\n<\/a>Liberty Blitzkrieg<\/span><\/p>\n
Last\u00a0Friday, I published a post titled,\u00a0John Podesta\u2019s Sister-in-Law Lobbied For Raytheon While Hillary Was Secretary of State<\/a><\/strong>, which understandably got totally buried in the madness\u00a0surrounding the latest FBI news. Here\u2019s the first paragraph of that post:<\/p>\n The Podesta family seems particularly adept at earning extraordinary sums of money via\u00a0selling out the American public. Earlier this year, I highlighted how John Podesta\u2019s brother Tony was paid\u00a0$140,000 per month\u00a0by the medieval\u00a0monarchy of Saudi Arabia. After all, who\u00a0cares about women\u2019s rights when the pay is good?<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed, it\u2019s not just relatives of Podesta who know how to rake in the cash. John is no slouch either, as Politico<\/em> explained<\/a> in an article published earlier today.<\/p>\n Here are a few excerpts:<\/p>\n Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign chairman, John Podesta, last year signed a $7,000-a-month contract with the foundation of a major Clinton donor who made a fortune selling a type of mortgage that\u00a0some critics say<\/a>\u00a0contributed to the housing collapse, hacked emails show.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In February of last year, as Podesta was working to lay the groundwork for Clinton\u2019s soon-to-launch campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, he signed the contract with the Sandler Foundation, which was started by Herb Sandler and his late wife Marion Sandler.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The contract \u2014 a\u00a0copy of which<\/a>\u00a0was included in emails illegally obtained from Podesta\u2019s Gmail account and disseminated Monday by WikiLeaks \u2014 is still active,<\/strong> according to Herb Sandler, who said that it calls for Podesta to provide advice on grant-making and other foundation functions.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s unusual for the full-time chairman of a general-election presidential campaign to maintain an active side deal with a major donor to that campaign \u2014 let alone to raise money from that donor for the campaign.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The WikiLeaks cache shows that Podesta provided Sandler with philanthropic advice and\u00a0assortments of cheeses and pastas<\/a>\u00a0as gifts on the holidays, while Sandler offered all manner of political observations and once tried to get Podesta to arrange for former President Bill Clinton to\u00a0write a blurb for a book<\/a>\u00a0written by one of Sandler\u2019s friends.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Lobster risotto?<\/p>\n But Sandler brushed aside any concerns about potential conflicts of interest.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI have never asked for anything of any political person \u2014 zero requests ever,\u201d Sandler said. \u201cIf they\u2019re responsive, it\u2019s because they regard me as thoughtful, and a major contributor to Democratic causes,\u201d Sandler said, adding that Podesta \u201cknows that he doesn\u2019t get bullshit from me. He knows I have no hidden agenda. He knows that my values are similar to his and that we care about people and not the billionaires, even though I ended up by some crazy thing to be one.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Neither Podesta nor the Clinton campaign responded to questions about the contract.<\/em><\/p>\n Herb Sandler\u2019s Clinton-related giving picked up last December after a visit from Podesta.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The campaign\u2019s finance director Dennis Cheng responded \u201cGreat!!<\/a>,\u201d calling Podesta \u201c#ChairmanCash.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cChairman cash.\u201d A new meme has just been born.<\/p>\n The very next day, Sandler gave $1.5 million to Priorities USA Action, to which he has now given a total of $3 million, FEC records show.<\/em><\/p>\n The family\u2019s fortune comes from the savings and loan institution that Herb and Marion Sandler ran for decades, a bank that became World Savings. It would end up making boatloads of cash from a type of adjustable rate mortgage that other lenders would later adopt, securitize and sell in a way that some have\u00a0blamed<\/a>\u00a0for contributing to the housing bubble that burst in 2008.<\/strong> Not long before the burst and subsequent recession, the Sandlers sold the bank for $25.5 billion to Wachovia, earning $2.6 billion off the sale and donating most of their net worth to their foundation. Wachovia was later acquired by Wells Fargo.<\/em><\/p>\n The Sandlers met Podesta when they helped seed the Center for American Progress,<\/strong> the think tank he started in 2003 as a sort of Democratic administration in exile during George W. Bush\u2019s presidency. Tax filings show that the Sandler Foundation has donated more than $37 million over the years to CAP, which worked to support President Barack Obama\u2019s administration but has always been seen as more aligned with Clinton.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Center for American Progress\u2026where have we heard that before? Oh yeah, in last week\u2019s\u00a0post,\u00a0Dennis Kucinich\u2019s Extraordinary Warning on D.C.\u2019s Think Tank Warmongers<\/a><\/strong>, we learned:<\/p>\n The self-identified liberal\u00a0Center for American Progress<\/a>\u00a0(CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America\u2019s current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on \u201cmission accomplished.\u201d CAP,\u00a0according to\u00a0a report<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0The Nation, has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing, who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Remember peasants, war is ok\u00a0if \u201cliberals\u201d do it. Now back to Politico<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n The WikiLeaks emails\u00a0reveal<\/a>\u00a0that Podesta and his team at the Center for American Progress discussed how to push back on scrutiny of the Sandlers related to the 2008 housing collapse. That included an October 2008\u00a0\u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d sketch<\/a>\u00a0in which an actor playing Herb Sandler thanked members of Congress \u201cfor helping block congressional oversight of our corrupt activity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Podesta\u00a0wrote to his colleagues<\/a>\u00a0that he\u2019d talked to Herb Sandler, and \u201cthey are obviosly [sic] upset. Weird that snl should pick them out.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n After doing some research, a subordinate replied that \u201cit appears default rates on their stuff was high (herb says not more so than others) and the losses were key to almsot wachovia failure \u2014 athough herb emphasizes that they were only one of the institutions problems.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Sandler told POLITICO that any suggestion that his bank\u2019s products contributed to the collapse were \u201ca bunch of bullshit,\u201d\u00a0pointing out<\/a>\u00a0that their bank used a risk-averse approach to their loans, which had among the lowest default rate in the industry.<\/em><\/p>\n But Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, a conservative nonprofit that monitors the giving of major liberal donors including Sandler, argued that Podesta\u2019s newly revealed contractual relationship with Sandler stood in stark contrast to Clinton\u2019s efforts to cast herself as tough on the financial industry.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThis is another instance where the Clinton campaign has been revealed to have surprising links to some of the most dubious parts of the finance industry,\u201d Walter said.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The Sandlers\u2019 philanthropy increasingly has focused on fighting financial inequality and the role of big money in politics \u2014 a subject about which Herb Sandler and Podesta emailed frequently, according to WikiLeaks.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Interesting considering he is<\/strong> big money in politics, and seems to have no problem endlessly\u00a0cheerleading\u00a0the chosen\u00a0candidate of America\u2019s oligarchs.<\/p>\n Sandler explained to POLITICO that during the process of working to launch the center, he realized \u201cwe had been picking his brain ad nauseum\u201d for years without paying Podesta as a consultant \u2014 a scenario Sandler called \u201cvery unfair.\u201d That led to the consulting contract, which Sandler cast as \u201ca ripoff\u201d for Podesta. \u201cI\u2019d pay a lot more for that advice,\u201d Sandler said, calling Podesta \u201cone the most intelligent, decent, thoughtful human beings I\u2019d ever met.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In March, as Clinton\u2019s Democratic primary campaign against Bernie Sanders grew increasingly bitter, Sandler emailed Podesta just to check up.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHow are you?\u201d\u00a0Sandler wrote<\/a>. \u201cMIss you.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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