Strange Duty of VP Presidential Candidates

Today, Vice President Kamala Harris certified the 2024 election in favor of her opponent, Donald Trump.  She is not the first vice president to have that uncomfortable duty.  Al Gore certified the 2000 election - in which he won the popular vote - for George W Bush.  Hubert Humphrey certified Richard Nixon's 1968 victory.  Nixon could sympathize with Humphrey, having been in the same position in 1960, when he certified his defeat against John F Kennedy.  One has to go back a century to find another sitting VP and failed presidential candidate announcing his opponent's victory.  John C Breckinridge was James Buchanan's VP.  He was one of 3 candidates opposing Lincoln and placed 2nd in the electoral college.  In February 1861, he announced that "Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, having received a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, is elected President."  He then joined the Confederacy to oppose Lincoln in a less civilized fashion.

By contrast, only two VPs have had the joyous opportunity to preside over a victory.  VP George Bush certified his victory in the 1988 election.  Prior to him, one has to go back to Martin Van Buren who won the 1836 election as Andrew Jackson's VP.

The remaining two men who jumped directly from VP to presidency did so prior to the 12th Amendment.  As Washington's VP, John Adams was elected in 1796, but his opponent, Thomas Jefferson, won the vice-presidency.  The awkwardness of having the president and VP from rival parties brought about the 12th Amendment so that - generally - each party put up their picks for each office.  Thus, in 1800, Adams and Jefferson had a rematch but selected VP candidates; Aaron Burr for Jefferson and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for Adams.  The Jefferson-Burr ticket won, but both had identical electoral vote totals.  Now Burr argued that he had just as much right to be president as Jefferson.  This triggered a contingent election where the House had to choose, thus denying Jefferson the opportunity to announce his victory.

Special Report with VP Harris

VP Kamala Harris was interviewed by Brett Bair this week.  It proved to be a contentious interview as Brett asked some pointed, hard-hitting questions.  He hammered away at the immigration issue, first asking the VP how many illegal immigrants the administration had released into the country.  When she did not offer a number, he posited 6 million.  VP Harris replied by accusing Donald Trump of torpedoing a border bill; Trump wants the border issue alive for the election and thus used his pull to sink efforts to fix it.  This is so, but much of the damage from immigration took place before that, notably a trio of young women slain by immigrants released into the country.  Hard hitting indeed.  When Harris sought to place blame on Trump, Bair repeatedly observed that she had been in office for the past 3 and a half years.

Overall, this was clearly a tough interview for Harris.  Brett was polite but did not let Harris filibuster.  It was funny when he apologized for talking over her but then pressed on with his question.  She rarely had good responses and more often sought to dodge the questions and shift to blaming Trump.  This 20-minute exchange demonstrated that most media only ask softball questions.  Between this and the recent 60 Minutes interview, Harris has had a tough time.

This is more likely to hurt Harris than help her.

Turnabout is Fair Play

If it is okay to compare Trump to Hitler, then it is okay to call Kamala Harris mentally disabled.  The gloves have been off for decades when it comes to Democrat attacks on Republicans (I can't remember a Republican presidential candidate who wasn't compared to Hitler), but when Trump replies in kind, everyone freaks out.  The milquetoast Republicans like Lindsey Graham are joining with Democrats to complain about the rhetoric.  This notion that Trump's name-calling is tearing the country apart, but Democrats calling opponents fascists and racists is acceptable is ludicrous.  Let the voters decide whether the rhetoric is appropriate or not.

As for claims that Kamala Harris is mentally disabled, have you listened to her responses to questions?

Acting-President Jill Biden

For the first time in nearly a year, President Biden had a cabinet meeting on Friday.  He offered a two-minute scripted statement and then gave the floor to First Lady Jill Biden.  Jill offered remarks on progress regarding women's health, which took about 5 minutes.  Joe answered a couple of questions before the press was ushered out.  The cabinet secretaries cannot be blind to the obvious decline in President Biden.  Literally everyone knows that President Biden is not up to the task.  He has taken more vacation time than any president in American history because he is not really the president.  He's a figurehead and every cabinet member and Vice President Harris are entirely aware of that.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

25th Amendment to the Constitution

Why has this not been invoked long since?  Everyone at that cabinet meeting and VP Harris know who is calling the shots and, so far, are happy to go along rather than remove President Biden.

However, this oddly timed and broadcast cabinet meeting does make one suspicious.  The ridiculously early June debate resulted in Joe Biden ending his re-election campaign.  Will this cabinet meeting provide similar basis for invoking the 25th Amendment and handing the presidency to VP Harris before the election?  Wow, that would be something.  Would a few weeks as President Kamala Harris improve her electoral chances?  This would be an unprecedented October Surprise.

Kamala Interview

VP Harris granted a 10-minute interview to a local reporter in Pennsylvania.  It went so well that the Trump Campaign posted it, stating that the latest ad was out.  Well, I've got to see this.  Overall, it was okay.  Again, a lot of what she said was aspirational and non-specific, but she did offer some idea of what her administration might be like.

First, when asked what she would do about high prices and general affordability issues, she repeated her spiel about growing up middle-class among other hard-working middle-class people.  The American people are ambitious, aspirational, and have a wonderful work ethic.  By the end of her statement, she had not addressed the question of high prices and affordability.  Unless you consider that her mother saving to buy a house when Kamala was a teenager as a prescription.  She did suggest a $50K tax credit for starting a small business, but was off topic.  Well, maybe it was on topic as it might make buying/starting a small business more affordable.  Kind of a niche population for that.  Ditto for the $25K home buying assistance.  Fine, that might help with buying a home (actually, it won't; much like how all the government funding of higher education has just made education more expensive, it will do the same for housing), but what about the grocery bill, utility bills, and so forth?

Next, she was asked how she is different from Joe Biden.  Well, obviously she's not Joe Biden.  Okay, I'll take that as a joke.  She wants to focus on things that haven't been focused on because she is a new generation of leader.  Here was the $6K tax credit.  Americans have dreams and aspirations.  In other words, policy-wise, she offered virtually no space between herself and President Biden.  Of course, this is a trick question because she doesn't want to attack or criticize the sitting president, but he was losing badly so she can't just be more of the same.  Yes, it's a tough question but she needs to craft a better answer.  Also, what is this 10 to 20 year horizon?  You have 4 years to prove yourself or out the door you go.

The gun control question arose, and she was even given credit for being a gun owner.  She noted that her running mate was also a gun owner and believed in the 2nd Amendment.  "We're not taking anyone's guns away."  Great.  But common-sense gun laws and an assault weapons ban are good ideas that she will pursue.  So, she will take away some guns?  Maybe she should have said, "No one is coming for all your guns, just some of your guns."  Well, unless you only own an AR-15, in which case it will be all your guns.

When asked about the Trump appeal and how she would talk to his voters, she said that Americans have more in common than we realize.  She said we should put country first.  I'm sorry, what was that?  You mean like America First?  That's a policy of your opponent.

When asked what she wants Americans to know about her that they might not already know, she really struggled.  She loves her family, she loves to cook, and she never asked a victim their party affiliation but rather 'Are you okay?'

To the average viewer, this will play well.  To the news junkies (like me), this confirmed some of Trump's accusations (i.e., she is stealing his policies - country first, and is a gun grabber) and also painted herself as a 2nd Biden term.  How it is interpretted will depend on the viewer.

One-Sided Fact Checking

During the debate, the moderators were Johnny on the spot to offer corrections to Trump but somehow never had any corrections for Harris.  Obviously, Harris didn't say anything that needed fact checking.  Right.  Interestingly, the moderators had some facts on hand for some of Trump's claims, showing they had done their research.  For instance, when Trump brought up the cats being eaten by Haitian immigrants in Ohio, David Muir revealed that ABC had contacted the city manager and could not confirm the claims.  Wow, that's an obscure fact to have already checked.  Impressive.  But then Harris brought up Charlottesville, stating that Trump viewed Neo-Nazis as "very fine people."  Neither David Muir nor Linsey Davis challenged the claim.  So it is true?

No, even Snopes, not known to be a right-wing organization, rated this false.  This is a 7-year-old story where you can watch the video or read the transcript.  It is clear that Trump was stating that the fine people were those who wanted to keep Robert E. Lee's statue and those who wanted to remove it.  He specifically condemned Neo-Nazis:

I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.

Trump offered this clarification in the same response where he said "very fine people, on both sides."  Yet somehow, 7 years after the event, this is still unknown.  The news does not inform, it propagandizes.  The Fine People Hoax was debunked as soon as it was reported, but somehow Muir and Davis didn't have this fact check ready.

Muir himself had questioned Kamala in the 2020 primaries about gun control.  She was in favor of it.  While Biden was saying her executive order plan wasn't constitutional, she suggested he say "Yes we can."  Now, she says no one is coming for your guns.  Muir didn't need to research since he was moderating when she said it.  Silence.

The Debate

Strangely, it often seemed as though Kamala was the challenger and Trump the incumbent.  She repeatedly said she had a plan for this or a plan for that.  She is part of the current administration.  President Biden is not really the president.  She is second in command, right?  Why doesn't she institute some of these plans now?

That aside, Kamala was much stronger than I expected.  She had been very weak against Pence in 2020, but proved to be quite good here.  Of course, I disagreed with almost everything she said but she delivered well and offered good counterpoints.  Her attacks on Trump landed quite often. In fact, she put him on the defensive more often than he put her on the defensive.  She wisely offered only brief rebuttals to his attacks and immediately shifted to the attack.  By contrast, Trump spent more time countering her attacks which limited his own offense.  Kamala was better practiced and focused.  Trump had some points that he hit repeatedly but was usually unfocused.

The moderators were on Kamala's side.  There were hard questions for Trump and attacks on Trump queued up as questions for Kamala.  The hardest questions against Kamala were about her changing positions.  By contrast, the questions for Trump were along the line of 'Are you a bad person or a horrible person?'  The moderators eagerly jumped in to dispute Trump claims and repeatedly fact-checked him, but let Kamala get away with the fully debunked (even by Snopes) "Fine People" Hoax.  Nor did they have a follow up for Kamala about how she lobbied for bail money for Minneapolis rioters.  It was a three on one debate, which Trump should have expected and been better prepared to counter.  It reminded me of the debate between Trump and Clinton back in 2016.

Overall, it was a wash.  If you are for Trump, Trump won.  If you are for Kamala, Kamala won.  It is unlikely this debate will shift any views.  Where Biden shattered Democrat voters' confidence in the last debate, Kamala reassured them that she's not the incoherent cackler that she has been accused of being.  This will probably do her more good than it will do Trump.

The Cheney Endorsement

In much the way that President Obama's frequent calls for gun control caused gun sales to skyrocket, I suspect that former VP Dick Cheney's endorsement of Kamala is likely to have the opposite result of what he hopes.  From the very start of the George W Bush presidency, Cheney was viewed as the brains behind the administration.  After Bush picked him for VP, the word was that he brought 'gravitas' to the ticket.  Yeah, because George W Bush is not the most eloquent guy.  The Democrats heaped nearly as much blame on Cheney as Bush for the Bush Era.  Cheney spent 8 years as a prime Democrat boogieman, a villain beyond redemption, a former CEO of Halliburton!  Whatever he said was wrong or a lie.  Today, voters should listen to him about who should be president.  Really?

The Bush Administration got the US involved in Middle Eastern wars in a big way with Afghanistan and Iraq.  Though the Biden Administration pulls us out of Afghanistan, it has gotten us entangled in a far more dangerous war between Ukraine and Russia.  Trump wants to stop the war; Cheney endorses Kamala.  Coincidence?  You remember when the Democrats were anti-war?

If a Democrat from 2005 heard that Dick Cheney was endorsing a candidate, the Democrat would vote for the opposition.  Has the party drifted so far that Cheney is now a good guy?  Oddly, I am reminded of FBI Director Comey.  Throughout the 2016 Campaign, he was a hated villain for his pursuit of Hillary and her email server.  There was a natural distaste for him among Democrats.  On one of those late night shows (Colbert or Maher, I think), it was mentioned that Trump fired Comey.  The audience cheered.  They weren't supposed to cheer.  You see, Comey was undermining Trump, so he was a good guy now.  You bumpkins need to keep up with the times.

Topsy Turvy!

Topsy Turvy

The current election is seeing a realignment of the parties.  We have Republicans for Democrats and Democrats for Republicans, unions for Republicans and rich industrialists for Democrats.  It's going topsy turvy.  Here are a few highlights:

1. Former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.  He is following his daughter, Liz Cheney (R), in this.  She was one of 2 Republicans on the J6 Select Committee that put all the blame on Trump, ignoring that he had offered to call up the National Guard beforehand.

2. Congressman Robert F Kennedy Jr. (D) suspended his independent run for the presidency and has endorsed Donald Trump.  The Kennedys are Democratic Party royalty, so this is more significant than the Cheneys going to Harris.

3. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D), who ran for president in 2020, has endorsed Donald Trump.

4. Elon Musk voted for Biden in 2020, but is now endorsing Donald Trump.

5. Alan Dershowitz has declared "I am no longer a Democrat."  That doesn't mean he is voting for Trump, but he probably isn't voting for Kamala either.

When I was a youth, the Democrats were the party of free speech and the Republicans were the ones who wanted to put warnings on music lyrics, video games, and so forth.  Now, the Democrats are the party of censorship and the Republicans are the party of free speech.  How did that happen?  In the 1990s, the Democrats wanted to stem the tide of illegal immigration to protect American workers from low wage competition.  Today, the Democrats have opened the floodgates, and the country is awash in illegal immigrants.  What happened there?  I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but now Trump is the anti-war candidate.  What explains that shift?

A realignment is underway in the United States and around the world.  The world order that was created in the wake of World War II is undergoing dramatic changes, breaking old party alliances and creating new ones.  That some prominent Republicans have thrown their support to Harris and Democrats have backed Trump just shows how upside down the world is at the moment.

Who Decides?

He [Musk] has lost his privileges and it should be taken down. ... There has to be a responsibility placed on these social media sites to understand their power. ...  They are speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation.  That has to stop.

Kamala Harris

VP Harris spoke out against X/Twitter.  From her perspective, Free Speech is a privilege, not a right.  Musk has lost that privilege according to the would-be president.  What could he do to regain his privileges?  She wants oversight and regulation.  Right.  Who decides?  Who are these regulators and overseers who will make sure that social media understands its power and uses it responsibly?  Is her definition of responsible use the same as my definition of responsible use?  She is using the words oversight and regulation when she really means censorship.  What else could it be?  Proper grammar and punctuation?  No, the people have access to information (maybe misinformation) that the government would rather they didn't.  The government doesn't want to fight 'misinformation' with facts; they want to censor it.  The censors are always the bad guys.

France recently arrested a social media mogul for failing to properly regulate and oversee information.  Free speech must be restricted.  To allow the government to restrict it without admitting they are abridging free speech, they come up with terms like hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, and so forth.  Really, our censoring this is for your own good.  Honest.

President Kamala Harris: Day 1

After more than a month as the nominee, Kamala Harris final agreed to an interview.  Dana Bash started off by asking, "What would you do on day one?"

Well, there are a number of things. I will tell you first and foremost one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. When I look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people, I think that people are ready for a new way forward in a way that generations of Americans have been fueled by — by hope and by optimism.

I think sadly in the last decade, we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans — really dividing our nation. And I think people are ready to turn the page on that.

 

Okay, that was a non-answer.  It prompted Dana Bash to a follow-up question: "So what would you do day one?"

Day one, it’s gonna be about one, implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy. I’ve already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we’re gonna do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we’re gonna do to invest in America’s small businesses, what we’re gonna do to invest in families.

For example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child’s life to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib. There’s the work that we’re gonna do that is about investing in the American family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now. So there are a number of things on day one.

 

At least this time she offered a policy: $6000 tax credit for a newborn.  Then we have a return to the vague aspirations of her administration.  This is so unspecific that it could come from either a Democrat or a Republican.  That is not accidental.

The funniest thing about her interview was that it gave the impression that Trump was the incumbent and she was the challenger.  Things are tough but we'll sort them out when she is president.  Huh?  Why not sort them now when she is VP?  Then she had her line about the last decade being contrary to the country's spirit.  Even Bash had to point out that she has been VP for the last 3 and a half years of that contrarian decade.

Love him or hate him, Trump doesn't dodge the press or offer empty platitudes.  He'll tell you his policy, even the wreckless and ill-considered ones.  Government funded IVF?  Really?  We don't have enough government funded items?  Trump talks unfiltered for hours while Harris has a 20-minute sit-down with her VP nominee at her side.  This is the 2020 hide-in-the-basement strategy.  Let's avoid making errors and hope Trump implodes.  Let's leave the electorate uninformed about us and hope they paint a rosy picture, like they did with Joe Biden.

Ahead of My Time

Four years ago, I asked if Biden would bow out.  Why?  Because it was obvious that he was going senile.  What is interesting is what I supposed might happen:

Having won the nomination, he could admit to his mental decline and gracefully bow out. The Democratic Convention has a floor fight to pick the nominee. That could generate a lot of excitement though it does have the problem of nixing the primary results. ...  If Biden does bow out, Democrats will angle for a black woman. Then, any criticism of her - or her policies - will be either racist or sexist, possibly both.

Thanks to the Democrat-aligned media, Joe's dementia was kept under wraps for nearly his entire term.  Not until his ill-advised June debate - carefully timed to take place after the nomination was secured but still leaving plenty of time to boost his replacement - did the country have clear evidence of his mental decline.  The Democrats did not bother with a floor fight and simply elevated Kamala Harris - a black woman - to the top spot.

There is a new wrinkle though.  Joe was replaced because he was mentally impaired (and should be removed by the 25th amendment), but his replacement has adopted his 2020 campaign strategy: avoid the press.  Kamala Harris has not had an unscripted event since being named the nominee.  The basement strategy won last time; let's try it again. 

Presidents should be Parents First

Several years ago, during one of those meetings of the major economic powers of Europe and the United States, it was noted that most of the European leaders were childless.  Not just a couple of them but most of them had no kids.  Never even tried to have kids.  How strange.  One might ask, What does that matter?  If you have kids, you have a stake in the future.  You don't want to enjoy the party for yourself and leave an absolute mess for your kids.  But if you have no kids, what do you care?

Angela Merkel had no children.  She also opened the floodgates for migrants who were not the best fit for Germany.  With no investment in Germany's future, she was willing to make changes with little concern for the longterm consequences.

Kamala Harris is childless.  Sure, she has a step-daughter through her husband, but that's not the same thing.  A parent looks at the landscape being left for their children and grandchildren.  A politician looks at the next election.  The childless politicians of Europe have set the continent on a downward spiral with a crashing fertility rate and a rapidly expanding foreign population that has no desire to be British, French, German, or any other flavor of European.  No need to go down that path.

Ballot Access Problem

VP Harris may have an issue with getting her name on all the ballots.  Joe Biden won every race, which was how one gets his name on the November ballot.  By dropping out, that does not automatically change the name.  Nor does his endorsement after his dropout assure that the endorsee is listed on the ballot.  What if he had endorsed Trump?  Crazy, but we all know his endorsement in that case would be ignored and tossed.  Let's suppose all the delegates vote for Kamala at the forthcoming convention.  That would be a return to the old style of choosing candidates, back before we had primaries.  One of the reasons for the switch to primaries was to disempower the political bosses in the smoke-filled rooms from imposing a candidate.  The primaries chose Joe Biden; the party bosses have selected Kamala Harris.  Is that legal?

Bernie Sanders' supporters took the Democratic Party to court for putting a thumb on the scale against him.  The judge agreed that the party 'cheated' to make sure Bernie wasn't the nominee, but the party gets to do what it wants.  It's a political party, not a government agency or business that must follow laws.  It is not up to the courts to decide how political parties choose candidates.  With that in mind, the switch to Kamala is likely to be fine as far as the party is concerned but that still leaves the states.

States have election laws.  Do the states allow for a switch after the primary?  Most almost certainly do, but maybe not all.  That could be a problem.  Back in June, there was a concern that Joe Biden would not appear on the Ohio ballot.  Legislation was passed and the Republican governor signed it in order that Joe Biden would be listed on the Ohio ballot; there was a deadline, which is why it was a newsworthy issue.  Will there need to be additional legislation to switch to Kamala?  If so, should the Republicans oblige?  Lawfare is apparently fair play this year.

I have heard it asserted that Joe Biden will either resign or be forced out of office before the election.  Why?  Because that will make VP Harris the president and the sitting president is always listed on the ballot.  Here is the opportunity to overcome any legal issues and transform Kamala Harris into the incumbent president.  Is it likely?  Probably not, but I wouldn't rule it out.

Why Not Switch Again?

Donald Trump spent most of the last year attacking President Biden and his handling of the country.  Part of a campaign is defining your opponent and outlining how you would do things differently.  When Biden withdrew from the race, all the effort spent defining the opposition went away.  It was no longer important.  Biden's not the nominee.  Flush all that opposition research and campaign strategy.  A fresh nominee, largely untouched by Trump's long campaign against her predecessor, suddenly surged in the polls.  Where Biden was headed toward almost certain defeat, VP Harris is currently polling in the toss-up range.  Dumping Biden was strategic brilliance by the Democrats.  That astonishingly early presidential debate now looks like a Democratic ploy to sink Biden rather than inform the public.

It has been less than three weeks, and the Harris-Walz Campaign has stalled.  It's still in toss-up territory, but the Republican criticisms are sticking.  Walz may not have been the best choice for VP.  Harris is dodging the press, not having done an interview since her ascension to the top spot on the ballot.  What if she starts sinking?  She was such a weak candidate in 2020 that she withdrew from the campaign before the voting even began.  She is not a strong nominee and is only doing as well as she is because she's not Biden.  What if she is just a place holder, another false nominee for the Republicans to waste their ammunition on?

Are Joe Biden's delegates committed to Harris?  When the Democratic Convention convenes and the delegates vote, what is to stop them from picking someone else?  We are in uncharted waters with this nomination.  Do the rules say that the VP nominee automatically gets the delegates if the Presidential nominee drops out?  If not, it could be a free for all.  Here is another opportunity to dump a candidate that the Republicans have spent a month attacking.  A new nominee would clean the slate yet again.  With the election then less than 3 months away, the Republicans would have to once again adapt their strategy while the Democrats have been attacking the same person all along.

I think it is 50-50 that the Democrats choose a different nominee at the convention.  They need someone with less baggage than either Kamala Harris (Willie Brown's most favored mistress) or Tim Walz (the Afghanistan veteran who didn't go to Afghanistan).

Who is African-American?

George Stephanopoulos grilled Byron Donalds (R-Florida) about Trump's questioning of Kamala Harris' racial identity.  Snopes confirms that the Associate Press (AP) listed her Indian heritage in the headline when she became a Senator in 2016 but her Black heritage when she became the VP candidate in 2020.  By merely pointing out this change in reporting, Stephanopoulos accused Donalds (who is black) of a slur.  Really?  Generally, this should be irrelevant.  However, it brings up the race card, which Democrats - like Stephanopoulos - love to play.

On CNN, there was a clip of black men in a barbershop questioning Kamala's heritage.  At best, they are ambivalent on the topic.  Why is that?  Let's talk about who is African-American?

Elon Musk grew up in South Africa and emigrated to the United States.  He has since become a naturalized citizen.  Ergo, he is African by birth and American by citizenship.  However, no one would seriously call him African-American.  So, what is African-American?  The term was popularized by Jesse Jackson in the 1980s and became an alternative for black.  What did it denote?  An African-American was both black and the descendant of slaves in the United States.  With that as a definition, Elon Musk meets neither requirement.  Vice President Kamala Harris qualifies on one factor but not the other.  Her father was born and raised in Jamaica and her mother in India.  Harris cannot trace her ancestry back to slaves in the United States.  This is why her racial identity is questioned.

This same issue applied to President Obama.  His father was Kenyan, and thus had no ties to the black community in America.  His mother was Caucasian from Kansas.  He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, giving him none of the 'black' experience in America.

The reason why the United States adopted affirmative action was to redress the years of slavery and Jim Crow.  Why would anyone who migrated to the United States after the repeal of Jim Crow be included in the affirmative action?  Neither Obama nor Harris' ancestors suffered from these and that sets them apart from most African-Americans.

BLM is Right!

Black Lives Matter has observed that their preferred candidate, Joe Biden, who won the nomination in a democratic process throughout the states, has now been replaced by Kamala Harris only 24 hours after Biden withdrew.  Where is the democratic process in that?  If a Democratic stalwart such as BLM openly points at the clearly undemocratic transition from Biden to Harris, it must be a valid argument.

Of course, BLM needn't worry.  The odds are that Kamala's poll numbers will sink as low, if not lower, than Joe Biden's.  Those delegates that she has 'secured' will suddenly become free to vote for other contenders.  Unless Kamala is polling strongly against Trump, the real nominee will be chosen at the convention.  The amount of democracy involved in the choice of the true nominee may not be much more than the level that was used to select Kamala, but the spin will be much better.

President Biden Explains

On Sunday, President Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential Campaign.  Today, he addressed the American people to explain why.  First off, it's been his greatest honor to serve as president.  In fact, he holds that his performance in the job clearly merited a second term.  On the other hand, democracy is at stake!  As such, he is handing the baton to a younger generation, namely Vice President Kamala Harris.  It is up to the American people to preserve democracy, honesty, justice, and unity by voting for VP Harris.

President Biden explained nothing.  He could not admit to deteriorating health without thereby justifying his removal by the 25th Amendment.  He indirectly admitted that he dropped out because he was likely to lose, and 'Democracy' is too important to risk.  I'm sure all those primary voters who voted for Joe would have instead voted for Kamala, right?  Joe was ousted by his own party, but he can't say that either.  Though the speech was only 11 minutes and the teleprompter clearly reflected in the window behind him, he still had trouble getting through it.  Who is really calling the shots?

"A republic, if you can keep it."

A republic is not a democracy.  The speechwriter either doesn't know that or thought the two are interchangeable.  The republic has already suffered some serious damage and the Democrats champion further demolition with talk of ending the electoral college, censoring 'hate' speech, letting non-citizens vote, including non-residents in census, expansion of the federal government to the detriment of state and local governments, etc.

Interesting Timing

Today is the 2-year anniversary of Joe Biden's inauguration.  This is noteworthy because, as of today, his vice president could serve out the remainder of his term, and still serve two additional terms; this comes from the 22nd Amendment.  Coincident with this special date, all sorts of scandals have erupted around President Biden.  Of course, there are the documents found in a variety of places.  Mishandled documents was recently a valid basis for an FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago and calls for criminal prosecution of former President Trump.  Now we have emails that demonstrate Joe Biden's involvement in his son's business ventures, something he adamantly denied doing.  Then there is the news that Hunter was paying nearly $50K a month in rent for Joe Biden's Wilmington home.  None of this is new, but it is all getting revealed now.  Coincidence?  Unlikely.

The very people who kept all this out of the 2020 election are now unleashing it.  Why?  Was it all going to come out anyway on account of a Republican-controlled House so this is just an effort to get ahead of it?  Maybe.  Or is this an effort to push Joe aside so that President Harris will have the benefit of incumbency come 2024?  With her performance so far, I don't know that incumbency will help.  Then again, I didn't think Joe Biden was electable.

No Speech for You!

The President of the United States has been banned from Twitter. Wow! Twitter says they banned him to prevent "further incitement to violence." Whoa! Well, I better check out these tweets.

The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!

- @realDonaldTrump

Hmm. That doesn't look like a call to violence. Looks like standard 'on to the next election' pap. The next tweet must be the damning one.

To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.

- @realDonaldTrump

Failure to attend the inauguration is grounds for banning? Failure to attend is a call to violence?

Back in June, when Minneapolis was being razed to the ground, Kamala Harris had a much less ambiguous tweet:

If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota

- @KamalaHarris

That is clear support for rioters. Kamala Harris was not banned. Hmm. Double standard?