Alexandra Chandler is running for Congress in MA-3 and I am her deputy campaign manager. I wanted to share her complete statement on Trump’s SCOTUS pick:
Donald Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court, and he will likely shape the future of our country for generations to come.
In 2016, Mitch McConnell blocked Merrick Garland from filling Justice Scalia’s seat. Now, McConnell and the President are teaming up to steamroll Kavanaugh to confirmation. His extensive record indicates he will put ordinary Americans last, and special interests and corporations first, in a 5-4 ideologically extreme majority on our Supreme Court. The rights of workers, women, immigrants, and LGBT people are particularly vulnerable, and the protection of our environment. But Kavanaugh’s views on executive power are possibly the most disturbing aspect of his nomination.
Now is not the time for the President, who is under an investigation that could make its way to the Supreme Court — to be allowed to appoint a justice who has written about why presidents should be exempt from “time-consuming and distracting” investigations, especially in “times of financial or national security crisis.”
The Senate should refuse to consider Brett Kavanaugh, let alone confirm him, until the Mueller investigation is complete.
But if they do confirm him, we will need a new Congress that is ready to do what an ever-more extreme Supreme Court will not: defend our rights, and to be a check on the President’s power. The incoming class of representatives from the 2018 election will make the difference to millions of Americans’ daily lives. The best course of action we have to stop the damage to our democracy from the executive and the judicial branches is to check them with the legislative branch.
I’ll be #ReadyOnDayOne to check this Administration at home and abroad. I’m a former Intelligence Community leader and a law school graduate. I know the law, and I have expertise from community healthcare to LGBTQ advocacy. I was standing with striking workers earlier today, and have protested in front of ICE.
Join me: https://www.alexandrachandler.com/join-us/. I’m a fighter, and I’m ready to stand up for your rights, for equality, and for justice. #MA3 #mapoli #SaveSCOTUS
This is why I, and so many in growing numbers, particularly in policy communities, support Alexandra Chandler over her many talented and excellent opponents.
Only Alexandra Chandler has the policy chops and intelligence community experience to buck up the New Democratic Majority in the House as they confront and supersede this aberrant ‘president’.
She also has a spine of steel to put herself forth as a trans person in such a rabid time of empowered bigots, and Democrats are persistently impressed when she speaks at forums and other candidate events.
Have YOU seen Alexandra Chandler in person at a candidate forum or other public event or house party? If not, I suggest you do so! I politely suggest that you too will be inspired.
Inspiration, determination, and competence is what we Democrats need this November. And to tackle the upcoming and challenging year of 2019, we need renewed confidence and hope.
Just as she has in the past in the intelligence community and in health care, Alexandra Chandler will deliver on her next mission.
Come out and meet her in person.
The MA-03 primary race is crowded, and there are many candidates — too many:
https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts%27_3rd_Congressional_District_election,_2018
We have a little bit of everything the Democrats love: an old entrepreneur, a member of the “national security” establishment, a hotel mogul, a DNC flak who earned his ambassadorship to Denmark, a Stow lawyer and selectman, a young Harvard MBA, a state senator, a state rep who sponsored the SCA, another entrepreneur with a compelling personal story of being an immigrant, and another goddamned entrepreneur with an Ipana smile. Of all the candidates, I like Juana Matias the best and Popha Malone the second best. Sorry, we don’t need any more members of the national security establishment or sharks from corporate boardrooms running the country. They already are.
Why do you have such a vendetta against Chandler? – sounds personal.
I might ask in turn why you are accusing me personally of some dark, personal motive or “vendetta.” I have nothing against Chandler personally, just don’t feel we need more people like her in government. Let’s try this again. Please note the key sentence (bolded for your convenience).
“Sorry, we don’t need any more members of the national security establishment or sharks from corporate boardrooms running the country. They already are..”
I would much prefer candidates strong on immigration, criminal justice reform, and economic justice. In short, that excludes your candidate.
I would like to know how Chandler would vote on bills like this, which increases funding for the intelligence apparatus.
Among the MA delegation.
Yea – Keating, Kennedy, Lynch, Neal, Tsongas
Nay – Capuano, Clark, McGovern
Did not vote – Moulton (I suspect he would have been a Yea if he was in town)
I would turn this around and say that it is more important than ever in 2018 to elect national security establishment types. It is urgent and critical that Congress do what can be done to halt and reverse the dismantlement of our Atlantic alliances, reverse course on trade (which is not just in our economic interest but in the interest of national security), deter rather than reward Russian and Chinese territorial aggrandizement (Crimea, the South China Sea), etc. We have spent the last seventy years creating a world order that has more or less kept the peace. It is being destroyed as we (and the Congress) watch.
The Democrats slept through Georgia and Crimea and in some ways, got what they deserved for foolishly pushing for a reset instead of Containment 2.0. The reverse polarization on Russia has been fascinating. The Democrats are now more hawkish on Russia than the Romney they mocked in 2012, while the GOP in Congress and the White House is acting dangerously like a Fifth Column in covering up Russian interference in the 2016 election.
I think what is needed from the United States right now is some consistency. The NATO nations need to know that we have their back. Estonia needs to know America is willing to shed the blood of its sons and daughters to protect its sovereignty, and Russia needs to know this too. President Obama gave a Reagan/Kennedyesque speech in Estonia in the twilight of his presidency making this very promise. Trump has tweeted it to shreds this week. Tearing up comprehensive and painstakingly negotiated treaties on climate and Iran disarmanement while trading away our leverage over North Korea for magic beans. I would be very nervous about the upcoming summit with Putin.
This man is dangerous, he despises Western values, despise gays and Muslims, and will undercut our foreign policy any chance he can get. Obama and Bush were naive in underestimating him, but their naïveté cannot hold a candle to the incumbent who has turned our country into a client state for some of the worst actors in the global stage. We need to reassert American leadership and I am glad some members of our delegation are willing to do this without endorsing the excesses of nation building and regime change.
What I don’t get is how pushing for vastly increased NATO military spending, and attacking the Russia to Germany pipeline advances the Putin agenda.
It’s plausible, of course, that this is just a smokescreen on Trump’s part, but in that case I wonder about theory which can’t be disproved by any evidence.
I think you were closer to the truth when you referenced Trump’s tearing up the Iran treaty.
You don’t think dividing the alliance helps Putin? Particularly when the Merkel government is on shaky ground with its right flank? I think it does, the smokescreen is there for the Fox News crowd. He’s tougher than that Euro loving Obama on Putin which is why he’ll negotiate a great deal they’ll say.
Maybe. But if NATO doesn’t fall apart, and military spending increases, that hardly seems to be to Putin’s advantage. Or if Trump’s attack on the pipeline messes up that deal, Putin is in much worse shape.. Russia needs that pipeline more than Germany.
Oh absolutely. In many ways, Putin is a paper tiger which is why he has to beat the West asymmetrically with cyber attacks and election psy-ops (and not just in the US). I do think the economic containment President Obama started is beginning to take its toll. Trump is attacking Merkel for the same reasons be is attacking May. He doesn’t like women in power and he doesn’t trying to maintain the western liberal democratic order. He’d much rather hang with authoritarians. It was also a signal to the Bannonites back home that Trump is still their guy. It still helps Putin by driving a wedge between the US and her traditional allies.
I figured Trump attacking Merkel regarding deals with Russia was just another example of projection.
Ms. Chandler has already articulated progressive stances in thoughtful posts on those very issues. She also made thoughtful replies to frankly hostile questions about regulating our intelligence services. I share doublemans concerns below, I think his question is fair and should be answered by the candidate. That said, I think having a litmus test that says nobody in the intelligence community can run for office is a pretty silly one.
I could care less who wins the nomination in the CD-3, whoever wins the nomination will do so with the support of a tenth to an eighth of the Democrats of the district, at best. This race cries out for ranked choice voting. However, Chandler has come here often and been very thoughtful in her responses. In this climate, we need more intelligence and foreign policy experts in Congress, not fewer.
She’s actually not my candidate. I’m supporting Barbara L’Italien. I do think you have unfairly attacked her on several occasions and have this image of her that does not match reality.