March, 15 2012, 11:26am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,info(at)fwwatch(dot)org,Seth Gladstone -,sgladstone@fwwatch.org
Pressure on Walmart to Rebuff GE Sweet Corn Intensifies
Consumer Allies Collect Nearly Half a Million Petition Signatures and Plan Protests at Stores Across the Country
WASHINGTON
Today Food & Water Watch, CREDO Action, SumOfUs, Center for Food Safety, Center for Environmental Health, and Corporate Accountability International announced they have collected 463,681 petition signatures to date asking Walmart to refuse to stock Monsanto's genetically engineered (GE) sweet corn. The coalition also announced a Day of Action on Saturday, March 17.
"Walmart is starting to feel the heat from consumers who don't want this unlabeled GE corn in their grocery carts, so they are releasing public statements and telling customers that they have no current plans to carry the biotech corn," said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. "But until the retail giant sends a clear message to its supply chain that it will not buy this GE sweet corn, consumers have no way of knowing whether or not Walmart's corn is GE free, and those of us who prefer to avoid GE food -- including the half-million people who signed this petition -- will purchase our groceries elsewhere."
Public opinion polls done by Consumer Reports and others show that a majority of consumers asked would not eat genetically modified food and nearly all -- 95 percent -- are insistent that GE food must be labeled, at minimum, so they can make informed choices. As the country's largest grocery retailer, Walmart sells $129 billion worth of food a year, giving it unmatched power in shaping the food supply chain. If Walmart refuses to stock Monsanto's GE sweet corn, other retailers will likely follow suit and farmers won't feel the economic pressure to plant the biotech seeds. To date, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market have indicated they will not sell the GE corn.
"Consumers around the world are calling on Walmart to reject Monsanto's toxic crop. The last thing we need is another unlabeled, potentially unsafe GE product hiding in plain sight at the nation's largest food retailer," said Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director and founder of SumOfUs.
"We hope that Walmart food buyers hear the more than 200,000 CREDO members encouraging them to take a stand for consumer choice and against Monsanto's unlabeled GMO corn," said Elijah Zarlin, campaign manager of CREDO Action. "Walmart's stated commitment to customer safety and satisfaction will definitely be called into question if they carry this untested, unlabeled sweet corn - not even giving their customers the choice to avoid the product."
"Grocery companies are the last link in the chain before this corn reaches consumers and they have a financial incentive to keep this unlabeled GE sweet corn off their shelves because their customers won't buy it," said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of The Center for Food Safety. "Two major retailers have already said they will not use Monsanto's new corn. If they can do it, so can Walmart."
"Walmart has been getting an earful from hundreds of thousands of Americans who don't want risky genetic corn experiments," said Charles Margulis, food program coordinator at the Center for Environmental Health. "This untested, unlabeled corn has no place on Walmart shelves. We expect swift action by the world's largest retailer to protect their consumers' right to safe food choices."
On March 17, dozens of live events are being planned in communities across the country including New Jersey, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, Iowa and California, as well as online social media actions targeting Walmart properties.
In addition to the nearly 500,000 petition signatures, the campaign that began on Jan. 11 has generated significant support from people across the country who are opposed to untested, unlabeled and potentially unsafe GE food. On Feb. 8, more than 3,300 phone calls were made to Walmart's customer service line and between Feb. 22 and 23, Food & Water Watch activists delivered more than 75,000 petitions to more than 100 Walmart stores across the country.
Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control. www.foodandwaterwatch.org
SumOfUs.org is a global movement of consumers, investors, and workers all around the world, standing together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable and just path for our global economy.
CREDO Action has 2.7 million members across the U.S. who fight for progressive change and raise money for organizations like Food Democracy Now! and the Organic Consumers Association. Since 1985, CREDO and its membership have donated over $65 million to progressive causes. www.credoaction.org
The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. The Center for Food Safety's True Food Network is a national grassroots network with over 200,000 members where concerned citizens can voice their opinions about critical food safety issues, and advocate for a socially just, democratic, and sustainable food system. On the web at www.centerforfoodsafety.org
and www.truefoodnow.org
The Center for Environmental Health protects people from toxic chemicals and promotes business products and practices that are safe for public health and the environment. www.ceh.org
The Center for Environmental Health protects people from toxic chemicals and promotes business products and practices that are safe for public health and the environment. www.ceh.org
Corporate Accountability International (formerly Infact) is a membership organization that has, for the last 35 years, successfully advanced campaigns protecting health, the environment and human rights. StopCorporateAbuse.org
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
Grand Jury Indicts Top Trump Aides, 11 Arizona Republicans Over 'Fake Electors' Scheme
Had it succeeded, said the state's attorney general, the scheme would have "deprived Arizona's voters of their right to have their votes counted for their chosen president."
Apr 25, 2024
A grand jury in Arizona on Wednesday charged seven aides to Donald Trump and nearly a dozen Republican officials over a "fake electors" scheme in the state that aimed to keep the former president in power after his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.
Trump, who is currently facing nearly 90 charges across four criminal cases as he runs for another White House term, was described as "unindicted co-conspirator 1" in the 58-page indictment, which was announced by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.
"The people of Arizona elected President Biden," Mayes, a Democrat, said Wednesday. "Unwilling to accept this fact, the defendants charged by the state grand jury allegedly schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency. Whatever their reasoning was, the plot to violate the law must be answered for."
The indictment names former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward, sitting state Republican Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon, and seven others as the "fake electors" who sought to declare Trump the rightful winner of the state's presidential contest.
The names of other individuals indicted by the state grand jury are redacted, but the document's descriptions make clear that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and top Trump legal strategist Boris Epshteyn are among those facing felony charges—including fraud, forgery, and conspiracy.
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"It effectively would have made their right to vote meaningless," said Mayes.
A state grand jury, made up of everyday, regular Arizonans, has handed down felony indictments in the ongoing investigation into the fake elector scheme in Arizona. pic.twitter.com/Nu8GcD4ZqJ
— AZ Attorney General Kris Mayes (@AZAGMayes) April 24, 2024
Alex Gulotta, state director of All Voting Is Local Action Arizona, said Wednesday that "the indictment of the eleven fake electors is one of the first steps required in holding these election deniers accountable for their alleged attempts to take power away from voters by disrupting our free and fair elections."
"Arizonans deserve to trust the election officials responsible for administering our elections and preserving our democracy," said Gulotta, "and this is a positive step forward as we continue to strengthen the foundations of our democracy and restore faith in our elections."
The Arizona Republicreported Wednesday that "several of the Arizona electors have previously claimed they were merely offering Congress a backup plan, though nothing in the documents they sent to Congress and the National Archives backs up that assertion."
"The indictment includes several statements the false electors made on social media that contradict those claims," the newspaper observed.
Jenny Guzman, director of Common Cause's Arizona program, said the indictment "marks the start of a new chapter for the fake elector scheme that has plagued Arizona."
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A campaign finance watchdog on Wednesday filed a Federal Election Commission complaint accusing former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, affiliated political groups, and an accounting firm of violating U.S. law in a scheme "seemingly designed to obscure the true recipients of a noteworthy portion of Trump's legal bills."
The Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center (CLC) said that "evidence appears to show an illegal arrangement between several Trump-affiliated committees and a compliance firm named Red Curve Solutions that is designed to obscure the identities of those providing legal services and how much they are being paid."
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According to CLC:
Red Curve is a domestic limited liability company that offers compliance and FEC reporting services but does not appear to offer any legal services. It is managed by Bradley Crate, who also serves as the treasurer for each of the five Trump-affiliated committees concerned in this complaint, as well as over 200 other federal committees.
According to filings with the FEC, Red Curve appears to have been fronting legal costs for Trump since at least December 2022, with Trump-affiliated committees repaying the company later. This arrangement appears to violate FEC rules that require campaigns to disclose not only the entity being reimbursed (here, Red Curve) but also the underlying vendor. By not disclosing the vendors that actually provided legal services, the Trump-affiliated committees effectively blocked the public from knowing which attorneys and firms are being paid—and how much they are being paid—through this arrangement.
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Trump—who is the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee—faces 91 federal and state felony charges related to his role in the January 6 insurrection and his organization's business practices. He is currently on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle. The twice-impeached former president has been open about his use of campaign donations to pay his legal costs.
The new CLC filing comes a day after the watchdog filed separate FEC complaints urging investigations into a pair of Trump-affiliated "scam PACs," which "pretend to fundraise for major candidates or issues while secretly diverting almost all of their donors' money back into fundraising or the fraudsters' own pockets."
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"With a total ban still set to take effect June 8, the Arizona Abortion Access Act is needed now more than ever," one state campaigner said of a November ballot measure.
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Three Republicans in the Arizona House of Representatives on Wednesday joined with Democrats to advance legislation that would repeal an 1864 ban on abortion—a development rights advocates welcomed while stressing that the fight is far from over.
The 32-28 vote on House Bill 2677—with GOP Reps. Tim Dunn (25), Matt Gress (4), and Justin Wilmeth (2) voting in favor—was the third attempt in as many weeks to pass repeal legislation since the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the ban.
"The state Senate could vote on the repeal as early as next Wednesday, after the bill comes on the floor for a 'third reading,' as is required under chamber rules," according toNBC News. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs on Wednesday toldThe Washington Post that "I am hopeful the Senate does the right thing and sends it to my desk so I can sign it."
Applauding the House passage of H.B. 2677, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona president and CEO Angela Florez said that "today, Arizona is one step closer to repealing the state's Civil War-era total abortion ban. While the repeal still must pass the Senate, this is a major win for reproductive freedom."
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Florez noted that "even with the repeal of the Civil War-era ban, the state will still have a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that denies people access to critical care. And lawmakers continue to attack Arizonans' ability to access reproductive healthcare. Our right to control our bodies and lives is hanging on by a thread."
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The Arizona Abortion Access Act is a proposed state constitutional amendment that would prevent many limits on abortions before fetal viability and safeguard access to care after viability to protect the life or physical or mental health of the patient.
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