I'm not constitutional lawyer, but those sound like things only the legislature can do, which is beyond his control. The things he has done are things the executive has in it's power.
Instead, they just throw treats to their base when they're in trouble. Treats that are written on water. If I hear another thing about the Dreamers.
People keep saying that he can't do anything because he's not a dictator. He can't do anything because he doesn't believe in it, and even if he did doesn't have any ideological standards for his Congressional party that would ever get him majority support for anything that doesn't have lobbying checks behind it.
And how, exactly, do you propose he do that, given the current political landscape in the US?
Congress is gridlocked. Incumbents almost never lose their seats. The people who care enough to vote and support the issues are already voting as hard as they can.
This announcement? This is him doing what he can, both in terms of his legal ability to change things, as the chief executive, and in terms of using the bully pulpit, making clear where his and his administrations' priorities lie.
Basically, it sounds like you're saying "if the President can't force the legislation he wants to materialize and get through a Congress that is historically dysfunctional, that means he doesn't really care about the issue."
This can always be an excuse. Things can't be done because they can't be done. The fact is that he's giving speeches about how much he hates China and Russia, and not about legalizing pot.
He's also one of the engineers of the shitty situation that we're in, he's had an abusively and militantly anti-drug pol his entire career, so I'm not ever going to be convinced by this woe is me lark. He's not doing his best, he's being pushed (if he's even being adequately informed.) The best case scenario is that some people in his administration think that drug law reform is important, either morally or politically. There is no scenario in which the actual Biden is sympathetic towards drug users, or regretful of the lives that he personally contributed to ruining over drugs.
> how, exactly, do you propose he do that
The answer is do politics. If he doesn't know how to do politics, it would be better if someone else were doing the job.
Ok sure, not only that, but he is the president who has the least number of spare brain cells to devote to an issue that he opposes on principle.
And yet of all the presidents we've had in the past 4 decades, it wasn't the B-movie star, nor the frat boy, not the draft dodger(s), nor the iconoclast reality TV star, nor even our first and only Black president -- but Biden the Old Catholic who actually got this seemingly simple reform with simple possession of pot.
As you said, he's the guy with the least reason and capacity to get it done, and yet here we are. How are you managing to complain that what he did was so simple and miniscule, and yet no one else came close to doing it?
> The best case scenario is that some people in his administration think that drug law reform is important, either morally or politically. There is no scenario in which the actual Biden is sympathetic towards drug users, or regretful of the lives that he personally contributed to ruining over drugs.
I wouldn't be too sure that Biden had staff more devoted toward drug reform than Obama [0]. But I guess you're stuck with that position since you can't fathom that Biden personally pushed for reform. So how did Biden end up with this successful drug reform team, just random chance? If Biden is so stridently anti-drug, so absolutely useless toward pushing reform as you think he must be, then how did that not trickle down to his senior staff and who they hired and what the prioritized?
> The answer is do politics. If he doesn't know how to do politics, it would be better if someone else were doing the job.
Politics is all about building consensus through compromise and collaboration. Biden may hate marijuana reform, but he prioritized and executed in a way that past presidents didn't, ostensibly because he knew it was something that lots of people love. How is that not great politics?
[0] https://www.marijuanamoment.net/new-book-obama-considered-de...
If this is true, then this is politics working as intended.
Seriously, that is exactly how the system is supposed to work: The officials we elect do what we, the people, want, not just push their personal beliefs at all costs.
I would 1000% rather elect someone I agree with on 50% of issues, who is willing to be swayed by popular opinion, than someone I agree with on 80% of issues, who is going to try to enforce their personal beliefs as law no matter what the people actually want.
As for Biden "knowing how to do politics", you might want to spend some time studying Biden's astonishing legislative results over the past few months. He's apparently quite good at politics.
Just be honest: you have 937 axes to grind and you are desperate to avoid giving Biden any credit, ever, for anything.
That’s exactly what he just did with the pardons. He’s signaling to voters that he wants to legalize it and needs the right partners in Congress to make it happen. From your other comments I don’t get the impression you’re open to discussing the implications so much as you just want to complain about Biden.
https://www.businessinsider.com/fda-chief-approved-oxycontin...
You also really need to do some homework on the US House and the degree to which gerrymandering has made it completely impossible for your dreams of "appeals to voters" to work.
Except when contradicted by the constitution or established legal process as a Party state.
The Senate alone.
> Fully legalizing marijuana does require legislative action
Rescheduling it subject to treaty restrictions from treaties in force, but Presidents can and have withdrawn the US from treaties without Congressional action. This may be unlikely in this case, but does not exceed executive power.
Amending the treaty requires a bunch of other countries plus the Senate, and modifying the status of marijuana inconsistent with the treaty while it is in force would take a change in law by Congress (but would violate the treaty.)
Note that the current treaty status only requires medical use / prescription requirements, so it could be substantially less restricted than it currently is federally without running into treaty issues.
Can you give an example? I am not aware of any authority granted to the executive to override the legislature in this way. Is there an explicitly granted loophole or are these cases of executive overreach?
“Both Congress and the Administration have the ability to alter marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance.”
edit: but apparently, besides that or whatever other options the executive branch review discovers, or whatever the judicial branch comes up with, you are right
https://businessofcannabis.com/2022/09/16/us-court-of-appeal...