Bernie Sanders Panders: Let’s End “Institutional Racism” By Emptying Prisons. And Stuff.

Bernie Sanders Panders: Let’s End “Institutional Racism” By Emptying Prisons. And Stuff.

Failed Democrat presidential candidate and self-avowed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been losing ground in his latest bid to become the Democrat nominee for president in 2020.  As his numbers plummet, he’s desperately clinging to anything that might work to breathe new life into his struggling campaign.

His attempts to court and tie himself to socialist firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were not as successful as he hoped, so now he’s taking a page from the “I’ve got a plan for that!” repertoire of fellow presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

His latest “criminal justice” plan is in the same vein of ill-considered, costly, and ultimately chock-full of “unintended consequences” sorts of thing we’ve come to expect from the socialist who shouts.

Politico reports:

Bernie Sanders, who was criticized by liberal activists in 2016 for not focusing more on racial injustice, is unveiling a sweeping plan on Sunday aimed at slashing the country’s prison population in half and ridding the criminal justice system of “institutional racism and corporate profiteering.”

The ambitious, nearly 6,000-word proposal seeks to remake the nation’s prisons, police departments, courts, drug laws and treatment of people who have mental illnesses with a full-throated progressive agenda. Sanders’ left-wing allies have argued he has “evolved” in recent years on the issue of criminal justice.

The plan calls for banning cash bail, solitary confinement and civil asset forfeiture, which allows law enforcement officials to seize people’s homes and other property even if they are not convicted of a crime. The plan also looks to legalize marijuana and abolish the death penalty, a practice Sanders has long opposed.

“Meh,” you say? Sounds okay. Who’s for civil asset forfeiture in cases when people whose assets are seized aren’t even criminals?  I’m with you.  The death penalty is another bone of contention, even among the right, so we might all shrug, right?  Don’t.  Keep reading.

Politico continues:

The Vermont senator would legalize “safe injection sites” where people can use illegal drugs under medical supervision, a controversial practice that has been shown in several studies to curb the number of overdose deaths.

Sanders’ proposal promises the attorney general will investigate every time a person is killed in police custody. He would also establish a “Prisoner Bill of Rights,” create a “civilian corps of unarmed first responders” to deal with mental health emergencies, and boost funding for public defenders.

. . . . His new plan is likely to draw criticism from police unions. One of his recommendations is to establish a list of “disreputable” federal law enforcement officials who cannot be called to testify in court so “testimony from untrustworthy sources does not lead to criminal convictions.” He also wants to ban facial recognition software in policing as well as put a moratorium on the utilization of algorithmic risk assessment tools.

Bernie’s struggle comes in many forms and one of them is his struggle for the “black vote.”

Few on the keen-eyed, dog-whistle alert left seem to understand the implicit racism in Bernie’s pandering justice reform “playbook” for “winning the black vote.”  In prison?  You must be black!  Bernie has a plan for that, and he hopes you reward him with your vote.

White bread, breadline Bernie’s racial justice manifesto explains:

Due to the historical legacy of institutional racism in this country, mass incarceration disportionately falls on the shoulders of black and brown people in America. In fact, black Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans, and even though people use drugs like marijuana at roughly the same rates across all races, black Americans are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans.

These disparities pervade every aspect of the criminal justice system. Black Americans, and especially young black men, are more likely to be stopped by the police, subjected to excessive force, arrested, and jailed than whites.

None of which is true, of course, but it’s the Democrat myth that keeps on giving. And Bernie wants to capitalize on it by promising to put his presidential thumb on the scale of the alleged perpetrators of crimes.  Nothing says “justice” like a rigged judicial system that further favors criminals over victims and law enforcement.

In other ways, we must hold our police and sheriff’s departments to a higher standard. And we must end harmful policing practices like racial profiling, stop and frisk, oppressive “broken windows” policing, and the militarization of police forces — all of which actively undermine public safety and community trust in law enforcement.

Widespread use of excessive force, including deadly shootings of unarmed civilians, undermine the integrity of and public trust in the police. Violence and brutality of any kind, particularly at the hands of the police meant to protect and serve our communities, must not be tolerated.

. . . .

• Revitalize the use of Department of Justice investigations, consent decrees, and federal lawsuits to address systemic constitutional violations by police departments.
• Ensure accountability, strict guidelines and independent oversight for all federal funds used by police departments.
• End federal programs that provide military equipment to local police forces.
• Create a federally managed database of police use of deadly force.
• Provide grants for states and cities to establish civilian oversight agencies with enforceable accountability mechanisms.
• Establish federal standards for the use of body cameras, including establishing third-party agencies to oversee the storage and release of police videos.
• Mandate criminal liability for civil rights violations resulting from police misconduct.
• Limit the use of “qualified immunity” to address the lack of criminal liability for civil rights violations resulting from police misconduct.
• Conduct a U.S. Attorney General’s investigation whenever someone is killed in police custody.

And just in case you aren’t convinced by his other utopian lunacy that borrowing breadline Bernie isn’t intent on spending us into oblivion, there’s this:

As president, Bernie will:

• Triple national spending on indigent defense, to $14 billion annually.
• After a review of current salaries and workload, set a minimum starting salary for all public defenders.
• Create and set a national formula to assure populations have a minimum number of public defenders to assure full access to constitutional right to due process.
• Establish federal guidelines and goals for a right to counsel, including policies that reduce the number of cases overall.
• Create a federal agency to provide support and oversight for state public defense services.
• Authorize the Department of Justice to take legal action against jurisdictions that are not meeting their Sixth Amendment obligations.
• Cancel all existing student debt and cancel any future student debt for public defenders through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

You really have to read the whole, horrible thing.

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