[RETRACTED] Kamala Harris Caught in Another Lie as Story on 'Youth Activism' Crumbles Under Microscope
RETRACTION, Sept. 7, 2022: This commentary was based on a New York Post piece that said, among other things, “The UFW launched its third and longest California grape boycott in June 1984, just over four months before Harris’ 20th birthday, and it lasted until 2000 when Harris was 36.” While technically accurate, the boycott in question never took hold and was never effective — the Post actually linked to two sources admitting as much. The Post claimed that ignoring that boycott — which the rest of the world also largely ignored — rendered false Harris’ claim that she would “never cross a picket line.” Hence, in our headline, we referred to Harris’ statement as a “Lie.”
The problem with the Post’s claim is that there were no picket lines to cross — there was no strike from 1984 to 2000, only a protest against pesticide use. From that premise, we then posed the question, “So what kept her from eating grapes for the prior eighteen years?”, meaning the years prior to 1984 when she turned 20 and claimed to have eaten her first grape. The answer to that question is the two prior grape boycotts — including the well-known “Delano grape strike” — that did in fact involve strikes and picket lines and lasted until 1978, when Harris was 15 or so. That she would continue that behavior for a few more years isn’t at all unreasonable, and certainly well enough within the realm of possibility as to make our labeling of her statement a “Lie,” as we did in our headline, unfair.
The Western Journal has therefore retracted this commentary, and apologize to Ms. Harris for the error.
It would seem that the proverbial “odd couple” of the White House, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have found something in common: their tendency to spout stories that don’t hold up to even minimal scrutiny.
Harris made her latest claim in a Labor Day interview, likely designed to engender support from organized labor, in which she narrates that she only tried her first grape in her twenties due to her commitment to “never cross a picket line.” But unfortunately for her, the timeline just doesn’t seem to hold up. It’s almost as if Joe’s bad habits are rubbing off on her.
In the same way that Biden confirmably did not participate meaningfully in the Civil Rights movement, we can be fairly certain that Harris didn’t take part in the Cesar Chavez-led United Farm Workers boycott of grapes.
“This sounds quaint, and so I’m reluctant to say it, but, you know, I didn’t eat a grape until I was in my 20s,” Harris told The Nation in a Monday interview. “Like, literally, had never had a grape. I remember the first time I had a grape, I went, ‘Wow! This is quite tasty.’ It was absolutely ingrained so deeply in me: Never cross a picket line.”
In his article for The Nation, John Nichols didn’t seem to apply much scrutiny to Harris’ claim. In fact, he prefaced it as follows: “Growing up in California in the late 1960s and early ’70s, with a mother who was ‘very deeply rooted’ in the movements for economic, social and racial justice, the vice president was inspired by Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta and the United Farm Workers, which used grape boycotts to force growers to negotiate.”
Harris was born in 1964, meaning she turned twenty in 1984. This is where the timeline starts to fall apart, as noted by the New York Post when they observed that Harris’ story was “inconsistent” with the timeline of the three large-scale grape boycotts that were implemented by the United Farm Workers. The Post went on to explain that “[t]he UFW launched its third and longest California grape boycott in June 1984.”
So in 1984 Harris would’ve been what? Nineteen or twenty? So what kept her from eating grapes for the prior eighteen years? Was there a food shortage? (Oops … no. That was in 2021). The UFW’s boycott reportedly lasted until 2000, so this would’ve been between ages 19 and 36 for Harris.
So why? Why put forth a narrative that can be so easily disproven? And this is hardly a new phenomenon for her. Recall that in 2019, the Daily Caller — among others — blew some massive holes in another favorite story of Harris’ when she told “The Breakfast Club” podcast that she smoked marijuana in college.
“I have, and I inhaled. I did inhale,” Harris told “The Breakfast Club.”
“It was a long time ago, but yes. I just broke news.”
She related the story that she enjoyed smoking a joint in college whilst listening to the classics — Tupac and Snoop Dogg — but once again those pesky details, like years and verifiable dates, gave her some trouble. Her story came under some heavy scrutiny when it was revealed that Harris had graduated college in 1986.
In a now-deleted tweet, Jerry Dunleavy wrote, “Kamala Harris said she smoked weed while listening to Snoop & Tupac. Kamala graduated from college in the 80’s. Snoop & Tupac didn’t release their first albums til the 90’s. This is basic rap history. Journalists need to learn to coast (East v. West).”
For the record according to the Post, Harris graduated from Howard University in 1986, Tupac released his first album in 1991, and Snoop Dogg didn’t hit the charts until 1993. Ooof.
MUST WATCH: 20 times Joe Biden LIED about being a civil rights activist. pic.twitter.com/LsYTfzBz2c
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 6, 2022
This type of behavior is learned. And it doesn’t take much to see how effective it has been for so many left-leaning politicians in the United States.
Beyond Harris and Biden, we can look to the Clintons, yes, both of them for examples — from “What difference at this point does it make?” to “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.“
Omg pic.twitter.com/1CR6O90TSn
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 14, 2022
But from the days of the Monica Lewinski scandal and taking root in the Obama presidency and the Benghazi hearings, something became frighteningly evident: When the media fails to challenge the lies, then lying is no longer a challenge.
Why do Biden and Harris keep telling these questionable if not, outright false stories? Because it works. They tell these stories that have if any basis, then only a tangential one, in reality, and the establishment media says — nothing. They completely fail to challenge the narrative, in spite of obvious holes.
Where a right-leaning politician is brutally taken apart down to the very semantics of every uttered syllable, vast claims are made on the left that are unchallenged and, therefore, readily accepted by all but the most conservative among the masses.
Appropriately, Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich, writing for The Nation in 1992, coined the phrase “post-truth.” In 2016, the phrase rose to prominence as the favored weapon of the left against then-candidate Donald Trump who countered with “fake news.” Projection is a funny thing, isn’t it?
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