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ALEC called in the conservative bloggers first, now launches website to defend their reputation.

The American Legislative Exchange Council launched a new website to defend themselves against progressives who are spreading the truth about the organization’s extreme agenda online and in social media. The website I Stand With ALEC is loaded with misinformation and propaganda and is already the subject of numerous parodies on websites such as Twitter and Pinterest. A spoof website suggests standing with Alec Baldwin instead of ALEC.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate front group responsible for pushing voter ID and Stand Your Ground laws in states across the country, is on the run. Nearly two dozen major corporations (including Johnson & Johnson, yesterday) have been persuaded to cut ties with ALEC.

ALEC is fighting back — and the group recently launched a website to encourage not just people, but powerful corporations and lawmakers, to stand with them.

IStandWithALEC.com is apparently a project of Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). The site also lists the Braynard Group as having “designed and develop” the website. This consulting firm is based in Arlington, Virginia; its online portfolio lists other astroturf projects it has worked on. In the past, it’s worked for corporate fronts like the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and a “Stop eTaxes” website dedicated to protecting the Amazon tax loophole. Curiously, it has also worked for the Immigration Policy Center, which advocates for more lenient immigration policies, certainly not in line with the conservative ideology ALEC espouses.

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IStandWithALEC.com will let you sign a letter to its corporate members (interestingly, the group still won’t reveal precisely which corporations are members — instead addressing the letter to “[Decision Maker]” and “ALEC Private Enterprise Members”), sign a letter to state legislators (again not telling you who they might be), and spreading the word with social media.

ALEC’s Director of External Relations Caitlyn Korb already admitted that her organization wasn’t quite as hip to social media as its critics (including us) and this new, much-delayed campaign shows that. The #IStandWithALEC hashtag has been used in only nine tweets in the week since the campaign appeared to have launched.

The official ‘I Stand With ALEC’ is front-loaded with the type of nonsensical rhetoric that economic conservatives frequently espouse, including allusions to Thomas Jefferson, calling Van Jones a communist, and claims that the left opposes free enterprise, individual liberty and limited government. Most humorously, the organization is said to be a pro-jobs entity, despite the fact that many of its model policies are anti-worker, job-killing proposals that fly directly in the face of decades of evidence on how to improve the economy.

Tags: ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Jobs, Labor