Hit ‘em up style.

Software company Intuit, the makers of programs such as Turbo Tax and Quicken, announced today that they will join Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Kraft as the fourth company to end their partnership with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council this week.

The Center for Media & Democracy, which launched ALECexposed.com last year, broke the news:

A stampede seems to be on the way as more and more groups break ties and dump ALEC. Intuit, Inc. (maker of Quicken and QuickBooks accounting software) told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Intuit also decided not to renew its membership after it expired in 2011. That comment came from Bernie McKay, Vice President of Government Affairs. He gave this response when CMD identified that Intuit was no longer listed on the board and contacted the company. CMD began its effort to spotlight Intuit and other corporate funders and tie these corporations to the ALEC agenda when it launched ALECexposed.org in July 2011. … Intuit’s McKay explained to CMD that the company doesn’t “usually issue statements about membership in any organization” and declined to comment further.

Although Pepsi quietly left ALEC as recently as last January, the growing exodus of companies’ from ALEC’s began earlier this week when the progressive group Color of Change announced a petition and boycott campaign targeting ALEC’s corporate supporters. Other corporations thathave not yet publicly renounced their support of ALEC include Koch Industries, Wal-Mart, Pfizer, Reynolds American, Altria/Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Exxon Mobil and British alcohol firm Diageo (makers of Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker).

As a recent Center for American Progress report explains, ALEC is one of the leading proponents of so-called Voter ID legislation that potentially disenfranchises millions of low-income, minority, student and elderly voters in an effort to exclude groups that tend to vote Democratic from the franchise. ALEC is also linked to state “Stand Your Ground” laws that can potentially enable accused murders such as Trayvon Martin’s accused assailant George Zimmerman to remain free.

(via Intuit Is Now The Fourth Company To Drop Voter Suppression Group ALEC | ThinkProgress)

Another Breivik-Loughner link is the high-capacity gun clips they used. These were banned during the Clinton administration. Remind me again who’s soft on terror?

By Ben Armbruster on Jul 28, 2011 at 3:13 pm

Politico reports today that, according to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, Anders Breivik, the right-wing “fundamentalist” charged with the terror attacks in Norway last week, purchased high-capacity gun clips from the United States. Part of Breivik’s attack included a gun assault on a Labour Party youth camp just outside of Oslo:

Anders Behring Breivik wrote in a 1,500-page manifesto that he bought 10 30-round ammunition clips for his .223 caliber riflefrom an unnamed small U.S. supplier, which then in turn acquired the clips from other suppliers. Norway forbids the sale of clips for hunting rifles that hold more than three bullets, according to Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

Breivik wrote in his manifesto that while he could have purchased the high-capacity magazines in Sweden, they would have been significantly more expensive than ordering them from a U.S. supplier. He wrote that he spent $550 for the 10 clips. He also described legally buying four 30-round clips for a Glock handgun in Norway.

The legal sale of high-capacity magazines in the U.S. became an issue earlier this year after Jared Loughner’s shooting spree at an event in Arizona that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). Loughner used similar 30-round clips and was subdued only after he stopped to reload his weapon. Such high-capacity clips were illegal until 2004 when the assault weapons ban expired. Many have argued that lives would have been spared that day if it had been illegal to purchase high-capacity magazines.

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