By Alex Seitz-Wald, Think Progress

Progressives have long tried to expose the influence the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) wields in state house across the country, but one Florida lawmaker is making it too easy.

Funded almost entirely by large corporations, ALEC produces “model legislation” favorable to industry that state lawmakers can introduce as their own bills. Usually, the legislators tweak the language of the bills to make them state-specific or to obfuscate their origins. Usually, but apparently not always.

In November, Florida state Rep. Rachel Burgin (R) introduced a resolution (PDF here) that would officially call on the federal government to reduce corporate taxes, but she apparently forgot to remove ALEC’s mission statement from the top of the bill, which she seems to have copied word-for-word from ALEC’s model bill:

As the government transparency group Common Cause reports, “Burgin quickly withdrew the bill hoping that no one had noticed and then re-introduced it 24-hours later, with a new bill number (HM 717), but now without the problematic paragraph.” Apparently no one noticed until this week.

While it’s no secret by now that conservative lawmakers in state capitals everywhere have used ALEC’s legislation to tear down environmental and labor regulations, curb voting rights, and coordinate a business-friendly agenda nationwide, it’s rare to see it on display so clearly.

Original Article →

President Obama has now abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.

Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of “a war that appears to have no end”.

The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the “war on terror” to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.

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by Frank Schaeffe / AlterNet

As presidential candidate Michele Bachmann chews up scenery in the GOP primaries, the mainstream media is finally digging into her extremist beliefs in a serious way. In a profile published earlier this week, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza talked about Bachmann’s radical right-wing influences, which include the most extremist figures in the history of the religious right movement.

One of these was my evangelical leader father, Francis Schaeffer. Bachmann says in the New Yorker article that she got into politics because she watched a film series I directed called “How Should We Then Live,” written by and featuring my dad.

What the New Yorker article doesn’t do is explain why people like Bachmann, Sarah Palin, et al. turned to the hard reactionary anti-government right. I explain this in my book Sex, Mom and God. I think it’s important to understand this. So let me add what the New Yorker left out.

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By Chris Moody | The Ticket – Fri, Aug 19, 2011

Rick Perry has many ideas about how to change the American government’s founding document. From ending lifetime tenure for federal judges to completely scrapping two whole amendments, the Constitution would see a major overhaul if the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate had his druthers.

Perry laid out these proposed innovations to the founding document in his book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington. He has occasionally mentioned them on the campaign trail. Several of his ideas fall within the realm of mainstream conservative thinking today, but, as you will see, there are also a few surprises.

…click here to read more

by Eric Sapp
Founding partner, Eleison Group

I recently wrote on why Democrats and progressives need to take some time studying Ayn Rand to fully understand the political significance of all the GOP leaders lining up to praise her. The GOP has a huge problem if their conservative religious base finds out what Rand really believed and how influential she is within senior GOP circles.

Amy Sullivan published a piece in TIME last week highlighting this disconnect and American Values Network’s (AVN) memo on it. There is a great piece in the Louisville Courier-Journal. Rev. Jen Butler at Faith in Public Life (FPL) did a piece last week pointing out the problem Rep. Paul Ryan has trying to reconcile Catholic social teaching and Rand. And FPL affiliate, Faithful America, just put up a Rand vs. Bible website.

But perhaps the most damning of all was the statement put out by Conservative Christian icon, Chuck Colson. Chuck Colson is one of the lions of the Christian right and the head of Prison Fellowship, which, all politics aside, is the best thing coming from the Christian right and a powerful ministry to a segment of society even progressives often ignore. But Colson condemned the strong support of Rand in Republican and conservative circles and urged his followers not only to stay away from the new film of Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged, but to “stay away from anyone who intends to watch the film.” Colson goes on to say Rand and her followers were precisely the types of “cranks” and “crypto-cultists” that his friend Bill Buckley had fought to purge from conservative ranks. He says the “real problem with Rand is the world view her novels and other writings sought to inculcate in her readers… it’s hard to imagine a world view more antithetical to Christianity.”

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Phil Zuckerman, a Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, posted an excellent article recently, which I just had to share. ~ Wicasta

The results from a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveal what social scientists have known for a long time: White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture. Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim to have a personal relationship with Christ, who most confidently declare their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who go to church on a regular basis, pray daily, listen to Christian music, and place God and His Only Begotten Son at the center of their lives, are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message.

Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give one’s money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nation’s poor — especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of “socialism,” even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training — anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.

What’s the deal?

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by Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.

Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a “Maximum Custody Detainee,” the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.

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The annual (and mythical) “War on Christmas” is being trotted out again this year. But according to Psychology Today, the habitual alarmists are not getting as much traction out of it this year. Excerpts follow;

Ours is an era fraught with urgent social problems. Take, for example, acronym/abbreviation* abuse. We live in a society in which people feel free to toss around phrases like “ATM Machine” and “PIN Number,” which, of course, translate into “Automated Teller Machine Machine” and “Personal Identification Number Number.” And don’t get me started on misguided pluralizations like “RBIs” and “POWs”…

That’s why it’s such a relief to find out that at least one of the truly pressing crises of our time appears to be on the road to resolution. According to recent reports, the “War on Christmas” may be in its final throes, and contrary to the fears of many, Christmas is winning.

In fact, one of the groups that has lobbied most vocally on this issue, the American Family Association, faced a challenge this year even finding a Public Retail Enemy #1 to boycott. Indeed, only 8 stores remain on their 2010 “Companies against Christmas” list, headed by Dick’s Sporting Goods. And what was Dick’s heinous crime? An on-line collection referred to generically as the “Holiday Shop,” which failed to make use of Christmas-specific nomenclature.

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I never thought I would find myself writing about, of all things, Dancing With The Stars here on The Watch. The only reason I am now is because this season Sarah Palin’s daughter was one of the contestants. I refer to the young lady as “Sarah Palin’s daughter” instead of using her name for a reason. Bristol Palin was on that show through no merit of her own. Thus far her only life accomplishment has been having a child out of wedlock. And even that was only notable because… she’s Sarah Palin’s daughter.

The reason I’m writing about this is because Bristol Palin had consistently been kept on the show by voters while much better dancers were being sent home. Her presence on Dancing With The Stars had become a cause for the political Right, as web sites were organized to rally Conservatives to Bristol Palin’s side. As with all things that are touched by Sarah Palin and her family, Dancing With The Stars was politicized this season. These people, the Palins, could politicize a trip to McDonald’s for a burger. I can hear Sarah Palin now.

“No Big Mac for me, thank you,” she would say. “I’ll just have a good, old fashioned American cheeseburger. I’m a simple girl from Alaska, not some Washington elite who needs a special sauce on his hamburger because her thinks he’s better than average, hard working Americans.”

…click here to read more

If there was ever one day in American discourse in which partisan wrangling should be set aside, it has to be Veterans Day. Sadly, I know there are going to be a lot of people who get up today and wrap themselves in the American flag and contend that those who disagree with them are somehow un-American. There are going to be Conservatives who contend that only they care about the members of our military, and suggest that Liberals, and anyone else they disagree with, despise soldiers.

When I think of these people, I am reminded of the words of American novelist Sinclair Lewis, who said “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”

When I think of such people, I am ever the more grateful to the members of our Armed Forces; those who stand in the breach and keep American democracy alive and well, despite those who would see it burn under the jackbooted thuggery of misplaced, and misguided, fascist nationalism.

…click here to read more