Justin Smeltzer

Workers Strike Back member
UAW member

[Justin Smeltzer @JustinSmeltzer]

@Channel5iveNews @democracynow @StatusCoup @TheRealNews @BTnewsroom @hasanthehun @democracyatwrk @DropSiteNews @adam_talkshow

We have a real shot to win this historic campaign to elect @cmkshama and none of y'all are anywhere to be found.

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

.@briebriejoy asks left podcasters and influencers who promoted Graham Platner's campaign:

"You created Graham Platner, why are you ignoring Kshama Sawant?"

"I just would really like folks to ask themselves: Why did I immediately glom onto this campaign and boost it? But I have been completely silent about the first elected Socialist City Council person in like a hundred years in American history, who fought for and secured the ... $15 an hour [minimum wage] and made that issue a national one because of her success, and is fighting against Jeff Bezos in Washington state?"

I'm Kshama Sawant and I'm running for Congress as an independent antiwar socialist. I'm fighting to end all military aid to Israel, for a permanent arms embargo on Israel, to win free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich, and to win national rent control and a national $25.hour minimum wage. I was an independent socialist on the Seattle City Council for a decade, and I used my office to win the nation's highest minimum wage, the Amazon Tax, and unprecedented renters' rights.

My main opponent is 29-year incumbent Adam Smith, a general among the warmongers. Adam Smith is the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee and has joined the Republicans in cosponsoring nearly two trillion dollars in war funding just since December. Smith has voted to create and repeatedly fund ICE. He is bankrolled by AIPAC and the billionaire class.

My campaign is the strongest-ever challenge, by far, to Adam Smith and we have a real shot at defeating him. But we are facing a huge media blackout, including from many independent left-wing shows. I call on all left-wing podcasters and independent media outlets to have me on their shows and feature our campaign. Instead of continuing to ignore this chance to throw out a genocidal warmonger from Congress, let’s unite on the basis of our anti-imperialist principles and bring this campaign past the primary on August 4th. I also call on the audience of these outlets to urge the hosts to bring us on. We have less than three weeks before the August 4th primary election and we need to get out every vote that we can.

Having an independent revolutionary socialist in Congress would be a game changer for the working class. My track record proves my commitment to fighting uncompromisingly for working people, and to build mass movements capable of threatening the political establishment and accomplishing real victories. We have a real opportunity to challenge both parties of the billionaire class, but in order to achieve that, we will need the support of people with big platforms that are capable of countering our invisibilization from mainstream media.

Help us send the first independent revolutionary socialist to Congress!

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

Our antiwar socialist campaign for Congress has been out in force all across Washington state's Congressional District 9 talking to tens of thousands of voters and community members.

Sign up to volunteer! Help us GET OUT THE VOTE before the August 4th primary election! https://t.co/PjxEtoGbXk

This past week and weekend, our campaign could be found at

➡️Central District Block Party at Byrd Barr Place
➡️BUILD 206 Block Party
➡️Green River Farm Stand
➡️Federal Way Farmers Market
➡️SeaTac Farmer’s Market
➡️Music at Angle Lake Park
➡️Federal Way Summer Sounds at Steel Lake Park
➡️Des Moines Farmers Market
➡️Kent Cornucopia Days
➡️Kent Music at Morrill Meadows Park
➡️Auburn Farmers Market
➡️Several senior homes where supporters organized for us to come speak in their community room
➡️Doorknocking Seattle's Central District
➡️Tabling at community hubs like light rail stations and local grocery stores

Join us to fight to win free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich, for a permanent arms embargo to Israel, to shut down ICE and the detention centers, to win national rent control and a national $25/hour minimum wage!

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

American working people are horrified by the genocide in Gaza which has now been going on for over a thousand days.

Over half a million Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, according to estimates by The Lancet medical journal. Thousands of medical workers and journalists have been targeted and murdered, including in double tap strikes systematically designed to kill those who arrived to try to rescue others from the rubble.

The backbone of this holocaust of the 21st century is the shocking amount of military support from U.S. imperialism and their two parties, the Democratic and Republican parties. The genocide started under Democratic President Biden in 2024, and 173 House Democrats voted for tens of billions of dollars for the genocide in Gaza that year.

Military funding for Israel is continuing unabated, and has had bipartisan approval in the U.S. Congress EVERY year. The blood of all these people, many of them children, is on the hands of each and every Democratic and Republican politician in the U.S. Congress who has voted to send military aid to Israel.

My opponent, Democrat Adam Smith, has voted repeatedly to fund the genocide over the last thousand days and he has also voted to block United Nations food aid to the Palestinians. This has resulted in hundreds of children dying of starvation. He has called antiwar protesters left-wing fascists and demanded that they be arrested. He has taken $1.3 million from Zionist pro-genocide groups like AIPAC and he is a darling of weapons manufactures like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir. Adam Smith has blood all over his hands and he needs to go!

I am the only candidate in this race fighting for an end to:

👉All military aid to Israel
👉All weapons and tech, including AI, for genocide and imperialist war
👉All financing mechanisms for the Israeli military and violent occupation
👉All exports to, and imports from, Israel of weapons and goods that could serve military purposes

I am the only candidate in the race calling for a permanent arms embargo on Israel.

I have pledged that if elected, I will turn my Congressional inauguration into a mass rally of 10,000 people in Washington D.C, and immediately use my office to launch mass movements to end the genocide and end all military aid to Israel.

Help us GET OUT THE VOTE for the August 4th primary election! Donate and sign up to volunteer at https://t.co/sh3zyhgTI7

[Briahna Joy Gray @briebriejoy]

"A lot of people who f*ckin yell at me about Graham Platner being a baby-killer or whatever the f*ck. I don't care anymore. I don't give a shit. I'm team Platner, okay? Here's why." -Hasan Piker

Why did so many left media figures fail to take concerns about Platner's participation in the war machine seriously? And why do they continue to ignore the campaign of @cmkshama, a congressional candidate with a record of anti-imperialism?

https://t.co/KexAWwCzIK

[Justin Smeltzer @JustinSmeltzer]

@NolanEdwar24779 @cmkshama @briebriejoy Join those of us phonebanking for @cmkshama from across the country. You can sign up at Kshamas campaign website.

https://t.co/iGPaD116Cw

[Dr. Jill Stein🌻 @DrJillStein]

We ALL need this ferocious fighter in Congress. Give oligarchy, empire & genocide what they deserve. Contribute, volunteer & if you're in WA CD9, vote for @kshamaSocialist.

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

Solidarity with the workers at Seattle's Embassy Suites, members of UNITE HERE Local 8, who are ON STRIKE!

Workers Strike Back, the national organization I co-founded, has donated $500 to the union's strike fund. We urge all unions, union members, and working people to donate also and join the workers on their picket line!

The workers are demanding year-round healthcare, fair raises, and pre-pandemic staffing levels.

Donate Link: https://t.co/QQYozEubt0

@UniteHereLocal8
@wrkrsstrikeback

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

It's glaringly obvious that @RepAdamSmith backed down because he's afraid of my antiwar socialist campaign & worried that his head could be the next to roll.

But rather than admit this, @cenkuygur praises genocidal AIPAC-bankrolled Adam Smith.

This is classic gatekeeper shit.

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

BREAKING NEWS! My antiwar socialist campaign for Congress is proud to be endorsed by The Stranger newspaper!

The Stranger newspaper was described by The New York Times last December as "a progressive kingmaker." It has a readership of an estimated 400,000 people and is the most important endorsement in the Seattle area.

My campaign is fighting for an end to all military aid to Israel and for free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich. My main opponent is 29-year incumbent Adam Smith, a darling of AIPAC and the war profiteers.

There are only FIVE WEEKS left to go before the August 4th primary election!!

Help us deliver a blow to AIPAC and the pro-genocide Zionist lobby and elect the first-ever revolutionary socialist to the U.S. Congress. Donate and sign up to volunteer now! https://t.co/QZDWPA44EE

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

Our campaign is proud to be endorsed by Chris Hedges!

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, author, and host of the online broadcast The Chris Hedges Report.

In his endorsement, Hedges says:

"I’ve admired and supported the revolutionary socialist Kshama Sawant since she was first elected in 2013 to the Seattle City Council. Her fierce commitment to the working class, her steadfast defiance of the billionaires who destroyed our democracy, and her anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist credentials have long made her a special target.

"The billionaire class has pumped millions of dollars into campaigns to defeat her and orchestrated a recall vote in 2021, which she fought and won.

"Her current campaign for Congress is part of our grassroots struggle to wrest power from the hands of the global ruling class. It is a campaign for free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich. It is a campaign to raise the minimum wage to at least $25 an hour. It is a campaign to block landlords from extorting massive rents and evicting families. It is a campaign to drive politicians like Adam Smith, a tool of big business who is funded by and subservient to the Israel lobby, from Congress.

"In an age when we stand on the cusp of fascism, we cannot rely on the Democratic Party, whose betrayal of the working class and subservience to the rich gave us Trump.

"We need a political earthquake. We need a revolution. But it won’t happen until we stand with revolutionaries like Kshama."

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

Up, up with the workers!
Down, down with the bosses!

My Congressional campaign & I marched this morning with Seattle Embassy Suites hotel workers ON STRIKE!

The workers, members of @UniteHereLocal8, demand year-round healthcare, fair raises, and pre-pandemic staffing levels.

[Chris Hedges @ChrisLynnHedges]

.@cmkshama's revolutionary socialist Congressional campaign shows us how we can turn the weight of the class war back against the billionaires and their political representatives. Watch our conversation on The Chris Hedges Report now.

Link: https://t.co/lFRsA9mafg

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

I joined the workers at The Walrus and the Carpenter restaurant in Ballard in North Seattle yesterday at their STRIKE PICKET!

The workers are unionized in the United Creatures of the Sea (UCS). They are the cooks, servers, and bartenders of the restaurant. They are the workers who produce the profits for the owners, including Renee Erickson, who is one of the most prominent Seattle restaurant owners and owns a mini-empire of restaurants.

The workers have said that they have suffered reduced hours, lost income, diminished benefits and ongoing instability, and they are demanding that the bosses give their union a contract with fair wages and benefits.

It was by workers getting organized and fighting back that we won the $15 an hour minimum wage, led by the 15 NOW movement I launched when I was the revolutionary socialist on the Seattle City Council.

When we were fighting for 15, we had a parade of wealthy business owners claiming that they couldn't pay their workers what could be even remotely described as fair wages. Working people and my office fought back and they exposed these business owners for what they were, bosses profiting from the labor of their employees.

We need nationwide movements of working people against workplace exploitation, war and genocide, ICE terror, the data centers and IA layoffs, and the climate crisis. All of this requires a fight against the billionaires and the multimillionaires. That’s why I am running for Congress. Join us at https://t.co/sh3zyhgTI7.

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

HOTEL WORKERS ARE ON STRIKE!

Our campaign for Congress is in solidarity with the workers, who are members of UNITE HERE Local 8!

We're picketing next to Lumen Field, Seattle's venue for the FIFA games! The workers are fighting for a new union contract that includes year-round healthcare coverage, protections from ICE, fair raises, and a return to pre-pandemic staffing levels.

The union will be picketing until 9 pm PT this evening. Join them at 255 S King St if you live in or near Seattle!

What do we want?
Contract.
When do we want it?
NOW!
If we don't get it, shut it down!

Join this fight against the billionaires.

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

HOTEL WORKERS ARE ON STRIKE!

Seattle’s Embassy Suites workers, members of @UniteHereLocal8, are ON STRIKE for fair raises, healthcare, and staffing.

My campaign and I are at the picket line right now! Join us!

255 S King St, Seattle

Join this fight against the billionaires.

[Matthew Meloy @matthew_meloy]

Dropping these here for a short summary of what Kshama won on the Seattle city council.

Doesn’t include the nations first ban on chemical/crowd control weapons won during the George Floyd uprisings (repealed by the Dems in 2025) among other things.

Kshama currently has 8.5x as many donors as Smith does in district and is the ONLY antiwar/pro-worker candidate in the race @cmkshama

[Briahna Joy Gray @briebriejoy]

Has any elected leftists weighed in on this race between Zionist war monger Adam Smith & Kshama Sawant -- a pro-Palestine socialist who successfully fought for $15 and made it a national issue? Or is this one too close to call?

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

The ongoing attacks in the Middle East are deadly serious. The Israeli state has abandoned even the pretence of the so-called ceasefire with the Iranian state.

We need mass movements to end ALL military aid to Israel, and we need leaders who will unambiguously fight for this demand.

I am an independent revolutionary socialist running for Congress. I have two Democratic Party opponents in this race.

One is 29-year incumbent Democrat Adam Smith, who has sent tens of billions of dollars for the genocide in Gaza. Smith is currently pushing for over a TRILLION NEW dollars for Trump’s wars. His new bill would ALSO merge the U.S. and Israeli militaries.

The second Democrat in this race, Melissa Chaudhry, does not call for an end to military aid to Israel. The words Israel, Gaza, Palestine, and occupation DO NOT EVEN APPEAR on her website. She recently said to a Democratic Party audience that she will be a “team player.”

This is how the Democratic Party operates: they give a choice between an openly-pro imperialist candidate, and a candidate who is running an establishment-friendly campaign and telling us she will be a “team player” with the rest of the Democratic Party.

If the Democratic Party wants to stop Trump’s war on Iran, all they need to do is announce that they are fighting for a bill to cut off military aid to Israel and rally hundreds of thousands of ordinary people to support it. This would be HUGELY popular right now. But not only are Democrats not willing to do that, a majority of them, including Adam Smith, voted in December to give over $906 billion dollars for Trump’s wars.

The Democratic and Republican parties both represent the war profiteering billionaire class. And individual politicians build their careers by trying not to rock the boat.

I am not running to build my career. I am running because we need an antiwar fighter in Congress. We don’t need any more status quo politicians. We need someone who will DISRUPT business as usual. I am fighting for an end to all military aid to Israel, to end all weapons and tech for genocide and imperialist war, and slash the trillion-dollar war budget to fund housing and social services instead.

#socialist #israel #iran

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

There’s only one antiwar, pro-worker campaign in this race.

I am running for Congress as an independent antiwar socialist in WA state’s 9th district.

There are two Democrats running against me. One is 29-year pro-war incumbent Adam Smith, and another is a candidate named Melissa Chaudhry.

I recently attended a candidate interview.

Adam Smith refused to attend. Clearly he prefers not to face my campaign which has relentlessly exposed his genocidal, anti-worker record.

The other candidate, Chaudhry, would have working people believe that she is running a progressive antiwar campaign. But what are her actual positions?

Nowhere has Chaudhry called for an end to military aid for Israel. The words genocide, Palestine, Israel, Gaza, or occupation don’t even appear on her website.

I brought this up in the interview, and Chaudhry declined to respond.

Nowhere does Chaudhry say anything about the need for universal public healthcare.

Chaudhry also fails to say anything in support of trans and queer rights. When pressed, she admitted that she wanted to avoid offending a particular community. This is in the context of the horrific attacks against trans people by Trump and the right wing.

Chaudhry is also silent about shutting down ICE and the detention centers.

Her silence on all these crucial issues — the genocide, military aid to Israel, universal public healthcare, trans and queer rights, and ICE terror — is anything BUT progressive.

Chaudhry recently assured a Democratic Party audience that she is a “team player.” It's clear what she means. She is happy to toe the line of the genocidal, anti-worker, anti-trans Democratic Party leadership to try to make a career for herself.

The last thing working people need is another status quo careerist politician. Congress is full of them.

What we need is a fighter for working people. If elected, I will use my Congressional office to build mass movements, like I did for a decade with my socialist Seattle City Council office, winning the nation’s highest minimum wage, the Amazon Tax and landmark renters’ rights.

Join us to build for the strongest antiwar working-class vote in this primary election that ends August 4th!

#socialist #palestine #gaza

[Kshama Sawant @cmkshama]

My campaign is out here this beautiful Seattle morning with Embassy Suites workers unionized with UNITE HERE Local 8!

We're picketing next to Lumen Field, Seattle's venue for the FIFA games!

What do we want?
Contract.
When do we want it?
NOW!
If we don't get it, shut it down!

The workers have taken a strike authorization vote, with 94% voting yes!

UNITE HERE Local 8 members are fighting for a new union contract that includes year-round healthcare coverage, protections from ICE, fair raises, and a return to pre-pandemic staffing levels.

#fifa
@UniteHereLocal8