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Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn has suspended her campaign for Congress.

Hahn made the announcement on Twitter Sunday afternoon.

This was not an easy decision, but Im confident its the right one. Democratic unity is the most important thing we can bring to the fight to flip NY-01 this year, which is why I will support my colleague Bridget Fleming, Hahn said in a tweet.

The legislator vowed to stay active in the Democratic effort to flip the First Congressional District, a seat held since 2015 by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), the Republican and Conservative parties designee for governor, who is not seeking re-election.

While Im stepping aside today as a candidate, I will not stay on the sidelines in this election, Kahn said. With the future of our democracy, fundamental rights, and the environment at stake, we have a critical mission. I hope all my supporters will stay in this fight, she said.

Kahns announcement comes one day after Jackie Gordon, whos Copiague residence was in NY-01 on the map adopted by the state but struck down by the N.Y. Court of Appeals last month, announced she is running again in NY-02, where she was the Democratic candidate in 2020, but lost to Andrew Garbarino.

Ive said throughout this campaign that I intend to represent my home community, and I will run in the district I live in, which is NY-02, Gordon said in a press release Saturday.

With Hahn and Gordon out of the race, Fleming is the only remaining candidate in the race for the Democratic nomination with any significant campaign war chest, according to the Federal Elections Commission website.

Previously declared candidates for the Democratic nod Nicholas Antonucci, John Atkinson and Austin Smith have suspended their campaigns. Greg Fischer of Calverton has declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in NY-01 but is not registered with the Federal Elections Commission, according to the FEC website.

Nick LaLota, former Suffolk County commissioner of elections and former Village of Amityville trustee, has the Republican and Conservative parties designation for Congress in NY-01.

LaLota does not live in the First Congressional District but has said he will move into the district if elected. Congressional candidates are not required by law to live in the district where they are seeking election. They need only be a resident of the State of New York.

LaLota is facing a primary challenge from Anthony Figliola of East Setauket and Cait Corrigan of Patchogue.

The party primary election in New York State was pushed back from June 28 to Aug. 23 due to litigation over the states redistricting maps. The states highest court, the N.Y. Court of Appeals, last month ruled the congressional and state senate maps adopted by the state legislature and signed into law by the governor was unconstitutionally gerrymandered for partisan advantage. The Court of Appeals directed the trial court in the case to appoint an independent special master to draw new maps. The trial court late Friday night adopted the special masters final maps.

The congressional map adopted by the court significantly alters the boundaries of NY-01, which now excludes southeastern Brookhaven Town but takes in the entire north shore of Suffolk County to the Nassau County border.

Under a May 11 court order concerning the 2022 political calendar, candidates who qualified for the June 28 primary ballot remain qualified for the Aug. 23 primary ballot. But new candidates have until June 10 to file nominating petitions with the county boards of elections, so the final field of candidates in the Aug. 23 party primary election will not be known until June 11.

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Democratic field in NY-01 narrows as Kara Hahn suspends campaign and Jackie Gordon says she's running in NY-02 - RiverheadLOCAL

Democracy Now is committed to bringing you the stories and perspectives you won't hear anywhere else, from the peace activists demanding an end to war to Indigenous leaders fighting to stop fossil fuel extraction and save the planet. Our independent reporting is only possible because were funded by younot by the weapons manufacturers when we cover war or gun violence, not by the oil, gas, coal, or nuclear companies when we cover the climate crisis. Can you donate $10 today to keep us going strong? Every dollar makes a difference. Right now a generous donor will DOUBLE your donation, making it twice as valuable to Democracy Now! Please do your part today, and thank you so much. -Amy Goodman

Democracy Now is committed to bringing you the stories and perspectives you won't hear anywhere else, from the peace activists demanding an end to war to Indigenous leaders fighting to stop fossil fuel extraction and save the planet. Our independent reporting is only possible because were funded by younot by the weapons manufacturers when we cover war or gun violence, not by the oil, gas, coal, or nuclear companies when we cover the climate crisis. Can you donate $10 today to keep us going strong? Every dollar makes a difference. Right now a generous donor will DOUBLE your donation, making it twice as valuable to Democracy Now! Please do your part today, and thank you so much. -Amy Goodman

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Ginni Thomas Asked Arizona Lawmakers to Help Overturn 2020 Election - Democracy Now!

Democracy Now is committed to bringing you the stories and perspectives you won't hear anywhere else, from the peace activists demanding an end to war to Indigenous leaders fighting to stop fossil fuel extraction and save the planet. Our independent reporting is only possible because were funded by younot by the weapons manufacturers when we cover war or gun violence, not by the oil, gas, coal, or nuclear companies when we cover the climate crisis. Can you donate $10 today to keep us going strong? Every dollar makes a difference. Right now a generous donor will DOUBLE your donation, making it twice as valuable to Democracy Now! Please do your part today, and thank you so much. -Amy Goodman

Democracy Now is committed to bringing you the stories and perspectives you won't hear anywhere else, from the peace activists demanding an end to war to Indigenous leaders fighting to stop fossil fuel extraction and save the planet. Our independent reporting is only possible because were funded by younot by the weapons manufacturers when we cover war or gun violence, not by the oil, gas, coal, or nuclear companies when we cover the climate crisis. Can you donate $10 today to keep us going strong? Every dollar makes a difference. Right now a generous donor will DOUBLE your donation, making it twice as valuable to Democracy Now! Please do your part today, and thank you so much. -Amy Goodman

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Continued here:
Zelensky Says War Will Only Definitively End Through Diplomacy - Democracy Now!

Watching the last days of this legislative session unfold in Augusta seemed, at least to an observer, the way democracy should workby compromising and putting urgent needs above political posturing. Even passing the budget lacked much controversy.

Democrats have held the majority in state government for four years, and they have delivered big time for all of us. We won: a mechanism for holding utility companies accountable to the people for their quality and cost of service; a $50 million investment in energy efficiency upgrades that will create hundreds of good paying jobs and reduce residential heating costs; $40 million invested in the Land for Maines Future program that conserves waterfront, farms, forests and other spaces that attract record numbers of visitors to Maine. And much more.

And, despite great loss, Maine weathered the pandemic with some of the lowest fatalities and the highest vaccination rates in the country.

Maybe the most refreshing part of four years of Democratic leadership though was what didnt happen: No obscene messages left by the governor on a state senators answering machine; no musing about bombing newspapers; and no withholding of voter-approved bonds for senior housing or the Land for Maines Future program.

It gives me hope to live in a state where steady progress towards shared prosperity is still possible, where our human rights still matter, and where the intense vitriol thats commonplace in many other states is absent. Lets stick with whats working for all of us.

Mary HobsonTopsham

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Letter to the Editor: Democracy worked in Augusta, for a change - Press Herald

In the immediate post-Trump moment and in the middle of the Russian war to extinguish democracy in Ukraine, The New Republic hosted an online forum with three authors, all of whom write about the state of democracy in the world.

It was a fairly depressing show, although full of smart insights. Moderator (and New Republic Editor) Michael Tomasky and three author-guests are all worried about the health and future of democracy in both the world (with autocratic Russias invasion of democratic Ukraine in mind) and the United States (having just survived, at least for the moment, a democracy disrespecting president who worked to steal a second term, and didnt miss it by all that much).

Journalist and author David Rieff, who wrote a great book about the civil war in Bosnia in the 1990s, took the present moment to signal that the immediate post-Cold War period, sometimes referred to as the dawning of an age of the long peace, is over, if it ever really occurred.

But the attempted Russian overthrow of democracy in Ukraine is not the resumption of the old Cold War. The new superpower rivalry is between the United States and China, and the panelists noted that the global alternative to the U.S. model is now China, which practices a combination of authoritarianism and capitalism and now represents the key rivalry that defines the current moment and the foreseeable future, Rieff said.

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China has brought hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty, without giving them democracy. If youre poor and hungry, Rieff asked, what means more to you: food or freedom?

He answered his own question thus: First grub, then ethics, he said. And he tossed in a reference to the rise of Donald Trump, who seemed, at least to his supporters, to be offering likewise a choice between democracy and prosperity.

In the panel discussion, Rieff asserted that the portion of earthlings living under full democracy is down from its peak by something approaching a third. Thats creepy, if true, although I suppose data is hard to come by.

Rieff also tossed in a reference to the question of whether the United States really represents full democracy as much as we are raised to believe, considering the famous undemocratic features of the U.S. system like the U.S. Senate (where California and Wyoming have equal power), and the electoral college system, in which the popular-vote loser can defeat the popular-vote winner, and the role that money plays in allowing some citizens to matter more than others in our politics.

Panelist Barbara F. Walter, a University of California at San Diego professor who writes about something called anocracy, brought that concept into the discussion to complicate the question of whether nations really face a choice between tyranny and democracy.

(An anocracy is a form of government that is neither a full democracy nor a full dictatorship, but has elements of both. I wrote a separate piece on Walters work, when I first heard of anocracy. She believes that full democracies rarely have civil wars. And full autocracies rarely have civil wars. Its the anocracies in between that are particularly at risk.)

Walter asserts that the United States is best understood as an anocracy, with state-by-state differences in who gets to vote and how easy it is to vote (among other factors), complicating the straightforward choice between democracy and totalitarian regimes.

Recent presidential elections have been full of examples of states that make it easier or harder to vote, and, of course, Republicans and Donald Trump have been in full rebellion against ways, generally favored by Democrats, to make it easier to vote.

Partial democracies (such as ours, under this telling) can provide opportunities for political parties to take advantage of racial and religious differences, Walter said. And that decreases the likelihood that the losing side in an election will peacefully abide by the result. Walter has argued that full democracies rarely have civil wars. And full autocracies rarely have civil wars. Its the ones that are in between that are particularly at risk.

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The third panelist was Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at University of California San Diego, whose most recent book, Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present, included Trump as one of the strongmen rulers in the Mussolini mold.

She said that Trump had autocratic aims to run the country as a cult of Trump, in which the personal needs and wants of the leader can be achieved by decree; a system in which, she said, loyalty to the leader, rather than competence, become the key reason for holding office.

She was struck by the cultish decision of the Republican Party heading into the 2020 campaign to forego adopting a party platform (as major parties have adopted for centuries).

She talked about Trumps Jan. 6 scheme to steal a second term (she called it a self-coup), which she said comes from the playbook of autocrats. She also referred to it as a leader-cult rescue operation. The last point is that if you want to have a leadership culture that supports autocracy.

She added: As a first generation American, I will never get over the fact that someone as criminal as Trump was able to be in the White House, and he was criminal in so many ways.

Tomasky, who moderated this event is, by the way, editor of not only the long-time liberal New Republic but he also edits also a quarterly journal on democracy (named, aptly, Democracy.)

Id like to provide a link to the whole online discussion, but TNR hasnt posted the video yet. I will include a link here once it is.

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Assessing the depressing state of democracy around the globe - MinnPost