What She’s Committed To

This is excerpted from the ACLU questionnaire that Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris filled out the last time she ran for President (via Just the News):

6. Will you commit to ending the use of ICE detainers?
Yes X No⬜
Explanation (no more than 500 words): Throughout my career, I have made it clear that law enforcement should use their time and resources to keep communities safe, not act as federal immigration agents. It’s also important that law enforcement build trust with the communities they are sworn to protect—acting as de facto immigration officers erodes this trust. As Attorney General, I issued a bulletin on December 4, 2012 informing all California law enforcement that they did not have to comply with ICE detainers. As president I will focus enforcement on increasing public safety, not tearing apart immigrant families. This includes requiring ICE to obtain a warrant where probable cause exists as to end the use of detainers.

This is nonsense. ICE detainers in no way convert police into immigration officers. The detainers merely ask police, who have already arrested the individual(s), to notify ICE that the police have the individual, so ICE can pick him up at the jail or on release by the police. The ICE agents respond promptly; there’s no call, by the detainer, to hold the individual longer.

10. Will you work to stop states from shutting down abortion providers by urging Congress to pass and signing into law the Women’s Health Protection Act? If yes, how will you take a leadership role in advancing this legislation at the national level?
Yes X No ⬜
Explanation (no more than 500 words): I am a co-sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act and will fight to sign it into law as president. As President, protecting the right to reproductive healthcare services will be one of my top priorities and I will fight to stop dangerous state laws restricting reproductive rights before they go into effect. That’s why I have a plan to require states with a history of unconstitutionally restricting access to abortion to pre-clear any new law or practice with the Justice Department before it can be enacted. We have to fight back against this all out assault on reproductive rights. Women have agency and they have authority to make decisions about their own lives and their own bodies. My administration won’t leave them to fight alone.

This is wrong on a number of levels. Most basic is the error embedded in the ACLU’s question and carried through by Harris’ response: there’s not a minim of concern for protection of the baby, only concern for the woman’s “right” to kill the baby for no better reason than she wants to.

Secondly the history of unconstitutionally restricting access to abortion is nonsense. There is not, and there never has been, a constitutionally based access to abortions. There has only been a Supreme Court generated access, and that has been rescinded by the Court so the matter can be returned to the States and to each State’s citizens so those citizens can decide for themselves the degree of access. And that’s where the matter should be.

Thirdly, the requirement for States to say “Mother may I” to the Federal government is an active and blatant attack on the federal structure of our nation and our nation’s governance.

There are other such…errors…in Harris’ questionnaire, many of which are variations on a theme, as well as some on separate subjects.

These, though, are Harris’ indelibly stated extreme positions, no matter her current rhetoric—which no less a light than Bernie Sanders (I, VT) has said are just words convenient to her effort to get elected, and in no way are to be taken seriously.

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