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"I’m going to make sure that the richest among us, who can afford it, pay their fair share in taxes. It is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations, and I plan on making that fair.” Kamala Harris will finance child care tax credit, aid to small businesses and for first time home buyers, homecare for seniors, and other benefits by everyone paying their fair share and from savings in what Medicare pays out. "When you talk quietly with a lot of folks in Congress, they know exactly what I’m talking about because their constituents know exactly what I’m talking about. Their constituents are those firefighters and teachers and nurses.” For three Reaganite decades America has neglected access to all for child care, education, healthcare, seniors care, the very things that makes America a strong Nation, a Nation where the future belongs, going against the warnings of George Washington in the Draft of the First Inaugural in 1789 that - "I rejoice in the belief that intellectual light will spring up in the dark corners of the earth...That mankind will reverse the absurd notion that the many are made for the few." Absurd notion it was in 1789, absurd notion it is now in 2024. ...

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Reporters in this report from the Brussels Bureau chief and the White House reporter, also include bureau reporters from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. They all say that Kamala Harris has a firm grip on international affairs. Harris goes beyond this in 2024- a unique and special understanding of the role of women in the renewal of Western and Asian societies. Society does best when women have a large role and make significant contributions is lost on Europeans and Americans yet a core belief in Asia and in India, where it is is seen as part of the reason for collapse of Asian civilizations to Europeans in the 18th and 19th century. From Europe Chancellor Scholz of Germany says of Harris whom he knows from her attending 3 consecutive Munich Security Conferences as Biden's representative. “She is a competent and experienced politician who knows exactly what she is doing and has a very clear idea of her country’s role, of developments in the world, and of the challenges we face." France's Macron has spent hours with Harris on her 5 day visit to France to soothe French feelings as reassure them following the US deal with Australia for nuclear submarines that excluded the French. During this trip she spent time at the Pasteur Institute where her mother Shyamala Gopalan once worked. From Mexico and South Korea one has another side of Harris where she has used official trips to hold discussions with women's groups to take notes and ask questions to understand women's issues around the world. This makes her exceptional as a choice for women in 2024, not just for reproductive rights but for a person who will listen with profound interest to what they say and relate to them. There is a saying in India that prime minister Modi also cites which says society does well only when it gives women the best place to make their own unique contribution. Lost on Europeans and Americans is this idea that Asians and particularly in India, see the failure to do this as part of the collapse of Asian civilizations to European advance in the 18th and 19th century. From Seoul, South Korea-"I was most impressed when she said that a society that helps its women fulfill their dreams and pursue their professional careers without discrimination is an advanced society,” said Baik Hyun Wook, head of the Korean Medical Women’s Association. ...

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Kamala Harris finds herself in a conundrum with the spirited address given by president Biden in the State of the Union and her cautious approach to not do anything to overshadow the president or disappoint the president, says this report in the NYT. Her analytical approach as a prosecutor in California also comes in the way of talking in plain terms to the people. Advisers suggest she talk in an informal colloquial tone to connect with younger people. 

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The WSJ Editorial Board speaking for the business community traditional Republican groups finally takes up the election on issues of policy difference between Trump run Republican party and Harris run Democratic Party which it should have from Day One. The former president says something that has never happened in the last hundred years- policy will be decided after the election depending on what he decides to do. Cost of Living action is No 1 on voter priorities. "Drill, Baby Drill," is the whole Republican party platform for cost of living action. What is the Harris Democrats policy plan for cost of living action? WSJ says it is spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness.The real reason for the increase in cost of living comes from the overconcentration of supply chain by American business in China, on which every president Bush, Obama, Trump, did little or nothing. The lack of an effective vaccination program and ineffective vaccines in China by 2021 and 2022 led to the loss of the supplies from China leading to shortages for automobiles parts and other supplies and surge in prices in 2021-2023. Powell and the US central bank correctly raised rates but cautiously and waited for this to correct, president Biden brought manufacturing home through huge investments called the "spending blowout" that brought down the inflation from 9% to 3%. Some of that "spending blowout" went to chips and science to correct the errors of American Business and Reagan-Friedman theory of the Republican party that created this problem with a culture of utter  indifference to the ultimate costs of who makes what and where. The Inflation Reduction Act also tackled higher health and other costs paid by American workers and families, and invested in public services and in repairing the dilapidated crumbling American infrastructure. Are Republicans saying let the roads, bridges, airports, built in the 1940-1960's heyday of American industrialization as China and India's is now, let them crumble? What do the educated minds of the WSJ Board say about coal in China and India and their effects on their massive use multiple times that of US and EU in history, is it not damaging to the environment and why the Chinese realized the health in North China with coal winter use was worse than in South China cut their coal use. Are they saying lets burn fossil fuels and ignore, and if investment has to be made in solar who is going to do it? Is it Ok for Republicans thet we just import from China all our solar panels indefinitely into the future. "Green New Deal" is just a perjorative term, policy has to be made thoughtfully and without prejudice or bias of any sort for the best that we can do for the American people, ignoring so called "right" or "left." Doing what is right, what makes sense, is a lot harder.     ...

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Harris attended the Munich Security Conference 3 years in a row and met with world leaders in the last 2 years. She has also learned from working with Biden who was over a period of 30 years chairman or senior most member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. No other president comes close. Harris has as foreign policy adviser Phillip Brown who did his PhD. on French Gaullist security policy. Her close links and great understanding of India are also an asset as India is a key part of US policy in Asia with Japan and Australia, and is expected to be the third largest economy in the world over the next decade. This will help in setting economic policy along with foreign policy. Under Biden domestic policy worked hand in hand with foreign policy to achieve domestic policy goals of industrial strength and manufacturing in the US. Harris is likely to continue this policy approach. Harris is a close observer and learner of the conduct of economic policy under Biden, and can add in some ways to bring fresh look at foreign policy. ...

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This is what Vice President Harris said from the South Lawn of the White House today about president Biden for an event of the NAACP- "In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms in office. And I first came to know president Biden through his son Beau. We worked together as attorneys general in our states, and back then, Beau would often tell me stories about his dad. He would talk about the kind of father and the kind of man that Joe Biden is.

The qualities that Beau revered in his father are the same qualities that I have seen every day in our president, his honesty, his integrity, his commitment to his faith and his family, his big heart and his love, deep love of our country. And I am first-hand witness that every day our president, Joe Biden, fights for the American people, and we are deeply, deeply grateful for his service to our nation."

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Harris's support for "all of the above" energy policy that supports climate change policy yet makes room for fossil fuels where appropriate to ease the burden of transition at a time of cost of living pain is not just a tactical step. It makes common sense and Kamala Harris is all about common sense in policy because a transition also has to be made in a meaningful way free of rigid ideas and yet delivered in a timely way. This is also the Kamala Harris who says she has not changed her principles.

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Eugene Daniels Politico interview with Brian Fallon of the Harris campaign. The focus of the Harris campaign is to get the electorate to know more about her and her plans for the economy, across all parts rural and urban of the most contested states. To get across to voters how her plan for the economy stands in contrast to the former president in the belief that once people get to know her economic plan they will support her for a better future for America.  There is also the realization that this campaign is compressed into three months August-September-October. The change from Biden to Harris integrating the campaigns had to seamless, and this has been seamless, an essential prerequisite. Another is that it had to be nonstop in every corner of the nation indifferent to rural and urban, red or blue. Nothing matters more than talking to all parts of the nation, to young and old, Republican and Democrat, urban and rural, men and women, to fight for every single vote, and this is happening in this campaign. The essential prerequisite to do this was to do it as the underdog which is how the Harris campaign is being carried out in these last weeks and days. ...

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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is a non partisan nonprofit organization formed in 1981 by Connecticut Democrat Giamo and Oklahoma Senator Bellmon of the US Congress, senior members of House and Senate Budget Committtee. To educate the American public on issues related to the US Budgets, where money went and how it is spent. It's estimate for Kamala Harris plan for $6000 child tax credit is $10 billion a year. The existing $3600 a child tax credit in 2021 is estimated to cost $110 billion a year. Lyrarc estimate this will be offset by savings in Medicare of $36 billion a year from Medicare negotiation with Pharma as indicated by president Biden, and by $40 billion a year in billionaires paying 25% instead of 8.2% as a minimum tax per Biden, additional savings coming from very high income earners earning above $10 million. This would bring the cost of helping children in the first crucial years of life to below $44 billion a year. And making a huge investment in children at a time when everything has gone up in price from diapers, to baby food, to childcare and early childhood learning crucial for the future of America. We believe it is imperative to invest in children after the pandemic has cost 1 million lives and left for each dead person 8-9 persons in precarious situations financially. Educationally it has left children behind from missing crucial school years. These gaps will need to be filled and this is only one investment in the right place to correct this problem to prevent America from being handicapped forever by these problems and gaps in education in early years.  ...

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Kamala Harris laid out her economic plan for Cost of Living Action at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. This includes action to restrict price gouging, excessive prices of supermarkets for groceries. It includes restricting rent increases to 5%, a first time home buyer help with down payment of $25,000, and a child tax credit of $6000 per child.

Kamala Harris said:

"Your salary should be enough to provide you and your family with a good quality of life … such as, no child should have to grow up in poverty. Such as, after years of hard work, you should be able to retire with dignity, and you should be able to join a union if you choose.”

“Our supply chains have now improved, and prices are still too high,” Harris said. “Many of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in two decades. And while many grocery chains pass along these savings, others still aren’t."

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You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”  Harris mother told her when she was growing up. Vice President Kamala Harris said last year with a sense of humor and even a folksy philosophical sense. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” The way Kamala said or its deeper meaning has set this off for a thousand memes on the internet for Kamala fans. KHive refers to 2 groups of fans the earlier ones many of them women  when she was senator, and the later ones who learned about her passion for the issues relating to a better life for workers and families across these 51 states. Now there is a Kamala fervor on the internet. Harris campaign is also working itself into this fervor instinctively. Though no one may realize this not even Kamala herself there is a sense of Gandhi in this. Her grandfather and mentor was a civil servant who was raised in the Gandhian tradition of public service unmatched anywhere in the world for its dedication and determination for knowledge and for freedom. ...

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One perspective of what Silicon Valley is focused on is shown by Reid Hoffman. It does not mention climate change, not one word on climate change, no words on cost of living action, little is said about factories and jobs for reviving American manufacturing, helping workers and families and redesigning the world's supply chains. It is critical of addressing monopolies and regulatory action by the FTC even where it is needed. It calls for huge investments in AI that would leave little for investments in science, education, healthcare and infrastructure, and says "trust us to do the right thing." It calls for pro-innovation direction when pro-innovation has been the thrust of policy for three decades with the results that we have seen leading to widening gas between the upper and lower classes and shrinking of the middle, a pharma industry out of control in pricing, and negligible investments in education by so called "tech" companies who like Apple have outsourced manufacturing to China. A return to tech and Silicon Valley is not needed as embedding it in the nation's policy making priorities is the Nation's problem. ...

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WSJ looks at how the relationship between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris evolved. From the faltering start when Harris was contesting for the presidential nomination and made sharp debate comments on segregationist senators and Biden, to her entry into the White House as Vice President dissolving her political action committees and not bringing her election people to the White House. The first assignment was on immigration and the White House asking Harris to tell Central Americans not to come to the US border did not exactly work out. Guatemala was in the middle of a drought affecting its agriculture and sending more people from the affected regions to the US Border. That message did not work and Harris came under criticism. There was less contact with Biden during the years 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.   Gradually though the president came to listen to Harris and set up a weekly lunch meeting. When Supreme Court nominations were to be made Biden relied on Harris's advice. Ketanji Jackson nomination to the Supreme Court came out of these talks with Harris. Then came Roe and Wade and the president who was not outspoken on this issue realized that Harris was better at communicating a common vision of what America stood for and the importance of reproductive freedoms. When Hamas attacked Israel, the response of Netanyahu was leading to an humanitarian disaster. President Biden listened to Harris describe the need for a Palestinian state and it building peace with Israel as the only real solution to the crisis. Biden sent Harris three times to the Munich Security Conference, and each year she met Mr. Zelensky and discussed the Ukraine issues with European leaders. Then came the debate performance and Democrats questioning Biden's health. Harris remained steadfast in her support till the end and on July 23 after announcing his withdrawal the previous day Biden told Kamala as he addressed Wilmington headquarters staff- "I'm watching you kid. I love ya." And Harris said "I love you." ...

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The president telling Kamala "go for it kid. I love you.," and Kamala saying "I love you." The president saying that he is all in this campaign. The staff in Wilmington, Delaware grasped the emotion of the moment, and what it means for America. It may not be fully understood but it serves well the moment and this time in American history- there are now two candidates for president, Biden as the honorary unofficial presidential nominee, Kama as officially presidential nominee, and the to be selected nominee for vice president, not two but three in that team for the first time in American history- all inseparable to take head on the dangers to America's democratic institutions that George Washington by paying so little attention to himself, that Jefferson and Adams, TR, Wilson and FDR fought to protect through 2 World Wars, dangers from social media and television degenerated divisiveness. Katie Rogers tells the story of how on one summer afternoon in July, on July 22, 2024, the Biden campaign was converted into the Harris campaign all the way down to the memes popularity for Kamala. The president's call "to embrace her," the Biden staff with little time to express their emotions, all staffers in Wilmington become Harris staffers knowing also the deep loyalty that Kamala Harris had shown throughout the long weeks for Biden, and her strong feelings for being on the president's team. ...

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US president Biden makes the decision not to run for reelection. He endorses Kama Harris to run as nominee of the Democratic party.

My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats – it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.