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Friday, July 26, 2024

Soul food potlucks. Pride trivia nights. Kamala coffee hours. And of course, a VP pick showcase. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is planning a weekend blitz as the likely Democratic nominee officially kicks off her 2024 bid for the presidency. With only 100 days from Sunday until the election, Harris' campaign says it will host thousands of events that are aimed at reaching voters in battleground states, some with Democratic Party leaders whose names have been floated as potential running mates. read more


Thursday, July 25, 2024

Ever since a spring 2021 White House meeting when Biden announced he was asking Harris to take the lead on a major immigration initiative, the vice president has been the face of the administration's response to migration at the Southern border. But if you actually watch that video, you'll notice something: Biden never called Harris a "border czar," or even implied she'll be taking the lead for administration policy. read more


Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Steve Benen: With extraordinary speed, a party that appeared fractured is suddenly united. A party that saw its fundraising efforts screeching to a halt is suddenly reporting record-breaking hauls. A party that cringed in response to every new poll is celebrating the latest national survey data. This seamless handoff from Biden to Harris wasn't inevitable, but it has been executed with striking skill. read more


Tuesday, July 23, 2024

On Sunday, President Joe Biden officially ended his 2024 presidential campaign and threw his unbridled support behind his vice president, Kamala Harris, to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. But regardless of how inevitable Biden's decision to withdraw from the November election appeared to be, his choice to pass the proverbial torch was his and his alone, solidifying the 81-year-old as one of the most selfless politicians in recent memory. read more


Monday, July 22, 2024

Steve Benen: Everything was on track (for the GOP) -- until the race changed. A Harris-vs-Trump contest offers contrasts that Democrats like. In a year in which many voters are concerned about crime, Republicans are running a man who's committed dozens of felonies against a former prosecutor who's brought criminals to justice. In a year in which some voters might care about experience, Republicans are running the least experienced presidential ticket in generations against a Democrat who's spent the last 20 years serving the public well. read more


Comments

Many in the vice president's circle fume that she's not being adequately prepared or positioned, and instead is being sidelined. The vice president herself has told several confidants she feels constrained in what she's able to do politically. And those around her remain wary of even hinting at future political ambitions, with Biden's team highly attuned to signs of disloyalty, particularly from the vice president. "

This is the norm view for President/Vice President relationships since this nation was born. Every VP feels like the above statements because there is rarely anything of real substance that Presidents task their VP's with responsibility for.

If the above was indeed correct, then is it representative of what we're seeing and experiencing with our own eyes and ears this week? Does Kamala look unprepared for this moment or somehow preeternally comfortable inside the crucible she's now thrust into? Kamala has been on the road for a substantial part of Biden's tenure in the White House while looking and sounding wholly different than she did in 2020 during her aborted campaign due to what's she's learned and the experiences she's gained. For the last 3 weeks, Harris has been on the trail nearly solo and during this time she remained faithfully loyal to Joe and never gave any public hints that she was now in a better position for being elected than he was.

And I believe that loyalty was the final tipping point in allowing Joe to gracefully exit the race in an unprecedented time and manner. The candidate Kamala Harris we see in this moment is a far cry from the one described in the opening quoted paragraph. Somehow, someway Kamala certainly knows how to project presidential readiness in ways her 2020 self could never imagine.

The idea to send VP Harris to the border to explore the "root causes" was novel and encouraging. I don't recall hearing much about the results of that initiative. Now might be a good time to bring that to the forefront.

Post 93: www.whitehouse.gov

Excerpt:

Desired End State

A democratic, prosperous, and safe Central America, where people advance economically, live, work, and learn in safety and dignity, contribute to and benefit from the democratic process, have confidence in public institutions, and enjoy opportunities to create futures for themselves and their families at home.

Pillar II: Combating corruption, strengthening democratic governance, and advancing the rule of law

Strategic Objectives:

1. Strengthen Democratic Institutions to Improve Governance and Rule of Law: Governments enact and implement legislative reforms towards transparent and participatory policy making and electoral processes, including broad civic engagement. Oversight is instituted at all levels of government.

2. Combat Corruption: Governments are freed from entrenched networks of corruption and impunity. They develop and strengthen independent and transparent systems to eliminate conflicts of interest, including in selection of judges and other government personnel.

3. Improve Government Service Delivery: Governments improve capacity to raise and manage public resources, initiate reforms to improve fiscal and operational transparency, and provide services to all citizens.

Pillar IV: Countering and preventing violence, extortion, and other crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs, trafficking
networks, and other organized criminal organizations (way more at link above)

For expert analysis on the programs actual effects so far, go to the thread's article for more information.

Harris failed the entire scope of border problems, so regardless of what Biden tasked her with, nothing within the realm of root causes of border security was realized. So she failed. Plain and simple.

So much lying. I guess they can't help it.

The Vice President and the Administration have already taken action - notable accomplishments include:

*Addressing immediate humanitarian needs including vaccines. On April 26, Vice President Harris announced $310 million in urgent relief to help address the acute factors of migration, including from hurricanes, the pandemic, and drought caused by climate change. To date, we have allocated over $250 million of the total funds, reaching over two million people. We also provided over 10 million COVID vaccine doses to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

*Countering corruption and democratic backsliding. Vice President Harris has been direct and unwavering in highlighting the problems of corruption, the need for reforms, and the vital importance of demonstrating commitment to the rule of law, judicial independence, human rights, and a strong civil society - including during her bilateral meeting in Guatemala.

*Working with the Department of Justice, the Vice President launched an Anticorruption Task Force that will include U.S. prosecutors and law enforcement experts to investigate and prosecute corruption cases with a nexus in the United States and the region.

*Addressing security concerns of mutual interest. Vice President Harris launched Anti-Migrant Smuggling Task Forces in both Mexico and Guatemala and secured commitments to increase border enforcement. She reached an agreement with the Mexican government to restart the high-level dialogue focused on the trafficking of weapons and drugs.

*Internationalizing our efforts. The Vice President has said, "The United States cannot do this work alone." She has reached out to international partners to highlight the need for increased support for Central America and secured commitments from a number of countries. She successfully encouraged the United Nations to develop a regional Humanitarian Response Plan to mobilize international donor support for the region.

*Working with the private sector. On May 27, Vice President Harris launched a Call to Action for the private sector to make new commitments in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to expand economic opportunities. The initial group of 12 companies and organizations committed to helping over 13 million people, offered to provide $750 million in resources, and established a non-profit organization to support economic development efforts in the region " The Partnership for Central America. These initial commitments will provide financial services to small business owners, internet access and digital banking to rural communities, housing for low-income families, and reduced barriers to higher education. Since the launch, over 150 companies and organizations have expressed interest in joining the Call to Action.

Full report here: www.whitehouse.gov

As I've stated repeatedly, the efforts that Harris led were long term policy changes that would take years to manifest. They were never intended to immediately stem the ongoing crisis - however, parts of the project (like opening offices in foreign countries where locals wanting to immigrate could apply legally for entrance into the US without leaving their nation's borders) would have immediate effect, but never in numbers to alter the contemporary flow dramatically. That does not define a failure.

It doesn't matter what Biden officially called it, he DID and ON RECORD say she is responsible for the border problem.

Just another illiterate liar who refuses to understand that the very quotes he posted don't say what he alleges above.

Referring to Harris as the "border czar" isn't new. Right-wing media, anti-immigrant activists, and Republican politicians have been using the label for the vice president for years.

It has its roots in March 2021, when Biden announced that he would be giving Harris essentially the same assignment he got during his own vice presidency: coordinating diplomatic relationships to address the "root causes" of migration into the United States.

"I've asked her, the VP, today - because she's the most qualified person to do it - to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help - are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border," Biden said during a White House meeting on migration on March 24, 2021.

The idea behind this approach is a long-term strategy: Border surges were just one symptom of deeper economic, diplomatic, and security problems these countries face that cause people to make the trek north.

Senior White House officials who briefed reporters before the announcement emphasized at the time that this was a diplomatic assignment: a two-pronged approach to build diplomatic ties with these countries and to oversee investment and implementation of foreign aid to these countries to address infrastructure, grow business, and strengthen civil society.

From the start, though, media coverage and the White House's communication about the role were muddled. Headlines described Harris as the "point person on immigration" and "placed in charge of migration crisis," while senior officials later said Harris would "oversee a whole-of-government approach" to dealing with migration.

The White House's communications team spent much of that early time trying to clarify the assignment, but as migrant border crossings continued to rise, much of the press and the public's attention became focused on why Harris and the administration were not more focused on addressing short-term problems.

www.vox.com

Tony Roma's gasighting is so easy to expose.

No your use of hearsay is what's being exposed. We've posted the official statements from Biden and the Administration in full. All you're proving is that the media publishes the right wing's spin on things as a matter of daily business. Here is the official fact sheet delineating what Harris' role was to be and what Biden hoped to accomplish in stemming the flow of mass immigration.

FACT SHEET: Strategy to Address the Root Causes of Migration in Central America

On February 2, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order that called for the development of a Root Causes Strategy.

Since March, Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the Administration's diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. She has worked with bilateral, multilateral, and private sector partners, as well as civil society leaders, to help people from the region find hope at home. This complements work done throughout the U.S. government over the last six months to learn lessons from prior efforts and to consult with a wide range of stakeholders to inform the development of this strategy.

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is releasing the Root Causes Strategy - a core component of our Administration's efforts to establish a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system. This Strategy identifies, prioritizes, and coordinates actions to improve security, governance, human rights, and economic conditions in the region. It integrates various U.S. government tools, including diplomacy, foreign assistance, public diplomacy, and sanctions. (more details at link)

www.whitehouse.gov

No gaslighting, fool. Just the facts, in context as they were written by the President and Administration instituting the long-term policy.

It's silly to focus on trying to rewrite the past and not on the terrible performance of Kamala. It doesn't matter what she was called so why erase that part of history? How did she perform?

False framing. First and foremost, Kamala did not perform "terribly" in her role. Her role was not to immediately fix the flow of border traffic, it was to find a long term solution for immigration through the "root cause" strategy articulated in detail in this thread's article.

Ignorant righties, like yourself, keep viewing the crisis as something Kamala alone was tasked to repair unilaterally, which was never her charge. But in no reality was the work Harris did in any way a failure.

Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said it's unrealistic to expect quicker progress from the root-causes effort, as Harris herself warned when she took on the task. "The factors leading up to the migration from these three countries, they didn't start last year, two years ago, five or even 10 years ago -- they go back decades," Marczak said.

There's also the inherent difficulty of trying to work on root causes in countries where the government is not a particularly helpful partner, because of corruption, incompetence or both.

If it's too early to assess the effects of the root-causes strategy, it's not too early to see where Harris' efforts have made a mark, several advocates and analysts said.

Cecilia Muoz, a veteran political leader in the Latino political community, cited the establishment of "safe mobility centers" in Central and South America, starting in Guatemala, so that potential migrants can seek permission to enter the U.S. without making the treacherous, smuggler-led journey to the Mexico border.

"Setting up migration offices that involve multiple countries and multiple international organizations is an enormously complex exercise," said Muoz, who worked on immigration while serving as a domestic policy adviser in the Obama White House. "It is tremendously important to have a principal of the vice president's caliber leading the charge, engaging with heads of state, and managing the collaboration between the many federal agencies in the United States who need to be involved in that process."

That kind of high-level negotiation also helped secure more than $5 billion in regional investment from multinational companies like Apple and Starbucks, Muoz and some of the other analysts said. And while Harris' speech and the NBC interview got the most public scrutiny during her 2021 Guatemala trip, what some regional experts noticed was the vice president's itinerary there -- and how it reflected the expertise, if not the experience, she brought to the job.

"She made sure that she wasn't just meeting with the corrupt administration there," Marshall Fitz, managing director of immigration at the Emerson Collective, said of her trip. "She was also meeting directly with Indigenous women, engaging them, making sure she heard them and saw them. One of her niches is women's empowerment generally, and her understanding of migration is very much rooted in an understanding that if you've going to solve these migration challenges, women are going to be a big part of that because they're the backbones of these families."

Participants include Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords -- a gun violence prevention advocate whose husband, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, is said to be on Harris' shortlist for vice president.

Harris' husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, is also hitting the trail. Emhoff will appear at the Wausau Festival and lead a door-knocking event for Harris and Democrats in Stevens Point, Wisc.

The campaign has not said where Harris will be over the weekend. Harris' campaign said it would continue to target Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada and emphasize reaching out to young voters, Black voters, and Latino voters.

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, two senators who are up for reelection this cycle, will be among those also making the case for Harris. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Gary Peters of Michigan will also be on the trail.

Democratic House members participating in the effort include Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal and Michigan Reps. Debbie Dingell and Hillary Scholten, a frontline Democrat in a swing district.

Harris is also utilizing major reproductive rights backers such as Planned Parenthood President & CEO Alexis McGill Johnson on the trail this weekend.

This is what a presidential campaign reaching the 100 days until election pole should look like when attempting to engage voters in the energy emanating from this unforeseen shift in candidates and the electorate's pent up frustration and scepticism - now being released as joy, optimism, and anticipation of a victory heretofore thought improbable due to the former nominee's limitations and actual lack of political stamina for confronting strong electoral headwinds of their own creation.

Curmudgeons like Carville can only react from what they've already seen occur in the past. There has been a shift in joy and momentum which needs to be ridden as far as it will take this campaign towards success on Election Day. You don't tell a candidate to tamper down the emotions and energy of its supporters as a campaign changes its leadership. You ride the wave for as long as it lasts while always being prepared to create your own momentum and fervor if the organic wave inevitably ends. One thing you don't do is tell all the excited people motivated by your candidacy to temper their positive energy and drive, ever.

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