It has not been a very good first year and a half for President Joe Biden. His approval ratings right now are very low, even in the tank. Whether or not the criticism has been fair, Biden has been blamed for a sluggish economy, for staggering inflation (particularly the price of oil), and for a very unpopular and highly controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan that was widely compared with America's withdrawal from Vietnam in the seventies.
Plus, his defeated political opponent from the 2020 election, Donald Trump, has not exactly gone away. Far from it. In fact, it still looks like the 2024 race may wind up being a rematch of the 2020 race. Even an unusually high Democrats would like to see someone other than Biden run on the Democratic side. So yeah, things have hardly been golden for Biden.
Today, there was news that Biden may take executive action on two very important things. He outright took executive action to safeguard access to abortions for women across the country. Even still, he urged voters to take matters into their own hands, suggesting that this was the way that the controversial overturning of Roe v Wade might itself be reversed.
Also, a number of Democratic senators are applying pressure on Biden to deschedule cannabis. This included many prominent names within the Democratic Party, including Bernie Sanders, Elisabeth Warren, and Cory Booker, among others. On Wednesday, they sent a signed letter trying to apply pressure on the Biden administration to decriminalize marijuana across the nation, since a bill to try and legalize it has apparently stalled in Congress.
The letter by the Senators urged the Biden administration to “use its existing authority to (i) deschedule cannabis and (ii) issue pardons to all individuals convicted of nonviolent cannabis-related offenses.”
The letter also stated:
“The Administration’s failure to coordinate a timely review of its cannabis policy is harming thousands of Americans, slowing research, and depriving Americans of their ability to use marijuana for medical or other purposes,” they wrote in the letter, which was addressed to President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra.
A new executive order aims to preserve abortion access, but its reach is limited by Juliana Kim, July 8, 2022:
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110455155/abortion-rights-biden-executive-order
Democrats press Biden to use ‘existing authority’ to take step toward marijuana legalization by Aris Folley, 07/06/22:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3547388-democrats-press-biden-to-use-existing-authority-to-take-step-toward-marijuana-legalization/
No comments:
Post a Comment