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Given that the Times story was otherwise well-reported, it’s a shame that the quoted ethics source has undermined herself so thoroughly, and reporters will (or at least should) think twice in the future before citing Sloan. View the profiles of people named Melanie Downie. And since the transparency group does not release its donor list, we still do not know exactly why Sloan has decided to make for-profit colleges a crusade. Sloan eventually reversed course and announced she would stay at CREW, but she has continued to lash out at groups advocating against for-profit colleges. In interviews with Salon, Sloan and Davis both said that the concatenation of events is a pure coincidence…“It was a coincidence" that CREW cited Davis' column in July, Sloan says. "This is not any different than anything else CREW does where people automatically ascribe a motive to us - it's not true." She argues that there is disturbing evidence that short sellers are pushing the new regulations, adding that "I'm really comfortable with where we are on this." At the time, Sloan and CREW explicitly cited a column Davis wrote defending the for-profit industry. 22 at 101 Manhattan Town Center Plaza and discovered the body of 46-year-old Justin Downie. But in the case of Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), who last week announced she is joining the new firm of lobbyist Lanny Davis, there's another layer of intrigue: Sloan came under fire over the summer for appearing to go to bat for the for-profit schools industry, which is currently a paid lobbying client of Davis. Police responded to a report of an unattended death shortly after 10:30 a.m.
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When the executive director of a prominent Washington ethics watchdog group goes to work for a well-known corporate lobbyist, it's bound to raise a few eyebrows.
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