Nothing to do with what I said. I agreed with your last post
Crime is an interesting issue. On the one hand, by the numbers, crime rates - especially violent crime rates - are pretty much lower across the board. Cities are much, much safer than they were in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. However, surveys show a lot of people are not aware of this, and still act as though crime is very high. But - the fact that politicians are no longer getting traction by reflexively ramping up cruelty towards criminals (life sentences for drug possession, for example) and are starting to dial back some of the excesses suggests to me that voters are truly feeling safer. So voters’ hearts are more in-line with facts than voters’ heads. Odd.
I think there’s a real opening here to peel back a lot of the excesses of the 1994 Crime Bill, as well as starting to explore a number of reforms. For example, middling prison terms are almost certainly a failure - it’s challenging for an ex-con to reintegrate into society, and networks and skills built in prison make recidivism much more likely.
Democrats can probably ally successfully with the Rand Paul wing of the Republican Party to make some significant progress here. It’s not the 80s anymore. Crime isn’t going to be a cudgel that heartless Republicans can use to beat Democrats with, even if they do get a little ahead of the public.
Joe Biden is not fit to protect America. Hillary is.
Not sure if you bothered reading past the headline there, but there’s a lot of good discussion in the article about Biden’s judgment on Libya (opposing the campaign to depose Qadaffi), Afghanastan (in favor of a lighter footprint in the country), and Iraq (favoring a weak federation with three largely autonomous areas under Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish control.)
And here we see a fundamental difference between democrats and republicans.
Perhaps I’m being whooshed, but Elizabeth Warren isn’t exactly a spring chicken. She’s 66, although I grant that she seems much younger than the others.
Hillary turns 68 in October.
Biden will be 73 in November.
And Bernie turns 74 this week, so he’ll be 75 on inauguration day 2107.
By way of comparison, Ronald Reagan turned 70 a couple weeks after being inaugurated.
I’m still in favor of Bernie, though. What about a Sanders/O’Malley ticket, to ease concerns about Bernie’s age? Except, having lived in Maryland under O’Malley’s administration, I don’t think he’s anywhere near progressive (or honest, or authentic) enough for Bernie and his fans.
I assuemd that the Democratic machine is looking at the probably coronation of Hillary and going, Uh…no.
But they don’t want Bernie Sanders.
So next up is Biden.
I bet there’s a secret Illuminati cabal plan to elect a Biden/Obama ticket, then, you know…get rid of Biden.
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A third term Obama term without the scorched Earth, traitorous, GOP controlled Congress would be great.
Principles? Like $$$$$ uber alles?
Would you kindly elaborate on what those principles might be?
Biden knows how to deal with Republicans. During the debt limit negotiations they pretty much had a deal worked out. 90% of what was actually agreed to was negotiated between Biden and McConnell.
Reform mandatory minimums to apply only to violent crimes.
Decriminalize most drug offenses
Body cameras on police
Prison conditions need to be better. Prison rape is not a joking matter, nor is prison brutality in general, whether by guards or fellow prisoners.
Where we differ from many liberals:
Broken windows policing. We support it.
Worrying too much about racial profiling. It’s an issue, but even if police are doing their jobs right, minorities are going to be disproportionately impacted. As are young men in general.
Sentencing. We still support three strikes law and mandatory minimums for frequent violators who have a history of violence. We should never return to the days where a person is murdered by someone with 10 or more felonies in their history.
Call me wacky, but turning America into a mirror-image of a third-world theocracy doesn’t seem “consistent with our principles.” :dubious:
[quote]
Decriminalize most drug offenses[/quiote]
If you’re white and rich, this is already the case. Rush Limbaugh got caught shopping for illicit Oxy prescriptions. Most people (and damn near any minority) would have done hard time for this. Rushie got a slap on the wrist and a vacation at the local Betty Ford franchise.
Sentencing discrepancies based on race and social class is another issue we’re all concerned about as well.
And we’re talking about criminal justice reform here, not abortion and gays. We all agree that we need to implement reforms, Republicans just want to reform what’s not working, whereas Democrats just want to turn the clock back to the bad old days when people with 45 felonies could walk the streets as free men.
Why do you keep saying things like this? Where have you read that Democrats would be happy with a lawless society? And which Democrats? Your constant hyperbole diminishes your argument.
People walking around with 45 felonies is not lawless. You’re setting up a strawman there, unless you believe that the pre-crackdown era was “lawless”.
If you want to end mandatory sentencing and three strikes laws, then the end result of that is that people with a long rap sheet will be walking the streets. That’s what those laws were passed to correct.
Those are not necessarily the only ways to keep criminals off the streets.
Of course not. I’m open to suggestions.
ABC news was interviewing Hillary the other day and went to commercial promising they would suspend asking her about her emails long enough to ask her about the “big news from Joe Biden.” Having not heard any news about Joe I asked my kids if he was running.
“He’s thinking about it,” one answered.
“He’s been thinking about running for president all of his life, and running every four years when he wasn’t already the vice-presidential candidate since he turned 35, often with my support. Wake me when he commits.”
I wonder how many caught the Biden interview on the new Colbert show tonight (well, on Thursday night). It was a personal perspective on Biden I had not seen before: a man who seemed genuinely thoughtful, intelligent, gentle, empathetic. It’s clear that he’s considering a run or at least keeping his options open, and this might just have given him a tiny bump in the public perception.