OK. I'm solidly in the category of "She's not Trump, so I'm voting for her." But I did a quick Google search (i.e., I did "thorough research" and the first hit was a list from USA Today, which included the following Harris Accomplishments:
In response to immigration concerns, Harris’ call to action was the public-private partnership Central America Forward to support the creation of local jobs and other measures in order to slow the flow of mass migration. CAF has generated more than $5.2 billion since its launch in 2021, and its partners include more than 50 companies and organizations that have committed to supporting economic growth in the Central America region. The entities represent the financial services, textiles, apparel, agriculture, technology, telecommunications, nonprofit sectors, and others, according to the White House. Harris was at the forefront of the administration’s pursuit to enshrine voting rights protection throughout the U.S. She pushed for Congress to pass the John R Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would’ve extended the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and required federal approval for some local election law changes. Harris visited a Planned Parenthood clinic on March 14, a historic first for any president or vice president while in office. Harris oversaw Biden’s establishment of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to reduce gun violence. The Office builds upon actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration to end gun violence, which include the signing of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Heralded by the White House as the most impactful gun violence prevention measure in almost three decades, the now law bars individuals under the age of 21 from buying firearms, grants the Justice Department additional powers to prosecute gun traffickers, provides mental health services in schools to assist youth affected by gun violence trauma and grief and funds community-based violence intervention programs. In her previous role as U.S. Senator for California, Harris introduced the Maternal CARE Act and the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, which would direct multi-agency efforts to improve maternal health, particularly among racial and ethnic minority groups, veterans, and other vulnerable populations as well as maternal health issues related to COVID-19. The vice president’s prior work on maternal and infant health care was a key component of the Build Back Better Act, passed in 2022. The legislation expands access to maternal care and makes new investments to drive down mortality and morbidity rates.
I thought about taking a list of all of the horrible things about Trump that a friend recently posted on FB, and just adapt it by inserting the phrase "Harris didn't..." at the beginning of each point, but that would have been much too long for this assignment.
A sincere thanks for the post. However, IMHO, I think you’ve bolstered my argument. These are all small-ball items. There are dozens, if not hundreds of public officials with vastly more impressive lists of achievements—members of Congress, governors, Cabinet officials, bureaucrats, military officials. Your list includes things that never passed, things that were established but which don’t seem to have had tangible results, things that no one other than specialized policy wonks have ever heard of. Furthermore, just because the White House issued a press release saying she was a key figure, doesn't mean that she was. If these were the most significant achievements that USA Today can dig up ... then she truly is the least impressive presidential nominee of the modern era. And it's fine to vote for her because you despise Trump. But in that case, you're voting for a poker chip or one of the little pieces that you move around the Monopoly board.
[1] CENTRAL AMERICA FORWARD: Micro program with no indication that generated the equivalent of maybe 1/3000 of the federal budget. No idea if that was just a transfer or accounting fiction. No indication that the program did any good.
[2] JOHN R LEWIS: “She pushed Congress to pass [it]”. But they didn’t.
[3] VISITED A PLANNED PARENTHOOD CLINIC: “A historic first.” How does that compare with Defeated the Nazis, legendary war hero, put Mafia behind bars, ran CIA, ran State Department, built gigantic cross-country political movement, kept the Communists from taking over Hollywood, ran the Senate, passed the Civil Rights Act, destroyed the Japanese war effort? I’m guessing Trump would happily provide a list of places he visited that are equally impressive and equally “historic.”
[4] OVERSAW ESTABLISHMENT OF WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF GUN VIOLENCE: Has the incidence of gun violence plummeted?
[5] MATERNAL CARE WORK: Admirable aim. $125 million budget is a bit less than the cost of building a single subway stop in Alexandria, Virginia.
[6] THINGS TRUMP DIDN’T DO: As the article said, voting for Harris because she’s not Trump is a valid motivation, but it’s not an achievement. Voting for her because she didn’t do 50 things Trump did is not 50 achievements; in fact, it’s still not one achievement. It’s a negative—which is exactly what I said has been the case for Kamala Harris.
I'm not disagreeing with you. Again, this was the first post that came up. I suppose it's vaguely possible that had I looked past this one I could have come up with something else, but I'm for sure not going to spend any more time on my "thorough research."
Summing up, the achievements you listed are the sort of thing you'd expect of some deputy assistant secretary of HHS who is a fair-to-middling candidate for elevation to assistant secretary. When the mullahs threaten us with nukes, her historic visit to a Planned Parenthood office isn't worth squat.
Well stated, Robert! I established a Google Alert several years ago with the phrase "Iranian Nuclear Test." Try it yourself. There are plenty of concerns being raised now, as is shown in the news results.
OK. Baseball analogy alert (and risk of hijacking the thread)! Small-ball can be quite effective in many cases, especially when your team's offense mostly relies on hitters eyeing the fences on every swing, but the opposing pitcher has figured that out (it's not that difficult, really) and pitches in such a way as to lure the home-run-hitting batter into swinging at pitches that result in either swing-and-misses or trying to pull that low and outside breaking ball and ending up grounding into a double play. An alternative, although baseball folks seem to be so stubborn and set in their ways as to refuse to adjust to obvious circumstances, might be to try to hit to the opposite field and just get runners on base. I suppose this one could see this as analogous to the Dems changing to Harris and dumping Biden once they realized this move would give them a chance. It's hard to conceive though that politicians could be at all less stubborn than baseball players.
Forget the small-ball analogy, then. As I wrote above, there is zero in her background that would suggest any capacity to manage a large organization, any capacity to communicate or negotiate, any meaningful knowledge of defense, foreign policy, fiscal policy, monetary policy, etc. The Biden switcheroo results from Biden's selfishness in seeking a second term, which he had indicated he would not seek, paired with a ruling cabal that knew for several years that Biden was not up to the task but hoped they could keep it secret through the election. If either Biden or the cabal had acted sensibly, the Democrats would have had an open primary in which Kamala Harris would have been demolished by Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom or Mark Kelly or Whitmer perhaps. Because of the cabal's behavior over the past two decades, the Democrats have a perilously thin bench.
Harris is one of the small ball players, not the manager or general manager of the team who makes small ball work. There's a big difference in being a great bunter and being a great manager orGM.
Small ball (or Whitey ball if you were a St Louis Cardinals fan in the 1980s) is great if you win league championships and World Series with it. Otherwise it's just losing slowly.
It's a perfectly fine starting point. If I were doing scholarly research, I would use Wikipedia to get ideas for "real" sources. For a blogpost, it's adequate.
It is worth noting through all of this that She was the Vice President, not the President. Her role was not to pioneer and create radical new policy it was to help implement.
As far as success failure…in the venture capital world they recognize there will be successes AND failures. The most recent ratio I saw was one success out of ten efforts.
But getting to your bottom line question, The most central consequential difference between Harris and Trump is how they view their constituents. Harris looks to the whole country as her constituents. Trump only looks at MAGA, and honestly only looks to himself as who is being served.
Trump makes his people feel more successful by finding others to push down. The approach Harris takes is to left others up.
Important point to my essay is that not one word of it suggests that anyone should choose Trump over Harris. You might say that the real underlying question of my essay is, “If you want to keep Donald Trump out of the White House, why on earth would you nominate someone as unaccomplished and inarticulate and unpopular as Kamala Harris, rather than someone like Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom or Gina Raimondo or Amy Klobuchar or Wes Moore or whomever?” Despite endless praise by the media in 2019, Democratic voters and donors rejected Harris so completely and so brutally that she withdrew before the first votes were cast in Iowa. Throughout her term as vice president, polls showed her as the least popular vice president since polling began. She may win, but will she be able to answer Vladimir Putin’s questions better than she did Anderson Cooper’s this week? The Democratic Party had other options.
Visiting a place or establishing an office is not doing anything, just as being in office A, B, or C isn’t an accomplishment. What results were attained. Check the data on gun violence. The counties with the highest legal gun ownership have the lowest gun violence rate. The counties with the most stringent gun laws have the highest gun violence rates. Most mass murders occur in gun free zones. Switzerland requires every family to own a gun and be trained on its use. Their gun violence rate is essentially zero. Laws do nothing without enforcement. Harris has not enforced our immigration laws. Only dictators ignore the laws of the land or create new ones never passed by a legislature. Over the passage of time, Kamala has been to places and been in offices; however, positive accomplishments are lacking. Her inability to speak intelligently draws into question the legitimacy of the universities that granted her degrees.
I grew up in the Vietnam era, 58,220 young men (and some women) died in a war that in retrospect should be blamed on incompetent administrations.
Now we have an administration that funded Iran and probably advanced their nuclear weapon program, not to mention their proxy terrorist agents.
I'm baffled that there is any debate between a President who demonstrably avoided and prevent wars, and an administration so incompetent that the casualty count in Ukraine is 500,000. Yes, I said "administration" because while President Trump was an executive, Biden and Harris were an inept, stumbling committee.
If you want your sons and daughters to come home in body bags. The choice is obvious.
Here's the thing that encapsulates so much about her...she's not even from Oakland. She's from Berkeley. Very different thing - in one place you hear gunfire and sideshows at night a few times a week, in the other you hear parties. She was explicitly chosen as VP due to the color of her skin and fact that she produces large immobile gametes biologically. As you mentioned - there is no there there.
I would vote FOR Rand Paul. Trump, as a loose cannon populist, lacks principles, manners and speaks on impulse but he fortunately lacks the post modern nihilism infecting the left and is more likely to go against the imbedded war-mongering neocons which makes him preferable to a candidate that has received not one vote from her party members and appears to front for and is scripted by "others". IOW, I would vote against Kamala and whomever she obviously speaks for by voting for Trump.
But Trump is a loose-cannon populist without principles in a country called America. And that seems to be his one actual principle, being for, not against, America, America first. You can't say that about the Democrats, many of whom are actively anti-American, if not in words, in deeds. All of his supporters know this instinctively, and not much else matters because the contrast is clear.
Some of us, even philosophical Anarchist, libertarian-leaning, tradition-fence respecters, still like or love America. We see the warts and would like to change them, but we still love the good parts.
This highlights one of the other issues at hand. Trump’s whole political existence is centered on hate. If you are on the good side that may work for you, until he decides you are on the bad side and you become the focus of this hatred.
Gov Pritzker explained that hatred is the basest of emotions. If you want to find the smartest person in the room, look for the one who is kind.
‘Kindness’ does not always get good results and ‘hate’ is not always unjustified. Emotions and intentions don’t equate with intelligence. Yes, character matters, but policies matter more. If they get the results you want, those indicate intelligence far more reliably.
Amazing how people actually believe such stupid tripe. Many of us served or are still serving in the military. Many work in national and homeland security to keep Americans safe. Many are nurses, doctors, EMTs that treat Americans regardless of political persuasion. The list goes on. And because we love our country, we want to keep America a democracy, flawed as it currently may be. Not let loose an autocratic ahole being manipulated by Putin.
As a former Democrat, I have concern arising from Harris's tenure as California's Attorney General from January, 2011 through January, 2017. During this interval, San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS) near San Clemente, California went off line at the end of January, 2012 as a consequence of a mismanaged routine service operation. Eventually, a VP from the plant's 80% owner Southern California Edison (SCE) had illegal private conversations with the CPUC president Michael Peevey at Hotel Bristol in Warsaw, Poland. Notes of this conversation were later seized when a search warrant was served on Peevey's home.. SCE paid a minor fine for the ex-parte communications. As a result there were multi billion dollar charges assessed to southern California ratepayers. Our nonprofit, Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP) was improperly barred from the CPUC investigation that was reopened. During her term, Attorney General Harris closed the SONGS investigation. You may learn more about CGNP via our Substack at https://greennuke.substack.com/
I cannot tell you, Bob, how disappointed I am that in your list of Trump's pluses and minuses, you forgot to mention in his minuses that he wrote MEAN TWEETS!
Now I'll move on to your assignment. I'm sure I can write a paragraph about Kamala. I was thinking of starting out along the same lines as "Clever Pseudonym." I think he's on the right track.
I know people who tell me they are voting for Harris because they believe anyone but Trump. They actually don’t believe that because they wouldn’t vote for David Duke or Richard Spencer or Louis Farrakhan. I on the other hand will vote for President Trump for all the reasons and despite the reasons you noted above. One sentence about Ms Harris. She initiated the legal process against Mr Daleiden and protected Planned Parenthood. Not that I think that was an honourable action but it seems as if it is a singular accomplishment of hers while AG of California.
Harris is a towering figure of diversity as virtue. The pure diversity candidate will have none of the attributes that define diversity's negative image - merit. The DEI candidate must be dim, unprepared and uninformed. Harris checks every box. She is elevated not because of her aptitude, but specifically because she lacks any aptitude whatsoever, making the victory of her immutable identity characteristics over the rational minds of her voters complete. She was merely average at Howard. She was a token at UC Hastings, and lived down to even these low expectations by failing the bar when >90% of her classmates passed it. Her ascension marks the end of the Republic and the birth of the Empire, as those noble shepherds of the public trust, the legacy media, spike the ball as they announce to the world that they can get ANYTHING elected president - even this. And a sly wink to Master Xi and his Iranian gas-station that it is now go-time.
John Kerry was not a war hero. In fact, I hadn't realized it, but as a presidential candidate, he had fewer accomplishments than Harris has.
But my fear of Harris lies not in her lack of accomplishments, but in her potentential effectiveness as the head of an increasingly left-politicized federal government which will end-around Congress and the Supreme Court to institutionalize woke socialist policies while further compromising our national defense.
He served in Vietnam. He was decorated. The exact nature of his war record could be debated--and was--but he had a war record and the medals to prove it. And, whether of not one agrees with him, he did make a prominent name for himself as an antiwar activist afterward. This exercise asked what people who SUPPORT a particular candidate can rightfully brag about. And yes, when I devised my list, he was probably the one who came closest to Kamala Harris in the sparsity of identifiable achievements beyond getting elected to things.
Medals do not make the hero. Lots of soldiers have medals. They get them for lots of things, and standard issue medals for participation are nice but don't involve any heroism. Even Purple Hearts are not necessarily emblems of heroism. I dont expect all heroes to be Audie Murphy, but we should not devalue real heroism for the normal risks of war. Even a Bronze Star needs the V to indicate heroism, in my view. Kerry was no "hero". JFK, OTOH, was.
I have read that both Nixon and LBJ were rookie politicians during WW II, made junkets to the South West Pacific Area to bolster their campaigns, and annoyed MacArthur so much that he got them Bronze stars and sent them home. I do not remember any details, but I do remember seeing multiple stories about them, so there is probably some basis. One of them did actually go on some bomber mission over a Japanese island, but I don't even remember if the plane was shot at or was in any real danger. Maybe the other did too, if they both got medals of some sort.
There's a book, PT-105, by a PT boat skipper, who had less than praise for JFK's leadership abilities, and IIRC, said no one was really surprised when JFK's PT boat did not return, that he seemed more in it for the thrills than trying to be serious. On the other hand, I sure wasn't a serious sailor in my four years either. And his actions after the sinking were far more heroic than I probably would have been.
Nixon didn’t get into politics till after the war. California Republicans were hunting around for a veteran and asked Nixon to run. He wasn’t even looking to run. A family friend suggested his name.
Right you are. I do remember the article mentioning two politicians. At least I think I remember that. I don't remember now whether it was print or even pre-Internet.
In fact, Nixon wasn’t even living in California when they called him. He was in DC, working for the federal government. They asked whether he was still registered to vote in California, and he was thrilled to tell them yes. He used his parents’ house as his official domicile, so he was eligible to run. But I’m not sure that elective office had crossed his mind.
It is lamentable that this candidate that must deliver us from the chaos and destruction of Trump is so blandly reserved. Her qualifications are slim, I grant you, but compared to the qualifications of her opponent, she is stellar. She tries to walk a by tight line of being non threatening to the men, and being black, but non- confrontational.
Her one large advantage is that she is not Trump. On balance, that, truly, is the main attribute of Biden. The Democratic Party has played off its back foot for too many years, with slightly less than distinguished candidates, resulting in the election in 2016 of the American Nightmare. The emergence of DJT, and the loyalty demanded by him of the party is a sorry episode in our history.
Harris might start, now, te be assertive and confident. Being milquetoast puts her in peril of losing to the horror that we cannot survive.
In a world like today's where there are at least 2 major wars going on (plus many minor ones) being non-confrontational is not an attribute one wants in the leader of the free world. Trump has said, correctly IMO, that his more assertive stance resulted in more peace. For sure the current "escalation management" approach of the current administration has been a total disaster
And as the article said, it's intellectually legitimate to vote for someone merely because you consider them the less awful of two choices. But in Harris, in my view, they chose a nominee whose ONLY bragging point is that she isn't Trump. And the problem is that the battleground states will likely be decided by voters who aren't zealously anti-Trump--people who might have voted Obama-Trump-Biden. If they're you're target audience, "She's not Trump" is a weak argument by itself.
A very tough assignment. Better ask ChatGPT for help, and make sure it uses the word “joy” several times.
So well said.
OK. I'm solidly in the category of "She's not Trump, so I'm voting for her." But I did a quick Google search (i.e., I did "thorough research" and the first hit was a list from USA Today, which included the following Harris Accomplishments:
In response to immigration concerns, Harris’ call to action was the public-private partnership Central America Forward to support the creation of local jobs and other measures in order to slow the flow of mass migration. CAF has generated more than $5.2 billion since its launch in 2021, and its partners include more than 50 companies and organizations that have committed to supporting economic growth in the Central America region. The entities represent the financial services, textiles, apparel, agriculture, technology, telecommunications, nonprofit sectors, and others, according to the White House. Harris was at the forefront of the administration’s pursuit to enshrine voting rights protection throughout the U.S. She pushed for Congress to pass the John R Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would’ve extended the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and required federal approval for some local election law changes. Harris visited a Planned Parenthood clinic on March 14, a historic first for any president or vice president while in office. Harris oversaw Biden’s establishment of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to reduce gun violence. The Office builds upon actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration to end gun violence, which include the signing of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Heralded by the White House as the most impactful gun violence prevention measure in almost three decades, the now law bars individuals under the age of 21 from buying firearms, grants the Justice Department additional powers to prosecute gun traffickers, provides mental health services in schools to assist youth affected by gun violence trauma and grief and funds community-based violence intervention programs. In her previous role as U.S. Senator for California, Harris introduced the Maternal CARE Act and the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, which would direct multi-agency efforts to improve maternal health, particularly among racial and ethnic minority groups, veterans, and other vulnerable populations as well as maternal health issues related to COVID-19. The vice president’s prior work on maternal and infant health care was a key component of the Build Back Better Act, passed in 2022. The legislation expands access to maternal care and makes new investments to drive down mortality and morbidity rates.
I thought about taking a list of all of the horrible things about Trump that a friend recently posted on FB, and just adapt it by inserting the phrase "Harris didn't..." at the beginning of each point, but that would have been much too long for this assignment.
A sincere thanks for the post. However, IMHO, I think you’ve bolstered my argument. These are all small-ball items. There are dozens, if not hundreds of public officials with vastly more impressive lists of achievements—members of Congress, governors, Cabinet officials, bureaucrats, military officials. Your list includes things that never passed, things that were established but which don’t seem to have had tangible results, things that no one other than specialized policy wonks have ever heard of. Furthermore, just because the White House issued a press release saying she was a key figure, doesn't mean that she was. If these were the most significant achievements that USA Today can dig up ... then she truly is the least impressive presidential nominee of the modern era. And it's fine to vote for her because you despise Trump. But in that case, you're voting for a poker chip or one of the little pieces that you move around the Monopoly board.
[1] CENTRAL AMERICA FORWARD: Micro program with no indication that generated the equivalent of maybe 1/3000 of the federal budget. No idea if that was just a transfer or accounting fiction. No indication that the program did any good.
[2] JOHN R LEWIS: “She pushed Congress to pass [it]”. But they didn’t.
[3] VISITED A PLANNED PARENTHOOD CLINIC: “A historic first.” How does that compare with Defeated the Nazis, legendary war hero, put Mafia behind bars, ran CIA, ran State Department, built gigantic cross-country political movement, kept the Communists from taking over Hollywood, ran the Senate, passed the Civil Rights Act, destroyed the Japanese war effort? I’m guessing Trump would happily provide a list of places he visited that are equally impressive and equally “historic.”
[4] OVERSAW ESTABLISHMENT OF WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF GUN VIOLENCE: Has the incidence of gun violence plummeted?
[5] MATERNAL CARE WORK: Admirable aim. $125 million budget is a bit less than the cost of building a single subway stop in Alexandria, Virginia.
[6] THINGS TRUMP DIDN’T DO: As the article said, voting for Harris because she’s not Trump is a valid motivation, but it’s not an achievement. Voting for her because she didn’t do 50 things Trump did is not 50 achievements; in fact, it’s still not one achievement. It’s a negative—which is exactly what I said has been the case for Kamala Harris.
I'm not disagreeing with you. Again, this was the first post that came up. I suppose it's vaguely possible that had I looked past this one I could have come up with something else, but I'm for sure not going to spend any more time on my "thorough research."
Summing up, the achievements you listed are the sort of thing you'd expect of some deputy assistant secretary of HHS who is a fair-to-middling candidate for elevation to assistant secretary. When the mullahs threaten us with nukes, her historic visit to a Planned Parenthood office isn't worth squat.
Well stated, Robert! I established a Google Alert several years ago with the phrase "Iranian Nuclear Test." Try it yourself. There are plenty of concerns being raised now, as is shown in the news results.
OK. Baseball analogy alert (and risk of hijacking the thread)! Small-ball can be quite effective in many cases, especially when your team's offense mostly relies on hitters eyeing the fences on every swing, but the opposing pitcher has figured that out (it's not that difficult, really) and pitches in such a way as to lure the home-run-hitting batter into swinging at pitches that result in either swing-and-misses or trying to pull that low and outside breaking ball and ending up grounding into a double play. An alternative, although baseball folks seem to be so stubborn and set in their ways as to refuse to adjust to obvious circumstances, might be to try to hit to the opposite field and just get runners on base. I suppose this one could see this as analogous to the Dems changing to Harris and dumping Biden once they realized this move would give them a chance. It's hard to conceive though that politicians could be at all less stubborn than baseball players.
Forget the small-ball analogy, then. As I wrote above, there is zero in her background that would suggest any capacity to manage a large organization, any capacity to communicate or negotiate, any meaningful knowledge of defense, foreign policy, fiscal policy, monetary policy, etc. The Biden switcheroo results from Biden's selfishness in seeking a second term, which he had indicated he would not seek, paired with a ruling cabal that knew for several years that Biden was not up to the task but hoped they could keep it secret through the election. If either Biden or the cabal had acted sensibly, the Democrats would have had an open primary in which Kamala Harris would have been demolished by Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom or Mark Kelly or Whitmer perhaps. Because of the cabal's behavior over the past two decades, the Democrats have a perilously thin bench.
Harris is one of the small ball players, not the manager or general manager of the team who makes small ball work. There's a big difference in being a great bunter and being a great manager orGM.
Small ball (or Whitey ball if you were a St Louis Cardinals fan in the 1980s) is great if you win league championships and World Series with it. Otherwise it's just losing slowly.
Wikipedia is never a good resource for political things. It seems even worse than usual here.
It's a perfectly fine starting point. If I were doing scholarly research, I would use Wikipedia to get ideas for "real" sources. For a blogpost, it's adequate.
Got it from USA Today actually.
It is worth noting through all of this that She was the Vice President, not the President. Her role was not to pioneer and create radical new policy it was to help implement.
As far as success failure…in the venture capital world they recognize there will be successes AND failures. The most recent ratio I saw was one success out of ten efforts.
But getting to your bottom line question, The most central consequential difference between Harris and Trump is how they view their constituents. Harris looks to the whole country as her constituents. Trump only looks at MAGA, and honestly only looks to himself as who is being served.
Trump makes his people feel more successful by finding others to push down. The approach Harris takes is to left others up.
Important point to my essay is that not one word of it suggests that anyone should choose Trump over Harris. You might say that the real underlying question of my essay is, “If you want to keep Donald Trump out of the White House, why on earth would you nominate someone as unaccomplished and inarticulate and unpopular as Kamala Harris, rather than someone like Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom or Gina Raimondo or Amy Klobuchar or Wes Moore or whomever?” Despite endless praise by the media in 2019, Democratic voters and donors rejected Harris so completely and so brutally that she withdrew before the first votes were cast in Iowa. Throughout her term as vice president, polls showed her as the least popular vice president since polling began. She may win, but will she be able to answer Vladimir Putin’s questions better than she did Anderson Cooper’s this week? The Democratic Party had other options.
You are comparing someone who already served as POTUS, the most powerful position in the world, with someone serving as VP. Apples to oranges.
Harris didn’t create CAF, she merely supported its creation and goals.
At least that is what ChatGPT tells me even after multiple prompts trying to get it to say she had something to do with its creation.
Visiting a place or establishing an office is not doing anything, just as being in office A, B, or C isn’t an accomplishment. What results were attained. Check the data on gun violence. The counties with the highest legal gun ownership have the lowest gun violence rate. The counties with the most stringent gun laws have the highest gun violence rates. Most mass murders occur in gun free zones. Switzerland requires every family to own a gun and be trained on its use. Their gun violence rate is essentially zero. Laws do nothing without enforcement. Harris has not enforced our immigration laws. Only dictators ignore the laws of the land or create new ones never passed by a legislature. Over the passage of time, Kamala has been to places and been in offices; however, positive accomplishments are lacking. Her inability to speak intelligently draws into question the legitimacy of the universities that granted her degrees.
A chameleonic politician who has had the good fortune to continually fail upward.
Napoleon preferred lucky generals…
My one line attempt to highlight Harris‘s accomplishments and good qualities before she was nominated for president:
“She has always worked well under adult supervision and, on average, at least 14% of those who have worked for her say they enjoyed the experience.”
The 14% seems a bit high given the turnover in her office…
I was trying to be charitable.
…while I was just trying to be almost as funny as you were. 😀😏
I grew up in the Vietnam era, 58,220 young men (and some women) died in a war that in retrospect should be blamed on incompetent administrations.
Now we have an administration that funded Iran and probably advanced their nuclear weapon program, not to mention their proxy terrorist agents.
I'm baffled that there is any debate between a President who demonstrably avoided and prevent wars, and an administration so incompetent that the casualty count in Ukraine is 500,000. Yes, I said "administration" because while President Trump was an executive, Biden and Harris were an inept, stumbling committee.
If you want your sons and daughters to come home in body bags. The choice is obvious.
Here's the thing that encapsulates so much about her...she's not even from Oakland. She's from Berkeley. Very different thing - in one place you hear gunfire and sideshows at night a few times a week, in the other you hear parties. She was explicitly chosen as VP due to the color of her skin and fact that she produces large immobile gametes biologically. As you mentioned - there is no there there.
I would vote FOR Rand Paul. Trump, as a loose cannon populist, lacks principles, manners and speaks on impulse but he fortunately lacks the post modern nihilism infecting the left and is more likely to go against the imbedded war-mongering neocons which makes him preferable to a candidate that has received not one vote from her party members and appears to front for and is scripted by "others". IOW, I would vote against Kamala and whomever she obviously speaks for by voting for Trump.
But Trump is a loose-cannon populist without principles in a country called America. And that seems to be his one actual principle, being for, not against, America, America first. You can't say that about the Democrats, many of whom are actively anti-American, if not in words, in deeds. All of his supporters know this instinctively, and not much else matters because the contrast is clear.
Some of us, even philosophical Anarchist, libertarian-leaning, tradition-fence respecters, still like or love America. We see the warts and would like to change them, but we still love the good parts.
This highlights one of the other issues at hand. Trump’s whole political existence is centered on hate. If you are on the good side that may work for you, until he decides you are on the bad side and you become the focus of this hatred.
Gov Pritzker explained that hatred is the basest of emotions. If you want to find the smartest person in the room, look for the one who is kind.
‘Kindness’ does not always get good results and ‘hate’ is not always unjustified. Emotions and intentions don’t equate with intelligence. Yes, character matters, but policies matter more. If they get the results you want, those indicate intelligence far more reliably.
I agree, kindness can stumble.
I do not agree that hate is ever justified.
Hating, ‘Other-ing’, Dehumanizing, all lead us down a very negative path.
If you study genocides, or authoritarian movements the first thing they do is get you to hate or blame.
I may not like someone’s politics, but to call them un-American, the enemy-within…etc is never justified.
It also reveals very weak leaders. A good leader can draw followers through the logic of their vision, not by hating the other side.
Amazing how people actually believe such stupid tripe. Many of us served or are still serving in the military. Many work in national and homeland security to keep Americans safe. Many are nurses, doctors, EMTs that treat Americans regardless of political persuasion. The list goes on. And because we love our country, we want to keep America a democracy, flawed as it currently may be. Not let loose an autocratic ahole being manipulated by Putin.
Eloquence that demonstrates why you should be subscribed.
Many thanks!
As a former Democrat, I have concern arising from Harris's tenure as California's Attorney General from January, 2011 through January, 2017. During this interval, San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS) near San Clemente, California went off line at the end of January, 2012 as a consequence of a mismanaged routine service operation. Eventually, a VP from the plant's 80% owner Southern California Edison (SCE) had illegal private conversations with the CPUC president Michael Peevey at Hotel Bristol in Warsaw, Poland. Notes of this conversation were later seized when a search warrant was served on Peevey's home.. SCE paid a minor fine for the ex-parte communications. As a result there were multi billion dollar charges assessed to southern California ratepayers. Our nonprofit, Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP) was improperly barred from the CPUC investigation that was reopened. During her term, Attorney General Harris closed the SONGS investigation. You may learn more about CGNP via our Substack at https://greennuke.substack.com/
Interesting!
Can you suggest a reporter who might be interested in investigating further?
Try The Free Press here on Substack.
I sent a note to The Free Press's "tips" email address. I'll keep you informed if anything transpires.
Wow! That right there tells it like it really is. Too bad it doesn't have wider distribution. Thanks for sharing with us.
I cannot tell you, Bob, how disappointed I am that in your list of Trump's pluses and minuses, you forgot to mention in his minuses that he wrote MEAN TWEETS!
Now I'll move on to your assignment. I'm sure I can write a paragraph about Kamala. I was thinking of starting out along the same lines as "Clever Pseudonym." I think he's on the right track.
That's a plus though.
I know people who tell me they are voting for Harris because they believe anyone but Trump. They actually don’t believe that because they wouldn’t vote for David Duke or Richard Spencer or Louis Farrakhan. I on the other hand will vote for President Trump for all the reasons and despite the reasons you noted above. One sentence about Ms Harris. She initiated the legal process against Mr Daleiden and protected Planned Parenthood. Not that I think that was an honourable action but it seems as if it is a singular accomplishment of hers while AG of California.
Harris is a towering figure of diversity as virtue. The pure diversity candidate will have none of the attributes that define diversity's negative image - merit. The DEI candidate must be dim, unprepared and uninformed. Harris checks every box. She is elevated not because of her aptitude, but specifically because she lacks any aptitude whatsoever, making the victory of her immutable identity characteristics over the rational minds of her voters complete. She was merely average at Howard. She was a token at UC Hastings, and lived down to even these low expectations by failing the bar when >90% of her classmates passed it. Her ascension marks the end of the Republic and the birth of the Empire, as those noble shepherds of the public trust, the legacy media, spike the ball as they announce to the world that they can get ANYTHING elected president - even this. And a sly wink to Master Xi and his Iranian gas-station that it is now go-time.
LOL
I profoundly disagree.
Willie Brown did not date her, nor give her governmental placements, for DEI reasons.
She’s the most unqualified candidate ever.
John Kerry was not a war hero. In fact, I hadn't realized it, but as a presidential candidate, he had fewer accomplishments than Harris has.
But my fear of Harris lies not in her lack of accomplishments, but in her potentential effectiveness as the head of an increasingly left-politicized federal government which will end-around Congress and the Supreme Court to institutionalize woke socialist policies while further compromising our national defense.
He served in Vietnam. He was decorated. The exact nature of his war record could be debated--and was--but he had a war record and the medals to prove it. And, whether of not one agrees with him, he did make a prominent name for himself as an antiwar activist afterward. This exercise asked what people who SUPPORT a particular candidate can rightfully brag about. And yes, when I devised my list, he was probably the one who came closest to Kamala Harris in the sparsity of identifiable achievements beyond getting elected to things.
Medals do not make the hero. Lots of soldiers have medals. They get them for lots of things, and standard issue medals for participation are nice but don't involve any heroism. Even Purple Hearts are not necessarily emblems of heroism. I dont expect all heroes to be Audie Murphy, but we should not devalue real heroism for the normal risks of war. Even a Bronze Star needs the V to indicate heroism, in my view. Kerry was no "hero". JFK, OTOH, was.
** ETA This is wrong about Nixon.
I have read that both Nixon and LBJ were rookie politicians during WW II, made junkets to the South West Pacific Area to bolster their campaigns, and annoyed MacArthur so much that he got them Bronze stars and sent them home. I do not remember any details, but I do remember seeing multiple stories about them, so there is probably some basis. One of them did actually go on some bomber mission over a Japanese island, but I don't even remember if the plane was shot at or was in any real danger. Maybe the other did too, if they both got medals of some sort.
There's a book, PT-105, by a PT boat skipper, who had less than praise for JFK's leadership abilities, and IIRC, said no one was really surprised when JFK's PT boat did not return, that he seemed more in it for the thrills than trying to be serious. On the other hand, I sure wasn't a serious sailor in my four years either. And his actions after the sinking were far more heroic than I probably would have been.
It was his actions after the sinking I was thinking of. I learned about Johnson from one of Robert Caro's books. Didn't know about Nixon, though.
Apparently I got Nixon wrong :)
Where's Robert Caro when you need him? He could probably do several interesting books on Nixon.
Nixon didn’t get into politics till after the war. California Republicans were hunting around for a veteran and asked Nixon to run. He wasn’t even looking to run. A family friend suggested his name.
Right you are. I do remember the article mentioning two politicians. At least I think I remember that. I don't remember now whether it was print or even pre-Internet.
In fact, Nixon wasn’t even living in California when they called him. He was in DC, working for the federal government. They asked whether he was still registered to vote in California, and he was thrilled to tell them yes. He used his parents’ house as his official domicile, so he was eligible to run. But I’m not sure that elective office had crossed his mind.
I liked JFK's self-deprecating comment about being called a war hero: "It was involuntary. They sank my boat."
He did have a charm. He could pull off a line like that and look sincere (as I suspect he was in such cases).
It is lamentable that this candidate that must deliver us from the chaos and destruction of Trump is so blandly reserved. Her qualifications are slim, I grant you, but compared to the qualifications of her opponent, she is stellar. She tries to walk a by tight line of being non threatening to the men, and being black, but non- confrontational.
Her one large advantage is that she is not Trump. On balance, that, truly, is the main attribute of Biden. The Democratic Party has played off its back foot for too many years, with slightly less than distinguished candidates, resulting in the election in 2016 of the American Nightmare. The emergence of DJT, and the loyalty demanded by him of the party is a sorry episode in our history.
Harris might start, now, te be assertive and confident. Being milquetoast puts her in peril of losing to the horror that we cannot survive.
In a world like today's where there are at least 2 major wars going on (plus many minor ones) being non-confrontational is not an attribute one wants in the leader of the free world. Trump has said, correctly IMO, that his more assertive stance resulted in more peace. For sure the current "escalation management" approach of the current administration has been a total disaster
And as the article said, it's intellectually legitimate to vote for someone merely because you consider them the less awful of two choices. But in Harris, in my view, they chose a nominee whose ONLY bragging point is that she isn't Trump. And the problem is that the battleground states will likely be decided by voters who aren't zealously anti-Trump--people who might have voted Obama-Trump-Biden. If they're you're target audience, "She's not Trump" is a weak argument by itself.