Congressional leaders are seeking to obviate another government shutdown on Friday midnight. They struck a deal on a 1.3 trillion dollars spending bill that would keep the national government open through the month of September.
The measure put in place entails the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, which restrains the Department of Justice and its administrative units, inclusive of the Drug Enforcement Administration from allocating funds to subvert or impede with the state-legal medical marijuana projects and programs.
Representative Pete Sessions (R-TX) stopped the access to the medical cannabis protections by refusing to allow members of the House Rules Committee to vote on the amendment last year. He was the chair of the House Rules Committee then. Due to all this, the members were obliged to individually renew the protections of the spending bill.
After some time, a letter was sent to the congressional leaders by Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking them to do away with the medical cannabis protections. The Attorney General’s letter triggered the Rep. Sessions’ move. The letter clearly stated that he believes that it would be unwise for the Legislature to immobilize the sagacity of the Department to fund those specific trials particularly in the midst of a historic prevailing drug and a prospective long-term addition in ferocious crime records.
Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) mentioned that he was delighted to see the medical cannabis protections in his latest twitter feed on Wednesday evening.
The representative went ahead to explain more in a media statement on Thursday morning. He clearly said that even though he is happy that the medical marijuana protections have been included, he is not satisfied fully since the Legislature only maintained the situation. The protections have been a part of the law since 2014 hence the issue should just be dealt with once and for all. A good number of American citizens are in full support of the right to consume medical cannabis drug. This concrete fact has been proved by the several polls that have been done in the United States of America.
Instead of the Attorney Jeff Sessions of making it easier, he is doubling down on the defaulted war on Drugs and Republican leadership in the Legislature led by Chairman Pete Sessions which is currently stalling. They are assuming the plea of the American citizens by stopping access to the protections for marijuana banking and nation adult-laws. Surprisingly; they even denied veterans the opportunity to access lifesaving medicine.
The Republican leadership is out of touch and yet they should be the ones accountable for the issue and its final outcome.
The White House said that the president, Donald Trump, will approve the 1.3 trillion dollar budget bill that increases military spending yet it does not entail the funding he sought for his promised border wall. The White House officials stated that the regime includes key administrative precedence, defense spending in specific. They later argued that they were not able to get everything they wanted due to the lack of Democrative votes needed in the divided Senate.
Mick Mulvaney, the current Budget Director, said that the bill was not ideal though that was not all that mattered in the whole process. He pointed out that funds were to be set aside for new construction along that border.
President Trump did not sound happy by the bill on that Wednesday night. He ended up tweeting that he had to waste funds on Dem and he went ahead to ask for ways in order to handle the military pay increase and brand equipment.
