We are now learning that she used former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown in what can be described as an adulterous affair in order to launch and further her political career. After serving the US Senate for just over a year, Harris has launched her bid to win the Democratic nomination for president and to defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
Harris is a typical California socialist Democrat and now she has confirmed that contention by announcing that she will push for free Medicare for all and annihilate the private health insurance industry.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., formally launched her run for the Democratic presidential nomination Sunday with a full-fledged embrace of big government programs, including "Medicare for All" and universal pre-kindergarten education -- and taking multiple shots at President Trump's policies.
"I'm running to fight for an America where the economy works for working people," Harris told a cheering crowd outside City Hall in her hometown of Oakland. "I am running to declare, once and for all, that health care is a fundamental right, and to deliver that right with 'Medicare for All.' To declare education is a fundamental right, and we will guarantee that right with universal pre-K and debt-free college."
Harris slammed President Trump's planned border wall as "a medieval vanity project" and criticized the administration for its hardline immigration policy. "When we have children in cages, crying for their mothers and fathers, don't you dare call that border security, that's human rights abuse," Harris said.
Harris also pledged to reverse the administration's tax cuts, which she described as a "giveaway to the top big corporations and the top one percent," to pay for what she promised would be "the largest working and middle-class tax cut in a generation, up to $500 a month to help America's families make ends meet."
Harris cast the United States as being at "an inflection point" in its history and claimed, "the American Dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before."
"We are here at this moment in time because we must answer a fundamental question," Harris said. "Who are we? Who are we as Americans? So, let’s answer that question to the world and each other, right here and right now. America, we are better than this."
Harris, the daughter of immigrant father from Jamaica and immigrant mother from India, started her political career in 2003 when she was elected San Francisco district attorney. She was voted attorney general of California seven years later and was elected to the Senate in 2016.
"My whole life, I've only had one client: the people," Harris said in an echo of her campaign slogan "For the People." She also defended her record as a prosecutor, which has come under scrutiny from some progressives.
"'For the People' meant fighting for a more fair criminal justice system. At a time when prevention and redemption were not in the vocabulary or mindset of most district attorneys, we created an initiative to give skills and job training stead of jail time for young people arrested for drugs," said Harris, who added that American's criminal justice system "needs drastic repair."
"It’s fitting that Harris chose the most liberal district in deep-blue California to launch her campaign," Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Ahrens said in response to her remarks. "Government-run health care, weaker borders and higher taxes might be popular there, but her liberal policies are totally out-of-step with most Americans. President Trump has led this country to record economic highs and strengthened our national security, and it’s why he’s going to be re-elected in 2020."
Harris is among the first major Democrats to jump into what is expected to be a crowded 2020 presidential contest. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York have announced exploratory committees. Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney and Julian Castro, federal housing chief under President Barack Obama and a former San Antonio mayor, already are in the race. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Bernie Sanders of Vermont have signaled they may also run.
Harris was scheduled to make her first trip to Iowa as a presidential candidate following the rally. She traveled to the leadoff caucus state in the weeks before this past November's midterm elections to campaign on behalf of Democrats. She has also visited other early-voting states, including South Carolina this past Friday.
Kamala Harris’ rise to political power started in California, where she served as a district attorney and attorney general for the state. And it has culminated in a 2020 presidential run.
Harris, 54, has broken many barriers in her career, becoming the first African-American and woman to serve as California’s attorney general. And when she joined the Senate, she became the first South Asian-American and second black woman to join. In January 2019, Harris officially announced she would run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.
Harris graduated from Howard University, a historically black university, and received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings. She worked as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California in the 1990s at a time when violent crime in Oakland was rising, according to The New York Times. She worked for the San Francisco city attorney before she was elected – twice – as the city’s district attorney.
She served as the district attorney from 2004 until 2011, when she became California’s attorney general. She was first elected to the Senate – where she serves on the Judiciary, Intelligence, Homeland Security and Budget Committees – in 2016. Harris said she chose her career because she wanted to be “at the table where the decisions are made.”
She advocated for legalizing same-sex marriage
Before Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage, Harris was a champion for marriage equality. As California’s attorney general, Harris refused to defend Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment passed by the state’s voters in 2008 which would have barred same-sex marriage.
“I declined to defend Proposition 8 because it violates the Constitution. The Supreme Court has described marriage as a fundamental right 14 times since 1888,” she said in a statement. The time has come for this right to be afforded to every citizen.”
The Supreme Court eventually ruled against Proposition 8. Harris would officiate the wedding of Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, the first same-sex marriage in California.
She went after website Backpage.com
“By creating an online brothel – a hotbed of illicit and exploitative activity – Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacey and James Larkin preyed on vulnerable victims, including children, and profited from their exploitation,” Harris said in 2016. “My office will not turn a blind eye to this criminal behavior simply because the defendants are exploiting and pimping victims on the Internet rather than on a street corner.”
Backpage let users create posts to sell items, seek a roommate, participate in forums, list upcoming events or post job openings. But the site also had listings for adult escorts and other sexual services, and authorities said advertising related to those services has been extremely lucrative. Ferrer, the CEO, pleaded guilty last year to money laundering and conspiracy charges. The company pleaded guilty to human trafficking.
She’s against the death penalty – sort of
“My career as a prosecutor was marked by fierce opposition to the death penalty while still upholding the law and a commitment to fixing a broken criminal justice system,” Harris said in a 2018 Facebook post.
In 2004, as San Francisco’s district attorney, Harris declined to pursue the death penalty against David Hill, a gang member, who fatally shot a police officer. He was sentenced to life without parole in 2007. She again declined to seek the death penalty for Edwin Ramos, who murdered three people in 2009. He, too, was sentenced to life in prison. She reportedly campaigned for district attorney by pledging not to advocate for capital punishment which helped solidify her win, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
But critics have noted that despite her refusal to seek the death penalty in multiple cases, Harris has defended capital punishment in court. In 2014, as California’s attorney general, Harris asked an appeals court to reverse an earlier decision declaring California’s death penalty unconstitutional, calling the ruling “fundamentally misguided.”
“California provides capital defendants with substantial opportunities to challenge their convictions – and resources for doing so – for the precise purpose of ensuring that the death penalty will not be ‘arbitrarily’ imposed,” she wrote.
She launched San Francisco’s program to reduce recidivism
On her Senate website, Harris lists the program she launched to reduce recidivism rates for non-violent drug offenders as one of her “achievements” as San Francisco’s district attorney. Called “Back on Track,” the 2005 program aided the low-level drug offenders with education and job training to help them once they left jail, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The program was criticized, however, after it was revealed that it included undocumented immigrants, training them for jobs they couldn’t legally get. Harris later called the acceptance of undocumented immigrants into the program a “flaw in the design” and asked for it to be fixed, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Critics accused her of protecting Catholic clergy who abused children
“The records at issue may contain answers to a question of great public concern that has consumed international headlines during recent weeks: What did senior Catholic officials know, and what did they do behind the scenes, while priests accused of molesting children were shielded from punishment?” Smith wrote.
He noted while it’s important for district attorneys to not release information that could undermine a case or draw unwanted attention to victims, “Harris’ office seems to be going beyond these important principles to a blanket policy of secrecy.”
In a statement at the time, Harris’ office said: “District Attorney Harris focuses her efforts on putting child molesters in prison. We’re not interested in selling out our victims to look good in the paper.”
She was once accused of violating defendants’ rights
A judge accused Harris, then a district attorney, of having violated defendants’ rights by refusing to disclose problems regarding a police drug lab technician. In all, more than 600 cases were ultimately dismissed because of Deborah Madden, who was accused of stealing some of the cocaine she was supposed to analyze.
Harris’ office had a “duty to implement some type of procedure to secure and produce information relevant to Madden’s criminal history,” the judge ruled. By not disclosing information about Madden, Harris’ office was complicit in “the violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights,” the judge said.
She negotiated a massive mortgage settlement during the housing crisis
The attorney generals accused the banks of using illegal practices to foreclose on homes nationwide. Notably, Harris declined to charge Steven Mnuchin, now President Trump’s treasury secretary, for allegedly violating state foreclosure laws when he ran OneWest bank. Under his leadership, the bank foreclosed on more than 36,000 homes, according to The Hill. Harris said her office “followed the facts and the evidence” and “pursued it just like any other case.”
She advocated for laws to control handguns
She advocated for a law barring advertisements with photos of handguns. As attorney general, Harris defended an “archaic” law which banned firearms dealers from displaying advertisements visible from outside the stores that included a photo of a handgun. Notably, the law allowed for pictures of rifles to be visible.
“Those people, who otherwise might not enter the store, might respond on impulse to an advertisement in the store by entering and purchasing a handgun – indeed, that is the self-evident purpose of that kind of advertising, to draw people in and induce them to purchase a handgun,” Harris argued. “The Supreme Court has long held that the government may restrict advertising in order to dampen demand, and thereby advance a substantial government interest,” she said.
Attorney Bradley Benbrook, who filed the lawsuit challenging the law, said Harris was suggesting “the right to free speech is OK except when it’s about guns because guns are bad.” A federal judge struck down the law last year, saying it violated gun store owners’ First Amendment rights.
