For more than 30 years, the Podesta name was gold in Washington.
Tony Podesta was a respected lobbyist and a fundraiser for Democratic candidates. His younger brother, John, served as Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff and as senior counselor to Barack Obama. Together, they were the most powerful brother act in liberal politics since the Kennedys....
November 12, 2017
"Lobbyists are only 'respected' in Washington....elsewhere they are pimps."
That's the top-rated comment on the Washington Post article "The rise and fall of the Podestas, Washington’s powerful political brother act," which begins:
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24 comments:
if they both stay in DC they should both be all right then
John Podesta is an evil and nasty man; probably a criminal. He was also the rocket scientist who fell for the phishing scheme that resulted in the DNC email hack. Calling him a pimp is an insult to pimps.
The article is an inadvertent description of "the swamp" and of all that is wrong in Washington.
Phony strawman by the WP. Something more sinister than just lobbyist.
The Podesta brothers were a pair of grifters with the same modus operendi as the Clinton couple.
One of the pair remained on the outside in an organization or a foundation raking in the cash while the other one served inside the government in an official capacity—as a public servant—directing policy to benefit them.
since the Kennedys
Except the Podesta Bros are both ugly.
since the Kennedys
The Kennedys were Catholic. The Podestas are spirit cooking Satan worshipers. Pretty much sums up the drift in American liberalism over the last fifty to sixty years.
I can't wait for the whole can of Podesta worms come out!!! I'm getting pretty sick of eating all of this popcorn though!!!
During the trial, it will be revealed that Tony Podesta is actually... America's Politico.
Pimps are the lowest form of life.
The New York Times published a similar puff piece on the Podestas two days ago (the Post puff piece was yesterday). The NYT puff piece wants us to be sorry for the Podestas for getting caught up in the Russia business after all their great, great work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/us/politics/john-tony-podesta-mueller-russia-investigation.html
THere is a swamp. The NYT and Post are part of it.
Seems too give a bad name to pimps.
Pimps at least Perform a useful service
I suspect that even most pols view them as worse than pimps. But they like the money so they pretend to respect them.
Just like when they need a Hooker they pretend to respect the pimp.
John Henry
"Martha said...
The Podesta brothers were a pair of grifters with the same modus operendi as the Clinton couple.
One of the pair remained on the outside in an organization or a foundation raking in the cash while the other one served inside the government in an official capacity—as a public servant—directing policy to benefit them."
Yes, the article actually describes just that, grifting, only it pretends that the reporter believes the Podestas were not working together and pretends that DC will think the Podestas weren't working together. And everyone knows that everyone outside DC will think the Podestas were working together. So this is not an exercise in deception, this is not propaganda but what is it? Telling a lie which you know no one at all is going to believe so that you can describe a piece of the truth - is there a word for that? Propergander?
Now I have to change my pants. I just busted the zipper with a Massive schadenboner.
I love Mueller. He aims for republican s and hits democrats.
Podesta stepped down the ceo quit And now Hot Air says the firm will close this week.
Drainage!
John Henry
Maybe John Podesta gave the Russians his emails. Could he have been Putin’s Trojan Horse? Mueller is going to save Trump’s legacy!
Lobbyists can serve a useful purpose but the corruption of the Administrative State, and Congress since the McCain-Finegold law emasculated them, has placed all the power in their hands and in the hands of their swamp partners,
Congressmen do not write legislation any more. They have staff write bills that leave all the details to the bureaucrats. This is not the government that our Constitution intended.
Obamacare was written by 25 year old staff lawyers and insurance company lobbyists. That is not how it is supposed to work.
Democracy is costly. Lobby or public funds. Your call
Lobbyism is nothing but the organized exercise of a right, the right to petition. Nothing wrong with that.
"The Kennedys were Catholic. "
Nominally. Rose was probably the most religious, which kept her mind off of the numerous infidelities of her husband, who was Catholic like Mafia dons are Catholic. Catholics, like other Christians, are supposed to take that "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery' thing seriously.
Jack, Bobby and the others had far more in common with old-money Harvard Episcopalians than they did with the Southies in Boston. The Southies gave them blind adoration anyway, right up until the point when Fat Teddy finally breathed his last breath.
Yes, John Henry, there will be blood.
Jose K,
Are you proposing regulatory capture is a net good? Show your work.
Congressmen do not write legislation any more. They have staff write bills that leave all the details to the bureaucrats. This is not the government that our Constitution intended.
Obamacare was written by 25 year old staff lawyers and insurance company lobbyists. That is not how it is supposed to work.
And, the reason that these young staff lawyers are working as Congressional staffers is that they are getting experience for when they jump to the other side, and join the ranks of lobbyists.
But your point about legislation being written by staff lawyers and lobbyists together is pretty accurate, with the heavy lifting being done, very often, by the lobbyists. We ran into this with the America (dis)Invents Act (AIA), legislation enacted by some of the biggest corporations in the country (and out), putatively to “harmonize” our patent system with the rest of the world. The reality, of course, was a bit different - it moved the advantage from inventions made in the US to those made anywhere else in the world. Why would they want that? Very simply, because, while this is one of the most innovative countries in the world, on a per capital basis, many of these companies had sent their R&D offshore in order to cut costs. In any case, several of us were up on Capital Hill lobbying against the legislation, on our own dime. And were shocked to discover how outgunned we were - at the height, it was estimated that there were more than 500 paid lobbyists working to pass the legislation. That is roughly one lobbyist per member of Congress (House and Senate combined). Someone estimated over $100 million was spent on it. It was a good investment- the legislation passed with few voting against it (the opposition led by WI’s Rep Jim Sensenbrenner). It was Sensenbrenner who explained the facts of life to us. He understood the legislation, who was behind, and why. But 99% of his colleagues didn’t have a clue, so they depended on their staffers, who depended on the 500+ lobbyists, and voted accordingly.
Here is the scary part. We pretty much knew who wrote the legislation - a Senate staffer and a lobbyist. After enactment, it was noticed that there were some anomalies in the terminology as contrasted to the 1952 Patent Act, in particular. One of these involved whether secret use of a process that resulted in a publicly sold product would count as prior art against the manufacturer. Old caselaw was clear - you had a choice: you could patent it, or keep it secret, but if you did that, you couldn’t later patent it - the process was considered prior art, rendering any claims to such as fully anticipated (and obvious). The AIA could be interpreted to override this. It wasn’t clear, and it appears that that lack of clarity was intentional. Turns out that the lobbyist who did the bulk of the drafting was being paid by pharmaceutical companies (where this issue is most important), and has been saying ever since then that the intent clearly was to override this caselaw. The scary part of this is that, while courts often look to legislative intent (there was none here - Congress, for the most part, was clueless as to what they were passing), this goes two steps further, beyond Congressional staffer intent, to lobbyist intent being considered when interpreting statutes. Luckily, so far, they haven’t found any courts to buy in on this theory, but not for lack of trying.
"Congress, for the most part, was clueless as to what they were passing),"
Long ago, when I was involved with the legislative commissions of the state medical association and thr AMA, we had a meeting with Dave Durenberger when he was Senator from Minnesota. He told us that nobody else in the Senate knew anything about medicine and healthcare. Most of his colleagues asked him how they should vote. He might have been exaggerating a bit. But he did tell us, "You guys are going to get screwed," so he did know that much.
Bruce, have you read, "Cardiac Arrest" ?
It's pretty good. A guy with a new medical product who was pursued by Obama's DOJ for years.
@Dr K - haven’t read it yet, but will. Know an atty and some docs whom the Feds went after, at the apparent behest of somebinsurance companies, because they had done too well against those companies. The problem was that the insurance companies were hiring experts who really didn’t practice that much surgery, and the atty was putting the best surgeons in town up against them, and consistently winning. When the company experts could testify that they had done be one or two of something, or maybe just scrubbed in, these guys could testify that they had done that many the previous week. Some of the docs got flipped by being caught at income tax evasion. But they weren’t that good at implicating the others. Too transparent. And phones were being tapped for better than a year. It was pretty nasty for quite awhile. Only stopped when there was a change of Administration and the US Attorney was replaced.
Of course, it isn’t just the Feds. Your old state (CA) hounds people too. One famous case involved Gil Hyatt, who ended up with some fundamental computer processor patents. While he was negotiating with some of the Japanese giants, he moved from CA to NV, since the latter doesn’t have a state income tax and he was expecting (and got) hundreds of $millions in royalties. No matter. CA declared him to still be a resident, subject to their income taxes on those royalties. Never mind that they had none of the indicia of residence on their side. They hounded him for much of a decade, with private detectives routinely going through his trash, etc. Went up to the US Supreme Ct twice, the second time affirming that he could sue them in NV court under NV law for actions taken by CA in NV. SCOTUS essentially said that CA didn’t have sovereign immunity there because their statute granting them such is CA law, not NV law. The trial court then awarded him > $200 million. Last I knew, that judgement was, of course, on appeal.
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