Kamala Harris, a California senator, is heavily tipped to be unveiled as Joe Biden’s running mate. But who is she and what sort of Vice President, or even President, would she be?

If Joe Biden chooses Kamala Harris to be his running mate in the fall, and if he wins, she would be the first black woman to be Vice President.

Were Biden to win the US presidential election in November he would be 78 by the time of his inauguration and 82 by the time he left the White House.

So Harris, 55, is in a good position to become President in 2024, if not before.

But who is she and what does she bring to the table?

As Biden took questions from reporters on Tuesday, 28 July, a photographer snapped a picture of his notes, which had Kamala Harris's name written prominently and listed five talking points.

So let's look at those talking points and what they say about Harris.

"Do Not Hold Grudges”

The campaign to win the Democratic Party’s nomination was a bruising battle and Kamala Harris exchanged verbal punches with Biden but it seems as if both are willing to let bygones be bygones.

Former Senator Chris Dodd, from Connecticut, told the AP news agency that the way Harris took him on during one of the televised debates last year still rankles with Biden.

Dodd, a close friend of Biden’s, said Harris made "very hurtful" comments about the former Vice President’s past work with segregationist senators and also highlighted how he had once opposed busing black children to white areas when schools integrated in the 1970s.

She said: “There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day and that little girl was me.''

Biden said at the time her comments were “a mischaracterisation of my position'' and the pair seem to get on well in public now.

"Campaigned With Me & Jill"

Harris’s own campaign was a bit of a disaster but she is seen as being an asset to Biden’s bid for power.

When her operations director, Kelly Mehlenbacher, quit in November he wrote a letter, which was leaked to the New York Times, in which he said: "This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly."

Harris’s campaign started off well - she was raising US$12 million a month in early 2019 and riding high in the polls - but as her numbers dropped so did her ability to raise funds and that was ultimately why she quit in December.

Harris, a moderate, endorsed Biden on 8 March - five days after he won 10 state primaries on Super Tuesday.

Three days later the WHO declared COVID-19 was a pandemic and, as Bernie Sanders mulled over whether to quit, most face-to-face rallies and fundraisers were cancelled.

Harris became a reliable surrogate for Biden in online fundraisers and she headlined an event for Biden in Raleigh, North Carolina - a battleground state where her appeal to black voters and college-educated white women could be a factor.

"Talented"

Harris comes from a family of high achievers - her mother Shyamala Gopalan was a Tamil immigrant from Indian who came to California to do a doctorate in endocrinology at Berkeley and met her father Donald Harris, who came from Jamaica in 1961 to study economics.

Her mother became a breast cancer researcher and activist and her father is an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University.

Her sister Maya is a political analyst with MSNBC and her brother-in-law Tony West is Uber’s Chief Legal Officer.

Harris’s niece is Meena is a lawyer, author and founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign.

Harris herself started out in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, where she specialised in prosecuting paedophiles.

In 2003 she was elected as District Attorney in San Francisco in 2003 and was re-elected four years later.

She was elected California’s Attorney General in 2010 and, after being re-elected four years later, she was picked to replace veteran Barbara Boxer as California’s junior Senator.

Harris entered Congress at the same time as Trump became President and on her website it says: "As US Senator, Kamala introduced or co-sponsored legislation to provide sweeping tax cuts for the middle class, address the high cost of rent, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, make higher education tuition-free for the vast majority of Americans, reform the cash bail system, protect the legal rights of refugees and immigrants, and expand access to affordable, quality health care with Medicare For All."

"Great Help To Campaign"

The Democrats will need to mobilise BAME voters like never before if they are to win November’s election.

Harris - whose parents are African-American and Indian - will help with that and the fact her husband is Jewish could also prove advantageous as Trump has been trying to drag Jewish voters away from their traditional support for the Democrats with his strong support for Israel.

On 28 July Biden announced plans to put US$30 billion - 10 percent of the federal investment he has already promised - into a Small Business Opportunity Fund designed to boost private investment for BAME-owned enterprises.

Biden also plans to spend US$50 billion to give start-up capital to BAME entrepreneurs setting out in business in disadvantaged areas like Chicago's South Side. 

"Great Respect For Her"

Biden has praised Harris many times and has often mentioned her friendship with his son Beau - both were state attorneys general - who died in 2015.

Although she may not have the personal charm and charisma of Barack or Michelle Obama, Harris does bring a certain amount of glamour to the Biden ticket.

She has no children of her own but is a stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s children, Ella and Cole, who she says refer to her as "Momala."

In 2016, Hillary Clinton campaigned as if being the first woman candidate of one of the two big parties entitled her to a place in history as the first female US President.

Harris will make no such mistake. She does not have the arrogance or the baggage of the Clintons and if she does end up in the Oval Office one day it will upset far less people than if Hillary had become the commander-in-chief.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202007301080016684-kamala-harris-if-joe-biden-chooses-her-as-his-running-mate-what-will-she-bring-to-the-ticket/

A black female (vice)-president could do the trick... See what the CONservative media and Uncle Rupe make of this...

And Trump might chose his own black female vice-president to annoy the punters...

An earlier suggestion made by US President Donald Trump on Thursday to delay the November presidential election was criticized by members of both the Democratic party and the Republican party.

Following a Thursday suggestion made by Trump to postpone the upcoming 2020 US presidential election, the US president argued that he "must know Election results on the night of the Election", expressing his unwillingness to wait "days, months, or even years".

Previously, Trump had claimed that the election might fall victim to fraudulent practices due to a mail-in ballot scheme suggested for the upcoming election amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The US president claimed that because of the in-mail voting "2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history".

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202007301080019647-trump-must-know-election-results-on-the-night-of-the-election-/

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United States Office of Government Ethics on Friday released President Donald Trump’s self-reported financial records for 2019.

According to the document, signed off by the president himself, various revenue streams brought the Trump estate a total of $446 million. This is slightly up from the $434.9 million reported in 2018, but below the 2017 total of $452 million.

Trump’s luxury Florida resort Mar-a-Lago, nicknamed the southern White House due to the president’s frequent visits, raked in over $21 million. This is compared to the $22.7 million brought in the previous year.

Trump’s winnings from his namesake hotel near the White House, which has been accused of hosting foreign delegations looking to curry favor with the president, came in at $40.5 million, similar to the previous year's results.

Trump also garners an annual $78,000 pension from his membership at the Screen Actors Guild and earns north of $100,000 from book sales of his famous The Art of the Deal.

These figures are by and large self-reported and not subject to audit or government verification.

Trump’s finances have been subject of much speculation since before his presidential bid, with many believing the figures to be inflated.

The president has fought vehemently in multiple court cases to block any publication of his tax records, which would show a more accurate reflection of his net worth and earnings.

He remains the only president in the past five decades to not release his tax returns and to not definitively divest from his businesses while in the Oval Office.

The figures include only the fiscal year of 2019 and do not reflect the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had on Trump's businesses.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202008011080031451-washington-ethics-office-releases-trumps-self-reported-2019-financial-records/

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Impressive earnings... Now we need to know the deductions if any.... Trump's accountants would have been on top of everything...

Who is Tammy Duckworth, the US senator from Illinois who is reportedly on the short list for the vice-presidential slot on the Democratic ticket? 

Born in Bangkok and wounded in the Iraq war, Tammy Duckworth has a Purple Heart and the instincts of a street fighter.

Her name has come up frequently during high-level discussions about the vice-presidential slot for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. She has also become a target for Fox News's Tucker Carlson and other conservatives.

When she said recently on CNN that she was open-minded about the prospect of removing US monuments to US founders and slave holders, Mr Carlson questioned her patriotism.

She fired back, saying that Mr Carlson should "walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America".

Her challenge to Mr Carlson attracted national notice and drew people's attention both to her political acumen and to her military background. She was shot down in a helicopter during the Iraq war and lost her legs.

Many Democrats believe that her military record and her tenacity during fights with conservatives, as well as her background as an Asian-American, would strengthen Mr Biden's candidacy. If he chose her as a running mate, say her supporters, she would help to shore up votes among veterans, minorities and women.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53596705

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The US Republican Party's vote to nominate its presidential candidate this month will be held in private, without press in attendance.

A Republican National Convention spokeswoman gave coronavirus health guidelines as the reason, the Associated Press reports. 

Delegates are due to gather in North Carolina to formally renominate President Donald Trump.

The 336 delegates will meet on 24 August in the city of Charlotte.

They will cast proxy votes for some 2,500 official delegates. Mr Trump is the party's sole remaining nominee, and his renomination will officially launch his re-election bid. 

The party was "working within the parameters set before us by state and local guidelines regarding the number of people who can attend events", the spokeswoman said.

• All you need to know about US election
• Does Trump have power to delay election?

The decision marks a significant change for the convention, which historically has worked to draw media attention to spread party messaging to the public.

Mr Trump had switched the location of the convention to Jacksonville, Florida, after the Democratic governor of North Carolina insisted in May on limiting the crowd size at the convention, on the grounds of social distancing.

But Mr Trump later scrapped the Florida convention, blaming the state's coronavirus "flare-up".

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53626546

One never knows, at the last minute, Trump might do a Nixon....

....

Now 59, Begala was a chief strategist for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign and served in the White House as counselor to the president, then advised a Super Pac that helped elect Barack Obama in 2012. He describes Lyndon Johnson, Clinton and Obama as the three “Rushmore-worthy” presidents of his lifetime. He is also a familiar face on CNN and has written six books, the latest of which is You’re Fired: The Perfect Guide to Beating Donald Trump.

Chapter one is entitled Mea Culpa, as Begala reflects on the catastrophe of Hillary Clinton’s utterly unexpected defeat in 2016.

Begala explains: “I have some personal responsibility here for failing to stop the worst man who’s ever been president and I think also the worst president we’ve ever had. Here’s what I got wrong. I was so appalled by Trump’s sewer-level character, I couldn’t avert my eyes.

“I didn’t connect my attacks on Trump’s character, on the racism, the misogyny, the Islamophobia, mocking the disabled, mocking a PoW, to the lives of the voters. When you don’t close that loop, all you’re doing is saying, ‘He’s a bad guy.’ A lot of people said, ‘Gee, he’s a terrible guy, but I’m going to take a chance on him because he looks like he’s a wrecking ball we might need in Washington.’ So what I should have said is, ‘When you deploy a wrecking ball he very often destroys your house,’ and this is what I’m urging in the book for the Democrats to do.”

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/02/paul-begala-donald-trump-joe-biden-cnn-election-book-interview

Yes, Trump was the wrecking ball that was needed in Washington... But so far he did not wreck anything much, apart from being an average white chauvinistic pig, like many americans, because as soon as he got elected, the opposition invented a multitude of reasons why he should not be there... The Russia/Trump probe was a waste of time and the impeachment was a farce.

The Republicans have a dilemma. Trump would have been a shoe-in for a second term, had it not been for a white police kneeling on the throat of a black guy. Nothing unusual in the days of previous presidents, but in the days of Trump — a guy who has no sense in "appearing" sensible and is unable to play the hypocritical sorry card, like previous tenants of the White House — this became the start of a general racist revolution stirred by the Democrats, in the name of justice, which 8 years of Obama did nothing about it, since the problem dates back to "emancipation" and slavery.

Then Covid came along and torpedoed his last remaining chances. But love him or hate him, Trump can leave the position with his head high on one issue. He did not go out there to kill anyone in the name of de-mo-cra-cy. Obama bombed seven countries... Since Kennedy, Trump is the only President who did not go to war. The only guy of note he took out was an Iranian general, for whom he got a few mentally wounded soldiers in a measured revenge hit from Iran, but did not riposte. And I believe that Trump is annoyed at having done what he did under the influence of nasty John Bolton. Ah and I forgot, he did bomb a couple of things in Syria for fake gassy reasons invented by the white helmets, but Trump sort of regretted it, as a useless show of weakness.

So Trump needs a miracle or a mea-culpa, expressed in a big positive "let's fix this (whatever it is) together"... Or he needs a smarter vice-president than the evangelical Pence. Or he needs to quit at the next GOP convention, and this is why the media will not be present:

"Look guys, I've done what I could, but let me give the next GOP president a chance... I give you Ivanka. She is far smarter than me and she can run the business of America with panache, subtlety and she is better looking than me. I give you the first female president of the United States..." 

That would put a spanner in the works... The liberal media would go in a frenzy to shoot down the woman... but would end up shooting their own feet... Ivanka? Better than Joe Biden? Sure...

Johnson, Clinton and Obama were "war" presidents...

WASHINGTON — President Trump stirred new questions on Thursday about whether he would seek to hold up new money to the Postal Service to impede mail-in voting this fall in the middle of the pandemic.

Repeating the unfounded claim that the election could be riddled with fraud if mail ballots were widely used, he made clear that he opposed Democratic demands for additional funding for both the post office and election security measures because of his opposition to mail-in voting. Still, he left open the possibility that he could come to a deal as part of a larger negotiation over a new round of economic stimulus.

“We have to have an honest election,” the president said when pressed on mail voting at a news conference in the White House Briefing Room. “And if it’s not going to be an honest election, I guess people have to sit down and think really long and hard about it.”

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/us/politics/trump-postal-service-mail-voting.html

cartoon from Punch c 1970s...

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California GOP installed unofficial ballot drop-off boxes. State officials say they’re illegal.

The metal boxes have popped up around Southern California in recent weeks, from churches to gun stores to gyms. On the front, an authoritative-looking sign beckons to voters: “Official ballot drop-off box.”

The California GOP has pushed voters to pop their mail-in ballots inside. Social media posts have advertised their locations, and one regional field director posted a photo to Twitter on Friday showing him holding a ballot in front of one of the boxes.

“Doing my part and voting early,” Jordan Tygh wrote in the now-deleted tweet, which was reviewed by The Washington Post before it was removed. “DM me for convenient locations to drop your ballot off at!”

But those containers, which were first reported by the Orange County Register and KCAL, are not county-authorized ballot drop-off sites. In fact, the unofficial boxes are against the law, state officials said Sunday.

Read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/12/california-illegal-ballot-boxes/

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Right-wing political commentator Dinesh D’Souza has made a documentary about the tampering of the 2020 US presidential election. Since 2 May 2022, his film has been screened in 250 theaters and is available in full on YouTube.

Its detractors have already showered it with insults, but have failed to elucidate the points in dispute.

READ MORE:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article216766.html

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