U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

So, the guy who lost by over 7 million votes is questioning another candidates' electability?  

Sean Hannity is scared his preferred candidate Dr. Oz is going to lose the Pennsylvania primary to an even more radical MAGA candidate, Kathy Barnette, that he spent the bulk of his propaganda show attacking her. Donald Trump is backing Oz as well but his endorsements don't have much influence. Polls have Ms. Barnette surging and that is an absolute fact if you've been on Twitter. Yesterday afternoon, the Really American PAC put out a Dr. Oz video, titled #RejectOz, which showed his corrupt ties to Turkey. Several right wing MAGA "influencers" joined in on the hashtag attacking Oz as they showed their full support of Ms. Barnette even though their hero Donald Trump endorsed Oz. So, Donnie clearly doesn't have the influence he once had as his own sycophants are not supporting his endorsement. The Dr. Oz video is posted below. The GOP is in disarray. And good luck to Ms. Barnette!           




Donald Trump questions Kathy Barnette’s electability in Pennsylvania Senate race

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary is in chaos.

Kathy Barnette’s late surge has turned the nationally watched race into a mad scramble, with former President Donald Trump warning Republicans against nominating her and opponents only now doing basic background research in an attempt to stop her as the clock ticks closer to Tuesday’s primary.

Such vetting, usually strategically unspooled over the course of a lengthy campaign, rolled out in frenetic bursts at a range of disparate targets Thursday.

The rush to find anything to puncture Barnette’s story came as she threatened to overtake longtime GOP front-runners Mehmet Oz and David McCormick, who have spent tens of millions of dollars on the campaign but failed to pull away.

The haphazard moment was embodied by a Trump statement urging Republicans to support his endorsed candidate, Oz, but also predicted a bright future for Barnette, a conservative commentator and a prominent election denier with a trail of incendiary comments, including some targeting gay and transgender people and Muslims.

“Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the General Election against the Radical Left Democrats,” Trump said.

"She has many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted,” he added, “but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party — and I will be behind her all the way.”

Barnette, 50, brushed off the attack during a campaign stop Thursday night at the Southampton Fire Department in Bucks County.

“We know that President Trump did not mince words,” she told reporters after the event, though media were largely barred while it took place. “I think that letter was favorable. And I look forward to working with the president.”

She agreed with a suggestion that being targeted was confirmation of her rise.

“There’s a reason we have the words swamp creatures,” she had told the crowd earlier, according to a recording made by reporters who were briefly inside but forced to leave. ”The long knives are coming out at this point, and I had the best day of my life today.”

Barnette responded to questions about her background in a 25-minute interview with conservative radio host Chris Stigall. She accused her opponents, and some conservative media figures, of twisting past statements.

She explained her work history, where she went to college, when she moved to Pennsylvania (2014, according to a GOP questionnaire she once filled out), and her 10 years in the Army Reserve. She described her political fight now as “David and Goliath."

Barnette’s campaign had spent less than $2 million as of April 27, according to public disclosures. That’s dwarfed by more than $35 million from McCormick and two super PACs funded by his wealthy allies, and more than $18 million by Oz and his supporters.

As rivals raised questions about her chances of winning a statewide election, Barnette noted that Oz and McCormick have already bloodied each other with brutal ad campaigns.

“Why would you take people with very high negatives in the Republican primary into the general (election) and think you’re gonna win?” she asked in the radio interview.

Barnette, running a tireless race on a shoestring budget, has stunned insiders in both parties. She has capitalized on Oz and McCormick’s withering attacks on each other, her own combative rhetoric, and her ties to State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the leading GOP candidate for governor.

But her prominence, like Mastriano’s, has some Republicans worried they could nominate a pair of candidates too extreme to win a swing state, even in a year that appears likely to strongly favor the GOP.

”I have concerns about some of the things I’ve heard her say, and I think it’s incredibly important that the person that’s nominated can win this seat,” McCormick, an Army veteran and former hedge fund CEO, said during a campaign stop in Northeast Philadelphia. “We have to have someone who can withstand what’s going to be required in the general election to win.”

Strategists were wrestling with whom Barnette might weaken more, Oz or McCormick, if she can’t win — illustrating how she had upended a contest focused for months on just two contenders.

Barnette, with her combative style and history of challenging the 2020 election, has many qualities that appeal to Trump’s supporters.

But some Republicans worry about past comments attacking gay people and Islam. She once called the religion “a political and a military system that is incongruent with the U.S. Constitution,” CNN reported, and tied it to pedophilia. On her radio show in 2015, she said, “Two men holding hands, two men caressing, that is not normal,” the cable news outlet reported.

She also embarked on a failed push to find voter fraud after losing a 2020 U.S. House race. But neither Republicans nor Democrats took her seriously enough to dig through her history or personal story until now.

This late in the race, it’s unclear if the attacks will have enough time to sink in before Tuesday’s vote, though a super PAC aligned with Oz blasted them out by text message Wednesday and Thursday.

After McCormick allies earlier this week challenged Barnette to produce records from her decade in the Army Reserve — which she did — her rivals turned to other topics Thursday. A McCormick aide pointed out Barnette said she worked “on Wall Street,” but an old LinkedIn profile listed her working in St. Louis for Bank of America’s investing arm.

Others accused Barnette, who is Black, of expressing sympathy for the Black Lives Matter movement because she tweeted the #BLM hashtag.

Yet that led to a video in which she sharply criticized violence that followed some protests after the 2020 police murder of George Floyd. Barnette told Stigall she only used the hashtag to inject her views into the online discourse.

Oz, appearing on Fox Business, said Barnette “attacked George Washington.”

It was a reference to a 2019 YouTube video in which Barnette, while visiting Washington’s Mount Vernon home, discussed the people he enslaved, praising their strength and perseverance and saying Black people should honor what they endured. She said that while some white visitors saw Washington as “high and mighty,” Americans should have a “balanced” view of the country’s history, good and bad.

“The best way we can honor those slaves who came before us as Black people is to live an honorable life,” she said in the video.

Oz also questioned whether she could win a key swing state.

“She said things that are going to make her very difficult to elect in a general election,” he said on Fox Business. “The Republican community’s going to coalesce around me. I’m confident in part because of [her] past statements, in part because of the clear mission and vision we’ve been offering to the voters of Pennsylvania.”

His appearance came a day after Fox News host Sean Hannity, who has endorsed Oz, hammered Barnette in a 10-minute segment.

Hannity slammed Barnette for old social media posts in which she appeared to criticize Trump and support a statue of Barack Obama. In the posts, allegedly from Barnette’s Twitter account but no longer available, she criticized a Trump debate performance during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, calling it “horrid,” and saying he was “just as liberal as” Democratic leaders.

She made other critical statements about Trump that year, like many Republicans, but by the spring was posting feverishly in his favor.

Barnette told Stigall she voted for Trump in both the 2016 primary and general elections. And she said she called for an Obama statue because she wanted more statues at a time when activists were removing some recognizing Confederate figures, and thought it would be appropriate to honor the country’s first Black president.

Outside Barnette’s event Thursday night, Rich Hohenshilt said the new attacks don’t change his plans to vote for her, but he does want to know if there’s anything that could be unearthed later.

”They’re gonna throw everything at her including the kitchen sink,” said Hohenshilt, 55, a cross-country truck driver from Penndel who wore a Trump hat and Barnette T-shirt. “They’re gonna do every lie that they could possibly do. … They’re gonna do everything they can to knock her out.”

He also said he loves Trump, but “Donald Trump is not Jesus. He’s capable of making a mistake, and she believes he made a mistake by endorsing the wrong person. And I do, too.”

Barnette also found some defenders in the conservative media, many of whom have also balked at Trump’s Oz endorsement.

On Trump ally Steve Bannon’s talk show Thursday, guest Jack Posobiec said that what opponents are doing to Barnette “is the same thing they did to Donald Trump.”

“They’re going into videos and clipping things completely out of context,” said Posobiec, a pro-Trump commentator prominent on social media. “It reeks of desperation to be attacking someone’s military record when you have a woman like her who stepped up and served.”

© The Philadelphia Inquirer


Dr. Oz EXPOSED voting in Turkey's election, denying Armenian genocide

Mehmet Oz refuses to give up his Turkish citizenship. He served in their military, is paid millions by Turkish airlines, votes in their elections, is cozy with their dictator, and even adopts the regimes line of denying the Armenian genocide. #RejectOz

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

House panel exposes how 'shameful' meatpackers put profits over worker health during pandemic

A congressional report published Thursday revealed that meat processing companies worked with and lobbied the Trump administration to continue operating during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the danger to workers in the high-risk industry.

"The devastating impacts of the Covid crisis on workers in these industries should push lawmakers and the Biden administration to crack down on the meatpacking giants."

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis report—entitled Now to Get Rid of Those Pesky Health Departments!—shows how major meatpackers including Tyson Foods, JBS USA, and Smithfield Foods engaged political appointees in the Trump administration in "an aggressive campaign to ensure their facilities remained at maximum capacity."

As a result of the meat processing industry's successful efforts, employees—many of them low-income Latino and other immigrants—were forced to work in dangerously close quarters in plants with a high risk of coronavirus transmission.

"This coordinated campaign prioritized industry production over the health of workers and communities, and contributed to tens of thousands of workers becoming ill, hundreds of workers dying, and the virus spreading throughout surrounding areas," Committee Chair Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in a statement.

Food & Water Watch @foodandwater

Last year, we filed a lawsuit against Smithfield Foods for claiming that a nonexistent meat shortage justified endangering workers. The House's report also shows evidence of #PandemicProfiteering. The Biden admin must hold these corporations accountable![/i]

"The shameful conduct of corporate executives pursuing profit at any cost during a crisis and government officials eager to do their bidding regardless of resulting harm to the public must never be repeated," he added.

At one point during the spring of 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified Smithfield's Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant as the nation's biggest single source of Covid-19 cases, and several other meat processing facilities were listed in the top 10. Through May 2020, counties with meatpacking plants recorded 10 times as many coronavirus infections as counties without such facilities, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture study.

All told, at least 59,000 workers at plants operated by just five companies—Tyson, JBS, Smithfield, Cargill Meat Solutions, and National Beef—were infected, and at least 269 people died. As they were dying, Tyson managers placed bets on how many employees at the company's Waterloo, Iowa plant would become infected. More than 1,000 workers—over a third of the facility's staff—would test positive for Covid-19, at least five of them died, and the plant ultimately shut down for two weeks.

The new report, which is based on more than 151,000 pages of documents collected from companies and interest groups, found that meatpacking industry representatives identified "fixers" in the Trump administration who would block attempts by regulators to improve health and safety conditions in processing plants.

The publication also shows how the industry collaborated with the administration to ensure that workers remained on the job despite the clear risk to their lives—even as meatpacking companies sought federal liability protection against lawsuits from workers who were infected with coronavirus on the job.

Instead of working with state and local health departments to ensure worker safety, companies treated them as impediments to maximizing profits. One lobbyist, voicing what the report says is an industry-wide sentiment, once even said, "Now to get rid of those pesky health departments!"

Furthermore, Tyson attorneys drafted an executive order to invoke the Defense Production Act—a civil defense provision—to ensure continued peak operations and then relentlessly lobbied the Trump administration to issue the order. Then-President Donald Trump did so on April 28, 2020, less than a week after receiving the Tyson draft.

"From the very beginning of the pandemic, consumer advocates and industry watchdogs warned that meat giants like Smithfield and Tyson were stoking fears of a shortage in order to keep their plants operating—putting public health and workers' lives at risk," Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the advocacy group Food & Water Watch—which last year sued Smithfield for allegedly lying to consumers about a looming meat shortage in order to protect profits—said in a statement.

"These fear-mongering PR campaigns were nothing more than a cover-up for corporate greed and pandemic profiteering," she continued. "The unsafe conditions in meatpacking plants have raised alarms for decades."

"The devastating impacts of the Covid crisis on workers in these industries should push lawmakers and the Biden administration to crack down on the meatpacking giants," Hauter added. "This is an urgent matter of public health, food safety, and workers' rights."

New Investigation Documents Meatpackers’ Pandemic Deceptions
House report should prompt serious action

Today, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released a report documenting how leading U.S. meatpacking companies stoked fears about a meat shortage in order to keep their plants open during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report shows that corporate giants like Tyson and Smithfield worked closely with the Trump administration to keep their operations running despite the risks to workers. It also documents how pork companies were exporting record amounts of pork while stoking fears of a shortage.

In June of last year, Food & Water Watch filed suit charging that Smithfield Foods repeatedly lied to consumers about a looming meat shortage in order to protect its profits.

In response to today’s report, Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter released the following statement:

"From the very beginning of the pandemic, consumer advocates and industry watchdogs warned that meat giants like Smithfield and Tyson were stoking fears of a shortage in order to keep their plants operating – putting public health and workers’ lives at risk. These fear mongering PR campaigns were nothing more than a coverup for corporate greed and pandemic profiteering.

“The unsafe conditions in meatpacking plants have raised alarms for decades. The devastating impacts of the COVID crisis on workers in these industries should push lawmakers and the Biden administration to crack down on the meatpacking giants. This is an urgent matter of public health, food safety and workers’ rights.”

Read the House Report Here: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2022/05/12/new-investigation-documents-meatpackers-pandemic-deceptions/

[Rick Plant]

Republicans and the right wing media are lying to Americans about the baby formula shortage in the United States. They are falsely attacking President Biden for the shortage, which obviously he has no control over, when the formula was contaminated with bacteria at the factory. The bacteria made babies sick, with two that died, so the factory was shut down to prevent any more sickness or death. Abbott Management, no relation to the right wing Texas Governor, cut corners and refused to update their old equipment and as a result bacteria contaminated their supply of formula. This article from NBC News details the contamination at the factory.

Amid baby formula shortage, factory stays shut as investigators try to pinpoint source of bacteria that sickened infants

The CDC said it found no match between bacteria samples from two sick infants and samples from a Michigan formula factory that paused production earlier this year.

April 15, 2022

Amid a nationwide baby formula shortage, federal investigators have been unable to definitively determine the source or sources of a rare bacteria that sickened four infants, two of them now dead, who all consumed powdered formula made at one Michigan factory.

Abbott Nutrition’s factory in Sturgis, Mich., halted production of Similac earlier this year amid reports of Cronobacter infection in the four infants, who had all ingested powdered formula from the plant, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration told NBC News they found no match between bacteria samples taken from two of the infants and samples from the factory.

CDC officials also said, however, that they could not obtain or test samples from the two other infants who got Cronobacter infections and had consumed formula from the factory.

Abbott Nutrition and the FDA, which is investigating conditions at the plant, declined to say if additional cases had surfaced besides the four already reported. Cronobacter infections are rare, but can be deadly in newborns. The germs can cause sepsis, a dangerous blood infection or meningitis. Two of the four infants with reported Cronobacter cases died.

Members of Congress have raised concerns the FDA acted too slowly in response to the cases.

FDA officials told NBC News the investigation into factory conditions is ongoing and has “many moving parts,” but declined to answer questions from NBC News about the investigative timeline.

Abbott Nutrition voluntarily issued a recall on Feb. 17 after infant sicknesses were reported.

Production at the Michigan factory, which makes three of the country’s most popular brands, Similac, Alimentum and EleCare, was halted and remains paused.

Abbott said in a statement that it “continues to enhance our manufacturing and quality processes to ensure that our products remain free of Cronobacter Sakazakii” and has “already begun implementing corrective actions and enhancements at the facility.”

The company added that the lack of a genetic match between sick infants and the formula confirmed its own internal testing showing there was no link and said it has not found the bacteria in any of its distributed products. The company says it is also working with the FDA to address findings from the inspections.

Cronobacter can be introduced into baby formula in different ways, according to the CDC, including after a container has been opened by the end user.

More than 30 percent of the most popular formulas were out of stock across the U.S. last week, according to an analysis by the firm Datasembly, which tracked the supply at more than 11,000 stores. Walgreens is now limiting shoppers to three purchases of infant and toddler formula per transaction because of “increased demand and various supplier issues,” according to the company.

The recall

In February, the FDA and the CDC reported that four infants had gotten sick with Cronobacter. All four infants consumed powdered infant formula from the Sturgis facility, according to the CDC.

CDC typically receives reports of two to four Cronobacter infections per year, and an FDA spokesperson says concerns were raised when FDA personnel realized all four infants had consumed powdered formula from the same factory.

When the FDA inspected the facility between Jan. 31 and March 18 in response to the cases, inspectors found the factory failed to “establish a system of process controls covering all stages of processing” to prevent contamination.

According to the inspection report, the FDA and Abbott “found evidence of Cronobacter” in the “powdered infant production environment.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/feds-find-no-match-bacteria-samples-sick-infants-samples-baby-formula-rcna24361


'Abbott supports letting babies starve': Critics fed up with Texas governor trying to milk formula mess



Few Americans know why there is a baby formula shortage in the U.S., and Governor Greg Abbott, along with many in the Republican Party, is taking the problem and pinning it on President Joe Biden, who has very little to do with what some parents see as a crisis.

Thursday afternoon the Texas Republican issued a statement blasting the Biden administration after one Florida Congresswoman tweeted out a photo of baby formula in a Texas immigrant detention center, which was mostly apple sauce. Republicans have been demanding the Biden administration end what they call "catch and release," and instead detain immigrants who cross into America illegally. Sometimes those immigrants have babies, and those babies need to be fed.

But not according to Governor Abbott, apparently, whose press release says "Children are our most vulnerable, precious Texans and deserve to be put first."

Abbott blasts the Biden administration for being, it says, "happy to provide baby formula to illegal immigrants coming across our southern border," and calls feeding babies in detention, "yet another one in a long line of reckless, out-of-touch priorities from the Biden Administration when it comes to securing our border and protecting Americans."

What no Republican is telling anyone is that the baby formula shortage came after the Food and Drug Administration found bacteria in baby formula. Two infants died, and batches from that manufacturer, ironically also named Abbott, were recalled. (Abbott denies any link between the bacteria found in its facility and the bacteria that killed the two infants.) Also, thanks to then-President Donald Trump, there is now a high tax on foreign baby formula, making it more expensive to import. The federal government does not manufacture or distribute baby formula, so it's unclear why the Governor of Texas thinks the Biden administration made a decision to send baby formula to a detention center in McCallen Texas, but not to, say, Costco, or a local grocery store. The federal government bought baby formula because it had to.

As many on social media noted, the obvious conclusion is that Governor Abbott wants to take formula from immigrant detention centers and starve the children there.

Read comments here: https://www.rawstory.com/abbott-supports-letting-babies-starve-critics-fed-up-with-texas-governor-trying-to-milk-formula-mess/

[Rick Plant]

Democrats launch investigation into baby formula shortage as Biden meets with manufacturers

House Democrats on the powerful Oversight Committee are launching an investigation into the nationwide baby formula shortage, one day after President Joe Biden met with the industry's top manufacturers.

"The national formula shortage poses a threat to the health and economic security of infants and families in communities across the country—particularly those with less income who have historically experienced health inequities, including food insecurity," Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) wrote in letters to Abbott Nutrition, Mead Johnson Nutrition, Nestle USA and Perrigo," ABC News was first to report Friday.

On Thursday President Biden met with infant formula manufacturer executives and top retailers including Target, Walmart and Nestle's Gerber, Reuters reports, "pressing them to do everything possible to get families access amid a nationwide shortage."

Also on Thursday the White House released a statement outlining steps the administration is taking to help families. They include cutting red tape to get more product on store shelves, addressing price gouging via the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general, and working through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to increase imported formula.

"Tight supplies of formula dwindled further after Abbott Laboratories in February recalled Similac and other baby formula made at its Sturgis, Michigan, plant following consumer complaints of bacterial contamination," Reuters also reports. "The FDA later cited five bacterial infections reported in babies given the company's formula, including two deaths."

Republicans have tried to blame the Biden administration for the shortage, despite it not being caused by the federal government. It has been partially exacerbated by a trade deal negotiated by then-President Donald Trump that makes it more difficult and expensive to import formula from other countries.

https://www.rawstory.com/democrats-launch-investigation-into-baby-formula-shortage-as-biden-meets-with-manufacturers/


What’s Behind America’s Shocking Baby-Formula Shortage?
Bacteria, a virus, a trade policy—and a lesson

America’s baby-formula shortage has gone from curious inconvenience to full-blown national crisis.

In many states, including Texas and Tennessee, more than half of formula is sold out in stores. Nationwide, 40 percent of formula is out of stock—a twentyfold increase since the first half of 2021. As parents have started to stockpile formula, retailers such as Walgreens, CVS, and Target have all moved to limit purchases.

The everything shortage isn’t new. But rationing essentials for desperate parents? That’s a twisted turn in the story of American scarcity.

Three factors are driving the U.S. baby-formula shortage: bacteria, a virus, and a trade policy.

First, the bacteria. After the recent deaths of at least two infants from a rare infection, the Food and Drug Administration investigated Abbott, a major producer of infant formula, and discovered traces of the pathogen Cronobacter sakazakii in a Michigan plant. As a result, the FDA recalled several brands of formula, and parents were advised to not buy or use some formula tied to the plant.

Recalls are common. Thousands of drugs and products are recalled every year, and they don’t create a meltdown at pharmacies or require CVS to instate Soviet-style rationing of essentials. So something else is going on here.

That brings us to the second cause: the virus. The pandemic has snarled all sorts of supply chains, but I can’t think of a market it’s yanked around more than infant formula. “During the spring of 2020, formula sales rocketed upwards as people stockpiled formula just like they stockpiled toilet paper,” Lyman Stone, the director of research at the consulting firm Demographic Intelligence, told me. Then, as “families worked through their stockpiles, sales fell a lot. This oscillation made planning for production extremely difficult. It was complicated to get an idea of the actual market size.” Meanwhile, Stone’s research has found that an uptick in births in early 2022 has corresponded with a “very dramatic decline in rates of breastfeeding” among new mothers, which pushed up demand for formula once again.

In brief: Demand for formula surged as parents hoarded in 2020; then demand fell, leading suppliers to cut back production through 2021; and now, with more new mothers demanding more formula in 2022, orders are surging faster than supply is recovering.

Finally, the third factor: America’s regulatory and trade policy. And while that might not sound as interesting to most people as bacteria and viruses, it might be the most important part of the story.

FDA regulation of formula is so stringent that most of the stuff that comes out of Europe is illegal to buy here due to technicalities like labeling requirements. Nevertheless, one study found that many European formulas meet the FDA nutritional guidelines—and, in some ways, might even be better than American formula, because the European Union bans certain sugars, such as corn syrup, and requires formulas to have a higher share of lactose.

Some parents who don’t care about the FDA’s imprimatur try to circumvent regulations by ordering formula from Europe through third-party vendors. But U.S. customs agents have been known to seize shipments at the border.

U.S. policy also restricts the importation of formula that does meet FDA requirements. At high volumes, the tax on formula imports can exceed 17 percent. And under President Donald Trump, the U.S. entered into a new North American trade agreement that actively discourages formula imports from our largest trading partner, Canada.

America’s formula policy warps the industry in one more way. The Department of Agriculture has a special group called WIC—short for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children—that provides a variety of services to pregnant and breastfeeding women and their young children. It is also the largest purchaser of infant formula in the United States, awarding contracts to a small number of approved formula companies.  As a result, the U.S. baby formula industry is minuscule, by design. A 2011 analysis by USDA reported that three companies accounted for practically all U.S. formula sales: Abbott, Mead Johnson, and Gerber.

The Biden administration is focused on expanding domestic manufacturing of formula to meet families’ needs. But the bigger problem is our trade policy. “The U.S. is a captive market for domestic dairy producers like Abbott, and during times of crisis, the lack of alternative supplies becomes a pretty big problem,” Scott Lincicome, the director of general economics and trade for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, told me.

Conservative populists and even liberals who are skeptical of globalization sometimes argue that if the U.S. made everything within our borders, our economy would be more resilient. But the baby-formula shortage suggests that things don’t always work out that way. Instead, we’re seeing what happens when we reduce trade with other countries for an essential good: We’re more vulnerable to emergencies like a bacteria-infested plant in Michigan.

There is a better way. “What we should want to maximize is total global capacity and system-wide flexibility and dynamism,” Lincicome said. “The location of the supply doesn’t matter as much as having as much as possible within a nimble system that can replace one plant’s supply with another’s.”

America’s reasonable instinct to protect infants has metastasized into an unreasonably protectionist trade policy that makes the U.S. formula market exquisitely sensitive to existential shocks (like a pandemic) and domestic shocks (like a major recall). Today, the shocks are everywhere, and that’s why baby formula is not.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/baby-formula-shortage-abbott-recall/629828/

[Rick Plant]

Here's what former Tea Party Republican Joe Walsh has to say about today's Republican Party.

Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom

"No, I’m not a Democrat, and, yes, I disagree with the Democrats on a hell of a lot of policy, but the Republican Party, my former political party, is an anti-democracy, pro-authoritarian, anti-truth cult.

If you support democracy, this isn’t even a close call.

https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/1524917536701153284

[Rick Plant]

Dems drop new nickname on Elise Stefanik over her latest 'ridiculous faux outrage'



Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), part of the House Republican leadership, is facing backlash on the social media platform Twitter after criticizing President Joe Biden for sending baby formula to the southern border.

“Joe Biden continues to put America LAST by shipping pallets of baby formula to the southern border as American families face empty shelves,” Stefanik tweeted. “This is unacceptable. American mothers and their babies shouldn’t suffer because of the #BidenBorderCrisis.”

The congresswoman was referencing new reports that the Biden administration was delivering baby formula to federal immigration detention centers near the U.S.-Mexico border.

“#EliseStarvefanik the new leader of the pro starvation caucus,” tweeted Congressman Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) in response to Stefanik.

“If you are in Congress and propose starving babies to death you deserve to have your name trend. #EliseStarvefanik,” added Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA).

The White House vowed Thursday to take action to boost supplies of baby formula as Biden met with company leaders.

Last week the average out-of-stock rate for baby formula was 43 percent, according to Datasembly, which collected information from more than 11,000 retailers.

Officials say they are also working with the states to cut red tape on poor families buying infant milk through food stamps.

Biden has asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into abuses linked to the shortage, including the resale of infant milk online at prices far above normal.

The president met manufacturers and retailers for discussions described as "productive and encouraging" by an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Republican opposition, which has set its sights on wresting back control of Congress in November's midterm elections, has seized on the issue to berate Biden and the Democrats.

“This is a ridiculous faux outrage. The shortage of baby formula is a serious issue that the administration is seeking to address. But at the same time, the administration cannot be faulted for following the law and providing baby formula to undocumented immigrants,” The Washington Post wrote in a fact-check.

AFP

The faux outrage that Biden is stockpiling baby formula for undocumented immigrants
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/12/faux-outrage-that-biden-is-stockpiling-baby-formula-undocumented-immigrants/

[Rick Plant]

Pence adviser explains why fixing democracy may be impossible: ‘We're in greater danger today than Jan. 6’

A former judge who has been considered for the U.S. Supreme Court by Republican presidents believes political polarization may make the task of repairing democracy impossible.

Michael Luttig, who advised former vice president Mike Pence to resist Donald Trump's pressure to overturn his election loss, spoke with The Bulwark's Bill Kristol about the ongoing threat those corrupt efforts continue to pose to constitutional democracy, and he revealed why he's less optimistic about the future.

"Well, the five-alarm fire has been going off continuously since Jan. 6," Luttig told Kristol. "That's why I am very concerned about where the country is today. In my view, we haven't even begun to address the problems and, as I said, as of this moment, I believe there's a complete unwillingness to address the problems."

The House select committee is expected to make recommended changes to the Electoral Count Act, which has some embedded ambiguities some Trump allies tried to exploit to nullify the election results, but Luttig is concerned that political polarization may prevent meaningful reform.

"The country is now completely politicized and politically polarized, that there’s a natural unwillingness for any of the players who can address the problems, to address them, in fact," Luttig said.

"Because of this frightening politicization of everything and of American society, and the complete polarization of our politics, I believe that we are in greater danger today than we were on Jan. 6," he added. "The reaction has been just the opposite of what it ought to have been. Namely, we have a complete denial of the 2020 election. We have a denial of the significance of Jan. 6 for our country, and we have a continued war going on now over America over its institutions of democracy."

https://www.rawstory.com/michael-luttig-2657316776/


'For 6 years I have watched in disgust': GOP judge unloads on party for caving to Trump again and again



Michael Luttig, a former Republican-appointed United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, spoke out this week about the disgust that he's felt watching his party cozy up to former President Donald Trump.

While talking with the conservative attorneys group Checks and Balances, Luttig talked about what inspired him to write a recent New York Times editorial in which he called Trump a "clear and present danger to our democracy."

"For the past six years, I have watched and listened... in disgust," he said in describing the GOP's obedience to Trump in spite of his lawless actions. "Not one single leader of ours [had] the moral authority, the courage, and the will to stand up and say, 'No, this is not who we are, this is not what America is, it's not what we want to be.'"

Luttig went on to say that Republicans for years have shown a "paradigmatic failure of leadership" in dealing with Trump, particularly in the wake of his incitement of a violent riot at the United States Capitol building.

"Not one single person has had the courage to stand up and say no!" he reiterated.

Watch the video below:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1494064827760840713

[Rick Plant]

'Sad state of affairs': Pennsylvania's Number One Newspaper The Philadelphia Inquirer says it can't endorse any GOP candidates this year



The Philadelphia Inquirer, perhaps the most influential and well-respected newspaper in Pennsylvania, says that after an in-depth look at Republican primary candidates for statewide office, it cannot endorse any one of them.

The newspaper's editorial board wrote on Friday, "With Pennsylvania voters headed to the polls Tuesday to choose the Republican and Democratic candidates for governor and U.S. Senate, it’s as if the primaries are occurring on two different planets."

As evidence, the Inquirer cited responses to questionnaires it sent to GOP candidates asking the simple question "who won the 2020 presidential election?"

"Only one candidate — Jeff Bartos — agreed to acknowledge reality," it reports.

The blistering editorial continued: "If one of these Republicans wins the general election, they will represent Pennsylvania at the next State of the Union address. We guarantee that it will not be Donald Trump who walks into the U.S. Capitol to deliver the speech. The 2020 election is over. A candidate won, he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and his name is Joe Biden."

The editors then questioned how it was possible to support the election of any candidate who would not acknowledge this basic fact.

"How do you find points of agreement when you can’t reach common ground on facts so basic that they could be used in a field sobriety test?" they asked.

In deciding against supporting any GOP candidate, the editorial board also noted the U.S. Supreme Court's apparently impending ruling to strike down Roe v. Wade: "Given the Supreme Court’s apparent plans, the members of the board asked each other if we could bring ourselves to support a candidate who, if given the opportunity, was all but certain to use their pen as governor to ban abortion once the protections of Roe are no longer in place. We could not."

In conclusion the newspaper asks, "How can this nation come to a place where we reach different conclusions and hold different opinions while operating from the same commonly shared set of facts? We don’t have an answer."

The editorial described the predicament as a "sad state of affairs."

Read the full editorial below: 

We wanted to endorse in Republican primaries this year. We can't

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/pennsylvania-senate-governor-republican-20220513.html