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One has to wonder how Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri benefited by sliding in that nasty little rider that puts Monsanto above the law? Not unlike Judas Iscariot, Blunt used his position to betray those who trusted him, but it appears that the senator got more than 30 pieces of silver.
As an elected official, Senator Blunt is obligated to promote the wishes of the people. All of them, not just the ones with money.
Let’s go down the rabbit hole and explore why Blunt might have done such a thing.
Monsanto has its home base in St. Louis, Missouri, and here we can begin to see the connection between Blunt and the evil company. Just a cursory search shows financial ties of nearly $300,000. To name just a few direct links between Monsanto and Blunt, the following donation amounts are from the website Open Secrets, (with the caveat “The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations’ PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.”):
- Blunt’s most recent congressional campaign received $64,250 in donations from Monsanto.
- Blunt’s campaign received $110,950 from the Crawford Group, a law firm that deals with issues involving Roundup Ready sugar beets and alfalfa.
- Blunt’s campaign received $75,150 from Emerson Electric Company, which acquired Fisher Controls from Monsanto in 1992.
- Blunt’s campaign received $42,758 from Bryan Cave LLC, a law firm which represented Monsanto in its $290 million purchase of Aly Participacoes. Reuben Shelton, senior counsel at Monsanto, serves as president of the Board of Directors of Legal Services for the company, and his daughter, Christian Shelton, is an attorney at the firm.
- The #1 PAC donation in the most recent election was from “agribusiness” – $51,250
Hang on – there are a couple MORE links between Blunt and Monsanto, (not to mention other special interest groups like Phillip Morris, Altria, and Kraft). In fact, Blunt has a long, sordid history of slipping bills in that help out the big spenders, a lover, and his sons…
- Blunt’s wife, Abigail Perlman, is the in-house lobbyist for Kraft Foods, who donated heavily to battle against mandatory labeling of GMOs. Before this, when the good Baptist Blunt divorced his wife of 30+ years to marry Perlman, she lobbied for Altria/Phillip Morris, where Blunt’s son Andy was also a lobbyist. An article on The Daily Kos pointed out that, “at the time Roy Blunt, the bastion of Missouri values, was helping his lobbyist girlfriend, he was still married to another woman.”
- Blunt’s son, Matt, was the governor of Missouri from 2005-2009. According to an article on The Nation, ” Matt Blunt was such a champion of Monsanto’s GM products that its CEO presented him with the annual leadership award of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a Monsanto-backed group.”
This Monsanto rider isn’t the first time Blunt has tried to help out a big donor. In 2003, literally hours after he was named whip for the House Republicans, he attempted a less successful stealth legislation attached to the 475 page bill that created the DHS for his buddies at Phillip Morris.
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.
Once alerted to the provision, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer, quickly had it pulled out, said a senior GOP leader who requested anonymity. Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) also opposed what Blunt (Mo.) was trying to do, the member said, and “worked against it” when he learned of it.
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. (source)
It is highly unusual for a House Republican to insert a last-minute contentious provision that has never gone through a committee, never faced a House vote and never been approved by the speaker or majority leader. Blunt’s attempt became known only to a small circle of House and White House officials. They kept it quiet, preferring no publicity on a matter involving favors for the nation’s biggest tobacco company and possible claims of conflicts of interest.
Given the above, it probably comes as no surprise that the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) bestowed upon Blunt a spot in the second annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress back in 2006 and then again in 2010. You can read the 2010 report on Blunt’s special interest pandering HERE.
So, Blunt was the architect of all of this sneaky little rider, slipped into HR 933. This doesn’t mean that the other members of Congress who voted for it are not complicit, however. The fact that President Obama does not have line-item veto authority doesn’t let him off the hook either. By refusing to send the entire bill back to be redrafted, every person who voted for this is guilty, as is President Obama.
In case you’re curious how your Senators and Representatives voted, you don’t even have to click a link – here are the results of the roll call.
For the Senate:
YEAs —73 | ||
Alexander (R-TN) Baldwin (D-WI) Barrasso (R-WY) Baucus (D-MT) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Blumenthal (D-CT) Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Chambliss (R-GA) Coats (R-IN) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Coons (D-DE) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Cowan (D-MA) Donnelly (D-IN) Durbin (D-IL) |
Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Heinrich (D-NM) Heitkamp (D-ND) Hirono (D-HI) Hoeven (R-ND) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Johnson (D-SD) Kaine (D-VA) King (I-ME) Klobuchar (D-MN) Landrieu (D-LA) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Manchin (D-WV) McCaskill (D-MO) McConnell (R-KY) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) |
Murkowski (R-AK) Murphy (D-CT) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schatz (D-HI) Schumer (D-NY) Sessions (R-AL) Shaheen (D-NH) Shelby (R-AL) Stabenow (D-MI) Thune (R-SD) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Warner (D-VA) Warren (D-MA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wicker (R-MS) Wyden (D-OR) |
And here are those who voted “yes” in the House of Representatives.
Aderholt Alexander Andrews Bachus Barber Barletta Barr Barrow (GA) Barton Beatty Benishek Bentivolio Bera (CA) Bilirakis Bishop (GA) Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blumenauer Bonamici Bonner Boustany Brady (PA) Brady (TX) Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Brown (FL) Brownley (CA) Buchanan Bucshon Burgess Bustos Butterfield Calvert Camp Campbell Cantor Capito Capps Carney Carson (IN) Carter Cassidy Castro (TX) Chabot Chaffetz Clay Cleaver Clyburn Coble Coffman Cole Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Conaway Cook Cooper Costa Cotton Courtney Cramer Crenshaw Cuellar Culberson Cummings Daines Davis (CA) Davis, Rodney DeFazio Delaney DelBene Denham Dent Diaz-Balart Dingell Duckworth Duffy Duncan (SC) Edwards Ellmers Enyart Eshoo Esty Farenthold Fattah Fincher Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Flores Forbes Fortenberry Foster Foxx Frankel (FL) Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Gabbard Gallego Garcia Gardner Garrett Gerlach Gibbs Gibson Goodlatte Gosar |
Gowdy Granger Graves (GA) Graves (MO) Green, Al Green, Gene Griffin (AR) Griffith (VA) Grimm Guthrie Gutierrez Hanna Harper Harris Hartzler Heck (NV) Heck (WA) Hensarling Herrera Beutler Himes Hinojosa Holding Horsford Hoyer Hudson Huffman Huizenga (MI) Hunter Hurt Israel Issa Jenkins Johnson (GA) Johnson (OH) Johnson, E. B. Johnson, Sam Jordan Joyce Kaptur Keating Kelly Kilmer Kind King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger (IL) Kirkpatrick Kline Kuster Labrador LaMalfa Lamborn Lance Langevin Lankford Larsen (WA) Latham Latta Levin Lipinski LoBiondo Loebsack Long Lowenthal Lowey Lucas Luetkemeyer Lujan Grisham (NM) Maffei Maloney, Carolyn Maloney, Sean Marchant Marino Matheson McCarthy (CA) McCarthy (NY) McCaul McHenry McIntyre McKeon McKinley McMorris Rodgers McNerney Meadows Meehan Meng Messer Mica Michaud Miller (FL) Miller (MI) Miller, Gary Moore Moran Mullin Mulvaney Murphy (FL) Murphy (PA) Negrete McLeod Neugebauer Noem Nugent Nunes Nunnelee O’Rourke Olson |
Owens Palazzo Pastor (AZ) Paulsen Payne Pearce Pelosi Perry Peters (CA) Peterson Petri Pittenger Pitts Poe (TX) Polis Pompeo Price (GA) Price (NC) Quigley Radel Rahall Reed Reichert Renacci Ribble Rice (SC) Rigell Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Ross Rothfus Royce Ruiz Runyan Ruppersberger Ryan (WI) Sanchez, Loretta Scalise Schiff Schneider Schock Schwartz Schweikert Scott (VA) Scott, Austin Scott, David Sensenbrenner Sessions Sewell (AL) Shea-Porter Sherman Shimkus Shuster Sinema Sires Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (WA) Southerland Stewart Stivers Takano Terry Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiberi Tipton Titus Turner Upton Valadao Van Hollen Veasey Vela Visclosky Wagner Walberg Walden Walorski Walz Waxman Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Whitfield Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf Womack Woodall Yoder Yoho Young (AK) Young (FL) Young (IN) |
So there you have it….a list of those responsible for making Monsanto untouchable. I don’t want to hear the “they had no choice” baloney. The option to refuse is always there and anyone with ethics would have done just that.
I encourage you to reach out to your senators and representatives and let them know how you feel about their betrayals. And don’t forget the White House. Contact information can be found below. (Please be courteous and don’t make crazy threats, because that just reflects badly on the rest of us.)
Refuse to be silenced.
Senator Roy Blunt (email address)
Contacting the Congress (email addresses)
Senator Blunt’s Washington DC office (202) 224-5721
Congressional switchboard (202) 224-3121.
President Barack Obama’s line (202) 456-1111
Wow. Al Franken. As with Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, turns out he’s a glutton for gluttony (and willing to sell his soul)! Didn’t see that coming (for any of the above)…
You didn’t know Al Franken was a big government liberal? Guess what? MOST liberals want to expand government.
Every man and woman listed in this article must be removed from office and jailed for TREASON AND CRIMES AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!! THEY ARE ALL TRAITORS MORE CONCERNED WITH MONEY AND POWER THAN THE WELL BEING OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!!!
I AGREE THESE LAW MAKERS ARE TO BE VOTED OUT OF OFFICE. HOW DO I HELP DO THIS. MY GRAND KIDS NEED A BETTER WORLD!!!
this really isn’t shocking news over the last 30 years corruption in our Government has escalated to a point of redundancy . as more and more people become aware of it through the digital media by those that are not afraid to speak out against the wrong doings to the American people its possible we can make changes to the system before it is to late . informative article keep up the good work
Hey Roy……have a nice big drink of RoundUp w/ the rest of us you’re selling out. How bout big boy?
Disgusted. Until we as people do something about it, these politicians are going to continue to do anything they can to get money for themselves and sicken the rest of society. Think about it. The proof is in the pudding.
I see the majority of Yea Senate votes (51 Yeas- over twice as many as the Repubs) was your beloved Democrats who are all on our side, looking out for our best interest. Only 19 Republican Yea votes. Wake up and smell the coffee, people.
This is a bipartisan issue. Please do not make it about Dems and Reps. That is how they dupe us into not paying attention.
So disappointed to see both (thought to be godly men) Shelby and Session Alabama republicans who voted Yes. There is nothing to be changed now. I don’t see the point now of calling them. I wished I knew of this before and called earlier before the y voted. American greed for money and power. No love for people or our country.
I was born and still live here in Missouri, I’m surrounded by Bible thumping idiots that vote for these liars and thieves masquerading as Christians. Blunt is like all the other alleged “Christian” politicians lining their pockets while handily upgrading Wives, when the opportunity arises (McCain comes to mind as another prime example). They’d be Muslim or Buddhist if it got them elected, their only real belief is in money and power.
Democrats, Republicans, what’s the difference anyway? Even Ron and Rand Paul with their alleged Libertarian views are just a nepotistic organization designed to soak up contributions and fill the spot someone really interested in changing things might fill instead, another part of the system acting like what they’re not, simply more misdirection.
When are those of you with the room temperature I.Q.’s going to get a clue and figure out this is an Oligarchy, it was never meant to be a Democracy and it’s not even the Republic it started out to be anymore. It doesn’t matter who which marionette wins the election, since both candidates are already vetted and on board with the agenda, both having their strings pulled by the same puppeteers, so nothings going to change.
Even TV wrestling isn’t as scripted (if you’re shocked that wrestling is scripted, you’re part of the problem, if you know it’s scripted, but watch anyway, you’re still part of the problem, read a book “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, or watch a documentary “End of the Road”). Start thinking about what’s important, instead of what’s entertaining.
We’re still just part of a feudal system, only the names have changed to protect the guilty, we’re not serfs anymore, we’re citizens. The rich and affluent rule (as they always have, whether Kings, Popes or Bankers), corporate lobbyists make the laws and start the wars our kids fight, not the dirty unwashed masses of useless eaters like us. If voting changed anything, it would be illegal. But enough of the useless platitudes and sugar coating.
For years, everyone has sat around on their fat a$$e$, in their lazy boy recliners, mesmerized by a hundred cable channels of corporate programming on their big screen TV’s, eating microwaved, processed foods and living beyond their means in big houses, with RV’s, Harley’s, jet ski’s and every other unnecessary toy they could get a loan to buy with their credit cards, getting fatter and dumber, without a single thought about living within their means or saving money, until the economy collapsed in 2008.
If you’ve been paying attention and thinking (both nearly lost arts, thanks to Prozac, fluoride and high fructose corn syrup plus an endless list of other non food poisons the FDA regulates for us to eat), you haven’t been and aren’t living hand to mouth, like all the sheep with their credit maxed out.
You’ve got the important things you will need, already paid for, money in the bank, guns, ammo and food stashed for when the SHTF and have been eating whole food and getting regular exercise, instead of spending every penny on frivolous, useless crap made in China, hitting the drive thru every night on the way home, then flopping on the lazy boy for a full evening of mind numbing subliminal programming to promote repeating the cycle all over again tomorrow.
You’re prepared to survive what you’ve seen coming. But if you don’t don’t know what I’m talking about,or you’re pissed off because you do and because you’re probably between 20 and 200 pounds overweight and taking multiple prescriptions, for health problems you could have easily avoided or fixed with willpower, instead of drugs and you don’t like anyone pointing out the truth, then I’ve got some bad news for you sunshine.
Unfortunately (or not), the easy solution to all these problems of yours, is coming soon to a town near you sooner than you might think (if you still could).
Without requiring any action on your part, there’s a plastic casket made for three waiting for you in a FEMA camp somewhere, so despite how fat you’ve become, from drinking the Kool-aid all these years, you’ll still fit into it, thanks to a forklift and some large shoe horns.
When the system crashes, the trucks and trains with food and Chinese goods for Wally World will stop rolling, the grocery stores will empty and after you’ve consumed your supplies in the pantry (microwave popcorn and skittles) along with your beloved dogs, you’ll gladly line up around the block with all the other fat mindless zombies that have helped cause these problems with your ignorance and complacent attitudes, for free room and board at the FEMA camp.
Well, perhaps not actually free, since it will probably cost you your worthless life. But giving something worthless, equates to getting something free in my opinion.
All I can say is Bon Voyage and good riddance. This herd needs thinned and if you are a Democrat or Republican still trying to blame the other party, when obviously both are complicit, you’re going to be rudely awakened to what the few of us recognized as reality long, long ago. The Georgia Guide Stones may be ruthless, but they are an indication of a simple truth, we can’t go on forever like this, somethings got to go and guess what, it’s you.
We need to put Obama on the penny, since they’re both worthless. (Sorry, my attempt at humor)
Keep up the good work Daisy Luther! I’ve read and enjoyed your articles for a long time on different sites, you are an exceptional individual. I’ve known many highly intelligent Females over the years (I’m old and retired), but very few have your excellent insight, wholesome old fashioned attitude and intellectual perception of what is really going on in this wonderful World we live in. You are a rare specimen indeed! You somehow balance the bright side of things with useful information, while also shining light into the darkness where they’re trying to hide their evil deeds. If I were a younger Man (who knew then, what I know now), I’d attempt to track you down and give some competition to whoever the lucky SOB is you are gracing, with your lovely presence and wholesome attentions. I certainly hope he appreciates what he’s got going on.
Thanks for all you do and please keep up the good work. God Bless you and yours!
A grassroots group have started a site to reject Roy Blunt https://www.facebook.com/groups/435205643238172/ and a website coming soon. Are You Ready? Replace Roy Blunt. This group has been wanted for a long time. So many conservative republicans hoping and wanting a strong candidate to come forward to run for Missouri’s U.S.Senator to Replace Roy. Tell your stories. Tell your friends. Tell the Tea
Parties and other groups that we need to come together in a strong, committed force to send to Washington a true constitutional, conservative, committed representative of the people and for the people. To serve the citizens of Missouri, not special interests groups on K Street.
One-term (we pray one term) Senator Roy Blunt was elected with 54.3% of the vote in 2010. He will be 66 years old in 2016. Let’s give him his walking papers in 2016. Please let your readers and members know of what we are trying to do. Any help is important.
Terry – please feel absolutely free to use this article in part or in full. My republication policy is on the website, top right hand corner. All of the information included is well-verified.
Best of luck to you!
Daisy