Steve Horn at DeSmogBlog and Curtis Waltman at MuckRock write—Emails Show Iraq War PR Alums Led Attempt to Discredit Dakota Access Protesters:
Behind the scenes, as law enforcement officials tried to stem protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, alumni from the George W. Bush White House were leading a crisis communications effort to discredit pipeline protesters.
Emails show that the firms Delve and Off the Record Strategies, apparently working on contract with the National Sheriffs’ Association, worked in secret on talking points, media outreach, and communications training for law enforcement dealing with Dakota Access opponents mobilized at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. This revelation comes from documents obtained via an open records request from the Laramie County Sheriff's Department in Wyoming.
As previously reported by DeSmog, the GOP-connected firm DCI Group led the forward-facing public relations efforts for Dakota Access via a front group called Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN). Today MAIN has morphed into a national effort known as Grow America’s Infrastructure Now (GAIN).
Delve is an opposition research firm run by Jeff Berkowitz, former Republican National Committee research director and official in the George W. Bush White House. His company led research efforts on behalf of the National Sheriffs' Association.
Off the Record Strategies, meanwhile, guided the sheriffs’ behind-the-scenes communications strategy. Mark Pfeifle runs the secretive firm, Off the Record Strategies, and served as communications advisor in the George W. Bush administration, leading PR efforts for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The National Sheriffs’ Association, a trade group for sheriffs, has been lobbying the federal government for additional surplus military gear from the Department of Defense under the auspices of its 1033 program. The association was also the central organizing vehicle which brought hundreds of out-of-state cops to Standing Rock via the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC).
Law enforcement present at Standing Rock under EMAC came under fire for a heavy-handed and overtly military-like response to pipeline protesters. [...]
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Shelby says Cordray nomination to CFPB ‘dead on arrival’:
No surprise to anyone since he's said it before, but Richard Shelby asserts that the nomination of Richard Cordray to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Board is "dead on arrival." Unless, that is, President Obama gives in to Republican demands to restructure the bureau into a watchdog with neither bark nor bite.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published today (available to subscribers only), amid blaming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the housing crisis, the Alabama senator (who is the ranking member on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee) rejected accusations that proposals Republicans have made to change the bureau are an effort to eviscerate it.
That's not how consumer groups see it for the obvious reason that the GOP has been trying to gut the CFPB since failing to strangle it in its crib after failing to ensure it was stillborn. What could be more rancid than Shelby posturing as an advocate for consumer rights against a "concentration of power [that will be] abused or misused to the detriment of American businesses and consumers"?
This is the guy, you may recall, who just four months ago labeled as a "regulatory shakedown" the settlement proposal sought by state attorneys general to get mortgage lenders to provide modest restitution for their larcenous abuses of American borrowers and credit card holders. There is a concentration of abusive power he's concerned about all right. The one that has him firmly wedged in its back pocket and another part of its back side.
On today's Kagro in the Morning show: Alert! We’re approaching the Weekend Crazy Zone and already coming in dangerously hot! How do reporters keep from laughing in Trump’s face? Trump floats firing Mueller and pardoning himself. How do we deal with that? “Adoption” is code for “sanctions.”
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