EMBRACE THE HEALING POWER OF “AND:” Kamala Harris is either the stupidest or the cruelest senator in America.

Evans Ray Jr. was a small business owner who ran a neighborhood barbershop. Evans Ray Jr. is a family man who loved his wife and four kids. And Evans Ray Jr. is also a convicted felon. To help a buddy, he agreed during a moment of indiscretion in 2004 to arrange a drug deal.

Because of his two nonviolent priors in the early 1990s, he was sentenced to the mandatory minimum under Maryland law: life in prison. After a dozen years at a high-security penitentiary, Ray received presidential clemency, a chance, as President Obama wrote to him, “to turn your life around.”

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., evidently would have let Ray rot in prison. If she was president, Harris wouldn’t hand down pardons or grant clemency. That’s because Harris is either the stupidest or the cruelest senator in the country.

“Joe Arpaio was convicted because he committed a crime,” Harris tweeted in reference to the infamous ex-Arizona sheriff. “He should not be pardoned.”

Setting aside whether or not Arpaio deserves a second chance, the statement from Harris is stunning in its ignorance. Obviously the convicted committed a crime! That’s the whole point of the pardon.

I mean, you don’t have to be convicted of a crime to be pardoned. But that’s how it usually works. The notion that pardons should be unavailable to those who have been convicted is pretty much just plain crazy.