but I'm a peacenik first and foremost.

I heard Oregon might elect a Repub Governor.

These days up is down and right is left. Tulsi's been out campaigning for Repubs as well.

Me, I'm not voting this year. No one on either side of the aisle running here is worth the time and effort. Good luck and don't let the corrupt Dim party vs Repub label confuse you.

to do anything when a politician swears in, and does the opposite of what he or she campaigned to do.
Recalls are slow, clumsy, and while they might lead to an official being ousted, it doesn't undo what they did while in office.
We are encouraged to vote as an expression of our personal patriotism and power.
A vote expresses nothing but futility.

First,whether to vote. Even if the GOP candidate gets elected to Congress, the chance that any Governmental policy of significance will change, is very, is very small, even if the Republicans gain a majority. The neo-con fairy tale of full spectrum dominance will remain the central goal of national security and foreign policy, which will require ever more billions of dollars from the Federal Budget -- effectively preventing any potential Snaders-Old School Republican alliance from making any positive economic reform.

Second, how to vote. In prior decades, i occasionally cast strategic votes for Republicans when the Democrat posed special problems. Way back in the 1970s, for example, an oil industry tool named Kruger got the Texas Democratic nomination to challenge the odious Senator John Tower. I figured if Kruger got into the Senate, he'd hold office for decades, competently serving
his right wing donors. So I held my nose and voted for Tower.

In your District, it seems to me, there is no worthwhile reason to try to keep Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and so whatever benefit that keeping a Republican asshole out of that Chair is outweighed by the preposterous "economic" war against Russia. The only way for you to vote against that lunacy is to vote for the Republican.

As for me, I am a committed non-voter. I don't want to waste the few minutes it takse to fill in the ballot and mail it in.

The Rs becoming an anti war, pro common people party? Most Rs will be liars or disappointments, the few who aren't will either be corrupted or fail. It's the nature of the beast. But we have to try. The other choice is more corrupt quisling Democrats. They have proven themselves irredeemable.

forget the labels and vote with your conscious. In other words vote with your head and not your heart.

said about our policy re China and Taiwan? He is after all ex-Green Beret/special ops, 20 yrs in the military. Likely not a peacenik of any sort.

He's also an election-denying MAGAist, getting an endorsement from Trump. In other words, his loyalty will always be to the Donald, not to the country. What if Donald wakes up one day and tweets about how the US needs to get more aggressive towards China to defend Taiwan? Joe would meekly fall in line. He would just be Donald's puppet in the House.

He's also ex-CIA, which always makes me suspicious.

Might have ties or affinities with some very far-right racist groups.

More than enough there for me at least to not cast an affirmative vote for him if I lived in that district. I can understand the anti-D candidate attitude over UKR, so I likely wouldn't vote for her either, but I would try to bring a critical eye to both candidates as opposed to giving one the kid gloves treatment.

Neither party is going to buck the current effort of the US Government to rule the world; fomenting regime change whenever it suits, spending lavishly on military interventions, while neglecting urgent domestic needs at home.

It may still be that state or local choices at the polls have the possibility to bring meaningful change. However, at the national level (President, House and Senate) the preselected candidates of our two party system and the massive amount of corporate and MIC money and influence have usurped the hollow shell of our democratic process.

"The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles."

Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class (1904)

"They are all the same anyway. All politicians are bastards anyway — every one of them. [It] doesn't matter who you vote for you'll always have a shitty government. All they are after is themselves and their pockets. They are all lying, cheating bastards."

Lemmy Kilmister, ca 2004

I have Primala up here in Seattle, beyond useless, not an ounce of feck. No vote this round from me. Same for Patty (Murray), she should have done something for someone besides the corporations for all her time in office.

This sounds like a Blue Republican sort of situation, allow me to weigh in.

Blue Republic became Blue Republic in response to an appeal by (then still Brit, now naturalized US citizen jounalist) Robin Koerner published in Huffington Post Sept. 2011

If You Love Peace, Become a "Blue Republican" (Just for a Year)

Urging peace and liberty-loving Dems and independents to register Republican, at least temporarily, to support Ron Paul's 2012 candidacy in the primary cycle. I, and an unknown number of others responded - for me one year has extended to a decade plus.

Paul, predictably, was thrown under the bus by the R establishment much in the manner of the Dem PTB disposing of the likes of Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Bernie, Tulsi... or anyone they can that dares to go off-narrative.

some excerpts from Koerner's piece:

The world lost its goodwill toward the USA when Americans voted for George W. Bush the second time around.
I don't endorse the idea that American politics should be dictated by foreign opinions but a reading of the foreign press over the last six years reveals that the first election of President Bush Jr. was largely excused around the world since no one could have known what this new president was going to do.
Moreover, America arguably didn't vote for him anyway in 2000.
However, the second election President Bush was not excused, because by 2004, the modus operandi of the Bush administration was clear. He wanted to 1) conduct wars against countries that did not threaten us (e.g. Iraq), 2) oversee large financial benefits to companies with which those in his administration were close (e.g. Halliburton), 3) establish a legal framework for riding roughshod over the liberties of private individuals who are not suspected of crime (e.g. Patriot Act), and 4) establish a massive federal apparatus to carry out such intrusions on innocent Americans in what is becoming a police state (e.g. domestic wiretapping, TSA etc... )

Continuing on to Obama:

The more-or-less global delight upon Obama's election in 2008 followed largely from the hope that Americans had realized what a mistake they had made with Bush's second term and were therefore voting against the egregious actions of the then Republican establishment.
When most Americans voted for "Hope" and "Change," the above four objectives were at the top of their list of what they "hoped" would be "changed."
After two years, however, we now see that Obama 1) conducts wars against countries that do not threaten us (e.g. Libya, Yemen etc.), 2) oversees large financial benefits to companies with which those in his administration were close (e.g. Goldman Sachs), 3) supports the legal framework for riding roughshod over the liberties of private individuals who are not suspected of crime (e.g. Patriot Act), and 4) is growing a massive federal apparatus to carry out such intrusions on innocent Americans in what is becoming a police state (e.g. domestic wiretapping, TSA etc.. )
Put another way, when it comes to such things as the killing of innocent people, taking from the common man to support cronies, and the elimination of the basic values that make our lives worth living, we had the hope, but we haven't had the change.

And goes on to urge people to overlook partisanship and focus on individual integrity and principles

If you are a Democrat, and you sit tight and vote Democrat again "because you've always been a Democrat" or because you think that some group with which you identity will benefit more from Democrat programs than a Republican one, then that is up to you, and I wish you well. But don't you dare pretend that you are motivated primarily by peace, civil rights or a government that treats people equally.
That Ron Paul, who has been standing up for these principles quietly for half a lifetime, happens to be a member of the Republican party is a lot less important than the principles that we should be voting on.

OK, parallels are not exact, but if history is not repeating itself it may well be resonating - and not necessarily in a good way but in the fashion known to lead to catastrophic failure...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XggxeuFDaDU]

Kent seems legit to me - and hardly the sort of candidate the establishment (D or R) feel comfortable with - all too prone to go off the reservation and take seriously subversive ideas like actually defending the Constitution or representing his constituents.

I say screw the partisanship, support integrity, principles and policies.

In any case, thanks for giving the issue the consideration it deserves, good luck to everyone in their choices.

"We have to bring the National Security State to heel."

Joe Kent

I hear that...

And Joe Kent has embraced that Q-anon religious fascism that has gutted the former Republican party. Joe Kent believes that climate change is a Chinese hoax and wants to try Dr. Anthony Fauci for "murder." (Praise the Lord and pass the horse dewormer!) This type of Q-MAGA crazy has no business running the government.