Month: October 2020

How many insults, excuses and fake apologies are Black Voters supposed to take from Joe Biden as he risks alienating Black voters after race remarks? 
It’s not about his age. It’s about whether he has offended black voters.
At a convention for Black and Hispanic journalists, a Black reporter asked Joe Biden whether he has taken a cognitive test.
This was Biden’s response: “No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? Come on, man! That’s like saying you, before you got in this program, you’re taking a test whether you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think, huh? Are you a junkie?”
Had that answer come from President Trump it would have been blasted, virtually nonstop, as blatantly racist. But the Biden campaign was basically allowed to brush off the query as “preposterous” rather than address the appropriateness of the words spoken by Trump’s Democratic challenger. Besides the matter of relatively low-key media coverage of Biden’s over-wrought objections to a perfectly valid question posed to a 77-year-old presidential candidate, it raises another serious political issue: How many more insults will Black voters take from Biden in the interest of defeating Trump? And at this point, wouldn’t a failure to select a Black woman as his running mate be the ultimate insult? Biden’s credibility as Barack Obama’s friend and vice president can go only so far.
“He’s making us all nervous,” said Joyce Ferriabough Bolling, a media and political strategist, about Biden’s recent gaffes. “I think some of his responses are just plain sloppy.” And Ferriabough Bolling knows sloppy and what it’s like to clean it up. She was Jesse Jackson’s New England press secretary when Jackson was running for president in 1984 and referred to Jews as “Hymies” and New York City as “Hymietown” during a conversation with a Washington Post reporter. Today, she defends Biden the same way she defended Jackson — saying she knows “what’s in his heart,” no matter how awkwardly those feelings may be expressed. In contrast, she said, “Trump doesn’t make gaffes”; in other words, he’s as racist as he sounds.
But Ferriabough Bolling has her forgiveness limits, too. Last May, she chided Biden after his “You ain’t Black” quip to Charlamagne tha God, cohost of the radio show “The Breakfast Club.” As she wrote in a Boston Herald column, “You definitely don’t want black folks to feel taken for granted and so disillusioned that they sit out the election.” And she still worries about that, especially with young Black voters.
During that convention of Black and Hispanic journalists, Biden also made some waves when, in response to a question about engagement with Cuba, he said, “Unlike the African-American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community, with incredibly diverse attitudes about different things.” For that, he’s also forgiven, on the same essential grounds that he’s not Trump. Or as Jeffrey Sanchez, a former state representative and longtime Biden supporter, put it, “He’s not the shell of a human being that’s in the president’s office right now.” Sanchez — now a senior adviser at the public affairs firm Rasky Partners — said he applauds the discussion of diversity in the Black and Latino communities, and that Biden’s record of fighting for health care and economic justice is what matters. 
An answer Joe Biden gave in the Houston Debate might come back to haunt him.
Biden had been performing effectively throughout the first half of the debate, then the subject turned to the matter of race and inequality, and moderator Linsey Davis posed this question to Biden:
“In a conversation about how to deal with segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, “I don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather, I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation and I”ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.” You said that some 40 years ago. But as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?”
There was a smile (some called it a “smirk”) on Biden’s face as he listened to the question. And he answered her this way:
“Well, they have to deal with the “look”, there’s institutional segregation in this country. From the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Redlining banks, making sure we are in a position where, look, you talk about education. I propose is we take the very poor schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise to the $60,000 level. Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are “I’m married to a teacher, my deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. Make sure that every single child does, in fact, have 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds go to school. Not day care, school. Social workers help parents deal with how to raise their children. It’s not like they don’t want to help, they don’t know what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television, excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the make sure that kids hear words, a kid coming from a very poor school, a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time we get there.”
The post-debate commentariat pounced on the “record player” comment, noting that it suggested a lack of familiarity with more modern-day devices, like the eight-track tape or Walkman. It was viewed mostly as a proxy for his age, a self-inflicted wound from a candidate stuck somewhere in the 1970s technologically. But by Friday morning, attention had begun to shift to the broader and far more culturally fraught implications of what Biden was saying: Did he mean that black parents depended on an army of white people with degrees to help them raise their kids?
Anand Giridharadas, an author and editor-at-large at TIME magazine, helped trigger a Twitterstorm about the nature of Biden’s comments. “Right now, somewhere, in some newsroom, some brilliant journalist ought to be pitching a big analytical story parsing Joe Biden’s statement and explaining why it was so troubling and ignored by so many people. It is a textbook example of the racism that is still respectable.”
There’s some anecdotal evidence that other journalists are already on the case. New York magazine writer Rebecca Traister wrote:
“Yes. Syntactically this reminded me of the viral Miss Teen USA answer from years ago. But the substance of what he was trying to say was much worse.” Journalist David Rothkopf wrote: “This is an important and accurate thread. I don’t believe Joe Biden is a bad person. I just think this once again reveals that he is not of this era or suited to lead for nearly the decade ahead.” New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie joined the thread as well, while also noting the meandering nature of Biden’s words.
At the risk of stating the obvious: Biden’s lead in the polling rests in substantial measure on his enormous strength in the African-American community. It is why he is far ahead in South Carolina (where black people cast the majority of Democratic primary votes), while doing much less well in Iowa and New Hampshire. It is why sustaining that strength is crucial to his chances; over the past decades, no Democrat has won the prize without winning the lion’s share of the African-American vote. Eroding that support is crucial to the hope of Trump, which is why Kamala Harris went after him back in June on his self-proclaimed ability to work with Southern segregationists.
And it suggests that if the Twitterstorm gains salience over the next several days “if his comments are interpreted as cluelessly condescending at best” it poses a serious danger to his prospects.
For those troubled by Biden’s sometimes cringe-worthy statements, Sanchez said, “Look where he puts his heart. I have faith in him. I have faith in what he’s done and what he’s going to do.”
To Ferriabough Bolling, “Anything is better than Trump. And Biden is better than most because of his relationship with Obama.” Still, an insurance policy beyond he’s-better-than-Trump would help. “With all the gaffes lending themselves to various interpretations, a woman of color as vice president becomes a necessity, especially in this climate,” said Ferriabough Bolling.
Biden wouldn’t be where he is without Black voters. Representative James Clyburn helped set up the South Carolina primary win that resurrected Biden’s candidacy and turned him from loser into nominee. Once he said he would choose a woman as a running mate, several smart, accomplished, and politically savvy Black women made the short list. After much jockeying, the reveal is said to be imminent. If a Black woman isn’t the final choice, Biden will have a lot more explaining to do.
And answers like the ones he gave last week won’t be so easy to forgive and forget.
Biden has some resources to deploy here. His embrace of Barack Obama, and the former president’s obvious affection for him, may insulate him from the criticism. And he has an army of African-American allies, who see him as a fighter for racial justice going back decades. Whether they jump to his defense, or begin to create distance, will be a sign of whether this is a passing firestorm or something much, much worse.
Kamala Harris, also known as “Hillary Clinton in blackface” from the comparison between Harris and Clinton, “#BlackHillary” trended , “light-skinned Hillary”; Black Lives Matter movement and other critics have trolled her on Twitter with the hashtag #Kamalaisacop; advocates for criminal justice reform say her office was part of the problem, not the solution; Harris violated defendants’ constitutional rights by failing to disclose they knew about the tainted drug evidence in her crime lab scandal that resulted in the dismissal of over 1,000 drug cases; laughed when she said she smoked marijuana, yet opposed recreational pot while she convicted over 2000 people for having marijuana; oppossed independent investigations of police shootings; opposed racism in the legal system and the mandatory use of body cameras by police: California reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates Harris argued in court that releasing them would drastically reduce their prison labor pool (seriously!); there were 600,000 truant students in elementary schools, she passed a law making it a criminal misdemeanor for parents or guardians of truant children that could face a $2000 fine or up to one year in jail; She’s shut down websites of sex workers and prosecuted those involved, then moved to decriminalize sex work in a “massive shift; authored numerous policies that disproportionately harmed Black and Latino defendants; fake feminist! who is Jamaican/Indian who identifies and passed as a black woman.
Abdul-Jalil

˜I believe them”: From supporting Biden’s sexual assault accusers to policing, where Kamala Harris has clashed with running mate
“I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it”
Is it just me or are WE ALL supposed to just be “Thooopid” and act as if ALL the insincere, fake, scripted and repeated apologetic excuses from Joe Biden for 47 years of “selling out” and the “please overlook my lies, fraud and corruption” from Kamala Harris’ “humping her way to POWER” (how old was Willie Brown when they were “screwing” and wasn’t/isn’t Rock Harmon gay?) Are the TRUTH of Biden vs Harris clashes and their political records supposed to just disappear?
Mr. Trump’s campaign has been keen to highlight the former US vice-president’s political baggage from a long career as a Washington insider – and tar him as out of touch with the mainstream of the modern Democratic party.
Joe Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate for the presidential election, but his pick of the California senator comes after the pair have sparred multiple times over differing views and EACH HAS THEIR OWN POLITICAL BAGGAGE!!
Although Mr Biden has since formerly said he holds no “grudges” against his running mate for what she’s previously said against his campaign, her past remarks have still dominated the news cycle.
The Independent has rounded up the four key moments Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have clashed ahead of being named on the same presidential ticket.
Mandatory School Busing
Kamala Harris went out swinging against Joe Biden during the first Democratic presidential debate.
The California senator saw her chance to fluster the former vice president, who was leading among all Democratic candidates, and she found Mr Biden’s weakness: his past Senate record on mandatory busing in the 1970s.
Biden’s Work with Bigoted Senators on Segregation and Busing
Senator Kamala Harris raised his past work with bigoted senators, and his previous opposition to a policy combating segregation in schools.
He said she had “mischaracterized” his position, insisting he had entered politics to champion civil rights.
Harris pilloried Mr Biden for having recently reminisced about working with two Democratic senators who favored racial segregation.
Turning to him, she said she did not believe he was a racist, but added: “It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”
She also took him to task for working “with them [racist senators] to oppose bussing” – a policy of driving white children by bus to majority-black schools and vice versa, in the mid-1970s.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/embed/p07fdnkc/48796148
The policy aimed to undo the negative effects of Jim Crow-era racial segregation. Segregation of public schools was outlawed in 1954, but the racial inequality it fostered persisted.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me,” Ms Harris said during the debate while targeting Mr Biden for opposing mandatory busing.
Mr Biden bristled: “It’s a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise racists. That is not true”of his position in the Senate, but it went down as the most contentious moment between the politicians during the presidential campaign.
He said he ‘detested” the segregationists’ views, following a backlash.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/embed/p07fgrbb/48796148
He also said he was only against bussing being mandated by the federal government, but had no problem with it at state level.
The comments thrust segregationist policies onto a national stage, and Ms Harris again repeated her criticisms against the former vice president at the following debate.
“Had I been in the United States Senate at that time, I would’ve been completely on the other side of the aisle, and let’s be clear about this: had those segregationists their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate,” she said. ‘so on that issue, we could not be more apart.”
Insults Black voters take from Biden in the Interest of Defeating Trump
Had the many, many racial insults come from President Trump it would have been blasted, virtually nonstop, as blatantly racist. But the Biden campaign has basically been allowed to brush off the query as “preposterous” rather than address the appropriateness of the words spoken by Trump’s Democratic challenger. Besides the matter of relatively low-key media coverage of Biden’s over-wrought objections to perfectly valid questions posed to a 77-year-old presidential candidate, it raises another serious political issue: How many more insults will Black voters take from Biden in the interest of defeating Trump? And at this point, the ultimate insult is Biden’s reliance on any credibility as Barack Obama’s friend and vice president can go only so far!
Sexual assault allegations against Mr Biden
In April 2019, prior to Mr Biden entering the presidential race, reports surfaced of the former vice president inappropriately touching women.
When asked by reporters, Ms Harris said she believed the women who spoke out against her now-running mate.
“I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it,” she said.
Multiple women accused Mr Biden of inappropriately touching them, including one Nevada politician who said the former vice president came up to her at a 2014 campaign stop and kissed the back of her head. This encouraged Mr Biden to release a video addressing the allegations against him.
‘social norms are changing. I understand that, and I”ve heard what these women are saying. Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future. That’s my responsibility and I will meet it,” he said.
Then Tara Reade, a former aide to Mr Biden, came forward about allegations of sexual assault when he was a US senator, all of which he has vehemently denied.
Ms Harris, who was a potential vice president candidate at the time, was asked about the allegations, saying Ms Reade “has a right to tell her story”.
“And I believe that and I believe Joe Biden believes that, too,” she said on the San Francisco Chronicle podcast.
The attack prompted Harris” sharpest spike in the polls, but she soon faded and ended her campaign in December.
Harris, 55, has several potential advantages as a vice presidential candidate. She is a woman of color “” her mother was born in India, her father in Jamaica “” which could help Biden connect better with the Democratic Party’s base. As a senator and former attorney general of the nation’s most populous state, she may be seen as more prepared than some to assume the top job.
One downside is that deep blue California is in the bag for Biden in the November election, so Harris wouldn’t deliver a home-field advantage in a swing state.
Harris also weighed in Friday on allegations by former Biden staffer Tara Reade, who said Biden sexually assaulted her when she worked in his Senate office in 1993.
Reade said Biden “pinned her to a wall in a Senate building, reached under her clothing and penetrated her with his fingers,” according to the New York Times. Last year, Reade was among several women who said Biden had inappropriately touched them or invaded their personal space. Reade made the assault allegations in a podcast interview.
Biden has not personally addressed the allegations, but his campaign has denied them.
Harris said the case raises “a bigger structural issue, frankly, which is that women must be able to speak without fear of retaliation.”
The senator said she could “only speak to the Joe Biden I know. He’s been a lifelong fighter, in terms of stopping violence against women.” She pointed to his lead role in passing the Violence Against Women Act in the Senate in 1994.
“The Joe Biden I know is somebody who really has fought for women and empowerment of women and for women’s equality and rights,” Harris said.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she believes women who say they felt uncomfortable after receiving unwanted touching from former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it,” Harris said at a presidential campaign event in Nevada.
“He’s going to have to make that decision for himself. I wouldn’t tell him what to do,” Harris said.
Several women have come forward to allege that Biden has touched them inappropriately.
Former Nevada state lawmaker Lucy Flores, a Democrat, made the first accusation last week in an essay in New York magazine’s The Cut. Amy Lappos told the Hartford Courant that Biden also touched her inappropriately at a 2009 fundraiser in Connecticut.
Two additional women, Caitlyn Caruso and D. J. Hill, came forward Tuesday, sharing their experiences with The New York Times.
Biden has not commented publicly on the accusations, when in response to Flores’s allegation he said in a statement that he has “offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort.”
“And not once “never” did I believe I acted inappropriately,” Biden added. “If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully.”
Medicare for All
Another prominent debate moment between Ms Harris and Mr Biden happened when discussing the American healthcare system.
This was a point of contention among many of the Democratic candidates at the time, with voters able to draw a distinct line between those who were for a plan like Medicare for All, which Ms Harris supported, versus those like Mr Biden who wanted to expand on the Affordable Care Act.
After listening to voters, Ms Harris devised her own Medicare-for-All plan that would take 10 years to implement and involved slowly transitioning every American over into a single-payer system.
“I listened to the American families who said four years is just not enough to transition into this new plan, so I devised a plan where it’s going to be 10 years of a transition. I listened to American families who said “I want an option that will be under your Medicare system that allows a private plan,”” the California senator said during a debate after changing her plan multiple times throughout her campaign.
Mr Biden, who has been a proponent of keeping private health insurance for those who want it while expanding on the Affordable Care Act, disagreed at the time.
“Well, my response is that the senator has had several plans so far. And any time someone tells you you”re going to get something good in 10 years, you should wonder why it takes 10 years,” he said.
“If you noticed, there is no talk about the fact that the plan in 10 years will cost $3 trillion. You will lose your employer-based insurance. And in fact, you know, this is the single most important issue facing the public.”
Bringing more Police to the Streets
In 2002, then-Senator Joe Biden penned an op-ed for the Delaware State News that reacted to the rising national crime rate, which was happening for the first time in 10 years. What was his solution to the rise in crime? More police on the streets.
“What works in the fight against crime? It’s simple ““ more police on the streets,” he wrote. “Put a cop on three of four corners and guess where the crime is going to be committed? On the fourth corner, where the cop isn’t. More cops clearly means less crime.”
This was during the “tough on crime” era of the Democratic party in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Now Mr Biden stands as a presidential candidate of a major political party during a time in the country where there is a nationwide call for police reform. Although his views have likely altered since that op-ed, Mr Biden did state he was not for the ‘defund the police” movement taking over on the far left of his party.
But his running mate has said she would be for “reimagining” police in the US.
“I think that a big part of this conversation really is about reimagining how we do public safety in America which I support which is this: we have confused the idea that to achieve safety, you put more cops on the street instead of understanding to achieve safe and healthy communities,” Ms Harris said.
“That’s how I think about this,” she added. “You know, in many cities in America, over one-third of their city budget goes to the police. So, we have to have this conversation, what are we doing? What about the money going to social services? What about the money going to helping people with job training? What about the mental health issues that communities are being plagued with for which we”re putting no resources?”
Biden on Social Security
Joe Biden has repeatedly advocated for cuts to Social Security, not to protect and expand it.
Biden’s mixed record of support for the US government’s social welfare program for retirees has been a theme as reform of such so-called “entitlement” programs has long been a political bugaboo for candidates as well as elected officials, and Mr Biden’s decades-long career has laid bare this point. A senator before his stint as vice-president, Mr Biden argued that Social Security should be subject to government austerity. “When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well,” he said in 1995. “I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice, I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time.”
When challenged on this record on the campaign trail, Mr Biden has flat-out denied backing Social Security cuts. His campaign has said that, if elected, a President Biden would expand the program, paying for it through a tax on the wealthy.
Biden on Abortion Rights
“Joe Biden in the past has voted for what is called the Hyde Amendment, that said that women could not use Medicaid dollars in order to protect their reproductive rights and get an abortion.
An exit poll analysis by the political forecast website FiveThirtyEight found that white women were the single largest voting group that turned around Mr Biden’s campaign fortunes.
Given the importance of female voters, it is hardly surprising that Mr Biden’s votes on reproductive health would be scrutinized. The former vice-president’s positions on abortion have “transformed” over the past few decades. As a senator in 1981, he voted to support an amendment that would have allowed states to overturn the landmark Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing the US right to abortion. As recently as last year, he said he still supported the Hyde Amendment (which forbids public money from being used for abortions), but reversed course after it became clear he was the only Democrat in the field who did so.
Abortion access is an important issue for Democratic women, but denunciation of Mr Biden’s record appears to go only so far. A YouGov/Economist poll finds that support from women overall for the former vice-president is slightly higher with women older than 45 and it is this group that votes more reliably.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/embed/p085lcjk/51803885
Trade Deals
‘does anybody think that Joe can go to Michigan or Wisconsin or Indiana or Minnesota and say vote for me, I voted for those terrible trade agreements?”
The anti-free trade line worked in 2016, when the same criticism of Hillary Clinton helped Trump.
Mr Biden has said he stands by his vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which critics say hollowed out manufacturing in the US. However, Mr Biden has argued that he is a “fair trader” who believes that “we should treat other countries in a way they treat us”, rather than a “free trader”.
The argument against Mr Biden looks to be less effective this time around than four years ago. According to a recent Gallup poll, 67% of self-described Democrats now say that Nafta has been beneficial for the US.
The debate has not played out in the general election, however. Trump will and has already talked about Joe’s record on trade. “Just looking at the facts – if you’re going into the heartland of America… it’s hard to make the case, when Trump has made trade such an important part of his agenda.”
Big Money
Trumps’ sharpest lines against Mr Biden have been against the former vice-president’s ties to moneyed interests. Mr Biden “bailed out the crooks on Wall Street who nearly destroyed our economy 12 years ago”.
Trump has hit out at Mr Biden for taking money from well-heeled backers.
Biden has positioned himself as a champion of the masses, arguing that it is not him, but Mr Trump who is in the pockets of Wall Street.
At one point, he said he would eschew taking money from political action committees – private groups that can donate big money to campaigns with little oversight – but was forced to reverse course when his White House hopes were looking anaemic before Super Tuesday. A campaign spokeswoman defended the decision, saying: “Those who are dedicated to defeating Donald Trump are organizing in every way permitted by current law”.
Iraq War
“Joe is going to have to explain to the American people – who are so tired of endless wars which have cost us too many lives, destabilized too many regions around the world, have cost us trillions of dollars – why he was a leader in getting us involved in the war in Iraq.
On this point, Mr Biden has conceded. “It was a mistake, and I acknowledge that,” he has said.
Given the primary season results so far, it would appear that despite voters’ mixed feelings over the war (half of Americans think it was a mistake, according to Gallup), this particular error of judgement is not costing Mr Biden much – so many people made the same wrong judgment and, politically speaking, it was so long ago.
It has been weaponized by Mr Trump given the president’s losing battle to reduce the American military footprint in the region, it could be a risky one for him – but that has never stopped Mr Trump from throwing a punch.
Biden a Career Politician- 47 years and counting!
Mr Biden then brought up his two terms as vice-president to Barack Obama, America’s first black president.
Mr Biden, 76, was also confronted on an issue he presents as one of his strengths – political longevity.

Mr Swalwell said: “I was six years old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic convention and said, ‘It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.’
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/embed/p07fdh08/48796148
“That candidate was then-Senator Joe Biden. Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago – he’s still right today.”
Mr Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected, retorted: “I’m still holding on to that torch.”
He has also faced criticism for flip-flopping on abortion rights, and for calling Vice-President Mike Pence “a decent guy”.
Harris Political Baggage
Kamala Harris, also known as “Hillary Clinton in blackface” from the comparison between Harris and Clinton, “#BlackHillary” trended , “light-skinned Hillary”; Black Lives Matter movement and other critics have trolled her on Twitter with the hashtag #Kamalaisacop; advocates for criminal justice reform say her office was part of the problem, not the solution; Harris violated defendants’ constitutional rights by failing to disclose they knew about the tainted drug evidence in her crime lab scandal that resulted in the dismissal of over 1,000 drug cases; laughed when she said she smoked marijuana, yet opposed recreational pot while she convicted over 2000 people for having marijuana; opposed independent investigations of police shootings; opposed racism in the legal system and the mandatory use of body cameras by police: California reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates Harris argued in court that releasing them would drastically reduce their prison labor pool (seriously!); there were 600,000 truant students in elementary schools, she passed a law making it a criminal misdemeanor for parents or guardians of truant children that could face a $2000 fine or up to one year in jail; She’s shut down websites of sex workers and prosecuted those involved, then moved to decriminalize sex work in a “massive shift; authored numerous policies that disproportionately harmed Black and Latino defendants; fake feminist! who is Jamaican/Indian who identifies and passed as a black woman.
Harris’ history as a prosecutor and attorney general in the state of California was a touchy subject and cause for concern long before her presidential campaign, and is being recirculated in the 2020 presidential and vice presidential debates.
“The concerns are overblown, yes, no question,” Harris told CBS News. But she was unable to escape addressing her controversial history; it took center stage during the second Democratic debates last year. When the topic of criminal justice reform arose, Harris bore the brunt of criticism from her fellow candidates, including Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
Democratic Debate: Tulsi Gabbard Goes After the Party, Tangles With Kamala Harris | NBC New York:

Harris has failed in her views on Criminal Justice Reform (you can read her full policy on her website here) and Police Brutality in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other Black Americans. So, let’s try to clear up this controversy. Here are the important things to know about Kamala Harris’ history as attorney general:
Harris served as Attorney General twice.
Harris’ first go-around was as the district attorney general of San Francisco. Her term lasted seven years, from 2004 to 2011. Then, from 2011 to 2017, she went on to serve the state of California as attorney general before taking on the role of Senator.
Failed “Back on Track” Initiative
The “Back on Track” initiative was one her most successful programs.
As district attorney in 2005, Harris launched an initiative to reduce recidivism among first-time drug-trafficking defendants. The program, known as “Back on Track”, lasts 12-18 months and provides its participants with a personal responsibility plan (PRP). Their PRP will consist of setting goals around employment, parenting and receiving an education, instead of serving jail time. Participants are also required to serve 220 hours of community service. Graduating from the program requires each participant to find a job, enroll in school full time, and comply with all terms of their PRP.
‘shutting the revolving door of the criminal justice system requires innovative, results-driven policies and initiatives that help offenders get their lives back on track,” Harris said.
Failed Racial Bias and Police Brutality Reform.
In 2015, under Harris’ jurisdiction as state attorney general, California became the first statewide agency to adopt a body camera program and also enforced a “first of its kind” law enforcement training. The then-presidential candidate reminded people of her work during one of the debates.
However, what wasn’t mentioned is that wearing the body camera was not mandatory for all local police officers in the state, only those working directly for Harris. According to PBS, that same year Harris warned against a “one-size-fits-all” solution. “I as a general matter believe that we should invest in the ability of law enforcement leaders in specific regions and with their departments to use [their] discretion to figure out what technology they are going to adopt based on needs that they have and resources they have,” Harris told the Sacramento Bee.
And the training Harris referred to is known as “Principled Policing: Procedural Justice and Implicit Bias.” The course totaled eight hours and consisted of ‘six areas that focus on policing approaches that emphasize respect, listening, neutrality and trust, while recognizing and addressing implicit biases that can be barriers to these approaches,” according to a press release from the attorney general’s office. According to press release, a little over 90 applicants from 30 agencies applied for the course.
Failed on Prison Reform.
In 2011, the Supreme Court demanded the state of California reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates in the next two years due to overpopulation resulting in starvation, inhumane treatment and even death, according to NPR. However in 2014, according to the LA Times, federal judges “ordered that all nonviolent second-strike offenders be eligible for parole after serving half their sentence.”
As stated by the LA Times, most of those prisoners were working as groundskeepers, janitors and kitchen staff. Harris’ lawyers argued in court that releasing them would drastically reduce their prison labor pool (seriously!). However, Harris told BuzzFeed that she was ‘shocked” to hear their defense. “I was very troubled by what I read. I just need to find out what did we actually say in court,” she said.
Her stance on Marijuana.
In 2010, Harris was staunchly opposed to the use of recreational marijuana. ‘spending two decades in court rooms, Harris believes that drug selling harms communities,” her then campaign manager Brian Brokaw told Capitol Weekly. “Harris supports the legal use of medicinal marijuana but does not support anything beyond that.”
In 2015, at the California Democrats Convention, she called for an end to the federal ban on medical marijuana, but withheld the term legalization. It wasn’t until 2018, as Senator, that she co-signed Senator Corey Booker’s Marijuana Justice Act”.
“Right now in this country people are being arrested, being prosecuted, and end up spending time in jail or prison all because of their use of a drug that otherwise should be considered legal,” Harris said in a press release. “Making marijuana legal at the federal level is the smart thing to do, it’s the right thing to do. I know this as a former prosecutor and I know it as a senator.”
The Failed Anti-Truancy Policy
In her 2011 inauguration speech, Harris pointed out that in 2010 there were 600,000 truant students in their elementary schools alone. In an effort to remediate this issue, she passed a law making it a criminal misdemeanor for parents to allow their children (kindergarten through eighth grade) to miss more than 10 percent of school days, without an excuse. The parents or guardians of truant children could face a $2000 fine or up to one year in jail. “We are putting parents on notice,” Harris said at her 2011 inauguration. “If you fail in your responsibility to your kids, we are going to work to make sure you face the full force and consequences of the law.”
However, this policy ended up generalizing the truancy issue, placing blame on parents with circumstances outside their control. Harris has since apologized for criminalizing parents in a Pod Save America interview. “This was never the attention,” she said. “I regret that that has happened and the thought that anything I did could have led to that.”
Failed Criminalization of Sex Workers.
In 2016, she was one of the leaders in the downfall of the classified ads website, Backpage.com. In her filings, she charged the site owners for money laundering, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping. A majority of sex workers used the site to find clients who needed an escort, other services, and many of them deemed it was one of the safest options to overall vet new clients. She said recently that she has “no regrets” about getting it shut down.
She’s recently spoke on matters of decriminalization of sex work, saying she supported the movement, which some have called a “massive shift.” In an interview with The Root last year, she said: “There is an ecosystem around that that includes crimes that harm people, and for those issues, I do not believe that anybody who hurts another human being or profits off of their exploitation should be free of criminal prosecution. But when you’re talking about consenting adults, we should consider that we can’t criminalize consensual behavior.”
Abdul-Jalil