Democrats trying to unseat each other IV

[Derec]

So eloquent.

 

[laughing dog]

AIPAC supported NY-13 Adriano Espaillat, and Darializa Chevalier made a big issue out of that support, but DC was also supported by some big PAC's, like Justice Democrats and "American Priorities", reportedly supported by anti-AIPAC Muslim business leaders.

It's pretty hypocritical to decry AIPAC but support a Palestinian/Islamic SuperPAC.

AIPAC also supported NY-10 Dan Goldman, something that Brad Lander attacked him for.

He too is fine with being supported by the Muslim SuperPAC. What a traitor.

How is being supported by a Muslim SuperPAC make someone a traitor? Is Dan Goldman also a traitor for being supported by AIPAC?

I don’t think support from either PAC makes someone a traitor.

 

[Derec]

Something I'm catching up on: Three Traps for Zohran - also relevant for similar candidates.

Candidates which are collectively a great argument as to why partisan primaries are a bad idea, especially closed primaries and those that allow plurality rather than requiring a majority.

First discussing India Walton, who primaried Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in 2021, only to be defeated by him doing a write-in campaign with the help of big donors and the Republican Party. "Back in 2021, the establishment strategy against her was to invent an endless series of supposed scandals and force her to address those instead of her actual policy agenda, thus robbing her of momentum." Like

Unfortunately later attempts to stop DSA candidates have proven less successful.
Also, those scandals weren't invented, but are true things from her past that show a pattern of poor judgment. Similar to one Graham Plantner.

(Byron) Brown successfully turned the election debate to the petty personal mistakes of Walton, a woman who became a working mother as a teen, before becoming a nurse: she was charged with $295 worth of food stamp fraud in 2003; she owed $749 in back taxes in 2004; she was stopped for driving with a suspended license; she visited her cousin before he went to jail; she failed to show up for a court summons sent to the wrong address; she wrote a rude Facebook post; and her car was towed just last month over unpaid parking tickets.

Note Marcetic's bias - he is writing for the commie rag Jacobin.
Taken together, these things do show somebody exhibiting poor judgment. If she can barely run her own life, why should the people of Buffalo trust her to run their city?
What's that about visiting her cousin? Was there some involvement in his criminal activities?
And that "rude Facebook post" was a sexist and racist attack on a white city councilor.

There was a distinct note of sexism in the focus on politically irrelevant facts like her becoming a mother as a teenager,

It's not sexist, and having unprotected sex when not wanting a baby shows a lack of judgment. A male politician getting someone pregnant as a teen would be fair game too, so don't even try with the "distinct note of sexism" nonsense.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. At one point, the chair of the New York Democratic Party explained his refusal to endorse Walton by comparing her to a Ku Klux Klan leader, saying “[if] he wins the Democratic line, I have to endorse David Duke? I don’t think so.” To him, apparently, a socialist and a white supremacist would be equally unacceptable.

Well, they are both extremist ideologies. The chair's point is that just because somebody wins the Democratic primary does not mean other Democrats should feel obligated to endorse that person with no regard to who that person is.

Noting She Got Ratf***ed by The Dems, Will the Same Happen to Zohran? (w/ India Walton) - YouTube

Unfortunately, it did not.

In a recent interview with Briahna Joy Gray, Walton says one of her biggest regrets is that she was too conciliatory: “I felt as if I needed to bend, and capitulate, and moderate, and become a part of the party that never wanted me in the first place, and I wish that I had stayed the course.”

It was the same with Jeremy Corbyn, who tried his best to make peace with the people who slandered him as an antisemite, always apologizing for this or that.

Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite. No slander here.

Which he has been. More recently, both Graham Platner and Darializa Avila Chevalier have survived some of the more extreme statements and actions in their pasts.

And it is to Democratic Party's great shame that it lets these people get away with it. Avila Chevalier for example attended a pro-Hamas demo right after the 10/7 atrocities.

But there’s a difference between getting elected and achieving your goals, and the mayorship of a major U.S. city can easily become a toxic job where the incumbent is blamed for everything wrong in town. Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson has been finding that out.

I still don't know what Chicagoans were thinking electing him.

Then former US President Barack Obama. Like Zohran Mamdani, he has an odd name, and both ZM and BO were labeled Communists and radical Islamists. His campaigners also recruited an impressive number of campaign volunteers. After he was elected, it was a different story.

But it wasn't a "different story". Unlike Comrade Cardamom, Obama did not run on socialism, he did not call for "seizing the means of production", or on being a Muslim who hates Israel. He ran on hope, and "there are no blue states and red states, just the United States". He ran on an "all of the above" energy policy and actually appointed physicists for SecEnergy, not another career politician with a JD (like Biden's pick). I.e. unlike Mamdani and his DSA Ilk, Obama ran as a uniter, not a divider. As a uniter, compromise and moderation are not dirty words.

But he sold off every principle he ever claimed to have, one by one.

Well, he did sell off the "all of the above" energy policy principle when he blocked DAPL to appease anti-pipeline rioters in North Dakota. But I doubt that this is what Skopic had in mind.

The bankers responsible for the 2008 crash were never prosecuted;

Did he run on prosecuting them? And presidents do not prosecute anyway. That's DOJ's job. The president can appoint the attorney general, but then there, Trump notwithstanding, should be a degree of independence.

card check never happened;

What's wrong with the secret ballot?

Gitmo was never closed;

I think he did run on it, but of course, it's not as easy to actually unravel Gitmo as it is to promise it on campaign trail.

the bullets and bombs to Israel flowed unabated,

The weapons also flowed to Hamas, Hezbollah et al unabated, mostly from Iran. So why should not Israel get the weapons needed to defend itself from these terrorists?

and the Obama volunteer force was quietly dismantled, never to be used again.

Seems like a tactical mistake. Why exactly was that?

This is the greatest risk for Mamdani: not that New York’s financial and political elite will defeat him, but that they’ll seduce him to their way of thinking, and slowly, by degrees, make him just another normal Democrat.

Oh, the horror!

That in time, he may betray his supporters and himself. The offer would be presented subtly, in the name of “compromise” and “bipartisanship” and “trade-offs.”

People like Skopic see compromise as a dirty word, and pretend that in the real world there are not real trade-offs.
He needn't have worried. Mamdani is not interested in compromise - he is going full steam ahead with idiotic policies like freezing rents.

Along with Obama, the transformation of John Fetterman from jovial champion of organized labor to sadistic war-crime cheerleader comes to mind.

Wrong. Avila Chevalier and her Ilk are the war-crime cheerleaders. She led that cheer at the pro-Hamas rally in NYC on 10/8/2023 for example. And this is the kind of thing she cheered:
‘Please look at me’: ex-hostage confronts UN official over silence on Hamas sexual violence

Even AOC allowed herself to be taken in by the Biden-Harris administration, and to be made the mouthpiece for their lies about “working tirelessly for a ceasefire.”

Now not even AOC is extreme enough for the DSA. Of course, their idea of "ceasefire" is for Hamas to murder and abduct Israelis with impunity, but for Israel to not defend itself and go after Hamas. After all, their calls for "ceasefire now" came before the bodies of 10/7 victims were cold.

More from that article. I don't think lpetrich's excerpts quite capture the extremism of the author:

In his effort to get elected, Mamdani has softened his language about the police considerably, from saying that “There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt” in 2020 to saying that “I will work with the police because I believe the police have a critical role to play in creating public safety” in 2025. He was right the first time.

So he is categorically anti-police, and even Mamdani is not extreme enough on things like policing, globalizing the Intifada or hating billionaires to his liking. What a soyjak!

 

[Derec]

How is being supported by a Muslim SuperPAC make someone a traitor?

It's the superPAC that supports the likes of Adam Hamawy, the disciple of the Blind Sheikh (who was responsible for the original WTC bombing) and Avila Chevalier, who participated in a rally celebrating the 10/7 attacks on Israel.
Brad "Blockwart" Lander is Jewish, and letting himself be supported by the superPAC that supports Islamists and antisemites is like a Jew collaborating with the Nazis.

Is Dan Goldman also a traitor for being supported by AIPAC?

No. There is nothing about AIPAC that is anti-American, and as a Jew, it's normal to want Israel and US to remain friends and allies.

I don’t think support from either PAC makes someone a traitor.

I disagree, at least regarding the Palestinian Priorities (as it should have been named) superPAC.

 

[laughing dog]

How is being supported by a Muslim SuperPAC make someone a traitor?

It's the superPAC that supports the likes of Adam Hamawy, the disciple of the Blind Sheikh (who was responsible for the original WTC bombing) and Avila Chevalier, who participated in a rally celebrating the 10/7 attacks on Israel.
Brad "Blockwart" Lander is Jewish, and letting himself be supported by the superPAC that supports Islamists and antisemites is like a Jew collaborating with the Nazis.

Is Dan Goldman also a traitor for being supported by AIPAC?

No. There is nothing about AIPAC that is anti-American, and as a Jew, it's normal to want Israel and US to remain friends and allies.

I see. "Traitor" to you means being against what you believe is American or Israeli interests in this context, not trying to overthrow the US gov't.

BTW, do you think that Jews who did collaborate with the Nazis because they thought they were minimizing or postponing the deaths of their neighbors were traitors?

 

[Derec]

I see. "Traitor" to you means being against what you believe is American or Israeli interests in this context, not trying to overthrow the US gov't.

I is clear from context that I did not mean it is the strict legal sense of the word.

BTW, do you think that Jews who did collaborate with the Nazis because they thought they were minimizing or postponing the deaths of their neighbors were traitors?

Is that what you think is happening here? Is Lander collaborating with the Anti-Israel DSA to postpone the deaths of his neighbors at the hands of DSA thugs?

 

[lpetrich]

Espaillat senior adviser made racist and Islamophobic comments about congressional challenger - City & State New York - "The Congress member condemned the comments from Rusking Pimentel, who said that Darializa Avila Chevalier wants to replace Dominican New Yorkers with Muslims and Haitians."

Avila Chevalier has been brigaded with anti-Haitian racism in the final weeks of the campaign, as anonymous Espaillat fans have also inundated Avila Chevalier’s social media posts with comments accusing her of being Haitian.

At a press conference on Monday, Mamdani denounced the racist comments directed at Avila Chevalier. “One thing I do want to make clear that I find unacceptable in our city is the attempt to use the term ‘Haitian’ as a slur,” he said. “The trafficking in anti-Black sentiment and narratives that we have seen specifically in NY-13 when it comes to Darializa Avila Chevalier is something that I cannot stand here and say is in line with the values of our city.”

Avila Chevalier also addressed the racist attacks in a statement. “In the final days of this campaign, I have been hit with attacks that use ‘Haitian’ as a slur,” she said. “A coordinated wave of Islamophobia. Lies about my identity, my faith, and my family. … The smear campaign against me is not politics. That’s racism dressed up and unleashed by my opponent because he has nothing else left.”

Both AE and DAC have Dominican Republic ancestry, and the DR and Haiti are on Hispaniola, a Caribbean island.

Ethnicity Becomes Instrument of Division in Espaillat’s Re-election Bid - The New York Times - "Darializa Avila Chevalier has been targeted with false accusations about her ethnicity, as foes seek to portray her as an outsider hoping to usurp Dominican power in the district"

In another example, Pelegrin Castillo, a former public official in the Dominican Republic, warned earlier this month on social media that Dominicans who are registered to vote should “stay highly alert” because Mr. Mamdani was focused on “downplaying the political influence” of Dominicans by running Ms. Avila Chevalier against Mr. Espaillat in an effort to “reconfigure” the district and give Haitians more power.

NY-13 race exposes anti-Haitian bias in Dominican politics - "As Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemns “Haitian” being used as a slur, an Upper Manhattan race exposes old racial tensions rooted in Hispaniola, the island Dominicans and Haitians share"

Darializa Avila Chevalier: pro-Palestinian doctoral student steps into politics with ‘faith in the future’ | US midterm elections 2026 | The Guardian

Like fellow leftists, Avila Chevalier has campaigned on universal healthcare, stronger protections for renters, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and banning big Pacs from elections. She repeatedly accused Espaillat, a Dominican immigrant who was formerly undocumented, a five-term congressman, and the chair of the congressional Hispanic caucus, of having achieved little for his district and being beholden to wealthy donors, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), which in May reportedly poured $650,000 into a Super Pac opposing Avila Chevalier.

She made “babies, not bombs” the signature pledge of her campaign.

New York’s 13th district is home to mostly working-class Black and Hispanic communities, and includes Washington Heights, the neighborhood where Espaillat grew up, and that boasts the largest Dominican population outside the Dominican Republic. But the district has grown younger and more diverse in recent years.

 

[laughing dog]

I see. "Traitor" to you means being against what you believe is American or Israeli interests in this context, not trying to overthrow the US gov't.

I is clear from context that I did not mean it is the strict legal sense of the word.

Thank you for the clarification.

BTW, do you think that Jews who did collaborate with the Nazis because they thought they were minimizing or postponing the deaths of their neighbors were traitors?

Is that what you think is happening here? Is Lander collaborating with the Anti-Israel DSA to postpone the deaths of his neighbors at the hands of DSA thugs?

It is rude to respond to a question with a question. Try answering my question. And are ultra orthodox Jews who oppose Israel on religious grounds also traitors?

 

[Derec]

And are ultra orthodox Jews who oppose Israel on religious grounds also traitors?

In the sense I have been using the word for Lander, yes.

 

[Derec]

Like fellow leftists, Avila Chevalier has campaigned on universal healthcare, stronger protections for renters, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),

She is even worse than that. She advocated for a litany of far-left extremist postions.
Mamdani-backed congressional candidate deleted posts calling to seize private property, abolish police, borders, prisons

and banning big Pacs from elections.

And yet she is taking money from the "Palestinian Priorities" SuperPAC. What a hypocrite!

She made “babies, not bombs” the signature pledge of her campaign.

"Babies" here means more Palestinian babies, >5 per woman, that led to unsustainable population explosion in Gaza well beyond the carrying capacity of the Strip.
"Not bombs" means no bombs for Israel to defend itself from aggression by Hamas, Hezbollah and other enemies who wish to destroy it. Chevalier has no problems with Iran sending weapons to these terrorist groups. In fact, she supports these terrorists.

Chevalier also does not think Kamala Harris is too far left enough, and has expressed her displeasure with her forcefully:

Note also her handle, which is a Hamas rallying cry to destroy Israel.

She is bad news all around.