Washington's Rotten Core "We Know People"

Tony Podesta (brother of John Podesta ) and wife Heather formed The Podesta Group and Heather Podesta + Partners in 2007. John Podesta's Center for American Progress completed the three-pronged Podesta empire. Brother John is currently a senior advisor to President Obama. Heather launched her lobby firm with the catchy slogan "We Know People."

One of her party invitations read as follows: “The prix fixe includes the Select Committee on Intelligence for the first course followed by your choice of Appropriations, Judiciary, or Rules Committees.”

Now two-thirds of that empire is crumbling because of the divorce case of Tony Podesta. The article by Continetti exposes the unbelievable sordidness of Washington lobbying.

Tony and Heather had a prized collection of 1,300 art pieces. One bedroom splashed the works of Katy Grannan, "a photographer known for documentary style pictures of naked teenagers in their parents' suburban homes." They would travel to Venice a dozen times a year.

The Podesta Group took in some 13 million in lobbying income in 2013. After the first Obama inauguration revenues doubled. Heather Podesta + Partners earned some 4 million lobbying on behalf of health companies, the American Beverage Association and others.

"Corporations give to Democratic politicians, avoiding the scrutiny of liberal attack dogs in the media and nonprofit sectors, and enjoying the ego boost that comes with being on the “right side of history.” Then those corporations hire the Podestas to get them out of the Rube Goldberg traps the Democrats have enacted into law."

With the divorce it is all becoming undone. Who will get the house, the Katy Grannan collection, the databases, and the Venetian flat? If you need a bulimic moment rarely will you read anything so politically vile, disgusting, and rampant with Washington greed and avarice.

I think this is one of the most important articles I’ve read in years. Matthew Continetti is Bill Kristol’s son-in-law. The kid is turning out to be a kind of Tom Wolfe of current politics. The article is simply devastating.

In one paragraph, Continetti explains The Big Scam:

[SNIP] Corporations give to Democratic politicians, avoiding the scrutiny of liberal attack dogs in the media and nonprofit sectors, and enjoying the ego boost that comes with being on the “right side of history.” Then those corporations hire the Podestas to get them out of the Rube Goldberg traps the Democrats have enacted into law. John’s innovation was to establish a corporate-funded think tank where the burdensome policies would be concocted, and whose staff would go on to man the regulatory agencies that put their wool-headed ideas into practice. And to whom do the corporations turn when they find themselves on the receiving end of all this uplift, all this do-goodery, all this progress, hope, and change? Why, to the man in the red Prada loafers, and to his flamboyantly patterned wife.

By the way, check out some of Heather & Tony Podesta’s “art” referenced in the article (someone should post the images):

http://curatorsoffice.com/memyselfandi

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