Harris did not laugh about putting 1500 people in jail for MJ violations as Gabbard claimed

[uponit7771]

Harris did not laugh about putting 1500 people in jail for MJ violations as Gabbard claimed

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/rep-tulsi-gabbard-takes-aim-sen-kamala-harris/story%3fid=64698118

Gabbards words last night were -

There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana. ...

We can leave this heavy false crap out of this primary cycle IMHO

Eom

[LincolnRossiter]

1. Joe Biden didn't work with segregationists on segregationist goals...

I'm sure Kamala can find it in her heart to absorb the blow. Though you wouldn't have known it by her face last night.

[bigtree]

34. um

Last edited Thu Aug 15, 2019, 12:06 PM - Edit history (1)

NBCBLK
Joe Biden didn't just compromise with segregationists. He fought for their cause in schools, experts say.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/joe-biden-didn-t-just-compromise-segregationists-he-fought-their-n1021626

Joe Biden’s controversial comments about segregationists ...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/19/...

Why Did Joe Biden Praise a Segregationist Southern Senator ...
2020 rivals slam the former vice president, who spoke fondly of the “civility” of his relationship with a Mississippi senator who once called to “abolish the Negro race”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-did-biden-praise-racist-senator-booker-deblasio-850220/

Biden says he was wrong in comments about segregationists
https://www.detroitnews.com/.../07/06/biden-apologizes-working-segregationists/39659765

[hlthe2b]

2. I don't believe the claims, but shouldn't ABC have fact-checked it and not just reported on the

accusations? That doesn't seem very helpful.

[CTyankee]

4. they could have easily done that, IMO. Why didn't they?

[underpants]

3. Gabbard is a Russian operative as far as I'm concerned

She just there to try to be a monkey wrench

[uponit7771]

5. +1, that was an allegation I couldn't ignore

[SouthernProgressive]

6. It's a part of politics. NT

[uponit7771]

7. We should not accept this in Dem primary anymore, 2016 was it

[SouthernProgressive]

10. It will be a part of the next primaries as well.

Attacks like that often work. Five million people see the attack. How many will read this?

[FBaggins]

8. I don't think that's the accusation

I think she’s saying that Harris laughed when asked about her own drug use. The implication being not that she was laughing at people she put behind bars... but that she didn’t consider it a big deal for her own usage.

But I don’t remember such an interview.

[uponit7771]

12. I quoted her

[highplainsdem]

17. You misread the quote, as I pointed out when you posted this earlier.

See my reply 14, which links to the Huffington Post story about this. They knew exactly what Gabbard meant and what interview she was referring to.

[FBaggins]

20. And then added your own interpretation to what she meant by "it"

I'm telling you how I understood it when I heard the accusation last night.

What I'd like to see is this supposed interview question about her own pot use. If she laughed then, I think it's pretty clear what the accusation is. If she didn't then your interpretation would seem correct.

[5starlib]

9. She laughed about smoking weed

That's what Gabbard was saying.

[thesquanderer]

11. The word "it" presumably refers to the part that comes after, not the part that comes before.

i.e.:

"She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations. But then when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana, she laughed about it."

"It" being the question of whether she had ever smoked marijuana, not about having jailed people.

[uponit7771]

13. This is false, when there's a before and after reference

[unc70]

15. One is singular the other plural

For you interpretation to be valid, it would need be in the plural. She would have need to have laughed about "them", not "it".

[uponit7771]

18. Distraction, when there's a before and after reference the it always about the first

[thesquanderer]

22. People don't always speak in perfect, unambiguous grammar.

In colloquial speech, there is not necessarily any difference between
"When asked about her marijuana use, she laughed about it"
and
"She laughed about it when asked about her marijuana use."
Which part comes before and which comes after does not matter there.

So while grammatically ambiguous, Gabbard's sentence can easily be read the way I explained it. And if you can read a sentence two ways, and one way makes logical sense (Harris laughed in discussing her own use of marijuana) and the other makes no sense (that when asked about her own marijuana use, Harris laughed about incarcerating people over it), I'll go with the one that makes sense.

[qazplm135]

33. I'm pretty sure that attack was planned and prepared

and the words chosen carefully.

It was said the way it was said to give the implication that she's callous and doesn't care about people, not that she's a hypocrite.

At any rate, it doesn't bother me. It was a facile attack, and no one is going to remember it a week from now.

Harris will obviously have to have better responses and know that her AG time is going to be attacked. I'm not worried she won't do that.

I am also not going to whine about the attack. She's an adult, and she can take it.

Just like some other candidates can take it.

[thesquanderer]

35. Good point, it could have been worded to be INTENTIONALLY ambiguous,

to make some people think Harris laughed at having incarcerated people, yet if called on it, Gabbard can say, "no, I didn't say that, I was just speaking to her hypocrisy." Toss in "and speaking to her lack of empathy as a prosecutor, toward a population that is too easily victimized by the criminal justice system."

And it's a hard thing to answer off the cuff. By admitting to merely laughing about her own marijuana use in order to clear away any perceived sinister accusation there, Harris would essentially be saying, "don't be silly, I'm not callous, I'm merely a hypocrite." Though I suppose that, in the real world, the idea that nobody who has prosecuted someone for marijuana has ever used marijuana would be pretty unbelievable anyway.

[highplainsdem]

14. Sigh. As I explained when you first posted about this in GD, and I replied before noticing you'd

posted in the wrong forum, Gabbard did NOT say Harris laughed about putting people in jail.

She was talking about Harris laughing about having used marijuana herself.

Huffngton Post:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tulsi-gabbard-kamala-harris-criminal-justice-record_n_5d424340e4b0aca3411841fb

Gabbard took Harris to task for flip-flopping on decriminalizing marijuana. The congresswoman from Hawaii pointed out that Harris joked in a recent interview that she smoked weed in college, but the former attorney general also locked up over 1,000 people on marijuana citations.

“There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” Gabbard said.

Video clip of the interview where Harris was laughing about it:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/02/11/kamala-harris-marijuana-radio-int-orig-vstop-bdk.cnn

ThinkProgress article about that interview in which Harris seemed to be suggesting she would support legalization

https://thinkprogress.org/harris-record-weed-history-ce37afd239ce/

even though in 2010 she opposed a proposition that would have legalized marijuana in California.

Harris said Prop 19 would encourage “driving while high” and drug use in the workplace.

And in 2014, when she was running for re-election as AG and she was asked about her opponent having said he favored legalizing marijuana, she just said he was entitled to his opinion, and then she burst out laughing.

Video of that interview is included in the ThinkProgress article.

[uponit7771]

16. Your first statement is false on his face I can read the quote

[highplainsdem]

19. You're reading it incorrectly. Or do you think that Huffington Post and other media sources that

understood what she meant instead actually misunderstood it?

I haven't seen a single news story suggesting that Gabbard said Harris laughed about locking people up.

[Demsrule86]

23. She laughed when she was asked if she smoked weed on the breakfast club radio show...

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Kamala-Harris-weed-Snoop-Dogg-Tupac-radio-show-13622113.php

[highplainsdem]

26. Yes, I know. That's what I said, and why I posted the link to the interview. Which got a lot of

attention at the time, so I knew immediately what Gabbard was talking about, and I'm surprised anyone would misread her quote the way the OP does.

[Demsrule86]

28. Yes some misunderstood Gabbard....Kamala knew though...and she did put pot smokers in jail...it

is tough to run for president after being a DA and an AG...honestly that baggage will follow her around into the general if she is the nominee...she would have my vote but...I don't know if she can win as general. I wasn't impressed last night.

[highplainsdem]

29. And now Harris says the next debate needs to be "fully focused" on Trump. In other

words, nothing more about her background, after she spent much of her time in two debates going after Biden's background:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287223506

[Thekaspervote]

37. This! Suddenly it's different

[highplainsdem]

27. Yes. You can see her doing that in the link to CNN video that I posted..

[uponit7771]

30. Gabbards quote is clear, your grmammtically wrong

[highplainsdem]

31. Again, news sources understood what Gabbard said. So did Harris and her campaign

staff, or they'd be trying to claim today that Gabbard said Harris laughed about locking people up.

[Demsrule86]

25. This might help...

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Kamala-Harris-weed-Snoop-Dogg-Tupac-radio-show-13622113.php

[flotsam]

38. If you are acting as a grammar Nazi

I should point out you just mistakenly used "your" instead of "you're"...

[Demsrule86]

21. I found a radio show where Tulsi got this...

'She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," Gabbard said, referencing a Harris radio interview from February.'

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Kamala-Harris-weed-Snoop-Dogg-Tupac-radio-show-13622113.php

[highplainsdem]

24. See reply 14 above for a link to video of the interview.

[demmiblue]

32. Reading comprehension tells me that your OP title is wrong.

And I have no use for Gabbard.

[Progressive dog]

36. As so many have explained

in their replies, Gabbard said that Harris laughed about smoking MJ.