Daily Archives: June 3, 2022

Since his election as leader of the Parti conservateur du Qubec (PCQQuebec Conservative Party) in April 2021, right-wing libertarian ric Duhaime has received a great deal of coverage in the mainstream media and increasing attention from big business.

With four months to go before the Quebec provincial election, some polls place the PCQ ahead of the two parties that until 2018 had alternated as Quebecs government for almost a half-century, the Quebec Liberal Party and the Parti Qubcois (PQ).

PCQ leader Duhaime has been hosted, along with other party leaders, by business associations, including Quebecs largest employer group, the Conseil du patronat du Qubec. The television networks have already announced that he will be invited to join the official leaders' debate in the run-up to the October 3 Quebec election.

Yet the PCQwhich was founded in 2009 and is separate and distinct from the federal Conservative party, the official opposition in Canadas parliamenthas never won a single National Assembly seat, nor won more than 1.5 percent of the vote in a provincial election. Currently, the PCQ has a lone Member of the National Assembly (MNA), a defector from the ruling Coalition Avenir Qubec (CAQ) who has said she will not be running in the coming election.

The media craze for Duhaime can best be understood by examining the very right-wing agenda he advocated for years as a trash- or shock-radio host in Quebec City and is now projecting with equal virulence as leader of the PCQ. This is not the first time the ruling elite has used an ultra-reactionary figure to push the entire axis of politics firmly to the right.

Duhaime has vehemently opposed all mandatory public health measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic that has wreaked havoc and mass death in Quebec, the rest of Canada and around the world. Having denounced all efforts to curb the pandemic from the start, he enthusiastically welcomed the Freedom Convoy, a group of far-right trucker-owners, supported by the Conservative Party of Canada and much of the corporate media, who terrorized Ottawa residents for weeks to press their demand for the scrapping of all anti-COVID measures. Duhaime said at the time, My goal is to bring these ideas into the National Assembly.

Duhaime is a long-time friend and close associate of Pierre Poilievre. The front-runner in the current federal Conservative Party leadership race, Poilievre began his campaign by reaffirming his support for the far-right Convoy, the abandonment of all anti-COVID measures, and a massive assault on public services in the name of eliminating the federal budget deficit. Adopting the language of Margaret Thatcher to advocate for capitalism at its most predatory, Poilievre vowed to make Canada the freest country in the world.

The PCQ, now under Duhaime's control, also advocates massive cuts in social spending; accelerated deregulation; increased privatization, especially in health and education; and steep tax cuts for the wealthy, including the introduction of a single tax rate or flat tax.

Duhaime has long been active in right-wing circles. A political advisor to the leader of the Bloc Qubcois from 1993 to 1999, he began his career with the Quebec indpendantistes when they were massively cutting social spending.

From 2000 to 2002, he was an advisor to Official Opposition Leader Stockwell Day of the Canadian Alliance, a party that was used to push Canadian politics further to the right and was the dominant element in the merger with the rump of the federal Progressive Conservatives that created the Stephen Harper-led, hard-right new Conservative Party.

In 2003, Duhaime was a candidate for the Action dmocratique du Qubec (ADQ), with a young Poilievre actively campaigning for him, before becoming a political advisor for the ADQ from 2003 to 2008. The ADQ, which ultimately became part of the right-wing populist CAQ, played a leading role in stirring up anti-immigrant chauvinism in Quebec, particularly around the phony issue of unreasonable accommodation.

Duhaime worked for the National Democratic Institute (NDI)a US imperialist-sponsored agency associated with the Democratic Party that works closely with the US State Department and CIAin Morocco from 2005 to 2007 and Iraq from 2008 to 2009. The NDI's board of directors has included such leading figures of US militarism as Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paul Wolfowitz, Madeleine Albright and Elliott Abrams.

Like the rest of the Quebec political establishment and elite, Duhaime has supported Canadas participation in US-led wars of aggression, from the 1999 NATO war on Yugoslavia, to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and the 2011 regime-change war in Libya. In a tweet at the outset of the US-NATO instigated war with Russia over Ukraine, he rushed to label Moscow the aggressor and salivated over the opportunity the war presents to develop Quebecs hydrocarbon resources.

In 2010, Duhaime founded the Rseau-libert-Qubec to bring together people anxious to be rid of what remains of the social concessions made to the working class as a result of the mass struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Roy Eappen, one of the members of the network and now a PCQ candidate, is a prominent anti-abortion activist and climate-change denier. Encouraged by Quebec Premier Franois Legault's reckless profits-before-lives response to the pandemic, which has included the promotion of the reactionary pseudo-scientific herd immunity policy, the PCQ promotes all sorts of anti-scientific nonsenseon vaccinations, abortion, and climate change.

For a decade starting in 2010, Duhaime was a commentator in the press and in particular on the radio, where he was given ample opportunity and latitude to spew his reactionary, libertarian and xenophobic ideas. In a generally sympathetic article about him published in April, Duhaime boasted that he had the microphone for four hours a day for 10 years.

This included downplaying the hateful, Islamophobic acts that preceded the Jan. 29, 2017 terrorist attack on the Grand Mosque in Quebec City, which left six Muslims dead and some 20 injured. Duhaime dismissed the leaving of a bloody pig's head on the mosque steps as a silly joke, comparing it to someone delivering a pizza to a neighbor's house.

In a 2017 radio debate, Duhaime defended the aristocratic principle that voting rights should be modulated according to taxes paid, with the rich given weighted votes that would count more than those of the poor.

Duhaime unabashedly champions far-right positions, but it need be added that so far to the right has the entire political establishment moved over the course of the past decade-and-a-half, his policies on many issues are not so different from those advanced by the other ruling class parties.

Duhaime says that immigrants should be selected on the basis of their civilizational compatibility. But how is this chauvinism different from the CAQ's Bill 9, which selects immigrants according to their values? Or its Bill 21, which denies health care and other vital public services to devout Muslim women wearing the niqab or burqa. The latter law was itself inspired by the previous Liberal government's Bill 62. And what about the PQ's Charter of Values, which aimed to ban more than half a million public sector workers from wearing conspicuous religious symbols, while making an exception for discreet crucifixes?

Duhaime has become a darling of the bourgeois media and is being promoted by it as a means of pressing the CAQ to intensify its assault on the working class. Editorialists regularly speak of the difficult decisions that the government will have to make after the elections, i.e., renewed attacks on wages, working conditions, living standards and public services.

The Eric Duhaime phenomenon is taking place in the context of an immense crisis of global capitalism, characterized by galloping inflation, rising social inequality, catastrophic management of the pandemic, and NATO's war against Russia in Ukraine, which threatens to turn into a nuclear conflict.

The main responsibility for the threat from the far right facing the working class lies with the trade union bureaucracy, which has suppressed the class struggle for decades.

As support for the traditional ruling class parties has steadily eroded, the unions have isolated and run workers struggles and strikes into the ground. When governments have imposed anti-democratic back-to-work laws to break militant strikes, the unions, led by highly paid bureaucrats who fully accept the capitalists' right to make profit, have policed them.

As for Qubec Solidaire, the pseudo-left party representing affluent sections of the middle class, it never criticizes the treacherous role of the union bureaucracy and spares no effort to integrate itself even more deeply into the ruling establishment.

It is in this political climate of bourgeois reaction, which is growing in intensity as the social opposition of the working class mounts, that extreme right-wing figures like Duhaime are being promoted by big business in an attempt to divert workers' anger into the most reactionary channels.

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ric Duhaime, the Quebec Conservative Party and the ruling class' turn to social reaction - WSWS

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The first of two filing deadlines to run for elected office this year was noon Wednesday.

Several filing deadlines were changed this year because of delays caused by redistricting. The deadline to file to run for precinct committeeperson seats and the U.S. House of Representatives, Kansas House of Representatives, and Kansas State Board of Education was extended to noon on Friday, June 10.

The deadline to register to vote in the Aug. 2 election is Tuesday, July 12. Register online or double check to make sure youre registered at this link.

Here are the candidates who have filed for offices whose deadlines have passed, and their parties, where applicable. This information is pulled from the unofficial list from the Douglas County clerks office and the Kansas Secretary of States office. There could still be changes between this list and the ballot. Third-party candidates do not have to run in primary elections.

Steve Jacob, Libertarian, said he has also filed for the commission seat.

Are you ready to vote?

The next election is Tuesday, Aug. 2. You must be registered to vote by Tuesday, July 12. You can quickly make sure youre registered by visiting KSVotes.org.* We are not election workers *

Unless there are changes from Wednesdays unofficial list, the two Democratic candidates will face off in the Aug. 2 election, and the winner will advance to the November general.

Will this race be on my ballot? District 1 is geographically the smallest of the three Douglas County Commission districts, but they all contain roughly the same total populations.

District 1 includes a large portion of central Lawrence. The district is not square, but its southernmost boundary is West 19th Street; its easternmost boundary is Massachusetts Street; one segment of the district reaches as far west as Wakarusa Drive; and an intricate boundary divides the northern side of town between the first, second and third districts.

See a detailed map at this link. Registered voters can also see their Douglas County Commission district by entering their information at this link.

The current three Douglas County commissioners voted in February to place on the Nov. 8 ballot a question asking county voters whether to add two additional commissioner seats and districts. Read more about that at this link.

In the Nov. 8 general election, Douglas County District Court Judges Amy Hanley and Sally Pokorny face retention votes.

All Kansas voters, regardless of party, will be asked to vote on a state constitutional amendment that would clear the way for the Kansas Legislature to ban all abortions, regardless of whether someones life is endangered by a pregnancy or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

That vote, as well as Democratic and Republican primary votes, will be on Aug. 2. Learn more about it at this link.

In the November general, Court of Appeals Judges Stephen D. Hill, Amy Fellows Cline, Kim R. Schroeder, Henry W. Green Jr., and Tom Malone face retention votes.

Clinton Township Clerk:

Eudora Township Clerk:

Kanwaka Township Clerk:

Lecompton City Council:

Marion Township Clerk:

Palmyra Township Clerk:

Wakarusa Township Clerk:

Willow Springs Township Clerk:

No candidates filed to run for Grant or Lecompton Township clerk, according to the county elections office.

The next election is Tuesday, Aug. 2. Advance voting in person or by mail begins on Wednesday, July 13.

As noted above, the deadline to register to vote in the Aug. 2 election is Tuesday, July 12. Register online or double check to make sure youre registered at this link.

Because of redistricting, some voters precincts and districts are changing.

There are a large number of new precinct splits, added precincts and districts in Douglas County, according to an update recently posted on the countys website.

It will take a few days to finish building these changes into its systems. The Clerks Office also wants to take the time to make sure all changes are correct before published. When completed, every voter will receive a new voter card in the mail with their new district assignments. The Clerks Office will announce when all changes have been made and new maps become available.

Theres still time to file to run for some offices the deadline for these offices is noon Friday, June 10:

Many candidates have already filed for those offices. Well publish an update after the second filing deadline on June 10. See lists of who has filed so far via the Douglas County clerks office and Kansas Secretary of States office.

Are we missing someone or something? Have other questions that arent answered here? Let us know.

If our journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.

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Several local organizations and groups are partnering for an upcoming rally and march to call for people to vote no to the Aug. 2 ballot question that would remove legal protection of abortions in Kansas and pave the way for a total ban.

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After a leaked U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the landmark case that promised women the right to abortion, an August vote to amend the Kansas Constitution over abortion has taken on heightened importance.

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Some, but not all, election filing deadlines are different this year because of the delay caused by redistricting.

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Douglas County voters: Here's who's running for office after the first of two filing deadlines - The Lawrence Times

Bruce Schreiner| Associated Press

Louisville, Ky. Kentucky Democrat Charles Booker appears on camera with a noose around his neck to condemn Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul for blocking anti-lynching legislation two years ago a personally searing ad for a trailblazing Black candidate who says some of his own ancestors were lynched.

The new online ad which comes with a warning about its content shows a grisly photo of a lynching victim dangling from a tree. But it fails to mention that Paul co-sponsored a new version of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act that cleared Congress this year and was signed into law by President Joe Biden. The measure, named for the Black teenager whose 1955 killing in Mississippi became a galvanizing moment in the civil rights era, made lynching a federal hate crime.

The ad exemplifies Bookers no-holds-barred approach to confronting racial and economic justice issues in a mostly rural, conservative-leaning state where only about 8% of the population is Black. And it ignores Pauls long-running outreach into mostly Black neighborhoods to discuss criminal justice issues and ways to turn around economically distressed communities, improve schools and combat gun violence.

The libertarian-leaning Paul will face Booker in a November matchup in a state that hasnt elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992. The ad shows that Booker, the first Black major party nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, wont shy from raising issues that might make some Kentuckians uncomfortable.

Bookers ad zeroes in on Pauls efforts to stall the anti-lynching legislation in 2020. At the time, Paul said the legislation was drafted too broadly and could define minor assaults as lynching. Booker says its an example of Paul embracing divisive politics.

But the ad contains a broader message aimed at the continued assaults on humanity, Booker said Wednesday in an interview, pointing to mass shootings haunting the nation.

The choice couldnt be clearer, Booker says in the ad, which debuted Wednesday. Do we move forward together? Or do we let politicians like Rand Paul forever hold us back and drive us apart?

Pauls campaign said the senator worked to strengthen the anti-lynching legislation and overlooking that role amounts to a desperate misrepresentation of the facts. In his own response, the senator said Thursday that hes made reaching out to Black communities a priority.

Ive introduced over two dozen bipartisan criminal justice reform bills, Paul said in a statement to The Associated Press. I fought to pass a strong anti-lynching bill. To this day, I continue to work hand in hand with community leaders on issues like violence and its effect on Louisvilles youth and their education and look forward to keeping up those efforts when Im re-elected this November.

Bookers ad has evoked strong responses.

Ricky L. Jones, a professor and chair of the Pan-African Studies Department at the University of Louisville, tweeted: Some people are calling this controversial even disgusting. I think its one of the most powerful political ads Ive ever seen!

Lavel White, a community activist, documentary filmmaker and photographer from Louisville said: The African American community is going to buy into it. Theyre going to understand it. Theyre going to be like, Charles is speaking the truth.

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But Booker needs to avoid alienating some white voters who might wonder why hes using a lynching-themed ad to attack Paul, White said. Booker has embraced a hood to the holler theme to promote his progressive agenda and show the shared interests of inner city and rural voters.

Booker first gained statewide prominence in 2020 when he marched with protesters as a Senate candidate to demand justice for Breonna Taylor and other Black people killed in encounters with police. His campaign surged, but he narrowly lost the Democratic primary that year to an establishment-backed opponent.

Booker routinely invokes his past to promote policy, talking about rationing his insulin as he touts his plan to expand health care access. In the new ad, he talks about how lynchings were used to kill my ancestors while standing next to a tree, a noose looped around his neck.

He had great-great-uncles on his mothers side of the family who were lynched, he told the AP.

It was crushing to put that rope around my neck, Booker said Wednesday. I felt the weight of history when I did it. I imagined my uncles, you know. But I feel that being in this unique position gives me a responsibility, and it requires me to be vulnerable so that we can face hard truths.

Booker said he realized the ad could cause discomfort for some Kentuckians but hoped they can see my sincerity.

The ad includes the eerie creaking sound of rope hanging from a tree branch. Bookers hands grip the rope around his neck as he talks, then he removes the noose and walks away. Its a moment steeped in symbolism aimed at people feeling frustrated and hopeless, he said.

I want to tell the story that we can change things, Booker said. That we can get the healing and the brighter future that we deserve, but its going to require us to stand together.

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Kentucky Democrat wears noose in new ad attacking Rand Paul - Detroit News