Last Call For When It Rains...

Major flooding this week in Michigan has once again shuttered the Abbott baby formula plant in Sturgis, meaning that shortages will continue well into July.

Abbott has stopped production of EleCare formula in its Sturgis, Michigan, plant after severe storms led to flooding inside the plant, the company said, probably delaying production of new formula for a few weeks.

Production at the plant had restarted less than two weeks ago following a months-long closure that helped drive a nationwide formula shortage.

"Severe thunderstorms and heavy rains came through southwestern Michigan on Monday evening, resulting in high winds, hail, power outages and flood damage throughout the area," Abbott said in a statement Wednesday night. "These torrential storms produced significant rainfall in a short period of time -- overwhelming the city's stormwater system in Sturgis, Mich., and resulting in flooding in parts of the city, including areas of our plant.

"As a result, Abbott has stopped production of its EleCare specialty formula that was underway to assess damage caused by the storm and clean and re-sanitize the plant. We have informed FDA and will conduct comprehensive testing in conjunction with the independent third party to ensure the plant is safe to resume production. This will likely delay production and distribution of new product for a few weeks."

Abbott said that once the plant is re-sanitized and production resumes, it will restart EleCare production, followed by specialty and metabolic formulas. New formula being produced since the plant reopened was not yet available to consumers, and production had not started on popular brands available at grocery stores. Abbott said it will "work to restart Similac production at the plant as soon as possible."

In tweets Wednesday night, US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said, "We know Abbott is working quickly to assess the damage and will be reporting its progress to us in the days ahead. Once the company establishes a plan, FDA will be back in the facility working to ensure that they can restart producing safe and quality formula products quickly."

 

It's nowhere near Biden's fault, but he'll be blamed anyway.  Republicans will certainly find a way to do it. It depends on who listens.

Hearing Aides For America, Con't

Ginni Thomas, GOP activist (and apparently part-time conspirator) and wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, had a far more important role in the January 6th insurrection conspiracy than previously revealed.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has obtained email correspondence between Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and lawyer John Eastman, who played a key role in efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, according to three people involved in the committee’s investigation.

The emails show that Thomas’s efforts to overturn the election were more extensive than previously known, two of the people said. The three declined to provide details and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The committee’s members and staffers are now discussing whether to spend time during their public hearings exploring Ginni Thomas’s role in the attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, the three people said. The Washington Post previously reported that the committee had not sought an interview with Thomas and was leaning against pursuing her cooperation with its investigation.

The two people said the emails were among documents obtained by the committee and reviewed recently. Last week, a federal judge ordered Eastman to turn more than 100 documents over to the committee. Eastman had tried to block the release of those and other documents by arguing that they were privileged communications and therefore should be protected.

Thomas also sent messages to President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and to Arizona lawmakers, pressing them to help overturn the election, The Post has previously reported.

While Thomas has maintained that she and her husband operate in separate professional lanes, her activities as a conservative political activist have long distinguished her from other spouses of Supreme Court justices. Any new revelations about Thomas’s actions after the 2020 presidential election are likely to further intensify questions about whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases related to the election and attempts to subvert it.

 

The Committee isn't leaning against dealing publicly with Thomas, GOP Committee co-chair Liz Cheney is against doing so, yet another reason not to trust her going forward. Outside of Trump's conspiracy itself, Ginni and Clarence Thomas's involvement in the insurrection is arguably the most vile revelation of the entire mess here, especially since Justice Thomas continues to hear and decide cases directly involved with efforts to use alternate slates of electors to overturn elections and who gets the final say in sending those elector slates to Washington.

This is far more damaging that what Trump tried and failed at, because it would give the next GOP presidential candidate, Trump or otherwise, a way to maintain power permanently.

Luckily, Liz Cheney isn't in charge. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is.

 

What they’re saying: “We think it’s time that we, at some point, invite her to come talk to the committee,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told Axios.Thompson said of the committee's reasoning,

"We have discovered in those Eastman [emails] some information that refers to Ginni Thomas," but declined to go into further detail about what she'll be asked.

Asked when the invite will go out, Thompson said, "Soon."

 

Get the popcorn for that one.

The Big Lie, Con't

New CNN President Chris Licht has decided that abandoning the truth and going the FOX News route is the only hope for the cable news network, starting with siding with Trump when it comes to the Big Lie about the 2020 election.

New CNN president Chris Licht discouraged staff from using “the big lie” to refer to former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, Mediaite has learned.

On a Tuesday conference call with management and show executive producers, Licht was asked for his thoughts on “the big lie,” and said he preferred that staff avoid the term. He made clear this was a preference, not a mandate, but staffers have taken it as a clear directive from the new boss.

He encouraged producers to instead use the terms “Trump election lie” or “election lies” in banners and graphics.

According to a source, Licht argued that using “the big lie” makes the mistake of adopting branding used by the Democratic Party, thereby weakening the objectivity of the network.

The term, which was first coined by Adolf Hitler and later used to describe Nazi propaganda efforts, was recently adopted by critics of Trump in response to his relentless promotion of the false claim he won the 2020 election.

The term has become ubiquitous on CNN. “Big lie” has been mentioned on the network 168 times this month, according to media monitoring service TVEyes.

The guidance, which comes as a House select committee holds hearings investigating Trump’s election lies and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol they inspired, has rankled some at the network.

“It’s worrisome that we’re being told how to talk about one of the worst things that ever happened to American democracy,” a CNN insider told Mediaite. “We have to call lies, lies, whether they’re small lies or big lies. Is there any lie bigger than that lie?”

They speculated that the directive could be coming from Warner Bros. Discovery board member John Malone, who has criticized CNN’s approach to news under former boss Zucker.

“It seems to indicate where things are headed,” they added. “We didn’t have this problem until John Malone was sitting on the board of this company.”

 

The Village is betting heavily upon the return of Republican control of Congress in January, and they are all re-establishing their Trump-era postures now in order to reap the ratings and access they anticipate next year.

The media won't save us from the fascists. If anything they'll encourage them.