Old Joe

Here I am, trapped in the house, self quarantined, hoping I don’t catch this bug. Or maybe secretly wishing I get it before November.

It looks like Bernie is out of the running again. I didn’t have much hope this year, since the judge ruled that the Democratic Party can make or break any rules they want, including to ignore any election results and just pick one like they used to do.

Wasn’t that a fantastic turnaround old Joe got on Super Tuesday? You might say unbelievable! Incredible, even. Did anybody else note the sudden discrepancy between the exit polls and the election results? It’s amazing to me how they used to be so accurate, and now they seldom reflect the vote totals.

This election has become personal to me. On February 15, 2001, my wife and I spent a bitterly cold day picketing the courthouse on behalf of the Libertarian Party, november.org (a prisoner’s advocacy organization), and the ACLU. That was the day they figured we put our two millionth prisoner in jail or prison. We are still to this day the most imprisoned nation in the world, with the possible exception of North Korea.

I have spent a lot of my time fighting our government’s idea that it is a good thing to have lots of people in prison. 2.5 million people out of the labor pool really helps the unemployment numbers, ya know?

At the same time Joe Biden was fighting for longer mandatory minimum sentences, three strikes you’re out laws, and big penalties for pot possession. 

He also advocated for laws making it easier for law enforcement to use civil forfeiture laws to rob innocent people of their money and property without needing to convict or even charge them with a crime. If you can hire a lawyer and sue in court to prove you are innocent, only then can you retrieve your property.

He even was part of the push to make crack cocaine penalties many times greater than powder cocaine, because we all know who uses crack, right? I cry every time I think of black people voting for good ol’ Joe. He is the reason so many of our prisoners are black and brown.

Is Joe Biden racist? Well,. he could have had a change of heart in the last few years, I don’t know. But he came into Congress joining forces with Strom Thurman to stop integrated busing. He succeeded in keeping his kids in a predominately white school.

He now says he never attacked Social Security and Medicare. But we have the video! He attacked all “entitlements” and specifically included Social Security and Medicare. Vehemently! 

Just what we need. Another lying politician. 

I have given up. I’ll never have another president in my lifetime, who represents me and my working class people. Our jobs have been shipped overseas, our unions have been crushed, and our retirements have been shuffled off to 401K land, so Wall Street can clean them out periodically.

So there is a plus side if I get the bug. I am immune suppressed, and my lung capacity is compromised so that I run out of breath just putting on my socks in the morning. 

If I die before November I won’t have to choose which least worst lying representative for Wall Street I have to vote for. 

I’ll go with a smile.