also the dysfunction in our government between right wing think tanks like alec the american legislative exchange council writing our laws of behalf of corporate interests to lawmakers in washington d.c. doing the will of lobbyists just keep the campaign contributions coming in our democracy is growing more and more unresponsive to we the people and it's one reason why many americans think they can make more of a difference in the streets than in the ballot box for more on this angle of maydays said giuliani joins me now reporter with the united republic's republic report that welcome back thanks for having me great to have you here with us you have a piece on republic report today republic report dot org today talking about the reason why american workers actually don't have rights why is this. well it's really interesting i mean the unionization rate the union membership for a united states made twentieth century was about one in three workers one in three workers were in a union and coincidentally that exactly the same time that was the time when the middle class had a share of national income now tod

american traditions institute is filing lawsuits to stop renewable energy laws from being implemented. you have alec working to pass legislation, and then you have the koch brothers and american legislative exchange council to drum up opposition. >> the way this describes how they will get the movement going sounds a little bit like how the tea party was started. do you think they pulled this plan from the strategy that was adopted at the start of the tea party. >> it definitely seems familiar to me, and the document says in it that they want to coordinate their message nationally but have it appear to come from as many as a dozen separate sources. they understand that this astroturfing maybe be the only way to get their message across to the american public. >> how did you get to this memo. >> it was through a google search. it was really clumsy on their part. and along with this plan was meeting materials for a meeting when fossil fuel advocacy groups and these local groups. they also have allies in congress, like congressman issa and there they are part of a full frontal attack on clean energy, and american tradition institute i think spear heading at least part of this effort through their efforts on

. ♪ >>> big news on alec the american legislative exchange council that secretive organization that writesve state legislators. today the non-profit group common cause shed a little light on alec's inner workings. it published the names of all of though companies that sit on alec's board. 139 companies in total 28 of which are part of big energy. here are some of the names of companies that actually sit with alec, support alec peabody energy, for example, actually was the sponsor of their big conference last year the largest coal company in the world. in fact, what else has been exposed is that alec has had very aggressive effort to dive into state legislatures and pass laws. this is a resolution that was passed in six states saying that a tremendous amount of economic growth would be sacrificed for a reduction in carbon emissions. that exact language was passed as a resolution in six states. alec has always been effective in getting pro frac-ing legislation passed. alec backed a law that kept potential chemicals a trade secret. a model bill has been introduced in six states. alec has alwa

. >> eliot: the tremor under the american legislative exchange council may have turned into a full-fledgequake. 11. the number of state legislatures who withdrew support as we reported several other dozen lawmakers broke tie with the conservative group and more than a dozen companies have pulled financial support. alec helped spread the stand your ground law. it wrote voteer i.d. bills, and it's language shows up in bills attacking unionses. aelectric's nonpartisan facade is cracking. it is a republican group and there is no hiding jennifer granholm is politically direct on current tv. >>the dominoes are starting to fall. (vo) granholm is live in the war room. >> what should women be doing? >> electing women to office. (vo) she's a political trailblazer. >>republicans of course didn't let facts get in the way of spin. >>do it, for america. >>(narrator) gavin newsom, lieutenant governor of california, and former mayor of san francisco is on current tv. >>every night on cable news networks everyone's focusing on what's wrong. i want this show to move past that. i love creative people, and w

. >> the trayvon martin incident also revealed the existence of groups like the american legislative exchange councilbehind the doors and spread the model legislation. the shoot to kill or kill at will or stand your ground legislation, and the voter i.d. registration, mining certainly the initiatives of conservative state legislators across the nation. what we did was we found that there are these ghost writers who are writing this anti-legislation, they're doing wit great effect. so we're able to expose that, but we have got to keep the pressure on. >> i have to take a break. stay right there. we'll be right back with more "our world with black enterprise." >>> the average black person in the hood is not saying my issue or priority is gay rights. it's about what it is that the urban league to say what's going to happen to the 100 places getting ready to close, me not getting a job? what is our agenda? ♪ >>> welcome back to "our world with black enterprise." one of the things we have asked about prioritization. there's a million issues we could be talking at once, but at the same time, we have to mak

enterprise act and he talks about well that was a piece of model legislation written by the american legislative exchange council the controversial right wing group more commonly known as alex a basically a bill created by alec appears to be the inspiration for the f.b.i. is training when it comes to tracking down these terrorists great right it just prove will it proves it will potter's point how all this training focus on eco terrorists it really comes down to money and all the risk of possibly your health and the health of democracy and an informed citizenry here in america the sad twisted example of how lobbyist have corrupted the country how they've successfully managed to even get the f.b.i. to label environmental activists as terrorists and even make investigative journalist to practice is seem illegal or sketchy so for bally to massive corporate interests for attempting to intimidate americans are practicing their first amendment rights and for over using the term terrorist more than ever before the f.b.i. is tonight's tool time where. all right it's time for happy hour and joining me this evening alone

in all three of these states have exempted alec the corporate lobbyist front group american legislative exchange council from state lobbying registration and disclosure laws that means in all three states alec can spend millions of dollars pushing corporate friendly pieces of legislation without ever having to reveal how much they've spent. alak is responsible for everything from voter suppression and environment laws for the now infamous shoot first was bottom line alec is destroying america and legislators in indiana colorado and south carolina are letting it happen with no question no questions asked. and the very very ugly house majority whip kevin mccarthy yesterday republicans in the house pushed ahead bills that prevent any cuts in military spending but cut over two hundred sixty billion dollars from programs like food stamps medicaid and other social services the mccarthy was on fox news last night when asked about the cuts to the programs he had this to say. and he writes i mean these pensions and many some of the cuts to me just you know there are there's money sitting in our government there'

watch that's targeted the group the american legislative exchange council the group that now is most notoriously known for writing the stand your ground law that was so used during the argument over the trayvon martin case but that that prompted this outcry that and then put alec on the radar and then they decided let's get corporate divestment from alec let's look at alec like it's an entity and what allows it to exist its corporate sponsors its donors so let's get them all the back out so one by one you start seeing coca-cola back out you start seeing mcdonald's back out you saw all these groups pull out and the reason why is because they didn't want that ugliness of the trayvon my. and shooting attached to them you know and ultimately this this boils down to. profitability on one hand and morality on the other and legality and morality don't necessarily coincide but if you're able to win people over morally and tactically then profit eventually lose out and that's what the models about is about trying to say we have tactics over here we have morals over here side up with us and we

>> so big, we're diving into the really conservative think tangor like alec, the american legislative exchange council and others. do you know there is an umbrella organization called the state policy network that has 59 of these billionaire funded think tanks? we have the perfect red state candidate. his name is rich carmona. he's a purple heart veteran, he served the administration, he has poor roots, he has it all and he has a real shot at winning in arizona. >> eliot: what is that group. >> the state policy network. >> eliot: they did not invite me to join, did they invite you? >> no, and i bet they're not going to be happy that i talk about them tonight. >> eliot: put a big star over their name. i'm going to be watching that show. more "viewpoint" after the break. rr >>(narrator) gavin newsom, lieutenant governor of california, and former mayor of san francisco is coming to current tv. >>every night on cable news networks everyone's focusing on what's wrong. i want this show to move past that. i love creative people, and with all the vexing problems we have we need creative thinking. >>(narrator)

so anything is possible but on one bright side of this the kind of eliot that's the american legislative exchange council coat back legislating group modeled bill about voter id at the very least a judge has put that off so will not be in affects by june fifth so that in itself is good for the democrats. and i wanted to ask your opinion i just heard your your phone calls that you made every time you met your david koch and i just want to ask aaron what is the one thing that you kind of learned from speaking to him when he thought that you were a coke brother what did you take away from that well first of all just generally i learned that scott walker's not very bright second of all i think i've learned just you know i had no idea but i didn't know how easy it would be to get him on the phone that was a little bit of a shock to. and i also wanted to talk about these fliers that have been you know they've been from some anonymous group in wisconsin there are these flyers kind of scanning teachers saying that and we're looking at them right now and it's talk of how teachers are enforcing a marxist agenda ho

that was part of an effort to get -- companies to get out of the american legislative exchange councill of these years. they did the laws trying to disenfranchise minority workers, and that campaign is working in a big, big way. today wal-mart out. and that's huge. they sell a lot of guns. they join pepsi, coke procter & gamble, et cetera. color of change doing a brilliant campaign on that. and david has a brilliant idea. you know how there's a do-not-call list. he has an idea

then groups like the national riffle association and the american legislative exchange council, alec, began promoting first-shoot laws in states around the country. alhe can is an organization that -- alec is an organization that ghostwrites laws for state legislatures who hold a political perspective and their efforts have paid for, by and large, by global corporations that spread in states across the country. in 2005 alec and n.r.a. convinced florida to pass the first shoot-first law and since then they have convinced 23 more states to enact similar laws. the shoot-first laws are unnecessary. americans already have the right to self-defense, shoot-first laws make it harder for law enforcement to do their job. despite what was a clear case for trial, george martin's statement -- george zimmerman's statement that he had shot in self-defense was enough to prevent prosecution. shoot-first laws make prosecutions harder because they presume that the use of deadly force is reasonable and put the burden of proof on a prosecutor. with shoot-first laws, individually need -- individuals need o

alec, the american legislative exchange council, wrote this law, and then they actually put it in over for profit. they represent gun manufacturers, so the more guns there are out there, the happier they are. and that same group also represented for-profit prisons. the more people that have guns great. the more people that go to prison and these guys fund all of the respects? florida. they are given several millions of dollars to the republicans in florida. >> you make me like most men so sad and happy at the same time. [ laughter ] >> but you are right. it does make -- are we ever going to make progress on any issue in this country? and the answer is know. looks a gabby giffords, shooting. i reacted the way i did because i can just imagine my mom coming home and saying your dad got shot in the face. >> yes. >> they turned into it a political thing. >> people are remarkably restrained. because if that happened to someone i love, i would say no, we have to do something about gun laws in this country. >> yeah. >> i would lose my minds over it. and democrats are running scared on the gun

and so what's going on is that alec, american legislative exchange council -- >> bill: funded by the add. >> koch brothers sponsored organization, went out and got state legislators to file boilerplate legislation to require that a valid photographic government-issued identification card be required in order to cast a vote. their whole argument is that this is designed to stop fraud. well, you know there's no voter fraud to speak of unless it is republicans in florida. but the thing is that this is the argument that they've been pushing. it is premised on an assumption in the public which is that hey most people have an i.d. well, that's an incorrect assumption in that i was told yesterday by a very reliable source that as many as 600,000 people in texas don't have a government-issued identification card. in the city of milwaukee, about 78% of african-american men between 18 and 24 do not have a government-issued i.d. that means -- so it is going to hit communities of color, low income communities students, a lot of students aren't allowed to use their student i.d. as valid voting i.

it just a couple of weeks ago we took on the american legislative exchange council.atterson you were in florida. during the trayvon martin issue will discover that the national rifle association had gotten florida to pass the stand your ground a lot and then spread it. just two weeks ago we filed a whistle-blower complaint with the irs to keep an eye on that. we just felt that, alec, trying to corporatize democracy. this issue where average, ordinary citizens are being harmed by the senate procedure, not committing full debate, full discussion. stopping debate, stopping discussion. it is also making the congress of united states much more partisan. much more divided. we have got to get back to the kind of idea we had when i served in congress. i got elected as the watergate baby class back in 1974. during the 12 years i served, nothing was put in place by one party or the other that, once elected, we served the public. host: a democrat elected in 1974. he also served in the church of christ for seven years. he has been on common cause for several years. there was a s

warehouses, it's dropping a membership in a conservative public policy organization, the american legislative exchange councilpump. john hofmeister, what do you attribute the recent gas prices in gas and oil to in. >> i think it's the lack of economic growth. when i was bullish a year ago and talked to $5 per gallon of gasoline, we got close to that but that was predicated on 3% growth in the u.s. and we're not seeing anything near 3% growth. >> do you think traders are looking around the globe at china and europe and everywhere else? >> yeah. i think it's a sagging growth issue. but something else has been going on nobody talks about. the saudis i think have been teaching the hardliner at opec a lesson. if you remember a year ago, the saudis wanted to increase production and the hardliners said no. well, the saudis went ahead anyway and increased production and they've been running about 2 million barrels a day over an average and that's built up a glut. >> oil supplies are at the highest level in years here in the united states. >> working off that glut will take a while. i don't think the prices can go muc

because the groups are also behind alec the american legislative exchange council.ere to shed light on these shadowy groups and how they are subverting democracy is a friend of "the war room." rashad robinson. he is the executive director of color of change. welcome to san francisco and inside "the war room." >> it's greet to be here. >> talk about what color of change is doing to shed light on some of these shadowy right-wing think tanks. >> we have had a lot of success with our campaign. and now with our partners at common cause, and the center for median democracy, there is a lot of work being done to shed line on these think tanks, and the role that alec plays in taking legislation crafted by these think tanks in partnership with alec and moving it in state houses around the country. they are all 501 c-3s and the contributions are tax deductible so those billionaires are getting tax write-offs to push legislation which is actually illegal because it should not be tax deductible -- >> right, they are lobbying. >> yeah, push legislation and then they don't have to