Funding
The U.S. system of private political campaign funding gives the wealthy corporate ruling class a key way to influence politicians in what is a carefully managed “democracy.” Publicly funded election systems that are much more democratic exist in many nations, but not in the U.S.
Running a successful presidential campaign requires a serious amount of money, especially for staff and political ads. Where a given candidate gets this money is one key to whom this candidate ultimately owes allegiance. In this realm, as in her political history and staff, Kamala Harris clearly represents the corporate class. So far in the 2020 campaign, Harris is the queen of large donations, just as Bernie Sanders is the king of small donations. Open Secrets, which tracks campaign funding, found that Harris received the largest amount from large donors among the 16 candidates then in the 2020 race when it did the study (Joe Biden had not yet reported).
Data from the Center for Responsive Politics offers more specifics. CRP found that as of mid-April 2019, over 85% of Harris’s donations came in the form of checks for $1000 or more. Lawyers for the giant Paul Weiss multinational law firm are Harris’s biggest single donor. Among their key clients are GE, Exxon-Mobil, IBM and Avon. Members of other top law firms also give heavily to Harris, including DLA Piper and Venable LLP. DLA Piper is another global law firm with offices in 40 different nations. Piper’s clients include over one-half of all top Fortune 250 corporations, and is often number 1 ranked annually in mergers and acquisitions deal volume. Piper also has a strategic alliance with the Cohen business consulting group. William Cohen, a Republican and a former director of the CFR, is chair and CEO of this group, which includes several other Council members among their vice chairs and senior counselors. Venable LLP is Kamala Harris’s husband Douglas Emhoff’s law firm. It is paid well to lobby government for leading corporations like GE, Time-Warner, Oracle, Met Life, Fiat Chrysler, American Express, American Airlines, Allianz, and Hilton. These corporations would obviously have an inside advantage in a Harris Administration. Other prominent corporations which have given thousands to Kamala Harris include Time-Warner; Alphabet/Google; Wells Fargo Bank; Apple. Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, whose grossly biased coverage helped Trump get elected in 2016. All of these giant corporations have good reasons to try to influence a potential Democratic administration. Just to cite one example, Alphabet/Google has been fined over $8 billion by the European Union for anti-trust violations, something that could be repeated in the U.S. (Financial Times June 6, 2019:14).
Additionally, in late May, 2019, Harris was the star at a San Francisco fundraiser hosted by oil billionaires Gordon and Ann Getty and attended by California Governor Gavin Newsome, who is also part of the Bay Area Democratic political machine (San Francisco Chronicle May 26, 2019:A15). Newsome has also endorsed Harris for president. The list of other, likely very wealthy ruling class attendees has not yet been reported.
Harris still owed at least $1.1 million to vendors from her failed bid for the White House at the time she was chosen as Biden’s running mate, show Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.
Policy Proposals, The Context
To fully comprehend Harris’s (or any presidential candidate’s) policy proposals, one has to first understand some key facts about the complexity of American society and its power dynamics. The U.S. is a racialized, multicultural class society, which, according to the 2010 census, is made up of about 56% people from European (“white”) background; 16% Latino background; 13% African (“black”) background; 5% Asian and only a few percent from Native American, Native Hawaiian, mixed race and “other” background. These facts need to be kept in mind, plus the historical reality of eons of patriarchy, victimizing females; hundreds of years of slavery, victimizing Africans; as well as genocide against Native Americans. This class society has at the top of the economic and political power hierarchy a relatively small group of very wealthy capitalist families (the capitalist ruling class), about 5% of the total population. They own enough capital to live well without entering the nation’s labor market. This 5% owns fully 63% of the wealth of the United States. The next most powerful group is a professional class of experts, (often inaccurately called the “middle class”) amounting to about 30% of the population and mostly serving this ruling capitalist class. This top 35% is well-educated and predominantly European-America The remaining approximately 65% of the population is properly called the working class, people who have few assets and have to enter the labor market to survive. This working class is racially, ethnically and economically diverse, including both the relatively well-paid and those receiving minimum wages and below. There are many other cleavages: cultural, political, and language among this working class, making it difficult to unite the class to fight for its own interests. This difficulty is made more acute by the fact that the main means of education and communication (especially universities and mass media outlets) are fully controlled by the capitalist class and their professional class allies.
The messages that the powerful want to send to the majority are that identity, individual characteristics constructed and stressed by society such as one’s racial/ethnic background, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, and culture are what is central, not one’s material/class position in economy and society. Differences, not commonalities are affirmed. Except among the capitalist ruling class, where class consciousness is very high, class is mainly left out of the discussion and is mainly missing from people’s consciousness. This is in line with the long used divide-and-conquer strategy and tactics on the part of the nation’s and world’s rulers dating centuries. Thus identity politics is an easy way to unite a sector of society, those who feel powerless, aggrieved or fearful such as white workers exploited by corporations or African-Americans who are racialized and oppressed by the dominant society. This focus on the individual creates a divided society, without strong community bonds, with the majority working class fighting among themselves, right in line with what those at the top and in control want. Political alliances are then forged based on divided identities, not the potential unity and power of the majority working class. This approach allows the right wing white nationalist form of identity politics to advance and become powerful, since white people are a majority, and are often a large majority in rural areas and in places like the Midwestern section of the U.S. This is why Steve Bannon, a key theorist of the right wing in the U.S. and worldwide, stated that he could not “get enough” of the left’s “race-identity politics…the longer they talk about identity politics, I got them…I want them to talk about racism every day.”
To counteract the right, diversity must be thought of in a holistic way, since our personal (identity) and our economic (class based) lives are completely intertwined in a cultural and economic totality. Therefore, class, usually left out, must be brought into the conversation in a decisive way. The capitalist social relations that give rise to identity politics can best be overturned and people’s real problems solved by confronting capitalism and the corporate and other powers that be. Identity politics is actually harmful to the real interests of oppressed groups because it diverts attention from the real problems, creating division and confusion. Maximum unity of the working class through a class based politics “for all and the good of all” must be the true goal of progressive and left people.
The Harris Policy Proposals—Specifics
Kamala Harris is strongly wedded to identity politics as a way of gaining support in her quest for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. This obscures the fact that she herself is part of the corporate capitalist ruling class. With her policy proposals she focuses on specifics like woman’s issues (abortion and equal pay); advocacy for immigrant dreamers; “moderate” health care reform, background checks on guns; advances in marriage equality; higher minimum wage; prison reform (Harris was a zealous prosecutor, she even stated that she was “as close to vigilante as you can get,” but then, once a victim was locked up, “reforms” in terms of training for the life outside became appropriate for Harris). Indicative of the Harris identity politics approach was the first debate confrontation she had with fellow candidate Joe Biden over busing, when she pointed out that as an African-American child she was bused and so knew first-hand what it was like. But the central, and broader, class-based issues behind busing like enforced residential segregation, poverty and poor schools for working class people were not mentioned.
Tellingly, Harris’s approach to the environment and clean energy is to use “market forces” to speed up implementation of programs like the limited Democratic Party’s version of the Green Party’s Green New Deal. All this reinforces the fact that Harris represents the liberal wing of the neoliberal program, where identity politics and capitalist market forces are dominant and class issues are downplayed or left out entirely. Harris, who unveiled her own $10 trillion climate change proposal which aimed for total carbon-neutral electricity in 10 years, has also expressed support for banning plastic straws and reshaping the food pyramid to reduce red meat consumption.
In 2018, Harris was ranked the fourth-most left-wing. But by 2019 — a year she spent running for president — Harris had moved to the furthest extreme. She was an early co-sponsor of the Senate version of the “Green New Deal” of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), as well as the “Medicare for All” bill introduced by Sanders, which would have eliminated all private health insurance. Harris also supported granting free health care to illegal aliens, slashing military budgets, and other radical proposals.
GovTrack explained its ratings: “Our unique ideology analysis assigns a score to Members of Congress according to their legislative behavior by how similar the pattern of bills and resolutions they cosponsor are to other Members of Congress. The score can be interpreted as a conservative—liberal scale, although of course it only takes into account a small aspect of reality.” The most conservative score is 1.00; the most liberal score possible is 0.00.
Harris ranked #100 — the “least conservative,” or most liberal, Senator on the list, and the only one to score a “0.00”:
#90 0.16 Sen. Chris Van Hollen [D-MD] #91 0.15 Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL] #92 0.14 Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D-MN] #93 0.12 Sen. Richard Blumenthal [D-CT] #94 0.10 Sen. Edward “Ed” Markey [D-MA] #95 0.09 Sen. Mazie Hirono [D-HI] #96 0.07 Sen. Cory Booker [D-NJ] #97 0.07 Sen. Jeff Merkley [D-OR] #98 0.03 Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY] #99 0.02 Sen. Bernard “Bernie” Sanders [I-VT] #100 0.00 Sen. Kamala Harris [D-CA]
During a 2018 hearing featuring former ICE chief Ronald Vitiello, Harris attempted to liken the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Ku Klux Klanliken the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Ku Klux Klan, proclaiming that she was talking about “a perception.”
Pro-life leaders say that the addition of Harris to Biden’s ticket has created the “most pro-abortion presidential ticket in history.” In May 2020, Harris bragged about raising over $161,000 for pro-abortion organizations, and during last year’s October debate, Harris falsely stated that “women will die, poor women, women of color will die” due to abortion restrictions in red states. In October 2019, Harris stumped for Virginia state lawmaker Kathy Tran, who previously proposed a bill to allow abortion up to the time a woman is dilating — to the very moment of birth.
In 2019, Harris vowed to take action on guns via executive orders:
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for young Black men in America. We must stop this. When president, I will take executive action to ensure guns do not fall into the wrong hands.
It’s not enough to just talk — Americans deserve action.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 13, 2019
As Breitbart News reported:
On September 7, 2019, Breitbart News reported Harris’s support for government-mandated buybacks of AR-15 rifles. Bloomberg reported that Harris had not worked out all the details on how the buyback would work, but she said, “I think it’s a good idea.”
…
Harris is on record voicing support for universal background checks and prohibiting rifle purchases for 18-20-year-olds. And as California Attorney General she fought to preserve the “good cause” requirement, which means law-abiding citizens without a criminal record were still barred from getting a California concealed carry permit unless they could prove why they needed to carry a gun.
As Breitbart News reported:
It was Harris who, as California attorney general, directed her office to lead the raid on Center for Medical Progress (CMP) project lead David Daleiden after CMP released undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue sales practices.
It was Harris’s office that collaborated with Planned Parenthood to produce legislation that would criminalize the CMP undercover journalists for publishing and distributing recordings of private communications with abortion providers in California.
Fascist
Although claims to be black (she’s half Indian, half Jamaican), Harris apparently has no problem with the fact that Planned Parenthood is practicing what Jesse Jackson called “genocide” against blacks. She is supportive of the fact that PP “clinics” are primarily in minority areas and that black women are five times as likely to kill their unborn daughters than white women. A non-racist who supports a woman’s right to kill her unborn child would say that abortion should stay legal but that society should address the root causes of the much higher black and Hispanic abortion rates. Yet Harris has said nothing.
In true NAZI form, Harris actually wrote a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey demanding that he ban President Donald Trump from the social media giants’ platform.
Another example of Harris’s enthusiasm for persecuting free speech she doesn’t like is her legal attack on anyone who disagrees with the left’s bizarre belief in the thoroughly discredited concept of man-caused climate change. Even though all of the computer models on which the left’s fixation relies have been shown to be wrong, Harris wants to prosecute companies that have financed research that shows the contrary. In doing so Harris achieves a fascist two for one; she manages to distort science to support her personal prejudices — just like Stalin did — and use the full power of government to silence voices she doesn’t like.
Kamala Harris has been a staunch supporter of civil asset forfeiture, the barbaric practice where cops are permitted to steal cash and other possessions from American citizens without them even being charged with a crime
As a report from DrugPolicy.org outlined:
Subsequently there have been efforts to limit the use of equitable sharing to circumvent California’s forfeiture law.
In 2000, the California Assembly and Senate approved such a bill (SB 1866). But in the face of widespread opposition from law enforcement organizations, Governor Gray Davis vetoed it. Eleven years later, Orange County Republican State Representative Chris Norby introduced a similar bill (AB 639). It overwhelmingly passed the Assembly, before running into the opposition of every statewide law enforcement organization as well as California Attorney General Kamala Harris. Law enforcement argued that it would discourage cooperation on drug enforcement between federal and state and local police. The bill failed to make it out of the Senate.
But there’s more. She sponsored an asset forfeiture bill as recently as 2015. The Monterey County Herald covered this fact in the article, Luis Alejo, Kamala Harris Back Asset Seizure Before Criminal Charges:
In an effort to fight criminal organizations, a newly proposed bill could give prosecutors the power to freeze illicit profits before filing criminal charges.
From drug-selling rings in Salinas’ Chinatown to corruption scandals with more than $10,000 at stake, the Assembly bill introduced Monday would allow prosecutors to seize assets before initiating criminal proceedings — a power only available at the federal-level — if there is a “substantial probability” they will file a criminal complaint.
The bill comes a month after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sharply limited a civil asset forfeiture program that had come under bipartisan scrutiny. A number of ideologically opposed groups, including American Civil Liberties Union, The Institute for Justice and Americans for Tax Reform, have all criticized forfeiture programs, particularly when no criminal charges are filed.
The bill is being sponsored by Attorney General Kamala Harris, who has focused on battling transnational criminal organizations. Harris said those groups have made California the biggest point of entry for methamphetamine trafficking into the United States, adding that this bill could equip local and state law enforcement with tools to “dismantle these dangerous organizations.”
“Transnational criminal organizations rely on a steady flow of billions of dollars in laundered money to support their operations,” Harris said in a statement. “The legislation I am sponsoring will equip local and state law enforcement with more tools to target their illicit profits and dismantle these dangerous organizations.”
In 2011, the US Supreme Court in Brown v. Plata declared California’s prisons so overcrowded they inflicted cruel and unusual punishment. After California failed to fully implement the court’s order to reduce crowding, and was ordered to implement new parole programs, the State of California appealed the decision, and in court filings the AG’s office argued that if forced to release these inmates early, prisons would lose an important source of labor. As the LA Times reported:
Most of those prisoners now work as groundskeepers, janitors and in prison kitchens, with wages that range from 8 cents to 37 cents per hour. Lawyers for Attorney General Kamala Harris had argued in court that if forced to release these inmates early, prisons would lose an important labor pool.
More in this video:
This article has illustrated in some detail, through her political history, staffing, family connections, campaign funding and policy positions that Kamala Harris is an establishment candidate, a Clinton clone backed by the corporate ruling class and its close allies. She is only pretending to be “for the people” (her campaign slogan). Furthermore, Harris is playing into the hands of the right wing by focusing on divisive identity politics instead of unifying working class politics. A class based program for human rights for all is what is needed, for health care for everyone as a human right, full employment at living wages, free education, affordable housing ensured by the federal government, adequate retirement funding and a clean environment, saving our planet based on the strongest version of a Green New Deal. Confrontation with the corporate and wealthy powers that be is necessary to achieve this program, and is also the road to winning the unity of the vast majority, defeating Trump and moving rapidly toward a just society with ecological sanity.
Biden’s VP choice:
It was during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings that we first learned that Harris harbors serious presidential aspirations. Her cross-examination of the future justice went viral, prompting Politico to speculate: “Kamala Harris Rides Kavanaugh Rage in Likely 2020 Bid.” Her explicitly stated assumption behind her allegations against Kavanaugh, spurious, unproved and uncorroborated though they were, had to be believed — because women had made them. At a campaign event in Nevada in April 2019 while running for president, Harris discussed the allegations against Biden, declaring of the accusers: “I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.”
After Harris ended her own bid and Biden emerged as the presumptive nominee, she began subtly backtracking. Asked on a podcast this April about former Senate aide Tara Reade’s accusation against Biden, Harris stated that Reade “has a right to tell her story.” Even so, “the Joe Biden I know is somebody who really has fought for women and empowerment of women.” Harris added that she would be “honored to serve with Joe.” Note well the new standard: When the accusation is against a Republican foe, a woman is automatically to be believed, period, no questions asked. But when an accusation is less politically expedient, women are owed no more than the right to be “heard,” and the accused men deserve a fair hearing, as well.1
After Politico accidentally put out an article that she had been chosen as Biden’s running mate, the news ended up coming true several days later and a day after Kamala Harris ‘unfollowed’ Joe Biden on Twitter. She had called Biden a vile racist during the democratic debates, but in the crazy world of politics, it wasn’t truely his pick, but that of the globalist puppetmasters they each serve so well. Or, maybe she did with creepy Uncle Joe what she did to get her other positions of power, and all was forgiven? The writing was also on the wall when her Wikipedia page was sanitized by the leftist Wikipedia editors, including one of her former campaign organizers.
While in most election years the specific constitutional qualifications of the vice-presidential nominee may be of no more than academic interest, in light of Biden’s decreasing awareness and increasing age Harris’ constitutional eligibility for the presidency is of urgent import. Put simply, Kamala Harris is constitutionally ineligible to be president of the United States because she is not a natural born citizen, as required by Article II (and, by reference, the 12th Amendment) of the U.S. Constitution.
While born in the United States — Oakland, California — at the time of her birth, Kamala Harris’ father was a citizen of Jamaica and her mother was a citizen of India. This makes Kamala Harris a native-born American — thus eligible to serve as a U.S. senator — but she is not a natural born citizen, the higher standard set for those occupying the office of president. The Constitution was later amended to extend this requirement to the Vice President. See HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
President Trump’s campaign released a blistering statement on Kamala Harris earlier Tuesday.
“Not long ago, Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist and asked for an apology she never received. Clearly, Phony Kamala will abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat Party. In her failed attempt at running for president, Kamala Harris gleefully embraced the left’s radical manifesto, calling for trillions of dollars in new taxes and backing Bernie Sanders’ government takeover of healthcare. She is proof that Joe Biden is an empty shell being filled with the extreme agenda of the radicals on the left.
“Joe Biden is no moderate, and with Harris as his ‘political living will,’ he is surrendering control of our nation to the radical mob with promises to raise taxes, cut police funding, kill energy jobs, open our borders, and appease socialist dictators. At the ballot box, Americans will resoundingly reject the abysmal failures of Biden-Harris in favor of the America First strength of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.”
“Joe Biden failed his first major test as a presidential candidate by picking extreme leftist Kamala Harris, who embraces the radical defund police movement,and actually wants to slash funding for our men and women in uniform, as his running mate,” House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) said in a statement.
Fake VP
Harris’ staffers describe a dysfunctional environment where people are “thrown under the bus from the very top” – Tina Flournoy, Harris’ Chief of Staff (and long time Clinton fixture) was singled out as a main source of the abuse – but staffers also blamed Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris’ Director and Deputy Director of “Advance” resigned.
Politico reported:
In interviews, 22 current and former vice presidential aides, administration officials and associates of Harris and Biden described a tense and at times dour office atmosphere. Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue.
While much of the ire is aimed at Harris’ chief, two administration officials said the VP herself also bears responsibility for the way her office is run. “It all starts at the top,” said one of the administration officials, who like others requested anonymity to be able to speak candidly about a sensitive matter.
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said another person with direct knowledge of how Harris’ office is run. “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s—.”
The dysfunction in the VP’s ranks threatens to complicate the White House’s carefully crafted image as a place staffed by a close-knit group of professionals working in concert to advance the president’s agenda. It’s pronounced enough that members of the president’s own team have taken notice and are concerned about the way Harris’ staffers are treated.
Kamala Harris had the same problem with a leaky, backstabbing staff as her presidential campaign imploded. Read the full report by Politico here.
“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” one former staffer told the Washington Post. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.” At least 11 staffers have left due to her bullying and incompetence3 and, according to leaked excerpts of ‘This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future,” a book authored by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, Harris’s staffers feel repeatedly disrespected by Biden’s “all-white inner circle” – the globalist Biden handlers.
In a 2022 Labor Day interview, cackling Kamala Harris proudly claimed that she didn’t eat a grape until she was in her 20s due to union boycotts of grape producers, but a look at the timeline suggests otherwise.
In a interview with John Nichols of The Nation, Vice President Kamala Harris expressed her unwavering support for the labor movement and how she was inspired by Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta, and the United Farm Workers, whose grape boycotts compelled growers to negotiate.
“The farmworkers movement was very much a part of my childhood,” she recalled. During the course of the interview, she revealed that she never ate grapes until she was in her 20s. “This sounds quaint, and so I’m reluctant to say it, but, you know, I didn’t eat a grape until I was in my 20s,” Kamala claimed. “Like, literally, had never had a grape. I remember the first time I had a grape, I went, ‘Wow! This is quite tasty.’ It was absolutely ingrained so deeply in me: Never cross a picket line,” Kamala claimed.
However, an analysis from New York Post says otherwise. According to the outlet, Harris’s story doesn’t fit with how the three major grape boycotts led by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers happened. And Kamala moved to Montreal at age 12.
More from the Post:
The UFW launched its third and longest California grape boycott in June 1984, just over four months before Harris’ 20th birthday, and it lasted until 2000 when Harris was 36.
The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on the discrepancy.
It’s not the first story told by Harris to raise eyebrows and during the 2020 campaign then-President Donald Trump and his allies attacked Harris as an unprincipled “phony.”
Detractors say that Harris lied in a 2019 radio interview about smoking pot in college while listening to Tupac and Snoop Dogg.
Critics pointed out that Harris graduated from Howard University in 1986, long before Tupac released his first album in 1991 and about seven years before Snoop Dogg released his first album in 1993.
Harris defenders argued she did not lie, but instead was saying which musicians she listened to while getting high but not necessarily in college. But the episode became a campaign flashpoint, especially due to the fact that Harris went on to oversee 1,900 marijuana convictions as San Francisco district attorney.
She also took heat for allegedly plagiarizing Martin Luther King Jr. by claiming that as a child attending a protest she memorably demanded “Fweedom” — an account that mirrored a 1960s account by the civil rights hero.
Harris was born in 1964, just before the UFW’s first grape boycott fighting for higher wages and better work conditions. The first UFW grape boycott ended in 1970, when Harris was 5 years old. A second boycott began three years later in 1973 and ended in 1978.
Sources:
- http://www.intellectualconservative.com/kamala-harris-will-never-be-president/
- http://joeypiscitelli.com/
- https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Victims-Question-Kamala-Harris-Record-on-Clergy-Abuse-511954621.html
- https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/the_new_fascists_kamala_harris.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris#cite_note-Continue-46
- https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-01/kamala-harris-being-aggressively-manufactured-2020-wealthy-clinton-donors
- https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/08/28/david-daleiden-kamala-harris-is-the-greatest-threat-to-civil-rights-in-generations/
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/06/kamala-harris-another-establishment-candidate/