Vaguely notable political dingleberry and MAGA wingnut “@Bartskarts” on YouTube recently took me on in a spirited debate in a YouTube video’s comments. Ol’ Bart blustered through a bunch of unsupported talking points in a failed effort to discredit Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. At first, I didn’t want to waste my time debunking this knucklehead. (Why spit into the wind? Why beat my head against the brick wall of his ignorance?) Then I thought – you know what? I’ve GOT the time. And the hard-enough head. And what’s more, the FACTS. First, I can no longer find Bart-boy’s original spewing of “facts” among those YouTube comments, so I’ve either missed it in our multi-part exchange, or perhaps he has tucked his tail in and run away, deleting his false statements. Lol, that’s okay – I took a screenshot; see below.

Ol’ Bart is a longwinded one, isn’t he. But that’s okay, because I am too. And I bring the receipts. So here is my takedown of his lame statements. References to “you” below are directed to @Bartskarts.

POINT 1

Bart claimed that Tim Walz lied during the VP debate. This is a distinct possibility. But I see nuances where Bart does not. Walz got flustered on this point because the date of his trip to Hong Kong didn’t match up with his claims he witnessed the Tiananmen Square events. The plain fact is that while Walz truly was in Chin that year, he was NOT at that square during the critical moments of June 1989. He was there two months later in August 1989. So Walz got it wrong. Walz says he “got caught up in political exuberance” while making that false claim in a Feb. 16, 2024,  episode of the podcase “Pod Save America.” So he got the facts wrong and has admitted it. (An exercise in humility that Trump has never done, by the way). That’s not an excuse. But it is an explanation. You think Walz lied; I think that’s possible too, but it’s unlikely, in my opinion. It’s possible that he just made an error when referencing an event more than 30 years in the past. Neither you nor I know for sure whether he lied or erred, and he admitted to the error. (How refreshing. Too bad that Trump doesn’t own his errors like this.) In 1989, Walz was a recent college graduate and young teacher who took students to China for cultural studies. On the February 2024 podcast episode, he said that many people in his teaching program in 1989 had discussed dropping out after the Tiananmen Square crackdown, but he continued with his trip because he believed “it was important for the Chinese people to learn about American democracy and American history.” One error of yours: Hong Kong is part of China, not Thailand as you incorrectly stated. (Hong Kong and Thailand are 1,772 km apart.) Before being ceded to China, Hong Kong was ruled by the UK from 1841 to 1997. Another unrecognized prejudice of yours: You refer to the Democratic candidates by their first names but the Republican candidate by his last name. That’s disrespectful. SOURCES:

• The podcast episode: https://www.crooked.com/podcast/trumps-get-out-of-jail-free-campaign-w-gov-tim-walz/ and a close-captioned version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twA5y8VVPIw
• NBC News article examining this issue: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/walz-admits-misspeaking-previously-said-was-hong-kong-tiananmen-square-rcna173564

POINT 2

You refer to Harris’ “seven different accents.” What accents, and can you provide video examples so I can hear what you are referencing? Please also explain why it matters deeply to you what accents or vernacular that a political candidate uses. Do you refer to the weird speaking mannerisms of Trump with the same contempt? If not, why not? SOURCES: None needed to refute you; your statement is unsupported.

POINT 3

You claim that Harris has been in office for 3.5 years and “has yet to do a damn thing for us.” Let me refer you to the official duties of an American VP, currently and historically: A VP is the president of the Senate and is the tie-breaking vote there. A VP also presides over the receiving and counting of presidential election ballots. Modern American VPs also serve as principal advisors to the president. Historically, some VPs have lobbied for and against legislation and lectured senators on procedural and policy matters. In the middle of the 20th century, the VP’s role shifted from mainly being a legislative position to mostly an executive branch position, and VPs began receiving additional executive assignments as presidents increasingly sought to set legislative agendas. VPs have since served on councils, chaired commissions, acted as high-level reps of the government to foreign heads of state, and assumed other roles. Clearly, the VP’s work is a supporting role. You will notice that nowhere in this list is “policy making,” because that’s the privilege of the sitting president, not the VP. SHE SUPPORTS POLICY, BUT SHE DOES NOT SET IT. As for Harris not “doing a damn thing for us,” it’s not uncommon for the SECOND-in-command to work primarily behind the scenes in a role of education, coalition building, and advocacy, and more.

So here is a partial list of her work. She has advocated for reproductive rights (including abortion) and has met with lawmakers from at least 18 states to discuss the issue. She has given a notable speech at her alma mater and criticized restrictive abortion bans. And (according to the White House) she was the first person ever in the VP’s role to tour a clinic that provides abortion services. First, “border czar” is a media-made-up (and Republican-repeated) term, not an official job title. She was not tasked with addressing the broader border issues. She was instead deputized by Biden with the DIPLOMATIC mission (not the policy-setting mission) of addressing root causes of migration, tackling the issues that spur people to flee from other countries to the U.S. in the first place. See details in this NYT article. (And if you are so het up about “failures at the border,” maybe you should take Trump and the Republicans to task for ending the bill that would have addressed the “border crisis.”) Anyway. Back to what Harris has actually done: Her “Central American Forward” initiative (a public-private partnership) yielded more than $4.2B (or more than 5.2B according to one source) in private sector commitments to support the creation of LOCAL jobs and other measures to slow the flow of mass migration, according to CNN. She has also supported Biden’s pursuit of securing voting rights protections. That includes pushing for Congress to pass an act (the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act) that would have extended the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and would have required federal approval for some local election law changes. Her support included crafting political coalitions with civil rights leaders, engaging privately with legislators and building outside pressure on Congress. Unfortunately for American, that bill didn’t receive the 60 votes it needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. (More Republican obstructionism.) She also has overseen the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention since 2023 at Biden’s request. The Biden-Harris administration’s actions on this front include support for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, now law. Harris also has accomplishments in her previous role as a U.S. Senator for California. I’ll let you do your own online research to tap into that information. I will simply mention that her prior work in this role was a key component of the Build Back Better Act passed in 2022, expanding access to maternal care and investing to reduce mortality and morbidity rates. As VP, Harris has helped Biden broadcast his administration’s accomplishments with American industry, including the “Investing in America” agenda and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (which has requirements for American-made materials and products for federally funded infrastructure projects, with the goal of bringing new jobs to the U.S. That law also includes a $65B investment to expand affordable and reliable high-speed Internet access across the U.S.) Harris has also:

• • Set a new record for the most tie-breaking Senate votes case by a VP (33 such votes, according to ballotpedia.org)

• • Encouraged Americans to sign up for the Expanded Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit (according to a whitehouse.gov article)

• • Supported the retention and expansion of Social Security (according to Kiplinger.com)

• • Endorsed Biden’s plan to raise taxes on Americans earning $400K or more annually. (They can afford it and should do it.)

• • Led the push for federal worker unionization. She serves as the Chair of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment; in this role she has helped advance dozens of policies to ease workers’ efforts to organize, raise wages, and strengthen their bargaining powers (according to cwa-union.org)

• • Worked in support of the White House’s “Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis.” This blueprint challenges Congress to close the Medicaid gap and invest more in the budget to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.

SOURCES:

• The VP’s role: https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president.htm and  https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/overview.htm
• Harris’ accomplishments, according to USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/26/kamala-harris-vice-president-accomplishments/74534954007/
• A pretty thorough overview of her actions as VP and in earlier roles: https://www.miamidadedems.org/what_has_kamala_harris_done
• Her 33 tie-breaking Senate votes: https://ballotpedia.org/Tie-breaking_votes_cast_by_Kamala_Harris_in_the_U.S._Senate
• Her support of the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Credit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/08/fact-sheet-vice-president-kamala-harris-leads-biden-harris-administration-day-of-action-to-ensure-americans-get-the-tax-credits-they-deserve/
• Her support of Social Security reform: https://www.kiplinger.com/politics/harris-on-social-security-and-medicare
• Her efforts to support workers’ rights: https://cwa-union.org/kamala-harris-champion-working-people
• Her contributions to the “Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis”: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/24/fact-sheet-president-bidens-maternal-health-blueprint-delivers-for-women-mothers-and-families/

POINT 4

You say Harris repeated the same speech in two different cities. And? So what? If it’s a valid point she’s making in one location, the point is equally valid if voiced in another location. (Out of curiosity, do you know how many times Trump has told his dumb story about choosing battery electrocution over being bitten by a shark? Or his lurid retelling of the folk song about “You knew I was a snake when you took me in”? Or his idiotic claim that “they’re eating the pets”? There are hundreds of examples of Trump yapping on auto-repeat.

SOURCES: None needed; your statement is unsupported.

POINT 5

You claim that Harris “wasn’t elected to any seat she’s ever sat in except the one in grade school.” Wrong. See the following positions she has held, which are all elected (not appointed) positions:

• • The 49th U.S. vice president

• • A U.S. Senator for California

• • The 32nd district attorney of California

• • The 27th district attorney of San Francisco

SOURCE: Harris’ elected positions are summarized at this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_history_of_Kamala_Harris (Note: I don’t consider Wikipedia to be a journalistically authoritative source, but you can verify the Wikipedia article’s statements by using the references’ links at the bottom of that page.)

POINT 6

You said that Harris’ book shows a picture of her with her grandmother, who died four years before she was born. That’s wrong, as proven in a Snopes.com article you could have easily found if you’d done even the most superficial bit of research. Instead, you trusted the word of conspiracy theorist Candace Owens (hardly a credible source). Owens’ “evidence” is misplaced – it refers to a different person. You can find out the data manipulations and misrepresentations that Owens made if you read the Snopes article. That article even includes photos of genealogical evidence supporting Harris’ statements. Her paternal grandmother died in 1995, when Harris was 31. (That’s more than three decades after Harris was born.) You will note that the Beryl Christy who died in 1960 was a person demonstrably different from Harris’ grandparent, Beryl Finegan. Here’s a quick look at some of Harris’ genealogy:

• • She is one of the children of Shyamala Gopalan (mother) and Donald J. Harris (father).

• • Her paternal grandparents were Oscar Joseph Harris and Beryl Christie Harris (née Finegan). Beryl is the grandmother that Candace Owens’ erroneously disputed.

• • Kamala Harris’s maternal grandparents were P.V. Gopalan (grandfather) and Rajam Gopalan (grandmother).

(Family tree image source: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a61676033/kamala-harris-family-tree-explained/.) SOURCES:

• Evidence about Kamala Harris’ grandmother: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-grandparents-candace-owens/
• Harris’s mother’s background information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shyamala_Gopalan
• Harris’ father’s background information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris and https://web.stanford.edu/~dharris/professional_career.htm

POINT 7

You said that Kamala Harris’s “father can’t be found to question his side of the story” (about her grandmother). That’s patently false. Her estranged father (an award-winning Stanford professor) today lives just one mile away from the White House. That sounds pretty easy to find. He was born on Aug. 23, 1938, and is thus currently 86 years old. He took early retirement from Stanford in 1998. Harris’s parents split when she was in elementary school, and it was mostly her mother who raised her, she said. In 2019, her father told Politico he didn’t want to engage in the “political hullabaloo” surrounding his daughter and didn’t want to give any press interviews. SOURCES: See links about her father in the sources for Point 6.

POINT 8

You said “No McDonald’s in America Knows what she is talking about when she said she worked for McDonald’s.” That’s just plain wrong. McDonald’s did NOT say she never worked there, according to USA Today. In fact, the burger corporation has not made any statements about whether Harris worked at the restaurant. (Search the corporate McDonald’s website for press releases denying her employment. There isn’t anything denying it.) So … I double-dog dare you to file a FOI claim with McDonald’s and see if you can extract a factual statement about whether she was employed there or not. They probably will say that employment records are confidential, but it’s worth the effort to ask … if you’re up to it. Please also explain, while you’re at it, why McDonald’s employment is relevant to qualifications as a U.S. president. SOURCE: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2024/09/09/mcdonalds-statement-harris-job-fact-check/75105207007/

POINT 9

You challenged me to “look at Trump videos since the 1980s.” Uh, no. I’d actually like to keep my breakfast down, thank you very much. I’ve watched enough Trump tomfoolery and his masquerading as a serious politician to last me a lifetime. I bet you can’t say the same about your attentiveness to what Kamala Harris offers. (See all the above evidence of what you got wrong in your earlier statements.) Source: None needed, since you provide no supporting evidence. But here are a few links to why I think Trump is awful:

• Worst president in U.S. history: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/trump-worst-president-history/617730/
• A similar evaluation from PBS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-will-be-remembered-as-one-of-the-worst-u-s-presidents-by-nearly-half-of-americans
• Trump’s abuses of power: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/24/politics/trump-worst-abuses-of-power/index.html
• A damning evaluation from the Economic Policy Institute on why Trump is bad for workers: https://www.epi.org/publication/50-reasons/
• The ACLU on why Trump is actually a BAD MAN: https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/not-just-a-bad-president-trump-is-a-holmesian-bad-man-act-accordingly
• From one sleazeball to another, Mitch McConnell writes on how icky Trump is: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/despicable-human-being-mcconnells-2020-thoughts-sleazeball-trump-revealed-new-book

POINT 10

You concluded your crippled argument with the sweeping emotional statement, “God and America first!” (I imagine that was followed by a hearty “Yeehaw!”) That’s your personal leaning. I don’t think American necessarily should be put first; it should be evaluated and supported based on its merits, accomplishments, and trajectory. I support my country, but it’s far from perfect. It’s always eligible for improvement, and that’s what votes like mine aim to do. As for God, I believe in separation of church and state, just as our founders did.

CONCLUSION

So how about those facts, Mr. MAGAt? If you have a comeback, I dare you to cite actual news sources for each so-called “fact” you spew. And wipe the spit off your face, because that looks gross.