Biden insists America should not be silent about ‘abuses of the past’ in MLK day speech

In a wide-ranging address in honor of Martin Luther King Day, President Biden called for cops to use deadly force as the last resort and questioned why car insurance costs more in neighborhoods with heavily black populations. 

The president also insisted America needed to remember its ‘abuses’ in remarks at the National Action Network’s MLK day breakfast at the historic Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C.

‘The idea that we’re supposed to remain silent on the abuses of the past, as if they didn’t occur? That’s not being woke. That’s being honest. That’s talking about history,’ the president said.

The remark pushed back against Republican cries that schools are teaching children critical race theory. 

The president then accused car insurance companies of charging higher premiums based on race. 

In a wide-ranging address to honor Martin Luther King Day, President Joe Biden called for cops to be ‘retrained’ not to shoot-to-kill and questioned why car insurance costs more in neighborhoods with heavily black populations

‘If you live in one of those neighborhoods and you have the same exact car I have in the other neighborhood, you pay more for your insurance than that side. No basis for it. None at all other than you’re black and I’m white.’

Biden then told the crowd that U.S. police officers need to use nonlethal tactics, when appropriate. 

‘We have to retrain cops,’ Biden said. ‘Why should you always shoot for death, with deadly force? The fact is, if you need to use your weapon, you don’t have to do that.’ 

He touted his own executive order that restricted chokeholds and no-knock warrants at the federal level and created a national database to track officer misconduct. 

The president moved on promising to deliver an assault weapon ban after the last one expired in 2004. 

Biden then told the crowd that the U.S. needed to ‘retrain’ police officers not to shoot to kill

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‘I am going to get am assault weapons ban. I did it once, I’m going to do it again.’ 

‘There’s no social redeeming value – the deer aren’t wearing Kevlar vests out there. What the hell you need of assault? No, I’m serious and ban the number of bullets and go into magazine. There’s no need for any of that,’ Biden said. 

He then mocked assault weapon advocates who claim they need such an arsenal to keep government tyranny in check. 

‘I love my right-wing friends who talk about the tree of liberty is watered with a blood of patriots.’

‘If you need to worry about taking on the federal government, you need some F-15s. You don’t need an AR-15. I’m serious – think about it. Think about the rationale for this. It’s about money, money, money.’ 

In his address Biden also blasted ‘fiscally demented’ Republicans who voted last week in the House to claw back $72 billion from the IRS which he said would help the wealthy ‘cheat’ on their taxes if it became law. 

He said he had kept a ‘promise’ by granting clemency to several thousand who had been charged with federal marijuana possession offenses in October. 

‘No one—I’ll say it again—no one should be in federal prison for the mere possession of marijuana. No one,’ he said. 

‘In addition to that, they should be released from prison and completely pardoned, and their entire record expunged so that if they have to ask, ‘Have you ever been [convicted], you can honestly say, ‘No,” he added.

Biden doesn’t have the authority to expunge records, but the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) released a report showing that during the last fiscal year no one was in jail for marijuana possession.