HR, Executive - Campbell's Exec Sacked For Anti-Soros Tirade

A high ranking executive with the venerable Campbell's Soup company is out after retweeting a conspiracy theory about billionaire financier George Soros and the caravan of Central American migrants making its way to the US southern border with Mexico.

On Sunday, Campbell's announced that Kelly Johnston was out as the company's vice president of government affairs, whose chief responsibility was to lobby the company's interests to the US government.  He was originally supposed to depart the company in November.

"In the last few days, the company and Mr. Johnston have agreed that under the current circumstances it would be best to accelerate the timing of his departure," a company spokesperson told CNN.

Before working for Campbell's, Johnston was a high-ranking mainstream Republican party official who served in the administration of President George H.W. Bush administration and was the Secretary of the Senate way back when Bob Dole was Majority Leader - which makes his conduct last week even more troubling.

A week ago, Johnston tweeted that the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations arranged for "troop carriers" and "rail cars" to support the caravan, which in reality is fleeing poverty and violence mainly in Honduras.  Johnston claimed Soros even coordinated "where they defecate".  And yeah, that last one is a really odd detail to be obsessed with.  Confronted by journalists, Johnston at first claimed that his "employer would not be used to silence" him.  Later that day, he deleted his Twitter account - but not before reporters saved screen shots.

"Neither Mr. Soros nor Open Society is funding this effort," Open Society tweeted replied to this nonsense.  "We are surprised to see a Campbell Soup executive spreading false stories."

Replying to complaints from Open Society, Campbell's interim president and CEO Keith McLoughlin sent a letter reading, "We expect our leaders to present facts, to deal with objective truths and to exercise impeccable judgment."  He added, "Mr. Johnston's remarks do not represent the position of Campbell and are inconsistent with how Campbell approaches public debate."

Campbell's decision actually took effect on Thursday, and thus preceded the massacre at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania synagogue by a heavily-armed anti-Semite.  But Johnston's on-line flirtations with the violent, racist, and anti-Semitic far-right had been going on for a while.  Last year, he denied the far-right riot and murder of a peaceful counter-protester at Charlottesville, Virginia, and even offered to put a statue of confederate general Robert E. Lee in his front yard.

George Soros is a holocaust survivor who later in life made billions from currency trading.  He is the subject of numerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories from the global far-right; most of the recent ones involve him financing mass migrations of people from southern regions to the north to "destroy" white civilization for some reason.  In the real world, Soros funds all sorts of charitable works, including his own Open Society Foundation which promotes Democracy and international cooperation over nationalism and conflict.

Just as an aside, the migrant caravan is still in far southern Mexico more than 1,800 kilometers away from the nearest US border crossing.  If Soros really is paying for trucks and trains, they must be powered by gerbils because these impoverished people aren't making a lot of progress.