TPMMuckraker Rick Berman
Rick Berman
Complaint Spotlights 'Dr. Evil' Campaign Against Drunk-Driving Protections
Zachary Roth | May 13, 2010, 11:35AM
Rick Berman
Not too many people oppose efforts to keep drunk drivers off the road. But then, not too many people are known to enemies and friends alike as "Dr. Evil," and revel in their role as the poster boy for deceptive astroturf corporate lobbying.
We're talking, of course, about TPMmuckraker favorite Rick Berman, who has built a lucrative business by creating a string of industry-funded front groups that have fought efforts to fight smoking, drinking, and obesity without revealing their corporate clients.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (15) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Topics: Astroturf, DUI, Lobbyists, Rick Berman
Pay-Day Lenders
In The Loop: The Pay-Day Lenders' Ties To Powerful Beltway Influence-Peddlers
Zachary Roth | March 22, 2010, 10:32AM
Rick Berman, Mike Flynn and Dick Armey
We told you last week about the sophisticated Washington lobbying and PR operation that has helped the $42 billion-a-year pay-day lending industry water down provisions in the financial reform bill currently before Congress. But it looks like the industry's ties to a host of heavy-hitting, and sometimes controversial, Beltway players are even more extensive.
Those players, it appears, include a prominent and well-regarded DC consulting firm founded by top former Clinton administration staffers, a key editor at the Andrew-Breitbart-created website that hosted James O'Keefe's ACORN "exposes," Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, and a notorious corporate lobbyist known as "Dr. Evil." Taken together, the pay-day lenders' connections in the capital make clear that the industry has quietly -- and in a remarkably short time -- enmeshed itself into a network of Washington influence-peddlers skilled at putting a favorable sheen on a host of corporate causes.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (9) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Topics: ACORN, Andrew Breitbart, Financial Regulation, FreedomWorks, Glover Park Group, James O'Keefe, Lobbyists, Michael Flynn, Pay-Day Lenders, Rick Berman
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