Free Republic

Color of Change, a left wing attack group founded by former White House Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, is on a mission to smear the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is a 30 year-old non-partisan membership association for “conservative state lawmakers who shared a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty.” As a result of the organization’s successful assistance to lawmakers in state legislatures it has made them the target of liberal smear campaigns. Left wing groups are attacking ALEC by intimidating ALEC’s corporate donors who have benefited from conservative organization’s work over the years....

What is ALEC? The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is dedicated to promoting Jeffersonian, free market principles. At ALEC, bi-partisan state legislators from every state come together to develop and share pro-growth, pro-jobs policies. Why Stand With ALEC? Obama's former "green jobs" czar and self-proclaimed communist, Van Jones, has partnered with George Soros and Big Labor to put pressure on state legislators and supportive companies to stop supporting ALEC and their free market agenda. How Can I Help? The left has already been successful in persuading several large corporations to leave the ALEC Private Enterprise Members. Send them, the remaining...

The coordinated leftist attempt to destroy the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) over ALEC’s support for voter ID and “stand your ground” laws reached a new low today when Walmart, the biggest retailer in America, suspended its membership in the group. Liberal groups like Media Matters for America and its close associate, the Van Jones-run Color of Change, working in coordination with friends of the Obama Administration, launched secondary boycotts against members in ALEC this year; several major ALEC sponsors have already dropped out, prompting ALEC to announce in April that it was no longer going to focus on “public...

ATLANTA, Georgia, May 23, 2012 (IPS) - A coalition of advocacy groups is targeting corporate support for the right-wing Heartland Institute after the organisation took out a controversial billboard in Chicago comparing people who believe in global warming to a serial killer and mass murderer. On Tuesday, the group protested outside the Heartland Institute's Seventh International Conference on Climate Change, a conference for climate change deniers being held at the Hilton hotel in Chicago. Heartland's billboard featured a photograph of Ted Kaczinski, the mass murderer known as the Unabomber, with text, "I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?" Heartland...

Advocacy: If you want an insight into today's left, look at its multifront war against the American Legislative Exchange Council for committing the grave sin of pushing free-market bills in state legislatures. At a recent meeting in Washington, Aniello Alioto of ProgressNow Colorado summed up the left-wing's campaign against ALEC: "Never relent, never let up pressure, and always increase." According to the Washington Free Beacon, ProgressNow was one of several left-wing groups meeting at AFL-CIO headquarters earlier this month to plot their ongoing campaign against ALEC. Other groups included Common Cause and the Color of Change. So what's got the...

Advocacy: If you want an insight into today's left, look at its multifront war against the American Legislative Exchange Council for committing the grave sin of pushing free-market bills in state legislatures. At a recent meeting in Washington, Aniello Alioto of ProgressNow Colorado summed up the left-wing's campaign against ALEC: "Never relent, never let up pressure, and always increase." According to the Washington Free Beacon, ProgressNow was one of several left-wing groups meeting at ALF-CIO headquarters earlier this month to plot their ongoing campaign against ALEC. Other groups included Common Cause and the Color of Change. So what's got the...

Sarah Palin was the first to recognize the problem: By participating in President Obama's signature education initiative, the Common Core Standards, Alaska would lose control over its own curriculum. On May 31, 2009, then-Gov. Palin announced Alaska would adopt a "watch and wait" attitude: "If this initiative produces useful results, Alaska will remain free to incorporate them," Gov. Palin said, adding that "high expectations are not always created by new, mandated federal standards written on paper. They are created in the home, the community and the classroom." Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to his credit, was the next to recognize...

In celebration of this year’s Earth Day, ALEC has released a new study examining the EPA and how their regulations affect the American people. As we all have witnessed, the EPA has grown in size and has passed more regulations in the first 2 years of the Obama administration than it did during the entire first term of President Clinton’s presidency. The administration has claimed to be looking out for the people’s lives and wellbeing by putting new restrictions on various energy producing communities. With this new report from ALEC it is now clear exactly what kind of impact these...

Who is Rashad Robinson? And why has his fringe, race-baiting organization been able to pressure several major corporations into abandoning a pro-limited-government legislative association -- all for a few cheap social-justice brownie points? Conservative consumers need to get informed, get active and stand their ground against free speech-squelching progressive activists who have demonized the American Legislative Exchange Council. This isn't just a battle over ALEC. It's a war against the left's shakedown artists taking aim at our freedoms of speech and association. ALEC, as I reported last week, is the four-decade-old policy organization of state legislators and like-minded business people...

Color of Change, a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation that engages in lobbying and public advocacy, is organizing a campaign against the “stand your ground” self-defense laws in a variety of states, particularly in Florida as a result of the Trayvon Martin incident that took place in Florida. Color of Change was founded in 2005 by James Rucker and Van Jones. Rucker previously directed Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn.org — one of multiple groups funded by George Soros. Jones served as Special Advisor for Green Jobs in the Obama administration, a position from which he resigned after it was exposed that he belonged...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The organization that helped spread Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law across the country is halting its push for gun rights in the wake of the national outcry over Trayvon Martin’s shooting death. The American Legislative Exchange Council said Tuesday that it would shift focus from social to economic issues, abandoning causes like gun rights and voter identification laws. “Today we are redoubling our efforts on the economic front, a priority that has been the hallmark of our organization for decades,” ALEC national chairman and Indiana state lawmaker David Frizzell said in a statement. “We are eliminating...

Below is a letter I sent to directly to the McDonald's Corporation, after learning about their decision to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. It's high time conservatives show McDonald's, and any other company that surrenders to the threats of radical leftist groups, that we are the majority and companies who cowardly cave-in to groups who seek to destroy the very system they thrive under (free market capitalism), will pay a heavy price. We will withhold our business and reward their competitors. McDonald's has made their choice. Now we must make ours! #war...

I’ve sat by and watched progressives attack our liberties, our Constitution and our way of life for long enough. No more. For too long, conservatives have been content to sit on what we call the high ground while the Left racks up small victory after small victory until all we have left is the high ground under our butts. Enough. They go after Rush Limbaugh, and conservatives say, “This is an outrage,” but do nothing. The most extreme, racist left-wing groups contact advertisers and sponsors and pressure them to abandon shows and networks that made them. And too often –...

Some very interesting comments from British MEP Daniel Hannan to the American Legislative Exchange Council's 2009 Annual Meeting, last month. Link is part 1 of 3. Here are all the links: Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuGPKnF0yjYPart 2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sTlaP2TamcPart 3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyMmANml6to

Baldwin: I have sometimes thought I could move to New Jersey or Connecticut and run. I'd love to run against Joe Lieberman. I have no use for him. But it's all fantasy. I'm a carry-me-out-in-a-box New Yorker. Here, anything can happen. Who thought Eliot Spitzer would go down the way he did? Senator Hillary Clinton left to serve as secretary of state. Two of the biggest forces gone. Maybe Andrew Cuomo will run for one of their old seats. How much longer will Chuck Schumer stay as senator? After 2013 Bloomberg will be gone. What happens then?

For the second year in a row, South Carolina’s economic outlook ranked 20th nationally, according to a new report from the American Legislative Exchange Council. The second edition of Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index provides a roadmap for economic recovery based on state policies that have a proven impact on growth, the council said in a statement. The American Legislative Exchange Council is a conservative think tank that has counted among its organizers the late conservative activist Paul Weyrich and among its congressional allies the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

That is, he would if he had the ability to think coherently and extend his appreciation of things right in front of his face to his perception of things in general. In recent statements on the local news channel New York 1, the actor Alec Baldwin pleaded for tax breaks that are provided to film and TV production companies in New York to be continued, in the name of business, jobs and overall revenue for the state and city. In an interview on “The Road to City Hall,” actor Alec Baldwin is calling on state leaders to renew a tax...

Appearing before a national conservative convention here yesterday, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee delivered a dry dissertation on federalism in America... But that didn't stop dozens of members of the American Legislative Exchange Council from surrounding him when he was done, each of them eager for a word, an autograph or a photo with the Republican presidential candidate. "He has that Hollywood image, but at the same time, he comes across as sincere," Danny Nixon, a lobbyist from Oklahoma, said of Thompson, who is a movie and television actor as well as a politician. "That Hollywood draw is important...

PHILADELPHIA, July 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Former U.S. Senator, and possible presidential candidate, Fred Thompson and Gov. Mike Huckabee will speak before an audience of nearly 2,000 state legislators and business leaders at the American Legislative Exchange Council's National Forum luncheon at ALEC's 34th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia on Friday, July 27. This event is just part of ALEC's annual meeting held July 24 to 29 at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown at 1201 Market Street. Other speakers will include Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, The Honorable Dick Armey, The Honorable Billy Tauzin, Neil Cavuto of FOX...

Los Angeles - Hollywood star Alec Baldwin, who has provoked a furor over harsh words to his daughter in a phone message, plans to write a book about the injustices done to divorced fathers, a media report said Saturday. Baldwin, whose ex is actress Kim Basinger, stated his intention about the book on the ABC television talk show, The View, in the midst of a discussion about 'parental alienation,' The New York Times reported. To have enough time to write the book, Baldwin mused that he might leave the successful TV comedy series, 30 Rock. Baldwin left an abusive voicemail...