Beltway Bandit Named Senior Obama Adviser

From 1998 – 2001, he was Clinton’s chief of staff. In 2008, he co-chaired Obama’s transition team.

He’s a visiting Georgetown University law professor. Imagine what he teaches his students. In 2003, he founded the Center for American Progress (CAP). It’s Washington based.

Neera Tanden heads it. She served under Bill Clinton. She was involved in energy, healthcare and other issues. She was Obama’s 2008 campaign domestic policy director.

Tom Perriello heads CAP’s Progress Action Fund. From 2009 until January 3, 2011, he represented Virginia’s 5th congressional district in the House of Representatives.

Other staff members include Carol Browner. In 1992, she was Clinton’s transition team director. From 1993 to 2001, she was Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head.

During Obama’s first term, she headed his Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. She’s a founding Albright Group member. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright heads it.

It’s a “global strategy group.” It’s a corporate lobbying firm. It represents Coca-Cola and Merck among other clients. It’s now called the Albright Stonebridge Group. It’s affiliated with Albright Capital Management.

Clinton’s former National Security Advisor Samuel Berger is involved. So are other notorious Washington insiders.

Former Boeing lobbyist, Rudy deLeon, is CAP senior vice president for national security and international policy.

In 2007, the Podesta Group ranked third among Washington’s most influential lobbying groups. It represents a rogue’s gallery of corporate crooks.

They include Wal-Mart, BP, Lockheed Martin, Bank of America, Citigroup, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, Verizon, The Carlyle Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Nestle, Pfizer, Norvartis, and Sallie Mae among others.

It represents Egypt, Albania, the Republic of Georgia, Orange County, CA, the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio.

CAP receives millions of dollars in annual funding. George Soros, Warren Buffett, and other super-rich elites provide it. So do corporate foundations, various business interests and other sources.

According to Sourcewatch:

In March 2009, CAP strongly supported Barack Obama’s escalation of the US wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It “issu(ed) a report titled Sustainable Security in Afghanistan by Lawrence J. Korb, Caroline Wadhams, Colin Cookman and Sean Duggan.”

Sourcewatch calls CAP “perhaps Washington’s most influential idea factory in the age of Obama.”

It “launch(ed) a major new war room.” It’s “staffed by nearly a dozen people.” It “focus(es) on driving the White House’s message and agenda.”

It’s called Progressive Media. It’s involved in “complex policy questions.” It develops talking points and narratives. It promotes them publicly.

Tara McGuinness heads the initiative. She’s a former John Kerry presidential campaign press secretary.

She worked on various House and Senate issues. She was involved in selling Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Podesta is a longtime business as usual operative dressed up in deceptive progressive mumbo jumbo. He became known as Clinton’s fixer. His role is similar for Obama.

Even The New York Times is skeptical. On December 12, it headlined “New Obama Adviser Brings Corporate Ties.” It named Eli Lilly, Pacific Gas and Electric, and Northrup Grumman. It could have included a dozen or two more.

It said CAP “at times bemoaned what it called the harmful impact of major reductions in Pentagon spending.” Its web site headlined “Sequestration Nation: Defense Department Furloughs Pack a Mean Punch,” saying:

(D)efense cuts will negatively affect efforts ranging from fighting wildfires to military preparedness.

CAP expressed angst about defense contractors potentially losing business. It lobbies for General Dynamics and Northrup Grumman among others. It’s job is to represent their bottom line priorities.

Podesta is an influential corporate lobbyist. He “arrive(s) at the White House after having run an organization that has taken millions of dollars in corporate donations in recent years and has its own team of lobbyists who have pushed an agenda that sometimes echoes the interests of these corporate supporters,” said The Times.

CAP officials disingenuously claim corporate donations don’t “impact on the policy positions it advocates,” The Times added. They’re given solely for wanting plenty in return. No other reason. Most often they return much more than what’s contributed. That’s how business as usual works.

In May, Ken Silverstein headlined his Nation magazine article “Corporate Influence at the Center for American Progress?” He noted how at that time it “skirt(ed) questions about its donors.” CAP “woo(s)” corporate donors, said Silverstein.

It “pitched the Saudis for funding…in 2011.” In 2013, it released its donor list for the first time.

Podesta replaces former Obama interim White House chief of staff/current counselor to the president Peter Rouse. He’s leaving.

Business as usual continues. John Stauber calls the so-called progressive movement Podesta and others like him represent “a PR front for rich Democrats.”

It’s mainly “one big propaganda campaign serving the political interests of the Democratic Party’s richest one-percent who created it.”

As the right becomes more extreme, this Democratic Party cum non-profit industrial complex moves further and further to the right itself.

There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between either party on issues mattering most.

Podesta’s job involves making destructive administration social, economic, and political policies sound like the best of all possible worlds.

Given today’s deplorable worsening conditions, it remains to be seen how successful he is going forward.