President Biden signed the executive order January 27, 2021.  This is the first time I’ve even heard of this.  Here are a couple of links with more info:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/biden-s-order-terminates-federal-private-prison-contracts-here-s-n1255776

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bop-finalizes-moving-inmates-private-prisons/story?id=94281403

Biden gets a lot of flack for being a generic neo liberal rather than a cool leftist, and trust me I’m 100% on board with criticizing Biden, but it occurred to me that, at least by my standards, he’s the best president I’ve lived under. Clinton was just “What if Reaganomics but with a saxophone”, Obama did pass the ACA, but he also cut it to bits to appease the republicans who didn’t vote for it anyway, and he constantly bombed middle-eastern civilians. I’m not even gonna bother mentioning any of the republicans since I don’t need to convince my intended audience that they’re bad.

Biden, while he’s obviously had some major bad decisions (breaking the rail strike, failing to defend trans rights), has done more actual good than I think anyone else I’ve lived under. He’s nearly completely ended drone strikes, he’s addressing the debt crisis (everyone knows about the $10k, but very few I’ve seen know about the changes he’s made to how federal student loans work that make them far less of a burden/deathtrap), and now there’s the above, which I’m just learning about.

Never let perfect be the enemy of good, and while Biden is very far from being a perfect president, I’m pretty comfortable calling him a good one.

#Biden is not a cool leftist President#but he’s been genuinely more effective at passing progressive policies than literally any democratic president in my lifetime#I think this is partially circumstantial bc we live in an era of truly insane partisanship#very few elected politicians these days genuinely voting or making policy choices according to their strict moral compasses#I don’t give a fuck anymore I don’t want a wildly charismatic dem president who appeases the right in the name of unity#and wastes their chances at creating lasting legislative change during their time in power#I just want dems in power to do useful shit and Biden has done useful shit#that’s why I’m gonna vote for him again!

For all the people who insist they never trust politicians, they are sure adamant about waiting until the stars align and political Jesus comes down from the clouds to save us. If you actually didn’t like or trust politicians you would accept that the great majority of the time we are going to have to work with mediocrity.

Biden is boring and uninspiring for sure, but he is significantly less offensive than the vast majority of other options and he is someone we can influence. We want someone we can influence and push towards our positions. Biden has shown that if he isn’t an ally, he at least can be persuaded or pushed into doing what we, the left, want. There are few candidates we can actually say that about.

The point is not that he’s perfect. The point is that he’s very clearly shown that he cares about using his political mandate to make things better. The point is that he cares about accountability. The point is that he cares about what historians will say about him in the future.

The point is, these are good qualities in a leader. The kind of qualities that we can work with.

With regards to the rail strike, he continued working with the railways after the strike and just recently got them to give the workers their sick leave. https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid

“We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.”