Legal Commentary

A Case Against Joe Biden for Veep

By Jeralyn

Earlier, Big Tent Democrat made another case for Hillary as Vice President. I'll make another case against Sen. Joe Biden. My specific arguments are contained in these posts:

• Report: Kaine, Biden, Bayh at Top of Obama's Veep List
• Joe Biden is No Progressive on Crime Issues.
• Joe Biden Feels a Draft
• Delaware's Shame: Prison AIDS Crisis

Check out these Joe Biden quotes below:

• Biden Statement on Supreme Court Decision on the Execution of Mentally Retarded Individuals," Press Release, June 20, 2002:

  As the author of two major federal crime laws that extend the availability of the death penalty to sixty additional crimes, I support capital punishment as a crime-fighting technique. But we must implement the death penalty in a way that is consistent with our values as Americans. Just as we would not execute a 12-year-old, I have long argued that we should not execute a mentally retarded person whose mental capacity might be far more limited. That's why I led the fight in 1990 to oppose the extension of the federal death penalty to mentally retarded persons."

• On Border Fences: Democratic Presidential Debate, New Hampshire, hosted by CNN, June 3, 2007
  

  [Wolf] Blitzer: If you don't think there needs to be a fence, why did you vote for that legislation?

  Biden: Well, that fence was -- the reason I voted for the fence was that was the only alternative that was there. And I voted for the fence related to drugs. A fence will stop 20 kilos of cocaine coming through that fence. It will not stop someone climbing over it or around it. And so -- but this bill has a much more reasonable provision in it. It has much -- a shorter fence. It does have the Border Patrol requirements. And it is designed not just to deal with illegals, it's designed with a serious drug trafficking problem we have."

  In 2006, Biden voted for a fence: "Secure Fence Act of 2006" (H.R.6061), Library of Congress website, Sep. 29, 2006

  "SEC. 3. CONSTRUCTION OF FENCING AND SECURITY IMPROVEMENTS IN BORDER AREA FROM PACIFIC OCEAN TO GULF OF MEXICO...

  (1) SECURITY FEATURES.- (

  A) REINFORCED FENCING.-In carrying out subsection (a), the Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide for least 2 layers of reinforced fencing, the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors..."

• On Gay Marriage: Meet the Press with Tim Russert, June 4, 2006

  "I can't believe the American people can't see through this. We already have a law, the Defense of Marriage Act. We've all voted-not, where I've voted, and others have said, look, marriage is between a man and a woman and states must respect that. Nobody's violated that law, there's been no challenge to that law. Why do we need a constitutional amendment?"

On Biden's record:

For decades Biden has been at the forefront of the war on drugs, supporting new prohibitions against methamphetamine, Ecstasy, steroids used by athletes, and other new drugs as they became popular. Biden wrote the legislation that created the position of a national "Drug Czar", and his Anti-Drug Proliferation Act provides 20-year prison sentences for club owners, concert promoters, and people who throw parties in their home, if "drug use" takes place in such settings.

He wholeheartedly supported the actions of federal agents in the Waco standoff, and visibly sneered at witnesses in Senate hearings who questioned agents' acts. He was a key proponent of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, which banned some kinds of semiautomatic rifles, with a sunset provision that allowed these weapons to become legal again ten years later. The law also allocated substantial funds for construction of new prisons, established boot camps for delinquent minors, and brought the death penalty for crimes related to drug dealing, civil-rights related murders, murder of a Federal officer, and acts classified as terrorism.

There's also his ties to MBNA and big corporations:

Over his long career in politics, Biden's biggest financial supporter has been the giant credit card company MBNA, which was also one of George W. Bush's biggest donors in 2000 and 2004. His son, Hunter Biden, was hired as a management trainee at MBNA straight out of law school, and was quickly promoted to executive vice president. The younger Biden has since left MBNA to establish his own lawyer-and-lobbying firm, but still receives a $100,000 per year consulting fee from the bank, which has since been swallowed by Bank of America. In 2006, Hunter Biden was appointed by President Bush to a five-year term on the Amtrak Reform Board.

Biden has been in the Senate since Nixon was President. Sen. Obama says he stands for change and a new kind of politics in Washington. That's not Joe Biden.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 18, 2008 (boomark / email).