Weekly Recap: Jun 15th - 21st
Weekly Recap: Jun 15th - 21st
A recap of the big political stories affecting the United States this past week.
President Biden enacted another executive order focused on immigration this week. This executive order was mainly to give migrants who have been in America for at least ten years and are married to an American citizen a path to citizenship if they meet all other legal requirements. Before this order, these migrants would have to leave the US for some time and then apply for citizenship, causing their families to be broken up.
This follows Biden’s executive order last week, which aims to reduce border crossings by allowing asylum requests between ports of entry to be shut down when crossings are above an average of 2,500 per day.
Meanwhile, Trump continued to flip-flop on issues based on what his wealthy donors are demanding. This time, Trump announced a plan to give green cards to all foreigners who graduate from a US college. Republican politicians and pundits were quick to speak out against this plan.
In other Republican news, Louisiana passed a law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom. While this law violates the 1st Amendment and will almost certainly be overturned, it highlights the Christian Nationalism path that the Republican party is now taking. Donald Trump and other Republican politicians came out in favor of the law. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick vowed to get a similar law passed in Texas before the year ended.
The Supreme Court upheld a law preventing people who have a domestic violence restraining order requiring them to keep their distance from their partner or spouse from owning a firearm. Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter writing that this ruling strips a right from the gun-owning abuser.
This ruling was a welcome change from recent Supreme Court rulings, including last week when the Supreme Court overturned a ban on bump stocks, which turn semi-automatic rifles into fully automatic rifles that fire at the rate of machine guns. Despite machine guns being legally banned, the Supreme Court ruled on technicalities of how the trigger activates with a bump stock to overturn the ban on bump stocks.
Poll after poll shows Biden’s support rising while Trump’s support falls. Even Fox News released a poll this week that showed Biden leading overall and leading with rural voters, a traditional stronghold demographic for the Republican party. This sent Republican politicians and pundits into a frenzy, decrying Fox’s poll and saying it couldn’t possibly be correct, continuing the love/hate relationship Trump supporters have with polls.
Those results follow Trump becoming a convicted felon and positive economic news. Inflation for the month of May was 0%. Twelve-month inflation was 3.3%, which is the historical average for the US, and 12-month job growth was 4.1%. Average grocery prices have fallen for four months straight, and gas prices significantly dropped in May.
The two presidential candidates will face off for their first debate on June 27th, hosted by CNN. The rules of the debate are that there is no live audience, and both candidate’ microphones will be muted unless it is their turn to speak. No props or pre-written notes are allowed on stage, and neither candidate’s staff can interact with the candidates during the two commercial breaks.