On May 8, Biden stated that his administration paused shipments of heavy bombs to Israel. The move comes as Israel pushes into Rafah in an effort to release Israeli hostages and destroy the remaining military capabilities of Hamas. Pausing the shipments of critical munitions to Israel hinders their self-defense.
Read MoreOn May 9, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report exposing a pattern of misconduct at the highest levels of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA). Senior department executives paid themselves a total of almost $11 million in illegitimate bonuses. They abused the PACT Act, which was meant to expand healthcare benefits for veterans who faced exposure to toxic substances in the line of duty, to do so.
Read MoreOn May 16, the Attorney General submitted a notice of proposed rulemaking to initiate the process of moving marijuana from a schedule I to a schedule III drug. The move loosens the restrictions on marijuana and changes how addictive the government recognizes marijuana to be. This posture opens the door to loopholes for recreational marijuana use.
Read MoreOn May 22, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a proposal to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in political campaign advertisements. However, as FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr pointed out, the FCC has no constitutional authority over that field, entities that do have such authority (Congress and the Federal Election Commission) are already considering solutions, and “attempt[ing] to fundamentally alter the rules of the road for political speech just a short time before a national election is as misguided as it is unlawful.” Additionally, “applying new regulations on the broadcasters the FCC regulates but not on their largely unregulated online competitors only exacerbates regulatory asymmetries.” Read the full proposal here.
Read MoreOn May 28, 2024, several Biden administration officials announced a Joint Statement of Policy and new Principles for Responsible Participation in Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCMs), which they say could “play an important role in channeling private capital to drive decarbonization efforts.” However, carbon offset schemes have often failed to achieve their stated objective and ended in scandal and fraud. While these guidelines purportedly aim to corral such abuses, the ESG-style philosophy embedded in this proposal will likely lead to further neglect of corporations’ fiduciary duty to shareholders in favor of the Biden administration’s overzealous and counterproductive climate agenda.
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