Democrats Make Last Plea to Biden to Change Marijuana Law Before Trump

A cadre of progressive Democrats is urging President Biden to change federal marijuana laws before his lame-duck presidency ends. 

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden, as well as Representatives Ilhan Omar, Barbara Lee, and Earl Blumenauer all helped write a letter to Biden on Tuesday asking him to deschedule marijuana and restrict federal marijuana prosecutions before his term ends. 

The letter, also signed by Senator Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, and others, notes that the mere descheduling of marijuana “will not end federal criminalization, resolve its harms, or meaningfully address the gap between federal and state cannabis policy. Possession and use of recreational marijuana—and much state-legal medical marijuana—will continue to be a violation of federal law.”  

Marijuana deregulation has been caught in limbo for some time now. While many progressive Democrats have pushed for full decriminalization of the popular recreational and medicinal drug, the letter asked Biden to reschedule the drug from Schedule 1—where heroin is at—to Schedule 3 alongside ketamine. 

And while Biden’s 2022 federal marijuana conviction pardons were notable, the letter points out that at least 3,000 people are still locked up. The letter also points out that “of the almost 700,000 drug possession arrests each year, one-third are for marijuana possession, and Black Americans are almost four times more likely than white Americans to be arrested for marijuana possession.”

This letter comes as confusion arises regarding where exactly the Trump administration stands on marijuana. People like Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are extremely pro-weed, while people like attorney general nominee Pam Bondi and Food and Drug Administration nominee Marty Makary are much less open-minded.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon threatened MAGA’s perceived foes with “the long arm of the law” on a recent episode of his podcast War Room.

The MAGA fixture was released from prison last month after a four-month sentence for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6. Now, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, Bannon is naming Democratic and Republican figures who he hopes will find themselves in the new administration’s crosshairs.

“I want these judges to understand, you’re not going to hide behind your cloaks,” Bannon said in Monday’s episode. “We’re coming for you too. You are corrupt. What you allowed to happen in that D.C. courtroom and what you’re allowed to do to these J6 people and send these to prison.”  

The former Trump official singled out January 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney. “Bennie Thompson, you’re corrupt; Liz Cheney, you’re corrupt,” he said. “Preserve your documents, because we’re coming after you. You people are criminals.” 

Bannon also mentioned U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, special counsel Jack Smith, and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann, saying, “You people are revolting … you can run wherever you’re going to run. The long arm of the law is going to track you down, and you’re going to be held accountable.”

Bannon’s remarks build on previous threats he has made during his daily podcast. Earlier this month, he told Weissmann and other MSNBC anchors and producers, “You better be worried. You better lawyer up. Some of you young producers, you better call Mom and Dad tonight. ‘Hey Mom and Dad, you know a good lawyer?’ Lawyer up. Lawyer up.”

His remarks are also consistent with Trump’s expressed desires to go after members of the January 6 committee. In March, Trump posted to Truth Social that Cheney “should go to Jail along with the rest of the [committee],” and in June, he posted, “INDICT THE UNSELECT J6 COMMITTEE.”

Representative Lauren Boebert’s Cameo page disappeared just one day after it went up amid questions over whether it broke congressional rules.

The Colorado congresswoman was charging $250 for personal advice or a “pep talk” on the celebrity video service, she explained in a welcome video. But questions quickly came up about whether her Cameo gig violated House rules prohibiting honoraria, or a “payment of money or thing of value for an appearance, speech, or article.”

Now, Boebert’s Cameo page is gone, returning a 404 error, and she may have managed to avoid an investigation from the House Ethics Committee over the whole thing. Members of the House are prohibited from earning more than $31,815 in outside income, and the only way she could have legitimized her Cameo income would have been to funnel it into her campaign account. However, that would have violated Cameo’s terms of service.

Boebert managed to stay in Congress during the past election thanks to switching to a safer, more conservative district after barely surviving Democratic challenger Adam Frisch in 2022. It seems that merely retaining her seat wasn’t lucrative enough for her, so she tried to copy her old colleagues Matt Gaetz and George Santos by launching a Cameo page.

But Boebert failed to realize that the two have ethical violations of their own that made them former members of Congress: sexual misconduct for Gaetz and various corruption charges for Santos. Despite her own numerous theatrical missteps, Boebert has yet to join Gaetz and Santos in breaking federal law or attracting attention for ethical shortcomings. But, seeing as how her congressional career has gone thus far, it may only be a matter of time.

Infamous Trump stooge Rudy Giuliani let the world know that he is desperate and broke after an unsuccessful attempt to postpone his trial.

Giuliani is facing another trial after refusing to pay $148 million he owes to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia election workers he defamed after Donald Trump lost the state  in 2020. Giuliani sought to delay this latest trial, claiming the dates interfered with President-elect Trump’s inauguration in January, which he wanted to attend. The last-ditch delay tactic was likely an effort to seek a Trump pardon post-inauguration and make all of his legal problems go away—but unfortunately for him, his request was denied. This set Giuliani off on a pitiful rant against the judge, Lewis J. Liman. 

“It’s punishment for being the one who revealed first Joe Biden’s 30-year criminality,” Giuliani opined. “He’s been trying to torture me, stop me, take everything away from me since then.” It’s unclear whether he’s referring to President Biden or Judge Liman. 

“The reality is I have no cash,” he went on. “It’s all tied up. So right now, if I wanted to call a taxi cab, I can’t do it. I don’t have a credit card. I don’t have a checking account. I have no place I can go take cash out except a little bit that I saved, and it’s getting down to almost nothing.”

Giuliani already handed some of his prized possessions over to the plaintiffs, including his luxury watches, a diamond ring, and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz. It remains to be seen whether Trump will come to his aid.

After funneling hefty sums into the 2024 elections, the crypto industry is poised to wield considerable influence over the incoming government.

The industry spent more than $180 million on campaigns this election cycle, surpassing all other special interest groups, NOTUS’s Claire Heddles reported Tuesday. Lawmakers who ran afoul of the industry’s agenda found themselves targets of aggressive campaigns by crypto-backed PACs. Two hundred seventy-six candidates deemed “pro-crypto” by the group Stand With Crypto will hold seats in the 119th Congress.

Rick Claypool of the consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen told NOTUS that the crypto industry can “use a ton of money to create this crypto-shaped club that they’re holding over candidates, and that changed candidate behavior.”

President-elect Donald Trump, for his part, has transformed from skeptic to friend of crypto. Calling it “a scam against the dollar” and “a disaster waiting to happen” during and soon after his first term, he is now one of its most outspoken advocates, vowing to transform the United States into “the crypto capital of the planet.” His sons have even launched a crypto venture of their own.

A letter to Trump and members of Congress by crypto industry trade group Blockchain Association, shared by Heddles on X, shows that the industry is anticipating reaping the fruits of its 2024 spending.

In the letter, Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith proposes regulatory overhauls and changes in leadership at agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and Treasury to support crypto industry growth. “Following a historic election,” Smith wrote, “the crypto industry is hopeful and optimistic for a friendlier regulatory environment in the United States under your leadership.”

The letter underscores, as Senator Elizabeth Warren told NOTUS, that the industry, “like all big-dollar donors who think that their money should buy them a seat at the table,” will be expecting significant returns on its 2024 election investments.

Donald Trump’s latest moneymaking scheme has been hit with legal action.

On Monday, the Gibson guitar company sent a cease and desist order to 16 Creative, the owner of Trump Guitars, claiming that the design of its single-cut electric guitar model “infringes upon Gibson’s exclusive trademarks, particularly the iconic Les Paul body shape.”

Trump endorsed a series of guitars last week, both acoustic and electric, with one of the electric models described as “the only guitar officially endorsed by President Donald J. Trump.” The guitars are split into the American Eagle series, the Presidential Series, and God Bless the USA Guitars, with prices starting at $1,000 and surpassing $10,250 for models autographed by the president-elect.

The company isn’t believed to be owned by Trump, as its website states that the guitars are “custom designed and developed by a Veteran owned company with the help of a master luthier.” They also aren’t entirely made in the United States but “have been manufactured by multiple providers and include parts/features that are both domestic and international,” going against Trump’s stated “America First” philosophy.

The guitars are only the latest attempt by Trump to hawk items with his name on them, and being elected president hasn’t stopped his efforts. In the past year, Trump has sold branded Bibles, sneakers, watches, NFT cards, items commemorating the first assassination attempt against him, and even fragrances celebrating his election victory.

All of this foreshadows a second presidential term in which Trump will continue to completely disregard the emoluments clause to the Constitution. And like the first term, Republicans in Congress will prevent any attempts to rein Trump in and prevent him from profiting off his presidency.

Another member of Donald Trump’s inner circle has gotten away with everything. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has officially dropped his legal case against billionaire Trump confidant Elon Musk and his America PAC.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Musk’s America PAC offered swing state residents a chance to win a $1 million “lottery” in exchange for their signature on a “pro-Constitution” petition, with special focus on the First and Second Amendments. Many of the “winners” ended up being from Pennsylvania.

Krasner initially filed the civil lawsuit against Musk and his PAC before the election, on the grounds that they broke state law by operating an illegal, unregulated lottery in Pennsylvania, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Though several legal experts and the Justice Department have sounded the alarm, Krasner’s lawsuit was the first legal challenge that Musk faced for his $1 million bribe.

When Musk’s lawyer admitted that the so-called “lottery” winners were specifically chosen and not randomly selected, Krasner’s office doubled down. “This was all a political marketing masquerading as a lottery, that’s what it is. A grift,” said Krasner. “[Voters] were scammed for their information,” Krasner said. “It has almost unlimited use.”

But now the fight is over, as Krasner requested that the case be “Discontinued and Ended as to all parties without prejudice, with all parties bearing their own costs.” The filing came just days before Jack Smith’s cases against Trump also collapsed.

Donald Trump is reportedly considering removing traditional media journalists from the White House press briefing room, making way for friendlier figures in “the podcast world,” according to the president-elect’s son Donald Trump Jr.

In Monday’s episode of the Triggered With Don Jr. podcast, Trump Jr. told conservative commentator Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire that he and his father discussed the idea last week.

Around the 13-minute mark, Knowles suggested that, as incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt “is looking at the new press briefing room chart, maybe it’s time to reorder that chart, maybe take away some people’s seats.”

Trump Jr. replied that such discussions were already underway. “So, we’re gonna break some news here,” the president-elect’s son said, revealing that he had “literally had this conversation” with his father, “I think it was coming back from the SpaceX launch with Elon [Musk] last week.

“I was sitting there, and we were talking about, like, the podcast world, and some of our friends, and [Joe] Rogan, and guys like you, and me to a lesser extent—I wouldn’t be able to get a seat, that would be nepotism or whatever the hell,” Trump Jr. said. “But we had the conversation about opening up the press room to a lot of these independent journalists.”

“If The New York Times has lied, they’ve been adverse to everything, they’re functioning as the marketing arm of the Democrat Party,” Trump Jr. continued, “why not open it up to people who have larger viewerships, stronger followings?”

The president-elect’s son seemed to suggest that the idea was well received: “We’ve had that conversation, like, ‘That’s a great idea, Don.’ I was like, ‘I think we should do this.’ And so that may be in the works.”

Replacing mainstream journalists with “some of our friends” would allow Trump—whose demonization of the press as “the enemy of the people” has been a trademark of his political brand—to avoid tough grilling and adversarial questioning, and instead receive favorable treatment from the same figures whose fawning coverage helped him win the presidency earlier this month.

As The New York Times reported, Trump’s embrace of the podcast world during the 2024 campaign allowed him “to sidestep more confrontational interviews with professional journalists, where he might face tough questions, fact-checks and detailed policy debates. The influencers he met with rarely challenged Mr. Trump, and often lavished him with praise.”

Mexico has fired back at Donald Trump’s new threat to institute tariffs against the country, warning that it would respond with tariffs of its own.

“To one tariff will come another and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a press conference Tuesday, adding that she would send a letter to Trump urging dialogue and cooperation.

Justifying his tariff threat, which came in a Truth Social post Monday evening, Trump complained that “thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before.” Sheinbaum directly contradicted the president-elect, noting that migrant apprehensions at the border are down and that caravans haven’t been arriving at the Mexican border recently. She pointed out that gangs in Mexico are getting guns from the United States and actually contributing to crime south of the border.

“We do not produce weapons, we do not consume the synthetic drugs. Unfortunately we have the people who are being killed by crime that is responding to the demand in your country,” Sheinbaum said, referencing fentanyl, which Trump complained about on Truth Social Monday. She also criticized U.S. spending priorities.

“If a percentage of what the United States spends on war were dedicated to peace and development, that would address the underlying causes of migration,” Sheinbaum added.

American conservatives, including Trump, have long spread lies about the spread of fentanyl, a potent opioid. For example, it’s not coming from migrants across the southern border: Most drug arrests there are of U.S. citizens. In fact, in 2022, 88 percent of the fentanyl smugglers who were caught at the border were Americans. Plus, the minority of drugs that arrives from noncitizens isn’t coming from individual migrants, it’s being smuggled in tractor-trailers and cars.

Trump is either willfully lying or is clueless, and thinks his tariffs will scare countries like Mexico into some high level of cooperation that he thinks isn’t happening. But Sheinbaum’s words are pretty clear that she’s not willing to capitulate based on threats, and would hold the U.S. accountable for its policy missteps. Trump, who boasts about his dealmaking, will now have to contend with the real effects of his bluster.

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for “border czar,” Tom Homan, has threatened to jail Denver’s Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston should he obstruct Trump’s immigration agenda.

During a Monday night interview on Hannity, Homan cited a federal statue that prohibits “bringing in and harboring certain aliens.”

“Me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing: He’s willing to go to jail. I’m willing to put him in jail,” Homan said.

The wild threat is a response to remarks Johnston made last week. In an interview published Wednesday with local outlet Denverite, Johnston described how the city might resist Trump’s plans to conduct mass deportation operations with federal forces. “More than us having [the Denver Police Department] stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there,” he said. “It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right? You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them.”

In comments to 9News two days later, Johnston walked back his comments, saying he “probably wouldn’t have used that image.” But he affirmed his support for and willingness to participate in civil disobedience if “our residents are having their rights violated” or “things are happening that are illegal or immoral or un-American in our city.”

Asked if he would be willing to go to jail for standing in the way of the Trump administration, Johnston said, “Yeah, I’m not afraid of that, and I’m also not seeking that. I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people how to solve hard problems.”

Johnston’s remarks drew the ire of many on the MAGA right. Elon Musk, for example, posted on X, “Those who break the law will be arrested and that includes mayors.”

Homan’s threat Monday marks an escalation in his vows to iron-fistedly conduct mass deportations despite the preferences of state and local officials. In a Fox appearance earlier this week, the prospective border czar said, “I guarantee … President Trump will” slash federal funds to sanctuary states.