{"id":2308940,"date":"2024-07-26T04:14:01","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T08:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/media-wont-tell-you-corruption-defined-kamala-harris-affair\/"},"modified":"2024-07-26T04:17:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T08:17:50","slug":"media-ignores-how-corruption-shaped-kamala-harris-affair-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/media-ignores-how-corruption-shaped-kamala-harris-affair-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Ignores How Corruption Shaped Kamala Harris&#8217; Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmedia-ignores-how-corruption-shaped-kamala-harris-affair-4%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2308940&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the media&#8217;s efforts to downplay valid criticisms of Vice President Kamala Harris following her presumptive\u200c nomination as the Democratic candidate. It <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/washington-post-calls-biden-exit-questions-conspiracy-4\/\" title=\"Washington Post Calls Biden Exit Questions &#039;Conspiracy\">highlights claims made<\/a> by some media outlets, particularly The New \u2064York Times, which attempts to frame Harris as a victim of sexist and racist attacks while downplaying her political connections and career accomplishments. The piece argues \u2062that Harris&#8217;s political rise is closely linked to her past relationship with Willie Brown, a powerful political figure in \u200bCalifornia, suggesting that her ascent was not solely due to her own merits. The article criticizes The Times for providing misleading portrayals of her career, including\u2064 her appointments and her handling of corruption cases involving Brown\u2019s associates. It posits that\u2064 much of the media&#8217;s narrative serves to protect Harris by obscuring the controversial aspects of her\u200d political history, while candidly admitting some inconvenient truths, such \u200bas her reliance on Brown&#8217;s political power. The author calls this media response an example of disingenuous journalism\u2062 aimed at reframing Harris&#8217;s past and\u200d minimizing scrutiny of her qualifications.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Kamala Harris hasn&rsquo;t been the presumptive Democrat nominee for even a week, and already the press is desperately trying to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/media-ignores-how-corruption-shaped-kamala-harris-affair-2\/\" title=\"Media Ignores How Corruption Shaped Kamala Harris&#039; Affair\">insist perfectly valid criticisms<\/a> of her are illegitimate. If you think the media were complicit in attempting and failing to hide Joe Biden&rsquo;s senility, the attempt to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wikiwand.com\/en\/Retroactive_continuity\">retcon<\/a> her political career into something that resembles respectable and competent is even more brazen.<\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;She was never the border czar.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;She was never considered the most liberal senator.&rdquo; <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;She was never a DEI hire.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;She doesn&rsquo;t owe her political career to her powerful boyfriend.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh, but <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/wesyang\/status\/1816305200560210095\">she was<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RNCResearch\/status\/1816188767809704417\">she was<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/07\/24\/why-is-it-offensive-to-call-kamala-a-dei-hire\/\">she was<\/a>, and she does.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The dishonesty surrounding all of these issues is worth highlighting, but let&rsquo;s focus on that last point involving Harris&rsquo; relationship with California&rsquo;s political kingmaker Wille Brown, for no other reason than The New York Times has provided a terrific example of how the lies are coming in hot. <\/p>\n<p>The Times&rsquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/24\/us\/politics\/kamala-harris-falsehoods-political-positions.html\">On Politics newsletter Wednesday<\/a> &mdash; think of it as political talking points for affluent wine moms, aka the Democrats&rsquo; base &mdash; was dedicated to combatting &ldquo;the sexist and racist rumors that have followed Harris for years&rdquo; with &ldquo;the facts behind several conspiracy theories and misleading claims about Harris that have spread widely in recent days.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Nearly the whole thing is an orgiastic recitation of errant nonsense, starting with the fact that the Times is quoting <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/05\/03\/6-dystopian-things-bidens-disinformation-board-pick-nina-jankowicz-has-done\/\">disgraced &ldquo;disinformation expert&rdquo; Nina Jankowicz<\/a> to make the case that Harris is the victim of a disproportionate amount of online attacks. (Harris&rsquo; competitor in the presidential race was shot in the head less than two weeks ago, and, unsurprisingly, there&rsquo;s been a dearth of media handwringing about the rhetorical climate that may have enabled an actual assassination attempt. That&rsquo;s because an honest discussion about hateful rhetoric would involve asking basic questions such as, &ldquo;Why did The New York Times win a Pulitzer for stories based on the false premise that Donald Trump stole an election by treasonously colluding with Russia?&rdquo;)<\/p>\n<p>But I digress. Again, the real lowlight of the Times article is its discussion of Kamala Harris&rsquo; relationship with California&rsquo;s powerful political boss, Willie Brown. One of my favorite things &ldquo;fact checkers&rdquo; do is introduce a proposition as false and then try to confirm that falsity by desperately spinning a bunch of inconvenient facts that confirm the proposition is actually true. The entire section on Harris and Willie Brown is a textbook example:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The sexist insinuations point in part to her&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/21\/us\/politics\/kamala-harris-history-career-california.html\">brief relationship in the 1990s<\/a>&nbsp;with Willie Brown, who was 60 and the speaker of the California Assembly when Harris was 29 and rising in the Bay Area legal scene. He appointed Harris to two well<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/media-ignores-how-corruption-shaped-kamala-harris-affair-3\/\" title=\"Media Ignores How Corruption Shaped Kamala Harris&#039; Affair\">-paid state board positions<\/a> and introduced her to his political connections.<\/p>\n<p>When she was campaigning to be San Francisco&rsquo;s district attorney in 2003, her opponents repeatedly commented on her link to Brown &mdash; references that she told&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/09\/15\/us\/politics\/kamala-harris-san-francisco-da.html\">The New York Times<\/a>&nbsp;in 2019 were &ldquo;frustrating&rdquo; and &ldquo;designed to degrade, frankly, the conversation about why we needed a new D.A.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>During the 2003 race, which she won, she told&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170806061922\/https:\/\/www.sfweekly.com\/news\/kamalas-karma\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SF Weekly<\/a>&nbsp;that there was nothing improper about benefiting from her ties to Brown, although she described the relationship as an &ldquo;albatross hanging around my neck.&rdquo; She said she &ldquo;brought a level of life knowledge and common sense&rdquo; to the board roles, adding that &ldquo;whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>She said that she had &ldquo;no doubt that I am independent of him&rdquo; and that &ldquo;I do not owe him a thing.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Just so we&rsquo;re clear, The New York Times is confirming Harris did in fact have a relationship with Willie Brown, who was 31 years older (and, for what it&rsquo;s worth, still married at the time). Harris herself admits her career benefited significantly from said relationship. Other Democrats shared the perception she did not earn her positions. And Harris, a lawyer who initially failed the bar exam, can only say that she &ldquo;brought a level of life knowledge and common sense&rdquo; rather than actual qualifications to the jobs Brown appointed her to. But it&rsquo;s a sexist insinuation to insist these facts are rather unflattering to Kamala!<\/p>\n<p>And this is just what The New York Times is admitting. In actuality, the details are far worse than the Times is letting on. Peter Schweizer, an investigative journalist who has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/11\/14\/us\/politics\/uranium-one-hillary-clinton.html\">worked with The New York Times in the past<\/a>, details quite a bit on the corrupt nature of the Harris\/Brown relationship in his book, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Profiles-Corruption-Peter-Schweizer\/dp\/006289790X\">Profiles in Corruption<\/a><\/em>, which has been out for four and a half years. And the facts as he lays them out are damning.<\/p>\n<p>Brown, who was repeatedly investigated by the FBI for corruption, was far more involved in Harris&rsquo; career ascent than appointing her to two board positions. He was kingmaker in California, and he was heavily involved in helping Harris get elected as San Francisco district attorney. Brown didn&rsquo;t do this entirely out of the goodness of his heart. Harris was working for the previous district attorney, Terence Hallinan, and quit when she got passed over for the No. 2 position in the DA&rsquo;s office.<\/p>\n<p>Hallinan found himself as the subject of criticism from other city officials, but others suggested the controversy was manufactured. &ldquo;This whole thing is about Kamala Harris,&rdquo; a source close to Brown <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/bayarea\/matier-ross\/article\/Wine-Dungeness-Crab-Rice-a-Roni-on-Line-in-3315335.php\">told the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>. &ldquo;Cross one of Willie&rsquo;s friends and there will be hell to pay.&rdquo; Eventually, Harris ran for DA with Brown&rsquo;s powerful backing &mdash; a former Brown aide managed her campaign, and Brown played a key role in her fundraising, which was incredibly successful. After starting the race polling a distant third, she won the election.<\/p>\n<p>Once in office, Harris then dropped or pled out corruption charges against several of Willie Brown&rsquo;s friends that Hallinan had been pursuing. There were a number of Brown&rsquo;s friends let off the hook, but most notably this included a sweetheart plea deal for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/media-ignores-how-corruption-shaped-kamala-harris-affair\/\" title=\"Media Ignores How Corruption Shaped Kamala Harris&#039; Affair\">notorious city contractor caught defrauding<\/a> the city by using inferior recycled concrete in sensitive projects such as parking garages and the Bay Bridge. This compromised the structual integrity of those projects and endangered lives. But Harris droped all the fraud charges and accepted a guilty plea on a single count involving an environmental violation.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Harris&rsquo; office had no explanation for why it dropped the concrete case,&rdquo; reported the Chronicle. A better explanation is that the contractor in question was generous with campaign donations and had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/news\/article\/EMPIRE-BUILT-ON-SAND-Businessman-allegedly-2516190.php\">previously been popped<\/a> for making an illegal $2,000 donation to, yup, Willie Brown.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, there&rsquo;s a lot more alarming reporting in Schweizer&rsquo;s book that&rsquo;s worth revisiting, and it&rsquo;s not a stretch to say Kamala Harris has engaged in outright corruption throughout her career. Suffice it to say, when The New York Times takes Kamala Harris at her word that her relationship with Willie Brown was not &ldquo;improper,&rdquo; they&rsquo;re erasing the functional difference between lying and profound ignorance. And when she&rsquo;s credulously quoted saying, &ldquo;I do not owe him a thing,&rdquo; it&rsquo;s journalistic malpractice to believe her.<\/p>\n<p>To say that Kamala Harris had an affair with a man more than twice her age, leveraged his fundraising prowess and connections to launch her political career, and once in office did his corrupt bidding isn&rsquo;t sexist. It&rsquo;s well-grounded in fact.<\/p>\n<p>But facts aren&rsquo;t something The New York Times is much interested in. Kamala Harris&rsquo; late entry into the presidential race means they don&rsquo;t have much time to use what&rsquo;s left of their institutional clout to try to dishonestly sway a presidential race.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Mark Hemingway is the Book Editor at The Federalist, and was formerly a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. Follow him on Twitter at <b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/heminator\">@heminator<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kamala Harris has only been the likely Democratic nominee for less than a week, yet the media is already trying to dismiss legitimate criticisms of her as invalid. If you believe the press played a role in downplaying Joe Biden&#8217;s cognitive decline, their efforts to reshape Harris&#8217;s political history into something respectable and competent are even more audacious. Claims such as &#8220;She was never the border czar,&#8221; &#8220;She was never seen as the most liberal senator,&#8221; &#8220;She was never a DEI hire,&#8221; and &#8220;She doesn&#8217;t owe her political career to her influential boyfriend&#8221; are being made, but the truth is that she was, she was, she was, and she does.<\/p>\n<p>The dishonesty surrounding these topics deserves attention, particularly regarding Harris&#8217;s relationship with California political figure Willie Brown. The New York Times has provided a clear example of how these falsehoods are being propagated. In their &#8220;On Politics&#8221; newsletter, aimed at affluent Democratic supporters, they sought to counter &#8220;the sexist and racist rumors that have followed Harris for years&#8221; by addressing &#8220;the facts behind several conspiracy theories and misleading claims about Harris that have gained traction recently.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Much of the article is filled with misleading information, starting with the Times quoting discredited &#8220;disinformation expert&#8221; Nina Jankowicz to argue that Harris is facing an unfair amount of online criticism. Notably, while Harris&#8217;s rival in the presidential race was recently the victim of a violent attack, the media has largely ignored the broader implications of such hateful rhetoric.<\/p>\n<p>The most significant part of the Times article discusses Harris&#8217;s relationship with Willie Brown, who was 31 years her senior and still married when they were involved. The Times acknowledges that Harris&#8217;s career benefited from this relationship, despite her claims of independence. Other Democrats have perceived that she did not earn her positions through merit. Harris, who initially failed the bar exam, attributes her success to &#8220;life knowledge and common sense&#8221; rather than qualifications. However, the Times suggests that pointing out these facts is sexist.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, the situation is even more troubling than the Times indicates. Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, in his book &#8220;Profiles in Corruption,&#8221; outlines the corrupt nature of the Harris-Brown relationship, revealing that Brown played a significant role in her rise to power, including her election as San Francisco district attorney. Harris&#8217;s campaign was heavily supported by Brown, and once in office, she dropped or reduced corruption charges against several of Brown&#8217;s associates, including a contractor who had defrauded the city.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times&#8217;s acceptance of Harris&#8217;s claims about her relationship with Brown as &#8220;not improper&#8221; blurs the line between ignorance and dishonesty. When she asserts, &#8220;I do not owe him a thing,&#8221; it is irresponsible journalism to take her at her word. The assertion that Harris leveraged her relationship with a much older man to advance her career and then acted in his interests is based on factual evidence, not sexism. However, the Times seems more interested in protecting her image than in presenting the truth. <\/p>\n<p>Mark Hemingway is the Book Editor at The Federalist and was previously a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @heminator<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":2308941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Screenshot-2024-07-25-150926.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[8773,32438,4188,5894],"class_list":["post-2308940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-kamala-harris","tag-media","tag-politics"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Screenshot-2024-07-25-150926.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2308940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2308941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2308940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2308940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2308940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}