By Kamala Harris
Originally published on June 28, 2019 in The Urban Voice.
Every moment I spend with Nevadans seems to further burnish their ‘Battle Born’ credentials – and my most recent trip to the state was certainly no exception.
I spoke with young immigrants, who refuse to be intimidated by President Trump’s hateful rhetoric, about how I’ll keep families together and create a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. I marched with employees from McDonald’s – where I once worked myself – to support their fight for fair wages and workers’ rights. I had the opportunity to thank tireless Nevada teachers who desperately deserve the $15,000 raise they’d get under my plan. And I was inspired to see the incredible diversity of the crowd who joined my organizing rally at Doolittle Community Center, ready to roll up their sleeves and fight alongside me for a brighter future.
I like to think of myself as battle-born too. If you ever met my mother, you’d understand I never had much of a choice. From the time I was a little girl, any time I’d come to her with a problem, she would immediately ask me, “Well what are you gonna do about it?”
My mother was all of five feet tall, but her presence was towering. She was a fighter, too, both as a civil rights activist and as a breast cancer patient. Suffice it to say, when she told you to stop complaining about adversity and do something about it, she meant it.
Her voice, and that signature question, never left me even after she passed away. I saw injustice in the world around me, and I knew I had to fight it. So I did. I eventually became a district attorney, attorney general, and the second Black woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate.
But that same night that I won my Senate seat, Donald Trump won the presidency, vowing to “Make America Great Again.” Since then, it’s become clear just how far back he wants to take us. We’ve seen his administration fight to reverse decades of progress, equate white supremacists with civil rights marchers, rip children from the arms of their parents at the border, and work to rip health care away from thousands of Nevadans.
Now, I refuse to let him keep dragging us backward. So once again hearing my mother’s voice, I knew I had to do something. I’m running for president, guided by the same words I uttered decades ago when I first walked into the courtroom: “Kamala Harris, for the people.”
I’ve spent my entire life representing the people as they take on bullies, predators, and frauds. Nobody is more prepared to prosecute the case against Donald Trump, and make the case for a better America than I am.
I will fight for an America where we lift people up instead of beating them down. An America where voting rights, civil rights, women’s rights and immigrant rights are protected and respected. An America where it only takes one job to pay the bills and keep a roof over your head.
My first order of business will be securing a raise for working people – my plan would give a tax credit of up to $6,000 to Nevada families each year. We’ll strengthen Nevada’s unions, and hold corporations accountable for finally paying Nevada women equally to men. We’ll make sure that health care is a universal right, not a privilege. And we will beat back attempts to reopen Yucca Mountain, because Nevadans deserve to determine what happens in their state.
This campaign is of the people, by the people, and for the people. It’s a campaign that is made stronger every time I come to Nevada and hear your stories, so you can bet I’ll be back plenty in the coming months. And this is a campaign that I fully intend to win.
It won’t be easy, I know that. But nothing worth fighting for ever is. The best things in this country have always been battle-born. With your help, we can defy the odds once more. Together, we will drive Nevada, and America, forward.
For additional information about Senator Kamala Harris, please visit http://kamalaharris.com.
I for one welcome our new alien overlords, and have already voluntarily increased my federal tax contribution to assist in paying for all these wonderful programs. I have too much money and comfort as it is, so like Ms. Harris here, want to make sure that others who may not have worked quite as hard as I did, or studied at University to get better paying jobs, will not have to. It’s fair. I love her platform. More money for teachers, and raise the cost of McDonalds burgers. Yes! She will make a great president. Simply wonderful. She is intelligent, witty, and full of great stories. Her mother also sounds like she was such a kind nurturing parent, very helpful. We need that. Aliens are so much better at governing than humans. She’s got my vote, and I hope you all will join me.
You are so right. Even an alien has qualities completely absent in our current President. Intelligence, compassion, common sense are among those missing leadership qualities. An alien would never rip children from their parents and lock them up in a brutal concentration camp. An alien would never tell a woman that she has no right to make personal decisions that are no ones business but hers. An alien would build up our agreements with our friends instead of breaking them apart. Aliens are much better leaders than our current one.
Sharia law was never part of my comment. But reading it, it sure seems like Trump would love it. His treatment of women is right up there with Sharia law. I still can not believe any woman voted for him. Having read every page of the Mueller Report, I can say without hesitation that Trump colluded with the Russians dozens of times and obstructed justice. There are 18 more federal investigations in process and dozens more in New York and other states. Your President will be indicted as soon as he leaves office, which should be in January, 2021. It can not come soon enough.
My point David was: You seem to blame everything that is wrong in our country on our current president when it’s taken years to become the country we’ve become and we’ve done it completely without his aid. He’s been in office less than four years but the symptoms of our very unhealthy America have been showing themselves for years before 2016. Racism, social inequality, Poor treatment of women…this has been going on for years, just take a look at our former Vice President. Nobody called him out all those years he was rubbing up on little girls. You seem to feel that a minority leader would “fix” all that.
Your comment:”An alien would never rip children from their parents and lock them up in a brutal concentration camp. An alien would never tell a woman that she has no right to make personal decisions that are no ones business but hers. An alien would build up our agreements with our friends instead of breaking them apart. Aliens are much better leaders than our current one.” That is so broad a statement David. “Aliens” as you refer to them, but I call them “minority or foreign leaders” have the same bad habits, corrupt thoughts and power driven motives as anyone else…don’t fool yourself into thinking anyone of our aspiring political leaders are out for anyone but themselves or their own people. Hitler, Stalin, Zedong,Pot,Jong-il,Osama bin Laden; all horrible leaders who are your “Aliens” The ones you say would NEVER think of doing the horrible things that you seem to feel Donald Trump has done. David, I think you’re a dreamer, or at least going through life with blinders on to some extent and you’re falling for the same race train that everyone else seems to want to take a ride on. Truth is EVERYONE HAS THE TENDENCY TO BE GOOD OR BAD. “Alien” leaders? Really? You sound like you’re ready to jump on a train regardless of it’s destination, as long as it’s not Trump. That’s a pretty scary thought to me, especially if others share your idea.
Harris’ entire campaign is working around making things equal for minorities which in of itself is a noble cause but…whites are projected to be the minority in America in the next 26 years. By 2045 whites will be just 49.7% of the population. With that in mind, our government needs to stop using that race card, once someone gains citizen ship in the United States, we’re all just Americans and our government needs to do what’s best for ALL Americans, not Hispanic Americans, not African Americans and not Asian Americans…we’re just American, and as long as our leaders keep using that race card, so will people and that’s what will keep racism alive. I won’t vote for any leader who claims to have interest in one race over another, one people over another or gender over another. We are all just American People, let’s get rid of categories…by the people, for the people…not the black people, not the white people, just people. There are just as many Hispanics, Caucasians, Asians, Germans and any other race you’d like to mention that have the very same struggles with home ownership, affordable housing and decent wages as any other American person out there. It boils down to motivation, education, and want. All people in America have the same opportunity to make or break their future, it boils down to individual choice…those who choose to work hard and prove themselves have that chance as much as any other; many just don’t want to and they’re born into a “life style” (which is not by choice) that (by choice) they don’t want to raise themselves out of because it’s easier to live the way they were raised. It’s not something any political leader can “fix” because you can’t fix stupid, lazy and unmotivated in “other” people no matter who you are, and you can’t fix people’s lives by giving them free stuff.
When you get something for nothing, there’s no ” personal value” attached to it, care of it is often lacking which is why government housing is so “UGLY” and unkempt. People, and their less than perfect nature, have tendencies to take advantage of “free” stuff. The age old saying “It is better to teach a man to fish…” certainly has lost all meaning these days. I do support our President but that doesn’t mean that I like everything he does. I’m sure you didn’t agree with all of every other President’s decisions either.
NO ONE PERSON CAN FIX ANYTHING. No political leader in the history if the United States has been able to fix everything for everybody, there are far too many variables, 329,084,891, as of July 1, 2019 to be as close to exact as the census reports can be.
You also can’t have a leader who is out for any one group of people, that perpetuates the issues, it never stops it. Once they un-categorize us, then maybe we can un-categorize ourselves. Why can’t we STOP being AN AFRICAN AMERICAN, AN ASIAN AMERICAN, A CAUCASIAN AMERICAN and, once you legally claim citizenship or are born in America, just be an AMERICAN CITIZEN? If the so called “leaders” would stop dividing the country, maybe we can too…but it’s not the fault of the current President and he surly isn’t the only one with skeletons in his closet. At least he says what’s on his mind, as stupid as it may sound sometimes or a lot of the times, it’s HIS voice you hear, not his press agents, his campaign managers or his marketing people’s…it’s his, he speaks his mind, not theirs and that’s the main thing I support him for. Like I said, I don’t agree with everything he does but he’s true to who he is, he’s not hiding his thoughts, they aren’t carefully crafted words like all the others. Most hide behind facades, they play a good game, have all the answers that folks want to hear (depending on where they’re campaigning, those answers change drastically) and are carefully coached in their positions. Most don’t ever follow through on campaign promises, they follow through on the wishes of their campaign supporters.
You want to blame one person for all of this and it’s just not right. He didn’t create the mess that’s been made over a century of time and he can’t fix it all either, NOBODY can by themselves…it’s the responsibility of the people to fix our country, we’ve only hired them (politicians) for guidance but we seem have completely turned over the reigns to our government and now (HAVE) to accept what they give us…things were never supposed to be this way; it’s not the President’s fault we, as American Citizens, continue to allow it.
WE are the people who crave sexual pleasure, some with deviant behavioral practices attached to them, WE are the ones who allow it to happen…some by ignorance, some by inattentiveness, some by fear. Men are just as exploited as women, boys as much as girls…we all need to put that to a stop. Most people don’t want to see, report it, or get involved. If they do report it they then turn it all over to someone else and let the “AUTHORITIES” handle it. It continues because we LET the AUTHORITIES handle it, we’re beginning to let them handle everything for us. The “authorities” don’t handle things as well as we’d like them to but all we ever do is complain about it so it continues…do you see the pattern I’m trying to establish? It’s the same for everything that “WE” don’t approve of or like; put anything in place of “sex” and all the endings are the same.
If you continue to blame everything that’s wrong on our current President, and then falling for all the segregate issues that the others want to “fix”, you’re not even interested in fixing the problems, you’re helping to perpetuate them.
Our wonderful President Abraham Lincoln wrote in honor of those who fought for freedom and why they fought. So that a “Government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” I don’t recall it mentioning black people, white people or gray people…just “PEOPLE” We should all remember the Gettysburg Address a little more, maybe then this country would become great again. Personally I have little hope for our country when most of the rest of the world is in just as much a mess as we are. There are some countries that are living much better than we are but our corrupt government doesn’t want to see us prosper, it doesn’t benefit them at all if WE prosper.
If you really want to help our situation, start blaming everyone in government, the President can’t/doesn’t do everything by himself. Complaining about one person doesn’t help.
I just wonder where she is going to find all the money she is promising to give away. The United States Government does not make money, it takes money from the citizens to pay for our defense. Any other money the government has was confiscated from the citizens by laws the government creates.
Rob one person to give to another?
Harris is full of I and my. We are better served by someone who would stand toe to toe with our enemies in Iran than a servicing caterer. Harris would lead the country in a self destructive path designed by Karl Marx and carried out by a frivolous self serving fascist cloaked as a public serving patriot. Once in office, she would divert funds to herself and send the money to the ayatollahs. Just like BHO did. They are of the same cloth. Don’t vote yourself into slavery for the communist party. We would find ourselves in the same predicament as our neighbors to the west.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
We are overdue and now paying the penalty.
“This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering… And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”
Thomas Jefferson
Where are we now…