Mediaboss Marketing

Accusations of sexual assault against one of Iran's most celebrated visual artists are making waves in Toronto's Iranian community with many saying they represent a critical moment not only in the burgeoning #MeToo movement inside Iran, but alsoan opportunityforcommunity leaders abroad to take a stand against a culture of impunity they say has too long shielded perpetrators at all levels of power.

Last month, The New York Times released a report detailing multiple allegations of sexual harassment, assault and misconduct against Aydin Aghdashloo, 80, a prominent Iranian contemporary painter.

The report cites interviews with some 13 women, including former students whose accusations the paper says date back three decades. Nineteen of the 45 people interviewed, the storysays, described him as the "Harvey Weinstein of Iran."

The allegations remain unproven and have not been tested in court.

In an email to CBC News, Aghdashloo's lawyer said the artist could not provide comment at this time, but "we will be further rebutting the many inaccuracies in the NYT's article in the near future."

Still, news of the allegations is prompting many in Toronto's Iranian community to speak out, calling for organizers of what's known as the world's largest celebration of Iranian art and culture to cut ties with Aghdashloo.

Aghdashloo has been featured repeatedly over the years at the Tirgan Festival, held in Toronto every two years, showcasing hundreds of artists, performances and speakers.

"Tirgan has a very positive track record in the community," Toronto-based entrepreneur Mahshid Yassaei, 34, told CBC News.

"This is a turning point for Tirgan to really tell the story of what kind of organization it is. Is it an organization that's built for the community and by the community, or is it an organization that's turning into a corporation that's just thinking about profit?"

Yassaei is one of some 850 people who have signed a petition launched by a group of Iranian artists, activists, academics and members of the community calling on the festival's organizers to "stop giving predators a platform."

In particular, the petition takes aim at festival CEO Mehrdad Ariannejad, who earlier this year partnered with former CBC star radio host Jian Ghomeshi to create Roqe Media, where the two serve as directors.

Ghomeshi was acquitted of sexual assault and choking after a high-profile trial in 2016. The venture was first reported on by Canadian newsite and podcast networkCanadaland earlier this year.

In a written statement to CBC News Ariannejad said:"The decision to start Roqe with Jian Ghomeshi was not one that I made lightly," adding the company has never had ties to Tirgan.

"Jian might have made mistakes but I believe that people should be given a second chance. I don't believe in cancel culture," Ariannejad said in part.

As for his personal values, Ariannejad said he has dedicated "a considerable portion" of his volunteer activities to women's rights and gender equality, and has always "strongly condemned acts of sexual violence and harassment and will continue to work hard for these values."

The Tirgan Festival said it "strongly condemns all acts of sexual misconduct" and has a "zero-tolerance policy" on harassment and discrimination.

"We too are concerned by the news surrounding Iran's Me Too movement and will be closely monitoring the developments," the organization said in a statement to CBC News. The festival saidit has always been its policy "to stay away from contentious matters" so as to "foster a safe and welcoming environment for our visitors."

Asked specifically if it would cease its collaborations with Aghdashloo, the organization would not say.

"We will continue to uphold this policy and remain committed to never acting as a forum for those who are guilty of sexual misconduct," it said.

Though the allegations against him remain unproven, some say if Tirgan continues to give Aghdashloo a platform, it will erode their confidence in the festival.

"I will have second thoughts of supporting the festival, which is quite honestly the only [such] festival happening outside of Iran," Samira Banihashemi told CBC News.

She's not alone.

"Myself and part of the community were expecting Tirgan and community leaders to express their sense of empathy with the victims and [as long as] the cases are open, they would suspend their work with Aghdashloo," said Mahmoud Azimaee, a Toronto-based Iranian activist.

For Banihashemi, who previously worked in production at the Tirgan Festival, news of the allegations against Aghdashloo go beyond the festival itself, however.

"We've never seen the momentum that we're seeing today," the 35-year-old said.

"This is starting a very important conversation about the idea of consent and what it means to say no, and also the fact that the perpetrators can very well be prominent and respected members of the society,"Banihashemiadded.

"These assaults are not necessarily about sex, but about exerting power."

Artist and art educator Azadeh Pirazimian, 40, grew up in Iran, where she says sexual harassment was a part of daily life only she didn't have the vocabulary to call it out.

"Honestly, it was an everyday event for me," she said, describing a regular pattern of unwanted remarks, being touched without consent and being told she was somehow responsible for the advances of men, often strangers.

"Before coming to Canada and learning so many things about this topic I just knew the 'rape' word," said Pirazimian. In Iran, she said, "there are no categories like sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual violence."

And while the #MeToo movement in Iran has gathered steam over the past few months, Ontario Tech University professor Serena Sohrab says she hopes more attention will be paid to the experiences of a group she referes to as "second-hand victims" women who have made the difficult choice not to engage in the workforce in Iran to avoid the reality of daily sexual harassment.

"I'm a hard-headed feminist, and as a woman who has lived in a patriarchal society there is nothing that I want more than equality for women," Sohrab told CBC News.

But regarding the case of Aghdashloo, she urges caution, saying that while the allegations against him are serious, it's important not to jump to conclusions as long as the case remains open.

"If we close our eyes to those standards for people that are in power and people that we want to be connected to I think we're definitely encouraging behaviour that we don't want to see in the world," she told CBC News.

And as morewomen in Iran come forward with their own experiences of sexual violence, she hopes their stories will also send another message: that this should not be normal.

"I want the next generation to be really shocked, really surprised to hear that these behaviours still exist," she said.

"And I think our reactionto these behaviours today isgoing to define how the next generation is going to live their lives."

Read more from the original source:
Iran's #MeToo movement makes waves in Toronto as calls mount for festival to cut ties with celebrated artist - CBC.ca

Facebook Twitter LinkedInPinterestReddit

Iranian regimes anti-riot forces (file photo)

Iran is facing a third wave of coronavirus infections, according to the regimes Health Ministry. The mullahs Ministry of Health has acknowledged a series of record-breaking single-day death tolls since the middle of October, even when using the regimes engineered statistics.

The daily increases have raised Irans official death total to nearly 36,000. The official figure will continue to display only a fraction of the truth. According to the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), which has been tracking the epidemic via its intelligence resources, the actual death toll is now over 142,000. This figure disrupts the notion of a third wave and instead suggests that the first wave of Irans infections never really ceased, because the regime never took meaningful action to address it.

The MEKs account is based on the hospital and mortuary records, as well as eyewitness testimony and records from Irans National Emergency Organization which indicate that domestic outbreaks were underway more than a month before regime authorities officially acknowledged them. But when faced with criticism, the regimes President Hassan Rouhani blatantly demanded credit for the admission, bogusly stating that the regime did not delay one day in revealing the public health threat.

In fact, the regimes sham parliamentary elections apparently provided the regime with incentive to finally own up to its early failures to contain the disease. The regimes sham parliamentary election met an unprecedented nationwide boycott, even though the regimes authorities extended voting hours on the day of the election after urging everyone to participate as a religious and patriotic duty. But just days removed from the acknowledgement of a coronavirus outbreak, those same authorities were ultimately forced to blame the low turnout on health concerns, not political disaffection.

It was vitally important for the regime to promote this narrative, given that the election took place only about a month after student protests that condemned Tehran for attempting to cover up an incident in which a commercial airliner was struck by a missile belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Perhaps even more significantly, that protest in turn took place less than two months after a nationwide anti-regime uprising during which the IRGC opened fire on crowds, killing over 1,500 peaceful, pro-democracy protesters.

The uprising itself was a sign of a growing public desire for regime change, as well as the increasing influence of the MEK, and its leading role during the uprising. Less than two years earlier, during another uprising in January 2018, mullahs Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei acknowledged that the MEK had played a major role in planning the demonstrations and popularizing slogans like death to the dictator.

The legacy of these uprisings certainly contributed to the low voter turnout last February, but the regime quickly seized upon the Covid-19 pandemic to muddy the waters on this issue. Afterwards, without undertaking any measures to seriously confront the crisis, the regime was also free to leverage it against the threat of further public demonstrations.

In the midst of the third wave it has become clear all over again that Tehran is keen to absolve itself of responsibility for slowing the spread, and to place it squarely on the people. The government has not acknowledged any of its own failings as reasons for the rising death tolls, but has proclaimed that ordinary citizens are not abiding by health experts recommendations. It has done this even in the absence of large-scale protests of the sort that defined the past two years. It is easy to imagine how the regimes authorities would demonize such demonstrations in the presence of a worsening outbreak.

If the outbreak had already begun before the end of 2019, why wait until six weeks into 2020 before citing the outbreak as incentive for disaffected Iranians to stay home? Its because January marked an all-important 40th anniversary celebration of the founding of the regime and authorities had gone to great lengths to organize public displays intended to counter the message of the mass protests.

State television cameras were trained on parades and gatherings that marked that anniversary, and the numbers of participants were reportedly padded by mandating attendance for government employees while providing free travel and other incentives to poor, rural families to travel into Tehran and other major cities.

Afterwards, acknowledging the coronavirus became not only an option but an imperative for the regime, as it promised to help stall the resumption of those protests. But of course, the regime couldnt very well acknowledge the full extent of the outbreak, especially in the wake of its stage-managed anniversary gatherings. Doing so would have revealed that authorities not only failed to contain an emerging public health threat but actually amplified that threat with super-spreader events that encouraged nationwide travel.

The very existence of those events goes a long way toward explaining and further legitimizing the MEKs death toll estimates. And as the Resistance continues to spread awareness of those estimates among a population that has already participated in multiple nationwide uprisings, the threat of further protest only continues to grow. This in turn explains why the regime has just now begun to acknowledge higher infection rates and death tolls. The worse the public health crisis appears, the easier it is for authorities to discourage political gatherings. In addition, the situation is worsened, is because of the regimes inaction.

Furthermore, the worse the crisis appears, the easier it is for some of those authorities to justify across-the-board crackdowns under the guise of preventing the spread of infection. Accordingly, responsibility for Irans coronavirus response has long been vested not in the Health Ministry but in the IRGC the very same force that killed 1,500 protesters at this time last year.

On October 31, Brigadier General Hossein Salami boasted to Iranian state media that a door-to-door operation will go underway in search of the coronavirus carriers. Naturally, the IRGC will be turning that operation into a series of instances of intimidation and unwarranted property searches. Indeed, this is exactly what should be expected, especially in light of the recent increase in reports of the IRGC attacking, humiliating, and even killing citizens on the streets of Iranian cities.

This phenomenon surely reflects growing concerns among regime authorities about the threat of renewed public unrest. And today, that threat comes not only from unresolved issues related to the past two years uprisings, but also from the regimes mismanagement of the very same public health crisis it has been trying to exploit to keep people from re-raising those issues.

See original here:
Iran's Regime Ramps up Coronavirus Warnings to Match Escalating Threat of Public Unrest - NCRI - National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

House Republicans exceeded Election Day expectations, knocking off at least five targeted incumbent Democrats in 2020. While Democrats will maintain a slimmer majority in the House, CBS News projects Democrats are still likely to lose several more races, including two in Florida.

Both parties anticipated that the political environment going into Tuesday's election would expand the House Democratic majority and predicted gains ranging from 5 to 18 seats. But from Miami to New Mexico to Des Moines, Republican congressional candidates outperformed polls and pundits that predicted another "blue wave" that would keep even the most vulnerable House Democrats afloat.

"We lost members who shouldn't have lost," Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger said on a Thursday call with the Democratic caucus, first reported by The Washington Post. "Tuesday, from a congressional standpoint, was a failure." CBS News has her leading by over a percentage point with 96% of the vote in. Her opponent Republican Nick Freitas has not yet conceded.

Democrats and Republicans have different theories for their pre-election miscalculations. Some wondered if Trump voters hid their alliances from pollsters and then turned out in high numbers on Election Day. Consistent Republican attack ads on Democrats on socialism and the "defund the police" movement seemed to take a toll on Democrats.

COVID-19 likely cost Democrats, too, when they chose to eschew in-person canvassing for much of the campaign season for safety reasons, while Republicans did not. The GOP-backed Congressional Leadership Fund allocated $10 million towards a "ballot chase" program and more on-the-ground field operations.

Democrats' assessments of districts they thought were in reach may simply have been wrong. And the lack of a third pandemic relief package or the unpopularity of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi among Republicans, independents and progressives may also have hurt some candidates.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had designated at least 47open seats or Republican incumbentsto flip this cycle and grow their caucus. But by Friday, they had picked up just three of those targets. In Texas, which they often referred to as "Ground Zero" for their potential pickups, Democrats are set to lose all ten of their targeted seats.

Congresswoman Cheri Bustos, the Chair of the DCCC, argued on a post-election call with the House Democrat caucus their offensive battlefield forced Republicans to play more defense. But she said she was "furious" with the results and said the committee would be doing a "deep dive" into what happened. She added that "something went wrong here across the entire political world," and she placed much of the blame on faulty polling.

"Our polls, Senate polls, [Governor] polls, Presidential polls, Republican polls, public polls, turnout modeling and prognosticators all pointed to one political environment that environment never materialized," she said according to a source familiar with the call. Other House strategists said they'd be doing their own audit on the polling in the coming weeks.

"House Democrats to recognize that their socialist agenda is completely out of touch with middle-class voters. They scoffed at the reality that they could do any wrong," National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Michael McAdams said of the DCCC's targeting. But he also pointed out that House Republicans were probably helped by having President Trump at the top of the ticket, and the record number of GOP women and minority recruits was also likely helpful.

Republicans may still pick up more seats, though some competitive races are still too close to call or are waiting for absentee ballots to be counted, including two in New York and four in California. The GOP could still be looking at life in the House minority under a potential Biden-Harris administration, but that gap between the two parties may even drop into single digits.

"I'm not going to lie and say that people aren't sad and devastated," said Pennsylvania Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan, a freshman member who is close to several of the Democrats who lost their seats.

"But I think that we all need to take solace in the fact that we retained the House and that it looks like that we'll have a historic victory with the vice president. We have to take solace in that and know that each one of us has played a role in that."

But Democrats are still holding onto their majority, a point made by House Speaker Pelosi on Friday. "We did not win every battle in the House, but we won the war," she said at a press conference. "This is not a zero-sum game, somebody's success here is not taking away from your success there." Pelosi also sent a letter to colleagues on Friday asking for their support in her reelection for Speaker of the House.

California Congressman Ami Bera, who helped lead the DCCC's program for vulnerable members, said there needs to be an unblinking "360-degree" look at what messages employed by Republicans ended up being effective if Democrats want to stay in the majority after 2022.

He said "defunding the police" could have damaged vulnerable Democrats, and that the caucus could have talked about its platform as one of reforming rather than defunding the police more effectively.

"'That's what most of us mean," he told CBS News. "But there might be pockets of the caucus that use that language [of defunding the police]. We've got to have a conversation that if you use that language, it might make a good sound bite, but it might put some of your colleagues in a tougher position to get re-elected and it's not going to help us hold onto the majority."

Republicans needed to achieve a net gain of 17 seats to flip the chamber and are currently on track to see a net gain of at least three seats according to CBS News race calls. After recent redistricting created more Democratic districts, Democrats easily flipped North Carolina's 2nd and 6th Districts. They're also about to pick up Georgia's 7th District in the diversifying Atlanta suburbs, a district they lost by 433 votes in 2018.

The GOP saw success in several targeted districts that President Trump won in 2016, as well as in traditionally Democratic areas. Their first flips of the night were in Florida's 26th and 27th Districts in South Florida. Republicans Carlos Gimenez, the Mayor of Miami-Dade County, and Maria Elvira Salazar were able to unseat freshmen Democrats Debbie Murcarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala. The Associated Press has called these races, and the latest CBS News data shows both Republicans leading with virtually all ballots in.

Salazar, a former Spanish television newscaster, persistently tied Shalala and Democrats to socialism during the campaign and even in her winning remarks. Republicans say the anti-Socialism message resonates with Cuban-Americans in South Florida, a group that also helped Trump surpass his 2016 margins in the state.

"I will not cower to the mob and when faced with the so-called democratic socialists," she said on election night.

Linking Democrats to socialism and the Green New Deal was a tactic employed by Republican House organizations in districts throughout the campaign. They utilized the "Defund the Police" movement to claim Democrats supported it and to warn that it would only lead to more crime.

David McIntosh, a former Indiana Congressman and current president of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth PAC, said the South Florida swings "were incredible."

"We actually didn't think it'd be possible, it's a heavy Democrat base," he said. "People voted for Trump, but they also voted for the agenda: rejection of socialism, for growing the economy, for limited government."

Republican challengers like Stephanie Bice in Oklahoma and Iowa's Ashley Hinson also played up bipartisan inclinations heading into the final weeks of the campaign.

Nebraska GOP Congressman Don Bacon, who won his metropolitan Omaha seat despite Joe Biden's victory in the district, also used this approach. He prevailed in his rematch with Democrat Kara Eastman, a Democrat who had the backing of both establishment and progressive Democrats. He distilled his winning message into "I've delivered bipartisan results," and "my opponent is a Bernie Sanders Democrat."

"And I thought if I could make that stick in the voter's mind, I would win," he said.

He did.

Kimberly Brown contributed to this report

Read the original:
Democrats "devastated" and reflective after House GOP exceeds expectations - CBS News

MADISON, Wis. If there is a symbol of the Wisconsin Democratic comeback following the shock of President Trumps 2016 victory and nearly a decade of being beaten into submission by the Republican state legislature, it is Jill Karofsky.

Ms. Karofsky stunned most of Wisconsin, and herself, when in April she won an 11-point victory in a race for a State Supreme Court seat, during an election the states Republicans blocked its Democratic governor from delaying because of the coronavirus pandemic.

I did not see a path for us to win, Justice Karofsky said during a six-mile run on Monday. But when the polls opened April 7, she said, I went for a run and I came home and I looked at my phone and I saw all those brave people voting in Milwaukee. And thats when I started to have a glimmer of hope.

For Wisconsin Democrats, hope has been something in short supply since 2010, when Republicans won control of the states government and began to systematically dismantle a progressive political infrastructure built up over generations.

While Justice Karofskys race was officially nonpartisan, her allies made the battle lines clear the contest was a referendum on Mr. Trump and Republican governance in the state. And her victory, with its surprise margin, provided an important psychological boost to a party beaten down by the states dominant Republicans and still spooked by 2016, when Hillary Clinton, who never visited the state, lost Wisconsin by just 22,748 votes a margin seared into the memory of the states top Democrats.

Only in the final hours of the 2020 campaign, when more than half the states voters had cast pre-Election Day ballots, did Wisconsin Democrats allow themselves to say out loud that they believed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. would carry the state by a healthy margin when counting was expected to be completed on Wednesday.

It is a bullishness borne of the combination of high turnout in Madison and Milwaukee, signs they had won back some rural Democrats who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, and the feeling that, since 2016, they have finally won more than theyve lost. Democrats also believe that a recent statewide surge in coronavirus cases has helped refocus voters on the presidents handling of the pandemic.

After Mrs. Clintons loss in Wisconsin, Democrats here began organizing from the ground up. The Democratic National Committee and other liberal organizations began in 2017 to make investments in the state that the party neglected during the Obama years. In 2019, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin elected as its chairman Ben Wikler, a veteran Moveon.org organizer who in the last 18 months has raised record sums for the party, bringing in more than twice the funds as his Republican counterparts.

All this took place in the ashes of the devastating 2016 contest, when Democrats were certain of a victory, but disinclined to do much to make one happen.

During that campaign, Mandela Barnes, who would be elected lieutenant governor two years later, asked people to pose with him in photographs for Mrs. Clintons Instagram page. People were like, Ehhh, I dont really know about that. Mr. Barnes said. I was like, Were friends! But also, damn.

But despite the new optimism, after so many searing defeats, there is a sense among voters that nothing is to be taken for granted.

For the past 10 years its been like living with a boot on our necks, said Andy Olsen, a policy advocate for an environmental organization who spent Tuesday morning reminding voters at Madisons Monona Terrace to text three friends to remind them to vote, too. We kept getting knocked down and trying to get back up again. People are cautious about getting their hopes up too much.

Even before the April court election, there were already signs that the states fragile Trump coalition was crumbling. Republican margins in the Milwaukee suburbs dropped precipitously during the 2018 midterm elections, while Democrats clawed back some of the voters Mr. Trump won in 2016, especially in the Fox Valley, a key battleground region of the state.

Without Mrs. Clinton as a foil, many of these voters began to judge Mr. Trump on his own and didnt like the results.

I voted for Trump four years ago out of default, said Ted Schartner, a plasterer from Green Bay who voted for Mr. Biden last Wednesday. I regretted it almost right away. I didnt like the way things were heading.

While voters were coming to terms with a Trump presidency, Wisconsin Democrats found themselves digging out of their collective nadir. Not only was it the first time since 1984 that a Republican had carried the states electoral votes, but Democrats were locked out of state government, gerrymandered into a deep minority in the state legislature and facing a State Supreme Court controlled by conservative justices.

By the time Mr. Trump won the White House, Wisconsinites had already gotten used to the constant partisan warfare that would define his administration.

You go to a gathering of friends and it turns into politics right away, said Roben Haggart, who has served as Minocquas town clerk for 22 years. It always turns into an argument.

Mr. Trumps victory here led to talk that Wisconsin, with its large population of white working-class voters, had become a fixture of the Republican Electoral College map, out of reach for Democratic candidates.

Nov. 7, 2020, 6:28 p.m. ET

The states Democratic infrastructure was in shambles, but little by little voters began to turn against Mr. Trump. In January 2018, a Democrat won a special election to a rural State Senate district Mr. Trump had carried by 17 points. That fall, Democrats rode anger against Mr. Trump to a sweep of the statewide elections, ousting Scott Walker, a two-term governor who had crippled the states public-sector labor unions.

In June 2019, Wisconsin Democrats elected as their state chairman Mr. Wikler, who had moved his family into his childhood home in Madison. Mr. Wikler brought an organizing and fund-raising heft the state had never seen. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has raised $58.7 million in the last two years, more than twice the haul for the states Republicans.

Trumps win, in a lot of ways, accelerated and pushed forward necessary change within our party, said Alex Lasry, a senior official for Milwaukees pro basketball franchise who is weighing a run for the seat of Ron Johnson, a Republican senator, in 2022. Democrats realized we cant just sit on the sidelines in these off-year elections.

Representative Mark Pocan, a Madison Democrat, said Mr. Bidens campaign and Mr. Wiklers leadership created a dramatically different political landscape than four years ago.

The Biden campaign is 180 degrees different than what we had four years ago, Mr. Pocan said. One important difference: Mr. Biden has visited Wisconsin three times since the primary. The candidate never came post-primary four years ago, we had no resources specifically for Wisconsin or very little resources.

The 2016 contest was marked by a drop in turnout among Black voters in Milwaukee, who are now a key part of Mr. Bidens hopes for a Wisconsin victory.

The Rev. Greg Lewis, the executive director of the Milwaukee Souls to the Polls effort, said the Black electorate in the city had changed, thanks in part to Mr. Trumps presidency. Since 2012, Mr. Lewis said, the money that was absent in 2016 is now flowing to community leaders for get-out-the-vote efforts, just as Black Milwaukeeans have become more engaged in removing Mr. Trump.

These groups werent active four years ago, because we didnt have funding or resources to do any of the things were doing right now, Mr. Lewis said. I just think the Democratic Party didnt come into the community enough to energize and make sure that people were willing to do what needs to be done.

By October, Wisconsins coronavirus spike was among the worst in the country and by far the worst of any presidential battleground state. The presidents approval rating on the pandemic in Wisconsin had fallen from 51 percent in March to just 40 percent, according to a Marquette Law School poll.

Weve got people that are supposed to be leading the country that have just thrown up their hands and said, theres nothing we can do about this pandemic which is just demonstrably not true, said Kate Walton, an emergency room nurse in Madison who said she voted for Mr. Biden.

One after another, Biden voters across the state in the last week said their votes were motivated primarily by a desire to oust Mr. Trump.

I wouldnt vote for Trump for nothing, even if you paid me all the money he says hes worth, said Terri Konkol, a 58-year-old Milwaukeean who on Saturday voted for Mr. Biden from her wheelchair. She blamed the president for the viruss spread in the state. In our whole lifetimes have we ever had to wear masks?

Rose Goeb, 62, a Milwaukee preschool teacher, voted early for Mr. Biden on one of the first days she could.

Of Mr. Trump, she said, I made up my mind a long time ago that this man does not have the character or discipline to be president.

And on Tuesday in Madison, among a line of voters waiting to cast ballots when the polls opened at 7 a.m. was Helen Hawley, an artist who was inspired by Senator Bernie Sanders and a fierce desire to remove Mr. Trump.

Its hard to be hopeful about anything right now, said Ms. Hawley, 40. But its better to have hope than to not. Hope is just something I hold onto because its a good idea.

Reid J. Epstein reported from Madison, Wis., and Astead W. Herndon from Milwaukee.

Go here to read the rest:
After 2016 Shock, Wisconsin Democrats Picked Themselves Off the Floor - The New York Times

Republican Stacy Garrity and incumbent Democrat Joe Torsella are waiting to learn who will be the states treasurer come January.

Torsella, considered a potential gubernatorial or U.S. Senate candidate, said his major accomplishments as state treasurer include setting up a scholarship program that begins for children at birth and leading a lawsuit against large Wall Street banks over their bond fees.

The lawsuit resulted in a nearly $400 million settlement over the price fixing claims, money that is being split with other plaintiffs. He has also moved more of the states investments into index funds, putting the state on track to save hundreds of millions of dollars in investment fees in the coming decades.

Torsella, 57, a resident of Flourtown, served as former President Barack Obamas envoy for United Nations management and reform, headed the National Constitution Center, and was former Gov. Ed Rendells choice to serve as chairperson of the Pennsylvania State Board of Education.

Garrity, 56, retired as a colonel in 2016 after 30 years with the Army Reserves. She is vice president of a tungsten smelting plant.

Garrity, who lives in Athens in Bradford County, wants to use the treasury departments leverage to push lawmakers and the governor to limit spending to money that has been formally appropriated by the Legislature and end the executive branchs spending of money outside the pre-approval process.

More:

Joe Biden wins Pennsylvania, has enough votes to become Americas 46th president: AP

Biden votes pour in from Philly, yet he might have won the election in Pa.'s red counties

Continue reading here:
Pa. treasurers race between incumbent Democrat and Republican challenger still up in the air - PennLive