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Today's popular content
- Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Is an ALEC Member (492)
- Wisconsin Newspapers Create False Equivalency on Recall Spending (132)
- Wisconsin Recall Roundup May 25, 2012 (129)
- How the US Sold Africa to Multinationals like Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont, PepsiCo and Others (58)
- Amazon.com 16th Corporation to Dump ALEC (53)
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- CMD Releases New Report: "ALEC Exposed in Wisconsin: The Hijacking of a State" (33)
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- About ALEC Exposed (20)
Readers' Comments
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Submitted by: Colt
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Submitted by: rewinn
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Submitted by: dean hanson
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Submitted by: Anonymous
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Submitted by: DLH
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Submitted by: Marcia222
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Submitted by: Anonymous
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Submitted by: Jim Crane
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Submitted by: Anonymous
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Submitted by: dzil
Yeah, right. You're going on about things that aren't even what the original poster is talking about.
This is the problem I see. What about when I go to see a doctor and pay for his time. I say my office visit should be at least 15 minutes. I should be able to discuss whatever I want during that time period without being charged extra. But alot of times the office visit is just 5 minutes. So, should the doctor then charge for a full office visit when he decides to run out of the room after just 5 minutes?
I've had some doctor visits that last less than 5 minutes. I don't see why that should then be hundreds of dollars.
That sounds like a great business model though. Cram in so many patients so you only have minutes per office visit. So, you're making thousands and thousands an hour. Then charge extra if the patient asks a question that extends the office visit to a minute or so longer.
I think the problem is doctors bill things to insurance companies. So, they can bill whatever they want as the customer just pays their usual copay. So, there is alot of padding and overcharges in billing as it just goes straight to the insurance company.
That doesn't generally happen when say you have a car fixed by a mechanic. As they have to tell you up front what they are doing and how much it will be.
In contrast, you can be in a doctors office. Say "hi" to the doctor. Then get a bill in the mail for an office visit of telling the doctor "hi". Obviously I'm joking on that last one.
... corporations respond to positive as well as negative pressure, so it's important to thank "people" when they do the right thing!
(Even if they aren't really people!)
Simply put, no, however it's important to note manmade laws are
relative in a plutocracy.
Is it legal for Brian Schimming,Vice-Chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, to have a regular show promoting GOP agendas, candidates, and disinformation via WIBA in Madison and other media outlets that carry Vicki McKenna. He may not be a formal host, but he is a regular co-host and often subs for VM when she is away. I've never understood why the air time given to Walker et al has not been scrutinized/legally challenged. Any insights?
Do you have ANY facts to support your claim? Anonymous???
... And then the USA wonders why the world dislikes them....
This is not the only example of lies told by the government to have excuse to attack countries all around the world!
How do you people allow this? I know americans are not bad people, but you are guilty of war crimes and mass murder because you let LED TVs, iphones, Cars, etc buy your silence.
As far as I'm concerned, the USA is the greatest tyrant of all times.
Thank you for making this clear!
http://www.cornucopia.org/2011/10/natural-vs-organic-cereal/
As a leader in the sales and marketing of healthy, whole and organic foods, Whole Foods should take the same stance as Green Grocer and remove the contaminated Kashi cereals off of their shelves until Kellogg can verify that their products are accurately labeled. Anything short of that would be willful neglect and a great lose of credibility to Whole Foods. Until that time, I know where I will be shopping.
I am so happy the people of Wisconsin were able to see this right wing corruption and stop it. In Texas these things were done many years ago and the voters were too brain washed to see it. BRAVO WISCONSIN!
The Kochocracy-crookocracy is the (t)reason, The seed of Democracy should Never be placed in the Right/wrong hand of masturbating Politicians/private-sector. "We The People" will take care of BUSINESS of Democracy ultimately. The Founding Fathers knew exactly what they we're doing,"NO" if,ands, or buts about it;Of,by,for "YES"! 99% -absolutely,"NO" "class-entrenchment," nepotism,plutocracy,oligarchy or monarchy....POWER! To "We The People".
Given the history of voter's rights in the USA every citizen should be most vigilant when it comes to laws which are enacted to restrict the ability to vote.
The following is a brief history of the hard earned voter rights we U.S. citizens now enjoy and unfortunately often take for granted: The issue of voting rights in the United States has been contentious throughout the country's history. Eligibility to vote in the U.S. is determined by both Federal and state law. Currently, only citizens can vote in US elections (although this has not always been the case). Who is (or who can become) a citizen is governed on a national basis by federal law. In the absence of a federal law or constitutional amendment, each state is given considerable discretion to establish qualifications for suffrage and candidacy within its own jurisdiction.
When the country was founded, in most states, only white men with property were permitted to vote (freed African Americans could vote in four states). White working men, almost all women, and all other people of color were denied the franchise. At the time of the American Civil War, most white men were allowed to vote, whether or not they owned property, but literacy tests, poll taxes, and even religious tests were used in various places, and most white women, people of color, and Native Americans still could not vote.
The United States Constitution, in Article VI, section 3, stipulates that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." The Constitution, however, leaves the determination of voting qualifications to the individual states. Over time, the federal role in elections has increased through amendments to the Constitution and enacted legislation, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[1] At least four of the fifteen post-Civil War constitutional amendments were ratified specifically to extend voting rights to different groups of citizens. These extensions state that voting rights cannot be denied or abridged based on the following:
Birth - "All persons born or naturalized" "are citizens" of the US and the US State where they reside (14th Amendment, 1868)
"Race, color, or previous condition of servitude" - (15th Amendment, 1870)
"On account of sex" - (19th Amendment, 1920)
In Washington, DC, presidential elections after 164 year suspension by US Congress (23rd Amendment, 1961)
(For federal elections) "By reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax" - (24th Amendment, 1964)
(For state elections) Taxes - (Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966))
"Who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age" (26th Amendment, 1971).
In addition, the 17th Amendment provided for the direct election of United States Senators.
The "right to vote" is explicitly stated in the US Constitution in the above referenced amendments but only in reference to the fact that the franchise cannot be denied or abridged based solely on the aforementioned qualifications. In other words, the "right to vote" is perhaps better understood, in layman's terms, as only prohibiting certain forms of legal discrimination in establishing qualifications for suffrage. States may deny the "right to vote" for other reasons.
For example, many states require eligible citizens to register to vote a set number of days prior to the election in order to vote. More controversial restrictions include those laws that prohibit convicted felons from voting or, as seen in Bush v. Gore, disputes as to what rules should apply in counting or recounting ballots [2]
A state may choose to fill an office by means other than an election. For example, upon death or resignation of a legislator, the state may allow the affiliated political party to choose a replacement to hold office until the next scheduled election. Such an appointment is often affirmed by the governor.[3]
What about Trader Joe's?
What exactly is so inherently evil about asking to see an id to vote? everyone should have one already, kinda hard to live with no identification, don't you think?
I think I should add that I was a member of the NRA; I'm a hunter and own guns, and worked for a gun dealer, and was raised on venison (year round) I gave them up (NRA) when they started touting assault rifles (they are fun to shoot) as almost a necessity and started their lobbying campaigns in Congress. If I want my dues used for political purposes I will donate it to whom I want, not the NRA's. The only reason now to own an assault rifle is protection from the nuts that do have them.
I don't cower; and I use my own name and address, but you might not want to come by my place unannounced at night.
I'll stick with Field and Stream and Outdoor Life,
BEM
A L E C and the right wing apparatus, is the biggest threat to this country since 'THE PLANTATION MASTERS' tried to destroy America for their personal gain. Finally, the people are waking up to the stealth anti democratic war being waged against "WE THE PEOPLE".
These enemies of democracy will now join a long list of losers. Americans, once educated and motivated, have never lost to those that attack them.; NEVER....
In fact, during the recent period while the NRA was the co-corporate Chair of ALEC, they were able to incorporate in the 2,000 or so (805 of them having been leaked) ALEC Model Bills every single thing they ever thought would be fun, including making it illegal for any school or training facility above high school to prevent students from carrying firearms on campus.
AND they invented the bubble which is "Stand and Kill" (only they call it, Stand Your Ground). It consists of endowing a gun carrier with a big, invisible bubble within which he moves around, and the right to kill anyone who purposely or inadvertently steps inside the bubble. In the Martin case, it turned out that even when the attacker breached the bubble by approaching and assaulting the victim, it apparently works--if you can get that close to him, you can kill him and say you were scared.
Flybum, criticizing the out-of-control mob that the NRA has developed into is NOT the same as spitting in God's eye, regardless of what your members think. Be reasonable.
"Forward" is the STATE motto of Wisconsin. Please don't dirty it by calling it Walker's campaign slogan.
We already had a kerfuffle when right-wing reporters at President Obama's Milwaukee stop-over announced to the country that Obama is a union shill--because right under the American flag hung a flag with the word Forward and the number 1848 -- clearly Union 1848.
Except it was the Wisconsin flag, and 1848 was the year Wisconsin gained statehood.
I hope Walker will be gone soon, and we can quit confusing filth with the beautiful state of Wisconsin.
Anonymous is correct. ALEC has gained control of most or all the lawmaking bodies in 26 states, and is rapidly pushing through about 2,000 bills it has drafted over the past 29 years. They are, for the most part, laws to divest the states of money, land, clean water and air, independent governance, and all state-subsidized services. Kochs are among the small handful of zillionaires at the top, whose agenda is to convert this into a country with a very rich proletariat and a very impoverished population--and, you may have noticed, they are succeeding.
For whatever reason, Kochs personally like Walker, think he's just the thing for their program, despite his many errors and the dozen or so actions of his that the FBI is presently investigating. They are spending up to $100 million (against a max of less than one million) to retain the governorship of Wisconsin in the recall election on June 5.
Thank you for writing in, Bill!
I appreciate that you took the time to write in and share your views about where you agree and disagree.
One of the things that has been lost in the debate over the Florida law and ALEC model is that you already had a recognized right of self defense in every state in the country if threatened with death or severe injury, but what the bill does is change the ability to assert that defense in a court of law into a legal immunity in ways that are designed to keep a case from going to trial and thus prevent a jury from considering whether a homicide was justified.
That's one of the reasons so many people are outraged by the law, because it was cited to prevent a jury from hearing all the facts.
If your loved one were killed by a gunman who claimed self-defense, surely you would want to have an open and fair trial to fully examine such a claim.
I think we all would.
The right to trial by a jury of our peers is also one of the fundamental amendments in the bill of rights and it is intended to ensure there is a democratic check on the justice system so that people are not wrongly convicted and also not wrongly exonerated, although the jury process is not perfect.
In the October 2010 issue of American Hunter distributed to subscribers the NRA had a center fold of every office up for vote in NH and rated every person running for each office and on their voting record, and if and how the NRA favored them.
I gave my copy to our local SEIU/SEA 1984 for who I was contracted to at that time but as far as I know, nothing became of it.
Keep up the good work!
Bill
William E Merrow
W Deering, NH
Although I support your efforts to expose ALEC, I do not support your criticism of the NRA. "Stand Your Ground" laws cannot be blamed for the way Zimmerman botched the handling of his Neighborhood Watch duties. Maybe you prefer to cower in the corner as criminals take over your neighborhood, but I don't. I firmly believe that we have a right and an obligation to protect our families. The police cannot do it simply because they cannot be everywhere at once. The 2nd Amendment gives everyone the right to self-protection. The NRA is an organization that promotes gun safety, self-protection, and the right to bare arms. Those are necessary ideals in a free and open society. Ask the Jews or the Armenians if it was a good idea to give up their guns. Show some back bone people.
The CDC summary says that firearms deaths have increased a lot in 33 years. But they do not take note of the fact that a similar increase has taken place in Great Britain, even though "over there" gun laws have become so increasingly strict there is today a total ban on private firearms. Yet firearms deaths are twice as high (per capita) than they were in the '60s. Obviously, gun control isn't really a factor. We need to move past spurious gun debates and try to find out WHY violence is on the rise in Western civilization. But guns aren't the source of the problem.
(search the Home Office for source data)
I believe Trayvon's family has applied for these copyright protections in order to prevent these phrases being used for monetory gain by "entrapaneurs". The targets are as crass and tastless as anything can be. They are also hurtful to all of us that grieve Trayvon's death. Zimmerman brought unwarrented "Vigillanty Justice" to a nice kid with good parents who did not deserve to die. One does not have to be black to understand the injustice and cruelty that transpired last February. This white grandmother stands with Trayvon's parent and family, 100%.
Walker's "budget" on the environment reads like a nightmare after he GUTTED it and eliminated key postions all over the place from our state park system to county agencies "to be replaced with postions determined BY THE GOVERNOR"...the war on Wisconsin's environmental health, women, the rights of the middle class, education, and everyone/thing in btwn has not let up under this crook...I cry for my state but this is the "pro-life party".
Only for the "life of mega rich corporations, the wealthy and those who don't have to live here" and be left behind in the wreckage they leave behind because of greed. Sadly the stupid, the bigoted, the religious fanatics and the greed of the COC backed corporate hacks who benefit from his policies of the 1% will vote him back in on 06/05 because they just DON'T CARE about anyone or anything else even though it is voting to slit our own throats. I can't stand it anymore.