Biden and Reagan

Recent posts have discussed the Hamas terror attack on Israel.

 Matt Lewis at The Daily Beast:

I never thought the day would come when I, a die-hard Reagan Republican, would credit a Democratic president for being Reaganesque. Amazingly, it has. Don’t look now, but Joe Biden has been leading with moral authority in the struggle against violent authoritarianism and illiberalism at home and abroad.

While Donald Trump criticized the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden met with Bibi and declared America’s support for Israel to be “rock solid and unwavering.” And while Republican support for providing U.S. aid to Ukraine has eroded, Biden has steadfastly supported them in their plight against a brutal Russian invasion. 

This trend continued during his speech on Thursday night, where Biden sought to unite these two crises. “The assault on Israel echoes nearly 20 months of war, tragedy, and brutality inflicted on the people of Ukraine—people that were very badly hurt since Vladimir Putin launched his all-out invasion,” he said.

Dianne Feinstein, RIP

 President Biden:

Senator Dianne Feinstein was a pioneering American. A true trailblazer. And for Jill and me, a cherished friend.

In San Francisco, she showed enormous poise and courage in the wake of tragedy, and became a powerful voice for American values. Serving in the Senate together for more than 15 years, I had a front row seat to what Dianne was able to accomplish. It’s why I recruited her to serve on the Judiciary Committee when I was Chairman – I knew what she was made of, and I wanted her on our team. There’s no better example of her skillful legislating and sheer force of will than when she turned passion into purpose, and led the fight to ban assault weapons. Dianne made her mark on everything from national security to the environment to protecting civil liberties. She’s made history in so many ways, and our country will benefit from her legacy for generations.

Often the only woman in the room, Dianne was a role model for so many Americans – a job she took seriously by mentoring countless public servants, many of whom now serve in my Administration. She had an immense impact on younger female leaders for whom she generously opened doors. Dianne was tough, sharp, always prepared, and never pulled a punch, but she was also a kind and loyal friend, and that’s what Jill and I will miss the most.

As we mourn with her daughter Katherine and the Feinstein family, her team in the Senate, and the people of California, we take comfort that Dianne is reunited again with her beloved Richard. May God Bless Dianne Feinstein.

Biden on Executive Power

Miles's Law: where you stand depends on where you sit.  

Charlie Savage,   Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan at NYT:

If he is elected to a second term, President Biden pledged that he will go to Congress to start any major war but said he believed he was empowered “to direct limited U.S. military operations abroad” without such approval when such strikes served critical American interests.

“As president, I have taken great care to ensure that military actions carried out under my command comply with this constitutional framework and that my administration consults with Congress to the greatest extent possible,” he wrote in response to a New York Times survey of presidential candidates about executive power.

“I will continue to rigorously apply this framework to any potential actions in the future,” he added.

The reply stood in contrast to his answer in 2007, when he was also running for president and, as a senator, adopted a narrower view: “The Constitution is clear: Except in response to an attack or the imminent threat of attack, only Congress may authorize war and the use of force.”

Not just war powers. 

In 2019, for example, Mr. Biden said that if elected, he would order the Justice Department to review and potentially replace a legal policy memo that says sitting presidents are temporarily immune from indictment. He strongly criticized the department’s interpretation of the Constitution, which limited the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and Mr. Trump’s attempts to impede that inquiry, Robert S. Mueller III.

But Mr. Biden never followed through on that pledge. He is now protected himself by the Justice Department’s theory since a special counsel, Robert Hur, is investigating how several classified documents were in his possession when he left the vice presidency.

Immigration and Asylum 2023

Many posts have discussed immigration and asylum.

Justo Robles at The Guardian:

As the Title 42 pandemic-era rule ended at midnight on Thursday, Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security and a former Cuban refugee, issued a stern warning to would-be migrants, saying: “People who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway will be presumed ineligible for asylum.”

In many ways, Mayorkas’s statement directly contradicted some of the promises Joe Biden made as a candidate during the 2020 presidential election. Then Biden had pledged to dismantle Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda, calling the numerous restrictions his rival enacted to shut off access to the US asylum system “cruel”.

After taking office, Biden reversed some of Trump’s border policies, including a program that required asylum-seekers to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities while their cases were reviewed by US courts.

But for more than a year, Biden kept, and defended in court, Trump’s most sweeping border restriction: the Title 42 emergency order that allowed agents to cite the Covid-19 pandemic to quickly expel migrants without hearing asylum claims.

The Biden administration in 2022 tried to phase out Title 42, but was blocked by a lawsuit filed by Republicans in 19 states. By the time it ended – due to the expiration of the Covid-19 public health emergency – Title 42 had been used to expel migrants over 2.7m times from the US southern border, according to government statistics.

But Biden is now replacing Title 42 with an arguably tougher, more restrictive policy. His administration on Friday started implementing a rule barring migrants from asylum if they don’t request refugee status in another country before entering the US.

Advocates suggested that such a restriction mimics two Trump-era policies known as the “entry” and “transit” asylum bans which were consequently blocked by courts. As a result, the new restrictive border control has already been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrants’ rights groups in federal court.

Afghanistan Withdrawal: The View from the Biden White House

From the White House:

President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor. When President Trump took office in 2017, there were more than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. Eighteen months later, after introducing more than 3,000 additional troops just to maintain the stalemate, President Trump ordered direct talks with the Taliban without consulting with our allies and partners or allowing the Afghan government at the negotiating table. In September 2019, President Trump emboldened the Taliban by publicly considering inviting them to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. In February 2020, the United States and the Taliban reached a deal, known as the Doha Agreement, under which the United States agreed to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. In return, the Taliban agreed to participate in a peace process and refrain from attacking U.S. troops and threatening Afghanistan’s major cities—but only as long as the United States remained committed to withdraw by the agreement’s deadline. As part of the deal, President Trump also pressured the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison, including senior war commanders, without securing the release of the only American hostage known to be held by the Taliban. 

Over his last 11 months in office, President Trump ordered a series of drawdowns of U.S. troops. By June 2020, President Trump reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600. In September 2020, he directed a further draw down to 4,500. A month later, President Trump tweeted, to the surprise of military advisors, that the remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” On September 28, 2021, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testified that, on November 11, he had received an unclassified signed order directing the U.S. military to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan no later than January 15, 2021. One week later, that order was rescinded and replaced with one to draw down to 2,500 troops by the same date. During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the 2 outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. Indeed, there were no such plans in place when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just over three months away. 

As a result, when President Biden took office on January 20, 2021, the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country. At the same time, the United States had only 2,500 troops on the ground—the lowest number of troops in Afghanistan since 2001—and President Biden was facing President Trump’s near-term deadline to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021, or the Taliban would resume its attacks on U.S. and allied troops. Secretary of Defense Austin testified on September 28, 2021, “the intelligence was clear that if we did not leave in accordance with that agreement, the Taliban would recommence attacks on our forces.” This experience underscores the critical importance of detailed and effective transition coordination, especially when it comes to complex military operations for which decisions and execution pass from one administration to the next, and consequential deals struck late in the outgoing administration whose implementation will fall largely to the incoming administration. 

The President on Presidents' Day

 

Zelensky’s video team is quick with a montage of today’s historic Biden visit to Kyiv. The Ukrainian president writes on Telegram: “Ukraine feels the support of the United States and President Joseph Biden personally in these difficult times of struggle. 🇺🇦🇺🇸” pic.twitter.com/YqmvwSYIvM

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) February 20, 2023

Columbus Day 2022

 Columbus Day raises issues about federal holidays and monuments.

 From President Biden:

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed from the Spanish port of Palos de la Frontera on behalf of Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, but his roots trace back to Genoa, Italy. The story of his journey remains a source of pride for many Italian Americans whose families also crossed the Atlantic. His voyage inspired many others to follow and ultimately contributed to the founding of America, which has been a beacon for immigrants across the world.

Many of these immigrants were Italian, and for generations, Italian immigrants have harnessed the courage to leave so much behind, driven by their faith in the American dream — to build a new life of hope and possibility in the United States. Today, Italian Americans are leaders in all fields, including government, health, business, innovation, and culture.

Things have not always been easy; prejudice and violence often stalled the promise of equal opportunity. In fact, Columbus Day was created by President Harrison in 1892 in response to the anti-Italian motivated lynching of 11 Italian Americans in New Orleans in 1891. During World War II, Italian Americans were even targeted as enemy aliens. But the hard work, dedication to community, and leadership of Italian Americans in every industry make our country stronger, more prosperous, and more vibrant. The Italian American community is also a cornerstone of our Nation’s close and enduring relationship with Italy — a vital NATO Ally and European Union partner. Today, the partnership between Italy and the United States is at the heart of our efforts to tackle the most pressing global challenges of our time, including supporting Ukraine as it defends its freedom and democracy.

In commemoration of Christopher Columbus’s historic voyage 530 years ago, the Congress, by joint resolution of April 30, 1934, and modified in 1968 (36 U.S.C. 107), as amended, has requested the President proclaim the second Monday of October of each year as “Columbus Day.”

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim October 10, 2022, as Columbus Day. I direct that the flag of the United States be displayed on all public buildings on the appointed day in honor of our diverse history and all who have contributed to shaping this Nation.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
seventh day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-seventh.

POTUS and Marijuana

From President Biden:

As I often said during my campaign for President, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana. Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit. Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And while white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates.

Today, I am announcing three steps that I am taking to end this failed approach.

First, I am announcing a pardon of all prior Federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana. I have directed the Attorney General to develop an administrative process for the issuance of certificates of pardon to eligible individuals. There are thousands of people who have prior Federal convictions for marijuana possession, who may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result. My action will help relieve the collateral consequences arising from these convictions.

Second, I am urging all Governors to do the same with regard to state offenses. Just as no one should be in a Federal prison solely due to the possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either.

Third, I am asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to initiate the administrative process to review expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Federal law currently classifies marijuana in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the classification meant for the most dangerous substances. This is the same schedule as for heroin and LSD, and even higher than the classification of fentanyl and methamphetamine – the drugs that are driving our overdose epidemic.

Finally, even as federal and state regulation of marijuana changes, important limitations on trafficking, marketing, and under-age sales should stay in place.

Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs. 

The Congressional Research Service finds that a president cannot directly decriminalize marijuana, but there is more to the story -- hence step three of the Biden announcement.

Either Congress or the executive branch has the authority to change the status of marijuana under the CSA [Controlled Substances Act]. Congress can change the status of a controlled substance through legislation: Congress included  marijuana in Schedule I by legislation when it enacted the CSA, and has more recently passed legislation to impose controls on other substances, including synthetic cannabinoids and fentanyl analogues. In the alternative, the CSA empowers DEA to make scheduling decisions through the notice-and-commentrulemaking process, in consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (HHS has delegated its factfinding role in this process to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)). The CSA provision directing DEA to schedule controlled substances as “required by United States obligations under international treaties” may limit the agency’s authority to relax controls of marijuana; another CRS report discusses considerations for Congress related to marijuana’s status under international drug control treaties.

If the President sought to act in the area of controlled substances regulation, he would likely do so by executive order. However, the Supreme Court has held that the President has the power to issue an executive order only if authorized by “an act of Congress or . . . the Constitution itself.” The CSA does not provide a direct role for the President in the classification of controlled substances, nor does Article II of the Constitution grant the President power in this area (federal controlled substances law is an exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce). Thus, it does not appear that the President could directly deschedule or reschedule marijuana by executive order.

Although the President may not unilaterally deschedule or reschedule a controlled substance, he does possess a large degree of indirect influence over scheduling decisions. The President could pursue the appointment of agency officials who favor descheduling, or use executive orders to direct DEA, HHS, and FDA to consider administrative descheduling of marijuana. The notice-and-comment rulemaking process would take time, and would be subject to judicial review if challenged, but could be done consistently with the CSA’s procedural requirements. In the alternative, the President could work with Congress to pursue descheduling through an amendment to the CSA.

Weed the people: These are the states where marijuana is legal.

This map reveals that public opinion, red and blue states, and voters across the political spectrum have all come around to the idea of legal weed. pic.twitter.com/4MegZIgnv6

— Vox (@voxdotcom) April 20, 2022

Bipartisan Anti-Democratic Sentiment

David Nather and Margaret Talev at Axios:

About one in three Americans prefers strong unelected leaders to weak elected leaders and says presidents should be able to remove judges over their decisions, according to the latest findings from our Axios-Ipsos Two Americas Index.

Why it matters: The findings from this poll shatter the myth that Americans overwhelmingly agree on a common set of democratic values around checks and balances on elected leaders, protection of minority rights and freedom of speech.They're also a reality check against President Biden's speech that portrayed threats to democracy as solely driven by Republican supporters of former President Trump who refuse to accept that he lost the 2020 election.

What we're watching:

• In this poll, significant minorities of Republicans and Democrats supported non-democratic norms in about equal percentages — and Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say presidents should be able to remove judges when their decisions go against the national interest.Many Americans also believe the government should follow the will of the majority even at the expense of ethnic and religious minority groups' civil rights.
• And roughly a third said the federal government should be able to prosecute members of the news media who make offensive or unpatriotic statements.
• Respondents younger than 35 or with household incomes below $75,000 a year were more likely to favor strong unelected leaders and to support prosecuting the media or empowering presidents to remove judges.

President, Not President-Senator

SEUNG MIN KIM and ZEKE MILLER at AP:

Over five decades in Washington, Joe Biden knew that the way to influence was to be in the room where it happens. But in the second year of his presidency, some of Biden’s most striking, legacy-defining legislative victories came about by staying out of it.

A summer lawmaking blitz has sent bipartisan bills addressing gun violence and boosting the nation’s high-tech manufacturing sector to Biden’s desk, and the president is now on the cusp of securing what he called the “final piece” of his economic agenda with Senate passage of a Democrats-only climate and prescription drug deal once thought dead. And in a counterintuitive turn for the president who has long promoted his decades of Capitol Hill experience, Biden’s aides chalk up his victories to the fact that he’s been publicly playing the role of cheerleader rather than legislative quarterback.

“In a 50-50 Senate, it’s just true that when the White House takes ownership over a topic, it scares off a lot of Republicans,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “I think all of this is purposeful. When you step back and let Congress lead, and then apply pressure and help at the right times, it can be a much more effective strategy to get things done.”

Democrats and the White House hope the run of legislative victories, both bipartisan and not, just four months before the November elections will help resuscitate their political fortunes by showing voters what they can accomplish with even the slimmest of majorities.

Biden opened 2022 with his legislative agenda at a standstill, poll numbers on the decline and a candid admission that he had made a “mistake” in how he carried himself in the role.

“The public doesn’t want me to be the ‘President-Senator,’” he said. “They want me to be the president and let senators be senators.”

Biden on Natural Rights

 President Biden  yesterday in Buffalo:

White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison — (applause) — running through — it really is — running through our body politic. And it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes.

No more. I mean, no more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. (Applause.) None.

And, look, failure for us to not say that — failure in saying that is going to be complicity. Silence is complicity. It’s complicity. We cannot remain silent.

Our nation’s strength has always come from the idea — it’s going to sound corny, but think about it: What’s the idea of our nation? That we’re all children of God. All chil- — life, liberty, our universal goods — gifts of God. We didn’t get it from the government, we got it from — because we exist, and we’re called upon to defend them.

...

Natural Rights and SCOTUS

Aaron Blake at WP:

In questions for the record released after her confirmation hearings, [Judge Katanji Brown]  Jackson declined to take a position on whether people have so-called “natural rights.”

Here’s the Q&A with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.):

Q: Do you hold a position on whether individuals possess natural rights, yes or no?
JACKSON: I do not hold a position on whether individuals possess natural rights.

Some conservative legal pundits highlighted the answer Friday, with the National Review writing that Jackson “doesn’t embrace the basic American creed set forth in that passage from the Declaration” of Independence. Cruz followed that up by calling it “stunning.” The conservative group FreedomWorks on Monday called the answer “unreal.” And Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday cited the answer as part of his rationale for voting against Jackson at a hearing Monday.

...

The last time this concept took the main stage in Supreme Court confirmations was the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it came up in the hearings of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. And the two Republican nominees actually took opposing views on it.

Bork argued for a strict adherence to the text of the Constitution — an original-intent judicial philosophy that made no space for the concept of natural rights, or at least for their role in jurisprudence. Specifically, Bork rejected the idea that the Ninth Amendment (that “enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”) conferred a right to privacy — which the court used to grant the right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade. In a 1990 book after his nomination was defeated, Bork linked the natural-rights approach to a dangerous “impulse to judicial authoritarianism.”

Thomas, though, had spoken extensively about the role of natural rights in the law before his 1991 confirmation hearings. In a 1987 speech, he praised an article that said a fetus had an inalienable right to life guaranteed by the law of God in the Declaration of Independence. Thomas called it a “splendid example of applying natural law.”

The divergent approaches were spotlighted by none other than a senator by the name of Joe Biden, who was then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a lengthy Washington Post op-ed on the topic, Biden wrote:

No issue divided Judge Bork and me as much as this single question: Are there fundamental rights — not explicit in the Constitution — that are protected by that document? My answer to that question, relying on principles of natural law, was an emphatic “yes” — a view that Judge Thomas, who has sharply criticized Judge Bork’s original-intent jurisprudence, appears to share.

SEE JUSTICE KAGAN'S CONFIRMATION HEARING

. 

World Autism Awareness Day

 California Assembly Member Suzette Valladares:

From President Biden:

On World Autism Awareness Day, we reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that the more than 5 million Americans who live with autism are able to make the most of their talents and participate fully in our society, and we celebrate the contributions autistic Americans have made to our families, our communities, our Nation, and the world.

We have made significant progress in improving access to opportunity for people with developmental disabilities in recent years. However, many autistic individuals still experience gaps in employment and income. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded these inequities, creating unique challenges and strains for people with autism and their families.

That is why my Administration is committed to addressing the systemic barriers people with autism face in their daily lives. The pandemic upended school routines for children and students living with disabilities. That is why the Department of Education is working tirelessly to accelerate pandemic recovery for special education programs. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are committed to ensuring individuals with disabilities have access to affordable housing as we come through this pandemic.

In order to improve quality of life for people with autism and their families in every community, my Administration is committed to funding cutting-edge research to help us better understand, diagnose, and treat autism, including funding research at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that seeks to better understand the underlying mechanisms of autism from childhood through early adulthood, improve methods of early identification and diagnosis, and develop innovations in the delivery of interventions and services.

My Administration remains committed to reducing barriers in access to early diagnoses, interventions, and services for people with autism — regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, or geography — and to incorporating the lived experiences of individuals with autism into their research. Last June, when I signed the Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce, I promised to cultivate a Federal workforce that draws from the full diversity of the Nation. One of the ways we are delivering on that promise is through a partnership between the Department of Labor and the Administration for Community Living, which is expanding access to competitive, integrated employment opportunities for people with disabilities, including autism.

In addition, my Administration will continue to build on the work done by the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, the National Autism Coordinator, and others to make certain that autistic Americans have access to the care, services, and support they need, so they can pursue their educational, career, and life interests without discrimination.

Today and every day, we honor autistic people and celebrate the meaningful and measureless ways they contribute to our Nation. We applaud the millions of educators, advocates, family members, caregivers, and others who support them. As we continue to build a better America, we reaffirm our promise to provide Americans with autism the support they need to live independently, fully participate in their communities, and lead fulfilling lives of dignity and respect.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 2, 2022, as World Autism Awareness Day. I call upon all Americans to learn more about autism to improve early diagnosis, to learn more about the experiences of autistic people from autistic people, and to build more welcoming and inclusive communities to support people with autism.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.

Fund the Police

The White House is responding to public concern about crime:

In his State of the Union address earlier this month, President Biden highlighted his comprehensive strategy to reduce gun violence. He emphasized the $350 billion in American Rescue Plan funds that we’ve made available for cities, counties, and states that enable them to hire more police and invest in proven strategies like community violence intervention. He talked about our efforts to crack down on difficult-to-trace “ghost guns,” part of an aggressive array of executive actions to reduce gun violence, taking more steps than any other Administration in its first year. And he repeated his call for Congress to take further action tackle the gun violence epidemic that continues to take more than 100 lives each day.

We have made strong progress by rolling out and executing on the President’s comprehensive gun crime reduction strategy. This strategy contains five key components:

• Stemming the flow of firearms used to commit violence,
• Supporting local law enforcement with federal tools and resources to put more cops on the beat and address violent crime
• Investing in evidence-based community violence interventions
• Expanding summer programming, employment opportunities, and other services and supports for teenagers and young adults to give them pathways away from crime
• Helping formerly incarcerated individuals successfully reenter their communities instead of re-offending.

You can read a full summary of the progress we’ve made here. We are pulling all of the levers of the federal government to address this crisis. For example:

• The President secured a bipartisan investment in fighting gun crime, including a new $50 million initiative to expand community violence interventions, additional funding for community policing, and the resources the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) needs to continue to enforce our existing gun laws.
• The Administration made American Rescue Plan funds available for fighting gun crime, and cities and states across the country have taken up this opportunity.
• The Justice Department is taking regulatory action to rein in the proliferation of “ghost guns”—unserialized, homemade firearms that are difficult for law enforcement to trace.
• The Justice Department launched five new law enforcement strike forces focused on addressing firearms trafficking, including on the “Iron Pipeline” – the illegal flow of guns sold in the south, transported up the East Coast, and found at crime scenes from Baltimore to New York City.
• In part due to action by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Connecticut and Illinois enacted legislation that allows Medicaid to reimburse providers for hospital-based gun violence prevention services.

That progress is made possible by the dedicated gun violence prevention team we have at the White House, working to combat gun violence—every day, from every angle. Under the leadership of Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, I coordinate the White House’s gun violence work. The solutions to gun violence are interdisciplinary, which is why we have built a multi-faceted, 12-person team of experts here in the heart of the Domestic Policy Council who have teamed up to drive forward our gun violence reduction agenda.

Sanctions

 From the White House:

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin of Russia recognized two regions of Ukraine as independent states and today claimed that recognition to include all of the Donbas region. The Russian Parliament also authorized the deployment of additional Russian forces into this Ukrainian territory.

As President Biden and our Allies and partners have made clear, we will impose significant costs on Russia for Russia’s actions. Today, the Administration is implementing the first tranche of sanctions that go far beyond 2014, in coordination with allies and partners in the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and Australia. And as President Biden promised, we worked with Germany to ensure the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will not move forward.

The President has directed the following measures:

• Full blocking sanctions on two significant Russian financial institutions. The Secretary of the Treasury will impose full blocking sanctions on two large state-owned Russian financial institutions that provide key services crucial to financing the Kremlin and the Russian military: Vnesheconombank and Promsvyazbank and their subsidiaries. Collectively, these institutions hold more than $80 billion in assets and finance the Russian defense sector and economic development. These measures will freeze their assets in the United States, prohibit U.S. individuals and businesses from doing any transactions with them, shut them out of the global financial system, and foreclose access to the U.S. dollar.
• Expanded sovereign debt prohibitions restricting U.S. individuals and firms from participation in secondary markets for new debt issued by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation, and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. These prohibitions will cut off the Russian government from a key avenue by which it raises capital to fund its priorities and will increase future financing costs. It denies Russia access to key U.S. markets and investors.
• Full blocking sanctions on five Russian elites and their family members: Aleksandr Bortnikov (and his son, Denis), Sergei Kiriyenko (and his son, Vladimir), and Promsvyazbank CEO Petr Fradkov. These individuals and their relatives directly benefit from their connections with the Kremlin. Other Russian elites and their family members are on notice that additional actions could be taken against them.
• Today, the Secretary of the Treasury will determine that any institution in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy is a target for further sanctions. Over 80% of Russia’s daily foreign exchange transactions globally are in U.S. dollars and roughly half of Russia’s international trade is conducted in dollars. With this action,no Russian financial institution is safe from our measures, including the largest banks.

These actions come in addition to steps being taken by our Allies and partners and represent our first response to Russia’s actions. As President Biden made clear, Russia will pay an even steeper price if it continues its aggression.

Text of the executive order 

Yes, Congress Does Still Pass Stuff

 Despite deadlock on high-profile controversial bills, Congress does manage to pass legislation on lower-profile issues. Russell Berman in The Atlantic

The final two-plus years of the Trump administration, for example, began with a government shutdown and featured two presidential impeachments. But they also saw the passage of a major conservation bill, a new trade agreement, significant criminal-justice reform, and several pandemic-relief packages. Lawmakers banned surprise medical billing and raised the age for purchasing tobacco from 18 to 21. Sometimes Congress does get credit for its successes. The $2.2 trillion CARES Act, passed swiftly after the coronavirus shut down huge portions of the U.S. economy in March 2020, provided some form of relief to nearly every American, as did the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that Congress enacted a year later. (Not coincidentally, Gallup found that Congress’s approval rating peaked—at a still dismal 36 percent—around the time it was literally giving cash to most households.) More recently, the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill last year was a top story in the news.

...

Last year, Simon Bazelon and Matthew Yglesias identified this dynamic as the “Secret Congress.” Perhaps a better term would be Shadow Congress, borrowing from the label recently affixed to certain “shadow docket” rulings of the Supreme Court. These new bills, after all, are public, but relatively few care to notice. One reason they draw little attention is because the president hasn’t been fighting for them, at least not publicly. Biden has spent no time campaigning for the passage of postal reform or the arbitration ban. He’s issued only a few statements on the Violence Against Women Act, despite the fact that helping write and pass the original landmark law was one of the president’s signature accomplishments as a senator, and something he regularly touted on the 2020 campaign trail.

 

Contrary to assumptions about the presidential “bully pulpit,” Biden’s silence might have helped these agreements come together. [Frances] Lee’s research has shown that presidential involvement in an issue tends to increase its partisanship, which in a divided Congress usually lowers its chance of passage.

Vaccines and Patriotism

 

Biden told unvaccinated Americans that getting the COVID vaccine is "your patriotic duty" and "an obligation to your country,” warning that those who are not yet fully vaccinated “have good reason to be concerned" about the Omicron variant.https://t.co/WlLcuu2PuP

— Axios (@axios) December 21, 2021

Sarah Mervosh and Amy Harmon at NYT:

When a polio vaccine became available in the United States in the 1950s, the March of Dimes, an organization that had been affiliated with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, made a major advertising push, with posters featuring young children who were most at risk of being infected, recalled René Najera, editor of the History of Vaccines project at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. To boost public interest in the vaccine, Elvis Presley got vaccinated backstage at “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“It was seen as a patriotic thing,” Dr. Najera said.

Today, the government has planned public education efforts, but the issue has remained fragmented and divisive.

Pelosi at Work

Carl Hulse at NYT:

On a Wednesday night in September, while President Biden backslapped in the Republican dugout during the annual congressional baseball game, Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat nearby, sober-faced and wagging her finger while speaking into her cellphone, toiling to salvage her party’s top legislative priority as it teetered on the brink of collapse.

On the other end of the line was Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, a crucial swing vote on Mr. Biden’s sweeping social policy bill, and Ms. Pelosi, seated in the V.I.P. section behind the dugout at Nationals Park, was trying to persuade him to embrace $2.1 trillion in spending and climate change provisions she considered essential for the legislation.

In a moment captured by C-SPAN cameras that went viral, Ms. Pelosi appeared to grow agitated as Mr. Manchin, according to sources apprised of the call, told her that he could not accept more than $1.5 trillion — and was prepared to provide a document clearly laying out his parameters for the package, benchmarks that House Democrats had been clamoring to see.

The call reflected how Ms. Pelosi’s pivotal role in shepherding Mr. Biden’s agenda on Capitol Hill has reached far beyond the House that is her primary responsibility and into the Senate, where she has engaged in quiet and little-noticed talks with key lawmakers who have the power to kill the package or propel it into law. 

Her efforts — fraught with challenges and littered with near-death experiences for the bill — finally paid off on Friday with House passage of the $2.2 trillion social policy and climate change package.

...

While her main responsibility was wrangling the House, Ms. Pelosi devoted considerable time to Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema, both of whom hold the power to scuttle the deal in the evenly divided Senate if they balk.

Ms. Pelosi has ties to both. She has bonded with Mr. Manchin, who like Ms. Pelosi grew up in a political family, over their shared Italian heritage and Catholicism and her work on health and pension benefits for coal miners, represented in her office by a statue of a miner gifted to her by Mr. Manchin.

 

I wonder of there’s a discussion about reconciliation going on here pic.twitter.com/0MvWLWvSDn

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 30, 2021

International Approval of US Goes Up

Julie Ray at Gallup:

Six months into Joe Biden's presidency, approval ratings of U.S. leadership around the world had largely rebounded from the record-low ratings observed during the Trump administration.

A new Gallup report shows that as of early August 2021, across 46 countries and territories, median approval of U.S. leadership stood at 49%. This rating is up from the 30% median approval at the end of Donald Trump's presidency and matches the rating during former President Barack Obama's first year in office in 2009.

However, while the 49% median approval rating for U.S. leadership so far under Biden compares favorably with ratings during the Obama administration, the 36% disapproval rating is also higher than any of those under Obama. Still, disapproval under Biden is seven percentage points lower than the final disapproval rating under Trump -- a record-high 44%.

President Biden's Vax Mandate

The Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require that all employers with 100 or more employees ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week. pic.twitter.com/Yn2kDf63FU

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 10, 2021

Colin Kalmbacher at Law & Crime:

The administration’s latest exercise of highly-publicized state power in response to the renewed COVID-19 pandemic was predictably met with grumbling from discontented online posters and commentators, primarily on the political right. Quickly after Biden’s plans were made public, the hashtag #DoNotComply spread on Twitter.

Legal experts, however, quickly noted that the vaccine mandates were likely to pass constitutional muster.

“Yes, this is constitutional,” famed constitutional law professor and Dean of Berkeley Law School Erwin Chemerinsky, told Law&Crime.

“There is no constitutional problem with requiring people be vaccinated,” the author of the premier constitutional case law textbook used in U.S. law schools added. “The government could require everyone to be vaccinated against COVID.”

“This was resolved by the Supreme Court in 1905,” Chemerinsky said, referring to Jacobson v. Massachusetts.

...

The first proposal will have the U.S. Department of Labor, under the auspices of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, issue new rules that mandate any business with 100 or more employees enforce vaccine compliance among their workforce or maintain a regime where employees submit to weekly COVID-19 testing.

The new rules will further mandate that such large businesses must provide paid time off for their employees to receive the free vaccinations–and for any necessary post-vaccine recuperation.

“To continue efforts to ensure that no worker loses a dollar of pay because they get vaccinated, OSHA is developing a rule that will require employers with more than 100 employees to provide paid time off for the time it takes for workers to get vaccinated or to recover if they are under the weather post-vaccination,” the White House explained in a press release announcing the new directives.

“The issue is whether the government has the authority under some statute to order employers to require vaccination or weekly testing,” OSHA expert and Wake Forest University Law Professor Sid Shapiro told Law&Crime. “If such authority exists, it would be constitutional because Congress can regulate interstate commerce.”

New York City-based attorney and writer Luppe B. Luppen said the relevant statute was contained in OSHA’s authorizing legislation, the Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1970, which was signed into law by then-president Richard Nixon.

In response to conservative writer Andrew Egger calling Biden’s new proposals “nuts,” Luppen retorted that the move was “a plain Jane congressionally authorized OSHA regulatory proceeding under Section 6(c) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”

“OSHA’s been around for 50 years,” federal employment attorney Bradley P. Moss added via Twitter.