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In the waning days of the 2020 election, President Donald Trump is making an explicit play for the votes of libertarians, promising that he’ll for sure finally end the war in Afghanistan.

“Thank you LIBERTARIANS. We are getting it all done, and FAST! VOTE TRUMP!!!” tweeted the president in response to a tweet from Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) saying that Trump was ending our long-running conflict in Afghanistan and that he’d already withdrawn thousands of troops from the country.

Thank you LIBERTARIANS. We are getting it all done, and FAST! VOTE TRUMP!!! https://t.co/ai2vTb1V3G

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2020

Trump also retweeted the Being Libertarian Twitter account’s praise of his supposed anti-war stance.

It’s true that in 2020 the Trump administration made a number of moves to wind down America’s military presence in Afghanistan. In February, the U.S signed a peace deal with the Taliban. Since then, Trump has drawn down the number of troops in Afghanistan to about 8,600, the number deployed there when Trump took office.

In September, the president nominated William Ruger, a libertarian non-interventionist and critic of the war in Afghanistan, to be ambassador to the country.

Should everything go to plan, U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan will drop down to about 4,500 in November, and could even fall to around 3,000 by early next year.

That’s all pretty encouraging but it nevertheless comes after years of Trump escalating America’s involvement in Afghanistan. Despite the anti-war noises the president is making now, he’s still committed to keeping troops in the country for the foreseeable future.

When Trump was inaugurated in 2017, there were already about 8,500 troops in Afghanistan. Within a few months of being in office, the president had announced a troop surge, eventually increasing the number of military personnel in the country to 14,000 by 2018. At the end of 2019, troop levels were still hovering around 12,000.

During that time, the Trump administration also escalated America’s air war in the country. Last year, the U.S. dropped more bombs on Afghanistan than any year in at least a decade. The February peace deal inked the Taliban hasn’t stopped the U.S. from performing airstrikes.

The Trump administration, for all its talk of ending the war in Afghanistan, also has yet to commit to pulling all U.S. troops out of the country. “I don’t think there’s anyone who believes we’ll be at zero by the end of the year,” a senior administration official told NBC News.

That leaves little daylight between Trump’s position and Joe Biden’s. The Democratic candidate for president has said that he’d like to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan while still leaving behind a residual counter-terrorism force of 1,500 to 2,000 at most.

That the president says he wants to end the war in Afghanistan is a good thing. That he hasn’t yet done it despite being in office for almost four years is what actually matters.

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As the Libertarian Party has established itself as the most electorally successful third party in the United States, voters have grown accustomed to the group’s radical messaging against taxation, prohibition and war. One of the party’s top 10 presidential primary finishers in 2020, after all, had his name legally changed to “Taxation Is Theft.”

Less broadly known, though on full display in a streamed interview I conducted last night with presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen, is the party’s antipathy toward international institutions, pandemic restrictions, and vaccine mandates.

Jorgensen last night volunteered the latter as an example of the type of “personal decision” best left to individuals, rather than determined via the political process. So I asked her whether, philosophically, she considered it wise for public schools to require children be vaccinated as a condition for enrollment.

“I think it is immoral,” she responded. Then, after noting that she personally has chosen to vaccinate her family, Jorgensen contrasted vaccination policy with the types of prohibitions Libertarians have long opposed—on drugs, gambling, vaping, consensual sex transactions, and so on.

“All of these are laws that the government is telling you what not to do,” she said. “Vaccinations, on the other hand—we’re talking about somebody forcibly putting a substance into your body. I am just shocked that that’s even a question in our country that is supposed to be free. And even though I have chosen vaccinations, and I’ve chosen vaccinations for my children, I would never use the excuse of herd immunity to force other people to put something into their bodies that they don’t want to.”

This is not a majority opinion—82 percent of American adults favored school-based vaccines in 2016, according to Pew Research. But Libertarians are hardly a majority party (Jorgensen is polling at around 2 percent nationally), and old movement hands can tell you how outnumbered the party used to be on positions such as legalizing marijuana.

Still, the vaccine mandate issue divides libertarians, too, as illustrated by Reason‘s 2014 debate “Should Vaccines Be Mandatory?” Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only put such once-esoteric philosophical discussions on the political front-burner; it has given what many Libertarian candidates see as their opening.

The Libertarian gubernatorial candidate making the biggest splash in 2020 is Indiana’s Donald Rainwater, who has polled between 6 percent and 24 percent in a three-way race. “Indiana Libertarian candidate for governor targets voters upset by COVID-19 mandates,” went the headline this week in The Indianapolis Star.

“I don’t think it’s the government’s responsibility to tell people how to take care of themselves,” Rainwater told the paper. “I think this all goes back to the idea that I get to choose what I do to keep myself safe. I am against mandating vaccines, too.”

The other Libertarian gubernatorial candidate likely to make Election Day waves—Montana’s Lyman Bishop, who is polling within shouting distance of the Republican-Democratic margin—is also campaigning against pandemic mandates.

“I have said from the beginning, asking people to stay home is one thing. Telling people they have to stay home is something else altogether,” Bishop recently told Montana Public Radio. “The same logic applies to any other precautionary measure. In the face of any threat, our liberties an individual rights must come first. If they do not then everything we have fought for and built over the last 200 years will be meaningless….The pending collapse of our economy and the steady growth of tyranny and authoritarianism in our country is of the utmost importance and supersedes all other issues. If we cannot address these issues there will be nothing left for us to discuss.”

Jorgensen last night singled out Rainwater when talking about notable Libertarian campaigns this year. “He’s talking about the same things we’re talking about, with masks,” she said. “This is a free country, and we should be able to make our own decisions.”

Rather than merely defund the World Health Organization, Jorgensen wants to the U.S. to completely withdraw from it—and from other multilateral institutions, from the World Trade Organization to the United Nations to NATO. (Her go-to foreign policy line is to have America become “one giant Switzerland.”)

This summer, Libertarian Party messaging seemed to be clustering around the George Floyd protests, with the party touting its longstanding commitments to dismantling the country’s prison-industrial complex. As we approach the finish line, the radical limited-government party is reacting more and more to big-government pandemic policies. The politics of face masks, it turns out, is not a strictly bipartisan affair.

You can watch my whole Jorgensen interview below:

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The officials in charge of San Francisco’s public schools are hard at work—not coming up with a plan to quickly reopen the schools, but to rename as many as 44 of them.

As parents, teachers, and principals deal with the frustrations of distance learning, the San Francisco Unified School District recently asked them to brainstorm replacements for schools that are “inappropriately” named after problematic historical figures, such as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and even Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.).

“I don’t think there is ever going to be a time when people are ready for this,” Mark Sanchez, president of the school board and a member of the committee that proposed the changes, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Predictably people are going to be upset no matter when we do this.”

Maybe. But people are more upset right now, because San Francisco’s public schools aren’t even open and have no plans to reopen until probably January.

Many private schools in the city have successfully reopened. San Francisco, like D.C., New York City, Chicago, Baltimore, and many other large cities, has deemed it safe for privileged kids to go back to school. Yet families that rely on public education have been told they must wait, no matter the harmful consequences for their children.

Given the difficulties of virtual education, parents might expect school officials to be making every effort to reopen as soon as possible. But in San Francisco, reopening doesn’t seem like nearly as high a priority as renaming buildings or covering up offensive art. The Chronicle‘s report on the renaming committee’s deliberations borders on parody:

El Dorado Elementary came up next for discussion, with board members questioning whether the criteria should apply to a mythological place associated with settlers or colonists….

While some on the panel questioned whether an imaginary place filled with gold met the criteria for renaming.

“That’s how we justified Mission and Presidio, as places of human rights abuses or environmental abuses,” said Jeremiah Jeffries, saying it was similar to naming a school “Manifest Destiny.”

El Dorado was added to the list for renaming….

“This is important work,” he said. “We’re in the middle of a reckoning as a country and a nation. We need to do our part.”

That work includes a recommendation to change the name of Dianne Feinstein Elementary, a name given by the Board of Education in 2006 when the new school opened.

The school made the list because, as mayor in 1986, Feinstein reportedly replaced a vandalized Confederate flag, one of several historic flags flying in front of City Hall at the time.

Abraham Lincoln High is also on the list, based on the former president’s treatment of American Indian and native peoples.

It would likely cost each school tens of thousands of dollars to replace their names, which is part of the reason that an alumni association is asking the committee to suspend its activities until school has actually resumed.

To her credit, San Francisco Mayor London Breed has issued a strongly worded rebuke to district officials.

“In the midst of this once in a century challenge, to hear that the District is focusing energy and resources on renaming schools—schools that they haven’t even opened—is offensive,” the Democratic mayor said. “It’s offensive to parents who are juggling their children’s daily at-home learning schedules with doing their own jobs and maintaining their sanity. It’s offensive to me as someone who went to our public schools, who loves our public schools, and who knows how those years in the classroom are what lifted me out of poverty and into college. It’s offensive to our kids who are staring at screens day after day instead of learning and growing with their classmates and friends.”

Breed called on the district to focus on returning kids to their classrooms instead of debating the origins of the name El Dorado.

“We are in a pandemic right now that is forcing us all to prioritize what truly matters,” she said. “Conversations around school names can be had once the critical work of educating our young people in person is underway.”

It is nice to know that at least one person in a position of authority in San Francisco has not completely lost her mind.

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Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature from the Institute for Justice.

This week, in Torres v. Madrid, the Supreme Court considered whether a woman who was shot in the back by plain-clothed police officers may bring a Fourth Amendment challenge to the shooting, or if the Constitution does not apply merely because she was able to drive away immediately after being shot. If the Supreme Court declares that Roxanne Torres wasn’t “seized” by the officers’ barrage of gunfire, then she will be denied her day in court to determine whether the officers’ violence was reasonable—and so will any other individual who is not immediately incapacitated or killed by police violence. As IJ and other civil rights groups noted in a joint amicus brief, a ruling against Torres would make police effectively immune in a broad range of excessive force cases. Over at Forbes.com, IJ’s Nick Sibilla has more.

• Butterflies know no borders, but the feds plan to build a border wall through a butterfly sanctuary. Federal agents station themselves at the property, declare it off limits to employees and visitors alike, and begin widening roadways and cutting trees. D.C. Circuit: Butterflies may go where they want, but governments need to provide due process before they take over private property.
• American banknotes are unusual in that they are all the same size and texture and nearly identical in color—all of which presents a problem to people who are blind. Thankfully, in 2008, a federal judge entered an injunction requiring the Treasury Department to incorporate appropriate changes to paper currency no later than the next redesign of each denomination. Treasury: Sounds good, we’ll get back to you in the 2030s. D.C. Circuit: Which is fine.
• Pennsylvania prohibits those who have been committed to a mental institution from possessing firearms. Two such persons sue. Allegation: The ban strips us of our Second Amendment rights without due process. Third Circuit: No dice. Once a physician has determined that someone is a danger to himself or others—making him eligible for commitment—that someone “has joined the class of those historically without Second Amendment rights.” Judge Fisher (concurring in the judgment): I wouldn’t decide whether committees have no Second Amendment rights, because even if they retain Second Amendment rights, Pennsylvania has supplied enough process to deprive them of those rights.
• Inmate accuses South Carolina guard of sexual misconduct. The next day, the guard places the inmate in administrative segregation. Coincidence? Fourth Circuit: Unlike some other circuits, we place the burden on the guard to defeat liability by proving she would have made the same decision even absent a retaliatory motive. But we can’t say at summary judgment whether the guard made the necessary showing, so this case is remanded for trial.
• In July, the governor of Texas issued a proclamation providing voters an extra six days for early in-person voting and an extra 40 days to hand-deliver their absentee ballots (in addition to the option of mailing in ballots). Some counties sought to add multiple delivery locations for the ballots, but the governor stepped in the way. And that does not restrict voting options in violation of the right to vote, says the Fifth Circuit. Judge Ho, “grudgingly” concurring: The governor should’ve left rewriting election laws to the legislature rather than doing it himself.
• In July, the governor of Texas issued an executive order mandating masks in public areas but carving out an exemption for people who are voting or assisting with the voting process. Plaintiffs challenge this exemption (among other voting-related procedures). Fifth Circuit: For most of their claims, the plaintiffs sued the wrong defendants because the governor and the secretary of state have no connection to enforcing the executive order or the other challenged laws. But just maybe, the district court could invalidate the mask mandate’s exemption for voting. On that point, the case may proceed.
• Inmates at Navasota, Tex. geriatric prison allege that the prison’s COVID response is legally and constitutionally inadequate. The district court issued a preliminary injunction in the spring imposing a detailed protocol on prison officials. Fifth Circuit (April): The injunction is stayed. Fifth Circuit (June): The injunction is vacated. Apparently undeterred after an 18-day trial, the district court issues a permanent injunction requiring prison officials to follow specific procedures to limit the spread of the disease. The list differs in some ways from the original; among other things, it requires weekly testing with results within 48 hours. Fifth Circuit (October): The injunction is stayed.
• Second-trimester abortions are most commonly conducted via the dilation and evacuation procedure. The doctor first dilates the cervix and then uses suction or forceps to remove the fetus. The body typically separates during the removal, as it is larger than the cervical opening, resulting in “fetal demise.” Texas passes a law requiring doctors to first “ensure fetal demise” in utero. The Fifth Circuit rejects the new law while (over a “forthcoming” dissenting opinion) detailing recent SCOTUS abortion caselaw. Splitting from the Eighth Circuit, The court says that Justice Roberts’ concurrence last term doesn’t alter the standard that courts apply to abortion restrictions.
• Evidence room manager discovers that a Saginaw County, Mich. officer is misusing forfeited funds and improperly keeping them “off the books.” When he reports his concerns up the chain, he is reprimanded and demoted. Sixth Circuit: Since the evidence room manager was speaking within the scope of his public employment, he cannot pursue a First Amendment claim.
• Tennessee allows some voters to vote absentee by mail. To do so, a voter must submit a formal request to county election officials between seven and 90 days before the election; the request must contain a signature, which officials compare to the one on file to ensure they match. Completed absentee ballots must be accompanied by a signed affidavit, and officials once again compare signatures. Does the second signature verification infringe the right to vote? Sixth Circuit: The plaintiffs failed to show that they will be harmed by the law in the upcoming election, so we don’t have to answer that. Dissent: “I will not be a party to this passive sanctioning of disenfranchisement.”
• Indiana counts an absentee ballot only if it is received by noon on Election Day. District court: Given the pandemic, that deadline must be extended by 10 days. Seventh Circuit: “[A]s long as the state allows voting in person, there is no constitutional right to vote by mail.” The district court’s injunction is summarily reversed.
• Uncle calls Warren, Ark. police on nephew to report theft of gun, bullets, prescription medication; he tells police to expect a fight. Police stop the nephew and pat him down, discerning no contraband. (The officer missed a loaded magazine and some loose bullets.) But as they try to handcuff him, he takes off. An officer shoots him in the back almost immediately. Eighth Circuit: The nephew can’t sue. “[I]t was not clearly established at the time of the shooting that a pat down that removes nothing from a suspect eliminates an officer’s probable cause that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm.”
• Members of the Navajo Nation, residing in Apache County, Ariz., challenge the state’s deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots (7:00 p.m. on Election Day). District court: No preliminary injunction because the plaintiffs’ Voting Rights Act claim is unlikely to carry the day. Ninth Circuit: Actually, the plaintiffs lack standing because they failed to allege that they intend to vote in the 2020 election or to vote by mail.
• Simi Valley, Calif.: No mobile billboards! Unless they’re on an authorized emergency, construction, repair, or maintenance vehicle. Ninth Circuit: We struggle to identify a content-neutral justification for the authorized vehicle carve-out, and the city offers none. Ultimately, it appears officials prefer these “authorized” speakers because they prefer these speakers’ message.
• As part of their crowd control efforts, law enforcement officers in Portland, Ore. have recently employed tactics that force reporters and legal observers from the streets. Plaintiffs: Which violates our First and Fourth Amendment rights. District court: Yeah, knock that off. Ninth Circuit (over a dissent): No need for an emergency stay of the district court’s preliminary injunction. Officers may not “suppress legitimate First Amendment conduct as a prophylactic measure.”
• If you spot a fellow with a “very large and obvious bulge,” is it reasonable to suspect he’s packing? Two-thirds of this Ninth Circuit panel say yes.
• When Congress declined to appropriate money to build the border wall, the Trump Administration declared an emergency and instructed the Department of Defense to construct the wall itself using other funds. Sierra Club: This particular national emergency does not meet the statutory criteria required for the DOD to undertake construction projects. Ninth Circuit (over a dissent): Right you are. Injunction affirmed.
• The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in Heck v. Humphrey bars convicted criminals from bringing § 1983 suits when a victory would necessarily imply the invalidity of their convictions. But, explains the Eleventh Circuit, the two rulings must “logically contradict” one another. Thus, a lawsuit against a Miami police officer—who is alleged to have unlawfully shot the now-convicted driver of a stolen car before the driver attempted to elude police—may proceed.
• And in en banc news, the D.C. Circuit will revisit its decision dismissing the request by the House of Representatives for the court to enforce congressional subpoenas against former White House Counsel Don McGahn. So Don McGahn will head back to court, but not until February 23.
• And in more en banc news, the Ninth Circuit will not reconsider an earlier panel decision upholding a San Francisco ordinance that prohibits the owners of tenancy-in-common properties from converting into condominium properties unless the owners agree to offer any existing tenants lifetime leases. A whopping nine judges would have granted rehearing.
• And in further en banc news, the Tenth Circuit will reconsider its decision that local governments have standing to challenge Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which requires any tax increases to be approved by the voters, as a violation of Colorado’s enabling act by which Congress guaranteed “a republican form of government.”

Last month, North Wilkesboro, N.C. officials barred a 33-year-old homeless shelter from moving into a larger new space. Though the proposed location is, as required, far from residences and in an area zoned business-industrial, officials denied the shelter a permit—in part because it has a public sidewalk out front and sits along a busy road. But the zoning code requires shelters to be near sidewalks and roads. Per the chair of the town’s Board of Adjustment: “I think the issue here is that it meets the zoning requirements, but that doesn’t mean it belongs here.” This month, IJ and the shelter sued the town in federal court. Read all about it in the Winston-Salem Journal. The complaint can be found here.

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A North Carolina mother filed a civil rights lawsuit last Friday against a policeman who handcuffed and held her autistic 7-year-old son prone on the ground for nearly 40 minutes. 

Body camera footage of the September 2018 incident, first published by WSOC-TV, shows former Statesville, North Carolina, school resource officer Michael Fattaleh pulling the child’s arms behind his back and handcuffing him.

According to the lawsuit, the boy, who is identified only by the initial L.G., had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder the previous year and placed in a special needs classroom. On September 11, 2018, L.G. became overwhelmed and began acting out and spitting in class. He was taken to a “quiet room” to calm down when Fattaleh allegedly walked by and saw the boy spit on the ground. Fattaleh handcuffed L.G.’s hands behind his back and restrained him stomach-down on the floor.

Staff placed a pillow underneath L.G.’s head, and Fatalleh asked him several times if he could breath and if he was comfortable. But he also appeared to taunt L.G. at times.

“If you, my friend, are not acquainted with the juvenile justice system, you will be very shortly,” Fattaleh says at one point in the body camera footage. “You ever been charged with a crime before? Well, you’re fixing to be.”

At another point, Fattaleh puts his knee on L.G’s back and says, “Have you ever heard the term ‘babysitter?’ I take that term literally, my friend.”

L.G.’s mother, who is also not named in the lawsuit, arrived to pick him up. Fatalleh told her L.G. was facing one to two counts of assault. The boy was not charged, and Fatalleh resigned from the department shortly after the incident.

The suit, which also names the city of Statesville and the Iredell-Statesville Board of Education as defendants, argues that Fatalleh unreasonably restrained L.G., violating his Fourth Amendment rights and inflicting emotional distress. 

“It is incomprehensible to me that anyone would think this response is appropriate and necessary,” Alex Heroy, a lawyer representing the family, told The Washington Post. “You don’t need to put metal handcuffs on a 7-year-old and pin them down and turn their arm.”

Yet it happens, and more frequently than one might think. In August, body camera footage emerged showing officers in Key West, Florida, trying and failing to handcuff an eight-year-old boy, whose wrists were too small for the cuffs. An Orlando school cop made national headlines last September when he arrested a six-year-old girl.

ABC News reported last year that, according to FBI crime data, 30,467 children under the age of 10 were arrested in the United States between 2013 and 2018. During the same period, 266,000 children between the ages of 10 and 12 were arrested.

In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd earlier this year, there have been increased calls from civil rights groups and criminal justice advocates to get police out of schools, and several major cities—Minneapolis, Denver, Seattle, Charlottesville, and Portland, Oregon—have disbanded or slashed the budgets of these programs. 

Activists point to viral videos of school resource officers using excessive force on children to bolster their claims that police in schools contribute to the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. In February, an officer at a high school in Camden, Arkansas, was relieved of duty after video showed him putting a student in a chokehold and lifting the student off the ground. Last December, a North Carolina officer was fired after he brutally body-slammed a middle-schooler. In November, a sheriff’s deputy in Florida was arrested and charged with child abuse after a video showed him body-slamming a 15-year-old girl at a special needs school.

Civil liberties groups and disability rights advocates have long warned that a surge in the number of Florida school resource officers was leading to unnecessary criminalization and use of force against minorities and children with disabilities. The investigation found several cases where children with diagnosed behavioral disorders were restrained, handcuffed, and involuntarily committed for psychiatric evaluations because of behavior beyond their control. These cases often lead to regression and trauma for the kids involved.

According to the lawsuit, L.G. is now being homeschooled.

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During his ABC “town hall” last night, responding to a question from moderator George Stephanopoulos, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden agreed that it was a “mistake” to “support” the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. At the same time, he defended parts of the law, including the Violence Against Women Act, funding to support “community policing” by hiring more officers, and the now-expired federal ban on “assault weapons.” He also implied that the real problem was not so much the law itself but the way that states responded to it. “The mistake came in terms of what the states did locally,” he said.

Both the question and the answer were highly misleading. First, Biden did not merely “support” the 1994 law; he wrote the damned thing, which he has proudly called “the 1994 Biden Crime Bill.” Second, as much as Biden might like to disavow the law’s penalty enhancements now that public opinion on criminal justice has shifted, he was proud of them at the time. Third, the 1994 crime bill is just one piece of legislation in Biden’s long history of supporting mindlessly punitive responses to drugs and crime.

Biden is trying to gloss over a major theme of his political career. “Every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress—every minor crime bill—has had the name of the Democratic senator from Delaware, Joe Biden,” he bragged in 1993. Now he wants us to believe his agenda was limited to domestic violence, community policing, and gun control.

“Things have changed drastically” since 1994, Biden said last night, noting that “the Black Caucus voted” for the crime bill, and “every black mayor supported it.” In other words, now that black politicians and Democrats generally have rejected the idea that criminal penalties can never be too severe, Biden has shifted with the winds of opinion. But as Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) noted during a Democratic presidential debate last year, that does not mean we should forget Biden’s leading role in the disastrous war on drugs and the draconian criminal justice policies that put more and more people in cages for longer and longer periods of time.

“The crime bill itself did not have mandatory sentences except for two things,” Biden said. He mentioned the law’s “three strikes and you’re out” provision, which required a life sentence for anyone convicted of a violent crime after committing two other felonies, one of which can be a drug offense. He said he “voted against” that provision, which is not exactly true. While he did express concern that the provision was not focused narrowly enough on serious violent crimes, he voted for it as part of the broader bill.

In any case, Biden did not just go along with the crime bill’s punitive provisions; he crowed about them. Like a crass car salesman hawking a new model with more of everything, he touted “70 additional enhancements of penalties” and “60 new death penalties—brand new—60.” He denounced as “poppycock” the notion, which would later be defensively deployed by Bill Clinton and Biden himself, that “somehow the Republicans tried to make the crime bill tougher.” Biden bragged that he had conferred with “the cops” instead of some namby-pamby “liberal confab” while writing the bill.

As for “what the states did locally,” the law was designed to increase incarceration. It provided $10 billion in subsidies for state prison construction, contingent on passage of “truth in sentencing” laws that limited or abolished parole. “What I was against was giving states more money for prison systems,” Biden said last night. But that is simply not true. As FactCheck.org noted last year, “Biden did support $6 billion in funding for state prison construction, but not the $10 billion that was part of the final bill.”

Despite Biden’s implication that he was not a fan of mandatory minimums, he zealously supported them in previous legislation, including the Anti–Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988. The latter law included a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone caught with five grams of crack cocaine, whether or not he was involved in distribution.

As Biden explained it on the Senate floor in 1991 while holding up a quarter, “we said crack cocaine is such a bad deal that if you find someone with this much of it—a quarter’s worth, not in value, but in size—five years in jail.” To be clear: Biden was not marveling at the blatant injustice of that punishment. He was touting his anti-drug bona fides.

Biden also supported a sentencing policy that treated crack cocaine as if it were 100 times worse than cocaine powder, even though these are simply two different ways of consuming the same drug. Under the 1986 law, possessing five grams of crack with intent to distribute it triggered the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as 500 grams of cocaine powder; likewise, the 10-year mandatory minimum required five kilograms of cocaine powder but only 50 grams of crack.

Because federal crack offenders were overwhelmingly black, while cocaine powder offenders were more likely to be white or Hispanic, the rule Biden supported meant that darker-skinned defendants received substantially heavier penalties than lighter-skinned defendants for essentially the same offenses. “We may not have gotten it right,” Biden conceded 16 years after he helped establish the 100-to-1 rule. Five years later, during an unsuccessful bid for his party’s 2008 presidential nomination, he introduced a bill that would have equalized crack and cocaine powder sentences.

The distinction between smoked and snorted cocaine “was a big mistake when it was made,” Biden admitted in a speech he gave just before entering the presidential race in 2019, nine years after Congress approved a law that shrank but did not eliminate the sentencing gap. “We thought we were told by the experts that crack…was somehow fundamentally different. It’s not different.” The misconception, he added, “trapped an entire generation.”

These are just a few examples of Biden’s enthusiasm for coming down hard on people who dare to defy the government’s arbitrary pharmacological decrees. You can read more about that here.

Nowadays, Biden opposes the mandatory minimums and death penalties he championed for decades. But his current position still reflects his commitment to using force against people engaged in peaceful conduct that violates no one’s rights.

“I don’t believe anybody should be going to jail for drug use,” Biden said last night. “They should be going into mandatory rehabilitation. We should be building rehab centers to have these people housed.”

While Biden considers that approach enlightened and humane, there is no moral justification for foisting “treatment” on people who do not want it and may not even be addicted. That policy strips people of their liberty, dignity, and moral agency simply because they consume psychoactive substances that politicians do not like. Biden, who in the late 1980s was saying “we have to hold every drug user accountable,” now wants to lock drug users in “rehab centers” rather than prisons. If that looks like an improvement, it is only because Biden’s prior record is so appalling.

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