Monthly Archives: March 2022

Last year, election results in New Jersey and Virginia left Democrats disappointed, like Weezer fans in 1998 upon hearing the news that Matt Sharp had departed the band. If progressives want a better outcome in this Novembers crucial midterms, they need to take a hard look in the reflective surface of their 2017 Pacific Daydream CD and realize that the problem is their out-of-touch messaging. Its plain to see that Americans perceive Democrats as a party that simply could not care less about Weezer.

In my conversations with the citizens of this great nationwhether they are Weezer Appreciation Society members from the East Coast, Midwest, or West Coast; people in the front row at Weezer concerts; or strangers on Weezer message boardsI encounter the same refrain, one that is spreading faster than the chorus of Weezers first-ever No. 1 single, 2005s Beverly Hills. What I hear is, What about Weezer?

The chasm between politicians and those they serve has become as wide as the gap between the raw emotional shriek of Pinkerton and the polished power-pop of the Green Album. But try explaining that to lites who have spent so much time in their bubbles that they no longer have the slightest clue what normal folks worry about. Everyday Americans dont want to talk about divisive political issues; they want to talk about Weezer. How can any politician claim to understand ordinary citizens but not know that their concerns are not some side project, like Pat Wilsons Special Goodness or Brian Bells Space Twins?

There is hope. When Weezer released Hurley, it seemed like they might have taken a permanent wrong turn into scattershot experimentationbut Everything Will Be Alright in the End showed that the band could return to form with a straightforward alternative LP that fans loved. As Rivers Cuomo sang on the hit single Back to the Shack, Maybe I should play the lead guitar and Pat should play the drums.

Democratic politicians need to keep their audience in mind, much as Weezer does when performing crowd-pleasing cuts such as Say It Aint So and Buddy Holly night after night. Liberal politicians cant afford to speak the esoteric language of graduate students and policy wonks. If they want to get more votes than their opponents in the heartland, they instead must get back to the basics: months-long discussions about every detail of Weezers history, discography, and live-set lists.

As the classic Weezer T-shirt says, If its too loud, turn it down. Democrats non-Weezer obsessions have been drowning out the sound of the musical phenomenon that has sold thirty-five million albums worldwide. Voters are hungry for leaders who recognize that there is not a Blue Album America and a Red Album America. There is only one united Weezer America. Now thats the kind of slogan that belongs on a bumper sticker.

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If Democrats Want to Win in 2022, They Must Focus on Weezer: An Op-Ed by the President of the Weezer Appreciation Society - The New Yorker

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Bill Callahan accepts the honor of North Andover Democrat of the Year at Salvatore's in Lawrence.

Bryan McGonigle, Wicked Local

Hes known for his financial acumen, service to the community and loud mouth on social media. And now, the North Andover Democratic Town Committee has named Bill Callahan as Democrat of the Year.

Callahan who taught social studies in Brookline and New York State before jumping over to the corporate world has served on the towns Finance Committee from 2014 to 2017 and is currently a member of the Community Preservation Committee.

Callahan accepted the honor at the groups annual Scholarship Breakfast and first thanked his wife and three kids, who he said are far more outspoken than he.

Its said Im outspoken. I dont even know if I crack the top three at 23 Lyman Road, Callahan laughed. If you think youve worked a tough room, just come to our kitchen.

Callahan, who was raised on the South Shore, has also been helping out with campaigns for the past few years, promoting Democratic and left-leaning candidates for local and state races: holding signs, spreading the word and being extra vocal on issues he cares about.

They say, a lot of the time that Massachusetts is a one-party state. And at this point, its almost kind of true, he continued. Weve got one party out there governing. And weve got the Mass. GOP meeting in garages of their benefactor, and they have about as much influence as an interpretive dance troupe.

And that would really be funny, except that those people whose ideas are so regressive they want to take us to paces we dont want to go anymore.

Callahan urged people in the audience to get active in the campaigns to come this year. Gov. Charlie Baker is not running again, so the corner office on Beacon Hill is wide open. And there are a slew of other state offices open.

I think politics is a term that gets a bad name. Harold Lasswell was a political scientist whose definition I used in my classes, and he said: Politics can be defined as who gets what, how and when. And when the Massachusetts Democratic Party practices politics, the citizens of Massachusetts benefit.

Our kids get great educations. Were number one in the country for education. Our citizens get health care. Were number one for health care coverage in this country. Our sisters and daughters get access to reproductive rights no matter what happens in June when the Supreme Court makes their decision. And our LGBTQIA+ citizens get the respect and the dignity they deserve by state law, and theyre protected.

As with every year, Sundays event included a straw poll including candidates for state and local races.

North Andover School Committee:

Democratic nominee for governor:

Sonia Chang-Diaz 10.43%

Maura Healey 89.57%

Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor:

Democratic nominee for attorney general:

Democratic nominee for secretary of state:

Democratic nominee for state auditor

Democratic nominee for Essex County District Attorney:

President Joe Bidens job performance

Support for Royal Crest redevelopment

Support for school renovation and building plans

More here:

Bill Callahan named North Andover Democrat of the Year - Wicked Local

What are Democrats to do about Clarence Thomas? Following further revelations about wife Ginni Thomass involvement in efforts to undermine Joe Bidens 2020 election victory including her conspiratorial text messages to former Donald Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows Democrats have been exploring ways to handle the massive ethical concerns swirling around the conservative Supreme Court justice. But the party has yet to settle on a response, with lawmakers divided over what they can and should do to hold Thomas to account and maintain the credibility of the court.

A handful of progressives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, have suggested Thomas should be impeached. This is a tipping point, the New York representative wrote Tuesday. Inaction is a decision to erode and further delegitimize SCOTUS. Others have called for him to resign or at the very least recuse himself from matters related to the insurrection January 6. Ive always thought he should recuse himself, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Monday. But party leaders have also suggested there are limits to what they themselves can do about it.

Its up to an individual justice, Pelosi reportedly told Democratic colleagues in a closed-door meeting Tuesday, to decide to recuse himself if his wife is participating in a coup.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and 23 congressional colleagues wrote a letter earlier this week demanding Thomas immediately issue a written explanation for his failure to recuse himself from previous 2020 election cases and to promptly recuse himself from any future Supreme Court cases involving the efforts to overturn Trumps reelection loss. The letter also called on Chief Justice John Roberts to create a binding Code of Conduct for the Supreme Court by the end of April. Chief Justice Roberts has often spoken about the importance of the Supreme Courts credibility and legitimacy as an institution, Warren and the two dozen Democratic signatories wrote. That trust, already at all-time lows with the American public, must be earned.

Ginni Thomass right-wing activism has long fueled conflict of interest questions about her husband, the high courts senior conservative. But those concerns have intensified in recent weeks after she admitted to attending one of the rallies preceding the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol and the Washington Post last week published texts she sent to Meadows parroting election fraud conspiracy theories and urging him to Help This Great President stand firm.

The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History, Ginni Thomas wrote Trumps chief of staff after news outlets called the election for Biden November 10.

Thomass endorsement of wild conspiracy theories and her engagement after the 2020 election with congressional Republicans and the Trump White House, possibly including the former presidents son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner have further undermined any claim to non-partisanship Clarence Thomas may have had, and raised doubts about his ability to fairly preside over January 6 cases including Trumps effort to withhold records from the House select committee investigating the riot, which the Supreme Court rejected in January, with Thomas the lone dissent. (That committee, led by Representative Bennie Thompson, is expected to call on Ginni Thomas to testify.)

Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin have all called for Thomas to remove himself from January 6 cases. Meanwhile, two lawmakers Senator Chris Murphy and Representative Hank Johnson, who has suggested Thomas resign are renewing calls to pass the Supreme Court Ethics Act, which they reintroduced last year to reverse some of the dangerous politicization of the Supreme Court that weve seen in the past, and build public trust in the independence and integrity of the court. Now is the time to pass it, Murphy wrote.

But it isnt clear what will come of the Democrats pressure on Thomas or their broader demands for ethics reforms on the nations high court. Republicans have dismissed Thomass conflicts of interest, framing it as an effort by Democrats to delegitimize the Supreme Court and attack one of its most conservative judges. Its a coordinated effort to nullify the presence of Justice Clarence Thomas on the court, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in floor remarks Wednesday, describing calls for his recusal as inappropriate. (Other Republicans have called on Democrats to keep family members out of politics, even as they invoke Hunter Biden in their attacks on Democrats.) And based on Pelosis pointed comments in the closed-door meeting Tuesday, which came in response to a question from Ocasio-Cortez, its not clear how much interest Democratic leaders have in going beyond their calls that Thomas recuse himself a measure the justice has shown no inclination for taking.

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Calls for Recusals, Resignations, and Even Impeachment: Democrats Escalate Ethics Campaign Around Clarence Thomas - Vanity Fair

Watching congressional Democrats these days feels like a painful, slow-motion car wreck. They are sleepwalking into a health care disaster thats entirely of their own making. With little debate or media focus, Democrats are on the verge of dooming millions of Americans to huge new health care bills, which will in turn serve to ruin any hope Democrats have of winning the midterms. And that will effectively destroy any chance of real health care reform for at least another decade.

In 2021, as part of the American Rescue Plan, Democrats improved the Affordable Care Act subsidies for the insurance exchanges. For the first time, this created a situation where all American citizens qualified to get health insurance at a legally defined affordable premium. Despite its flaws, it was a big ideological statement, and a serious improvement for the 14 million with exchange coverage. While the bill only improved subsidies for two years, almost everyone assumed Democrats would eventually make the change permanent, since it had support across the entire Senate caucus, and allowing enhanced subsidies to expire would be politically idiotic.

More from Jon Walker

It turns out, though, that one should never underestimate the collective incompetence of the Democratic Party. Making the enhanced subsidies permanent was supposed to be part of the Build Back Better plan, but Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) killed that. Now, Manchin is talking about a new, much smaller reconciliation package, which notably does not include these subsidies or any other social-program improvements. All of the spending in Manchins proposed package would be on energy programs.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, some 3.4 million Americans will become uninsured if these subsidies arent extended. The health care foundation KFF determined that premiums would more than double for many. Potentially all subscribers on the insurance exchanges will be affected, though we dont know precisely how.

Unlike the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which was a relatively even hit for every parent a year before the election, how much a person will be impacted varies greatly depending on income, age, and location. For some, the change will be modest, but others will receive news effectively of financial ruin right before they vote.

While current enhanced ACA subsidies dont expire until the end of December, open enrollment to sign up for insurance in 2023 starts on November 1st. This means customers will receive letters about their 2023 premiums, and the news will start covering stories about premium increases, in October, the same time that mail-in ballots will reach voters.

Currently, inflation ranks as the top concern among Americans, and Democrats have set it up so that millions will be told they face a massive increase in their cost of living right before the election.

Beyond broadly hurting 14 million people, the end of these subsidies will create thousands of uniquely horrific stories of financial devastation.

For a sense of how devastating inaction on extending the subsidies will be, imagine a 60-year-old woman in Huntington, West Virginia, who lost her job due to the pandemic and started a small business making $56,000 a year. The enhanced ACA subsidies mean that this year, the cheapest health insurance plan is costing her only $93 a month. But next year without the subsidies, she will be paying over $1,500 a month for the same coverage with a very high deductible.

Since almost no one thought Democrats would fail to extend the subsidies, many people made employment and financial plans accordingly. Individuals have quit jobs, moved, dropped previous insurance, and made other plans that rely on the new subsidies, only to have the rug potentially pulled out from under them in October.

Beyond broadly hurting 14 million people, the end of these subsidies will create thousands of uniquely horrific stories of financial devastation. Due to the weird interplay of the ACAs insurance rules around age and the design of the subsidies, the most jaw-dropping price hikes will be among older middle-class Americans. Many of them will likely feel betrayed that Democrats made them financially worse off than before. This is a group that tends to turn out disproportionately in midterm elections. All of these stories will be news fodder to highlight in the weeks before the midterms.

Congressional Republicans have steadfastly opposed any improvement to the ACA since its inception. Republicans have even refused to allow the normal minor clerical corrections that follow almost every major piece of legislation, so they could try to exploit these technical issues to ruin the ACA in multiple lawsuits. If Republicans win another massive midterm victory because Democrats once again mishandled health care, it is extremely unlikely they are going to want to turn around and help Democrats fix the problem.

Furthermore, if Republicans win in 2022, Democrats are unlikely to win another trifecta for at least another decade, if not longer. In addition, if millions of people feel they have been burned by making the mistake of choosing to use the Democrats health care program, public opinion of the program could take a big hit. The ACAs favorable rating has improved by five points since Democrats enhanced the subsidies, but remains at 58 percent, owing in part to implacable opposition from the right wing. Those numbers will likely rocket downward if the subsidy enhancements expire.

On a separate track, previous pandemic relief measures included a continuous coverage option that gave states higher shares of Medicaid funding. Those changes end if the administration ends the public-health emergency created by COVID-19. The emergency could end as soon as this summer, according to published reports, which would instantly allow states to cull their Medicaid rolls and throw 12 million people, by one estimate, off public health insurance. Build Back Better would have stepped down the increased payments to states slowly, kept a small portion of them in place, and made it harder for states to disenroll lots of beneficiaries in one shot. But with Build Back Better dead, thats gone too, imperiling millions of Medicaid patients, again just before the midterms.

If Democrats miss the opportunity to permanently fix Medicaid and the ACA subsidies, it might not be possible to ever rebuild trust in the ACA or in the Democrats brand as the party of health care. It will be very hard to sell slowly building on the ACA if Democrats prove they cant be trusted to ever do that.

See the article here:

Democrats Creating Their Own October Surprise - The American Prospect

Part One | Part Two

The Russian question was put back on the US agenda in the course of the 2016 presidential election. Democrat Hillary Clinton ran openly as the preferred candidate of the national-security apparatus and a strident advocate of stepped-up intervention in the territories of the former Soviet Union.

Soon after the Republican convention nominated Trump, and on the eve of the Democratic convention that would do the same for Clinton, the Democrats began a carefully prepared attack on Trump for his alleged ties to Russia. The signal came from the New York Times, which questioned Trump on the NATO pledge to go to war if any member state, including the small Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, came into military conflict with Russia. Trump gave an ambiguous response, and a media barrage began immediately.

A column by Paul Krugman in the Times branded Trump The Siberian candidate, (a takeoff on the Cold War thriller, The Manchurian Candidate), suggesting he was a Russian agent. Similar columns, with less lurid headlines but equally inflammatory arguments, appeared in The Atlantic magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. Clinton took up this theme and made it central to her general election campaign.

The WSWS wrote that the anti-Russia media campaign was a measure of how central the military buildup and war preparations against Russia are to US imperialist policy around the globe. The commentary continued:

It also provides a window into the real character of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign. At its heart, it consists of a fusion of identity politicsthe relentless promotion of race, gender and sexual orientation as the motive forces of US societyand a viciously pro-war imperialist policy. The objective of this poisonous mix is to sow divisions in the working class while fashioning a new constituency for imperialist war from among privileged layers of the upper-middle class and the pseudo-left satellites of the Democratic Party.

The Democrats were not just using the corporate media to advance the Trump is a Russian agent smear. Clinton contacted the military-intelligence apparatus directly, leading to the opening of an FBI probe of Trump and his entourage, which would ultimately be transformed into the Mueller investigation. At the same time, Trumps campaign chairman Paul Manafort came under fire for his past work as a lobbyist for the pro-Russian ex-president of Ukraine, Yanukovych, and was forced to step down, only three months before the election. He was replaced by Steve Bannon, an out-and-out fascist.

The Clinton campaign mobilized hundreds of former national security officials to endorse her candidacy and denounced Trump as a danger to the overseas interests of the United States. These included many of the architects of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the broader war on terror, and the use of torture in secret CIA prisons and illegal mass spying by the National Security Agency.

The near-unanimous support for Clinton in the military-intelligence apparatus was in sharp contrast to the indifference and outright hostility among wide sections of the working class, particularly after the eight years of the Obama administration had resulted in a general decline in their living standards and social conditions. Trump was able to capitalize on these sentiments, as well as making a demagogic appeal to mass disaffection with the forever wars in the Middle East. He won a narrow victory in the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote by three million.

This shock result touched off a furious response within the capitalist state. Within weeks of the election, before Trump had even taken office, leaks from the CIA and other agencies generated media reports of supposedly massive Russian interference in the presidential election. There were claims that politically damaging transcripts of Clintons closed-door talks to Wall Street audiences, published by WikiLeaks before the election, had been leaked to the anti-censorship group by Moscow, and that Russian military intelligence had hacked the Democratic National Committee to obtain emails proving that the DNC favored Clinton over her principal primary challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders.

A huge hue and cry arose over an alleged Russian media campaign that at most had produced a small number of Facebook ads promoting Trumps campaign. Even if these ads could be attributed to Russia, the total outlay was in the range of $100,000, a drop in the bucket for an election contest whose total cost approached $10 billion.

Enormous pressure was placed on the White House through the corporate media and leaks from the FBI. In response, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, setting off a political firestorm in Washington. Trump was compelled to agree to the appointment of a special prosecutor, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to investigate all aspects of supposed Russian intervention into the 2016 election and any coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

In the early stages of this political crisis, the WSWS published a statement of the Political Committee of the Socialist Equality Party, written by Joseph Kishore and David North, Palace coup or class struggle: The political crisis in Washington and the strategy of the working class. The palace coup against Trump was based not on mobilizing any genuine popular opposition to his ultra-right policies, but on behind-the-scenes plotting with elements within the military/intelligence establishment and corporate-financial elite.

This statement identified three separate social sources of the opposition to the Trump administration: his ruling class opponents, with differences centered primarily on foreign policy; sections of the upper-middle-class, oriented to issues of race and gender, and incapable of genuine independence from the ruling class; and the working class, driven by profound socio-economic concerns, above all the massive growth of economic inequality and social distress.

In relation to the factions of the ruling class opposed to Trump, the statement pointed out:

Their differences with the Trump administration are centered primarily on issues of foreign policy. Their real concern is not with Russias supposed subversion of American democracy, as if this could compare to the subversion of American democracy by the ruling class itself, but with Russias actions in Syria, which have frustrated US efforts to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. They are determined to prevent Trump from weakening the anti-Russia policy developed under Obama, which the Hillary Clinton campaign was dedicated to expanding.

The statement declared that the working class would gain nothing from the removal of Trump and the shift in US foreign policy sought by his ruling class opponents. It outlined the principled basis for the working class to oppose both sides in this bitter factional struggle within the ruling class, maintaining its political independence from the efforts of the Democratic Party to divert mounting opposition to the Trump administration into the blind alley of militarism and anti-Russia chauvinism.

The Mueller investigation continued for nearly two years, culminating in a report, delivered in April 2019, which found no evidence that Russian actions in the course of the 2016 election played any significant role in its outcome, or that there was any direct collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian state. While indicting more than a dozen Russian officials and agentsall of whom were inaccessible to the US courts and unlikely to respond to the charges against themthe Mueller probe indicted only a few minor Trump advisers on charges of lying to investigators, essentially crimes triggered by the probe itself.

But long before it ended as a legal whimper, the Mueller investigation and the unrelenting pressure from the military-intelligence apparatus had succeeded in accomplishing one of the main goals of the Democratic Party: reorienting American national security strategy to target Russia and China openly.

As elaborated in the new National Security Strategy document approved by Secretary of Defense James Mattisthe recently retired general who had been given a waiver of the rules requiring a civilian chief at the PentagonUS military policy was to be shifted away from the war on terror, which had been the ostensible focus since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Now the central axis was to be preparation for great power conflict with Russia and China, defined as revisionist powers because they presented challenges to the global domination of the United States.

Congressional Democrats hailed the new strategic orientation. They had supported the waiver for Mattis and the selection of other retired generals for top positions in the Trump administration, including national security advisor, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and, later, White House chief of staff. The Democrats and their media allies promoted these retired military brass as adults in the room who would restrain Trumps wilder impulses and prevent him from making concessions to Russia that he was supposedly preparing because of his political debt to Vladimir Putin.

This drive towards a more aggressive military posture was reinforced by another political operation involving the Democratic Party. This was the influx of a large number of military-intelligence operatives seeking seats in the House of Representatives. Nearly 60 ran as candidates for Democratic Party nominations, the largest single occupational group, surpassing elected officials, lawyers, and businessmen and professionals. Some 30 won their primaries, most for seats that would be competitive in the general election.

The WSWS first identified this processwithout precedent in US political historyin a series of articles under the title, The CIA Democrats, published in March 2018. We explained that after the November election there would be more former CIA agents and military officers in the House Democratic caucus than former supporters of Bernie Sanders, adding that this marked the further ascendancy of the military-intelligence apparatus within the Democratic Party.

The WSWS traced the continuity between the right-wing basis of the 2016 Clinton campaign and the huge number of former intelligence agents, military commanders and civilian war planners now choosing the Democratic Party as their preferred political vehicle:

Clinton ran in 2016 as the favored candidate of the military-intelligence apparatus, amassing hundreds of endorsements by retired generals, admirals and spymasters, and criticizing Trump as unqualified to be the commander-in-chief.

This political orientation has developed and deepened in 2018. The Democratic Party is running in the congressional elections not only as the party that takes a tougher line on Russia, but as the party that enlists as its candidates and representatives those who have been directly responsible for waging war, both overt and covert, on behalf of American imperialism. It is seeking to be not only the party for the Pentagon and CIA, but the party of the Pentagon and CIA.

As the fall campaign developed and polls showed the Democrats heavily favored to win back control of the House of Representatives, it became clear that the CIA Democrats would have a critical and perhaps decisive voice in the new Congress. Ultimately, they made up 13 of the new members of the House, which convened in January 2019. They would soon be able to play an outsized role.

In August 2019, a leak from a CIA operative working in the White House revealed that Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an official phone call to come up with political dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. This was in relation to the lucrative position his son Hunter had taken on the board of directors of Burisma, a Ukraine energy company. The appointment of the younger Biden, who had no relevant qualifications or experience, was a transparent effort to curry favor with his father, who had been put in charge of US policy in Ukraine.

As part of his efforts to force the government in Kiev to undertake political dirty work against his most likely opponent in the 2020 election, Trump then withheld arms shipments to Ukraine for several weeks. The exposure of this delay, and the apparent quid-pro-quo of demanding political favors as the price of supplying weapons, was turned into a political sensation by the corporate media.

A decisive step in this campaign came when an op-ed by seven freshman Democratic members of the House of Representatives appeared in the Washington Post, calling for a formal impeachment inquiry. Six of the seven co-signers were among the CIA Democrats, and the seventh also had a military background.

The Democratic congressional leadership immediately moved to begin that inquiry. The House Intelligence Committee held a series of public hearings where current and former foreign policy officials involved with US relations to Ukraine testified about the significance and seriousness of the cutoff of weapons shipments. Many of the witnesses had been involved in the 2014 operation to subvert and overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and transform that country into a base of operations for US imperialism against Russia.

The WSWS pointed to the extraordinary character of this line-up against a sitting president by his own appointees as well as career national-security operatives. We wrote in a perspective column:

The ferocity with which the entire US national security apparatus responded to a temporary delay in sending anti-tank missiles and radar to Ukraine raises the question: Is there a timetable for using these weapons in combat against Russia?

Indeed there was, and that timetable now drives US foreign policy following the installation of the Biden administration. But the first Trump impeachment fell short of its goal. He was impeached (indicted) by the House of Representatives in December 2019, but a brief Senate trial ended in his acquittal on February 5, 2020, as only one Republican senator voted to convict.

The selection of Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nomineethe very outcome that was foreshadowed in the first Trump impeachmentrepresented an intensification of the pro-military focus of the Democratic Party.

The convention that nominated Biden was dominated from start to finish by appeals to restore America as a country that wins wars, as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo put it. He was followed by speakers like former secretary of state Colin Powell, one of the architects of the Iraq War, another former secretary of state, John Kerry, and a large group of representatives of the military-intelligence apparatus who accused Trump of undermining NATO and strengthening Russia.

As SEP national secretary and 2020 presidential candidate Joseph Kishore observed, in a commentary on the convention:

Over the past nearly four years, the Democrats have worked to suppress all popular opposition to the Trump administration and direct it behind the reactionary campaign for a more aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East and against Russia.

At every point, the Democrats ceded all opposition to Trump to the military and the generals, including when Trump staged his coup attempt on June 1, threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and branding protests over police violence as terrorist. This is their most important constituency, along with Wall Street and the intelligence agencies.

The election of Biden as president in November 2020 set the stage for a renewal of the campaign of confrontation with Russia that had been blocked temporarily by the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The Democratic Party responded to Trumps fascistic January 6 coup attempt, which nearly succeeded in overturning the results of the election, by covering-up the far-reaching attack on democratic rights and pledging unity with Trumps Republican Party co-conspirators. A central component of this unity within the ruling class was the escalation of military conflict against Russia.

This was signaled by Bidens appointments to high positions at the State Department. For secretary of state, he chose his long-time foreign policy adviser Antony Blinken, who had played a key role in Obama administration policy in Syria in 2013-2014, and in the formulation of the US response to the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, before rising to deputy secretary of state.

Even more significant was Bidens choice for the third-ranking position at the State Department, deputy secretary for political affairs. Victoria Nuland was notorious as the principal architect of the Maidan coup and a longtime supporter of US military aggression, having served as a top foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney during the Iraq war, as US ambassador to NATO, and then as Secretary of State Hillary Clintons top spokesperson, in the course of a 37-year career in the State Department. She is also married to Robert Kagan, longtime neo-conservative strategist most closely identified with the Bush administrations decision to invade and conquer Iraq.

The accession of Biden, Blinken and Nuland was followed by greatly increased aggression on the part of the Ukrainian regime. In February, the Zelensky government shut down three popular television stations run by pro-Russian opposition leader and billionaire Vikto Medvechuk, on the grounds of national security. In March, Ukraines National Security and Defense Council approved a strategy for retaking Crimea, including restoring full Ukrainian sovereignty not just over the peninsula, but over the port city of Sevastopol, home of the Russian Navys Black Sea fleet.

Blinken visited Ukraine in May, accompanied by Nuland, for meetings with Zelensky to prepare for an eventual visit by the Ukraine president to Washingtonthe same invitation he had unsuccessfully sought when Trump was in the White House. The visit came only a week after right-wing elements held a march in Kiev to celebrate the 78th anniversary of the establishment of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the 1st Galician, comprised of Ukrainian and German volunteers who fought for Hitler against the USSR.

Zelensky, Blinken and Nuland all have Jewish backgrounds (Nulands father was born in the Bronx of Ukrainian immigrant parents), but they shamefully said nothing about the neo-Nazi celebration in the capital of Ukraine. Instead, they discussed the ongoing military build-up in which these fascist elements play a key role.

A series of military exercises that summer ensued with NATO and Ukrainian forces operating together. In May came Defender 2021, a major land exercise across all of Eastern Europe involving 28,000 troops from 26 countries. Germany, which invaded the Soviet Union and killed 27 million people during the Second World War, provided the main base of operations.

In June came Operation Sea Breeze, the largest ever naval maneuvers in the Black Sea, begun just days after an incident in which Russian warplanes dropped bombs near a British warship that crossed into Russian territorial waters off Crimea.

In July, Cossack Mace included forces from Ukraine, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Canada and the United States. It involved defensive actions followed by an offensive to restore the borders and territorial integrity of the country that has been attacked by a hostile neighboring state. This was followed by Three Swords 2021, a land exercise involving Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and the US.

In August, Ukraine convened the inaugural Crimea Platform summit in Kiev in an effort to build international support for a military offensive against Russia to return the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine. Officials from 44 countries took part, including representatives from all 30 NATO members. Zelensky opened the conference by denouncing Russian aggression, and declaring, I will personally do everything possible to return Crimea so that it becomes part of Europe together with Ukraine.

The participants of the summit issued a Joint Declaration that stated, Participants in the International Crimea Platform do not recognize and continue to condemn the temporary occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea, which constitutes a direct challenge to international security with grave implications for the international legal order that protects the territorial integrity, unity and sovereignty of all States.

Given that Russia regarded Crimea as part of its national territory, and Sevastopol in particular as vital to its security, this declaration was little short of a declaration of war. This was followed by Zelenskys long-awaited visit to the United States, where he met Biden at the White House, as well as Blinken, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Biden declared his support for the Crimean Platform, while boosting military aid by another $60 millionmore than the derisory $55 million in coronavirus vaccines going to to Ukraine.

The Ukrainian population has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the developed world, with only 34.5 percent of the population fully vaccinated, the second-lowest rate in Europe (ahead only of Bulgaria), trailing Mozambique, Guatemala, and occupied Palestine. But the Zelensky government refused offers of the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine against coronavirus.

The key result of the Zelensky trip was a new strategic defense framework agreement signed by Lloyd Austin and Ukrainian Defense Minister Andrei Taran. This laid the basis for the formal signing of the US-Ukrainian Charter on Strategic Partnership, on November 10, 2021, by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

As the WSWS explained after the details of this agreement were made public last month, the agreement was openly that of an offensive military alliance, endorsing the goals of retaking Crimea and the separatist-controlled Donbass and pledging both sanctions and other relevant measures until restoration of the full territorial integrity of Ukraine. The last phrase is a circumlocution for war.

The WSWS analysis continued:

Washington also explicitly endorsed Ukraines efforts to maximize its status as a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner to promote interoperability, that is, its integration into NATOs military command structures.

Ukraines non-membership in NATO is and was, for all intents and purposes, a fiction. At the same time, the NATO powers exploited the fact that Ukraine is not officially a member as an opportunity to stoke a conflict with Russia that would not immediately develop into a world war

It will fall to historians to uncover what promises the Ukrainian oligarchy received from Washington in exchange for its pledge to turn the country into a killing field and launching pad for war with Russia. But one thing is clear: The Kremlin and Russian general staff could not but read this document as the announcement of an impending war.

There is little that needs to be added to this historical record. The Democratic Party has played the central role in preparing a NATO war against Russia over more than a decade. Joe Biden, as a leading Senate voice on foreign policy, as vice president tasked by Obama with running Ukraine policy, and now as president, is deeply implicated in this long-running operation. Now that this policy has produced the war that has long been its goal, American imperialism is pressing ahead toward its ultimate aimthe dismemberment of Russia, and the creation of a series of vassal states, dominated by the United States and the European powerseven at the risk of provoking a nuclear war.

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The New York Times 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History

A left-wing, socialist critique of the 1619 Project with essays, lectures, and interviews with leading historians of American history. *Now available as an audio book from Audible!*

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How the Democratic Party prepared the war in Ukraine: Part two - WSWS

In the crowded Ohio senate race, House member Tim Ryan is the frontrunner on the Democratic side of the ticket. Ryan launched his campaign to replace retiring Republican Senator Rob Portman in April of last year. He will face off against progressive candidate and attorney Morgan Harper and tech executive Traci Johnson in the Democratic primary on May 3.

The Ohio Democratic party endorsed Ryan in February, as did Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. Ryans campaign focuses on Ohioan workers, promising to revitalize the states once thriving manufacturing sector and to push for higher wages.

Here is what to know about Ohio senate candidate Ryan.

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Ryan is a Democrat who represents Ohios 13th district in the House of Representatives. He has represented Ohio in the Congress since 2003. He is also a former Democratic presidential candidate. Before Ryan was elected to Congress, he served as an Ohio state senator. Ryans career in politics began in 1994 when he worked as an intern for Democratic Ohio congressman James Traficant.

Ryan was born on July 16, 1973. He is 48 years old.

Ryan was born and grew up in Niles, a northeastern Ohio town near Cleveland and Youngstown.

Ryan is basing his campaign on 14 key issues, but the thrust of his pitch centers Ohios working class.

Ryan voted to pass the PRO Act in 2021, which expands protections for workers attempting to unionize, and has pledged to continue his support for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Part of Ryans plan for revitalizing the states working class includes creating new jobs by investing in infrastructure and funding more apprenticeship and skills training programs.

Ryan has served in theHouse of Representatives since 2003. He represents the 13thcongressional district, which encompasses Youngstown and Warren. Ryan is in his 10th term in the house.

The states Republican-led redistricting commission recently redrew the 13th and other congressional districts, but the changes were struck down by the Ohio Supreme Court for unfairly advantaging Republicans.

Ryan married his wife Andrea Zetts in 2013. They live in Howland, Ohio and have three kids together, two from Zetts previous marriage. Zetts is an elementary school teacher.

Ryan hoped to win the democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election. He announced his candidacy for president in April 2019. His longshot bid for the presidency ended in Oct. 2019, when he announced his withdrawal from the race. Ryan qualified for the first couple Democratic debates in summer 2019, but failed to crack 1% in the national polls.

Ryan's major endorsements come from the Ohio Democratic party and Ohio. Sen. Brown. Fellow democratic Ohio congresswomen Joyce Beatty and Marcy Kaptur also endorsed Ryan.

Ryan also won the endorsement of a number of Ohiolabor unions, including the AFL-CIOand the United Auto Workers.

In 1995, Ryan got a bachelors degree in political science from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He then got a law degree from the University of New Hampshire Law School in 2000.

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Who is Tim Ryan? What to know about the congressman running for senate in Ohio - USA TODAY

Several incumbents will be facing challengers in upcoming elections, but many officeholders will be running unopposed.

Candidates seeking local political office had until noon Wednesday to make their intentions known.

Party primaries will be held June 14 with any runoff scheduled for June 28.

The general election is Nov. 8.

As of late Wednesday, the following candidates had filed:

State and federal

U.S. Congressional District 2 Incumbent Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican, and Judd Larkins, a Democrat.

U.S. Congressional District 6 Incumbent Rep. James Clyburn, a Democrat; Gregg Marcel Dixon, a Democrat; Michael Addison, a Democrat; Duke Buckner, a Republican, and A. Sonia Morris, a Republican.

S.C. House District 90 - Incumbent Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg; Evert Comer Jr., a Democrat; and Sharon Carter, a Republican.

People are also reading

S.C. House District 91 Incumbent Rep. Lonnie Hosey, D-Barnwell.

S.C. House District 93 Incumbent Rep. Russell Ott, D-St. Matthews.

S.C. House District 95 Incumbent Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, and Jeffrey Cila, a Republican. Cobb-Hunter will now be located in this newly redrawn district. It is currently represented by Rep. Jerry Govan, D-Orangeburg, who is running for state Superintendent of Education.

Orangeburg County

Probate Judge Incumbent Pandora Jones-Glover, a Democrat.

Auditor - Incumbent Audrey Asbury, a Democrat.

Treasurer - Incumbent Matt Stokes, a Democrat.

County Council District 1 - Incumbent Johnnie Wright Sr., a Democrat.

County Council District 6 Incumbent Deloris Frazier, a Democrat.

County Council District 7 - Latisha Walker, a Democrat. Incumbent Willie B. Owens Sr. announced that hell be leaving council for health reasons, effective June 30.

Bamberg County

Auditor Incumbent Rosa Robinson Verner, a Democrat, and Gale H. Black, a Democrat.

Treasurer Incumbent Alice P. Johnson, a Democrat.

County Council District 2 - Incumbent Sharon Hammond, a Democrat.

County Council District 3 Incumbent Larry Haynes, a Democrat, and Teri Linder, a Republican.

County Council District 6 Incumbent Evert Comer Jr., a Democrat.

Calhoun County

County Council District 3 Patrick W. Mack and Rebecca A. Bonnette, both Republicans, filed for the seat currently held by John Nelson. Nelson did not file for re-election.

County Council District 4 Incumbent Cecil M. Thornton Jr., a Democrat.

County Council District 5 Incumbent James E. Haigler, a Democrat.

This story has been changed from its original version.

Contact the writer: dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5534. Follow "Good News with Gleaton" on Twitter at @DionneTandD

Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

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Several incumbents will face challengers; local election filing ends - The Times and Democrat

Kahan and his collaborators went on: Increasing hierarchical and individualistic worldviews induce greater risk-skepticism in white males than in either white women or male or female nonwhites.

In other words, those who rank high in communitarian and egalitarian values, including liberal white men, are high in risk aversion. Among those at the opposite end of the scale low in communitarianism and egalitarianism but high in individualism and in support for hierarchy conservative white men are markedly more willing to tolerate risk than other constituencies.

In the case of guns and gun control, the authors write:

Persons of hierarchical and individualistic orientations should be expected to worry more about being rendered defenseless because of the association of guns with hierarchical social roles (hunter, protector, father) and with hierarchical and individualistic virtues (courage, honor, chivalry, self-reliance, prowess). Relatively egalitarian and communitarian respondents should worry more about gun violence because of the association of guns with patriarchy and racism and with distrust of and indifference to the well-being of strangers.

A paper published in 2000, Gender, race, and perceived risk: the white male effect, by Melissa Finucane, a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation, Slovic, Mertz, James Flynn of Decision Research and Theresa A. Satterfield of the University of British Columbia, tested responses to 25 hazards and found that white males risk perception ratings were consistently much lower than those of white women, minority-group women and minority-group men.

The white male effect, they continued seemed to be caused by about 30 percent of the white male sample who were better educated, had higher household incomes, and were politically more conservative. They also held very different attitudes, characterized by trust in institutions and authorities and by anti-egalitarianism in other words, they tended to be Republicans.

While opinions on egalitarianism and communitarianism help explain why a minority of white men are Democrats, the motivation of white women who support Republicans is less clear. Cassese and Tiffany D. Barnes, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky, address this question in their 2018 paper Reconciling Sexism and Womens Support for Republican Candidates: A Look at Gender, Class, and Whiteness in the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Races.

Cassese and Barnes found that in the 2016 election, social class and education played a stronger role in the voting decisions of women than of men:

Among Trump voters, women were much more likely to be in the lower income category compared to men, a difference of 13 points in the full sample and 14 points for white respondents only. By contrast, the proportion of male, upper-income Trump supporters is greater than the proportion of female, upper-income Trump supporters by about 9 percentage points in the full sample and among white voters only. These findings challenge a dominant narrative surrounding the election rather than attracting downwardly-mobile white men, Trumps campaign disproportionately attracted and mobilized economically marginal white women.

Cassese and Barnes pose the question Why were a majority of white women willing to tolerate Trumps sexism? To answer, the authors examined polling responses to three questions: Do women demanding equality seek special favors? Do women complaining about discrimination cause more problems than they solve? and How much discrimination do women face in the United States? Cassese and Barnes describe the first two questions as measures of hostile sexism, which they define as negative views toward individuals who violate traditional gender roles.

They found that hostile sexism and denial of discrimination against women are strong predictors of white womens vote choice in 2016, but these factors were not predictive of voting for Romney in 2012. Put another way, white women who display hostile sexist attitudes and who perceive low levels of gender discrimination in society are more likely to support Trump.

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Opinion | What We Know About the Women Who Vote for Republicans and the Men Who Do Not - The New York Times

With less than two months to go until the May 17 primary, Tina Kotek is the Democratic front-runner to be Oregons next governor.

Yet she faces an unusually challenging path to an office her party has held for nearly four decades.

As the longest-serving speaker of the Oregon House, Kotek, 55, delivered on an ambitious agenda with steely efficiency.

But for some reason, nobody whos done the job Kotek now seeks is endorsing her. Nor is her counterpart in the Senate.

Not former Govs. John Kitzhaber, Ted Kulongoski or Barbara Roberts. Not Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem), who led the Legislature alongside Kotek since 2012. (Kitzhaber and Roberts have endorsed State Treasurer Tobias Read, Koteks chief opponent in the primary. The others are staying on the sidelines.)

And all are Democrats.

Of that group, only Roberts would discuss her reasoning.

But interviews with legislators, staffers and lobbyistspeople who love and fear Kotekreveal a complex portrait of a formidable operator and help explain why some Democrats feel uneasy about her.

For many elected officials, the best way to succeed is to do little and advance through attrition.

Not Kotek. Under her leadership, House Democrats won passage of a progressive wish list ranging from a minimum-wage increase and health care for nearly all to criminal justice reform and the nations most aggressive housing legislation.

Kotek led the way in a calculating, sometime ruthless fashion, pushing hard to the left. Her success made her both the favorite of most progressive interest groups and perhaps Oregons most beatable Democratic front-runner for governor in decades.

The prospect of challenging Kotek enticed the most formidable unaffiliated candidate in 90 yearsformer state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose)and an unheard of 19 GOP contenders to enter the race.

Heres what makes Kotek effectiveand vulnerable.

Tina Kotek (Brian Brose)

SHE CUTS DEALS

During her tenure as House speaker, Kotek successfully engineered an ambitious agenda with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. She passed massive new taxes, yesbut also pushed the envelope on abortion, housing, the environment and workplace laws.

Shes been a very strong and very effective speaker, says former Senate President and Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. Shes shown over a long period of time that she can deliver on key Democratic priorities.

Kotek has been so effective in part because of her willingness to cut deals.

After a failed attempt to raise Oregons minimum wage in 2015, Kotek agreed to a compromise that some Democrats opposed: lower minimum wages for rural Oregon. The bill passed in 2016.

And in 2017, Democrats passed the biggest single tax increase in state history, a massive $5.3 billion transportation funding bill, with significant concessions to Republicans, such as a new rail terminal near Ontario and the widening of Interstate 205 near West Linn.

The transportation package in 2017 was incredibly difficult, says Oregon Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, who was then House majority leader. It was something that people didnt think we would be able to pass.

Koteks partisan rivals appreciated her pragmatism.

No speaker can be effective without being transactional, says former House Minority Leader Mike McLane (R-Powell Butte), who often battled Kotek. I counted on that. I needed her to be that way.

But the dealmaking that clinched the most consequential bill of Koteks career required her to betray a central segment of her partys base: public employee unions.

In 2019, Kotek spent months navigating between business interests, who wanted to scale back the states underfunded Public Employee Retirement System, and progressives, who wanted a big corporate tax increase for schools, called the Student Success Act.

She was able to achieve both, even though it meant strong-arming Democrats, including Reps. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland) and Andrea Salinas (D-Lake Oswego)who came to the House floor in tears after Kotek persuaded her to vote yes on the pension cuts.

Theres no way that the Student Success Act would pass without [the PERS cuts], says then-state Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer (D-Portland). I give Tina huge kudos for standing up to the labor unions. They made it incredibly painful for all of us who voted for the bill.

That grudge persists.

Some of our folks are still really upset about that vote, says Joe Baessler, political coordinator for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 75, which joined the United Food and Commercial Workers in not endorsing Kotek in the May primary.

Kotek says when she made hard choices, it was always for better outcomes.

I bristle at the word transactional because it does seem to imply that youre making choices to get things done that arent good choices, she says. When people ask for things and I think theyre a bad idea, I dont do them.

Koteks transactional nature also cost her the support of former Gov. Roberts, who for years has bestowed the individual endorsements most coveted by Democrats.

Roberts says shes backing Read because of the broad perspective he gained in six years as a statewide official. But her choice rekindled chatter about what both women acknowledge is some history.

In 2017, Special Olympics Oregon needed a financial bailout. Roberts, a longtime supporter of the organization who left office in 1995, approached Kotek for help.

The conversation went badly. According to people familiar with the exchange, Kotek said shed consider an appropriation, but only if Roberts would help convince a reluctant Democratic lawmaker to support a crucial housing bill. That annoyed the ex-governor, who left Koteks office empty-handed.

To be honest, I had had a long day, Kotek recalls. I made a flip comment that she mistook as transactional. It was not. And I thought we had lunch and made up and had resolved our conflict.

Tina Kotek (Brian Brose)

SHE IS VERY LIBERAL

During the course of Koteks tenure, Democrats consolidated power and moved aggressively on such measures as granting drivers licenses and publicly funded abortions to undocumented immigrants and one of the nations most aggressive green energy mandates. They also passed statewide rent control and abolished single-family residential zoningfirst-in-the-nation policies aimed at relieving the states housing crisis.

Such policies played well in deep-blue Portland. Shes done more than any other leader in the state, maybe the country, on housing and homelessness, says Keny-Guyer, who represented a liberal Southeast Portland district.

But some Democrats say Koteks prioritization of social justice and environmental issues put her to the left of the average voter in a statewide race.

In 2021, Kotek was chief sponsor of House Bill 3115, which enshrined in state law the right to camp in public spacesover pushback in Salem from critics who saw the bill as exporting Portlands policies to the rest of the state.

In 2018, Kotek abruptly removed a longtime moderate as chair of the House Judiciary CommitteeRep. Jeff Barker (D-Aloha)to achieve a top progressive priority: criminal justice reform, including the abolition of Oregons death penalty.

We used to get along well, says Barker, a retired Portland police lieutenant and ex-president of the Portland Police Association. We were very aligned on abortion and organized labor. I supported her for speaker, and she came out to my house for dinner.

But Barker opposed lawmakers overturning the death penalty without a vote of the people. (The public had approved the death penalty with a 1984 ballot measure.) So Kotek yanked Barkers gavel as chair of House Judiciary Committee, a position he had held for 15 years. I was shocked, says Barker, who retired from the Legislature in 2021.

Barker was not interested in entertaining criminal justice reform in a moment where we had to have different conversations, Kotek says. And so Jennifer Williamson took over.

And in the 2019 session, Williamson and Senate Judiciary Chair Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene) effectively ended the states death penalty.

As we gained more seats, she went back to her true philosophical positions, says former state Rep. Brian Clem (D-Salem), who served with Kotek for 15 years. She started her career as a lobbyist for hungry kids, and she went back to her rootsprogressive activist Tina. (See Hammer of the Gods, below.)

Tina Kotek (Brian Brose)

SHE DOESNT ALWAYS KEEP HER WORD

The two most common criticisms of Kotekthat shes too pragmatic and at the same time too liberaldont really square. What kind of inflexible leftist ideologue cuts a deal that outrages public employee unions?

What the two conflicting characterizations reflect is how often Kotek got what she wanted, and how many egos she left bruised in the process. Like Michael Jordan on the basketball court, shes more revered than lovedbecause she would do anything to win.

If you are in her way, McLane says, you are going to be roadkill.

Supermajorities in her last two sessions as House speaker gave Kotek the power to dictate terms. She wasnt shy about using it. Over time, Kotek gained a reputation as a politician for whom the ends justified the means.

I dont think thats a very helpful way to learn leadershipto have absolute power, says Roberts. I just dont think its healthy.

Some adversaries she bested even feel she lied to them.

In January, she alienated state Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Clackamas), one of the states few Black lawmakers. In the wake of George Floyds murder in 2020, Bynum led her colleagues in passing a package of police reform measures. Afterward, she told Kotek she thought it was time for a person of color to be House speaker.

Bynum left the conversation believing Kotek had pledged to support her for speaker in the future if Bynum didnt mount a bid to challenge Kotek for the post in 2021.

It didnt work out that way. After Kotek announced she would run for governor, Bynum put her name forward as a candidate for speaker. But the Democratic caucus that Kotek ran with iron discipline for almost a decade fell in behind now-Speaker Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) instead. Bynum told WW at the time she felt betrayed.

Kotek says Bynum (who declined to comment for this story) misunderstood Koteks intentions. I believe shes a strong leader, and I have a lot of respect for her, but I dont believe I made the commitment that she thinks I did, Kotek says.

In 2021, Kotek irked Democrats in April when she gave Republicans an equal say in the once-per-decade process of redistricting to keep the GOP from blowing up the session.

Then, in September, Kotek infuriated Republicans by reversing herself and telling House Minority Leader Christine Drazan (R-Canby) she was changing the deal to give Democrats a majority on the panel drawing congressional maps.

They didnt hold up their end of the bargain, Kotek says. So, having convinced Republicans not to block their agenda, Democrats now got the congressional district maps they wanted too.

Former state Rep. Margaret Doherty (D-Tigard), whose gavel as chair of the House Education Committee Kotek yanked in 2020, says the Bynum and redistricting episodes reflect Koteks willingness to say anything to get what she wants.

I worked with both of them [Kotek and Read], says Doherty, a retired teachers union official who served with Kotek for a decade, and Im endorsing Tobias because I want somebody in that office who has integrity.

Tina Kotek (Brian Brose)

The ultimate question about Kotek is whether the longest-serving speaker of the House in Oregon history has made the state better.

Some indicators, such as K-12 test scores, the housing shortage, and inadequate provision of mental health services, suggest the state remains deeply troubled.

Portland pollster John Horvick of DHM Research says Kotek is the strong front-runner for the Democratic nomination but also notes that Oregon voters unhappiness has reached historic levels. Were seeing the most negative numbers Oregonians have expressed in the past 30 years, he says.

We are a high-tax state with low services, adds former state Rep. Jules Bailey (D-Portland), who is endorsing Read. Shits not working.

Opponents label Kotek Kate Brown 2.0, hoping Browns low approval ratings will taint Kotek.

Both are Portland liberals who emerged from legislative leadership, both identify as LGBTQ+, and both have held power as Oregon descended into its current funk.

But Brown is endlessly consultative. Kotek, by contrast, moves decisively. Their leadership styles are wildly different, says Felisa Hagins, political director of Service Employees International Union Local 49, whose members back Kotek.

Kotek is less outgoing and more liberal than Brownand perhaps more focused on an agenda and clear-eyed about Oregons problems.

She concurs with Baileys assessment that shits not working.

I agree, Kotek says. I dont think things are working the way they should be working.

Of Democrats major accomplishments on her watch, Kotek says increases in the minimum wage have made a substantial impact, benefitting hundreds of thousands of Oregonians. Other victoriesincluding the Student Success Act, statewide zoning changes and $1 billion in new funding for housing, and a half-billion dollars in new money for mental health serviceswill take more time to show results.

Yet Kotek is on the ballot nownot when those results arrive.

She blames COVID-19 for much of the states malaise. Prior to the pandemic, we had the biggest economic numbers weve ever seen, Kotek says. We were bringing prosperity to more parts of the state, and then the pandemic hit.

COVID-19 exposed underinvestment and poor management at the Oregon Employment Department and other state agencies. Kotek says if she were to be elected governor, the skills that made her an effective speaker would make the state function better.

To treat me fairly, people should look at my record, she says. My job was to make sure the Legislature functioned and pass important legislation. And I think anybody who is going to be honest will say, thats an A+.

The Kotek Puzzle (Brian Brose)

To all but a few intimates, Tina Kotek remains a cipher.

Tina Kotek steered legislation through the Oregon House with the same no-drama efficiency that shes piloted a 2004 Honda Civicmethodicallyto Salem since first winning election in 2006.

The vehicle now has 250,000 miles on it. State Rep. Barbara Smith Warner (D-Portland), Koteks top deputy for four years, says its still in mint condition. You could eat off the floor of that car, Smith Warner says.

When the two traveled together, however, Smith Warner always drove.

Tina will not go a mile over the speed limit, Smith Warner says. Shes a very cautious driver.

Of the triumvirate that ran Salem, Gov. Kate Brown is known for her bubbly, warm nature, Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) for his emotional style and reverence for tradition, and Kotek for her steely, robotic efficiency.

Kotek calls herself a private person and an introvert. Shes most comfortable sipping unsweetened Lipton black tea in her office with a small inner circle (mostly long-term staffers and labor leaders) or road-tripping around the state with colleagues, Prince or Abba on the stereo, a bag of Swedish Fish at the ready.

She grew up in York, Pa., a blue-collar town of 45,000 about 85 miles southwest of Philadelphia. (Kotek always kept a supply of York Peppermint Patties in her House office.)

In high school, Kotek played three sports, edited the yearbook and school newspaper, and graduated second in her class.

Kotek began college at Georgetown, but as an emerging lesbian from a working-class town, she says she felt out of place at the elite Catholic school.

A foray in commercial diving left her with a damaged ear and unemployed. She then worked as a travel agent for two years and enrolled at the University of Oregon in 1990, earning a degree in religious studies.

After finishing her masters in international studies and comparative religion at the University of Washington in 1998, Kotek moved to Portland and worked first as an advocate at the Oregon Food Bank and, after that, for Children First for Oregon.

In 2005, she and her now-wife, Aimee Wilson, bought a modest, 1,089-square-foot home in Kenton where they still live. A lapsed Catholic, she now attends an Episcopal church and for years was part of a Capitol prayer group along with former House Minority Leader Mike McLane (R-Powell Butte) and others.

The district she represented, HD 44, a working-class area that includes Kenton and St. Johns, contains fewer Republicans than all but two of the states 60 House districts.

Kotek loves her dogs, Rudy and Teddy, and will sip the occasional bourbon (Portlands Freeland is her favorite). She loves watching superhero movies in a darkened theater with a small group of friends, all of whom often wear T-shirts promoting the films they watch (Kotek particularly likes Thor: Ragnarok and kept a Captain America shield in the speakers office).

Once I got into office, my moviegoing was escapism, Kotek says. So thank God, Marvel decided to make a whole bunch of movies.

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Tina Kotek Is Accomplishedand Struggles to Gain Traction With Some Democrats. Why? - Willamette Week