Comrade Sanders has inserted himself into Portland’s elections, formally endorsing Sarah “I am antifa” Iannarone for Mayor and City Council-person-of-nondescript-gender Chloe Eudaly.
Bernie Sanders is the latest figure endorsing Portland mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone.
Sanders’ endorsement late Thursday endorsement came the same day Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty announced her backing of incumbent Ted Wheeler’s challenger.
The former presidential hopeful and current U.S. senator from Vermont also endorsed Chloe Eudaly in her Portland City Commissioner race against challenger Mingus Mapps in a list of endorsements for “progressive, down-ballot candidates.”
“In every corner of the country, strong progressives are running at the state and local level to represent our movement and lead the fight to transform this country. These races are incredibly important — that’s why I am endorsing progressive, down-ballot candidates across the country. If you can, I hope you’ll cast your ballot for them when you vote,” Sanders’ statement said.
Iannarone released this official statement:
Thank you, Senator Sanders. Bernie sees a progressive running to challenge the status quo, and he wants to help. I am proud to receive his endorsement. I’m excited to work on behalf of the 99% to hold big corporations accountable and to fight for health care for all Portlanders and everyone across the country.
Iannarone, you may recall, has been criticized and mocked for her apparent support of murderous communist dictators.
In fact, her apparent 2016 ballot was rehashed, and you can see she wrote in Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Ho Chi Min, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, along with extremist black panther and convicted murderer Assata Shakur and Angela Davis, a Shakur sympathizer:
https://twitter.com/sarahforpdx/status/726995735367929856
She’s apparently not ashamed of this, as she hasn’t deleted the tweet, despite renewed interest in the post (we’ve screen capped it in case she deletes it).
Here’s a screengrab of the tweet is she does.
Even if this were some kind of joke or trolling, it would seem inappropriate for someone seeking a significant office. Could you imagine the outrage if Trump jokingly posted a picture of a ballot with names like Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Pinochet, and David Duke written in?
Iannarone is leading current vichy mayor and national laughing stock, Ted Wheeler, in the polls.
Speaking of Wheeler, he recently gained the endorsement of disgraced ex-mayor Sam Adams, who opted to not run for a second term after his *ALLEGED* sexcapades with an underage male intern came to light. Around Portland, no one’s sure if that helps or hurts Wheeler.
Meanwhile, both Wheeler and Iannarone worked to exclude write-in candidate Teressa Raiford from participating in recent debates. Raiford, who is black, came in third in May’s primary, and several of her core supporters have started a write-in campaign for her. She’s also one of the leading figures of the Black Lives Matter protests in the area. That’s right, you have two privileged white candidates running to promote racial equality while at the same time making sure the black candidate can’t speak.
Between Raiford’s write-in sort-of campaign, conservative Joseph Whitcomb’s actual write-in campaign, Iannarone’s extremism, and Wheeler’s feckless style of “leadership”, it’s possible no candidate will reach the 50% threshold. And that could be a problem, as the city code says a candidate has to get more than 50% to win the seat. City charter, however, simply says whoever gets the most votes in November will win. If the winner receives fewer than 50% of the votes, you can assume lengthy court battles will result.
MEANWHILE, the aforementioned Portland city councilpersonofundeterminedgender, Chloe Eudaly, is now in the hot seat after accusations of deep, internalized racism by a former staffer. Willamette Week reports:
A former staffer for Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly has released a letter highly critical of Eudaly in the final week of a closely contested election between Eudaly and challenger Mingus Mapps.
Robyn Stowers, 35, a Black woman who worked as an aide to Eudaly for about a month in early 2017, calls her time in the commissioner’s office a “30-day bombardment of institutional racism, white feminism, divisive politics and dysfunctional office culture.”
Stowers, a Portlander who had seven years of prior government experience before going to work for Eudaly, subsequently worked for the city of Gresham and is now a contractor for Multnomah County. She is also a board member at the nonprofit Beyond Black and was appointed to the Gresham-Barlow School Board in August.
In her letter, Stowers cites examples of “anti-black” or otherwise objectionable behavior. They range from Eudaly allegedly making racially inflammatory remarks to erratic but not bigoted action.
Among the allegations: Eudaly grabbed a Black male employee and said “I love Black men.” On another occasion, the family of Quanice Hayes, a 17-year-old fatally shot by Portland police in 2017 came to City Hall. Stowers recalls Eudaly “rolled her eyes and said, ‘Not them again.'”
In her letter, Stowers says women of color in Eudaly’s office were treated worse than other employees and that Eudaly was dismissive of the concerns of Portlanders with whom she wasn’t already aligned.
“During a conversation about a Gateway development project, she laughed and said, ‘I forget that is Portland. I don’t consider anything past 82nd as Portland,'” Stowers writes.
She also writes in the letter that Eudaly, who oversees the city’s cannabis regulation program, which is part of the Office of Community & Civic Life, was dismissive of inequities in legal weed, both in terms of the criminal justice system and business opportunities.
“[Eudaly] said she ‘didn’t want to waste her time on people who just want to get stoned’ even after I pointed out how the BIPOC are disproportionately harmed by a racist criminal justice system,” Stowers writes.
Eudaly is facing a tough challenge from upstart Mingus Mapps, who has managed to set up camp much closer to the political middle. The pragmatic and practical Mapps has the support of the business community, police, several republican activists, several moderate democrats, and many mainstream political luminaries.
MEANWHILE, city leaders were recently featured in a KATU report on why there’s so much trash everywhere along the streets and parks. Wheeler and co. make up every excuse in the book, as other organizations all try to point the finger at everyone else: “Carico says part of the challenge is coordinating with all the government agencies, non-profits, and companies involved and figuring out who has jurisdiction. Is it the city, the county, Metro, PBOT, ODOT, Parks and Rec, or the railroad? They need better communication.”
Sounds sort of like San Francisco’s human feces problem.
MEANWHILE, after months of dismissing the riots as “mostly peaceful protests”, the city is making preparations for election night destruction. The Oregonian reports:
Portland police are coordinating with Oregon State Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office to try to keep the peace through election night and the days that follow, but the agency leaders couldn’t say Thursday who will be leading the law enforcement operations.
Portland police have canceled all officers’ days off for Election Day through Nov. 9, Police Chief Chuck Lovell said.
Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies will be stepping up patrols around voter ballot drop-off boxes and the county’s election headquarters, Sheriff Mike Reese said.
And Oregon State Police will be available if needed in the city, state police Superintendent Terri Davie said.
The most Portland part of it all is that no one knows who is actually in charge of the law enforcement (or lack thereof) response to the impending chaos. Willamette Week reports:
Five days ahead of a presidential election that’s expected to be one of the most contentious in American history, Portland-area law enforcement agencies haven’t yet been told who’s going to be in charge of policing anticipated election night protests.
“There’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle,” Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said during an Oct. 29 press conference. “The details of what the actual unified command piece, if that comes to fruition, haven’t been ironed out yet. There are still a lot of details in the planning stages.”
At the press conference, Lovell was joined by Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese, District Attorney Mike Schmidt and Oregon State Police Superintendent Terri Davie. They provided a few details on their plans for managing civil unrest following the Nov. 3 election.
Lovell said PPB canceled all officers’ days off between Election Day and Nov. 9; Davie said her troopers will be available to Portland, and elsewhere in Oregon, if need be; and Reese said his office is setting up visible patrols at ballot drop boxes to ensure they aren’t tampered with.
Beyond that, though, the public safety leaders remained vague about their election night management plans, reiterating that they’re still in the preparation stage.
For example, Lovell and Davie couldn’t say how many officers would be on the streets on election night. (Lovell said “a substantial amount” of police will be available, but that the specific number is “to be determined.”) He also said there is potential for neighboring law enforcement agencies in Washington and Clackamas counties to provide support in some form, but that nothing is set in stone.
“The command structure is in planning mode,” Davie said. “We’re days before the election and we’re gathering all the intel that we need.” (Davie noted that a portion of OSP troopers are still federally deputized.)
Best comment from the article reads “Seems like the rioters are the ones calling the shots….what a poorly managed city.”
And this all comes in the middle of the city council debating whether or not to cut an additional $18 Million from the police budget, on top of, or below, the $15 Million that has already been cut this year.
But hey, at least area leaders have released yet another joint statement condemning white supremacy!
