Revealed: Full List Of ALEC’s Corporate Members

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been under fire lately after the 15 major corporations and organizations pulled their support for the conservative organization, which helps quietly implement corporate-backed legislation in statehouses across the country.

Now, the watchdog advocacy group group Common Cause has released a complete list of corporations on ALEC’s task forces.

Not surprisingly, four of the five major oil companies are members, as are many other energy companies. Some houshold names on the list include Johnson & Johson, State Farm insurance, and AT&T. There are lots of major online businesses, including AOL (the parent company of the Huffington Post), eBay, Amazon.com, Yahoo, and Time Warner.

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The 2008 Niger Delta Oil Spill Was 60-200 Times Worse Than Shell Reported

A major oil spill in the Niger Delta was far worse than Shell previously admitted, according to an independent assessment obtained by Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), which exposes how the oil giant dramatically under-estimated the quantities involved.

The spill in 2008, caused by a fault in a Shell pipeline, resulted in tens of thousands of barrels of oil polluting the land and creek surrounding Bodo, a Niger Delta town of some 69,000 people.

The previously unpublished assessment, carried out by US firm Accufacts, found that between 1,440 and 4,320 barrels of oil were flooding the Bodo area each day following the leak. The Nigerian regulators have confirmed that the spill lasted for 72 days.

Shell’s official investigation report claims only 1,640 barrels of oil were spilt in total. But based on the independent assessment the total amount of oil spilt over the 72 day period is between 103,000 barrels and 311,000 barrels.

Audrey Gaughran, Director of Global Issues at Amnesty International, said:

“The difference is staggering: even using the lower end of the Accufacts estimate, the volume of oil spilt at Bodo was more than 60 times the volume Shell has repeatedly claimed leaked.

“Even if we use the start date given by Shell, the volume of oil spilt is far greater than Shell recorded.”

Shell’s oil spill investigation report also claims that the spill started on 5 October 2008 – while the community and Nigerian regulators have confirmed a start date of 28 August 2008.

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35 Facts That Prove Higher Education Has Become A Corporate Scam

The Student Loan Debt Bubble

1. After adjusting for inflation, U.S. college students are borrowing about twice as much money as they did a decade ago.

2.  According to the College Board, college tuition is absolutely soaring.  The following comes from a recent CBS News article….

Average tuition and fees at public colleges rose 8.3 percent this year and, with room and board, now exceed $17,000 a year, according to the College Board.

3. Average yearly tuition at private universities in the United States is now up to $27,293. That figure has increased by 29% in just the past five years.

4. In America today, approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loan debt.

5. In 2010, the average college graduate had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day.

6. According to the Student Loan Debt Clock, total student loan debt in the United States will surpass the 1 trillion dollar mark in early 2012.

7. The total amount of student loan debt in the United States now exceeds the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.

8. Over the past 25 years, the cost of college tuition has increased at an average rate that is approximately 6% higher than the general rate of inflation.

9. Back in 1952, a full year of tuition at Harvard was only $600. Today, it is $35,568.

10. The cost of college textbooks has tripled over the past decade.

11. One survey found that 23 percent of all college students actually use credit cards to pay for tuition or fees.

12. According to recent Pew Research Center polling, 75% of all Americans believe that college is too expensive for most Americans to afford.

13. College has become so expensive that it is causing many college students to do desperate things in order to pay for it.  For example, an increasing number of young college women are actively advertising on the Internet for “sugar daddies” who will help them pay their college bills.

14. The student loan default rate has nearly doubled since 2005.

15. Approximately 14 percent of all students that graduate with student loan debt end up defaulting within 3 years of making their first student loan payment.

The Quality Of College Education In America Stinks

16. The typical U.S. college student spends less than 30 hours a week on academics.

17. According to very extensive research detailed in a new book entitled “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses”, 45 percent of all U.S. college students exhibit “no significant gains in learning” after two years in college.

18. Today, college students spend approximately 50% less time studying than U.S. college students did just a few decades ago.

19. 35% of U.S. college students spend 5 hours or less studying per week.

20. 50% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to write more than 20 pages.

21. 32% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to read more than 40 pages in a week.

22. U.S. college students spend 24% of their time sleeping, 51% of their time socializing and 7% of their time studying.

23. Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor’s degree within four years.

Not Enough Jobs For College Graduates

24. Only 55.3% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 were employed last year.  That was the lowest level that we have seen since World War II.

25. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the “official” unemployment rate for college graduates younger than 25 years old was 9.3 percent in 2010.

26. One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don’t even require college degrees.

27. In the United States today, there are more than 100,000 janitors that have college degrees.

28. In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.

29. In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.

30. In the United States today, 24.5 percent of all retail salespeople have a college degree.

31. The percentage of mail carriers with a college degree is now 4 times higher than it was back in 1970.

32. Right now, there are 5.9 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 that are living with their parents.

33. According to one recent survey, only 14 percent of all Americans that are 28 or 29 years old are optimistic about their financial futures.

34. Record numbers of Americans are going to college, but incomes for young American adults just keep falling.  Since the year 2000, incomes for U.S. households led by someone between the ages of 25 and 34 have fallen by about 12 percent after you adjust for inflation.

35. Once they get out into the “real world”, 70% of all college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the “real world” while they were still in school.

So is going to college always a bad idea? Of course not.

But it is a huge gamble.

Source

In the early 1980s ninety percent of American media was owned by 50 companies. Today, in 2011, that same ninety percent of broadcast influence is owned by just six companies.

In other words, 232 media executives more or less control “the information diet of 277 million Americans,” according to the graphic.

Source: Frugal dad

90% of our media is owned by the financial elite (1%). The MSM (mainstream media) is their biggest and strongest tool against the 99%.

“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” 
― Malcolm X

Verizon Wireless has reversed its decision to charge a $2 fee for one-time telephone and online bill payments after a storm of criticism from consumers and the U.S. communications regulator.

The biggest U.S. wireless operator retracted its decision on Friday, just a day after it announced the fee, which was to have begun January 15.

Verizon said it was making the decision based on customer input. This was after consumers spoke out about the fee, with some threatening to leave the service as a result. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it was “concerned’ about the fee and vowed to look into it.

“On behalf of American consumers, we’re concerned about Verizon’s actions and are looking into the matter,” an official for the FCC said earlier on Friday.

Source

A leaked memo revealed Verizon’s plan to charged customers a $2 ‘convenience fee’ to pay their bill using a credit or debit card payment on the phone or online.

“The fee will help allow us to continue to support these single bill payment options in these channels,” Verizon said.

The fee goes into effect January 15th and the only way to sidestep it is to sign up for AutoPay or to pay by electronic check, where there’s no credit card fee passed on to the carrier.

Sign the petition to stop Verizon from charging it’s customers a fee to pay their bills.

Source

Save this photo and black fax Sony for supporting SOPA.

Fax number: (888) 476-6972

In the early 1980s ninety percent of American media was owned by 50 companies. Today, in 2011, that same ninety percent of broadcast influence is owned by just six companies.

In other words, 232 media executives more or less control “the information diet of 277 million Americans,” according to the graphic.

Source: Frugal dad

Project Chanology: We Still Run This

The Church of Scientology claims to be a religion and enjoys a questionable charitable tax exemption in the United States. However, former Scientologists and anti-Scientology activists have exposed many serious misdeeds by this organization and its leadership:

• Free speech violations
• Human rights violations including suspicious deaths, torture, coerced abortions, the deliberate separation of families, and human trafficking
• Illegal actions such as harassment, slander, libel, extortion, and vexatious lawsuits–condoned and encouraged when directed toward those who challenge or defy Scientology practices
• Fraudulent activities including questionable tax exemptions and charitable status in various countries including the U.S., unsafe drug rehabilitation practices, irregular business practices, and bogus educational and charitable organizations designed to infiltrate schools and recruit young people

The controversies involving the Church and its critics, some of them ongoing, include:

• Scientology’s disconnection policy, in which members are encouraged to cut off all contact with friends or family members who are “antagonistic” to Scientology.^[216]
• The death of a Scientologist Lisa McPherson while in the care of the Church. (Robert Minton sponsored the multi-million dollar law suit against Scientology for the death of McPherson. In May 2004, McPherson’s estate and the Church of Scientology reached a confidential settlement.)^[217]
• Criminal activities committed on behalf of the Church or directed by Church officials (Operation Snow White, Operation Freakout).
• Conflicting statements about L. Ron Hubbard’s life, in particular accounts of Hubbard discussing his intent to start a religion for profit and of his service in the military.^[20]
• Scientology’s harassment and litigious actions against its critics encouraged by its Fair Game policy.^[20]
• Attempts to legally force search engines such as Google and Yahoo! to omit any webpages critical of Scientology from their search engines (and in Google’s case, AdSense), or at least the first few search pages.^[218]
• Allegations by former high-ranking Scientologists that David Miscavige beats and demoralizes staff and that physical violence by superiors towards staff working for them is a common occurrence in the church.^[219][220] Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis denied these claims and provided witnesses to rebut them.^[219]
• In October 2009, a French court found the Church of Scientology guilty of organized fraud. Four officers of the organization were fined and given suspended prison sentences of up to 2 years. The Church of Scientology said it would appeal the judgement. Prosecutors had hoped to achieve a ban of Scientology in France, but due to a temporary change in French law, which “made it impossible to dissolve a legal entity on the grounds of fraud”, no ban was pronounced.^[221]
• In November 2009, Australian Senator Nick Xenophon used a speech in Federal Parliament to allege that the Church of Scientology is a criminal organization. Based on letters from former followers of the religion, he said that there were “allegations of forced imprisonment, coerced abortions, and embezzlement of church funds, of physical violence and intimidation, blackmail and the widespread and deliberate abuse of information obtained by the organization …”^[222]