Last Call For A Smart Formula, Con't

As the Biden administration and FDA continue Operation Fly Formula to import baby formula from around the world, the White House says the airlift has come up on 30 million bottles' worth of formula for American babies in roughly ten days.

The U.S. will distribute another 1.25 million cans of baby formula in effort to replenish the country's dire supply in the coming weeks, the Food and Drug Administration says.

That stock will bring the total imported supply of baby formula product to the equivalent of 30 million 8-ounce bottles, since the Biden administration began its effort to alleviate the national shortage.

During the first week of May, the average out-of-stock rate for baby formula at retailers nationwide was 43%, according to data from Datasembly.

The Australian company Bubs will send the equivalent of 27.5 million 8-ounce bottles of different infant formulas, including "easy-digest" goat's milk, organic grass-fed cow's milk and specialized formulas, the FDA announced on Friday. Some of the promised supply is ready for transport, and some product will be made in the coming weeks and months.

"We continue to work around the clock with our government partners and industry to ensure there's adequate infant formula available wherever and whenever parents and caregivers need it," FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said. "We will not rest until our shelves are replete with safe and nutritious infant formula."

The Australian product is in addition to the formula supply of 1.5 million 8-ounce bottles that already landed in the U.S. this week. That supply, consisting of Nestlé Health Science Alfamino Infant and Alfamino Junior formulas, was prioritized because it's critical for children with cow's milk protein allergies, the White House said.

Of that product, the bulk of the 132 pallets that landed in Indianapolis this past Sunday would be sent to hospitals and home health care providers, Nestlé said.

That shipment will cover 15% of the country's formula needs, Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, told CNN's State of the Union.

People should see "more formula in stores starting as early as this week," he said Sunday.

The 114 pallets that arrived in Allentown, Pa., on Wednesday are going to hospitals, retailers, and WIC (Women, Infants and Children) programs that provide nutritional food for low-income women and children, as early as this weekend.

 

So formula will be back on the shelves soon.  Biden's doing what needs to be done.

Imagine what Trump would have done in this situation, and when your heart palpitations stop, remember why Trump lost.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

The Uvalde shooter threatened girls on social media and vowed to shoot up a school there, he was reported but nobody took him seriously until it was far too late.

Three users said they witnessed Ramos threaten to commit sexual violence or carry out school shootings on Yubo, an app that is used by tens of millions of young people around the world.

The users all said they reported Ramos' account to Yubo over the threats. But it appeared, they said, that Ramos was able to maintain a presence on the platform. CNN reviewed one Yubo direct message in which Ramos allegedly sent a user the $2,000 receipt for his online gun purchase from a Georgia-based firearm manufacturer. 

"Guns are boring," the user responded. "No," Ramos apparently replied. 

In a statement to CNN, a Yubo spokesperson said "we are deeply saddened by this unspeakable loss and are fully cooperating with law enforcement on their investigation." 

Yubo takes user safety seriously and is "investigating an account that has since been banned from the platform," the spokesperson said, but declined to release any specific information about Ramos' account. 

Use of Yubo skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, as teens trapped indoors turned to the app for a semblance of in-person interactions. The company says it has 60 million users around the world -- 99% of whom are 25 and younger -- and has trumpeted safety features including "second-by-second" monitoring of livestreams using artificial intelligence and human moderators. 

Despite those safety features, the users who spoke to CNN said Ramos made personal and graphic threats. During one livestream, Amanda Robbins, 19, said Ramos verbally threatened to break down her door and rape and murder her after she rebuffed his sexual advances. She said she witnessed Ramos threaten other girls with similar "acts of sexual assault and violence." 

Robbins, who said she lives in California and only ever interacted with Ramos online, told CNN she reported him to Yubo several times and blocked his account, but continued seeing him in livestreams making lewd comments. 

"[Yubo] said if you see any behavior that's not okay, they said to report it. But they've done nothing," Robbins said. "That kid was allowed to be online and say this." 

Robbins and other users said they didn't take Ramos' comments seriously because troll-like behavior was commonplace on Yubo.

 

And we see this time and time again; the shooters threaten women openly, they threaten schools and businesses, nobody takes them seriously, and they kill anyway.

The Burned Bridges Of...Liz Cheney?

As GOP Rep. Liz Cheney continues her work on the January 6th Committee, Wyoming Republicans are set to crucify her later this summer in the state's primaries.

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney is down 30 points in a new survey of her August primary conducted by the Club for Growth, which is opposing the embattled incumbent.

The poll, which provides perhaps the starkest illustration yet of the political peril Cheney faces this year, shows Wyoming attorney Harriet Hageman garnering 56 percent of the vote to Cheney’s 26 percent in the GOP primary. A third Republican got 12 percent support, and just 6 percent are undecided.

Hageman was recruited and endorsed by former President Donald Trump in response to Cheney’s vote to impeach him last year alongside nine other House Republicans.

The race for Wyoming’s lone congressional district is one where the Club for Growth and Trump, who have quickly turned from allies to foils, are aligned, though the Club has not formally endorsed Hageman. The poll, shared first with POLITICO, was conducted this week by WPA Intelligence, a Republican firm, ahead of Friday’s candidate filing deadline.

Trump has taken intense interest in the race because Cheney has been such a prominent critic of his attempts to subvert the 2020 election results. After her impeachment vote, she became one of just two Republicans, along with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), to sit on the commission investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riots that Speaker Nancy Pelosi created.

Kinzinger chose to retire rather than remain a stop on Trump’s 2022 midterm revenge campaign. Cheney, however, has said she plans to seek reelection — even if her odds look tough. And Trump will travel to Casper, Wyo. on Saturday to rally for Hageman, a trial lawyer who placed third in the GOP primary for governor in 2018.

The polling reinforces another piece of data the Club for Growth released a year ago, which showed that 52 percent of Wyoming GOP primary voters were planning to vote against Cheney regardless of who challenges her.

Yet this week provided evidence that GOP primary voters were willing to come back to some Republicans Trump branded as enemies, as Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr all won primaries against Trump-backed challengers.

And Cheney has remained undaunted by the forces assembling against her. In a video released Thursday, timed to coincide with her filing for reelection, Cheney touted her Wyoming roots, said she refused to “surrender to pressure or intimidation” and cast her upcoming election in grave terms.

“If our generation does not stand for truth, the rule of law and our Constitution, if we set aside our founding principles for the politics of the moment, the miracle of our constitutional republic will slip away,” she said. “We must not let that happen.”

 

One, let's get this out of the way. Cheney may be doing the right thing here in this instance, but she has voted against Democratic legislation 89% of the time since Biden became president. She's voted against fixing the Voting Rights Act twice, DC statehood, the Violence Against Women Act, universal background checks for guns, both COVID relief packages and skipped the Infrastructure bill vote. By all indications, Democrats should be thrilled to see the end of her political career, and good riddance to her.

The problem of course is two, that Republican voters are almost certainly going to replace Cheney with a far worse Republican racist bigot in Harriet Hageman, as indicated by Hageman's response to the Buffalo shooting.

On Cheyenne’s KRAE Radio, Hageman was asked about Cheney’s criticism. She made an incredible statement: “I don’t know what that gentleman did or what motivated him, but I can assure you I had nothing to do with it.”

Hageman pleaded ignorance but the “gentleman’s” motivation has been established beyond question. The alleged shooter published a 180-page “manifesto” online promoting the “Great Replacement Theory,” which claims white Americans are being deliberately and systematically replaced by minorities. A grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder.

Investigators say the 18-year-old defendant, who live-streamed his rampage, wrote that his goal was “to kill as many Blacks as possible.” Law enforcement authorities almost immediately called it a hate crime.

In addition to herself, Hageman absolved her party of any responsibility. The only attack she mentioned was made by Cheney.

“All of the Republicans I know and work with had nothing to do with that,” Hageman said. “So for her to come out and attack my fellow conservatives and Republicans for soundbites for Democrats isn’t what I want my representative in Wyoming to do, and that isn’t furthering the America-first agenda.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) and other GOP leaders also dismissed Cheney’s criticism. He accused her of “playing a political game when she knows something’s not true.”

 

No, Cheney is going down and hard and her political career in the House is almost certainly done, but she'll land on her feet at a DC law firm, industry lobbyist outfit, or think tank, where she'll continue to help Republicans destroy the place. 

No sympathy for the daughter of the Devil here.