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‘I Pity The Fool’: Mr. Max Boot on Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy ‘A-Team’ – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2020

If you think Bolton was bad…

https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2020/08/27/i-pity-the-fool-mr-max-boot-on-joe-bidens-foreign-policy-a-team/

by

Dream with me.

Imagine an America where even marginal accountability reigned. A land of appropriate consequences for war-criminal cheerleaders. A country where going 0 for 4 on “freedom” wars – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria – got pundits and policymakers sent down to the minors. Heck, one might make some strategic moves in a town like that.

Alas, we live in the world as it is: whence one of the nation’s leading newspapers – the Bezos’-billionaire-owned Washington Post – would dare deign to hire such a fedora-topped neocon-retread-shell as Max Boot as columnist. Then, surely symptomatic of the upside-down society wrought by Trump-derangement syndrome, the Post recently had the gall to proudly publish that warmonger’s latest screed: “Trump relies on grifters and misfits. Biden is bringing the A Team.”

In his latest broadside, Boot offers his best Mr. T impression to celebrate Uncle Joe’s “A-Team” – and overall propensity to “surround himself with good people,” all of them supposedly “effective operatives.” He saves special praise for the “veterans of high-level government service” on Biden’s foreign policy team.

Here again, we should look to the language. I, for one, find the prospect of Washington “operatives” running war and peace less than reassuring. But before digging into the shortcomings inherent in each of the four figures he highlighted, here’s a brief reminder of why Max and his opinions should’ve “got the boot” long ago:

  • Let’s start with my own introduction to this king of the chickenhawks: his then celebrated 2002 book, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power – in which Max played unapologetic neo-imperial visionary and recruiting sergeant for an American reboot of a European colonial constabulary. He even, un-ironically I might add, lifted the title from the English chronicler of empire, Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “White Man’s Burden.”
  • He once worked with an infamous Bush-doctrine, Iraq War, architect-outfit: the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) think tank.
  • Ever the faux-historian, Max drew all the wrong conclusions and lessons from the Vietnam War, in his more recent 2018 book, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam. Old David Petraeus – surprise, surprise – found this work “wonderful,” although, according to a real subject scholar, its endnotes “contain few, if any, materials from Vietnamese sources.” The Road Not Taken belongs squarely in the – popular with mil-civ-counterinsurgents crowd – school of we could’ve, would’ve, should’ve “won” in Vietnam (and, by extension, Iraq, Afghanistan, et. al.) “if only” [insert implausible alternative tactic excuse here].
  • Oh, and he’s supported every war for the past half century – including some he thinks should’ve but weren’t fought – and has hardly met a regime he wouldn’t like to change.

Now, for the core members of Biden’s ostensible A-team of always-an-Obama-bridesmaid deputies, and just a few reasons to doubt each’s competence, character, and Trump-corrective capacities:

  • The presumed A-Team leader, Obama’s Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Adviser, Tony Blinken:
    • Though, admittedly – like Biden – more right than most in that administration on the Afghan surge folly, he played nice and helped craft a compromise policy, which, he later bragged “helped competing Afghan political blocs avoid civil war, and achieve the first ever peaceful democratic transition in that country’s history.” How’s that turned out?
    • Blinken was a key architect and muddled messenger for Obama’s ever-shifting, never-plausible, and utterly ill-advised Syria regime-change-lite policy.
    • After leaving office, he teamed up with Michèle Flournoy (another unnamed Biden-top-prospect) at the consulting-firm (and Obama-alumni agency) WestExec Advisors – which helped Silicon Valley pitch defense contracts to the Pentagon. Blinken was also a partner at the private equity firm Pine Island Capital Partners. Tony’s a human revolving-door of interest-conflicts!
    • A resident Russiagater, “arm-Ukraine” enthusiast, and Israeli hard-right apologist on Biden’s campaign advisory team, he categorically declared that his boss “would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree.” Good to know that international legal constraints and common decency are already off the Biden-table in Palestine – no doubt, Bibi Netanyahu took notice.
  • Then there’s Obama’s ex-director of policy planning at the State Department, Jake Sullivan:
    • He was a senior policy adviser for hyper-hawk Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 campaign. There was even chatter back then that he’d been a frontrunner for national security adviser upon her anointment.
    • Before becoming Vice President Biden’s national security guru in 2013, he was considered uber-close (pun-intended) to Secretary Clinton – at her aside on trips to 112 countries, and even reviewing chapters for her book Hard Choices in his spare time. A Vox profile dubbed Sullivan “the man behind hawkish Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy.” Think Libya; think Syria.
    • Out of office, and after Clinton’s defeat, he joined Macro Advisory Partners and represented Uber in its negotiations with labor unions. Incidentally, he’s wedded to Maggie Goodlander, a former senior policy advisor to that militarist-marriage of Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman. Perhaps that’s why Anne-Marie Slaughter, who ran the State Department’s policy planning office in Obama’s first term, called Jake “the consummate insider.”
  • Next on Boot’s list is career diplomat and – sure to excite old Max – George W. Bush’s former undersecretary of state for political affairs, Nicholas Burns:
    • During the Bush II years he – like its greatest Democratic Party cheerleader, Joe Biden – supported the 2003 Iraq invasion.
    • What’s more, NATO added seven new members and provocatively expanded towards Russia’s very borders in his tenure as alliance ambassador.
    • He left the foreign service in 2008, but graciously stayed on as special envoy to finalize the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal – that pact being proof-positive that nonproliferation has always been selectively applied by Washington..
    • Nick happens to be on the board, or affiliated with, an impressive range of hawkish Washington hot-spots, such as: The Atlantic Council, Aspen Institute, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Cohen Group – this last one a lobbying organization for arms manufacturers. He also gave paid speeches at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, State Street, Citibank, and Honeywell.
  • Lest it seem Boot only touted a Biden boy’s club, there’s also the former first female deputy CIA director – though Trump ironically one-upped her boss Barack by placing Gina Haspel at the Agency’s helm – Ms. Avril Haines:
    • Well, about the only thing you have to know about this A-Teamer is that she chose not to discipline any of the CIA agents implicated in the senate’s tell-all torture report, then was part of the team redacting their landmark indictment.
    • As for her supposed Trump-corrective chops: Haines supported Gina Haspel’s nomination as CIA director, even though she’d been directly implicated in CIA torture.
    • Plus, as a reminder of the duality of (wo)man, she is a fellow at Columbia University’s Human Rights Institute and consulted for the “Trump-favorite” data firm Palantir, which emerged from the CIA itself.

So really, here’s a crew of Hillary-hawks and Obama-bureaucrats without many truly fresh ideas among them. They don’t want to crash the system that birthed Trump and an age of endless wars – they are that system. The only really redeeming quality of the bunch: some helped craft the eminently reasonable Iran-nuclear deal. Count me less than enthused.

Unlike Might Max and his chickenhawk crew, time was that I fought and lived beside a real life special forces A-team (Operational Detachment-Alpha) in the villages of Kandahar, Afghanistan. Mr. Boot fetishizes folks he hardly knows; I know and respect them enough to reject the disrespect of romantic-caricature. The fellas my cavalry troop shared an outpost, raised a local militia, and seized towns with, were some brave bastards – they were also flawed and fallible. We failed together in style: tactical casualties of an impossible mission dreamed up by the likes of Max Boot, and – at the time – futilely prolonged by many members of Biden’s A-Team then on the Obama squad.

Boot was the big (bad) ideas guy, Biden’s posse – Tony Blinken, Avril Haines, Jake Sullivan, Nicholas Burns, and even Michèle Flournoy – these are “company men,” polite imperialists just smart enough to run the machine, and just dumb enough not to question its putrid products. Max reminds us – not incorrectly – that if “more people in [Trump’s] White House knew what they were doing, at least 172,000 Americans might not be dead.”

Yet, in a classic crime of omission, he lets Biden’s shadow squad off the hook for their own morbid-complicity: had they not supported and shepherded an Obama Afghan surge that even their boss sensed was hopeless, 1,729 U.S. troops – during Barack’s tenure – might not be dead. They included three of my own scouts, who – like our unit – were only unexpectedly routed to Afghanistan because Biden’s boss chose to surge in the “good war” there:

  • Gustavo A. Rios-Ordonez, 25, of Ohio – a Colombian national attempting to gain his US citizenship via military service, and father to two young daughters.
  • Nicholas C. D. Hensley, 28, of Alabama – a father of three on his third combat tour.
  • Chazray C. Clark, 24, of Michigan – who left behind a wife and stepson.

Those young men – and two dozen others wounded in action that year – were proud members of my ill-fated team. They deserved better than the Biden-bunch that Boot bragged are “seasoned professionals, ready to govern on Day One.” So too do some 8,600 of their brothers and sisters still stuck in Afghanistan, and many more sure to serve in whichever harebrained scheme Uncle Joe’s side of the duopoly dreams up.

It hardly needs saying, but most of The Donald’s defense deputies haven’t been stellar. Actually, most were establishment Republican or neocon retreads – or born-again war criminals like Eliot Abrams – themselves. Trump’s a monster and so are his misfit managers, blah blah blah. But let’s not pretend Biden’s band waiting in the wings shall be our salvation. Nor delude ourselves that Boot’s promise they’ll be “cleaning up after a Republican president,” will amount to any real cleanse of Washington’s militarist system.

Mr. Boot pings Trump from the right, but he also ought heed warning from the that classic lefty Cornel West – who advised we “tell the truth” about “Brother Biden.” An Uncle Joe administration with an “A-Team?” Give me a break.

I wouldn’t fill a kickball squad with this crew…

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer, contributing editor at antiwar.com, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy (CIP), and director of the soon-to-launch Eisenhower Media Network (EMN). His work has appeared in the NY Times, LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, The American Conservative, Mother Jones, ScheerPost and Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. His forthcoming book, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War (Heyday Books) is available for pre-order. Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet and see his website for speaking/media requests and past publications.

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The anti-war wing of both parties is dead

Posted by M. C. on August 21, 2020

Each candidate has duly recited his lines about ending endless wars and can truthfully point to his opponent’s failure to do likewise. And whoever takes office in January can continue exactly that failure, probably without much political consequence. He can deplore his bombs and drop them too. Americans will remain preoccupied with more immediate domestic concerns; Washington will stay stuck in its interventionist consensus; and those endless wars will live up to their name.

https://news.yahoo.com/anti-war-wing-both-parties-195532097.html

Bonnie Kristian

Elect Joe Biden, former (Republican) Secretary of State Colin Powell said in his Democratic National Convention appearance Tuesday night, and he’ll “restore America’s leadership in the world.”

Powell’s comments were followed by a video touting Biden’s friendship with the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another heavyweight GOP hawk. Meanwhile, there’s a pro-Biden super PAC of George W. Bush administration alumni, and Biden has racked up support from a who’s who of neoconservatives (Bill Kristol, Max Boot, David Frum, Jennifer Rubin), as commentators left and right have observed.

These alignments highlight an increasingly undeniable fact of American politics in 2020: The anti-war wing of both major parties is dead. Your presidential choice is between war and war. There’s no faction of Republicans or Democrats which combines real power with a durable, principled interest in turning American foreign policy away from global empire.

That’s not to say no one in major-party politics diverges from Washington’s standard-issue military interventionism. There’s Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) challenging Trump administration officials in Senate hearings and seeking to counter Trump’s more hawkish influences on the links. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has pushed for the U.S. to exit Yemen’s civil war and has slammed the administration’s January dalliance with executive warfare against Iran. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) tries every year to rein in abuses of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq, and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) has spent decades in lonely opposition to military adventurism. As a Democratic presidential candidate this past year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was more interested in peace than the party establishment which has now twice rejected him as their standard-bearer.

I don’t mean to discount the good work of these and other comparatively anti-war legislators. It is not without effect. There’s some evidence, for example, that Paul steered Trump toward decreasing the U.S. military footprint in Syria. But neither should their ability to retain office confuse us into thinking they have more control over American foreign policy than they do.

The reality is these officials and anyone who agrees with them have little meaningful power on this issue — occasional influence, perhaps, but certainly not power than can be reliably wielded. Paul’s golf course chats with Trump may eke a win from time to time, but this is a lucky backchannel that can be dammed at any moment. It has no formal, institutional authority. This week’s handwringing at Foreign Policy about the supposed ascendancy of “isolationism” on left and right alike is absurd, the foreign policy version of Tucker Carlson’s bizarre claim of libertarian dominance of Washington. The main voices advocating greater restraint in American foreign affairs are not isolationist, and though they kick up quite a ruckus, they have little to no say over actual policy direction. How can anyone look at half a dozen wars and think we have an isolationism problem?

The Trump vs. Biden race only underlines this state of affairs. Neither will give us a foreign policy that can even plausibly be caricatured as isolationism, Trump’s inane protectionism notwithstanding.

The president pays occasional lip service to ending “endless wars” and prioritizing diplomacy (“the greatest deals,” in his parlance), but his better impulses are constantly overcome by his selfishness, short attention span, stupid militarism, and choice of counsel like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Trump has brought us closer to open conflict with China, squandered his chance for productive negotiations with North Korea, exacerbated tensions with Iran, and repeatedly recommitted to enabling Saudi war crimes. What few good foreign policy ideas he hits upon are almost always happenstance byproducts of service to his own political fortunes. He has yet to end a single war.

Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, are more conventional liberal interventionists than Trump, but the crucial assumption of intervention is same. There are a few points for war critics to like here, including Biden’s vehement opposition to the Obama-era surge in Afghanistan, Harris’s objection to U.S. involvement in Yemen, and their plan to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal. Biden pledges he’ll “end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East,” but, like Trump, lacks a specific plan to do so. Biden has no apparent interest in Pentagon cuts, has hired some markedly hawkish advisers (are all those neocons going to stick around, too?), and is trying to out-hawk Trump on China. Certainly with Biden we can expect more multilateral diplomacy and fewer reckless tweets, but there’s little reason to think he’ll break the broader foreign policy patterns of the past 20 years.

From a purely political perspective, what’s curious about all this is the mutual foregoing of potential electoral gain. Restraint rhetoric is consistently popular — our last three presidents all campaigned on it to some degree — and public opinion is on a years-long trend toward wanting a smaller U.S. military role abroad, one more tailored to defending U.S. interests, narrowly conceived. You’d think one party or the other would espy an opportunity here.

Or perhaps both already have. Each candidate has duly recited his lines about ending endless wars and can truthfully point to his opponent’s failure to do likewise. And whoever takes office in January can continue exactly that failure, probably without much political consequence. He can deplore his bombs and drop them too. Americans will remain preoccupied with more immediate domestic concerns; Washington will stay stuck in its interventionist consensus; and those endless wars will live up to their name.

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What Would a President Harris Mean for Whites?

Posted by M. C. on August 19, 2020

https://www.unz.com/ghood/what-would-a-president-harris-mean-for-whites/

Her plan is silent on antifa and black identity extremists. She has only whites in her crosshairs. And if the federal government splashes out billions to combat “hate-based violence,” the bureaucracy will invent a threat to justify its existence. We already see this in the “non-profit” sector, where phony hate crimes justify constant fundraising.

As I write this, Joe Biden is invoking the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville as a specter of white terror. The violence that day was the city’s fault. However, even if we accept the worst possible interpretation and blame “white nationalists” for everything, Charlottesville was a picnic compared to the riots, property destruction, and deaths that have gripped the country since George Floyd’s death. President Trump’s timid efforts to grapple with this violence, which Democrats openly opposed, are far less intrusive than Kamala Harris’s plans.

Gregory Hood

Joe Biden made the pick that maximized his chances of continuing to make the race a straight referendum on Trump while also selecting someone whose resume suggests being ready to step in, if and when Biden decides to step aside. | Analysis by @CillizzaCNN https://t.co/Ek4d6sfGfT

— CNN (@CNN) August 11, 2020

Senator Kamala Harris could become president of the United States. Joe Biden, who enjoys wide leads in national polls and battleground-state polls, may well win the election. Many people on both Left and Right, including the socialists at Jacobin and Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, suspect Mr. Biden is mentally declining. When a black reporter asked Mr. Biden if he would take a cognitive test to prove his mental fitness, Mr. Biden replied by asking if the reporter was a “junkie.” If elected, Mr. Biden would be the oldest man ever to become president. Most voters, including about half of Democrats, think he won’t finish his first term. Kamala Harris would then become president.

Some progressives, especially former Bernie Sanders supporters, are unhappy with the Biden-Harris ticket. Mr. Biden is a white man who has said “racist” things by today’s standards. Kamala Harris’s lackluster presidential campaign had only one high point: when she shamed Mr. Biden for his friendship with segregationists and opposition to forced busing. “[T]here was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” said Senator Harris. “And that little girl was me.” Senator Harris even sold T-shirts with this clearly rehearsed line.

Kamala Harris’s campaign sputtered out after Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard exposed the former prosecutor’s own record:

There are too many examples to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.

She blocked evidence — she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California. And she fought to keep cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.

WATCH: Tulsi Gabbard tears into Kamala Harris’ tough-on-crime record as California Attorney General. #DemDebate2 pic.twitter.com/Bw8iFW5wgI

— America Rising (@AmericaRising) August 1, 2019

Sen. Harris was rattled, but arrogantly claimed to be a “top-tier candidate.” Her support vanished.

The senator has always been willing to bite in the clinches. A Politico story about her first political campaign had the title, “Ruthless.” And she has run brazenly on race. When she campaigned for San Francisco district attorney, her final mailer said “it’s time for a change,” and showed a picture of her white opponent.

But there wasn’t much change; she stayed tough on crime. In 2010, DA Harris smiled when she told an audience about using her staff to threaten parents with jail if they didn’t send truants to school. In 2013, she chided liberals who didn’t believe in prisons, saying that they didn’t understand “why I have three padlocks on my front door” and that there should be “a broad consensus that there should be serious and severe and swift consequences” for criminals. “Kamala is a cop” was a devastating slogan during the campaign because it was true.

Harris’ beliefs in retributive justice are deeply held. Here’s a video of Harris from 2013 at the Chicago Ideas Week mocking criminal justice reformers as unrealistic and ideological. pic.twitter.com/DWk6bliLmw

— Walker Bragman (@WalkerBragman) January 29, 2019

Sen. Harris locked up plenty of pot smokers, but cracked a joke when someone asked if she had ever smoked it. “Half my family’s from Jamaica” she said. “Are you kidding me?” Her Jamaican father, an economics professor, wasn’t laughing. He said his ancestors “must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics.”

Tariq Nasheed repeatedly criticizes Kamala Harris for not being “really” black. He’s got a point. Her “African-American” identity is about as authentic as being “Wakandan” or wearing kente cloth.

In 2004, the Los Angeles Times profiled her, calling her “a privileged child of foreign graduate students whose academic pursuits led them to UC Berkeley.” Her mother is Indian and a scientist. Kamala Harris married a Jewish lawyer and became stepmother to his two white children. They reportedly call her “Mamala.”

My ancestors didn’t own slaves, but hers probably did, at least according to her father. Like Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris is a poseur, pretending she’s an oppressed minority. Unlike Elizabeth Warren, she has enough melanin to make it plausible.

In 2018, Sen. Harris said that people who criticize “identity politics” are trying to “divide” and “distract,” or to “shut us up.” “Identity politics” is the game she plays, and its purpose is to split Americans into competing racial and sexual groups. In February 2019, she said Columbus Day should be renamed Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which implies that European settlement was wrong. She called America “the scene of a crime when it comes to what we did with slavery and Jim Crow and institutionalized racism in this country, and we have to be honest about that.” Is she going to be “honest” and tell us about her slave-owning ancestors? Later in 2019, she asked whether “America was ready for a woman and a woman of color to be president of the United States of America.” Pure identity politics.

Still, her specific black agenda is as vague as her identity. In 2019, she called President Trump a racist and said “there has to be some form of reparations and we can discuss what that is.” She told Al Sharpton’s National Action Network she would sign a bill to “study” reparations. She also co-sponsored Cory Booker’s bill for a commission on reparations. She’s even mused that mental health treatment could be “reparations” and talked about putting “extra resources” into “those communities that have experienced that trauma.” It’s hard to say what all that means.

But Sen. Harris does want to eliminate the “racial wealth gap.” Her plan would give money to “families living in historically red-lined communities.” This may not be a straight handout to blacks because it would be based on geography, and racial housing patterns no longer fit those old maps. In an October 2019 report, the Brookings Institute found that plans built around “redlining maps” “will prove to be insufficient in dismantling the legacy of racial inequalities in homeownership and wealth in the United States.”

Senator Harris’s most worrying policies would be for “combating violent hate.” Her plan (now archived) called “anti-immigrant manifestos” a sign of “impending violence” that could justify removing suspects’ Second Amendment rights “if they exhibit clear evidence of dangerousness.” Who defines “dangerousness?” Candidate Harris said she would “immediately direct the National Counterterrorism Center to address the threat of global white-nationalist terrorism, and seek authority to include domestic terrorism in its mission.” She would also “reverse President Trump’s dangerous efforts to deprioritize countering white supremacy and commit $2 billion to investigate, disrupt, and prosecute domestic terrorists.” This includes making it a “priority” for the FBI to “more vigilantly monitor white nationalist websites and forums – consistent with well-established legal requirements and civil liberties protections – where extremists discuss and encourage violent acts.”

The next sentence reads, “This will put pressure on online platforms to take down content that violates their terms and conditions.” She therefore wants the federal government to pressure platforms to remove legally permissible speech, not just violent content. She would also tell the FBI to “identify and penetrate extremist networks and seek Domestic Terrorism Prevention Orders to preempt terrorist attacks.”

Her plan is silent on antifa and black identity extremists. She has only whites in her crosshairs. And if the federal government splashes out billions to combat “hate-based violence,” the bureaucracy will invent a threat to justify its existence. We already see this in the “non-profit” sector, where phony hate crimes justify constant fundraising.

As I write this, Joe Biden is invoking the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville as a specter of white terror. The violence that day was the city’s fault. However, even if we accept the worst possible interpretation and blame “white nationalists” for everything, Charlottesville was a picnic compared to the riots, property destruction, and deaths that have gripped the country since George Floyd’s death. President Trump’s timid efforts to grapple with this violence, which Democrats openly opposed, are far less intrusive than Kamala Harris’s plans.

Would President Harris do what she says? Her record suggests she would. As a district attorney in 2005, she rejected suggestions from her staff that defendants be informed of police misconduct. She changed policy only after a political scandal. In 2013, she refused to defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage because she disagreed with it, even though it was her job, as California attorney general, to defend state law. In other cases, she pursued her duty to a fault, fighting against compensation for men wrongfully convicted. In one case, she did her best to keep a man in prison even after a judge tossed the conviction on the basis of police misconduct, incompetent defense, and a lack of evidence. The man was allegedly tied to a Nazi gang, but the case was so outrageous that even Jacobin blasted Kamala Harris for it.

Sen. Harris is not particularly extreme by today’s standards, but her life is about acquiring power. Once she has it, she would surely wield it against us. She is likely to restrict freedom of speech and other constitutional rights. Even those who have criticized her in the past would cheer it on.

She has the right skin color, right sex, and enemies. Sounds like privilege to me. Republished from American Renaissance

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Erie Times E-Edition Article – Kamala Harris part of leftist Trojan horse operation

Posted by M. C. on August 19, 2020

If Harris really were a moderate, progressives would be up in arms over her choice. But they are not.

The left sees Biden as their Trojan horse. They want voters to look at his inoffensive, moderate, bipartisan exterior, and decide it is safe to let him inside the White House gates. But as soon as they do, an army of socialists will rush out — led by Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. — to impose a radical progressive agenda on America.

This coming from WaPo! I am surprised it is permitted.

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=1700df0f9

Kamala Harris a moderate? Not even close. Welcome to the leftist Trojan horse operation.

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a not-sosubtle campaign afoot to paint Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as a centrist — an effort that exposes the left’s strategy to fool the American people into giving them political power in November.

After presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced Harris as his running mate, the New York Times immediately declared her a ‘pragmatic moderate,’ the Los Angeles Times called her a ‘centrist’ and ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos told his viewers ‘Kamala Harris comes from the middle of the road, moderate wing of the Democratic Party.’

No, she doesn’t. Harris was the ‘most liberal compared to all senators’ in 2019 according to Gov-Track, the nonpartisan government transparency watchdog — to the left of even her democraticsocialist colleague, Sen.

Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Harris wasn’t ‘pragmatic’ either. GovTrack found she ‘joined bipartisan bills the least often compared to Senate Democrats.’

According to Manhattan Institute budget expert Brian Riedl, Harris has proposed a mind-numbing $46 trillion in new spending over the next decade.

She supports the economically ruinous Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all and free taxpayer funded health care for undocumented immigrants. She is also an abortion zealot who has suggested that a faithful Catholic who belongs to the Knights of Columbus is unfit to serve as a federal judge. She opposes deportation of those who illegally enter the United States and once compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the Ku Klux Klan.

If Harris really were a moderate, progressives would be up in arms over her choice. But they are not. Leftists understand that to win in November, they must be able to peel away reluctant Trump voters in key swing states who are uncomfortable with the leftward lurch of today’s Democratic Party. These voters need to believe that a Biden-Harris administration will be centrist and reasonable, so they can give themselves permission to defect and vote Democrats into power. So progressives and their allies in the mainstream media have tried to portray Biden’s choice of Harris as another example of how he has kept the left at arm’s length.

Progressives know it is a lie. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep.

Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., recently said the left need not worry about Biden’s moderate veneer because ‘he is movable.’ As she told ‘The Daily Show’ host Trevor Noah, ‘As soon as we get him in the White House, and even before with these task forces that we had, we were able to significantly push Joe Biden to do things that he hadn’t signed on to before.’

The left sees Biden as their Trojan horse. They want voters to look at his inoffensive, moderate, bipartisan exterior, and decide it is safe to let him inside the White House gates. But as soon as they do, an army of socialists will rush out — led by Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. — to impose a radical progressive agenda on America.

They have every reason to believe that will happen, because Biden has already given in to their demands. For more than 40 years, Biden supported the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortions, even writing a constituent to say, ‘Those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.’ When he reiterated his support for the Hyde Amendment last year during the presidential primaries, he was chastised by none other than Harris, who declared, ‘No woman’s access to reproductive health care should be based on how much money she has. We must repeal the Hyde Amendment.’

Biden quickly surrendered to Harris and the party’s pro-abortion radicals.

If Biden will capitulate to his party’s left wing on a fundamental moral question like abortion, what makes anyone think he won’t do the same when it comes to Medicare-for-all or the Green New Deal?

Most candidates tack to the center after securing their party’s nomination, but Biden has already gone to the left, forging a ‘unity platform’ with Sanders.

The platform was a wink and a nod to democratic socialists — embracing a number of their demands and promising to ‘study’ others once Biden is in the White House.

The left got the message: Once the election is over, Biden will move even further in their direction.

Besides, progressives in Congress believe that they will be setting the agenda anyway, and Biden’s job will be to autopen whatever they pass and put on his desk. What is he going to do, stand with Republicans and veto their legislation?

Progressives are more than comfortable spreading the myth of moderation, while they hide inside the belly of the Democratic ticket waiting for voters to open the White House gates.

Marc A. Thiessen is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him on Twitter, @marcthiessen.

Marc Thiessen

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It’s Time to Roll Back the Mask Mandates, Not Ramp Them Up Ridiculously – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on August 18, 2020

Most importantly, even if masks work, mask-wearing will not achieve the appropriate public policy goal.

In the end, Tom Woods concedes, as I or any other rational person should, that “these examples don’t in themselves prove that masks are useless, but they absolutely do suggest that simple mask-wearing doesn’t have the miraculous results that some people think they do.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/its_time_to_roll_back_the_mask_mandates_not_ramp_them_up_ridiculously.html

By William Sullivan

Joe Biden recently made an effort to turn the mask hysteria up to 11, saying, “Every single American should be wearing a mask when they are outside for the next three months at a minimum.  Every governor should mandate mask wearing.”

Why should America broadly expand masking now?  The proverbial “curve” could hardly be flatter in most places in America, and those states that experienced a summer surge, like Texas, Florida, and California, all appear to already be on the other side of their respective “curves.”

Joe Biden, socially distanced outside, demonstrates a useless approach to masking

YouTube screen grab (cropped)

Here are three reasons why it’s time to roll back the mask mandates, rather than ramp them up to ridiculous new levels like Biden suggests.

There’s still just not a lot of evidence that the masks do much to help in slowing or stopping viral spread in the real world.

I know, I know. Every time it becomes clear that someone is going to argue against the supposedly obvious efficacy of the universal masking of a population, healthy and unhealthy alike, that person is invariably met with some variation of the following by a masks-for-all advocate:

“Oh yeah?  You think you know better than all the scientists who just overturned decades of scientific consensus by saying that wearing masks stops viral spread, huh?  Well, tell me this, smart guy.  If you cough or sneeze into a mask, how could it not catch some of the droplets of moisture that could be carrying the virus?”

First of all, even in a laboratory setting, the science is hardly settled in favor of “masks work.”  Actually, the strength of the argument that cloth masks work lies more in a lack of evidence proving that they’re ineffective than the strength of evidence suggesting that they’re effective, which is a terrible basis for setting public policy in a way that impedes upon Americans’ lives. 

But, hey, I’m easy.  I’ll just go along with the notion that wearing a bandana or something snugly around your face, covering your nose and mouth, is an effective means to stop or slow COVID-19 spread.

If that’s true, and if human beings were predictable and reliable in thoughts, actions, and purpose, that mask mandate you’re advocating might work outside of a laboratory.  But human beings aren’t.

As an example of how these variables tend to play out in real life, consider a story I heard recently from a friend about a child taking his SpongeBob mask to his first day of school, only to return home with a Batman mask. He’d traded with a friend because each thought the other mask was cooler, you see.

The CDC also currently says that for a mask to be safe and effective, you’re always supposed to wash your hands before putting it on (like you never see anyone do), you’re never supposed to touch the mask or put it around your neck (like you always see people do), and the masks are supposed to be “washed after each use.”  How often do you wash yours?

This is an example of the human element in any free society — chaotic, unpredictable, and often noncompliant — that social engineers loathe as a pesky obstacle to progress, and scientists can’t even begin to replicate in the lab.

Some places without masks fared far better than places with strict mask requirements.

Lockdown advocates and mask-mavens are scratching their heads about Hawaii these days.  The state is a bunch of islands that are isolated in the middle of a giant ocean, and the state locked down immediately, complete with mask mandates and a shutdown of tourism.  If lockdowns and masks work, few places would give the world a better example of the strategies’ effectiveness.

And yet, “coronavirus is spreading at a faster rate in Hawaii than anywhere in the US,” including the 18 states run by Republicans which have not issued mask mandates.

Or, how about we look further west in the Pacific.  Few countries in the world have more notoriously strict or harshly enforced masking laws than the Philippines.  And yet, they’re currently experiencing a spike in cases and deaths right now, despite all that strictly enforced mask-wearing.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, where public masking has been all but nonexistent, cases are declining, and daily deaths are approaching zero.

None of this can be explained by the logic that mask mandates work in practice.  But that doesn’t stop people from trying.

Historian Tom Woods asked a genuine question to his audience as to how heavily masked countries like the Philippines could be experiencing such poor results today, and a friend “did his best” to explain it.  The spread there must be “happening when people had their masks off (as when eating),” his friend says.

This is far-fetched and kind of ridiculous, certainly, but confirmation bias is a powerful thing.  For his friend, the masks absolutely work because science says so, and the only possible reason the masks aren’t working in the Philippines is because of irresponsible people who take the mask off to do irresponsible things like eating food.

This still does nothing to explain, though, why the absence of masks isn’t decimating Sweden right now.

Most importantly, even if masks work, mask-wearing will not achieve the appropriate public policy goal.

In the end, Tom Woods concedes, as I or any other rational person should, that “these examples don’t in themselves prove that masks are useless, but they absolutely do suggest that simple mask-wearing doesn’t have the miraculous results that some people think they do.”

So sure, maybe the masks might do some good, at some level.  We should still be rolling back mask mandates.

Dr. Scott Atlas, who has thankfully been tapped by President Trump as an adviser, suggests that the “goal of stopping COVID-19 cases is not the appropriate goal.”  Rather, “the goal is simply twofold, to protect the people who are going to have a serious problem and die, that’s the high-risk population, and to stop hospital overcrowding.  There should never be and there is no goal to stop college students from getting an infection they have no problem with.”

Incidentally, this is the same approach that Dr. David Katz recommended in the New York Times on March 20, suggesting “a pivot right now from trying to protect all people to focusing on the most vulnerable.”

This is the strategy that American policymakers should adopt in order to get us through this pandemic quickly and with as few deaths, and as little strain on our hospitals, as possible.  It would allow most Americans to get back to their lives with a semblance of normalcy, increase their happiness, and rebuild the economy.  And it seems clear that this is what President Trump wants for Americans.

And while masks may be a part of that strategy in some way, more draconian mask orders for all Americans, at all times, and in all public places, as Joe Biden recommends, should certainly not be.

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The Truth About Left-Wing Racial Politics – Aussie Nationalist Blog

Posted by M. C. on August 17, 2020

Yet as is often the case with non-white beneficiaries of Western altruism, Harris has offered little to nothing in the way of reciprocation.

Wrote Patrick Buchanan in The Death of the West,

It is in the nature of nations and religions, that they rule or are ruled.

When considering this principle, there is nothing new about the tribalism of Kamala Harris; it is straightforward to envision where things are headed next. As Harris and her type garner power–crude, unyielding forms of racial discrimination will develop against white Americans, in particular for Trump supporters and Christians.

https://aussienationalistblog.com/2020/08/18/the-truth-about-left-wing-racial-politics/

Aussie Nationalist

It came as little surprise last Wednesday, when Kamala Harris was named as Joe Biden’s vice president pick.

This was a patently token selection: Harris being a black women; her lacking the requisite political or real-life experience to be prepared for vice-presidential (and quite potentially) presidential duties.

That the left is intent on promoting members of allegedly victimised classes over those with merit, by now, is clear and trite to emphasise. What is more interesting to evaluate, is the background of Kamala Harris and its connection (or lack thereof) to her politics of racial grievance.

Harris was born in Oakland, California in 1964, the product of recent immigrants: an Indian mother and a Jamaican father. In this respect, Harris holds a distinct history to many American blacks. She was never personally subject to Jim Crow laws; or had any ancestors that were; or had any ancestors even geographically residing in the United States while they were still applied.

In plain terms, when it comes to what could be objectively seen as constituting American racism, neither Harris nor her ancestors were the victims of anything. To the contrary, as witnessed the fact of American and Indian living standards, Harris has amply benefited from being born into the United States.

Yet as is often the case with non-white beneficiaries of Western altruism, Harris has offered little to nothing in the way of reciprocation. In fact, she has a racial vendetta against white America, expressed in her presidential campaign kickoff speech from January 2019:

Let’s speak the truth that too many unarmed black men and women are killed in America. Too many black and brown Americans are locked up.

Additionally, Harris has spoken of the need for reparations, and has called American history “the scene of a crime.”

In her own life, Harris has only ever profited from white America; but as demonstrated above, she is animated by feelings of racial vengeance. The only way to make sense of this apparent contradiction, is to conclude that leftist identity politics comprises a power grab, having nothing to do with resolving actual instances of oppression or persecution. It is a power grab aimed at increasing the political, cultural and economic agency of non-white Americans–at the necessary expense of white Americans.

Wrote Patrick Buchanan in The Death of the West,

It is in the nature of nations and religions, that they rule or are ruled.

When considering this principle, there is nothing new about the tribalism of Kamala Harris; it is straightforward to envision where things are headed next. As Harris and her type garner power–crude, unyielding forms of racial discrimination will develop against white Americans, in particular for Trump supporters and Christians.

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Joe Biden’s Mask Mandate Is Only The Beginning – Issues & Insights

Posted by M. C. on August 15, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/08/14/unmasking-joe-bidens-and-kamala-harris-plans-to-control-americans/

I&I Editorial

At a briefing on Thursday, Joe Biden called for a nationwide mask-wearing mandate “for the next three months at a minimum.” Never mind that such a federal mandate is likely unconstitutional, this is just one of a multitude of areas where Biden, and his running mate Kamala Harris, want to impose the federal government on even the most mundane of actions by Americans.

It is surely worth noting, especially by those who claim to value liberty, that Biden and Harris eagerly desire to take much of it away, always in the name of some greater good. Indeed, over the course of their campaigns, the two have proposed either to outlaw or force so many things there’s not enough room to list them all here.

So, as a reader service, we’ve gathered up a sampling of things they say they want to either ban or mandate should they gain access to the White House.

Bans

Plastic straws: When Harris was asked at a town hall whether the federal government should ban plastic straws, her answer was, “I think we should, yes.” Biden didn’t go that far, but did say that “I don’t think we should be using plastic straws anymore.”

Plastic bags: Biden did, however, say he favored a ban on plastic grocery bags. “I agree with you, 100%,” Biden told a woman at a campaign stop. “We should not be allowing plastic. What we should do is phasing it out.”

Gas-powered cars: Biden pledges that he will impose fuel economy mandates that will “ensure” 100% electric cars. Harris, meanwhile, was a co-sponsor of The Zero-Emission Vehicles Act, which would outlaw the sale of new gas-powered cars starting in 2040.

The death penalty: Biden used to support the death penalty, but flipped so he could appeal to his party’s left wing. Now he says that “Because we can’t ensure that we get these cases right every time, we must eliminate the death penalty.” Many Democratic presidential candidates echoed the same message.

Private prisons: Biden promises to “end the federal government’s use of private prisons,” says his campaign website, “And he will make clear that the federal government should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants.”

New oil and gas leases on federal lands and offshore: In a March debate, Biden promised that if elected there would be “no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore, no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one.” Later his campaign said he meant only to ban new permits.

Fracking: Biden has tried to straddle the fracking issue, but Harris said during her primary campaign that she supports an outright prohibition. “There is no question I am in favor of banning fracking.”

“Assault” Rifles. Both Biden and Harris promise to ban so-called assault rifles such as the AR-15, but Harris went much further. She promised that if elected she would impose a mandatory buyback program. “We have to work out the details — there are a lot of details — but I do” support a forced buyback, Harris said. “We have to take those guns off the streets.” The Washington Examiner reported last August that Harris was even open to the idea of sending the police into homes to confiscate guns.

Right-to-work laws: In a sop to their union benefactors, both Biden and Harris promise to overturn the right-to-work laws in effect in 28 states. Harris said the president needs “to speak up about the need and the right workers have to be able to organize and fight for their rights … It has to be about banning right-to-work laws”.

Trump from Twitter: Harris pushed Twitter to ban President Donald Trump from Twitter. “Twitter should be held accountable and shut down that site,” Harris said during one of the Democrats’ debates.

Social media hate speech: Harris also wants to ban “hate speech” on social media. ”We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy,” Harris said during her campaign.

Private health insurance: During the campaign, Harris said she favored a ban on private insurance, then retreated somewhat. The health plan she eventually released would have ended up putting private insurance out of business. Biden says he wants to “build on ObamaCare,” but his “public option” would also result in the eventual destruction of private insurance.

Mandates

Masks: Biden hasn’t specified how he’d enforce a nationwide a requirement to wear masks, or explained how it could be constitutional. As James Phillips and John Yoo pointed out, “There is nothing that authorizes a President Trump now, or a President Biden tomorrow, to mandate face coverings nationwide via executive power. Congress has not enacted any such law for the president to enforce. Masks do not fall under the president’s power as commander in chief, nor do they plausibly come within any of his other executive authorities, such as granting pardons or nominating officers.”

Government-approved insurance: Biden promises that he will reimpose the hated ObamaCare individual mandate — along with the mandate tax — to buy government-approved insurance.

$15 minimum wage: Biden and Harris both endorse this, despite the adverse impact it will have on jobs.

Equal Pay: “Equal pay for equal work. It’s common sense. It’s also overdue. Let’s close the gap & let’s do it now,” Biden tweeted.

Six months paid parental leave: Harris proposed this during her campaign, saying that “Guaranteeing six months of paid leave will bring us closer to economic justice for workers and ensures newborn children or children who are sick can get the care they need from a parent without thrusting the family into upheaval,”

A third Federal Reserve mandate: Little noticed has been Biden’s promise to add a third mandate to the Federal Reserve’s charter, (which already has one mandate too many). In addition to containing inflation and maximizing employment, Biden would have the central bank  “aggressively target persistent racial gaps in job, wages, and wealth.” The Wall Street Journal called it “a promise to politicize the Federal Reserve in a whole new way.”

The bottom line is that if you cherish freedom, you will get a lot less of it in a Biden-Harris administration. However, if you like the federal government bossing you around in every corner of your lives, then they are the candidates for you.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board

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Erie Times E-Edition Article – Harris pick is a win for America

Posted by M. C. on August 14, 2020

The Erie Times-News supported Barack Obama – Marxist parents, communist mentor in Frank Marshall Davis.

Harris’ father an avowed Marxist professor at Berkley(!)

The Times is nothing if not consistent.

One wonders if the Mead family envisioned this.

The attacks, of course, began immediately. In Erie, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew during a Wednesday campaign stop decried Harris — a career prosecutor — as a leftist radical. Absurd on its face, the charge also reprises a regrettable style of disingenuous, inflammatory politics that undermines the gravity and substance of voters’ deliberations.

We shall see.

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=05e311c7f

For all of the profound promises implicit in our country’s founding documents, the journey for all Americans to participate fully in them has been long, arduous and often deadly.

And it is not over. There remain many who seek either explicitly or through more opaque legal and political strategies to thwart the advance of civil rights and justice for all. Not just a matter of dark hearts and minds, the immense power at stake animates.

It was fitting that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his newly chosen running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, appeared for the first time together Wednesday on the anniversary of and in repudiation of white supremacist violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia, three years ago.

Harris, born in California, daughter of an Indian scientist and Jamaican professor, is the first woman of color and only the third woman in the history of the country to be chosen by a major party to run for the vice presidency, a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Considering Harris’ readiness — California’s former top prosecutor and now a sitting U.S. senator — and indeed that of so many other women Biden vetted, it should not come as a surprise. As Erie County Assistant District Attorney Khadija Horton told reporter Matthew Rink, Harris “deserved this.”

That reality only serves to underscore the damage the historic barriers to women, people of color, and others long oppressed have caused — not just to them, but the nation as a whole in the human capital squandered. Each advance of inclusion only makes us richer and stronger.

Biden on Wednesday rightly said America could be summed up in a word: “possibilities.” With Harris’ pick, that is what Erie political organizer Martha “Marty” Nwachukwu sees, young girls of color liberated to imagine new horizons for their lives and potential.

It is an affirmation, as Horton said, that “we really matter,” which is not a nicety in a country working to overcome an enduring legacy of enslavement, racial terror and systemic discrimination.

The attacks, of course, began immediately. In Erie, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew during a Wednesday campaign stop decried Harris — a career prosecutor — as a leftist radical. Absurd on its face, the charge also reprises a regrettable style of disingenuous, inflammatory politics that undermines the gravity and substance of voters’ deliberations.

It also sullied this historic moment, which should be celebrated by every American, regardless of party or ideology.

Harris’ pick represents payment on a sorely overdue debt to Americans who, for generations remained barred —by law, violence and prejudice — from participating fully in American greatness, even as they worked so hard to establish, defend and perfect it.

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Kamala Harris Will Cost Biden The Election For The Same Reason She Lost The Democratic Primaries – The Burning Platform

Posted by M. C. on August 13, 2020

The vast majority of voters have already made up their mind for who they will cast their vote for in November. In states where gun advocacy is staunchest – such as Florida and Ohio – Harris will only hurt Biden. In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, she likely won’t be of any benefit on the ticket either.

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2020/08/12/kamala-harris-will-cost-biden-the-election-for-the-same-reason-she-lost-the-democratic-primaries/

Author Duane Norman

Tuesday afternoon, Joe Biden officially announced his running mate for his 2020 Presidential campaign – naming Kamala Harris his vice president. Although not the worst choice, seeing as how Stacey Abrams and Susan Rice were rumored contenders for the spot, Harris certainly no longer has that “new car” shine that Obama did in 2008.

In fact, one must wonder why Biden decided on Harris – amidst widespread calls from the left to defund the police – with Harris’ record of “backing the blue”. This is especially pertinent considering the sheer number of “Settle for Biden” voters who are essentially voting for the VP given Biden’s mental acuity (or lack thereof):

This is a major problem considering Harris’s political career. As Attorney General of California, Harris fought against the release of a man who had been acquitted and had his conviction overturned. Daniel Larsen, who spent 13 years in prison for possession of a concealed knife, had not produced evidence of his innocence in a timely enough fashion.

Also as Attorney General, Harris challenged a ruling ordering California to release some of its prisoners after the Supreme Court decided that the state’s overcrowded prisons was cruel and unusual punishment. As District Attorney of San Francisco, Harris oversaw the city’s corrupt crime lab, where a judge ultimately ruled that the D.A.’s office ignored calls to take responsibility for the labs mismanaging and hid information about a technician who had been stealing cocaine.

Of note, Harris didn’t endorse prison sentencing reform which was a measure on ballots in both 2012 and 2014.

In 2014, a federal judge in California ruled that the state’s application of the death penalty was unconstitutional – with Harris fighting against that ruling as well. For her first run for Attorney General in 2010, one law enforcement group endorsed her with the rest upset that she had not sought the death penalty for an alleged cop killer. By 2014, almost 50 police groups endorsed her re-election campaign. Harris’ record also shows she is an advocate of the war on drugs and has opposed efforts to legalize marijuana. As Attorney General, she suggested expansions of the state’s efforts to track prescription drug users.

Harris has even defended – and laughed at – her choice to lock up the parents of children who were more than 3 days truant from school in California.

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In a 2009 op-ed, Harris boasted about the lower level of truancy rates she achieved through her authoritarian practices. Eileen DeNino, a mother in Pennsylvania, died in jail after been imprisoned for not paying fines for her children’s absences. According to a lawsuit filed by her family, they allege jail staff knew DeNino had uncontrolled high blood pressure but denied her access to medication. This policy not only championed, but created, by Harris has seen the death of a mother; the very embodiment of the “little guy” Biden posits Kamala will help fight for as VP.

Not to mention, previous reporting by FMShooter has also pointed out Harris’ spotty record.

In January of 2019:

Most recently, Democrat Kamala Harris also announced her run for President in 2020 – but it’s exceedingly obvious where Harris’ funding is coming from…

WarnerMedia, Alphabet Inc, and 21st Century Fox all gave hand-over-fist to Harris up to 2018 to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Notably, WarnerMedia owns CNN; Alphabet owns Google and Youtube; 21st Century Fox owns Fox News and its subsidiaries – the Establishment media has been funding and seemingly prepping for Harris’ 2020 run.

A month later, in February of 2019:

With Kamala Harris making her 2020 Presidential candidacy official, and the mainstream media doing their absolute best to paint her in the most favorable possible light, she has quickly become the front-runner in a very crowded field of Democrat candidates… The DNC has already demonstrated that they will rig the primary for whoever they think has the best shot at winning… Harris’s very questionable political history includes using an extramarital affair to launch her career, as well as her near-constant funding by the same big tech and media conglomerates she claims she will regulate…

As previously covered by FMShooter, the states that will decide the 2020 election are Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania… Florida is by far the most pivotal of these states – the 2018 Senate/Gubernational elections in the state were won by 32,000/10,000 votes respectively… Florida is routinely referred to as the “gunshine” state due to the large contingent of pro-gun voters living there.

Harris has a lengthy political (and prosecutorial) career where she peddled an “assault weapons” ban, universal background checks, ERPOs, and a number of other anti-gun positions that are not conducive to a winning platform in Florida… Her gun control platform is equally unpopular in rust belt states… She just doesn’t offer… a decisive pathway to victory in key swing states.  

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The vast majority of voters have already made up their mind for who they will cast their vote for in November. In states where gun advocacy is staunchest – such as Florida and Ohio – Harris will only hurt Biden. In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, she likely won’t be of any benefit on the ticket either.

The 2020 election will come down to 1) turnout, and 2) swing voters in swing states.  When it comes to turnout – who is really excited to go vote for a Biden/Harris ballot, especially during the coronavirus pandemic?  As for swing voters in swing states, what could Harris possibly do to sway the opinions of the small number of voters in swing states still undecided between Trump and Biden?

Given Kamala Harris’s political record, it is far more likely that her presence will ultimately do more harm than good – which may very well be the difference in a potentially tight 2020 presidential election.

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Indications Are That a Biden Administration Would Require the Fed to Adopt a Black Lives Matter Monetary Policy

Posted by M. C. on July 22, 2020

The reason black unemployment lags is because of high minimum wage laws, which no doubt would be boosted by a Biden administration. The only way the Fed could counter that is by creating higher price inflation. That is, there would be a new kind of inflation, blackflation, price inflation created by the Fed at higher rates to raise nominal low-skilled wage rates above the minimum wage rate.

How nutty can you get?

https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2020/07/indications-are-that-biden.html

From a Wall Street Journal editorial:

As old-fashioned as it sounds, we’re thumbing through Joe Biden’s economic plan on the theory that someone somewhere might want to know what’s in it. And what should we find, hiding like a presidential candidate in a Delaware basement, but a promise to politicize the Federal Reserve in a whole new way.

Mr. Biden wants to create a third mandate for the Fed. Recall that the current two are price stability and full employment. But, as the policy blueprint Team Biden cooked up with Bernie Sanders’s economic advisers argues, “the Black unemployment rate is persistently higher than the national average, which is why Democrats support making racial equity part of the mandate of the Federal Reserve.” The Fed chairman would be required to collect data and report on “the extent of racial employment and wage gaps” and what the Fed is doing about them.

The Journal notes:

Black employment tends to lag behind other ethnic groups, for complex reasons. This means the economy generally needs to run hotter for longer before lower-skilled black workers start to benefit from more employment and higher pay. That’s an argument for sound economic policies. But this proposal would bake in a bias in favor of ultraloose monetary policy, with racial justice furnishing a formal excuse to overlook inflation risks.

The reason black unemployment lags is because of high minimum wage laws, which no doubt would be boosted by a Biden administration. The only way the Fed could counter that is by creating higher price inflation. That is, there would be a new kind of inflation, blackflation, price inflation created by the Fed at higher rates to raise nominal low-skilled wage rates above the minimum wage rate.

How nutty can you get?

Well, as it turns out, even nuttier.

The Fed could make sure money is pumped into businesses that hire blacks, regardless of skills.

The Journal again:

The Biden monetary mandate also would open the door to regulatory mischief, which is the real prize for the progressive left. Under a diversity mandate, the Fed could require the banks it regulates to collect detailed data about the racial make-up of employees, and their pay, at companies applying for loans.

That data could then form a basis for enforcement action against banks that didn’t do enough to reduce racial pay gaps via their lending decisions, whatever “enough” means in the wilds of social-justice Twitter or a Treasury run by Elizabeth Warren. This would be a back-door way to impose through regulatory pressure various wage and diversity rules that otherwise couldn’t pass Congress or survive the Supreme Court. Such a data trove would provide bottomless fodder for grandstanding politicians on Capitol Hill…

 Under a race mandate, the Fed will have no choice but to obey whatever dictates Congress and a Biden Administration send its way in 2021.

There is a serious group of radical central planners surrounding Biden. A Fed Black Lives Matter monetary policy would be bad enough but it wouldn’t stop there.

–RW

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