What about the children?
Situations can often get complicated and we further complicate them when we obfuscate for our own advantage. The situation with supply chains is both complicated and simple at the same time. Of course, anyone that can grasp that paradox isn’t likely to appear as a talking head on television anytime soon.
The latest in a long line of supply chain issues is baby formula. It would seem that people should be able to get by without it, but that is one of the areas where talking heads can be purposefully obtuse. Not all women can breast feed and not all of them want to. It’s that whole bodily autonomy thing rearing its ugly head again.
Abbott had to shut down its production when some children were getting sick. The FDA intervened because that is what they are supposed to. It was not that dissimilar from when Bluebell shut its factories down for a short time. Formula is just slightly more important than ice cream. Yet, the concept is the same. When people get sick you have to find out what is going on.
People love to complain about these things and they love to point the finger, but ultimately they really don’t want to do anything about it. The Republicans have recited the chorus of their favorite hymn these days: blame Joe Biden. As we know, the president of the United States spends countless hours each day pouring over supply chains and individual products. It’s not like he’s doing anything else.
So, the House of Representatives got the ball rolling by passing a bill to help with supply chain issues. Whether the Senate will also pass it is unknown. The Senate would struggle to pass a bill asserting that water is wet. You have a 50-50 split which is difficult enough. Then, you have the 60 vote filibuster threshold, Joe Mancin and Kirsten Sinema, and the craven politics of Mitch McConnell.
Nearly 200 Republicans in the House voted against a measure to alleviate these issues. They decided the problem doesn’t need government intervention. That’s fine as a philosophy but the likes of Jim Jordan have blasted Biden and the Democrats on Twitter for not solving the problem. His tweet says it all.
What do you suggest Jim? If you vote against nearly every measure to solve the problem then you either don’t really care about Americans and their formula shortage or you just want to exploit the problem for political gain. Of course, there is a third door here, but far be it from me to point it out. You could actually govern. You could say that the Democrats’ plans are all wrong and we should do something else instead. In this case he has tried nothing and he’s all out of ideas.
Fox News has a solution. See, the problems stem from the fact that we are giving too much formula to those babies on the border. You know the ones I’m talking about. They are the ones the Trump administration cravenly ripped from their mother’s arms so they could put them in cages. Well, we should just take their formula and give it to American babies.
These illegal children don’t deserve it. Let’s ignore that the numbers we are talking about are much lower than what they were under Trump. According to the report, 22,500 children are being held at the border. Even if every last one of them was an infant needing formula, we are talking about less than one percent (about 0.6%) of the total number of babies in the United States. Jonathan Swift would be proud. This is your “pro-life” party ladies and gentlemen.
What happened to Madson Cathorn in his state’s primary should send cold shivers down th backs of his colleagues. there actually are Republicans that the public cannot tolerate.
1To put it in the vernacular that Holy Hypocrites R Us maybe possibly would understand: just who would Jesus starve?
2“So, the House of Representatives got the ball rolling by passing a bill to help with supply chain issues. Whether the Senate will also pass it is unknown. The Senate would struggle to pass a bill asserting that water is wet. You have a 50-50 split which is difficult enough. Then, you have the 60 vote filibuster threshold, Joe Mancin and Kirsten Sinema, and the craven politics of Mitch McConnell.”
You could drop the mic there, Nick. Well done. But. We do like solutions. Reforming or ending the filibuster would be one. Expanding SCROTUS another. But. Again. With the current Senate? Solutions? Sadly a likely stalemate until after the 2022 midterms.
3I think we need truth in advertising. Call the current Republican party what it is, the American Taliban.
4“The GOP believes that life begins at conception and ends at birth.”—Barney Frank
5Another example of the only thing repugnanticans care about- themselves. It’s been years since actual governance was even a thing for them- just obstruction and throwing red meat to their supporters. I’d like to think anything will get better after the midterms but I don’t think so. Re-read the Friday toons.
6Less than 0.6% of babies in America are held on the border? If Republicans want to equitably distribute that to the more than 99.4% of other babies in America they’ll need a serious solution. Jim Jorden, are you listening (ha, ha, as if, ever)?
A lottery. Legal citizen babies needing formula can enter the Grand Old Baby Food Formula Lottery, to be televised on Fox News. Then we’ll have 0.6% more formula to go around. The babies in detention? Let’s hope no Republicans or Fox News employees have ever read Shirley Jackson.
7I have not heard one word about the monopoly here. If the product made by one company only and the shut down of that company puts the health of our nation at risk, shouldn’t that company be broken up? What happened to monopoly laws?
8Purdue does not have a monopoly. I believe their market share is just over 30 percent. However, if you remove nearly a third of the supply at one time there is bound to be shortages. So, technically there is no monopoly but it does bring up the question of how much of the market share is too much. I’m just a humble school teacher, so I have no idea on what the answer is. I imagine it would depend on how “necessary” you’d deem the product to be.
9Not Purdue. Abbott. Purdue was oxycontin.
10The Grand Ol` Maggots LOVE fetus until it/they are born …..
11Purdue was not involved int the baby formula mess, They were responsible for the oxycontin debacle.
A recall by Abbott resulted in the formula shortage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/21/abbott-ceo-robert-ford-formula-elevil/
12Thank you. I’ll update that in the article.
13