Gaslighting and the GOP
Rail against formula shortage! Then vote against getting that formula to families!
The conservative press has made much of the nation’s baby formula shortage, and most have laid the blame squarely where they lay the blame for everything, at the feet of Pres. Joe Biden.
Why the shortage? Two babies died after ingesting formula made by Michigan-based Abbott Nutrition, and the FDA did its job and closed the factory. Abbott has since reached an agreement to clean up its mess and start filling the gap. It’s sad that one company’s trouble can so severely affect such an important supply chain, but when just four factories supply the country’s formula, well, that’s another Substack entirely.
Add to the problem the general supply chain issues gifted us by the pandemic.
Yet when conservatives had a chance to alleviate the shortage, they voted no.
This week, nine Republican U.S. representatives voted against making baby formula more accessible to needy families. The no votes included the usual suspects, God’s Own Disappointments including Gosar, Gaetz, Greene, Biggs et al. Here’s more on the Access to Baby Formula Act, a piece of legislation I’m going to guess those nine baby-haters didn’t read.
Add to that, this: 192 Republican U.S. representatives voted against (and thanks to Connecticut’s own Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the bill’s author) the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act that, according to Newsweek, (the article lists all 192):
would pay for additional U.S. Food and Drug Administration staffing to boost inspection of formula at domestic and foreign suppliers, prevent fraudulent products getting onto store shelves and improve data collection on the infant formula marketplace.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is invoking the Defense Production Act, and military airplanes will be used to pick up and deliver formula, as well.
So the party that says it’s pro-life obviously means to say its members are pro-fetus, because once the little nubbins arrive, well, they’re on their own and good luck to them.
I hope their constituents ask them why they voted against both measures, but I doubt they'll get the chance. I do like the way the Dems are doing these single-issue bills, so it's clear just who's for and who's against. Babies Lives Matter.
Pro-fetus, anti-woman, anti-fetus. But even more alarmingly to me, anti-substance. No wonder they embraced Trump: for them, everything is a game move, not a decision with tangible results that work out in a real world of human lives.
And that perspective is spreading in the way, with news media often acting as vectors of infection, I'm afraid.