Tom Marino withdraws from being next drug czar nominee

[Anonymous]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/17/politics/trump-tweet-marino-drug-czar/index.html?adkey=bn

The congressman's withdrawal comes after a joint CBS "60 Minutes" and Washington Post report revealed that Marino took nearly $100,000 from the pharmaceutical lobby while sponsoring a bill that made it easier for drug companies to distribute opioids across American communities and thwart the Drug Enforcement Agency.

And trump tweets:

Rep.Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar. Tom is a fine man and a great Congressman!

How do all these fine man get propped up by trump? Best people, I tell you.

[Anonymous]

That's a shame. His dying constituents are stuck with him a bit longer I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's a shame. His dying constituents are stuck with him a bit longer I guess.

What do you think the implications of his role in this debacle are for his re-election?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's a shame. His dying constituents are stuck with him a bit longer I guess.

What do you think the implications of his role in this debacle are for his re-election?

Considering his district, the implications should be horrible. My mom has numerous family members who live in the counties he represents and there's a serious opioid problem in that area. That said, I suspect a lot of voters there won't care and will vote for him anyway along party lines. One of my cousins lives in Snyder County, lost a son to an overdose, and has recently posted support for Marino on FB. You cannot make this shit up.

[Anonymous]

What I would like to know is how he became the Trump administration's top pick for DEA unless this is another in the line of putting the fox in to guard the hens: Scott Pruitt who is in the pocket of oil, gas and the chemical industries, Ryan Zinke who is in the pocket of the extraction industries etc.
So in the upside down world of this administration perhaps it makes sense to put someone who actually helped make the opiod crisis worse in charge of the DEA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's a shame. His dying constituents are stuck with him a bit longer I guess.

What do you think the implications of his role in this debacle are for his re-election?

Considering his district, the implications should be horrible. My mom has numerous family members who live in the counties he represents and there's a serious opioid problem in that area. That said, I suspect a lot of voters there won't care and will vote for him anyway along party lines. One of my cousins lives in Snyder County, lost a son to an overdose, and has recently posted support for Marino on FB. You cannot make this shit up.

Honestly, do those people even read/watch MSM or liberal media? Did the "conservative" media report on Marino's role in the whole pharma/opiod situation? Or do they just think it's "fake news"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I would like to know is how he became the Trump administration's top pick for DEA unless this is another in the line of putting the fox in to guard the hens: Scott Pruitt who is in the pocket of oil, gas and the chemical industries, Ryan Zinke who is in the pocket of the extraction industries etc.
So in the upside down world of this administration perhaps it makes sense to put someone who actually helped make the opiod crisis worse in charge of the DEA?

If you believe that regulation doesn't work and can't work -- which is as close as the Republicans come to having a guiding philosophy -- then it makes perfect sense to put people in charge of the agencies responsible for regulation who either disagree with the mission of the agency or align with the industry being regulated, or both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I would like to know is how he became the Trump administration's top pick for DEA unless this is another in the line of putting the fox in to guard the hens: Scott Pruitt who is in the pocket of oil, gas and the chemical industries, Ryan Zinke who is in the pocket of the extraction industries etc.
So in the upside down world of this administration perhaps it makes sense to put someone who actually helped make the opiod crisis worse in charge of the DEA?

+1 I said the same thing. Most of Trump's cabinet picks seem to want to dismantle or cut the legs off the agencies of which they are supposed to lead. This is Trump's strategy I suppose. Deregulate everything; make everything more business friendly and screw the public. As long as they think Trump will promise them jobs, they don't seem to care about anything else. Unfortunately, that promise, along with the replace of the ACA with something better are empty promises.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I would like to know is how he became the Trump administration's top pick for DEA unless this is another in the line of putting the fox in to guard the hens: Scott Pruitt who is in the pocket of oil, gas and the chemical industries, Ryan Zinke who is in the pocket of the extraction industries etc.
So in the upside down world of this administration perhaps it makes sense to put someone who actually helped make the opiod crisis worse in charge of the DEA?

In 2016, Marino was part of a GOP effort to look into whether Hillary Clinton committed perjury when she testified before Congress about her private email server, Fox News reported.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/08/16/gop-rep-marino-clintons-are-pathological-liars

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I would like to know is how he became the Trump administration's top pick for DEA unless this is another in the line of putting the fox in to guard the hens: Scott Pruitt who is in the pocket of oil, gas and the chemical industries, Ryan Zinke who is in the pocket of the extraction industries etc.
So in the upside down world of this administration perhaps it makes sense to put someone who actually helped make the opiod crisis worse in charge of the DEA?

In 2016, Marino was part of a GOP effort to look into whether Hillary Clinton committed perjury when she testified before Congress about her private email server, Fox News reported.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/08/16/gop-rep-marino-clintons-are-pathological-liars

Well, then he's shown he's a man of impeccable judgment and character, suitable for any high office in the government. The fact that Fox News corroborates this is additional proof.

[Anonymous]

Kudos to our free press-the WaPo/60 Minutes reporting brought down Marino and Politico's investigation of the private jet setting Tom Price led to his resignation. You don't see any of that on Breitbart!

[Anonymous]

Trump will just pick someone else. The message is the same. Trump doesn't GAF about the opioid crisis or anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's a shame. His dying constituents are stuck with him a bit longer I guess.

What do you think the implications of his role in this debacle are for his re-election?

Considering his district, the implications should be horrible. My mom has numerous family members who live in the counties he represents and there's a serious opioid problem in that area. That said, I suspect a lot of voters there won't care and will vote for him anyway along party lines. One of my cousins lives in Snyder County, lost a son to an overdose, and has recently posted support for Marino on FB. You cannot make this shit up.

Honestly, do those people even read/watch MSM or liberal media? Did the "conservative" media report on Marino's role in the whole pharma/opiod situation? Or do they just think it's "fake news"?

PP here. I have no idea what the conservative media reported. Marino has held his position in that district since 2010 and did very little to address what was happening. In terms of his constituents, if my family and our friends there are any indication (and they probably are, because that encompasses a lot of people), many are still very bitter about the steel mills and factories going out of business years ago and fully expected Trump would bring jobs back to the area, and Trump struck a nerve with those people while he was campaigning. Those towns used to have tons of manufacturing jobs but it's really depressed now and most people who could jump ship for better jobs did so 30+ years ago. It sounds crazy, but I honestly think many locals believe the opioid crisis there would just magically disappear if jobs were brought back.

[Anonymous]

How did such a 'fine' man get the nomination in the first place? No vetting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did such a 'fine' man get the nomination in the first place? No vetting?

The Trump administration is - ahem - not known for careful vetting.