Newsflash:
House debates $20.5 billion cuts to food stamps Tuesday afternoon marked the beginning of the general floor debate for the 2013 House farm bill, which includes $20.5 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as the food stamps program.  Read the Full Story
Former Obama Campaign Staffers Protest Keystone XL Pipeline Read more: Former Obama Campaign Staffers Protest Keystone XL Pipeline Elijah Zarlin, who worked as a senior email writer at Obama campaign headquarters in 2008, was back in Chicago yesterday—in the First Precinct jail, following a peaceful sit-in in protest of the Keystone XL pipeline. Read the Full Story
Medical Debt: A Curable Affliction Health Reform Won’t Fix Millions of Americans are deep in medical debt. Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will throw a lifeline to very few. According to the Congressional Budget Office, even after health reform is fully implemented in 2014, 30 million to 36 million people will remain uninsured. Read the Full Story
Message to Congress: Immigrants Pay More Than Their 'Fair Share' of Medicare Immigrants don’t just pick our fruit, deliver our take-out food and design our computers — they pay for our medical care. Read the Full Story
Alan Grayson On Trans-Pacific Partnership: Obama Secrecy Hides 'Assault On Democratic Government' WASHINGTON -- Progressive Democrats in Congress are ramping up pressure on the Obama administration to release the text of Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secretive free trade agreement with 10 other nations, amid intensifying controversy over the administration's transparency record and its treatment of classified information. Read the Full Story
Activists Protest Possible Cuts To Food Stamps Activists held a series of demonstrations across the country today to call on influential Democratic members of Congress to prevent cuts to the food stamp program.  One of the demonstrations was in Springfield, Massachusetts. Read the Full Story
Barbara Lee: AUMF Was Wrong in 2001, and It's Wrong Now A renewed debate of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force is long overdue. I was the only member of Congress to vote against the authorization when it came to the House floor in 2001 after the horrific events of September 11th, and I have been pushing for its repeal ever since. Read the Full Story
The War on Terror Has Not Made Us Safer Two days after the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, I was sitting in front of my institute's office around the corner from the White House. We had just been evacuated again. Read the Full Story
Congress Checks and Balances on Afghanistan—Will It Do So With Syria? The US House of Representatives took an important step last week toward the restoration of the separation of powers that was established so that Congress would check and balance presidential war-making. Read the Full Story
Dems Press Neal on SNAP Cuts Next week, the U.S. House will take up the federal farm bill, which includes potentially devastating cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (the program once known as food stamps). Read the Full Story
House Overwhelmingly Votes to Speed Afghan Withdrawal By a 305-121 margin, the House of Representatives voted to accelerate US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan by the end of 2013, to strike previous language supporting a post-2014 US military presence, and insisting that any such presence be authorized by Congress by June 2014.  Read the Full Story
Congresswoman Barbara Lee Hails Passage of Amendments Supporting Ending War in Afghanistan, Modernizing Discriminatory HIV Laws Washington, D.C.— Today, Congresswoman Barbara Lee released the following statement on the passage of two amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act on the floor of the House: Read the Full Story
image House debates $20.5 billion cuts to food stamps
image Former Obama Campaign Staffers Protest Keystone XL Pipeline Read more: Former Obama Campaign Staffers Protest Keystone XL Pipeline
image Medical Debt: A Curable Affliction Health Reform Won’t Fix
image Message to Congress: Immigrants Pay More Than Their 'Fair Share' of Medicare
image Alan Grayson On Trans-Pacific Partnership: Obama Secrecy Hides 'Assault On Democratic Government'
image Activists Protest Possible Cuts To Food Stamps
image Barbara Lee: AUMF Was Wrong in 2001, and It's Wrong Now
image The War on Terror Has Not Made Us Safer
image Congress Checks and Balances on Afghanistan—Will It Do So With Syria?
image Dems Press Neal on SNAP Cuts
image House Overwhelmingly Votes to Speed Afghan Withdrawal
image Congresswoman Barbara Lee Hails Passage of Amendments Supporting Ending War in Afghanistan, Modernizing Discriminatory HIV Laws
Friday, 20 April 2012 15:24

Former ALEC Supporters Now Find Connection Toxic

Written by  Rebekah Wilce | PR Watch
Former ALEC Supporters Now Find Connection Toxic

With thousands of consumers expressing their concerns about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to corporations across America, even former supporters of ALEC are feeling the heat, and some are rushing to distance themselves from the organization. YUM! Brands (owners of KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut) became the 12th corporate member of ALEC to announce it is leaving the organization yesterday.

When the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released the ALEC Exposed website in 2011, staff worked to document and footnote every ALEC corporate member or supporter and former corporate member or supporter possible. CMD's extensive footnoted list has been cited by news sources and campaigners across the country, although no one knows all the corporations that have funded or helped lead ALEC in its nearly 40-year history. CMD has listed the following organizations as known former ALEC members or supporters on its website, SourceWatch.org, and these companies have taken steps to make sure the public knows they are not currently supporting ALEC:

Cargill: An ALEC brochure from its 1998 annual meeting in Chicago lists Cargill, Inc. as a new ALEC member and a "Director" level sponsor of the meeting. (In 2010, a "Director" level sponsor would pay $10,000 to ALEC, but it is unknown how much a corporation would have paid in 1998.) On April 17, a representative from the Cargill corporate affairs office contacted CMD to say that the company is not a member of ALEC and that it has no internal records of ever having been a member of ALEC. The spokesperson told CMD that she had even talked to lobbyists from 1998. The document search was prompted by press and public inquiries. ALEC is a hot topic in Minnesota due to Governor Mark Dayton's veto of seven ALEC-supported bills this session.

Ticketmaster: An ALEC brochure from its 1997 annual meeting in New Orleans lists Ticketmaster as an "ALEC Private Sector Member." As CMD recently reported, shortly after news broke that Coca-Cola had dumped ALEC, Ticketmaster sent CMD a letter "advis[ing]" CMD to "cease and desist from including Ticketmaster" on SourceWatch.org, objecting to "the suggestion that Ticketmaster is somehow affiliated with ALEC" and threatening to sue CMD for libel and defamation. For Ticketmaster, even being listed as a firm "known to be or to have been" an "ALEC member or supporter" is apparently a big problem.

Geico: The same ALEC brochure from its 1997 annual meeting also lists Geico as an "ALEC Private Sector Member." A Berkshire Hathaway stockholder contacted Geico (Berkshire Hathaway owns Geico) about its involvement with ALEC. A Geico spokesperson told the stockholder that Geico is not a member and does not support ALEC. Geico did not respond to CMD's requests for information about its status. For Geico, too, the association seems toxic.

General Mills Restaurants/Darden: General Mills Restaurants is listed as an "ALEC Private Sector Member" in ALEC's 1994-1995 prospectus. A General Mills spokesperson sent a letter to CMD requesting a correction because SourceWatch.org listed "General Mills Restaurants" as having been involved with ALEC but linked to the SourceWatch article on General Mills, the food processing company. General Mills used to own the Red Lobster chain and started the Olive Garden chain as well as the China Coast chain under its "General Mills Restaurants" subsidiary. In 1995, the subsidiary was spun off to shareholders as what is now the restaurant giant Darden Restaurants (Darden was a member of ALEC's corporate board in 2010). CMD has removed the link to the General Mills article on SourceWatch, as the restaurant group is no longer a subsidiary of General Mills.

Corporations are reacting to increased public scrutiny and the news that almost every day, another ALEC member corporation and funder decides to quit. The list includes YUM! Brands, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Mars Inc., Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Intuit, McDonald's, Wendy's, American Traffic Solutions, Reed Elsevier, and Arizona Public Service. CMD and other groups are now urging State Farm, Johnson & Johnson, and AT&T to reconsider their membership with ALEC.

Link to original article from PR Watch

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