A recent video has surfaced of actress Susan Sarandon perpetuating a mistaken rumor long-held by thousands of individuals concerning Hillary Clinton’s supposed ties to big business in the agriculture sector. A simple investigation into this matter proves otherwise.
It is a fact that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has never taken money from Monsanto. The Clinton Foundation, which is an entirely separate entity from Hillary’s campaign, has accepted donations from Monsanto…in addition to hundreds of other organizations, individuals and nations including George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Elton John, Paul Newman and the government of Norway all of which have given as much, if not more than Monsanto gave to the Foundation. It’s ludicrous to assume that Hillary Clinton would be indebted to these hundreds of donors who gave to her foundation, let alone Monsanto.
The other connection critics like to tout is that Hillary hired a campaign adviser who previously lobbied for Monsanto. The truth is that the adviser, Jerry Crawford, was only hired to help with the campaign in Iowa. It’s a well known fact that Jerry Crawford has a lot of political clout in the state so there is absolutely nothing unusual or suspect about the Clinton campaign hiring him for his experience. According to Opensecrets.org, his lobbying firm has represented Monsanto, as well as the Humane Society. This shouldn’t be a surprise, considering the fact that Iowa is a major state for agriculture, and a number of seed companies do business with farmers there.
What many people fail to point out, however, is that Bernie Sanders has similar ties to Monsanto if we are using the same standards many have adopted to judge Hillary. An adviser on the Sanders campaign, Tad Devine, previously worked for a law firm that represented Monsanto. Does this make Sanders a puppet of Monsanto? Obviously not.
In fact, if one wanted to play this game, one could also point out that Devine worked for John Corzine, deposed Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych who was forced out by the Orange Revolution, and Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, former president of Bolivia now living in exile in the US and fighting extradition to face trial in Bolivia for the massacre of protesters by government troops.
We would advise that liberals and conservatives alike stop perpetuating false information about candidates like Hillary Clinton when it comes to issues concerning agriculture and the environment and instead take a few brief moments to research and obtain hard facts before spouting lies.
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