 There have been numerous times over the course of the last couple of years when Elizabeth Warren has disappointed me. Obviously, we all knew that she showed that she isn't very courageous politically when she refused to endorse Bernie Sanders. She did not go out to Standing Rock when water protectors were being brutalized by militarized police and on TYT when she was asked about some members of the Democratic Party being more centrist, more conservative, more corporatist, specifically when she was talking about Joe Manchin she offered up a spirited defense of Joe Manchin, who basically is just a Democrat in name only. He is functionally a Republican, so I've been frustrated with Elizabeth Warren and I've stated before that she lacks political courage because she's not willing to take on her own party. Now when you contrast her with someone like Tulsi Gabbard who endorsed Bernie, who went to Standing Rock, who is fighting against her own party, it's easy to see that Elizabeth Warren does not have any political courage whatsoever. She has essentially been spineless and I don't like to say that because it seems really harsh, but for the most part she hasn't been willing to take a stand if for whatever reason that would make her fall out of favor with the party or would offend elites, specifically Democratic Party elites. However, Joe Biden announced and she actually came out with a pretty strong criticism of him that it made me smile because she is slowly but surely working to earn my respect back and I wanted to share this with you guys because I thought it was great. Our disagreement is a matter of public record. At a time when the biggest financial institutions in this country were trying to put the squeeze on millions of hardworking families who were in bankruptcy because of medical problems, job losses, divorce and death in the family, there was nobody to stand up for them. I got in that fight because they just didn't have any and Joe Biden was on the side of the credit card companies. It's all a matter of public record. That was short but sweet and it's effective because just that statement really tells you everything that you need to know about Joe Biden. He had the opportunity to take a stand for the American people but who did he side with? The credit card companies. And I like how she's kind of preemptively disarming the people who argue that you shouldn't attack other Democrats and the way that she's disarming them is essentially by saying look the disagreements that I have with Joe Biden are a matter of public record so this isn't an attack. I'm just stating what I've already said and there are already people saying that if you have a criticism of another Democrat running for president you should bite your tongue. Like for example George Takai put out a tweet saying you know I pledge to not criticize any Democrat because that could bring down the eventual nominee and make them weaker against Donald Trump. That is such a mealy-mouthed way to look at politics. You're essentially asking progressives to unilaterally disarm because we know that the media, the establishment corporate Democrats will relentlessly attack progressives. So really what you're asking is for us to not criticize other politicians but we're not going to do that. That's what primaries are about. You vet the candidates, you criticize them and then whoever wins wins but if you don't actually vet these candidates if you don't criticize them for their record for substantive reasons you're denying voters the chance to know about these candidates. We need the electorate to be informed going into the voting booth so they're able to make an educated decision and not just vote for Joe Biden because of name recognition because of nostalgia for Obama. People need to know that as Elizabeth Warren points out he stood with the credit card companies. Now what she's talking about here in particular is a bill from 2005 and as Rachel Fraser of the Hill reports in 2005 Biden voted for the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. Critics have said the law enabled credit card companies to target people seeking bankruptcy protection and this is a bill that was sponsored by Chuck Grassley and signed into law by President George W. Bush. If that doesn't speak to how terrible Joe Biden's record is then I don't think anything else will but we don't even need just this one example. He voted for the Iraq War, he voted for NAFTA, he voted to repeal Glass-Steagall. Joe Biden has essentially reliably been on the wrong side of every single issue so for us to not point that out for people like Elizabeth Warren to not point that out is preposterous. If you're choosing to not criticize these candidates you're making them weaker going up against Donald Trump because would you rather them criticize someone like Joe Biden for this now and give him time to come up with a response or would you rather this manifest during the 2020 general election if Biden wins god forbid but if he wins and then Trump does his fake populism thing and then this comes back to bite Biden in the ass wouldn't you want voters to know about this now so ultimately they pick the best candidate I mean I don't get that but I don't necessarily see as much pushback against Warren criticizing Biden here as I initially expected and I think it's because the establishment for the most part they feel safer with Elizabeth Warren and they don't necessarily view her as the threat that she really is yet because she's not polling at you know top three or even top four but in the event she starts to move up in the event she were in Bernie's position I think that they would have criticized her for speaking out against Biden like this so kudos to her I'm glad that she decided to speak up we can't self-censor under the guise of not wanting to weaken a candidate during a primary so I'm glad that Warren is kind of bucking a party orthodoxy here and she's criticizing him because if you sided with the credit card companies then um sorry that's a pretty big mark against you and that's just an objective fact don't blame us for pointing out what Joe Biden did blame Joe Biden for having a garbage record in the first place you could support the humanist report at patreon.com slash humanist report but trust me I'd have way more supporters at patreon if that was my podcast sad