Third party news roundup, Oct. 11

Although Claudia de la Cruz will be my protest vote within a protest vote, her campaign never responded to me asking by email why she had yet to register to attend a third-party candidate forum, the Free and Equal Elections Debate, to which she had been invited. Other than travel costs from NYC to LA, it's FREE exposure! 

Hey, Claudia? The few bucks I might have given you personally or PSL? Maybe not.

I emailed a second time. We'll see if I hear back.

(Hey, Cort Greene? In 2028, I COULD vote for the SWP cultist party. But won't.)

Next, though I'm protesting against Jill Stein, the Abandon Harris movement, formerly Abandon Biden, has officially endorsed her. That's unlike Lexie Zeidan and fellow DSA Rosey shitheads at the "Uncommitted" movement, whom I originally called "Abandon Biden" but who have no actual connection to any "Abandon" movement. They're "committed" — to keep supporting genocide.

The Democraps are doubling down on the "A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump" bullshit. You don't own my vote, as I said in 2016 and spelled out in 2020 (with a GP skeptical analysis) so fuck off. Reminder: Even in a swing state like Georgia with a large Libertarian Party, you never hear Rethuglicans doing this.

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Update: For Cort Greene and any SWP cultists he drags here in his train? 

First, there are plenty more things in life to focus on than intra-Trot fights, Trot vs Tankie fights, Trot vs Maoist fights, or pseudo-Trot Zionist fights against all of the above! Remember, that's who today's SWP is. As for Cort's Fashbusters, given that the "about" page really doesn't have anything about it, the simplest conclusion is that it's SWP fellow-travelers/front-group/entryism project. I still haven't forgotten about entryism, dude.

Second, one can oppose what China is doing in Xinjiang, and in Tibet, AND oppose US foreign policy spinning on it AND oppose American stanners for Beijing like Max Blumenthal. Not hard to do.

Third, one can express legitimate concerns about Iran, while calling out blind hatred of Iran that's driven by Zionism.

Fourth, back to the start of the first point? Go hiking. Take a walk in your city park, or in a state or national recreation area. Watch butterflies. Cook something, like a frittata. I've done all in the past four days. In other words, get a life.

Fucking Donald Trump is why I'm no longer on Twitter, even as the NYT continues to be craven

As discussed in detail here, two weeks ago, my then-primary Twitter Shitter account got blocked by Elmo Musk and his Nazi goons because I posted the link to Ken Klippenstein's Substack about the J.D. Vance screening dossier allegedly hacked by Iran. (Note: If you're still working at Shitter, especially in some branch like Shitter "Security" two years after Musk bought the company, you're a Nazi goon. Period and end of story.)

(Update, Nov. 3: Going Klippenstein one better, we obtained a seemingly hacked version of what purports to be a transcript of Trump's "hiring interview" with Vance.)

Well now, per the NY Times (with an interesting angle, per the pull quote coming up) explains that Team Trump was behind this:

After a reporter’s publication of hacked Trump campaign information last month, the campaign connected with X to prevent the circulation of links to the material on the platform, according to two people with knowledge of the events. X eventually blocked links to the material and suspended the reporter’s account.

There you are.

What's interesting is that Maggie Haberman (barf me) et al never mention either what the material is — which those of us in the know, know — or who the reporter is, and ditto on that.

Are they, or an editor above their heads, worried about Elmo freezing the New York Times' Shitter account, too? What cravenness, especially when survey after survey shows that most of Merikkka gets little news information from Shitter.

Let's contrast with Mediaite, which linked to the NYT:

The Trump campaign “connected” with social media platform X, owned by billionaire MAGA supporter Elon Musk, to suppress links to a journalist’s newsletter that contained a leaked dossier allegedly stolen from the campaign when Iran reportedly hacked it.

The September newsletter, published by journalist Ken Klippenstein, included a dossier on former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance (R-OH), which Klippenstein was sent by an unknown source who claimed it had been acquired in a hack of the Trump campaign. Other news outlets said they’d also obtained some hacked information but chose not to publish it.

There you go.

Alternet gets quotes calling out the NYT:

Journalist Steve Mullis notes, “It’s crazy that this is a single paragraph in the NYT’s Elon Musk story. Given that there were congressional hearings accusing Biden and Democrats of doing this sort of thing, this should be its own huge story.”

It goes on to note how the NYT story doesn't do a deep dive on foreign money (like Saudi money) coming into Elmo's PAC. 

Side note on this? The "ranking member" for Democrats in some House committee could call hearings. So could any Senate committee, since that's Democrat-majority. But, because Iran is the alleged hacker and "Israel," they'll be as fucking craving as Maggie Habs.

Also, Emptywheel (not linking) mentions that Habs et al didn't mention Elmo's "joking" about Harris and assassination attempts less than two full weeks before he booted Ken off Shitter.

I read this via Mediagazer's feed, so I have some other sites that also, like the NYT, did NOT mention Klippenstein by name. That includes Mother Jones (shock me), Daily Beast (NYT only reference in passing, but its Justin Baragona was a shithead shill two weeks ago on shrilly insisting that Klippenstein was doxxing), The New Republic, TPM (like Daily Beast, only in passing), Raw Story.

Then there's the WaPost, all on its own in a tangential piece of shittiness:

Hackers linked to Iran reportedly obtained the briefing book compiled as Trump was vetting potential running mates. (His former vice president, Mike Pence, needed to be replaced on the ticket for noteworthy reasons.) The hackers shopped the briefing book around, finding few takers.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein bit, however, publishing the document on his website. And in short order, X banned Klippenstein’s account, purportedly because the linked document included personal information about Vance.

This makes Ken look like some poor schlub, rather than a principled reporter, formerly of the Intercept. This isn't NYT-craven, it's "throw Ken under the bus" craven. Is there any wonder why many people on the left, for better reasons than Trump Trainers, don't trust the lamestream media any more?

Update, Oct. 12: Klippenstein got his Shitter restored and wrote about it on Substack. Including that link, I appealed again and got restored, too. I'm still using the Fuckbook page I created, though, and also Substack Notes, to post much of my blogging links. I told him on Shitter that he needs to write about Habs et al being so craven at the NYT.

Alternet? Worse than Counterpunch on electoral politics

After what is pretty close to the last straw with Counterpunch recently, over the anniversary of the Third Gazan War, as I'm calling it, I thought, let's check other allegedly leftist sites.

First stop? Alternet.

Alternet has a mix of head-fake pseudo-legit critiques of Stein and stuff that's "gotcha" right off the bat.

Among the "gotcha"? Calling out Stein for using a signature gathering firm with connections to Trump and possibly to J6. Is there any callout of Democrats' democracy suppression? No. Worse? It's a fucking reprint of a Salon article. THIS gotcha, signal-boosting AOC in the process, on the other hand? All their own. I'd thought of putting Alternet on my new blogs feed. Nuh-uh. This one, though behind Counterpunch's paywall? An APRIL payment by Stein's campaign (NOT her, technically) to a "Church of Cannabis"? Found for free at MSN, the payment was just $300 and was for renting the building for a speech. The piece, originally at Raw Story, has Russiagate Stein/Putin/Mike Flynn gotcha in it, too.

Candidates to the left of Stein? Not.Even.Covered.

Texas Progressives look at oiliness in the Permian and in politicos

The Trib offers its latest assessment of Dade Phelan's chances of keeping the Texas House Speakership.

Related? The Texas Observer wonders if the House will remain anti-voucher after the elections. (Answer: Too close to call right now, so the speculation doesn't matter yet.)

Given all of Oxy's problems within petroleum major and mid-majors, there's no way I'd trust it to run a carbon injection plant it wants.

The RRC is dealing with a major new blowout.

More and more medical societies and organizations, especially ones focused on women's health, are boycotting Texas and other anti-abortion states as sites for their annual conferences, or individual members are creating alternative meetings if the organizations won't relocate.

Shock me that Greg Abbott is engaged in A: Theatrics; B. Mislabeling a drug gang as terrorists; C. Doing something that attempts to intrude on federal power.

Tarrant County Appraisal District, under the new law with directly elected board members in larger counties, is allegedly violating state law. So says state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, the guy who pushed for such restructuring. And, it may not be the worst county district! Bettencourt repoliticized the system; his shock at the actual repoliticization is bullshit.

Off the Kuff covered some polling and campaign news for Colin Allred. 

SocraticGadfly offered up the latest installment in his series on Southwest Airlines vs Elliott Investment Management.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project posted a list of questions local political press could ask the six Houston City Council Republican, to see if they support the authoritarians & proponents of mass deportations put forth by the Republican Party up and down the ballot in 2024.  (Yours truly could send Neil some questions to pass on to City Council Democrats to see if they support national Democrat vote suppression. He could also remind Neil that Kamala is a Border Cop. He does this rather than not run Neil.)

The Current tells you about some political events to avoid. 

Texas 2036 wants to spread the word about free or low-cost ACA plans that many people qualify for.

CultureMap offers some mammogram advice in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  

Evan Mintz reminds us what Donald Trump thought of Houston after Hurricane Harvey.  

Laney Hawes laughs at some election conspiracy infighting.

Psychological proof Dear Leader was seen as a head fake on neoliberalism

Regular readers here know who I mean by Dear Leader.

The psychological proof?

At Psy Post, new research indicates a sharp split within Black men on their mental health after Obama's 2012 re-election. And that split was along class and income guidelines.

The researchers found that college-educated Black men saw a significant improvement in their mental health, with nearly three fewer poor mental health days reported per month after the election. In contrast, Black men without a college education reported experiencing one additional poor mental health day per month.

That sounds fairly notable.

Why? Various possibilities.

And, per the researcher, yes, this does call for further thought.

The researchers propose several reasons for this divergence. One possibility is that less-educated Black men felt Obama had not lived up to the promises he made during his campaign. These men may have expected Obama to tackle issues like job creation, healthcare access, and systemic inequality more effectively. As these promises went unfulfilled in their eyes, their mental health may have worsened due to feelings of disappointment or relative deprivation—a sense that they were being left behind compared to other groups, including more affluent or educated Black men

Looking at the current election, and what the average Trump Trainer thinks vs the reality of Project 2025? Should Trump get back in office, I would expect a similar split among White men.

Political news roundup — Green-Dem fight in Wisconsin, Bernie and AOC in Tex-ass

The Green Party's presence in Wisconsin is making Democrats nervous. Specifically, in the last decade, Madison has elected 10 Greens to local office, the piece notes. Stand by for Cort Greene to try to comment on this post. That said, Politico's piece doesn't report on why the Republicans don't worry the same way about Libertarians, even though in decades past through now, they've lost multiple US Senate seats in Georgia because of Libertarian candidates, for example. It does note that Kamala is a Zionist Cop Harris appears to be getting more pro-Palestinian supporters than Genocide Joe was.

Meanwhile, Alexia Sabor, chair of Dane County Dems, says:

“If you want power in a third party, start teaching the Green Party or whoever to run for school board and village board, and stop running for president and governor.”

Ignoring the info in the paragraph above.

Or, rather, lying about it.

And, the Wisconsin GP has promised Sabor that there will be more of that, and challenges for things like state rep, in 2026.

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Why DID AOC and Bernie Sanders come to Tex-ass recently? Did they drink some of the Gilberto Hinojosa Kool-Aid? As part of the piece, Dan Solomon correctly notes that, no, there's not some big pool of non-voting Texans just waiting to flip the D switch. Instead, there's just a big pool of generally non-voting Texans.

Also of note: ConservaDem Colin Allred avoided both like the plague.

Speaking of and related? Like Kuff, I didn't know Adam Kinzinger had moved to Tex-ass. Unlike Kuff, I'm far more skeptical of his Republicans for Allred push. And, beyond the piece, will Kinzinger get normalized enough to be the Dems' 2026 gubernatorial nominee?

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Kamala is a Zionist Cop's campaign staff, anonymously, admits "just folks" Tim Walz has a "misspeaking" problem. It's not yet as bad as Dementia Joe's lies, but stay tuned! And shock me.

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Remember when Kamala was a Pre-Zionist Cop and Friend of Banksters? Like Steve Mnuchin? THAT, it's clear, hasn't changed.

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The Smartmatic vs Fox lawsuit is turning ugly.

Oct. 7, 2023, one year later

Since the lamestream media won't give you the facts? This roundup post is a callout post as well.

Let's start with NPR. No, Genocide Joe and Kamala is a Zionist Cop did NOT have tributes to all the victims. They had no tribute to Palestinian victims before or after Oct. 7. Neither did Dementia Don, of course.

The WSJ, before you hit the paywall, is honest enough to talk about divisions in Israel strong enough there were dueling ceremonies. US LSM won't discuss that, either.

At the Beeb, British mainstream media, they didn't talk about dueling memorials in Israel. They did cite the fatuousness of Genocide Joe and British Prime Minister Der Starmer:

Outside of Israel, President Biden joined other world leaders in condemning what he called the "unspeakable brutality" of the Hamas attacks a year ago.

He also expressed horror at the subsequent war, saying "far too many civilians had suffered, far too much".

Mourners also gathered at vigils around the world including in Australia, South Africa, Germany and the United States.

In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons he supported Israel's right to defend itself. But Britain's prime minister insisted there was no military solution to the current crisis and appealed for all sides to "step back".

Without calling it fatuousness. Neither Genocide Joe nor Der Starmer will do anything beyond "appeals," the international political equivalent of #ThoughtsAndPrayers, the old Shitter hashtag, or #TotsAndPears as parodied by many of us secularists.

Indeed, as Axios notes (and this is not at all new) Biden and Harris have their thumbs on the scales. Dementia Don would do just the same.

The ZioNazi government of Bibi Netanyahu, meanwhile, is ignoring alleged divisions, and using the world shifting focus to Lebanon, to try to continue to grind Gaza to dust.

And, friends on Facebook who have voted outside the duopoly in the past still want me to vote for lesser evilism.

Meanwhile, Counterpunch talks about Oct. 7 leaning on lesser evilism Noam Chomsky with a chaser of sellout Ralph Nader. 

Oh, for you BlueAnon and MAGAts alike? Start by reading Ilan Pappe, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," or another of his books. Then go to Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People." Before you even think about "going there," both are Jews inside Israel.

The Freedom Socialist Party? Who?

Never heard of them before. And, that's after doing a fair amount of research this year. So, their critique / attack on the Socialist Equality Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation is sketchy. Their attack in that piece on the Socialist Workers Party is spot on, as is the ones on Jill Stein and Cornell West. Here's their Wiki; they've run a presidential nominee of their own once since splitting from the SWP back in the 1960s.

That said, looking at the subsections in their "about," they appear to be strongly identitarian politics, above all on feminism, which the SEP has halfway-correctly criticized in the PSL. And, more specifically, they're Trots. See their FAQ for more.

My "vote the Commie" for the PSL is as much a protest vote against protest votes as anything else, I'll admit. I'm "post-capitalist," not "anti-capitalist," and have long noted, as have others, that Marx may have been right on description of his era, but wrong on prescription. I have gone further in noting that Hegelian dialectic is crappy philosophy and literally creates pseudoscience when used as the backbone for any theory or thesis within any social science, whether it's the original dialectical idealism or the Marxist dialectical materialism. (That applies in spades with the natural sciences, of course.)

I should add that, in post-Reagan Merikkka, I'm suspicious of groups with "freedom" in their names; these people could be a CIA front group.

Counterpunch? You've lost me with Chomsky AND with Nader

Counterpunch, on US elections issues, has been "losing" me for months now. Start with the lack of profiling of third-party candidates. Yeah, that's not their metier, but, at the same time, more than once in the past couple of months, they've run stuff that HAS at least verged halfway close to GOTV writing for the left hand of the duopoly.

And, now, today, on the one year anniversary of the start of the Third Gazan War or whatever name we should give the current round of mindless Israeli ethnic cleansing, after years of goading both Gazan and West Bank Palestinians?

Counterpunch Radio uses a Noam Chomsky "infographic" type quote as art for blurbing its podcast. Barf me.

First, long before he was brain-dead, Chomsky tried to "nudge" Green (and SPUSA) presidential nominee out of the race in 2020. He wasn't alone. Barbara Ehrenreich, Norman Solomon and others who know better were his fellow travelers.

That said, that's nothing new. That same year, Chomsky, who's long been a duopoly sheepdogger, was one of the signers of that odious Harper's letter. (So was Cornel West, which is why I didn't really believe his schtick a full year ago, even before he decided to try copulating with Nick Brana.)

And, while Margaret Kimberly went too far (shock me) in claiming Chomsky is fully opposed to BDS? He's nowhere near being in support of it; receipts are here. (Neither is Norman Finkelstein, who flat-out rejects it, as well as still cluelessly clinging to the two-state solution.)

Reminder: Last week, the UN General Assembly, in essence, officially called for UN member states to engage in BDS against Israel.

Beyond all of the above? Chomsky has been "filtered" through his second wife for years.

While I'm here? This, too. And, this goes straight to Jeff St. Clair, an unreconstructed Naderite, as well as Cockburn fils. Running Ralph Nader calling out Dems over Israel and Gaza. Nader officially endorsed Genocide Joe two weeks before Oct. 7 and has never unendorsed him or succesor Kamala is a Zionist Cop. On St. Clair, I had somewhat moderated my stance on his stance on Nader and the Green Party at one time, but I've hardened it again, and more so after Oct. 7. In my opinion, the Green Party internal reforms for 2004 weren't perfect, but they weren't horrible. AND, contra Nader and St. Clair, they weren't entirely officially targeted at him. Also IMO, he, like Cornel West, wanted the nomination on a platter. Yeah, there's a lot of AccommoGreens, but still?

Also, per my "endorsed" link? There's LOTS of stuff that St. Clair won't tell you. Like Nader being a shitter on Terri Schiavo. Like him being a crappy boss per both Kurt Eichenwald and Tim Shorrock, among others. Both have receipts. Nader has been anti-labor in other ways. Consumer advocates in general, like environmentalists, have a history there.

Anyway, this isn't Counterpunch Radio referencing Chomsky. This is Counterpunch continuing to platform him.

Update, Oct. 25: It gets worse. This Counterpunch piece all but goes in the BlueAnon tank, talking about Republican election suppression while ignoring Democratic third-party ballot access election suppression. I've long, long said that Counterpunch, even more than other theoretically leftist political commentary magazines, is sorely lacking in establishing some sort of overall editorial direction and oversight in areas like this. Of course, managing editor Josh Frank himself has had a piece or two this year that came close to semi-officially stanning for the lesser evilism half of the duopoly.

Off the Kuff practicing election disinformation

That's what we have at a post last Thursday.

I quote:

They also didn’t report on the Presidential result in the story. That was 49-44 for Trump over Kamala Harris, with 1% for Jill Stein and 0 for independent Cornel West. Given that West is a write-in, and therefore won’t be on the ballot, and there is a Libertarian who will be on the ballot but wasn’t included, this is another result for a non-existent race.

And my response:

And, it's flat out untrue to say that because Cornel West is a write-in, he won't be on the ballot. To put it another way, that's election disinformation. I don't mean that metaphorically; I mean that literally. This is election misinformation at a minimum, disinformation at a maximum.

And, Kuff's been around enough, and in Democrat politics enough, I say "dis" not just "mis."

Beyond that, Kuff knows from a recent Texas Progressives roundup, that I'm voting for Claudia de la Cruz, a write-in, for president. (I also said in comments that I'm also doing one of the write-ins for Senate.)

And, again, this is how people like me take voting more seriously than the duopoly stanners.

Update, Oct. 24: Indeed, and I presume this comes from the state level, because the piece of paper had the Texas Secretary of State's shield on it? At my polling place, a printout from the SoS office lists all the write-in candidates by name.

And? I just tweeted this post, with update, and tagged the Texas Secretary of State's office.