Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

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Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46947839
Democratic Senator Kamala Harris says she will run for president in the 2020 election, the eighth name to join the battle for the party's nomination.
The California senator, who was elected in 2016, previously served as the state's attorney general.
"I love my country," she told ABC's Good Morning America, adding she would "fight for the best of who we are".
The 54-year-old, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, is described as a rising star within the party.
Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney and Julian Castro are among those who have also announced their intentions to run.
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"The future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our American values. That's why I'm running for president of the United States," the senator said in a video posted on Twitter.
The 2020 Democratic presidential primary will be the first time more than one woman competes for the party's nomination.
The race is already thought to be record-breaking, with four women candidates running national campaigns.
The lessons Democrats can learn for 2020
Securing the nomination would make Ms Harris the first African American or Indian American woman to be a major party nominee for the presidency.
At her first campaign event on Monday, at an African American university in Washington, she accused President Trump of holding Americans hostage by prolonging the partial government shutdown.
Notable nominees now include:

Democrats:

Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
Secretary Julian Castro.
Senator Kristen Gillibrand.
Senator Kamala Harris.

Republicans:

Rapist in Chief Donald Trump (incumbent).

Some more bigger names getting into the race, though Joe Biden, while not officially announced, is still the one to beat (especially since he'll likely have Obama's support).

Edit: I am stunned by the diversity of the field thus far- we've never seen anything like it. If anyone wants proof that America has changed, at least a little, just take a look at that roster.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

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staffwriters wrote:Kamala Harris Assembles Campaign Staff Of Unpaid California Prison Laborers

WASHINGTON—On the heels of yesterday’s announcement that she would be running for president, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) reportedly began staffing her campaign Tuesday with unpaid inmates from California correctional facilities. “I’m so grateful to have such an incredible and devoted team headed up by my new campaign manager, Spider, as we work together to fight for American values,” said Harris of the two dozen non-violent criminal offenders who would reportedly work shifts of up to 72 hours out of her campaign office in exchange for three square meals a day and all the “Kamala Harris 2020” merchandise they could carry. “Whether it’s knocking on doors, leading focus groups, making phone calls, or helping prep me for upcoming media appearances, my entire staff will be comprised of unpaid prison laborers. Not only will this cut campaign-related expenses by up to $20 million, it will also allow inmates to spend time in the community and provide them with valuable work-related opportunities.” Harris added that due to a quirk in California state law, most inmates would be ineligible to work for other political campaigns once they’d been released from prison.
Shameful.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Elheru Aran »

TimothyC wrote: 2019-01-22 09:25pm
staffwriters wrote:Kamala Harris Assembles Campaign Staff Of Unpaid California Prison Laborers

WASHINGTON—On the heels of yesterday’s announcement that she would be running for president, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) reportedly began staffing her campaign Tuesday with unpaid inmates from California correctional facilities. “I’m so grateful to have such an incredible and devoted team headed up by my new campaign manager, Spider, as we work together to fight for American values,” said Harris of the two dozen non-violent criminal offenders who would reportedly work shifts of up to 72 hours out of her campaign office in exchange for three square meals a day and all the “Kamala Harris 2020” merchandise they could carry. “Whether it’s knocking on doors, leading focus groups, making phone calls, or helping prep me for upcoming media appearances, my entire staff will be comprised of unpaid prison laborers. Not only will this cut campaign-related expenses by up to $20 million, it will also allow inmates to spend time in the community and provide them with valuable work-related opportunities.” Harris added that due to a quirk in California state law, most inmates would be ineligible to work for other political campaigns once they’d been released from prison.
Shameful.
I don't think this is really the place to post an Onion article without making that clear.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Lonestar »

Castro would be interesting. I actually think that bragging about HUD is stupid if we're looking for experience, we should really be talking about being mayor of San Antone.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Elheru Aran wrote: 2019-01-23 12:39pm
TimothyC wrote: 2019-01-22 09:25pm
staffwriters wrote:Kamala Harris Assembles Campaign Staff Of Unpaid California Prison Laborers

WASHINGTON—On the heels of yesterday’s announcement that she would be running for president, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) reportedly began staffing her campaign Tuesday with unpaid inmates from California correctional facilities. “I’m so grateful to have such an incredible and devoted team headed up by my new campaign manager, Spider, as we work together to fight for American values,” said Harris of the two dozen non-violent criminal offenders who would reportedly work shifts of up to 72 hours out of her campaign office in exchange for three square meals a day and all the “Kamala Harris 2020” merchandise they could carry. “Whether it’s knocking on doors, leading focus groups, making phone calls, or helping prep me for upcoming media appearances, my entire staff will be comprised of unpaid prison laborers. Not only will this cut campaign-related expenses by up to $20 million, it will also allow inmates to spend time in the community and provide them with valuable work-related opportunities.” Harris added that due to a quirk in California state law, most inmates would be ineligible to work for other political campaigns once they’d been released from prison.
Shameful.
I don't think this is really the place to post an Onion article without making that clear.
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"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Elheru Aran wrote: 2019-01-23 12:39pm
TimothyC wrote: 2019-01-22 09:25pm
staffwriters wrote:Kamala Harris Assembles Campaign Staff Of Unpaid California Prison Laborers

WASHINGTON—On the heels of yesterday’s announcement that she would be running for president, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) reportedly began staffing her campaign Tuesday with unpaid inmates from California correctional facilities. “I’m so grateful to have such an incredible and devoted team headed up by my new campaign manager, Spider, as we work together to fight for American values,” said Harris of the two dozen non-violent criminal offenders who would reportedly work shifts of up to 72 hours out of her campaign office in exchange for three square meals a day and all the “Kamala Harris 2020” merchandise they could carry. “Whether it’s knocking on doors, leading focus groups, making phone calls, or helping prep me for upcoming media appearances, my entire staff will be comprised of unpaid prison laborers. Not only will this cut campaign-related expenses by up to $20 million, it will also allow inmates to spend time in the community and provide them with valuable work-related opportunities.” Harris added that due to a quirk in California state law, most inmates would be ineligible to work for other political campaigns once they’d been released from prison.
Shameful.
I don't think this is really the place to post an Onion article without making that clear.
The thing is, it isn't far off.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/kama ... ey-general
Harris’s actions in the Daniel Larsen case are particularly concerning.

The Larsen case was a travesty of justice from start to finish. In 1999, when two police officers claimed they saw Larsen, who had earlier in his life been convicted for burglary, pull a six-inch-long knife from his waistband and throw it under a car, he was sentenced to twenty-seven years to life under the three-strikes law supported by Harris.

Forget for a second that the sentence was unduly harsh for the crime in question. Police had wrongly targeted Larsen for a search in the first place, and witnesses reported that it wasn’t Larsen but the man he was with who had thrown the knife. In trial, Larsen’s incompetent lawyer (who would later be disbarred) didn’t investigate a single witness, nor present one in trial.

Eleven years later, a judge reversed the conviction due to the lack of evidence and incompetence of Larson’s attorney’s. Yet two years later, Larsen was still in jail. Why? Because Harris, now a vocal opponent of mass incarceration, appealed the judge’s decision on the basis that Larsen had filed his paperwork too late — a technicality.

Tens of thousands of people petitioned Harris to release Larsen, and numerous civil rights groups similarly called on her to do the right thing. But even when he was eventually released from custody after fourteen years, Harris challenged his release, and five months later Larsen was back in court, fighting to stay out of prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
And there's more.
The limits of Harris’s approach are likewise evident in her actions on police shootings. She did back a bill that required reports on officer-involved shootings to be posted publicly online and mandated bias training and that justice department agents wear body cameras. But as district attorney, she refused to hand over the names of police officers whose testimonies had led to convictions despite the officers’ arrest records and histories of misconduct. As attorney general, she also opposed instituting police body cameras statewide and stood against a bill requiring her office to investigate fatal police shootings.
And it gets better.
Harris tried to dismiss a suit brought by California inmates over the state’s use of solitary confinement, with her office insisting “there is no ‘solitary confinement’ in California prisons” (despite this, the case ultimately turned into a landmark settlement that struck a blow against the practice). She tried to block a transgender inmate’s request for gender reassignment surgery. When a prosecuting attorney inserted a falsified confession into the transcript of a defendant’s confession, committing what an appeals court called “outrageous government misconduct,” Harris appealed the case, arguing that it wasn’t “outrageous” because it didn’t involve physical brutality.
The most ardent civil liberties defender.
It’s true that Harris ordered California parole officers not to enforce blanket residency restrictions on sex offenders. This order ended the unjust application of a law that in many cases made it impossible for someone convicted of a sex offense to live anywhere, and increased the homeless sex offender population by twenty-four times in three years. (In addition to the barbarity of making anyone homeless, sex offenders’ risk of reoffending rises dramatically with homelessness, arguably, and ironically, making the public less safe.)

But she had only done so after the state Supreme Court ruled the restrictions to be unconstitutional, and only after she had appealed the same decision by a lower court. Harris supported Jessica’s Law, the ballot measure that instituted these rules, back in 2006. Similar to her stance on the three-strikes law, her 2010 Republican opponent ran to her left on this issue.
Discriminates against religious minorities and loves civil asset forfeiture...
Harris was likewise a firm proponent of civil asset forfeiture, sponsoring a bill to allow prosecutors to seize profits before charges were even filed. Years before that, she opposed AB 639, a bill that aimed to reform asset forfeiture. The bill easily cleared the state assembly, but was soon scuttled by a united wall of opposition from law enforcement, with whom Harris was united.

There was also the case of the Sikh man who was barred from working as a prison guard because of his religiously mandated beard. Harris argued that his beard prevented him from being properly fitted with a gas mask, thus disqualifying him from the job, despite California’s corrections and rehabilitation department’s regulations allowing guards to have beards for certain medical reasons.

A number of civil rights and legal organizations — including the ACLU of Northern California, the Asian American Bar Association, and the Council on American Islamic Relations — wrote Harris a letter pointing out this inconsistency. She argued that the medical exemption only applied to guards who passed the mask fitting before the policy took effect, although the man’s attorney said this was untrue.
Lackluster on busting fraud by banks...
There was no better symbol of Harris’s inability to hold the people behind the foreclosure fraud to account than her Mortgage Fraud Strike Force. Opened to much fanfare in 2011 and employing twenty-five Department of Justice lawyers and investigators with a budget of more than $2 million to go after foreclosure fraud, the strike force managed to prosecute just ten cases in three years, an East Bay Express investigation in 2014 found.

The paper found that not only had the strike force prosecuted less foreclosure fraud cases than many other states, but it had filed fewer lawsuits than attorneys general in smaller states with fewer victims, and even fewer than some county district attorneys. Yet California led the country in terms of such scam operations, with many thousands of complaints since 2010. One housing rights activist who had lost his home in a fraud called the strike force a “public relations effort.”

Harris has repeatedly said she was limited in what she could do. When a man at the 2016 California Democratic Party convention asked her, “How many bankers went to jail?” she said they did the best with what evidence there was. “I too, like most Americans, am frustrated. Clearly crimes occurred and people should go to jail,” she told the LA Times last year. “But we went where the evidence took us.”

This demonstrably wasn’t always the case, however. Earlier this year, the Intercept obtained a 2013 memo to Harris from prosecutors in the attorney general’s office saying they had “uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct” at OneWest Best, and urging Harris to “conduct a full investigation of a national bank’s misconduct and provide a public accounting of what happened.” Yet Harris never did. (Coincidentally, Harris was the only Democratic Senate candidate in 2016 to get a donation from Steven Mnuchin, OneWest’s former CEO).
I could go on and on and on, because there's shit I know about her I'm not at liberty to discuss to protect the privacy of others; but this pretty much speaks for itself.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Elheru Aran »

Alyrium Denryle wrote: 2019-01-24 02:51am[snip]
I could go on and on and on, because there's shit I know about her I'm not at liberty to discuss to protect the privacy of others; but this pretty much speaks for itself.
I don't have a problem with discussing her political liabilities/failures, but I don't think linking an Onion article with a misleading tag of "staffwriters' (I mean, really) is the way to do it. If one does have a genuine problem with her past conduct, then use the real examples, which should speak for themselves. A parody article is just going to muddy the waters.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

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Reg. allegations against Harris:

If true, that is deeply concerning- though I will point out that Alyrium's source, Jacobin magazine, is considered to be overtly hostile to the Democratic Party and supports the creation of a Left-wing third party. Therefore, I take their critiques of Democratic candidates with a large grain of salt.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2019-01-24 03:37pm Reg. allegations against Harris:

If true, that is deeply concerning- though I will point out that Alyrium's source, Jacobin magazine, is considered to be overtly hostile to the Democratic Party and supports the creation of a Left-wing third party. Therefore, I take their critiques of Democratic candidates with a large grain of salt.
So you're saying they're fabricating the Larsen case? Or are you just dismissing the source because of its bias? "They have a bias, thus I am not obligated to do any research to show that their allegations are incorrect. The bias alone makes the allegations dismissed on the spot."

That's a fallacy and you know it. I try to not give you shit, TRR. Lots of people give you a hard time. But be intellectually honest here. Instead of dismissing the source entirely, show where their allegations are exaggerated, falsified, or otherwise inaccurate or in some way not a serious stain on Senator Harris' past.

Please, show how they have misrepresented anything or demonstrate why these are in some other way not a serious fucking issue.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Napoleon the Clown wrote: 2019-01-24 04:42pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2019-01-24 03:37pm Reg. allegations against Harris:

If true, that is deeply concerning- though I will point out that Alyrium's source, Jacobin magazine, is considered to be overtly hostile to the Democratic Party and supports the creation of a Left-wing third party. Therefore, I take their critiques of Democratic candidates with a large grain of salt.
So you're saying they're fabricating the Larsen case? Or are you just dismissing the source because of its bias? "They have a bias, thus I am not obligated to do any research to show that their allegations are incorrect. The bias alone makes the allegations dismissed on the spot."

That's a fallacy and you know it. I try to not give you shit, TRR. Lots of people give you a hard time. But be intellectually honest here. Instead of dismissing the source entirely, show where their allegations are exaggerated, falsified, or otherwise inaccurate or in some way not a serious stain on Senator Harris' past.

Please, show how they have misrepresented anything or demonstrate why these are in some other way not a serious fucking issue.
I would be less inclined to take such criticism personally, if it more closely reflected what I actually said.

I did not say that the allegations should be dismissed immediately. I acknowledged the possibility that they were true, and that if so, they are very serious. Nor did I claim that they were "fabricated". Bias, as I'm sure you are aware, can be much subtler than that- showing part of the picture, without context, for example, can mislead as much as an outright lie. So can the way in which you present the facts. Nor did I say that it was not a serious issue, which it absolutely is. All of which should be apparent from the text that you quoted. I simply observed that we should not take claims from one arguably extremist source (seriously, Jacobin Magazine's writers include advocates of outright Marxist revolution), which has an ax to grind with the Democratic Party, at face value. It is neither unreasonable nor unusual to ask for a second source to corroborate serious allegations against someone, particularly when the one provided has a blatant partisan motive for its position. If someone posted a Fox News link attacking a Democratic candidate, I'd demand a second source before taking it at face value too. I expect most of us would.

In any case, the burden of proof is not on me to disprove anyone else's arguments.
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"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by K. A. Pital »

But the Jacobin collected information from public sources here. This has been also reprinted elsewhere (the Larsen case); and finally she argued that abolishing the death penalty - I quote - “undermines the important protections that our courts provide to the defendants”. This stuff is - sadly - not made up. You can freely google a very informative NY Times piece on her record if you’d use a second of your own time for that instead of kneejerk defence of the Democrats, no matter who they are.

Disliking a magazine for its partisan stance bears no relation to the factual correctness. Are there particular grounds do doubt the Jacobin? Have they published poorly fact-checked information or stories on Democratic candidates?
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2019-01-24 03:37pm Reg. allegations against Harris:

If true, that is deeply concerning- though I will point out that Alyrium's source, Jacobin magazine, is considered to be overtly hostile to the Democratic Party and supports the creation of a Left-wing third party. Therefore, I take their critiques of Democratic candidates with a large grain of salt.
I am aware of Jacobin's bias, but their analysis is top notch within their ideological framework; and they link to public sources. They don't need to construct a narrative around Kamala Harris' behavior and conduct, because denying treatment for transgender people in prison (and note, people who are trans are disproportionately represented in prison populations because police treat them like shit and their economic situation often forces them into crime and prostitution in order to survive, and note that Harris LOVES ruining the days of sex workers) speaks for itself. Arguing in court - as a matter of public record - that nothing short of torturing prisoners counts as prosecutorial/police misconduct - speaks for itself. Trying to keep a man she knows is innocent in prison because of a delay in paperwork speaks for itself. All of those things are monstrous.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2019-01-25 12:45amI would be less inclined to take such criticism personally, if it more closely reflected what I actually said.

I did not say that the allegations should be dismissed immediately. I acknowledged the possibility that they were true, and that if so, they are very serious. Nor did I claim that they were "fabricated". Bias, as I'm sure you are aware, can be much subtler than that- showing part of the picture, without context, for example, can mislead as much as an outright lie. So can the way in which you present the facts. Nor did I say that it was not a serious issue, which it absolutely is. All of which should be apparent from the text that you quoted. I simply observed that we should not take claims from one arguably extremist source (seriously, Jacobin Magazine's writers include advocates of outright Marxist revolution), which has an ax to grind with the Democratic Party, at face value. It is neither unreasonable nor unusual to ask for a second source to corroborate serious allegations against someone, particularly when the one provided has a blatant partisan motive for its position. If someone posted a Fox News link attacking a Democratic candidate, I'd demand a second source before taking it at face value too. I expect most of us would.

In any case, the burden of proof is not on me to disprove anyone else's arguments.
You said that their claims should be taken with a large grain of salt due to their bias. Bias alone is insufficient for dismissing a claim. In a logical debate the onus is upon you to rebut claims that are well-sourced. The accusations leveled at Senator Harris are well-sourced. If their claims were ill-sourced or unsourced entirely you'd maybe have a case to say that the claims are too unreliable to form any sort of opinion from them.

Do you think they are excising important context in these cases? That there's something that absolves Senator Harris of what seem like rather... unpleasant... actions? If not, you should try honing your communication skills because you didn't make it clear that you weren't implying that anything by Jacobin is immediately suspect enough to not be investigated.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

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Elheru Aran wrote: 2019-01-24 03:34pm
Alyrium Denryle wrote: 2019-01-24 02:51am[snip]
I could go on and on and on, because there's shit I know about her I'm not at liberty to discuss to protect the privacy of others; but this pretty much speaks for itself.
I don't have a problem with discussing her political liabilities/failures, but I don't think linking an Onion article with a misleading tag of "staffwriters' (I mean, really) is the way to do it. If one does have a genuine problem with her past conduct, then use the real examples, which should speak for themselves. A parody article is just going to muddy the waters.
Have our cognitive faculties degraded so far that we can longer discern parody from the truth? If the things stated in a parody article are now so close to reality to be mistaken by a reasonable person, does that not also make a succinct point about the person being targeted by said satire?
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by A-Wing_Slash »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2019-01-24 03:37pm Reg. allegations against Harris:

If true, that is deeply concerning- though I will point out that Alyrium's source, Jacobin magazine, is considered to be overtly hostile to the Democratic Party and supports the creation of a Left-wing third party. Therefore, I take their critiques of Democratic candidates with a large grain of salt.
Leaving aside that the items they cite are true, you're also mischaracterizing Jacobin's biases. They've got an axe to grind against the Democratic Party's apparatus - who doesn't - but they aren't revolutionaries. They're pretty open about being social democrats, and are heavily invested in the strategy of working within the Democratic Party. They were big backers of Bernie, and have consistently discouraged progressives from going the third party route.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

A-Wing_Slash wrote: 2019-01-28 02:47am
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2019-01-24 03:37pm Reg. allegations against Harris:

If true, that is deeply concerning- though I will point out that Alyrium's source, Jacobin magazine, is considered to be overtly hostile to the Democratic Party and supports the creation of a Left-wing third party. Therefore, I take their critiques of Democratic candidates with a large grain of salt.
Leaving aside that the items they cite are true, you're also mischaracterizing Jacobin's biases. They've got an axe to grind against the Democratic Party's apparatus - who doesn't - but they aren't revolutionaries. They're pretty open about being social democrats, and are heavily invested in the strategy of working within the Democratic Party. They were big backers of Bernie, and have consistently discouraged progressives from going the third party route.
As I understand it (and I'd be happy to be proven wrong), their writers span the range from democratic socialists to more radical Left-wing positions such as Marxism.

As to Kamala Harris's records, I'm not saying they aren't true- just that I'd prefer a more impartial source.

I have heard some vague comments about her dubious record as a prosecutor from CNN over the last couple of days, which considering that CNN has mostly been fawning all over her (its pretty clear that they've picked their favorite, just as they did with Hillary in 2016), certainly leads me to think that there's something there. It changes my position little in either case. I'll vote for her if she gets the nomination, because fuck Trump and his Republican lickspittles. I won't until then, because there are about 3-5 people I'd rather have as the nominee at this point.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Elfdart
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Elfdart »

I see the right-wing nutjobs think that by pointing out Harris fucked a married man 20-something years ago, they'll do her in politically. These are the same people who support President Pussygrabber. On second thought, it's so brazenly hypocritical it probably will work, for these dumbfucks have no shame and no principles.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by His Divine Shadow »

Kamala Harris backpedals on medicare for all statement after angry donors make angry phone ncalls

https://twitter.com/jesse_marioneau/sta ... 0841566210
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Elfdart »

No wonder people are already calling her "Kamillary".
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The Romulan Republic
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

I have a feeling she'll burn out faster than Hillary did. Her inconsistent record and Centrist support will alienate progressives, and her tough on crime record will alienate black voters, and you can't lose significant support in both those blocks and win a national Democratic primary. Plus Joe Biden has yet to weigh in, and I think if Obama endorses anyone before the general, it'll be his former VP.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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acesand8s
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by acesand8s »

His Divine Shadow wrote: 2019-01-31 08:50am Kamala Harris backpedals on medicare for all statement after angry donors make angry phone ncalls

https://twitter.com/jesse_marioneau/sta ... 0841566210
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this is the reaction of some towards Harris' comments.

Harris is taking the same approach that Sanders, Warren, Merkley, and others have done: given the realities that exist in the senate[1] and public polling on various alternatives that have been described as "Medicare for All"[2], it is unlikely that a true single payer plan will be implemented in 2021, which means that Democratic presidential contenders are likely going to end up in a situation where they need to accept something less than perfect. That's why Harris has co-sponsored not just Sanders' single payer Medicare for All bill but also Schatz's public option bill and Merkley's "Medicare for More" bill. This is why Sanders not only introduced his bill but also cosponsored Schatz's bill and voted for the ACA!

But, of course since we can't have nice things, we need to ignore this element and start breaking out the pitchforks and inventing imaginary donor pressure without evidence rather than seeing this as an obvious clarification from her team. As her press secretary Ian Sams said: "Medicare-for-all is the plan that she believes will solve the problem and get all Americans covered. Period. She has co-sponsored other pieces of legislation that she sees as a path to getting us there, but this is the plan she is running on." Or, as it was put more colorfully on twitter: "I want a burrito. I'd accept tacos in the meantime, but I want a burrito."

[1] Getting to 50 Dem senators for 2021 is a challenge; getting to 50 Dem senators willing to strike down the filibuster in 2021 is a near impossibility. Ultimately, it's going to be up to the senate parliamentarian, but it's going to be much, much easier to get some form of "Medicare for More" than single payer "Medicare for All" through reconciliation, which is the venue that we have available to expand health care in the country.

[2] Optional Medicare buy-in plans (of which there are many already on the table: Merkley/Murphy, Schakowsky/Whitehouse, Bennet/Higgin/Kaine, Schatz/Lujan) are much more popular than the plans that ban private insurance wholesale like Sanders' bill. "Medicare Extra for All" and DeLauro/Schakowsky (look, another shill who dares to have multiple approaches to healthcare, those damned donors are corrupting everyone!) seek to bridge this by providing universal coverage that maintains employee coverage for those that like it while automatically enrolling uninsured individuals into Medicare.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by EnterpriseSovereign »

I for one am thrilled how many female Democrats are coming forward, I don't know if there is a precedent for this or not but I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out. I don't envy Julian though, that surname might cause problems...
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Gandalf »

EnterpriseSovereign wrote: 2019-02-03 08:22pm I for one am thrilled how many female Democrats are coming forward, I don't know if there is a precedent for this or not but I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out. I don't envy Julian though, that surname might cause problems...
Yeah, it's not an ideal name. But ultimately it would be an easier name to handle than Barack Hussein Obama.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

EnterpriseSovereign wrote: 2019-02-03 08:22pm I for one am thrilled how many female Democrats are coming forward, I don't know if there is a precedent for this or not but I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out. I don't envy Julian though, that surname might cause problems...
Eh, the Hussein didn't stop President Obama.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: Kamala Harris joins the fray (Democratic Primary).

Post by Darth Yan »

I’ll vote if she gets the nomination but the fact that she’s defended tainted convictions repeatedly makes me sceptical
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