By abusing his position as the commander-in-chief, who, evidently, has never familiarized himself with the national defense infrastructure of the United States, Joe Biden has been misusing the Defense Production Act (DPA to his own policy failures. Commenting on this matter, John Hostettler wrote in the Daily Caller: F-22s don’t achieve super-cruise speeds with batteries. Marines aren’t issued baby formula in their MREs. And Nimitz-class aircraft carriers don’t rip through the waves at 30 knots powered by solar panels.
So why is the president trying to use a statute enacted to hastily convert non-lethal industry capacity to meet the military and naval demands of the Korean War — and then renewed multiple times to meet similar national defense purposes — for obviously non-defense production? The answer is simple: partisan politics.
First is the most obvious attempt to slow the ongoing electoral slide that the president’s party is experiencing going into the midterm elections: reversing the baby formula shortage. But this shortage was the result of what appears to be a dysfunctional Biden administration regulator.
According to press accounts, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Abbott Nutrition’s Sturgis, Michigan, powdered baby formula plant a passing inspection in September 2021 after no evidence of harmful bacteria was uncovered. Subsequently, it was discovered that four infants were fed Abbott’s baby formula and fell ill to infection from a rare bacteria. Tragically, two of those babies died. As a result, Abbott recalled several lots of the powder in February 2022, the FDA returned for another investigation, and Abbott was ordered to shut down operations at the plant. However, bacteria samples acquired as result of this inspection did not match the strains found in samples received from two of the sick infants.
So was the prolonged shutdown of the plant necessary? Was the earlier September 2021 inspection conducted properly? We don’t know the answers to these questions — and likely never will. But like bodies falling from an ascending C-17 fleeing Kabul airport, this is another debacle which the Biden administration and its media allies seem to feel doesn’t warrant further scrutiny.
To further obfuscate all of this, we have the Defense Production Act. But the DPA doesn’t provide for the manufacture of baby formula. And no language in the Act can be construed — even in a tortured sense — to suggest it does. However, the Act does give authority to a president to intercede in production processes conducted by non-government organizations.
Critics are already questioning if the future presidents of the US will follow the precedence of Joe Biden and use DPA in hiding their incompetence. Or will this precedent only be exercised in the specific instance of the most recent in a string of policy blunders that portend the imminent demise of a Congressional majority of the commander-in-chief’s party.
The Atlantic has a recent article titled ‘Biden’s Climate Goals Rest on a 71-Year-Old Defense Law’ with the prefatory statement, “The Defense Production Act has become an important tool as the White House’s climate policy has stalled in Congress”.
While making numerous wrong bids in hiding his disastrous failures, Joe Biden is also using the US administration in somehow salvaging him from the sinking approval rates by putting pressure on the political opponents as well suffocating the freedom of press – either through indirect threats and blackmailing or by mobilizing left-leaning organizations in threatening the advertisers and compel them in withdrawing advertisements in a number of targeted media outlets such as Fox News, Breitbart, The Washington Times, New York Post etcetera.
But, all calculations and tricky initiatives of the Democrats may fall flat once Republicans gain majority in the Congress and Senate during this November’s midterm elections.
