scheduled so other members could take part in the discussion and vote.

Sensenbrenner refused and within 3 minutes he put it to a vote and with only 6 members present, 5 voted for it and it passed by a 2/3 majority. It was signed into law by President Bush within two weeks.

In this manner ALEC legislation was able to become law with only 5 of the 435 House members voting for this ALEC written legislation! During our research we discovered another scary fact: the Congressional records office has no record of who was present and voted, and thus the identities of those who voted for the Bill remain anonymous to researchers and the public. The official Congressional report for that day simply advises that the bill passed by a majority voice vote of 5 to 1 and no record of those participating in the vote were reported to the Congressional Records Office.

As I said above, well funded, strategically well thought out, organized and tactically executed - not at the state level, at the federal level, where ALEC claims over and over again they don't have or apply any influence. This is just one documented case of this. With the research incomplete, I have to wonder just how many other ALEC model legislation has been slipped into Congress and passed into federal law in this manner?

Kossacks who want to know the answer to this last question are challenged to join in the research and see if they can find other laws we live by that were passed in this manner - from ALEC.

I think it is pretty obvious and a well documented fact that today America is in the grip of not only a class war, but one that is being waged from within by a shadowy cabal who are working to take over and toss democracy out the window. One of their main goals is to reduce the wealth of the middle class and thus their ability to fight back. This is done in a manner similar to what is being done with the universities mentioned above. They remove our jobs and put them in the hands of prisoners, rendering more and more Americans jobless. They work to legislate reductions in funding for social networks and programs helping those displaced and jobless. They fight against universal health care to keep us spending more of what is left to us to maintain our health while they fight to abolish necessary government regulations to protect us from the carcinogenic and toxic emissions from their plants and factories...causing more of us to become adversely affected by the very air we breathe.

And of late they use more ALEC model legislation designed to further remove even the equity in our homes from us through their Reverse Mortgage Enabling Act - YES!, this is also an ALEC drafted and written legislation. In a report proposing the implementation of reverse mortgages, the purpose of this financing is to allow seniors to access the equity in their homes to use that money to pay for necessary healthcare insurance policies and long term care:

"Payments from a reverse mortgage can help reduce dependence on Medicaid by lowering the likelihood for spend-down. Increased use of this financial option for long-term care could result in savings to Medicaid ranging from about $3.3 to almost $5 billion annually in 2010, depending on market penetration rates increasing from 4 percent to 25 percent of older homeowners.
"As the population ages and the pressure on state Medicaid budgets rises, it becomes increasingly important to find effective ways to improve our long-term care financing system. Funding the growing demand for long-term care is a major national challenge that will require increased spending by both the public and private sectors. This study provides compelling evidence that reverse mortgages have the potential to significantly increase the funds available to pay for home and community-based long-term care. By liquidating a portion of their housing wealth, older homeowners could access a substantial amount of cash. With appropriate incentives, careful protections, and innovative products, greater use of reverse mortgages may offer additional options for seniors to manage assets to pay for long-term care at home."


The way to capitalize off of this for Medicaid is for seniors to pay their own way on extended care, hospice or other needs. This includes those seniors buying long term healthcare policies with the money advanced through the reverse mortgage. There are also provisions allowing for high interest that is compounded resulting in the loan accruing interest upon interest, and a provision to avoid usury prohibitions:
Reverse mortgage loans may be made or acquired without regard to the following provisions for other types of mortgage transactions set out in the statutes specified below;
(D) Requirements that a maximum mortgage amount be stated in the mortgage;
(E) Limitations on loan-to-value ratios;
(F) Prohibitions on balloon payments;
(G) Prohibitions on compounded interest and interest on interest;
(H) Interest rate limits under the usury statutes; and
(I) Requirements that a percentage of the loan proceeds must be advanced prior to loan assignment.

Through the Reverse Mortgage Act analysts reported there was more than $2 Trillion available as untapped equity in the homes of seniors. The cabal want to lay their hands on this money to use it to reduce Medicaid costs and thus free up state money now used for that program to be available for other uses. The Reverse Mortgage Act is but one of over 800 initiatives or model bills written by ALEC over the past two decades. The ads in the mainstream media (another of their enablers) urging seniors to take advantage of a reverse mortgages, make no mention of the true intent of the legislation.
All of us have seen the slick ads on TV about reverse mortgages. Have any of you seen the real purpose of this legislation advertised? Are most of those who are attracted to this option even aware that it is intended to allow the banks to loan them money and that for as long as the loan is in effect (not paid off) that the high interest of the loan accrues and is compounded allowing for the financial institution to earn interest on the interest that is added to the principal? Do they realize that once they pass away, their families have to pay the principal and all of the accrued interest if they want to keep a home that has possibly been in the family for generations?"

In this way the frigging banks - that stole our pensions, 401k's and retirement investments and caused our property to decrease in value by as much as 50% over the past two or three years - now have a way to pay 60 to 80 cents on the dollar and acquire the title to and rights to our homes. This serves to further reduce the money available to our children and families. The homes that slick advertising has seniors calling to turn their homes over to these lenders, is being used to quietly remove the last vestiges of wealth to the middle class. When all of this is added to the attack upon public, civilian and Union workers, legislating to abolish the minimum wage and other machinations to reduce us to a society of 300 million living in poverty conditions, with even our rights to vote taken through their legislation...these corporations and their wealthy owners will have created a Utopian (to the corporations) nation with a working class to their liking.

They envision the next and subsequent generations living in rented homes (owned by them) buying the products they sell (made by us at wages lower than now paid in China) and our children being educated (indoctrinated) with altered history to their liking and a new economy based upon their failed "trickle down economics" formula.

It's really time for all of us to awaken and pick up our pitch forks and toss these insidious bastards from our land and our nation. They are nothing more than 21st Century "Carpetbaggers" looking to eliminate all form of government control, protection and assistance to the majority and replace that with corporatocracy....

10:02 AM PT: Update: Watch this short video of ALEC and Heritage Foundation co-founder, Paul Weyrich speaking about why they opposed Hillary Clinton in 2008. See how Weyrich worries that their activities would be redefined as terrorism:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/20...el-EXPOSED