Under the Bus

Sometimes, we are fortunate enough to receive “manna from heaven”. To that point, I became aware of a post made by Michael Smith announcing his withdrawal as a candidate for DPO Vice Chair’s election this Sunday at the DPO 1st Quarter State Central Committee (SCC) Meeting and reorganization; which, is posted with these comments.

In it, he portrays himself as a crusader and now a martyr. He wallows and roils in self-pity. Which, is to be expected as he is a bully and a coward as bullies inherently are.

When the DPO Gun Owner’s Caucus came into existence and it was time for Caucus Chairs to file their DPO reports of the previous calendar year’s activities and financial status, Smith copied three female Caucus Chairs in an email sent to the Executive Director, I believe, in which he falsely and without any proof at all accused me (Stonewall Caucus), Rosa Colquitt (Black Caucus), and Chrissie Erguiza (APIPA Caucus) of being remiss in filing our respective caucus reports. Smith sought to disparage and malign the three women that chaired three minority caucuses without any regard for facts.

I responded, copying all, calling out his male chauvinism and sprint to false judgement. He apologized, but beforehand, Rosa personally thanked me for call him on his sexist claim. On multiple occasions he asked for my personal endorsement, which I freely gave. It is my understanding that his personal animosity and tireless efforts to discredit and ruin me were the result of having unequivocally opposed something he had pitched.

Sorry, one does not seek retribution or revenge because another is enthusiastically acting in that way against them. Anyone reading this is free to believe anything they wish, but no one is entitled to their own facts.

Smith speaks of saving he and his spouse the trauma of running a campaign. He thinks nothing of waging a persistent and unmerited personal war of misinformation against a 71-year-old, disabled, transgender woman and its effects on my 83-year-old wife. He ensured that my life and reputation were destroyed, but he is just misunderstood.

He is/was a lifetime member of the MultDem and DPO TERF club. He is every bit as much of a DPO insider as any of the candidates for DPO Vice Chair. Rosa, the penultimate insider and transactional Chair that the DPO has ever suffered: willingly, by all the DPO Officers I served with in the four years prior to last December’s DNC election. I am the only one that challenged Rosa and her wanton and vengeful reign of terror and, among other significant instances of malfeasance regarding her role as DPO Chair and the willingness of any of my fellow DPO Officers/Admin members to neither join me in my email documentation, nor lodge any individual protests.

It was my intention this morning to begin my post documenting Rosa’s numerous violations. If other than toadies such as Diane Grover, Eleanor Wynn, and their quasi-Progressive agenda for the DPO, which resembles Trump and his reign of terror more than anything progressive of in the best interest of the DPO , The current DPO Chair is a vengeful tyrant bent on vengeance and an autocrat enabled by the DPO Executive Director and the DPO attorney.

Also, must not forget to discuss current DPO Vice Chair (female) Eileen Kiely, who was a charter member of ‘Team Rosa’ in 2023, and the abject character assassination waged against me in their personal interest. I do not believe she can prove any of the allegations she made against me.

--more--

To paraphrase and old saw, “There are lies, damned lies, and Kelie McWilliams.”

It began with her approaching me at April 29th thru May 1st, 2022, at the COVID-delayed Biannual Summit in Sun River. After introducing Brandon Wolf, who survived the Pulse Nightclub slaughter and co-founded the “Dru Project, the featured speaker at the Saturday morning breakfast—it was the second time I had the privilege of introducing him at a Democratic event.

After breakfast ended, I sat in one of the spacious and comfortable armchairs at the front of the lobby. I had no sleep the night before and hope that I might nap if I sat there long enough. Mainly, I was working on a speech to award her the DPO Volunteer of the Year, which she shared with the late Luwanda Manning. It was I that nominated and pushed her for the award. She told me that she had specifically asked that I present the award to her at the Saturday night dinner.

Senator Jeff Merkley (OR), who I had the honor of introducing at a prior Saturday night event, and an aide approached me to say hello and ask if I enjoyed a recent event that they had made it possible for me to attend. I thanked him and told him I had indeed, and they walked off to another event I suspected. Both of Oregon’s U.S. Senators have always been gracious and considerate. Not that I do not usually agree with Senator Ron Wyden (OR), but I am unable to think of an occasion when I have ever disagreed with Merkley. Either way, Oregon is very fortunate.!

As the Senator and his aide departed, a smiling woman I had never seen before, much less met, approaches me and thanks me for the work I did regarding trans, nonbinary, and intersex siblings, and to introduce herself. We chatted briefly and then she left me to return to my work.

Slightly over sixty days later, she joins in with a Facebook troll and thought-police troupe and almost immediately joins with Shani Harris-Bagwell, Robin Stevens, Eileen Kiely, and eventually Rosa Colquitt labeling me a racist, white supremacist, and segregationist. She repeatedly engaged in libel and slander, making unfounded accusations based on hearsay, purely anecdotal evidence, bits of whole cloth, and pure wishful thinking. Ask her to provide proof, cite an occasion, and specifically what I have done in the way of recrimination or out of revenge.

Within a few days of the Harris-Bagwell personal assault, I quit posting about it. While, on the other hand, they were only warming up on July 2, by attacking me on my page, including notifying over 350 mutual friends that she was “unfriending me”, which as I recall, she “shared” with a private group on the “Just Us Delegates” (JUD) page, of which I was also a member at that time. Curiously, she made no comments or objections on that page to the very same cartoon that she attacked me over on my personal page.

Within one week of the personal attack by Harris-Bagwell and her allies, I heard rumblings that they were busy creating serious trouble for me. They were the only ones engaging in retaliation and retribution at that time and ever since.

She evidently attacked me for not respecting her as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have to be honest, I had no reason to believe that she was, and I do not “out” people or ask uncomfortable and invasive questions that potentially threaten their senses of welfare and safety. She uses female pronouns, and you were unknown to the DPO Stonewall Caucus (Stonewall) and had never participated in any of the Pride events the Caucus attended. I only learned that you identify as nonbinary within the past two years or less.

When McWilliams first started out and, on recall, she piously assured people that she was not out to disrespect or do harm to my reputation, just that I was unfit for either office or pasture as it turned out. She is an ageist on top of her other delightful virtues.

When the immediate past Chair of Stonewall asked me if was willing to work with any of the members that had acted against me, I did not hesitate and said I would. However, it appears that they refused to work with me and stated I would never be welcome or allowed to participate in one of their Prides. And they believe they are fit to lead Stonewall!

Not content with any of her other lies and operating only on hearsay—as she was not in attendance at the DPO 2023 leadership retreat on Zoom, where I very regrettably was evidently overheard on a theretofore unknown ‘hot mic’. I spoke briefly when asked by Chair KC Hanson to introduce myself, and that was the only time I turned on my microphone. I made other comments to myself, sometimes the cat, that were never heard.

I believed that not only had my microphone been muted all along, but that I had exited the online meeting. I understand that Rosa was not even speaking when I evidently was overheard saying, “You can kiss my ass, Rosa.” I was not even aware that my spontaneous private utterance had been heard by any, as my cat was not present when it happened, and my wife was not in the room.

I only became aware of it when a friend called to ask if I knew that I had been overheard saying something about Rosa, which I did not. I asked if they knew what I had said, but they did not. By that time it was too late to do anything about it that day. I believed that if I had said anything questionable or out of order, I would hear from KC or possibly Brad. The only thing I heard or read about it was a post on the JUD page that a friend referred me to. It was a hearsay post by McWilliams with further comments by Stevens on Facebook.

McWilliams writes that “our Michelle Risher” unmuted herself to attack Rosa, and follows that up by stating that they hoped that I would stop my alleged evil ways after the recall attempt, but I had only gotten worse. The greatest shame of it all is that the DPO Chair was evidently bullied by McWilliams into writing that I had continued to had continued to offend, when there was and is absolutely no proof and there will never be. The rest of the DPO Admin/Officers (Rosa abstained) likewise signed on to an over the top reprimand long on blame and short on truth.
Stevens, always ready to pile-on, followed that up with post stating there were, as I recall, 62 letters of complaint that had been filed against, which I already knew was a lie regarding the DPO. She, like McWilliams has made libelous and slanderous allegations about me.

If it were because I held State Rep. Nosse’s feet to the fire over support of the Stonewall’s anti-bullying amendment at a Multnomah County Democrats (MultDems) which was a Stonewall priority and every Q***r candidate in 20222 for the Oregon Senate or House—to the best of my knowledge—was asked or their support in making it happen, I meant no disrespect. I wanted an answer and let up when the MultDems Chair spoke up.

The only way that 62 letters would have been written objecting to my refusal to be once again put off again by Nosse would have been due to a writing campaign organized by my accusers. I would appreciate viewing the 62 to which Stevens refers, complete with names, proof of voter registration, and original unedited allegations in the whole if she intends to persist with this claim.

Her total disrespect and abject indifference, and she is not alone, to one who deals with essentially chronic major depression and daily attacks of PTSD due to the campaign. She has made unfounded comments about my “anger” and there being no medical diagnosis for it. She is not a mental health practitioner of any sort and is in no way qualified or licensed therapist/counselor of any sort.

Here's a challenge. I am possibly the only DPO State Central Committee (SCC) member to have attended forty consecutive quarterly SCC meetings without having missed one in ten years. Likewise I have never missed a Biannual Summit, a platform and resolution convention, or a leadership retreat. In all that time, save one possibility, at the 2023 3rd Quarter Platform Convention and SCC Meeting in Mammoth, I was a bit vocal about the DPO Executive Director’s interference in SCC matters and backing Rosa’s blatant disregard of RNR on a properly made call for division of the house and the DPO Executive Director trying to tell SCC members to suck-it-up and move-on.

There is no debate, one goes straight to the vote. Our late Parliamentarian had ruled that we should move to the vote, but Rosa overruled it and moved quickly on to rush through the rest of the meeting. It was a vote requiring approval by two-thirds of the SCC delegate body and it was an inconclusive voice vote.

But that is enough for now. I am headed off to bed.

--more--

Over the past two years and five months, there has not been a single day where the events that began with Shani Harris-Bagwell’s personal and racial attack has not haunted my waking thoughts. Thanksgiving was two nights ago. The day before that I was fishing with three good people on my friend’s new Kingfisher 2425 Escape HD out of Depoe Bay.

We caught our individual limits of two lingcod and five rockfish, totaling eight lingcod and twenty rockfish. The eighth lingcod was the next fish caught five minutes after catching our twentieth rockfish.

This was the first time out fishing with his new boat, we took our limiting as a blessing from the quite arbitrary gods of fishing and an excellent omen for his wonderful boat! And so I digress, a dilatory response I have to discussing things of significance needing either immediate attention and/or refutation past and present, with facts.

I tend over the next three to four days to address the major allegations against me two years ago, by a coalition: then Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO) Vice Chair (VC) Rosa Colquitt; Polk County Democrats (PCD) First Vice Chair Kelie McWilliams; Multnomah County Democrats (MCD) state central committee member Robin Stevens; then DPO Secretary Eileen Kiely; and Shani Harris-Bagwell who was a P*P—possibly state central committee (SCC) member or alternate.

I think it most beneficial to address it in chronological order of the events leading up to the attempted recall two years ago. Therefore I will begin with the March of 2022 Winter ASDC/DNC meeting at the Washington Hilton where a particularly odious and patently false claim was made that I threatened to “hack the balls” of a gay man of color. The individual I actually had words with was a gay white attorney from California and had to do with appropriating my agenda for their own and the manner in which I was treated by this individual during and subsequent to my becoming the first transgender DNC member to dare run for Chair of the DNC LGBTQ Caucus.

In the referenced exchange that occurred at an afterhours event, it was of short duration, during which he said nothing. When I finished saying what was on my mind at that time. We both turned and walked away. I have since personally apologized to him at a DNC event. While it bore no resemblance to Kelie McWilliams hearsay of hearsay that could have well come from Stephen Miller, I was not proud of how I handled the situation.

It was glaringly obvious that its intent was to discredit me with the LGBTQ+ community and its allies-- as well as communities of color—in the DPO. It was not about fairness, ethics, or facts. They went as far as to label me a “trans misogynist” knowing that very few that read or heard it had the faintest idea of what the term actually meant. It was frivolously employed and wielded in the hope that their comments would destroy my life and reputation for their own political and personal gain and amusement. A trans misogynist is an individual who believes that trans women are inferior and not real women; it is not a trans person who is a misogynist.

(More to come soon…)