{"id":1322173,"date":"2023-11-10T06:52:12","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T06:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=304208"},"modified":"2023-11-10T06:52:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T06:52:12","slug":"mike-johnsons-revolving-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/11\/10\/mike-johnsons-revolving-door\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Johnson\u2019s Revolving Door"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photograph Source: Office of Speaker Mike Johnson – Public Domain<\/p><\/div>\n

Hear it? What\u2019s that sound? \u201cWhoop-whoop-whoop.\u201d It\u2019s Washington\u2019s revolving door, allowing corporate interests to come directly inside Congress to pervert public policy.<\/p>\n

That door is now spinning fast, because there\u2019s a new boss operator in Congress. He\u2019s Mike Johnson, who was recently unanimously chosen by Republicans to be their Speaker of the House. He\u2019s a corporate dream \u2014 an affable ultra-conservative from Shreveport, Louisiana, who consistently backs the plutocratic agenda of Big Business over workers, the poor, consumers and most other Americans.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Johnson maintains it was God (!) who elevated him to his new position of authority, and that the Bible will guide his policy views. Well, selected parts of the Bible \u2014 don\u2019t expect much mercy, justice, or peacemaking from this hard-core\u00a0laissez-faire<\/i>\u00a0ideologue.<\/p>\n

For example, guess who he\u2019s chosen to be his director of policy? Big Pharma\u2019s top Washington lobbyist!<\/p>\n

Dan Ziegler has been the chief influence peddler for a dozen multibillion-dollar drug giants, including Eli Lilly, Merck, and Pfizer. Ziegler has furiously opposed every legislative effort to stop the rampant price gouging by profiteering drug makers \u2014 even though\u00a090 percent<\/i>\u00a0of Americans<\/a>\u00a0are clamoring for Congress to clamp down on their rip-offs. But we don\u2019t control the revolving door \u2014 Mike does.<\/p>\n

Johnson piously cloaks himself in both the Christian gospel and libertarian myth of \u201cfree markets,\u201d yet he has consistently pushed government action to restrict competition and protect drug monopolies. Now, in his first substantive action as speaker, he is literally bringing Big Pharma inside to sit beside him in the seat of legislative power.<\/p>\n

Drug pricing reform will soon come up for a vote in Congress. Before Mike\u2019s lobbyist buddy tells him what to do, let\u2019s demand that he re-read the Sermon on the Mount.<\/p>\n

The post Mike Johnson’s Revolving Door<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hear it? What\u2019s that sound? \u201cWhoop-whoop-whoop.\u201d It\u2019s Washington\u2019s revolving door, allowing corporate interests to come directly inside Congress to pervert public policy. That door is now spinning fast, because there\u2019s a new boss operator in Congress. He\u2019s Mike Johnson, who was recently unanimously chosen by Republicans to be their Speaker of the House. He\u2019s a More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Mike Johnson\u2019s Revolving Door<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1322173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1322174,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322173\/revisions\/1322174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1322173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1322173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1322173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}