KUDOS, KAMALA

Kamala Harris has been such a terrible District Attorney that it’s hard to imagine anything good coming out of her office.

Most recently she failed to prosecute a cousin of Mayor Gavin Newsom for what looked like a tight DUI-drugs case. (Mayor Newsom, like DA Harris, gained his present office mostly through the influence of Willie Brown.)

She herself is the subject of a Federal false claims investigation.

[Click on image for source.]

So I was prepared to rag on Kamala when she announced she would pursue criminal sanctions against parents of chronically truant kids (SFGate story).

Great! Murder is out of control, so let’s crack down on hooky.

Upon consideration, this move shows her true concerns and points to a possible gracious exit from her current position in which she is way over her head.

Wikipedia says she has a history of involvement in child welfare legislation and enforcement.

And chronic truancy (more than one-third of school days missed) is almost always the result of a home environment that is not good for children.

I know, from various war stories I’ve heard over the years, that for many children who are growing up in chaotic or abusive family situations the hours spent at school are the safest, most supportive, most predictable and orderly hours in the day.

My Education Informant knew one third-grade boy who had to stay home two or three days a week to watch his infant sister while papa went to the methadone clinic.

In this country, at this time, a child has a right to a primary education. Keeping a child out of school is a crime. This means that a family that’s unable to organize itself well enough to get the kid to school regularly shouldn’t have custody of the kid.

The families need help, but the kids can’t wait. So we applaud DA Harris.

Go Figure:

Summer vacation from school, in this country, came about because children’s labor was needed on the farms. Now, the children are out of school but the law forbids their employment as farm laborers.

Some local commenters seem to think that Barack, if elected, might appoint Kamala Harris Attorney General. This seems like a little hometown grandiosity. Her paltry record and her unsavory associations should prevent such an ascension.

But she could probably handle and enjoy an appointment to head some child warfare branch of the Justice Department.

You go, Kamala! To Washington. And see to it that all the children get a good education.

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THE KAMALA KONNECTION

Kamala Harris, San Francisco’s District Attorney, currently under Federal investigation for submitting millions of dollars in false claims for border-protection funds, was a prominent endorser of victorious Proposition G, which gives hundreds of acres of San Francisco property to Lennar Corporation in exchange for one dollar and some promises.

In an apparently unrelated story reported this last Saturday, Ms Harris has struck a deal with “politically connected” concrete contractor, Ricardo Ramirez, who allegedly sold substandard concrete to numerous public works projects, The deal is that the contractor pleads guilty to one count of some environmental violation and agrees to stay home for a year (so-called house arrest). In return Harris dropped 14 felony and other charges.

According to the SFGate story:

Harris' office had no explanation for why it dropped the concrete case. It issued a statement stressing that Ramirez had pleaded guilty to the "most serious environmental charge" he faced and that he would pay restitution.

So we are left to speculate, is Ms Harris protecting one sadsack contractor, or is she protecting that contractors’ political connections?

Notable for our story is that Mr Ramirez allegedly sold substandard concrete for use on the new (disastrous) T-Third streetcar line, an albatross originally promoted as a boon to Bayview Hunters Point.

So, the fraudulent sale of substandard concrete to a project promoted as benefiting the mostly black population of BVHP, is not something Ms Harris chooses to prosecute. It’s as if it never happened.

The major promoter of the T-Third line, (a major infrastructure investment with no demonstrable benefit) was then Mayor Willie Brown.

We shouldn’t forget that Ms Harris was once a mistress of Willie Brown, per this SFGate copy regarding her first run for public office against incumbent lefty Terrence Hallinan, who had actually indicted SFPD brass for corruption. According to an SFGate story at the time:

But, because a large number of her contributors also have been donors to Harris' onetime boyfriend and political sponsor, Mayor Willie Brown, Hallinan is painting his challenger as a machine candidate who would be obliged to ignore local government corruption once in office.

"People don't give you money for nothing," Hallinan said. "One of the responsibilities in the next administration is to clean up the corruption that Willie Brown is leaving behind him. If Willie Brown is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for her -- and has really created her -- that means she's indebted to him."

Also, we should remember that Gavin Newsom achieved his first elective office via Willie Brown appointment.

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EVERYONE LIES...

True.

Some psychologists assert that telling a successful lie is a key moment in childhood ego-development.

I believe that there are no grown-ups who have never told a lie.

Yet, it is considered serious business to call someone a liar. Like calling a man a fucker—how could that be an insult?

Lies are more or less evil depending on contexts and outcomes.

While everyone has told a lie, not everyone has, or would lie in every context regarding every outcome.

So, when then-Mayor Willie Brown defended his police chief’s newly revealed resume-fib by saying, “Everyone lies on their resume,” we have to apply a truth-test.

Brown’s statement is obviously false. There are actually some people on the face of the earth who have no need, and perceive no need, to lie on their resumes.

Telling oneself that everyone does it makes it easier to do wrong.

So, we shouldn’t be surprised that Willie Brown’s former mistress, and presumable mentoree, turns up defrauding the federal government of $5-10 Million of border protection money. [Sweet Melissa breaks it down beautifully.]

Regarding Kamala and Willie Brown I recall the ending of Yeats’ Leda and the Swan.

Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Kamala Harris has “taken responsibility” for the false claims. I’m pretty sure this DOESN’T mean she’s repaying the money out of her own pocket.

Hopefully this puts an end to her political ambitions.

We hear that the year-old Baker’s Dozen gang-assault case has resulted in dismissal of all charges except one misdemeanor charge against one of the many assailants.

Insufficient evidence was turned up by an investigation delayed by City Powers for two weeks. We now know that D.A. Harris was too busy creating false claims to worry about mere felonious assaults.

Popular gay Ed Harrington was City Controller at the time of the fraud. He reportedly participated in, and has asserted “good intentions” in the matter.

The money returned to the Federal Government goes into the city’s books as a “defalcation.” It is a controller’s highest duty to prevent “defalcations.”

Harrington was moved from City Controller to an appointed commission just a few days before the Harris-Harrington-Hennessy Federal fraud case was revealed.

Such is our local Democratic Party.

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BRAVA KAMALA!

Public life is something like baseball—doing good one third of the time gets you in the Hall of Fame.

You can go from hero to goat, or vice versa, with every swing of the bat.



So with Kamala Harris, in this blog’s doghouse for the Baker’s Dozen cover-up, she now receives our kudos, per this Chron story: Unlicensed contractor charged in labor exploitation case.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris charged an unlicensed San Francisco construction contractor on Thursday with four felony counts of grand theft for allegedly cheating temporary workers out of their wages.

Defrauding workers of their pay is heinous. We salute District Attorney Kamala Harris.

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