Former Vice President Joe Biden is no stranger to plagiarizing and stealing from others. It has been part of his MO for years. It just so happens that Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) is his latest victim.
Biden's Unity Task Force recommendations copied several of Bernie's platforms and plans.
Here are some of the task force's recommendations.
Biden's way of addressing the calls to defund the police (Bernie's criminal justice reform plan in bold):
Non-Police Responses: Federal funding to create a civilian corps of unarmed first responders such as social workers, EMTs, and trained mental health professionals, who can handle nonviolent emergencies including order maintenance violations, mental health emergencies, and low-level conflicts outside the criminal justice system, freeing police officers to concentrate on the most serious crimes. Fund initiatives to partner mental health professionals, substance use disorder experts, social workers, and disability advocates with police departments to respond to calls with police officers to better de-escalate interactions with citizens and when appropriate, to divert individuals to the social services they need.
Biden's take on federal hiring (Bernie's Workforce Democracy Plan in bold):
Federal hiring and procurement power: Address widespread dislocation in the labor market by expanding public-sector jobs, including those at the federal level and subnational governments supported by federal policy. Ensure that procurement power is used to support and maintain domestic employment by introducing a massive investment in America's economy through an expanded procurement policy that requires federal contractors to offer middle-class wages and strong protections for workers. This will include in particular a large-scale jobs mobilization to 71 build a resilient, sustainable infrastructure and clean energy future.
- Issue an executive order to prevent companies from receiving federal contracts that outsource jobs overseas, pay workers less than $15 an hour without benefits, refuse to remain neutral in union organizing efforts, hire workers to replace striking workers, or close businesses after workers vote to unionize.
- Expand investments in public services—such as k-12 education, behavioral health, social services—that will lead to widespread new employment opportunities for American workers.
- Stop the privatization of public sector jobs and strongly discourage private control of public infrastructure.
- Task the Deputy Secretary's office in each federal agency and department with responsibility for monitoring federal contracting and ensuring federal procurement contracts are fair and inclusive, including with respect to minority-owned, women-owned, and veteran-owned businesses.
Biden's retirement goals (Bernie's Disability Rights Plan in bold):
Increase support for caregivers: Expand support for both paid and unpaid caregivers by improving wages, benefits, and working conditions for paid caregivers, while dramatically expanding the caregiving workforce so that more unpaid caregivers can return to the formal labor market. At the same time, increase caregiver access to certain retirement benefits so that being a caregiver does not jeopardize one's future retirement security. Ensure that every family caregiver is able to receive compensation for their labor through self-directed services if that is the preference of the individual with a disability receiving support.
Biden's Social Security plan (Bernie's Social Security Expansion agenda in bold):
Increase funding for home and community based care: Increase funding to adequately resource existing programs, end waitlists, and create new programs to ensure that older adults have the support they need to remain at home and in their communities, which is where they want to be.
This isn't the first time the former vice president flat out stole some else's policy positions verbatim. In June 2019, The Washington Post caught Biden "lifting language" from various left-wing groups when creating his climate change and education agendas. He pulled sentences directly from the XQ Institute, an education nonprofit founded by Obama administration alumni. His policy on climate change was taken almost word-for-word from the Carbon Capture Coalition, which has members like Shell, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal. Other climate change language was stolen from a water advocacy group called American Rivers.
Joe Biden's campaign also used identical language from an education policy publication for its education plan. After The Washington Post contacted the campaign about the sentence, it added a link to the institute’s publication.https://t.co/ni9tzYPD5X pic.twitter.com/AFsRcffxeE
— Matt Viser (@mviser) June 5, 2019
Biden, you might want to look at new staff members who don't copy and paste from other people. At the very least try to collaborate with people instead of steal their work outright as your own.
If you were in school, you'd get a big, fat F.
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