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How does Wes Moore make you feel?

When you saw his brightly-colored logo on billboards or heard his enthusiastic tone in campaign ads, did it make you feel hopeful for Marylands future? If you were anything like one-third of Democratic gubernatorial primary voters or two-thirds of this states voters in November Moores brand won you over. Our states next senator will need a progressive brand like Moores to win.

In this case, branding is not just about logo design or social media aesthetic, although thats certainly part of it. Every candidate in American political history had a brand that was defined by how people viewed them. Some of these brands came with taglines.

Remember Tippecanoe and Tyler too? No? How about, Make America Great Again? The aggressive, vaguely-patriotic slogan summed up Donald Trumps whole brand in four words.

Marylands gubernatorial primary last year had three main candidates: state Comptroller Peter Franchot, former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez and Moore.

Of those three, only Moores campaign had a slogan: Leave No One Behind.

This catchphrase, combined with Moores youth and boundless charisma, formed a winning brand and helped him overcome his relative lack of political experience. Summed up in a word, the brand was progressive.

Design-wise, progressive brands in politics have included vibrant blues and sans-serif block lettering. Minimalist logo designs have found success in recent years, with Obamas O providing a blueprint for future Democratic candidates.

Obamas inspiring message evoked a feeling in voters that catapulted him into the White House: hope. After his election, Americans view of race relations reached a high point, international opinion of the country improved and the electorate diversified racially. A unifying brand centered on change and optimism, as evidenced by his presidency, makes our country stronger.

With the nations hope invested in a candidate, their mandate becomes impenetrable. Marylands next senator can capture this progressivism to instill hope in their constituents.

Moores high approval rating goes hand-in-hand with a majority of Marylanders characterizing Moore as progressive. In contrast, moderate President Joe Bidens approval in Maryland is seven points lower than Moores. Its clear that, in Maryland, progressivism sells.

Progressives have dominated Marylands political scene, which boast some of the bluest waves in the country. Campaigns setting sail this cycle must heed the winds of change, which blow firmly to the left as Generation Z floods the scene.

Progressive branding will guide legislative candidates into Senate seats, one of which will be vacated by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) in 2024.

Over his 58 years campaigning and serving in the government, Cardin has formed a brand centered on moral integrity, character and accomplishment. While these are noble traits to aspire to, Cardins outdated branding is falling out of style with younger voters.

Another prominent, older legislator, 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein, is currently facing calls to resign amid an extended leave of absence that has left Democrats shorthanded. Nationally, the median age of the American population is 38, while the median age of Congress members is two decades older.

Looking for an alternative, Maryland voters seem likely to flock to older politicians opponents. Cardins eventual replacement may lack in experience and rapport, but would make up for it with charisma, modernity and a forward-thinking brand.

As the crowd of Democratic candidates for the coveted seat gets bigger, candidates may have a difficult time standing out. With many candidates agreeing on core political values, voters may end up choosing based on vibes alone. In politics, vibes are simply the results of a carefully-curated brand forged by highly-paid professionals. Public perception will decide the winner, and branding will decide public perception before the race even begins.

Furthermore, if these candidates fail to separate from one another, a fractured Democratic base could be an opportunity for Republicans to swoop in. Even though their party garnered less than one-third of the gubernatorial vote last year, a Republican could use modern branding to whittle away the 24 percent gap between Republican and Democratic voters in Maryland.

Marylanders deserve a senator that can show the country what we offer: a model for the equitable policies that our nation desperately needs. The candidate who embraces this people-focused, progressive approach will emerge from the Democratic crowd and unite our state under their brand.

Joey Barke is a sophomore government and politics and journalism major. He can be reached at joey@terpmail.umd.edu

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Maryland's next senator will need a distinctive progressive brand - The Diamondback

Personal income tax rates won't increase in New York's state budget, a move that never seemed to gain much traction in the talks and a development that disappoints progressive advocates who had called for the increase.

The budget is expected to be finalized this week and is more than a month late.

Progressives this year had organized an effort to once again increase taxes on the highest income earners in New York in order to fund a variety of safety net programs in the state.

"This year was a critical opportunity to address growing inequality in New York," said Carolyn Martinez-Class, a campaign manager for the Invest in Our New York campaign. "The budget could have generated billions of dollars in sorely needed new public funds by raisingtaxes on New York's wealthiest residents and corporations and investing those dollars directly into our communities a move that poll after poll shows is widely popular with New York residents, regardless of political affiliation."

Lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul have agreed to a $229 billion budget that will include a handful of tax increases: Taxes on cigarettes will increase by $1 per pack and a "modest" increase in a mobility tax will go toward funding mass transit in the New York City area.

But broad-based tax increases, especially on upper income earners, never seemed to gain much attention in the negotiations even as Democratic lawmakers called for higher tax rates on those who make $5 million and above.

New York closed out the fiscal year in April with a budget surplus estimated to be at more than $8 billion. A tax hike this year on wealthy New Yorkers would be the second tax hike in three years.

Hochul, however, never embraced the calls for income tax rates to rise in the state.

Fiscal watchdogs and Republican lawmakers had opposed tax increases as well, calling them unnecessary and potentially counterproductive.

"You know the New York motto is Excelsior, right? It means 'ever upward.' I guess this means under one party rule, that means our taxes are going ever upward," Republican Assemblyman Robert Smullen said last month.

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New York's budget won't hike income tax rates, disappointing ... - Spectrum News

After the indictment of Donald Trump, a chorus of progressive celebrities clutched pearls in fits of moral superiority claiming nobody is above the law."

These were the same progressives who spent years pushing the phony Russian Collusion narrative along with other false narratives to destroy Trump and his family. This comes despite the Rasmussen Poll of American voters, taken after the indictment, showing Trump went from trailing Biden 45-42 before the indictment to overtaking Biden by seven points (47-40) after the indictment

Reasoned politicians like even Trump haters Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney are clear this indictment is politically motivated and unfair. This is an outrageous double standard already undermining the law and our republic. Let me explain.

First, its critical to understand the forces bringing this indictment and what its about. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran for office promising to indict Trump even before seeing evidence. Famed Professor and author Victor David Hanson summarized some of the critical reasons this indictment was unjust and political: At least two left-leaning federal and state prosecutors (and the FEC) previously have passed on the same evidence Bragg is now using for his indictments. They have explained that such a prosecution is infeasible because of statutes of limitations, because of a state attorney improperly appropriating the role of a federal prosecutor, and because non-disclosures agreements are a fact of life and not strictly illegal.

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Hanson continued, Braggs chief witness Michael Cohen is a felon and confessed liar, with a deep personal hatred of Donald Trump -- a fact well known to all potential prosecutors.

Despite his get Trump campaign promises, even Alvin Bragg initially decided the case could not be brought. In that decision, Bragg was slammed by the left. However, after Trump announced for president, the indictment came. The indictment alleges that Trump paid porn star Stormy Daniels through his lawyer Michael Cohen for her to sign a non-disclosure agreement to silence the allegations.

Trumps business records show the payments as legal expenses. The misdemeanor records-keeping charge was turned into a felony by Bragg by alleging this misdemeanor was a felony by covering up a felony. To convict, this appears to require proving that the sole reason Trump tried to keep the alleged affair secret was for the campaign. Not his wife, family or business. Nancy Pelosi spoke for most on the left in claiming Trump has the right to prove his innocence (while facing over 130+ years in prison).

While the left is clutching pearls, they throw rocks from the most fragile glass house. Bill and Hillary Clinton grossly violated federal law repeatedly. This goes beyond Bill Clintons affair and perjury felonies in the Lewinsky matter. I quote Victor David Hanson again: Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by destroying federally subpoenaed emails and devices in order to hide evidence ... sending classified government communications on her own, through an unsecured home-brewed server ... hiring through three paywalls a foreign national, who is prohibited from working on presidential campaigns, to compile a dossier to smear her presidential opponent ... hiding her payments (as 'legal services') to Christopher Steele through bookkeeping deceptions ... Bill Clinton, use(d) a crony to search out a high-paying New York job for a paramour in order to influence her testimony before a special counsel ... Bill Clinton, received a $500,000 'honorarium' for speaking in Moscow while his wife, our secretary of state, approved a longstanding and lucrative desire of the Kremlin for North American uranium to be sold to a Russian consortium.

As to the Bidens, Trump did not, as the Bidens did, set up a family consortium to leverage monies from Ukraine, Russia, and China, on their shared expectations that he might soon run for and be elected president and become compromised ... Joe Biden (is mentioned) in family business communications as a recipient of a 10% commission on such payoffs ... Joe Biden, removed presidential papers without any authority to declassify them and (left) them scattered and unsecured in a garage.

Liberal icons John Brennan and James Clapper, and Andrew McCabe (among many others) committed federal felonies lying to Congress under oath. The list is long.

History has shown that political persecution through the law destroys nations. The late Roman Republic lasted hundreds of years but fell apart primarily due to the cycle of political legal persecution. We counsel developing countries against what is happening now with this indictument. Through censorship of the right in academia and big tech and the biased echo chambers of the mainstream media, progressives believe they are morally superior to conservatives and can act with impunity. With that belief, unequal application of the law seems justified for them, and feel safe doing so. This is delusional.

According to the New York Post, at least two non-federal DAs are looking to indict the Bidens, and there is plenty of evidence through Hunters laptop for those charges.

The left is destroying the law and republic. Its time we turn to God and speak the truth in demanding this stop now.

Bill Connor, a retired Army Infantry colonel, author and Orangeburg attorney, has deployed multiple times to the Middle East. Connor was the senior U.S. military adviser to Afghan forces in Helmand Province, where he received the Bronze Star. A Citadel graduate with a JD from USC, he is also a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Army War College, earning his of strategic studies. He is the author of the book "Articles from War.

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COMMENTARY: Progressive double standards - The Times and Democrat

The Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church finalized Saturday the departure of 264 churches.{p}{/p}

The United Methodist Church (UMC) saw the departure of more than 200 member churches.

More than 100 of those churches are based in Tennessee.

That's according to Knoxville's WJHL.

The Holston Conference now has 578 churches after starting Saturday with 842.

WJHL reports the number represents 31% of churches in the conference, which stretches from the Chattanooga metro area to the Blacksburg, Virginia area in the northeast.

According to the UMC's website, the Holston Conference of The United Methodist Church is comprised of 842 congregations, organized in nine districts, and located in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and North Georgia.

On Saturday the UMC called a special session of the Holston Conference, which acts as a kind of umbrella organization for the UMC, where delegates considered all the disaffiliation requests in a single vote, which passed.

The departures are the culmination of a years-long rift between more traditional congregations and those that are more moderate or progressive, particularly around issues of sexuality.

We have reached out to local UMC pastors in our area for their comments.

This story will be updated as we hear back from local faith leaders and learn more information.

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Rifts between conservatives, progressives intensify at United Methodist Church - WTVC

The following is a guest contribution and reflects the authors views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.

This coming Friday night, April 28, Princetons Center for Jewish Life (CJL) will host Israel Shabbat. This highly divisive event was last hosted in 2019, forcing many liberal Zionist, non-, and anti-Zionist Jewish students who then felt alienated from their religious communal space to host an alternative Sabbath meal. Dozens of students also signed an open letter condemning the event. This scenario is repeating itself again this year, with students who do not feel comfortable celebrating Israeli nationalism over Shabbat dinner relegated to another space for the evening. Leftist Jews on campus, as well as those who identify as liberal Zionists, advocated against the CJL hosting Israel Shabbat on the grounds that it is unnecessarily divisive and alienating. Once again, these same parties are asked to step aside as the CJL panders to its right-wing students and donors. The CJL is superimposing a celebration of an apartheid state, in which Jews possess elevated legal status compared to that of Palestinians, and onto what should be a communal religious observance.

Though Israels apologists will claim that this is a celebration of culture, not politics, the question of whether to spend ones Friday night celebrating what multiple human rights experts, the Palestinian people, and an increasing share of the American Jewish population consider to be an apartheid state is deeply political.

The CJLs own policies claim that the organization will not promote racism or hatred of any kind. While they believe celebrating Israel does not promote racism or hatred for AJP and others in the context of the nation-state law, increased human rights violations, and the rise to power and prominence of ultra-right wing government officials (many of whom, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have credibly been called fascists), the choice to host events of this kind does cross the line. An unprecedented number of Israelis are in the streets protesting the threats this government poses to democracy, civil rights, and the rule of law not only for Palestinians, but for Israeli Jews themselves.

These facts make it harder and harder for the CJL to state that Israel Shabbat does not cross the line into promoting racism or hatred. The organization has repeatedly crossed this line recently, hosting far-right activist Dr. Ronen Shoval and allowing The Tory, a conservative student publication that routinely attacks Palestinian activism on campus, to host events in the building.

Additionally, in the wake of its accusations of antisemitism against pro-Palestinian campus speakers and attacks against attempts at pro-Palestinian student organizing, this event marks just the latest example of the CJL taking right-wing positions on political debates that sharply divide Princetons Jewish community. And yet, somehow, the CJL often maintains a reputation as a purely apolitical space for Jewish life and gathering. While the space undeniably serves as such for many students, it is long past time the student body collectively began to recognize the other clear purpose of this institution: advancing right-wing Zionist politics on Princetons campus.

Examples of the CJL behaving as a political actor with a distinctly Zionist agenda abound. The CJL hosts Israel Fellows, Israeli army veterans who work on college campuses across North America. According to the website of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which provides the fellows, their goal is to resist anti-Israel sentiment and activism in the context of an alarming rise in anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incidents in recent years. Not only do they conflate antisemitism and anti-Zionism, but the fellows are also given a platform to spread this political message by teaching classes on Israel through the Jewish Learning Fellowships at the CJL. The very fact that these fellows work at the University also allows them to use Princetons institutional influence to spread Zionist talking points.

Hillel International, an organization of Jewish campus organizations that the CJL belongs to and partners with in order to bring in Israel Fellows, has a rule that it will not host speakers who support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel, a position that is both flagrantly anti-free speech as well as blatantly political in its goal to shut down any discussion of effective economic action against Israeli apartheid. There is also widespread documentation of Hillel Internationals allyship with reactionary right-wing groups and causes.

Both the CJLs affiliation with Hillel International and its own independent actions contribute to its political character, but that is not to say that there is no space for political organizations at Princeton. Plenty of student clubs are open about their political affiliations, and even groups that receive University funding such as the James Madison Program (JMP) or the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) make no serious effort to hide their politics, whether conservative or liberal. These organizations political goals and leanings are transparent, and students are able to understand them clearly and react accordingly. But the CJL has managed to operate outside of this paradigm. Non-, anti-, and post-Zionist Jews on this campus are left wrestling with the fact that we ostensibly have a space for Jewish life, but which is effectively an in-house dispensary of Zionist propaganda.

A collective shift of campus consciousness toward a re-understanding of the CJL and its goals would serve us all. If we acknowledge that the CJL is not a neutral space for Jewish life, but rather one with an obvious Zionist agenda, we can stop being shocked by each instance of the CJLs political activism and more effectively resist it. More importantly, we could begin questioning why the University is so insistent in supporting the CJL in its current form, despite the fact that it only caters to Princetons Zionist community, rather than its entire Jewish one.

We hope progressive students and allies Jewish and non-Jewish will join us this Friday night to celebrate Not Our Shabbat together.

The Alliance of Jewish Progressives

This op-ed, for which Emanuelle Sippy 25 and Ben Gelman 23 serve as official signatories, was written collaboratively by the members of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives. Sippy can be reached at emanuelle@princeton.edu and Gelman at bgelman@princeton.edu.

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Not in our name, not our Shabbat: the Alliance of Jewish ... - The Daily Princetonian