TPMMuckraker Public Relations
Massey Energy
Report: Top Bush Flack's PR Firm Doing Damage Control For Massey
Zachary Roth | April 26, 2010, 11:21AM
Dan Bartlett, former counselor to President George W. Bush, and Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship
To fight off damaging publicity in the wake of the explosion earlier this month that killed 29 West Virginia miners, Massey Energy has turned to a firm run by a top communications specialist from the Bush White House.
Austin-based Public Strategies has been advising Massey's board on how to respond to questions about the disaster and the board's oversight of the company, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter. Dan Bartlett, who ran President Bush's PR operation, is Public Strategies' president and CEO. Republican consultant Mark McKinnon, who played a leading role in Bush's presidential campaigns, is another principal.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: Bobby Ray Inman, Coal Mining, Dan Bartlett, Don Blankenship, George Bush, Mark McKinnon, Massey Energy, Public Relations, Public Strategies
Pay-Day Lenders
With Heavy Washington Presence, Pay-Day Lenders Sway Lawmakers, Attack Critics
Zachary Roth | March 17, 2010, 12:39PM
The weakening of the Senate proposal on financial reform unveiled this week, after lobbying from the pay-day lending industry, should come as little surprise. In recent years, the industry has built a sophisticated Washington lobbying and public relations operation, which it has used to promote its interests, savage its critics, and shape the public debate.
The $42-billion-a-year pay-day lending industry offers short-term loans often designed to tide customers over until their next pay-check. But the loans, which can carry interest rates of as much as 400 percent on an annualized basis, lead many working-class borrowers to end up digging themselves deeper into debt. As a result, the pay-day lenders have become a prime target of consumer advocates and their allies on Congress, who accuse the industry of preying on struggling Americans, and have in recent years sought ways to rein it in.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (35) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: Financial Crisis, Financial Regulation, Lobbyists, Pay-Day Lenders, Public Relations, W. Allan Jones, Wright Andrews
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