I’m sure we all know that President Obama signed the Monsanto Rider section 735 by now. I quite frankly, am not a bit surprised since Michael R. Taylor, the past vice president of Monsanto runs the FDA.
And we can thank Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski for chairing the committee that sneaked the Monsanto Rider in the 2013 Budget Resolution. It was cleverly hidden in Bill H.R. 933 that contains other provisions like Homeland Security and the Department of Defence. Democratic leaders, including Mikulski, claim they were under pressure to pass a funding a bill quickly. Some members of Congress are now claiming they didn’t know this provision was hidden in the bill and that it was anonymously thrown in. They didn’t know? Isn’t it their job to know what they are voting on? I found out by watching John Stewart‘s Daily Show last night. Isn’t it amazing that we have to turn to a fake new source to find out what’s really going on in our country? I don’t mean Fox News — I mean The Daily Show and the Colbert Show. There are lots of rumors floating around about what’s in the bill, so I want to pass on to you, exactly what this means for you and me. Ok, nothing for you and me per se, unless we’re farmers, and by farmers, I mean mostly agri-business because they just got a green light by lawmakers to do business as usual.
I am one of those citizens who sends emails to my representatives. I used to send them via snail mail and still think that’s the best way to get their attention — a zillion emails doesn’t give off the same visual effect as a 100s of bags full of angry letters from their constituents, sitting in a legislators office. They have to pay someone to open all those letters and then they have to dispose of them. But that’s my humble opinion. Anyway, this time I decided to call Senator Diane Feinstein’s Washington office. The email responses I usually get were not going to give me any answers because my questions were not directed at a specific bill. Well, they were sort of, but not exactly. She did vote yea on the budget bill. Did she know what was hiding in it? Would it have made a difference? The lines must have been burning up over something because it took nearly 30 minutes to get someone to answer the phone.
The intern who fianlly answered the phone has only been working there two months, so I don’t think by her answers, she was quite ready for my line of questioning. There were a few times I felt she was distracted. It felt like the times I talk to my son while he is scrolling down Facebook. Was she checking her Facebook page or playing Words with Friends? Or was she trying to find news sources that reported the same things I was telling her? She did ask me where I got my information. After telling her that I read Congress doesn’t know what is in the bills they vote on, she told me that someone in the legislator’s staff knows what is in a certain bill and that someone tells his/her legislator. Legislators do not have to be present when a member discusses a bill. I believe that for sure. Have you watched the House and Senate televison channel? There is usually some congressperson or senator going on and on about something and talking to a bunch of empty seats. It sort of reminds me of when Clint Eastwood had that conversation with an empty chair, pretending he was talking to President Obama.
I then told the intern that if lawmakers really do know what are in the bills before they vote on them, then someone is either lying or has memory problems. I then wanted to know if it is true that Monsanto (among other big groups, like the gun lobby) threatened to shut our government down, unless they had their way and this provision remained in the budget bill. She said, as far as she knew it was in fact true. So it is apparent to me that not only do corporations have way too much power, they are now using their power too cripple our government to get their way.
I am not all together convinced that we were in yet another crisis and they should have taken the time to debate the Monsanto rider. But then I remember that Monsanto has been kicked out of several countries because of the damage they inflicted and they cannot afford to lose more money. Its better for them to not allow any discussion, let alone debate. , Monsanto knows if people really understood what they are up to, then their days are numbered and they will have to reininvent themselves again, like they did after the Agent Orange pr disaster. They can thank Mitt Romney for saving their financial asses back then.
It seems to me that our legislators cry wolf way too much for me to believe anything they say. I think it’s fascinating that our legislators find the time to be wined and dined by lobbyists but can’t find any time to do real work — like actually show up to senate chambers. My question to you is this — what do you plan to do about it? We are the people right?
Don’t let an opportunity go to waste…isn’t that the new mantra?
Exploit every political and economic opportunity you can, while you can…
It would be nice to know what was really in my food. Special conditions for special friends is wrong and shouldn’t be acceptable. I don’t want or need a govt run by excuses.
The culprit has been identified: longtime Big Ag lackey Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri (where Monsanto is headquartered.)
Blunt has been the expected culprit all along. Blame spread to anyone other than Blunt just takes the heat off of him. He very cleverly snuck this in exactly when it would not be noticed. The best responses are: (1) demand its repeal and (2) blow Blunt out of the water politically.
Tom Philpott’s at Mother Jones now? We went to UT Austin together in the early 90s he was an undergrad, I was a graduate music student. We caused so much trouble together, me and him and Scott Henson. They ran the university’s underground paper “The Polemicist.” I had a humorous anonymous column in it as “A. Student.”
Another undergrad who sometimes hung out with us was Robert Rodriguez, who had a comic strip in the Daily Texan called Los Hooligans, featuring the rowdy misadventures of his little sister. Now he’s the celebrated filmmaker of “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “Machete,” “Sin City,” “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” and much more.
“Mansanto makes lawmakers their bitch”!!!!!
Not very feminist of you Inge. I thought that Dog Vern wrote that title.
Haha, she checked the title with me, I okayed it.
It’s not so much feminist or not, it’s ghetto or prison talk, and an appropriate metaphor here.
Double Eye,
I am the definition of a feminist and I do not believe in political correctness…it smacks of censorship…if thats what your getting at. I have been called a bitch on occasion and wear that title with pride.
Legislators are PAID by Monsanto to put such bits of trash into bills…..and you are right there is NO excuse for a legislator NOT knowing what is contained in a bill for which they are voting. To do so is a dereliction of duty. If the voters are not aware of what their legislators are doing…then again…it is a dereliction of the voters duties. Voters need to “know” who and for what they are voting. Visit their offices…meet with their representatives if they are not available, deliver letters…in fact start a citizens letter writing campaign and do what PDA does…follow up the letters with phone calls to their offices…multiple phone calls.
Carole is a fine example of a feminist/activist. She walks her talk and never gives up!
How are they supposed to read a 1200-page bill closely enough to catch every obscure reference if they only have two hours to read it?
Under Gingrich or Hastert (I forget which), Democrats were in some cases literally not allowed the bills that they were to vote on. That’s a pretty good excuse! In this case, the suspicion seems to center on Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt, who is probably thrilled that Obama and the Democrats are taking much of the blame for his action.
If people don’t like this — and we shouldn’t — we should have a campaign to demand its repeal in a standalone bill. That would be a smart and strong political response. Blaming “politicians” generally is too diffuse and appeals to people’s desire to feel superior to politicians rather than trying to get them to accomplish some specific goal — such as repealing this provision. I wish that comparable effort went into making that happen as was going into “pox on both their houses” grousing.
spoken like a true party man….
The official PDF is 240 pages. Why are you calling this a 1200-page bill?
Inge was identifying a more general problem with bills that went beyond this particular one. Some of them are even longer than this. Furthermore — and again I haven’t looked into the language if this one — they’re hard to spot, having language along the lines of “the provisions of 57 CCR 1234.010-.450 shall not apply to entities that fail to qualify in any but the first section of the subtitle 7 of the Omnibus Verbosity Act of 2007” — and meanwhile Congress is up against an imminent deadline and WE HAVE TO VOTE NOW NOW NOW!!!
Construction of such riders is a Dark Art (one that I never sought to learn, which is why my parody probably sucks.) That’s why it can take days sometimes to ferret some of them out. Don’t blame the readers, blame the writers.
I think we all know that sneaking in provisions is common and they claim it was done anonymously… that is until Blunt’s name came up. I agree it should be appealed. I don’t know how that can be done though. Greg, any ideas?
A fine example of why only watching “lamestream” cable news networks…MSNBC, Fox, CNN, all of ’em…is generally a waste of time. You’d never know about this kind of shenanigans by limiting yourself to those “news” sources.
I love this quote from Jon Stewart and it sums up what happened. “The laws of the most powerful nation on Earth are written with the same level of accountability as Internet comments” http://on.cc.com/16sqTNs
It can be done by simply writing a Bill to do it and passing it through both houses and getting POTUS to sign it.
The only thing we can do is make sure that it is not renewed in the next Agriculture appropriations bill that needs to be signed by September 30th. We also need to be on the lookout for these types of provisions in the upcoming Farm Bill. Anything coming out of the Boehner house is going to be full of corporate gifts.
Also, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve taken the image from this post to use in a Monsanto Protection Act post on my website; it’s just too perfect. Please let me know if you do and I’ll take it down.
Jen…thank you for that information…I didn’t know when they would look at the bill again and yes, you can use the image.