Kamala Harris: The Wicked Witch of the American corporate feminism
Harris is like Hillary II and alienates The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala The
Cop.
A former cruel Prosecutor who really can indict a ham sandwich who got into her current place using dirty and ruthless methods.
Civility actually is a really important element of politics, and Kamala definitely lacks civility.
She bought Russiagate hook, line and sinker and this proved that she is really establishment candidate whom DNC might try to shove
down voters throat
If there is one thing 2016 should have taught us, it is that American corporate feminism is as an overt self-conscious enemy of Sanders socialism, redistribution, economic and really social justice (does anyone think Harris will give us 50 States with choice? Does anybody think she cares?)
There is in interesting gallery of children of immigrants in the US politics. In this sense you can compare Kamala "Ruthless" Harris
and Nikki "Binomo" Haley. Both have very
sharp elbows. Kind of female versions of Terminator.
The defining feature of Kamala Harris personality is that she is very rude and very pushy. And she definitely is very adept to exploit
her "minority" status. That's how she managed to win the position of Attorney General of California (2011 to 2017.) despite almost complete
lack of legal credentials.
Like
hillary relied for her career advancement of Bill Clinton political power and connections (and without Bill she would
never became NY senator), Kamada did the same relying on political power of
Speaker of the California State AssemblyWillie Brown,who appointed her
to a job at the California Medical Assistance Commission. The minor difference is that they were not married.
In the USA there is no penalty for prosecutorial misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives
are aligned perfectly for the "institution" to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. That also attracts to those positions sociopath,
especially female sociopaths as the ability to wedge an uncontrolled
power is like narcotic for them. Only wealthy people who can fight the unlimited funds of the government have any chance in such
cases. Especially tough are cases of dissidents or scapegoats (Butina case is a perfect example) as they often are cloaked in the
matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.
That's probably why former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller called her questioning of Sessions was “hysterical.” She is genially
unlikable personality: too pushy, too arrogant, too nasty. In short a prototypical "nasty women". If you listened to a couple
of her questing of witnesses during Senate hearings on YouTube and Kamala Harris doesn’t repulse you, there’s something wrong with you
;-). Her behavior flashes all kind of red flags. As somebody jokes that last thing any man wants is to have her as his mother-in-law.
"Kamala Harris is entitled to no scrutiny, just like every other Democratic politician who is loved by Clinton donors. Also, war
is peace,” progressive commentator David Sirota, a one-time congressional staffer for Sanders,
tweeted sarcastically in 2017.
This woman has zero diplomatic skills, which is very rare for women who naturally are better more flexible diplomats then men. This
is just a human tank: againt unarmed opponent if she not shoot you she will crash you. The fact that you are innocent or guilty does
not make any difference for her. She is pursuing her agenda no matter what.
Kamala Harris is now making a name for herself by being rude and not allowing witnesses to answer at Senate hearings. Acting like
the worst mother-in-law you could ever have, she rants on and on as the witness is trying to answer, and then claims victimhood when
requested to let the witness answer the question. This is just another way to increase her visibility
That convincingly qualifies her as an establishment stooge. An enthusiastic and pushy establishment stooge I would say.
Even though she doesn't lead in a single poll, everywhere you look there is an establishment talking head proclaiming Harris the
frontrunner. Because of her race and gender, she can appeal to two of the most important Democratic bases: minorities and women. In
addition, she is from California. But Harris tail two Democratic frontrunners: Biden and Sanders. Is case Sanders will bes's supporters
would likely drift towards the Elizabeth Warren, not to Kamala Harris.
Then there is the question of where did Kamala Harris come from? Willie Brown, the corrupt past mayor of San Francisco at 60 years
of age had an ongoing affair with Kamala Harris who was 29 and unemployed at the time. Not only did it break up Brown’s marriage, it
was Hebert Caen who called Harris “the Speakers new steady”. This lead to Harris’ appointment to numerous high paying government jobs
costing taxpayers $92,000. From there, once a part of the apparatus of the Willie Brown progressive agenda, Harris had a clear path
to any position available. Even journalists in California have called Harris “a show horse” and there isn’t “much there-there”.
The way the establishment media pushes their narrative is by selective reporting of
news. for example Her recent admission that she smoked marijuana in college went unnoticed. There is a stark contrast between the criticisms
listed for Harris and the types of criticisms listed for her rivals Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard. Warren was severely punished
by neoliberal MSM for her genetic decoding test and Gabbard for her past position of LGBT and her visit to Syria where she met
Assad.
An interesting breed of individuals had surfaced during Russiagate including some in US Senate: individuals with a remarkable capacity
of swallowing a large pile of BS.
Look yourself on Kamala attack of Barr where she clearly displays her allegiance to the official Russiagate story. Which is mostly
BS: the real story is about intelligence agencies trying to entrap Trump associates (such as
Papadopoulos entrapment) with Russian ties and Barr
politely hinted that to Kamala. Only political who is in the pocker of MIC behaves this way, because the whole Russiagate story
is not so much about Trump (he fodled in April 2017, while Mueller was appointed in May 2017), as about maintaining the current defense
budget on the current level no matter what. Crumbing US infrastructure be damned.
Barr is a real professional and of course he despise this lightweight prosecutor, who like Hillary due to Bill got to her position
being a mistress of a powerful politician, who was 30 years older. Such a gold digger. But he behaves very diplomatically while
Harris was pushy and rude. She did make one interesting point in her first question about whether Trump asked Barr to investigate
somebody: that would be within present power to ask such things and should be done much earlier. With three outstanding candidates
for such investigation: McCabe, Brennan and Clapper.
The second Kamala question was about whether Barr reviewed the evidence. This is an interesting nuance in this question as
it imply whether we trust Mueller hatchet job or not. Barr declined to go into it.
What is interesting in this exchange is that Harris clearly know about the skeleton in the closet is Mueller impartiality and
his attempt to cover FBI operation to entrap Trump in Russian ties -- he definitely played the role of the Great Inquisitor
sent to condemn the heretic to the burning on the stake. There is now a new term "Muellerazing evidence."
Funny how these neocons push Russiagate and then support regime change everywhere and most recently Venezuela.
Her principal mistake was that she was simply very rule and behaved like prototypical prosecutor who can indict a ham sandwich (which
she is). Just imagine sitting in a courtroom trying to defend yourself with her as a prosecutor. She will roll over you, unless the
judge puts her in her proper place. Civility actually is a really important element of politics, and Kamala definitely lacks
civility.
Civility actually is a really important element of politics, and Kamala definitely lacks civility.
After Barr Senate hearing she said
"We have a president of the United States whose primary interest I think that has been clear as a result of what we know as a
result of the Mueller report, his primary interest has been to obstruct justice. My primary interest is to pursue justice. You can
call that whatever name you want, but I think that’s what the American people want in a leader." (Senator Kamala Harris, in comments
made during an appearance on CNN, in response to President Donald Trump calling her behavior “very nasty” during her questioning
of Attorney General William Barr )
She does not want to understand that it was a color revolution against Trump which does have anything common with pursuing
justice. It was launched by FBI and other intelligence agencies after his election victory to create and sustain anti-Russian
hysteria in ordeer to prevent any changes in the USA foreign policy or the size and the way of spending of the defense budget.
It was witch hunt directed in concocting "process crime" of obstruction of justice from the very beginning.
On foreign policy issue Kamala Harris is a typical establishment stooge, Hillary-style warmonger, a MIC stooge with close ties to
Zionist lobby (Kamala Harris - Wikipedia):
In April 2017, responding to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, Harris charged Syrian president Bashar al-Assad with attacking
Syrian children, and stated "the clear fact that president Assad is not only a ruthless dictator brutalizing his own people -- he
is a war criminal the international community cannot ignore." She called on President Trump to work with Congress on his administration's
"lack of clear objectives in Syria and articulate a detailed strategy and path forward in partnership with our allies."[191]
In 2017, Harris gave a public address to AIPAC attendees. She said: "I believe Israel should never be a partisan issue, and as
long as I’m a United States senator, I will do everything in my power to ensure broad and bipartisan support for Israel’s security
and right to self-defense."[192] She has opposed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.[193]
She was a co-sponsor of a Senate resolution expressing objection to the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned
Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories as a violation of international law.[194][195][193] At the
AIPAC conference, she said that "the first resolution I co-sponsored as a United States senator was to combat anti-Israel bias at
the United Nations".[194] She also supported Senate resolution celebrating the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem.[196][197]
In late 2017, she traveled to Israel, where she met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[194]
Harris voted in favor of a $675 billion defense budget bill for the 2019.[203] She said that North Korea is "one of the
most serious security threats".[204] In February 2019, after former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe claimed that President Trump
believed the claims of President of Russia Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies' reports on the subject of North Korea’s
missile capabilities, she told reporters, "The idea that the president of the U.S. would take the word of the head of Russia
over the Intel community is the height of irresponsibility and shameful."[205]
There were a couple of minor deviation from a typical Washington hawk foreign policy positions, though:
In February 2018, Harris was one of 18 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Trump stating that he lacked the authority to launch
a preemptive strike against North Korea without authorization
from Congress. The letter stated: "Without congressional authority, a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack
either a constitutional basis or legal authority."[199]
In 2018, after Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the
Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, Harris released a statement saying the decision "jeopardizes our national security and isolates us from our closest
allies" while calling the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action "the best existing tool we have to prevent Iran from developing nuclear
weapons and avoid a disastrous military conflict in the Middle East."[200]
In late 2018, she voted to withdraw U.S. military aid for
Saudi
Arabia's war in Yemen. She also backed a resolution blaming Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammad bin Salman for the murder of
dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi
Arabian consulate in Istanbul.[201]
Harris supported the Iran
nuclear deal to prevent Iran from acquiring
weapons
of mass destruction.[193]
In December 2018, after
Secretary of StateMike Pompeo announced the Trump administration was suspending
its obligations in the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 60 days in the event that Russia continued to violate the treaty, she was one of
26 senators to sign a letter expressing concern over the administration "now abandoning generations of bipartisan U.S. leadership
around the paired goals of reducing the global role and number of nuclear weapons and ensuring strategic stability with America's
nuclear-armed adversaries" and calling on Trump to continue arms negotiations.[202]
Harris’ legislative record is thin, not a surprise for a first-term senator:
She was the first Democratic senator to announce she would co-sponsor Medicare for All legislation from Sen. Bernie Sanders,
independent-Vt. But Harris flip-flopped on the issue of single-payer healthcare. During a CNN town hall, she stated that she supported
the complete elimination of private healthcare plans. After facing backlash, she retreated from this position.
She was one of just three Democrats to vote against compromise legislation that would have protected young undocumented immigrants
who came to the U.S. as children from deportation, in exchange for other cuts to legal immigration visas and $25 billion for Trump’s
wall and other border security measures.
Harris called the wall money a waste and said the overall bill would have advanced Trump’s “anti-immigrant” agenda.
Harris has also partnered with Republicans on other pieces of ultimately unsuccessful legislation, including a bail reform bill
with Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and an election security measure with Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma.
The Twitter hashtag “#KamalaHarrisIsACop” is popular among those who oppose he candidacy pointing to her record
in law enforcement which they say disproportionately affected people of color. They point to
misconduct in a crime
lab during her tenure as San Francisco district attorney.
We won’t be silent about race. We won’t be silent about sexual orientation.
We won’t be silent about immigrants rights. These are the very issues that define our identity as Americans.https://twitter.com/politico/status/1025535816364376064
…
Sen. Kamala Harris accused critics
of “identity politics” of weaponizing the term to diminish issues of race, gender and sexual orientation https://politi.co/2OI4eLq
Identity wedge (or identity politics)
means promoting the interests and perspectives of social groups with which people identify. Typically opposing them to dominant "white
majority", or patriarchal culture.
One aim of identity politics is to to articulate the feeling (sometimes false) of oppression for minority groups. This is an interesting
neoliberal perversion of the Marxist concept of class struggle. In one of her speeches Harris gave a direct example of how a group
identity can be instrumental in securing a Democrat victory:
"We've all heard how critical black women were to Doug Jones' victory," she said of Democrats' success in the Alabama Senate race.
"But that didn't just magically happen. It happened because black women have been putting in the work, going door to door,
organizing even when the cameras were focused elsewhere."
She further stressed their status as a depressed minority group:
Noting that black women are far more likely than white women to die of pregnancy-related causes, Harris said, "It's time to respect
[black women's] leadership. It's time we addressed the issues that they uniquely face."
Kamala Harris can attack opponents using "below the belt" methods including deflected her behavior to condemn those pointing out
that very behavior as racists. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda
minister, helped Adolf Hitler type
Mein Kampf (1925), where, in "War Propaganda," Hitler wrote,
"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself." (This quote is often
incorrectly credited to Goebbels.) Clearly, Kamala has come to believe this statement.
See Kavanauch witch hunt as example
of her behaviour and her part of hearing demonstrates well her propensity to abuse of her status as a mixed race female (toxic feminism)
Identity wedge is most often used as smear for those who disagree with the agenda of a particular minority group (End
of Discussion):
If you're for voter ID laws, you're racist.
If you're pro-life you're sexist.
If you're for religious liberty, you're homophobic.
If you aren't sure whether
this is fair, you're transphobic.
If you raise issues like
this or
this, you're Islamophobic.
And if you prefer tighter immigration restrictions, you're a nativist or xenophobe.
These are rhetorical attacks used to short-circuit actual debate. Yes, real bigotry does exist, but tarring large groups
of voters by impugning their motives is standard operating procedure in our politics today. It's toxic.
Neoliberal Democrats wrecked the national dialogue by going beyond principled disagreement to seeking the destruction of its opponents
(neo-Trotskyism).
She is a daughter of two immigrants and was born October 20, 1964 in Oakland, California, to a Tamil Indian mother and a Jamaican
father. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, was a breast cancer scientist who emigrated to the United States from Madras (present-day
Chennai) in 1960. She died in 2009. Her father, Donald Harris, is a Stanford University economics professor who emigrated from Jamaica
in 1961 for graduate study in economics at University of California, Berkeley.[5][6] Harris’ mother raised her after divorcing her father
when Harris was 7. After the breakup, Kamala moved with her mother and sister Maya (now an MSNBC political analyst), to Quebec,
Canada, where her mother took positions at the Jewish Hospital and McGill University.
After graduating from Westmount High School in Westmount, Quebec in 1981, Harris attended Howard University in Washington,
D.C., where she majored in political science and economics. Harris returned to California, where she earned her Juris Doctor (J.D.)
from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in 1989. She was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1990.
Harris served as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, from 1990 to 1998. In 2000, San Francisco's elected City
Attorney, Louise Renne, recruited Harris to join her office, where she was chief of the Community and Neighborhood Division, which oversees
civil code enforcement matters
She receives non-stop positive coverage from what is usually considered “establishment media” such as CNN, MSNBC and CBS.
Numerous centrist politicians such as Newsom and even more progressive establishment politicians such as Barbara Lee have
endorsed her.
She is not supportive of populist left policies such as Medicare-for-All.
She has recently rolled back her support for the idea in an interview with CNN in favor of a policy most people in the
left would categorize as “Medicare-for-More”
I’m certain that as time rolls by you’ll see more and more of the Democratic Party’s
“establishment” begin to endorse establishment candidates such as Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, this combined with the fact that she
rejects or is rolling back from many popular progressive position, signify that she is indeed at the very least an establishment
politician and with all the positive press she gets in comparison to anti-establishment candidates such as Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth
Warren, she is definitely the pick for the establishment….
At least until Joe Biden announces that he’s running.
In a side note, if Joe Biden announces a week or so after Bernie announces he’s
running, that was probably a calculated move to add resistance to the progressive movement as Bernie enjoys support in the Midwest
and Northeast, both places where Biden is likely to siphon votes from.
Edit: I used centrist and establishment interchangeably, this was a mistake. However,
the old guard of the Democratic Party (the establishment) is by and large more centrist than the new progressive wing of the Democratic
Party, but not all establishment politicians are centrist, although they usually are.
John Wagner, Owner. Refined Petroleum Transport Nd Oilfield at Wagner Trucking (2013-present)
If she is it’s a mistake. Only one or two declared haven’t signed in wide eyed
and stupid to everything that gets tossed out there. Kamala is not one of them. Too many Pinocchio’s on a regular basis. If the right
person asked her if she was for Female Genital Mutilation she might simply say that she wasn’t going to interfere with religious
beliefs. She’s that much of a pandering fool. She is very unlikable, tell you sorry.
The political fervor in this country is huge. Since most of these announced hopefuls
are coming out with virtually the same platform they will only be left with mud slinging on the campaign trail. That is why incumbents
usually win. When a crowded field is done with the bloody battle to get the nomination the opposition simply comes in for the kill.
Joe Biden will be the elites preference. Joe has way too much baggage though.
He controls more dirty money than the Clintons. At least a couple billion. His problem is that while he has never been prosecuted
for the misdeeds of his family his families business is out there in the wind and internet for everyone to see.
Following up on #191. Jake Sullivan is about to become even more important.
He is entirely a creature of Hillary. So is the Harris a creature of Hillary. We all know
how Harris got her start in the DA's office. Willie Brown speaks freely about that and Harris
quietly confirms. Once it is established what you are only the price needs to be negotiated.
Harris moved to the national stage entirely on her relationship with Hillary. No one voted
for her in primary, no one is impressed by her, she has never accomplished anything. She has
few friends, if any. My presumption would be she did for Hillary exactly what she did for
Willie Brown.
Try to remember Hills as SoS. All she had was swagger. When out of her depth, which was
always, she passed the ball to Sid and Max Blumenthal, to Chris Steele, to Huma Abedin. Lots
of reliance on Huma. Also relied on Jake Sullivan. Who was just a kid then and is still all
of 44 years old. Who has never done anything but swamp life.
We don't hear much from Hills. She is sick and she is drunk. When Harris gets handed the
big job and there is a crisis she is going to run to momma Hills. And be managed by Jake
Sullivan. Who is an idiot. We can only hope he is less truly fond of war than Hillary, the
pressure from the two women is going to be there.
A little more about Harris. She grew up in Berkeley. Her father spent her early childhood
years teaching at Urbana and at Northwestern. And then divorced mom when the girl was seven
years old. That little girl still has a lot of anger. And has pieces missing that never came
from dad.
Biden talks about systemic racism yet it hasn't stopped people getting placed in high
positions any where in the USA in decades and we're likely to see a female black (if she's
really black) president by the end of 2021 and let's not forget
she's so oppressed that she didn't personally get a single vote.
Joking about convicts being mistreated would have been in bad taste coming from anyone, but
was especially egregious given her particular record. Considering that Harris's campaign was
arguably sunk by that same heinous history after rival and Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
reminded the American electorate of every unsavory detail on live television during one of the
Democratic primary debates, that little "joke" summed it up better than anything she
ever said in public. In casting herself as a warrior for the underdog, the California senator
had merely laid bare her own privilege, alongside her utter lack of empathy and the absence of
a single genuine bone in her body.
Indeed, given how many times she's been caught in lies that were insulting precisely because
they were so inconsequential, it's a colossal irony that the Post chose to remove one of the
rare genuine moments from the newly-inaugurated VP. From plagiarizing Martin Luther
King Jr. with a claim she had, as a small child, raised a pint-sized demand for
"fweedom," to waxing nostalgic about her family's Kwanzaa "traditions"
that could only have taken root before the holiday even existed, Harris's personality is a work
of fiction.
Harrythefly 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 03:34 AM
Nicely written. She comes across as all career politicians do. Ruthless with the truth,
ruthless with people who get in their way and a cardboard cutout halo perched above her head.
shadow1369 23 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 12:00 PM
The fact that Bidet was loathed by most dems, and only nominated as a result of more DNC
manipulation, and that he then chose heelsup as his running mate, although she too is loathed
by most dems, proves that they knew in advance that the 'election' would be rigged. Between
them they did not have thge support of 10% of dems, let alone any decent Americans.
RealWorld1 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 06:37 AM
"Harris's personality is a work of fiction". Not only hers.
hist0rian 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 07:46 AM
she reminds me so much of ex-prince harry's wife.. and its NOT a compliment
Yurod 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 04:43 AM
Americans are cowards , they only know how to bomb countries without AA defense and kill
civilians in third world countries. These guys stole elections and now urinate all over them
and americans are like "look whats going on can you believe this". no one with guts to do
anything!
TeleAnagram2 Yurod 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 04:55 AM
they put flouride in our water...forgive us please....
injected 12 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 11:16 PM
Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. This alliance between authoritarian
government and massive tech monopolies is very frightening
Salmigoni 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 09:01 AM
The Woke brigade will certainly strike because you used the correct term of darkness of this
lady. Darkness of her mind and soul. Not her skin. Lol
White Elk 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 06:13 AM
In order to be a real gangster you need to be a bit sadistic and that falls in line with Mrs.
Harris being accepted in the gang of four. WaPo just obey orders. They cannot speak evil of
the ruling mafia. They selected the staff based on their degree of cowardice.
Daffyduck011 17 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 05:56 PM
Washington Post = CIA
JJ_Rousseau 23 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 12:09 PM
The one good thing that could come out of this is Kamala replacing Joe early on in the term.
This will allow all to see her as acting POTUS. (I mean acting in the literal sense). Tulsi
Gabbard would be smart to run on the Republican ticket, as there's a huge void in viable
candidates (as Donald Trump demonstrated in 2016). She has a lot of bi-partisan support, and
is one candidate that scares the crap out of the ruling class
Srinivas Injeti 19 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 04:30 PM
Democracy was killed by the msm long time back. It is the people who kill it again and again
everyday by following the msm and believing in their lies even after knowing and realizing
that msm thrives on lies.
was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows
(including on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator. Follow him on Twitter
@georgegalloway
19 Jan,
2021 18:23 It's hard not to wonder if Joe Biden will even last his first 100 days in office...
but those arguing his mind isn't sound enough shouldn't expect a swift exit, because since when
was that a disqualifier?
... ... ...
The madness of Donald Trump had nothing on his Republican predecessor and fellow-impeachee
Richard Nixon. So disturbing were the last days of Tricky Dicky, it came as a relief to America
and the world when he resigned – even though it was famously said his successor Gerald
Ford couldn't chew gum and walk in a straight line at the same time. Bovine he may have been,
but a mad-cow he wasn't.
The Raging Bull Donald J Trump – grotesque, bizarre, unbelievable – had the
misfortune to go quite mad in the age of cable news and social media. His narcissistic
predilections always bordered on personality disorder. But his natural braggadocio stormed him
to victory in 2016 in a backlash against the super-smooth professorial presidency of Barack
Obama, with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton riding shotgun.
Under Obama, the Clintonite deindustrialisation of America became almost complete .
China was presented with America's lunch. And in no less than nine conflicts across the
globe Obama was 'nation-building' in other people's countries while his own country was falling
apart. But a dark storm was gathering
If only the Democrats had not started out by trying to steal Trump's election in a flurry of
pussy-hats and fake Russiagate hoaxes. If only they hadn't striven might and main to railroad
the Electoral College into betraying their mandate and – in the case of
Nancy Pelosi – make a thinly disguised call for "uprisings throughout the country."
If only they hadn't spent countless millions and two whole years of a four year-term with the
Mueller Inquiry and the cockamaney theorem that the man who confronted Russia from Ukraine and
the Baltics through the wrecked INF and Open Skies treaties to the killing fields of the Levant
was, in fact, an agent of Vladimir Putin. If only, if only
As it happened, the descent into madness of Trump was complete by the end. The coronavirus
he derided at first, before predicting it would disappear in the warm weather of spring, before
pondering whether bleach up the bahookie might not be an option as a cure. The Tammany Hall
skullduggery of election day, practiced over a century in places like New York, rolled out
across the country. The political suicide of only half-making a revolution on January 6 dug
his own grave. Nobody ever beat a candidate who polled over 75 million votes before. But
Sleepy Joe Biden did.
And he did it hardly ever leaving his basement home studio, where he painfully struggled to
read an autocue even with an earpiece shrieking the words to him. When he did speak, it was
often gibberish that would have made Ronald Reagan blush. He oftentimes plainly didn't know
where he was, what office he was running for, which woman was his sister and which was his
wife.
When Boris Yeltsin was rattling down, the world endlessly amused itself at the sight of
Russia on its back, legs akimbo with thieves picking its pocket. With Joe Biden, though, the
political class and its media echo-chamber merely look the other way.
Despite Democratic Party control of all levels of Federal power, it seems unlikely we are
about to witness an FDR or a JFK barnstorming 100 days. It seems fair to wonder if Sleepy
Joe will even see out a hundred days in office. It is, however, certain that if he is in office
he will not be in power. Because power has already passed to the cavernous uncertainty of Vice
President Kamala Harris.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Mark Conley 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:44 PM
Thanks for reminding the world that the president of the USA including his puppet elected
office bearers has absolutely no power whatsoever. Well said. Thus you have answered your own
observation at the end. The future is indeed dark and uncertain with the only certainty that
nothing good can be expected from any USA government. Thus the onus is on the peaceful
majority to do what is necessary.
Atilla863 42 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:15 PM
One thing is certain in the new leadership - the debt will go on growing, perhaps reaching
40+ T dollars before the next elections. While this trend continues - the Chinese will be
laughing all the way running to their banks as their economy records fortune after fortune
proportional only inversely to the rate at which America recedes into superpower sunset.
JJ_Rousseau 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:18 PM
I'm surprised at George Galloway's comments, as he is a former MP in British politics. Kamala
in charge? Don't make me laugh. The cabal is in charge, as they have been since Woodrow
Wilson. Before actually, as Garfield was assassinated for shedding light on the banker
machinations. Garfield knew that control of the nation's money was control of the nation. The
coup of America is complete. The POTUS is only the spokesman for the cabal, nothing else
Biden will be much easier to control and manipulate by the Jewish Banking Cartel, which
ultimately controls the US government and Wall Street. Trump was too unpredictable and would
have made it difficult for them to achieve their historical hope. "The Jews energetically
reject the idea of fusion with other nationalities and cling firmly to their historical hope
of World Empire." - Dr. Max Mandelstamm ***We should always listen to the doctors.
Not stolen.....50 states certified, 60 plus courts found nothing fraudulent, and the
electoral votes were confirmed by the House and Senate, with the Senate led by Pence. So, as
the world knows and anyone who knows election laws, the election was one of the most
legitimate ever held in the US.
KarlthePoet 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:10 PM
The Jewish Banking Cartel is ultimately in control of the US government and Wall Street.
They've been in control for decades. Now they've obviously teamed up with the Jewish Big Tech
companies like Facebook and Google in order to gain even more control. Controlling the money,
money system, and the minds of the masses has been their goal. Two Jewish controlled
companies control over $9Trillion of American's wealth. (BlackRock Inc. & Goldman Sachs)
They've finally achieved their goal. The cartel is now in control of a country that is
completely out of control. Karma!
Daffyduck011 KarlthePoet 38 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:18 PM
Ashkenasty banking cartel.
JJ_Rousseau KarlthePoet 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:29 PM
It's not only the banking cabal, it's the media (which the same gang own, of course). This
cannot happen without a complicit media. This is a very old strategy
Blackace180 7 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:49 PM
He'll be impeached multiple times, along with his family. Removed and jailed. People need a
reminder of just how messed up Obama/Biden was and it is coming. The caravans are already on
the way and gas has jumped 55 cents a gallon since the election, for no reason other than it
is Biden. People will run the nutcracker right out of office, hopefully before the country
collapses from his nutcracker policies.
White Elk 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:45 PM
The press-elected.
Xilla White Elk 33 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:23 PM
How did the press elect him?
Franc 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:28 PM
Xilla/Herrbifi, you're not welcome here. We all know what your goals are, and we all know
you're just here to make a pointless mess.
5th Eye 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:18 PM
An Italian bureaucrat once said, "Everything is changed, so that it remains the same." It
will be exactly like that under Biden to legitimate his regime.
The_Chosenites 51 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:06 PM
Since both Trump and Biden are proud zionists, the only thing I am certain of is Israel and
the Jewish community have won another election and we'll see many jewish politicians elevated
to positions of power in the Biden administration. Biden best do what's best for Israel if he
knows whats good for him and his health.
KarlthePoet The_Chosenites 16 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:40 PM
Maybe when Kamala becomes President she can get advice from her Jewish husband, who is a
lawyer. What a coincidence.
Enki14 9 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:48 PM
That Henry Kissinger, long time shadow government puppet endorsed demented biden is a clue as
to what might happen as they know in 2 years the masses will reinstate conservatives and in 4
years another trumpster. We may see sweeping changes, with some huge blowback.
The_Chosenites Enki14 4 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:53 PM
Kissinger has had a bed in the oval office for many a President, he must have been installed
by the Chosennites to stay in office forever. Presidents come and go, but Kissinger remains
to pull the strings. Goldman Sach's et al rule the roost.
Daniel Fernald 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:42 PM
Biden's 100 days are interesting. It's exactly 100 days from January 20 to May 1, which is
the communist May Day.
Skeptic076 Daniel Fernald 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:44 PM
Used to be the American May Day as well, you know? Interesting if you research why it is not
anymore.
Michael Knight 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:46 PM
Impossible to believe he'll be in charge????? That's probably because he won't be!
RCBreakenridge Mike Freeman 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:28 PM
Mike, seriously? What echo chamber are you living in? How can you look at Biden and not
understand that he's little more than a life-size cardboard cutout of the man that used to be
Obama's puppet? He'll be in office as long as they can continue to stand him up for photo ops
and he continues to do exactly what he is told. As soon as either of those conditions falter,
Nancy and friends will roll out the 25th amendment, show him the door and lead KH to the
presidents chair. But make no mistake, the only choices Sleepy Joe will be making are to do
as he is told.
This woman is a real actress. The way she is looking at Biden suggests she s ready to go
down on his nuts. It never ceases to amaze me, cynical and jaded as I am, the lengths people
go to for more power, more prestige and more money which in the ends trips them up and casts
them down.
Only in a nation that had taken leave of its senses would Tulsi Gabbard be denigrated and
Kamala Harris be queen-in-waiting
Michael McCaffrey
Michael McCaffrey is a writer and cultural critic who lives in Los Angeles. His work can be
read at RT, Counterpunch and at his website mpmacting.com/blog . He is also the host of the popular cinema
podcast Looking California and
Feeling Minnesota. Follow him on Twitter @MPMActingCo
In an age where lies are worshipped and cowardice celebrated, Tulsi Gabbard is despised for
her bravery and commitment to truth, while Kamala Harris is lauded for...what, exactly?
Tulsi Gabbard, the four-term Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, is currently being
attacked by
liberals for introducing The Protect Women's Sports Act, which seeks to protect women's
athletics by recognizing that different sexes are born with different physical abilities.
Reasonable and rational people realize that men and women are biologically different.
Reasonable and rational people also realize that on average, men are bigger, stronger and
faster than women, and that just because someone born a male now subjectively "identifies" as a
female, that doesn't alter the objective fact that copious amounts of testosterone were pumping
through their body as it developed, thus making their competing against biological girls and
women in sport not only unfair, but dangerous.
These should not be controversial statements as they are obviously factually and
scientifically true. But objective truth is anathema in our age of subjective insanity. Which
is why Tulsi Gabbard's introduction of the Protect Women's Sports Act is a brazen act of
bravery.
This is why it is so perversely ironic that on the same day Tulsi Gabbard was being made a
pariah for courageously speaking plain truth and supporting common sense, Time Magazine was
announcing that the
empty pantsuit and monument to tokenism, Kamala Harris, and her chauffeur in the corporate
Democrat clown car, Joe Biden, were being honored as the Person of the Year.
If America were a sane place, Tulsi Gabbard, not Kamala Harris, would be the darling of the
supposedly liberal Democratic Party.
Gabbard is an intelligent, principled and charismatic woman of color, something the devotees
of diversity claim to desire. Her progressive bona fides are unquestionable as she vociferously
supports Medicare-for-All, a Universal Basic Income and wants to end the war on drugs and
private prisons. She is also a courageous anti-interventionist in addition to being a respected
Army Reservist and Iraq War veteran.
In contrast, Kamala Harris is a corrupt former "top cop" in California who brutalized the
poor
by being a proponent of the war on drugs yet let white-collar corporate criminals
skate . She is also a neo-liberal militarist who opposes
Medicare-for-All and a Universal Basic Income.
And yet, despite, or more likely because, of all of these things, Tulsi Gabbard is persona
non grata among the dupes, dopes and dullards in the Democratic party and media, while the
sellout and raging sub-mediocrity Kamala Harris is celebrated.
This is not surprising as Gabbard and her fetish for truth have long been a thorn in the
establishment's side, especially with her contrarian foreign policy beliefs, most notably
regarding Syria and Bashar Assad.
In 2017 Gabbard committed the cardinal sin of going against establishment orthodoxy when she
expressed skepticism regarding dubious claims of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian
government in Khan Shaykhun, and, despite being right , was quickly
labeled an "Assad apologist."
She also made the egregious mistake of speaking the truth when she
said that the U.S. had been "waging a regime change war in Syria since 2011."
Nothing will get you a scarlet letter from the establishment faster than telling the truth
regarding America's thuggish empire.
As for compliant Kamala, speaking truth to power is not a sin with which she is intimately
familiar. Kamala is more of a kiss up and kick down kind of girl. She "kissed" up to former
Speaker of the California Assembly and San Francisco Mayor Willie
Brown and kicked down by trying to jail poor
parents of truant kids.
Another glaring difference between Tulsi Gabbard and Kamala Harris is that Gabbard is guided
by principle and Harris is guided by blind partisanship and personal ambition.
For instance, besides the Protect Women's Sports Act, this week Gabbard also dared to cross
the aisle by
introducing the Break Up Big Tech Act, which supported Trump's initiative to repeal Section
230, which gives legal immunity to large social media companies. Gabbard did this because it is
the right thing to do, even if Trump supports it.
As for Kamala, she is allergic to principles beyond personal ambition. Kamala will not take
on big tech, as they are her donor base and she is a junkie for their money and a corporate
power courtesan. One should not expect a Biden-Harris administration to move in any way shape
or form against Silicon Valley.
Another argument in favor of Gabbard's superiority over Harris is that the one time the two
women went head-to-head was in the Democratic primary debates, and Gabbard eviscerated
Harris so decisively that it stopped Harris' presidential campaign dead in its tracks.
This week's state of affairs proves that America is a madhouse, and the media, Time Magazine
and their ridiculous and grammatically incorrect "Person of the Year" selection included, are
funhouse mirrors used to further distort our already deranged sur-reality.
In these United States of the Insane, the inmates are running the asylum as American
militarism and corporate power are now deemed benign, it is declared gender doesn't exist, and
Kamala Harris is worthy of celebration while Tulsi Gabbard is deserving of denigration.
America always gets the leadership it deserves, and when Joe Biden falls, or more likely
gets pushed, down a flight of stairs and Queen Kamala ascends to the throne, we will get what
we deserve. And that certainly isn't a person of the quality and worth of Tulsi Gabbard, that's
for damn sure.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
carlus 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 04:23 PM
Good essay. My question is why she endorsed Biden, which immediately compromised her
intellectual honesty and contradicts her previous decisions to buck the DNC and powers that
be. It is puzzling and disturbing. The practical implications are that by so doing, she
didn't allow a chance for her growing supporters and the country to overcome impending,
rapidly approaching disaster, in many forms. In other words, Tulsi was the last hope and it
is now too late. She didn't realize this.
Hanonymouse carlus 1 hour ago 12 Dec, 2020 06:40 PM
Because she probably wants to run again in the future, so she has to keep the party happy.
TruthSpeak carlus 14 hours ago 12 Dec, 2020 05:55 AM
I was surprised she endorsed Biden, I did not know she did that. I felt she was the only hope
of sanity in this whole mess. I do hope she keeps pushing forward.
Anton Moric 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 03:42 PM
Spot on article that sums up the current situation in the USA quite well. Gabbard is a
rational hero, who is also strongly against the US Deep State's endless wars against the
perceived enemies of Israel. Another reason that the cabalists have unleashed their dogs on
her.
Rocky_Rambler Anton Moric 23 hours ago 11 Dec, 2020 08:33 PM
I agree this was very well-written, and right on the money. I loved the phrase, " the empty
pantsuit and monument to tokenism, Kamala Harris, and her chauffeur in the corporate Democrat
clown car, Joe Biden "
Richi777 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 03:54 PM
Good article. Tulsi Gabbard is certainly the one to watch for the next election. Although the
swamp and or the deep state might have other ideas.
skizex Richi777 14 hours ago 12 Dec, 2020 05:50 AM
Doesn't help that she is CFR
Russian_Bot Richi777 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 07:32 PM
In 4 years, it'll be, then, the incumbent President Kamala Harris and whoever the
establishment appointed to be No 2. Tulsi has no chance. I believe that by the next election,
the US is going to become, effectively, one-party nation. As of now, she is the only one who
could be a compromise figure for the centrists and moderates on both political sides. But
she's too independent and unpredictable for those who have high stakes in the future
elections outcome and are able to finance her campaign.
Je suis CHUMP 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 03:43 PM
"Only in a nation that had taken leave of its senses would Tulsi Gabbard be denigrated and
Kamala Harris be queen-in-waiting" Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen. I'm waiting for 2024 when Tulsi
Gabbard winning the presidential race, or VP position on Trump-Gabbard ticket.
Teodor Nitu Je suis CHUMP 22 hours ago 11 Dec, 2020 09:22 PM
"... VP position on Trump-Gabbard ticket." That's exactly why she endorsed Biden, to dispel
the notion that she was a 'Trump supporter in disguise', as she was beginning to be painted
by some leftist extremists.
carlus Je suis CHUMP 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 04:12 PM
Gabbard has talked to Trump about issues. I think she tried to convince him that the climate
crisis is real. He either believes this and lies about it for political reasons (she would
find this repulsive ), or doesn't believe it and therefore is (and she would have a problem
with this as well) too willingly ignorant to listen to reason.
Rolf001 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 05:10 PM
Speaking the Truth in Times of Universal Deceit is a Revolutionary Act (George Orwell). Tulsi
represents exactly what Orwell meant.
Jose Francisco 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 07:32 PM
love the pincipled Tulsi. altho i did lose respect for her for her endorsement of BIden.
still, i can forgive her, i mean, look at her, she's committed to the truth, brave and
beautiful.
BluDiva 8 hours ago 12 Dec, 2020 11:51 AM
I considered Gabbard one of the few, honest, intelligent politicians of our time. She invited
the wrath of her corrupt party, which stands for anything but honesty and intelligence.
However, her endorsement of Biden stands in strange opposition to her intellectual/political
persona.
bbob412 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 08:09 PM
The treatment of Tulsi Gabbard is a tell tale sign of how corrupt the DNC has become. She has
more integrity than the lot of them. It's scary how easy it is for the DNC to make good
people look evil. A little partisan politics and a lot of bad and misleading press goes a
long way in this country of half wits though.
TheFishh bbob412 22 hours ago 11 Dec, 2020 09:43 PM
The DNC is so backward and demented that it won't consider anything new to the point that it
will force-feed a candidate that isn't all that popular.
Happylistener 23 hours ago 11 Dec, 2020 08:25 PM
She is straight, she is honest ( as far as we can see) she's the guts to stand up to the
bullies, lots of them. She has an opinion that reflects the ideals and ideas of her targeted
voters. Why are the DNC so afraid of her ? She doesn't flop like Bernie, she's not afraid of
The Hillary mob. Unfortunately, she can't get the big bucks that get you into power. I wonder
why? No war, no bucks ! Keep at it Tulsi Gabbard. You have guts.
Midnight10 19 hours ago 12 Dec, 2020 12:15 AM
How very true. Unfortunately since both parties rely on their funding from the
military/industrial complex, there will never be a candidate that would be acceptable if they
were not a warmonger. She spoke truth to power and turned the drumbeating msm against her.
She would have made a difference as VP. Kamala has her own agenda, and seems to love the
sound of her own voice. Has alot in common with Trump. Has already told BiBi there will be no
preconditions when the US deals with Israel. May get a illegal settlement named after her
yet.
..."A total of 1,974 people were sent to state prisons for marijuana-related offenses
during Harris's 2011-2016 tenure as the Golden State's lead prosecutor, the Washington Free
Beacon reported." MOSTLY blacks.
...Now, as for Harris - it appears to me that she is in legion with the USAi incarceration
racket and throughout her career has, by judgements, administrative decisions and directions
set out to deprive individuals of their liberty and income by mandating jail terms for
misdemeanors.
As a Black man, I learned my lesson about getting excited over a Black person being in the White House with Obama's
deeply disappointing presidency. Never again.
She wasn't put on the ticket for the "black vote." She was put on because Wall Street wants her to be president. Source:
wall street campaign donations.
And yet "Black Hillary" is now just a Biden Heart Attack or Stroke away from being the leader of the Free World...all
because millions of Americans wanted Biden over Bernie during the primaries....oh...that and some guy named Barack
making a few phone calls...good luck with Obama 2.0 over the next four years....smh....NINA 2024
From Obama v McCain to Biden v Trump, the good cop/bad cop drama of US imperial politics,
continues.
"U.S. racism is recognized in its overt and hostile (Trumpian and Republican) forms but
not in its everyday manifestations."
I remember when Barack Obama won his first term as US President in 2008. Late that night I
heard a massive noise of joyful screams and applause from the neighborhood, the moment his
victory was confirmed. At that point, I knew we were in for a rough ride. In the immediate
aftermath, my colleague at Trinicenter.com wrote an insightful piece titled " President Barack Obama:
Change...What Change?" that was prophetic of Obama's presidency. Obama was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize, yet his two terms showed an appetite for war-making and violence, albeit
cloaked beneath polished words, diplomacy and the goodwill of many people excited to see a
non-white face leading the White House. Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton oversaw the illegal
invasion of Libya, turning a stable country into a zone of conflict. Critics would describe
Obama as being more Bush than Bush as covert drone strikes were dramatically increased, some
estimate ten times more than what occurred under George Bush Jr. Despite a seemingly tense
relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister, he signed a $38 billion military aid package to
Israel. Under the fancy rhetoric of "hope" and "yes we can," mass surveillance programs
expanded internally and externally.
From Bad Cop to Good Cop
Twelve years ago, the world was good copped/bad copped by Obama and Bush/McCain, and the
cycle continues, as many in the world again celebrate the election of the good guy Joe Biden
over the bad guy Donald Trump. Trump's four years of blatant dishonesty, disdain for basic
science, shallowness, misogyny, race-baiting, and childish behavior has given his critics more
than enough evidence that he is not a worthy leader. Trump as the supreme bad guy rightly
problematizes overt racism while drawing attention away from structural racism and the polite
racism pervasive in white liberal circles. Trump with all his problematic behavior is an
unwitting outlet for racial escapism in which racism is recognized in its overt and hostile
(Trumpian and Republican) forms but not in its everyday manifestations that have been so
central to Euro-American capitalism. Racism is then seen as an evil person phenomena rather
than as a global, national and individual system of rewards and privileges accorded based on
closeness to whiteness.
The euphoria around the victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is reminiscent of the Obama
victory of 2008. While representation and firsts are important and have their place we must be
careful of empty symbolism (or tokenism). For us in the Caribbean women leaders and leaders
that look like us have not transformed the structures of inequality or the complicity of
governments entangled within global capitalism. In one sense it is easy to see how, in the
context of white supremacy and patriarchy the election of Obama then, and Harris now could make
many people feel good. Beyond the shallowness of these symbols, the core structures of unjust
American power do not just continue but are reinforced by the notions of merit, hard work and
the fulfilment of the American dream.
Democrats and Republicans: Two Sides of the Same Coin
The differences between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Republicans are
relatively crude and straightforward in promoting war, white supremacy and US imperialism as
core values. While the Democrats are more measured and diplomatic. Democrats speak the language
of peace, hope and dialogue yet behind this the internal and global violence of a declining US
empire continues unabated. This explains how Trump is globally reviled (understandably so), but
Obama is revered by many despite his record of war, intervention and violence. While Trump was
a clear symbol that something was wrong in the White House, Obama and the Democratic tradition
of governance took the edge off the empire and lulled Americans and people globally into a
state of sleep and complacency.
While the leaders of the Democratic Party extol the virtues of American democracy at home
and abroad, the Democratic Party is anything but democratic. In the 2016 Democrat Party
primaries party elites openly rallied around Hilary Clinton. The blatant rigging of internal
party processes against relatively more progressive party members is a reminder of the
character of the party and why the narratives of change and hope around Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris are misplaced. Yet for those who are still unconvinced, the records of both Biden and
Harris are prophetic about what we should expect.
Biden, Kamala and the Illusions of Change
Joe Biden has spent a career in leading roles in American power structures and his legacy is
anything but progressive and transformational. In 1994 the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act, also called the Clinton Crime Bill or the Biden Crime Law was passed. Joe
Biden was influential in this law that was instrumental in overwhelmingly targeting and
incarcerating people of color. He supported the illegal US invasions of both Afghanistan and
Iraq and the expanded drone assassinations under President Obama. Like Harris , he is a strong
supporter of Israel. His public speeches of healing and unity seem a far cry now from back in
the civil rights era where he opposed busing and desegregation.
Kamala Harris' ascendency to power may seem to be an example of hard work and the shattering
of a glass ceiling that hold women back. However, for anyone truly interested in justice her
record is not the example on which transformation can be built. During her time as District
Attorney and Attorney General Kamala Harris is credited with a Back on Track program (aimed at
keeping young offenders out of jail), an open justice database (for public access to crime
statistics) as well as implicit racial bias training for cops. Yet, while Harris has positioned
herself as progressive and a reformer, beyond a few initiatives her record is one of upholding
the status quo. Harris pioneered a truancy bill that aimed to punish and jail parents of
children who missed school with little consideration of the
sociopolitical context that truancy occurs in. After the Supreme Court ruled that
California reduce its overcrowded prison population that was suffering starvation and inhumane
treatment, Harris' office argued that this would reduce the prison labor pool. Harris is on
record pledging
unconditional support to Israel who, empowered by the strategic and special relationship it
enjoys with the United States openly defies international law and numerous UN resolutions
around human rights abuses. According to columnist Vineeta Singh: "Kamala Harris' career
shows us how, if we use our privileges correctly, play by the rules, don't scare white people
by making radical claims (for example, that poor Black people matter every bit as much as any
wealthy person); if we are willing to put our smiling "diverse" faces as stamps of approval
onwhite supremacist policies, we too can be the face of white supremacist mass
incarceration."
"Her record is not the example on which transformation can be built."
If the record of both Biden and Harris are anything to go on, then we can expect four years
of little change to the internally and globally violent US State beyond smiling diverse faces,
platitudes and inspirational meme-worthy gestures and words. Beyond the feel-goodism of the
Biden and Harris leadership, there are many people within the US and globally who are
negatively affected by US policies. Mass surveillance and erosion of privacy, systemic racism,
police brutality, US imperialism and intervention, unbridled neoliberal capitalism and the
ongoing industrial prison complex are all ongoing issues that are affecting the global village.
The embeddedness of both Biden and Harris in American neoliberal capitalism that easily
prioritizes power and profit over people and the environments suggest that we be cautious about
the hope and change that they allegedly represent. Biden and Harris offer us a very different
approach to Trump, reminding us that US imperialism does not have to be white, loud, hostile
and belligerent. It can be brown, soft, polite and diplomatic.
Tye Salandy is a sociologist residing in Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. He can be
reached at[email protected].
It's not misogyny to point out Kamala Harris' many failings men and women alike should be
fearful if she becomes president
Corporate 'feminists' are
lumping in legitimate opposition to Democrat Vice President-elect Kamala Harris with an
eruption of misogyny from the 'Manosphere'. But it's her indefensible policies that should
really concern women.
The 'Manosphere' – an ecosystem of blogs, message boards and Discord channels
populated by unabashed male chauvinists who believe women shouldn't even be voting, let alone
serving in office – is terrified by the prospect of Kamala Harris becoming the US' first
female president. So says Jezebel, at least – the bible of corporate feminists and
identity politics enthusiasts with two X chromosomes.
The idea that Joe Biden, who turns 78 on Friday and would be the nation's oldest-ever
president if inaugurated in January, will be pushed to the side (or suffer further mental and
physical deterioration) and Harris given the reins is framed in last
week's article as "part of a paranoid fantasy about gynocentric 'pinkout' of 'femoid'
political control," a testosterone-addled fever dream.
Yet the possibility of Biden stepping aside to hand Harris control is hardly a conspiracy
theory. In fact, it's so mainstream it was
floated by CNN in August, while Quartz wrote an entire article playing out the scenario earlier
this month. Many other establishment pundits have made no secret of their desire to see the old
white neoliberal centrist step aside so a comparatively young mixed-race neoliberal centrist
can take his place, and the candidate herself has been caught in a Freudian slip
referring to the coming " Harris-Biden administration. "
The Manosphere's crime, then, is seeing 'Kamala's technocracy', ushered in under the cover
of a rapidly sundowning Biden, as a negative. While this faction of internet misogynists
represents only a tiny sliver of Harris detractors, Jezebel's pearl-clutching outburst is part
of what is sure to be a multi-pronged effort to tar all opposition to a Harris presidency as an
outgrowth of this woman-hating swamp, whose tentacles have somehow managed to infect even the
hapless progressives who think they're opposing Harris for her policies. Poor things!
Radicalized and they don't even know it!
Those policies, it must be said, merit fierce opposition. A Biden-Harris administration will
have Americans locked down and masked up as soon as possible in the name of quashing Covid-19,
even though the evidence that such draconian measures actually stop the spread of the novel
coronavirus is flimsy
at best (and one recent study suggested they actually
make it worse ).
They have vowed to return to Barack Obama's policy of
supporting terrorists masquerading as 'pro-democracy' forces in Syria while continuing
Trump's execrable
support for Israel's human rights abuses.
Biden has vowed to
veto Medicare for All , while Harris has promised to enact strict
gun control laws – positions guaranteed to make the pair pariahs on both ends of the
political spectrum.
Harris campaigned on her record as California Attorney General, a
record riddled with prosecutorial misconduct, suppression of exonerating evidence, and
outright sadism (how else would one describe the practice of locking up mothers whose children
skip school?).
If anything, it's her policies that are misogynist, not her detractors. She was so unpopular
as a candidate, she dropped out before the primaries even started – yet we're supposed to
believe only woman-haters are disturbed by the idea she'll be president someday?
This tired old tactic of using protected characteristics to deflect criticism from a
loathsome candidate has been deployed by the Democratic Party for the last decade to varying
degrees of success. In the eyes of the establishment, those who recoiled at 2016's warmongering
sociopath Hillary Clinton were motivated by misogyny, and voters who balked at Barack Obama's
'drone lives matter' foreign policy were racist.
It's an easy way to force weak-minded liberals back into line – and shame their
stronger-minded ideological comrades who refuse to back away from their principles. That
Jezebel and its ilk aren't also hammering at Harris detractors for also being racist is
testament to the low regard in which the black community holds her.
The notion that Harris represents the " sisterhood " and women must unite behind her
against the bogeyman of internet misogyny is ludicrous given her record and the havoc she would
wreak as commander-in-chief. She represents the worst kind of opportunism, a careerist whose
'convictions' (pun intended) change with the prevailing winds, who leveraged sex to get ahead
in politics. Should Biden fall and Harris take over as president, it will be one small step
forward for one woman, and a giant leap backward for womankind.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
If I remember correctly, when she put herself forward for nomination as a presidential
candidate, she received only 2% of the vote..... from her own party, and dropped out. All of
a sudden she's the nominated VP and likely the president if Biden finally wins then gets
removed after a short time. Shenanigans of the highest order I suspect. I wonder who she'd
appoint as her VP under those circumstances? Paging Hillary Clinton!
amerebrushhand 7 hours ago 17 Nov, 2020 01:51 PM
Women can be just as psychotic as men. Harris, Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Gina Haspel.
How about that for a dream team?
SuperPindos 7 hours ago 17 Nov, 2020 02:25 PM
The fact that she's a criminal psychopath who incarcerated people by concealing the
exonerating evidence and kept people in prison past the release date, should raise a few red
flags. Not to mention the maniacal laughter, with which she answers any question she doesn't
want to answer.
doctor_garrett 4 hours ago 17 Nov, 2020 04:49 PM
Kamala is a "Hillary Clinton of color". Just as attorney Ms. Clinton engaged an egregious
conflict of interest with her husband- then Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton in
Arkansas; Kamala did same with her hubby while she was California Attorney General, only with
roles reversed (see N.Y. Times story). Naturally, both use the red herrings of race, gender,
& xenophobia to cover their tracks.
The Democrats are praying Biden even makes it to late January. A husk of a man. What the
party is doing and what his family is doing to him is simply elder abuse. Any speaking of how
he will hold on at least a year are just dreaming out loud.
Harris ended her primary candidacy after being eviscerated by Tulsi Gabbard. It took maybe
thirty seconds of microphone time for Tulsi and then Harris was down for the count. She has
shown nothing since then that makes her look like more than fluff. And of course we know she
is for sale, Willie Brown told us so and she has basically confirmed that. In every sense she
is for sale and has never had anything else to offer.
A week ago I was pretty sure any still extant Trump allies would desert the sinking ship.
He is still a client no lawyer would want. Right now he might be up to a measurable sub- 1%
chance. It will have nothing to do with facts or law. There will be no discovery, there will
be no determination of facts. Election 'facts' are designed to be slippery. Election judges
do not attempt to arrive at a determination of facts. They sniff the wind.
Heard a peep out of Hillary lately? Where is Obama hiding? Where is who hiding Joe?
The Polyannas and zombies on this thread will likely get their wishes. When Joe or a
facsimile is President there will be 70 million who just don't believe it. Just keep on being
cavalier and dismissive and arrogant and superior. See how far it gets you.
Biden hasn't won anything. And Kamala is like a vulture hanging over the soon to be dead
Biden if he alleged does win so that whatever it is can take over as President.
"Former San Francisco Mayor
Willie Brown addressed his past extramarital relationship with U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris in his
weekly column Saturday, saying he may have boosted the
presidential hopeful's career.
"Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago," Brown wrote in the San Francisco
Chronicle.
"Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I
was [California] Assembly speaker. And I certainly helped with her first race for district
attorney in San Francisco."
She f#cked her way into politics and she will f#ck you over if you let her. And lest you
think this was just a victimless immorality, other more deserving public servants failed to
gain political appointments because they did NOT sleep with Willie Brown, the loathsome face
of the Democrat Establishment in California.
The list, included Harris, D-Calif.; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen.
Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; New
York Gov. Andrew Cuomo; New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio; former Virginia Gov. Terry
McCauliffe, among others.
Aubiekong , 48 minutes ago
The problem is the FBI knows Joe is a traitor. They know he sold us out. They know about
the child sex rings. They help provide cover and clean up the messes for the elite...
gordo , 45 minutes ago
Hunter's laptop reveals
Joe Biden gets a 10-50% cut of the loot
Hunter exposed himself to his 14 year old niece Natalie while smoking his crack pipe and
texted Joe about it.
Joe Biden gets a cut of the Burisma loot
Joe Biden gets a cut of the Chinese loot
The CCP has all the dirt on Joe that makes Epstein look like amateur hour.
am I missing anything?
karzai_luver , 42 minutes ago
In Delaware Just the non reporting/coverup of the underage girl stuff with a known crack
freak in the house is and was a crime.
You would be in jail and the minor would be taken out of danger until the crack fiend was
removed.
LEO in Delaware need to serve time as well as FBI and any others who allowed the child
abuse.
Aubiekong , 1 hour ago
Problem being 99% of our elected congress is guilty of the same thing. Using their office
to sell out and become rich. There is zero support from the Republicans on this. Trump stands
Alone against the corruption. VOTE TRUMP our lives depend on it.
BugMan , 1 hour ago
Every country, every foreign politician or political faction, and every corrupt oligarch
or business that paid for access has the emails, notes, receipts, itineraries, fund transfers
, and maybe even photographs or recordings. And that makes Joe Biden a
national security risk.
He accepted Harris because Obama told him to as a condition of support. Biden will resign
after two years and Harris will assume teleprompter reading duties for the same old Obama
crew.
The script is more obvious than most Netflix programming.
As a former prosecutor you think Harris would have known better than jumping into this
dumpster fire.
At appears the desire to become the President has a lot of pull.
ze_vodka , 2 hours ago
She's not a prosecutor... She's a ho. That's all she's ever been... and that's all she
wants to be... Right now she's hoping to be a ho of a president too... note all lower case
there.
P Dunne , 1 hour ago
The problem for Republican's is Joe Biden didn't break any laws.
Unlike Trump who is defending himself on racketeering today and has been found guilty of a
variety of charges involving fraud at the Trump Charity..
For starters, anything coming from SDNY is automatically suspect. That is the most
political court ever.
Second, Hunter's emails say his pop DID break the law. If you neverTrumpers would get your
party to stop interfering with the primaries, the Dems would prolly put up a candidate who
would beat Trump.
"... Corporate Democrats' anxiety and fear that they could lose control over the party became quite evident during latest party convention, as they tried hard to "bury" their own progressives while gave plenty of time to neoliberal Republicans and war criminals to speak. ..."
globinfo
freexchange
As we explained
previously, what we see now in the United States with Trump, is a counter-attack by the part of
the American capital against the globalist faction. The faction that is primarily consisted by
the liberal plutocracy. Therefore, as the capitalist class splits, the capitalists around Trump
are now taking with them the most conservative part of the American society, as they need
electoral power. They have the money and their own media network. Their first big victory was
Trump in the US presidency and this explains why the liberal media attack him so hard and so
frequently.
The COVID-19 pandemic added more chaos in the ongoing civil war between capitalists and (as
always), the working class is paying the price for the additional mess.
The DNC
establishment fought hard, one more time, to get rid of Bernie Sanders in order to impose its
own - fully controllable and fully dedicated to the neoliberal status quo - Joe Biden/Kamala
Harris duo. Obviously, this was an attempt by the corporate Democrats to challenge and beat
Trump without harming neoliberal order through a Socialist like Sanders in the leadership of
the Democratic Party. Still, the DNC establishment couldn't take full control of the whole
situation as the most popular progressives, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, renewed their
position in the party through big victories in the 2020 primaries. Furthermore, the progressive
army came out stronger through significant
additional victories like Cori Bush's.
Corporate Democrats' anxiety and fear that they could lose control over the party became quite
evident during latest party convention, as they tried
hard to "bury" their own progressives while gave plenty of time to neoliberal
Republicans and war criminals to speak.
And, actually, this is the main reason that the corporate Democrats want so desperately to beat
Trump in November's election.
With a potential Biden victory the corporate Dems will re-establish their position in the party
against progressives, as they will be able to play the Trump-scare card for four more years.
During that time, they will get all the help they want from the liberal media to bury forever
the most popular Socialist policies. Simply by claiming that the Trump nightmare could return
in 2024. Therefore, they will demand "unity" from all party members under their own terms, in
short, under full restoration of the neoliberal status quo. Under these circumstances,
corporate Democrats will have plenty of time to assist the liberal plutocrats to
take over directly the party in 2024.
On the contrary, with a potential Trump victory the Trump-scare card will be burned for good
and corporate Democrats won't be able to use it as Trump won't be able to have another term in
2024.
In that case, corporate Democrats will receive additional pressure from the progressive wing
and progressive voters, as these will demand radical changes inside the party towards popular
policies. The liberal capitalist faction will face the serious threat to be left without
political power, which by 2024, will be restricted to some moderate Republicans who are
dedicated to the neoliberal doctrine. The dream of the liberal plutocrats to take over
political power directly will die forever.
And this could be proved decisive for the outcome of
the endo-capitalist war between the liberal plutocrats and the Trump-affiliated
capitalists.
David Enrich, the newspaper's business investigations editor, detailed in an article Tuesday
some of the rumors that have been lobbed around by Democrats since the Times reported
that Trump has $421 million in personally guaranteed debt. Some of the theories involve
Germany's Deutsche Bank making loans to Trump because they were backstopped by
Russians.
"But the theories
don't hold up ," Enrich wrote. Deutsche Bank confirms that all the loans in question
remain on its own books. Personal guarantees by Trump, which would allow the bank to seize his
assets in the event of default, ensure that risk is low.
"It is not impossible that evidence will emerge that muddles this picture," Enrich
said. "For now, though, it isn't very complicated."
That hasn't stopped leftists from trying to stir up intrigue
and innuendo about Trump's debts. Democrat vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been
among the chief purveyors of such drama, including her comments at last week's debate with Vice
President Mike Pence.
"It'd be really good to know who the president of the United States, the commander in
chief, owes money to, because the American people have a right to know," Harris said.
"What is influencing the president's decisions, and is he making those decisions in the best
interest of the American people, of you, or self-interest?"
The problem with that performance was that Harris already knew – or easily could have
known – the sources of Trump's loans. Such information is publicly available in annual
financial disclosures by holders of high office, such as Trump and Senator Harris. Trump's 2020
financial disclosure . Lender names, loan types, amount ranges, interest rates and maturity
dates.
But Harris, who previously questioned
whether Trump owes money to a foreign nation, wasn't alone. In a discussion of Trump's finances
last month on MSNBC, US House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi questioned what leverage Russian President Vladimir Putin has over Trump.
"Well, what's the connection?" she asked. "We'll see. But the fact is, whatever it
leads to, the fact is over $400 million in leverage that somebody has over the president of the
United States."
Rolling Stone magazine declared, "Trump's massive debts are a national
security crisis ." The magazine's theorizing included this line: "If Vladimir Putin,
for example, can backchannel a loan or a handout to the president, how hard is Trump going to
be on Russia?"
Journalist Michael Tracy pointed out that Enrich is the New York Times staffer who
specializes in Trump's finances. That the newspaper would admit that there's no evidence Trump
is financially beholden to the Kremlin came as a surprise to Twitter commenters.
"Can't believe NY Times could publish this," one observer said. "I'd expect they
say, 'No evidence to prove Trump doesn't owe money to
Russia.'" Another tweeted, "Then WTF was the last three f***ing years about? Why did the
Democrats put the American people through Russia-gate ?" Still
another noted, "Sadly, the damage has already been done, and there are already a lot of
simpletons that believe the
president is an agent of Russia."
But anti-Trump commenters aren't letting go of the belief that there must be financial foul
play. "Every knows the dirtbag doesn't owe money to
Russia," one observer said. "Now, figure out who he does owe money to." Another
said, "Right, nothing sketchy about the Deutsche Bank loans."
In the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, 150 Democratic Party loyalists flocked to a
strategy meeting hosted by far-left group Media Matters. Democrat donors, and activists,
who were reeling from Hillary Clinton's stinging defeat, used the confab to draw up the
blueprint of the "resistance" movement.
In attendance was Hillary Clinton's
senior advisor on social justice, Maya Harris -- sister of Vice President candidate Kamala
Harris. Maya Harris led the "Trump's First 100 Days" session described this way on the
conference agenda
:
After winning the Electoral College, Trump has the legal authority, but his opposition
has the moral authority -- and the moral responsibility -- to resist his policies, corrupt
deals and bad actor nominees at every turn.
Harris knew a thing or two about resistance. Prior to joining Clinton's campaign in November
2015, Harris was
VP at the Ford Foundation during the time the organization began bankrolling
the groups that make up the Black Lives Matter movement.
A little historical background may help explain how America's second wealthiest foundation
has become so toxic. Ford foundation was
founded in the 30s by auto king Henry Ford and his son Edsel as a way to shield the Ford
Motor company's profits from confiscatory taxes. The organization embraced a "socially
conscious" grantmaking role in the 60s. Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute writes
that the charity " sparked the key revolution in the foundation worldview: the idea that
foundations were to improve the lot of mankind not by building lasting institutions but by
challenging existing ones."
Accordingly, the Ford Foundation concentrates its U.S. efforts on challenging the
undergirding of America's founding institutions with its
training and funding some of the Marxist groups involved in the plundering some 140
cities across the country. The recent spate of Black Lives Matter protests and riots has
cost U.S. cities collectively $2 billion in property damage, according to the Insurance
Information Institute .
Meanwhile, in Beijing, the Ford Foundation is helping the Chinese government make money and
enhance its reputation at home and abroad.
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The Ford Foundation is one of a handful of foreign charities currently allowed inside China,
where it has operated since 1979. Their ostensible goal early on was to help China improve its
underdeveloped education and agricultural systems.
But Ford's direction changed when the Chinese government enacted a law that gave
security forces control over foreign charities in 2017. With that, Ford's
work in China fell under the supervision of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship
with Foreign Countries (CAFFC), who is the face of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) foreign
influence agency according to the U.S. State Department .
"The Ford Foundation shifted its approach to grant-making related to China," their China
director Elizabeth Knup told a state-run newspaper in
2019. "We hope that we'll be able to make contributions to helping other countries understand
the role that China can play in the global development process."
Simply put, the Ford Foundation will fund organizations willing to trumpet the marvels of
the China model: the communist, closed, despotic system upon which the People's Republic
operates.
One way the Ford Foundation does this is by funding the Chinese government itself. The China
Development Research Foundation (CDRF) is one of Ford's largest CCP-run projects, which
received $2 million in 2018-19 to "advance good governance for more balanced economic and
social development in China," according to Ford's
grant database .
I am curious whether the Ford Family which is still involved in the company feel about the
Ford Foundations relationship with China and radical domestic terrorists like BLM and Antifa?
Are they complicit? Are they offering passive approval or are is the foundation completely
separate from the car company and the Ford Family? Its not unusual for the genius that
founded and built a company to be a republican and for its progeny who grew up in wealth and
privilege to be elitist Marxists...
That's because you have to go down a rabbit hole of links. Even then, I didn't find it. I
googled "ford foundation blm", and found this: "It's true that the Ford Foundation has
pledged $100 million to the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF), a coalition of social justice
organizations endorsed by Black Lives Matter.". So, not BLM, but an org that BLM approves of.
Ooh, the big bad boogeyman, social justice! The horror!
But Ford's direction changed when the Chinese government enacted a law that gave
security forces control over foreign charities in 2017.
Good for China, they actually believe they run their own country and don't allow foreign
institutions, organizations and secretive societies to gain any influence in China. No
foreign NGO, no Christian Church, no Masonic brotherhood should have any influence in your
own country. So good on the Chinese, I wish we had a law like this in America.
And so both sides practice destabilization campaigns then?? China supports BLM thugs and
rioters through an American NGO, and the US State Department supports Hong Kong thugs and
rioters through their American NGOs. Maybe ban American NGOs??
Allowing foreign actors to use powerful agencies to manipulate your state is indeed dumb.
But CCP China has long taken a centralizing view on domestic, organically developed
traditional structures too. China has too much cultural power in too few hands and America is
imitating this in a way now.
" And now, America had elected a black man to the highest office in the land."
Obama is not the first black president. He is black on the outside, but a white liberal on
the inside. The same is true of Kamala Harris. The first black president would be someone
like Tim Scott or Al Sharpton. Someone who grew up in African American culture.
So, it appears the War on Populism is building
toward an exciting climax. All the proper pieces are in place for a Class-A GloboCap color
revolution , and maybe even civil war. You got your unauthorized Putin-Nazi president, your
imaginary apocalyptic pandemic, your violent identitarian civil unrest, your heavily-armed
politically-polarized populace, your ominous rumblings from military quarters you couldn't
really ask for much more.
OK, the plot is pretty obvious by now (as it is in all big-budget action spectacles, which
is essentially what color revolutions are), but that won't spoil our viewing experience. The
fun isn't in guessing what is going to happen. Everybody knows what's going to happen. The fun
is in watching Bruce, or Sigourney, or "the moderate rebels," or the GloboCap "Resistance,"
take down the monster, or the terrorists, or Hitler, and save the world, or democracy, or
whatever.
...Joe Biden, by any measure, is a poor candidate for the office. After almost half a
century in politics, he's had a career mostly as a political hack who would support any issue
that seemed popular at the time. Similarly, his voting record in the Senate has been that of a
man who supported whatever bill would please his peers and further his career.
Seemingly, he either has no inner core of belief, or he's been willing to sacrifice it at a
moment's notice, if it might help his next election. After forty-seven years of elected office,
he's not regarded as having a commitment to well, anything.
And yet he became the choice of the Democratic party as one candidate after another dropped
out of the presidential race. Clearly this was a party that was not only leaderless, but
couldn't even seem to invent a leader for the sake of the election.
Kamala Harris, his presumptive vice president, dropped out of the presidential race in
December 2019, when her popularity amongst democrats dropped to 3.4%. Since democrats make up
roughly half of the population, this means that less than 2% of Americans would have wanted her
as their president.
And yet, as stated above, candidate Biden announces, "Look, I view myself as a bridge, not
as anything else ."
That's quite curious. He apparently is stating that his only purpose is to win the election,
then pass the baton to the next leader. Presumably, his vice president.
This has never occurred in US politics, although it is true that, at this point, Mr. Biden
may well be too far gone to even begin to handle the job.
And that leads us to the possibility that the deal has already been brokered – that
Mr. Biden would win the election, then have, let's say, a "medical emergency," at which point
he would pass the reins to the new president – Kamala Harris.
Clearly, Ms. Harris could not have been elected on her own merit, as even democrats found
her to be fundamentally lacking last December. Even the more radical elements of the party have
sensed that she is untrustworthy and even dangerous.
At this point in America's history, there's much debate as to whether the president is the
supreme leader, or whether he or she is merely the face presented by the Deep State, who run
the country from the background and give the president his marching orders.
Either way, this eventuality would not bode well for the US. As supreme leader, Ms. Harris,
based upon her reputation, would be an autocratic figure who behaved rather ruthlessly toward
those who failed to comply with her edicts.
But as the figurehead for the Deep State, she would be a very powerful tool, implementing
the loss of freedoms that were passed into law with the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act and the 2011
National Defense Authorization Act.
These two acts, taken together, essentially eliminate the US Constitution in practical
terms. All that's necessary to implement them would be for a highly demonstrative president to
declare a national emergency. Both acts would then be in force.
It would not be difficult to imagine Ms. Harris in this role.
Presently, we're watching a very odd set of events unfolding in the US.
Major cities have seen months of continual protests and even rioting, which apparently have
been very organized and well-funded. In a normal situation, the mayors and governors would call
in the police to quell such riots. Yet we're seeing the opposite. Local political leaders are
consistently hamstringing local police, making it impossible for them to do their jobs, thereby
increasing the extent of devastation by rioters. Rioters are routinely let off with a slap on
the wrist, whilst those who defend their homes from rioters are arrested and charged.
This, of course, is the exact opposite of what the Rule of Law is meant to achieve.
There's every reason to believe that this condition will continue to worsen well after the
2020 election, and at some point, Americans from both the right and left will find themselves
begging for the federal government to step in – to return the US to a state of relative
safety.
Central governments, of course, perennially dislike local policing, as local police tend to
be loyal their own communities. However, federal troops have no such loyalty. They perform as
their superiors dictate, regardless of where they are deployed.
After ample media jaw-jawing over whether the Democratic presidential nominee would loudly
and proudly repudiate some of the present violent protesting in America's streets, Joe Biden
(if briefly) denounced the hard Left on Monday. "Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not
protesting. Setting fires is not protesting," the former vice president said in Pittsburgh, in
a rare day trip from Delaware; he has rarely traveled since the dawn of COVID-19 in the United
States. "None of this is protesting -- it's lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it,
should be prosecuted."
"Violence will not bring change," Biden continued. "It will only bring destruction. It's
wrong in every way. It divides, instead of unites. It destroys businesses -- only hurts the
working families that serve the community. It makes things worse across the board, not better."
And, in the signature line of the speech, Joe Biden summed up a lifetime of political appeal:
"You know me. You know my heart. You know my story. Ask yourself, do I look like a radical
socialist with a soft spot for rioters?"
It was effective. Still, Biden's address Monday hardly tied up all loose ends.
After his speech, fresh polling implied additional trouble for his campaign.
Emerson College , respected in the field, released research that found President Trump down
only two percent in the contest, with a double digit performance with African-Americans and
support among Hispanics nearing forty percent, both surprising. It's one poll, but it's
startling stuff. Since Biden declared his candidacy in 2019, his duel with Donald Trump has
been one-sided.
Despite press incentives to couch the race as anybody's game, Trump vs. Biden so far had had
all the makings of a rout, and without a traditional campaign, even a boring one at that (a
shocking statement on anything that involved Donald Trump). From the president's termination of
internal pollsters last year that showed him to the ex-veep losing badly, to Biden's astonishing,
intimidating comeback in the primary to the Democratic nominee's record of utter political
dominance since crisis opened up in America, it had not been a pretty picture for the White
House.
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But that's now plainly shifted. Some partisans in early summer made the case that
relative administration restraint on violent protests in America's cities (including the
capital of Washington, D.C.) would lay bare the nature of certain left-wing tactics.
Politically, at least, it's beginning to look prescient. While overdone analogies to the mayhem
of 1968 abound -- the Nixon-Humphrey race occurred in a time closer to World War I than the
current year -- it's clear, now, that some devotees of the Democrats are, in fact, undermining
the cause.
Americans are fleeing the
city. Bad news for the donkey: some might argue that's a tacit rejection of liberal
politics. And it's certainly a reality Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien is licking his chops
to exploit. Urban America is almost monolithically controlled by the Democratic Party. And, in
a stunning reversal after decades of urban triumph, the city has become a political albatross.
Biden notoriously made his bones in his early political life as a sensitive ear on the
anxieties, reasonable or not, of white suburbanites. Speculation about senility aside, he would
seem to know what's up.
That's why Biden made a tactical error, in later veering off-message -- after the initial
upbraiding of his own side. He repudiated violence, but then engaged in both-siderism. He
implied the canard that anti-fascist chaos has been met with equal, odious might by the far
Right. It hasn't. The most recent, known victim of political violence was a
Trump-supporting man in Portland, Oregon. Whatever you think of his politics, he was
apparently essentially executed in the streets of a major American city.
Images of burned-out ruins in Kenosha, Wisconsin permeate cyberspace. Add in, for instance,
insane reports (if true) of laser attacks on law enforcement, and it's not hard to see how this
gets dicey in a hurry for the Democrats. The party's monofocus on police killings of
African-Americans, an essential issue, falls flat with the public when there is a failure to
also address the larger toxic brew that is the country's problems right now. So, true to form,
Biden strayed further from his initial path by talking, at bizarre length, about Russian
President Vladimir Putin and the dubious
Russian bounties story, where plenty of regional experts say the dust is far from settled.
"Donald Trump is determined to instill fear in America," Biden closed. "That's what his entire
campaign for the presidency has come down to: fear."
The former vice president then declined to take questions, failing to allay fears that he
only speaks when he absolutely has to.
Senator Harris did not say "riots'. To claim that she did is to promote a clear falsehood.
She said "protests". No American should have a problem with protests.
I don't really like either candidate and was all set to write in another name as a protest
(Andrew Basevich). Here is what changed my mind:
https://cwbchicago.com/2020... Click on the embedded video. This attack was folllowed up
by another vicious attack on a senior a couple of days later:
https://cwbchicago.com/2020...
I am not expecting any miracles in a second Trump term but I am one of many voters who
think Biden is a mere placeholder for the more radical Harris.
Trump's best hope for re-election are a) more examples of urban unrest/local politicians
failing to keep order and b) Biden continuing to show he is losing his marbles, particularly
in a debate. He will probably get both, but he would help himself out by hesitating just a
bit every time he feels like shooting off his mouth, which turns of a lot of people,
particularly wavering voters.
"... According to attempted murder charges, Jaleel Stallings shot at members of a SWAT Team during the riots in May. Police recovered a modified pistol that looks like an AK-47 . MFF paid $75,000 in cash to get Stallings out of jail. ..."
"... Did Harris really think that peaceful protesters obeying the rules were the ones arrested in Minneapolis? Of course she didn't. She just assumed that justifying the unrest would help Democrats' political chances . Now that this has been shown to be false, she is trying to change her position. It's way too late for that. ..."
Three months ago, Kamala Harris asked her 3.7 million Twitter followers (now 5.4 million) to
contribute to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, whose mission is to 'help post bail for those
protesting on the ground in Minnesota.'
Yet, as Fox 9 News in Minneapolis notes, the MFF has bailed out violent criminals who were
rioting in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd, a black man who had a '
fatal level ' of fentanyl in his system when he died in police custody , after a police
officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes during a stop.
Among those bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) is a suspect who shot at
police, a woman accused of killing a friend, and a twice convicted sex offender , according
to court records reviewed by the FOX 9 Investigators.
According to attempted murder charges, Jaleel Stallings shot at members of a SWAT Team
during the riots in May. Police recovered a modified pistol that looks like an AK-47 . MFF
paid $75,000 in cash to get Stallings out of jail.
Darnika Floyd is charged with second degree murder , for stabbing a friend to death. MFF
paid $100,000 cash for her release.
Christopher Boswell, a twice convicted rapist, is currently charged with kidnapping,
assault, and sexual assault in two separate cases . MFF paid $350,00 [sic] in cash for his
release.
If Harris ends up as Vice President (or as some speculate, President) of the United States,
will she promote initiatives with a similar lack of oversight - or even worse, which are
actively working to put violent offenders back on the streets?
The Federalist 's David Marcus sums it up as follows:
Harris was so eager to be on the rioters' team that she literally raised money for them in
the hopes that they could be released and foster further mayhem.
That on its own would be bad enough. But the fact that she is now attempting to pretend
she was against all of this violence, and looting, and arson, and destruction from the get go
is an insulting joke . Did Harris really think that peaceful protesters obeying the rules
were the ones arrested in Minneapolis? Of course she didn't. She just assumed that justifying
the unrest would help Democrats' political chances . Now that this has been shown to be
false, she is trying to change her position. It's way too late for that.
Now, Harris has to own this - which is the first thing Vice President Pence should ask her
about when they debate.
It took balls for Carlson to have Anya Parampil on his show last night. He has had her on
before, so he knows what she is like she tells it like it is. He will get shit for that.
I don't think he agrees with everything she said but agrees with some of it.
My gosh! He had to have talking point notes in his call to his VP pick AND he was,
apparently unaware, holding his cell phone upside down. Perhaps he wanted her to see
something on his cell phone but, if so, he would have had the image on screen before
positioning it that way. One would think his handlers would be better at event staging. On
the other hand, perhaps they are deliberating signaling – I really don't know.
I wonder what is going through Harris's mind? How about "This idiot is MY boss?" or "I
wonder when I will be moving into the White House?".
Harris is rightist, in vein of Hillary Clinton, and unlike Hillary, Harris has a rightwing,
frankly racist, record as a prosecutor in first San Francisco, and then as Attorney General of
California.
Can anyone explain to me why Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as running mate?
I find nothing that makes her an attractive candidate:
We just had a summer during which Democrats applauded to Black Live Matters and
cheered anti-police riots. Harris has the well deserved (vid) reputation of being a hard
line prosecutor and is unlikely to be sympathetic to the issue. Stocks of private prison
companies went up when Harris was
confirmed as vice president candidate.
Harris comes from California. She will not attract critical swing state voters.
Her campaign during the primaries was chaotic. She polled at some 2%, about the worst
number of all candidates.
She has little governing and zero foreign policy experience. As Joe Biden has
obviously (vid)
mental problems a more experienced potential replacement would have been more
assuring.
Agreed. If it was about winning honestly they would run with Sanders. The Dimocrats don't
have to win honestly though, unless the empire's oligarchs want it that way for their own
entertainment.
"Obama (black) succeeded, Clinton (female) failed, but the donocrats have convinced
themselves that Trump was a fluke, and tried to convince everybody else it was actually
Putin.
The issue of Kamala Harris's "competence" is absurd. How competent was George W. Bush, hm?
Didn't matter, he did what he was told, end of story. She's diversity eye candy, and will
gladly do whatever her wealthy patrons want her do, while saying whatever sounds good at the
time.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Aug 14 2020 17:19 utc | 2
Blacks vote overwhelmingly (90% plus) Democrat in national elections. Unless the candidate
or running mate is a Grand Wizard of the KKK the black vote is secure. Even then I'm not so
sure. Remember Robert Bryd?
Easy:
1) It was more or less compulsory to choose a Black woman.
2) The democratic party establishment wanted someone who would
reliably do what they wanted.
Pro corporate class is always a prerequisite of any candidate, so it has to be for a
secondary reason. They picked Harris because they want to pick up some of the disenfranchised
Bernie Sanders vote with a person of color. Campaign was afraid they would have aliened too
many of them to the point they would boycott or protest vote with the greens.
The Donor Class is dominated by a certain tribe. This tribe is on the one hand pushing the
"browning" of America at full speed but on the other hand is starting to worry that all these
new brown Americans might not be as enthusiastic in their support of Neoliberal economics and
in support of the Zionist project as white Americans have been for the past 60 years. So this
tribe needs a person of color who they have confidence will support their tribal interests.
This way if anyone attempts to resist Harris, this resistance will be labelled racist.
Harris' husband is a prominent member of this tribe. The Donor Class' biggest fear is that
The Squad will take over at some point. The Squad vs. The Tribe is going to be the fault line
of American politics in the coming years.
So I learned that Kamela Harris undergraduate work was in political science and economics.
The sigh from Wall Street is because Harris is a private finance supporter. Her father was
an economist and so the (private finance = good) koolaid drinking runs deep.
I notice that none have mentioned that her mother is from India originally and having
India ties in the White House while at war with China would be seen as a plus, no?
I agree with b that the selection of Horrible Harris most definitely gives me a gut
feeling that Trump is going to win this one. Of course I could also say why I think the
Democrats chose Harris - they're too focused on selecting someone that Trump couldn't fault
with the commie/anti-police sticker.
Generally, we have resign ourselves to the fact that whether it's Biden or Trump, this USA is
going to get a lot worse before it has any chance to get better. So that makes me make other
projections: what is better, a path where Trump is re-elected, social unrest and general
federal incompetence continues, international alliances unravel at an even faster pace,
disasters and a possible repeat virus strikes with impunity? Or a corporatist Biden, which
throws some morsels to the peasants yet continues the growing inequality, misdirects social
unrest, likely starts another war and is unable to finish even one, mushrooms the military
budget and deficit, yet slows down the isolation of American illusion from its allies? In all
this, I hope for that which causes least human loss of life in the rest of the world, and
(unfortunately) the most human loss. As well as the most abject poverty, human loss and
conflict inside the USA, for a continuing and undeniable humiliation like the Soviets had to
endure post-1991, or the Germans post-WW2, is what that nation needs.
And the fastest way to that, is, unfortunately, now most likely - the Trump way.
"She barely got to the U.S. Senate in 2017 when she began running for president. Before
serving in the Senate, she was the attorney general of California, and before that district
attorney in San Francisco. She has zero foreign policy experience and no economic gravitas.
At a time when even some Democrats are questioning Biden's competence to be president in
light of his advanced age and cognitive abilities -- the vice-presidential running mate becomes
even more important to voters. Before you even get to her policies, Harris doesn't pass the
qualifications test.
The other rule Biden violated was that a running mate should bring something to the table
other than gender, race or ethnicity. The running mate should bring Electoral College appeal.
Harris is from the bluest of blue states: California -- a state that Trump has no shot of
winning. Harris will not appeal to swing states because she is from California, and her record
-- and those of California Democrats generally -- is abysmal on taxes, immigration, law and
order, climate, energy and the list goes on.
California is a liberal laboratory of bad governance and incompetence.
... ... ...
I am mystified by the selection of Harris. Rice was the person who would never throw him
under the bus because she has as much to lose as Biden in a successful Obama spy prosecution.
Not so Harris. The representative from Orlando, Florida, should have been the pick if you were
concerned about the Electoral College. She would have put Florida at risk for the republican
party. An opinion on Naked Capitalism said "Harris was the pick of the Dem Establishment from
the beginning, and once Obama/Clintonites got Bernie out of the way, their initial pick,
Harris, even when she was resoundingly defeated and rejected by the people, found a way to
re-insert her to the top of the ticket. I think this hypothesis is convincing." This seems the
most plausible reason to me. She makes the Grifters who control the democrat party feel safe
and secure.
The op-ed in The Hill was written by a Republican who served in the George W. Bush
administration. And while his main point is a valid concern (her lack of foreign policy
experience), I have doubts that it'll be of major interest to most voters. Besides, what FP
experience did Trump have?
And after all, Biden chose her for her gender and skin color, which will be considered
positive traits to those partisans inclined to be persuaded by demographics. But I definitely
agree that she provides little if any electoral advantage. MI Gov. Whitmer or MN Sen. Klobuchar
-- both from possible battleground states -- would seem to me to offer better electoral
advantages. But alas, they're both white. Perhaps the Biden team felt it absolutely had to try
to staunch any flow of black voters to the Kanye West or Trump camps.
IMO Harris' support of slavery reparations, of providing free health care and education to
illegal immigrants, her support of the Green New Deal and all it entails that has nothing to do
with climate change, her record as a prosecutor and AG in CA, etc., will provide much more
fodder for opposition. Plus, even though she seemed to be far and away The Chosen One early on,
she performed poorly in the primaries. Recall that even Biden didn't win CA - Sanders did by 8%
(she'd dropped out by then).
There's a lot to say about Kamala Harris and much of it does not hold her in a very
favorable light. I want to focus here on a small part, her disturbing history concerning the
abuse of children by Catholic priests. Specifically, whether her actions regarding the abuse
crisis were taken for personal political benefit when she ran for San Francisco District
Attorney in 2003, and later when she was elected to and served as Attorney General of
California. When Harris ran for San Francisco District Attorney in 2003, the Catholic church
was politically powerful in San Francisco and retained strong ties to the city's Irish,
Italian, and Latin American communities -- AND -- the priest abuse crisis was very much in the
news and of serious concern to powerful Catholic prelates.
In the 2003 race for San Francisco District Attorney, Harris defeated, Terrance Hallinan.
Hallinan had previously demanded that the local Diocese provide 75 years of personal files
related to child sex abuse. His efforts on behalf of victims made headlines and engendered
criticism. The files were used to indict several priests, including one priest, Fr. Keegan who
the records show had abused as many as 80 local children over the years. Most of this effort
came to an end in June of 2003 when the US Supreme Court overturned a 1994 California law that
had extended the criminal statute of limitations in sex abuse cases -- the law under which
indictments had been issued against clergy members. Because of the ruling, hundreds of accused
abusers across the state walked free. Because the criminal cases came to a halt, the criminal
accusations made against these clergy could not be tried, and no finding of guilt was ever
made. This left the victims with only civil remedies -- meaning that the priest files held by
the DA were still very relevant to these civil cases. Every effort was made by priest abuse
victims over the 6 years Harris served as DA to obtain access to these records -- Harris never
responded to victims requests and access to the records was never provided.
In fact, history shows that Harris never prosecuted a sex abuse case against a Catholic
priest the entire time she was DA of San Francisco OR during the time she served as Attorney
General for the State of California. Records of sexual abuse complied by the former San
Francisco DA, Terence Hallinan, whom Harris defeated in 2003 were never provided to victims or
their counsel.
After Harris was elected to the US Senate in 2017, priest abuse victim, Joey Piscetelli,
wrote a letter to Harris's successor, current California Attorney General Xavier Becerra
demanding that Becerra open an inquiry into clergy sexual abuse. Within weeks, Piscitelli
received a response and a request to meet with state investigators. Becerra soon set up a tip
line for other survivors to come forward and has demanded clergy abuse records from all 12
Catholic Church dioceses in California. Compare this to the lack of any action on the part of
Kamala Harris over the previous 13 years.
Several other "facts" about Senator Harris should also be discussed -- below is just one --
her relationship to Willie Brown -- there are many more -- especially dealing with her tenure
as Attorney General of California on the substantive issues of criminal justice and how her
response to the mortgage crisis favored the banks over mortgage holders:
As a young prosecutor, Harris "dated" one of the most powerful politicians in San Francisco
and the State of California, Willie Brown, who was married at the time. Brown served in the
state assembly for 30 years and as speaker for 15 years. In 1995 Brown became Mayor of San
Francisco. During his tenure he was accused of creating an environment of corruption and
patronage. See Nasty Race for Mayor Becomes Film Winner Brown won the race and served as Mayor
until 2004. When they met, Harris was 29, Brown was 60. Brown became Harris's political patron
and guided her into public life with appointments and political help especially her race to
become San Francisco District Attorney.
Brown also appointed Harris to two well paid jobs before she became District Attorney: Brown
appointed Harris to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and then to the Medical
Assistance Commission – positions that paid her more than $400,000 over five years,
according to SF Weekly. Brown also gave Harris a BMW. Brown also threw his considerable
political support to Harris in her run for District Attorney of San Francisco in 2003. Brown
later wrote a letter trying to explain it all. Willie Brown on Kamala Harris: 'We dated,' I
'influenced her career'
So far this seems like "small potatoes -- a young attractive woman obtains the patronage of
a powerful man and benefits greatly from the "relationship" -- except for the fact that this
"attractive woman" seems very likely to become President of the United States of America. Given
this history, we need to know a lot more about Kamala Harris.
Kamala does not bring anything to the table in November. She did not do well with regards to
the black votes and finished at 3% before withdrawing from the race with grand humiliation. She
is not popular among the young voters and barely manages ahead of Biden with regards to this
important voting bloc (If I remember correctly, it was 51% for Biden and 53% for Kamala,
according to a Wednesday Reuters poll). It is a big fat lie that Biden picked Kamala to help
him win over black votes. Biden himself did way better with black votes than Kamala ever could.
How pathetic and dismal her prospects are and how stupid the 'brains' at the DNC and Biden's VP
vetting team were for choosing Kamala over Rice or even Warren. If Biden was even remotely
serious he would have picked Warren, heck even Tulsi Gabbard (same Indian-Black ethnic
background) over Kamala. David Axelrod was like, meh..and said Biden played it safe. Trump
described her perfectly for sure and I loved it.
The plan of the Democrats now is twofold: 1. to increase voter turnout nation-wide which
favors the Democratic Party significantly, and the idea of mailing by vote is a big part of it,
and 2. Suburban women votes which usually favors the democratic party.
But the question still remains: Can Kamala positively influence either or possibly both of
these variables?
I think the answer is, likely not. I seriously hope someone remind these fool democrats that
America is not a third-world direct democracy, but a republic with electoral college.
I'm not at all a good political prognosticator, however, I did forecast here on SST that
Kamala Harris would be the pick. My analysis was based on reading the tea leaves that Obama is
the puppeteer of the Democratic Party. The Clinton's time as head honcho has passed. My
forecast is that if Biden/Harris lose, Michelle will top the ticket in 2024. Note how Harris's
candidacy for the Democratic nomination was trumpeted from the ramparts on all channels. She
was surging in elite media when she took Biden to task for busing in the debates. Until Tulsi
Gabbard's epic takedown on the primary debate stage. Kamala got zero traction among liberal
Democratic caucus goers in Iowa. Obama executed Plan B and got Biden to the finish line by
turning out older black voters in the South Carolina primary.
IMO, the presidential contest, comes down to 5 states. Possibly even just two which I posit
are North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Tulsi has provided Trump the framework to hammer home that
Kamala is a phony whose actual record is to incarcerate poor blacks and fight to even allow
evidence that an innocent man was on death row. That's her record. She can claim her
Jamaican-Indian ethnicity and her gender and appeal to identity politics. But she's not
African-American and neither is her record of empathy towards them. Like Biden the architect of
the 1994 Crime Bill, they are campaigning on identity politics when like Obama, they're card
carrying members of the globalist and corporatist Party of Davos surreptitiously pushing the
big government in cahoots with big business agenda that has been the mainstay of both
parties.
Call me an antisemite.
Kamala's husband is Jewish.
That assures her of Jewish campaign money & votes. And influence.
And assures the American public that wars for Israel will continue.
Harris is a weathervane, but that's a plus for now because it will be difficult to pin a
label on her. She is also likely to do reasonably well against Pence in debate, even if she is
overrated as a debater (Gabbard wiped the floor with her). That's really all she has to do
between now and November.
Look at how many words -- including these -- it has generated. All, over something that in
the end, is irrelevant to any US citizen, since their vote does not count.
The show must go on. Keep entertaining yourselves with, he said, she said. Grand ole show
it is too, where everybody gets paid.
The show, the circus, is a running jobs program. Everybody gets paid. The talking heads on
the TV, get paid. Photographers, get paid. The bus drivers, get paid. The carpenters setting
up the podiums, get paid. The electricians, get paid. The political consultants, get
paid.
POLITICS US/GLOBAL ECONOMICSDonald J.
Harris And His Daughter Kamala Harris Now the Democratic candidate for Vice President of
the United States, a historic pick, no matter what one thinks of her, and I know quite a few
people on the left and Dems more generally who are not fans of hers, although many observers
think she may be the strongest VP candidate for Biden to beat Trump and Pence, and I am looking
forward to her tearing current VP Pence to shreds in their debate.
Anyway, as I have noted a few times before here, I have come to realize how old I am because
I know the parents of people running for president, and one of those happens to be the father
of the now-selected Dem VP nominee, Kamala Harris, who was running for prez before she
strategically pulled out early back in January, now an obviously smart move (and I do think she
is plenty smart, whatever else one thinks of her). I have never met her, but I know her dad,
Don Harris quite well, although I have not seen him for some time now.
I first met Don in 1968 when he arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I was
in my senior year as an undergrad. I took Development Economics from him, and he had a serious
influence on my thinking. He was the first faculty member I had encountered who took Marx
seriously. Like his friend Joan Robinson, he is not a Marxist, seeing too many problems with
Marxian theory. But he took Marx seriously and had us read people who had Marxist perspectives
on colonialism and imperialism and how these issues affected poorer less developed nations.
Later as a grad student there I would take Advanced Macroeconomic Theory from him, and he
was even on my committee briefly before he left for Stanford in 1972, where he was on the
faculty until retiring in 1998. He is still alive, and I think 82 years old, or so. He did a
lot of advising for the UN as well as the government of his home nation, Jamaica. Two papers by
him that I think are important are his 1973 "Capital, Distribution, and the Aggregate
Production Function," in the American Economic Review. In this, he provided an excellent
perspective on the Cambridge controversies in the theory of capital, and with Amit Bhaduri,
"The Complex Dynamics of the Simple Ricardian System," 1987, Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Besides showing his links with the neo-Ricardian school of Sarafina, it showed how chaotic
dynamics can arise from that model, something of considerable interest to me.
An unfortunate matter is that apparent the father and daughter are not on particularly good
terms right now. Some of this may reflect actual political differences, with him probably to
the left of her. But most seem to think that it mostly has to do with the apparently bad
divorce between Kamala's parents, with her and her sister going with their mother, who was from
Tamil Nadu in India. BTW, Kamala's sister resembles their late mother, while in fact Kamala
looks like Don.
More recently there was a contretemps over marijuana, which Kamala supports legalizing, even
though she put pot smokers in jail back when she was DA in San Francisco, and even though she
has admitted having smoked pot herself. In an event in New York, she was asked about this and
said "Of course I am for legalization, I am from Jamaica" or something like that. This upset
Don, who is proud of his family background in Jamaica, which is quite elite actually, with him
a very proper person personally, despite his leftist politics. I do hope they overcome their
differences so he can stand up for her, especially given that her mother is no longer around to
do so.
Barkley Rosser
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) , August 13, 2020 8:43
am
Barkley,
If Kamala and her dad mend their fences then maybe you will end up with a hook in the new
administration. Good luck.
Depending upon how one draws the lines (Anarcho-syndicalism is disconnected from all but
the darkest magic markers) then I am probably far to the left of Don, which means I do not
now nor do I ever expect to have a competitive dog in any US political race. This gives me
the detachment to view Biden/Harris as a yuge improvement over the current administration
despite being well short of political sliced bread. Given the political crap that US citizens
have survived since FDR, then it is safe to say that Biden/Harris will be just fine. Whatever
works to retire Donnie.
President Trump and his allies have spent the months since Joseph R. Biden Jr. emerged as
the presumptive Democratic nominee cycling through a variety of messages in hopes of denting
the reputation of the former vice president.
They have called him soft on China and questioned his mental agility. They have tried to
cast him as too tough on crime (at least in appeals to Black voters) and at the same time as
anti-police. More recently, the Trump campaign has framed Mr. Biden, who ran throughout the
Democratic primary as a moderate, as a captive of the "radical left."
And on Thursday morning, the president, who twice mispronounced the word "fatality" during
an appearance on Wednesday, questioned his opponent's mental acuity.
"Joe doesn't even know he is alive," Mr. Trump said during a high-volume one-on-one with
Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network, a sympathetic interview that ended with each
praising the other.
None of these slights have particularly stuck as Mr. Biden has maintained a steady lead in
the polls.
The early stages of trying to define Kamala Harris, Mr. Biden's vice-presidential pick,
have been similarly scattered, while simultaneously infused with charged language specific to
her role as the first woman of color to be part of a major party's presidential ticket.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump continued to ridicule Ms. Harris, trying out another one of his
derogatory nicknames on the California senator -- a practice that some Republican officials
worry will backfire among suburban women who will see such an attack as sexist.
"Now you have sort of a mad woman, I call her, because she was so angry and such hatred
with Justice Kavanaugh," he told Ms. Bartiromo. "I mean, I've never seen anything like it.
She was the angriest of the group and they were all angry. They're all radical left angry
people."
The Biden campaign, for its part, has focused on Mr. Trump's handling of the simultaneous
crises that have erupted in 2020: the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic downturn
and the national protests after the killing of George Floyd in police custody.
On Wednesday, Ms. Harris simply stepped in as a new messenger. "There's a reason it has
hit America worse than any other advanced nation," she said of the pandemic. "It's because of
Trump's failure to take it seriously from the start."
WILMINGTON, Del. -- Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris made their debut as running
mates in a high school gymnasium on Wednesday, pledging to lead the country out of the
coronavirus crisis.
The first full day for the newly announced Democratic presidential ticket offered a
glimpse of how two once-bitter rivals from opposite coasts and different generations will try
to unite Americans around their candidacies. Projecting warmth toward each other, they
sketched out a vision of recovery from the public health and economic catastrophes the nation
is confronting -- crises that, they argued, Mr. Trump has made worse at every turn with an
extraordinarily divisive presidency.
Ms. Harris, a Californian who once served as attorney general of the state, made clear
that part of her campaign role would be demonstrating her skills as a prosecutor to build a
case against Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, methodically detailing what she cast as
their failures in combating the coronavirus, reopening the economy and creating conditions
under which schools could reopen safely this fall.
"Let me tell you, as somebody who has presented my fair share of arguments in court, the
case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut," Ms. Harris said.
"This virus has impacted almost every country, but there's a reason it has hit America
worse than any other advanced nation," she said. "It's because of Trump's failure to take it
seriously from the start. His refusal to get testing up and running. His flip-flopping on
social distancing and wearing masks. His delusional belief that he knows better than the
experts. All of that is reason, and the reason, that an American dies of Covid-19 every 80
seconds."
Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate affirmed what many
progressives had feared: that any potential Biden administration would govern the same way
the former vice president had spent most of his career -- firmly rooted in Democratic
establishment politics.
But rather than revolt, many progressive activists and elected officials stifled their
criticisms and proclaimed their support, reiterating that removing Mr. Trump from office was
their priority. Even those prone to denouncing Mr. Biden and other moderates largely tried to
make peace.
Larry Cohen, the chairman of the Bernie Sanders-aligned group Our Revolution, described
Ms. Harris as "extremely competent."
The declarations of enthusiasm underscore how delicately progressives are approaching this
moment, as they try to balance demands for change with the understanding that Democrats
across the spectrum must unite behind Mr. Biden to defeat Mr. Trump. They are also
negotiating another political reality: that Ms. Harris could be the party's face of the
future, and that crossing her now will have political consequences that did not exist at the
week's outset.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants union and a Sanders ally,
said she was focusing on how Ms. Harris, as California attorney general, had helped secure a
nationwide settlement with big banks.
"When I think about this moment that we're in, and I think about the fact that she was one
of the A.G.s to take on the banks during the financial crisis and to stand up for working
people -- I'm hanging on to that right now," she said. "I can get excited about that."
It's a grainy video clip,
shot in less than ideal lighting.
"Hi. Sorry to keep you,"
a woman's voice calls
out. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States, is shown seated at a desk, listening.
He then says, into a speaker phone.
"Are you ready to go to work?"
Off camera, the
woman's voice replies,
"Oh my God, I am so ready to go to work."
The video in question was
part of a recently released campaign advertisement showing the moment Joe Biden notified Kamala Harris she was his choice to
be his running mate. It was good TV, capturing the emotion and excitement of a decision that has made history by positioning a
black woman to become not only the first female Vice President in American history, but also the future leader of the
Democratic Party and, if Joe Biden prevails in November and subsequently bows out prior to the completion of his term, the
first female President of the United States.
An undoubted achievement
If you're an American
worthy of the name, this should be a moment that resonates. Regardless of one's political leanings, the fact that a black
woman could ever aspire, let alone achieve, such a level of recognition speaks volumes to the reality that the grand social
experiment that is the United States, as imperfect as it is, remains capable of changing for the better.
Let there be no doubt:
Kamala Harris was not given this honor as some sort of modern-day political affirmative-action program. She earned it through
a career of service as a prosecutor at the local, city and state level, as a United States Senator, and as a candidate for
national office who proved herself before a national audience. She is every bit as worthy and capable as any Vice-Presidential
candidate who has gone before.
The question before the
American people, however, is not whether Kamala Harris has a resume worthy of consideration to be Joe Biden's running mate –
she clearly does. Rather, it is whether this resume is the right one for this moment in time.
On this, the answer may
very well be a resounding "no."
Little more than identity
Biden's selection of
Senator Harris was not a total surprise; he had previously indicated he was leaning toward a female of color, and Harris's
stature clearly put her at the head of what was a relatively small field of qualified candidates. US politics, especially at
the national level, is a nasty business, a full-contact sport where the referee rarely calls foul. Any person picked by Joe
Biden would be subjected to a level of scrutiny that would make the average American rightfully balk at ever considering a run
at public office.
In the contentious, overly
partisan political atmosphere of the present, this scrutiny will take on a level of vociferous cruelty unmatched in modern
times. Already, social media outlets have seen a wave of commentary that is overtly sexist and racist in nature. President
Trump has joined in with comments that sustain this line of attack. In the days, weeks and months to come, these attacks will
only intensify, underscoring the reality that, while the American people are capable of nominating a woman of color to be Vice
President, they are also capable of employing the most base methods to tear her down again.
If the contest between
Trump/Pence and a Biden/Harris were simply over sex and race, the November election would be game, set and match for the
latter. But it is not – it's about the future of the United States and, by extension, the rest of the world (in so far as the
policies undertaken by any Presidential administration resonate globally). While the Democratic Party argues – convincingly –
that the Trump Presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for America and the world, what it hasn't been able to do
convincingly is articulate how a Biden Presidency would, or could, result in meaningful change. Indeed, the brand that Joe
Biden and the mainstream Democrats are selling appears to be a repackaging of the platform, policies and personalities that
were unsuccessfully marketed by Hillary Clinton in 2016.
While Kamala Harris's
presence on the Biden ticket has historic significance, it doesn't alter the fundamental issue of content, regarding what the
American people could expect from a future Biden administration. Harris's demographics are not electorally significant –
neither her gender nor her race threaten to shake up the composition of the Democratic Party's core constituency, and Joe
Biden is expected to win Harris' home state of California by a wide margin. The bottom line is that Kamala Harris's record as
a prosecutor and Senator paints her as a middle-of-the-road moderate at a time when the Democratic Party needs to win over a
progressive wing mobilized to oppose Trump, but is left marginalized as its preferred policy positions and candidates are
swept to the side by the Biden political machine.
Kamala Harris will be –
rightfully so – called on to defend her record as a prosecutor. Her takedown at the hands of Tulsi Gabbard during the
Democratic primary debates has exposed her vulnerability on this issue, which is one the Republicans will certainly seek to
exploit. Moreover, given the current political climate in the United States, fueled as it is by social justice issues and
unsympathetic to the pro-law enforcement policies promoted by Harris, the Democrats run the risk of demoralizing a significant
portion of its base right out of the gate. In an election in which the Trump campaign will be playing the 'law and order' card
repeatedly, having a 'law and order' candidate sharing the Democratic ticket may prove to be counterproductive, especially if
a significant number of the protesting class opt out of electoral participation as a result.
No-change ticket
At the end of the day,
however, it will all come down to Kamala Harris herself, and her qualities as a human being and political candidate. In 2016,
Donald Trump shrugged off the kind of attacks on his character that would have sunk any other candidacy and went on to win the
election. There is nothing in Kamala Harris' background that hints at even a fraction of the scandal Trump ended up
overcoming. Trump prevailed because he was able to successfully market himself as a conduit for change. The Biden/Harris
ticket, as it currently exists, is the antithesis of change – in short, many Americans are left with the realization that
nothing will fundamentally change if Joe Biden wins the election.
Faced with the prospect of
no meaningful change in how America will conduct itself domestically and globally, the average voter will be called upon to
vote in what will be little more than a personality contest. Trump, for his many faults, is a charismatic leader with broad
support among an unwaveringly loyal base. Kamala Harris, while possessing a compelling personal story, is not. She can come
off mean and vindictive, and when combined with what can only be described as aggressive posturing, the overall effect can be,
and has been, off-putting. Harris is more of a divider than unifier – a reality that, in an election that's expected, as in
2016, to come down to a few thousand votes in a handful of swing states, could very well prove to be the deciding factor in
securing a Trump victory come November.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those
of RT.
"... Virtually every election brings us change! Change of name, change of faces, change of semantics, no real meaningful change! The 'old guard' behind the scenes are still in place! ..."
"... I thought that by now Martin Luther King words will be honored by having a country where an individual is not judged by their color but the contents of their character. Tired of first black this or first white that. They are all controlled by the establishment ..."
"... I've heard in the Youtube Jimmy Dore Show that Kamala was in charge of corruption investigations, but that she didn't put into trial Joe Biden nor other establishment corrupted figures... That may explain why she has been chosen... ..."
"... Wait, let me check if I got it. A possible new POTUS was selected by her senile master, who is not expected to last through his term, for her skin color and Indian ancestry? ..."
"... Her selection was first & foremost due to her allegiance to the banks, Deep State, MIC, corps, oligarchs, & foreign lobbies. ..."
"... In the primaries Harris didn't win one primary, got 2% of the vote, and only 5% of the Black vote. ..."
"... This article gives her way too much credit. She is mediocre in every way. ..."
California Senator Kamala Harris crashed and burned early in the Democrat primary process,
never recovering from the debate drubbing she took from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. She
became Joe Biden's running mate anyway.
"Tulsi" was trending on social networks shortly after the announcement that Harris
would be Biden's choice for vice president should Democrats win in November. That's not
surprising, since their famous clash from July 2019 was one of the most memorable moments of
Harris' short-lived presidential bid, widely credited with sinking her candidacy.
That day, Gabbard calmly took Harris to task over her prosecutorial past, pointing out
that she was responsible for getting thousands of African-Americans locked up on draconian
drug sentences, even as Democrats clamored for criminal justice reform and racial
justice.
Harris tried to brush that off, insisting she was a top-tier candidate while Gabbard was a
nobody polling in single digits. Yet her ratings never recovered, and she called her campaign
off by early December – long before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary –
citing lack of funds.
With polls showing Democrats favored to win the White House – though they also
showed that in 2016, and things turned out differently – the identity of Biden's
running mate was a hot topic. Biden himself is 77 and even Democrat operatives have been
content to keep him hidden"in the
basement" and speak as little as possible. He is on the record as saying he would not
seek a second term, if elected – and is considered unlikely to serve out the first.
Given all that, it was widely understood that Biden's running mate would be the Democrats'
actual candidate for the top job. Though Biden had already said it would be a woman,
advocates of racial identity politics absolutely insisted that it be a person "of
color" as well.
As part-Jamaican and part-Indian, Harris checks off those boxes – although her claim
to be African-American failed to sway black voters
during the Democrat primaries.
The viral video of the August 2019 takedown of "Kamala the cop" appeared to be
the perfect balm for progressives frustrated by her elevation, coming at a time when
Democrats have widely embraced the calls to "defund the police."
That radical idea arose from the weeks of protests and violent riots following the May
death of George Floyd, an African-American man, in Minneapolis. Soon Democrat-led cities
across the US were declaring that police were irreparably and systemically racist, and needed
to be replaced by social workers or something yet to be "reimagined."
With Harris' entire political career as a prosecutor, it was clear on Tuesday that the
mainstream media machine would have to work overtime to
make her fit into that narrative. Denouncing any criticism of Harris as "racist"
or "sexist" will be just the start.
PublicEnemy_1 16 hours ago
Empty promises of change, same thing Obama touted.
Tex2020 PublicEnemy_1 2 hours ago
Virtually every election brings us change! Change of name, change of faces, change of
semantics, no real meaningful change! The 'old guard' behind the scenes are still in place!
chakraweu PublicEnemy_1 8 hours ago
It is quite a pathetic attempt by Biden to 'woo' minorities.. yeah a half Indian, half
Jamaican senator is supposed to represent black minority in the US? Why not just take
another White person as help all people as expected by the office?
Btw, both parents of
Kamala Harris are highly educated with doctorates from top US universities. How many
minorities do such families represent ?
Madex 18 hours ago
I thought that by now Martin Luther King words will be honored by having a country where
an individual is not judged by their color but the contents of their character. Tired of
first black this or first white that. They are all controlled by the establishment
Blue8ball713 Madex 1 hour ago
Yeah BLM got one problem the B in it. Correct without racism it would be 'Life matters'
getdav Madex 10 hours ago
That's the racist Democrats for you. Remember, they were the party of Jim Crow. Abraham
Lincoln was the first Republican president. All this calling Republicans racist is pots and
kettles.
Pro_RussiaPole 17 hours ago
Seems like the democrats want Trump to win. They keep on selecting such terrible
candidates. They really are a politically stagnant party, with no ideas. Granted, Trump is
acting like a regressive dolt, but at least it's something different. Each day he at least
entertains us with nonsense. Biden just makes you feel old before your time.
ECO SOLUTIONS 17 hours ago
I've heard in the Youtube Jimmy Dore Show that Kamala was in charge of corruption
investigations, but that she didn't put into trial Joe Biden nor other establishment
corrupted figures... That may explain why she has been chosen...
jholf Hanonymouse 15 hours ago
Biden & Harris will bring change all right, 25 to 50 cent raises for every one. Just
like Trump did by draining the swamp and turning it into the garden of parasites,....
uhhhh, I mean paradise it is now.
Sertorio 18 hours ago
Kamala Harris is the daughter of a mixed race Jamaican father and an Indian mother. What
makes her "black", I wonder. And why must Americans always refer to a person's "race", as
if being simply a person wouldn't be enough. In my country (Portugal) nobody would give a
damn about Kamala's ethnicity, and she would be simply considered a good or bad politician.
Our present Prime-Minister's father was from Goa (India) and his mother an European
Portuguese. In spite of his skin being rather dark, nobody in his right mind in Portugal
would call him "black". He is just the Prime-Minister...
Tex2020 Sertorio 2 hours ago
The US is so obsessed by race, we attach color to everything! This too, is an act of
racism!
Odinsson Sertorio 3 hours ago
Kamala Harris is just a bad politician who slept her way into political power. She shows
bad morals and bad judgement.
Paulino Avina 13 hours ago
Why the emphasis on a "woman of color?". Kamala Harris ain't black. She's just a former
prosecutor who victimized blacks, Chicanos and immigrants. Same story here in Austin.
jangosimba 13 hours ago
Kamala has too much baggage, she will be dissected, chewed up, and spit out without much of
a thought. The One Party system in the US doing its usual to keep the people in the dark
and busy chasing rainbows.
Mistermal 12 hours ago
Kamala is the Finnish word for terrible. ' nuff said.
John J Rambo 13 hours ago
America just needs another war. It'll be fine after that.
Sana4va 11 hours ago
I'm just trying to understand America's race categorizing. Her father is black; her mother
is of South Asian descent. what makes her more black than Asian. Her skin tone and hair are
more like Asians. Shouldn't she be classified as Asian? I'm all confused.
Reilly 11 hours ago
Yep, underneath the wrapper is the same ole, same ole.
venze chern 13 hours ago
Biden and Harris lash out at Trump: War of dirty words, fraudulent accusations, ugly
smears, base insults between opposing parties have just begun. Nothing strange, that is the
characteristic and nature of political world, of human obnoxious and unscrupulous chase for
power and fame..
No_pasaran 13 hours ago
Wait, let me check if I got it. A possible new POTUS was selected by her senile master, who
is not expected to last through his term, for her skin color and Indian ancestry?
demsolib No_pasaran 8 hours ago
Her selection was first & foremost due to her allegiance to the banks, Deep State, MIC,
corps, oligarchs, & foreign lobbies. They also needed a Black female, but that's a
secondary qualification.
Dwayne_Dibley 13 hours ago
But he only, ONLY picked her because she is a woman and NOT white. That's Racist.
Tee878 14 hours ago
Obama two or Obama lite but nothing changes as in hope but no change.
jholf Jeffrey Perkins 16 hours ago
One can expect the prison for profit industry to grow exponentially, MS Harris is not a
racist, all colors are welcome into the legal system,...as clients.
ArthurL913 15 hours ago
This is just one loser picking another that was solely based on race and sex. In the
primaries Harris didn't win one primary, got 2% of the vote, and only 5% of the Black vote.
And she's from a far left state that's already in the win column for the Dems, so what's
the net gain? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Does anyone really think people are going to
vote for a demented and incoherent Biden with a VP candidate waiting in the wings who's
only qualifications are her race and sex? Lotsa luck.
Enlightened One 18 hours ago
This article gives her way too much credit. She is mediocre in every way.
"... The Democrats are fielding as candidates a roster of middle-school clowns and unflavored tapioca. Are they secretly in Trump's pay? Like Clinton with her "Deplorables" suicide line? ..."
They're going to do it, I tell you: The whole touchy-feely do-gooding ratpack of Microaggression worriers, reparations freaks,
weird sexual curiosities, race hustlers, bat.-Antifa psychos, and egalitarian enstupidators of universities. They are going to elect
Trump. Again.
Washington, where I shortly will be for a bit, is crazy. It has not the slightest, wan, etiolated idea of what is going on in
America. The Democrats are fielding as candidates a roster of middle-school clowns and unflavored tapioca. Are they secretly in Trump's
pay? Like Clinton with her "Deplorables" suicide line?
"... they promote the nauseating center-right candidacies of the bewildered racist and corporatist Joe Biden, the sinister neoliberal corporate-militarist Pete Butiggieg and even the marginal Wall Street "moderates" Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris? ..."
"... "Follow the money" is the longstanding mantra in campaign finance research and criminal prosecution. ..."
"... At the same time, both U.S. corporate media managers and the advertisers who supply revenue for their salaries are hesitant to produce content that might alienate affluent folks – the people who hire pricey investment advisors, go to Caribbean resorts and buy Jaguars and Mercedes Benzes and count for an ever-rising share of U.S. consumer purchases. It is those with the most purchasing power who are naturally most targeted by advertisers. ..."
Is it any wonder that the nation's "liberal" cable news stations CNN and MSNBC can barely
contain their disdain for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and even (to a lesser degree)
for that of Elizabeth Warren while they promote the nauseating center-right candidacies of the
bewildered racist and corporatist Joe Biden, the sinister neoliberal corporate-militarist Pete Butiggieg and even the marginal Wall Street "moderates" Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris?
Next
time you click on these stations, keep a pen and paper handy to write down the names of the
corporations that pay for their broadcast content with big money commercial purchases.
I did that at various times of day on three separate occasions last week. Here are the
companies I found buying ads at CNN and MSDNC:
American Advisors Group (AAG), the top lender the American reverse mortgage industry (with
Tom Selleck telling seniors to trust him that reverse mortgages are not a rip off)
United Health Care, for-profit "managed health care company" with 300,000 employers and an
annual revenue of $226 billion, ranked sixth on the 2019 Fortune 500.
Menards, the nation's third largest home improvement chain, with revenue over $10 billion in
2017.
CHANITX, a drug to get off cigarettes ("slow Turkey") sold by the pharmaceutical firm
Pfizer, 65th on the Fortune 500.
Tom Steyer (billionaire for president)
Lincoln Financial, 187 th on the Fortune 500, an American holding company that
controls multiple insurance and investment management businesses.
Liberty Mutual, an insurance company with more than 50,000 employees in more than 900
locations and ranked 68 th on the Fortune 500 two years ago.
Allstate Insurance: 79 th on the Fortune 500, with more than 45,000
employees.
INFINITI Suburban Utility Vehicle (new price ranging from 37K to 60K), produced by Nissan,
the sixth largest auto-making corporation in the world.
RCN (annual revenue of $636 million) WiFi for business
Jaguar Elite luxury autos.
Porsche luxury autos, selling new models priced at $115,000, $145,000, and $163,00, and
$294,000.
Mercedes Benz luxury auto, including an SRL-Class model that starts at $498,000
Capital Group, one of the world's oldest and biggest investment management firms, with $1.87
trillion in assets under its control.
Otezla, a plaque psoriasis drug, developed by the New Jersey drug company Celgene and owned
by Amgene, a leading California-based biotechnology firm with total assets of $78 billion.
Trelegy, a CPD drug produced by the British company GSK, the world's seventh leading
pharmaceutical corporation, with the fourth largest capitalization of any company on the London
Stock Exchange.
HunterDouglass – elite windows made by a Dutch multinational corporation with more
than 23,000 employees and locations in more than 70 countries.
Humira – drug for Crohn's disease and other ailments, manufactured by Abbvie, with
28,000 global employees and total assets of $59 billion.
Primateme Mist – for breathing, produced by Amphastar Pharmaceuticals.
Glucerna – drug for diabetes, produced by Abbot Laboratories, an American medical
company with more than 100,00 employees and total assets of $67 billion.
Prevagen – a controversial drug for brain health produced by Quincy Bioscience
DISCOVER Credit Card, the third largest credit card brand in the U.S., with total assets of
$92 billion.
Fidelity Investments, an American multinational financial services corporation with more
than 50,000 employees and an operating income of $5.3 billion.
Cadillac XT-6 high-end SUV, starting at $53K, made by General Motors (no. 10 on the Fortune
500 for total revenue), which makes automobiles in 37 countries, employees 173,000 persons, and
has total assets $227 billion.
Comfort Inn, owned by Choice Hotels, one of the largest hotel chains in the world,
franchising 7,005 properties in 41 countries and territories.
Audible/Amazon – books on tape from the world's biggest mega-corporation Amazon,
ranked fifth on the Fortune 500, with 647,000 employees and total assets of $163 billion.
Ring Home Security, owned by Amazon
Coventry Health Insurance, no. 168 on the Fortune 500
SANDALS Resorts International, with 16 elite resort properties in the Caribbean.
Cigna Medicare Advantage, owned by the national health insurer Cigna, no. 229 on the Fortune
500
SoFi Finance, an online personal finance company that provides student loan refinancing,
mortgages and personal loans.
Ameriprise Finance, an investment services firm, no. 240 on F500.
It's not for nothing that bit Fortune 500 firms are represented in my anecdotal sponsor list
above. Last summer, SQAD MediaCosts reported that a 30-second commercial during CNN's
prime-time lineup (Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, and Don Lemon), cost between $7,000 and
$12,000. The price has certainly gone up significantly now that Trumpeachment is bringing in
new eyeballs.
The three most prominent and recurrent advertising streams appear (anecdotally) to come from
Big Pharma (the leading drug companies), insurance (health insurance above all), and finance
(investment services/wealth management). These giant concentrated corporate and industry
sectors are naturally opposed to the financial regulation and anti-trust policy that Senator
Warren says she wants to advance. Amazon can hardly be expected to back the big-tech break-up
that Warren advocates.
Big corporate lenders certainly have no interest in making college tuition free, a Sanders
promise that would slash a major profit source for finance capital.
The big health insurance firms are naturally opposed both to the Single Payer national
health insurance plan that Sanders puts at the top of his platform and to the milder version of
Medicare for All that Warren says she backs. Warren and especially Sanders pledge to remove the
parasitic, highly expensive profit motive from health insurance and to make publicly funded
quality and affordable health care a human right in the U.S. The corporate insurance mafia is
existentially opposed to such human decency.
Both of the "progressive Democratic candidates" (a description that fits Sanders far better
than it does Warren) loudly promise to slash drug costs, something Pfizer, Abbvie, Amgene,
Amphastar, and Abbot Labs can hardly be expected to relish.
None of the big companies buying advertising time on CNN and MSNBC have any interest in the
progressive taxation and restored union organizing and collective bargaining rights that
Sanders advocates.
The big financial services firms paying for media content on "liberal" cable news stations
primarily serve affluent clients, many if not most of whom are likely to oppose increased taxes
on the well off.
The resort, tourism, luxury car, and business travel firms that buy commercials on these
networks are hardly about to back policies leading to the real or potential reduction of
discretionary income enjoyed by upper middle class and rich people.
So, gosh, who do these corporate and financial interests favor in the 2020 presidential
election? Neoliberal Corporatists like Joe Biden, Pete Butiggieg, Kamala Harris, and Amy
Klobuchar, of course. Dutifully obedient to the preferences and commands of the nation's
unelected dictatorship of money, these insipid corporate Democrats loyally claim that Sanders
and Warren want to viciously "tax the middle class" to pay for supposedly unaffordable excesses
like Medicare for All and the existentially necessary Green New Deal.
In reality, Single Payer and giant green jobs programs and more that We the People need and
want are eminently affordable if the United States follows Sanders' counsel by adequately and
progressively taxing its absurdly wealthy over-class (the top tenth of the upper 1% than owns
more than 90% of U.S. wealth) and its giant, surplus-saturated corporations and financial
institutions. At the same time, as Warren keeps trying to explain, the cost savings for
ordinary Americans will be enormous with the profits system taken out of health insurance.
Sanders reminds voters that there's no way to calculate the cost savings of keeping livable
ecology alive for future generations. The climate catastrophe is a grave existential threat to
the whole species.
These are basic arguments of elementary social, environmental, and democratic decency that
the investors and managers behind and atop big corporations buying commercials on CNN and MSNBC
don't want heard. As a result, CNN and MSDNC "debate" moderators and talking heads persist in
purveying the, well, fake news, that Sanders doesn't know how to pay Single Payer, free public
college, and a Green New Deal.
It's not for nothing that CNN and MSNBC have promoted the hapless Biden over and above
Sanders and Warren – this notwithstanding the former Vice President's ever more obvious
and embarrassing inadequacy as a candidate.
It's not for nothing that MSNBC and CNN have habitually warned against the supposed
"socialist" menace posed by the highly popular Sanders (a New Deal progressive at leftmost)
while refusing to properly describe Trump's White House and his dedicated base as pro-fascists.
MSDNC has even get a weekly segment to the silver-spooned multi-millionaire advertising
executive Donny Deutsch after he said the following on the network last winter:
"I find Donald Trump reprehensible as a human being, but a socialist candidate is more
dangerous to this company, country, as far as the strength and well-being of the country,
than Donald Trump. I would vote for Donald Trump, a despicable human being I will be so
distraught to the point that that could even come out of my mouth, if we have a socialist
[Democratic presidential candidate or president] because that will take our country so down,
and we are not Denmark. I love Denmark, but that's not who we are. And if you love who we are
and all the great things that still have to have binders put on the side. Please step away
from the socialism."
It's not for nothing that the liberal cable networks go out of their way to deny Sanders
remotely appropriate broadcast time. Or that they habitually and absurdly frame Single Payer
health insurance not as the great civilizing social and human rights victory it would be (the
long-overdue cost-slashing de-commodification of health care coverage combined with the
provision of health care for all regardless of social status and class) but rather as a
dangerous and authoritarian assault on Americans' existing (and unmentionably inadequate and
over-expensive) health insurance.
Dare we mention that the lords of capital who pay for cable news salaries and content are
heavily invested in the fossil fuels and in the relentless economic growth that are pushing the
planet rapidly towards environmental tipping points that gravely endanger prospects for a
decent and organized human existence in coming decades?
It's not for nothing that the progressive measures advanced by Sanders and supported by most
Americans are regularly treated as "unrealistic," "irresponsible," "too radical," "too
idealistic," "impractical," and "too expensive."
It's for nothing that Sanders is commonly left out of the liberal cable networks' campaign
coverage and "horse race" discussions even as he enjoys the highest approval rating among all
the candidates in the running.
With their preferred centrist candidate Joe Biden having performed in a predictably poor and
buffoonish fashion (Biden was a terrible, gaffe-prone politician well before his brains started
coming out of his ears) falling back into something like a three-way tie with the liberal
Warren and the populist progressive Sanders, the liberal cable talking heads and debate
moderators have naturally tried to boost "moderate" neoliberal-corporatist "second" and "third
tier" Democratic presidential candidates like Butiggieg, Klobuchar and the surprisingly weak
Kamala Harris. It's not for nothing that these and other marginal corporate candidates (e.g.
Beto O'Rourke) get outsized attention on "liberal" cable stations regardless of their tiny
support bases. Even if they can't win, these small-time contenders take constant neoliberal
jabs at Sanders and even at the more clearly corporate-co-optable Warren (who proudly describes
herself as "capitalist in my bones").
Thanks to Harris's curiously weak showing, Biden's dotard-like absurdity, and the likely
non-viability of Butiggieg (the U.S. is not yet primed for two men and a baby in the White
House), the not-so liberal cable channels are now joining the New Yok Times and
Washington Post in gently floating the possibility of a dark-horse neoliberal Democratic
Party newcomer (Michael Bloomberg, John Kerry, Michelle Obama, Sherrod Brown, and maybe even
Hillary Clinton herself) to fill Joke Biden's Goldman-and Citigroup-approved shoes in the
coming primary and Caucus battles with "radical socialist" Bernie and (not-so) "left"
Warren.
So what if running an establishment Obama-Clinton-Citigroup-Council on Foreign Relations
Democrat in 2020 will de-mobilize much of the nation's progressive electoral base, helping the
malignant white nationalist monster Donald Trump get a second term?
As the old working-class slogan says, "money talks and bullshit walks."
"Follow the money" is the longstanding mantra in campaign finance research and criminal
prosecution. It should also apply to our understanding of the dominant media's political news
content. U.S. media managers are employed by giant corporations (MSNBC is a division of Comcast
NBC Universal, no. 71 on the Fortune 500 and CNN is owned by Turner Broadcasting, no, 68 on the
Fortune 500) that are naturally reluctant to publish or broadcast material that might offend
the wealthy capitalist interests that pay for broadcasting by purchasing advertisements. As
Noam Chomsky has noted, large corporations are not only the major producers of the United
States' mass commercial media. They are also that media's top market, something that deepens
the captivity of nation's supposedly democratic and independent media to big capital:
"The reliance of a journal on advertisers shapes and controls and substantially determines
what is presented to the public the very idea of advertiser reliance radically distorts the
concept of free media. If you think about what the commercial media are, no matter what, they
are businesses. And a business produces something for a market. The producers in this case,
almost without exception, are major corporations. The market is other businesses –
advertisers. The product that is presented to the market is readers (or viewers), so these
are basically major corporations providing audiences to other businesses, and that
significantly shapes the nature of the institution."
At the same time, both U.S. corporate media managers and the advertisers who supply revenue
for their salaries are hesitant to produce content that might alienate affluent folks –
the people who hire pricey investment advisors, go to Caribbean resorts and buy Jaguars and
Mercedes Benzes and count for an ever-rising share of U.S. consumer purchases. It is those with
the most purchasing power who are naturally most targeted by advertisers.
Money talks, bullshit talks on "liberal" cable news, as in the legal and party and elections
systems and indeed across all of society.
Watch the wannabe fascist strongman Trump walk to a second term with no small help from a
"liberal" corporate media whose primary goal is serving corporate sponsors and its own bottom
line, not serving social justice, environmental sanity, and democracy – or even helping
Democrats win elections.
[Dec 07, 2019] Harris
post mortem: Weed for me but not for thee stance does not work
She really didn't establish a theme for her candidacy other than she's ambitious and smart. That didn't sell.
Bert Schlitz , December 6, 2019 11:25 am
Harris was a Zionist shill. Not only should she not be allowed to run for President, but needs replaced by the Senate.
Peter, December 7, 2019 7:06 am
Harris is a corporate Democrat. Her candidacy stands for nothing a person can identify outside of "vote for me." Ditto for
Pete B.
2020 is what 2016 should have been if the DNC/Clinton machine hadn't rigged the primary: an election on issues.
Any candidate that doesn't have a clear stance on issues that relate to, a) ending parasitical rent seeking on the backs of earned
income in general, and b) fighting for Medicare for all in specific, is just a politician, in the worst sense of the word. Kamala
Harris is a politician. Who cares if she is a woman or black. I care about her position on issues and her character.
'Senator Harris has the capacity to appear to be anything she wants to appear to be.'
There is a word for that. It is a chameleon so yeah, Kamala Chameleon works. But Biden
picking her as a running mate would be the same as back in 2008 when John McCain picked Sarah
Palin as a running mate which went down like a lead balloon.
"Kamala Harris drops out of presidential race" [
The Hill ]. "Two campaign aides told The Hill that Harris informed staff Tuesday she would
suspend the campaign . 'Californians can be proud of Sen. Harris,' said Bob Mulholland, a
Democratic National Committee member from California who supported her nomination. 'There's not
enough length even on the L.A. freeway for these candidates, so she had a tough road but did
well. Not this time.'" • Lol. My heart goes out to the donor class,
especially those in the Hamptons and on Martha's Vineyard . About the timing:
I take it that they never forced her to sign a loyalty oath to the Democratic Party,
particularly the part of accepting the results of the nomination.
I wonder if part of it might even be lingering resentment at Sanders for stealing her
crown at the coronation. If she did enter the race, I wonder if she will magically get the
15% vote threshold somehow. After all, we have to get that brokered convention going, just in
case.
The Sanders loyalty oath was just to make him seem unpalatable to Yellow Dog Democrats in
the primary. The last thing HRC or the Team Blue establishment wants is for voters to
actually compare Biden and Sanders or Buttigieg and AOC.
I'm not sure HRC is as mad at Sanders as she is at Warren and Susan Sarandon. I've felt
the Clinton camp has an attitude that support is owed to Hillary from name brand Democrats,
and they are the ones who betrayed Mother.
I think she's waiting for the right time-wait until the bottom feeders drop out. Then
it'll be easier to hit that 15%, yeah? The murky water clears up a bit. Hem and haw, more
drop out, then boom, she's in. Plus, it's less campaigning/traveling that she has to do.
Kamala Harris was the rebirth of the globalist person of color candidate that worked in
2008. But, her spouse was a white lawyer, a true 10% technocrat family. Michelle gave Barrack
the Chicago black credentials that got him elected and which still obscures his neo-liberal
globalist soul.
I see that Kamala is blaming her failure on the fact that "Americans aren't ready to vote
for a woman of colour yet" for President. I guess that bodes ill for Liz Warren, the first
woman of colour professor at Harvard!
A woman of color who's also a lame phony tripping all over herself to cater to the
establishment and couldn't come up with a compelling reason to support her to save her life.
In the Democratic Party, being a woman of color should be a powerful advantage. Ask Barack
Obama. In the end, she was lamer than Biden. A way-too-obvious grifter who can't approach
Obama's level of smooth. Of course the predatory prosecutor and big-bank sellout issues are a
longer but equally relevant discussion. Go away Kamala. Please.
Kamala Harris was the rebirth of the globalist person of color candidate that worked in
2008. But, her spouse was a white lawyer, a true 10% technocrat family. Michelle gave Barrack
the Chicago black credentials that got him elected and which still obscures his neo-liberal
globalist soul.
The one good thing about Clinton for DemPrez nominee is that she would lose the election
by 40 states or more. The more the better . . . IF it would help to finally remove the
Clinton Mafia from public life and politics.
Lambert analogizes the polling phase of the electoral period to a horse race, with
appropriate caveats.
Looks to me more like a morphing of Roller Derby, with its kayfabe and predetermined
outcome, into Rollerball, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film)
Lots of, to me at least, eerie resonances with the current state of the political
economy.
Ancient roller derby was kayfabe and predetermined outcome, but present day roller derby
is very much a serious professional sport, granted without the heavy corporate dollars of
mainstream professional sports, but still very pro: https://wftda.com/
Rollerball was a fun film, with excellent stunt and camera work for the games. Also an
interesting theme regarding the use of the sport as a means of channeling the futility of
fighting the corporate state.
For a Twitch Stream, 20,000 is HUGE. It means 20,000 *at one time*.People rarely watch an
entire Twitch stream so its larger than it seems. Twitch viewership is calculated by the peak
during the stream. Also you can watch a Twitch stream after it airs, so its the amount of
viewers watching live, at one time.
As for Harris quitting, I hope all the consultants got paid. And I wonder how many spent
the Thanksgiving holiday trying to line up new positions.
The most terrifying comment I have seen regarding her dropping out so far has her being
appointed to be Attorney General by the newly elected Democratic President. That is one
seriously deluded sorry idiot, who apparently missed all the evidence of how badly she
performed in her previous legal positions in California as an attorney general and district
attorney. Well unless they want someone clearly more interested in lining up the donor class
than in actually prosecuting those who break the law and protecting the rights and way of
life of the voters.
Well unless they want someone clearly more interested in lining up the donor class than
in actually prosecuting those who break the law and protecting the rights and way of life
of the voters.
That worked really well for obomber and eric the holder;-)
I predict she could do far more damage as attorney general than Eric "Place" Holder, who
did nothing for taxpayers or the American people.
Kamala Harris actually took a campaign donation payoff from a grateful Mnuchin, whose
OneWest Bank she failed to prosecute after he shafted 30,000 California mortgage holders.
Speaking of donations, Harris has something like Ten Million dollars in cash from her
loyal investors, does she return it? Use it to support other candidates? Or, keep it for her
attempt to get reelected to the senate in three years?
I'm appalled by the two year election campaign. When did she peak? And it looks to me like
ImpeachmentGate will leave only Fox News paying any attention to the fact that a primary is
going on when the actual voting starts.
I am, however, looking forward to any really jaundiced views on how the propaganda was
catapulted here.
Her performance during the Kavanaugh confirmation performance is truly legandary. Go back
to C-Span and check it out. The Dems couldn't have failed any harder if they tried and they
simply didn't show up to win.
"So we are indeed following a horse-race, but the horses don't stay in their lanes, some
of the horses are not in it to win but to interfere with the others, the track is very muddy,
and the mud has splattered our binoculars, such that it's very hard to see what's going on
from the stands. Also, the track owners are crooked and the stewards are on the take.
Everything's fine."
some of the horses happen to be dead, too.
but if this is pointed out, the Owners get all apoplectic and start calling everybody Vlad,
and must go down into the Vault and lay near the the Holy Cup of Triangulation, to be
restored.
it ain't pretty
+100
ill get the beer. come see me next time you're within a 150 mile radius of the middle of
texas.
"Kamala Harris drops out of presidential race" [
The Hill ]. "Two campaign aides told The Hill that Harris informed staff Tuesday she would
suspend the campaign . 'Californians can be proud of Sen. Harris,' said Bob Mulholland, a
Democratic National Committee member from California who supported her nomination. 'There's not
enough length even on the L.A. freeway for these candidates, so she had a tough road but did
well. Not this time.'" • Lol. My heart goes out to the donor class,
especially those in the Hamptons and on Martha's Vineyard . About the timing:
I take it that they never forced her to sign a loyalty oath to the Democratic Party,
particularly the part of accepting the results of the nomination.
I wonder if part of it might even be lingering resentment at Sanders for stealing her
crown at the coronation. If she did enter the race, I wonder if she will magically get the
15% vote threshold somehow. After all, we have to get that brokered convention going, just in
case.
The Sanders loyalty oath was just to make him seem unpalatable to Yellow Dog Democrats in
the primary. The last thing HRC or the Team Blue establishment wants is for voters to
actually compare Biden and Sanders or Buttigieg and AOC.
I'm not sure HRC is as mad at Sanders as she is at Warren and Susan Sarandon. I've felt
the Clinton camp has an attitude that support is owed to Hillary from name brand Democrats,
and they are the ones who betrayed Mother.
I think she's waiting for the right time-wait until the bottom feeders drop out. Then
it'll be easier to hit that 15%, yeah? The murky water clears up a bit. Hem and haw, more
drop out, then boom, she's in. Plus, it's less campaigning/traveling that she has to do.
Kamala Harris was the rebirth of the globalist person of color candidate that worked in
2008. But, her spouse was a white lawyer, a true 10% technocrat family. Michelle gave Barrack
the Chicago black credentials that got him elected and which still obscures his neo-liberal
globalist soul.
I see that Kamala is blaming her failure on the fact that "Americans aren't ready to vote
for a woman of colour yet" for President. I guess that bodes ill for Liz Warren, the first
woman of colour professor at Harvard!
A woman of color who's also a lame phony tripping all over herself to cater to the
establishment and couldn't come up with a compelling reason to support her to save her life.
In the Democratic Party, being a woman of color should be a powerful advantage. Ask Barack
Obama. In the end, she was lamer than Biden. A way-too-obvious grifter who can't approach
Obama's level of smooth. Of course the predatory prosecutor and big-bank sellout issues are a
longer but equally relevant discussion. Go away Kamala. Please.
Kamala Harris was the rebirth of the globalist person of color candidate that worked in
2008. But, her spouse was a white lawyer, a true 10% technocrat family. Michelle gave Barrack
the Chicago black credentials that got him elected and which still obscures his neo-liberal
globalist soul.
The one good thing about Clinton for DemPrez nominee is that she would lose the election
by 40 states or more. The more the better . . . IF it would help to finally remove the
Clinton Mafia from public life and politics.
Lambert analogizes the polling phase of the electoral period to a horse race, with
appropriate caveats.
Looks to me more like a morphing of Roller Derby, with its kayfabe and predetermined
outcome, into Rollerball, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film)
Lots of, to me at least, eerie resonances with the current state of the political
economy.
Ancient roller derby was kayfabe and predetermined outcome, but present day roller derby
is very much a serious professional sport, granted without the heavy corporate dollars of
mainstream professional sports, but still very pro: https://wftda.com/
Rollerball was a fun film, with excellent stunt and camera work for the games. Also an
interesting theme regarding the use of the sport as a means of channeling the futility of
fighting the corporate state.
For a Twitch Stream, 20,000 is HUGE. It means 20,000 *at one time*.People rarely watch an
entire Twitch stream so its larger than it seems. Twitch viewership is calculated by the peak
during the stream. Also you can watch a Twitch stream after it airs, so its the amount of
viewers watching live, at one time.
Like her state, Senator Harris's story up close is both more prosaic and more nuanced than
the shiny image built in part on misperceptions about California. Now that
she has dropped out of the presidential race, the legacy of her campaign may be what the
candidacy illustrates about the complexity and reality of politics in the Golden State.
... ... ...
From the small city with outsize visibility, she built a national profile. In 2008, Ms.
Harris was California co-chairwoman for her friend Barack Obama; within days of his historic
victory, she announced her candidacy for California attorney general, a race still two years
away. Oprah Winfrey put her on O magazine's "Power List." A column in USA Today pronounced her
"the female Barack Obama," "destined to become a commanding presence in the political life of
this country."
... ... ...
As attorney general, she disappointed California liberals through both actions and the lack
of action. That did not hamper her ability to burnish her national credentials. She addressed
the 2012 Democratic National Convention in a prime-time slot. Her name was floated as a
potential United States attorney general, even a Supreme Court justice.
Yet she remained largely unknown in California -- a function of the staggering size of a
state of almost 40 million where the principal way to gain exposure requires television ads in
a dozen media markets, at a cost of upward of $4.5
million a week . When Ms. Harris ran for the United States Senate in 2016 , six out of 10
registered voters had no impression of her, although she had been attorney general for almost
six years. In recent
polls , about a quarter of voters still had no opinion.
... ... ...
Her candidacy appeared to have no real rationale and no clear constituency. The penchant for
zigzagging that marked her policy positions carried over to strategy, as she veered from
positioning herself as the fallback candidate for the left, when conventional wisdom suggested
the front-runners might falter, to fashioning herself as the option for moderates when that
appeared a more likely lane. Her carefully crafted image crumbled under the scrutiny of a
national campaign. The bright beacon of hope in a dismal time dissolved into sound bites and
bumper sticker slogans. "Justice is on the ballot." " Dude gotta go ."
... ... ...
Ms. Harris, the state's junior senator, will gain greater recognition from her 2020 quest;
whether that enhances her political future depends on what lessons she takes from her own
campaign.
"... There is a collection of Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on policy details. ..."
"... They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes. ..."
"... He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside Syria. ..."
"... Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence ..."
" In a sense, the current NeoMcCartyism (Russophobia, Sinophobia) epidemic in the USA can
partially be viewed as a yet another sign of the crisis of neoliberalism: a desperate attempt
to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade using scapegoating -- creation of an
external enemy to project the problems of the neoliberal society.
I would add another, pretty subjective measure of failure: the degradation of the elite.
When you look at Hillary, Trump, Biden, Warren, Harris, etc, you instantly understand what I
am talking about. They all look like the second-rate, if not the third rate politicians.
Also, the Epstein case was pretty symbolic."
I had decided to stay on the sidelines for the most part after making a few earlier
comments, but I liked this summary, except I would give Warren more credit. She is flawed like
most politicians, but she has made some of the right enemies within the Democratic Party.
On Trump and " the Deep State", there is no unified Deep State. There is a collection of
Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and
governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but
also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on
policy details.
They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is
antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes.
He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose
him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is
incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game
right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say
he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside
Syria.
But yes, scapegoating is a big thing with liberals now. It's pathetic. Our policies are
influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go
to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence .
For the most part, if we have a horrible political culture nearly all the blame for that is
homegrown.
Donald 11.07.19 at 4:40 am (no link)
Sigh. Various typos above. Here is one --
Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but
would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about
Russian influence.
--
I meant to say I would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from
liberals talking about Russian influence.
With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the
decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country
has done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to
endless war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed
them off, declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the
choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by
Turkey as an existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's
a big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort
of hand wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable
person could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees.
Why must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops
to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These
forces do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed
their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John
Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign
policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
gjohnsit on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 5:38pm With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls,
the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has
done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to endless
war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed them off,
declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the choice
of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an
existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's a
big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand
wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person
could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why
must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to
Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces
do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their
attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry
admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy
was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public relations
companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of the
public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
The New Arab article quote "public relations firms to brandish their image in the US" has a word usage problem. The correct
word would be burnish, not brandish. You brandish your weapon. You burnish your image.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public
relations companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of
the public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the United
States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability to
go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing a long-term
buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by Syrian/Russian/Kurdish
forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the whole
thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking Syrian
forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where it dies
down in a couple weeks.
"Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness" won't happen. The MSM won't allow it.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the
United States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability
to go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing
a long-term buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by
Syrian/Russian/Kurdish forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the
whole thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking
Syrian forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where
it dies down in a couple weeks.
(as Kurdish Syria is sometimes called) is that one
of the Kurd leaders became a follower of Murray Bookchin after spending a bunch of time as a Marxist-Leninist, and so portions
of Kurdish society are an experiment in Bookchinism. Here is a
piece by Bookchin's daughter on the correspondence between him and the Kurds. Hopefully the Kurds will find some protection
in the new Putin-brokered Syria.
Otherwise, yeah, the Kurds are an ally of convenience for the Democratic Party and its apologists on that most disgusting of
propaganda instruments, National Public Radio.
but it should have also been illegal for us to arm the same people that we had declared terrorists. Now those people are killing
the people who fought on our side against the ones now doing the killing.. my head is spinning with all the insane talking points
coming from people who have never met a war they didn't support.
This is a good read.
Former and current US officials have slammed the Turkish mercenary force of "Arab militias" for executing and beheading Kurds
in northern Syria. New data from Turkey reveals that almost all of these militias were armed and trained in the past by the CIA
and Pentagon.
By Max Blumenthal
Left: John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss (right) in 2013; Right: Salim Idriss (center) in October, announcing the establishment
of the National Front for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.
Hmm..kinda hard to explain that huh? The article talks about Idriss in detail. As well as Obama and Hillary's roles in the
'no boots on the ground' war.
This should embarrass every person who is moaning over Trump's actions in Syria. Turkey was coming in one way or another and
the only way to stop them was for our troops to stand in their way. But what really ticks me off is all of that equipment they
left behind on their bug out. Not just tents , TVs and air conditioners and everything in between, but they left weapons and bombs
there and they just blew them up. This will make the defense companies very happy!
After the ceasefire, US backed
#Kurds are deciding to hand over the north of
#Syria to Turkey rather than the
Syrian army. All trump had to promise them was a stake in
#Syria 's oil fields.
https://t.co/euat8DvIa4
Syrian Girl lives in Syria and has been a good source of information, but I'm not sure if what she is reporting is true. But
wouldn't that shut lots of people up?
Obama kept troops out of Syria until the last minute. Then he took a force small enough to justify his successor's escalation.
So when the Turks tried to genocide the Kurds - like they were certain to do - Trump gets the blame. But it was supposed to be
Hillary. What was in it for her? The joy of another country seeing genocide?
The Kurds were promised land and valuable oil fields in North Eastern Syria by... the US. What's wrong with this picture? Damascus
has I invited the Kurds to be part of the multi-ethnic Syria. The Kurds refused and took America's deal. We armed them to the
teeth with 10s of billions of dollars of weapons. What could go wrong? Well just about everything as the US offer was highly illegal,
they are stealing Syrian oil, and Turkey will not accept any Kurdish permanent enclave on her border. Syria, Russia, Iran, China,
Hezbollah, Iraq and more support the reunification of all of Syria. Why were the Kurds so stupid? Go it? Blind belief in the all
powerful US!
"... Corporate media polls are fake. There is no effin' way that Biden is or ever was the "front runner" for the D Party nomination. His entire candidacy is fake, so obviously contrived -- just like Hillary's -- it's a wonder that the DNC and their corporate propagandists ever believed they could get away with it. ..."
"... All their "arguments" in favor of Biden are nothing more than cover stories being laid out in advance for the purpose of validating the contrived result they are dead set on producing. Even their cover stories are goddamn coverups! ..."
Corporate media polls are fake. There is no effin' way that Biden is or ever was the "front runner" for
the D Party nomination. His entire candidacy is fake, so obviously contrived -- just like Hillary's -- it's a wonder that the DNC
and their corporate propagandists ever believed they could get away with it.
All their "arguments" in favor of Biden are nothing more than cover stories being laid out in advance for the purpose of validating
the contrived result they are dead set on producing. Even their cover stories are goddamn coverups!
The "polls" are fake. Corporate media outlets -- aka Ministries of Propaganda -- fabricate them out of whole cloth and then babble
insensately about "electability" and "inevitability," and about how the senile hack Biden is "the only one" who can beat the shitgibbon
chump, blah blah blah. The whole goddamn charade is so effin' obvious, a 3 year-old could see through it.
Come on Murca! Aren't you tired of being lied to and manipulated and robbed day after day? The fascist ratbastards in the R and
D Parties are first rate dumbasses who can't even tell believable lies anymore.
The DNC nomination will go to the candidate most likely to support the desires of the wealthy, those who own and run the country,
not to one of that group who will attempt to upset that apple cart, if elected President. That makes Joe a shoe-in and all he
has to do is not collapse as in falling to the floor requiring he be carried off by ambulance attendants, on stage, during a debate.
That selecting Joe out of that group will cause great concern among the Democratic voters such that they might just not vote
thereby throwing the election to Trump is of little concern to the DNC executive. If by some miracle Joe does become President
no harm will come to the interests of the wealthy so win or lose, it is the same win win result in the end.
"... 'Authoritarian regimes' outside America are making Americans hate one another. First they got Trump elected, and now they're making Americans hate each other. The casual observer must have two near-simultaneous thoughts; one, these people will not take personal responsibility for ANYTHING; everything is someone else's fault. Two, Russia sure swings a lot of influence for a country that is friendless and isolated and has an economy in tatters. ..."
I don't see that as a very likely possibility. After Gabbard kicked her feet out from under
her in that debate, her star has sunk steadily. I wonder how aggressively material like this
would be promoted if that had not happened. Obviously people knew about it before Gabbard
brought it up – but that seemed to make it safe to talk about as an item in the public
interest.
On that same site, James Mattis thinks internal strife in America and the contempt
supporters of one party hold for supporters of the other are as big a national security
threat as Russia and China.
But that's Russia and China's fault, too – check out the last paragraph.
'Authoritarian regimes' outside America are making Americans hate one another. First they
got Trump elected, and now they're making Americans hate each other. The casual observer must
have two near-simultaneous thoughts; one, these people will not take personal responsibility
for ANYTHING; everything is someone else's fault. Two, Russia sure swings a lot of influence
for a country that is friendless and isolated and has an economy in tatters.
"... Back to Kamala. Seems I'm not the only one who's been asking a similar question. Where was Kamala on all this? Now, to be clear, the primary responsibility for regulating the utility falls with the California Public Utilities Commission. But Harris had a potential role to play – one she chose not to. Let's look at one episode in detail, the San Bruno pipeline explosion.In 2010, a natural gas pipeline owned by PG&E exploded. A massive fire ensued, destroying or damaging dozens of homes and other property; eight people died. ..."
"... After the pipeline explosion, the City of San Bruno sued to obtain thousands of emails between PG&E executives and the state's utility regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission. ..."
"... In what became known as the judge shopping scandal , PG&E was granted the administrative judge of its choosing. The company was fined $1 million after the scandal became public, a sanction that critics said was a slap on the wrist for a company with annual revenues of $17 billion. ..."
"... "There is no way for us to know the current status of that ongoing investigation, but she believes that if there is evidence to support them, charges should be filed against any and all bad actors so they can be held fully accountable for their actions," Mr. Harris said. The office of the current attorney general, Xavier Becerra, would not confirm whether an investigation was still open. ..."
"... Willie Brown, a longtime Democratic power broker and a former mayor of San Francisco and speaker of the California Assembly, said in an interview that he has consulted for PG&E for the past decade, and recently approached [California governor Gavin] Newsom with a message that the company paid him to deliver. ..."
"... Mr. Brown declined to give details on the discussion or when it occurred, but said he hoped to continue lobbying for PG&E, even in bankruptcy. ..."
"... Willie Brown isn't the only one generating invoices. I'll mention in passing that PG&E regularly availed itself of the best legal advice it could buy – including the services of Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe – not a name many would normally associate with a recidivist corporate predator (see The New Yorker's Tribe takedown, Did Laurence Tribe Sell Out? ). ..."
"... And finally, Kamala's soft prosecutorial approach to California utilities also extended to California Edison, according to the San Diego Reader, Attorney general Kamala Harris's predictable "malpractice ": ..."
This made me wonder: where was Kamala Harris? You know, the person who served as California's attorney
general from 2011 through 2017, and touts that experience as grounds to support her presidential candidacy.
Before I answer the question, let me share some gems from the article:
The Wall Street Journal identified repeated instances over 25 years in which PG&E misled regulatory
authorities, withheld required information, didn't follow through on promised improvements, engaged in
improper back-channel communications with regulators or obstructed an investigation.
The company has paid more than $2.6 billion in state and federal penalties and lawsuit settlements in
such cases. While the penalty came to less than $1 million in about a half-dozen of the incidents, it was
much more in other cases, some of them involved death and heavy property destruction, and regulators
consider all violations that involve safety to be serious matters .
Recall that PG&E has now filed for bankruptcy, for the second time in two decades, for its role in
causing wildfires. The company estimates its potential liability from these claims alone at more than $30
billion.
The company has long played its own regulatory game, according to its own rules:
Several close observers of PG&E said they witnessed a pattern of conduct over the years that troubled
them because it seemed to violate norms of behavior for California utilities. "PG&E, in comparison to
others, stands apart," said Mark Ferron, a former member of the California Public Utilities Commission.
For years, he said, PG&E seemed to play a "cat and mouse game" with regulators of doing what it wanted
and waiting to see if it got caught, which he said was unfortunate because the utilities commission "is
not a particularly adroit cat."
Catherine J.K. Sandoval, another former utilities commissioner and now a Santa Clara University law
professor, said PG&E has "a trust issue and a conduct issue," and it violates rules of conduct so often
it amounts to a pattern. "They are definitely the worst" among the utilities she oversaw, she said.
This has stymied regulators, who have failed to find a way to compel the utility to obey the law:
"The commission has tried to rein PG&E in using the traditional tools of regulation -- increasing fines
and removal of responsible parties -- and those tools haven't worked," said Darwin Farrar, chief counsel of
the state utilities commission's Public Advocates Office, in an email. Mr. Farrar wrote in a July public
filing that PG&E "has dealt with the Commission dishonestly."
The utilities commission since 2015 has been studying what to do about PG&E's safety culture.
According to state fire officials, its record includes accidentally starting fires that killed 107 people
in 2017 and 2018, destroyed 22,000 buildings and burned 350,000 acres.
The WSJ account thoroughly examines multiple lapses by the company, and I encourage interested readers to
read the full account (alas, it is paywalled). I'll highlight here just one recent incident:
Back to Kamala. Seems I'm not the only one who's been asking a similar question. Where was Kamala on all
this?
Now, to be clear, the primary responsibility for regulating the utility falls with the California Public
Utilities Commission. But Harris had a potential role to play – one she chose not to. Let's look at one
episode in detail, the San Bruno pipeline explosion.In 2010, a natural gas pipeline owned by PG&E exploded.
A massive fire ensued, destroying or damaging dozens of homes and other property; eight people died.
After the pipeline explosion, the City of San Bruno sued to obtain
thousands of emails between PG&E executives and the state's utility regulator, the California Public
Utilities Commission.
The emails revealed that a PG&E executive complained to the commission
about a judge assigned to determine who should pay for pipeline upgrades, a case with major financial
consequences.
In what became known as the
judge shopping scandal
, PG&E was granted the administrative judge of its choosing. The company was
fined $1 million after the scandal became public, a sanction that critics said was a slap on the wrist
for a company with annual revenues of $17 billion.
Other emails obtained by San Bruno described how company executives
socialized and casually discussed company projects with the official meant to be regulating them. A 2010
dinner between a top PG&E lobbyist, Brian Cherry, and Michael Peevey, who was then president of the
Public Utilities Commission, took place at Mr. Peevey's vacation home and became famous for the
"two bottles of good Pinot"
that they drank. Mr. Cherry and two other executives at the company were
fired after the emails became public.
Jim Ruane, the former mayor of San Bruno, tried to have the staff of the
California attorney general at the time, Kamala Harris, bring charges for what he said was illegal
cooperation between the company and regulators.
"They just blew us off," said Britt Strottman, a lawyer who represented
San Bruno after the pipeline explosion.
A year later, a state senator, Jerry Hill, wrote to Ms. Harris to renew
calls for an investigation.
"The response we got was 'thanks for the letter -- go away,'" Mr. Hill
said.
This issue is being reexamined, now that Harris is running for president. Over to The New York Times:
Chris Harris, the head of communications for Ms. Harris, who is now a
United States senator and a 2020 presidential candidate, said an investigation was opened while she was
attorney general.
"There is no way for us to know the current status of that ongoing
investigation, but she believes that if there is evidence to support them, charges should be filed
against any and all bad actors so they can be held fully accountable for their actions," Mr. Harris said.
The office of the current attorney general, Xavier Becerra, would not confirm whether an investigation
was still open.
Ms. Harris did not receive any contributions from PG&E for her successful
campaign for Senate, her spokesman said.
Note that while she may not have received any campaign contributions from PG&E, that really doesn't mean
much. There need not be any explicit quid pro quo for influence to be deployed – no matter what the United
States Supreme Court says. According to The New York Times:
Willie Brown, a longtime Democratic power broker and a former mayor of San Francisco and speaker of
the California Assembly, said in an interview that he has consulted for PG&E for the past decade, and
recently approached [California governor Gavin] Newsom with a message that the company paid him to
deliver.
Mr. Brown declined to give details on the discussion or when it occurred, but said he hoped to
continue lobbying for PG&E, even in bankruptcy.
"I hope that they call me because every call generates an invoice," he said.
Willie Brown isn't the only one generating invoices. I'll mention in passing that PG&E regularly availed
itself of the best legal advice it could buy – including the services of Harvard law professor Laurence
Tribe – not a name many would normally associate with a recidivist corporate predator (see The New Yorker's
Tribe takedown,
Did Laurence Tribe Sell Out?
).
At this meeting, Peevey sketched out a strategy for Edison (majority owner of the now-shuttered San
Onofre power plant) and San Diego Gas & Electric (minority owner) by which they could pass on the
decommissioning costs of closing San Onofre to ratepayers, who had nothing to do with the mismanagement
that led to the shutdown. Later, the commission approved a deal, which was very similar to what Peevey
had suggested in Warsaw: ratepayers would pick up the tab for a whopping $3.3 billion. (Edison and SDG&E
already had among the highest utility rates in the nation.)
The state attorney general's office investigated and recovered the notes from that Warsaw meeting.
Those notes were a smoking gun for obstruction of justice. But skeptics guffawed: attorney general Kamala
Harris was running for the U.S. Senate. She wouldn't dare cross Peevey pal and fellow Democratic governor
Jerry Brown -- whose sister Kathleen has been on Sempra Energy's board of directors
since 2013.
(Sempra is the parent company of SDG&E.) The skeptics doubted that Harris would actually pursue a
prosecution.
The skeptics were right.
Last month, the three-year period of the statute of limitations
ran out. Unless the attorney general's office investigates another angle on this case, Peevey, Edison,
and Brown will skate. Harris did the same in the case against San Bruno, which suffered the destruction
of a neighborhood and several deaths from an explosion that Pacific Gas & Electric will have to throw
some money in the pot for. At least, in the San Bruno case, federal investigators have moved in. But "the
feds are missing in action" on San Onofre, says San Diego attorney Mike Aguirre.
"For her to let the statute go is malpractice," says Aguirre.
In some ways, Harris risks falling into the same trap that ensnared Rubio in 2016 -- eloquent on the stump, adept at raising money,
acceptable across the party spectrum but not loved by enough voters .
She still hired a mess of Clintonistas. They aren't exactly the most politically aware people. I think its probably more apt to
say she isn't an embarrassment on the stump (Biden or Beto) or comes off as doing a trick to impress her 10th grade English teacher
(Buttigieg), but what demand is she filling? She looks like a candidate out of central casting and would be perfect for a background
character in a terrible romantic comedy about two politicos from different sides of the aisle.
Harris is the United States Senator from California and has been an ardent champion of . Profit! (South Park reference). The only
other legislator with that kind of weight and access to media is New York. In the absence of a show (Mayor Pete), she isn't offering
anything.
I would put Gillenbrand in the same category as Harris.
..."An Anti-Trump Landslide?" [ The American
Conservative ]. "Anything could happen between now and November 2020, but this new Fox News
poll is not good news for the president. If the vote were held today, Joe Biden would clobber
him, which is no surprise. But also, a geriatric New England socialist would beat the stuffing
out of Trump. So would a preachy Harvard professor and a militantly progressive black woman
from the San Francisco Bay Area.* An anti-Trump landslide at the top of the ticket could wash
the GOP Senate majority away. We would then have a Democratic president and Congress -- and
they would be in a score-settling mood. One more time: anything could happen between now and
Election Day 2020. But a recession, which is growing more likely by the day, would be something
extremely hard for Trump to overcome." • "Anti-Trump landslide" is Bitecofer's theory of
the case for 2018 and 2020. NOTE * Harris, lol.
"But also, a geriatric New England socialist would beat the stuffing out of Trump. .So
would a militantly "' progressive "' " 'black "' woman "' from the San
Francisco Bay Area. *" Really?
Bay Area?
Raised in Canada and Minnesota, lives in West Beverly Hills with her white-privileged
corporate attorney husband. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
Her campaign for president is headquartered not in the Bay Area, but in Baltimore.
Sorry, Rod, but Kamala Harris is no "progressive." She's a Clintonite through and through, and she can be grateful that
the relative paucity of DNC-approved polls between now and August 28 means she might not have to face up against Tulsi in the
September debates.
I know, the idea that Harris is "militantly progressive" is laughable. She's transparently a 2.0 version of a Clinton/Obama technocrat.
My estimation of Mr. Dreher's political savvy just went down a notch.
Las Vegas - It's six months until the first votes are cast for the Democratic nomination
for president. Yet increasingly the outlines of the race are coming into form with a flawed
front-runner (former vice president Joe Biden), a rising force (Senator Elizabeth Warren of
Massachusetts), a waiter in the wings (Senator Kamala Harris of California), and a fading
star (Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont).
... The Democratic front-runner remains Joe Biden, but it's getting more difficult to
ignore the disconnect between his poll numbers and his uneven performance on the campaign
trail.
Biden has had two middling debate performances and he was similarly unimpressive in Vegas.
At an event at a strip mall Chinese restaurant, he looked all of his 76 years. He jumped from
issue to issue with no connective tissue to hold his remarks together. Every few minutes,
after meandering on, he would stop and say, "Now here's the point," or declare, "This is
America," as an implicit critique of the wrong direction in which Trump has taken the
country.
Boomer nostalgia is at the core of Biden's campaign, and he certainly exudes warmth and
affability. Moreover, he's always had a tendency to talk too much, exaggerate, and rely on
his personal charm to win over voters. But this felt different -- as though Biden's struggles
were a function not of personality but of age. There are plenty of red flags here.
Bernie Sanders remains a top contender, but it's hard to ignore his static poll numbers,
even though he has near universal name recognition. Of all the candidates, Sanders is the one
that voters I speak with consistently say they are least likely to support, both because of
his policy positions and his perceived lack of fealty to the Democratic Party. In Vegas, I
talked to more than a few Democrats who had supported Sanders in 2016 and are now backing
someone else.
Finally, there is Kamala Harris. She is an underappreciated wonk, whose ability to delve
into the nitty gritty of policy issues is Warren-esque. She has mastered the art of speaking
about policy in terms that are easily accessible to voters. She is warm, gregarious, and
exudes passion -- and she is unafraid of taking on Trump directly. Off the cuff, at a
roundtable event in Henderson, she said the "dude gotta go," which led the crowd to chant
along.
Yet this side of Harris is not yet getting through to voters. After a less-than-stellar
second debate performance, Harris is back to single digits.
Harris is too good a politician not to have another breakthrough moment like she had in
the first Democratic debate -- and one can imagine her as a compromise candidate who combines
the potential electability and affability of Biden with the policy chops of Warren. But that
hasn't happened yet, and it seems evident that Warren's recent polling rise is coming at the
expense of Harris.
It's still a long way to the first caucus in Iowa, but if feels increasingly clear that
Biden, Warren, and Harris are going to be the ones fighting it out in 2020.
Kamala Harris, in a Pivot, Makes Her
Play for Iowa https://nyti.ms/2MR1mNw
NYT - Shane Goldmacher - August 11
STORM LAKE, Iowa -- Senator Kamala Harris ordered tacos at a Mexican joint in Storm Lake
(two chicken, one pork). She mingled with the masses at a New York-themed bar in Sioux City.
("You've got the whitest teeth," one patron told her. "That's a plus right there.") She
sampled apple egg rolls and flipped pork chops at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.
"I can also flip Republicans," she grinned while gripping a metal spatula.
As Ms. Harris trundles her way across Iowa on a five-day bus tour that is her longest trip
yet to any early primary state, the California Democrat's embrace of Iowa's quirky political
traditions has delivered the unmistakable message that the state's kickoff caucuses are
increasingly central to her 2020 calculations after months of focus on South Carolina.
By the end of her tour on Monday, Ms. Harris will have made more stops in Iowa on this
trip than she did in the entire first half of 2019, according to the Des Moines Register's
candidate tracker. She did not once venture farther west than the Des Moines suburbs until
July, as her one planned trip there was scratched because of Senate votes.
"You can't fake showing up," said Jim Eliason, the Democratic county chairman in Buena
Vista in northwestern Iowa, who happily introduced himself to Ms. Harris, outside the Storm
Lake taqueria on Friday.
Now Ms. Harris is showing up. The giant crowd of reporters, cameras, supporters, staff and
even some hecklers that shadowed her across the state fairgrounds testified to a rising
presence in the state.
Her campaign boasts 50 full-time staff in Iowa, plus 20 paid fellows, spread across seven
offices. She bought her first television ad of the primary this week here, airing a
minute-long introductory spot statewide. And in the latest Iowa poll, from Monmouth
University, Ms. Harris had inched up to third place, at 11 percent, behind former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. (28 percent) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (19 percent). Senator
Bernie Sanders was at nine percent, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was at eight percent and the rest of
the field was far behind.
Strategists for Ms. Harris say her newfound focus is a result of the surprising degree to
which the race in Iowa remains wide open, despite Mr. Biden's continued advantage in the
polls and the sizable operation Ms. Warren has constructed. It is also a tacit acknowledgment
of history: those outside the top-three finishers in Iowa rarely go on to capture the
nomination.
Ms. Harris's husband, Douglas Emhoff, who joined her at the state fair, has been courting
Iowa activists and officials to ply them for information and possible endorsements. He has
even traveled to Iowa on his own for meetings.
"Do you think Kamala can still win Iowa?" Mr. Emhoff recently asked one Iowa Democrat,
after acknowledging her slow start in the state, according to a person who relayed the
private conversation anonymously in order to maintain a relationship with the campaign.
Ms. Harris and her team have long been circumspect about the "W-word" and Iowa. Her
campaign had initially sought to tamp down expectations here, suggesting that, unlike some
rivals, victory was not essential. South Carolina, with its heavily African-American
electorate, instead, has been pinned as the state most likely to propel her candidacy
forward. But South Carolina is the fourth state to vote, and scoring an earlier victory
elsewhere is often key to success there, as it was for Barack Obama in 2008.
Ms. Harris herself was in Iowa on the night of Mr. Obama's Iowa caucus victory, which
famously helped him consolidate the support of African-American voters over a popular and
well-known Democrat, Hillary Clinton. Now it is Ms. Harris seeking to chip away at the solid
support in the black community for another well-known Democrat, Mr. Biden.
In an interview aboard her campaign bus, where snacks included Iowa-shaped cookies and
some with "Kamala" written in frosting, Ms. Harris said the Iowa caucuses are "obviously
significant in terms of the perception of the strength of the candidacy" going into the rest
of the primary calendar. "You can't deny that," she said.
As summer has unfolded, Ms. Harris has more firmly found her ideological place in the
expansive primary field: landing herself somewhere between the unalloyed liberalism of Mr.
Sanders and Ms. Warren and the moderation of Mr. Biden.
"From my perspective, what people want is that you see them, and you are prepared to solve
their problems and the issues that wake them up in the middle of the night," Ms. Harris said
in the interview. "They couldn't give a hoot about your ideology. That's not what people want
right now. Because ideology doesn't fix problems. And what people want -- I believe people
want a problem-solving president."
In Sioux City, for instance, she sidestepped a question about whether she would label
President Trump a "white supremacist," a designation that some of her rivals in the primary,
including Ms. Warren, Mr. Buttigieg, Mr. Sanders and Beto O'Rourke began using last week.
Prominent black politicians, such as Mr. Obama, have often avoided such sharp language about
white leaders and sought to stress themes of tolerance and unity.
Ms. Harris said it was a "fair conversation that's happening" because Mr. Trump "has been
about condoning the conduct and certainly accommodating the conduct of white
supremacists."
In interviews, numerous Iowa voters said they were drawn to Ms. Harris's potential
history-making candidacy as a black woman, and to what they perceived as her toughness. Fewer
mentioned policy specifics.
"I think she can fight Trump and win," said Alana Jondle, a retiree in Fort Dodge.
Ms. Harris's inaugural television spot in Iowa features her "3 a.m. agenda," which aims to
address the economic issues that keep Americans up at night. The ad leads with her promise to
cut taxes for the middle class, and includes her proposals to address gender pay equity and
establish "Medicare for all."
Angie Miller of Cedar Rapids, who came to see Ms. Harris speak on the soapbox at the state
fair on Saturday, said she had already seen Ms. Harris's first ad and that "it grabbed my
attention and made me really gravitate toward her."
In her state fair speech, Ms. Harris's pitch for a middle-class tax cut received little
applause. But her new favorite line about Mr. Trump -- "Dude gotta go!" -- had the crowd
roaring, as did her declaration that, "We will pay teachers their value!"
Asked in the interview why, as a progressive Democrat, she is leading with tax cuts, Ms.
Harris said, "We've got to multitask."
"I like to cook. I have five burners. They can all roar at the same time," she said. "For
most of my life, I've had four. Now I have five."
Less freewheeling than some of her rivals, Ms. Harris favored structured events, like
rallies and curated round tables early in 2019, rather than the unpredictability of chance
encounters along the trail that have long characterized Iowa campaigning.
When Ms. Harris taped a podcast before a live Cedar Rapids audience in February, her team
requested a rundown of the questions she would be asked in advance, said Simeon Talley, a
Democratic activist and one of the podcast co-hosts. "They were very specific," he recalled,
more so than other 2020 candidates who have appeared.
"Even in our conversation with her, I got a sense that she was -- rehearsed is maybe not
quite the right word -- but you got a sense that she had things that she was going to say and
stay on script," said Mr. Talley, who is undecided for 2020 but likes Ms. Harris. "It could
be used as a knock against her that she's cautious or rehearsed. Maybe there is an element of
that. But it's probably contributed to her rise and successful political career."
With her sister and campaign chair, Maya Harris, by her side, Ms. Harris appeared more
than comfortable on this trip, and she greeted voters for the first two days while sporting
immaculately white Chuck Taylors. She made her first campaign stop through an Iowa bar, and
offered instruction on pronouncing her name ("Just think of 'comma' and add a 'la'"). She
asked children about their summer vacations. And she comforted a young woman who told her she
came to the United States as an infant and was part of the Obama era immigration policy that
shielded from deportation young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
Even before Senator Kamala Harris tore apart Joe Biden in the first Democratic debate last
month, a core group of Republican operatives feared that she's the greatest threat to Trump's
reelection.
"I think she's dangerous, and probably maybe the most dangerous, from our view," a
Republican political consultant tells Vanity Fair. "She theoretically would do very well with
African American turnout and end up being positioned as a Vienna soccer mom."
Vienna -- the wealthy Virginia enclave a stone's throw from D.C. that has grown ever more
distant from the GOP since Trump's nomination -- isn't the only place where Harris may win
over soccer moms who are sick of Trump.
A Republican consultant in Arizona says, "I have long been most concerned about Harris. I
think she has an appeal to the Scottsdale soccer mom who is a registered Republican. Between
her appeal and Trump's women problems, she has probably already won those voters." The
Arizonan adds that Harris could strip Trump of other key demographics in that battleground
state -- which elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in 30 years in 2018.
"I also think she does better amongst Independents who generally split ideologically in
Arizona. Independents are just sick of everything, and her no-nonsense approach would have
appeal broadly, and even to some white Independent and GOP men. She doesn't have the Biden
wimp factor, and that's probably important in a place like Arizona."
But, while some GOP insiders fear Sen. Harris's similarities to Barack Obama -- African
American, a political outsider -- others don't buy it. "She's overrated," says one Republican
bigwig who's battled Obama. "Obama had authenticity. She doesn't." ...
About the time Kamala Harris finished slicing and dicing Joe Biden, like Ed Valenti
demonstrating a Ginsu knife, my cell phone started pinging with Republican operatives saying,
in effect, "I told you so."
For months I've been in contact with a group of senior Republican strategists keeping tabs
on Donald Trump and the party's view of the unfolding Democratic presidential primary. Since
the beginning of the campaign, these people have been worried that Biden constituted the
biggest political threat to Trump's reelection. Early public opinion polls certainly lend
credibility to their concerns. But a smaller, though equally distinguished group of
Republican operatives in my Rolodex, a sort of GOP cult of Kamala, had been insisting for
weeks that Harris was being radically underestimated. With her surgical vivisection of Biden
in the first debate, it seemed their fears had been realized. Now, as Democrats prepare for a
second round of debates next week, these strategists are raising the alarm.
"I think she's dangerous, and probably maybe the most dangerous, from our view," a veteran
Republican political consultant told me this month. "She theoretically would do very well
with African American turnout and end up being positioned as a Vienna Soccer Mom." In case
you're wondering, that's Vienna, Virginia, an upscale bedroom community just west of
Washington, D.C., that has accelerated its drift from the Republican orbit since a certain
former reality-television star secured the Republican nomination three years ago. Suburbs
just like it in critical battlegrounds could hand the White House back to the Democratic
Party in 2020.
"She made a mistake with private health care," this Republican operative conceded,
referring to Harris's serial flip-flops on Medicare for All and whether her plans for
overhauling health care would lead to the abolition of private insurance. "But she doesn't
come across as a nutjob."
Harris, 54, is California's junior U.S. senator and former state attorney general. She
might have more natural political skill than any of her competitors for the Democratic
nomination. She certainly checks more boxes -- African American, woman, racially diverse, a
legitimate strength in a party occasionally obsessed with identity politics. Harris also is
something of a Washington outsider, or could claim to be, at least, having served in Congress
for less than three years. Unlike Biden, she has not spent decades on Capitol Hill making
tough choices or agreeing to imperfect compromises.
If any of this rings familiar, it's because it is. The last Democrat to win the
presidency, Barack Obama, was all of those things, save for the obvious. That is why some
Republicans take it as an article of faith that by the time the Democrats gather in Milwaukee
a little less than a year from now to coronate their nominee, Harris will be the guest of
honor. Who else could they possibly nominate? some Republicans have told me, convinced. But
in dismantling Biden on the big stage in Miami, Harris showcased how she might earn it -- and
why next week's debate in Detroit could be decisive.
Not everyone buys the idea that Harris is the next Obama, superficial similarities aside.
"She's overrated," says a Republican grandee who still has battle scars from run-ins with the
44th president. "Obama had authenticity. She doesn't." Another Republican strategist who
doesn't buy the the hype called Harris "terrible" and "a disaster."
But some dialed-in Republicans described Harris as a serious threat. "I have long been
most concerned about Harris. I think she has an appeal to the Scottsdale soccer mom who is a
registered Republican. Between her appeal and Trump's women problems, she has probably
already won those voters," said an experienced Republican consultant in Arizona, an emerging
battleground that sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2018 for the first time in a
generation and is ground zero for suburban discontent with Trump. "But I also think she does
better amongst Independents who generally split ideologically in Arizona," this GOP insider
added. "Independents are just sick of everything, and her no-nonsense approach would have
appeal broadly, and even to some white Independent and GOP men. She doesn't have the Biden
wimp factor, and that's probably important in a place like Arizona." ...
https://reason.com/2019/06/03/kamala-harris-is-a-cop-who-wants-to-be-president/Harris’
; attitude on these issues seems to stem from early in her career. In the '90s, she worked
closely with nonprofits and fellow city officials on several anti–domestic violence
campaigns. In 2003, when she was first running for D.A., coalitions "built up around issues
of domestic violence and juvenile prostitution" were "central to the Harris campaign
effort," the San Francisco Examiner noted at the time.
In the late '90s and early '00s, many groups concerned about domestic violence began
shifting their focus to "human trafficking." Soon, Harris started pushing for a law to make
human trafficking a crime in California. This was largely redundant: Forcing others into
labor or sex was already illegal under a host of state laws. Still, the new legislation,
enacted in 2006, was at least nominally concerned with coerced labor. When it passed,
"detectives dramatically stepped up their investigations, helped by f ederal grants
aimed at finding trafficking rings ," the Los Angeles Times noted in 2006. Police
forces received money for training officers, buying "sophisticated surveillance equipment,"
and paying informants.
These federal-local police partnerships to "fight trafficking" were mainly used in
undercover prostitution stings, with the bulk of arrests focused on sex workers themselves
or their customers. Contrary to the stated purpose of the law, prosecutions and convictions
for actual human trafficking were rare. But as the moral panic around what Harris
called "modern slavery" heated up, she would join a coalition demanding that Craigslist,
Backpage, and other classified-advertising sites and web forums that host user-generated
ads be blamed and punished.
Harris was sworn in as state attorney general in 2011, just as calls to "end demand" for
prostitution were getting a turbocharge from celebrity campaigns, federal funding, and a
few motivated ideologues. In 2013, Harris joined 46 other state attorneys general in asking
Congress to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a measure the Electronic
Frontier Foundation calls "the most important law protecting free speech on the
Internet.".
Prosecutors originally tried to charge Epstein with one of these new crimes, "grooming",
but he had not used the internet. You don't know cops and prosecutors if you don't understand
that Epstein could be charged with trafficking while still being just a John. And he could
get out of it because he had money, although his money had been embezzled from a slightly
senile billionaire. Epstein was just a con man and degenerate. Nothing to see here.
When I was much younger, I couldn't imagine what lead to the fearful, informer-based
culture in the Eastern Bloc that we told existed behind the Iron Curtain. I understand now,
though.
I would never have believed, if anyone told me, in 1968 or 1975, well, that America would
sink so low, in this political arena and culture, as to actually take seriously and
put/give Kamala Harris all the attention, as does cnn and yahoo so-called news do.
Are you kidding me?
What happened to my fellow liberals and even left radicals I used to know?
I was considered a radical in the good old late 60's-70's, but man...
to have phony's like Harris, Booker and Gillibrand as serious candidates for the
Presidency? Of America?
America, the nation with all it's history of achievements and power and contributions from
medicine to tech, educational institutes and on and on and the main stream lame media gives
these clowns the attention, with little for Tulsi
as a comparison?
Really? Yes, really. Wanna know why?
Because the neocons, on foreign policy like her. That's right.
Tulsi and Sanders are not in the neocons continuing playbook for what they want to keep
doing in foreign policy. At least not as much as Kamal Harris.
Harris, the former affair 'dating' woman of the married mayor of San Francisco, Brown, who
himself was and still is married and so, she got a lotta money cause he appointed her to
commissions-which money comes from taxpayers.
So, why doesn't the media report that, after all it involved politicians in San Francisco.
Simply go to the San Francisco papers on the internet, by putting her name with old mayor
Brown. What I said above consists of facts.
And one more thing-now Harris is for black so-called issues?
What issues, are we in 1950?
Now that's the issue, with all our problems?
What happened to the honest liberals I used to know..?
Well, I am as dismayed as you are, Fayez, but my dismay started in 2015 with the Republican
campaigns for the Presidency. Which led to the embarrassment who now occupies the White
House. Many Americans no longer research the candidates that they gravitate to emotionally,
and even fewer can distinguish between the character of a Machiavellian and a saint. As
Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy, and it is us".
Kamala " Chameleon" Harris must be stopped... at all costs. She makes Hillary look like
our Fairy Godmother.
Gabbard (D)(2): "Gabbard vs. Harris: You Kept Prisoners Locked Up For Labor, Blocked
Evidence That Would Free Man On Death Row" (transcript) [RealClearPolitics]. Gabbard on Harris:
"Now Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she'll be a
prosecutor president. But I'm deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples
to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about
it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana. She blocked evidence -- she blocked
evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do
so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state
of California. And she fought to keep [a] Bail system in place that impacts poor people in the
worst kind of way." • All true. Good staffwork. Oppo works!
Gabbard (D)(2): "Russia's propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi
Gabbard" [
NBC ]. "Since Gabbard announced her intention to run on Jan. 11*, there have been at least
20 Gabbard stories on three major Moscow-based English-language websites affiliated with or
supportive of the Russian government: RT, the Russian-owned TV outlet; Sputnik News, a radio
outlet; and Russia Insider, a blog that experts say closely follows the Kremlin line. The CIA
has called RT and Sputnik part of "Russia's state-run propaganda machine."
So "meddling" means "covering the election," much in the same way our own State media does.
What's the issue?
NOTE * That's 202 days, so one story every 10 days or so, spread out over three venues. One
can only imagine the hysteria if there were two stories every ten days, or even -- hold
on to your hats, here, folks -- one a week!
@Wally for Harris complains that maybe Tulsi Gabbard isn't familiar with Harris' full
record on crime, yet she claimed ignorance when West asked her about the Mnuchin affair, a
rather important matter from Harris' AG tenure.
I used to think much more highly of Huerta and Barbara Lee.
Well, at least Bernie-backing Cornell West hasn't drifted East in his principles.
Huerta is now Co-Chair of the Harris campaign and she responds to Tulsi's
observations:
#4 for Harris complains that maybe Tulsi Gabbard isn't familiar with Harris' full
record on crime, yet she claimed ignorance when West asked her about the Mnuchin affair,
a rather important matter from Harris' AG tenure.
I used to think much more highly of Huerta and Barbara Lee.
Well, at least Bernie-backing Cornell West hasn't drifted East in his principles.
Bernie supporters shouted that while they were throwing chairs. I know it for a fact
because somebody who was there told someone else who said something like that and it
eventually got back to me.
@wokkamile
@wokkamile Huerta's facial language was telling she me was lying straight to my face
about Mnuchin.
There was a tic, looking down, and a bankers smile.
#4 for Harris complains that maybe Tulsi Gabbard isn't familiar with Harris' full
record on crime, yet she claimed ignorance when West asked her about the Mnuchin affair,
a rather important matter from Harris' AG tenure.
I used to think much more highly of Huerta and Barbara Lee.
Well, at least Bernie-backing Cornell West hasn't drifted East in his principles.
was solidly in Hillary's corner in 2016. She carried water for the Dem establishment,
including lying through her teeth about Bernie supporters during the Nevada caucuses.
Now she's carrying water for Hillary's heir presumptive, Kamala Harris. Same old same old.
I don't trust Huerta one bit.
Huerta is now Co-Chair of the Harris campaign and she responds to Tulsi's
observations:
Have not gone over to TOP for a bit. A front pager was going full Monty smearing
Tulsi.
So Michael Moore wants Michele Obama to run against Trump. She is the only one who can
crush Trump. If this not some PR stunt to get his name in the press, Moore is truly a
mainstream DNC'er. Poll after poll shows Bernie beating Trump. So what would be Michele's
policies? The same as her neoliberal husband? Moore is living in a Hollywood bubble. I have
never seen Michele ever in venue where she is challenged and debated. How is she going to do
against an aggressive Trump on a common stage? Who would be her VP? Lady Gaga?
Speaking on the "Ben Shapiro Show" podcast, the Daily Wire editor-in-chief said
Harris failed to effectively
respond to attacks
during Wednesday's debate from
Rep. Tulsi
Gabbard
and Biden, and could not defend her health care plan.
"The Kamala moment is over. This is now becoming a Joe Biden versus Elizabeth Warren race and it's
doing so pretty quickly,"
he said
, likening
Harris' previous rise in the polls to a similar point in 2015 when Carly Fiorina had a strong debate
performance.
Shapiro emphasized the "brutal" challenge to Harris' record as a California prosecutor from Gabbard,
saying Gabbard "brought the hammer about as hard as I've seen someone bring a hammer in a presidential
debate since Chris Christie went after Marco Rubio."
"This is the meme from 'The Simpsons': stop, stop,
he's already dead."
genxer1
Leader
1m
The Dems need to ditch the DNC - they have too much influence over the party thanks to
Clinton. Trump won without the RNC or endorsement from practically anybody. The dems will
probably do this after their 2020 loss.
CSG21
Leader
3m
I think Kamala is done for the rest of time, not just for this election, after that
takedown. Good thing, she is evil.
KiscoDigglerq
Leader
4m
I loved it when Kamala said she listened to Snoop and Tupac in college....only for half
the world to instantly point out both of them released their respective first albums AFTER
she graduated. Pander much, Kamala?
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Shaunna007
4m
Harris reminds me of Hillary. Not an honest person. I am glad Tulsi Gabbard put a dagger
through Harris. Done and done!
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trucker49119
Leader
2m
Shaunna007
Still don't like gabbi gabbard however!!!!
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bigfeet1964
Leader
4m
poor Biden, It is called Texting. Not a website.
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whbdi
Leader
4m
Tulsi - Did you take that red pill that was prescribed by the doctor?
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JUSSIETHEDEMPLANT
Leader
5m
I personally want Warren to run against President Trump. I know who will carry the
American Indian vote.
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Trumpmakesyouliberal
Leader
4m
JUSSIETHEDEMPLANT
Trump cannot lay a glove on Biden. Biden is our next President.
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1stonetoscreamracistusuallyis
Leader
3m
Trumpmakesyouliberal
Hahahahaha. Put the crack pipe down
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stormsun
Leader
2m
Trumpmakesyouliberal
Did you plagiarize that from one of Joe's old college papers?
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obamakeepswinning
Leader
5m
I thing for sure, I won't be Trump
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Rick1970b
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4m
obamakeepswinning
no, you won't be.
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"... On top of the cake Kamala Not-The-Wrestler responded as expected, with a neoMcCarthyite slander, which will only work with Tulsi's haters and make Harris look like a tool to everyone else. ..."
"... @doh1304 ..."
"... Harris' record was both fair game and easy pickings because no one had gone there yet. It gained Tulsi the maximum impact because those who don't follow politics had not heard about any of these issues. ..."
"... Joe is so far down in the actual REAL polls, (not the land line polls as has been exposed), that the oligarchy has given up on him. Tulsi senses Joe is low hanging fruit. The DNC is going to cheat Bernie with either Kamala or Liz. Tulsi just took out Kamala. ..."
Why go after Biden? He's already imploding; she would only look cruel, beating up on a senile
old man for her own aggrandizement. Harris, OTOH, is a clear enemy, perpetrator of obvious
crimes. Exposing her could only make her look like a paladin.
On top of the cake Kamala Not-The-Wrestler responded as expected, with a neoMcCarthyite
slander, which will only work with Tulsi's haters and make Harris look like a tool to everyone
else.
Harris is sort of right, it is a strategy only used by someone trying to come from behind,
but that's because people with Tulsi's integrity are not allowed to start at the "Top-tier". up
14 users have voted. --
@doh1304 Harris' record was both fair game and easy pickings because no one had gone there yet.
It gained Tulsi the maximum impact because those who don't follow politics had not heard
about any of these issues.
Joe is so far down in the actual REAL polls, (not the land line polls as has been
exposed), that the oligarchy has given up on him. Tulsi senses Joe is low hanging fruit. The
DNC is going to cheat Bernie with either Kamala or Liz. Tulsi just took out Kamala.
Don't be surprised if she goes after Pocahontas in the next debates.
The crisis actors are just there to say what the democrats can't do or to derail anyone
who thinks they are going to change the system. Delaney, Bullock, DeBlasio and everyone else
who doesn't stand a chance have all been negative on Warren and Bernie pushing their MFA. Did
Delaney set himself up for Warren to smack him down? The silly ass smile on his face made me
think that. Then he was all over Twitter the next day saying how good he did in the debate.
And after 24 hours he finally had a comeback to Warren's response.
The other reason for so many candidates of course is to split the votes during the first
part so that the super delegates can come in and play.
attitude certainly was smacked down in righteous fashion. Hollywood level
righteous.
Having those extras on stage feature so prominently in the debates certainly was
interesting.
Can't believe Russian bots conspired to make Kamala implement an anti-truancy program, force
prisoners into slave labor, withhold evidence that would have released a death row inmate, and
keep cops unaccountable for police shootings. Those Russians are diabolical.
Harris's spokesman explains Tulsi's takedown of Kamala: It was Russia!
gjohnsit on Thu, 08/01/2019 - 11:47am Snoopydawg has got the
takedown covered , so I won't duplicate it.
Instead I'd like to show you how TOP has gone into a full-throated
whine party over it.
On Wednesday night, that meant that Gabbard got to go after Kamala Harris on her actions as
attorney general, using loaded phrases and selected statements to paint Harris as someone who
was ready to throw pot-smokers behind bars for eternity and personally throw the execution
switch for death row inmates after hiding evidence of their innocence.
There's no doubt that Harris will face more kicks about her AG role during this campaign,
and she certainly expected to receive some blows. But Gabbard knew she could square off with
Harris in the certainty that no one, but no one, came into the Wednesday night debate
thinking, "I need to prepare some talking points against Tulsi Gabbard." And even if she had,
CNN gave Harris little time to muster her thoughts before calling in more witnesses to
bolster Gabbard's attacks.
It wasn't just the tools on GOS that Tulsi knocked off balance, it was Harris
herself . Even CNN noticed.
Worse than that -- for Harris -- is the fact that it became crystal clear in the aftermath of
the debate that Gabbard had gotten under her skin. In a post-debate interview, CNN's Anderson
Cooper asked Harris about the moment with Gabbard.
"This is going to sound immodest, but obviously I'm a top-tier candidate and so I did expect
that I'd be on the stage and take some hits tonight," Harris said. "When people are at 0 or
1% or whatever she might be at, so I did expect to take some hits tonight."
Woof.
First of all, if you are running for president and you hear the words, "This is going to
sound immodest" come out of your mouth, it may be best to recalibrate what you are going to
say.
Second, what Harris is actually saying is, basically, this: The dork took a shot at the most
popular kid in school. Big whoop.
That is not a good look. For any candidate. Ever. (And, yes, politics is a LOT like high
school.)
That's gonna leave a mark.
But never fear, because there is a reason for Harris getting taken down by Gabbard -
Russia .
The #KamalaHarrisDestroyed hashtag had disappeared from the list of trending U.S. terms by
9:30 a.m. Thursday.
Harris's spokesman, Ian Sams, responded to the hashtag, noting that at least some of the
accounts promoting it appeared to be bots.
"The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 election is now promoting
the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat," he said.
Reporters writing their stories with eyes on the modern-day assignment desk of Twitter,
read this:
"The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 election is now promoting
the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat" https://t.co/2kpKQqW3Ir
Damn! Putin was on the debate stage and no one noticed?
That has got to be the weakest response in recent history.
Here's the thing, the Harris campaign is already guilty of
crying wolf over Russia.
Harris has already been caught misrepresenting alleged Russian propaganda activity. She
claimed in a radio interview on July 12 that she had been subjected to Russian bot attacks on
social media sites like Twitter.
But CNN debunked the claim days later, reporting that Twitter saw no evidence that Russian
bots were targeting Harris.
They're trying to get rid of Harris and Biden. I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Harris was
always going to get drowned by her own record as California's AG. And Biden... meh.
One of them. Warren eviscerating Delaney was another. Or her saying that Democrats are not
the Republicans, wanting to take healthcare away... Then, there was Buttigieg saying that no
matter what they do, the Republicans would call them socialists anyway, so who cares.
...whether the Democrats will end up moving too far to the left to be able to defeat
Trump in 2020...
reflects a poorly conceived (false) dichotomy about what "the left" is. When he says "the
left" what does he even mean?
There's the socialist left , which seeks to provide good working conditions and
pay, and better wealth distributions among the populace. This could be a huge boon to any
group suffering under the current economic system - including groups which Trump appealed to
in the last election but has utterly failed to do anything for.
There's the identity politics left which Hillary and the Neo-liberals (and the
Republicans, actually) embrace as a form of marketing strategy and use to promote free-market
ideology.
There's the "Democrat Party" (DNC) left which really stands for little more than
party rhetoric any more and vehemently supports Neo-liberalism.
And there's the environmentalist left which sees Global Climate destabilization as
the #1 issue facing the planet (a position loathed by the Neo-liberals and
identitarians).
There are also combinations and permutations of all these "lefts".
So when Kabaservice says he fears the Democrats moving too far to the left, he's
conflating all sorts of things, murkily hiding his intents behind his ill-defined
terminology.
There are over 20 candidates. They need to tread carefully. Kamala Harris discovered that
roasting Establishment candidate Biden early on didn't help her in the end.
The weirdos/corporate-shrills in the media are all slamming Sanders for his grumpiness and
'shouting'. I mean, the man is angry that people are dying because the Govt isn't looking
after them. How's that a minus against Sanders's personality??? Everyone should be mad as
hell. I'm a big fan of Warren but no-one can dispute that Sanders is a good man.
Delaney - the multi millionaire - looked like he had been entrusted by CNN (and probably the
DNC) to be the first of many attack dogs against Sanders and Warren. He was probably meant to
appear the voice of reason, speaking rational politics to make make them seem like
extremists, but he came across as dumb and sounded like a spokesperson for the very vested
interests that will be threatened most by Sanders´ and Warren´s plans. And that
gormless face will surely be the subject of memes for years to come!
I think I read somewhere that 87% of US elections are won by the candidate with the most
money. And since most money comes from the millionaires and their lobbyists the DNC
establishment clearly would rather work for those with most, than for those in most need. A
bit like the Blairite nest within Corbyn´s Labour Party. And what John Delaney was
saying was exactly why ordinary people are so disillusioned with regular politicians -
especially those of the so-called ´left´- and why they become so easily taken-in
by populists like Trump.
When the right get in they always do stuff for their paymasters. Big stuff. They steal
public funds through tax cuts for the rich and the corporations. They repeal protections for
workers, and allow Big Oil to destroy the environment. They bloat the budget for the military
industrial complex and allow the US Military machine to be used as a private army for the
corporations´insatiable resource grab. And they let Wall Street do what it wants.
When the so called parties of the left get in - be they Democrats, Labour, SPD or whoever
-they usually do diddly squat. Because deals have usually been made not to shake anything up.
Not even to correct the injustices enacted by their predecessors. I saw a stat about US
government tax revenues that showed how 50 years ago 33% came from companies and only about
10% came from incomes; today those numbers are reversed. It´s no wonder millions are
becoming desperate for change.
I´m sure the DNC and its paymasters will no doubt try to learn something from the
debate, to better prep Joe Biden when he steps into the ring, probably against Sanders OR
Warren. I can´t see him going up against both of them. But also to better rig future
debates against Sanders and Warren, perhaps to try to divide them. Though, to be fair to CNN,
they did a pretty good job. But it clearly failed.
What will be interesting will be watching how the adult-in-room MSM switches from
incessant Trump bashing to doing everything it can to stop Sanders and Warren. I fear that it
will get dirty, and relentless, and both will be attacked, labelled and misrepresented. But
if a moderate candidate - like Honest Joe Biden - is jerrymandered into position up
against Trump in 2020 then I fear that we are all fucked.
I just got this beg from AOC (who, btw, turns 35 on October 13, 2024). We'll probably hear
about it tomorrow night:
That's why we're proud to announce the Climate Equity Act, a new bill that Alexandria
will be introducing in the Fall with Kamala Harris, that would ensure that our work to combat
the climate crisis is centered on social, racial, and economic justice for all.
Absolutely, Kamala Harris is bad news. At this moment she is actively cosponsoring an
immigration bill to further outsourcing of US professional jobs to the Indian slave
traders.
I saw a Harris poster a few cycles back where Harris ran as an [x] Indian [x] woman, not a
[x] black [x] woman; I should dig it out. Trump will eat her for breakfast.
This story was in my Reuters feed this morning. Don't think much of the plan – it's
basically a hypothetical piece of legislation which would be dependent on an improbable future
one – but strictly based on the amusing wording of the headline Reuters used: "Harris,
Ocasio-Cortez float plan to lift low-income communities in climate plans".
"... Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris claimed that the furor surrounding San Francisco 49ers star Colin Kaepernick's protest was artificially generated by Russia. "Remember bend the knee and Colin Kaepernick?" she said on influential New York-based radio show The Breakfast Club , "it actually was not a thing. The Russian bots started taking that over." ..."
"... "They test out a couple of things to see what can get the American public going at each other, pointing fingers at each other," the California senator said. "Guess what gains the most heat? Race." Harris did not mention whether she believed Russians were responsible for ensuring Kaepernick did not get another job in the NFL again. ..."
Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris claimed that the furor surrounding
San
Francisco 49ers star Colin Kaepernick's protest was artificially generated by Russia.
"Remember bend the knee and Colin Kaepernick?" she said on influential New York-based radio show
The Breakfast Club , "it actually was not a thing. The Russian bots started taking
that over."
"They test out a couple of things to see what can get the American public going at each
other, pointing fingers at each other," the California senator said. "Guess what gains the
most heat? Race." Harris did not mention whether she believed Russians were responsible for
ensuring Kaepernick did not get another job in the NFL again.
Her comments surprised many, as however many Russian Twitter bots may have retweeted the
story, their influence surely pales in comparison to that of the mainstream media or the
President himself in stoking the fire of the controversy. There are 278 articles on
CNN
when searching for "Kaepernick protest" since 2016, 364 in the
New York Times and nearly 800 on
Fox News. Meanwhile, at an Alabama rally, President Trump
called
for his dismissal. "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody
disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he's
fired. He's fired!'" Mr Trump said. "You know, some owner is going to do that. He's going to
say, 'That guy that disrespects our flag, he's fired.' And that owner, they don't know it
[but] they'll be the most popular person in this country." Thus, that certain Russian bots
added their weight to the outrage may technically be correct, it is a matter of emphasis.
... ... ...
The Value of Blaming Russia
For mainstream, corporate Democrats like Harris, Russia is a useful excuse as to why they
lost to the most unpopular presidential candidate in history. If it was largely Putin's
fault, there is no need for self-reflection, to address campaign flaws, and certainly not to
cede ground to a left-wing insurgency speared by Bernie Sanders. Instead they can present a
rosy picture of America free from strife and not have to tackle so many of the problems they
helped create. As Hillary Clinton said, "America is already great".
... ... ...
Alan MacLeod is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group. His latest book, Bad
News From Venezuela: 20 Years of Fake News and Misreporting, was published by Routledge in
April.
Corporate Democrats are shark suckers attached to the bottoms of Oligarchs. To keep feeding
they must blame someone else not the White Shark. Russians are a natural enemy for the
five-eyes intelligence community and corrupt politicians. Media propaganda can't keep up with
the spooks crazy operations; restarting the Cold War, the Steele Dossier, Brexit, Salisbury
Poisonings, Trade Sanctions, or pirating oil tankers. One or all will inevitably kill the
host.
Techno_Fog and thread seem to
agree Mueller perjured himself and ought to get the Flynn treatment.
Margaret Kimberley on
Russiagate's legs and at least one responsible for keeping it alive:
"Robert Mueller testifies today but Russiagate will live on as long as cynical democrats
like Kamala Harris want it to. She is the worst, as she uses black people and denies our
history in an effort to promote the lie."
"It turned out that Mr. Mueller's team had no evidence that the Russian government was
involved with the Facebook pranks. This annoyed Judge Friedrich, who ordered Mr. Mueller and
his lawyers to desist making public statements about Concord and IRA's alleged "sweeping and
systemic" collusion with Russia, and threatened legal sanctions if they did."
"[Kamala] Harris is everything the US empire's unelected power establishment wants in a
politician: charismatic, commanding, and completely unprincipled. In that sense she's like
Obama, only better.
Trump supporters like to claim that the president is fighting the establishment, citing the
open revulsion that so many noxious establishment figures have for him. But the establishment
doesn't hate Trump because he opposes them; he doesn't oppose existing power structures in any
meaningful way at all. The reason the heads of those power structures despise Trump is solely
because he sucks at narrative management and puts an ugly face on the ugly things that
America's permanent government is constantly doing. He's bad at managing their assets.
Kamala Harris is the exact opposite of this. She'd be able to obliterate noncompliant
nations and dead-end the left for eight years, and look good while doing it. She's got the
skills to become president, and she'll have the establishment backing as well."
Sen. Kamala Harris
(D-Calif.) is coming under pressure to define her policy proposals from rivals raising
questions about where she stands on "Medicare for All" and other key issues.
Allies for former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), both of whom are
seeking to beat back a challenge from Harris's surging campaign, are calling Harris's past
remarks into question, saying she has obfuscated her positions in an effort to endear herself
to the liberal base.
"I think her statements, campaign are smoke and mirrors," said Dick Harpootlian, a Biden
campaign surrogate and the former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. "As the
campaign wears on and as she's pressed to prove details, I think she's going to find herself
realizing this isn't a campaign for attorney general of California. This is a presidential
campaign, and what you say has to be verifiable, and so far it has not been."
Alongside and consistent with other privilege- and power-serving missions, so-called
mainstream corporate media's role is to keep the populace focused as best it can on relatively
trivial matters and diverted from the most urgent topics of our time.
Kamala Harris Wants to Kill Your Health Insurance
Two Sundays ago, in a fit of masochistic media research, I watched some cable news talking
heads do their weekly news roundups. CNN had a panel of know-it-all neoliberals who reflected
on the Democratic Party's first two presidential debates. Everyone agreed that Kamala Harris
had been the big winner but had erred badly by embracing "the abolition of private health
insurance."
That's how CNN's "expert commentators" describe Medicare for All – not as high quality
and low-cost health care as a human right with great direct and collateral benefits resulting
from the eviction of corporate profit from coverage. Not as a great potential social and human
rights victory, but as destruction : the "abolition" of (unmentionably parasitic,
classist, exclusionary, inferior, and expensive, for-profit) health insurance.
Not that Senator Harris would seriously fight for Single Payer. She wouldn't. She's a
corporate
Democrat .
But I digress.
The chattering CNN craniums shifted to the United States Women's World Cup soccer team that
was triumphing in Paris. The panelists applauded the team's star, Megan Rapione, a lesbian who
refuses to visit the Donald Trump White House. (Good for her, but why not visit and spit in the
Malignant One's eye?).
Joy Reid Blames Russia for Anti-Kamala Birtherism
Over on the openly partisan-Democratic cable network MSNBC (hereafter "MSDNC"), morning host
Joy Reid was going off about the Huxwellian idiocy of Donald Trump's DMZ handshake with Kim
Jong-Un and the strange kind of love Trump has for the North Korean dictator and other
authoritarian heads-of-state. As usual with MSDNC, it was hard to detect the line separating
the network's proper criticism of Trump from its
deep investment in U.S. imperialism .
Consistent with the investment, Reid turned to the noxious racist vulgarity of online
rightists who claim that Kamala Harris isn't a "real African-American." Reid showed viewers a
copy of the Mueller Report and claimed without a hint of proof that the neo-Birther
Internet campaign against Harris was directed by the Russians? Her evidence? The Mueller
Report, completed prior to the Harris smear.
"... The whole story of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is "crazy," he says. Hillary Clinton had done everything wrong as a candidate, had led the Democratic Party into misfortune. There was no need for anything Russian. "Where is the evidence? There is none." ..."
"... Two years ago Hersh published a piece on Syria in Welt. He needs to go to Deutschland to get published, being banned from the MSM. ..."
"... Just like Col. Lang, Juan Cole and so many others. Our press is strictly controlled to focus on The Narrative. ..."
"... "Please watch this clip. It captures Russiagate perfectly: blaming Russian bots, neoliberals like Kamala Harris show ignorance about domestic injustices & contempt for those fighting it; while at the same time, sounding like deranged conspiracy theorists in the process." ..."
"... Lots of garbage trying to pollute our minds. Truth is the only antidote, but at times it's hard to find. Search for it and fight complacency. ..."
Form a
portrait of Seymour Hersh in the German weekly Die Zeit (my translation):
The whole story of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is "crazy," he
says. Hillary Clinton had done everything wrong as a candidate, had led the Democratic Party
into misfortune. There was no need for anything Russian. "Where is the evidence? There is
none."
Use as open thread ...
Posted by b on July 14, 2019 at 13:16 UTC | Permalink
"Please watch this clip. It captures Russiagate perfectly: blaming Russian bots,
neoliberals like Kamala Harris show ignorance about domestic injustices & contempt for
those fighting it; while at the same time, sounding like deranged conspiracy theorists in the
process."
"This is really good -- from calling out U.S. foreign policy that causes ppl to migrate to
the history of the term 'concentration camps' to the larger tradition of racist, state
sanctioned violence against ppl from the Southern border region."
Lots of garbage trying to pollute our minds. Truth is the only antidote, but at times it's
hard to find. Search for it and fight complacency.
"... Kamala Harris is multi-cultural, East Indian and Jamaican, globalist educated in the USA and Canada. To be elected and earn rewards she identifies herself as an African-American. ..."
Kamala
Harris's Hillaryesque tweet re Trump meeting Kim at DMZ:
"This President should take the North Korean nuclear threat and its crimes against
humanity seriously. This is not a photo-op. Our security and our values are at stake."
Comments on the thread are telling, and she's not fooling anyone.
Thank goodness that there is one place where Globalism, Boeing, and Kamala Harris can be
discussed. From the bottom, looking up, they are intertwined. Corporate media strictly
ignores the restoration of the robber baron aristocracy, the supremacy of trade treaties, the
endless wars for profit, the free flow of capital, and corrupted governments. The sole
purpose is to make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else.
There are many tell-tale signs that this is an apt description of the world. With
deregulation and outsourcing, there is no incentive to design and build safe airplanes. That
costs money. Two 737 Max(s) crash killing 346. Workplaces are toxic. The life expectancy in
the UK and USA is declining. The US dollar is used as a military weapon. Monopolies buy up
innovation. Corporate law breaking is punished by fines which are added to the cost of doing
business. There is no jail time for chief executives. The cost of storm damage is increasing.
Families are migrating to survive. Nationalist and globalist oligarchs are fighting over the
spoils. Last week the global economy was 10 minutes away from collapse by an American air
attack on Iran.
Kamala Harris is multi-cultural, East Indian and Jamaican, globalist educated in the
USA and Canada. To be elected and earn rewards she identifies herself as an
African-American. Neo-Populism and France's Yellow Vests are the direct response to
global capitalism that is supported by Corporate Democrats, New Labour Party, and Emmanuel
Macron. The rise of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson in response is no coincidence.
especially read this by Helen Hanna in the comments section:
kamala looked aside while wells fargo bank established 3 million fraudulent accounts while
she was attorney general of california. she did nothing to punish them. she might as well be
wearing a hillary mask. as someone who lived in the bay area for 31 years, i remember her on
the 'matier and ross' interview program--her performance was juvenile and silly--- and i
remember her being willing to join the parade of willie brown's cocaine addicted mistresses,.
as number 21 and as a woman of color, she was a relief---not white, not skanky, no silver
cocaine spoon around her neck while pretending to eat dinner at chez michel with willie, but
why on earth would you want to join this parade and go out with this sleazy man whose kiton
suits do not improve his image one bit, a politician who offended the san francisco public by
his obnoxious habit of publicly flaunting his many skanky female hangers on, and reveling in
their 'whiteness.' what a bad choice kamala made. remember that pelosi and feinstein wouldn't
let willie brown anywhere near the inauguration podium of barack obama because these women
did not want willie's offensive background to sully obama. willie had had an illegitimate
child while 'serving as' mayor of san francisco, a city of 500 churches, mostly catholic. the
catholic church continued to retain him in the role --'of counsel.' that was astounding to
me, absolutely astounding.... willie also laundered drug money in a sutter street garage with
his haberdasher, wilkes bashford, but dianne feinstein prevented him from being jailed. i can
just see the sisterhood at temple emanuel where dianne feinstein worships--i can just see
them admonishing her for even suggesting one of serial adulterer willie's former mistresses
be the first woman president....is that why senator feinstein is keeping such a low profile
lately? what i don't understand is why pelosi and feinstein keep bringing us these
puppet-like women----hillary will always be bill's puppet and kamala will be willie's puppet.
you cannot possibly choose two more sleazy, obnoxious men to be your superior.
This is WSWS with their outdated dreams of "working class dictatorship" but some points and observation are very apt and
to the point.
Notable quotes:
"... The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy ..."
"... Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate, her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. ..."
"... She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class, whose views are promoted by the New York Times ..."
"... The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump and Obama. ..."
"... If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia. ..."
"... On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders. ..."
Four hours of nationally televised debates Wednesday and Thursday among 20 Democratic
presidential candidates demonstrated the gigantic disconnect between the claims of this
pro-war, pro-corporate party to be driven by concerns for the well-being of working people
and the reality of poverty and oppression in America, for which the Democratic Party is no
less responsible than the Republicans.
The stage-managed spectacle mounted by NBC marked the formal beginning of an electoral
process dominated by big money and thoroughly manipulated by the corporate-controlled
media.
The attempt to contain the growing left-wing opposition in the working class and channel
it behind the second oldest capitalist party in the world necessarily assumed the form of
lies and demagogy. For the most part, the vying politicians, all of them in the top 10
percent on the income ladder, made promises to provide healthcare, jobs, decent schools,
tuition-free college and a clean environment for all, knowing full well they had no intention
of carrying them out.
No one -- neither the millionaire media talking heads asking the questions nor the
candidates -- dared to mention the fact that that Democratic Party has just voted to give
Trump an additional $4.9 billion to round up, detain and torture hundreds of thousands of
immigrants, including children, in the growing network of concentration camps being set up
within the US. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things, and this one demonstrates the
complicity of the Democratic Party in the fascistic policies of the Trump administration.
The second night of the debate featured the front-runners, former Vice President Joe Biden
and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden has a long record of reactionary politics,
including in the Obama administration. Sanders is continuing in this election his role in
2016 of channeling growing support for socialism into the framework of a right-wing
party.
The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in
the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the
clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy. The African-American
senator was lauded for attacking Biden for statements boasting of his ability in the past to
collaborate with segregationist senators and his past opposition to busing for school
integration.
It was Harris who adopted the most transparently bogus posture of left-radicalism in
Thursday night's debate, repeatedly declaring her agreement with Bernie Sanders and raising
her hand, along with Sanders, to support the abolition of private health insurance in favor
of a single-payer system. By Friday morning, however, she had reversed that stand, claiming
she had "misheard" the question and declaring her support for the continuation of private
insurance.
Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a
law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and
bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven
Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of
Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate,
her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class,
whose views are promoted by the New York Times , who want the Democratic campaign to
be dominated by racial and gender politics so as to mobilize the party's wealthy upper-middle
class base and divert and divide the mass working class anger over social
inequality.
Many of the candidates fondly recalled the Obama administration. But those eight years saw
the greatest transfer of wealth from working people to the super-rich in American history.
The pace was set by the initial $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which was expanded to
uncounted trillions in the course of 2009, combined with the bailout of the auto companies at
the expense of the autoworkers, who suffered massive cuts in benefits and a 50 percent cut in
pay for new hires, rubber-stamped by the United Auto Workers.
The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was
raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of
sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump
and Obama.
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado attacked Biden for claiming credit for a bipartisan
budget deal in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Far from a genuine
compromise, he said, the deal "was a complete victory for the Tea Party. It extended the Bush
tax cuts permanently," as well as putting in place major cuts in social spending which
continue to this day. Bennet neglected to mention that he had voted for the deal himself when
it passed the Senate by a huge majority.
It was remarkable, under conditions where President Trump himself declared that the United
States was only 10 minutes away from launching a major assault on Iran earlier this month,
that the 20 Democratic candidates spent almost no time discussing foreign policy.
In the course of four hours, there were only a few minutes devoted to the world outside
the United States. The silence on the rest of the world cannot be dismissed as mere
parochialism.
Many of the Democratic presidential candidates are deeply implicated in either the
policy-making or combat operations of US imperialism. The 20 candidates include two who were
deployed as military officers to Iraq and Afghanistan, Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard; Biden,
vice president for eight years and the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee; and five senators who are members of high-profile national security committees:
Harris and Bennet on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten
Gillibrand on the Armed Services Committee, and Cory Booker on the Foreign Relations
Committee.
If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is
clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military
interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for
major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with
nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia.
In the handful of comments that were made on foreign policy, the Democratic candidates
struck a belligerent note. On Wednesday, four of the ten candidates declared the main global
threat to the United States to be China, while New York Mayor Bill de Blasio opted for
Russia. Many candidates referred to the need to combat Russian interference in the US
election -- recycling the phony claims that Russian "meddling" helped Trump into the White
House in 2016.
On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest
global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a
greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration
was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was
not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders.
"Harris is smashing this debate, and she's the perfect tool to carry out oligarchic agendas:
charming, commanding, and completely unprincipled. Watch her campaign closely."
@caitoz on Bennet:
"Bennett says Russian memes are the greatest threat to US national security and isn't
laughed out of the building because people have been trained to believe such psychosis is
normal."
Caitlin
Johnstone is out of depth with this article. Completly out of depth.
Majority of her donations have come from financial interests including Wall Street, financial
industry lawyers, and real estate industry.
She has huge baggage due her mismanagement if Prosecutorial office in San Francisco and the
story probably gradually start leaking.
Her debating skills that Caitlin
Johnstone praises are not that great: she is too arrogant and try to bulli the opponent. That
works with weaker candidates but this will not work with Tulsi, Warren or Sanders. Also she is
playing "identity card" in a very dishonest way and if this is exposed she is a toast.
I am not sure that exposing herself as an arrogant bully attracts the voters. So in no way
she won the debates. Also there is a strong suspicion is that she got the questions in advance
and that was a prepared ambush.
She bought Russiagate fairy take and that a sign of political corruption. This statement
clearly demonstrate the level of her corruption and immaturity: "You asked what is the greatest
national-security threat to the United States. It's Donald Trump," Harris said. "You want to talk
about North Korea, a real threat in terms of its nuclear arsenal. But what does he do? He
embraces Kim Jong Un, a dictator, for the sake of a photo op. Putin. You want to talk about
Russia? He takes the word of the Russian president over the word of the American intelligence
community when it comes to a threat to our democracy and our elections."
In no way she she can attract former Trump voters -- she is limited to fraction of Hillary
base and as such her chances are not that strong.
Notable quotes:
"... Harris won the debate despite fully exposing herself for the corporate imperialist she is in the midst of that very debate. While answering a question about climate change she took the opportunity to attack Trump on foreign policy, not for his insane and dangerous hawkishness but for not being hawkish enough, on both North Korea and Russia. ..."
"... Harris is everything the US empire's unelected power establishment wants in a politician: charismatic, commanding, and completely unprincipled. In that sense she's like Obama, only better. ..."
"... Trump supporters like to claim that the president is fighting the establishment, citing the open revulsion that so many noxious establishment figures have for him. But the establishment doesn't hate Trump because he opposes them ; he doesn't oppose existing power structures in any meaningful way at all. ..."
"... The reason the heads of those power structures despise Trump is solely because he sucks at narrative management and puts an ugly face on the ugly things that America's permanent government is constantly doing . He's bad at managing their assets. ..."
"... Kamala Harris is the exact opposite of this. She'd be able to obliterate non-compliant nations and dead-end the left for eight years, and look good while doing it. She's got the skills to become president, and she'll have the establishment backing as well. Keep an eye on this one. ..."
"... Her story about racial segragation and discrimination were truly pathetic. She didn't even attend high school in the USA, and when in the USA, her parents lived in Berkeley, of all places. It is truly amazing the complete and utter ******** a preferred candidate can say, and the US mainstream media will not challenge them on it. ..."
"... Harris is an intersectionalisty, PC, indentity politicking, feminist, racial bully. She's never had a confrontation with any one who she wasn't able to bully down with this type of behaviour. ..."
"... The Democratic campaign issue of extending free health care to undocumented immigrants is a BIG loser (imo). No way are blue-collar voters in rust-belt states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan going to support that in any large numbers. ..."
"... Her attack on Biden re. school busing seemed well rehearsed. ..."
"... Completely unprincipled? She's a member of the CFR "Deep State", where being an "unprincipled money worshiper" is a pre-requisite. Everyone of them are, that's the problem. Only vetted whores need apply. Biden is an old whore, and female whores always do better than male whores in their profession. ..."
"... She's a female Obama. Never really accomplished anything but getting elected. When the going gets tough she will reveal herself as the vapid left coast liberal she is. ..."
"... She ignored sexual harassment in her own department as CA AG. She has a lot of scandals that make her look bad: Willie Brown, arresting and jailing pot smokers while she herself smoked pot and the whole Mnuchin thing. Jailing homeless mothers For their child's truancy from school. Her defense of the death penalty but not gay marriage while AG. ..."
"... Her family history in Caribbean slave trade needs to exposed more fully. Biden, should have responded ... 'I hear grandma was a slave plantation owner ? '. That woulda stopped the 'train'. ..."
"... Why should we believe the Presstitutes in 2020 after their lying flop in 2016'. Tulsi won. And they barely let her play ..."
"... Like Obama, who has Valerie Jarret to tell him what he thinks, she needs a handler. She is fundamentally clueless and will hand the media many a gaff in coming weeks. ..."
"... She does stumble over her thoughts in every un-canned interview I've seen, along with Booker ..."
California Senator Kamala Harris won the Democratic presidential debate last night. It was
not a close contest. She will win every debate she enters during this election cycle. If she
becomes the nominee, she will win every debate with Trump.
Night two of the debates was just as vapid and ridiculous as night
one . Candidates interrupted and talked over each other a lot, questions about foreign
policy were avoided like the plague to prevent NBC viewers from thinking critically about the
mechanics of empire, and Eric Swalwell kept talking despite everyone in the universe
desperately wanting him not to. Buttigieg and Gillibrand did alright, Bernie played the same
note he's been playing for decades, and everyone was reminded how bad Joe Biden is at talking
and thinking.
Biden has been treated kindly by polls and regarded as a "frontrunner" in this race
exclusively because for the last decade he hasn't had to do anything other than be associated
with Barack Obama . Now that he's had to step out of that insulated role and interact with
reality again, everyone's seeing the same old garbage right-wing Democrat who sucks at making
himself look appealing just as badly as he did in his last two presidential campaigns. By the
end of the night, even Michael
Bennet was slapping him around .
The moment
everyone's talking about was when Harris created a space for herself to attack Biden on his
citing his collaboration with segregationists as an example of his ability to reach across the
aisle and "get things done". Harris had not been called upon to speak, and once given the
go-ahead by moderator Rachel Maddow after interjecting went way beyond the 30 seconds she'd
been allotted in tearing Biden apart. She skillfully took control of the stage and engineered
the entire space for the confrontation by sheer dominance of personality, and Biden had no
answer for it.
That's the moment everyone's talking about. But Harris had already been owning the debate
prior to that.
The goal of a political debate is to make yourself look appealing and electable to your
audience. You can do that by having a very good platform, or you can do it with charisma and
oratory skills. It turns out that Kamala Harris is really, really good at doing the latter. She
made frequent and effective appeals to emotion, she built to applause lines far more skillfully
than anyone else on the stage, she kept her voice unwavering and without stammer, she made
herself look like a leader by admonishing the other candidates to
stop talking over each other, and she hit all the right progressive notes you're supposed to
hit in such a debate.
Unlike night one of the debates, night two had a clear, dominant winner. If you were a
casual follower of US politics and didn't have a favorite coming into the debate, you likely
went away feeling that Harris was the best.
This wasn't a fluke. Harris has been cultivating her debate skills for decades, first
in the
Howard University debate team where she is said to have "thrived", then as a prosecutor,
then as a politician, and she'll be able to replicate the same calibre of performance in all
subsequent debates. There's more to getting elected than debate skills, but it matters, and in
this area no one will be able to touch her. Harris won the debate despite fully exposing
herself for the corporate imperialist she is in the midst of that very debate. While answering
a question about climate change she took the opportunity to attack Trump on foreign policy, not
for his insane and dangerous hawkishness but for not being hawkish enough, on both North Korea
and Russia.
"You asked what is the greatest national-security threat to the United States. It's Donald
Trump," Harris said . "You
want to talk about North Korea, a real threat in terms of its nuclear arsenal. But what does
he do? He embraces Kim Jong Un, a dictator, for the sake of a photo op. Putin. You want to
talk about Russia? He takes the word of the Russian president over the word of the American
intelligence community when it comes to a threat to our democracy and our elections."
Harris is everything the US empire's unelected power establishment wants in a
politician: charismatic, commanding, and completely unprincipled. In that sense she's like
Obama, only better.
Harris was one of the 2020 presidential hopefuls who came under fire at the beginning of the
year
when it was reported that she'd been reaching out to Wall Street executives to find out if
they'd support her campaign. Executives named in the report include billionaire Blackstone CEO
Jonathan Gray, 32 Advisors' Robert Wolf, and Centerbridge Partners founder Mark Gallogly. It
was reported two
entire years ago that Harris was already courting top Hillary Clinton donors and organizers
in the Hamptons. She hasn't been in politics very long, but her campaign contributions as a
senator have come from numerous
plutocratic institutions .
... ... ...
Trump supporters like to claim that the president is fighting the
establishment, citing the open revulsion that so many noxious establishment figures have for
him. But the establishment doesn't hate Trump because he opposes them ; he doesn't oppose
existing power structures in any meaningful way at all.
The reason the heads of those power structures despise Trump is solely because he sucks
at narrative management and puts an ugly face on the ugly things that America's permanent
government is constantly doing . He's bad at managing their assets.
Kamala Harris is the exact opposite of this. She'd be able to obliterate non-compliant
nations and dead-end the left for eight years, and look good while doing it. She's got the
skills to become president, and she'll have the establishment backing as well. Keep an eye on
this one.
In this American's view, Kamala Harris is TOTALLY UNFIT to be POTUS. Her value set is COMPLETELY OUT OF STEP with America and WE THE PEOPLE. She is one of the most VILE CREATURES infecting our federal government system.
TRUMP WILL DEMOLISH HER IN 2020.
Be prepared for a MASSIVE LANDSLIDE FOR TRUMP if Harris is the Democratic nominee for
POTUS.
Like Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry famously said, "Do you feel lucky, punk? Go ahead...make
my day."
Her story about racial segragation and discrimination were truly pathetic. She didn't even
attend high school in the USA, and when in the USA, her parents lived in Berkeley, of all
places. It is truly amazing the complete and utter ******** a preferred candidate can say,
and the US mainstream media will not challenge them on it.
Harris is an intersectionalisty, PC, indentity politicking, feminist, racial bully. She's never had a confrontation with any one who she wasn't able to bully down with this
type of behaviour.
Well, until she gets across from Trump and she pulls this
ßƱ££$ĦĬŦ, except Trump just laughs it off, and punches
her in the face. She'll try to shame him, but he's shameless and will show everyone just who
she is.
The Democratic campaign issue of extending free health care to undocumented immigrants is
a BIG loser (imo). No way are blue-collar voters in rust-belt states like Ohio and
Pennsylvania and Michigan going to support that in any large numbers.
Those states are filled
with hard-working people who lost good-paying factory jobs and are scrambling to get by. They
are not going to line up en masse and volunteer to pay more taxes so undocumented immigrants
can get free health care. Harris and the whole sorry state of Commifornia are out of touch.
I
think Trump could beat Harris in a landslide (assuming the economy and/or stock markets don't
crash before then), and it shouldn't matter much who "wins" the debates. FWIW, I thought
Clinton was a better debator than Trump, but it didn't seem to matter that much.
BTW, the Harris campaign didn't wait very long to start selling "That Little Girl Was Me"
t-shirts:
She seems very mean-spirited. Her attack on Biden re. school busing seemed well
rehearsed. It also had a major flaw in that forced busing was widely regarded as a
failure, and it was reportedly unpopular with many minorities.
Completely unprincipled? She's a member of the CFR "Deep State", where being an
"unprincipled money worshiper" is a pre-requisite. Everyone of them are, that's the problem.
Only vetted whores need apply. Biden is an old whore, and female whores always do better than
male whores in their profession.
She's a female Obama. Never really accomplished anything but getting elected. When the
going gets tough she will reveal herself as the vapid left coast liberal she is.
Meet the NEW HILLARY, same as the old Hillary, but with an exciting dash of racial
intersectionality.
I've read that as DA she was absolute hell on wheels. Then there's the issue of being
WILLIE BROWN'S MISTRESS, evidently just a big joke in Cali....
Kamela's demeanor is like a smirking 'in crowd' kind of thing. Like Obama she hasn't been
in the Senate 5 minutes and now she's running for president, DISPLAYING ALL THE WORST
PSYCHOPATHIC POWER-LUST TENDENCIES THAT ARE ODDLY DESPISED IN HETEROSEXUAL WHITE MEN YET
CELEBRATED IN WOMEN.
The Left RUSHES to its own destruction, as always. History gives us a complete map of
where we are going if she achieved the levers of power. Think STALIN....
The real question anymore is will the badged white men with guns operating under color of
law side with their own destruction, thinking only of their sweet 20 year pensions? This is
cops, national guard, military.....
She ignored sexual harassment in her own department as CA AG. She has a lot of scandals
that make her look bad: Willie Brown, arresting and jailing pot smokers while she herself
smoked pot and the whole Mnuchin thing. Jailing homeless mothers For their child's truancy
from school. Her defense of the death penalty but not gay marriage while AG.
her staff recommended criminal indictments which she squashed in rhe Mnuchin bank fraud
case.
Harris has a listening disorder, she does not listen well, exp. her exchange with AG Barr
she does not hear a word he says.
Her family history in Caribbean slave trade needs to exposed more fully. Biden, should
have responded ... 'I hear grandma was a slave plantation owner ? '. That woulda stopped the
'train'.
She's also stupid, and her thuggishness, while popular with some, won't put her over the
top. Nope, the Dems are going to have to get somebody who is at least a little bit likeable
(get ready, Michelle, it's almost time to go back to work).
Dofing duffer Biden with a prepped & targeted zinger that he walked right into
..once...and winning the nomination is a different kettle of fish.
Flatfooted, off the cuff and on her own, she stinks. She's good in practice but on game day
when she puts on her cleats, she's a 2nd team flunkie. Just run her Kavanaugh hearing
bites.
Like Obama, who has Valerie Jarret to tell him what he thinks, she needs a handler.
She is fundamentally clueless and will hand the media many a gaff in coming weeks.
She does stumble over her thoughts in every un-canned interview I've seen, along with
Booker. And the article doesn't mention much about her nasty background, which will fester,
along with Booker's, if they are the nominees. Trump will eat all their lunches and they will
pay the tab.
We’ll see how neoliberal MSM will spin this, but I would say Sanders emerged unscathed, Harris attacked and "wounded" Biden, Biden
sounded like a lightweight, Gillibrand seems to be a very unpleasant person although different form Harris...
Notable quotes:
"... as if polling on donald trump and stuff is just so interesting ..."
"... Kamala Harris got more floor time than anyone else. Harris ended Biden's campaign. The debate is rigged against Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... Did Harris get the debate questions in advance? ..."
"... Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage. ..."
"... Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala The Cop. ..."
Pathetic, the whole scene is pathetic. What a way to run a putative democracy, bring back the league of women voters to run
the debates and that idiot with the graphs during commercial breaks while watching this online, I want to break his freaking head
sorry.
I had the idea that your sensibilities were rather more refined than that, knowing anything about or not.
Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who
is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying
from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage.
FWIW, Boot Edge Edge’s prehensile sincerity was masterful in my view – shows some real talent.
I’m just observing this out of academic interest and hope we’ll all have a chance to vote for Bernie in the general. But from
tonight, Boot Edge Edge to me stood out as a talent – and everyone else (besides Bernie who was reliably on message and will keep
going more or less the same after this) was garbage or unnecessary (Biden is a disgrace), and the first debate was better.
Cal2, June 27, 2019 at 11:19 pm
In that case, Donald Trump gets our votes, as well as keeping all the potential crossovers, who had supported Trump last time,
and would have voted for Sanders-Gabbard.
Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala
The Cop.
Sanders-Harris would be political suicide for the Democrats.
Those emotions erupted in the Thursday debate when Kamala Harris took on Biden for his earlier
remarks about the old days of the Senate when he could work collaboratively with Southern
segregationists such as Alabama's James Eastland. Harris said it was "very hurtful" to hear
Biden "talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputation and
career on the segregation of race in this country." She scored Biden also for working with such
senators in opposition to busing for racial balance in schools during the 1970s.
"Do you agree today, do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America
then? Do you agree?" she asked with considerable emotion in her voice. She added it was a
personal matter with her given that she had benefited from busing policies as a young girl.
Biden retorted: "A mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise
racists." He added that he never opposed busing as a local policy arrived at through local
politics, but didn't think it should be imposed by the federal government. "That's what I
opposed," he said.
The exchange accentuated the extent to which racial issues are gaining intensity in America
and roiling the nation's politics to a greater extent than in the recent past. Biden's point,
as he sought to explain, was that there was a day when senators of all stripes could work
together on matters of common concern even when they disliked and opposed each other's
fundamental political outlook. That kind of approach could point the way, he implied, to a
greater cooperative spirit in Washington and to breaking the current political deadlock
suffused with such stark animosities. But that merely stirred further animosities, raising
questions about whether today's political rancor in Washington can be easily or soon
ameliorated.
Kamala Harris is a pure establishment candidate like Hillary was in 2016.
She is so well known to be the leasing establishment candidate that it look plausible that Biden might sacrifice himself to
promote Harris, playing a sheep dog role like Sanders played for Hillary in 2016.
Notable quotes:
"... caitlin johnstones article on harris - Kamala Harris Is An Oligarch's Wet Dream ..."
"... Sacrificing Biden to get somebody just as good for the apartheid Jewish state isn't something which surprises me. If K. Harris has any Presidential qualities worthy of notice, I've yet to see them. What I suspect is that the woman is a smiling and "nice" version of Hillary. ..."
"... she does not offer an end or even a restraint on the wars; that much should be clear to every American - so she really shouldn't stand a chance, no matter how good her debating skills, if Americans really want an end to the wars. ..."
Harris is against BDS, though like most of the other Democratic candidates from the
Senate was smart enough not to vote for the bill criminalizing it. She was "for" the Iran
agreement, but if my memory isn't flawed that was put in place as a holding action while
the destruction of Syria was brought to a conclusion.
Sacrificing Biden to get somebody just as good for the apartheid Jewish state isn't
something which surprises me. If K. Harris has any Presidential qualities worthy of notice,
I've yet to see them. What I suspect is that the woman is a smiling and "nice" version of
Hillary.
Ha, possibly I'm not good at sarcasm; I tend towards the literal.
The article about Kamala Harris was interesting. I've come across it before a year or so
ago. There's other stuff; I believe the most damning is a recording where she expresses
glee about prosecuting black American's and taking a hardline. What is interesting is how
this information is known but still kept hidden. She is not the shoo-in that CJ imagines
though; as I understand it, the black community have her number, so she won't achieve Obama
levels of support, that's her big weakness.
Whatever, she does not offer an end or even a restraint on the wars; that much should be
clear to every American - so she really shouldn't stand a chance, no matter how good her
debating skills, if Americans really want an end to the wars.
She's not a good person and that's what I hear from people who have worked for her. But she's agressive debater... .
Notable quotes:
"... As a lifetime Californian and witness to Kamala's incompetence in San Francisco. I, and at least12 of my friends, would vote for Trump again if the Democrats allow Harris anywhere on the ticket. ..."
You will not see a Harris presidency. If she's on any ticket, including as Bernie's V.P.,
Trump wins again.
I'm a rabid Bernie supporter (Twice). As a lifetime Californian and witness to Kamala's
incompetence in San Francisco. I, and at least12 of my friends, would vote for Trump again if
the Democrats allow Harris anywhere on the ticket.
Her boast:
"So as attorney general, and the chief law officer of the state of California, I issued a
directive to the sheriffs of my state that they did not have to comply with ICE detainers
"
"Suspect Edwin Ramos awaits trial in San Francisco County Jail, a system that released him
nearly three months before the slayings. Convicted twice on felony charges as a juvenile, he
was protected then from immigration officials because of the city's [Kamala's] sanctuary
policy .
Immigration activists have embraced the grieving family, using the June 22 deaths of Anthony,
Matthew and Michael Bologna to call for change."
Kamala; a fruiting body coming off the rot of Democratic Dynastic politics.
C'mon Lambert, seriously, a joint with Harris? I had the idea that your sensibilities were
rather more refined than that, knowing anything about or not.
Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn't care, doesn't take the whole thing
seriously. It's like someone who is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her
having to be there. That's what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying from any leadership
position. "Food fight"? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage.
FWIW, Boot Edge Edge's prehensile sincerity was masterful in my view – shows some
real talent.
I'm just observing this out of academic interest and hope we'll all have a chance to vote
for Bernie in the general. But from tonight, Boot Edge Edge to me stood out as a talent
– and everyone else (besides Bernie who was reliably on message and will keep going
more or less the same after this) was garbage or unnecessary (Biden is a disgrace), and the
first debate was better.
Looks like they really want Trump to be re-elected...
Notable quotes:
"... In the first debate, on Wednesday, only Ryan and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar expressed concerns about eliminating criminal statutes for illegal entry. On Thursday, when NBC moderators asked for a show of hands of those who wanted to "decriminalize" unauthorized crossings, only Colorado Senator Michael Bennet kept his hand down. ..."
"... Also on Thursday, several candidates decried the idea of deporting illegal immigrants who hadn't committed crimes in the United States, while no one expressed misgivings about such a policy. When it was pointed out by one NBC moderator that Obama had deported 3 million illegals during his presidency, California Senator Kamala Harris responded, "I disagreed with Obama on that." ..."
For years the effort to manage the issue centered on an elusive compromise concept that
included serious border security and a path to legality or citizenship for current illegals.
The problem for immgration restrictionists was that the last time such a compromise was struck,
in 1986, it didn't work. Amnesty was granted to illegals then in the country, but no serious
border security ensued. Instead the number of undocumented residents shot up to 11 million or
more.
The debates revealed that serious border security is not something most Democrats consider
worth mentioning. Instead, most railed against the fact that crossing the U.S. border illegally
is a criminal offense. They argued it should be merely a civil matter. "Don't criminalize
desperation," said Julian Castro, U.S. secretary of housing and urban development under Obama.
"What kind of country are we running here?" asked Ohio Representative Tim Ryan, with a
president stoking "hate and fear."
In the first debate, on Wednesday, only Ryan and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar
expressed concerns about eliminating criminal statutes for illegal entry. On Thursday, when NBC
moderators asked for a show of hands of those who wanted to "decriminalize" unauthorized
crossings, only Colorado Senator Michael Bennet kept his hand down.
Also on Thursday, several candidates decried the idea of deporting illegal immigrants
who hadn't committed crimes in the United States, while no one expressed misgivings about such
a policy. When it was pointed out by one NBC moderator that Obama had deported 3 million
illegals during his presidency, California Senator Kamala Harris responded, "I disagreed with
Obama on that."
And when the Thursday candidates were asked if they would provide health care for illegal
immigrants, all said they would. Also, no one at either debate expressed a concern about U.S.
border facilities being overwhelmed by asylum seekers traveling as families and entering the
United States illegally -- some 332,000 since October. Instead they railed against U.S.
officials struggling with the task of processing these people without adequate personnel or
facilities.
In short, judged by the debates, the New Democratic Party has abandoned the old compromise
concept of border security in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for current illegals. These
candidates made clear that they continue to insist on a citizenship pathway but don't care much
about border security.
"... The US now has the politics of a third world nation - namely Brazil. Corrupt oligarchs using news media outlets to further their own interests, corrupt politicians using the justice system to indict and jail their political opponents (regardless of whether they are guilty or not). The police and the intelligence agencies being co-opted by some political interests to hound their political rivals. In my opinion - this is what happens when wealth inequality becomes too great (and no - I am not a communist or even all that socialist, I just would like to see wealth inequality return to what it was in the US in the 1970s). ..."
"... Watching Kamala Harris from my California vantage point, she is a very haughty, mean person now trying desperately to appear more relatable. ..."
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said the Justice Department would have "no choice" but to
charge President Donald Trump with obstruction of justice if he finished his term without being
impeached.
Speaking with NPR's Scott Detrow in an interview published Wednesday, Harris said special
counsel Robert Mueller essentially set the stage for criminal charges against Trump with his
investigation into the 2016 election. Longstanding Justice Department policy says that a
sitting president cannot be indicted, and Harris said that was essentially the only reason
Mueller did not charge Trump was the DoJ policy against indicting sitting presidents.
All that would change in 2021 if the Democratic presidential hopeful were in the White House
and the Justice Department were under her watch, she said.
"I believe that they would have no choice, and that they should," Harris said of the Justice
Department's charging Trump with obstruction. "I believe there should be accountability.
Everyone should be held accountable. And the president is not above the law."" politico
------------
So, the new rule will be - if you lose a federal election in the US your victorious
opponents will prosecute you and seek to imprison you. I know a lot of American political
history and I really think this has never been done before. But, now, the Harpies (Pelosi,
Gilliland, K. Harris) have promised the left wing foule that if they win they will seek
to imprison Trump. Uncle Joe is far ahead, and unless some instance of molestation comes to
light or he nods off during an interview, he has a good chance of getting the nomination.
My SWAG is that he would choose a VP nominee whose persona and age would to some extent
offset his doddering foolishness.
Kamala Harris looks to me to be the most likely; woman, photogenic, California, a jurist,
radical enough to satisfy the mob. If he did that then we would have a high chance of seeing a
KH presidency. God help us. pl
That's what I have been telling my husband since she announced her candidacy at the
beginning of the year. She has expectations to be selected as the VP by Biden , even before he
made his own announcement ( remember their meeting on a train going to DC before her
announcement at Howard Uni)
She knows that she won't get the nomination (Warren has more oomph than her in that race)but
it will be nice riding on the coat tails of Uncle Joe and be three heart beats away from the
presidency.
The Arabs living along the borders with Israel should be wary about her !
This is the opinion of a Canuck looking in from the border.
The US now has the politics of a third world nation - namely
Brazil. Corrupt oligarchs using news media outlets to further their own interests, corrupt
politicians using the justice system to indict and jail their political opponents (regardless
of whether they are guilty or not). The police and the intelligence agencies being co-opted by
some political interests to hound their political rivals. In my opinion - this is what happens
when wealth inequality becomes too great (and no - I am not a communist or even all that
socialist, I just would like to see wealth inequality return to what it was in the US in the
1970s).
Now I see that Vanity Fair is attacking AOC using the same playbook the media has used
against Trump for the last 2 years - anonymous "insiders" making all sorts of allegedly
informed criticisms of AOC. Nobody can defend themselves from such anonymous mud slinging, and
the idiots on the left can't see that this is the exact same playbook they have been
fascilitating against Trump. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3dUK-Tdyuk
"..Harris declined to
criticize Biden for his abrupt shift against his prior support for the Hyde Amendment.." (from
the NPR piece). Is the fix already in?
As for the "lock him up" talk, I suspect it may turn out to be just that if KH did ever find
herself on the other side of that particular Rubicon. The foule are a fickle lot. And
besides, immediately locking up the former incumbent is the sort of thing new presidents do in
shithole countries.
You may be absolutely right Col. Lang. With Harris as the VP
nominee, it certainly seems like a probable Democratic Party ticket especially since she
provides gender and racial diversity. For some reason though, I have a feeling Biden isn't
going to make it to the finish line, either because he looks kind of frail to me and isn't
drawing crowds, or because Obama crony Axelrod is expressing doubts about his candidacy.
Even
if Biden DOES make it, he may not inspire enough younger voters to cast ballots. Plus, Harris
hails from California - a state Democrats can easily take for granted - so she adds nothing on
that score.
Since I doubt Sanders can get the nod, that leaves Warren. The Clinton Resistance/Sore
Losers would LOVE for a woman beat Trump. If she chose Buttigieg as her running mate there's a
[slim] chance she could flip Indiana. If she chose Booker she'd attract more black voters. In
both cases she'd probably inspire better turnout among younger voters.
Trump probably doesn't have
too much to be worried about, even if he does lose the next election. After all, he himself
never went after Hellary, so the DNC has no reason to go after him. It would be a serious
breech of protocol, unprecedented in our history.
Kamala is seriously courting
the big unions who make decisions for the Democrat Party - funding and campaign ground
troops.
She promises them the most, but they see her as unelectable. They got burned on Clinton
after eight rosy Obama years being in bed with SEIU. So your instincts may be right - Biden is
claiming the "union turf", and they get her for VP as their POC counterpoint.
Only problem is Kamala Harris does not let anyone define her and whether she will let
herself get defined by Biden is another story - both are very gaffe prone so each of them could
be stepping all over the other as they rumble on down to the 2020 finish line. Watching Kamala
Harris from my California vantage point, she is a very haughty, mean person now trying
desperately to appear more relatable.
I don't think this is what Ben Franklin and the Founders had in mind when we embarked on
this excpetional experiment in self-governance.
Trump led chants of "Lock her up!" but the first thing he did after winning was promise to
do no such thing. We have entered a period of raw populism, and all that candidates say in the
course of rallying their base is quickly forgiven.
Our govt agencies are more empowered to interfere in our elections. I don't see anything
that will reverse this trend. We are Color Revolutioning ourselves. The apparatus we built for
other countries is turning inward. Our MSM is oblivious to it, all they care about is, 'does it
help my team'.
Yeah, I'm a blast at parties too, slumped in a chair, my catch phrase 'it's getting
late'.
Given what the Obama
administration seems to have perpetrated against the Trump campaign, and what the Clintobama
lackeys continued to perpetrate against the legitimately elected Trump administration, I don't
think the Democrats have any qualms about serious breeches of protocol.
Their interests lie
purely in the acquisition and retention of power, and they will treat short-term, short-sighted
gains as permanent wins. They lack all semblance of vision or foresight. This is true of all
the die-hard leftists I talk to (I live in a college town).
They can't seem to see that in
their pursuit of power, demolishing the precedents (legally defined or otherwise) that hold our
country together and legitimize our system of government could somehow come full circle to be
used against them by their adversaries, should their efforts to overturn legal elections, etc.
come to naught.
The point I was trying to make is that the fools at "The Young Turks" are happy to
breathlessly repeat leaks from anonymous sources as fact - but only when they make Trump look
bad. When the same tactic is used to make AOC look bad they push back.
The people on the left need to stop getting sucked in to believing that Trump is the
problem, and the people on the right need to stop getting sucked into believing AOC is the
problem. We need to work together if we are going to reign in The Borg.
"As attorney general, [Harris] was notably muted on some of the state's most fraught
issues "
Like not prosecuting OneWest banker Steven Mnuchin for screwing 80,000 Californians out of
their mortgages, then taking a nice campaign donation from him?
or not prosecuting the Herbalife Fraud,
"in 2015, prosecutors in the San Diego office of the California attorney general sent Harris
a lengthy memorandum that argued for an investigation into Herbalife and requested resources
in order to undertake such an investigation. About three weeks after the San Diego letter was
sent, Harris received the first of three donations to her campaign for the U.S. Senate from
Heather Podesta, the powerful Washington lobbyist whose ex-husband Tony's firm, then called
the Podesta Group, had worked for Herbalife since 2013. Heather Podesta's own lobbying firm,
Heather Podesta and Partners, would soon be hired by Herbalife, too ."
or investing the Billion dollar Bay Bridge construction fiasco. But she did throw poor
parents in jail for their kids truancy!
Meanwhile, back where she got her start, with an injection of influence from Speaker of
the State Assembly, Willie Brown, San Francisco was left a crime ridden disaster after her
notably muted work as D.A.
Her grandstanding at the Kavanaugh hearings was not muted.
Harris (D)(1): "After dazzling debut, Kamala Harris falls from top of presidential pack" [
Los Angeles Times ]. "In one of her first national campaign appearances, at a CNN town
hall, she offhandedly backed eliminating the country's private health insurance system. Months
later, she is still trying to explain her position. (She said that her support for 'Medicare
for all' meant eliminating healthcare bureaucracy, not doing away with private insurance.)
The hedging revived one of the criticisms that has followed Harris throughout her public
life, the suggestion she is politically timid and overly cautious. As attorney general, she was
notably muted on some of the state's most fraught issues, such as police use of force and
ballot initiatives to change California's sentencing laws. That tension has spilled into her
presidential campaign, where some aides advocate a more assertively progressive stance to court
left-leaning activists while others prefer that Harris hug the middle to better position
herself for a general election. The candidate herself is ambivalent, said one strategist
familiar with the campaign's internal dynamic, who described part of the conflict as 'Kamala
vs. Kamala.'"
'Ruthless' is the proper word as for Kamala. Looks like female sociopath to me.
Notable quotes:
"... The race for San Francisco district attorney was still in its infancy, and Harris, who had never before run for public office, was polling in single digits ..."
"... she had an uncommon touch for fundraising ..."
"... In the mid-1990s, Harris had dated Brown, who was investigated by the FBI when he was speaker of the California Assembly and as mayor was dogged by conflict of interest, and she had benefited from his political patronage. ..."
"... As mayor of San Francisco in 2003, Brown was supportive of her district attorney campaign ..."
"... Critics -- including her opponents -- were bemoaning cronyism at City Hall. ..."
"... "That was her cue," Stearns said. Harris dismissed the question for its negativity while highlighting the most salacious elements of her opponents' records, displaying a mix of flint and charisma that would one day lead her supporters to believe she could become president of the United States. ..."
"... in flagrante delicto ..."
"... At the time of Harris' race for district attorney, Brown ranked among California's most powerful politicians. ..."
"... Two years before Harris' run, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a lengthy report on "Willie Brown Inc." headlined, "How S.F.'s mayor built a city based on 'juice' politics." ..."
"... Los Angeles Times ..."
"... The Shawshank Redemption ..."
"... One of the first references to Harris in the San Francisco press came in 1994, when Herb Caen, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist, introduced the prosecutor to readers as Brown's "new steady," noting that at a celebration of Brown's 60th birthday, Clint Eastwood had spilled champagne on her. ..."
"... Yet it was not only Brown that Harris had to overcome to win her first political race. Then as now, it was also her 13-year career as a prosecutor -- rife with hard judgment calls for her opponents to exploit. ..."
"... Harris's 2003 campaign was her earliest political effort to pre-empt such charges by defining her prosecutorial career as a left-leaning enterprise. ..."
"... In addition to connections that Harris had through Brown, she developed her own network in San Francisco's legal community and through her work with religious and charitable organizations that often intersect with the law. ..."
"... By the end of the campaign, she had raised and spent money so prolifically that the city's ethics commission found Harris violated a pledge not to exceed a voluntary $211,000 spending cap. ..."
"... The race tightened. Then, just days before the election, Fazio's campaign resorted to a mailer that hit Harris for her relationship with Brown. The Chronicle at the time described the mailer as being sent to 35,000 voters with a photograph of a woman and the quote, "I don't care if Willie Brown is Kamala Harris' ex-boyfriend. What bothers me is that Kamala accepted two appointments from Willie Brown to high-paying, part-time state boards -- including one she had no training for -- while being paid $100,000-year as a full-time county employee." ..."
"... The campaign's closing argument was, Prozan said, "one of the most effective mail pieces that we did." The words were familiar and prosaic: "It's time for a change." The images told the story. Harris' staff had gone to the library and retrieved photographs of more than a century's worth of San Francisco's district attorneys, every one from 1900 to 2003. They were all white men. ..."
Before
a campaign forum that would help to define her nascent political career, Kamala Harris, then a
38-year-old prosecutor, was bracing for questions about an uncomfortable topic: her
relationship with the mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown.
Harris' consultant, Jim Stearns, had warned his candidate that her opponents would dredge up
her ties to Brown, and the moment arrived at a church in the city's gentrifying Noe Valley
neighborhood. The race for San Francisco district attorney was still in its infancy, and
Harris, who had never before run for public office, was polling in single digits . But
she had an uncommon touch for fundraising and a biography that appealed to women and
nonwhite voters. Her opponents took her seriously, but they also saw a weakness that could
hobble her political ambitions.
... ... ...
In the mid-1990s, Harris had dated Brown, who was investigated by the FBI when he was
speaker of the California Assembly and as mayor was dogged by conflict of interest, and she had
benefited from his political patronage. As the speaker of the state Assembly, Brown had
named Harris to well-paid posts on the California Medical Assistance Commission and
Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. As mayor of San Francisco in 2003, Brown was
supportive of her district attorney campaign although they were no longer dating.
Critics -- including her opponents -- were bemoaning cronyism at City Hall.
And so, when an audience member inside the church asked how, if elected district attorney,
she could operate independently from Brown's political machine, Harris was ready with not just
an answer, but a counterpunch. "Make them understand that if they're going to try to hurt you,
they're going to get more hurt," Stearns said he counseled her.
"That was her cue," Stearns said. Harris dismissed the question for its negativity while
highlighting the most salacious elements of her opponents' records, displaying a mix of flint
and charisma that would one day lead her supporters to believe she could become president of
the United States.
As Stearns tells it, Harris rose from her seat at the front of the sanctuary and stepped
behind Terence Hallinan, the incumbent who billed himself as "America's most progressive
district attorney." She told the audience, "You know Terence Hallinan has attacked Bill Fazio
for being caught in a massage parlor," a reference to a 1998 raid. Fazio, a former prosecutor
who had run two close races against Hallinan and was now taking a third shot at the office,
maintained he was there to conduct interviews for a legal case he was working on. He was never
charged with any crime.
Then, Harris walked behind Fazio, Stearns said, and recounted the times her opponent had
criticized Hallinan "for people having sex in his office," referring to an incident in which
two of Hallinan's prosecutors were found in flagrante delicto inside the building.
"And then she walked back to the middle and said, 'I want to make a commitment to you that
my campaign is not going to be about negative attacks,'" said Stearns, who is still a
Democratic strategist in the city. "'I believe we need to talk about the issues and the
policies and the way we're going to move our criminal justice system forward."
The response was immediate. "People just jumped on their feet and gave her a standing
ovation," Stearns said. "And I was at the back of the church, and the look on the face of
Terence Hallinan and Bill Fazio was, 'Oh, shit.''"
... ... ... Harris, now a U.S. senator from California who announced her candidacy for
president on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, often speaks about her childhood growing up on the
boundary between Oakland and Berkeley, the daughter of an Indian-born mother and a
Jamaican-born father who pushed her in civil rights marches in a stroller. Her advisers believe
that, like Barack Obama once did, Harris could appeal not only to white progressives in 2020
Democratic primary states like Iowa and California but also to black voters in the primary's
critical Southern states.
Harris has drawn on her record as a prosecutor, both in San Francisco and as California
attorney general, to lend an intimacy to her progressive views on criminal justice reform. Yet
she has struggled to reconcile her work as a prosecutor with the Democratic Party's evolution
on criminal justice in the age of the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. Her first race
for district attorney -- and her entry into San Francisco's fractious Democratic Party politics
-- reared her as a politician and offered a preview of her still-unfolding efforts to resolve
those tensions with some of the party's most leftward-tilting voters. San Francisco has sprung
the careers of a catalog of Democratic politicians, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen.
Dianne Feinstein and California Gov. Gavin Newsom -- all products, perhaps, of the intense,
intraparty skirmishes in a politically homogeneous city of fewer than 1 million people.
"The San Francisco political arena is one of the most challenging, frankly, in America," Art
Agnos, a former San Francisco mayor, said. "We only have one member of Congress, two members of
the Assembly, a state senator and a half representing the city."
At the time of Harris' race for district attorney, Brown ranked among California's most
powerful politicians. He had presided for 15 years over California's state Assembly, and as
San Francisco's mayor, he had led the city through a period of rapid growth, muscling through
the construction of a ballpark and housing and a renovation of City Hall. But Brown's critics
had long accused the mayor of wielding his influence to steer government contracts and jobs to
allies, a charge Brown's supporters have denied. And as a relatively centrist, establishment
figure, he was viewed warily by a generation of more progressive Democrats coming to power in
the city.
Two years before Harris' run, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a lengthy report on "Willie
Brown Inc." headlined, "How S.F.'s mayor built a city based on 'juice' politics."
By 2003, the city's entire political structure was in upheaval. The FBI was investigating
allegations of corruption at City Hall. Hallinan was pursuing indictments against the city's
police chief and members of the department's command staff, accusing them of being involved in
a cover-up after three police officers were involved in a fracas over a bag of takeout fajitas.
And a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors called police after a shouting match
with Brown on the steps of City Hall. He had been worried, the Los Angeles Times
reported at the time, that the mayor had "friends who are thugs" and he wanted to file a report
"in case I go missing."
Histrionics? Maybe. But a decade later, a sitting state senator from San Francisco, Leland
Yee, was ensnared in a wide-ranging racketeering probe in which he admitted to taking bribes
and agreeing to facilitate an illegal arms deal involving the importation of automatic weapons
from the Philippines. The investigation, involving a crime ring run by a man named Raymond
"Shrimp Boy" Chow, also felled Keith Jackson, a former school board member and prominent
political consultant.
Eric Jaye, a political strategist in the city, said Harris' emergence from San Francisco
politics reminds him of Andy Dufresne, the Tim Robbins character from The Shawshank
Redemption . "Andy Dufresne," he said, quoting a line from the movie, "who crawled through
a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."
***
One of the first references to Harris in the San Francisco press came in 1994, when Herb
Caen, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist, introduced the prosecutor to readers as Brown's
"new steady," noting that at a celebration of Brown's 60th birthday, Clint Eastwood had spilled
champagne on her.
... ... ...
Rebecca Prozan, who managed the campaign's day-to-day operations, said, "No woman likes to
be judged by their relationships. We want to be judged by who we are, not who we are
romantically involved with." But Harris "knew as she was coming in that there was no way that
was not going to be raised as an issue," she said.
Brown, who at the time was married but separated from his wife, declined to comment to
POLITICO.
Yet it was not only Brown that Harris had to overcome to win her first political race.
Then as now, it was also her 13-year career as a prosecutor -- rife with hard judgment calls
for her opponents to exploit. And Harris was running for office in the rare American city
where, even in a race for district attorney, prosecutorial experience was not necessarily a
boon.
... ... ...
Harris' professional record still draws criticism in progressive circles. Just this month,
the New York Times published an opinion article by Lara Bazelon, a former director of
the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent, headlined, " Kamala Harris
Was Not a 'Progressive Prosecutor .' "
Harris's 2003 campaign was her earliest political effort to pre-empt such charges by
defining her prosecutorial career as a left-leaning enterprise. In campaign mail to San
Francisco voters that year, Harris promoted her opposition to the death penalty and her support
for treatment programs for first-time, nonviolent offenders. She vowed to help keep children
out of gangs and advocate for tenants mistreated by landlords.
... ... ...
He had thought being a good prosecutor was enough to win the election, calling himself
"totally naive" and adding, "Kamala, she had connections to the mayor, which gave her access to
a lot of money people up in Pacific Heights."
In addition to connections that Harris had through Brown, she developed her own network
in San Francisco's legal community and through her work with religious and charitable
organizations that often intersect with the law.
... ... ...
Harris raised money aggressively. She raked in more than $100,000 before December 2002.
By the end of the campaign, she had raised and spent money so prolifically that the city's
ethics commission found Harris violated a pledge not to exceed a voluntary $211,000 spending
cap. The Harris campaign apologized and said it was a misunderstanding, according to the
Chronicle . She used the money to bombard voters with mail touting her progressive
credentials.
Yet by Labor Day of 2003, Harris was still polling between 6 percentage points and 8
points.
Prozan recalled a meeting with Harris around that time. "I looked at her," she said, "and I
was like, 'You're at 8 percent. What am I supposed to do with that?' And she said: 'You just
need to get me into the runoff. If you can get me into the runoff, Rebecca, I can win this
race.'"
... ... ...
The race tightened. Then, just days before the election, Fazio's campaign resorted to a
mailer that hit Harris for her relationship with Brown. The Chronicle at the time described the
mailer as being sent to 35,000 voters with a photograph of a woman and the quote, "I don't care
if Willie Brown is Kamala Harris' ex-boyfriend. What bothers me is that Kamala accepted two
appointments from Willie Brown to high-paying, part-time state boards -- including one she had
no training for -- while being paid $100,000-year as a full-time county employee."
.... ... ...
Harris vaulted past Fazio and into the runoff, where she defeated Hallinan in a landslide
and became the state's first African-American district attorney. Not only did she cut into
Hallinan's progressive base -- especially with black and female voters -- but she also carried
more conservative areas of the city, garnering votes that had gone to Fazio.
The campaign's closing argument was, Prozan said, "one of the most effective mail pieces
that we did." The words were familiar and prosaic: "It's time for a change." The images told
the story. Harris' staff had gone to the library and retrieved photographs of more than a
century's worth of San Francisco's district attorneys, every one from 1900 to 2003. They were
all white men.
Stephen
Zunes wrote in Counterpunch (January 31, 2019) that Senator Harris has branded herself 'as a
progressive.' Rachel Maddow interviewed Senator Harris as she announced her bid for the
Presidency and extolled her virtues as indeed 'Progressive.' Zunes seems to question just how
progressive she really is if viewed through the lens of her first foreign policy vote in
January 2017 when 'she sided with President Trump in criticizing outgoing President Obama's UN
Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements.' It might be pointed out here that the
Senate Resolution co-sponsored by Senator Harris is one of 77 targeting Israel by the United
States as it makes Israel immune from illegal acts against the Palestinians. Harris' resolution
'challenges the United Nations on questions of international humanitarian law in territories
under foreign belligerent occupation.'
Back in 2017, because of this resolution, I made contact with Kamala about the rationale she
designed in challenging the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and its
corollary, proposing that territories under foreign occupation determine justice for the
occupier. Between 1955 and 2013, 77 resolutions have passed through US Presidents
representatives at the UNSC protecting Israel against charges of illegal actions relative to UN
authority. "Aside from the core issues -- refugees, Jerusalem, borders -- the major themes
reflected in the U.N. resolutions against Israel over the years are its unlawful attacks on its
neighbors; its violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations,
demolitions of homes and other collective punishments; its confiscation of Palestinian land;
its establishment of illegal settlements; and its refusal to abide by the U.N. Charter and the
1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War."
(Donald Neff, ifamericansknew.org)
Before I begin I would like to offer a source for virtually everything I say here with
this
hashtag .
Reading her resolution and the assumptions that she made suggests that the good Senator
has not read the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What other authority exists
now and has existed from 1948 to the present with 194 nations as signers including Israel, that
accepts the UDHR as the basis for universal agreement on human behavior and the rights of
humans everywhere?
Interestingly enough the origins of that UN declaration came out of Raphael Lemkin's work
based on his broad study of the true meaning of genocide, especially as it happened to the Jews
under Nazi Germany.
Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California
where he served for 13 years as Vice President for Academic Affairs before assuming his faculty
position in 2001. He serves this academic year as interim department chair. Prior to coming to
California, he served as a Dean of Faculty, Chair of Department of English and faculty member
at institutions large and small, public and private in four eastern states. More information is
available on his web site: www.drwilliamacook.com .
Repsychler 80811 months
ago Wicked witch of WashingtonY Yikes: Sonny Pruitt11 months
ago The Wicked Witch of the West ain't got nahfen on Kamala. lynn price7 months
ago Mini Maxine Waters Mini Max kuruji1 year ago
Pressing for a yes-or-no answer is just a cheap lawyer tactic to play to the jury. She makes
sure everyone is aware she was a 'former prosecutor'. This ain't a courtroom mike dar2 days ago
Ya can sleep your way to the top, but you cannot sleep your way up the IQ chart.. Jeffrey Binder3 months
ago Kamala is a witch, she should be careful because Mueller is on a witch hunt
Rene
Anderson11 months
ago Harris is smug just like Hillary
1 George
David7 months
ago She's the definition of smug. William Kerr7 months
ago The psychopath known as Kamala Harris is nothing but a dog barking in the street. Less
really, because in hard times you can always eat the dog, Harris has no value at all. Always
remember, when you look into the eyes of a socialist liberal you're looking into the eyes of an
unreasoning, fanatic totally dedicated to the destruction of America and all that it stands
for. T
MaVeety7 months
ago Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or NO..... just answer the question!
From the comments it is clear that Kamala diplomatic skills are much to be desired.
Her style is very simple: Bullying and attempt to intimidate. It only works against betas. Typical trick: "Is it true you've stopped beating
your wife? Yes or no. Please answer the question. Think carefully about your answer."
During a Senate Intelligence hearing, things got heated between Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA)
and Republican senators on the committee.
" Subscribe to MSNBC:
http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc
She slept her way into government sleeping with Willie Brown ex San Francisco mayor
Diane
Byers7 months
ago Lol what a low class, bottom feeding , smirking ghetto rump!!!!
She's lucky the Chairman didn't publicly reprimand her when she raised her
eyebrows and then talked over the top of him when he told her to suspend. She's just a
bully
The Home-wrecker (Harris) should be in jail, not the Senate (look up Willie Brown, then
do a little research on how Ms. Harris was GIVEN her Senate seat). You will be
amazed.
MSNBC.. what you are saying is completely untrue. Sessions was trying to answer her questions
honestly and when Kamala Harris realized she was not going to get the answer her engineered
question was designed to achieve, she immediately pressed on with her next question without
giving Session the chance to finish.
Typical smoke and mirrors witch hunt over something that
just does not exist. I would love to Kamala Harris question Lorreta Lynch... it would last for
48 hours
This happened in 2017 but Kamala is a very slow learner. Today, 9/13/2018, and she is
STILL the same Kamala "bully" Harris. Is she working for the citizens or simply trying to make
political points?
Kamala Harris made a fool of herself during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
She hoped her grandstanding would catapult her to the Democrat 2020 presidential
nomination.
... ... ...
According to her spokeswoman, Harris raised more than $5 million in 2018, which she used to
curry favor for 2020 by passing it along to other Democrats.
She raised much of that by fundraising off of her anti-Kavanaugh attacks.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Harris ran dozens of anti-Kavanaugh ads on
Facebook the day prior to Christine Blasey Ford's testimony.
"... Fox has gone forward with a headline declaring "Extramarital affair with Kamala Harris? Former San Francisco mayor, 84, admits it happened." Twitter seems to be enthusiastic about calling her either a gold digger or a prostitute. ..."
"... Kamala doesn't care if Willie was good...women who prostitute themselves only care about money and prestige. ..."
"... But this is a remarkably gendered attack, and, if you're a sexist, a fairly brilliant one. It's far more likely that a female candidate would date a powerful man than if the genders were reversed, simply because there were more powerful men than there were powerful women 20 years ago. This attack can't be used on a man, because, just looking at the number of women versus men in politics in the 1990s , it would be really unlikely for a man to encounter a powerful enough woman that their relationship would still be seen as benefiting his career 20 years later. ..."
According to Conservatives Kamala Harris Is Already Being Called a
Prostitute
This is a remarkably gendered attack, and, if you're a sexist, a fairly brilliant
one.
If you thought we were going to make it all the way to the actual primaries before we
started accusing democratic women of prostituting themselves, boy, are you in for a
surprise.
It's recently come to light that, 20 years ago, Kamala Harris dated former San Francisco
mayor Willie Brown. While Brown was still married at the time, he had been estranged from his
wife since
1981 . Harris and Brown broke up
in 1995 .
Former San Fran Mayor Willie Brown (84) on Kamala Harris: "Yes, we dated...Yes, I may have
influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly
speaker."
Prostituting her way to the top, what a great feminist!
Kamala Harris has dealt with the fact that she dated Willie Brown for some time -- wondering
to an interviewer at SFWeekly in 2003, "Would it make sense
if you are a Martian coming to Earth that the litmus test for public office is where a
candidate is in their relationship to Willie Brown?"
No, it really wouldn't. I doubt most people outside of San Francisco know who Willie Brown
is.
And, to his credit, Brown seems to agree. On Monday, the Former mayor issued a very brief
statement to
SFGate entitled "Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So What?" In it he mentioned he certainly
helped her career, but he "also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin
Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a host of other politicians. The difference is that Harris is
the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I 'so much as
jaywalked' while she was D.A."
Good for her. As ex-boyfriend responses to this nonsense go, that's a nice one.
Many opponents of Harris have not handled this quite so well. Fox has gone forward
with a headline declaring "Extramarital affair with Kamala Harris? Former San Francisco mayor,
84, admits it happened." Twitter seems to be enthusiastic about calling her either a gold
digger or a prostitute.
"Hi, Willie, I'm your new gold digger. Anything I can do for you, big boy?"
Let's be clear: unless they sexually harassed someone or raped someone (which seems to
indicate they might not be qualified to make decisions about political and social issues),
there's no need to care too much about a candidate's personal life -- especially when it comes
to who they dated 20 years ago. Most everyone has made at least one or two regrettable choices
in that department.
But this is a remarkably gendered attack, and, if you're a sexist, a fairly brilliant one.
It's far more likely that a female candidate would date a powerful man than if the genders were
reversed, simply because there were more powerful men than there were powerful women 20 years
ago. This attack can't be used on a man, because, just looking at the number of women versus men in
politics in the 1990s , it would be really unlikely for a man to encounter a powerful
enough woman that their relationship would still be seen as benefiting his career 20 years
later.
Communist New Network: Where the word "stumped" means he had to consider Senator Harris'
wording of the question. "The president or anyone else asked or suggested" would probably
take some contemplation before he could give an accurate answer. Excellent propaganda,
comrades. I'm sure the masters are quite pleased.
In 2014, lawyers for Kamala Harris argued in court that if minimum-custody inmates were
released early, the state of California would "lose an important labor pool." These inmates
included firefighters, who are paid
$1 an hour to confront some of the deadliest blazes in California history. Harris later
argued that she was
unawareher own office argued in favor of keeping parolees in jail so they could
serve as the state's on-call cheap labor.
A breakthrough profile in the New York Times referred to Harris as a "top cop" prosecutor
who, according to critics, "failed to take on prosecutorial misconduct." The profile noted in
2015 her office was called out for "defending convictions obtained by local prosecutors who
inserted a false confession into the transcript of a police interrogation, lied under oath, and
withheld crucial evidence from the defense."
Police crimes were largely ignored by Harris. Oakland police officer Miguel Masso shot and
killed Alan Blueford in 2012. Multiple witnesses said Blueford had no weapon, did not pose a
threat to the officer, and was running away from the officer.
The Justice For Alan Blueford Coalition wrote a letter to Harris and demanded she do her job
by bringing charges against Masso. Supporters engaged
in civil disobedience in 2014, after she refused to meet with them. They were arrested (and
police even swept up their legal observer in the arrests).
Harris' book "Smart On Crime," published in 2009, was a testament to a deeply capitalist,
dystopian political ideology shared by even the most "progressive" Democrats.
The public is often referred to as "consumers" (examples: "consumers of safety," "consumer
education"). They are urged to support a crime policy which relentlessly focuses on violent
crime, "and the prosecution of violent criminals."
"The opportunity before us encourages transformation and empowerment of communities: rather
than people feeling like helpless victims of crimes, they can become educated consumers of
safety."
Harris characterizes policing as a "service" and suggests:
[W]e can find and are finding more effective ways to reduce the sheer volume of nonviolent
crime and recidivism, so that those nonviolent offenders don't escalate their behavior and
become so enmeshed in the crime cycle that we end up having to pay attention to them -- and
frankly pay for them -- for the rest of their lives. The money we save can be used to put
more police officers on the street, solve more crimes, attack more high-tech and
identity-theft crimes with better technology, and provide services to victims. [emphasis
added]
In 2010, Harris pushed a heavy-handed truancy initiative that went into effect in 2011. This
anti-truancy bill -- SB 1317 -- made it so that parents of truant children who miss more than
10 percent of their classes can be
charged with a misdemeanor and given a $2,000 fine or a year in prison "if, after being
offered state support and counseling, their kids still fail to improve their attendance."
This wasn't Harris' first dance with anti-truancy measures, by any means. In 2009, Harris
wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that she had already prosecuted 20 parents for truancy,
thereby introducing, or reintroducing, children and their families to a criminal justice system
that is already stacked against them.
During her 2010 campaign, Harris touted
a record of what she described as tough, affirmative crime prevention. Her official
campaign page bragged that her felony conviction rate surpassed the years before -- "from
52 percent in 2003 to 67 percent in 2006, the highest in a decade."
Harris played a role in the wider United States drug war, increasing convictions for drug
dealers from 56 percent to 74 percent in just three years.
Despite forming the first Mortgage and Investment Fraud Unit in the San Francisco District
Attorney's Office, Harris refused to go after "foreclosure king" Steven Mnuchin,
a decision she defended as recently as January. Mnuchin, who oversaw some 36,000
foreclosures between 2009 to 2015,
violated numerous state foreclosure laws, and yet Harris refused to concede that his record
should keep him from serving as President Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary.
Harris' record with police departments and the California prison industry is not simply a
result of her job as attorney general. She played a key role in expanding the horizon of state
violence.
Now, rather than diversifying the ranks of state actors responsible for oppression, it is
critical to force Senator Kamala Harris to reckon with her neoliberal record, regardless of how
her "K-Hive" may respond to such efforts.
The military sucks up 54% of
discretionary federal spending. Pentagon bloat has a huge effect on domestic priorities; the
nearly $1
trillion a year that goes to exploiting, oppressing, torturing, maiming and murdering
foreigners could go to building schools, college scholarships, curing diseases, poetry slams,
whatever. Anything, even tax cuts for the rich, would be better than bombs. But as then GOP
presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in 2015, "The military is not a social experiment.
The purpose of the military is to
kill people and break things ." If you're like me, you want as little killing and breaking
as possible.
Unfortunately, no major Democratic presidential candidate favors substantial cuts to
Pentagon appropriations.
Current frontrunner Joe Biden (
33% in the polls) doesn't talk
much about defense spending. He reminds us that his son served in Iraq (so he cares about
the military) and that we shouldn't prioritize defense over domestic programs. Vague. Though
specific programs might get trimmed, Lockheed Martin could rest easy under a President
Biden.
"Since he arrived in Congress, [runner-up] Bernie Sanders [19%] has been a fierce
crusader against Pentagon spending , calling for defense cuts that few Democrats have been
willing to support," The Hill reported in 2016. "As late as 2002, he supported a 50 percent cut
for the Pentagon." Bernie is
still a Pentagon critic but he won't commit to a specific amount to cut. He wouldn't
slash and Bern. He'd trim.
Elizabeth Warren (8%) wants "to identify which programs actually benefit American security
in the 21st century, and which programs merely line the pockets of defense contractors -- then
pull out a sharp knife and make some
cuts ."
... ... ...
Kamala Harris (5%) has not weighed
in on military spending. She has received substantial campaign contributions from the
defense industry, though.
The Democrats on Wars for Fun
As senator, Biden voted for the optional wars against
Afghanistan and
Iraq . He
lied about his votes so maybe he felt bad about them. He similarly seems to regret
his ro le in
destroying Libya.
Sanders voted to invade Afghanistan . His
comment at the time reads as hopelessly naïve about the bloodthirsty Bush-Cheney regime:
"The use of force is one tool that we have at our disposal to fight against the horror of
terrorism and mass murder it is something that must be used wisely and with great discretion."
Sanders voted against
invading Iraq , favored regime change in Libya (
albeit nonviolently ) and voted to bomb Syria .
There have been no major new wars since 2013, when Warren joined the Senate so her antiwar
bona fides have not been tested. Like many of her colleagues, she wants an end to the "forever
war" against Afghanistan. She also wants us out of
Syria .
Democrats on NSA Spying Against Americans
... ... ...
Joe Biden, though to the right on other foreign-policy issues, was a critic of NSA spying
for years, going
back at least to 2006. Under Obama, however, he
backtracked . Even worse, Biden
called the president of Ecuador in 2013 to request that he deny asylum to NSA whistleblower
Edward Snowden.
"... Railing against Trump only sets up the next smooth-talking stooge who will start a fresh new con. ..."
"... Dore traces the problem primarily to Democratic Party's turning to identity politics instead of representing the working class. They sold us out. Clinton and Obama are just "Republican light" aka "Centrist" "Third Way" Democrats. "Centrist" = establishment-serving con artists. ..."
"... "Managed democracy" or "guided democracy" : is a formally democratic government that functions as a de facto autocracy. Such governments are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the state's policies, motives, and goals. ..."
Dore makes the same point I have: "Trump is a Symptom of 40 years of NeoLiberalism and
the Corporate Capture of the U.S. government."Railing against Trump only sets up the
next smooth-talking stooge who will start a fresh new con.
Dore traces the problem primarily to Democratic Party's turning to identity politics
instead of representing the working class. They sold us out. Clinton and Obama are just
"Republican light" aka "Centrist" "Third Way" Democrats. "Centrist" = establishment-serving
con artists.
"Managed
democracy" or "guided democracy" : is a formally democratic government that functions as a de facto autocracy. Such
governments are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the
state's policies, motives, and goals.
In other words, the government controls elections so that the people can exercise all
their rights without truly changing public policy. While they follow basic democratic
principles, there can be major deviations towards authoritarianism. Under managed
democracy, the state's continuous use of propaganda techniques prevents the electorate from
having a significant impact on policy.
The concept of a "guided democracy" was developed in the 20th century by Walter
Lippmann in his seminal work Public Opinion (1922) and by Edward Bernays in his work
Crystallizing Public Opinion.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
RT has a good video on Yellow Vest protestors (on rt.com homepage). It's kind long for the
info that it provides. I suggest skipping some parts.
Senator Kamala Harris said she'd seek to repeal all of President Donald Trump's 2017 tax
overhaul, including its breaks for wealthy earners, corporations and the middle class.
"Get rid of the whole thing," the California Democrat and presidential contender said after
a campaign event in Detroit.
Her campaign spokesman Ian Sams said she'd seek to replace the law with her proposed LIFT
Act, a
nearly $3 trillion refundable tax cut focused on middle income earners.
Harris's stance goes further than most Democrats, who have called for repealing parts of the
2017 law that grants steep tax breaks for corporations and upper earners, as well as restoring
the full state and local tax deduction, which was limited to $10,000.
Getting rid of the entire law would also mean repealing the doubling of the standard
deduction and higher child tax credit, which benefit middle-class Americans. While the law as a
whole is unpopular, those provisions poll well.
Her remarks came after she spoke to members of the American Federation of Teachers and
pressed her
$315 billion education plan to give public school teachers a raise.
Harris derided critics of her education plan, using a mocking tone to repeat something she
said she's frequently asked -- "Well, how you gon' pay for it?" -- which drew laughter from the
crowd.
"On Day One," she said, "we're going to repeal that tax bill that benefited the top 1
percent and corporations."
Repealing the entire 2017 law would affect nearly every taxpayer by increasing rates and
cutting the child tax credit in half to $1,000. It would also decrease the standard deduction
to $12,700 down from $24,000 for a couple filing jointly. It would also increase the corporate
rate to 35 percent, as well as again require American corporations to pay U.S. taxes on all
their offshore profits.
Those tax cuts would be replaced by Harris's plan to offer refundable tax credits to lower
and middle-class families of as much as $6,000 a year. LIFT stands for "Livable Incomes for
Families Today."
The credit would apply to households earning less than $100,000 annually. Single filers
earning under $50,000 a year would get $3,000. The credit could be accessed monthly or in one
lump sum at the end of the year. It would begin to phase out for single taxpayers without
children earning at least $30,000, single taxpayers with children earning at least $80,000, and
married taxpayers earning at least $60,000.
Former Trump aide Jason Miller was confronted by USA Today
columnist over his description of Harris as "hysterical" in the hearing. Her point is a
valid one but the Washington Post suggests that this type of questioning would be considered
praise worthy in a prosecutor. The comparison between actual litigation and congressional
examinations is an interesting one. I have great respect for Sen. Harris and her experience.
However, while her questioning began well, it quickly fell into improper questioning if viewed
from a litigation viewpoint. As a criminal defense attorney, I can say that it would not only
be viewed as improper but judges would immediately sustain objections to such badgering of a
witnesses. Indeed, I was surprised watching the hearing as Democratic senators pummeled
Sessions with questions and demanded rapid answers. Sessions had just been attacked for failing
to fully and truthfully answer an earlier (and rather unclear) question from Sen. Al Franken.
Now however they were giving him rapid questions and cutting off his answers. Harris was the
most extreme in that respect.
Harris' question on what Sessions used to refresh his recollection is a standard litigation
question and a good approach. Harris was also under a time restriction and reasonably noted
that the questions asked of Sessions were "predictable." Thus, I felt that she started well.
Moreover, she was under tough time limitations. However, the questioning then became highly
problematic in my view. Sessions was right to decline to continue to answer as he was being
interrupted. Some questions were vaguely worded like whether Sessions had any interactions with
Russian business people. Sessions correctly objected to being rushed into answers but Harris
continued to push for such answers.
Harris questioning would have been challenged by any defense counsel and would have led to
an admonishment from the bench. It would not be viewed as "praiseworthy." I thought that it
looked like a perjury trap for Sessions who was trying to answer. Moreover, the questions were
not the type that could be easily answered without an explanation like explaining the basis for
Sessions declining to answer some questions.
She did open up about her upbringing during a conversation with the Los
Angeles Times , however. "My Indian mother knew she was raising two black daughters,
but that's not to the exclusion of who I am in terms of my Indian heritage," she said. "I grew
up going to a black Baptist Church and a Hindu temple."
She did face some discrimination when she visited her father in Palo Alto as a child (her
parents divorced when she was 5). "The neighbors' kids were not allowed to play with us because
we were black," she told the Times . "We'd say, 'Why can't we play together?' 'My
parents -- we can't play with you.' In Palo Alto. The home of Google."
She's also dealt with racism as an adult. She says she's been called derogatory names many
times and, while she doesn't discuss them often, her experiences are an important part of her
and her politics. "I don't wear my experiences on my sleeve," she told the newspaper. "But my
experiences do inform my perspective on the work I do, and on what I believe is possible."
... ... ...
After graduating
from Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C., Harris
attended the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. Her first job after
graduation was as deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California.
In 2003, she was elected as the
first female district attorney of San Francisco. In 2011, after two terms as DA in San
Francisco, she went on to serve as California's attorney general.
... ... ...
Sessions
said Harris's examination style made him "nervous." After the hearing, former Trump
campaign adviser Jason Miller accused Harris of being "hysterical."
Speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper, Miller
said Sessions "knocked away some of the hysteria from Kamala Harris and some of the
Democrats who wanted to make this a big partisan show." CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers
came to Harris's defense after comments, asking, "How was Sen. Kamala Harris hysterical?"
"... Following the in-your-face, insulting behavior of most prominent Dems, she is just reading the script of the 'resistance'. ..."
"... Kamala Harris is well known for this kind of crude behavior ..."
"... She is a crude person, with ambition. She thinks she can do this in Congress. Hopefully rules will still apply and she will be gaveled out and censured. ..."
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has only been in the Senate for a few months, but she's already showing her disrespect for the institution
-- and and lack of just normal human courtesy -- and her inflated sense of self-importance.
... ... ...
Watch her repeatedly interrupt Attorney General Jeff Sessions as she tries to get all her brilliant questions in. Sessions isn't
even trying to run out the clock, like some witnesses, he's just trying to give honest and full responses to her badgering inquiries.
He's trying not to turn her rudeness into an issue, but at one point he notes that she'll take one of the answers he's not permitted
to complete and then call him a liar.
He's right. Like I said, she's going places in Democratic politics.
Yes, this very strange Kamala Harris character would be the Grand Inquisitor in a Soviet-style show trial in which the government
decides you are guilty of a crime and makes it impossible for you to prove your innocence.
No doubt this political hack is in the Democrat pipeline for much greater things.
Sexist! Racist! These two accusations are her cover and what the Dems believe will protect her from criticism as she plows through
the decorum and protocols of the US Senate.
Following the in-your-face, insulting behavior of most prominent Dems, she is
just reading the script of the 'resistance'.
The Dems seem to think that their women are the best at insulting Repubs or people who support MrTrump (not necessarily the
same thing). Sen Warren can throw insults to small businesspeople with the "you didn't build that", Hillary can lump half of the
voting public into a basket of "deplorable" people and now we have Sen Kamela cast as the "angry Black woman".
Kamala Harris is well known for this kind of crude behavior. Not too long ago she appeared with Perez at a DNC Foul Language
Event. She excelled.
She is a crude person, with ambition. She thinks she can do this in Congress. Hopefully rules will still apply and she
will be gaveled out and censured.
I can only say I agree with all of the comments on this list. I was surprised at how crude insulting she was, and how the chair
of the committee went along with this nonsense.
I also agree that her defence will be that she's a person of color, and she's
a woman. But damn this is very bad.
OT Bernie bot shoots up Republicans practicing baseball on the Hill. Capitol police there prevented a more disastrous outcome.
Before shooting he asked if they were Rs or Ds.
Libs will call for gun control without recognizing this as a political act by the Left.
I hope the President does the right thing regarding violence from the left and does not go all Jared/Ivanka on gun control
which he has been known to do.
Can nobody imagine she is US senator from California, where Democrat senators rule for ever. God bless America! With senators
like her, how would this country move forward. She forgets she is not a prosecutor, her old profession, she is a senator. She
needs to be educated in Senate rules. She may be darling of Democrats. That Native American from MA, Warren, better watch out,
she has real Indian blood.
Trump presumably appreciated Barr's brusque, wholly unapologetic tone, particularly when it
came to Senator Richard Blumenthal, a frequent target of Trump's Twitter attacks who's earned
one of the president's
patented nicknames . Also probably scoring points in the Oval Office was Barr's description
of Robert Mueller's letter -- in which the special counsel criticized the A.G.'s summary -- as
"a bit snitty" and "probably written" by Mueller's staff.
Meanwhile, in an appearance on Fox Business Wednesday night, Trump accused Harris of being
"very nasty" for having the temerity to ask Barr if he'd read all the evidence before
concluding the president had not obstructed justice, despite the many instances in which he
tried. That's the second time in a week that Trump,
famous for calling women who dare to criticize him "nasty" , has labeled Harris as such,
telling Sean Hannity earlier this week that the former prosecutor "has a little bit of a nasty
wit, but that might be it ."
Elsewhere in his review of the hearing, Trump claimed Democratic lawmakers were "ranting and
raving like lunatics," something he
knows a little bit about .
"You have Bill Barr, highly respected, great attorney general, and he's got to take the
abuse from people that are running for office," Trump told host Trish Regan. "They don't care
about this. They're just looking for political points."
It appears now that the Progressive/socialists that have taken over the Democrat party have
been looking for the new shining star for the next Presidential election. Just a few weeks ago
they rebranded themselves as "the Better Deal". They speak well of jobs and infrastructure, and
better wages for workers. Does anyone believe that anything has changed? Remember Obamas
"fundamental transformation" of our country and how eight years of Obama did transform this
country. Lower wages, lower respect from the world, and more division in the country because of
the identity politics forced on the American people.
The progressive/socialists have a hard decision to make. They know that the alternatives
that they have for the next Presidential election are weak. The socialist Bernie Sanders, if he
doesn't go to jail with his wife, is no answer. By the time of the next election, his socialist
policies will have been shown to be a farce. Elizabeth Warren is a corporate shill who hides
behind the lies she used to get ahead and has no real meaningful agenda other than to trash
Republicans.
A new shining star that has emerged in some areas is Kamala Harris. She is already making
the first moves speaking to national Democrats and think tanks in Washington D.C. which the
national media will lap up. They will cover Harris with such adoration and form alliances to
further push hew ambitions upon the American people. As a new Senator, her focus should be on
the people of California and not the national stage. Being called a compelling candidate by the
likes of Bob Shrum, even members in the California Democratic politicians have been very quick
to jump on the Harris bandwagon. Most supporters in California showed that many feel that
Harris is pushing too hard to run for President.
Harris received an endorsement from Maxine Waters, the chief proponent in the impeachment
push of President Trump. Maxine Waters runs a "pay for Play" where money is funneled to Waters
in order to get her endorsement on her mailers, which she pays her daughter to accomplish for
$650,000.
"... That style has been polarizing. Her supporters praise it as a no-nonsense form of oversight. Her detractors describe it as inappropriate or grandstanding. ..."
"... Former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller set off a firestorm when he said her questioning of Sessions was "hysterical." ..."
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Harris during a 2017 hearing that her rapid-fire
questions made him "nervous. ... If I don't qualify it, you'll accuse me of lying. I'm not able
to be rushed this fast."
During a tense, interruption-filled exchange with John Kelly in 2017, the then-homeland
security secretary asked, "Would you let me finish once?"
"Excuse me, I'm asking the questions," Harris said, pressing on.
"It's a constant pursuit of the truth. You know, 'What happened?'" Harris, 54, said in an
interview. "It's not about me giving a beautiful speech in those hearings. It's about finding
out: Is our government doing its job? Are we being accountable? Are we being transparent? Are
we conducting ourselves consistent with the mores and the values of our country?"
That style has been polarizing. Her supporters praise it as a no-nonsense form of
oversight. Her detractors describe it as inappropriate or grandstanding.
Former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller set off a firestorm when he said her questioning
of Sessions was "hysterical." After Harris pressured Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in
an Intelligence Committee hearing about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's independence, panel
Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., cut her off and said she wasn't giving Rosenstein "the
courtesy ... for questions to get answered."
Brown was 60 years old and Harris was 29 when their affair began. Harris was
so brazen that she came out publicly as his date at his 60th birthday party, despite his wife
of 36 years being in attendance.
Harris slept with Brown for one reason; she used the
corrupt San Francisco mayor to launch her rise to power.
Daily Caller reports, "As Brown's time as speaker drew to a close in 1994, he named Harris
to the California Medical Assistance Commission, a job that came with a $72,000 annual salary.
Brown had previously appointed her to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board."
She "was described by several people at the Capitol as Brown's girlfriend," the Los
Angeles Times reported at the time. Although that job paid nearly $98,000, Harris' term was
set to expire in five weeks when Brown tapped her for the Medical Assistance Commission slot.
That body met only monthly, and the $72,000 position was not considered a full-time job.
Willie Brown is a sleaze-bag who led one
of the most corrupt mayoral offices ever seen in San Fransico, but that was fine with Harris,
who went on to steal the election for California's Attorney General in 2010. "Los Angeles
District Attorney Steve Cooley led Harris by 34,000 votes after more than 7 million were
counted. But after provisional ballots were counted, she was declared the winner by
approximately 50,000 votes," reports
Daily Caller .
At one point, Cooley was up by 62,000 votes, and in panic mode, Harris reached out to her
good buddy California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, whose role was to certify the votes.
That's when thousands of Cooley's votes just disappeared.
Kamala Harris' path to power is strewn with illicit affairs and fraudulent elections, and in
desperation, she paid Maxine Waters' daughter Karen $63,000 dollars to appear on mailers with
Auntie Maxine. Washington
Free Beacon reports, "The payments were made from Harris's campaign committee and
transferred to Waters's campaign committee through a lucrative 'slate mailer' operation run by
Waters's daughter, a program that has proved profitable for both her daughter and the
campaign."
Kamala is really evil. She understand that this was color revolution, coup d'état
initiated by intelligence agencies. Still she pursue the Party line. Such an evil witch.
Trump correctly called her "nasty." She is also hypocritical stooge of intelligence services. She bought all lies that
they presented about Trump collision
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller spent 25 Million doing an investigation if Barr can`t take the results as fact then Can we the Tax payer have our 25 million back that was spent on an investigation that is not valid! ..."
Mueller spent 25 Million doing an investigation if Barr can`t take the results as fact
then Can we the Tax payer have our 25 million back that was spent on an investigation that is
not valid!
2nd Paragraph United States Declaration of Independence ... "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.
–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed,
–That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety
and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under
absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to
provide new Guards for their future security."
It was clear that Barr is higher caliber professional that Kamala Harris. He win just of his calm demeanor in comparison with
"hysterical" Harris. Kamala Harris is way to
arrogant and too pushy to be effective. People hate such pushy prejudiced prosecutors with evil
agenda (she does not want to get to the bottom of things which was a color revolution against
Trump launched by intelligence agencies with full support of the part of the Congress, MSM and
Democratic Party functionaries.
So she like Parteigenosse Mueller is another witch hunter, this time female witch hunter.
Ideologically Kamala Harris revealed herself as a typical DemoRat -- a corrupt neoliberal Clinton
democrat. She is not interesting in justice and in real situation in the country.
As such in no
way she is a presidential material. Tulsi worth much more then her.
She is just a better tanned, younger Hillary. A corrupt neoliberal warmonger.
Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democratic presidential candidate, questioned Attorney General William
Barr about whether anyone at the White House had ever suggested he open an investigation. She
also asked about the propriety of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's involvement in
deciding the president had not obstructed justice.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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George Galloway
Biden-Harris and the Diverse Faces of U.S. Imperialism
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