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A string of prominent California Democrats has been the victim or alleged victim of crime over the past few years raising fresh concerns about law and order in the Golden State.

On Thursday, thieves broke into the car of longtime Rep. Adam Schiffa House Democrat who is currently running for the open Senate seat in Californiaand stole several bags, including one with his business clothes inside, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

Two days earlier, a fight broke out between San Jose Democratic Mayor Matt Mahan's security guard and a member of the public during a live interview with local network KRON4.

On Sunday morning, a man broke into Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass' official home, Getty House, while she was there with her daughter and grandchild at around 6:40 a.m. according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Police arrested 29-year-old Ephraim Matthew Hunter, who was previously convicted of carrying out a violent assault in Massachusetts, and he has been charged in connection with the incident.

This rash of incidents comes amid other crimes or attempted crimes targeting Democrats in the state happened in the past few years.

In October 2023, Oakland's progressive District Attorney Pamela Price had her laptop stolen in a smash-and-grab while she attended an event for victims of domestic violence. According to The Daily Mail, she was told to report the crime online rather than wait for a police officer at the scene.

On October 28, 2022, Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was attacked by a man with a hammer who had broken into the couple's San Francisco residence. Paul Pelosi was seriously injured in the incident that was viewed by many through police bodycam footage later released.

The attack was deemed to be politically motivated, and the video showed 42-year-old David DePape, the suspected assailant, asking Paul Pelosi, "Where's Nancy?"

Former Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer was robbed of her cellphone near her Oakland apartment in July 2021.

Speaking to ABC7 News about the incident she said, "I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, it looked like someone was following me. I didn't think that much about it.

"A gentleman got out of the driver's seat and then came after me from the car. At that point I knew I was in big trouble. I started to kinda run.

"I was hit from behind very hard. I was target, walking alone on the phone, distracted on the phone. As he was running away, I said ... how could you do this to a grandmother?"

In June 2021, a man was arrested on suspicion of assaulting Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has high visibility nationally, during a visit to Oakland. According to the East Bay Times, Newsom was not injured in the incident and a 54-year-old man was booked into Alameda County jail on suspicion of assaulting a public official.

The incidents targeting Democrats in California come as the state was badly hit by a sharp increase in certain types of crime during the coronavirus pandemic with homicides using firearms going up 40.6 percent and assaults with firearms increasing by 29 percent from 2019-2020 according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of Department of Justice data.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, in 2022, the state saw a 28.7 percent increase in commercial shoplifting from 2020-2021. This sparked a public debate with Cynthia Adams, president of the Oakland NAACP, telling Newsweek, "We need more police" in July 2023.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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California Democrats Keep Being the Victims of Crime - Newsweek

In an otherwise quiet election, there was one surprise Tuesday: the outcome of the Democratic primary for state treasurer.

Erin McClelland, an Allegheny County native, beat the state partys endorsed candidate who outraised her 5-1. McClelland won by 8 percentage points and will take on Republican incumbent Stacy Garrity in November.

The treasurer holds a low-profile state row office position, but has a lot of power over the states investments and makes sure the states bills are paid.

And in this years treasurers race, several Democratic insiders and experts said McClellands native county, name, and gender likely played a decisive role for voters who knew little about the office or the candidates.

A female with Allegheny County next to her name on the ballot in these lower-profile statewide races, geography matters a lot. That right there put her in the ball game, said Mike Mikus, a Democratic consultant in Pittsburgh who is working this year for State Rep. Malcolm Kenyattas campaign for auditor general. And Ive watched her, shes tireless. Shes willing to do the hard work.

McClelland beat State Rep. Ryan Bizzarro (D., Erie), who received the partys nod and dozens of other endorsements. He is a member of House Democratic leadership, where as the policy chair hes in charge of determining which issues House Democrats should advance.

In addition to few endorsements, McClelland raised and spent very little money spending only $14,000 of the $100,000 she raised, according to her latest campaign finance filing. Bizzarro, on the other hand, raised more than $500,000, and spent about half of it.

McClelland said she won by putting miles on the tires, driving around the state to talk about her vision for the office. And her gender played an advantage for her, which McClelland herself pointed out on election night.

This is a really important statement from the voters about the voice of women, McClelland said Tuesday. We talk about how we want their votes, but its really important to have their voice.

By winning on Tuesday, McClelland became the only woman on the Democratic statewide ballot in November.

The partys endorsement isnt always a determining factor on whether a candidate will win, experts and insiders said.

Voters in primaries tend to be more independent and less reliant on endorsements to vote, Mikus said. Thirty, 40 years ago, it was a much more powerful endorsement. Voters dont look to a party or an elected official or an organization who theyre going to vote for.

J.J. Balaban, a Philadelphia-based Democratic consultant who worked on former Treasurer Joe Torsellas two statewide campaigns as well as treasurers races in other states, said Bizzarro likely thought the partys endorsement would help him win, leading him not to spend more of his campaign contributions.

I imagine, in hindsight, the strategy of relying on [the Democratic partys endorsement] to carry him to victory does not seem to be the right one, Balaban said. Some candidates make it their peril in confusing elites with voters.

Balaban said the candidates names themselves may have played a part in voters choices: McClelland has an obviously Irish female name that might be attractive to many voters.

Its unfair to an accomplished state representative, but the value of being an accomplished state representative is only if people know you are an accomplished state representative, Balaban added.

When you put it as A woman of Irish descent from Allegheny County versus a man with an odd-sounding last name from Erie County, it doesnt sound so strange, he said.

There is little research on how voters treat female candidates for state treasurer, but, overall, women need to prove their competence much more than men, said Dana Brown, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics at Chatham University. While Bizzarro campaigned on attacking Garrity, the Republican incumbent, McClelland put out an eight-page prospectus with her ideas for how shed run the treasurers office.

McClelland will likely have a hard time against Garrity in November, Brown said, because voters often think female candidates are more liberal than they actually are. For example, a far-right female candidate would be seen by a voter as more moderate, while a moderate Democratic candidate would be seen further left. Garrity is a staunch conservative, and McClelland is a moderate Democrat.

McClelland has run twice unsuccessfully for Congress, and has also launched campaigns in two other races but dropped out before the election. This was her first time running statewide.

In a statement on election night, Garritys campaign called McClelland a perennial candidate in search of a spot on the public payroll and said her ideas for the treasurers office are weird, at best.

While McClellands gender, name, and county may have helped her pick up low-information voters, Chuck Pascal, McClellands campaign manager, said her commitment to traveling the state to campaign helped her win.

We didnt have the money or the endorsements that Ryan did, but Erin went out and talked to real people and went everywhere in the state, said Pascal, who also chairs the Armstrong County Democrats. She just works hard. And she will continue to work hard, and well work hard for the entire ticket now.

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How Erin McClelland's treasurer campaign bucked the Democratic party establishment - The Philadelphia Inquirer

If Donald Trump loses the election this November, why would he not once again try to subvert that loss?

This is not a baseless question, certainly. Both Trumps critics and his supporters agree that Trump tried to prevent Joe Biden from taking office; they just disagree on the validity of that effort. Most Republicans 62 percent in a December Washington Post-University of Maryland poll believe there is solid evidence that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud, which is false. This belief undergirds the idea that Trumps post-2020-election efforts were rooted in his fighting against an illegal effort to influence the presidency rather than being such an illegal effort.

That view still holds. The Pew Research Center published data Wednesday showing that about half of Republicans (and independents who lean Republican) think Trump did nothing wrong in trying to overturn his 2020 loss, with a fifth indicating they were not sure if he did anything wrong. Thats more than two-thirds of the party, claiming innocence or uncertainty. Americans overall (and Democrats/Democratic leaners overwhelmingly) think that Trump did something wrong or broke the law.

That Trumps post-2020 actions are not seen by many in his base as a subversion of democracy is reflected in another question asked by Pew. Respondents were presented with a number of characteristics that might apply to Biden or Trump and asked how confident they were that the characteristics applied to the candidates.

Just more than a third of respondents said they were extremely or very confident that Biden respects Americas democratic values. Only a slightly lower percentage said the same of Trump. Among Biden supporters, confidence was higher: Three-quarters said they were confident in Bidens respect for democracy. Among Trump supporters, two-thirds had similar confidence in their candidate.

Theres a level of abstraction here thats important to recognize. Asking if a candidate you support respects democracy is a bit like asking if he is a good dude; youre going to be inclined to say yes. Overlay the willingness of Republicans and Trump supporters to dismiss the idea that he did anything wrong after the 2020 election and you get equivalence with Biden who has shown no similar inclination to set aside democratic determinations.

Pew asked another question that gets at the democracy issue more obliquely. How important is it, they asked respondents, for losing candidates to concede an election? Both supporters of Biden and Trump largely said that it was very or somewhat important. But while 77 percent of Biden supporters said it was very important (as did 60 percent of all respondents), fewer than half of Trump supporters agreed.

Pew compared those responses to previous polling on the same question. In November 2016, just before the election that Trump was expected to lose, even fewer of his supporters 31 percent said a concession was important. At every point, at least about 6 in 10 supporters of the Democrat have said that its very important for losing candidates to concede. (The losing candidate in 2016, Hillary Clinton, quickly conceded to Trump.)

The situation in 2024 is different from 2020 in that Trump is no longer president. That means that some of the tactics he deployed then might not be possible, such as trying to get his vice president to undercut the electors being counted by Congress. But many others still are, from pressuring state and local officials to introducing alternate slates of electors. Such efforts would be trickier, given the backlash to them over the past several years, including this week. But there is nothing preventing Trump from once again alleging impropriety or illegality in an effort to undermine any potential loss.

Of course, the Pew poll also showed that he and Biden are tied nationally, leaving him in a better position now than during the 2020 election. He may not need to subvert his election loss in November because he may just win.

The rest is here:
Analysis | Anti-democratic warning signs are blinking in current polling - The Washington Post

Palm Beach County Democratic Party Chair Mindy Koch may be back in office after being removed by Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried, but many of the issues that caused her to be removed in the first place remain.

As depicted in a recent Sun Sentinel editorial, there are valid issues that have been cast aside relative to non-compliance on party bylaws by Koch. And for many people active in the county party, the Zoom meetings that Koch wanted to get away from were preferable. The Zoom meetings were popular as a result of COVID. Then, the party higher-ups moved around some individuals that had been dedicated to technical support, and the next thing you saw, unsurprisingly, were inept, incoherent Zoom meetings. After that, members were practically ordered to appear in person.

Koch was insistent about people showing up in person versus on Zoom, despite the fact that it would be inconvenient for many people, while others were still hesitant about returning to in-person meetings after the COVID epidemic. After the lack of Zoom participation that was a fiasco over the last year or so, there is little left to wonder how Koch was able to take back her seat. Out of the 122 members of the Florida Democratic Party committee voting whether to reinstate her, only 103 even bothered to vote in the 67-36 result that got her reinstated.

However, in order for Democrats to begin to recover from the defeat that has been handed to them by the opposition for at least the last 30 years, there are more vital concerns that need to be addressed. An opportunity to incorporate more voters from the western area of Palm Beach County has been completely bypassed. COVID brought a merciless pandemic, but it also brought the opportunity to incorporate more individuals through the advent of the Zoom platform that Koch is turning us away from.

The western area, including Democrat-heavy towns like Belle Glade, South Bay and Pahokee, has been consigned to oblivion. The party that is supposed to stand up for Black citizens is excluding a majority of people of color from the voting pool. Its no coincidence that local Black community leaders are appalled at the actions of the Democratic Party, when it comes to inclusion, decision-making and leadership. Look closely at county party leadership. The lack of minority representation is overwhelming. Continued Zoom meetings could have brought Black voters in the distant, western part of the county into the fold. Instead, the insistence on in-person meetings has told them, Sorry, youre not wanted.

Were not saying the Republican Party is a viable alternative. The Democratic Party, with all of its twists and turns, is supposed to be the party of the people especially at this particular juncture. Whoever holds the reins of leadership should, by all intention, have a presence in the Black community, countywide. Instead, many people of color are not aware of who the leadership even is. Im left to ask the question: Does the leadership even care?

Carlton Cartwright is vice chair of the Palm Beach County Democratic Veterans Caucus and vice chair and media chair of the Florida Democratic Veterans Caucus. He served as first chair in Palm Beach County for a decade and is a U.S. veteran. He lives in West Palm Beach.

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To be inclusive, Palm Beach County Democrats should stick with Zoom meetings | Opinion - South Florida Sun Sentinel

Todays college students are protected from the most insignificant microagression, but at Columbia University anti-Israel activists are allowed to shout vile epithets at Jewish students in the name of free speech.

These activists have created such an intimidating environment for Jewish students, students have been given the option to attend classes virtually to protect them from the hate that surrounds them everyday.

One activist at Columbia proudly declared, Oct. 7 will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1,000 more times, but 10,000 times.

The Hill reports New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has had enough of the hateful rhetoric being hurled at Jewish students on city campuses.

I am horrified and disgusted, Adams said, with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus, like the example of a young woman holding a sign with an arrow pointing to Jewish students stating Al-Qasams Next Target, or another where a woman is literally yelling We are Hamas, or another where groups of students are chanting We dont want no Zionists here.

The progressive movement bred this hate by teaching our children to view everything from an oppressed/oppressor point of view to the exclusion of all other perspectives.

Its this one-dimensional view of the world that allows progressives to be willfully blind to the obvious moral bankruptcy of supporting a terrorist group like Hamas that butchers people and then celebrates having done so.

No one should be surprised this sort of thing is happening at American universities. Its been decades in the making.

Where is the Office of Civil Rights? Where is the Department of Justice? Where is the Department of Education? Waiting for the White House to give them permission to do their jobs.

They might have to wait a while. President Joe Biden has his progressive base to placate and that base doesnt seem very placated at the moment.

Progressive have had an enormous impact on the Democratic Party. Some would argue theyve destroyed it.

Today, Democrats are the champions of illegal immigration. Seven million migrants have crossed the southern border during Bidens time in the White House, and we have no idea who they are.

Its progressives who run our sanctuary cities and who wont allow their police departments to cooperate with ICE.

Democrats have become the party of abortion. The party favors giving a woman the right to end the life of her unborn child anytime she pleases 10 weeks, 15 weeks, 40 weeks it doesnt matter.

They can cloak abortion in as many high-sounding phrases as they like. Womans healthcare. Reproductive rights. The hard reality is, with each abortion a baby is killed, which is true no matter what language Democrats use to obfuscate that fact.

Democrats have become the party of gender affirmation care. Genital mutilation and mastectomies for minors. Pumping kids full of hormones and puberty-blocking drugs, and taking children from their homes if their parents resist.

It is the party that demands biological men be allowed to compete in womans sports simply because they say theyre a woman.

Democrats are the party who nominated a Supreme Court justice to the bench who is unable to define what a woman is, because, she said, she is not a biologist.

Its progressives who are destroying our public schools, using them to indoctrinate the next generation of leftist activists rather than focusing on academic achievement. Its progressives who stand in the way of any public school innovation (i.e. school choice) that strays from the current failing model schools have used for far too long.

Its progressives who have destroyed American cities. Today, lawlessness, homelessness and a general decay of civic order characterizes most American cities.

And its progressives who teach our children every white person in America is a racist.

Despite their radicalism, progressives have made for a very comfortable home for themselves in the Democratic Party. In fact, theyre now setting the partys agenda. Theyre driving the Democratic train.

If youre a passenger on that train, you might want to consider where its taking you.

Which brings to mind something liberal commentator Bill Maher said during an appearance on the The Joe Rogan Experience.

You can be woke, he said, with all the nonsense that that now implies, but dont say that somehow its an extension of liberalism. Because its most often actually an undoing of liberalism.

He went on to say, the goal is to not see race at all, anywhere for any reason. Thats what liberals always believed all the way through Obama, going back to Kennedy, everybody, Martin Luther King. Thats not what the woke believe.

They believe race is first and foremost the thing you should always see everywhere, which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku Klux Klan.

Liberals first started referring to themselves as progressives when the term liberal gained too much of a negative connotation.

But as Maher points out, since then the left has metastasized into something completely different than it was when liberals ran the Democratic Party.

Today, progressives are taking the party to the very edge of reality.

Chris Roemer is a retired banker and educator who resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

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Chris Roemer: Progressives are driving the Democratic Party, and destroying America | COMMENTARY - Baltimore Sun