“Who knew he was going to run for mayor?”

"After an Introduction by de Blasio, a Brooklyn Hospital Hired His Wife"

"Ms. Brier said that Mr. de Blasio had introduced her to his wife “at some social event” and that she learned from Ms. McCray that a job she had with Citigroup had not worked out and that she was looking for a new one. “He didn’t say, ‘Here’s my wife, hire her,’” Ms. Brier said. But she said that she was immediately impressed with Ms. McCray because, “she seemed so capable, so grounded,” because she had speech writing experience under former Mayor David N. Dinkins, and because the hospital needed more minorities in administrative-level positions."

“I’m the one who wanted to recruit her,” Ms. Brier said, adding that she likes to have women employees around her when possible. “I said, ‘Of course, I have no job for you. But I could probably invent one.’ I do that a lot.”

NY Times via Mikéy Ramoné ‏@ThePantau

Listen in as apparatchik Eleanor Holmes Norton shakes down lobbyist

An unknown lobbyist divulges their phone recording.

Start at .21 and skip the gasbag entirely. Eleanor finishes her shakedown at 1.54.

Ignore their subtitles, They're trying to be amusing.

"...have given to others on transportation and infrastructure, I am senior member twenty-year veteran and am chair of the subcommittee on public buildings and emergency management am I'm handling the largest economic development project in the US 

I was frankly surprised to see that we don't have a record that I can tell of your having given 

♪ to 

me 

despite my 

lo -- hooo -- hong

and deep 

uh

work ... " 

Well. There you go.  Congresswoman, Delegate representing Washington D.C. , so non-voting, House of Representatives, still heading important committees. She brags how she spends stimulus money. And she is showing entitlement to other people's money by stating she affects their sector. It is so utterly natural. 

Didn't listen to the gasbag all the way, he sounds like Hannity or perhaps antiHannity, but Eleanor's (we're on first name basis) wikipedia page has her curricula vitae, and on balance it is not so hard to see how that total experience would blend Government with Party so fully as to be inseparable.

Apparently this is what is great about America, that you can insinuate yourself into its government and use Party to wrench government and business and individuals to do your bidding even as your vote doesn't count.