William “Drew” Dodds, the salesperson for Strong Watch, a Tucson-based company, is at the top of his game when he describes developments on the southern border of the United States in football terms. In his telling, that boundary is the line of scrimmage, and the technology his company is trying to sell -- a mobile surveillance system named Freedom-On-The-Move, a camera set atop a retractable mast outfitted in the bed of a truck and maneuvered with an Xbox controller -- acts like a “roving linebacker.”

As Dodds describes it, unauthorized migrants and drug traffickers often cross the line of scrimmage undetected. At best, they are seldom caught until the “last mile,” far from the boundary line.  His surveillance system, he claims, will cover a lot more of that ground in very little time and from multiple angles.  It will become the border-enforcement equivalent of New York Giants’ line backing great, Lawrence Taylor.

To listen to Dodds, an ex-Marine -- Afghanistan and Iraq, 2001-2004 -- with the hulking physique of a linebacker himself, is to experience a new worldview being constructed on the run.  Even a decade or so ago, it might have seemed like a mad dream from the American fringe.  These days, his all-the-world’s-a-football-field vision seemed perfectly mainstream inside the brightly-lit convention hall in Phoenix, Arizona, where the seventh annual Border Security Expo took place this March. Dodds was just one of hundreds of salespeople peddling their border-enforcement products and national security wares, and Strong Watch but one of more than 100 companies scrambling for a profitable edge in an exploding market.

Vivid as he is, Dodds is speaking a new corporate language embedded in an ever-more powerful universe in ...

This post has been updated to clarify Virginia’s use of its settlement funds.

States have diverted $974 million from this year’s landmark mortgage settlement to pay down budget deficits or fund programs unrelated to the foreclosure crisis, according to a ProPublica analysis. That’s nearly forty percent of the $2.5 billion in penalties paid to the states under the agreement.

The settlement, between five of the country’s biggest banks and an alliance of almost all states and the federal government, resolved allegations that the banks deceived homeowners and broke laws when pursuing foreclosure. One part of the settlement is the cash coming to states; the deal urged states to use that money on programs related to the crisis, but it didn’t require them to.

ProPublica contacted every state that participated in the agreement (and the District of Columbia) to obtain the most comprehensive breakdown yet of how they’ll be spending the funds. You can see the detailed state-by-state results here, along with an interactive map. Many states told us they’ll be finalizing their plans in the coming weeks. We’ll be updating our breakdown as the results come in.

What stands out is that even states slammed by the foreclosure crisis are diverting much or all of their money to the general fund. In California, among the hardest hit states, the governor has proposed using all the money to plug his state’s huge budget gap. And Arizona, also among the worst hit, has diverted about half of its funds to general use. Four other states where a high rate of homeowners faced foreclosure during the crisis are spending little if any of their settlement funds on homeowner services: Georgia, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Maine.

Overall, only about $527 million has been earmarked for new homeowner-focused ...

Earlier this year, Texas U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz touted a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that George Soros secretly partnered with the United Nations to eliminate the game of golf. Seriously, we aren’t making this up.

Unfortunately, this fantasy isn’t limited to just one unusually radical candidate for elected office. Rather, the Arizona House is expected to vote today on a bill motivated entirely by the same imaginary conspiracy, and the same bill already passed the state senate:

Arizona lawmakers appear close to sending to Gov. Jan Brewer a tea party-backed bill that proponents say would stop a United Nations takeover conspiracy but that critics claim could end state and cities’ pollution-fighting efforts and even dismantle the state unemployment office.

A final legislative vote is expected Monday on a bill that would outlaw government support of any of the 27 principles contained in the 1992 United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, also sometimes referred to as Agenda 21.

Senate Bill 1507 was passed by the state Senate last month and received an initial House affirmation Wednesday. It is sponsored by state Sen. ...

No one likes a smart aleck — or a stupid one, for that matter.

A really stupid one is called ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which masquerades as an "educational" group that simply assists state officials with policy research. In fact, it's a corporate-financed, far-right front group that writes and aggressively pushes anti-worker, anti-consumer, anti-environmental, anti-immigrant, and other extremist "anti-people" legislative proposals.

ALEC's operatives take these cookie-cutter bills from state capitol to state capitol, getting Republican governors and key legislators to introduce them. Then the organization helps organize astroturf campaigns to ram such ugliness into law.

Gov. Scott Walker's repressive agenda in Wisconsin is an ALEC product. So is Arizona's war on Latinos, as is Florida's murderous "stand your ground" shoot-em-up law. However, all this success led ALEC to get stupid. Its leaders got to thinking they were bulletproof, that they could shove this stuff down people's throats all across the country — and the people would just accept it.

That was wrong. In fact, it was stupidly arrogant. Not only have people rebelled, they've also organized and mobilized. Groups like the Center for Media and Democracy, Color of Change, Common Cause, Occupy Wall Street, and People For the American Way have rallied grassroots people to hit ALEC where it really hurts: its pocketbook. Suddenly key corporate sponsors of this extremist organization were hearing from outraged citizens (and customers) — and now company after company is withdrawing its sponsorship.

Among those recently declaring that ALEC just "doesn't fit our business needs" are Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Mars, McDonalds, PepsiCo, and Wendy's.

Yesterday, we reported on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, and the debate it has inspired about the privacy of your Internet data and security. The underlying bill allows Internet providers, software companies and other private firms to share information about “cyber security” with the federal government — and protects them from legal liability.

The bill’s sponsors touted a handful of amendments they said addressed privacy and civil liberties concerns, but privacy activists say the amendments still don’t go far enough. The House had been set to vote on the bill today but instead passed it last night, 248-168, with some changes:

How “cyber threat” information can be used: Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., proposed an that limits the use of shared cyber threat information to five purposes: protecting cyber security, investigating cyber security crimes, protecting people from death or injury, protecting minors from harm, and protecting U.S. national security.

What kind of information can be shared: An amendment by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., specifies the kind of information that can be shared, saying it must be “directly pertaining to” a threat, vulnerability, attack or unauthorized access. It also makes clear that violating a website’s terms of service — that’s the form on which you check “agree” when registering at a site like Facebook or Gmail — ...

“If you don’t like it here, move!” This phrase has been used by pundits, politicians, and overzealous religious leaders in the United States for as long as I can remember. It used to be reserved for people who “hate America” but lately it’s taking an ominous turn that prods disenfranchised citizens to become refugees from their own home states. I’ve been seeing it more and more in online comments as the nationwide battle over women’s reproductive rights, gay marriage, race equality, and religious freedom blazes its way through the primary season and into the general election. The popular sentiment appears to be turning toward an America made up of a disjointed patchwork of equality laws. An America where if you don’t “fit in” it’s your own fault. An America where “States’ Rights” reign supreme.

Ron Paul has built much of his grassroots mystique around this notion and it sounds good to people on both sides of the political spectrum that feel their local values shouldn’t be dictated by someone in Washington. It sounds great to everyone but those outside of the local majority. If your faith, color, or sexuality doesn’t match up with regional ideals, that simple notion of “States’ Rights” is a life sentence of oppression, poverty, and abuse. States’ rights is more than a combination of words, it’s a tool used by racists and zealots to, like petulant children, throw fits against the will of the American majority in favor of local traditions.

Perhaps the most famous stand off in States’ Rights was the fallout from Brown vs. The Board of Education. In May of 1957 the Supreme Court declared racially segregated schools to be unconstitutional. In September of that same year nine black students attempted to enter their new High School for the first time. They were met by the Arkansas National ...

What are the three demographic groups whose electoral impact is growing fastest? Hispanics, women, and young people. Who are Republicans pissing off the most? Latinos, women, and young people.

It’s almost as if the GOP can’t help itself.

Start with Hispanic voters, whose electoral heft keeps growing as they comprise an ever-larger portion of the electorate. Hispanics now favor President Obama over Romney by more than two to one, according to a recent Pew poll.

The movement of Hispanics into the Democratic camp has been going on for decades. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Replicating California Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s disastrous support almost twenty years ago for Proposition 187 – which would have screened out undocumented immigrants from public schools, health care, and other social services, and required law-enforcement officials to report any “suspected” illegals. (Wilson, you may remember, lost that year’s election, and California’s Republican Party has never recovered.)

The Arizona law now before the Supreme Court – sponsored by Republicans in the state and copied by Republican legislators and governors in several others – would authorize police to stop anyone looking Hispanic and demand proof of citizenship. It’s nativism disguised as law enforcement.

Romney is trying to distance himself from that law, but it’s not working. That may be because he dubbed it a “model law” during February’s Republican primary debate in Arizona, and because its author (former state senator Russell Pearce, who was ousted in a special election last November largely by angry Hispanic voters) says he’s working closely with Romney advisers.

Hispanics are also reacting to ...

We get an update from Colorlines.com reporter Seth Freed Wessler about hearings Wednesday before the U.S. Supreme Court on Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant law known as S.B. 1070. The case could have implications for a half-dozen other states that passed similar measures which are now on hold pending its outcome. “The question on the table in the Court yesterday was what the states are allowed to do, but the question that lots of people have on the ground is, what’s Obama going to do?” says Wessler. “The administration has deported more people than ever before — 400,000 people.” Based on their line of questioning, justices across the ideological spectrum appeared reluctant to strike down the provision. Should the court uphold any part of the law, civil rights groups plan to challenge it on grounds that it discriminates on the basis of race and ethnic background. “The bottom line: They don’t really understand the extent to which this law goes deeper and really impacts the lives of people who are living here, not just those who are undocumented, but those who have been here for three or four generations who are of Latino background who are being stopped and harassed and detained,” says activist Randy Parraz of Citizens for a Better Arizona.

As of today, ten major corporations and organizations have publicly quit the American Legislative Exchange Council, the low-profile corporate front group better known as ALEC. ALEC is responsible for pushing harmful laws like Stand Your Ground and disenfranchising voter ID requirements in states across the country. And it’s funded almost entirely by corporations. But public pressure has compelled some of these corporations to stand by their shareholders, employees, and customers, and quit the group. Here’s how they did it:

Coca Cola, April:

“The Coca-Cola Company has elected to discontinue its membership with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Our involvement with ALEC was focused on efforts to oppose discriminatory food and beverage taxes, not on issues that have no direct bearing on our business. We have a long-standing policy of only taking positions on issues that impact our Company and industry.”

PepsiCo, April 5:

(From a Jan. 25, 2012 email to Color of Change; made public April 5)

As we discussed, PepsiCo has been a member of the bipartisan group of state legislators ALEC, for the last decade, where we largely focused on issues raised by discriminatory taxes. We were not involved in the discussion on voter registration, nor do we serve on the Task Force, which reviewed the proposals. In addition, PepsiCo pays the minimal, standard membership fee to ALEC and thus does not have influence over issues in which we do not actively engage. … Please note, at this point in time, PepsiCo is not a member of ALEC, as of 2012, as our membership expires each year.

Kraft, April 5:

“We belong to many external groups, including ALEC, a nonprofit, ...

Yesterday, the candy company Mars, Inc. and the Arizona Public Service Company (Arizona’s largest electric utility) became the latest in a group of high-profile companies to part ways with the American Legislative Exchange Council. They join Kraft, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Intuit, and the Gates Foundation.

ALEC, as the group is better known, describes itself as “a constructive forum for state legislators and private sector leaders to discuss and exchange practical, state-level public policy issues.”  READ FULL POST 18 COMMENTS