Dr. Steinister - Part Two

Near where I live, there is a house with a "Cease-Fire Now" lawn sign opposing Israeli military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  A couple of days ago, I passed by it and found another lawn sign next to it - a Jill Stein campaign sign.  

Although I am a former Stein voter who has since expressed regret for voting for her in 2016 - but not regretting voting for a third-party candidate, as I could never vote for Hillary Clinton - I continue to stress that while the once and present Green Party presidential candidate may have been a factor in costing Hillary the Presidency against Donald Trump in 2016 in the states in what used to be called the 'blue firewall,"  as the vote tallies in those states show above, she was not the only factor, and that Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson also cost Hillary Clinton votes in these states (as this CNN article from 2016 explains). Johnson was as much a possible spoiler as Dr. Stein was.  Moreover, many people who voted for Dr. Stein or Johnson might have stayed home if neither one had been on the ballot.

That out of the way, I am happy to present more evidence that Dr. Stein is a fraud.  I once complained how progressives did nothing to start a new party to replace the Democrats after Hillary Clinton's well-deserved loss and the Democratic party's descent into Whig-like irrelevance, but did you notice?  Dr. Stein was one of those progressives who sat on her hands.  In fact, she disappeared as quickly as I expected the Democratic Party to.  She sat out 2020 and let another Green Party member carry the standard in the presidential election that year, and now she's back, promising a more just society if she were to win against all odds.  Don't you believe it.

Her stand for the Palestinians seems contrived and incredulous, since she never spoke out about the Middle East before, but her emphasis on Michigan, with its large Arab and Islamic population, seems to be calculated into helping Trump at Kamala Harris' expense.   Because it is.  She has expressed no fear that her efforts to make inroads in Michigan could help Trump win, just as she doesn't regret that Trump may have won in 2016 because of her candidacy.

Justice for the Green Party should, as its name implies, include environmental justice, but Dr. Stein has benefited from mutual fund holdings that have investments in fossil fuels valued at up to $937,775, which Dr. Stein defended in 2016 by saying that her mutual funds invest in an array of companies and that oil and gas companies are only a small part of the mix.  Okay, so why, as MoveOn.org recently reported,  did she knowingly invest up to $500,000 in a stock index fund that invests in the Keystone XL pipeline that Dr. Stein says she opposes?  And why, after she denounced President Biden for his handling of the Norfolk Southern derailment in Ohio, did she knowingly invest in index funds that have holdings in that same railroad?  

It seems to me that if Dr. Stein really were concerned about fossil fuels, she would have made a sincere effort to invest in more environmentally friendly companies or in mutual funds that invest in such companies.  All you have to do is look at The Nation for ads for such mutual funds.  And if Dr. Stein were concerned about advancing progressive causes, she would be doing the work of advancing them every day, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) does.  I don't agree with everything AOC says, and I have grown uncomfortable with her narrow test of what a progressive is (Martin O'Malley, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris would all fall short), but say what you will, she does just that - put in the work.  And it's easy to see why she ran for office as a Democrat even though the party was moribund when she entered politics.  Because even a declining, irrelevant, disconnected, out-of-touch Democratic Party is preferable to a Green Party at the height of its powers.

And the Green Party of the United States, unlike its European counterparts, will never be a player in national politics unless it gets rid of hypocrites and opportunists like Dr. Stein.

Dr. Steinister

The more I learn about Jill Stein, the more I regret voting for her in 2016.

As everyone knows, Dr. Stein, once again the Green Party presidential nominee, is setting her sights on Michigan, where she says she plans to win enough votes to deprive Kamala Harris of a victory there, which would of course make it easier for Donald Trump to win the White House and turn the United States into Der Amerikanisches Reich.  She is appealing to the large number of Michiganders of Arab heritage and/or the Islamic faith due to the unpopular Biden-Harris administration's policy toward Israel and the Palestinians.   I couldn't understand why Dr. Stein, who supposedly leads the ticket of a progressive minor party, would focus squarely on the Biden-Harris administration's missteps on the Middle East while ignoring Trump's racist attitudes toward the Palestinians and his unreserved support for Israel.  The only explanation that makes sense is that she's a pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who hopes to interfere in the American election to help Trump.

Now, I've had a hard time accepting the notion that Dr. Stein is a Putin stooge, given her leftist views and his fascistic rule of post-Soviet Russia.  Oh, sure, I knew that she - and Michael Flynn, the Hermann Göring of Trumpworld - attended a dinner in Moscow in December 2015 to celebrate Russia Today (RT), the propaganda "news" channel tat had been founded in 2005, and sat at Putin's table, which I decided wasn't that much different from that scene in Bananas where Fielding Mellish has dinner with the President of San Marcos ("I could kill him now!  He brings cake for a group of people, and he doesn't even bring an assortment!"). 

And Dr. Stein had a plausible explanation for her presence there. She that while RT's American channel covered her presidential campaign extensively, the major networks ignored her. "And my own connection to RT, you know ironically, it takes a Russian television station to actually be open to independent candidates in this country and that is a shame. A shameful commentary on our own media."

The realization that Dr. Stein is full of snail snot came not when I saw that Michael Flynn and Vladimir Putin were seated at the same dinner table with her.  It came when I found out who her other seatmates were.

As the superimposed name tags show, all but four of the people seated with Flynn, Putin and Dr. Stein are all associates of . . . Putin.  The other three are Cyril Svoboda, a pro-Putin former deputy prime minister of the Czech Republic, Willy Wimmer, a pro-Putin German politician who has served in the German Bundestag, Bosnian pro-Putin film director Emir Kusturica, and his wife.

A person is judged by the company she keeps.

*SIGH* . . .  Once again, I have to explain my vote for Dr. Stein in 2016 because some of you may not have read my earlier blog posts on the subject . . ..  I live in New Jersey, which hasn't been a swing state since 2004, and I voted for the Green ticket in 2016 because I not only loathed Donald Trump but because I thought the Democratic National Committee had hijacked the party nomination for Hillary Clinton, whom I believed thought was entitled to it and because of how the Democratic National Committee had undermined Martin O'Malley, whose 2016 candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination I supported. I would have voted Green if Homey the Clown had been the nominee, because I wanted to help the Greens get enough of the vote to qualify for matching funds in 2020. They didn't.  And when the Democrats were in danger of going full Whig in 2017, I hoped progressives could call a convention and start a new party to fill in the void left by the Democrats once they died what I thought would be a richly deserved death. But progressives didn't call for anything, and the Democratic Party hobbled on.  Now I find out that Dr. Stein's seatmates at this dinner in Moscow were not just Putin and Flynn but Putin's Kremlin stooges and  pro-Putin Europeans?

I wish I hadn't voted for Dr. Stein.  I was wrong to do so.  There, I said it.  I don't regret voting for a minor-party presidential candidate, even though I did so more out of anger at the Democratic National Committee over how they treated Martin O'Malley than anything else, and besides, I knew Hillary would win a popular majority in New Jersey and its fourteen electoral votes, which she did.  However, I voted for the wrong candidate. I should have voted for Workers World Party presidential nominee Monica Moorehead. New Jersey was one of three states in which Moorehead was on the ballot.

As for Jill Stein, this doctor is out.

America: The Nervous Breakdown Continues

The 2023 elections continued a winning streak for Democrats that began with Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election victory and continued with the midterm results of 2022.  Andy Beshear was re-elected governor of Kentucky, Democrats won both houses of Virginia's legislature and expanded their majorities in the houses of the New Jersey state legislature, and abortion rights were enshrined in the state constitution in Ohio.  Many people think the MAGA movement is in retreat at the polls.  Don't you believe it.

The Republicans still have the advantage going into 2024.  Forget the polls that show Trump ahead of Biden, and forget especially the greater number of polls that show Biden ahead of Trump, which Biden himself alluded in a testy exchange with a "reporter" from Fox "News."   Here are the basic reasons why 2024 is still in tap to be a Republican year:

• Democrats face strong headwinds to keep their Senate majority.
• U.S. House districts are still gerrymandered. 
• Many voter-suppression laws remain on the books.  
• Voter turnout in off-year elections is low and cannot be used as an effective barometer for midterm or presidential elections.
• The Electoral College can still negate the will of the people if they pick a Democratic President, as the 2016 election so clearly proved.
• Support for abortion rights in Republican states like Ohio do not automatically translate into support for Democratic candidates in statewide elections.

Change these conditions, and the Democratic Party's fortunes can improve.  But as such changes are not likely to happen, even the rosiest outlook on the economy might not save Biden this time.

And there's not just the threat of a third-party candidate playing the role of spoiler to help Trump.  There's the threat of four of them.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is now a leading choice among young voters, and his anti-Semitic and anti-vaccine comments haven't hurt him as an independent candidate.  His appeal among young people might actually hurt Biden.  Cornel West has quit as the Green Party presidential nominee and continued to run as an independent, while Jill Stein - yes, the same Jill Stein who was the Green Party presidential nominee in 2016 and failed to win a 5 percent minimum of the vote to qualify the Green Party for matching funds in the 2020 presidential election - is taking his place on the Green ticket.  And the No Labels movement, which has promised to run a bipartisan presidential/vice presidential ticket, might have a presidential nominee in waiting in the form of Joe Manchin.

The senior senator from West Virginia announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and plans to tour the country to listen to voters needs - an obvious precursor to a presidential run, and possible as the No Labels candidate.  To be fair, No Labels' director, former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, has said that No Labels will not field a presidential ticket if researching and polling show that such a ticket would help Trump, but there will still be at least three other presidential candidates on the ballot who could and probably will screw things up for Joe Biden.

At least.  There could be more candidates.  Some people are still talking about Oprah Winfrey for President, while others are talking about her as a vice presidential No Labels candidate.  And still, waiting in the wings, and being taken very seriously, even by esteemed newsmen such as CNN's Jake Tapper, is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

Oh, honey, I think America is having a nervous breakdown like you wouldn't believe! 

Oh yeah, in Mississippi, Democrat Brandon Presley - a distant cousin of Elvis - lost his bid for the state's governorship to incumbent Republican Tate Reeves despite Reeves being tainted by scandal.  Brandon has just left the building.  Another Brandon is likely to leave the White House a year and change from now.

Go West Again?

Oh, great, just like in 2020, another black guy named West could give the Presidency to Trump.

Last time, it was Kanye.  This time it's Cornel - Dr. Cornel West,  one of the most prominent scholars of black history in America.  Dr. West - as I shall refer to him to avoid confusion with the dude that white pop-music critics praised as a genius to keep their jobs - is a candidate for the Green Party presidential nomination in 2024.  Apparently Dr West - who supported Jill Stein in 2016 and is getting support from her in return - thinks that President Biden has moved too slowly in bringing social and economic justice to the American people (forget for a moment Republican roadblocks to further progress) and so believes he should stand for election to the highest office in the land.

Democrats are already worried about how Dr. West could win enough votes, especially from black voters but also from progressives in general, to deprive President Biden of victories in key swing states and allow Trump to win back the White House.  For now, at least, I take that prediction with a grain of salt.  See, I actually have voted Green, as you will recall, and it was in 2016.  I not only voted for Jill Stein,  I attended a Green Party rally led by Dr. Stein herself at Montclair State University in New Jersey.  The group picture of the rally below clearly shows me just a couple of yards away from the candidate herself!   (Note the pink circles!)   

I voted for Dr. Stein - in New Jersey, a state which Hillary Clinton won by a majority - for two reasons.  One was to express my disgust at how the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign ridiculed my preferred Democratic presidential candidate, Martin 'O'Malley, and laughed him out of the campaign.  I wanted revenge.  The second reason was to help the Green Party get at least 5 percent of the national vote and thus qualify for federal matching funds in 2020, as  I saw the Democrats going the way of the Whigs.  Well, that didn't happen, and progressives did nothing to start a new party when the Democratic Party was on the verge of disintegrating in early 2017.

Since then, the Democratic Party has bounced back, and President Biden has many accomplishments to his credit, such as revitalizing investments in infrastructure, taming inflation, fighting climate change, and expanding domestic manufacturing.  In other words, all that stuff that progressives like.  I'm sure that progressives will look at Biden's record and conclude that he is doing the best he can while facing tough Republican obstruction and cut him some slack.  And I'm also sure that they'll realize that Cornel West could be a spoiler for Trump if they support him over Biden.

And, while President Biden is running as an incumbent with a record to run on, Hillary Clinton had no presidential record to run on at all as a first-time presidential nominee.  Also, Dr. Stein did as well as she did in 2016 because a lot of progressives were not going to vote for Hillary Clinton.  Hillary didn't lose votes to Dr. Stein; she never had them, least of all mine, in the first place.  I voted for Dr. Stein in part because I did not like Hillary Clinton, especially after the sham nomination process her minions orchestrated, which left Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders supporters seething in anger.  On the other hand, I like Joe Biden.  I like what's he's done.  I'm satisfied.

Why should I vote for Cornel West now?  Why should anyone in the Democratic base do so?

Troll Trouble

Robert Mueller has caught so many parties in his Russia probe that I can't keep up with them. So I'll focus on the one that may be most important - this past month he indicted thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian companies on charges of conspiracy for trying to persuade voters in 2016 to support Hillary Clinton's various opponents and vote against Hillary herself.  The companies include the Internet Research Agency, based St. Petersburg (no, not St. Petersburg, Florida), which produced the political propaganda aimed at American social media and the two companies that helped finance it.

The tactic was simple - troll the voters.  The object was to discourage people from supporting Hillary and make sure she lost.  The Russians posted memes and fake Facebook pages promoting not just Donald Trump but Bernie Sanders in the primaries and Dr. Jill Stein in the general election.  There is not proof that Trump knew about this or was involved in it, and Trump naturally insists that it exonerates him.  It doesn't, of course, but it lets him off the hook for the time being, and it also buys Mueller some time.  And in that time so far,  he's managed to indict former Trump camping manager Paul Manafort on money laundering and bank fraud charges after former Trump aide Rick Gates pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to cooperate with Mueller.  Gates had lied about the details of a 2013 conversation about Ukraine involving Manafort, a member of Congress, and a lobbyist.  Manafort and Gates have consulted Ukrainian politicians.

As for the 2016 disinformation campaign . . . well, it definitely proves even to those who dismiss the bot stories and the Russian "fake news" strategy as drivel that the Russians indeed tried to influence the outcome of the election.  But let me be clear.  I do believe that the Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election and were using an online disinformation campaign.  I just don't think it determined the outcome.  To suggest otherwise would be to absolve Hillary Clinton of blame for blowing the easiest election for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1988 (2000?  No, Al Gore won and the Presidency was stolen from him!) and would be to suggest that voters who went for Bernie Sanders in the primaries and went third-party in the general election (myself included in the latter instance) don't have minds of their own and are subject to Russian brainwashing.  The people who blame the Russians for influencing the outcome, by the way, are the same people who dismissed Ronald Reagan's Soviet-bashing as xenophobic paranoia.  I'd vote for someone other than Hillary in opposition to Trump all over again.

I just don't know if I would still vote for Dr. Stein.  As a presidential candidate, Dr. Stein was not the best messenger the Green Party could have gotten behind to promote and advance its agenda.  Also, she failed to get the Greens to five percent nationwide, rendering them ineligible for federal matching funds in 2020.  Dr. Stein is right when she says that the Democratic establishment is trying to silence liberal voices both within and outside of its own party, and she noted that the Greens were promoted with a couple of Russian-generated memes out of a trillion that were posted on social media.  But her willingness to meet with anyone and everyone on the subject of global affairs - including the infamous Moscow dinner that placed her at the same table with Vladimir Putin and not-yet-then Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn - continues to embarrass some of us who voted for her.  To be fair, she did stress before that her trip to Russia was "about promoting diplomacy, peace, and international cooperation on pressing global issues," and that she was one of several Americans at that Moscow dinner promoting a saner and more just foreign policy.  And there was no intent on her part to conceal her dealings in Russia.  But it's not Dr. Stein's transparency that's in question; it's her judgment.  She wanted to be taken seriously as a third-party U.S. presidential candidate, yet she was seen hobnobbing not only with America's worst foreign adversary but also with its most ethically dubious retired Army man, Michael Flynn.

As a Martin O'Malley supporter, I wonder if I should have written O'Malley in back in November 2016.  The only problem is that you don't vote directly for a presidential candidate in the United States - you vote for Electoral College candidates pledged to vote for your presidential candidate.  New Jersey has fourteen electoral votes, and you vote for a whole slate of electors without even knowing their identities.  There are no Electoral College candidates for an undeclared write-in presidential candidate, of course, so how could I vote for fourteen O'Malley electors who didn't exist?  My vote for Dr. Stein actually offended some of my friends, which wasn't worth it.  One such friend, a dear, sweet woman I've know for a few years now, chastened me for my vote and told me I helped Trump.  

I give up.  I'd rather have voted for O'Malley and been ridiculed than voted for a third-party candidate on the ballot and be scorned.  Why not write in O'Malley? After all, no Russian meme encouraged anyone to vote for him in any way, shape or form.

And I've got a mind of my own.

(Oh yeah, the Democratic rebuttal to the Nunes memo was finally released.  Yay.  Whoppee. :-p)

The Doctors Are In

I thought I'd let others do the talking on my blog this time.

After NBC News and the Daily Kos - two apologist media outlets for the Democratic establishment, the latter being especially adept at mainstream-liberal smugness - reported on a trip Green Party leader Jill Stein made to Russia in December 2015 in an effort to paint her as a stooge of Vladimir Putin and a willing participant to undermine Hillary Clinton for Donald Trump's benefit, Dr. Stein waited for awhile to muster up a defense.  She finally offered one last week.  Here are her comments in their entirety:  

NBC recently reported that I had been at an event in Russia along with Vladimir Putin in 2015. Notice that whenever you see this story in the corporate media, it consists of nothing more than a photo, because if they reported any of the facts behind the photo it would undermine the story they are trying to invent. In reality, the NBC report didn’t say anything that wasn’t in my campaign’s press release about the Moscow event in December 2015. My trip to Russia, like my visit to the COP21 climate conference in Paris as part of the same trip, was about promoting diplomacy, peace, and international cooperation on pressing global issues. I criticized the militaristic policies of both the Russian and US governments, and proposed an alternative vision: working together on a “Peace Offensive” to de-escalate conflict in the Middle East and around the world. I was one of a number of American advocates for a more peaceful and just foreign policy in Moscow, including Thom Hartmann, Rocky Anderson, Ray McGovern, Max Blumenthal, and Jesse Ventura. The Moscow conference featured public figures, politicians and academics from across Europe and North America, as well as journalists and major media leadership from India, China, Russia, Europe and the US. It was an honor to be able to address the international community, and show them we Greens are fighting for a foreign policy based on international law. human rights and diplomacy, not on economic and military domination.

It is not only justifiable to attempt to communicate with other nations, it’s essential to do so if we are to have any hope of solving the gravest threats to human survival: endless war, climate meltdown and the threat of nuclear conflict. The Greens are the only political party with a plan to address all these issues. No wonder we are under attack by both Democrats and Republicans, and their surrogates in the corporate media, even outside the election cycle.

NBC and other corporate media outlets have tried to create the impression that I refuse to answer questions about my Russia trip. Actually, I have answered these questions so many times I’ve lost count, but when the corporate media realize that the answers don’t support their pre-conceived smear narrative, they refuse to print the facts. No, I did not speak with Vladimir Putin. Nor did I receive any payment from Russia. Why has one reporter after another, after hearing these facts, decided not to publish them? Why do they choose instead to encourage sensational conspiracy thinking based on a photo?

This transparent campaign of neo-McCarthyism perfectly demonstrates why Americans’ trust in mass media has plummeted to an all-time low.

This is just the latest in a long line of smear campaigns from the corporate media. For a look at the many desperate attempts to discredit our grassroots movement, check out our “Haters Gonna Hate” page debunking the smears.

It’s time to withdraw our trust and support from these masters of misinformation, and put our resources towards building independent, non-corporate people’s media to provide the truthful information we need to create the future we deserve.

Meanwhile, the fact that Democratic apologists are attacking us outside of an electoral campaign is a great sign. We have become a force to contend with and they are rightly worried. The American people are clamoring for a new way forward and together, we're creating a future whose time has come, that puts people, planet and peace over profit.

And then there was Dr. Cornel West, who supported Dr. Stein in the 2016 presidential election and had supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016  Democratic primaries.  He went on Bill Maher's HBO talk show a couple of weeks after Maher criticized him and others for supporting Dr. Stein at Hillary's expense.   Although Dr. Stein never came up in the tête-à-tête that resulted over the election results, it is worth watching and Dr. West's comebacks should be taken quite seriously.  Here is the video of that exchange.

Peace, bro.

Maher's Attacks

Bill Maher used his "Real Time" show this past Friday night to take Jill Stein supporters to task for voting for the Green Party presidential nominee instead of Hillary Clinton.  He made the argument that if the had not been such "liberal purists," they wouldn't be bitching about Neil Gorsuch, Scott Pruitt, or his tyrannical executive orders.

Uh, yeah . . . let's remember a few things about the election:

Hillary Clinton lost because she failed to carry Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  If every Stein voter in those states had voted for Hillary, she would have won Wisconsin and Michigan but not Pennsylvania, and Trump would still have won.

I voted for Jill Stein.  I live in New Jersey.  Hillary won New Jersey with a majority.  My vote absolutely did not affect the outcome, and Maher's statement denigrates people who voted their conscience and took a big risk to help the Greens get federal funding for next time.

Dr. Stein came in fourth in the popular vote, with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson third.  Republicans and centrist and center-right independents who dislike Trump and who could have voted for Hillary - voters Hillary could have possibly won over - gave Johnson vote margins larger than Hillary's defeat margins in some states.  Why isn't Maher taking Johnson voters to task?     

Oh yeah, Maher told Stein backers - including Dr. Cornel West - to go f**k themselves.

Guess Dr. West won't be a guest on his show anymore.

Stein voters - and Johnson voters - are not to blame for Trump. Hilary is to blame for Trump because she was a lousy candidate.

Meanwhile, Hillary says she takes responsibility for loss while still deflecting blame for it to others.  Come on, Hillary, even your husband parses words better than that.

Seeing Green

NBC News and the Daily Kos - two media outlets who think Hillary Clinton is a goddess - recently commented on a December 2015 dinner that celebrated the tenth anniversary of Russia Today (now known by its initials, RT), the English-language Russian TV channel.  Two Americans attended the dinner and were seated at Russian President Vladimir Putin's table. One was now-disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The other was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.    

Dr. Stein is being called a traitor by establishment Democrats for being present at that dinner.  There's no evidence that she colluded with the Russian government and conspired with Putin to defeat Hillary Clinton.  She was at that dinner because she saw RT as a vehicle to get the message of her presidential candidacy across to American voters who, had they stuck to mainstream media, would not have even heard of her.  But the problem with the RT association is that the news channel is seen as a pro-Kremlin propaganda machine to influence the American electorate, and the optics of Dr. Stein at that dinner were unfortunate.

"Jill Stein was a part of Russia’s plan for the election," insisted Mark Sumner of the Daily Kos. "They gave her what the U.S. media had denied - attention and flattery. In return she praised RT and chastised the American media. Both sides got just what they wanted."

Yeah, well, I didn't make my decision to vote for Dr. Stein this past November based on any Russian propaganda.  I voted for her because I couldn't bring myself to vote for Trump or Hillary after my original and second choices - Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders - got eliminated.  If NBC News and the Daily Kos - both engaged in the sort of Russophobia associated with the Republicans during the Cold War - want to keep fueling such hysteria to explain away Hillary's loss, fine.  But they shouldn't blame anyone other than Hillary and the tone-deaf supporters who gave her the Democratic presidential nomination for Donald J. Trump.

Yet they're still blaming Dr. Stein.    

"Stein did well enough to help Russia achieve its aims," Sumner wrote. "Her vote totals in the crucial states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan were all greater than Clinton's margin of defeat, and arguably denied Clinton an Electoral College victory."

Not entirely true. Trump beat Hillary in Pennsylvania by 68,236 votes; Dr. Stein won 48,912 votes in that state, meaning that Hillary would still have been some 20,000 votes short without Dr. Stein on the ballot. But here's where my research found something interesting. I had said here earlier, based on the numbers I heard, that Dr. Stein's vote total in Michigan was greater than Hillary Clinton's margin of defeat and that her vote total in Wisconsin was less that Hillary's margin of defeat.  In fact, they were greater in both states; Trump beat Hillary in Wisconsin by 27,257, and Dr, Stein's vote total in Wisconsin - 30,998 - was indeed greater.  In Michigan, Trump beat Hillary by 10,704 votes, and Dr. Stein got  a greater tally of 51,463 votes.  But the election had already been called for Trump before Michigan's total was finalized, meaning that, without Dr, Stein, Hillary could have won Michigan but still would have lost the election.  And as long as Hillary was never going to win Pennsylvania even without Dr. Stein on the ballot, she could have topped Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan and still lost.

Got all that?

The bottom line is that even if the Russians did influence the election - and I'm saying that they did or didn't - Hillary lost the election not because of Russian propaganda or minor-party opponents but because she was a lousy candidate and should never have been nominated.

Having said all that, I'm not supporting Dr. Stein for anything any more, despite having voted for her in November.  Why?  Because she failed to do what she was expected to do.  Win the Presidency?  No, no one expected her to do that!  She was, though, expected to get at least five percent of the vote for the Green Party to get the party federal matching funds for the 2020 presidential election and help develop the Greens as a credible alternative to the Democrats.  She failed.  And when the election was over, I hit the reset button.  The day before the election, I was a supporter of Dr. Stein.  On Election Day, I voted for Dr. Stein.  The day after, I was a Martin O'Malley supporter again.  Because he was and he remained my first choice for President.  

The U.S. Green Party may one day be a party like its European counterparts and win enough seats in Congress and in state legislatures to get concessions from major-party caucuses, but it's never going to replace the Democratic Party as the major opposition to the Republicans.  Meanwhile, the "unity tour" between centrist Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez and progressive non-Democrat Bernie Sanders has been a flop, showing how bewildered and rudderless the Democrats are.  Again: I believe that the Democrats could go full Whig and disintegrate before 2020, allowing a new party to fill the void.  I still want Martin O'Malley to run for President in 2020.  But not necessarily as a Democrat, any more than Abraham Lincoln and William Seward would run for President in 1860 as Whigs.  Of course, they both ended up running as members of a new party altogether.     

As for Dr. Stein, she has already been the Green Party presidential nominee twice, and she will be seventy years old in 2020.  Thanks for being a voice of reason, Dr. Stein, but you should do what Hillary won't . . . retire from the political scene and let someone else carry the banner going forward.

Welcome Back, My Friends, To the Election That Never Ends

Just when we thought we'd washed the smell of the 2016 presidential election off our persons, along comes a whole slew of recounts - along with Donald Trump's subsequent paranoia - to stink up America again.

New York magazine reported last week that election lawyers and computer scientists were encouraging Hillary Clinton to ask for a recount of the popular vote in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all Rust Belt states that Trump officially won.  The lawyers and computer scientists claimed that there might be voter irregularities in the computerized ballot machines and presidential vote counts, as the tallies contradicted polls leading up to the November 8 vote.  Specifically, these experts were afraid that the electronic ballot boxes might have been hacked, though there's no evidence that such a thing happened anywhere; despite concerns of Russian hacking of the vote, the Obama administration is convinced that there was no foul play anywhere in the country, and that there has been no voter fraud.

The three states cited have a combined total of 46 electoral votes; Hillary is 38 electoral votes short of a majority.  She would have to reverse the results in all three states to win with a total of 278 electoral votes to 260; Trump could lose any two of these states to her in recounts and still win.  With all three states in his column, Trump has 306 electoral votes to Madame H's 232.  The Clinton campaign was prepared to let it go, citing the victory margins for Trump and saying that there most likely weren't enough votes that could be reversed and change the outcome. 

Then Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein decided to stir up some serious stuff.

Dr. Stein pushed for a recount in Wisconsin and raised millions of dollars over the Internet to pay for it; she was able to file for one just before the deadline, and so the Badger State is counting the votes all over again.  She is not only working on getting recounts done in Michigan, which just certified its vote totals, and Pennsylvania, but she is threatening to get recounts done in as many states as she can.  She certainly can do that; she's raised more money than she needs.  Hillary's campaign has sent lawyers to Wisconsin to oversee the recount and plans to do the same elsewhere should other recounts go forward. 

Now why would Dr. Stein instigate recounts that could theoretically help Hillary Clinton, whom Stein had repeatedly bashed throughout the campaign?  Well, it certainly isn't to help the Hillary become President instead of the Donald.  Dr. Stein doesn't think any of the results will change as a result of any of these recounts; her point is that, if even the possibility of hacking the vote is there,  then recounts should be done to prove once and for all that there was no hacking, otherwise we'll never know whether or not the vote was legitimate.

Needless to say, Trump and the GOP think this is a colossal waste of time, and Trump himself has made this clear in a series of tweets.  Trump has accused Dr. Stein of raising doubts about the election to raise more money for the Greens, even though Dr, Stein has stated that the money she's collected - $6.5 million - is specifically earmarked for helping to pay for recounts.  Maybe Trump should do what Hillary is doing and send lawyers to the recounting - a recounting, remember, that Hillary never asked for - to show his support for making sure the vote was fair and square.

Astonishingly, Trump has not only dismissed the recounts, he's also opined - without any evidence whatsoever - that he should have won the popular vote (Hillary is ahead by over two million popular votes) because too many people voted illegally.  This does not make a ton of sense, considering that Trump obviously doesn't need the popular vote, having won the Presidency in the Electoral College . . . unless you consider the possibility that he's seeking a popular mandate from an electorate in which 53 percent of voters cast ballots against him.

Dr. Stein may likely emerge as the heroine of the 2016 election.  She's raised more money for recounts than she did for her entire presidential campaign, and she's cast light on the need for the United States to ensure free and fair elections. If she raises more money than necessary, she will dedicate the surplus funds toward election integrity efforts and to the promotion of voting reform, so she's hardly doing to this to help Hillary.  She's actually doing this to help the Greens by garnering favorable publicity for their progressive causes.  Recounts in more states may even get the Greens enough votes to have five percent of the vote nationwide and thus qualify for federal matching funds and automatic inclusion on state ballots in 2020.  It also undermines an already unpopular Trump as he prepares to take office.

And as if that weren't enough, Hillary supporters, who ironically mocked Trump for threatening not to accept the results of the election if he lost, are now urging 38 of Trump's electors to switch their votes to Hillary and make her President instead.  The electors, by the way, don't vote until December 19, and the ballots aren't even counted until January 6.  (If Trump should somehow lose 38 electoral votes to Hillary, then the transition to the next administration will suddenly be very bumpy and very interesting.)  

In the meantime, the recounts are just one more thing to get through.  And when the computer experts who count the votes are finished doing that . . . maybe they can come over to my house and do something about my Internet connection periodically going out.  

Election 2016: No Endorsements (Except For Jill Stein)

I normally post endorsements in select political contests in various parts of the country just prior to Election Day.  Not this year.

This blog endorses no one for any office up for election this year, except for Jill Stein of the Green Party for President, and I made that endorsement back in June.  I have not followed any of the crucial House or Senate races, or the small number of gubernatorial races, for 2016, and I see no reason to waste my time making any endorsements for them now.  Why should I?  I'd only endorse the Democratic candidates because they are not as bad as the Republicans (though I have in the past endorsed Republicans on occasion), and I'd be endorsing these Democrats for their interchangeable, predictable stands on the issues - issues that, incidentally, haven't been resolved for a quarter of a century.  Why am I still bitching about high-speed rail years after the publication of Joseph Vranich's book on the subject urging that it be built in America?  Why are we still talking about campaign finance reform?  Why are we still trying to do something about a shrinking middle class?  What does it matter if I endorse a candidate who says he or she is going to do something about a problem when I know full well that nothing is going to be done about it?

As for the major-party presidential candidates . . . to hell with them.  Donald Trump is a bigot and a megalomaniac who should never have gotten this far. Hillary Clinton is a flawed, untrustworthy candidate who got the nomination of her party through the bullying and the neutering of her opposition.  Hillary is the Democratic nominee not because she's a woman but because she's a Clinton, and I am sick and tired of living in a system that recognizes dynastic entitlement - Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, with a period of Obamus Interruptus - at everyone else's expense.  At this point, I don't care that the FBI has cleared her of any wrongdoing on the basis of the last of these newly discovered and mostly redundant e-mails. 

The Presidency, as Martin O'Malley once said,  is not a crown to be passed between two families.  Or three.  Trump is not from a family that has produced a President before, but if he wins, you can bet that his adult children will end up helping him run the country, with their own little fiefdoms in the executive branch.  Although one may take comfort in the idea of Ivanka as White House chief of staff, one cannot take any comfort at all in the suspicion that Trump has always treated his presidential bid as a money-making scheme, and if you think it's bad now, imagine how he and his family could use the Presidency for their own collective enrichment! 

So, yes, I'm voting for Jill Stein.  I have been told that if you don't vote for Hillary, you're essentially a sexist, and if you vote for Jill Stein, you are a sexist who is voting for a woman whom you know isn't going to win simply to hide your misogyny.  Let's get something straight; I was ready and eager to vote for whomever got the Green Party presidential nomination, male or female, and it's actually hard to vote for a minor-party candidate when you know she isn't going to win simply because of that fact.  But the Greens need five percent of the vote on Tuesday to get federal matching funds for 2020, and ballot access in all fifty states (something they couldn't quite achieve this time), and even though I may be marginalizing myself by voting Green, I am prepared to do just that . . . in the interest of helping to dismantle the two-party system as we know it.

Sadly, Jill Stein is the only Green Party candidate for any office in my precinct.  I'll vote for Democratic or write-in candidates in the down-ballot races, but I'm pretty steamed over the fact that I have no other Greens to vote for.  If you can vote for Greens in down-ballot races, and if you feel comfortable voting for them, you should do so.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox.  I won't be blogging on Election Day, because I understand that hackers, possibly from Russia, may be wrecking havoc with various Internet sites and possibly the Internet itself.  I'll be back Wednesday or Thursday after this mess of an election is over.  As Dan Rather would say, courage.  Go out and vote.

Sue Digs Jill!

Life ain't easy for a girl named Sue.

  

Especially if the "Sue" in question is actress Susan Sarandon, who has not drunk the Kool-Aid and gone over to Hillary, like other past supporters of Green Party presidential candidates have - Michael Moore, how could you? - and has received nothing but scorn and ridicule for refusing to go along with the rest of the Hollywood "liberal elite."  Sarandon has made it official - she's endorsing Jill Stein for President.  No compromising positions here.

So here's the deal.  Sarandon, a one-time Bernie Sanders supporter, had seriously been considering a move like this for a long time, and for good reason.  Hillary is not a progressive, but she plays one on TV.  But Sarandon knows better than to be fooled by Hillary's rhetoric and by her commitment to a liberal Democartic Party platform that Madame H will forget exists as of November 9.  After all, Sarandon has long espoused liberal causes such as the $15 minimum wage, GMO labeling, and breaking up the big banks.  Hillary supports none of those things.  And while Sarandon opposes hydraulic fracturing in oil exploration, offshore drilling, and military aid to Israel with no strings attached, Hillary supports . . . all of those things.

It's Madame H's foreign policy proposals - and Donald Trump's as well - that really gets Sue's knickers in a knot.  She's afraid that either one of them will get us into World War III.  And, again, for good reason.  Hillary supports a no-fly zone over Syria, as previously noted, which could get us in a military conflict with Russia - as previously noted.  Donald would likely appease a Russian takeover of Estonia.  And either one of them could start a war with Iran.  

"They’re both talking to Henry Kissinger," Sarandon says of the two major-party candidates.  "[Hillary] did not learn from Iraq, and she is an interventionist, and she has done horrible things - and very callously. I don’t know if she is overcompensating or what her trip is. That scares me. I think we’ll be in Iran in two seconds."

And here's what Sarandon said of Dr. Stein: 

"I'm therefore very happy to endorse Jill Stein for the Presidency because she does stand for everything I believe in. It's clear a third party is necessary and viable at this time. And this is the first step in accomplishing this end. Fear of Donald Trump is not enough for me to support Clinton, with her record of corruption. Now that Trump is self-destructing, I feel even those in swing states have the opportunity to vote their conscience."

So there you have it - Dr. Jill Stein's first major celebrity endorsement, and it's a prestigious one, coming from one of America's finest and most learned actresses.  Meanwhile, Hillary has a basket of deplorable pop stars and reality-show stars backing her, everyone from Kimye, Katy Perry, and Mr. Shawn Carter (Beyoncé's husband) to the spectacularly insufferable Madonna, who has been trying to get votes for Hillary by offering oral sex to undecided voters.  Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey has come out for Hillary, and she's even come up with a catchy slogan for Madame H - "You don't have to like her."

No, but it would sure help. 

The Green Party likely won't win the Presidency, and it has an uphill battle to get the five percent support at the polls that it needs to qualify for federal matching funds for future elections - especially when media rhymes-with-glass-poles like Chuck Todd push the narrative that support for all minor-party candidates is dwindling.  And Susan Sarandon must know, like I do, that, because of that fact, we Green backers could be riding off a cliff much like Louise Sawyer, Sarandon's character in the 1991 classic movie Thelma and Louise.  But it's a joyride I'm happy to take.  I'm sure Susan Sarandon herself would agree.        

The Clintons Treat Jill Stein Beastly

Having bitch-slapped Bernie, emasculated Marty, and put themselves in a position to watch the Donald hang himself with his own rope, the Clintons are now dealing with another e-mail controversy that involved newly discovered e-mails about the e-mail issue, found on a laptop shared by Hillary aide Huma Abedin and her estranged and strange husband Anthony Weiner.  On top of that, the FBI, as I've been led to understand, had tried to get a search warrant for Wiener's electronic devices without success but decided to push ahead anyway, suggesting that either FBI director James Comey is trying to influence the outcome of the election or Attorney General Loretta Lynch is trying to keep damning information from hurting the Democratic ticket.  With the campaign entering the home stretch, and with Hillary Clinton to win, the Clinton campaign has been counting on trying to run out the clock before anyone else or anything else trips them up.

And even before the latest e-mail issue broke, the Clintons were already working to make sure that Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein doesn't trip them up.

A recent piece in the Daily Beast by Yashar Ali unmasked Dr. Stein, just before Halloween, as a hypocrite because she and her husband, Richard Rohrer, have investments in mutual funds that in turn are invested in oil companies and big pharmaceutical corporations.  Well, there's just one thing wrong with that - the investments that Rohrer and Dr. Stein are retirement accounts, which as many as fifty million Americans, including teachers, police officers, tradesmen, or anyone who works for a company whose benefits include 401ks or IRAs, have.  These Americans are saving money for their retirements, and sometimes the mutual funds that the accounts are tied to are invested in big companies.  There's little if anything that the people with such accounts can do about that.  One would have to wonder why Ali sees this as big deal, until one notices that Hillary Clinton's daughter Chelsea is on the board of directors of the the Daily Beast's parent company.

What a devoted daughter Chelsea is.

So why shouldn't Dr Stein be considered a hypocrite because of her investments?  Well, let's look at comparison Dr. Stein herself has cited. Fox News has sneered at environmental activists who work to combat climate change yet drive cars.  Yeah, well, in America it's pretty hard to get around without a car, because public transportation in this country has been all but decimated.  And yes, I myself am a big Volkswagen enthusiast who supports public transit.  So what?  I've never been against cars, I just think we Americans rely too much on them.  If I could take a light-rail line to get somewhere, and if it had frequent reliable service, I would take it, because even people who love cars don't want to rely on their cars all the time and want to save wear and tear on them.  But just as we have to use less energy-efficient means of transportation because better alternatives don't exist - while we work to bring those better alternatives into existence - we also have to deal with economic reality as it is before we can change that reality.  Or as Dr. Stein explains, "The Daily Beast is suggesting that participating in the American economy is incompatible with working to change it . . ..  Unfortunately, to change public policy, one must participate in the economy enough to generate the resources to create change, ideally in a way that minimizes damage and maximizes change."

But, you'll probably believe the Daily Beast's spin, and you'll probably forget about the time Hillary said that anti-fracking activists should "get a life," or maybe you'll overlook her distinctions between a private position and a public position (remember her husband's promised middle-class tax cut, and how we didn't get one?), or maybe you'll even overlook her support for a no-fly zone over Syria that could provoke a military confrontation with Russia and lead to the world war she says Trump would instigate . . . because Hillary's media mouthpieces have already convinced you that a vote for Jill Stein is a vote against your personal interests, and maybe even a vote for Trump, and if you know what's good for you, you'll vote for Hillary.  

Don't buy it.  Hillary is not going to lose the presidential election because of Dr. Stein.  She's comfortably ahead in the polls, and she's even farther ahead in a few swing states, as well as in reliably Democratic states like my own New Jersey.  The Clintons aren't afraid of Jill Stein being a spoiler.  They're worried about Dr, Stein getting five percent of the vote and thus qualifying the Green Party for federal matching funds to make it competitive for the future.  This would actually allow a real progressive party to challenge the Democrats for the liberal voting bloc in this country.  That would be a disaster . . . for the Clintons.

"Let's be clear: this attack wasn't to point out a conflict of interest with Jill," Stein campaign manager Gloria Mattera wrote in a fundraising e-mail to Dr Stein's supporters.  "It was to silence all dissent to the coronation of Hillary Clinton."  "Coronation" is an appropriate word, since one prominent 2008 Hillary supporter once said that the Presidency is not a crown to be passed between two families like the Bushes and the Clintons.  (Alas, that prominent Hillary supporter was Martin O'Malley.)  Now, more than ever, we must resist efforts by the Clintons to silence the liberal opposition.  Now, more than ever, we must work to make the Democrats go full Whig if they keep pushing their disastrous neoliberal agenda.

Green Down The Ballot

Commentator and gay activist Dan Savage is getting on my nerves these days.  Not only is he dismissing Green Party voters as pasty-faced straight white people who don't care about people of color and LGBT folks, he has implied that the Green Party has focused so much effort on running  Jill Stein for President that it doesn't focus at all on down-ballot races where any political party worth its salt would start to build itself up.  He has said that maybe the Greens should contest races for smaller elective offices before going for the White House.

Dan Savage is full of crap.  The truth of the matter is that the Greens are running several candidates for all sorts of offices this year in the United States.  Overall, the Greens are running 279 candidates - let me repeat that number: 279 - across the nation in 2016, but you probably didn't know that because, when the media do talk about a third party, they talk about the Libertarians and their standard bearer Gary Johnson's ignorance of Syrian geography.  And the Greens have been running candidates in lesser offices, concurrently with their presidential candidates, for years.

Here are some more numbers, directly from the Green Party itself, on how successful it's been in building itself up in the U.S. as an alternative to the Democrats:  The party has won 31 percent of all the elections it's contested, it's put 1,013 people into local office and gotten 57 mayors elected since 1987, and there are 140 Greens who, at this writing, hold elective office.  One Green who has held office is a woman who got elected twice as a member of the Town Meeting in Lexington, Massachusetts.  The woman's name?  Jill Stein. 

The Democrats, aided and abetted by elitist supporters such as Savage, want you to think that a true party of the people can never challenge them.  Well, Hillary has offended too many people who are looking for real change with her hawkish forging policy proposals, her coziness with Wall Street, and her arrogant attitude toward environmentalists, and some of us had enough of her and her party's centrist claptrap.  The polls suggest that the Democrats may revitalize themselves in the elections, but it won't change the fact that it is declining and rotting from within just as much as the Republicans are.  The two-party system is closer to the verge of collapse then it's ever been since the 1850s, and it's time for new voices and new ideas.

And someone please tell Dan Savage to stop bullying Green voters and focus more on his . . . anti-bullying campaign.

I, for one, plan to vote for as many Green Party candidates on my local ballot as I can.  Alas, I live in a very Republican precinct, so Jill Stein may be the only Green I can vote for. :-( 

Oh Yeah, There Was a Debate Last Night

Again, I'm not going to comment on last night's debate, as I don't want to raise the profiles of either participant.  I will, however, refer to some points Jill Stein brought up while "debating" both candidates (she was actually responding to points from the debate via an Internet broadcast, part of which I caught, because she wasn't allowed to join them on the dais for real).

Dr. Stein noted that both parties are untrustworthy on issues such as Wall Street reform and student loan fairness, pointing out that a business-friendly administration is "not who we need to put into the White House . . ..  If we, as a country, can bail out Wall Street with its waste, fraud and abuse, then we need to bail out the students who are the future of this country."

Both Donald and Hillary say they have to the answers to our problems.  Dr. Stein is having none of that.  "The answer to our problems - war, immigration, security, economy, climate change, etc," she said, "is, we've got to stop causing the problems in the first place."

The good news?  Trump is going to lose.  The bad news?  It's you and me with HRC!  But I'm still voting for Dr. Stein and whatever Green Party candidates I can find on my local ballot, though the good doctor may be the only one.  Greens won't win much if anything on Election Day, but if enough of us on the left have the nerve to break from the Democrats and vote Green, we can start laying the foundation for a stronger and more viable liberal party in the future.  Going third party is dumb?  Don't you let anyone make you believe it.     

The Five Percent Solution

With Hillary soaring and Donald tanking, some people may wonder why anyone would want to vote for Jill Stein for President.  Why, they wonder, would you want to cast your ballot for someone so far down in the polls, she has less of a chance to win than even Gary Johnson?    

Here's a reason:  If Dr. Stein, at two percent in most national polls and at four percent in a couple of others, can get at least five percent at the ballot box, the Green Party can qualify for public funding in future elections and build itself up as a viable third party to challenge the mainstream Democrats for liberal support.  That's why Hillary supporters keep hammering away at Dr. Stein, even though she's hardly a threat to Hillary's chances in November.  They're not trying to destroy the Green Party's chances in this election; they're trying to destroy its chances in elections yet to come.

The Democrats may retake the Senate this year, and they even have an outside chance at cracking the gerrymander-fortified Republican House majority.  But the long-term survival of the Democratic Party is still very much in question, once the Republicans get their act together . . . and a Trump loss in November would certainly enable them to do that in time for the 2018 midterms when the Republicans have an advantage in the fight over control of the Senate and in preserving their power at the state level.  We need a viable liberal party to stand up against the Republicans, and the Democrats don't seem to want to step up to the plate . . . at least not as long as Hillary is leading them.  Voting Green and getting Dr. Stein up to five percent is increasingly turning out to be the only way liberals can hope to go forward. 

Go West, Young Voter

I'd like to share this donation letter released by the Jill Stein campaign from one of Dr. Stein's most prominent supporters, Dr. Cornel West:

I wholeheartedly support Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka. And I’m writing to you today to let you know, they have my endorsement - and I know they have your support as well.

You know, I’ve never been tied to one party or one candidate or even one institution. And that’s true even with one church as a Christian. I’m committed to truth and justice. I know you are, too.

I came late to the Green Party, but right on time; I was a tireless supporter and surrogate for Brother Bernie Sanders . . . he was the standard-bearer for truth and justice during the primary at a national level, at a highly visible level. Maybe you supported him, too.

But once he endorsed Hillary Clinton, I had to endorse Jill and Ajamu. Why? Because Hillary Clinton is a neoliberal disaster. What I mean by "neoliberal disaster" is someone who generates a mass incarceration regime, who deregulates banks and markets, who promotes chaos of regime change in Libya, supports military coups in Honduras, undermines some of the magnificent efforts in Haiti of working people, and so forth.

That’s the record of Hillary Clinton.

She’s an imperialist. She’s a militarist. She could take us into war with Russia. She could take us into war with Iran. I believe she’s dangerous in terms of her neoliberal ideology - not as a woman, because I’m supporting, of course, my dear sister Jill Stein.

Jill is not a spoiler. You know, a lot of people use that term "spoiler."

But truth is, If Hillary Clinton can’t make the case to progressives, she doesn’t deserve our vote. That's why I've put my time, my heart, my energy behind Sister Jill.

And I need you to go above and beyond for her today, so we can keep the movement she's part of, that I'm part of, rolling like a wave of thunder across the entire nation.

I implore you to make the biggest donation to the Stein-Baraka campaign as you can today. No donation is too small - think of the Widow's mite in the Bible -and no donation (up to $2700 per person) is too large.

You see, the campaign for Jill has grown exponentially and now needs about $17,000 a day to keep up through November 8. Our goal to start, is to raise $85,000 by midnight on Saturday (October 15). Will you help us?

We're currently falling behind in our fundraising. That's why I need you to give again today, as much as you can - even $10 would help.

Because of about 45,000 prophetic donors to her campaign, we've been able to build a progressive movement the likes of which the United States has never seen in modern times.

This is our year to dig in and make a real difference, to turn back the wave of neo-liberal policies that are killing black folk, women, prisoners, people of color, the poor and the dispossessed, and our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender sisters and brothers.

This is our year to make it clear that an alternative movement has taken hold and we won't quit until we see huge change. We will revolutionize the world.

The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.

This is our year to support Jill! In the language of Coltrane, Jill’s a major force for good, accenting the role of poor and working people being center stage.

Today, while this [letter] is in front of you, please give generously, as much as you can—to my Sister Jill Stein and Brother Ajamu Baraka.

It's up to us to turn back the forces of evil and work for the greater good.

As Sister Jill and Brother Ajamu say . . . it's in our hands.

Dr. Cornel West

I am not able to donate ten cents, never mind ten dollars, but I hope someone who is able to donate money and who doesn't get e-mails from the Stein campaign reads this letter from Dr. West  and acts accordingly.

To donate to Dr. Stein's campaign, go here.

One Man, One Woman, One Vote

The fundamental concept pf American democracy is that everyone is equal at the ballot box - one man, one woman, one vote.  The two-party duopoly that runs this country interprets that phrase somewhat differently from the way it's supposed to be interpreted.

As far as the Republicans and the Democrats are concerned, every American has one vote, but that one vote can only be cast for either one man . . .

. . . or one woman.

At least ten percent of the electorate are having none of that.  That's why one out of ten us will either vote for another man . . . 

. . . or another woman.

Oh - was there a presidential debate last night?

Jill Stein: Why Can't Hillary Supporters Handle Her?

Ever since I started telling people I was planning to vote for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in November, I've gotten a lot of criticism for wanting to "waste" my vote on a minor-party candidate who can't win, and I've done my best to ignore that.  But as the polls have tightened between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Hillary supporters have gone ballistic with Dr. Stein and her supporters.  On her Medium page, film blogger and Hillary supporter Sasha Stone assailed Stein backers for preparing to give Dr. Stein enough votes to deprive Hillary of a victory and help Trump win the Presidency, and she dismissed them as being selfish and uncaring toward the well-being of the country and caring only - wait for it - about their coolness.  "The last thing you care about is what happens to anyone else," Stone wrote. "You don’t care about the environment. You don’t care about the future of the already endangered animals. You don’t care about the Supreme Court because all you really care about is yourself. Your coolness matters more than the welfare of others. You know that people pay attention to you when you say you’re voting for Jill Stein because it means you’re edgy and not a sheep and not a mainstreamer."

Someone needs to take an anger management course.

It isn't just scribes like Stone trying to gaslight Stein supporters.  Sean Colarossi, writing in PoliticusUSA.com, insists that the polls are so close that any vote for Dr. Stein would be irresponsible and put Trump in the White House.  Dan Savage has said that disaster will come to minority groups if the "pasty white Green Party supporters" vote for Dr. Stein and skew the results in Trump's favor. On his TV show "Real Time," Bill Maher said it was important to support Hillary to keep Trump from winning by default and told liberals to do what they've been told to do for thirty years - that is, put aside their pet causes - and vote for Hillary because the country's future depends on it.  Actress Kerry Washington, appearing on Maher's show a few weeks later and sporting an oversized Hillary button, said we would be "voting against ourselves" by voting for a third-party candidate (though, to be fair, she did not mention Dr. Stein by name).  I have friends who are supporting Hillary and bashing Dr. Stein and her backers; one of them said on Facebook that Stein supporters are annoying and irrational.

Gee, why are all of these Hillary backers bashing, insulting, and smearing a nice lady like Dr. Stein - and her supporters?  Could it be, maybe, just maybe, that they know they're backing a fundamentally flawed candidate who represents the corrupt, bourgeois Democratic establishment and they're threatened by, of all things, a real liberal who appeals to progressive voters who, having repeatedly been thrown under the bus by the Democratic Party for decades, have had enough of establishment Democrats and aren't going to take their crap any more?

Dr. Stein has an ambitious agenda to put America back on the right track, with plans to get the country on a renewable-energy grid by 2030, guarantee health care to all, end police brutality and mass incarceration, advance rights for women and minorities, and end the Citizens United ruling. And Hillary . . . well, I'm not sure what Hillary wants to do, but she's made some mealy-mouthed comments about granting tax credits for the poor and expanding child care.  I also know she's supported an interventionist policy in the Middle East, she doesn't think we need to restore the Glass-Steagall Act to rein in big banks, she only came out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal after Bernie Sanders did, and she's been supported by Monsanto.   And what I know most about Hillary is not what she is, but what she isn't.  She's not Donald Trump.

Not good enough.  Trump is a clown, a buffoon, and a bigot (though he does have a good singing voice!), but Hillary is going to have to do more than not be Trump if she wants to earn the votes and trust of the millions of liberals who backed Bernie Sanders for President and the dozen or so of us who backed Martin O'Malley for President.  I haven't heard Hillary offer any bold, ambitious plans that would make me vote for her in a heartbeat.  She can't.  She's too tied to a Democratic establishment in bed with Wall Street bankers and major corporations to offer another New Deal, which only serves to remind us that she'll only offer another raw deal.

Let's get a few things straight. Every time a Democrat has been elected President since the 1980s, we liberals have always expected a change for the better and have ended up getting business as usual.  We've seen Republicans unite to resist change and seen first Bill Clinton and then Barack Obama try to work with the Republicans only to see the GOP take over one or both houses of Congress and reinstate right-wing supply-side economics.  If we get anything we support, it's usually in watered-down form, be it tax credits or a tweak of the health care "system."  More social programs?  Nah.  Democrats don't have time for that.  They're too busy pursuing neoliberalism, that lamebrained theory of trying to provide for the greater good through market "reform" and privatization.  

Maybe that's why the Democrats have been declining and falling lately. On President Obama's watch, they've lost the House, they're down to eighteen governorships and majority control of only 30 out of 99 state legislative chambers, they've lost the Senate, and Democratic "rising stars" now have brilliant futures behind them.  And after all that, the Democratic establishment, convinced that Hillary was their only hope of winning the 2016 presidential election, discouraged Hillary's potential opponents for the party's presidential nomination, punished those who actually ran, tried to stifle debate during the primaries and caucuses, and then used its muscle to discredit and demolish Bernie Sanders when he turned out to be far more for real than Martin O'Malley ended up being.  And now these same people who offended those of us who supported Sanders or O'Malley by tipping the scales for Hillary and running roughshod over us are demanding that we vote for Hillary, because if we don't and if we vote for Dr. Stein instead, Trump will win and destroy the Republic and it will be all our fault.  That's not the way to get us liberals on their side. Bullying us and threatening us only serves to remind us why we're so sick of the Democratic establishment.  Dr. Stein scares establishment Democrats because she is providing a place for progressives who should be in the Democratic Party but who no longer feel welcome there . . . or never felt welcome at all. That's why Hillary Clinton's backers are attacking Dr. Stein; she threatens them and their candidate more than Trump. 

Which is ironic, because Gary Johnson, the Libertarian presidential nominee, appears to be hurting Hillary more than Dr. Stein is.  Not only is Johnson far ahead of Dr. Stein in the polls, he's attracting moderate and conservative Republicans and independents repulsed by Trump who had considered voting for Hillary but are now giving Johnson a serious look.  Hillary's supporters can't say that liberals who should vote for her but vote for Dr. Stein help Trump, and they shouldn't say that she's losing these liberal voters to Dr. Stein . . . because Hillary never had them in the first place.  They either backed someone else in the primaries and caucuses or skipped them altogether.  

Another reason Dr. Stein scares Hillary backers is because, like Sanders, she's exposed neoliberalism as a crock and reminds the Democrats of their proud but forsaken New Deal/Great Society past.  But unlike Sanders, she can't be controlled.  Nor can anyone control Ajamu Baraka, Dr. Stein's vice presidential running mate, who acidly noted on a recent CNN appearance that Obama's failures as President aren't only because of Republican racism.  Baraka said that Obama had "an historic opportunity to transform this country," but did not live up to it.  "He allowed his commitment to neoliberal policies and a neoliberal world view," Baraka said, "to undermine the possibility of greatness." 

No, Sasha Stone, I am not selfish . . . and I am not cool.  Geez,  I still love Jethro Tull.  No, Sean Colarossi, I am not irresponsible.  Forgetful, maybe, like when I fail to take out the trash once in awhile, but not irresponsible.  And no, Kerry Washington, going third party and challenging the major-party duopoly is not voting against yourself; it's being true to yourself.  So why don't all of you Hillary backers leave us Stein supporters alone?  And the Democratic establishment has a lot of damn gall to force Hillary on us liberals and then try to scare us into voting for her because the alternative is Donald Trump.  The Democrats had an opportunity to nominate Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley and run on a real progressive agenda and rebuild the party for the future.  Instead, they've nominated a candidate who represents the failures of their recent past.  The Democrats didn't do themselves any favors by making history with the nomination of Hillary as their first female presidential candidate; in fact, they may have consigned themselves to the dustbin of history.   

Campaign 2016: The Greening of America

This just got interesting.

The two major presidential candidates for 2016 have done nothing but undistinguish themselves in conduct unbecoming a President, and while Donald Trump is clearly the top Katzenjammer Kid, Hillary Clinton should be called out too.  But first, the Donald.  He actually had the nerve to discredit a Muslim Gold Star couple, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, for their speech at the Democratic convention against Trump's stand on Muslims in light of the sacrifice they made with the 2004 death of their son, Captain Humayun Khan, in the Iraq War.  Mr. Khan called on Trump to stop demonizing Islam and, also, respect the contributions of American Muslims to the country and respect the Constitution's protection of religious freedom.  He added that Trump has sacrificed nothing and no one during the fight against terrorism.  Trump, whose statements on Muslims demonstrated that he doesn't know anything about Islam or the Constitution, insisted that he has sacrificed to create jobs (he had to fly commercial first class instead of in his own jet?), demonstrating a tin ear to the sacrifices of Gold Star parents of any creed, color or faith.

As for Hillary, she got herself in hot water again over her State Department correspondence, insisting this past Sunday that she neither sent classified e-mails on her e-mail account  nor used more than one server. Both claims are untrue. Although FBI director James Comey saw no reason to prosecute anyone, his statements contradicting Hillary's claims suggests that she misremembers the recent past, just as her erroneous recollections of being under sniper fire on an airport tarmac when she visited Bosnia in 1996 as First Lady suggest that she misremembers the distant past.

Meanwhile, the Green Party rolls merrily along.  Presumptive Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein is now expected to be on the ballot in six more states, including - drum roll, please! - New Jersey! And Pennsylvania!  (The other four states are Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Vermont.)  Mind you, the petitions in these states still have to be certified, but get this - in these states, the number of signatures submitted surpassed, and in some cases doubled, the minimum amount required.  In New Jersey, petitions bearing two thousand signatures - more than the eight hundred needed, and two and a half times the minimum - were submitted.  It looks like I won't have to write her in after all.  

Meanwhile, meet Dr. Stein's vice presidential running mate! :-D

His name is Ajamu Baraka, and he is a renowned human rights activist.  (As far as I can make out, he is not related to the Baraka family of Newark, New Jersey, where Ras Baraka is the mayor.)  A native Chicagoan like Dr. Stein, Ajamu Baraka is a founding member and a former executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network, which has sought to improve basic human rights in These States, and he has also been on the boards of Amnesty International and the National Center for Human Rights Education.  His credentials in fighting for basic humanity and dignity are impeccable, and he is a staunch advocate for the dispossessed.

"Ajamu Baraka," says Dr. Stein in a statement, "is a powerful, eloquent spokesperson for the transformative, radical agenda whose time has come - an agenda of economic, social, racial, gender, climate, indigenous and immigrant justice."

Just like the woman at the top of the ticket.

The Stein/Baraka ticket has its work cut out for itself, and the media are already trying to scare people from voting for any minor-party presidential ticket by saying that Trump could have the advantage in a three-way or four-way race. The insufferable Chuck Todd of MSNBC has already said that.  Perhaps it's time to scare both parties by getting behind the Green ticket.  Even if Dr. Stein is unlikely to be the next President, a respectable showing would send a strong signal that the days of the nation's current two-party system, in place since 1856, are numbered.