mostlysignssomeportents:

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a big-business
think-tank that authors “model legislation” at the local, state and
national level that benefits corporations at the expense of everyday
people; their greatest hits make for scary reading – you can thank ALEC
for ag-gag laws, stand-your-ground laws, private prisons, bans on
municipal ISPs, killing Obamacare and jailing pipeline protesters.

ALEC’s Republican legislator friends often introduce bills that are
word-for-word identical to the “discussion drafts” they circulate,
making ALEC the nation’s most prolific and unapologetic legislative
ghost writer.

Alibaba is ALEC’s latest member. The Chinese tech giant is an integral part of China’s surveillance apparatus and a de-facto arm of the Chinese government.
It’s the latest Chinese giant to join US corporate lobbying efforts, a
list that includes Wanhua Chemical joining the American Chemistry
Council to help fund its legendary pro-pollution super-PACs.

https://boingboing.net/2018/03/20/true-conservatives.html

mostlysignssomeportents:

Etowah, Alabama County Sheriff Todd Entrekin took advantage of a
Great-Depression-era rule that lets the sheriff pocket any “excess” from
the budget for prisoner meals (provided he makes up any shortfall from
his own finances) and used $750,000 that had been allocated to feed
prisoners to build himself a luxury beach house. When his gardener
tipped off a Birmingham News reporter, the gardener was locked up in the
Sheriff’s jail on mysterious drug charges.

Sheriff Etrekin insists he obeyed the letter of the law, and that he is
being attacked by “the liberal media.” He says that he had nothing to do
with locking up Matt Qualls, his whistleblowing landscaper.

Prisoners who served time in the Sheriff’s jail report being systematically underfed.

https://boingboing.net/2018/03/20/working-as-intended.html