Joe Biden - Wikipedia
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First, Biden went after the gays in denying them their rights, and voted for legislation that was later ruled unconstitutional...
In 1993, Biden voted in favor of 10 U.S.C. §654, a section of a broader federally mandated policy that deemed homosexuality incompatible with military life, thereby banning gay Americans from serving in the United States armed forces in any capacity without exception.[70][71][72] The law was subsequently modified by President Clinton through the issuance of DOD Directive 1304.26 (subsequently nicknamed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" or DADT), which accommodated "closeted" service to the extent that a servicemember's homosexual orientation was neither discovered nor disclosed.[73]
In 1996, Biden voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act (1 U.S.C. §7), which prohibited the federal government from recognizing any same-sex marriage, barring individuals in such marriages from equal protection under federal law and allowing states to do the same.[74] In 2013, Section 3 of DOMA was ruled unconstitutional and partially struck down in United States v. Windsor. The Obama Administration did not defend the law and congratulated Windsor.[75] In 2015, DOMA was ruled unconstitutional in totality in Obergefell v. Hodges.[76]
He then fought against integrating the schools....
In the mid-1970s, Biden was one of the Senate's leading opponents of race-integration busing. His Delaware constituents strongly opposed it, and such opposition nationwide later led his party to mostly abandon school integration policies.[80]
In his first Senate campaign, Biden expressed support for the Supreme Court's 1971 Swann decision, which supported busing programs to integrate school districts to remedy de jure segregation, as in the South, but opposed it to integrate children from separate neighborhoods, as in Delaware. He said Republicans were using busing as a scare tactic to court Southern white votes, and along with Boggs he voiced opposition to a House of Representatives constitutional amendment banning busing.[81] In May 1974, Biden voted to table an amendment to an omnibus education bill promoted by Edward Gurney (R-FL) that contained anti-busing measures and anti-school desegregation clauses. The next day, Senator Robert Griffin (R-MI) attempted to revive an amended version of the amendment. Minority Leader Hugh Scott (R-PA) and Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) offered to leave the text of Griffin's amendment intact but add the qualifier that such legislation was not intended to weaken the judiciary's power to enforce the 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Biden voted for this compromise, angering his local voters.[82]
Following this, some Delaware residents met at the Krebs School in Newport to protest integration. Biden spoke to the auditorium and said his position on school busing was evolving, emphasizing that busing in Delaware was in his opinion beyond court restrictions. The crowd was unconvinced and heckled him until he yielded the microphone.[83] This, along with the prospect of a busing plan in Wilmington, led Biden to align himself with civil rights opponent Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) in opposing busing. Biden and anti-busing senators wanted to limit the scope of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with respect to the federal government's power to enforce school integration policies.[80] After 1975, Biden took a harsher line on further legislative action to limit busing.[68] That year, Helms proposed an anti-integration amendment to an education bill that would stop the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) from collecting data about students' or teachers' races and thereby prevent it from defunding districts that refused to integrate. Biden supported this amendment, saying: "I am sure it comes as a surprise to some of my colleagues ... that a senator with a voting record such as mine stands up and supports" it.[84] He said busing was a "bankrupt idea [that violated] the cardinal rule of common sense" and that his opposition would make it easier for other liberals to follow suit.[68] But he had also supported integrationist Senator Edward Brooke's (R-MA) initiatives on housing, job opportunities and voting rights.[82] Civil rights lawyer and NAACP Legal Defense Fund director Jack Greenberg criticized Biden's support for the bill, saying it "heave[d] a brick through the window of school integration", with Biden's hand on the brick.[85]
Biden supported a measure Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) sponsored that forbade the use of federal funds to transport students beyond their closest school. This was adopted as part of the Labor-HEW Appropriations Act of 1976. In 1977, Biden co-sponsored an amendment with Thomas Eagleton (D-MO) to close loopholes in Byrd's amendment. A 1977 status report on school desegregation by the federal Civil Rights Commission in Washington, D.C., said, "the enactment of Eagleton-Biden would be an actual violation, on the part of the Federal Government, of the fifth amendment and Title VI" of the Civil Rights Act.[86] President Carter signed the amendment into law in 1978.[87] Biden repeatedly asked for, and received, the support of Senator James Eastland (D-MS) on anti-busing measures.[88]
Then he coauthored legislation that locked blacks up in record numbers, and even let law enforcement sieze their assets WITHOUT TRIAL...
Joe Biden: The Architect of America’s Disastrous War on Drugs | Brittany Hunter
Uncle Joe might be everybody’s favorite political meme, but he is also responsible for many of the policies that led to the breakdown of the American criminal justice system.
fee.org
In 1984, Biden cosponsored the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. This legislation gave law enforcement the authority to seize money and property from those suspected of drug trafficking—without ever having to charge them with a crime. This resulted in the decades-long practice of civil asset forfeiture that has incentivized law enforcement to police for profit and steal from the same individuals they have sworn to protect
In 1994, Biden’s signature piece of legislation, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, was signed into law by President Clinton. The bill expanded the federal government’s use of the death penalty, banned certain people from owning assault weapons, denied certain higher education rights to inmates, and included the “three-strike” provision for repeat offenders. It also contributed to the dramatic rise in the country’s prison population in the years that followed.
Clinton later apologized for the bill, saying, “I signed a bill that made the problem worse and I want to admit it.” Unfortunately, Biden has issued no such apology, but the policy manager for the Drug Policy Alliance, Michael Collins, commented: "Joe Biden should apologize—just as Bill Clinton did—for his role in mass incarceration, and he should champion systemic change.”
Perhaps the most egregious of Biden’s transgressions is the role he played in the creation of the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. As the country panicked over the “crack” epidemic, legislators set out to dole out harsher punishments to those found guilty of selling the substance.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which was written at least partially by Biden, changed the law so that those caught with a mere five grams of crack cocaine were subject to the same mandatory minimum as those caught with 500 grams of powdered cocaine. The application of this law disproportionately harmed African-American communities and contributed to mass incarceration.
According to a 2006 report from the American Civil Liberties Union, Cracks in the System: Twenty Years of the Unjust Federal Crack Cocaine Law:
The report continues:
In 2003, Biden sponsored the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act (RAVE Act), which altered existing legislation known as the “crackhouse law.” The RAVE Act made it legal for prosecutors to go after club owners and promoters if drugs are found on their property. The law effectively allowed the club owners to be tried as if they were running a crackhouse (hence the original name). However, while Biden maintained a “tough on crime” attitude with the rest of the country, his own children were being spared any punishments for their drug crimes.
In 1998, Biden’s daughter Ashley was arrested for cannabis possession in Louisiana. While others arrested for the same offense faced sentences sometimes spanning decades, Ashley Biden was never convicted of any drug-related crime. In 2014, Hunter Biden was discharged from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine. Like his daughter, no charges were ever filed against Biden’s son.
And, finally, as a side note, Biden took steps to deny the American people the study or use of certain drugs, even if they can have medical applications....
The article says:
Just a few years later, Biden got his wish with the creation of the new Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), whose head is referred to as the “drug czar.” And with this new department came stricter policies for drug offenders and a hefty price tag for the American public. In one of its earlier reports, the ONDCP asked for more taxpayer dollars to enforce its new policies:
In addition to supporting the creation of the ONDCP, Biden also voted for its reauthorization in 1996 and supported its propaganda campaign against the American people. In the bill that received support from the former veep, it reads:
In other words, the ONDCP committed itself to keep certain substances illegal even if new credible information comes to light. In fact, as the last line suggests, the drug czar is even encouraged to take whatever action is necessary to keep this information from the American public. This should terrify anyone concerned with government transparency.
