He is responsible for a lot of policies that resulted in the mass incarceration we have today.

Biden works with far-right Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond and the Reagan Administration to pass the Comprehensive Control Act. The law expands federal drug trafficking penalties and civil asset forfeiture, allowing police to seize a person’s property without proving them guilty of a crime. Two years later, Biden co-sponsors the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which creates new mandatory minimum sentences for drugs, including the notorious 100:1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. A conviction of possession of powder cocaine with intent to distribute carries a five-year sentence for 500 grams, while the same conviction for crack carries a five-year sentence for only 5 grams, so the harshest penalties are enacted on low-level drug sellers and impoverished drug users.

The controversial legislation known as the 1994 Crime Bill is Biden’s most significant contribution to the expansion of policing the drug war. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, written by Biden, increases funds for police and prisons, fueling an expansion of the federal prison population. It also newly applies the federal death penalty to 60 crimes, including large-scale drug trafficking and drive-by-shootings resulting in death. Biden brags after the law passes that “the liberal wing of the Democratic Party” is now for “60 new death penalties,” “70 enhanced penalties,” “100,000 cops,” and “125,000 new state prison cells.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/biden-pardon-weed-offenders-timeline-1234606962/

Fuck Paxton

Eating, getting dressed, and talking with real people are all good things for your mental health. Typing on a keyboard doesn’t help, otherwise we’d be the least depressed generation ever.

I agree that typing on a keyboard isn’t a substitute for therapy. Writing can serve as an creative outlet for emotion in the same way as music or painting.

Yes, those are the only two reasons. I can’t imagine white another reason might be.

I doubt that the mayor of New York is a white supremacist, but I could be wrong.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ® is relying on the compact theory of the U.S. Constitution to defy the U.S. Supreme Court

Is this the Supreme Court ruling that said that Border Patrol could cut barbed wire in Eagle Pass?

They should have learned many lessons when Clinton lost. “The other guy is worse” campaigns don’t mobilize voters, they are vulnerable to divisions within parties, and they are vulnerable to similar third party candidates siphoning off votes.

When do you think people will learn that “Our candidate is the second worst choice!” is not a good campaign strategy?

During the court-sanctioned intrusion, the DOJ “enabled temporary collection of non-content routing information” that would “expose GRU attempts to thwart the operation.” This did not “impact the routers’ normal functionality or collect legitimate user content information,” the DOJ claims.

I bet.

Why wait?

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A745/300472/20240213120356911_2024-2-13 Amici Curiae Brief Opposing Application for Stay.pdf

https://archive.ph/PJk3M

https://web.archive.org/web/20240213203750/https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A745/300472/20240213120356911_2024-2-13 Amici Curiae Brief Opposing Application for Stay.pdf

on a personal note I must say that I am quite tired of this style of engagement where an entire post is chopped up, regurgitated and replied to in short, low effort dismissals.

I would like to apologize for that. It is a defense against people who act in bad faith.

I will sit down and give you a proper reply when I have time.

Do you have some reason to believe that was my only take away from the book, or are you only parroting Upton Sinclair, who complained about that exact thing?

He [Upton Sinclair] complained about the public’s misunderstanding of the point of his book in Cosmopolitan Magazine in October 1906 by saying, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

Later Tuesday, a group of former officials in Republican presidential administrations from Richard Nixon to Trump in a filing with the Supreme Court said Trump has failed to make “two of the mandatory showings required for a delay of” the appeals court ruling.

The former officials in that filing also said that “rejection of absolute immunity in this case is essential to protecting” the Constitution’s “design of the Presidency itself.”

“This Court should deny a stay in this case because Mr. Trump’s claim of such a boundless immunity is wrong,” the filing said.

hm… I wonder whose names are attached to that.

Have you read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair?

didn’t Texas just recently just set a precedent that the supreme court can just be ignored

Did George Wallace set a precedent by standing in the schoolhouse door?

No. That isn’t how legal precedent works.

Rights are a created and codified concept. Whether or not something is a right or not is decided by someone somewhere down the line. There is always a foundational document that expresses the right because in it’s absence you don’t really have a right you have either a privilege that can be taken away by a valid or at least powerful authority or you have a grey area where simply no law or social norm applies until further regulation is created.

Do you believe the second amendment creates a (individual or otherwise) right to bear arms?

Rights as we understand them today are not naturally occuring. The idea isn’t even particularly old in the grand scheme of things. Before that point laws definitely existed but they were pretty simplistic operating codes there was no higher echelon of law that superceed other law particularly just layers of powerful people who interacted with the law. If you were basically in charge of the law you could rewrite it as you saw fit and your potential consequences were pissing off someone who could band together and rebel against your authority. If you felt secure enough you could re-write anything through decree. Rights are a feature that was conceptualized or created from scratch in 18th century philosophy with the rise and design of modern concepts of democratic government.

Historically, deciding who ascends to the throne when a king dies or how to distribute a man’s property after his death was based on birthright, at least in some cultures. Birthright is an old concept. I believe our modern conception of natural rights or human rights has evolved from that. The development that accompanied democracy was the idea of equal rights, and we’re still working on that.

The 2nd Amendment itself is a wonderful example of a non-universal right. Out of all the governments in rhe world today only four have a version of a right to firearms.

The text of the amendment is “arms,” not “firearms.” Those terms are not interchangeable.

The USA, Guatemala, Mexico and the Czech Republic. Of those only the US and Guatemala have no restrictions on both firearm type and a required licencing program.

In what sense does the United States have no restrictions on firearm type?

Outside of that guns are most often regulated but legal.

Firearms in the United States are regulated. Businesses that buy and sell firearms must have a license.

You technically do not have a right specifically to a car. They are just legal to own without a licence and illegal to use without one.

You only need a license to operate a car on a public road. No license is required for driving a vehicle on private property.

I think that depends on how the law is written and in what way the law is unconstitutional.

Would requiring written orders to vote violate a soldier’s right to vote?

The “rest of the world” is entitled to their opinion.

I would support an affirmative action firearm ownership program.

I don’t think that is how rights work.