Greene County Democrat

Tag: Kamala Harris

  • Newswire : House Republicans leaders ditch vote on ACA funding cuts, all but ensuring healthcare premiums will rise

    By Sahil Kapur, Julie Tsirkin and Brennan Leach, HBCU News

    WASHINGTON — It’s official: House Speaker Mike Johnson says he won’t call a vote to extend enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, effectively guaranteeing they will expire at the end of this month.
    That means higher insurance premiums will go into effect for millions of Americans who get coverage through Obamacare next year.
    The speaker made the announcement Tuesday after a closed-door Republican caucus meeting, saying that leadership failed to reach a deal with centrist members to bring up an ACA amendment on a health care bill set for a vote on Wednesday.
    “There’s about a dozen members in the conference that are in these swing districts who are fighting hard to make sure they reduce costs for all of their constituents. And many of them did want to vote on this Obamacare Covid-era subsidy that Democrats created,” Johnson, R-La., told reporters. “We looked for a way to try to allow for that pressure release valve, and it just was not to be. We worked on it all the way through the weekend, in fact. And in the end there was not an agreement — it wasn’t made.”
    As Johnson’s office rolled out the bill Friday, GOP leadership aides said they were working with lawmakers on a path forward for a vote on an amendment to keep the ACA funds flowing.
    “I certainly appreciate the views and the opinions of every member of this conference,” Johnson said. “But I will tell you: One thing they will all join in unity on is voting for this bill that we’ve been discussing this morning.”
    The centrist Republicans who have been pushing for an ACA funding extension include Reps. Jen Kiggans of Virginia, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler of New York — all of whom represent competitive districts that could make or break the Republican majority in the 2026 midterms.
    “I am pissed for the American people. This is absolute bulls—, and it’s absurd,” Lawler said Tuesday. “Everybody has a responsibility to serve their district, to serve their constituents. You know what’s funny? Three-quarters of people on Obamacare are in states Donald Trump won. So maybe, just maybe, everybody should look at this and say, ‘How do we actually fix the health care system?’”
    He faulted the leaders of both parties on the issue.
    “You have two leaders that are not serious about solving this problem,” Lawler said, adding that it would be “idiotic” to not hold a vote on the expiring subsidies.
    Asked about Lawler’s criticism, Johnson called him “a very dear friend and a close colleague of mine.”
    But, he said, other Republicans come from different districts with “different priorities and ideas.” Many Republicans want the funds to expire on schedule.
    Another reason the talks broke down is that leaders told the centrist Republicans that they would need to find spending cuts to pay for an ACA funding extension, which is projected to cost about $35 billion per year. That’s a tall order, and one that went over poorly among those GOP members, particularly as party leaders are regularly willing to waive “pay-for” rules on policies they favor.
    Some Republicans who want to extend the subsidies have not ruled out signing onto a “discharge petition” by Democrats to end-run Johnson and force a vote on a clean three-year extension of ACA subsidies.
    “All options are on the table,” Lawler said.
    Asked if he’s open to signing the Democrats’ discharge petition, Fitzpatrick said, “We’ll talk about that after today.”
    The GOP divisions are likely to empower House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who is insisting on a clean three-year extension with the support of all Democrats. Some Democrats have backed a shorter-term extension with some reforms to win GOP votes, but Jeffries is holding firm.
    “There are 214 Democrats who have signed a discharge petition that would force an up-or-down vote on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits — to make sure that tens of millions of Americans don’t experience increased health insurance premiums that will prevent them from being able to go see a doctor when they need one,” Jeffries said Monday. “All we need are four House Republicans to join us.”
    Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who represents a solidly red district, said members like Lawler should remember that other Republicans also have bills they won’t put to a vote.
    “You can’t have everything every time,” Burchett said. “Even though he’s in a district that Kamala Harris won, we can’t just give all the committees and all the bills to the more liberal members of the party.”
    Even if a discharge petition secured the votes to pass, which is far from certain, it would take time to reach the House floor. That effectively guarantees it’ll be pushed into next year, with Republicans hoping to adjourn after this week.
    Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who was just re-elected to serve as House Freedom Caucus chairman for another year, said he isn’t worried about his colleagues signing a discharge petition or even passing a bill to extend ACA funds through the House.
    “It’s their right as a member to sign a discharge petition. I’m not afraid of a vote on a discharge petition. These will pass in the House, and then they’ll be killed over in the Senate,” Harris said. “The Senate’s already taken a position on extending the Affordable Care Act to enhance subsidies, and they rejected it.”
    Harris added that “it’s possible that we put a package together in January or February” dealing with health care, but he said it must be broader than just addressing ACA enrollees in order to secure his vote.
    Asked if he’s worried that moderate Republicans may sign onto Democrats’ discharge petition, Johnson told NBC News, “I don’t worry about anything.”

  • Newswire : Remembering George Floyd

    Mural honoring George Floyd

    By April Ryan, NNPA White House Correspondent

     

    “The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse.

    It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

    The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden.

    Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

    In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process.
    “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who kneeled on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those nine minutes and 26 seconds on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill in a convience store in Minneapolis.

  • Newswire : A forward march for MLK In the new Trump era

     MLK monument in Washington, D. C.

    By April Ryan, BlackPressUSA.com Washington Bureau Chief and Chief White House Correspondent

    “Today hits differently,” says Democratic Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett who decided to observe the National Martin Luther King Jr. holiday away from the 60th Presidential inauguration of Donald John Trump.

    A large swath of the 62 members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were invited to the ceremonies chose to observe the National King Day away from the nation’s capital. “Today, unlike any King Day before, I’ve truly searched my soul for his strength and praying for an ounce of his political prowess,” according to the outspoken Texas lawmaker who was a co-chair of the Kamala Harris Presidential campaign last year. The Harris presidential campaign ended in defeat on November 5, 2024, with Donald Trump being named the 47th President of the United States.

    If Dr. King, a civil rights icon, had lived; he would have been 96 years old on January 15th of this year. The irony of the day honoring the civil and human rights leader is that it is shared with the 60th presidential inauguration ceremony in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building. 

    Historically, the second inaugurations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama took place on MLK Day in 1997 and 2013. There were some democratic hopes that Kamala Harris could be a repeat of today’s swearing-in history. A few months ago, some Kamala Harris campaign staffers believed the then-Democratic presidential candidate would have been sworn in today by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on this King Day.

    Since the 15th of this month, there have been many celebrations honoring the life and civil rights history of Dr. King. One was at Riverside Church in Harlem, New York Rev. Mark Thompson, host of “Make It Plain,” and NNPA Global Digital Transformation Director, remembered Dr. King by saying, “his memory calls us to transcend all of the things we are most concerned about today.” Dr. King, who was killed in 1968 by an assassin’s bullet, challenged authority at the highest levels to achieve equality for African Americans in this nation like voting rights and civil rights. Thompson warns in this new political era, “rather than relax or be discouraged we should…continue to hold the Office of the President accountable.”

     

  • Newswire :Vice-President Kamala Harris hauls in $200 million in the first week of her candidacy

    Vice President Kamala Harris takes her official portrait Thursday, March 4, 2021, in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

     

    She adds 170,000 volunteers

    By Blackmansstreettoday

     

    Kamala Harris raked in $200 million in her first week as a presidential candidate, and signed more than 170,000 volunteers to her campaign, “Harris for President,” communications director Michael Tyler wrote in a statement announcing the fundraising haul. 

    The haul comes amid rumors that Republican president Donald Trump plans to dump Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance as his vice presidential running mate because Trump is not happy with some of his statements, including his calling some women “childless cat ladies.”

    Trump, the former president, selected Vance as his vice president on (July 15, 2024).

    Trump is waiting to see who Harris will select as her vice president before dumping Vance if Harris names a much stronger candidate as her vice president.
    ,
    The Harris campaign said 66% of the recent donations made came from first-time donors and were given after President Biden announced last Sunday that he was stepping down and endorsing her to be the Democratic nominee. 

    The total donations thus far are staggering and point to the intensity surrounding her nascent bid with 100 days to go before Election Day.

    To put that figure in perspective, it’s four times what the Biden re-election effort raised in the entire month of April. 

    Former president Trump’s campaign said it raised nearly $112 million during June, Politico reported. 

    The announcement comes one week after President Joe Biden’s bombshell decision to end his re-election bid and throw his support behind the vice president.

    “The momentum and energy for Vice President Harris is real and so are the fundamentals of this race: this election will be very close and decided by a small number of voters in just a few states,” Harris for President communications director Michael Tyler wrote in the same fundraising report.

    Since Harris became the party’s all-but-certain presidential nominee, Democrats have been jolted out of their collective malaise following Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month against Donald Trump.

    With Harris ascending to the top of the ticket, the party saw mammoth fundraising, including topping the $100 million mark in her first full day as the Democrats’ likely nominee. The campaign soon announced she had secured enough verbal commitments from delegates to secure the party’s nomination ahead of the Democratic National Convention next month.

    The energy behind Harris, who is of Black and South Asian descent, is also showing up in the polls, with Harris closing the deficit that had widened in the final weeks Biden was the presumptive nominee.

  • Newswire: Vice President Kamala Harris plans to swear-in new Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    America’s history-making vice president plans to swear in Los Angeles’ history-making mayor during an inaugural ceremony scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 11.
    Kamala Harris, the United States’ first Black and first woman vice president, will do the honors for Karen Bass, the first woman to serve as mayor in the city of angels.
Officials said holding the historic ceremony on Sunday makes it more convenient for the public to participate while allowing Bass to devote her first day in office to attending to city business.
    “Angelenos are so frustrated,” Bass said in a CBS Mornings interview this week.
“There is so much pent-up urgency to see something happen immediately. Part of my job is to communicate exactly what I’m doing with Angelenos and the timeline, so I manage expectations. But at the same time, I plan to deliver.”
    A spokesperson for Harris said Bass asked the vice president to administer the oath of office “as a nod to their status as two of California’s most powerful Black women.”
    Harris and President Biden endorsed Bass in August after she won the June primary by seven percentage points over her rival, billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, CBS News reported. Former President Obama also threw his support behind Bass shortly before the November election.
    Bass, 69, a six-term congresswoman and a finalist on President Joe Biden’s short list of potential running mates, drew more votes than any mayoral candidate in Los Angeles’ history.
    The former Congressional Black Caucus Chair has prioritized tackling the city’s homeless crisis. She said she wants to work to eradicate the problem immediately.
“Los Angeles has become unaffordable. You have to have a comprehensive approach. There’s no magic bullet,” Bass declared in a nationally televised interview late last month.
    “So first and foremost, you have to prevent people from falling into homelessness. And clearly, affordability is key to that. But you know, people are on the streets for a variety of issues. And you have to address why they’re there.”
    She continued: “Is it substance abuse? Is it mental illness? Is it just straight-up affordability? We have people who are in tents who actually work full-time. We have thousands of children who are in tents.
    “Some with mothers who fled domestic violence, some who are teenagers who aged out of foster care. Some people who were formerly incarcerated because they were not able to find housing are in tents.
    “So we have to have a comprehensive approach and address why people were unhoused. But first and foremost, we have to get people off the streets. People are literally dying on the streets in Los Angeles, and this has got to stop.”

  • Vice-President Kamala Harris joins thousands to commemorate 57th. Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ and calls for the resurrection of the Voting Rights Act and end to voter suppression

    Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at foot of Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma
    Spiver W. Gordon walks with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

    Special to the Democrat by John Zippert, Co-Publisher


    Vice-President of the United States, Kamala Harris, was the keynote speaker at a rally at the foot of the Edmond Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama on Sunday March 6, 2022, to mark the 57th anniversary of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ March, which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

    Harris and many other civil rights and U. S. cabinet officials said it was critical to commemorate this anniversary because Black, Brown, poor and young people had a better chance to vote in 1965, after passage of the Voting Rights Act, than they have today, when the right to vote is under challenge, as part of a larger attack on democracy.

    “In 2020, despite the pandemic, we had a record turnout of voters, which helped to elect President Biden and myself. As a result, the Republicans have launched an assault on the freedom to vote. They have passed and are working on passing legislation in over 30 states to make it more difficult to vote.

    “Every Republican Senator voted against passage of the John Lewis Freedom to Vote Act, when it came up for a vote earlier this year. We have no choice, we must stand and fight for the right to vote and we must fight with determination, even in the face of arcane rules, like the filibuster,” said Harris.

    The Vice-President was accompanied to Selma by her husband, Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman, and five Biden Administration cabinet members, including: HUD Secretary, Marcia Fudge, Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona, Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Regan, Environmental Protection Agency head and Donald Remy, Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

    After her talk, she joined a group of three hundred civil rights leaders, local foot-soldiers, public officials, cabinet members and others at the front of the march across the bridge. Over 10,000 or more other marchers, who had started from Browns Chapel Church, followed behind a line of Secret Service, law enforcement and other security officials protecting the Vice-President and five cabinet officials, who traveled to Selma with Harris and also spoke at the rally.

    Sunday’s march re-enactment and protest for revitalizing the Voting Rights Act came at the end of the Bridge Crossing Jubilee weekend, which featured more than 30 activities including a parade, banquet, several breakfasts, many workshops, a golf tournament and other related events.

    “The Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee is the largest civil rights and voting rights activity in our nation. Some of our activities were virtual and others were curtailed and impacted by the pandemic, but we still had large crowds of engaged people, which was our goal,” said Hank Sanders, cofounder with his wife Faya Rose Toure (Sanders) of the Jubilee, more than 30 years ago.

    Many of the speakers, related the struggle for voting rights in our country, to the struggle to defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine and preserve democracy in that eastern European country.
    Sherrilyn Ifill, Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, after recounting the attacks on voting rights by the Supreme Count and state legislatures, said, “What we do in Selma, in Washington, D. C., Fulton County, Georgia, will have global implications. Black people must save democracy and we must make our country better.”

    Latosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter said, “We are winning, we voted in record numbers in 2020. The turnout was younger, browner and more diverse than ever. This is what generated the attacks on voting rights and this is why we must continue to fight.”

    Rev. Jesse Jackson, assisted by his son Jonathan Jackson, Bishop William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign, Barbara Arnwine of the Transformative Justice Coalition, Derrick Johnson, NAACP, Melanie Campbell of the Black Women’s Roundtable, Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, Charles Steele of SCLC, Congresswoman Terri Sewell and many other members of the Black Congressional Caucus were present and gave remarks.

    Many of the civil rights leaders were in town for the Bridge Crossing Jubilee, because they agreed to work jointly to continue the march from Selma to Montgomery, this week (March 7-11). They felt the necessity to illuminate the challenges to the Voting Rights Act and engage people in the 2022 mid-term elections to work for passage of the John Lewis Voter Advancement Act, in future sessions of Congress.

  • Newswire: Cedric Richmond leaves House to a go to a bigger house, the White House

    Cedric Richmond


    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNewsToday.com
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Cedric Richmond resigned from Congress after being selected to work for President-elect Joe Biden.
    Richmond will work for the White House Office of Public Engagement, making him one of the highest-ranking Black in the incoming administration, other than Kamala Harris, the Vice President-elect.
    He announced that he was leaving office Tuesday. His district Baton Rouge and River Road areas. The majority of this district is New Orleans, where he lives.Richmond has held a number of leadership positions including Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, The House Democratic Assistant to the Majority Whip.
    He has represented his district since 2011. He is a graduate of Morehouse College and Tulane Law School.

  • Newswire: Everyone is counting on Black women again to go the distance in Georgia’s Senate Runoff Race

    Stacey Abrams campaigning

    By: Charise Frazier, Newsone

    Black women have done it before and are being asked to do it again in the state of Georgia.
    The ask? To help deliver votes ensuring progressive leaders win in a highly contentious Senate runoff race. On Jan. 5, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, will face off, as will GOP Sen. David Perdue and his Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff.
    The highly watched race will determine the future of the Senate and Joe Biden administration’s ability to deliver on its vow to restore the “soul of the nation,” one of the president-elect’s rallying calls during his presidential run.
    “The senate race in Georgia is the difference between Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes in the senate or Mitch McConnell continuing to hold the country hostage,” Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, told NewsOne during a phone conversation Monday.
    For Black Americans, that would mean a concerted effort to reform a multitude of systems that have disproportionately hindered their advancements economically, in education as well as in health, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic.
    Two weeks ago, white mainstream media finally began to recognize the work and achievements of Black women organizers in Georgia like Stacey Abrams, founder of Fair Fight, Nse Ufot, leader of The New Georgia Project and LaTosha Brown, founder of Black Voters Matter. The brainpower and organized efforts among them as well as scores of unnamed on-the-ground workers helped register thousands of Black voters, contributing to a total of 1.2 million Black voters casting ballots in the Nov. 3 election. According to exit polls, 92 percent of Black women in Georgia voted for Biden.
    Due to COVID-19, organizers will again rely on unconventional mobilizing efforts to build on the momentum of the last election cycle, organizing text banks, virtual events and even going door-to-door in the pandemic.
    “Amazing Black women organizers are risking their lives to save our communities in a global pandemic that has killed one in one thousand Black people in America. From the pandemic or politics, Black women have consistently been on the right side and the rest of us need to follow,” Mitchell added.
    Glynda Carr, the president of Higher Heights for America, the only national organization dedicated to harnessing Black women’s political power, said she had no reason to doubt history would not repeat itself.
    “The creativity of Black women organizers was on full display this cycle and created a lot of innovative ways to do contact lists, voter mobilization as well as being able to gather voters virtually and I certainly anticipate that that innovation will continue to grow and stretch,” Carr told NewsOne. “They’re not only inspired by the moments of electing Warnock and Ossoff but they also have been inspired by the leadership of these activists.
    But, Black women can’t continue to function as the sail on a weathered ship.  As the most reliable voting bloc, Black women invested in this election with the promise that their votes would finally warrant a return and produce action towards legislation eradicating blocked accessways to wellness without the threat of patriarchy and misogynoir, bridled under the umbrella of white supremacy.
    “Democracy is a participatory activity and should not fall on one particular constituency to overperform,” Carr continued. “And I certainly believe that Black women will not only prepare to be an informed voter going into the January 5 runoff, they will also organize their networks. But I also think we’re going to be calling on our neighbors to participate in this runoff and you’re going to hear Black women going ‘Hey neighbor!’”
    But Carr cautioned walk cannot be had alone.
    “I certainly think that here’s another opportunity coming out of the general election where there’s obviously discussions around the participation of white women, the participation of Latinx and the participation of Black men,” Carr said. “This is definitely sparking a conversation around shared values and how we can show up for one another. I’ve seen those conversations happening and I certainly think in Georgia people will continue to create virtual spaces for those to continue as they go to not only elect the one but two senators, which is unique in itself.”

  • Newswire: Kamala Harris: ‘Our very democracy was on the ballot’

    By Sandy Fitzgerald, Associated Press

    Vice-President elect, Kamala Harris


    Kamala Harris, while introducing Joe Biden to make his victory speech as president elect of the United States, lauded American voters for delivering a “clear message” by choosing “hope and unity, decency, science, and yes, truth”  by choosing the former vice president as their choice for president of the United States 
    “I know times have been challenging, especially the last several months,” the California Democrat told a wildly cheering crowd in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden’s home. “The grief, sorrow, and pain, the worries and the struggles, but we have also witnessed your courage, your resilience and the generosity of your spirit. For four years, you marched and organized for equality and justice, for our lives and for our planet and then you voted.”
    Harris further told the audience that “our very democracy was on the ballot” in the election and the “very soul of America” was at stake, and the voters “ushered in a new day for America.”
    Harris lauded Biden as a “man with a big heart who loves with abandon” including with his love for his wife, Jill, and for his family, Hunter and Ashley and his grandchildren.  “I first knew Joe as vice president,” she said. “I really got to know him as the father who loved Beau (Biden)”
    She also lauded her husband and family, before moving on to speak about her own role in history as the first female vice president, not to mention the first Black and Asian-American to be elected. 
    “This is for the women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all. Including the Black women who are often, too often overlooked, all the women who have worked to secure and protect the right to vote for over a century, 100 years ago with the 19th amendment. Fifty-five years ago with the Voting Rights Act and now in 2020,” said Harris. 
    “Tonight I reflect on their struggle, their determination, and the strength of their vision to see what can be unburdened by what has been, and I stand on their shoulders,” said Harris, praising Biden for his vision in breaking “one of the most substantial barriers that exist in our country and seek a woman as his vice president.”
    She also promised that she will not be the last woman in the office, as “every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities and to the children of our country, regardless of your gender. Our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they’ve never seen it before. But know that we will applaud you every step of the way.”
    Harris further promised that she will be an “loyal, honest, and prepared” vice president, like Biden was to President Barack Obama. “The road ahead will not be easy, but America is ready. And so are Joe and I,” said Harris.
    Harris, at 56, is set to be sworn in not only as the first female vice president but the first Black and Indian-American vice president. But the second spot at the White House is a pinnacle for Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and the first Black woman to serve as California’s attorney general, notes a New York Times profile of Harris. 
    And when Harris was elected to the Senate in 2016, she was the second-ever Black woman in the chamber’s history. Her argumentative style quickly gained notice in the Senate, particularly after she fiercely grilled witnesses during committee testimony, including during the confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
    After their exchanges, President Donald Trump labeled the California Democrat as being “extraordinarily nasty” to Kavanaugh and called the way she treated him a “horrible thing.”
    Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican father, Donald Harris, an economist and Stanford University professor and an Indian mother, scientist Shyamala Gopalan, who died in 2009 of colon cancer. 
    Harris’ parents divorced when she was seven years old. She also has a sister, Maya, and is married to a Jewish husband, Douglas Emhoff, who will become the first second gentleman. Her stepchildren have nicknamed her “Momala.” 
    Harris attended an historically black college, Howard University, before becoming a prosecutor working on domestic violence and child exploitation cases. 
    Her legal background as California’s attorney general has caused her political issues, including when she was running for president early in the 2020 race. However, Harris gained attention when, during an early debate, she attacked Biden’s Senate record on race. 
    But since then, Harris has stressed that she does support Biden and his positions, and has come under several other attacks from Trump, who has ridiculed the pronunciation of her name. After she debated Vice President Mike Pence, Trump slammed her as a “monster.”
    Harris joined Biden’s ticket after the former vice-president promised to pick a female running mate. Even that came under criticism from Trump, who expressed surprise that Biden would pick a running mate who had attacked him during their presidential debate. 

  • Newswire: Biden says he won’t commit to picking a woman of color for VP running mate

    By Bruce C.T. Wright, Newsone

    Black voters for Biden


    In a move that is sure to stun some of his most ardent supporters, Joe Biden said on Monday that he would not commit to choosing a woman of color to be his vice-presidential running mate. The moment of candor ran contrary to the presumptive narrative that Biden was intent on selecting a Black woman to be his running mate.
    Biden’s interview with Pittsburgh’s KDKA commanded attention when he said he would readily have Michelle Obama as his running mate “in a heartbeat.” But it was his comments later in the interview that may have raised the antennae of some of the Black voters who pushed Biden to victory in the early primaries. Biden said he would stay true to his vow to pick a woman candidate, but that’s it.
    “I’ll commit to that be a woman because it is very important that my administration look like the public, look like the nation,” Biden told KDKA. “And there will be, committed that there will be a woman of color on the Supreme Court, that doesn’t mean there won’t be a vice president, as well.”
    Those seemed to be his most explicit comments about his future running mate to date, but it was unclear how that strategy might affect his campaign that was already nearly $187 million behind Donald Trump in terms of fundraising. A poll last week found that Biden running with a Black candidate could boost his chances of winning the 2020 election.
    Stacey Abrams and Kamala Harris have been the two Black women at the center of Biden’s running mate rumors for months now, but his comments on Monday put those chances into doubt. If Biden did choose a woman who is not Black to be his running mate, that could affect how Black women voters — the backbone of the Democratic Party — will react. In fact, that may be true for Black voters as a whole, who could take the selection of Amy Klobuchar (or any non-Black person) as a slap in the face since Black folks have been largely credited with propelling Biden’s candidacy after Sanders jumped out to an early lead following the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in two very white states.
    The GRIO put it more plainly last week with its headline: “If Biden doesn’t pick Stacey Abrams, he can kiss Black folks goodbye.”
    Biden has even gone so far as to boast on the debate stage, at rallies and, really, anywhere else, that he has the undying support of Black voters.
    No, this isn’t a quid pro quo with Black voters expecting a Black woman running mate to be blindly selected in exchange for their support. On the contrary, the calls for a Black woman vice-presidential candidate are consistent with those from well before there were any 2020 Democratic candidates when the narrative was that the Party’s presidential ticket should include some semblance of diversity. While Klobuchar being a woman would technically fulfill that demand, the unspoken expectation has been that if the nominee was not a Black person, then the running mate should be.
    The logic behind choosing a Black woman/person as a running mate stems from the 2016 election when Hillary Clinton failed to turn out Black voters. In particular, 4.4 million voters decided against voting at all, including one-third of them who were Black, according to the Washington Post. If the Democratic nominee chooses a Black running mate, that should in theory spur more of those voters who sat out the last election to participate this time around with most of them, in all likelihood, casting ballots against Trump.
    Of course, that’s the end game for Democrats — to vote out Trump — so it’s doubtful that Black voters would rather see the incumbent win instead of electing a new president and his running mate, regardless of who or what color those people are. But in 2020, with the stakes so high and the world witnessing an American president who has no idea how to stop the coronavirus, would Biden really take that chance? Only time will tell.