SocraticGadfly: Stein (Jill)
Showing posts with label Stein (Jill). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stein (Jill). Show all posts

September 26, 2024

AOC vs Jill Stein: Fear and self loathing in NYC

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, in a recent campaign email, wonders why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the eponymous AOC (and the worst left-of-center eponymous political figure since the "Notorious RBG") keeps hating on her when many other Democratic Party national politicos have lightened up.

Here's Jill's receipts:

While some Democrats like Keith Ellison have jumped on the “Smear Jill Bandwagon,” others have taken a different route. Check out what these other Democratic lawmakers have said after AOC’s recent attacks on Jill Stein:
"If you have people who are upset at the system, attacking their candidate is probably just reinforcing their concerns about the system, I think we have to earn people's votes. I don't think you go negative on third-party candidates." - Rep. Ro Khanna
"The Democratic Party has to do a lot more to become more progressive, and if we don't have Green candidates or independent candidates, or the Squad, does the party do that? I would say no," - Rep. Jamaal Bowman
"We have to be persuasive to those that might be leaning toward voting for them, I think the margins are too small for us to be smug about it." - Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota

Why is AOC not using honey rather than vinegar?

It's simple. And just like the headline says.

Fear? Fear that she's capped out on making much more quick advancement in House Democratic circles without kissing Pelosi's ring or anular ring even more. Fear of being trapped on the House side because a Democratic Senate run isn't likely for years.

Self-loathing? To the bit she's anything more than Just.Another.Politician.™, or was half a dozen years ago, it's self-loathing for being a sellout. It's self-loathing, if there's inner honesty, for being a sellout on the discount rate — 15 pieces of silver instead of 30, to go biblical.

And, yes, the reality is that she's a sellout and that it didn't get anything.

Look at her and other Dems' fake and stolen Green New Deal. (And the Sunrise Movement, the Sierra Club's kiddie wing, as part of that.)

Not long after that, there was AOC throwing Ilhan Omar under the bus over "the Benjamins," surely to curry favor with Pelosi. (Sadly, Omar eventually caved.)

Of course, on the issue of being pergressuve or not, there's the question of how "invented" her background really is. There's the question of what kind of "JAP" she is.

And, before Oct. 7, 2023, there's the question of just how much she really opposed Israel. And, there's the issue, not question, of her unsupporting BDS and sucking up to the corpse of John McCain. Or her being one of the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ on Ukraine.

Donut Twitter and semi-Donut types like Ryan Grim will keep fluffing her. I'll keep mocking and scorning.

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at Thursday, September 26, 2024 0 comments Posted by Gadfly

August 17, 2024

So, it's Butch Ware as Jill Stein's Veep? Update: It was Ayoub first, then Noura Erekat

That was the news yesterday, that she had picked Butch Ware, professor at Cal-Santa Barbara, over any of the two Arab-American names she floated two weeks ago via Al Jazeera as three potential Veep picks. The two Arab-Americans were also both from Michigan, the state with the largest Arab-American population and where the "uncommitted" movement in Democratic presidential primaries started.

Per that second link, a previous blog post of mine? Was she afraid of actually costing Kamala is a Zionist Cop the state of Michigan, and in a close presidential race, thus possibly tipping it to Donald Trump? Given that her 2016 recount, based on fake news, started in Michigan, and that Stein is in many ways an AccommoGreen, the Green equivalent of a ConservaDem, none of this would surprise me. Luqman, the third name floated, is from DC and so just wouldn't have been a broader needle-mover. Also, as of 2020, she was affiliated with Sputnik Radio. Given attacks on Stein as a "Russian agent," by #BlueAnon engaging in the worst of #Russiagate's wrongness, that would not have flown. But, was Stein thinking that way? If so, why was Luqman on the list in the first place?

And, why am I assuming Stein actually plays 11-dimensional chess, or thinks that deeply?

==

Big set of updates to the original post, via Green Party candidate Jason Call and people he had retweeted, with a huge amount of backstory to this.

First, Stein had yet other people in mind besides that list from Al Jazeera, apparently. Or she was forced to, rather, after her first choice, from that list, spit the bit. More on that below.

One of them, her first fallback, was Noura Erekat, who, thank doorknob, per this tweet

Pulled out.

The "terms of campaign"? This:

As I noted in quoting

And in responding to someone else who quoted:

The GP doesn't need that shit. Stein should have seen that Erekat's history, including being of legal counsel to a House committee, might have been .... iffy.

Serious, that SCREAMS "duopoly" to me. Did nobody vet her?

Nor does it need the shit of Nathan J. Robinson, socialist pretendian, stanning for the left hand of the duopoly

And, stan he does.:

He'd semi-headfaked earlier this summer, but, now we're seeing the mask back off. 

As I told him?

What else is there to say? Well, other than Robinson wants the Green Party, en masse, to be DSA Roseys.

Per that semi-headfake mentioned above, I had had hopes that he might actually be looking beyond the duopoly this year, mainly over Gaza, but also for other reasons.

Beyond the headfake, the naivete or whatever it is that he's exemplifying?

Nathan, have you been gaslighting the outside world, yourself, or both, about how much you understand about political machinations?

Back to the Erekat pick.

To pick up from near the top of this post? Elsewhere, Jason Call notes that the original call was Abed Ayoub, the top candidate in the Al Jazeera leak (yes, a deliberate leak) but he backed off due to family illness.

Erm, wasn't this known in advance? The family illness? Surely, unless his wife had a near-fatal heart attack less than 24 hours before Stein officially tapped him, this didn't come out of nowhere. In this Aug. 12 story, in which Ayoub is grateful to be under consideration, there's no talk of health issues with himself or family. Per Facebook, his one grandmother died Aug. 15. It's true, that could have been sudden, but given her apparent age and that most her siblings were already dead, it's more likely not that sudden.

And, if he did spit the bit, why not Amer Zahr or Luqman, off that original list of names?

(My original post on this didn't get updated after that Al Jazeera piece, as I was operating off IPR. Still.)

To go back to Luqman? I think Putin would want somebody more organized than Stein as a Russian asset.

And, to offer a new update?

I tweeted this post Saturday night to someone named TurboKitty, who had been retweeted by dyed-in-the-wool Green David Bruce Collins, calling the process a clusterfuck. Turns out said person is co-chair of the Nevada Green Party steering committee.

I'll be here, and was on Twitter, charitable to their first response to me, and assume they were honestly thinking I was talking about the "big reveal," not the process behind it. I told them politely but firmly, no, I meant this process.

I wasn't charitable to their second response:

With my reply:

And, I'll further fight fire with fire as desired. 

I "get" the tribalism behind the response. I don't accept it.

And, I'm going to keep taking receipts. One Pourz11, who's actually a follower of me, but it's not mutual, jumped in. Their second comment was:

To which I said:

Then added that, per the end of that comment, no one that mattered to me cared about their present.

And, setting aside her investments hypocrisy, I haven't even talked about things like her antivaxxer footsies, her 5G nuttery and more. That said, I know shit like 5G conspiracy theories and antivaxxerism (even if it was footsies, not full-blown with her) appeals to a fair chunk of Greens, as I said after in the last run-up to the 2020 race at that link. Whether it's a majority or not, I don't know. OTOH, COVID scared enough Greens that Stein doubled down on pandering there, saying she supported the vaccine but opposed vaccine mandates. Or, to put them in the scare quotes they need? "Vaccine mandates." Gee, a Rethuglican could say that. Like Gov. Strangeabbott. On the third hand, I called Stein Just.Another.Politician.™ years ago, and said Greens were Just.Another.Political.Party™. I stand by that. Sadly, and one thing that has me not locked in on Claudia de la Cruz is her Stein-like stance on vaccines.

(Some of this is notes for when I announce my "slate" in a month or so.) Per that last link above, if Joseph Kishore, the candidate of the Trots of the Socialist Equality Party, is available by write-in, that's an option.

More on the Erekat pick and her demands.

First, Noura, they weren't going to be met. If you're that dumb to think that they were, beyond the AccommoGreen in extremis, I question your political judgement as much as Nathan J. Robinson's. You must have hung out with Dem Congresscritters too much. (I also question your political alignment as much as Robinson's.)

More on that, from my perspective, snarkily?

Actually, considering I'd like to finish pushing the Green Party off the cliff, in some ways, it's too bad in some ways that Stein didn't agree to Erekat's demands.

==

Anyway, to summarize:

1. Stein's first choice for Veep spit the bit in a process that invites questions, to put it politely, is head scratching, to put it a bit more skeptically, or is questionable, to put it more skeptically yet.

2. Her theoretical second and third choices, from her original list of names, were apparently simply ignored.

3. Her fourth choice was poorly vetted, if at all. And, it's not like there wasn't time. She's mentioned in that Aug. 12 story linked above, with Zahr endorsing her. Was the Al Jazeera piece not just a deliberate leak, but a smokescreen to cover Stein's chasing of Erekat? If not, why did she pivot to Erekat? Was it knowing her duopoly ties and seeing this as a "get"?

4. That, of course, fell through and it was on to No. 5 or beyond.

At this point, Stein, if not the national Green Party as a whole, is telling Will Rogers "hold my beer" over his bon mot about Democrats and disorganization. This looks like George McGovern's Veep clusterfuck in 1972.

And, summary side notes?

1. I'm going to do something further about Robinson. Don't think you've gotten off the hook yet.

2. What's this say for the Green Party 2028? Even more than in 2020, most candidates, before Stein entered, couldn't cross the bar for party qualifications to officially run. And, after Cornel West spit the bit, nobody else of note jumped in besides Stein. Her running in 2028 would finish killing off the party. So, where's a Margaret Flowers or someone like that? A Matthew Hoh?

Nutters, flakes, vanity candidates and grifters (and there's definitely Venn diagram overlap) won't cut it.

3. Tagging Mark Lause on Facebook, whom I thought was done with the Green Party on personal support as well as activism, I find out I'm wrong there. I can't say more because I don't post as "public."

4. I also still think a la 2016, that Stein deliberately spit the bit on choosing a Veep nominee from Michigan, and an Arab-American rather than an African American, because of lesser evilism.

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at Saturday, August 17, 2024 0 comments Posted by Gadfly

August 07, 2024

Jill Stein, Veep panderfesting?

Jill Stein, Veep panderfesting? Say it ain't so, but per Al Jazeera, she's getting somebody to ignore her boundless investments hypocrisy as she talks up her Veep choices:

The candidates are Abed Ayoub, executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC); Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American activist; and Jacqueline Luqman, a journalist and activist.
All three have been vocal critics of Israel and the US’s unflinching support for the war on Gaza. Stein, a physician and activist, herself is a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights.

First, the first of these would be the executive director of the group that, per Independent Political Report, did NOT include anybody to the left of Stein in its internal presidential preference poll.

In addition to the above, the first and second are both from Michigan, home of Stein's lesser-evilism based 2016 recount. And, it WAS lesser-evilism based. It was only some time after it was launched that some Stein flaks and flunkies explained on the then-active GP official Facebook group that she couldn't have asked for a recount in a couple of other close states. Stein herself didn't mention that at the time of the recount.

If she causes Michigan to break for Trump and that's his margin of victory over Harris, will Stein do another lesser evilism recount?
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at Wednesday, August 07, 2024 0 comments Posted by Gadfly

July 16, 2024

Does Green Party two-time retread Jill Stein still have a hypocrisy problem? Survey says yes! So do the feds, Stein and GP cultists

Two weeks ago (as of the original November 2023 writing of this), I blogged about Stein, the Green Party's 2012 and 2016 candidate, jumping back in the race this year after Cornel West did his Lucy van Pelt and pulled away his football. I did note the angle that not only would this help the Green Party but it would also help her pay off 2016 campaign debt the Federal Elections Committee said she owed and that courts have agreed.

I forgot the biggie, although I did tweet about it after my initial post.

That is, that in 2016, Jill Stein had a hypocrisy problem like Ralph Nader in 2000, and that is, via mutual funds, having investments in oil, tobacco and defense contractor stocks. The last is the biggest this time, given her rightful but presumably hypocritical attacks on Genocide Joe over Israel and Gaza, and her stance on Russia-Ukraine before that. 

And, that appears to have changed not one whit. No, to make it active voice? Jill Stein appears to have done nothing, not one whit, to address this investments hypocrisy.

Eight years ago, Stein did, partially, address Yashar Ali. But, she kind of petard-hoists. (And, it's linked in his piece.)

  • The biggie is, why didn't she divest earlier, before Ali's story, already divest?
  • Second and related? You're a medical doctor, not a public-school teacher whose investments are made by a state pension fund, not themselves. These are YOUR investments.
  • Third? If there are "green" mutual funds that invest in fracking, they're not so "green," right, but why is that an excuse to stop looking further?
  • Fourth, and relevant to today? You don't mention the defense stocks.
  • Fifth, and even more relevant since Oct. 7, 2023, how many stocks in your mutual funds still trade with Israel?

(The image, from the Daily Beast, doesn't have a missile. Will it update for 2024? Will Yashar update his info-bomb?)

For updates about Stein’s non-responsiveness and related issues, go here. (NOTE: If you want to skip directly to the ethical investments issues of 2024, which don’t appear to have changed tremendously from 2016, go here.) 

Update, July 16, 2024: For the name, rank and serial number of a lying millennial Redditor, StillSlaying who claims this is poorly written, doesn't want to look beyond the Green Party, but does want to proselytize for it, go here.  In addition, he's now apparently blocked me, assuming Reddit has a new way of showing when someone's blocked you, or else he's one of these comment-and-delete shitters, or some combination thereof. Well, bye back, after doing the post-and-delete and getting busted. This all after I pointed out that this post has an anchor linking directly to this year's federal disclosure filing by Stein. No, Slaying just didn't want to read.

TL/DR at that link? "Survey says 'yes,' at least indirectly" to the admittedly semi-rhetorical question in the header.

Oh, for Naderites? All of this applies to St. Ralph, too. He's had a hypocrisy issue since 2000, per the 2016 story.

Per the original 2016 story, it next notes that, contra the "gotcha," even if Clinton's campaign gave this a push, that duopoly candidates have also been questioned for their financial holdings, and links to one about GOP candidates.

And, yes, contra a GP cultist type (or Peter Daou, or other leftists who essentially say that just voting for Stein rather than the left hand of the duopoly is enough), no, for me, the back story needs to be explained.

There are a few Stein-specific things, though, in that 2016 original. She mentions she inherited half a million. Good. The story already mentions that itself.

Re the no "gotcha," it turns out that the bankster-investments include ones with Goddam Sachs, for which she criticized Clinton, and also for which, in the link immediately above, GOP candidates were criticized.

Yes, I know Hillary's oppo research dumped that in Ali's lap, or at least nudged him that way. Ditto with the Gore campaign and Nader in 2000. Doesn't make it any less true, especially with this:

Admittedly I have not spent a lot of time researching elusive ethical investments. I prefer using my time fighting for social, economic and ecological transformation, and recycling capitalist money into the fight to do so.

Gee, you'd run for president in 2012, and I guess were lucky enough not to fall under Dear Leader's re-election spotlight. You therefore were able to waste four more years not researching "elusive" ethical investments, which were advertised in The Nation at the time of Nader's run already.

Ergo, Stein, such investments are NOT "elusive."

Anyway, Ali addresses that, too.

While it’s true that Stein would not have control over the investments of the funds she invested in, she did have a choice of whether to invest in these funds to begin with. In the past, political candidates, in an effort to avoid a conflict of interest or have their judgment called into question, have invested their entire portfolios in U.S. Treasuries, cash/cash equivalents, in socially responsible index funds, or clean-energy funds.

Again, hard to argue.

Disclosure: All my money is in either one "National" bank which is, I'll admit, one of lesser ethics, especially post-Great Recession, or a "state" bank which doesn't have problems that I'm aware of.

Until I see an official statement from Stein, pre-empting FEC information, with an independently audited review of her personal investments, I'll assume she has not divested. And, I use the word "divested" deliberately, as I know Stein also supports Boycott, Divest, Sanctions.

And, until I see that, it's a guarantor she's not getting my vote. And, it's an indication that the question in my header is rhetorical and the answer is obvious.

And contra this:

Yes, I think it's an issue. And for details on why? See above. The bits of 401k I have from previous jobs, I have no idea either. BUT? Again, I don't have any control over that, either, other than cashing it out. An individual with an individual mutual fund has the choice of how to invest in the first place.

ALSO? This isn't all 401k. See below. That's a fail there.

Also, again? If you don't see the issue, are you a leftist (Ken said a while back he was a Nader Raider of long ago) who doesn't support BDS? Because, those defense contractors are also arming Israel, let us not forget.

Finally, if these all are protest votes, I can also protest against the protest votes being offered me. No problem doing that.

And, as you see, I've listed as least three different hypocrisy problems, not just one. Well, two of them are tied together. But, if you want a fourth? Per that second link? Why does a medical doctor own tobacco stocks?

And, this all applies in spades to our lying Redditor.

Oh, again, and as I told Brains back then, so-called "ethical" mutual funds exist. They did back when St. Ralph of Nader ran in 2000. Yes, they may have a slightly to modestly lower rate of return, but when you're running a third-party presidential campaign, this is not at all an unreasonable purity test. Actually, they may NOT have a lower rate of return; per Nerd Wallet, they may do just fine. And, calling more bullshit on Stein's claim, that piece also notes that things like "robo-advisors" offer at least some degree of simplification on the task, if you're not seeing a financial advisor who touts and advertises responsible investing advice. As for the history? The modern history, per this piece, goes back somewhat to Vietnam, and even more to the first push for divestment, vis-a-vis South Africa. And, per this piece at Mondoweiss, a site called Resource Generation offers assistance in divestment in general.

Besides, both Stein and Nader are multimillionaires. It's not like they can't or couldn't afford to meet this purity test, if it even is an affordability issue.

And, specific to Stein is her owning Big Pharma stocks even while not only criticizing the pharmaceutical industry in general, but being an antivaxxer.

And, having done John Anthony Castrol's filing with the Office of Government Ethics, at some suitable date in the future, I'll do Stein's, then Google for more info on whatever mutual funds she has.

Update: I'm sure I'll wind up doing this myself. If Yashar Ali is interested, he won't do it until the general election, for Democrat-aiding oppo research reasons. 

Update 1A, July 16: Ali's got his hands full enough trying to figure out what the party line is, or Party line is, and follow it, on whether to run Biden up the flagpole and salute him or instead to join Congresscritters and celebs still trying to shiv Dementia Joe.

Update 2, Feb 23: She / her handlers refuse to respond to my webmail, or my responses to campaign mass blast emails. 

Well, I did get a non-response "response" from a Bill Carini:

Hi Steve, I have relayed your concern to the campaign team. Feel free to check back with me in the future for updates.

There we go. That was Feb. 21. I'll check back in another week. Perhaps. Meanwhile, per the old proverb? "Silence gives assent."

Update 2A, July 15: I did, in my most recent response to one of her fundraising emails, ask the scrubbeenies (and I called them that) who actually post and receive said emails to actually take a look.

Here you go, and the same applies to said millennial Redditor:

If genocide is political violence, why do you have bombed-up stocks in your mutual fund portfolio (along with the oily eXXXon)?
And, to the scrubbeenies who actually answer these emails, have you thought about voting PSL or something?

Boom.

So, I have emailed the public records email at the FEC with the appropriate 201 form. And, I noted that I couldn't find Stein. If that gets her in FEC trouble? GOOD.

Meanwhile, per the original posting, the likes of Pat the Berner on Twitter (you can delete your old account, but many of us still remember) was attacking Party of Socialism and Liberation presidential candidate Claudia de la Cruz on Twitter for her COVID comments. I thought Pat's interpretation of de la Cruz was overblown, first (but he's a COVID Doomer) and, speaking of hypocrisy, hypocritical second, given Stein was playing footsie with antivaxxers in 2016 — even while having pharma stocks in her mutual funds.

UPDATE, March 1, 2024: GOT her FEC filing. Since Google Photos doesn't support PDFs, I'll convert it to a JPG, or a set of JPGs.

1. The overview.

2 and 3: Some breakouts:


OK, the Part 2 filing? CREF Stock 2 401(k) QCSTPX is currently, per Financial Times, 6.25 percent "consumer defensive" and 4.72 percent "energy." Percentages are slightly different at MutualFunds.com but the basic picture is the same. Consumer defense / defensive, per this and many other sites, can include tobacco, government contractors (which would include defense contractors, of course, with Lockheed Martin mentioned by name in the examples) and more.

Now, that's a 401(k), so we could cut her some slack.

But, the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund (VBTLX) is an IRA. Now, it's all bonds, but half are non-governmental, per MutualFunds.com. That includes things like mortgage-backed securities. And, we all remember the housing bubble and the Great Recession, don't we, kiddos?

Then, there's individual stocks, non IRA mutual funds,  etc. (I won't get into her husband's holdings, but ...)

Merck. 3M. Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund, VXUS, which includes Shell. Vanguard Dividend Appreciation Fund, which includes 3 percent Exxon and 15 percent "consumer defense." Vanguard 500 Index Fund, which includes 6.9 percent consumer defense and 4.8 percent energy. eXXXon again mentioned by name. (This is the same Exxon that sues its own shareholders to stop shareholder activism, then continues the suit even after they pull in their horns.)

So, she clearly hasn't divested oil stocks, and presumably hasn't divested tobacco and defense stocks either. In addition, FXI is a Chinese large-cap index type fund. Given that she, Margaret Flowers, Howie Hawkins, et al, continue to spout hasbara about Beijing and the Uyghurs, stuff like this is at least also flirting with no bueno.

UPDATE, June 25, 2024: I did a new Office of Government Ethics ask, and nothing major has changed on her investments.

Per Ken above, and Brains years ago? I'll give her a pass on the 401(k). Little pass if any on the IRA; that's a personal investment, even if done by a financial advisor. She still could have asked. The non-IRA investments? Zero slack there.

And in fact, to punk all three of Ken, Brains and Jill Stein? Vanguard itself touts its "ethical" products. Well, at least in Australia, per that link. That said, here's an investor website piece about ESG funds and investments in general, then review of several Vanguard funds. THAT said, the Aussie equivalent of the SEC accused Vanguard of greenwashing 9 months ago. And, in 2021, Vox had a deep-dive piece on the whole issue in general.

Bottom line? Per the old cliche, Stein doesn't have to be purer than Caesar's wife. But, "as pure as" would be nice. That's because, post Oct. 7, 2023, she keeps calling for more pressure on Israel, but she's not walking the walk!

Second bottom line: Unlike Yashar Ali's possible angle in 2016, this is not oppo research for the left hand of the duopoly, which I think was at least part of his bottom line. So, it's out there early. People can make their judgments now. (Mine is to vote Claudia de la Cruz if she is available by write-in.)

Third bottom line? I hope Brains has gotten more skeptical about Stein — more cynical, like me, would be OK, too — compared to where he was in 2016, specifically, more skeptical or cynical than he was then about her investments. (Brains works for a financial advisor/planner, and knows that "ethical mutual funds" exist, and that they did way back in the time of 2000 hypocrite Ralph Nader.) Ditto for other Greens besides Brains.

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at Tuesday, July 16, 2024 1 comments Posted by Gadfly

May 02, 2024

Presidential politics May 2 — Stein's semi-dubious big endorsement

Jill Stein has scored a semi-major endorsement, by Columbia prof Jeffrey Sachs. Important, given all the shit at Columbia in the past week or two. Am I voting for her? Still not. Let me know when she divests herself of her oily, bombed-up stock holdings. (That's not the only reason; some of the others are at the same link.) Hypocrisy alert on this issue? Stein got arrested at the Ivy League of St. Louis, Washington University, as part of a protest to get Boeing (owner of old St. Louis defense contractor McDonnell-Douglas) to divest from weapons for Israel. I'll have to look and see if Boeing is among her bombed-up stock holdings!

And, Sachs is at least some degree of China toady. Just like Howie Hawkins, along with Margaret Flowers and the late Kevin Zeese, as his national campaign handlers, were in 2020. And before that, along with Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, etc. Just like Stein is. It's another matter of concern. Actual leftists like Cory Doctorow have called bullshit on this, as has the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The Uyghur labor camps? All real. Links in that "were in 2020" piece.

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at Thursday, May 02, 2024 0 comments Posted by Gadfly

December 26, 2023

Could the 2024 presidential race go to the House?

First, I will occasionally update this first-round guesstimate as we get firmer polling numbers not just on Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, Jill Stein, and whomever Libertarians nominate.

With that, let's dig in, with Wikipedia's entry on the 2020 election the starting point.

Bob Jr. strikes me, and certainly, pollsters, as the biggest wild card among independent and third-party candidates. Where is he most likely to have an effect? I'm basing this somewhat on state-by-state hunches and a general thought that he takes 60 percent Republican, 40 percent Democrat, among his voters who voted for somebody else in 2020, and doubles that with "green" voters. (Not "green" in that sense; green as in didn't vote for either one in 2020.)

My guesstimates:

1. He keeps Arizona in Biden's column.

2. He keeps Georgia in Biden's column.

3. He takes Maine, both of the individual Congressional district electoral votes and overall.

4. He takes New Hampshire.

5. And, for shits and giggles, let's say he takes Wisconsin as well.

That's 18 EVs for him. Not enough to send it to the House. It's 288 Biden, 232 Trump, 18 Kennedy. But?

Let's say I'm wrong on Arizona and Georgia. That's 17 votes. I'm moving them to Trump, not Kennedy.

Then it's 271-249-18, right? Wrong. We forgot to factor in redistricting, which gives Trump's 2020 states 3 more EVs this time, and Biden's 3 less.

We are now at 268-252-18.

That said, as she still dithers, there's the Liz Cheney factor the other way. But, further kneecapping Biden, there's the #AbandonBiden push. And, there's the new indictment of Hunter Biden, which raises up again the issue of Biden family sleaziness.

We'll talk more later.

Update: Bob Jr. is officially on the ballot in Utah, his first state. Per a piece at Independent Political Report, he expects ballot access battles could cost up to $15 million — and sounds prepared to spend. Unless slipstreaming in his wake, it's hard to see Cornel West coming close to that.

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at Tuesday, December 26, 2023 0 comments Posted by Gadfly

November 13, 2023

Two-time Green Party retread Jill Stein running again

After Cornel West did his Lucy van Pelt and pulled the football away from the Green Party to run for president as an independent instead, 2012 and 2016 GP presidential nominee and her 2016 Veep, Ajamu Baraka, pledged to beat the bushes for new Green Party prez candidates.

And, the "bush-beating" has yielded?

Two-time retread Stein filing to run again.

A commenter at Independent Political Report, where the commenting system, for me, remains broken, speculated that she's running to pay off the $175K she still owes the Federal Elections Committee. As confirmation, her personal website, which did NOT have the campaign announcement as of yesterday, is soliciting funds for an appeal to the Supreme Court to be heard in November, against that appellate court ruling against her on the debt.

Given that Stein and the party both, as well as West, have not said how much lane-clearing West was promised and why that wasn't enough for him, and given that Stein has had bad optics before, last week, I called the GP Just.Another.Political.Party™. This only adds to that.

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at Monday, November 13, 2023 0 comments Posted by Gadfly

November 05, 2019

Jill Stein slouches the rest of the way to Gomorrah

I'm still of multiple minds about her 2016 trip to Russia. It had elements of sincerity, as well as elements of a campaign stunt. I certainly don't think she, or Gen. Flynn, or Justice Party prez candidate Rocky Anderson, were under Russian control. But, I do think she and the other two had their appearances manipulated by Putin.

Stein discusses that, Russiagate and Howie Hawkins' take on it and more in this excerpt from an interview by Primo Nutbar, officially known as Primo Nutmeg. (I've briefly mentioned him before here, and run into him in more depth on Twitter. He earns the renaming.)

The "more"?

When Stein heard about the idea of libertarian Jesse Ventura (noted as such in my review of potential GP candidates), and conspiracy theorist Jesse Ventura (he is), running for the Green Presidential nomination, and that antivaxxer RFK Jr. would be his wingman if Jesse had his druthers, she was all for it. He's also a HAARP conspiracy theorist.

(Update, Nov. 15: New research, as written up by the Guardian, shows RFK Jr.'s World Mercury Project was one of the top two buyers of antivaxxer ads on Facebook.)

In 2016, I defended Stein from charges of being an antivaxxer. I said she was playing footsie with the issue for political reasons within the GP, but she wasn't an antivaxxer.

That defense is now officially gone, Stein. You're an antivaxxer.

You're also a relatively poor interview, per the first half of the interview. The halting, hesitant answers, as you seem to seek the right political ground yourself? You should be past that.

(Update 2, Nov. 15: Stein also, according to the Bezos Post, wants Tulsi Gabbard to run as a Green.)

That said, Stein is right on Ian Schlakman whining about the GP's accreditation process for "certified" candidates. And, since I've called Howie half-wrong on his angle on Russian election meddling, Stein is half right. Maybe more.

She's largely wrong about her recount, even if it got a few good results. The AccommoGreen still refuses to admit that the likely reason she sought the recount (I doubt she knew that state law blocked her in Minnesota and New Hampshire) was to block Trump, and maybe only secondarily, look at electoral issues.

Well, between this and Howie breaking party rules (while at the same time exposing the number of conspiracy theorists among Greens), the party is cracking up more and more, and needs to do so, IMO. I thought Hawkins getting the Green nomination would flush out some conspiracy theorists. It may still do so, but unless he gets a waiver on his rule breaking, I can't vote for him.

Mark Lause was both expecting and hoping for such a crack-up three years ago, as I blogged at the time. He seems righter than ever.
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at Tuesday, November 05, 2019 0 comments Posted by Gadfly

September 12, 2019

Howie Hawkins in Dallas



Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins had about 2 hours in Dallas to visit with Greens and Green-leaners interested in getting to know more about him Saturday.

Hawkins was introduced by his campaign treasurer, Travis Christal. He then spoke for a little over an hour, then fielded questions. He apologized if anything he said was repetitious. He'd been in Arizona until late Friday, helping with a party ballot access drive there, and said he had only had about two hours of sleep.

He said that he got every Bernie Sanders backer who dropped by his ballot petition table to sign. Note the smartphone and the "Bernie" image in the photo at right; it embiggens when you click it.

He said that many of the signers said that, if Sanders didn't get the Democratic nomination, they'd vote Green in the general. We'll see; I'm sure many of them who said that in 2016 didn't follow through.

That said, Hawkins did say that, on the issue of "lesser evilism" voting that "You're defeating yourself before you even start."

First, one thing I liked was his realism. He said it's highly unlikely he'll be elected president, if he gets the party's nomination, but Greens need to be out there fighting. He cited his 2014 New York gubernatorial campaign, where he forced Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo to the left, including signing an anti-fracking bill, to get re-elected.

"We move the debate. We don't have to win the election to move the debate," he said.

Hawkins didn't cross the line into AccommoGreen territory, and I don't think he ever would (unlike Jill Stein in 2016) but that's always an issue that bears watching in my book. I agree with his idea, but Greens should never run assuming that that's going to happen or assuming they can make it happen.

Back to where I was two paragraphs ago.

Hawkins started his talk with ballot access issues. He noted that in Canada and Britain, a minuscule number of signatures were need to run for parliaments there, versus the thousands required for U.S. Congressional races of independent candidates or third-party ones whose parties lack ballot access. (Mike Gravel has now urged his supporters to help Hawkins on this.)

He said that being retired after more than 30 years of unionized labor gave him the time to help with this at various states, as well as the time to heed calls by many to put his organizing experience, and his political experience, to run for president. And this is important not just for 2020, but for the rest of the decade and beyond, he said.

Speaking of the unionized labor, he also noted that President Barack Obama, whom he later called the Deporter in Chief, had agreed to sign off on reducing pension protections, at the push of current Democratic presidential candidate and then Vice President Joe Biden.

From there, Hawkins enumerated three "life or death" issues:
1. Climate change
2. Income inequality
3. The revived nuclear arms race.

The first issue should be obvious to any Green. So should the difference between the Green Party's Green New Deal, spearheaded in part by Hawkins, and the Democrats' watered down version of that.

Here's Howie's now explicitly ecosocialist Green New Deal.

On the second? In terms of job security and other issues, Hawkins noted that, after FDR, every Democratic president has had at least one Congress in their term or two terms where the Democrats controlled both houses, and yet, income inequality and job insecurity have risen under them as well as under Republicans.

As an ex-Marine who has seen tactical nuclear weapons, Hawkins said that tactical nukes as well as a revised push for strategic level nuclear arms — especially missiles with much higher speeds and thus less warning times — were an existential threat.

I totally agree here. And ANY Democrat (that's YOU, Tulsi Gabbard) who voted to expand our nuclear arsenal is NOT a peace candidate. Period. This is another aspect of the Tulsi Kool-Aid vs reality that too many Greens are still drinking. That would be the "I support Moar Nukes" Tulsi.

So, it's Howie that is a peace candidate — along with other Greens who have the same stance on nuclear weapons.

Hawkins finished by looping back to ballot access and tying it to larger issues of Green organization. He noted that the largely white background of the party was an issue. However, he said just taking a walk in a minority neighborhood wasn't the best way to improve this. Rather, trust and relationships needed to be built, he said.

He didn't address a pet peeve of this blogger and a number of other Greens — namely that the national party's "decentralization" plank in its Ten Key Values tends to favor "paper" state parties in places such as Ohio. I don't know how much of an issue that part of party organization is for him. But it is for me. I see today's national GP as being like the Articles of Confederation era national government.

And, I did disagree on the issue of "open borders." To me, open borders is almost like free trade instead of fair trade. Yeah, the EU may have open borders (to a degree; you generally don't qualify for welfare benefits when you move to a new member state). But, that's within the EU only.

The US and Mexico's economies are not integrated to the degree the EU member states are. As far as something more parallel to that? EU member states in southern and southeastern Europe are tired of Middle East refugees coming to their countries, but wanting to ultimately go to Germany or Scandinavia, and then in turn being blocked.

As for the economics? Measured in purchasing power parity, the US per capita income is more than three times that of Mexico and far greater than that of Central American states.

The gap between Germany, the best-off larger EU nation (I'm excepting Luxembourg, Ireland and Norway) and Bulgaria is only about 2.25 to 1.

On the flip side, re refugees and the EU starting to rethink open borders? The gap between Germany and Syria is FAR larger than that between the US and El Salvador.

I don't know what else can be done better beyond ending military interventions and destabilizations (which is plenty big enough), but I'll take a pass on open borders. To me, in the US vs. Latin American situation, it comes off as a sort of Wilsonian nation-building internalized.

I do know it's not just me on this issue. About 15 years ago, The Nation had a piece supporting open borders and got strongly attacked by readers.

Had he meant something like Julián Castro's reduced penalties, civil only, for illegal border crossings, which Tulsi Gabbard has called "open borders" on wingnut media sites, it might be different. But he cited the EU and he clearly means open border.

Nope.

==

Note: I have not yet formally committed to a single candidate, but Hawkins is on my shortlist along with Dario Hunter and Ian Schlakman. I wish I had been able to squeeze in going to the state convention down in Temple to hear Hunter but I couldn't. I hope one or both is in the Metromess in the near future.

==

Down in Houston, David Bruce Collins still doesn't agree on Hawkins take on All Things Russia, but says we don't need purity tests and likes what he heard overall.

As for purity tests? We all have them. We just have different parameters for how we construct them and how loose or tight of boundaries they have.

==

Green candidates will be on stage together at the GP Black Caucus hosted debate Sept. 20. I'm now reminded of what Bruce Dixon thought of the mix of tokenism and paper-party issues that led to at least some people getting on said caucus last year.
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at Thursday, September 12, 2019 5 comments Posted by Gadfly

January 14, 2019

Charles Davis vs Jill Stein, round 2

I'm no big fan of Jill Stein's recount of the 2016 presidential election, and wasn't from the start. Even though she was hamstrung by election laws in some states, nonetheless, the recount appeared Democrat-biased, and, contra Green Party defenders of the recount who have pointed out those election law issues, I doubt either she or David Cobb knew that at the time. Given her endorsing Bernie Sanders in the California Democratic primary, plus her indication of a willingness to step aside and offer him the Green Party nomination — which she couldn’t do and later claimed she wasn’t trying to do — I have good reason for that.

That's why, when I read Charles Davis' piece in The Daily Beast last May about the lack of FEC filings, the amount of money Cobb and others were being paid for their work, and how the Stein campaign seemed to be reneging on its initial plans for a public vote on using the leftover money, I was intrigued.

Intrigued enough to blog about it.

But, also, "intrigued" by Davis willing to strawman leftists over Syria, to the point of calling Sy Hersh a conspiracy theorist. And, yes, I think this does color to some degree his reporting, or at least potentially.

Let’s also remember that the Daily Beast (not sure if Davis or not) “broke” the story of Stein’s questionable financial investments just before the election. That said, they ARE questionable, and even if they offer lower returns, “ethical” mutual funds exist.


So, now that we've seen the Stein recount effort produce results in Pennsylvania, including a requirement to move to ballots with a paper trail, and now in Wisconsin, including getting to take a peek at the guts of voting machines, 


I tweeted Davis back, asking for an update/folo piece, since part of the thrust of his original was that Stein hadn't gotten any results, probably wouldn't get any results, and to the degree that her effort probably was not a traditional recount, was reduplicative of other, established, election security agencies.

Well, he did nothing more than double down on his original statement. He eventually gave me a suggestion on Twitter to "do check out" the blog at Stein's new site, and the ongoing pay issues.

I counter-suggested that, if we're giving suggestions, that he do stop strawmanning leftists on things like Syria. In my second-last Tweet before that, I made clear that I'm not a Stein fan because she's an AccommoGreen, per above.
"(D)o stop strawmanning leftists over Syria and other foreign policy issues, as long as we're offering suggestions here." 
Somehow, I doubt that will happen. Just as much as I doubt he'll write an honest folo, if any.

And, to the degree my tweeting was trollish, the man has well earned it.

That said, my straight take?

On the Wisconsin issues, Stein may have accomplished something, since it was in the envelope of a recount, that already-existing vote integrity nonprofits could not have gotten.

That then said? Do I think voting machines have been regularly hacked by Putin, or regularly manipulated by voting machine companies? No.

Do I think previous claims about how easy they are to hack have been overstated?

Absolutely, as I recently blogged.

The paper trail issue in Pennsylvania? Corrupt Democrats and about equally corrupt Republicans have both refused to do anything about that in the Keystone State. Straight-up win, there, Charlie. (Are paper ballots perfect, themselves? Nope. They can still be stolen, or added unto. Landslide Lyndon, 1948, kids.)

As I told you? Man up. Stop being a hack.
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at Monday, January 14, 2019 0 comments Posted by Gadfly

May 30, 2018

Jill Stein is still 'recounting' while getting less transparent

Update, Nov. 28, 2018: I owe Jill Stein a partial apology. While I still think both transparency and administration of her recount fundraising and the work it funded could have been better, it has now gotten results.

From a legal settlement, Pennsylvania is going to paper ballots in 2020, followed by automatic audits in 2022.

 Hey, it's only 18 months after the 2016 presidential election.

 Remember the recount that Jill Stein asked for in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin?

 Remember how she pledged to have a plebiscite on how to distribute any leftover funds?

 Well, per the Daily Beast, she's still "recounting," she's gone dark on transparency about reporting to the feds and other things what she's doing with that, and in addition to what he made as her campaign manager, David Cobb has been raking $7,500 a month as her recount legal czar or whatever.

 And, no, I don't assume that's the only legal work he's done during this time. As for what he does to earn that money, he wouldn't tell the author:
Well, that's nice.

 The feds are concerned enough about not reporting to the FEC since last September that they've given her an official threat:
In a May 7, 2018 letter, the FEC warned Stein campaign treasurer Steven Welzer that he was violating federal law by not accounting for half a year of spending. 
“The failure to timely file this report may result in civil money penalties, suspension of matching funds, an audit or legal enforcement action,” the letter states, noting there is no grace period.
Seems pretty straightforward.

As does this:
As the Center for Responsive Politics has noted, U.S. law dictates that funds raised for a recount “only go toward expenses directly related to the recount, such as paying state staff that counts the votes or any other administrative or overhead payments, as well as post-election litigation.”
If that group's name is unfamiliar, this should be — the Center for Responsive Politics runs the well-known, widely-respected Open Secrets campaign finance website.

 The House Intell Committee hauling her up on Russophobia was stupid. Her getting an FEC audit would be an actual black eye.

Some people try to say this about continuing the now non-recount:
But David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, says there is good reason to keep fighting. An expert on election security, he provided technical support and guidance during the initial recount effort. 
“It absolutely was not a Stein campaign cash grab,” he told The Daily Beast. And while examining voting machines and their source code may not change the result of the last election — Stein’s attorneys would quickly note they are not trying to — it could help secure the next one, Jefferson argued. It is about transparency. 
“To be perfectly clear, we never really had any evidence [of vote hacking],” he said. “The point we have always been making is that you have to look. You have to check. You don’t just accept the results of complex software, especially proprietary software. You don’t just trust it.”
This ignores what the Center for Responsive Politics said — this doesn't count as a recount and needs to stop. (Jefferson tried to sell Clinton on a recount.)

In my opinion, the Green Party Executive Committee, which rejected backing her recount, needs to take follow-up action in an official statement of some sort. Some sort of distancing statement. But, it may not, as six months later, it said it supported it. (eyeroll)

 Now, it is true, as I updated here, that she couldn't recount New Hampshire and Minnesota, as far as the ex comm claiming politics. (Hillary Clinton could have recounted New Hampshire, and I am guessing the law was changed there to block a repeat of Nader's 2004 recount.) However, the other information, on margins of victory, etc., still stand true, as does the fact that, at the time of the recounts, Stein never cited Minnesota or New Hampshire law herself as a reason she couldn't get recounts there. So, I still see it as part of apparent "lesser evilism," which falls in line with claims she was willing to step aside if Bernie could be persuaded to stand for the Green nomination.

On the Cobb deal, he's not the only staffer from her 2016 campaign to be on the recount payroll, another eye-raiser; her campaign's director of operations, Kendall Ferguson, is hauling in about as much, per the last FEC filing. Former press director Meleiza Figueroa is getting a few dinero, and campaign information director Matthew Kozlowski is raking more than Cobb! But, not a surprise; a year ago, I noted that Cobb, Bob Fitrakis and other lawyers got more than 20 percent of the funds raised; I'm sure we're past 30 percent just on insider lawyers now, and probably at more than 50 percent to old campaign staff.

 In a June 5 brief update, Davis has crunched some more pay numbers, beyond what I did in the original post here, as somebody from Stein must have seen his first piece and done a new FEC filing.
"The delay in our latest filing is due to the fact that we have had to revise our reports as a routine part of the audit process that automatically follows the use of clean money public campaign finance matching funds," Stein campaign communications director Dave Schwab said in a statement. "This is a difficult, labor-intensive process that has taken our compliance team months of work to prepare."
Sure. Amazing that you caught up on seven months of filing, plus your 2017 year-end, all at once, and within a week of the original story.

Also, Davis finally gotten a comment from Cobb trying to justify his existence. And the $7,500 a month he continues to rake. The pay of him and Kozlowski is half the total month burn rate of the non-recount effort.

 Schwab still says a vote will be taken in the future of how to distribute remaining money. Well, you're below $800K; only the suckers are holding their breath, though many suckers exist on this issue.

 This, this money laundering by other means, and expectation of this, as well as my disagreement with most of the premises of the recount, is why I never gave her any money. I rejected most of her claims about faulty computers. That includes, as TDB notes, that she appears to want to try to have it both ways on "Putin Did It." But, setting that whole issue aside, I rejected the claims of Michigan State computer science prof Alex Halderman.

 That said, it is interesting that, while campaign manager Cobb and others are still raking, old campaign chairwoman Gloria Mattera is not associated.

I mean, this recount was so serious that the doppelganger of Greg Palast, the famous Greg AtLast, started his own investigation, and later discussed it in detail. He did not get $7,500 a month, though.

 As for the money? Supposedly, some donations have been returned. But Stein's own recount webpage has no line item for that. As for Greens who claim friends have gotten refunds from Stein? Those are nice anecdotes, but again, nothing listed on the recount website. Nor did she promise that. She did promise a plebiscite or whatever on how to disburse any remaining money. Never promised refunds. And, given Schwab's claim that a vote will be held in the future? Those claiming refunds? There's a word for anecdotes that remain unconfirmed and where at least indirect evidence argues that they're untrue.

 This too has made me realize that for many Greens (perhaps more than the average of all humans) a sample of n = 1 is to them actual evidence and not anecdote. Or, given that refunds were never promised, that a simple claim of n = 1 is evidence.

 That said, is Charlie Davis, the author of the piece, a Hillbot in lockstep with his employer? I doubt it, but, that doesn't mean he's "all right," beyond the scope of this particular piece.

 First, per his Daily Beast pieces, he did criticize unnamed members of "the left" over Syria in 2016, right around political conventions time, so the answer is ... maybe, right there. That said, he's also written for In These Times. And, In These Times as a site gave some positive coverage to Stein. It even ran a piece by Cobb.

 That doesn't mean that Charles Davis feels that way ... and per his personal website, he almost certainly is more aligned with DB than with In These Times. He also likes to strawman leftists, again in relation to interventionism both on his own website where he claims to see a leftist new McCarthyism and at Daily Beast. When not strawmanning, he's disparaging, and claims "Assad did it" in Ghouta, or in Khan Sheikhyoun, both of which almost certainly are wrong. (He takes whacks at Max Blumenthal in that new McCarthyism piece, and called Sy Hersh a conspiracy theorist over his Pentagon + Turkey claims but hasn't even touched him on Syria — or Ted Postal, or Robert Fisk. And Fisk, if anything, may be harsher on the White Helmets than Blumenthal. And, there's only one other group of people besides liberals who strawman leftists on Syria — that's Trots, and I'm pretty sure Davis is not one of those. The liberal + Trot mix usually claim we leftists normalize Assad, which is again simply not true. Indeed, a day later, Fisk's newest piece notes how Assad is starting to practice what we could call "opposition cleansing.")

 Also, he's kind of touchy at even the insinuation that factual evidence might be used to stuff Stein down. And referencing a 2015 interview with Stein, before it became clear per that summer 2016 piece at Daily Beast, that Clinton didn't have close to a cakewalk, proves little, Mr. Davis.

 And, I wouldn't have semi-rhetorically told him on Twitter, in essence, "it may not be a hit piece but ... " if I hadn't already looked at his background.

 I moved this information up the page so that Greens can't say I'm blind to some of his background. Anyway, I have found factual information at places like National Review and the New York Post. And, I'm not so much a conspiracy theorist to believe Daily Beast made up quotes in this piece. But yet, many Greens — including the many who still don't get that Stein, not the GP, pushed the recount — can't accept that.

 In short, overall, the article was quite fair. It was also helpful, in a Green-related Facebook group, for showing the contortions in which some Greens will engage. Hey, Greens, this is just like Berniecrats having problems with Hillary Clinton but not necessarily with the Democratic Party as a whole.

 (And, reactions illustrate that those who overestimate their political knowledge are more likely to engage in conspiracy theories. More here, in a piece linked at that original, which also shows that conspiracy theories generally aren't driven by ideology but by losing. Especially in the US, with its strong-president system and first-past-the-post Congressional system, this means third parties probably should have more conspiracy thinkers than Republicans or Democrats. So, Libertarians?)

 It actually, on who individually was raking, could have had the additional detail I provided, though Davis did do more of a breakout on the second piece. I'm still curious as to why DB thought it needed to be that long as it is after Davis pitched it. I'm also curious if DB was his first target or not. Appearing on, say, The Intercept, a few Greens might have found it allegedly less biased. However, many others would have found reasons to attack The Intercept.
What's behind this, anyway? That is, what's behind the extended recount/non-recount?

Stein has an endgame, I'm thinking.

As noted, this is not a recount. It's purportedly about voting integrity. If Stein wants to create a PAC or think tank to address this, fine. (I wouldn't give her money for that, either, as there are much better people for this than her advisors. And, I'm not alone. Look three paragraphs below.)

And, in fact, she may have. 

Frankly, I think there's some other end game here. I wouldn't be surprised if Stein pulls a Bernie Sanders and starts an Our Revolution type group, or a Sanders Institute, or both. Possible proof of that is that her recount page has a link to a new website, Voting Justice.

As for what she would expect to do with such a site, in the future? Mark Lause had her number on this in his end-of-2016 piece about the recount's start:
(T)here are scads of people in numerous government agencies with money bins of resources more than the recount fund-raising goals looking for exactly this sort of thing 24/7.  Does anybody think that they’d find such a thing and keep a lid on it to be nice to the Russians?  And they are competing to find exactly this sort of thing.  So, does anybody think that one of these agencies might find evidence for this and cover it up knowing that a competitor would be following the same chain of evidence? But does anyone seriously think that the recount will uncover what no part of that massive national security apparatus has not? 
Frankly, if anyone seriously thinks that 2016 represents some major departure from the standard of electoral integrity (or lack thereof) characteristic of contemporary voting, they’ve simply not been paying attention.
My thoughts exactly.

Frankly, like Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein needs to go away. (And I like Bill Kreml's take in this Vice piece; he was my preferred Green candidate in 2016.)

 And, speaking of that, Charles Davis, do you think Hillary needs to go away? Does Chelsea not need to rise up, herself?

 Meanwhile, OpenSecrets also led me to Stein's top 2016 donors among corporations and their PACs. Pretty tech-heavy. Also, how did she miss accepting a donation from Lockheed, unless she returned it later?

 And, that Voting Justice site?

 DC already has presidential votes. Other countries have similar federal districts, and some of them may also have lack of parliamentary delegates. Otherwise, retrocession to Maryland, not statehood, is the constitutional option on the table now. Puerto Rico has engaged in self-determination. Multiple plebiscites have continually favored its current status, therefore that issue's a simple lie. If voters there want another plebiscite in the future, and opt for statehood, we'll go from there.

 Corporate constitutional rights cut both ways, as the likes of Glenn Greenwald have noted. If corporations had zero personhood, they could not, as corporations, be sued or tried. (In Europe, as the VW emissions cheating scandal has show, the German government has basically no way to corporately punish the company.) Finding the right balance, not eliminating this, is the answer.

 On voting integrity, I agree with the basics. That said, elections were stolen in the days of paper ballots, too. And, citing and linking to Greg Palast as a "source" on this issue kind of lost me.

 And, as for Green Party members? If wanting a better party, and better candidates, is trolling, then fine, I'm a troll.

 ==

 Update: Per Cobb's belated response to the initial Daily Beast piece, the Ohio problems he claims his 2004 recount fixed have been overblown by many, including Ohio "Green Party" grifter Bob Fitrakis, who reportedly is no longer even a party member.

 And, I was unaware until now that New Mexico had a serious problem. Per this report, I can explain one portion of the alleged problem — no undervotes in many precincts — quite easily. New Mexico had straight-ticket voting in 2004. Remember that not all political precincts have anywhere near the same number of voters. With straight-ticket voting in a small precinct, "zero undervotes" is fairly likely.

 Other claims aren't as "spooky" as the authors present. It's arguably easier to think about undervoting on a machine than a paper ballot if each race is presented on a separate screen, dealing with the more undervotes on voting machine claims. Their own numbers support that. Precincts with an average of three early votes? I'd be more surprised if 5 percent had zero undervotes than the 36 percent that did. Some issues on the report are of more concern, but, the authors undercut their case with the instances I mentioned.

 Update 2: Stein is supposedly using some of the "recount" money for her Putingate legal bills vis a vis Congress. It is all legal, though, as Davis eventually has to admit. But, ethical? Different question. But, a better author than Davis, per my strawmanning observations, would be a better person to ask the next round of actual and rhetorical questions.
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at Wednesday, May 30, 2018 1 comments Posted by Gadfly
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