U.S. Government

Crisis Management Rule #1: Change the Subject

"A Texas grand jury's decision to indict former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) may have caught many people in Washington off-guard, but those in DeLay's inner circle had spent the past few days bracing themselves," reports The Hill. "Minutes after the announcement came, DeLay's closest and strongest supporters began mounting a defense.

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Rendon Rocks Iraq

The Rendon Group, a PR firm that has assisted U.S. military interventions in at least seven countries, continues to be a Pentagon favorite. The secretive firm recently won a year-long $6.4 million contract with the Army for "Strategic Communications Operations Support" in Baghdad. In April 2005, O'Dwyer's PR Daily reported that Rendon "is winding down its current $8.2M contract" with the Pentagon's Strategic Command.

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Ill Winds, Blowing No Good

"Riding a wave of concern over high energy prices triggered by Katrina" - and following a plan drawn up by the House Republican Study Committee at the Heritage Foundation - "congressional Republicans are rushing to ease environmental rules on refineries and looking for ways to open new coastal waters to oil and gas development," as well as Al

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The Wave of the Future: From Tragedy to Far-Reaching Policy, in Less Than a Month

"Maybe something good can come from this hurricane," Senator Lindsey Graham (R - S.C.) told FOX News Sunday's Chris Wallace on September 18th.

Graham and Wallace were discussing the "torrent of federal spending" on relief and reconstruction projects in the Gulf coast states devastated by Hurricane Katrina that is "just exploding the deficit" (both Wallace's phrases). The Senator was advocating for budget cuts to balance the disaster spending, which is expected to total as much as $200 billion.

Katrina's Environmental Secrets

The Society of Environmental Journalists has criticized the government's "tight-lipped approach" in responding to requests for information about the toxic gumbo left by Hurricane Katrina. SEJ President Perry Beeman says the government is "denying the public crucial information collected with taxpayers' money on behalf of taxpayers in the first place. ...

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Philippine President's Lobbying Contract Revealed

In a report for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Malou Mangahas reveals that in late July 2005, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo entered into a $75,000 per month contract for lobbying services with Venable, a Washington D.C. law firm.

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