Tag: Kamala Harris

DFL Party Statement on Joe Biden’s Selection of Kamala Harris as Running Mate

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today, DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement on Joe Biden’s selection of Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate:

“I could not be more excited to join DFLers across Minnesota in voting for Joe Biden for President and Kamala Harris for Vice President of the United States of America. Senator Harris has dedicated her life to serving the American people, fighting for working families, and building a more just and equitable country. As the daughter of immigrants and the first Black woman to serve California as Attorney General and in the United States Senate, I know that Kamala Harris can help heal the divisions across our nation that Donald Trump has spent his life exacerbating.

“The truth is, Donald Trump has failed the American people. One in ten American workers are out of a job, over 5.1 million Americans have been infected by COVID-19, and over 160,000 are dead. Senator Harris is a fighter with a record of taking on powerful people and special interests and winning, from big banks to big oil companies to predatory for-profit colleges. I have no doubt that Harris will be a tremendous leader in the fight against the historic corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence of the Trump administration.”

Paul clashes with Booker, Harris over anti-lynching bill

The Hill logoSen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) clashed with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calf.) on Thursday, deepening the stalemate on anti-lynching legislation. 

Paul tried twice to amend House-passed legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime, saying that as currently written it would designate “any bodily injury including a cut, an abrasion, or a bruise, physical pain, illness or any other injury to the body” as lynching.

“I take it seriously and this legislation does not. … The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act should be adopted with my amendment which would apply the criminal penalties for lynching only and not other crimes,” Paul said. Continue reading.

Kamala Harris burns down Trump intelligence nominee over the president’s well-documented effort to minimize COVID-19 risk

AlterNet logoRep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) was peppered with questions about how President Donald Trump has handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

At his Senate confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence, Ratcliffe was asked what he would do if Trump downplayed future threats as he had done with the coronavirus pandemic.

“Do you think President Trump has accurately portrayed the threat of COVID-19 to the American people?” Harris wondered. Continue reading.

Why Bill Barr couldn’t answer a simple question from Kamala Harris

AlterNet logoBy Tuesday night, after the four prosecutors who were involved with the Roger Stone case resigned, NBC News reported that William Barr had basically taken control of Justice Department matters that are of personal interest to Trump. As I suggested previously, that flushes the standard of an independent attorney general down the drain.

While Trump celebrated that fact on Twitter, Barr knows that when the president does things like that, it undermines his ability to carry out what Trump wants him to do—which is basically to protect the chief executive and punish his enemies. That is why Barr agreed to an interview with ABC News, where he criticized the president for those tweets and suggested that he won’t be bullied.

But this whole question of Barr’s independence as attorney general has been an issue since before he was even nominated for the job. As a reminder, back in 2017, Peter Baker contacted 10 former attorneys general to ask them how they would respond to pressure from a president to open an investigation on a political rival. The only one who responded was William Barr. Continue reading.

Harris asks Graham to bring in Barr over Stone sentencing

She wants an explanation of the handling of the Roger Stone case.

Sen. Kamala Harris demanded Tuesday that Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) bring in Attorney General William Barr to testify about the Justice Department’s handling of the sentencing of former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone.

The California Democrat’s request comes after the Justice Department backed off a previous recommendation for a seven-to-nine-year sentence for Stone for impeding federal investigations into connections between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. The DOJ’s revised sentencing recommendation occurred after President Donald Trump tweeted that the initial recommendation was “horrible and very unfair,” though a Justice Department official speaking on condition of anonymity insisted the decision to retreat was made before Trump took aim at the initial proposal.

The revised recommendation appears to have prompted the withdrawal of the four prosecutors handling Stone’s case. Continue reading.

Kamala Harris: Will McConnell Let the Senate Hold a Fair Impeachment Trial?

New York Times logoEvery one of my colleagues has an obligation to pursue the truth, regardless of the politics.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump. That means that sometime early in the new year, I will take an oath on the Senate floor to uphold the Constitution, review evidence and follow the facts wherever they lead, regardless of party or ideology. Every one of my colleagues will be required to do the same.

As a former prosecutor, I understand the importance of holding powerful people accountable. I know that every trial requires fairness and truth. Having worked my whole life serving the people, I know that any trial that abandons the pursuit of truth cannot be considered fair or just.

But the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, appears more interested in covering up the president’s misconduct than in pursuing truth and fairness. He is already trying to limit the impeachment trial by preventing witnesses from testifying, and he has all but announced a verdict. In doing so, he showed the American people that he has no intention of honoring his oath. Continue reading

Donald Trump Jr. Shares, Then Deletes, a Tweet Questioning Kamala Harris’s Race

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, shared another person’s tweet with his millions of followers during the Democratic debate on Thursday that falsely claimed Senator Kamala Harris was not black enough to be discussing the plight of black Americans.

“Kamala Harris is implying she is descended from American Black Slaves,” Ali Alexander, a member of a right-wing constellation of media personalities, wrote on Twitter. “She’s not. She comes from Jamaican Slave Owners. That’s fine. She’s not an American Black. Period.”

Mr. Trump, a valuable Republican surrogate as his father faces a bruising 2020 race, posted the tweet of unverified information, then asked his more than three million followers: “Is this true? Wow.” By the end of the night, Mr. Trump had deleted his message, and by Friday, a spokesman said it had all been a misunderstanding.

View the complete June 28 article by Katie Rogers and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.

Someone is taking Trump’s angry rhetoric very literally

Words matter.

Donald Trump Credit: Win McNamee, Getty Images

In the midst of the 2016 campaign, a bit of punditry was born: Take Trump seriously, not literally. Two years later, Trump has done — or tried to do — everything he literally promised on the campaign trail, and on Wednesday morning, there was more chilling evidence that words matter, and that people listening to the president may be taking him very literally.

On Wednesday morning, the Secret Service announced it had intercepted packages containing “potential explosive devices” addressed to former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in New York and President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. Not long after, the CNN New York offices were evacuated after a suspected explosive device, addressed to former CIA director and MSNBC contributor John Brennan, was found in the mailroom.

Suspicious packages were also being investigated Wednesday afternoon at the Sunrise, Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — the former chair of the Democratic National Committee — and an office building shared by the San Diego Union-Tribune, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and several other businesses, in San Diego, California.

View the complete October 24 article by Addy Baird on the ThinkProgress website here.

Booker, Harris Add Historic Diversity to Senate Judiciary

The following article by Todd Ruger was posted on the Roll Call website January 10, 2018:

2020 hopefuls are second and third black senators to serve on panel

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is the first black man to sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)

The addition of Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday gave the two potential 2020 presidential hopefuls a big platform, but also a spot in the panel’s history.

Booker becomes the first black man to sit on the committee, which oversees civil rights, voting rights, housing discrimination and other Justice Department enforcement efforts that are seen as crucial to African-Americans. Harris, who is biracial, becomes the second black woman to serve on the panel, after Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, who left the Senate in 1999.

In one move by Democrats, Booker and Harris become the second and third black senators to serve on the committee and its first black members in nearly two decades. It will be the first time two black senators have been on the panel at the same time, and it comes as minority communities express concern at moves by President Donald Trump and his administration, specifically those by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Continue reading “Booker, Harris Add Historic Diversity to Senate Judiciary”