The Green Party

Stein's own family want her to drop out.  I once voted for her (2016 and not in a swing state, so my vote meant nothing anyway). I have nothing but disgust for her this time around.  She knows she can't win, and she knows the stakes.

Mehdi Hasan made a good point recently about the Green Party.  He said he (like me) agreed with everything on their platform, but he chided them for showing up every four years to throw off presidential elections they know they have no hope of winning.  He suggested they should be working from the local level up, and only then we can respect and take them seriously.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Dems resort to begging 3rd party candidates to drop out

This pisses me right off.  If Democrats had a better message, better candidates and a proven record, they could win elections.  And if we had a better electoral system, this wouldn't be a problem.  But Dems are just as protective of the two-party system as is the GOP. 

And now, we are exactly where that was inevitably going to lead us:  a horrible government that is unstoppable unless citizens give up their right to vote for the people they most want to have in office in favor of a party that has done them little or no good.

Pisses me off because I'm going to be forced to do that for the first time in my life.

Totally fucked.  And Dems should be ashamed.  Of course, they're not.  They've just gone begging.  It's a short ride to blackmail.

And if they win control of either house, Dems damned well better step up and deliver like they've not done for decades.

Why Jill Stein Is Filing for Recounts in Three States

It’s not to overturn the election results. As the Green Party has maintained all along when the choices are limited to Trump and Clinton we don’t have a dog in that fight.

[...]

The Stein campaign and the Green Party are filing for recounts because persuasive evidence exists that the vote totals were tampered with in several states. The researchers who uncovered these anomalies brought them to Democrats first. But since both capitalist parties are on the same team, Democrats were uninterested.

[...]

We’re fighting to make voting a constitutional right, and to make sure every vote cast is actually counted, something Hillary and her crew care nothing about.

[...]

Democratic shot callers, Democratic funders and the Democratic president have embraced Trump. They’re tagging out, and he’s tagging in.

[...]

Greens care very much about the integrity and security of the election process. We have candidates in local races across the country in 2017 and 2018 to protect.

Hundreds of Green candidates will be running for local office around the country as mayors, aldermen, school board members and the like. They need to know the votes their neighbors cast for them will actually be counted.

[...]

We have local candidates across the country whose elections can be stolen, in many instances by Democrats, if we don’t create a broad movement to prevent it.

[...]

We have to [...] fight for accountable, tamper proof election processes, for the right for everyone to vote and have every vote counted.

[...]

In November 2000 I was working for the Cook County Elections Department under the Cook County Clerk, a prominent local Democrat.

[...]

Like everybody else, we got up Wednesday morning [after the 2000 election] to the news that Florida’s votes were still uncounted. Thursday or Friday morning our office was booking rental cars and flights to parachute a team into Florida to help find those missing votes, or as we joked among ourselves, to bring them with us. About lunch time the Gore campaign and Jesse Jackson both called telling us to stand down and stay home. They called other political operations around the country and told them to stay home too. Scores of Republican congressional staff and other operatives flooded into Florida and the rest is history.

[...]

In supposed response [...] the 107th Congress passed HAVA, the cynically misnamed “Help America Vote Act.” It provided hundreds of millions to states and counties for the purchase of DRE or direct record entry voting machines. DRE machines are supposed to record a voters’ choice directly into electronic storage, which makes verifiable audits and tracking impossible, and renders the manipulation of results untrackable and trivially easy to whoever can access the software running the machines.

[...]

In 2004 [...] Democratic votes in heavily black and brown precincts were lost, left uncounted, falsely labeled “felons” and prevented from casting ballots, or had their votes disappear in the DRE machines in heavily black and brown precincts dropped off the map.

[...]

But Democrats refused to demand the recounts which would be the beginning of any investigation.

[...]

It fell to the 2004 Green Party candidate David Cobb’s campaign (David Cobb is Jill Stein’s 2016 campaign manager) to raise $800,000 online in about 4 days to fund an Ohio recount. This Green Party funded Ohio recount provided the evidence to spark other investigations in multiple states. It sent one election official in Ohio to prison and helped give birth to a nationwide movement against black box [DRE] voting.

As a result of this nationwide movement several states gave up their exclusive reliance on DRE machines and adopted hybrid systems.

[...]

Legal restrictions prevent [funds raised for recount efforts] from going to local Green parties except to underwrite direct operations in that effort, like dispatching a busload of precinct recount observers. So it's not as though the Stein campaign is diverting these resources from other places.

  Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report, GA Green Party Co-Chair

As further information on the 2000 voting debacle and stolen election, you might enjoy reading Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.  

He's also recently made a documentary with the same title.  Trailer here:

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What's the Matter with Liberals?

Liberals have joined Hillary Clinton’s “big nasty tent” in a very big way. They have moved far beyond the usual rationales for sticking with the Democrats and are now carrying on a full-fledged hate fest. Their targets are Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate Ajamu Baraka, who is also a Black Agenda Report editor and columnist.

[...]

The list is long and will get longer between now and Election Day. The degree of antipathy is actually quite useful. It tells us why the Green Party is so important and why liberals are such a dangerous enemy. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They spend years wringing their hands because Republicans control state legislatures but when the recently released DNC emails show that the party starves local races of money they say nothing. When they spoke up at all they made a big deal about a spurious Russian hacker connection to Donald Trump. There is no longer any pretense of claiming a desire for systemic change or even calling themselves progressives. They are “with her” -- as the slogan goes -- and her illegal activities and record of mass killing don’t dissuade them from supporting her.

[...]

Donald Trump is the perfect foil for their con game. His open appeals to racism and unpredictable statements and behavior give them an excuse to do nothing except make excuses for the very crooked Mrs. Clinton.

They don’t even feign concern when Republicans who contributed to Chris Christie and John Kasich start doling out dollars to Hillary.

  Black Agenda Report

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Brother Cornell at the Green Party Convention

In Houston, of all places.

"Indifference to evil is worse than evil itself."

"Don't let anybody tell you that somehow because you are voting for your vision, your principle, integrity, honesty, decency, and courage, that  [...] if you don't vote for one party as opposed to the other party, you're responsible for the catastrophe.  We understand the difference between a neo-fascist catastrophe and a neoliberal disaster."

Can I get an amen, brothers and sisters?

Julian Assange also made an appearance via video connection from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

“It’s very important not to allow the political process to suffer from extortion or even yourself to be susceptible to extortion… It’s important for those people who feel their principles have been violated in the way the Democratic primary process has been run or how Chelsea Manning been in prison for 35 years… to go OK, there’s a cost to violating principles, even if there’s also a cost to yourself, even if you don’t like the risk that Donald Trump becomes President. One has to have a line somewhere, otherwise as each election cycle proceeds you’re pushed further and further into the corner.

[...]

"Wha the Clinton campaign is doing at the moment is trying to say, 'Yes, maybe we're connected to arms dealers and to Saudi Arabia, and yes maybe we subverted the integrity of the Democratic primary, etc., etc., but you'll just have to swallow that or else you’ll get Donald Trump. That’s a form of extortion.

[...]

“What is happening now with the Green party and Gary Johnson and Bernie Sanders’ campaign is very important but it must be seen past the moment, past this political moment… (This is a) moment to build a movement and build pressure. Having built it, then, one can … hold accountable and check the abuses of government during the next four years… (Clinton and Trump) are two (of) the most unpopular pair of presidential candidates in U.S. history. … They are going to continue to generate oversight and resistance which will not only create a fertile field for Gary Johnson and Jill Stein to grow their support, but will create a very fertile field to understand and hold the government to account.

[...]

"I’ve just seen the attacks have started to ramp up on Jill Stein. They are going to go thru the roof. Those attacks are going to be ferocious… You’ll learn lessons from that on how the media works.

[...]

“Become your own media in practice in small ways and big ways… Keep your principles and sense of clarity on those principles.”
  Heavy.com

Jill Stein Interviews

Also: Intercept Interview with Jill Stein

I have heard from you and from many of your supporters that we shouldn’t vote for the lesser evil, that we should vote for the greater good. Is the prospect of a Trump presidency equal in your view to that of a Clinton one?

I think they both lead to the same place. The lesser evil, the Democrats, certainly have a better public relations campaign, they have better spin. The dangers are less evident, but they’re catastrophic as well. Just look at the policies under Obama on climate change.

[...]

In fact, the lesser evil inevitably leads to the greater evil in the same way that Barack Obama lost both houses of Congress. He had two years with two Democratic houses of Congress — they could have passed any law that they wanted. They could have provided health care as a human right, they could have pulled back on these wars for oil and the war against terror, and the assault on immigrants, and assault on the press and our freedom of speech and privacy. They could have done any of that. And what did they do? They bailed out Wall Street and installed Larry Summers, the architect of Wall Street deregulation. They’re not on our side.

[...]

You said before that President Obama came into office with an incredible public mandate, and yet he had an incredibly hard time getting anything through Congress. If you were to win the election, would you be able to get any legislation past them?

Because he didn’t want to. He didn’t try. He put his ground troops on the shelf. The myth is out there that the Republicans stopped him. He had two Democratic houses of Congress, he could have done something. He didn’t. What he did was make George Bush’s tax cuts for the rich permanent and he gave Wall Street the biggest bailout on record, that’s what he did.

You think Congress wouldn’t stop you?

No, because we won’t put our ground troops on the shelf. That’s what Barack Obama did. When he got into office, he took his ground troops out of commission. That’s what enabled him to win the primary, because he had such an active grassroots movement. He dismantled that grassroots movement at the same time he was appointing Larry Summers, and it became perfectly clear what his agenda was.

[...]

Come November, is there a worst-case scenario?

No, the two-party system is the worst-case scenario.

  Intercept

Ain't that the truth?

Read the whole interview here.

Jill Is Still Here

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein made a direct appeal to Bernie Sanders

“Forget the lesser evil, fight for the greater good,” Stein said, referring to her Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton while the crowd chanted “Jill, not Hill!”

[...]

In response to the DNC’s apology to Bernie Sanders for the emails that caused chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to step down this week, Stein said: “They did much more than say bad things. They sabotaged a revolutionary campaign.”

[...]

The medical doctor also said she would step down as the Green Party’s candidate if Sanders wanted to run on that ticket.

[...]

A recent poll taken after last week’s Republican Convention shows Stein in fourth place behind Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson with three percent of the vote, according to a RealClearPolitics aggregator.

She requires 15 percent to be included in the upcoming debates.

  RT

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jill

Stein, who is running her second presidential campaign in four years, said donations to her campaign have increased tenfold in just over 24 hours, obviously due to Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton and a resulting fallout from the Democratic Party.

Since Tuesday morning, the Green Party has received over $80,000 in contributions, over half of which comes from first-time donors, and half of which comes in the form of contributions under $50. Tellingly, about 615 of those contributions totalled $27, the exact number commonly trumpeted and solicited by the Sanders campaign during his revolutionary grassroots funding movement.

[...]

Stein’s social media accounts have also seen tremendous growth and engagement in the past 24 hours. A recent livestream posted to the Stein campaign’s Facebook page has been viewed over 300,000 times in less than a day. Her page itself has added approximately 44,000 new likes in the past week. Her Twitter account has over 145,000 followers as of this writing, increasing by the tens of thousands just this week, with 5.6 million impressions on July 12-13 alone. There have also been 10,000 new signups for her email list since yesterday.

[...]

Sanders supporters seem to be preparing a mass exodus from the Democratic Party to help Stein reach her goal of 15 percent in national polls, which would secure a spot for her on the general election debate stage with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees of the Republican and Democratic parties.

  USUncut

“Yes. I have called for pardoning Snowden. Not only pardoning him, but, welcoming him home as a hero, because he has done an incredible service to our country at great cost to himself for having to live away from his family, his friends, his job, his network, to basically live as an expatriate.

“This is a very difficult thing for him to do, but, what he has done is revealed the violations, of our constitutional rights, that were taking place and that still are taking place. I would say not only bring Snowden back, but, bring him into my administration as a member of the Cabinet, because we need people who are part of our national security administration who are really very patriotic. Truly patriotic to national security and who understand that if we’re really going to protect American security, we also have to protect our Constitutional rights and that includes our right to privacy.

“So, I’d say let’s welcome home Edward Snowden as soon as we can and likewise, I would pardon Chelsea Manning, and some other whistleblowers out there, John Kiriakou and others who’ve really done a great service for us. And I also want to mention Aaron Swartz, who was a proponent of a free and liberated Internet and for sharing our resources on that internet, who was basically hounded into suicide by a very oppressive Department of Justice. So, he–in my mind–is another one of these heroes that we need to remember and be very thankful for. The people who’ve paid an incredible price for our rights of not only the freedom to communicate on the internet, but, also the freedom to guard our privacy.”

  WMNF

Bernie Sanders just passed the torch to Dr. Jill Stein, and this political revolution continues stronger than ever, especially since Stein is today the most powerful woman in politics. I explain my thought process during a recent YouTube segment, but Tim Black’s amazing interview of Dr. Stein also speaks volumes. The Green Party’s Stein is now the liberal establishment’s worst nightmare: a trustworthy and inspiring progressive candidate who stands for ideals and principle.

[...]

Around half of Bernie voters according to Bloomberg in late June will never vote for Hillary; a far more accurate assessment in my view than recent claims of the majority flocking to Clinton.

  HuffPo

Jill's Platform

"Well, how do you pay for it? [Wars for oil] are not making us more safe. They are making us less safe.

“And mind you, this is the majority of our discretionary budget. It’s 54% of our budget. It’s almost half of your income tax pays for these wars and this military that’s scattered all across the world, that does not make us safer, it actually makes us less safe and it inflames the local populations.  [...]

“So, we need to put an end to these wars for oil, an end to being, not only the policemen, but, the occupying force around the world. We are the only country in the world that has ever done this. We have over 1,000 bases around the world. If you add up all the other bases of all the other countries put together, it’s less than 30.  [...]

“By coming back to a truly Defense Department, rather than an ‘offense department,’ we can actually scale way back on our military expenditures and have hundreds of billions of dollars to put into true security, here at home and in the causes of peace and justice around the world.”

  WMNF

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Green Party and Black Voters

To shake loose a good percentage of the black vote, Sanders would have had to go to war against black congressmen, black mayors and the entire black political establishment, all of the Democrats, in a Democratic primary election. That was never going to happen. Not ever, not insde the Democratic party. Such a campaign can only be waged OUTSIDE the Democratic party and outside the bonds of fake black unity which prevail inside it.

[...]

The Sanders campaign is over now, except for the efforts of staffers to herd followers, activists and contributors behind Hillary Clinton. The campaign of Jill Stein and the Green Party is now the only one that even wants to build support among African Americans. To do that, Greens will have to do what the Sanders campaign was unwilling and unable to do. They and their black supporters will have to interrogate black allegiance to an entrenched black leadership that serves only itself. They’ll have to find and cultivate relationships with forces not tied to those leaders, and develop stands on issues with them.

On issues, Jill and the Greens will have to do more of what Sanders didn’t do.

They’ll have to get far out ahead of what Democrats are talking in the area of responses to racist policing, way beyond body cameras, sensitivity training and proceduralism, and into demanding the abolition of “police bills of rights” and police contract provisions that shield cops from effective investigations. They’ll have to demand effective local and democratic control over policing and police practices, something that exists nowhere in the US.

[...]

And most especially, Jill’s black supporters will have to openly break with traditional black leadership and their top-down methods, and openly question their right wing alliances. Jill Stein rightly says that you cannot build a revolution inside a counter revolutionary party. You also cannot expect a counter revolutionary elite to support your revolution. It’s not like any black mayors, CBC members or prominent black Democrats or black megachurch preachers are about to go Green.

[...]

I'm betting that, within the limited time frame of this campaign, the people running Jill Stein's campaign will find a way to do exactly that. On a longer time horizon I am betting that the Green Party will be able to transform itself into a more internally accountble and small-d democratic organization that can build effective political campaigns and a permanent presense in black constituencies. Some of us are on that case.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and a co-chair of the Georgia Green Party.

  Black Agenda Report: Bruce Dixon

To read more, click here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

An Offer to Bernie

Jill Stein, who is expected to be endorsed at the party’s August convention in Houston, told Guardian US that “overwhelming” numbers of Sanders supporters are flocking to the Greens rather than Hillary Clinton.

Stein insisted that her presidential bid has a viable “near term goal” of reaching 15% in national polling, which would enable her to stand alongside presumptive nominees Clinton and Donald Trump in televised election debates.

But in a potentially destabilising move for the Democratic party, and an exciting one for Sanders’ supporters, the Green party candidate said she was willing to stand aside for Sanders.

“I’ve invited Bernie to sit down explore collaboration – everything is on the table,” she said.

  Guardian

I expect he'll decline, but he owes it to all his supporters to stay in the running.

Stein said she had made her offer directly to Sanders in an email at the end of the primary season, although she had not received a response.

No response at all?  That's not nice.

Almost nine out of 10 voters don’t know enough about Stein in order to pass judgment on her leftwing stances.

[...]

Stein, a former Massachusetts doctor turned environmental activist, is attempting to woo young voters with a promise to make college free and, beyond what Sanders has pledged, to cancel all existing student debt through quantitive easing.

With a more ambitious climate change policy (Stein favors getting to 100% renewable-powered electricity by the middle of the century) and a less interventionist approach to foreign affairs than Clinton.

After Clinton "Wins" the Nomination

What should Bernie do?  He says he'll support Hillary.  And what about all of his supporters who don't want to support her?  Are they just pawns?

That's precisely what Bernie should do.  A Stein/Sanders ticket would surely bring in enough votes to give the Green Party the chance of a serious move to chisel away at the two-party fixed political system we have now.  A notice to the duopoly that democracy might actually take hold in this country.

He won't.  But he should.  Perhaps Stein wouldn't even want him as a running mate.  But she should.

If he would run as an independent, he should tag Elizabeth Warren for his VP.  

Two possible paths to changing the sytem for the better.  

The post-campaign fate of Sanders’ list — his 2016 crown jewel, and the backbone of the Vermont senator's online fundraising juggernaut — is the topic of frequent conversation among operatives working with the Democratic Party committees, down-ballot candidates and a variety of liberal interest groups. Some have already begun strategizing about how to access the list through informal conversations with people close to the Sanders campaign.

[...]

Sanders’ recent move to share some of the love by sending three fundraising emails for House candidates in early April sparked a new rush of interest in the data.

[...]

“There’s this view among the Washington consultant class that these members are an ATM and you throw some words at them and they’ll give you money no matter what,” said Neil Sroka, a former Obama 2008 campaign aide now working as communications director of Democracy For America, which has endorsed Sanders. “Everyone in the Democratic Party is going to want Bernie Sanders’ seal of approval and a chance to share their message with the people on his email list."

  Politico

What will Bernie do?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

By the Way...

Just because there were only three people permitted to speak in the Democratic debates doesn't mean there isn't a Republican alternative.  Jill Stein is running for president on the Green Party ticket (again).  And, if you're a woman wanting a woman in the White House, go vote for Jill Stein.