Kamala Harris: Madam Vice President

[Destiny]

Any discussion of VP Harris can go here.

[JordynDarby5]

I can't wait to see what she does. It'll be so great to finally have a woman as Vice President. Good luck Kamala!

[AmazonGrace]

She resigned from the Senate today.

[SPHASH]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

She resigned from the Senate today.

Sorry she wasn't able to give a farewell speech.  Fuck you Mitch.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a really good read: "Kamala Harris knows things no vice president has ever known"

Quote

In the weeks before the country swears in its first female vice president, I’ve been trying to write a sweeping essay about progress and trailblazers and glass-breakers and what it all means. But what I keep thinking about is this: At some point in Kamala Harris’s life, someone has instructed her to carry her keys like a weapon when she walks to her car. Someone has said, Get them out of your purse even before you leave the grocery store. Arrange them between your fingers, and if someone attacks you, aim for the face.

How do I know this? Because this is Woman 101. It’s the first page of the instruction manual teaching us how we’ll need to navigate the world. I have never met a woman who hasn’t heard this piece of advice. And I doubt that in 232 years of male leadership there’s ever been a sitting president or vice president who has.

I keep thinking about how, at some point in Kamala Harris’s life, she has painstakingly reviewed her office wardrobe with the understanding that the difference between “slut” and “feminazi” is a few inches of worsted-wool hemline. At some point, she has approached a stranger in a public bathroom because the Tampax machine is broken again, and she has said, I’m so sorry, but do you have — and then she didn’t have to finish the question because women in bathrooms know that there is only one end to that question.

At some point in Kamala Harris’s life, a friend of mine offered, “someone has probably told her that she says ‘I’m so sorry’ too much.”

At some point, “she has had to think expansively about motherhood,” another friend told me.

Whether her birth control would be refilled on time. Whether children would curtail her career, officially or slyly. What unpaid maternity leave and paid day care would do to her financial stability in a country where Black women are paid an average of 63 percent of what White men are paid. What pregnancy would do to her body in a country in which Black women’s maternal mortality rate is more than three times higher than it is for White women.

At many points in her life, she has been called a bitch.

There is something profoundly moving about the fact that Kamala Harris has walked through the world as a woman. That she has thought, talked, purchased, exercised, sought medical care, sought justice, laughed and bitten her tongue as a woman.

That she has thought about what laws would have made her feel safer and what policies would have made her life easier.

This isn’t because men can’t be compassionate and sympathetic to women’s issues. Of course they can. But in the entire history of the United States we have only had presidents and vice presidents for whom the experiences of women are known and understood secondhand, if at all. And there is a difference between being sympathetic to women’s issues and knowing that, if a condom breaks, you would be the one to walk into a medical clinic through a gantlet of protesters screaming that you are a murderer.

Over the summer, New Zealand started a program to make free sanitary products available in schools — a way to address the estimated 95,000 girls who were missing class because of “period poverty,” according to the prime minister. It’s a little-discussed problem that now has a practical solution, and I can’t help but think that the fact that the prime minister is named Jacinda Ardern, not Jacob Ardern, has at least something to do with that.

In Finland, the prime minister has made a point of working to close the country’s gender pay gap and supporting legislation to give new parents — fathers as well as mothers — equal and abundant paid parental leave. The prime minister is Sanna Marin, a 35-year-old new mother who has Instagrammed pictures of herself breastfeeding.

At some point in the lives of these two women, they realized that they did not want to live in a world in which mothers are considered parents and fathers are considered occasional babysitters. They did not want the cost of an $8 box of tampons, multiplied by 12 or 13 periods a year, multiplied by 30 or 40 years of menstruation, to add up to the difference in whether a girl could go to school. How many male people in power know what a box of tampons costs?

We are informed by our experiences. Our experiences sometimes allow us to fill in the gaps that others have missed.

On Jan. 20, Kamala Harris will stand on a stage in front of the U.S. Capitol and take the oath of office.

But I can’t stop thinking of all the other points in her life she’ll carry with her.

How someone must have told her, once, to use her keys as a weapon in a parking lot. How something like that shapes you. How it hopefully makes you into a person who never lets anyone walk in the dark alone.

 

[Mrs Ms]

IRL I have been saying something similar about Jacinda Ardern for a while now. In my opinion she is such a good leader because she doesn’t have a white penis. 
She never has had people agree with her just because she is male. Especially because she is young she will have had to back up any claims with proof. So she already knows what she doesn’t know and knows to turn to experts on any given issue. 
Kamala being intelligent, female, poc and under retirement age is only going to be a benefit the US currently desperately needs right now.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Alisamer]

I can't even believe how thrilled I am that in an hour and a half or so, we'll have a female vice president. And not only that, a woman of color!

This mid-40's white girl is both shocked it took so long, relieved, and so happy. I'm also very much hoping she runs for president after her term as VP is up.

[moreorlessnu]

I fought back tears during her swearing in. I'm so happy, and I love seeing how happy and excited she is.

I am also greatly relieved that today when off without a hitch.

[molecule]

I also teared up watching her be sworn in. Even though I am middle-aged and have no desire to ever be an elected official or a superhero, I felt the hopefulness that comes with the possibility that a core part of who I am (a woman) has a seat at the table.

[SeekingAdventure]

I was watching later, when she was in the senate and shortly before swearing in mentionned why California would get a new senator. 

It was quite hilarious but you could see she had fun. 'well that was weird' 

[WiseGirl]

[Destiny]

@WiseGirl, I am HERE for your new avatar choice. ❤️

[Coy Koi]

On 1/20/2021 at 7:24 AM, AmazonGrace said:

 

My daughter is only 20 and I wish that, when she was a little girl and I used to do her hair just like this, we could have known that it wouldn't be that long before we'd see childhood pictures of our Vice President with hair just like hers. We'd never had a POC or a woman as President or Vice President. And now here we are. It makes me so emotional.

(And now my dang kid doesn't even care that much because, while of course she voted for Biden and Harris and is relieved they won, she's still mad about how centrist they are. And I can't blame her, she's right, but I'm still letting myself be happy for now. My daughter is prepared to make fewer concessions...and that's good too.)

[AmazonGrace]

10 hours ago, SeekingAdventure said:

I was watching later, when she was in the senate and shortly before swearing in mentionned why California would get a new senator. 

It was quite hilarious but you could see she had fun. 'well that was weird' 

The clip is in this video somewhere after 4:30.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[47of74]

Feels so good to have normal people in the executive branch again

Quote

Doug Emhoff has now had a week and a half to adjust to being second gentleman of the United States. It's been a ride.

Emhoff recently had a private tour of the Library of Congress, where he learned the history of second ladies who came before him, and also got to touch historical items such as Rosa Parks' bible and Abraham Lincoln's law notes.

"I just love this stuff!" he said excitedly to the camera, along for the tour to capture Emhoff's thoughts.

Emhoff spent most of his life until now as a Southern Californian, working at big-time law firms, first as managing director, then as partner, negotiating and navigating contracts and litigating on behalf of clients, many of whom were in the entertainment industry. Now he's got an albeit small Secret Service detail, a mini-motorcade, a bedroom at historic Blair House and -- last but not least -- a United States vice president as a spouse.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

It's nice to see the VP going to local businesses: "Vice President Visits Old Town Yarn Shop, Talks About Stimulus"

Quote

Vice President Kamala Harris paid a visit to a yarn shop in Old Town Alexandria on Wednesday and spoke about how the proposed federal stimulus plan will help small business owners and women.

Harris visited Fibre Space, which is woman-owned. This was the vice president's first visit to a small business since she was sworn in, her office said.

“We’ve been paying a lot of attention to the fact that during COVID, two-and-a-half million women left the workforce,” Harris said amid colorful skeins of yarn, video posted to Twitter shows.

The American Rescue Plan aims to support women-led small businesses, provide direct financial relief to families, provide child care assistance and safely reopen schools. 

Fibre Space, on Prince Street, sells supplies for knitting, crocheting and more. Before the pandemic, they offered workshops and movie nights. 

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Harris knits or crochets. As a child, she crocheted blankets while watching TV, her sister once told Vogue. Harris’ stepdaughter, fashion student and designer Ella Emhoff, specializes in knitwear. 

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Check Out This Huge Crochet Mural of Kamala Harris at the Wharf"

Quote

A 20-foot-tall, 40-foot-wide crochet portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris is on display at The Wharf starting today. The piece was created by LA artist London Kaye in honor of International Women’s Day, and is located outside of the restaurant Officina on Maine Avenue.

The crochet mural of Harris was the product of Kaye’s Love Across the USA public art campaign: 150 people across the country each crocheted a square for the mural, and they were ultimately stitched together to create the finished product. The result features Harris set against a multi-colored background with the phrase “I’m speaking.”—the line Harris famously said to former Vice President Mike Pence during last year’s vice presidential debate.

The piece will hang outside Officina through Memorial Day, at which point it will be moved to a permanent location. Throughout its exhibit, the restaurant will run menu specials, and proceeds will go toward the National Center for Children and Families.

[AmazonGrace]

This thread is still in the first page. Is she keeping such a low profile or just not doing anything outrageous enough to warrant notice on the QoP?

[WiseGirl]

This is all I have. She visited a child care center in New Haven, CT. Oh and she and her husband are finally moving into the VP residence.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-kamala-harris-connecticut-20210326-2o57st2eafdubloqsz5ik7y6ci-story.html%3foutputType=amp

[SeekingAdventure]

didn't she also dare to not salute? How are you guys not make a big deal about that? (/s - please don't) ?

[SPHASH]

Florida woman threatens to kill VP Harris.  She also has a husband incarcerated.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/16/politics/niviane-petit-phelps-charged-threatening-kamala-harris/index.html