Dispatch #159 White Lesbian Age 72 Considers Biden's Abject Failure to Take Significant Actions to Protect Women, Help Students in Debt, Protect Immigrants, and More

January 15th 2025   

1456 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President

5 Days White Supremacist Misogynist Christian Nationalist Regime Begins

936 Days Since SCOTUS Ruled American Women Don’t Have Human Rights

467 Days Since Israel Began Genocidal Assault on Palestinians in Gaza

Really, what has Biden been doing since November 7th?  Perhaps the unprecedented collaboration with Israel to inflict genocide on the Palestinians is more time-consuming than one might imagine.  Or perhaps sleepless nights thinking about all those maimed, orphaned, and shredded - aka dead - children has been distracting. Mr. President, you have seen the items below. Shame on you for failing to take action.

1. Deschedule Marijuana

2.  Grant Clemency to Leonard Peltier

3.  Certify the ERA

4.  Erase All Student Debt for Seniors

5.  Fast Track Student Loan Cancellation for Persons Eligible Due to Proven College Fraud

6.  Restore Obama's Policy Normalizing Relations with Cuba

7.  Rescind His Extreme Executive Order Blocking Asylum at the Border

8.  Pardon All Undocumented Immigrants Who Entered US Illegally

9.   Fast Track Citizendship Applications

10.  Release DOJ Secret Legal Guidance on Deporting Immigrants

11.  Guardrails for Abortions Rights

1.  While it’s up for debate how much power a president has to change the status of a Schedule I drug, Biden could very well end his administration’s review process and issue an official recommendation to federal agencies that marijuana be de-scheduled https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-biden-election-executive-actions-democracy/  Executive Actions Biden November 7 2024  Could Take Biden could also pardon those behind bars in federal prisons for nonviolent marijuana offenses, a disproportionally Black group. “Five percent of illicit drug users are African American, yet African Americans represent 29 percent of those arrested and 33 percent of those incarcerated for drug offenses,” https://naacp.org/resources/criminal-justice-fact-sheet  

2.  Leonard Peltier, Indian activist and founder of American Indian Movement (AIM) has been prison for 50 years  despite serious and ongoing concerns about the fairness of his trial. He is now 80 years old with numerous health issues; he has been repeatedly denied parole.  "Despite the grave concerns surrounding the continued imprisonment of Mr. Peltier, who is now 80 years old and suffering from severe health conditions, including increasing vision loss, the Bureau of Prisons denied Mr. Peltier a compassionate release or reduction in sentence in April of this year; and in July 2024, the U.S. Parole Commission denied him parole. These recent denials mean only you have the unique ability to grant him clemency and rectify this grave injustice that has long troubled human rights advocates and native peoples across the globe."  https://democrats-naturalresources.house.gov/media/press-releases/grijalva-sen-schatz-lead-34-lawmakers-urging-president-biden-to-pardon-native-american-activist-leonard-peltier

3.  Make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the Constitution  by Kirsten Gillibrand https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/15/opinion/trump-biden-legacy.html. How Biden Should Spend His Final Weeks in Office? Mr. Biden has the power to enshrine reproductive rights in the Constitution right now.  He can direct the national archivist to certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment. This would mean that the amendment has been officially ratified and that the archivist has declared it part of the Constitution. The amendment is concise: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” The amendment would make discrimination on the basis of sex — like restrictions on reproductive care that single out women — unconstitutional, including, in my view, abortion. We’ve seen the potential of this approach; courts in several states with E.R.A.s have cited those amendments in striking down state prohibitions on Medicaid-funded abortion care.

            The E.R.A. has met the requirements for certification — it passed two-thirds of Congress in 1972 and was ratified by three-quarters of the states as of 2020. Only a flawed Trump Justice Department memo prevented its certification as a constitutional amendment. The memo contended that the E.R.A. is no longer valid because it failed to meet the seven-year deadline that Congress initially set and then, when the ratification effort fell three states short, extended until 1982. But the deadline was meaningless. The Constitution says nothing about a deadline for amending it.

            Dozens of Democrats are also calling on Biden to quickly move to codify the ERA, which has been approved by 38 states but was never ratified. Among them is Congressmember Cori Bush, who spoke at a press conference on Tuesday, the 101st anniversary of the ERA’s introduction in Congress.

            Rep. Cori Bush: “For months, President Biden and Democrats warned of the threat posed by Donald Trump on our bodily autonomy and on our democracy, a threat that is about to become reality very soon. President Biden has the power to do something about this. He has the ERA. The ERA is one sentence that has the power to protect our future: 'Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.'

4. & 5. Student Loan Borrowers Owe $1.6 Trillion The Education Department has been hurrying to finalize a new federal rule that would cancel student loans for people who face financial hardship. The proposal — one of Biden’s only student loan plans that hasn’t been halted by federal courts — is in a public comment period scheduled to end Dec. 2.  After that, the department would have a narrow window to finalize the rule and begin carrying it out, a process that usually takes months. Like Biden’s other efforts, it would almost certainly face a legal challenge.   Additionally, the Biden administration has room to speed up student loan cancellation for people who were already promised relief because they were cheated by their colleges, said Aaron Ament, an Education Department official for the Obama administration and president of the National Student Legal Defense Network. now is the time for Mr. Biden to take decisive action. He should issue an order canceling the student debt for struggling seniors — some 3.5 million Americans age 60 or older are still paying off student loans — and for borrowers in default and anyone swindled by for-profit schools. Will Mr. Trump undo these measures? Probably. But let Americans see that Mr. Biden tried to make the lives of these debtors better and his successor chose to make them worse. People sixty and above are the fastest-growing demographic of student debtors and risk having their Social Security checks garnished for unpaid debt. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/15/opinion/trump-biden-legacy.html; https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/17/debt_relief 

6.  Building on the Obama administration’s work on the issue, the Biden White House and ended by the first Trump White House.  Biden promised during his 2020 campaign to restore relations with Cuba. Inexplicably, Biden has failed entirely to build on the Obama administration's work and normalize relations by restoring diplomatic connections, removing the country from the list of StateSponsors  of Terrorism, and adhering to the 22 bilateral agreements signed by the Obama administration. But Biden could and should implement these measures—to urgently assist a Cuban populace in need, as well as to resurrect the model of peaceful coexistence as a successful alternative to a US posture of hostility and aggression that has failed to advance US interests for over 60 years. Toward that goal, he should also order the expedited declassification of the key secret files relating to the Obama détente—including the interagency assessment, conducted during the first Trump administration, that positive engagement was advancing US interests as well as those of the Cuban people. Those documents represent the verdict of history on a model of creative diplomacy and peaceful coexistence that is, today, more relevant than ever.  https://www.thenation.com/article/world/biden-legacy-cuba-opening/