You know, if Black­wa­ter wants to keep chang­ing names to obscure its past, they might need to take it up a notch. I mean, “Xe” was sort of a nice attempt at an ambigu­ous­ly pro­nounced name that might sow some con­fu­sion, but “Acad­e­mi”? Come on, it sounds like a sequel to Taps, and that’s not going to engen­der pos­i­tive feel­ings in any­one.

How about “the com­pa­ny for­mer­ly known as Black­wa­ter, and then lat­er Xe”? It sort of worked for one Prince, why not anoth­er?

@Pterrafractyl: What’ll they think of next?

@Steven L.: What’ll they think of next? How about a Black­wa­ter video game. Plus some relat­ed con­gres­sion­al intim­i­da­tion.

It’s kind of iron­ic that Erik Prince was threat­en­ing an con­gress­woman with defama­tion giv­en the role Black­wa­ter has played in destroy­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of the US (and yes, the US did plen­ty to under­mine its rep­u­ta­tion with­out Black­wa­ter’s help, but wow was that a lot of help).

“As Staff Direc­tor, the high­est posi­tion on a com­mit­tee for a staff mem­ber, Shock­ey will over­see the agen­cies that do busi­ness with his for­mer employ­er.” With his for­mer employ­er being, of course, Black­wa­ter:

Repub­lic Report
Black­wa­ter Lob­by­ist Will Man­age the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee
Post­ed at 3:32 pm by Lee Fang

After lob­by­ist-run Super­PACs and big mon­ey efforts dom­i­nat­ed the last elec­tion, leg­is­la­tors are now appoint­ing lob­by­ists to lit­er­al­ly man­age the day-to-day affairs of Con­gress. For the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, which over­sees gov­ern­ment intel­li­gence oper­a­tions and agen­cies, the chang­ing of the guard means a lob­by­ist for Acad­e­mi, the defense con­trac­tor for­mer­ly known as Black­wa­ter, is now in charge.

After lob­by­ist-run Super­PACs and big mon­ey efforts dom­i­nat­ed the last elec­tion, leg­is­la­tors are now appoint­ing lob­by­ists to lit­er­al­ly man­age the day-to-day affairs of Con­gress. For the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, which over­sees gov­ern­ment intel­li­gence oper­a­tions and agen­cies, the chang­ing of the guard means a lob­by­ist for Acad­e­mi, the defense con­trac­tor for­mer­ly known as Black­wa­ter, is now in charge.

Con­gress­man Devin Nunes (R‑CA), the incom­ing chair­man of the Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee when the House recon­venes in Jan­u­ary, announced that Jeff Shock­ey will be the new Staff Direc­tor of the com­mit­tee. As a paid rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Acad­e­mi, Shock­ey and his firm have earned $80,000 this year ped­dling influ­ence on behalf of Acad­e­mi.

In pre­vi­ous years, the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee has inves­ti­gat­ed Black­wa­ter over secret con­tracts with the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency. Now, the shoe is on the oth­er foot. As Staff Direc­tor, the high­est posi­tion on a com­mit­tee for a staff mem­ber, Shock­ey will over­see the agen­cies that do busi­ness with his for­mer employ­er.

Shock­ey also rep­re­sents a num­ber of oth­er com­pa­nies with busi­ness before defense agen­cies: Gen­er­al Dynam­ics, Koch Indus­tries, Northrop Grum­man, Unit­ed Launch Alliance, Inno­v­a­tive Defense Tech­nolo­gies and Boe­ing.

...