Between The Lines - Rebekah Wilce: EXPOSED: The State Policy Network, The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics (Week Ending Jan. 3, 2014)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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The State Policy Network: Right-Wing Thinktank Promotes the Corporate Agenda in State Government

RealAudio MP3

Posted Dec. 25, 2013

Interview with Rebekah Wilce, reporter and researcher with the Center for Media and Democracy, conducted by Scott Harris

When researchers at the Center for Media and Democracy and investigative reporters scratched beneath the surface of legislative campaigns in many states pushing “Stand your Ground” gun laws, measures to make it more difficult for Democratic Party constituency groups to vote and other conservative initiatives, they found ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC brings together state legislators and corporations which launch coordinated efforts to rewrite state laws by producing model bills that are then proposed, debated and voted on in state capitals around the U.S. Since the murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida and widespread controversy focusing on ALEC-sponsored voter suppression legislation, ALEC has lost both corporate members and donors.

Now a new investigation launched by the Center for Media and Democracy has exposed ALEC’s under–the-radar partner in their state legislative campaigns. The State Policy Network, or SPN, founded in 1992, is funded by many of the same right-wing foundations, corporations and wealthy donors – including the billionaire Koch Brothers, who shower money on ALEC. While appearing to be a group of like-minded, but independent thinktanks, SPN produces reports, presents statistics and drafts talking points in support of right-wing legislation, cover of what appears to be a neutral, nonpartisan, nonprofit charitable organization.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Rebekah Wilce, a reporter and researcher with the Center for Media and Democracy, who talks about her recent report titled, "EXPOSED: The State Policy Network: The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government."

REBEKAH WILCE: What it is is a web of, at this point, 64 state affiliates in every single state of the country that are major drivers of the ALEC-backed corporate agenda in statehouses nationwide. They have deep ties to the Koch brothers in many cases, and the national right-wing network of funders at large. Some of them seem to be skirting tax laws while they actually orchestrate extensive lobbying and political operations to peddle their legislative agenda to state legislators. And all the while, they report little or no lobbying activities.

BETWEEN THE LINES: If you could sum up their agenda, what are their primary issues that they push? And what is it they do towards that end?

REBEKAH WILCE: Well, as you might expect because, as we've uncovered, they have quite a bit of corporate funding. They really push a corporate-backed agenda and that runs from undermining workers' rights by pushing so-called right to work laws in states and so-called paycheck protection to undermining environment protections and regulations, to trying to tear down public education and replace it with a for-profit model there as well as in really, every sector.

It works very closely with groups like Americans for Prosperity as well as ALEC. The things we might say about those groups we can say to a large extent about the SPN agenda.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Now, maybe you could give us some examples of some of the specific legislation or public policy initiatives that they've started up with.

REBEKAH WILCE: Well, as I've said, so-called right to work is one of the major policy points they've worked on in Michigan, where of course, they've passed right to work quite recently. The Mackinac Center is the SPN affiliate there in the state, and that group has been working more or less since its founding to turn Michigan into a right to work state. In fact, it won an award from SPN, the top award at its most recent annual meeting for getting that legislation passed in Michigan. And yet, Mackinac Center has not reported any lobbying to the IRS for the past several years, over the course of years where it has done extensive work towards getting that bill passed into law.

Also, for-profit online education, there have been a raft of these types of bills coming out of ALEC. Some of which are introduced by some SPN member groups, many of which are then taken back to the states by the ALEC legislators, but also pushed back in their home states by these SPN affiliates. So there's several of them. What happens is that these for-profit online education companies like K12 Inc., which is the biggest one, and Connections Academy, get a major boost, because all of a sudden these laws are passed and they're allowed into more and more states across the country, which is the major benefit for their bottom line. K12 Inc. is one of the national web's, group of SPN's funders. (See editor's note below about K12.)

BETWEEN THE LINES: Tell us about specifically, who we know funds the work of the State Policy Network.

REBEKAH WILCE: Yes, that was one of the major discoveries we made in this report. You know, in the past we've been able to uncover a little about the foundation donors to the State Policy Network as a whole. As you know, all of these groups are registered as 501(c)(3) nonprofit and so they don't have to disclose their donors. But we were able to discover a list of donors to, again, the national group, State Policy Network, for 2010, and some of the groups on that list are what you'd would expect, the right-wing "ATM" DonorsTrust was on there giving it between $250,000 and $600,000. But also, BMO Harris Bank, GlaxoSmithKline, AT&T, Microsoft, Verizon, Kraft Foods; the tobacco companies, Philip Morris, Altria, and Reynolds American. And then more recently, in 2013, some companies and nonprofits that sponsored the recent SPN annual meeting included some newer companies to SPN's funding list, like Facebook and the e-cigarette company NJOY. Comcast, did as well.

Americans for Tax Reform is an affiliated group and there's a whole list of affiliated nonprofits that also funded and sponsored SPN's latest meeting.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Rebekah, maybe talk a little bit more about the relationship between the State Policy Network and ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council which is infamous as a result of previous work and research done by the Center for Media and Democracy for promoting anti-labor legislation, voter suppression legislation, Stand Your Ground gun laws and a whole slew of other things that I think most Americans find themselves opposed to.

REBEKAH WILCE: One of the ways that was sort of the most obvious was that all of these SPN affiliates take this ALEC legislation and they push it in their home states. We did a review of their websites and we found that all of them do that. But in addition, and more strikingly, we found that at least 35 of SPN's current affiliates have more direct ties to ALEC. They sit on the task forces, they introduce, or in the past have introduced "model legislation" and they really have direct ties via those forces to legislators.

Find a link to the report titled, "EXPOSED: The State Policy Network: The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government," on the Center for Media and Democracy website at prwatch.org.

Editor's note: K12 is a publicly traded NYSE company founded by billionaire Michael Milken, convicted for racketeering and securities fraud –"junk bonds" – in 1989.