#challenge to Greene's Candidacy

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

When Donald Trump announces he’s running for the presidency, as he’s expected to do, a watchdog group plans to file a challenge under the 14th Amendment, which bars reelection of officials who engaged in or supported an insurrection.

“The evidence that Trump engaged in insurrection is overwhelming,” Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a statement last week. “We are ready, willing and able to take action to make sure the Constitution is upheld and Trump is prevented from holding office.”

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War, bars any officials who have taken an oath of office to defend the government from reelection if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the government — or have “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

CREW sent a letter to Trump on Thursday alerting him to the planned challenge if he announces his candidacy for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

“CREW believes you are barred from holding office Under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment because you engaged in insurrection against the government you swore to defend,” states the letter. “By summoning a violent mob to disrupt the transition of presidential power mandated by the Constitution after having sworn to defend the same, you made yourself ineligible to hold public office again.”

The “evidence that you engaged in insurrection as contemplated in the Fourteenth Amendment — including by mobilizing, inciting and aiding those attacking the Capitol — is overwhelming,” the letter adds.

“If you seek elected or appointed office despite being constitutionally disqualified ... we and others loyal to the Constitution will defend it,” the message warns.

Trump has not responded.

Though a similar action by a group of voters failed earlier this year to block Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) run for reelection, a challenge by CREW and other organizations succeeded against an official in New Mexico in September.

A judge in that state ruled in response to a lawsuit by CREW and others that Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin be removed from office, noting the attack on the U.S. Capitol was an insurrection and that Griffin’s participation in it disqualified him under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

The decision marked the first time since 1869 that a court has disqualified a public official under the amendment — and the first time any court has branded the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol an insurrection, CREW noted.

[partisan-by-default]

The West campaign gave little explanation for the move, which appeared counterproductive to his goal of getting his name on ballots nationwide, but noted his desire not to be constrained by a party platform and the complexities of the Green Party’s nominating process.

“The best way to challenge the entrenched system is by focusing 100 percent on the people, not on the intricacies of internal party dynamics,” his campaign said in a statement.

In a text message, Mr. West added: “I am a jazz man in politics and the life of the mind who refuses to play only in a party band!”

The decision is likely to be a welcome one for Democrats, who have in the past fought to keep Green Party candidates off state ballots. The Democratic Party is facing the prospect of a 2024 election in which multiple high-profile third-party candidates are on the ballot, and are likelier to sway voters away from Joseph R. Biden than from a Republican challenger.

Although Mr. West remains a candidate, he will now have to navigate the complex and time-consuming project of qualifying for the ballot in individual states, without the support of the Green Party.

Prominent Democrats such as David Axelrod, the former Obama strategist, and Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, have criticized Mr. West for running, warning that he risks enabling a Republican victory. Even some longtime allies on the left outside of the Democratic Party, like Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, have said that the stakes of the 2024 election have led them to support Mr. Biden.

Mr. West, a best-selling author, would have been the highest-profile candidate the Green Party had fielded in a presidential election since Ralph Nader, whose candidacy many Democrats still blame for Vice President Al Gore’s loss to George W. Bush in 2000.

The number of votes received by the party’s 2016 nominee, Jill Stein, in three battleground states would have been enough for Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump in the election — although exit polls in one of the states, Michigan, found that only a quarter of Ms. Stein’s voters said they would otherwise have voted for Ms. Clinton.

[head-post]

Kennedy Jr. to announce his campaign’s vice presidential candidate in California

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would announce his independent presidential candidacy on March 26 in Oakland, California, his campaign announced on Tuesday.

Kennedy is making the early announcement due to ballot access rules in many states requiring independent candidates to name their vice presidential nominees before they can begin the process.

He told The New York Times this week that NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura are among the potential candidates.

Rodgers, the longtime Green Bay Packers quarterback, shares Kennedy’s distrust of vaccines and, like Kennedy, appears on podcasts regularly. Ventura, a former professional wrestler, shocked observers when he won the 1998 Minnesota governor’s race as an independent candidate.

Kennedy began his presidential campaign as a primary challenge to Democratic President Joe Biden, but later changed course and became an independent. Kennedy’s father was attorney general for the candidate’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy.

Read more HERE

[beardedmrbean]

Naturally enough, the main focus of morning newspapers was on the presidential election victory by the National Coalition Party candidate Alexander Stubb over his rival, Green-backed independent Pekka Haavisto.

Aamulehti reminds readers that the main job of the Finnish president is to lead foreign policy, in cooperation with the current government.

As for being up to that job, both candidates passed the test with flying colours, says the paper, and both, it adds, would certainly have been good value leaders.

As for the campaign in the second round of the election, Aamulehti describes it as a "moderate, bloodless duel".

It goes on to say that the conclusion to be drawn from the voting is that a large proportion of the first-round supporters of Jussi Halla-aho (Finns) probably joined Stubb's camp. One can also imagine that the conservative wing of the Centre Party also voted more enthusiastically for Stubb than for Haavisto.

Centre-right appeal

The economic and business daily Kauppalehti writes that Stubb and the National Coalition Party can congratulate themselves. The presidency will remain in the hands of a person with a NCP background for at least the next six years. According to Kauppalehti, the campaign delivered what it set out to do.

A presidential election is an election of individuals, but parties play a major role, KL points out. Without party support, it is difficult to become president. That was the experience of [independent candidate] Mika Aaltola, whose candidacy was initially and mistakenly compared to that of Martti Ahtisaari. However, as the paper notes, Ahtisaari (who served as president from 1994 to 2000) was elected not only by a popular movement, but with the support of the Social Democratic Party machine.

KL goes on to point out that polls show that the centre-right parties have much higher support than the red-green front, with a roughly 65-35 split in favour of the centre-right. In the presidential election, this split was more clearly fragmented than was expected, making the race a tight one.

Initial analyses suggest that Finn Party voters, in particular, and perhaps also some Centre Party supporters, stayed home.

Knowledge, experience and cool-headedness

Karjalainen says that the final results in the election show that there were two excellent candidates in the running, either of whom would have given Finland a reliable and experienced president.

Knowledge, experience and cool-headedness are what the current world situation demands, states this Joensuu-based daily.

President-elect Alexander Stubb will take office in a more difficult situation than faced by his predecessors. The world situation is more tense than it has been for decades, and Finland has also had to consider preparing for possible conflicts and even war.

In Alexander Stubb, Finland will have a president with experience and expertise in foreign and security policy, as well as defence policy.

A strong international player, he is also known for his openness to new ideas. In today's rapidly changing world political situation, a certain lack of rigidity is one of the prerequisites for good leadership.

As a liberal, cultured and modern leader, Stubb has all the prerequisites to succeed in his demanding role as president of the whole nation, writes Karjalainen.

One team, three promises

Savon Sanomat carries an STT news agency report that following his Sunday evening win, Stubb said he was proud that it was possible to hold such a fair election in such a difficult world political situation.

"This is very rare in today's world. It was not decided by anything other than a fair contest. One or the other has to win in these situations. There was Pekka's team, there was Alex's team, but after this there is only the Finnish team," stated Stubb.

This was the third time Haavisto was a presidential candidate, but the final push did not carry him to the finish line. In remarks after the results were in, Haavisto stressed that he does not think of politics in terms of victories and disappointments, but through the lens of his passion for contributing to society.

"Different people are elected to different positions, and in my own political career I have seen ups, downs, wins and disappointments. The most important thing is that the elections were conducted in a good spirit, that Finland has a good leader and that the nation remains united," said Haavisto.

Thanking his campaign team, voters and his family Stubb made three promises.

"For the next six years, I will give my all, every single day. The second promise is that I will always and jointly put the interests of Finland first. The third promise is that I will do everything I can for this republic, that I will be a unifying factor in these times of unrest. Why? Because I love this country," said Alexander Stubb.

Straight to work

Helsingin Sanomat reports that Alexander Stubb did not have long to enjoy his victory, before being put into a tight spot by the international media.

Meeting with members of world press, Stubb was asked a two-part question. The first part was about at what point diplomatic talks could be resumed with Vladimir Putin's Russia. The second part was related to a statement by Donald Trump on Saturday saying that as US president he would encourage Russia to attack Nato countries that do not meet their financial obligations to the alliance.

Stubb stated that it is "rather self-evident that it's difficult to have any kind of political dialogue with Putin as long as Russia is waging an aggressive war against Ukraine. Of course we all want to see a path to peace, but it seems that at the moment that path is through the war zone."

Stubb did not directly comment on Trump's remarks. Instead, he began by saying that the Finnish presidential election had been "a victory for liberal democracy", adding that as someone who has lived and studied in the US, "I am fully aware that the nature of the US presidential election is slightly different."

Stubb managed to slip into his answer that Finland's defence spending this year will be 2.3 percent of GDP, above the Nato target of 2 percent.

"I want to see Finland in the core of Nato," he told the reporters. "We are a security provider, not a security consumer."

Pay cut

The salary of the President of the Republic is laid down by law. In 2013, President Sauli Niinistö had the annual pay for holder of the nation's highest office reduced from 160,000 to euros 126,000.

Iltalehti notes that according to tax data for 2022, Alexander Stubb's earned income in Finland was 14,000 euros.

Most of Stubb's income comes from abroad, so it does not show up in Finnish tax records. In TV interview during the campaign Stubb, said that as a professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy he earned around 18,000 per month, which would amount to an annual income of around 216,000. Thus, as president, Stubb will take a fairly hefty pay cut.

His wife, Suzanne Innes-Stubb, earned 203,000 in 2022, according to Finnish tax records. She works as a lawyer for the elevator company Kone. The president's spouse does not receive any public remuneration.

Innes-Stubb has said she is still uncertain whether she will continue in her current job. During President Tarja Halonen's term, her husband Pentti Arajärvi brought a change to the norm. He continued to work as a researcher alongside his duties as first spouse.

Jenni Haukio, the current president's wife, also worked as a programme manager for the Turku Book Fair during her husband's presidency.

The formalities

Lapin Kansa explains some of the formalities still to come.

The president-elect takes office on the first day of the month following the election, this time it will be on Friday 1 March, when he makes a solemn declaration before Parliament.

The inauguration ceremonies will include a speech by the the new president in Parliament, an inspection of a guard of honour in front of Parliament House and further ceremonies at the Presidential Palace.

As is customary, the new president will renounce his party membership.

The new presidential couple's official residence will initially be the State Guest House in Helsinki's Munkkiniemi district, as renovation work is starting at the regular residence, Mäntyniemi, which is expected to last until spring 2026.

[speedyposts]

How will Donald Trump’s criminal trials affect his re-election bid?

The odds that Donald Trump will be the Republican presidential candidate appear more likely by the day.

The former United States president has cemented his hold on the party nomination with convincing early victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, and his field of Republican challengers has dwindled in response.

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Yet, despite his strong frontrunner position, Trump faces four criminal trials that could complicate his re-election bid.

He has been accused of mishandling classified government files, falsifying business documents to conceal a hush-money payment, and conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia.

He also faces a separate federal indictment accusing him of interference in the 2020 vote, which he lost to President Joe Biden. He has pleaded not guilty in all four cases.

But while the US Constitution allows Trump to seek the presidency even if he is convicted, a guilty verdict could affect his ability to campaign — and raise never-before-seen scenarios, experts say.

“That a major party candidate, somebody very competitive in the polls, could be facing criminal indictments, that’s unprecedented. [That he] could be going to trial during the primary season, that is unprecedented. If he were to be convicted, that would be unprecedented,” said Craig Green, a professor of law and government at Temple University.

“All of these things are really extraordinary.”

Could Trump be forced to campaign from a jail cell? Would a conviction push him to drop out? And will the criminal trials affect his electability? Here’s all you need to know.

Yes. The US Constitution says any “natural born citizen” aged 35 and up, who has been a US resident for at least 14 years, can run for president.

“There’s no language in the Constitution that prohibits someone who’s convicted of running for an office,” explained Aziz Huq, a professor of law at the University of Chicago.

Some civil rights groups, however, have sought to get Trump disqualified by pointing to a little-known clause of the Constitution.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — the so-called “disqualification clause” — bars people from holding US office, including the presidency, if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.

Critics say Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results would fall under the prohibition against insurrection.

Whether Trump’s candidacy can be barred under the 14th Amendment is currently an issue before the US Supreme Court. Its justices have been asked to weigh in after two states, Colorado and Maine, removed Trump’s name from their primary ballots, citing the insurrection clause.

Yes. In 1920, Socialist Party candidate Eugene V Debs campaigned for president from a federal prison in Georgia. Debs, who was jailed for sedition after challenging a wartime measure that curtailed the freedom of speech, garnered nearly one million votes.

Lyndon LaRouche Jr also ran for president in 1992 from federal prison, where he was serving out a sentence for conspiracy and mail fraud.

But Huq, the University of Chicago professor, said individuals with criminal convictions have historically “not been candidates who have been likely to win or who have been within reach of winning”.

“The Constitution is written on the assumption that the people who run for office will have been selected through some process that weeds out people who have committed alleged felonies in the past,” he told Al Jazeera.

The trials could create a scheduling headache for the former president, who will be required to appear in court.

But everything depends on when the proceedings get under way, as Trump’s legal team has filed multiple motions to delay the cases or dismiss the charges against him outright.

“We don’t know which — if any — of the criminal cases could go to trial before November because there are a number of appellate proceedings seeking to stop them, or stay them,” said Frank Bowman, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law.

Appeals have already delayed at least one case. Last week, a US District Judge Tanya Chutkan postponed the start of Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, DC, which had been set for March 4. A new schedule has not been set.

The New York fraud case, meanwhile, is scheduled to begin on March 25 but could also get pushed back.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties have been holding their respective nomination contests — state votes to determine each party’s presidential candidate — since the beginning of the year.

Trump won comfortably in both Iowa and New Hampshire in January, heaping pressure on his last major Republican challenger, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, to drop out of the race.

The next contests are later this month in Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan. More than a dozen states will then hold their primaries in early March on what is known as Super Tuesday.

Republicans will officially choose their candidate at the party convention, set for mid-July in Wisconsin, while Democrats will confirm their nominee — who is almost guaranteed to be President Biden — at an August convention. The general election is on November 5.

“Aside from illness or death, I don’t think there’s anything that could keep Trump off of the ballot in November,” said Green at Temple University.

That’s because Republican Party rules currently don’t include a “mechanism for getting him off the ballot” if he is confirmed as the candidate at July’s convention, he explained.

Meanwhile, nearly all of the delegates who will pick the Republican nominee are what’s known as bound delegates — meaning they are required to vote for a candidate based on the results of their state’s primary and party rules.

“The Republican Party has become increasingly rigorous about getting pledged delegates — no flexibility, no messing around. You win the primary, you win the votes,” Green told Al Jazeera.

In other words, the majority of the Republican delegates at the party convention will be pledged to Trump if he wins most of the state primaries. Green added that it therefore is unlikely those same delegates would pass any rule changes to allow the party to break away from the ex-president should he be convicted.

While Trump could — in theory — drop out of the race after a conviction, he has pledged not to.

Geoff Kabaservice, vice president of political affairs at the Niskanen Center, a centre-right think tank in Washington, DC, said the Republican Party “has gone way too far with Trump at this point for there to be an off-ramp from his candidacy”.

“Absent some act of God, they are stuck with him as their presidential nominee,” Kabaservice said.

The chances are slim.

Even if he were convicted before November, “there’s always some period of time before sentencing”, explained Bowman at the University of Missouri.

Trump’s legal team also would almost certainly appeal any conviction and sentencing decision, thereby delaying the prospect of him spending time behind bars even further.

“Customarily, in white-collar cases, people remain free on bond pending appeal,” Bowman told Al Jazeera. “Would Trump appeal a conviction or a sentence? Of course he would. It seems unlikely a judge would remand him to custody immediately.”

That’s an important question.

A December poll from the New York Times and Siena College showed that 62 percent of Republican primary voters believed Trump should remain the party’s nominee if he wins the most primary votes — even if he is convicted of a crime.

Fifty-four percent of Republican primary voters in New Hampshire also said he would still be fit for the presidency if convicted of a crime, according to exit polling by the Washington Post. That figure jumped to 87 percent among voters who backed Trump in New Hampshire last month.

The former president’s base has overwhelmingly stayed in his corner despite the four criminal indictments, which Trump has denounced as politically motivated “witch hunts”. But that could change with a conviction, said Green.

“I think there would be a slice of people who would take things more seriously at that moment. He would be a convicted felon, and those words have some weight for some voters,” he said.

A January poll by Morning Consult and Bloomberg (PDF) showed that 53 percent of registered voters in key swing states would not vote for the ex-president if he were convicted. Fifty-five percent said they wouldn’t vote for Trump if he were sentenced to prison time.

Even just having to appear in court during the election campaign could affect Trump, said Kabaservice at the Niskanen Centre.

During the Republican primaries, Trump used his legal troubles to fire up his die-hard supporters. He has even appeared in court for civil cases where his presence is otherwise not required, leading some experts to question whether his presence is a campaign tactic.

Kabaservice noted that Trump has used the cases to accuse Democrats of doing “everything in their power to stop him from becoming president again” and reiterate claims that the justice system is rigged against him.

While this strategy may work for the former president’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) backers, it will fail to appeal to more moderate Republicans, independents or even Democrats who may consider voting for him, Kabaservice said.

“The basic problem here for Trump and the Republican Party is that what works for the MAGA faithful doesn’t really play all that well outside of the bubble,” he told Al Jazeera.

The criminal trials will, in effect, not keep him from being the GOP nominee or keep him off the ballot. But they will showcase “Trump’s worst qualities for the segment of the electorate to whom that matters”.

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[theculturedmarxist]

Joe Biden is an unpopular candidate for president, but he is still running well ahead of the opposition. Fortunately, there is a socialist running against him who may be able to consolidate the anti-Biden vote and pose a serious challenge to his candidacy much like Bernie Sanders did to Hillary Clinton in 2016. There is every reason to believe that he can do this if opponents of capitalism rally around his campaign and work to bring the rest of Biden’s opposition into the fold. Unfortunately, however, our socialist candidate faces multiple capitalist challengers who are trying to compete for the socialist vote by positioning themselves as vague radicals — and an ostensibly radical network of online activists and media figures who are willing to play along and unwilling to adopt an adversarial position against his opponents.

This, of course, is the problem that leftists faced throughout the 2020 Democratic primaries. Bernie Sanders, a self-identified socialist, was from the day he announced the logical rallying point for a left-flank challenge — not just to Biden, but to the entire capitalist system. But Sanders was swarmed by a liberal opponents like Elizabeth Warren who positioned themselves as radicals and prevented his campaign from building the early momentum it needed to get over the establishment’s Super Tuesday speedbump at the end. And those candidates were abetted, of course, by a whole constellation of activists and pundits (like Sean McElwee, for example) who argued against rallying around Sanders and against a competitive, critical stance towards his opponents.

If there’s one lesson socialists should have taken from 2020, it’s that hedging our bets with progressive capitalist candidates is a guaranteed lose. And yet that is exactly what ostensibly Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr. are us to do by running against actual socialist candidate Cornel West. West’s campaign had such a terrible launch in its association with the reactionary People’s Party Nick Brana front group that the overwhelming majority of socialists, including yours truly, rightly rejected it. But almost immediately, West left Brana’s group and declared his candidacy for the Green Party’s nomination instead. If you are an opponent of capitalism, the obvious thing to do at this point is to rally around the candidate who also opposes capitalism and treat Williamson and RFK as the capitalist Democrats that they are. Look, it’s so easy I’ll even make a flowchart:

That any of this has to be spelled out after what was, for socialists, one of the most vivid and catastrophic learning experiences in modern electoral history tempts me to spend a lot more time gaming and a lot less time doing whatever this is. As far as I can tell there are only two reasons you could possibly object to this.

First, because you think that, in the arena of presidential politics, the Democratic Party is the only possible vehicle for progress.This is a popular strategic position, albeit one I disagree with. It’s shared by everyone from Joe Biden to AOC to Bernie Sanders. It is, however, a funny rationale to hear from Williamson / RFK supporters who have long at pains to distance themselves from Democratic entryists and reformists, and who have abandoned principled opposition to capitalism for some vague opposition to “the establishment” or “the system” or whatever. If you won’t stand up to capitalism or the duopoly what then what exactly is this system you have a problem with?

Second: because you don’t oppose capitalism. This is a popular position too! Elizabeth Warren was a capitalist who positioned herself as a radical proponent of “big structural change”, and her supporters spent a good year positioning themselves as deluded deadenders for one of the more embarrassing campaigns in recent history. Hell, Joe Biden also loves capitalism. So is this a Communists for Hickenlooper deal where we’re supposed to back a liberal Democrat because he’s taken a decent position on one or two issues to try to distinguish himself from the pack?

Socialists have a fight ahead of us. It’s going to be hard for West to recover from a bad campaign launch. It’s going to be hard to prevent The People’s Party from using him to further their own ambitions. It’s going to be hard to prevent Williamson and RFK from shepherding opposition to Biden back into capitalist Democratic politics. And it’s going to be hard, as always, to overcome Democratic loyalism and lesser-evilism out among people who are rightly worried about a Republican win. There’s still time for better candidates to announce, and if we get a better socialist I think there’ll be plenty of room to revisit our support. But for now, Cornel West’s run with the Green Party is the only game in town.

[mikeo56]

Dr. Cornel West is a professor, philosopher, activist, world-renowned public intellectual, and the premiere standard bearer of the black prophetic tradition in the United States. He announced his Presidential bid in early June of 2023. Fed up with endless war and the corrupt corporate duopoly, Dr. West’s presidential platform centers poor and working people, anti-imperialism, social, economic and environmental justice. In a newly released video, West said that his campaign would be centered around health care, a living wage, housing, reproductive rights and “de-escalating the destruction” of democracy and the planet.

Dr. West first announced his presidential launch from the People’s Party, and is now seeking the nomination of the Green Party. He’s intending to build a “broad united front and coalition strategy” by seeking the nomination of various third parties.

In the first two weeks of his campaign, the corporate media and even some progressive media outlets have already run multiple hit pieces against him. MSNBC launched a baseless, frontal attack with “Cornel West’s ‘leftist’ presidential bid has right-wing DNA.” The once progressive magazine,The Nation, published both “Cornel West Should Not Be Running for President” as well as “Cornel West Is the Right Man in the Wrong Party.” And even the supposedly socialist magazine, Jacobin, ironically published “Cornel West Should Challenge Biden in the Democratic Primaries.”

As a former advisor to the Bernie Sanders campaign, West deeply understands the futility of running as a Democrat, inside a corporate party that has a track record of derailing independent, progressive candidates in favor of corporate-backed, establishment ones.

And when asked on a recent episode of Bad Faith with Briahna Joy Gray, why he wouldn’t strategically take advantage of running with the Democratic Party for the sake of being a part of public polling, gaining mainstream media access, etc., West replied, “What I like about the third -party strategy… is that it is a clear and unequivocal affirmation of the rot at the center of the Democratic Party, and the corporate wing suffocating the progressive wing. That’s Brother Bernie, the Squad, etc. They forever run up against a stone wall and end up being a kind of cover for Wall Street, the Pentagon, etc…. Neither party wants to tell the truth” about Wall Street, Ukraine, the Pentagon, and Big Tech, West said.

West reports that people come up to him a lot, telling him he needs to be running inside the Democratic Party. His response:

“Have you heard my message? Have you heard my critique of the corporate duopoly? Have you heard the taboo issues that the Democratic Party will not touch at all? Do you know what it means to look at where the American empire is now, and to hear the dysfunctionality of the two-party system when 60 percent of its fellow citizens are struggling to put food on the table everyday, and [the Democratic Party] can still allow for military expansionism?!”

When Reuters announced West’s candidacy, this major news outlet referenced the tired, old political trope that Ralph Nader spoiled the 2000 election for Al Gore– a scapegoating accusation that was discredited long ago, but continues to resurface every single time any candidate (third party or not) runs to the left of the corporate Democratic Party. Even Bernie Sanders was accused of being a spoiler during the 2016 and 2020 presidential primaries, which is technically impossible since he ran as a Democrat both times. And corporate Democrats have often blamed third-party candidates for their own political failures, whether those candidates are Green Party candidates, socialists, independents, or even other progressive Democrats.

So when an actual leftist runs for office, whether it’s Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Cornel West, or anyone else, Nader is once again blamed for George Bush’s presidency, the Iraq War, 9/11, and everything bad that happened under Bush’s tenure since none of those things would have presumably happened, if Gore had won the presidency in 2000. Like Reuters, many in the corporate media use this old Nader trope as a tactic to silence dissent, shame third-party candidates, and suffocate actual democratic options.

What this tired, old trope refuses to acknowledge are many facts, especially around the battleground state of Florida. We know that Gore won Florida in 2000. If a full, fair statewide recount had taken place, Gore would have become president. We also know that Jeb Bush (George Bush’s brother) was in charge of the Florida recount, that there was mass harassment and disenfranchisement of Florida’s black voters– some 14.4 percent who cast ballots and were rejected. And at the end of the day, Al Gore had won the popular vote, but he preemptively surrendered to Bush even though he could have demanded another recount. Unlike Bush, Gore refused to fight with all the tools available to him. US labor organizer, author and campaign strategist, Jane McAlevey, was on the ground in Florida during the recount and has written and spoken about it many times. In her book, “Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell),” she concludes about the 2000 election that “the absolute determination with which the labor elite and the Democratic Party leadership crushed their own constituents’ desire to express their political passions cost us the election.”

But in the eyes of the liberal corporate media establishment as well as our “post-fact” media universe, facts don’t matter, history doesn’t matter, and in-depth election analysis doesn’t matter. The name of the game is fear, hysteria, intimidation and shaming the “likely liberal” voters into always voting for the “lesser evil” corporate candidate (Vote Blue No Matter Who)– no matter how corrupt and ineffective s/he is, in order to avoid a Trumpian-style catastrophe.

Meanwhile, with each presidential cycle, Democrats keep moving further and further to the political right. Today’s leading Democrats have an insatiable appetite for militarism, policing, and fossil fuels. They continually cut funding to the working class and the poor in order to fund the military and fossil-fuel expansion. And in doing so, they make allies with some of the most right-wing, fascistic leaders and authoritarian leaders in the world (Netanyahu of Israel; Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia), while inflicting crushing economic sanctions on small, socialist countries like Cuba, which happens to be providing the world with vaccines and socialized medicine. And the corporate party funders are virtually identical– fossil fuel companies, weapons manufacturers, and Big Pharma. And after years of dark money overwhelmingly boosting Republicans, 2020 marked the first presidential election cycle where dark money benefited Democrats, more than Republicans.

So no wonder the Democrats and their corporate media minions want to silence third-party and independent candidates who reject corrupt electoral politics, when both major parties are making bank at the expense of their constituents.

It’s interesting to note that the same third-party smear tactic is not as utilized by the Republican Party. We don’t often see Republican candidates blaming their failed campaigns on Libertarian candidates or other right-wing, independent candidates. So this one-sided Democratic Party phenomenon begs the question: Why do corporate Democrats feel so entitled to the votes of Independents? What kind of arrogance allows them to think that Democratic votes don’t need to be earned? Why would this corporate party assume that a leftist or independent voter would rather vote for a neoliberal disaster, in place of voting third party, or not voting at all? Why do Democrats feel empowered to trash, slander and eliminate all other progressive or leftist candidates from the electoral playing field, especially when those same candidates poll far better than their corporate-backed counterparts?

In the case of Bernie Sanders, he was by far the most popular candidate in the 2020 presidential primaries, polling far above the rest for most of the primary season – appealing to registered Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Any real democracy would have welcomed his candidacy, given him ample airtime, supported him financially, etc. Instead, the corporate media ran constant hit pieces against Bernie, limited his media exposure, and eventually, DNC operatives sabotaged his campaign in both 2016 and 2020.

In fact, a little secret that the corporate media doesn’t want you to know– according to a 2023 Gallup poll, half of all US voters identify as politically independent. So in a truly representative democracy, half of our candidates should be third-party or independent candidates, with viable, visible and well-funded campaigns. But that democratic vision couldn’t be further from our reality in the United States.

In our corporate duopoly, independent, third-party candidates, and even non-corporate Democrats are systematically blamed, trashed, legally and financially strangled out of our electoral system. If you study the electoral histories of Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders and others, you will see that each time a progressive candidate becomes popular enough to garner mass attention and votes, the corporate media completely trashes them, changes debate rules to forbid their participation, and changes electoral financing laws to make sure that their campaigns are not economically viable.

Speaking of debates, neither corporate party is planning to hold any primary debates for the 2024 presidential election. This hugely impactful decision has been denounced by Democratic candidates Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In a TikTok video, Actor Van Der Beek, best known for his role on “Dawson’s Creek” said:

“I cannot get over the fact that the Democratic National Committee is saying there will not be a debate to decide the nominee for president. Are you f—— kidding me? There’s no debate over an 80-year-old man who, if he lives, would be the oldest sitting president in the history of the country? And if he doesn’t live, has a vice president whose approval rating is worse than his?”

This pattern of silencing any and all dissent against the corporate Democratic Party is extremely noteworthy, especially when public polls reveal very high levels of dissatisfaction with President Biden. Not only are half of all US voters independent, but according to 538, as of June 15, 2023, 54.6% of the electorate disapproves of Biden. His approval rating is a mere 41.4% – this is actually lower than Trump’s average approval rating during his presidency. In fact, Biden’s approval rating is lower than 12 out of 13 most recent presidents, at this point in their presidency. Imagine any “democracy” forbidding debates when a majority of the electorate disapproves of a president’s performance!

But Biden’s low approval ratings are no surprise considering that Biden has failed to deliver on most of his major campaign promises. Compared to the most popular 2020 primary candidate, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden ran on a weak, watered-down platform, but one that still contained many meaningful reforms that could have helped the working class, had the Democrats actually followed through with them. But they passed almost none of these weak reforms, even when Democrats held a majority in the House and the Senate.

There have been many broken campaign promises and major disappointments coming from the Biden presidency: failing to forgive student loan debt; failing to pass a $15 minimum wage, failing to implement a public option for national healthcare; continuing to privatize Medicare, kicking over one million people of Medicaid; kicking some 750,000 off of food stamps after the debt-ceiling deal; fast-tracking some of the most carbon-intensive, oil and gas projects in recent history; and ending COVID provisions and privatizing the COVID response, just to name a few. Many of the nation’s youth have expressed outrage at Biden’s broken promises.

“I’m very disappointed in the President for approving the Willow Project,” January 2023 cover star Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL), 26, tweeted on March 14. “Youth voter turnout was at its highest in 2020 and young folks supported him because of commitments such as ‘no more drilling on federal land.’ That commitment has been broken. We deserve a livable future.”

Under Biden, we’ve seen budget increases to military, border patrol and police funding, even in the face of horrible abuses of police power, like the murder of Tortuguita in Cop City, Atlanta. These increases in police and military spending are especially offensive, given the mass voter support Biden received from the street protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Indefinite family detention along the US/Mexico border has received little corporate media attention, unlike the “kids in cages” media coverage we saw under Trump, whose policies Biden has continued.

And the recent “debt-ceiling crisis” of June 2023 resulted in even more cuts to social programs– the bipartisan McCarthy-Biden deal cut food stamps to some 750,000 adults and canceled the multi-year moratorium on student debt repayment from the CARES Act, forcing millions of students into debt repayment this summer. Meanwhile, this bipartisan deal actually increased funding to the military, border patrol, and fast-tracked even more climate-killing, fossil fuel projects like the highly protested Mountain Valley Pipeline.

In addition to all these broken campaign promises, Biden could have passed any number of populist reforms in his first term that would have soothed working-class angst across the red-blue political divide. On the eve of Biden’s presidency, the American Prospect published this “Day One Agenda” list for Biden, outlining what he had the power to do with and without congressional approval. On this list of things he could do without Congressional approval were items such as: legalizing marijuana, canceling nearly all student debt, shutting down oil and gas leases on federal lands, strengthening unions by giving federal contracts to workplaces with collective-bargaining agreements, neutralizing corporate power using existing federal agencies, and remaking agricultural and food policy. For an incredibly politically polarized nation– one that is clearly hungry for populist politics following decades of austerity and neoliberalism, Biden (on his own) could have implemented these kinds of bold policies to support the working-class and drastically increase his own popularity.

But instead, the corporate Democratic Party uses the carrot and the stick approach– dangling a carrot over the heads of the voters, promising forms of social justice and economic relief that it will never deliver, and then beating back the real competition with a stick– shaming and scaring voters, trashing third-party and independent candidates, engineering electoral rules to exclude third-party candidates, and otherwise rigging elections.

Remember, if corporate Democrats actually cared about progressive social change, economic justice, and a sustainable future, they would pass a living wage. They would fund a public health system that would care for this nation’s people and alleviate the leading source of US debt (medical debt). They would forgive not just a few, but all crushing student loans– the second leading source of US debt. They would fund affordable housing in US cities. They would defund prisons and police and fund social justice and welfare projects in their place. They would end fossil fuels immediately and transform our energy infrastructure into green and renewable energy. They would end endless wars and start diverting that money toward the poor, the working-class, and the planet, so that our young people might have a chance at a livable future.

But it’s precisely because Democrats refuse to take seriously the most dire and urgent needs of the people and the planet that a candidate like Dr. Cornel West has decided to run a presidential campaign at all. And because he represents the needs of the poor, the working-class, the most vulnerable, and the planet, he represents an existential threat to the ruling class. And in their eyes, his candidacy must be immediately eliminated, lest he do what he intends to do: build a broad, working-class coalition across political lines that overthrows the corrupt duopoly once and for all.

If we want to learn from US history, instead of blaming progressive third-party candidates for Democratic Party failures, what we should have learned from the Florida election nightmare of 2000 is that we need more democracy, not less; more transparency and accountability, not less; and more enfranchised voters, not fewer. But today’s corporate Democrats want fewer options, no debates, less transparency, and revisionist history when it comes to understanding why Democrats have lost key elections in the past.

And that is why we’re seeing all of these corporate media hit pieces against Dr. Cornel West– one of America’s most soulful, powerful, wise and disciplined activists, professors, philosophers and public intellectuals. This is a man who has spent his entire life and public career dedicated toward defending the nation’s poor and most vulnerable, while criticizing US imperialism, war crimes and environmental destruction. And I would argue that the degree to which a West candidacy has room to breathe and grow in the United States, today, is the yardstick by which we can measure the existence of US democracy.

Erin McCarley is an independent photojournalist, filmmaker and writer based in Denver, Colorado. Her still photography, videos and/or writing have been published by Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, Common Dreams, Real Progressives, Yes! Magazine, Due Dissidence, The Christian Science Monitor, the Westword, teleSUR English, Free Speech TV in Boulder, CO, KLRU TV in Austin, TX, the MIT Press, the Ford Foundation, Science Daily, The Daily Texan, and others. She also co-hosts the political podcast Crawdads & Taters: Red State Rebels.

[hardynwa]

Obidients drag Soyinka, Moghalu for criticising Datti

Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has been dragged on social media after expressing displeasure at a statement made by the vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Datti Baba-Ahmed. Baba-Ahmed, whose ticket with his principal, Peter Obi, emerged third in the February 25 presidential election, had spoken about the Supreme Court in a manner described by Soyinka as “fascistic language”. “I denounced the menacing utterances of a vice-presidential aspirant as unbecoming. It was a gladiatorial challenge directed at the judiciary and, by implication, the rest of the democratic polity,” Soyinka said in an interview with Channels Television. Baba-Ahmed and Obi are currently before the presidential election petition tribunal with disputes about the election won by President-elect Bola Tinubu as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Soyinka, in the interview, revealed that he had warned Obi that if he lost the presidential election, it would be as a result of his followers’ attitude. But the Nobel laureate’s comment was met with criticism from Obi’s supporters, popularly known as Obidients, who took to Twitter to express their displeasure. One Twitter user, @ucheinspires, accused the Nobel laureate of having a personal relationship with Tinubu’s family, saying, “It will not be surprising to me if he goes after anyone perceived to be against his dearly beloved friend and brother Tinubu.” On his part, @iangobo, said, “Grandpa Soyinka must have been brought back home to lend Tinubu his voice as a beneficiary of Tinubu’s largesse. I didn’t expect anything less from him.” Another user, @BishopPOEvang, described Soyinka as “the man who promised to tear his US green card if Trump won and never did.” But defending Soyinka, the candidate of the Young Progressives Party in the 2019 presidential election, Kingsley Moghalu, said the Nobel laureate would survive his critics. He tweeted, “Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka is a principled fighter for justice in our country and around the world. He is a phenomenon that unlettered and uncultured people may not fully understand in an age of lazy social media in which many don’t read or think deep. He survived dictators. He will survive you.” Moghalu was immediately dragged on Twitter where his post garnered over 4,000 comments, mostly from critics. One @Polsaph said, “Jealousy! You wish you were Peter Obi, right?” While @OjiUgo_nwa said, “So, because he endorsed your candidacy in 2019 he’s above criticism? This is really laughable; wake up because this is 2023 and we’re on a mission to set this country on the right path.” Read the full article

[college-girl199328]

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene reacted dismissively to the presidential candidacy of Nikki Haley, saying the former UN ambassador would be like a "Bush in heels" for being just the second Republican to announce a run for the presidency in 2024 and the first to challenge former President Donald Trump.

Haley's campaign announcement on Tuesday called for voters to move on from the "stale ideas and faded names of the past," in a video that dwelled mainly on her time as South Carolina's governor and made remarkably little of her two years working for the Trump administration.

On her personal Twitter account on Wednesday, Greene waved Haley off as "just another George (or Jeb!) Bush."

Greene also criticized Haley for what she described as a "weak" stance on the southern border and her 2016 refusal to support an anti-trans bathroom bill.

The "heels" reference was not pulled out of thin air, with Haley having triumphantly referred to them in the closing moments of her video: "Don't put up with bullies when you kick back; it hurts them more if you're wearing heels," she said.

Greene's reference to Cheney and the Bush dynasty likely aimed to place Haley squarely in the now-distant pre-Trump era of the Republican Party and also suggests that fealty to Trump-style politics remains a powerful factor even for those who plan to oppose him on the campaign trail. 

While Greene has only intensified her fervent pro-Trump stance in recent months, Haley's relationship with the former president and the modern-day MAGA-style party he birthed is more complex and has changed her stance on numerous issues spanning the Trump era, not least with her rapid transformation from never-Trumper to supporter in the relatively short span of his 2016 campaign. 

Despite initially criticizing Trump over the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, by October of that year she was saying he was needed in the party, adding, "I don't want us to go back to the days before Trump."

[kayla1993-world]

NDP leadership hopeful Anjali Appadurai promises 25% raise for nurses

Anjali Appadurai is promising sweeping changes to some healthcare services in the province if elected leader of the BC NDP in December. If she succeeds John Horgan as premier, she has promised to give nurses a 25 percent pay raise immediately and to replace urgent primary care centres with community health centres.

She also vowed to provide free and accessible counselling services across all health authorities. "As a lifelong New Democrat, I know that our party has a legacy of instigating visionary changes to improve the health of people and their communities, a legacy that can be traced all the way back to Tommy Douglas and the Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act."

In a healthcare policy paper released Thursday, Appadurai also promised compensation increases for homecare and long-term care workers, including cost-of-living adjustments to prevent inflation from driving workers away. Appadurai is one of two candidates vying to replace Horgan, but her candidacy has not yet been approved by the BC NDP. Her campaign is currently under investigation due to concerns about membership sign-ups.

Members of the BC NDP executive are concerned the campaign is allowing a potential “hostile takeover,” encouraging BC Green Party members to quit their party just to vote for her.

Appadurai’s campaign said the policy paper was compiled after input from healthcare experts, frontline health workers, and those on the front lines of social movements.

The policy paper states that the new Community Health Centres will replace Urgent and Primary Care Centres (UPCC) and will provide urgent and extended-hours services.

"UPCCs have the infrastructure and funding, but don’t include the essential elements described above to provide the longitudinal and integrated care that communities need to access," the plan reads. "These CHCs could be governed by community boards or through a shared governance model, depending on the community context."

The plan also addresses what Appadurai describes as "the growing involvement of for-profit corporate entities in primary care." It states the government must ensure that major corporations providing health care services in B.C.—Telus, for example—are operating within the letter and spirit of B.C.’s Medicare Protection Act and the Canada Health Act.

“Corporations, which are profit-driven, have less ongoing responsibility for patients, which can divert more complex work to other primary care providers while also upselling patients on unnecessary treatments, profiting off patient data, and shifting doctors away from the public system,” it reads.

Additional promises from Appadurai’s healthcare plan include more resources to expand Indigenous-led, culturally-safe primary care services across the province and the immediate implementation of a safe supply regime to combat the toxic drug crisis. If she defeats challenger David Eby in the race, the paper states she would also ensure equitable access to health care for all, regardless of their immigration status.

[people-and-politics]

"I don't recall" "I don't remember" "not to my knowledge" "not that I recall"🙄 What a lying, smug, childish🧹 witch! All these lying, immature, politicians are what's ruining US Democracy. They must be ousted and disqualified from ever running for anything in the USA. Only then will this political circus end and we can get back to focusing on the real issues that really matter and how to solve them.

[reportwire]

Federal judge signals Jan. 6-related legal challenge to Marjorie Taylor Greene's candidacy may move forward

Federal judge signals Jan. 6-related legal challenge to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy may move forward

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from GeorgiaTom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images A federal judge signaled in a Friday hearing that she may allow a Jan. 6-related constitutional challenge against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy for office to proceed, CNN reported. The suit currently pending against Greene alleges that the Georgia representative, through her actions…

[beardedmrbean]

Talouselämä carries a column based on Jussi Kärki's experiences following presidential hopeful Mika Aaltola as he campaigns and collects supporter cards in Forssa, south-west Finland.

Aaltola is a foreign policy expert propelled to public prominence by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, after which he has appeared regularly on television to explain what was happening and what it meant for Finland.

This made him a reassuring presence for many Finns, and even before he declared his candidacy he was polling well. In May he polled third behind central bank governor Olli Rehn and Green Party veteran Pekka Haavisto, and Kärki observed his popularity first hand.

People were apparently queuing up to sign supporter cards to get him on the ballot (he needs 20,000 in place of a political party's endorsement) and to hear him speak.

Kärki noted his rhetorical flourishes are quite different from traditional politicians, whether by accident or design. In announcing his campaign he referenced Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible, while in Forssa at the weekend he invoked javelin hero Seppo Räty.

Kärki says that this start to the campaign gave a slightly arrogant picture of Aaltola.

This jars slightly when compared to the modesty Finns expect from politicians, but this more American approach might play well with voters.

He has certainly nailed another aspect of presidential politics: managing to sound authoritative without actually saying much. Kärki describes the audience response as something like "Beautifully put, but what did he say?".

Current incumbent Sauli Niinistö is both wildly popular and known for his less than direct way of speaking.

NCP manoeuvring

Meanwhile Helsingin Sanomat looks at the saga leading to Alexander Stubb's forthcoming installation as the party's presidential candidate.

The paper opens up the slightly bizarre shenanigans over the last week in which Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen said he was "seriously considering" a run for president before the party board announced on Monday it would ask Alexander Stubb to be their candidate.

Stubb represents the party's more liberal wing, and has the support of party leader Petteri Orpo, while Häkkänen is backed by more conservative elements in the party.

HS ponders why Häkkänen made his move, and explains that it is all about who might succeed Orpo as party leader and potentially Prime Minister. Häkkänen and Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen are regarded as the likely candidates.

By challenging Orpo's authority in this way Häkkänen is reminding people he exists and preparing a potential argument in his favour should Stubb fail to win the presidency.

It could have been different, is the line HS says Häkkänen might whisper as he stealthily positions himself for a promotion.

Tenant destruction

A conviction for a destructive tenant got a lot of reaction on social media on Tuesday, with one 23-year-old's conviction upheld by the appeals court.

Ilta-Sanomat reports that he will now have to pay more than 16,400 euros in compensation for the damage, which was caused by him apparently spray-painting the majority of the surfaces in his rental apartment.

Pictures of the Ylijärvi flat show a landlord's nightmare, with tags and graffiti daubed throughout the apartment, radiators and appliances broken and internal doors and walls in need of repair.

The man, who was aged 19 when the offences took place in 2019, claimed the damage was caused by someone else but failed to prove that in court.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

• Rep. Lauren Boebert privately dislikes being associated with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Politico reported.

• The two Republicans recently got into heated exchange over Greene's attendance at a white nationalist event.

• The Politico report examines splits within the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative bloc of the GOP.

Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, both far-right freshmen known for stirring controversy, are actually not as close as they seem, according to a new Politico report on Friday.

The report, which explores cracks within the conservative House Freedom Caucus, detailed how Greene and Boebert don't see eye to eye.

GOP lawmakers anonymously told the news outlet that Boebert detests being associated with Greene. The Colorado congresswoman is also viewed more as a team player than her Georgia colleague, Republicans told Politico.

The pair recently engaged in a tense exchange over Greene's attendance at a February conference organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Greene had faced criticism from within her party for her attendance at the gathering, but her confrontation with Boebert blew up to the point where another unnamed lawmaker had to step in to de-escalate the situation, according to Politico. Three people close to the House Freedom Caucus confirmed the back-and-forth to Politico, which took place during a board of directors meeting last month.

The reporting comes as Boebert and Greene have often been lumped together as vocal Trump supporters who represent the right-wing faction of the party. The two regularly advocate for the same issues, and notably heckled President Joe Biden together during his State of the Union address. Yet the heckling took place only a day after their argument, Politico reported.

Spokespeople for Greene and Boebert did not immediately return Insider's requests for comment.

Greene has recently been in the news because of a challenge to her candidacy brought by the group Free Speech for the People, which wants to disqualify her from serving in Congress over what it describes as her support for the January 6, 2021, insurrection. During an administrative hearing in Atlanta last week, Greene said she did not recall a slew of documented and alleged statements she's made, including whether she told former President Donald Trump to invoke martial law to remain in power.

[freeindependentnews]

Who would give her a job?