‘Floppy Joe’ Biden Flip-Flops on the Death Penalty
Democratic 2020 frontrunner quietly reverses decades-old position at the drop of a hat
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Democratic 2020 flopper "Floppy Joe" Biden has flip-flopped on yet another issue, with the subject of his latest flopping being the federal death penalty.
In one of his biggest flops so far, the former vice president has now reversed his decades-old position on capital punishment.
Shortly after the Trump Administration's announcement last week, that Attorney General William Barr is bringing back the federal death penalty, the Democratic presidential front-runner quietly notified supporters on Twitter that he now wants to “eliminate the death penalty.”
Biden's sudden floppening [ok, I made that one up] comes despite decades of being a staunch supporter of the policy.
Since 1973, over 160 individuals in this country have been sentenced to death and were later exonerated. Because we can’t ensure that we get these cases right every time, we must eliminate the death penalty. https://t.co/o9LQHWwmt7
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 25, 2019
“Since 1973, over 160 individuals in this country have been sentenced to death and were later exonerated," Biden whispered on Twitter.
"Because we can’t ensure that we get these cases right every time, we must eliminate the death penalty.”
Biden’s tweet was apparently in response to Barr’s announcement Thursday that the Department of Justice would begin enforcing the death penalty by executing five death row inmates, including convicted child killers.
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According to the Daily Caller, while he was still contemplating his presidential candidacy, Biden announced that he was the “most progressive” Democrat of any already in the race.
But Biden spent the majority of his years in the Senate as a socially conservative, law and order politician.
Since formally announcing his candidacy, Biden has been moving leftwards.
He reversed his position on his long-standing support of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for most abortions.
But Biden has moved even further on the criminal justice front, releasing a policy resolution that aims to find housing for those currently in prison.
Attorney General #WilliamBarr has instructed the federal government to bring back the #DeathPenalty, immediately scheduling executions for murderers who killed children and elderly victims.
— Neon Nettle (@NeonNettle) July 25, 2019
READ MORE: https://t.co/LSxh550vl3#ClintonBodyCount
This campaign proposal has little in common with the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that Biden co-authored as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But the Clinton crime bill was not the first time that Biden demonstrated his support for tough law and order provisions and the death penalty.
In March 1991, Biden introduced his own crime bill that categorized 44 crimes as capital offenses.
When a Republican bill proposed that 46 crimes be subject to the death penalty, Biden came back with a bill that increased that number to 51.
Biden wasn’t satisfied with that tally and upped the number to 53 in the third version of the legislation.
When the legislation finally passed in the form of Clinton’s crime bill in 1994, it created 60 new capital offenses.
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Again in 1991, Biden claimed credit for legislation that would execute drug dealers if they were implicated in murder.
Biden even advertised himself as an advocate for the death penalty, boasting how he had vastly expanded the number of capital crimes.
“A wag in the newspaper recently wrote something to the effect that Biden has made it a death penalty offense for everything but jaywalking,” Biden said.
“I am a supporter of the death penalty without the racial justice provision in it,” Biden said.
“I think it’s better with it, but I’m supportive without it in it as well.”
Biden was also an opponent of same-sex marriage although he now addresses LGBT events.
