Monday, July 8, 2019

Kamala Harris Says She Was a Progressive Prosecutor. Her Record Tells Another Story

The facts are so important for us all to know. It’s my belief that we need to get beyond whether or not we ”like” someone simply given what they are saying or what the corporate media is saying. A very hard and painful lesson I learned was through what happened with Obama, who was someone I had liked and had believed in. Then reality happened. And a huge lesson in the need to really go deeper in my research. That is also when I first began to learn about neoliberalism — the waters in which we swim.
The incredibly important advantage that I’ve learned that we have when we dive deeply into the research, utilize independent media, follow the money, discern the facts related to candidates’ records on policies and issues, and place principles before personalities is that we become empowered to be informed citizens.
In these times of ever rising fascism and neoliberalism, of the ecological and climate crises which threaten life on Earth, and of pervasive and dangerous distractions and polarizing and poisonous propaganda, there is an imperative to truly inform ourselves and act together to transform ourselves, our nation, and our world. Everything we love is at stake.
So bless Amy Goodman and all the courageous truth-tellers who bring us the news and the truth that we most need to know. May we listen. — Molly

As Senator Kamala Harris rises in the early presidential polls, she is facing increasing scrutiny over her record as a prosecutor in California. In 2004, Harris became district attorney of San Francisco. She held the post until 2011, when she became the attorney general of California. We speak with Lara Bazelon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. In January, she wrote a piece in The New York Times titled “Kamala Harris Was Not a 'Progressive Prosecutor.'” In it, Bazelon writes, “Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.”

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