This story blew my mind. How was it that we went so long without learning about this? And, rhetorically: why did it take NPR to do it, and not one of our corporate-sponsored media outlets? It’s no wonder Jim Demint wants to defund them.

I encourage you to read/listen to this story. But here’s the jist:

Step 1: Private prison corporations propose a prison for women and children who are in the country illegally. They are 100% confident they can fill the prison, and laud “the amount of money that [they] would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate.”

Step 2: ALEC, a secret pay-to-play legislative group that lets corporate executives who pay enough money help draft legislation, drafts what will become Arizona SB 1070. Executives from the Corrections Corporation of America, representing the private prison industry, have a heavy hand in drafting the law, and even give it its Owellian name: the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.”

Step 3: The law is introduced in the state senate, with an unusually high number of sponsors (36). Most of them are involved in ALEC, and those who are receive campaign contributions from the Corrections Corporation of America.

Step 4: Profit. Oh yeah, and racism, classism and unprecedented freedom-crushing.

This is absolutely crushing my spirit this morning. Families will be torn apart, people will be imprisoned for what amounts to petty crime, and people who have brown skin or less than a substantial amount of capital at their disposal will fall victim to what is essentially a business model. That business model just happens to include the (completely legal and largely ignored) manipulation of our legal system. To borrow a bumper sticker phrase I usually cringe at: if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

More ALEC stuff to come.