How will Kamala Harris fare as Vice President of the USA?

[Red-Indian]

VP doesn't get much attention in the UK so I didn't know too much about Kamala.

Based on what I have seen recently she seems quite credible. Now I don't know anything about her policies but she has a presidential aura.

It's a carefully curated aura. She's said and done nothing of substance for 4 years and probably for a few years before that.

The Democratic Org is protecting her very carefully. Sticking to talking points, no unscripted press conferences, just one debate with Trump etc. to keep the aura and buzz and give her very little opportunity to goof up. In a normal presidential election, this wouldn't work - you can't shield the candidate through 6 months of primaries and then 6 months of presidential campaigning. In this abbreviated 100 day campaign from end-to-end though, it just might. The relative youth, freshness and energy plus the 'aura' could just carry her through.

In comparison to her relentless campaigning, rallies, zoom calls and stuff, Trump is looking very old and tired. He just can't keep up the schedule he did the last couple of elections.

That's the reason I'm calling her a favourite at this point.

 

[deltexas]

VP doesn't get much attention in the UK so I didn't know too much about Kamala.

Based on what I have seen recently she seems quite credible. Now I don't know anything about her policies but she has a presidential aura.

Looks like Kamala harris probably is better for Ind than Biden. The Ind diaspora will milk her Ind roots like crazy ! If she wins , Chennai will host a big "homecoming" for "its" daughter !

Harris’s Indian Heritage Is Deeply Felt if Little Advertised

Many Indian Americans see Kamala Harris as another example of the diaspora’s success and influence.

www.nytimes.com

Harris’s Indian Heritage Is Deeply Felt if Little Advertised​

Many Indian Americans see Kamala Harris as another example of the diaspora’s success and influence.
To most who saw the quotation being circulated this week as a meme, it was just something funny that Kamala Harris said in a speech in 2023: “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”
But for many Indians and Indian Americans, the line, which Ms. Harris attributed to her mother, is layered with extra meaning. Tamil Nadu, the South Indian state where her mother’s family is from, is one of India’s largest growers of coconut palms. It’s also the kind of thing an Indian parent might say.
Ms. Harris, the vice president and Democratic candidate for president, neither advertises nor shies away from her Indian heritage. She slips in references to it. She also deploys it strategically.
Last year, Ms. Harris spoke of her deep personal connection to India at a luncheon in Washington for Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, whom the United States has been courting. Her introduction to the concepts of equality, freedom and democracy came from her Indian grandfather, Ms. Harris said, with whom she went on long walks during her visits to Chennai.
“It is these lessons I learned at a very young age that first inspired my interest in public service,” she said.
Image

This January 1970 photo provided by the Harris campaign shows Kamala, left, with her sister, Maya, and their mother, Shyamala Gopalan, outside their apartment in Berkeley, Calif.Credit...Kamala Harris campaign, via Associated Press
Ms. Harris grew up in California, the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, and she identifies as Black and South Asian.
In India, her sudden elevation to likely presidential nominee after President Biden’s exit from the race has added to a general sense of pride in the country’s rise in global stature, though Indian news coverage has not focused much on her Indian heritage. While Ms. Harris maintains family ties in Tamil Nadu and has talked about her visits every other year to India as a child, she has not made any official trips to India as vice president, and before that had not visited since 2009.
Her candidacy resonates more in the Indian American community, even if Ms. Harris is seen as identifying more as Black than as Indian. Many Indian Americans see Ms. Harris as another example of the diaspora’s success and influence, including in politics, with growing numbers of Indian American lawmakers and candidates at the highest levels. (The five members of the House with Indian roots sometimes use the nickname “samosa caucus.”)

​

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/arts/music/missy-elliott-out-of-this-world-tour-review.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/12/well/coronavirus-vaccine-booster.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/realestate/florida-woman-bayonne-apartment-family.html
When Mr. Biden chose Ms. Harris as his running mate in 2020, “there was something other than pride,” said Shoba Viswanathan, who oversees civic engagement for Indiaspora, a nonprofit. “She normalizes us in a way; she is a visible representation of Indians in public service.”
If she wins the White House, Ms. Harris seems unlikely to vastly reshape American ties to India. She does not share the same personal relationship with Mr. Modi that he was widely seen to have with her opponent in the presidential race, Donald J. Trump. But she would be likely to continue the Biden administration’s broad effort to bring India closer as a counterweight to China, foreign policy experts said.
Domestically, her expected nomination would be unlikely to significantly alter the voting pattern of Indian Americans, who already overwhelmingly lean Democratic, said Sanjoy Chakravorty, an author of a 2016 book on the rise of Indian Americans.
“Indian Americans are one of the most consistent Democratic voters of any ethnic group,” said Mr. Chakravorty, a professor at Temple University. “Will they be proud of Kamala Harris? For sure. Will they look to Trump with fear? For sure. Will they vote for the Democratic Party? Guaranteed.”

While many Indian Americans support Mr. Modi, a conservative Hindu nationalist, as a driver of India’s ascent, they are more politically liberal in the American context. Many of them worry about gun violence and immigration policy as well as racist or religious attacks, and they tend to view the Democratic Party as better on those issues, Mr. Chakravorty said.

Ms. Harris’s campaign could benefit financially from Indian Americans, who represent a little over 1 percent of the U.S. population but are among the wealthiest and most influential diaspora communities. In 2020, the community poured millions of dollars into the Biden Victory Fund, galvanized by Ms. Harris’s selection as Mr. Biden’s vice-presidential pick.
Image

A poster in Tamil in Ms. Harris’s ancestral village, Thulasendrapuram, in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.Credit...Idrees Mohammed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In India, much of the focus on Ms. Harris’s candidacy has been about where she might take American foreign policy. If she is elected, it could do a lot to ease India’s longstanding suspicions of U.S. intentions in the region, said Gautam Mukunda, a former research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership.
The idea that “if the Americans are willing to put an Indian American in the White House, they can’t be that bad” could bring the countries closer and alter a relationship that has been more transactional and less about shared values, Mr. Mukunda said.
Mr. Modi, a consummate politician with a flair for showmanship who is determined to transform India into a superpower, did not hesitate to advertise his relationship with Mr. Trump when he was in the White House.

In 2020, Mr. Modi laid out a grand welcome for Mr. Trump’s presidential visit to India, arranging for a massive crowd to greet him. The previous year, the two leaders shared the stage at an event in Texas called “Howdy, Modi!” Thousands of Indian Americans had gathered to cheer Mr. Modi’s election win that year.
Image

Mr. Modi and President Donald J. Trump at the “Howdy, Modi!” event in Houston in 2019.Credit...Patric Schneider/EPA, via Shutterstock
Ms. Harris and Mr. Modi have displayed no such chemistry. In 2019, Ms. Harris supported an Indian American House member, Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington, when Ms. Jayapal urged the Indian government to restore phone lines and internet connections in the disputed territory of Kashmir after Mr. Modi abruptly revoked its special status.
The resolution angered the Modi government. India’s external affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, refused to attend a meeting with the House Foreign Affairs Committee because Ms. Jayapal would be present.
If she wins in November, Ms. Harris will face a delicate task in navigating the relationship with Mr. Modi, said Shubhajit Roy, the diplomatic editor of the newspaper The Indian Express.

She will have to balance “India’s record on human rights, her thinking on which has been pretty pronounced, and its growing role as a regional and aspirational power that provides an important counterweight to the common China threat,” Mr. Roy said. So far, American leaders have tilted much more toward wooing Mr. Modi, remaining largely silent as he has demonized India’s 200 million Muslims.
For now, though, Ms. Harris is focused on her presidential campaign. Her supporters, including Indian Americans, have taken up a social media chant: “In Sanskrit, Kamala means ‘lotus.’ In America, it means POTUS” — president of the United States.
They have also embraced the “coconut tree” quote, which Ms. Harris used while speaking at an event in May 2023. In making the point that people don’t exist in silos, she borrowed an idiom from her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who was a breast-cancer researcher and died in 2009 at age 71.
“My mother used to — she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” She added, “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
Initially used by Republicans to mock and exoticize her, the line has since become a rallying cry for supporters of Ms. Harris, who have gleefully embraced coconut memes, coconut emojis and piña coladas.

To Mr. Mukunda, the former Harvard research fellow, the memes show a growing acceptance of diversity by many Americans that goes beyond the color of a person’s skin to include cultural references and idioms.
Coconuts have played another role in Ms. Harris’s life. When she was running for California attorney general, Ms. Harris asked an aunt who lived in Chennai to break coconuts at a Hindu temple for luck. Coconuts are considered auspicious in Hinduism and are regularly offered to the gods at religious ceremonies.

Source : NY Times

 

[oatmeal]

VP doesn't get much attention in the UK so I didn't know too much about Kamala.

Based on what I have seen recently she seems quite credible. Now I don't know anything about her policies but she has a presidential aura.

I followed her career after she became CA senator because of her Indian heritage.

A lot of the left doesnt like her because as AG she was tough on crime. But that's why GOP is finding it difficult to attack her on crime, they havent yet defined her as a politician. With HRC they had years to do this. Then there were controversies like the email server and that ambassador death in Libya IIRC

The young leftists are angry about Palestine but Biden is a more direct target there , not Harris.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

US Rep Goldman Sachs predicts 'blue wave' as Kamala Harris's poll numbers soar

VP Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in national polls, with increasing support from voters abandoning third-party candidates.

VP Kamala Harris has recently gained a lead over former US President Donald Trump in national polls as more voters move away from third-party candidates.

According to Goldman Sachs, the vice president's rise in the polls has contributed to a growing likelihood of a “blue wave,” with Democrats potentially sweeping the White House and Congress in the upcoming election.

Since President Joe Biden announced last month that he would not seek reelection, Harris has emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Biden endorsed Harris, stating, “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

Over this period, her national polling numbers have improved by about three percentage points. She has also seen gains in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, where Trump currently holds a razor-thin 0.2 percentage point lead over her. To secure the presidency, Harris needs to win at least 270 electoral votes.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/us-rep-goldman-sachs-predicts-blue-wave-as-kamala-harriss-poll-numbers-soar-101723652468160.html

 

[rpant_gabba]

I followed her career after she became CA senator because of her Indian heritage.

huh? how is that?

Indians are <3 % of state population.

would love for you to elaborate on that point.

you followed her career from US? california? or over the web?

 

[BouncerGuy]

Kamala Harris economic plan to focus on groceries, housing and healthcare

Kamala Harris will announce plans to tackle high grocery costs by targeting corporations in the food and grocery industry, as she previews her economic agenda ahead of the November election.

She will also tackle prescription drug and housing costs, drawing a contrast with Trump on tariffs and taxes, according to a Harris campaign statement.

Harris is expected to lay out some details of her economic plan in a speech in North Carolina on Friday.

“Same values, different vision,” said one aide, describing how Harris’s economic agenda will compare with that of Joe Biden, who stepped aside as the Democratic presidential candidate last month.

“She’s not moving far away from him on substance, she will highlight the ones that matter most to her.”

In July, inflation fell to below 3% for the first time in nearly three and a half years, the labor department said on Wednesday, but high prices of groceries and consumer goods remain well above their pre-pandemic levels, and are front of mind for voters.

Among the plans from the Harris campaign is a federal ban on price-gouging in the industries. Most states currently have such bans in place. The ban will apply to corporations in the food and grocery industries, stopping them “from unfairly jacking up prices on consumers”.

Harris will single out meat prices, and in particular the meat-processing industry. Her first 100 days will also see support for small businesses, a “crack down on unfair mergers and acquisitions” among food corporations.

Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the Democrats want to ban red meat. Speaking in Pennsylvania on 31 July, he said that Harris wants to “get rid of your cows” and wants to “slash consumption of red meat”.

The Harris campaign has so far centred healthcare and abortion rights, with the first campaign ad focused on gun violence, reproductive freedom, child poverty and affordable healthcare.

Harris no longer supports measures from her short-lived 2020 presidential bid such as a fracking ban or Medicare for All, advisers told Reuters. Not all of the elements of Harris’ economic agenda will make it to the Friday speech, a draft of which is still in the works. Her campaign said it wanted to avoid dividing voters and attracting attacks from business groups over granular details, and will be “strategically ambiguous” in areas such as energy.

She will push plans to cut costs of rental housing and home ownership, including funding more affordable housing and building climate resistant communities.

“She does have a focus on housing because we know and she knows very, very clearly that housing is a crisis in this country,” said Marcia Fudge, a Harris adviser and the former housing and urban development secretary under Biden.

Harris will also draw contrasts with Trump on tax policy and tariffs and maintain Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on people who make $400,000 or less a year, advisers said. Trump slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and implemented other tax breaks that are set to expire next year.

The Trump campaign has been mulling new tax cuts for middle-class households, and has proposed eliminating taxes on tipped wages – something Harris also recently said she supported.

Trump has promised to make the tax cuts permanent and suggested new, across-the-board tariffs on imports, an idea Harris rejects.

In a campaign speech in Asheville, North Carolinawhich was billed as an address on the economy, Trump veered off topic, saying his advisers had wanted him to focus on economic concerns. He was “not sure”, however, that the economy is the most important issue of the election, he said.

Trump used a “travel-sized” box of Tic Tacs to make a point about inflation.

“This is Tic Tacs,” he said, holding up a standard-sized box of the mints. “This is inflation,” he said, holding up the smaller box. He called it the “greatest commercial they ever had”.

The Guardian contacted Ferrero, the company that makes Tic Tacs, for comment.

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Reuters: “America cannot afford another four years of Kamala’s failed economic policies. President Trump has a proven track record of making this country prosperous and affordable, and Americans can trust him to put more money back in their pockets again.”

Biden was briefed on the economy on Thursday by the US treasury secretary Janet Yellen, commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, national economic adviser Lael Brainard and others. “The group discussed the resilience of the US economy, with inflation falling below 3%, strong business investment and consumer spending, and a healthy job market,” according to a pool report.

SOURCE:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/14/kamala-harris-economic-policy-aides

 

[BouncerGuy]

Harris vows to build ‘opportunity economy’ and attacks Trump on tax

Vice-president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris unveiled her economic campaign proposal in North Carolina to build what she called an “opportunity economy” focused on the middle class.

She said in Raleigh: “Your salary should be enough to provide you and your family with a good quality of life … such as, no child should have to grow up in poverty. Such as, after years of hard work, you should be able to retire with dignity, and you should be able to join a union if you choose.”

To lower the cost of living, Harris told the rally she intends to cut needless bureaucracy and red tape, pursue investigations of anti-competitive behavior in the food supply, and propose a federal ban on price-gouging in food.

Harris said inflation had fallen below 3% for the first time since March 2021, according to a recent federal report.

“Our supply chains have now improved, and prices are still too high,” Harris said. “Many of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in two decades. And while many grocery chains pass along these savings, others still aren’t.

“Look, I know most businesses are creating jobs, contributing to our economy and playing by the rules. But some are not, and that’s just not right. And we need to take action when that’s the case.”

Harris’s comments came before next week’s Democratic national convention in Chicago, where political observers might expect to hear more detail about her economic agenda.

North Carolina is also a particular focal point for the new campaign. Barack Obama was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win North Carolina, eking out a win by a 0.32-percentage-point margin in 2008. Recent polling suggests North Carolina is close enough to contest in 2024, and even more so after Harris replaced Joe Biden when he dropped out in late July. Harris said she had visited the state 16 times as vice-president.

In her speech, Harris said she had worked at McDonald’s in her youth and understood the struggle of low-wage work, and that she worked as California’s attorney general to lower drug prices and to go after predatory lending in the housing market.

Red tape and barriers are constraining the housing supply, she said. “By the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3m new homes and rentals that are affordable for the middle class,” she said.

“And we will make sure those homes actually go to working and middle-class Americans, not just investors.”

The purchase of single-family housing by corporate landlords in the real estate investment trust financial sector has become a significant national political issue.

“It can make it impossible then for regular people to buy or even rent a home,” Harris said, noting accusations of collusion raised by ProPublica in an investigation of the use of RealPage software. The Federal Trade Commission and US Department of Justice filed a joint legal brief in March addressing their concerns about algorithmic price fixing.

“It’s anti-competitive, and it drives up costs,” she said. “I will fight for a law that cracks down on these practices.”

Harris also proposed a $25,000 grant for first-time homebuyers to help with down-payments.

“Under my plan, more than 100 million Americans would get a tax cut,” Harris said, proposing a return of the earned income tax credit and child tax credit, and a $6,000 tax credit for new parents.

She contrasted her proposals to Donald Trump’s support for the FairTax, a national sales tax intended to replace income tax, and said taxpayers would pay thousands more under the proposals contained in the Project 2025 manifesto.

“He [Trump] plans to give billionaires massive tax cuts year after year,” she said. “And he plans to cut corporate taxes by over $1tn, even as they pull in record profits. And that’s on top of the $2tn tax cut he already signed into law as president, which, by the way, overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest Americans and corporations, and exploded the national deficit.

“I think if you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for.”

THE GUARDIAN

 

[BouncerGuy]

Long-doubted by Democrats, Kamala Harris faces her biggest political moment

When Kamala Harris steps onto the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week as the party’s presidential nominee, she’ll do so knowing that many in the audience cheering her on once counted her out.

Ms Harris, 59, has faced years of doubt from some within her party about her ability to run for America’s highest political office - including from President Joe Biden, the man whom she continues to serve as vice-president.

Since replacing Mr Biden as Democratic nominee in mid-July, Ms Harris has seen a tidal wave of enthusiasm - reflected in polling, fundraising and the enormous crowds that have come out to see her at rallies across the country.

But the political momentum and energy she has generated in recent weeks among Democrats was never a given.

After failing in a short-lived presidential bid in 2019, she began her vice-presidency on a shaky footing, beset by stumbles in high-profile interviews, staff turnover and low approval ratings. And for the last three-and-a-half years in the White House she has struggled to break through to American voters.

Advisers and allies say that in the years since those early struggles she has sharpened her political skills, created loyal coalitions within her party and built credibility on issues like abortion rights that energise the Democratic base. She has, in other words, been preparing for a moment exactly like this one.

On Thursday, as she formally accepts the Democratic nomination, Ms Harris has an opportunity to reintroduce herself on the national stage with fewer than 80 days until an election that could see her become the nation’s first female president.

At the same time, she’ll have to prove that she is capable of leading a party that never saw her as its natural leader and remains divided over the war in Israel and Gaza.

But above all, she’ll need put to rest any lingering doubt among the Democratic faithful that she can meet the challenge of defeating former president Donald Trump in what remains a tight and unpredictable contest.

Path to the White House

Before Kamala Harris became a national figure, the former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general had forged a reputation as a rising star in the party, landing the endorsement of President Barack Obama in her 2010 race to become the state’s top lawyer.

But those who followed her career closely saw a mixed record. As a prosecutor, she faced public outcry for refusing to seek the death penalty for a man convicted of killing a young police officer. And then as attorney-general, she upheld the state’s death penalty despite her personal opposition.

Having reached the peaks of California state politics, she was elected to the US Senate the same night that Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. In her brief tenure, she made headlines for her searing and direct questioning of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his testy 2018 confirmation hearings.

“Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” she asked the Trump appointee, in an exchange that cascaded across social media and late night television.

Like Mr Obama, she was a young senator of limitless ambition. Halfway through her first term, she launched a presidential campaign.

That campaign, like this one, was met with great fanfare. More than 20,000 people gathered in her hometown of Oakland, California, for its launch. But her effort to become the Democratic nominee sputtered and collapsed before the first presidential primary ballot was even cast.

Ms Harris failed to carve out a clear political identity and distinguish herself in a field of rivals that included Mr Biden and left-wing senator Bernie Sanders. Critics said she endorsed a range of progressive policies but seemed to lack clear conviction.

A breakthrough June 2019 debate moment in which she challenged her then-opponent Mr Biden’s record on the racial desegregation of schools resulted in a brief surge in polling. She attacked Mr Biden for an earlier campaign moment in which he fondly recalled working with two segregationist senators, before accusing him of opposing the bussing of students between schools to help integrate them.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day,” Ms Harris said. “And that little girl was me.”

But campaign infighting and indecision on which issues to emphasise ultimately sank her presidential bid.

The campaign was marked by “a lot of rookie mistakes”, said Kevin Madden, an adviser on Republican Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. “The substance that needed to be there to pass the commander-in-chief test and to really fill in some of the blanks for voters, it just wasn’t there and as a result her opponents filled it in for her.”

Eight months later, Mr Biden put aside their primary rivalry and announced Ms Harris as his running mate. She became the first woman of colour to ever be nominated in that position - and in January 2021, the first female vice-president in US history.

A rocky start

It was five months into her job as Mr Biden’s vice-president that Ms Harris endured her first public stumble during a foreign trip to Guatemala and Mexico.

The trip was meant to showcase her role in pursuing economic initiatives to curb the flow of migrants from Central America to the US southern border, a foreign policy assignment given to her by Mr Biden.

But it was quickly overshadowed by an awkward exchange in an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, in which she dismissed repeated questions about why she had not yet visited the US-Mexico border.

Later that day, during a press conference with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, Ms Harris tried to recapture the narrative, delivering a stark message to migrants thinking of making their way to the US. “Do not come,” she told them. “Do not come.”

While the NBC News interview fuelled Republican attacks that continue to this day, the latter comments drew the ire of progressives and were quickly panned on social media, even though other administration officials had echoed the same rhetoric.

The issue of immigration has dogged Ms Harris and it's one that hasn't gone away

The vice-president’s allies blamed the White House for failing to adequately prepare her and assigning an unwinnable issue. They complained that as the first woman, African-American and Asian-American to serve as vice-president, outsized expectations had been imposed on her from the very start of her term, giving her little time to settle.

“There was immense pressure in the beginning to own things,” said one former aide who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about their time in the White House.

In the months that followed, Ms Harris endured more scrutiny as she faced high staff turnover, a slew of negative headlines about her performance and underwhelming media appearances. Hemmed in by Covid restrictions, she was limited in her public engagements, fuelling the perception that she was invisible.

When critics labelled her a prop for standing behind Mr Biden at bill-signing ceremonies – as her white male predecessors in the role regularly did – a decision was made to remove her from those events altogether, according to aides, triggering more criticism that she was absent.

“People had an expectation to experience her as vice-president as if she was Michelle Obama, but she was in a job… built for Al Gore or Mike Pence,” said Jamal Simmons, a longtime Democratic strategist who was brought in as her communications director during the second year.

Roe v Wade and coalition politics

As her team sought to improve her poor public image, Ms Harris stepped into a bigger foreign policy role. She travelled to Poland in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, held bilateral meetings in Asia amid heightened tensions with China and stood in for Mr Biden at the Munich Security Conference that same year.

But in May 2022, a political earthquake would reshape the trajectory of her vice-presidency. In a rare breach of the Supreme Court, a leaked draft opinion revealed plans to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade abortion ruling - which had protected American women’s federal right to abortion for nearly half a century.

She seized on the opportunity to be the lead messenger on an issue that Mr Biden – a devout Irish Catholic who avoided even saying the term “abortion” – was reluctant to own.

“How dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body?” she told the crowd at an event for a pro-choice group on the same day the bombshell leak was published, deciding to attack the nation’s top judges before their decision was officially released.

The issue proved to be a driving force for voters in the midterm elections a few months later, helping Democrats to perform better than expected in congressional races and to hold the Senate.

In seeking to become the administration’s leading voice on abortion, Ms Harris tackled the issue with “clarity of purpose”, said former longtime adviser Rachel Palermo.

She convened state legislators, faith leaders, constitutional law experts, healthcare providers and advocates for roundtable discussions. It was a move panned by some activists as not meeting the seriousness of the moment but it was part of a strategy of coalition-building across local and state politics that also helped lay the groundwork for any future presidential run.

Ms Harris, who spent most of her career navigating California’s tricky mix of liberal and traditional Democratic politics, knew every event mattered.

Every meeting, photo opportunity or dinner - whether it was with black business leaders or Hispanic female CEOs – was tracked by her team in detailed spreadsheets that she could utilise when the time came to call on a deep political network for support.

“She forced the operation to mobilise around how she views politics, which is coalitions,” a senior official said.

Ms Harris always had her eye on a 2028 bid for the White House, as Joe Biden’s natural successor, assuming he won a second term in the 2024 contest.

Yet as rumblings mounted about replacing Mr Biden on the ticket after his stumbling debate performance in late June against Donald Trump, some Democrats openly overlooked her.

They, and many pundits, suggested popular governors like California’s Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro or Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer as better replacements who could motivate voters and take the fight to Trump.

On 21 July, Mr Biden phoned Ms Harris to tell her of his plans to drop out of the race and endorse her as his successor.

It was a decision that took many of his closest allies by surprise, but she sprung into action. Over the course of 10 hours that Sunday, she called more than 100 party officials, members of Congress, labour leaders and activists. Within days, any potential rivals, including the powerful governors, had fallen into line and it was clear that she would take the Democratic mantle with no serious challenge.

As a candidate, the vice-president has yet to lay out a detailed policy agenda or sit down for a tough media interview. She released an economic blueprint on Friday, calling for tax cuts for families and a wider push on capping drug pricing, her most detailed vision for the country so far.

Even as Republicans accuse her of avoiding scrutiny, the team around her see no rush in cutting off the momentum she’s built over the last month. Political strategists say the campaign is right to capitalise on the “sugar high”.

“What Kamala Harris is experiencing is a massive, pent-up demand for people to vote for anybody not named Biden or Trump,” said Mr Madden, the former Romney aide and Republican communications strategist. “But the test always comes with being exposed to interviews, the press, debates and the harsh glare of a campaign.”

Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian who helped organise a meeting of historians at Ms Harris’s official residence last year, said the fact that she has been a blank slate for voters is more of a benefit than a burden.

“She may not have been able to be in full bloom under Biden but she never crossed wires with him,” he said. “So she was able to be positioned for this moment and she can take what’s good about the Biden years and shed the baggage of what she wants to, or slightly disagrees with.”

Though her entrance has jolted an outpouring of support among Democrats, it’s unclear whether she can translate that into broad appeal. While Ms Harris has made some inroads with key demographic groups that had drifted from Mr Biden – black, Latino and young voters in particular – she lags in other constituencies that made up his winning 2020 coalition.

Recent polling has put her ahead or tied with Trump in six of the seven battleground states, according to the Cook Political Report survey released on Wednesday. In May, Trump was ahead or tied in all seven states.

‘I was born with a seatbelt’

Thursday night’s speech at the Democratic convention is the most consequential moment in Kamala Harris’s political career. While the Republican convention served as a coronation for Trump, who was nominated as his party’s candidate for the third consecutive time, Ms Harris’s sudden rise means her speech will be seen as a pivotal moment to define who she really is.

While she’s stood on the stage before, a senior aide said the speech will have a heavier focus on her personal story than previous nominees.

“This is the why part of the conversation. Why is she running for president? What is her vision for the country?” said Mr Simmons, her former communications director. “That will help tie together all of the strands of her policy and political life that will make sense for people.”

But over the course of four days, Ms Harris will need to sharpen her messaging around crime, inflation, the economy and immigration – issues the Trump campaign will relentlessly target between now and election day.

Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican strategist, said Ms Harris will also at some point have to clarify the left-leaning positions she took in 2019 during her failed presidential bid.

"Her greatest vulnerability is that there is plenty of evidence that she's a San Francisco liberal with a whole set of far left wing policy positions that are outside the mainstream of American thinking, and she hasn't had to answer for those yet," he said.

She will also be confronted with protests over Israel’s actions in Gaza, a polarising issue that has politically cleaved the party. Ms Harris has been more forceful in her calls for a ceasefire and condemnation of civilian deaths than President Biden, but she has not wavered from the administration’s steadfast support for Israel - a stance that risks alienating the party’s progressive wing.

“How she positions [herself on Gaza] is going to be her hardest trick,” said Mr Brinkley, the presidential historian.

Still, allies and advisers who have been preparing her over the last week contend she’s built the foundations for a presidential run over the last four – sometimes bumpy – years, even if few expected she would actually find herself in this position at this moment.

“Opportunity is preparation meeting a little bit of luck and I wouldn’t characterise this as luck, because nobody wanted it to be this way, but certainly she was prepared to meet the moment of opportunity,” a senior political adviser said.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a Democratic donor and co-founder of Esprit and The North Face who has known Ms Harris since the 1990s, said she wasn’t surprised by how Ms Harris had performed in the last few weeks.

In the days after Mr Biden’s halting debate performance, she attended an event with the vice-president and said she could tell change was afoot.

After telling Ms Harris to fasten her seatbelt, Ms Buell said the soon-to-be Democratic nominee quipped, “I was born with a seatbelt.”

“I liked her response,” said Ms Tompkins Buell, who helped Ms Harris raise $12m at a San Francisco fundraiser earlier this month. “It was sudden and it was right on. She’s ready.”

BBC

 

[gazza619]

If you didnt like what Biden did, you also cant support the puppet that was next to Biden.

Kamila Harris is cashing on the fact that she is a female and of colour. Trump has been off track last few weeks.

 

[Red-Indian]

If you didnt like what Biden did, you also cant support the puppet that was next to Biden.

Kamila Harris is cashing on the fact that she is a female and of colour. Trump has been off track last few weeks.

It's tough to believe Trump will make it through another term if elected. He's really old. His campaign is a pale shadow of his last couple and he seems to only be able to handle a rally a week. I think the media has to increase scrutiny of Vance as much as possible since he'll likely be completing the term if Trump's elected.

The Dems are really lucky to have been able to replace Biden even if the replacement is a bit of a shell.

 

[FearlessRoar]

Harris campaigns in swing state Pennsylvania en route to Chicago convention​

US Vice President Kamala Harris brings her presidential campaign to the critical state of Pennsylvania on Sunday before heading on to Chicago, where the Democratic Party this week is due to nominate her to take on Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election.

Opinion polls have shown Harris bringing fresh energy to the campaign and closing the gap with former President Trump both nationally and in many of the eight highly competitive states including Pennsylvania that will play a decisive role in picking Democratic President Joe Biden’s successor.

“I’ve been to every convention since I was able to vote, and I can say I’ve not felt this kind of energy and electricity at any convention other than the one for Barack Obama,” said Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

Obama in 2008 was elected as the historic first Black president of the United States. Harris, who is Black and has Asian heritage, would be the first woman president if she wins in November.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, plan a bus tour beginning in Pittsburgh that will make several stops during the day through Allegheny and Beaver counties, areas that her campaign considers critical to winning Pennsylvania.

The trip comes the day after a Trump speech in northeast Pennsylvania where he derided Harris as a “radical” and a “lunatic,” saying he believed she would be easier to beat than Biden, 81, who dropped out last month under pressure from his own party after a disastrous debate against Trump.

Pennsylvania was one of three Rust Belt states, along with Wisconsin and Michigan, that helped power Republican Trump’s upset victory in the 2016 election.

Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, flipped the trio back to the Democrats in 2020, and Harris aims to hold on to them.

After her Pennsylvania appearances, Harris will go on to Chicago for the kick-off of the Democratic National Convention on Monday.

Sources said on Saturday that she is likely to join Biden on stage at the convention on Monday as he passes the torch to her as the party’s nominee for president.

The Trump campaign will try to counter-program the convention with a series of swing-state events this week. He will visit a manufacturing facility in York, Pennsylvania, on Monday, where his campaign says he will focus on the economy, and a county sheriff’s office in Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday to talk about safety and crime.

Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, will travel to Asheboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday for remarks on national security, and on Friday Trump will join Turning Point Action, a group founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, for a rally in Glendale, Arizona, aimed in part at highlighting efforts to boost turnout.

Trump supporters said they hope he will refocus his campaign on policy rather than the repeated personal attacks against Harris he has leaned heavily on in the weeks since she emerged as the Democratic candidate.

“President Trump can win this election. His policies are good for America and if you have a policy debate he wins. Donald Trump the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election,” Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “Policy is the key to the White House.”

https://english.alarabiya.net/News/united-states/2024/08/18/harris-campaigns-in-swing-state-pennsylvania-en-route-to-chicago-convention

 

[BouncerGuy]

Harris to face biggest test of her political life with Democratic convention speech

Kamala Harris will tonight face the biggest test of her political life so far when she addresses the Democratic national convention in Chicago in a bid to persuade American voters to defeat Donald Trump in November’s presidential election and put her in the White House.

The vice-president’s rocket-fueled campaign is still barely a month old following Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from seeking re-election in the face of a disastrous debate performance and questions over his age and mental acuity.

Harris, and her vice-presidential pick Minnesota governor Tim Walz, have quickly overturned the election’s narrative, turning a solid Trump lead in the polls over Biden into a slight – but clear – advantage over the former Republican president.

In addressing the Democratic convention on Thursday night – and by proxy the wider US electorate watching in their millions on television – Harris will be making a direct pitch to voters to back her vision for the United States.

Harris’s campaign has sought to portray a more optimistic, future-focused view of the country than her rival, and perhaps also than that of the president, who based much of his pitch on dark warnings of Trump’s autocratic sympathies.

Over the course of the week at the convention, the audience has heard from the Democratic party’s most powerful players, who threw their support unequivocally behind Harris. Biden, Barack and Michelle Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi all gave primetime speeches, as did some of the party’s rising stars, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Now it is expected that Harris’s speech will seek to lay out her personal story as she bids to become a historic president: the first woman president and the first woman of color due to her south Asian and Black background. Her speech is likely to focus on her work as a prosecutor, defending victims of crime.

But her speech will also lay out a sharp contrast between her positive view of the country’s future prospects and Trump’s almost wholly grim warnings about the state of the nation and his focus on immigration and crime.

Across three days so far, speaker after speaker has already hailed Harris as a change-agent who would not only defeat Trump but lift the country higher, ushering in a new chapter of possibility and seek to return US politics to some semblance of normality since Trump came onto the political stage eight years ago.

The Harris campaign – and especially the outspoken Walz – has also displayed sharp elbows and an ability to insult and poke fun at Trump.

The switch in the polls and newfound edge has impressed many observers. “She has had a very good month not just because of a honeymoon, but because of the way she’s presented herself, the way her campaign has positioned her,” David Axelrod, a former top aide to Barack Obama, told the Guardian.

Certainly it seems to have unsettled Trump and his campaign. Trump has adopted a policy of directly insulting Harris and inventing a series of nicknames for her while trying to paint her as a leftwing extremist and questioning her racial identity. But the jibes have had little effect and even drawn criticism from some senior Republicans.

They have not blunted her lead. Harris consistently tops Trump by three or four points in recent head-to-head surveys and has also improved her standing in the handful of key states that are crucial to victory. While the electoral contest remains impossibly close, she has widened the battleground once more from the Rust belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to once again include Sun belt states like North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.

Throughout the convention so far, Democratic speakers have tried to make Trump seem small and diminished. They have sought to keep him on the backfoot and in a reactive mode, responding to attacks and being kept off-balance.

THE GUARDIAN

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Kamala Harris to cap Democratic National Convention with historic speech

Vice-President Kamala Harris will make the most important speech of her political life this week when she accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination for president a month after the party forced President Joe Biden to exit the race.

Harris’ own presidential ambitions were always clear but had been undermined by her own shaky 2020 campaign and bumpy vice-presidential term.

Since being thrust to the top of the ticket, she has tightened the race against Republican Donald Trump.

Harris’ forceful stump speeches have been met by a surge in enthusiasm from voters.

If she wins on November 5, she will be the first black and Asian-American woman elected president.

'Don't let Trump divide us': Kamala to cap convention with historic speech

The presidential hopeful is about to make the most important speech of her career.

www.nzherald.co.nz

 

[Red-Indian]

She's definitely got the political hawa around her campaign whereas Trump appears muddled and confused and as usual ranting his imagined grievances. But this is how he has always been, the voters have basically already accounted for it

I hope pollsters have adjusted their methodology but if there is a trust issue with one part of the electorate, its very difficult to get a truly random sample to get accurate numbers. They could be wrong in both directions hence why my hesitation in relying on polling numbers

With AZ my doubt is about the border issue which is huge in the state and there was a big migrant surge in the last year. GA is basically a 50-50 state. Its no longer reliably red but cant depend on it being blue either. Another state to watch out is NV which is polling red, I think that's why Kamala also promised to abolish Tips, a proposal which will be very popular with their service based economy and among latinos

Couple of stunning polls in the last couple of days.

North Carolina

POLLSTER	DATE	SAMPLE	MOE	TRUMP (R)	HARRIS (D)	SPREAD
RCP Average	7/24 - 8/21	—	—	47.2	46.3	Trump+0.9
High Point/SurveyUSA	8/19 - 8/21	1053 RV	4.0	45	46	Harris+1
NY Times/Siena	8/9 - 8/14	655 LV	—	47	49	Harris+2

Arizona

POLLSTER	DATE	SAMPLE	MOE	TRUMP (R)	HARRIS (D)	SPREAD
RCP Average	7/22 - 8/17	—	—	47.3	47.1	Trump+0.2
Rasmussen Reports	8/13 - 8/17	1187 LV	—	47	45	Trump+2
NY Times/Siena	8/8 - 8/15	677 LV	—	45	50	Harris+5

If Trump can't hold on to North Carolina, I think it's game over for him. Arizona, Georgia and other 50-50 states will swing Harris' way.

We're going to see fair bit of polling going Harris' way post the Convention and I'm going to discount that but this is pre-convention and very ominous for Trump.

 

[BouncerGuy]

Four takeaways from Kamala Harris's convention speech

Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night, delivering a speech which hit the key notes her campaign wanted - but had only rare moments of soaring rhetoric and broke little new ground.

The ground-breaking was in the nature of the nominee herself - the first woman of colour to become a major party's presidential nominee.

“Never let anyone tell you who you are,” Ms Harris said. “You show them who you are.”

But for roughly 45 minutes on Thursday, she tried to tell Americans who she is - and what she would do if she wins the White House.

Here are four takeaways from her convention-closing remarks.

1. Harris promoted her middle class roots

Many Americans know who Ms Harris is, but not many know what she believes in or details of her background. First and foremost, her convention speech set out to change that.

She recounted her mother’s journey as an immigrant from India. She spoke about how her parents met – and how they ultimately divorced. She talked about her childhood upbringing in a working-class neighbourhood in Oakland, California.

“The middle class is where I come from,” she said. “My mother kept a strict budget. We lived within our means. Yet, we wanted for little. And she expected us to make the most of the opportunities that were available to us.”

Ms Harris also spoke of why she chose to become a lawyer – and a prosecutor. She drew a line from her early days in the courtroom to her public services as a politician.

“My entire career, I have only had one client,” she said. “The people.”

2. A vision for the future - with few details

Ms Harris’s speech included calls for unity and a pathway beyond the “bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles” of modern American politics.

She said that the US had a “precious, fleeting” opportunity to “chart a new path forward”. But that chart had few details.

Vague calls for unity and a path beyond partisanship are rhetoric many presidential hopefuls have used in the past.

When Ms Harris did turn to policy details, she spoke in generalities.

She said she will be focused on lowering the costs of “everyday needs” – including healthcare, housing and groceries. She specifically called out abortion rights – and framed it as a means of preserving freedom, which has been a recurring theme at this Democratic convention.

“America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives, especially about matters of heart and home,” she said.

Ms Harris, in her speech, styled herself as a centre-left moderate, putting little daylight between her policies and those of her boss, the man she hopes to replace, Joe Biden.

“Everywhere I go, in everyone I meet, I see a nation ready to move forward,” she said. “Ready for the next step, in the incredible journey that is America.”

The exact details of that step, however, are to be determined.

3. An unchanged Gaza war message

As pro-Palestinian protesters marched outside the convention, Ms Harris devoted particular attention in the foreign-policy section of her speech to the Gaza war.

Here, yet again, there was little difference between her rhetoric and views and those of Mr Biden – and she linked herself to the president several times.

“President Biden and I are working around the clock,” she said, “because now is the time to get a hostage deal and ceasefire done.”

She also pledged to ensure that Israel always has the ability to defend itself and took particular note of the brutality of the 7 October Hamas attack.

For a moment, it sounded like some in the crowd would jeer, but Ms Harris quickly moved on to the plight of Palestinians, saying that the scale of their suffering was “heartbreaking”.

That will hardly be enough to satisfy the protesters outside, however, and they could return to their homes – some in key battleground states like Michigan – convinced that a Harris presidency would be a continuation of the Biden Gaza War policies.

4. Trump is an 'unserious man' but serious threat

Two days ago, Michelle and Barack Obama formed a tag-team that belittled former president Donald Trump for what they charaterised as his small obsessions and petty personality.

Ms Harris also took swipes at her Republican opponent, but they were pretty standard fare for Democrats – including Mr Biden - over the past few months.

“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she said. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”

She brought up the 6 January attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, and mentioned his criminal convictions.

She also hit what has become a favourite Democratic punching bag, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a Republican presidency. Although the former president has disavowed the plan, she noted that it was written by his advisers and it sought to “pull our country back into the past”.

The future vs the past contrast has been a central theme of the Harris campaign so far, as it was in her nomination acceptance speech.

It’s one of the ways the vice-president has been able to draw a distinction not only from her current Republican opponent, but from the unpopular aspects of her boss, Joe Biden, who just a few weeks ago was the presumptive Democratic nominee.

BBC

 

[FearlessRoar]

Kamala Harris pledges 'new way forward' in historic convention speech​

Vice-President Kamala Harris pledged a "new way forward" for all Americans as she formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday night, delivering a message of unity and urging voters to reject Donald Trump.

November's election is a chance to "move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past", she said, bringing her party's convention in Chicago to a close as balloons rained down and supporters cheered.

Ms Harris's speech capped off a four-day spectacle designed to highlight her backstory and shape the contours of what remains a vague policy agenda.

She made history as the first black and Asian-American woman to lead a major party's presidential ticket.

The 59-year-old officially became the Democratic nominee after a fast-moving few weeks that began with President Joe Biden stepping aside in the White House race.

Polls suggest she is now in a tight race with Trump, who offered criticism of Ms Harris's appearance as it unfolded.

Ms Harris used her nearly-45-minute address, the most important speech of her political career, to reintroduce herself to the nation.

She shared personal anecdotes about growing up in a "beautiful working-class neighbourhood" as the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

And she argued that her background as a prosecutor - a detail she avoided emphasising during her 2020 run - made her uniquely qualified to defeat Trump and serve in the Oval Office, as did her record as vice-president under Mr Biden.

Ms Harris also dedicated several minutes of her speech to how her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, shaped her life and political career.

"She taught us to never complain about injustice, but (instead) to do something about it," Ms Harris recalled. Her sister Maya, 57, also spoke on thee night, saying their mother had been a "trailblazer", having set "great expectations of us".

"She raised us to believe that we could be or do anything," she said, to loud applause. "It's a distinctly American story."

Ms Harris made an pitch to aspirational families across America, saying she would create an "opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed".

She said she would "end America's housing shortage" and help entrepreneurs. However, did not describe any specific changes in policy from the administration in which she currently serves.

Trump reacted to his rival's speech on his social media platform Truth Social, and called into Fox News after the event concluded to criticise her remarks.

He questioned her record during four years in the White House as vice-president.

“Why didn’t she do something about the things of which she complains?” the Republican wrote.

Kamala Harris gives Democratic convention speech

The Democrat formally becomes the first black and Asian-American woman to lead a major presidential ticket.

www.bbc.com

 

[Rajdeep]

Unfortunately Kamala Haris will be next President of USA. It will be sad bcoz she herself is confused of her identity. Some days she becomes Indian, some day black. In her tenure as a VP, she has not fulfilled a single promise. A rabid leftist mindset lady ruling the most powerful nation in the world will be horrific. The world needs Donald Trump now more than anyone else with all the wars going on. Remember during his first term, world was so peaceful. Leftist and liberals staged Capitol hill attack and BLM movement to oust him from power. Oust him and got whom? Sleepy Joe...under whose watch we are almost seeing WW3 kind of situations.

If Trump don't win this time, it will be the end of his political career unfortunately as he will too old 4 years later.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Harris raises $540 million since launching her presidential campaign

Democrat Kamala Harris has raised $540 million in little more than a month since she began her race for U.S. president, with a surge of donations flowing in during the Democratic National Convention last week, her campaign said on Sunday.

A memo released by Harris' campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, said the $540 million raised included $82 million that came in during convention week and is a sign of Democratic enthusiasm for her candidacy.

Vice President Harris became a candidate for president on July 21 when President Joe Biden stepped aside under pressure from fellow Democrats concerned about his cognitive ability after he stumbled during a June 27 debate against Republican Donald Trump.

The Harris candidacy has generated momentum that has put Trump on the defensive and he has struggled to maintain the media spotlight on him.

Harris and her vice presidential running mate, Tim Walz, take their campaign for the White House on a bus tour through Georgia this week, looking to build support in a state looming large in the Nov. 5 election.



Reuters

 

[deltexas]

Harris raises $540 million since launching her presidential campaign

Democrat Kamala Harris has raised $540 million in little more than a month since she began her race for U.S. president, with a surge of donations flowing in during the Democratic National Convention last week, her campaign said on Sunday.

A memo released by Harris' campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, said the $540 million raised included $82 million that came in during convention week and is a sign of Democratic enthusiasm for her candidacy.

Vice President Harris became a candidate for president on July 21 when President Joe Biden stepped aside under pressure from fellow Democrats concerned about his cognitive ability after he stumbled during a June 27 debate against Republican Donald Trump.

The Harris candidacy has generated momentum that has put Trump on the defensive and he has struggled to maintain the media spotlight on him.

Harris and her vice presidential running mate, Tim Walz, take their campaign for the White House on a bus tour through Georgia this week, looking to build support in a state looming large in the Nov. 5 election.



Reuters

Harris is leading the polls and the enthusiasm factor. She's leading now in the swing States as well which decide the election. Plus the abortion issue is a big driving force for tge women electorate.

 

[moghul]

Trump is not a good human being , the way he treated children crossing the southern border during his tenure was horrible , but the other choice we have in Kamala Harris is really terrible , the lady has no talent vision or ideas , she is far too leftist and she is equally responsible for killing of 40 K plus human being in Gaza along with Natanyahu and dementic Biden . Trump at least didn't start any new war during his tenure. With heavy heart, I will vote for trump, although I'm not expecting good things from him including towards Gaza genocide .

 

[BouncerGuy]

Harris and Walz to sit for first interview of campaign

Vice-President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz - the Democratic ticket for US president - have agreed to their first joint interview.

The two politicians will sit-down with CNN in Georgia for an interview that airs Thursday at 21:00 EDT (02:00 BST).

It will be the candidates' first in-depth on-the-record conversation with a reporter since President Joe Biden exited the race and endorsed Ms Harris as his replacement more than five weeks ago.

Since the vice-president moved to the top of the ticket, Republicans have criticised her for appearing to avoid the press and accused her of leaving voters in the dark on her presidential plans.

The interview will be Ms Harris and Mr Walz's first big test as running mates, and it provides an opportunity for them to quiet that criticism. It also fufills a vow the vice-president made to schedule a sit-down before the end of the month.

It follows the pair's high-profile speeches at the star-studded Democratic National Convention in Chicago - a slickly produced and well-scripted party celebration - and Ms Harris will continue on to a bus tour of the battleground state of Georgia after the interview.

It will be one of the few opportunities for voters nationwide to hear more detail about the Harris-Walz campaign's policy positions before election day, which is only 70 days away.

Republicans - as well as members of the media - have grown louder about the campaign's few concrete policy positions or interviews during Ms Harris's truncated and unprecedented run for president.

It has opened her campaign up to chiding remarks and insults from her opponents.

Trump said during a recent press conference at Mar-a-Lago that Ms Harris "can't do an interview" because she was "barely competent".

Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump's running mate, has scolded the media and Ms Harris for her press avoidance. He said earlier this month that it was "shameful" that Ms Harris had not "taken a single real question from a reporter".

"She (Harris) is taking a basement strategy of running from reporters instead of getting in front of them and answering tough questions about her record and letting the American people know who she is."

Mr Vance has frequently noted that both he and Trump have held multiple interviews and press conferences, often facing "hostile questions" from the press.

Vice-President Harris - who has enjoyed a campaign that has ridden high on "good vibes" thus far - has avoided some of the gaffes and blunders that the Republican ticket has suffered in front of the press, however.

That could be the point, as she had a few bad experiences with the press in her first two years as vice-president.

A poor interview in 2021 with NBC's Lester Holt on immigration and the US southern border seemed to particularly have led to a limit of her press engagement thereafter.

It remains to be seen what effect this interview may have on Ms Harris's campaign, as multiple national opinion polls show her leading Trump ahead of the November presidential election.

A Farleigh Dickinson University poll released last week suggest Ms Harris is beating Trump nationally by seven points, 50 percent to 43 percent.

It is a stark reversal of fortunes for Democrats, who were beginning to fall behind Republicans in multiple races when Mr Biden was the nominee.

Polls frequently indicated the president trailing his predecessor by several points as well.

BBC

 

[BouncerGuy]

Harris defends White House record in high-stakes first interview

US Vice-President Kamala Harris defended her shifts on policy, President Joe Biden, and her time in the White House in her first interview since becoming the Democratic nominee.

Ms Harris argued that the Biden administration was able to reduce illegal border crossings in recent months and "recover the economy" after the pandemic.

She called the White House's policies a "success", specifically pointing to a decline in prescription drug costs and the unemployment rate: "That's good work. There's more to do."

Ms Harris appeared in the pre-recorded CNN interview with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. It was her first as a presidential candidate.

The vice-president was forced to defend the White House's economic track record, as inflation and high cost-of-living prices continue to sting American pocketbooks. Polls have regularly suggested that voters would prefer Republican candidate Donald Trump's handling of the economy.

But the most tense exchanges between Ms Harris and CNN interviewer Dana Bash centred on the assertion that the Democratic nominee's policy positions had undergone "changes" during her time as vice-president and as a presidential candidate.

"I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed," she said when asked why her positions shifted in recent years.

Trump had already dismissed the vice-president's first interview, which lasted 27 minutes, before its release because it was pre-taped and included Mr Walz.

He used a single-word in his review after it concluded.

"BORING!!!" the former president wrote on Truth Social.

Harris questioned about fracking and climate change position

Ms Harris referred to her effort to address climate change and support of the Green New Deal, a Democratic proposal to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, as something that remains a steadfast value when pressured about her shifting policy positions.

"I have always believed, and I've worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter," she said.

The vice-president pointed to the Biden administration's work on the Inflation Reduction Act, which funnelled hundreds of billions of dollars to renewable energy and electric vehicle tax credit and rebate programs.

"We have set goals for the United States of America, and by extension the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions."

Ms Harris did not explain her reversal on banning fracking - a technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock used by an industry that is particularly strong in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Ms Harris had said that "there is no question I'm in favour of banning fracking" during a CNN town hall in 2019. But she has backpedalled on that view since becoming vice-president - even casting the tie-breaking vote in the Senate on new fracking leases.

In the CNN interview on Thursday, she said: "As president, I will not ban fracking."

Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesperson, said on social media that the Biden administration's "clean energy investments have proven the ability to make progress on climate without those past stances".

Harris adopts Biden policies on immigration and Gaza

Ms Harris once held more progressive immigration views as a senator and in her campaign for president in 2020. She had previously advocated for the closure of immigration detention centres and the decriminalisation of illegal crossings.

But on the subject of "securing our border" Ms Harris said "my values have not changed" and referenced her time "prosecuting transnational, criminal organisations" as California attorney general.

Earlier this year, the vice-president supported a hardline bipartisan border security deal that would have included hundreds of millions of dollars for border wall construction.

Trump pressured Republicans in Congress to kill the deal, but Ms Harris has promised to "sign it into law" if elected. She committed to passing it again during the CNN interview.

To explain her moderated immigration view, the Democratic nominee told CNN that her travels across the country as vice-president had made her "believe it is important to build consensus, and it is important to find a common place of understanding of where we can actually solve problems".

Along those lines, Ms Harris committed to include someone "who was a Republican" in her presidential cabinet. She said it would fulfill her promise to be a president “for all Americans”.

"I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views."

Ms Harris also was asked about the war in Gaza, and re-iterated the White House's position that both Israel and Hamas must "get a deal done" and that the Palestinians deserve to have their own country neighbouring Israel.

"This war must end, and we must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out," she said.

She would not commit to an arms embargo on Israel, as some on her party's left flank have demanded.

Walz says "passion" led to misstatements

Mr Walz, who served for decades in the US National Guard, was asked to clarify a comment he in made in which he said he "carried" an assault rifle in "war".

The campaign has clarified that Mr Walz was never in a war zone.

In the interview, the governor said he wore "his emotions on his sleeve" and was "speaking passionately" about the subject of gun crime in schools when he made the inaccurate statement.

That "passion" also extended to his incorrect assertion that his wife had received in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments - which have become a political lightning rod in the US debate over abortion access - to conceive their children.

She received intrauterine insemination, not IVF, though doctors have said that the two fertilisation treatments are often referred to interchangeably.

Mr Walz said his record speaks for itself. He said he did not believe that Americans were "cutting hairs" between the two.

The Minnesota governor was also asked about his son, Gus, who went viral when he proudly proclaimed "That's my dad" at the Democratic National Convention.

"It was just such a visceral, emotional moment that I'm grateful I got to experience it - and I'm so proud of him."

Harris details Biden's decision to drop out of race

Ms Harris described the moment that President Biden called her to share that he had decided to end his re-election bid in July.

She said her family was visiting her when she received the phone call. They had just eaten pancakes and bacon and were working on a puzzle.

"My first thought was not about me, to be honest with you, my first thought was about him," Ms Harris said when asked whether she asked for his endorsement.

The vice-president also maintained that the president could have served again.

"He is so smart, and I have spent hours upon hours with him being in the Oval Office and in the situation room. He has the intelligence, the commitment and judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president."

She said Trump, by contrast, had none of those qualities.

The wait for Harris's first interview as the nominee

Ms Harris has faced criticism from Republicans and some pundits for refusing to hold a press conference or an on-the-record, in-depth interview until now. Her critics argued that she was avoiding having her record challenged.

Her appearance on CNN marks her first substantive interview since Mr Biden exited race.

Ms Bash, the CNN journalist who conducted the interview of Ms Harris and Mr Walz, was one of the moderators of the 27 June debate between Mr Biden and Trump.

Mr Biden's disastrous performance in that debate was widely seen as what sparked the effort for the president to withdraw from the race.

BBC

 

[BouncerGuy]

Kamala Harris criticises Trump over Arlington Cemetery dispute

Vice-President Kamala Harris is criticising former president Donald Trump over a recent controversy involving his campaign at Arlington National Cemetery, saying the military burial site is “not a place for politics”.

Ms Harris took aim at Trump on Saturday in a post on social media, writing that he “disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt”.

The US Army said a Trump staffer “abruptly pushed aside” a cemetery employee who was trying to warn his team about rules against filming in the cemetery.

The Trump campaign has disputed the cemetery's version of events and said it received permission from the families of the fallen soldiers to film.

The incident happened on Monday, when Trump was at an event honouring 13 US military service members who were killed during the country's withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago.

Saturday’s post marks the first time Ms Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has commented on the controversy.

She wrote that she has visited Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia several times during her tenure as vice-president, and she would never use the site for political gain.

“If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude,” Ms Harris said.

“And it is my belief that someone who cannot meet this simple, sacred duty should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States of America.”

At a campaign rally in Michigan on Thursday, Trump hit back at those who had criticised him over the incident.

He said he had been asked to pose for a photo at the site after the memorial by family members of the soldiers who had died.

“I go there, they ask me to have a picture and they say I was campaigning,” Trump said. “The one thing I get plenty of is publicity. I don't need that. I don't need the publicity.”

Trump's running mate JD Vance used the controversy to attack the Biden administration over its handling of the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying that Ms Harris "can go to hell".

"Three years ago, 13 brave, innocent Americans died, and they died because Kamala Harris refused to do her job," Mr Vance said on Wednesday in response to questions from BBC's US partner, CBS News.

NPR reported earlier that two members of Trump’s campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the cemetery worker aside when she tried to intervene.

Federal law prevents use of the cemetery for political campaigning and the US Army said participants were warned of the rules in advance.

A US Army spokesperson said on Thursday that “the incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked.”

The Trump campaign has denied that a physical altercation took place at the cemetery, adding “we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made”.

House Democrats have since asked the US Army for a report into the incident, asking for a “full account” of what happened.

BBC

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Elon Musk posts fake image of Harris in communist uniform​

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, on Monday posted a fake image of what appears to be Vice President Kamala Harris dressed in a red communist uniform.
“Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit!?” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, in response to the vice president’s post warning about Trump being a “dictator on day one.”

According to X’s policy, users “may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm. … In addition, we may label posts containing misleading media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.”
Musk’s post does not have any such label on it.

Last month, Trump posted a fake, AI-generated image depicting Harris speaking in front of a communist symbol at the Democratic National Convention.

Some context: Images generated by artificial intelligence have exploded on social media in the run-up to the election. The fake posts come as technology platforms dismantle guardrails and moderation policies designed to reduce the spread of dangerous misinformation.

These changes have been most acute on X, formerly known as Twitter, after Musk purchased the company, gutted in-house teams that worked to stop the spread of election disinformation and restored the banned accounts of prominent conspiracy theorists and extremists.

Source: CNN

 

[gazza619]

Kamila is hardly inspiring. I can’t stand her. Can Trump turn this around.

 

[BouncerGuy]

John McCain's son endorses Harris after Trump cemetery visit

Jimmy McCain, son of the late Republican Senator John McCain, is endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris following controversy around Donald Trump's recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery.

He called Trump's visit last week to the military burial site "a violation".

The Army has accused a Trump staffer of pushing aside an Arlington employee as they tried to warn his team about rules against filming in the cemetery.

The Trump campaign says it received permission from families of fallen service members to film video during an event to honour US soldiers killed during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

"Show respect and leave. It doesn't need to be videoed," Mr McCain told CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday.

He added: "The point of Arlington Cemetery is to go and show respect for the men and women who have given their lives to this country. When you make it political, you take away the respect of the people who are there."

Mr McCain, who was previously an independent, said he has changed his voter registration to Democrat and plans to vote for Ms Harris for president in November.

"I feel that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz embody a group of people that will help make this country better. That will take us forward. That's really what matters at the end of the day," he said.

The youngest McCain son enlisted in the Marine Corps and has served as an intelligence officer since 2022.

Three generations of McCain family are buried at Arlington.

Federal law prevents use of the site for political campaigning.

The Trump campaign has disputed the cemetery's version of events and released a statement from the Gold Star military families that invited him to the site, saying the former president was there to honour the sacrifice of their relatives who were killed.

Trump - who is running for president for a third time - and late Senator McCain had a long rivalry.

The Vietnam war hero was one of the most outspoken Republican critics of Trump from the very start of his first candidacy.

Trump once attacked McCain, himself a former Republican presidential candidate, saying he was "not a war hero" because he was captured and held as a prisoner of war.

In 2020, McCain's widow, Cindy McCain, endorsed Joe Biden in his campaign to unseat Trump. Mr Biden later appointed her as US ambassador to a United Nations food agency.

Jimmy McCain is not the only family member to withhold support for Trump.

His sister Meghan said on Monday she does not plan to support either Trump or Ms Harris.

“I greatly respect the wide variety of political opinions of all of my family members and love them all very much,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“I however, remain a proud member of the Republican Party and hope for brighter days ahead."

BBC

 

[FearlessRoar]

Teasing Putin says Russia supports Kamala Harris, cites her ‘infectious’ laugh​

Russia wants Kamala Harris to win the US presidential election, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in a teasing comment that cited her “infectious” laugh as a reason to prefer her over Donald Trump.

Putin made the ironic remark a day after the US Justice Department charged two Russian media executives over an alleged illegal scheme to influence the November election with pro-Russian propaganda.

Before President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, Putin had said earlier this year—in another comment widely seen as not to be taken at face value—that he preferred Biden over Trump because the former was a more predictable “old school” politician.

US intelligence agencies believe Moscow actually wants Trump to win because he is less committed to supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia.

Asked how he viewed the election now, Putin told an economic forum in Russia’s far east that it was the choice of the American people.

But he then added that as Biden had recommended his supporters to back Harris, “we will do the same, we will support her.”

Putin and the moderator were both smiling as he made the remark, which drew applause from the audience.

Expanding on his view of Harris, Putin said: “She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her.”

He added that maybe this meant she would refrain from further sanctions against Russia. By contrast, Putin said that Trump, as president, had introduced more sanctions against Russia than anyone in the White House before him.

“Ultimately, the choice is up to the American people, and we will respect that choice,” the Kremlin leader concluded.

US intelligence has determined that Russia ran a disinformation campaign to boost Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and sought to undermine Clinton’s.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied meddling in US elections, though late Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who founded the Wagner mercenary group and was accused by the US of running Russian “troll farms,” boasted in 2022: “We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere.”

On Wednesday, the US Justice Department filed money-laundering charges against two employees of Russian state broadcaster RT for what was described as a scheme to hire a US company to produce online content to influence this year’s election.

Moscow will target US media in response, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

https://english.alarabiya.net/News/united-states/2024/09/05/russia-s-favorite-to-win-us-election-was-biden-now-it-s-harris-putin-

 

[sweep_shot]

Teasing Putin says Russia supports Kamala Harris, cites her ‘infectious’ laugh​

Russia wants Kamala Harris to win the US presidential election, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in a teasing comment that cited her “infectious” laugh as a reason to prefer her over Donald Trump.

Putin made the ironic remark a day after the US Justice Department charged two Russian media executives over an alleged illegal scheme to influence the November election with pro-Russian propaganda.

Before President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, Putin had said earlier this year—in another comment widely seen as not to be taken at face value—that he preferred Biden over Trump because the former was a more predictable “old school” politician.

US intelligence agencies believe Moscow actually wants Trump to win because he is less committed to supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia.

Asked how he viewed the election now, Putin told an economic forum in Russia’s far east that it was the choice of the American people.

But he then added that as Biden had recommended his supporters to back Harris, “we will do the same, we will support her.”

Putin and the moderator were both smiling as he made the remark, which drew applause from the audience.

Expanding on his view of Harris, Putin said: “She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her.”

He added that maybe this meant she would refrain from further sanctions against Russia. By contrast, Putin said that Trump, as president, had introduced more sanctions against Russia than anyone in the White House before him.

“Ultimately, the choice is up to the American people, and we will respect that choice,” the Kremlin leader concluded.

US intelligence has determined that Russia ran a disinformation campaign to boost Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and sought to undermine Clinton’s.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied meddling in US elections, though late Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who founded the Wagner mercenary group and was accused by the US of running Russian “troll farms,” boasted in 2022: “We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere.”

On Wednesday, the US Justice Department filed money-laundering charges against two employees of Russian state broadcaster RT for what was described as a scheme to hire a US company to produce online content to influence this year’s election.

Moscow will target US media in response, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

https://english.alarabiya.net/News/united-states/2024/09/05/russia-s-favorite-to-win-us-election-was-biden-now-it-s-harris-putin-

Haha!

Putin is a very good troll.

 

[BouncerGuy]

Kamala Harris's pain-free campaign faces first crunch moment

In American politics it’s customary to suggest that most voters don’t start paying attention to the presidential election until after the Labor Day holiday weekend.

Well, that occasion - seen here as the unofficial end of summer - has now been and gone. And as a noticeable chill is felt in the air, many more voters will start to take note of politics. That includes the crucial swing voters in a handful of closely contested states who will ultimately decide the race for the White House.

Right on cue, as these eyes start to focus on the election, we have a presidential debate that will see Donald Trump and Kamala Harris go head-to-head for the first time. In fact, it will be the first time the two candidates have ever met in person. The high-stakes event in Philadelphia on Tuesday night is expected to draw in tens of millions of viewers.

Many of these viewers will be getting a first look at Ms Harris beyond the comfort of a rally stage. Before she dramatically replaced Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in July, Ms Harris’s national profile was unusually low despite her serving as vice-president for almost four years.

And make no mistake, her explosion on to the big stage so late in the election cycle is highly, highly unusual.

The normal rhythms of American politics allow candidates to introduce themselves to the country as they campaign for their party’s presidential nomination in primary contests held much earlier in the year. This process weeds out those who, while popular in their home states, are not ready or equipped to take the leap on to the national stage (see Ron DeSantis) and gives participants vital experience at campaigning and debating.

Ms Harris did none of that this year. When she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2019, she pulled out before a single primary vote was cast after a campaign dogged by poor messaging, in which she struggled to sell her own vision.

Yet, this time around, it appears that Ms Harris’s unusual anonymity may in fact be a secret superpower.

She has been able to present herself to America on her own terms, highlighting her relatively humble background, her record as a prosecutor and her promise to uphold what she sees as fundamental rights such as access to abortion.

Ms Harris has also positioned herself as the candidate of change - a fresh face for the future - even though she has been part of the current administration for almost four years.

Trump is attacking her as a dangerously radical liberal. But to do so he is relying on statements she made and policies she promoted when she was competing in Democratic primaries in 2019. That’s because, to win the Democratic nomination, candidates have to appeal to more liberal members of the party before then trying to move to the centre in the general election.

In this election, Ms Harris did not have to compete against members of her own party to win the nomination and so had no reason to adopt more liberal policy positions as she did in the past.

Just look at her failed bid in 2019, when she advocated for a ban on fracking and offshore drilling as well as universal free healthcare. Both ideas have been rapidly dropped this time around.

Of course, we don’t know what promises Ms Harris would have made in a 2024 primary process, but to win the support of progressives she may well have taken similar positions to the above that Trump would now be using to attack her. No primary contest means less ammunition for the former president. And relying on statements his opponent made five years ago, and policy positions she has since dropped, is blunting his attacks.

This week, Ms Harris announced tax proposals that differentiate her platform from what President Biden was promising. She is calling for a lower tax hike than Mr Biden proposed on the investment earnings of Americans making more than $1 million a year. That is not the sort of idea that would have won her support in any Democratic primary vote.

There are arguably downsides to entering the race at such a late stage, however. Competing for the nomination would have given Ms Harris more experience with unscripted appearances - press conferences, interviews and TV debates.

So far, she has done only one broadcast interview since President Biden stepped aside and that was a joint appearance with her running mate Tim Walz. That encounter on CNN wasn’t exactly a tough interrogation, and she still struggled to answer what she would do on day one of the job if elected.

At her vast rallies and during her well-received speech at the Democratic National Convention last month, Ms Harris relied on a teleprompter and familiar lines. The 90-minute debate on Tuesday will be her longest unscripted appearance in this campaign.

Trump, who is far more experienced on the presidential debate stage, will try to knock her off her prepared talking points and do what has yet to happen in the race: press Ms Harris aggressively on policy and her changing positions.

And Ms Harris knows better than anyone that the last time Trump took to the debate stage his opponent ended up leaving the race. For America’s surprise presidential candidate, who has completely avoided the challenges and scrutiny of a Democratic primary, this debate represents a sterner test than anything she has faced so far in this pain-free campaign.

BBC

 

[BouncerGuy]

Kamala Harris says she will cut degree requirements for certain federal jobs

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Friday she will cut college degree requirements for certain federal jobs if elected president as the Democratic presidential candidate and her Republican rival have been making economic pledges to woo voters.

Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump are in a tight race for the Nov. 5 U.S. elections. Harris has previously said she will aim to pass a middle class tax cut, while Trump has advocated for cutting taxes on overtime pay. Both candidates have supported eliminating taxes on tips.

"As president, I will get rid of the unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs to increase jobs for folks without a four-year degree," Harris said in her speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

More than 62% of Americans age 25 or older did not hold a bachelor's degree, according to data released, opens new tab by the U.S. Census Bureau in early 2023. Americans without college degrees made up three out of five voters in 2020.

The Democratic presidential candidate said on Friday the U.S. should recognize the value of paths to success beyond a college degree, like apprenticeships and technical programs.

A degree does not necessarily indicate a person's skills, Harris said. She added: "And I will challenge the private sector to do the same."

A survey, opens new tab by Gallup and Lumina Foundation released earlier this year found that many Americans are skeptical about the value and cost of college. Over half of U.S. adults who have never been enrolled or once were enrolled said the cost of education was a "very important" reason for them to not sign up or return to college.

INTERRUPTION FROM PROTESTERS

Harris' speech faced some interruption from protesters opposing U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.

Demonstrators in the U.S. have for months demanded an end to the war and restrictions on shipments of weapons to Israel.

Harris reiterated her support for a ceasefire and hostage rescue deal. "Now is the time to get a hostage deal and ceasefire," Harris said when interrupted. "I respect your voice, but right now, I am speaking," she added.

Harris has pledged support for Israel. Observers have said that if pro-Palestinian Americans including activists as well as Muslims and Arabs, who overwhelmingly voted for the Democrats in the last presidential election, withhold their vote, it may hurt Harris' chances. While those groups are unlikely to tilt toward Trump, some activists have pledged support to third party candidates.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered last Oct. 7 when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

SOURCE: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ka...requirements-certain-federal-jobs-2024-09-14/

 

[BouncerGuy]

Harris says anyone breaking into her home is 'getting shot'

US Vice-President Kamala Harris has spoken of her willingness to use her gun if an intruder entered her home.

"If somebody breaks into my house, they're getting shot," she said in a jokey exchange during a livestreamed event in Michigan with host Oprah Winfrey on Thursday.

After a laugh, the Democratic presidential nominee continued: "I probably shouldn't have said that, but my staff will deal with that later."

Harris, who highlighted during the recent presidential debate that she was a gun-owner, went on to reiterate that she supported a ban on assault weapons.

A firearm of that type was "literally designed to be a tool of war", she told Winfrey. "It has no place on the streets of a civil society."

Asked by Winfrey to confirm if she had been a gun owner for "a while" herself, Harris replied that she had.

She stressed that she was was a supporter of the US Second Amendment, which protects the right to gun ownership.

But she went on to set out her case for a ban on assault weapons, citing America's problem with school shootings.

It was "bone-chilling" for a child to have to go through a drill for such an incident, Harris said. "It doesn't have to be this way," she added.

After one of the most recent US mass shootings, a 14-year-old boy has been charged with murdering four people at a high school in Georgia.

During Thursday's event with Winfrey - who also spoke at last month's Democratic National Convention - Harris was also questioned on topics including immigration and the economy.

Celebrities including Jennifer Lopez featured in the session, which was watched by about 300,000 people.

Harris's gun ownership has been a matter of public record since 2019, when she said: “I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do – for personal safety. I was a career prosecutor.”

But her ownership came to the attention of many in the US - including Winfrey, by her admission - during last week's presidential head-to-head with Republican rival Donald Trump. It marked the first time the issue had come up in a 2024 debate.

Harris denied a Trump claim that she would "confiscate everybody's gun" if elected to the White House, pointing out that both she and her running-mate Tim Walz, a hunting enthusiast, had firearms of their own.

Trump, too, has also owned three guns, though he had to surrender two of them and face restrictions on the third after facing criminal charges in New York.

Harris's opponents have increasingly seized on the gun issue as indicative of her shifting policy positions as her November showdown with Trump approaches.

Last week's ABC News debate moderator noted that Harris no longer supported a "buyback" programme that would force gun owners to hand over their AR-15s and other assault-style weapons to the government.

But Harris reiterated to Winfrey on Thursday that she wanted tighter laws.

The Democrat also outlined her stance at a recent rally in North Carolina, saying: "We who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence will finally pass an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and red-flag laws."

So-called red-flag laws allow people to apply to a judge to confiscate another person's gun if they are deemed to be a risk to themselves or others.

BBC

 

[BouncerGuy]

In Michigan, Harris meets Arab American leaders angry over Israel

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan, on Friday, as her presidential campaign seeks to win back voters angry at U.S. support for Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

The meeting is one of several attempts in recent days to mend fences with Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 but could withhold their votes from Harris in numbers that would cost her the key state of Michigan.

During the half-hour meeting, Harris expressed her concern on the scale of suffering in Gaza, civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon and discussed efforts to end the war, according to a campaign official. She also discussed efforts to prevent a regional war, the official added.

Wa'el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action which recently endorsed her, said participants shared their deep disappointment with the U.S. handling of the crisis and called on her to do everything in her power to end the war and reset U.S. policy in the region.

"Emgage Action asked Vice President Harris to impress upon President Biden the urgency of bringing an immediate end to the violence" in Gaza and Lebanon, Alzayat said. "She agrees that this war needs to end."

Ed Gabriel, president of the American Task Force on Lebanon, said the meeting included a good "give and take" on the issues, including "the need for a ceasefire, and the support needed from the United States and its allies to address the humanitarian crisis, the presidential leadership void in Lebanon, and the important role of the Lebanese Armed Forces."

"We heard a lot of compassion on her side. We'll see what happens," he said. "This was a valuable two-sided exchange, and we made important progress in our relationship. We're going to continue to meet."

Other participants included Assad Turfe, deputy county executive of Wayne County, Michigan's most populous county.

Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, said he declined the invitation. Leaders from the Uncommitted National Movement protest campaign said they were not invited to the meeting. Hala Hijazi, a longtime friend of Harris who has lost dozens of members of her family in Gaza, was unable to attend.

Harris, a Democrat, faces Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5 in what opinion polls show to be a tight presidential race. Both candidates have roughly even levels of support among Arab Americans, according to a poll published this week by the Arab American Institute.

Harris' meeting on Friday comes on the heels of other efforts by her team this week. On Thursday, her vice presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, promised on a Zoom call with Muslim voters that Muslims would have an equal role in a Harris administration.

Harris' national security adviser, Phil Gordon, virtually met with leaders from the Arab and Muslim community on Wednesday and said the administration supports a ceasefire in Gaza, diplomacy in Lebanon and stability in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Critics say Biden and Harris have done too little to stop Israel's military campaign in Gaza, while continuing to supply Israel with weapons to carry it out.

Some Arab Americans believe Harris' refusal to distance herself from President Biden's policies in the Middle East, as Israel escalates its attacks, will cost her in November.

"Harris is going to lose Michigan," said Ali Dagher, a Lebanese American attorney and community leader. "I will not be voting for Kamala Harris. No one I know will vote for her. I cannot find a single person in the community who supports her."

Earlier in the day, in Redford Township, Michigan, outside of Detroit, Harris celebrated the union deal that ended a major port strike.

She spoke at a fire station whose workers are represented by the International Association of Fire Fighters, which on Thursday declined to make a presidential endorsement. The event was designed to show Harris has support among the union's rank-and-file members, an aide said.

After the meeting with Arab American leaders, Harris appeared with United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain in Flint and vowed support for Michigan's auto industry.

A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign said Harris is "putting a minimum of 37,000 auto jobs at risk by refusing to tell Michiganders if she still supports her proposed plan to ban all internal combustion engine cars by 2035."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-meet-arab-american-leaders-flint-michigan-friday-sources-say-2024-10-04/

 

[Farhan The Man]

Cackling hyena this Carmala.

American muslims caught between rock and easy place.

Either support transgenderism, liberalism, wars, brutality; or not vote for Trump.

Trump wins this BIGLY agnostic of muslim support for either.

 

[BouncerGuy]

Harris pushed on Ukraine, debt and if 'mistakes' were made at border

US Vice-President Kamala Harris was pressed on issues including the Middle East, Ukraine, gun ownership and immigration during a one-on-one interview with CBS News' 60 Minutes.

The recorded interview comes as Harris ramps up media appearances on a series of podcasts and TV networks amid criticism that she has made very few.

Donald Trump also was invited to 60 Minutes, but declined.

There is less than a month to go before Election Day in the race for the White House between the Democrat and her Republican opponent.

The interview on CBS News, the BBC's US partner, aired Monday night after both Harris and Trump appeared at events to commemorate one year since the 7 October attack on Israel.

Harris declined to agree when asked by reporter Bill Whitaker whether Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is a "strong ally" of the United States, after recent public disagreements between the White House and Jerusalem.

"The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles," Harris said.

"I think, with all due respect, the better question is, do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people," she continued. "And the answer to that question is yes."

In a more tense moment, Harris also was pressed to defend her immigration record, which has been heavily attacked by Trump and Republicans.

Mr Whitaker asked her whether it was a “mistake” to loosen border restrictions put in place during Trump's presidency, given that the Biden-Harris administration re-enacted restrictions three years after taking control of the White House.

“It's a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand. And from day one, literally, we have been offering solutions,” she said, blaming Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress to torpedo a border deal that would have increased immigration enforcement.

The reporter responded: “What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?”

Harris replied that “the policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem”. She said that she and Biden have “cut the flow of illegal immigration by half”.

On Ukraine, Harris said she would not sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin unless Ukraine was also at the table.

She slammed Trump's position, saying: "He talks about, oh, he can end it on day one. You know what that is? It's about surrender," she said.

If Trump was still president, she said, "Putin would be in Kyiv right now".

She also was asked about her economic plan and how her administration would fund its plans, which could add $3tr (£2.3tr) to the US national deficit over the next decade.

"My economic plan would strengthen America’s economy. His would weaken it," she said, adding that her plan relied on "strengthening small businesses".

Asked again how she would pay for it, Harris responded that she would raise taxes on "the richest among us who can afford it".

On Monday, a new analysis by the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found Trump's proposals would increase the US national debt by double the amount of Harris'.

Trump would add $7.5tn and Harris would add $3.5tn, the group said.

The think tank warned that neither was addressing the country's growing $35.6tn debt.

In her interview, Harris also discussed owning a firearm, revealing that her pistol is made by Austrian company Glock.

"I've had it for quite some time," she said, noting that her "background is in law enforcement".

Harris, a former district attorney in California, laughed when asked if she had ever fired it, saying, "of course I have, at a shooting range."

Also speaking on the same programme, Harris's running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, criticised Trump for his comments on his opponents and migrants.

"They're dehumanising, they go beyond weird because, I said this, it becomes almost dangerous. Let's try to debate policy in a real way and let's try to find objective truth again."

He also defended his record of making false statements about his military service and travels in Asia in the 1980s.

Walz described himself as a guy "telling a story, getting a date wrong", rather than a "pathological liar" like Trump.

"I will own up to being a knucklehead at times, but the folks closest to me know that I keep my word."

Trump also was invited to 60 Minutes. He accepted, but later changed his mind and declined, according to CBS.

Trump's campaign disputed that he ever agreed to be interviewed. His spokesman, Steven Cheung called it "fake news".

During his 2020 presidential campaign, Trump walked out of his interview with CBS presenter Leslie Stahl after growing frustrated with questions about Covid-19.

Earlier on Monday, Harris commemorated those killed or taken hostage on 7 October by planting a pomegranate tree at the vice-president’s residence in Washington.

“A symbol of hope and righteousness… to remind future vice-presidents of the United States not only of the horror of October 7th but the strength and endurance of the Jewish people,” Harris said.

Former President Donald Trump donned a black yarmulke as he visited Ohel Chabad Lubavitch, the final resting place of Rabbi Schneerson in Queens, New York on Monday.

The site is considered the holiest Jewish site in North America, according to some Orthodox Jews.

BBC

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Kamala Harris says Iran is ‘greatest adversary’ of US

US Vice President Kamala Harris says Iran is the most significant enemy of the United States, citing Tehran’s recent ballistic missile attack against Israel.

In an interview with the CBS television network aired on Monday night, the Democratic presidential candidate said Iran is the “obvious” answer when asked about the country she considers to be the US’s “greatest adversary”.

“Iran has American blood on their hands – this attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles,” she said. “What we need to do [is] to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power. That is one of my highest priorities.”

Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israeli bases last week in an attack that it said was in retaliation for the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran as well as the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah alongside an Iranian general in Beirut.

Harris’s comments underscore the re-emergence of the Middle East as a top US concern amid the expanding war in Gaza.

Kamala Harris says Iran is ‘greatest adversary’ of US

Democratic presidential candidate says preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is one of her top priorities.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Kamala Harris campaign hits $1bn in fundraising: Reports

US Vice President Kamala Harris has pulled in more than $1bn in fundraising since becoming her party’s presidential nominee in July, according to US media reports.

While the Harris campaign has yet to disclose the exact total, several sources familiar with the figures, cited by The New York Times and NBC News, confirmed she has surpassed the $1bn mark. It includes funds directed to her campaign as well as to related Democratic Party committees.

The dizzying fundraising surge gives Harris far more cash than her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, to spend in the final leg of a neck-and-neck race.

In August, Trump and the Republican Party brought in $130m, leaving them with $295m in cash available compared with Harris and the Democrats’ $404m.

Harris is also poised to greatly exceed Trump’s September fundraising total of $160m, having raised $72m from three end-of-month events, reports The New York Times.

Harris campaign hits $1bn in fundraising: Reports

The deep war chest could boost Harris’s advertising and operations in the last leg of the campaign.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[BouncerGuy]

Kamala Harris to release health report saying she is fit for presidency – aide

Kamala Harris on Saturday planned to release a report on her health and medical history which finds that “she possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency” if voters elect her in November, according to a senior aide on her campaign.

The aide said the vice-president’s advisers viewed the release of the health report and medical history as an opportunity to call attention to questions about the Republican White House nominee Donald Trump’s physical fitness as well as mental acuity. The 78-year-old Trump has also not released any information about his health, though he would be the oldest president elected if Americans give him a second term in the Oval Office.

As Guardian US reported earlier in October, Trump has been becoming increasingly incoherent at campaign rallies. He has been slurring, stumbling over his words, hurling expletives – and showing signs of cognitive decline consistent with someone approaching his 80s, according to medical experts.

Recent speeches have seen him rant about topics ranging from his purportedly “beautiful” body to “a million Rambos” in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Harris campaign aides pointed to Trump’s backing out of an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that the vice-president granted and his refusal to debate her again after their 10 September faceoff. They argue that the former president is “avoiding public scrutiny” and giving voters “the impression … that he has something to hide and may not be up for the job”.

“Contrast her age and vitality with his,” the senior aide to Harris, 59, said early on Saturday.

Questions over whether he was too enfeebled forced Joe Biden to halt his bid for re-election to the presidency during the summer. The 81-year-old Democrat dropped out of a rematch with Trump on 21 July and endorsed Harris to succeed him.

Recent national polling averages show Harris with a nearly four-point edge over Trump in the 5 November race for the presidency. But key swing states remain too close to call, and most experts expect a competitive election.

The Republican party chose Trump as their nominee despite his being convicted in May of criminally falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to an adult film actor who claimed an extramarital sexual encounter with him about a decade before his successful run for the presidency in 2016. Among other legal problems, he is grappling with criminal charges that he tried to illicitly overturn his defeat to Biden in the 2020 election.

Trump, for his part, has maintained that Biden “became mentally impaired”. He also said that Harris “was born that way” while struggling to pronounce the vice-president’s name.

At a town hall in Las Vegas for a group of undecided voters on Thursday, Harris said “using language that’s belittling … [is not] healthy for our nation”.

“I don’t admire that,” Harris said. “And in fact, I’m quite critical of it coming from someone who wants to be president of the United States.”

THE GUARDIAN

 

[BouncerGuy]

Harris puts pressure on Trump over medical records

Kamala Harris has released her medical records, which concluded she is in "excellent health" and fit for the presidency.

Following the disclosure, the Democratic Party's nominee to be the next US president accused Donald Trump of a lack of transparency over not releasing his own health records.

The vice-president also claimed her Republican rival "doesn't want the American people to see whether or not he's fit to become president".

Without revealing Trump's medical records, the former president's team responded by quoting his doctor as saying that he was in "perfect and excellent health".

The Trump campaign said the Republican nominee had a "extremely busy and active campaign schedule" and claimed Harris "does not have the stamina of President Trump".

The trading of barbs came after the White House published a medical report that said Vice-President Harris “possesses the physical and mental resiliency” necessary to serve as president.

Dr Joshua Simmons, a US Army colonel who has been Harris' physician for over three years, wrote that her most recent physical in April was "unremarkable" - adding that she maintains a healthy and active lifestyle.

He also noted she has a family history of colon cancer and suffers from allergies - going on to say she keeps up recommended preventative care, including having colonoscopy and annual mammograms.

Following the release of the medical records, a Harris campaign spokesman said in a post on social media: "your turn, Donald Trump".

Ahead of a campaign event in North Carolina, Harris also sought to cast doubt on her rival's mental acuity and how he "goes off on tangents".

Democrats have been on the attack about the 78-year-old Trump's age and mental fitness, after months of Republicans directing similar criticisms at President Joe Biden before he exited the race.

If elected president again in November, Trump would end his second term as the oldest serving president in US history at 82 - albeit a record that would be shared with Biden, who will be the same age when he leaves office in January.

In response to the pressure from the Harris camp, the Trump's campaign's communications director Steven Cheung said he had "voluntarily released" updates from his personal physician and the doctor who treated him after the assassination attempt against him this summer in Butler, Pennsylvania.

"All have concluded he is in perfect and excellent health to be Commander in Chief," Cheung added.

He also cited a November 2023 medical letter that said Trump's "physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional".

National polls suggest Harris remains slightly ahead of Trump but the numbers in battleground states are extremely close.

BBC

 

[BouncerGuy]

Harris courts black and Latino votes as polls suggest Trump gains

With just weeks to go until the US presidential election, Kamala Harris is ramping up efforts to court black and Latino voters. Despite holding a clear lead among both groups, some Democrats have warned she needs to do more to energise these voters to turn out for her in November.

That's in part due to recent polling which suggests Harris’s Republican rival Donald Trump is having success in winning over black and Latino voters, a continuation of gains he made in 2016 and 2020.

One New York Times and Siena poll indicated Harris had 78% support among black voters, compared to around 90% support for Democrats in recent elections, with men accounting for most of this drop-off.

This could prove crucial in a race that looks set to be decided by razor-thin margins. And even if this polling is off, in key battleground states modest gains among black or Latino voters could ultimately sway result.

In Arizona, for example, nearly one in four voters on 5 November is expected to be Latino, along with almost 20% in nearby Nevada. In another key state, Georgia, black voters constitute about 30% of the total. These are a significant amount of votes in seriously important states.

So what could be driving Trump’s apparent gains with these voters?

Economics take centre stage

The economy, particularly inflation and the cost of living, is the primary issue for a majority of voters.

This is the case for many black and Latino voters, with the New York Times suggesting a sizable majority of both groups are dissatisfied with the current state of the American economy.

Among them is Quenton Jordan, a 30-year-old Virginia resident who once voted for Barack Obama, but has voted for Trump since he first entered the national political stage in 2016.

"Inflation has pretty much made it impossible, or extremely challenging, for people to provide basic necessities for their families," Mr Jordan said.

"It's tangible things like that, that make people say [they] don't like the pressure I'm getting from the cost of goods. It's making it harder for me," he added.

Across the country in notoriously "purple" Nevada, which has a large Latino population, Las Vegas resident Lydia Dominguez said that many Latinos "remember the economy under Trump", adding that economic concerns means there's "no longer a stigmatism" about supporting the former president.

"They can't afford to live. That's a really big part of it," she told the BBC. "It's no longer taboo to support him."

Even some voters who are leaning towards Harris acknowledge that "pocketbook" issues have helped swing voters towards the right in their communities.

"There's many people in my community who are switching. Lots of people will vote for Trump, on economics alone," said Diego Arancivia, a former Republican voter in Nevada who is now voting for Harris.

"They'd never want to get a beer with him, but they think he has the tools to lift them up economically.”

Immigration and border issues

Echoing the broader US electorate, both black and Latino voters have expressed concern about immigration and the handling of the US-Mexico border by the Biden administration.

Strong border controls and a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants form a central part of the Trump campaign's platform.

The campaign has also found a receptive audience among some black and Latino voters who say they perceive the border as having been chaotic and dangerous under the Biden administration and, by extension, under Harris.

Rolando Rodriguez, a Trump supporter and one-time Democrat from Texas, said the everyday realities of the record migrant crossings during recent years are weighing heavily on the minds of some voters, even if those numbers have fallen this year.

"I live so close to the border, and I have never before witnessed a disaster like the one we've seen under Kamala and Biden," he said.

Similarly, Mr Jordan - the black voter in Virginia - said that he believes asylum seekers and other foreign nationals are "taking resources that the black community has been asking for for decades".

This was something Trump addressed directly on Monday, referring to an “invasion” of undocumented migrants having a “huge negative impact” on black and Latino communities.

Political science Professor Quadricos Driskel said black male voters in particular have turned away from what some see as a Democratic "embrace" of social agendas contrary to their own views.

"There's this perception that there has been this assault on masculinity and what that means," he said. "I think that's what some black male voters are railing against."

"It's not necessarily the party itself," he added. "It's more the voters within the party and the verbiage around human sexuality and gender."

Mr Driskell's assessment was echoed by 49-year-old black South Carolina voter Clarence Pauling.

A barbershop owner and former police officer, Mr Pauling said the Republican Party's views align more with his own religious values on gender and sexuality.

"You can’t go create your own agenda," he said of the Democrats. "[If] you're going to lead a whole country, you're supposed to lead them the right way."

On Monday, as Trump courted black and Latino voters at a town hall event in Pennsylvania, Harris ramped up her own efforts by releasing a list of policy proposals her campaign dubbed an “opportunity agenda for black men”.

She will also meet with black entrepreneurs this week in cities in key swing states, and speak with popular black media figures including radio host Charlamagne Tha God at an event in Detroit.

Trump, meanwhile, referenced the recent polling directly. "Our poll numbers have gone through the roof with black and Hispanic [voters], have gone through the roof,” he said. “And I like that.”

BBC