December 3, 2019

Kamala on C-Span NOW. She is a winner!

March 3, 2019

"in early states, Democrats are courting black voters"

SIMPSONVILLE, S.C. — Sen. Cory Booker gathered here recently with several dozen pastors, sharing a full-plated lunch with some of the state’s most influential religious leaders. Then, in a church gymnasium, taking the stage after a gospel singer, he quoted scripture, talked about a “moral moment” and decried President Trump for “igniting racism.”

More than 2,000 miles away, in a very different setting at the glitzy Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Sen. Kamala D. Harris was greeted at the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit by a crowd that had been swaying and dancing to the beat. She answered questions about when she first knew she had “black girl magic” and noted that the chairwoman of her operation in Iowa — a state that is 91 percent white — is black.

In the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential contest, one with a historically diverse field, including Booker (N.J.) and Harris (Calif.) as prominent African American candidates, black voters have quickly become a highly sought-after electoral prize. The courtship is playing out in complex ways throughout the early voting states, a dynamic that will become more visible Sunday as several candidates appear in Selma, Ala., taking part in a remembrance of Bloody Sunday, when civil rights marchers in 1965 were viciously attacked by police as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

-edit-

Don't sleep on the black vote.

More at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/candidates-press-to-connect-with-black-voters/2019/03/02/04d02618-3ae5-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html?utm_term=.2719321c491c
.

January 18, 2019

Virginia's lone black statewide official sits out Robert E. Lee tribute

RICHMOND, VA - JAN 18: Virginia Lt Governor Justin Fairfax (D) stepped off the rostrum in the Virginia Senate as a member paid tribute to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee January 18, 2019, in Richmond, Virginia. (Laura Vozzella/TWP)

By Laura Vozzella January 18 at 3:05 PM
RICHMOND — Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, only the second African American elected to statewide office in Virginia, briefly bowed out of his duties in the state Senate on Friday in protest of a tribute to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Fairfax (D), who normally presides over Richmond’s upper chamber, stepped off the dais and let a Republican wield the gavel while Sen. Richard Stuart (R-King George) marked Lee’s 212th birthday with praise for “a great Virginian and a great American.”

“I believe there are certain people in history we should honor that way in the Senate .?.?. and I don’t believe that he is one of them,” Fairfax, a descendant of slaves, said in an interview afterward. “I think it’s very divisive to do what was done there, particularly in light of the history that we’re now commemorating — 400 years since the first enslaved Africans came to the commonwealth of Virginia.

edit

(more at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginias-lone-black-statewide-official-sits-out-robert-e-lee-tribute/2019/01/18/7b721ba4-1b4c-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html?utm_term=.aa033bdf1e43&wpisrc=nl_buzz&wpmm=1

January 12, 2019

"IT'S ACTUALLY A SCARY TIME": KAMALA HARRIS makes case on Colbert

Backstage, Senator Kamala Harris smiled and exhaled, appearing both excited and relieved.

Harris had just successfully navigated 12 minutes of being interviewed by Stephen Colbert, an experience that mixes goofy comedy with sudden downdrafts of pointed questioning, all in front of a live audience of 400 and a half-dozen cameras that will beam the conversation to millions more Late Show viewers. She had been bracingly blunt in declaring that Paul Manafort is guilty of conspiring with the Russians to interfere with the 2016 election (“What more do we need to know?”) and had issued a perhaps overly optimistic guarantee about how the government shutdown will end (“It does not end with a wall”).

Harris had managed to work in her somewhat clunky catchphrase (“If it’s worth fighting for, it’s a fight worth having”) and to tease the official announcement of her presidential run (“I might!”). Judging by the raucous cheers of the studio crowd, Harris already had a few believers. But immediately afterward, the senator seemed most proud of having gotten a laugh out of Colbert, a moment that happened after the TV cameras shut down.

more at
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/kamala-harriss-opening-arguments-echoes-of-1976?mbid=nl_CH_5c38fcd43889055ec05705b5&CNDID=17765398&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=vyf_vanityfair_news_newdb_active_20190112%20(1)&bxid=MjI2ODU0OTY0NDQxS0&hasha=f6c05dbeeb7587ff748c3a27a77ca8cd&hashb=113b41f68e576b7c63e38ccdc322fb1ff94e1ad6&spMailingID=14942223&spUserID=MjI2ODU0OTY0NDQxS0&spJobID=1560917496&spReportId=MTU2MDkxNzQ5NgS2