Inside the sausage factory

This NYT profile about Tony Podesta, owner of the hottest lobbying firm in the Village, is a inside look at how little has changed with a Democratic majority.

For lobbyists, the Obama legislative agenda has been a veritable full-employment program, with 2,500 working just on financial regulation alone.

The results are often buried deep in the fine print.

As Podesta points out, the hotter the rhetoric Obama employs against the evil influence of lobbyists, the better it is for his business. It implies a power Podesta claims he doesn't have. Of course he also claims that the fact his brother is a White House insider doesn't help him at all. He doesn't do access. Yeah right. It's all about access in that town.

It's easy to forget that it doesn't really matter which party is in office because in the end, the multinational corporations own everything, including, or maybe I should say especially, the government. Not sure how to solve it but I keep thinking if we could eliminate that fine print from the legislation, it would be a good start.

[$5.55 fundraiser]