Archive for the ‘Kamala Harris’ Category

Last week, Sen. Kamala Harris pretended to be a legitimate presidential contender in 2020. Unfortunately for Sen. Harris, she looked more like a scold than a serious policymaker. While questioning Gina Haspel during Haspel’s confirmation to become the next CIA Director, Sen. Harris initially asked “One question I’ve not heard you answer is, do you believe the previous interrogation techniques were immoral?” When “Haspel began with a response about the tactics’ legality,” Sen. Harris interrupted, saying “I’m not asking do you believe they were legal, I’m asking do you believe they were immoral.”

Rather than backing down or throwing her fellow agents under the bus, Haspel stood her ground. Before she did that, unfortunately, Haspel had to endure an ill-informed lecture from Harris. Sen. Harris lectured Haspel about how the person they’ll vote for or against will inform our allies “about our values.” Sen. Harris also talked about “what we prioritize as our moral authority.”

Frankly, if that’s what’s important to Sen. Harris, then she’s disqualified to ever being commander-in-chief. Period. Long before Sen. Harris became California’s Attorney General, Gina Haspel was a successful CIA interrogator who prevented multiple terrorist attacks by gaining important information from terrorists. In the days following 9/11, when most Americans were certain that there’d be more terrorist attacks, President Bush made the right decision that preventing future attacks no matter what it took was his highest priority.

The vast majority of people agree with that decision. Moral preening doesn’t have a place in that conversation. Leadership mattered. Making the right decisions on the fly was required. President Bush provided both at a time of crisis. Sen. Harris hasn’t provided either quality:

The good news is that neither Sen. Harris or Sen. McCain will prevent Gina Haspel from becoming the first female DCI. She will be confirmed, though by a fairly tight margin.

That’s unfortunate because, in terms of qualifications, she’s the most qualified candidate in decades and it isn’t all that close. Gina Haspel will become one of the best DCIs. She won’t exceed Mike Pompeo but she’ll surpass John Brennan. Then again, a worn-out trench coat would be more qualified than John Brennan.

A good barometer of how good President Trump’s speech was last night is Kamala Harris’ BS-filled statement after President Trump’s State of the Union, aka SOTU, speech.

In her statement, Sen. Harris stated “While I am always willing to work with my colleagues across the aisle, the president’s call for bipartisanship and unity rings hollow. You cannot reject bipartisan plans to improve health care and protect Dreamers or sow hate and division — and then turn around the next day and say you want to work together.”

Last night, Democrats either sat on their hands, booed and hissed or walked out altogether. Yesterday, I wrote this post about what would make for Sen. Schumer’s nightmare scenario. The centerpiece of that post was a quote from Bill McGurn’s WSJ article:

What if Mr. Trump looked up at the gallery full of Dreamers during his address and said, “I have offered a good-faith compromise that would not only resolve your place in America but open to you the precious gift of American citizenship. All I ask is that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi meet me halfway?”

That didn’t happen. Instead, Democrats sat like sourpusses virtually the entire speech. During a speech that lasted 81 minutes and that elicited 110 rounds of applause, Democrats sat. Occasionally, they wore their sourpuss faces. After the speech, Tim Kaine took to Twitter and said:

If President Trump is serious about finally getting things done, I have an idea of where he could start:
Step 1. Stop using offensive rhetoric to tout a plan that would divide families.
Step 2. Start supporting the bipartisan work we’re doing in the Senate to protect Dreamers.

— Tim Kaine (@timkaine) January 31, 2018

The thing that Sen. Kaine apparently hasn’t figured out is that elections have consequences. This isn’t a situation where both sides start on equal footing. While you work together, though, one side starts with the advantage of having won the election. That advantage is bigger when the people that won the election have the strong backing of the American people. When it comes to immigration, President Trump is where the American people are.

The Democrats haven’t noticed that, in addition to wanting DACA recipients staying, the American people want the wall built and chain migration ended. If Senate Democrats don’t wise up fast, they’re heading for an historic beating. 2018 won’t be kind to them.

Of all of the polling last night, this poll should frighten Democrats the most:

A full 72% of independents that watched the speech last night approved of President Trump’s speech. The other thing from that poll that should frighten Democrats is that more than 9-in-10 Republicans approve, too.

PS- That doesn’t sound like a blue wave to me.

Technorati: Donald Trump, State of the Union Address, Immigration Reform, Republicans, Tim Kaine, Luis Gutierrez, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, DACA, Election 2018

You’d think that a former California attorney general would understand the basics of our legal system. After reading Kamala Harris’s tweet about Education Secretary DeVos’s rescinding “Obama-era guidance on investigating campus sexual assault, puts interim rules in place.” In her tweet, Sen. Harris said “This is infuriating. We should be strengthening, not weakening, protections for sexual assault survivors.”

Sen. Harris’ statement assumes that all women who step forward are rape victims. Further, Sen. Harris’ statement doesn’t say a thing about protecting the right of defendants to question their accusers. Does Ms. Harris think it’s ok for women to be able to accuse men of raping them anonymously? In what universe is that ok?

In her Twitter bio, Sen. Harris said that she is “dedicated to fighting for justice & giving voice to the voiceless.” That sounds nice but I don’t think she means it. Instead, I think she’s just another man-hating mad woman from California. We finally got rid of Sen. Boxer, one of the original man-haters of the Senate, and she’s replaced with another man-hating woman.

With a state as populated as California, wouldn’t you think that they’d be able to find someone more interested in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

There’s no denying the fact that Bernie Sanders doesn’t believe in timidity. That doesn’t mean he believes in total transparency. It just means that he’s prone to proposing wild ideas.

Proposing the Medicare for All Act of 2017 fits into that category. Intelligent people don’t propose legislation like that. Intelligent people don’t co-sponsor legislation like that, either. Matthew Continetti’s article highlights how far left the Democratic Party has drifted.

According to the article, “‘Mr. Sanders did not say how he would pay for his bill,’ writes Robert Pear of the New York Times. ‘Aides said he would issue a list of financing options.’ The ‘options’ are not included in the bill—but they are enough to raise the hair on the back of one’s neck.”

Sen. Sanders didn’t include his financing preferences because his bill is unaffordable. According to this LA Times article, “A single-payer healthcare system in California — a galvanizing cause among the state’s progressive flank — would cost $400 billion annually, according to a legislative analysis released on Monday.” Later, the article states:

The analysis, released in advance of the proposal’s hearing in a key fiscal committee, fills in what has so far been the biggest unanswered question concerning the plan to dramatically overhaul California’s healthcare coverage. The analysis found that the proposal would require:

A total cost of $400 billion per year to cover all healthcare and administrative costs. Of that, $200 billion of existing federal, state and local funds could be repurposed to go toward the single-payer system. The additional $200 billion would need to be raised from new taxes.

California’s population represents approximately one-eighth of the US population. Multiply that $400,000,000,000 times 8 to get to the approximate annual cost of Sen. Sanders’ hoax. This isn’t a plan because Sen. Sanders all but officially admits that it’s impossible to fund his fantasy:

The Sanders bill would add hundreds of millions of people into an already financially-strapped program while making it more generous — within four years. At no point in the legislation does he describe how he would expect to pay for this ambitious idea or deal with massive disruption it would mean for businesses, workers, and those trying to access care.

Not dealing with a massive spending increase is like declaring war but forgetting to name who you’ve declared war on. That’s utter insanity. Here’s Bernie and his politically suicidal friends touting Bernie’s Medicare for All Act of 2017:

Technorati: Bernie Sanders, Single-Payer Health Care, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Democrats