Well, maybe it needs a different thread on the subject, but I don’t see how anyone can complain about Harris enforcing the law on prostitution. She was Attorney General, not a lawmaker, and definitely not sole lawmaker of the state of California. Her job was to enforce the state’s laws, and prostitution, pimping, and selling ads for prostitution are illegal in California. She would have been violating her oath and failing to perform her job duties if she did not enforce the laws regarding prostitution. For those making this argument, it would have to be asked, do you think Attorney Generals should just go rogue and stop enforcing any law that you happen to disagree with?
Any Democrat is going to be preferable to the incumbent in November 2020. At this point the job is to get the best party to win, to do constructive work, and hold power in 2022, 2024, & 2026.
Clinton & Obama both lost Congressional majorities very quickly. When you have a Democratic President the right wing call “far left” (because that’s the leader of the Democratic Party, so “the left” by one definition), that’s normal. If the popular left see that President as too conservative, too much part of the war machine, or just “part of the problem,” then you start getting some demoralization, & talk about how Nader was right. If the President turns out to be some kind of a jerk personally, never mind ideology, that loses support.
One lesson from previous administrations: If the President builds up his own cult of personality, then doesn’t really work at organizing a majority party movement and just tries to muddle through while figuring out how to execute the office, then that can be an opportunity lost at the legislative level. I think that was Obama’s failure; “Organizing for America” seems in hindsight like more a campaign slogan than a program.
Is Harris really on board with the Green New Deal? It’s not a bill. It’s a paradigm shift, and it’s a necessary one.
Is Harris an unsympathetic person who despises the poor? That’s the image being built, and if that image sticks, her ideology will not matter; she’ll be polling-place poison, same as Hillary.
Is Harris ready to lead a party to growing congressional majorities? I don’t know. If not, don’t be President.
I need to state this. I haven’t kept up with Backpage news since early 2017, when it was shut down. At that point, my concerns were primarily for my friends who essentially lost an income stream. My understanding until recently was Backpage was merely a platform for third-party content, and was thus protected by CDA 230. Indeed, the CDA protection is why Harris’s case against Backpage was thrown out in late 2016. I also recall hearing from several anti-trafficking organizations that Backpage was instrumental in stopping child trafficking because they worked closely with law enforcement.
That being said, I’m reading what’s happened over the past couple of years, and it turns out that Backpage was often scrubbing ads to remove language indicative of underage prostitution. That makes them complicit (and removes the CDA 230 protection, but that’s beside the point). I’m horrified, not merely in an abstract sense, but for deeply personal reasons. Given that I’ve received several pointed comments on other matters in this thread, please do not gloat or ask me to elaborate.
I’m not certain how I feel now. Backpage’s shutdown led directly to SESTA/FOSTA, which precludes the creation of any such platform being run with cooperation with law enforcement. I recently found an article that claims trafficking in SF has increased by 170% since, and again, some of my friends’ lives have been made far more difficult since.
I have more to say about Harris in general, but I’m not really able to do so right now.
Not really, and that’s a pretty tough climb to get to your 5% that will then mean that the third party gets to dip into taxpayer money for campaign financing.
I don’t like taking things for granted.
I said none of that, I am just saying that you should be aware that what you say can influence people. Prior to 2016, I was hearing, not just on here, but all over the media, social media, and in person, how terrible Clinton was and that we should vote third party.
We are having a discussion right now, and I am not saying what you should or not say in this discussion.
I’m not telling you how to vote at all. I am just saying that if people do not use their vote responsibly, then democracy fails. Telling you the consequences of an action is not the same thing as prohibiting you from that act.
I didn’t mention voter suppression at all. It is possible that you are confused.
That is an extremely poor and unfounded observation on your part. I love democracy, it is people who would rather play games with their vote than to work to elect people who will actually implement the policies that they desire that don’t seem to have much respect for the idea of self governance.
Democracy is fragile, and does need to be respected by the voters in order to function. That’s not being down on democracy, any more than asking you to be careful with that box marked fragile is being down on dishware.
No, never said anything like that.
I’m not explaining your life. I’m explaining how Trump got elected. You are the one who said that Trump was bad for you and your peers. If you meant that Trump was good for your life, then that’s fine too. Either way, didn’t say anything at all about your life.
Not really. I do not see any movement to the left. In fact, after the left wing voters let down the democrats in 2010, 2014, and in 2016, I see the democrats regrouping around an even more centrist right position, as catering to the far left doesn’t actually get them any votes. They never go far enough, so you guys go third party anyway. They cost themselves politically to reach out to the far left, and then they lose the election because you don’t show up to support them. That’s how you get conservatives in power.
It is that exact mentality making the perfect the enemy of the good that got Trump elected, and will ensure his re-election in 2020.
If you will not support the democrats, they will not represent you.
Why would you choose to say something insulting about the good people of Wisconsin like that?
What she did as Attorney General disqualifies her… Very right-winged. I’m not fooled by speeches. There is no left-wing in the US, but I think almost everyone running is better, and she isn’t worth my gas money.
The media has gone after Bernie Sanders and he isn’t even running. Because a couple of dudes whistled at a woman (or something less), those who WORKED for him. And Tulsi Gabbard. It’s really cheap. If you pay attention long enough, you an see how so many do these 180s based on political expediency, including political parties trading – war, trade, etc.
I think the media wants Trump to win to make more $$$… They want exactly what he has - money, power, beautiful wife… The Democratic Party has to start talking about real issues, and not whatever got 51% of a poll. I’m tired of the self-righteousness, knowing you can’t legislate understandings, so they’ll talk about issues that can’t be changed.
I’m going to get into how I think Dem pols have failed to cater to Dem voters:
I think the 2010 loss had a lot to do with the disillusionment of anti-war voters. We were not “catered to.”
The Congressional losses through 2016 were partly due to the 2011 redistricting following that 2010 loss. Maybe Dems should have “catered to” voters who wanted Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, John Yoo, etc., tried for high crimes, & the USA PATRIOT ACT undone. And we weren’t all “far left.”
I think Democrat pols tried to look sympathetic to Occupy, but then, so did Jon Huntsman. And little has even been started on their concerns. Black Lives Matter activists haven’t gotten anything, policy-wise, from the Clinton Democrats.
(Is the “far left” being “catered to” Howard Schultz & Mike Bloomberg? In that case, yes, ambiguously gay-tolerant, healthy-eating advocate, billionaire “coastal elites” have been overly catered to. I guess. :rolleyes: )
The presidential campaign of 2016 basically involved Bernie proposing populist solutions and HRC rolling her eyes at them. Bernie had, what, over a third of the party? And there were presumably still a lot of ABC’s (Anyone But Clinton) on the moderate side & among independents. Remember that in the 1990’s, lots of independents & Democrats voted for an independent political amateur against her husband. I don’t see how her going “further to the right,” while disrespecting the populists in the central states who were so excited by Bernie, was going to win her anything.
WJC & BHO both lost Congressional majorities very quickly, to well-organized right-wing “populist” Congressional campaigns. Contrast to the Bushes.
Why?
When you have a Democratic President the right wing call “far left” (because that’s the leader of the Democratic Party, so “the left” by one definition), is that why? No, because that—that characterization—is normal. That’s not the problem. Being “far left” in the mouths of those whose job it is to topple you is never, ever, electorally, the problem, partly because the leader of the left party is always the “far left” to the right. When in the history of the USA have the common people kicked out a President because they thought he was “too far left” on policies that help Americans? Maybe, at a stretch, Jimmy Carter? Or was it just that he was painted as weak?
However, if the popular left see that President as too conservative, too much part of the war machine, or just “part of the problem;” then you start getting some demoralization, & talk about how Nader was right. This hit HRC hard.
And, if the President turns out to be some kind of a jerk personally, never mind ideology, that loses support. There are different kinds of jerks: pathological liars, promise breakers, elites who seem indifferent to the voters, and actual violent persons can all be “jerks.”
These last two, but right now the “jerk” characterization, is where Harris is getting hit on social media. She was a prosecutor, so those who want to take her down can hit her from an ostensibly populist-left stance, calling her just another “cop” who locks up poor black folks. That undercuts her “minority appeal,” & it is of course designed to do just that. If the characterization sticks, true or not, she will lose support, and possibly even hurt the party over time even if she beats an easy-to-beat clown next November. If the characterization is true, then she’ll be a bad President, even if she wins, and do more damage to the party brand over time.
We have to get this right. We are not here to win one election, but to win majorities over time. We should not merely be here to get our team in, but to try to do good. Right now, we have to save this country from (among other things) the twin economic disasters of over-concentration of capital and catastrophic environmental degradation.
Harris may be part of that. But I am sorry to say that, given the stupid way our party system works, she has to be credible enough to keep a whole party together, or she’s a substandard President.
As district attorney of San Francisco, Kamala Harris supported a city policy that required law enforcement to turn over undocumented juvenile immigrants to federal immigration authorities if they were arrested and suspected of committing a felony, regardless of whether they were actually convicted of a crime.
Harris, who was San Francisco’s district attorney from 2004 to 2011, sided with then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in a political fight over San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city that split the city’s municipal government, with the mayor’s office supporting the policy and the city’s elected Board of Supervisors opposing it.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) has smoked marijuana. And yes, she did inhale.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate made the admission during an interview on the radio program The Breakfast Club on Monday. After She discussed her support for legalization and outlined some of her remaining concerns, the host asked Harris whether she’s ever used cannabis.
“I have. And I did inhale,” she said, laughing. “It was a long time ago, but yes. I just broke news.”
Maybe she and Mike Bloomberg can pass the bong during one of the primary season debates.
Kamala Harris claims she listened to Tupac and Snoop as she smoked a joint in college.
Tupac’s first album came out in 1991.
Snoop’s first album came out in 1993.
people can get stuff like what music they listened to at a certain time wrong , it’s a very, very minor issue. Remember Obama and the 57 states? (or some number he got wrong) I’m sure there is music I heard around college and I don’t know if it was during college or after .
Not surprisingly, the knee-jerk FOXNews hot take is long on gotcha and desperately short on context.
LAZ, did you bother to listen to the interview at all? Because I can’t understand how someone could have done so and still come to the “conclusion” that you seem to have reached.
Well, it’s already been pointed out that you’re (uncritically, sadly) just propagating a right-wing lie. I think the more important point here is that the right wing is so scared of Harris that they’re already making up lies about her. Interesting.
Sorry, just saw this post, and the subsequent ones.
They bailed our economy out of a recession, they passed the ACA, and then they no longer had a super majority in the senate.
What they needed at that point was more support from the left, in order to improve the ACA, and continue to stimulate the economy.
Then 2010 happened, and the democrats didn’t really have the support to do much of anything anymore. they were gasping for breath before 2014 and 2016, just trying to stay alive, and yet they still pushed for many left programs, like SSM, repealing don’t ask don’t tell, transgender rights, and so on. These things certainly cost them any chance of getting a vote from the right, and alienated some of the moderates as well.
But, that wasn’t catering to you enough. The far left refused to support the party that was working its best politically to give you what you wanted, but it wasn’t enough.
So, since the democrats didn’t cater enough to the far left, we got Trump, along with a pretty decent majority republican congress. Do you expect them to represent your interests? Do you expect them to care about your interests at all? Do you even realize that they will work to reverse what progress was made for the benefit of the far left?
What is it that you wanted? What is it that the democrats could have delivered, but refused to? What “perfect” here, become the enemy of the “good”?
It sounds like you are upset that they didn’t prosecute the previous administration. Is that what it was all about? You say “High Crimes”, but what exactly is it that you are charging them with? If they had gone after Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush, then you would have shown up in 2010 to prevent the power from transitioning to the party that is diametrically opposed to your values?
Do you really think that would have solved anything at all? What outcome would you expect from such a trial? What benefit do you even get out of it? It would have been a distraction from the economic crisis we were dealing with, as well as from working on healthcare.
Had they gone after the Bush admin, I don’t see anyone actually being convicted of anything, and I see much less getting done. The far left probably would have been even more disappointed in a failed prosecution, and still not shown up in 2010.
I can agree with beating up the Patriot Act a bit, but, once again, that’s not something that can be done unilaterally, and instead, needed the support of 60 senators, something the democrats had for what, about a month, if you include lieberman and the blue dogs.
You blame Obama and Pelosi and Schumer for the acts of Lieberman and the other right leaning democrats. You held your own representative or senator responsible for the actions of their colleagues (unless you were in a district with a blue dog democrat, in which case, you failed to persuade your own congresscritter of your views).
OWS didn’t exist until after the 2010 election, so I don’t see how it would influence that. As far as after, did we ever get a coherent message from them? they complained about college debt and wealth disparity. Two things that democrats have actually been trying to do something about, but have not had the voter support to do so.
Clinton hasn’t had any power whatsoever since BLM was a thing, so I’m not sure. If you are talking about democrats in general, then I have seen quite a bit of federal activity that was working on pushing reform. Unfortunately, police are a state and local matter, so anything the fed does is very inderrect. They did what they could, studying and even taking up legal cases against police departments. (Most of which have been dropped by the current administration, so, you know, that’s working out well.)
I suppose as far as that goes, I have two questions. What exactly did you want them to do, policy-wise, for BLM, and the second question is, are the republicans, the party that was assisted into getting into power by these types of complaints, doing any better?
Because republicans are much more reliable mid term voters than democrats are.
It’s called compromise. You don’t get everything that you want. You have a list of things that you didn’t get, well, so do I. No one gets everything that they want, and if you hold out for everything that you want before you are willing to take steps towards actually getting some or most of what you want, then you will never get anything, and neither will anyone else.
If getting nothing that you want is better than only getting some of what you want is your preference, then keep up the current strategy, as it will continue to net you nothing.
"Before Ms. Harris answered the question, Charlamagne tha God interjected, asking her to say what she listened to while she smoked in college. Everyone laughed, before D.J. Envy appeared to return to his original question.
“Was **it **Snoop?” he asked.
“Oh yeah, definitely Snoop,” Ms. Harris said. “Tupac for sure.”
My bolding. The use of “it” suggests that she was referring to what music she listened to as she smoked pot.
However, I look forward to the Harris campaign issuing a clarification on what Kamala was actually listening to while she smoked pot in college. If it was Huey Lewis and Lionel Ritchie, it’s over for her.
A) Kamala Harris conflated two questions: “What music do you like?” and “What were you listening that time you smoked weed?” She answered the former and not the latter.
B) More importantly, who the fuck cares? We have a country beset by real problems. Maybe Harris is suited to take them on, maybe she isn’t, but why aren’t you talking about that instead of this trivial nonsense?
So that was a big ol’ “no,” then. You haven’t actually watched or listened to the interview and are just bagging on Harris for…well, no idea why. But apparently you have decided you don’t like her. Good to know, sparky, you do you.
I am actually surprised- a GOP hit piece that has a possible shred of truth. If you listen , you could interpret it either way, it was a little confusing.
But since it’s been clarified, i see no reason to harp on it.
I think you were probably confused at what happened because the current president has dementia (or brain worms, or something) and therefore lacks the intellectual capacity to handle an interruption and then return to the topic.
Trump would have actually handled the conversation the same way (back before his dementia and Adderall addiction ruined his brain).