Kamala Harris
 Kamala Harris    (politician, lawyer) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 20 October 1964 |
| Nationality | US |
| Alma mater | Howard University, University of California |
| Spouse | Doug Emhoff |
| Member of | Donald Trump/Conspiracy theories, Truman Center for National Policy |
Kamala Devi Harris (born 20 October 1964) is a US politician and lawyer serving as the Vice President of the United States from 20 January 2021.[1]
A member of the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris served as a United States Senator from California from 2017 to 2021, and as the Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017. In August 2020, Harris became the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee for the US/2020 Presidential election, running alongside former vice president Joe Biden.
Kamala Harris is the first African American and the first Asian American to be chosen as the running mate of a major party's presidential candidate.[2]
Contents
Early Career tied to Willy Brown
Harris started her career as a lawyer in 1990, after graduating from Howard University and the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, at the Alameda County district attorney’s office in Oakland. From there, she was recruited to the San Francisco district attorney's office to run the department’s career criminal unit.
In the mid-1990s, Kamala Harris started dating Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco and one of California’s most powerful politicians. Brown was investigated by the FBI when he was speaker of the California Assembly and as mayor was dogged by conflict of interest, as he used his political machine to steer government contracts and jobs to allies.
In 2003, Harris’ critics used the relationship with Brown to contend that she was not independently qualified to hold office and that, if elected, she would hesitate to investigate corruption at City Hall. Eric Jaye, a political strategist in the city, said Harris’ emergence from San Francisco politics reminds him of Andy Dufresne, the Tim Robbins character from The Shawshank Redemption. “Andy Dufresne,” he said, quoting a line from the movie, “who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."[3]
Mid-Career
In 2003, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco. She was elected Attorney General of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. Harris served as the junior United States senator from California from 2017 to 2021
Views on Israel
In July 2019, Kamala Harris was interviewed on the Kyle Kulinski show, and was asked whether she considered Israel was meeting international standards of human rights. Harris seemed determined to say nothing that could be remotely construed as critical.
Her initial answer consisted of this word salad:
- “I think that Israel as a country is dedicated to being a democracy and is one of our closest friends in that region and that we should understand the shared values and priorities that we have as a democracy, and conduct foreign policy in a way that is consistent with understanding the alignment between the American people and the people of Israel.”
| Q.“Does Israel meet your human rights standards to your personal satisfaction?” A. “Overall, yes.” |
Unsatisfied, the interviewer followed up:
- “Does Israel meet your human rights standards to your personal satisfaction?”
Playing for time, Harris asked:
- “What specifically are you referring to?” before finally answering the question: “Overall, yes.”
This means that Harris sees no problem with Israel’s policy of sending snipers to systematically and deliberately kill unarmed civilians, including children, who protest their internment in the besieged Gaza Strip.
It means she sees no problem with Israel’s skyrocketing demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank to make way for Jewish-only settlements – a war crime.
It means she sees no problem with Israel’s military detention and torture of Palestinian children.
It means Harris sees no problem with dozens of Israeli laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel solely for not being Jewish. These include laws and policies that promote the kind of housing discrimination and official segregation that is banned in the US thanks to the civil rights laws she claims to uphold.
It means she sees no problem with Israel’s recent Nation-State Law explicitly affirming superior rights for Jews over Palestinians.
Kyle Kulinski, an influential left-wing commentator and a founder of the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, offers a scathing response.
He says that Harris brushing aside Israel’s horrific record shows that her “moral” and “ethical concerns” are “nonexistent”:
- “She’s playing the political game that people play in the United States of America to try to get ahead.”
- “It shows you that she’s unlikely to change anything,” he adds. “That’s why this is important.”[4]
Democrats control the Senate
On 20 January 2021, Democrats officially took control of the Senate when Vice President Kamala Harris swore in three new members, after she took her own oath of office, giving her party control of the White House and Congress.
Harris delivered the oath of office to the new Democratic senators: Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Alex Padilla, who replaced her representing the state of California.
She returned to Capitol Hill, almost five hours after she became the first female Vice President, to preside over the Senate for the first time. The VP also serves as president of the Senate.[5]
Appointments by Kamala Harris
| Appointee | Job | Appointed |
|---|---|---|
| Philip Gordon | National Security Advisor to the Vice President | 21 March 2022 |
| Sarah Gouda | Deputy Director of Speechwriting | March 2021 |
Events Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Munich Security Conference/2022 | 18 February 2022 | 20 February 2022 | Germany Munich Bavaria | Slightly less than 1/3 of the 664 of the participants have pages here |
| Munich Security Conference/2023 | 17 February 2023 | 19 February 2023 | Germany Munich Bavaria | Annual conference of mid-level functionaries from the military-industrial complex - politicians, propagandists and lobbyists. The real decisions are made by deep politicians behind the scenes, elsewhere. |
| Munich Security Conference/2024 | 16 February 2024 | 18 February 2024 | Germany Munich Bavaria | Annual conference of mid-level functionaries from the military-industrial complex - politicians, propagandists and lobbyists - in their own bubble, far from the concerns of their subjects |
Related Documents
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:American Presidents | blog post | 4 November 2020 | Craig Murray | On the US election I showed my limitations with a tweet yesterday evening predicting Joe Biden would win fairly comfortably, and Trump would concede with good grace. I was wrong. |
| Document:Internalised Danger | blog post | 6 November 2020 | Craig Murray | America urgently needs a radical dose of social and economic reform as championed by Bernie Sanders. It needs the Green New Deal, and the world needs a real commitment in Washington to environmentalism. |
| Document:Only a failing US empire would be so blind as to cheer Netanyahu and his genocide | Article | 26 July 2024 | Jonathan Cook | Members of the US Congress roared “USA!” to their satrap from Israel, just as Roman senators once roared “Glory!” to generals whose victories they assumed would continue forever. Every empire falls. Its collapse becomes inevitable once its rulers lose all sense of how absurd and abhorrent they have become. |
| Document:Reflection on the Role of the U.S. Vice Presidency | Article | 25 September 2024 | Ludwig De Braeckeleer | On 12 April 1945, Vice President Truman was preparing to have a drink in House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s office when he received an urgent message to go immediately to the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt told him that her husband had died after a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Suddenly, the ‘piano player’ was responsible for overseeing the final phase of World War II and shaping the postwar global order: Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, and the UN. |
| Document:You can’t arm a genocidal state into moderation. So why does the West keep trying? | Article | 4 September 2024 | Jonathan Cook | Western politicians and media are never going to admit that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. The moment they do, the veil of illusions fostered for decades about Israel - designed to conceal the West’s complicity in Israeli crimes - would be torn away. In committing a genocide, a state crosses a threshold. It cannot be armed into moderation. Nor can it be reasoned into peacemaking. It must be aggressively isolated and sanctioned. |
References
- ↑ "Kamala Harris becomes first female, first black and first Asian-American VP"
- ↑ "Joe Biden picks Kamala Harris as his running mate"
- ↑ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/24/kamala-harris-2020-history-224126
- ↑ "Kamala Harris supports segregation by supporting Israel"
- ↑ "Democrats take control of the Senate as Kamala Harris swears in Georgia winners Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and her own replacement Alex Padilla - giving her the casting vote in 50-50 tie"
