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Over the past week Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to require that the ingredients necessary for baby formula go to formula manufacturers first, and initiated Operation Fly Formula, using military planes to fly the equivalent of 1.5 million bottles of hypoallergenic formula across the Atlantic. It’s good to see the White House roused to take action, and to use emergency presidential powers to protect people in need. That’s what emergency powers are for.

The 46th president going full Haymarket Hulk is not something anyone anticipated over a year ago, when Biden told America that if elected he’d be the “most pro-union president” ever. In the past, he’s gone off script during speeches to support the reawakened labor movement, only to have his words walked back by cautious press secretaries and the peanut gallery of advisors whispering “triangulation” in his ear. But in the past week Biden now seems to have decisively broke with the third way approach, hewing to the corporate crack down agenda–which RDP has long advocated–through a series of high profile union endorsements and their ensuing fallout.

Tuesday dawned with the unwelcome news that Antitrust Chief Jonathan Kanter has been indefinitely barred from working on the anti-monopoly case against Google while the Justice Department decides whether his past work representing Google’s critics should require his recusal. This, despite the fact that none of his past clients are parties in the Google case at issue.

Monday’s wrenching news that the Supreme Court is set to overturn Roe v. Wade marks a final leg in Republicans’ long march to theocratic rule, bringing conservatives far closer to consolidating total power even before the reckoning of 2024, when the GOP is set to launch a barrage of anti-democratic incendiary balloons at an already scorched Constitution. The highest judicial body in the land has emerged from its terrifying chrysalis, emboldened by dark money groups and transformed into a bludgeon aimed at the most basic constitutional rights and federal agencies that regulate our air and water, our work and labor rights, and the vast public health apparatus of the United States government. 

On Earth Day 2021, President Biden affirmed his administration’s commitment to bold climate action that would set the world on a path to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. In the days leading up to this year’s Earth Day, in contrast, his Interior Department announced that it would reopen oil and gas lease sales on public lands. That’s bad enough. At least as alarming, however – if not more, quite frankly – is what his administration still isn’t doing to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Here at Revolving Door Project, we spend a significant portion of our time working to explain how and why executive branch positions matter. Our team members have collectively published tens of thousands of words detailing the tools executive agencies have to help regular people and insisting that this administration make full use of them.

If you’ve followed the Revolving Door Project for any length of time, you will be aware that we believe the Biden administration and the Democratic party need to fight harder for the public interest and do much more to ensure the public is aware of its efforts. Specifically, it is core to the project’s theory of politics that successful political leaders must not only govern effectively, but drive attention to their work by creating conflict. You can see this thread weaving through almost all of our work, but various members of our team have articulated it most clearly here, here, and here.

Measured in positions still awaiting permanent appointments, the first presidential transition is still far from over. Of the 799 positions that the Partnership for Public Service included in its political appointee tracker, 117 still lack a nominee. An additional 161 are empty or being filled in an acting capacity as the nominees for them work their way through an ever more dysfunctional Senate confirmation process. 

Across the Biden administration, officials have promised (long overdue) accountability for corporate criminals. But talk is cheap. We at the Revolving Door Project are eager to see serious action to back it up. Our latest analysis, released yesterday, shows the administration is falling short of its ambitious rhetoric. We found that it “pursued at least 24 prosecutions and rulemakings to crack down on white-collar crime this winter, but took no action against at least 48 crimes or abuses.” You can read more about those cases in our brand new tracker. Our team will add updates regularly and share a biweekly news round-up with newsletter subscribers.

With each passing day, Biden and his party appear to be facing ever more severe political headwinds. Inflation remains elevated, with a new variant threatening to further aggravate supply chain problems. Meanwhile, the (warranted) response to the war in Ukraine has specifically pushed gas prices upwards. Add to this that the Federal Reserve appears eager to throw millions out of work to slow the economy and that some of Biden’s outstanding nominations are in peril thanks to his own, uncooperative co-partisans, and things are undoubtedly looking bleak. 

The Biden administration is continuing to ramp up economic pressure on Russia through a far-reaching sanctions regime. However, even as many experts praise the United States’ measures, particularly those aimed at Russian oligarchs’ overseas wealth, they are also questioning how effective they will be in the face of loopholes and implementation challenges.

If there’s one thing the readers of this newsletter definitely haven’t read yet today, it’s a reaction to last night’s State of the Union address.

Like many, we were hoping to see President Joe Biden adopt a new overall message to the American people as his poll numbers have sagged and Democrats brace for a rough midterm election in just eight short months. We’ve been making our pitch for the last few months about what that message should be: Biden ought to use his powers to crack down on corporate villains, and heavily publicize doing so. The ubiquity of already unpopular enemies and latent presidential powers gives Biden the chance to clarify to the public what exactly he stands for. Our Jeff Hauser and Max Moran laid out the case for this “Corporate Crackdown” message in Democracy Journal in January.

The Department of Justice Antitrust Division is once again stepping up its efforts to tackle the corporate greed that is helping to drive the recent spike in inflation. On Thursday, the Department announced that it would be bringing new scrutiny to supply chain profiteers. This is the latest indication that Jonathan Kanter’s Antitrust division is serious about tackling corporate consolidation and its ill-effects across the breadth of the economy. In recent months, the division has also set its sights on BigTech, shipping and rail, and meat, among other industries. It has simultaneously promised to change its approach to enforcement by bringing lawsuits instead of seeking settlements and begun the process of updating the guidelines it uses to review mergers. Altogether, that’s a big agenda.