Fediverse vs Disinformation

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59697448

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59677728

The State Policy Network (SPN) is a network of conservative and "libertarian" think tanks hiding behind claims of transparency and small government while all promoting the same White House policies across all 50 states.

I won't link it here, but they are very easy to find. To find out who is pushing these policies in your state, you can go to their homepage and scroll down to their convenient drop down list to search for members by each state.

If you want to avoid going to their website, there's a good chance you can just find one near you by typing the name of your state + "policy institute" in a search engine.

These people are really not the most creative and the names and logos used by these network affiliates are nearly identical across several states.

As of March 2025, most are pushing the same copy paste messages, praising Musk and DOGE for doing such a great job cutting through ::insert:: "red tape" "bureaucracy" and/or "government bloat."

While SPN has tried to downplay their connection to the Heritage Foundation in recent years, an archived copy of their 2015 history page provides a much more transparent and direct account.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150626172710/http://www.spn.org/about/

SPN's founder, South Carolina businessman Thomas Roe, was an early funder of the Heritage Foundation and served on the board of trustees for two decades.

Here is a 2011 article discussing Roe, SPN's "freedom centers" across all 50 states, and the Union busting tactics they were pushing at a state level even back then.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/state-policy-network-union-bargaining/

Although for some reason SPN's website does not mention this information in the dedicated section to their late founder, you can read more about the insane number of controversies tied to Roe and his shadowy money here: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roe_Foundation