Guardian editor tweets to ask RW UK Member of European Parliament if he's an ALEC member, & WHY

[highplainsdem]

LOL!

http://twitter.com/#!/TerryMac999/status/123045067513532416

@TerryMac999 Terry Macalister
@RogerHelmerMEP Roger. Are you a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council. Why? Best, Terry Macalister (The Guardian)
9 Oct

Macalister is the Guardian's Energy editor.

Helmer is a right-wing nut -- see this Wikipedia article for examples of his beliefs and statements, especially on the environment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Helmer

He's also a former ALEC "International Legislator of the Year" -- according to this page on the ALEC website:

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Catherine_Bray

That page is about Catherine Bray, who used to work for Helmer. She's director of ALEC's Atlantic Bridge Project, which is tied into a scandal involving the British Minister of Defence. See this DU topic for more details:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2078739

It's amusing to see Macalister going after Helmer's association with ALEC on Twitter.

There was no reply from Helmer, of course.

For more on this corporate-front group, which is now causing so much trouble on both sides of the Atlantic, see the long compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

[highplainsdem]

1. kick

[pampango]

2. No surprise: ALEC member, climate change denier and anti-EU.

From the wiki link above:

Having initially advocated the Conservative policy of renegotiating the EU treaties, since 2006 he has been a supporter of the Better Off Out campaign, calling for the UK to leave the EU.

He was appointed Adam Smith Scholar in 2005 by a right wing pressure group in the USA called the American Legislative Exchange Council.

In April 2004, Helmer was named by Friends of the Earth as one of the worst voting MEPs on environmental issues, voting in what they claimed was an environmentally friendly manner in only one out of ten possible "eco-friendly" votes.

Within his local region, Helmer was attacked by academics from the University of Derby and the University of Northampton for being “out of step with the overwhelming scientific evidence on the subject of human induced climate change”

None too surprising that right wing, ALEC-members in Europe would be climate change deniers and anti-EU.