GOP #3 Leader Roy Blunt - Shameless Tobacco Whore

[centristo]

Sorry if this was already posted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A41839-2003Jun10¬Found=true

GOP Whip Quietly Tried to Aid Big Donor
Provision Was Meant To Help Philip Morris

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 11, 2003; Page A01

Only hours after Rep. Roy Blunt was named to the House's third-highest leadership job in November, he surprised his fellow top Republicans by trying to quietly insert a provision benefiting Philip Morris USA into the 475-page bill creating a Department of Homeland Security, according to several people familiar with the effort.

The new majority whip, who has close personal and political ties to the company, instructed congressional aides to add the tobacco provision to the bill -- then within hours of a final House vote -- even though no one else in leadership supported it or knew he was trying to squeeze it in.

...

The provision would have made it harder to sell tobacco products over the Internet and would have cracked down on the sale of contraband cigarettes, two practices that cut into Philip Morris's profits. Blunt has received large campaign donations from Philip Morris, his son works for the company in Missouri and the House member has a close personal relationship with a Washington lobbyist for the firm.

{/snip]

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. Tobacco lobby stalwarts,

like Thatcher and current Tory leadership aspirant, Kenneth Clarke. Nothing like the less developed countries to peddle tobacco!

Impossible not to think of Clarke and his shadow leadership rival, as the proverbial "two bald men fighting over a comb". Roll on the same fate for the neocons! Anyway, with a bit of luck, maybe the Liberal-Democratic leader, Charles Kennedy, will be shadow leader, if not PM.

[HappyMoonBat]

2. The only thing you need to know about Blunt: