Someone asked "Does Harris have a plan to take down Warren?" The better question is...

[wyldwolf]

... do other candidates have a plan to take down Harris?

I refer mainly to her decidedly draconian criminal justice record. Biden won't be the one to do it because he has his own issues there. But Harris's is a lot more recent and particularly relevant. I can see Warren, Buttigieg, or even Booker calling her out on some of that.

For example, her stance on police body cams. In 2015, Harris told The Sacramento Bee she didn’t support statewide standards regulating the use of officer-worn body cameras. She wanted local agencies to set their own regulations. (Really, she thinks local agencies should set their own policies on busing, er, I mean police body cams?)

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article22451643.html
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article224633700.html

I'm also hearing chatter about her efforts to keep people incarcerated even after they were proven innocent.

Full disclosure: My first choice is Biden. My second is Harris. And I base that on what I percieve to be their ability to take on Trump.

[True Dough]

1. "Biden won't be the one to do it because he has his own issues there."

More fodder to come. Oh boy!

[treestar]

2. I've seen her attacked on a choice not to prosecute Mnuchin

I don't know the specifics of it. It will probably cause her some accusations of corporatism and oligarchy as Mnuchin should be prosecuted on principle, not because there is any evidence against him.

[wyldwolf]

3. More.

Worst of all, though, is Ms. Harris’s record in wrongful conviction cases. Consider George Gage, an electrician with no criminal record who was charged in 1999 with sexually abusing his stepdaughter, who reported the allegations years later. The case largely hinged on the stepdaughter’s testimony and Mr. Gage was convicted.

Afterward, the judge discovered that the prosecutor had unlawfully held back potentially exculpatory evidence, including medical reports indicating that the stepdaughter had been repeatedly untruthful with law enforcement. Her mother even described her as “a pathological liar” who “lives her lies.”

In 2015, when the case reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, Ms. Harris’s prosecutors defended the conviction. They pointed out that Mr. Gage, while forced to act as his own lawyer, had not properly raised the legal issue in the lower court, as the law required.

The appellate judges acknowledged this impediment and sent the case to mediation, a clear signal for Ms. Harris to dismiss the case. When she refused to budge, the court upheld the conviction on that technicality. Mr. Gage is still in prison serving a 70-year sentence.

That case is not an outlier. Ms. Harris also fought to keep Daniel Larsen in prison on a 28-year-to-life sentence for possession of a concealed weapon even though his trial lawyer was incompetent and there was compelling evidence of his innocence. Relying on a technicality again, Ms. Harris argued that Mr. Larsen failed to raise his legal arguments in a timely fashion. (This time, she lost.)

She also defended Johnny Baca’s conviction for murder even though judges found a prosecutor presented false testimony at the trial. She relented only after a video of the oral argument received national attention and embarrassed her office.

And then there’s Kevin Cooper, the death row inmate whose trial was infected by racism and corruption. He sought advanced DNA testing to prove his innocence, but Ms. Harris opposed it. (After The New York Times’s exposé of the case went viral, she reversed her position.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html

[Thekaspervote]

5. Thx for the thorough post!!

[oasis]

22. "Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander".

[emmaverybo]

27. Amazing these wrongful convictions. I will add that as it turned out, Kevin Cooper's DNA was found

on the item he had hoped would raise doubt about his guilt. In his case, a great deal of compelling
circumstantial evidence linked him to a brutal family murder.

[Raine]

32. This needs to come out

and sure hope it does. Since she's bringing up the past on Biden what she did and didn't do needs to be put out there.

[Thekaspervote]

4. Good point and agree! From the moment she did that IMHO i felt she would come to regret it

It wasn’t a presidential look or feel!!

[JI7]

6. she has already been asked about those things

[wyldwolf]

7. On a debate stage in front of a national audience, out of the blue?

[JI7]

8. no, but my point is that it wouldn't be something new

it's been one of the biggest attacks against her online.

she was asked about it during some town hall also.

[wyldwolf]

10. Her attack on Biden was nothing new

It was related, then conflated, with the previous week's "racism" accusation. Additionally, the rap agains Biden and busing was well known online in 2015.

Finally, the people like you and I who obsessively follow politcs online are in the extreme minority. It would be the first time MOST would hear about it on a national debate stage.

[JI7]

11. im sure someone will bring it up if she goes up in the polls

[tulipsandroses]

9. I don't think she will come to regret it

Its not like she hasn't been questioned about anything in her past - ESPECIALLY in the black community. That's why I happen to think her Debate performance was good strategy. It quieted some of those people in the black community that have already been talking about this. DU will be talking about this JUST NOW when Black Twitter and the Black Blogosphere has been going on and on about the Kamala is a Cop rhetoric for some time now. DU is kinda late to the party.

Unlike people that do not like to see their favorite candidate criticized. I think all candidates should be scrutinized. I have said this NOBODY is above reproach.

[wyldwolf]

12. Me neither. But will she pay for it? Yes. Will the benefits outweigh the consequences? TBD.

There are campaign strategists working for Biden, Warren, and Sanders who are likely better prepared for this type of warfare.

[JudyM]

15. Agree that all the candidates should be scrutinized. Better to bring all the flaws out now so we

are as informed as possible when we weight our primary choices.

[PDittie]

17. "some of those people"

"in the black community"

smgdh

[tulipsandroses]

19. LOL- Yes Some of those people

Follow the train of thought there - Some of those people that questioned her - Especially in the black community - Of which I belong by the way. LOL - too funny. Are you shaking your hand at a black woman saying those people in My community that questioned another black woman?? LOL

[PDittie]

34. "People in the black community"

don't speak of themselves as "people in the black community" any more than "people in the brown community" or "people in the yellow community" or even "people in the white community" speak of themselves, respectively. I believe you follow my train of thought here.

I'm wagging my finger at you. This is shaking my hand.

[tulipsandroses]

40. You are not making any sense

Wait! Am I being accused of not being a real black person? LOL! That is too funny. I guess I'll take the Cory Booker route.

I am not going to go back and forth with a stranger on a website about how I am supposed to speak about myself as a black woman - or people in the black community. Yeah, we are people ya know - and we belong to a community. If you don't like the way I speak. Oh well. Not going to change it for a stranger on the internet.

[Thekaspervote]

29. Yet post debate Biden's poll numbers with the AA voter went up 18%

[loyalsister]

13. I am skeptical of prosecutors generally

And she has shown signs that she sees problems in the CJ system with her position on marijuana possession and pardoning people serving prison sentences for it. I hope to see empathy and a willingness to step away from her prosecutor standing to more thoroughly consider what it means to have been obviously, unjustifiably mistreated by our CJ system and/or to live in fear of it.

Elizabeth Warren may have to address falling into the romantic vision so many white people perpetuate about having Native American heritage. Along with the problematic idea of genetic determinism.
I think her ability to listen to the criticism and think about a different perspective on it is what will be tested.

[wyldwolf]

14. Warren's heritage faux controversy was a nothing burger

Where I'm from (deep south) EVERYONE claims they're part indian and they don't even have oral history/family 'legends' that Warren has.

Some even 'fake' it. My DNA tests show I'm 1% native american. Yet, on my Ancestry.com tree, someone being passed off as my great grandfather was a Cherokee. SOMEONE injected some false information on the website and now several trees of families think they have a native american blood two generations back.

[loyalsister]

16. Buying into the myth was not a good look

When identifying as Native American demographically and/or through cultural practices has been getting people killed since the first Europeans arrived.
Hopefully she gets it more than people who claim it's a nothing burger. I think she does.

[PDittie]

18. Uh, no. No, it isn't.

Charlamagne Tha God compared her to Rachel Dolezal just last month, and she just sat there like she didn't know who that was.

Orange Hitler is going to "Pocahontas" the living daylights out of Warren, and she needs a response that shuts that down.

[wyldwolf]

20. so let me get this straight. You believe the rightwing outrage had merit?

[JI7]

21. that's just fucking bs comparing her to dolezal.

[emmaverybo]

28. I don't understand arguments against Warren having taken a DNA test. I mean I know what

Some of the arguments are, but I find them over-reaching.
Family narrative is often confirmed through descendants who might follow a document trail first
and then get testing. These amateur researchers for the most part have no theories about genetics.
In Warren’s case, documents did not exist.
She was tested. She has never claimed that she is a Native American, only that some one in her family was and that she had been told she had heredity.

[tishaLA]

23. Booker really can't

His problems with his police force when he was mayor makes whatever Mr Buttigieg is going through look like small potatoes. And Mr Buttigieg doesn't want to reignite a fire about the lack of diversity on his force anymore, so he'd shy away from it.

Anyhow, the issue isn't the attacks--they'll all get attacked at some point--but how they respond to them. Sen Harris has answered questions about her record in the past and she's going to have to have good, sound bite-ready responses to whatever charges she faces.

[BlueWI]

24. Agreed - all political records have flaws.

Those flaws will be attacked.

Do the candidates address their past voting records directly, thoughtfully, respectfully?

That's the real challenge. Maybe Biden can do this, but early returns are less than stellar. The others? We'll see.

[question everything]

25. And Civil forfeiture

That she supported while being he AG.

Just as Sessions did.

[customerserviceguy]

26. If there's another meeting between Gillibrand and Harris

the former might mention that it's tough to be a spokesperson for the Me, Too movement if you dated your married boss to get political favors. Gillibrand feels that she has some sort of ownership of the movement, and I wouldn't be surprised if she exerted it in this way.

If she doesn't, someone else will.

[cbelle1039]

30. We really need to stop with the "take down" talk. Democrats should be focusing on taking down 45

instead of each other. At twos early in the election season we don't know how much damage we are doing to any potential
nominee.

[UniteFightBack]

33. Unless someone is killing someone on 5th Avenue...I don't even give a shit about any of these

'scandals'.

[OnDoutside]

31. Be careful what you wish for....

[McCamy Taylor]

35. She needs to stop acting like a prosecutor. What's sauce for the court is not sauce for the campaign

[Thekaspervote]

36. Awhhh.. very good point!!

[wyldwolf]

37. ... and more

When a federal judge ruled California’s enforcement of the death penalty unconstitutional, Harris appealed what she called a “flawed” decision. She would continue to defend the death penalty as the case wound through the federal courts.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-death-penalty-appeal-20140821-story.html
http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Why-does-Kamala-Harris-defend-the-death-penalty-6481227.php

Harris defended California’s uniquely cruel three-strikes law, the only one in the country which imposed life sentences for a third “strike” that was any minor felony. She urged voters to reject Proposition 66, a ballot initiative that would have reformed the harsh law by making only serious or violent felonies trigger life sentences.

https://www.thenation.com/article/reforming-three-strikes/

When she ran for attorney general, her Republican opponent actually ran to her left on the issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23strikes-t.html?mcubz=0

MORE: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/kamala-harris-trump-obama-california-attorney-general|

[Thekaspervote]

38. Thx for posting documented facts. ..these are current important issues ..not a "hit job"

[wyldwolf]

39. Being that Harris is my second choice by a wide margin, think of these as more of a PSA

The only questions are who will bring these issues to the forefront... and when.

[Iggo]

41. The answers are probably "Yes" and "Yes."

If they're not, then our candidates are not very good at candidating.