John Boehner - $$$ signs or enlightenment?

[Rider509]

John Boehner announced on Twitter he is joining the board of a legal cannabis corporation "because my thinking on cannabis has evolved".

The Ohio Republican, who retired from politics in 2015, once said he was "unalterably opposed" to legalising marijuana.

 

[TorturedSoul]

It's simple - he's a highly paid lobbyist. He has LONG been in TOBACCO'S suit pocket. Back in '95, as House members were weighing how to vote on tobacco subsidies... he openly passed out campaign contributions (from tobacco industry lobbyists) right there on the House floor.

Which is not an offense - legally speaking, I mean - although it should be.

The man is a - forgive me, ladies - a cunt of the highest caliber.

The vast majority of his voting record was pro-business. (Unless the bill had nothing to do with such, but that's pretty rare.) It didn't really matter which kind of business, or which specific one(s) - it has been obvious for a long time that he'll take a dollar from any of them.

He likes pollution too. It seems that environmentallists just don't have large enough wallets for him to be interested.

I have, from time to time, agreed with his (stated) stances on certain issues. However... Most of them were omnibus-type bills where the negatives generally outweighed the positives. Which might have explained his stated stances for those issues. That happens a lot in The Swamp.

More recently, of course, he resigned from office. October, 2015. A little less than a year later (a year seems to be the standard "wait-time" for these things), he joined Squire Patton Boggs, the third-largest lobbying firm in the United States. I don't know how much they are paying (or even what they're reporting that they're paying him); the firm is loaded - L-O-A-D-E-D - and reportedly passed out something like $32,000,000 in bribes lobying money in 2014. But I did read that he also joined Reynolds American's board of directors at about the same time and was getting an estimated reported starting salary of around $400,000. By the way, Reynolds American is the second-largest tobacco company in the United States.

Tobacco... They're losing customers. Well, they always were . But kids aren't standing in line to become lifelong customers of the industry like they used to. So... Hey, how about that mary j wanna? The people behind the entities that give him big bucks... have to keep making the big bucks.

If you need me to, I could be just a wee bit less subtle next time. But I think you get the picture.

Two words: Fuck him. And I'm not sure I ever typed that on the forum in the... nine years that I've been a member.

 

[Rider509]

TorturedSoul, I feel you completely. Nasty business, politics. And too often it attracts a certain kind of self-serving sub-class of humanity that fends only for itself. Boehner is definitely one of those. I put him right down there with Anslinger who declared cannabis to be a non-issue, right up until the time that Prohibition was ending and he needed a new substance to demonize. It all comes down to money; either the big corporations that want to profit, or the petty machinations of a few who don't want to be out of a job.