Tuesday 19th of March 2024

the other candidates...

other candidates

Listening to and reading the media here and overseas, one would believe that there are only two candidates for the US presidential elections 2016.


We have to account that the media is completely biased. 

On one side there is the "intellectual leftie/centrist/corporate media" of The New York Times and Washington Post plus their affiliated journals and TV stations around America, aka CNN on the soft right and more to the centre PBS 

On the other side, we have the rabid republican media, especially the FOX network and the New York Post, plus their affiliated media outlet — the "net-only media" such as Breitbart.com, a strong voice for the CONservatives and other outlets such as the Weekly Standard magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

Not so strangely, The American Conservative is a more balanced media outlet as the opinions are coming from Paleoconservatives rather than Neocons.

We also have all the "social media" full of loonies and the "citizen-media" which augur a range of raging views like these ones presented to you by Gus the Elder.

The "intellectual" media will mostly be geared to push the agenda of the Democrats and presently try to smooth the pathway to the presidency for Hillary Clinton. "History" in the making... First female, blah blah blah... The distractions brought in by Bernie Sanders are "unfortunate" for this "profound" (meaning length but fluffy) analytic media style, but these annoyances are dealt with deftly as if these were short-lived tiffs within a happy family. Any other contretemps re-DNC correspondence and election campaign, are blamed on the Russians, despite the head of the CIA indicating the Russians (official government) are not to be blamed since there is no confirmation of Moscow being involved. What would be more likely is that some disenchanted insiders would have done Assange a favour, but this would be too horrible to contemplate in a "happy" family about to make "history".

Bernie Sanders of course declared his support for Hillary in the singular goal of defeating Trump, but many of Bernie supporters are not happy. Thousands of "Democrats" are protesting in the streets against Hillary's nomination. Clinton represents the rich corporate "democrats", the elite, while Bernie represents the ordinary folks — the plebs — and the youth eager to adopt some better political morals. 

This is where Jill Stein and Gary Johnson come in. Stein is the presidential candidate for the Greens. Johnson is the presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party (progressive political party in the USA, unlike the "liberals" in Australia who are neo-CONservatives alla rabid extreme right Republicans). 

These two Presidential candidates have been ignored by nearly all media, though they will play a critical role in who wins the Presidency. Some polls indicate that before the Democrat Convention, Trump was drawing about 43 per cent of the polls, Hillary draws about 37 per cent and the other two would have garnered the rest, which is not insignificant, 20 per cent. Slowly some of the media is paying attention but it's a bit like a side-show alley to a Barnum circus.

Meanwhile the once divided right-wing media supporting the Republicans is tightening ranks. 

And this is frightening the "liberal democrat leftie" press which is supporting La Clinton. As usual, such "leftie" (centre right) media minimises the warts and all of the democrats, mostly telling Bernie to put a sock in it, with a cheering fondness for the "first female" breaking the glass ceiling. "History" Yep. "History"... Here of course this potato skin-eyed media gloss over all the turdy things Clinton did in the past — from declaring at least two nasty disastrous wars and her fiddles with state-secret emails. This media give La Clinton a clean slate for being a woman. Bygones be bygones, a new dawn cometh...

The right-wing media such as The New York Post is poking sticks at La Clinton with an unequalled efficiency and a well-studied rhythm. The Christian media which was divided on the issue of Trump is now mostly united against Clinton. Most evangelicals buy what Trump has to sell. Even Glen Beck — who was ferociously opposed to Trump — is now pushing Trump and lambasts the #nevertrump-movement for still existing after the Republican convention which endorsed Trump unanimously. The FOX network is also tightening ranks after having some unsavoury misogyny exposed in the management. If I was sarcastic, I would say that this "clean-up" has been specifically designed at this point in time to subtly rekindle the value of right-wing women journalists, by a clever Uncle Rupe — forcing the resignation of the big fat bloke. 

The whole media circus is about bombastic brass, cash and hubris. The real issues as promoted by Stein and Johnson are unmentionable, despite representing the most sensible views to run the USA in the future which, as the planet is being exhausted, will need some serious thinking. 

Apparently, La Clinton had prepared an economic plan that was carefully designed to counteract a rationalist right-wing Rubio or a rationalist right-wing Cruz, but La Clinton's plan appears ridiculous against a Trump who is more into noisy boisterous demagogy than solutions. 

What appears to be through the US media is that the USA as a whole is not made of sensible people, but of a majority of deluded evangelical gun-totting cowboys and rabid stock-traders in search of a new Jesus Christ who will allow them to be mad crusaders for the golden calf, the dollar. 

And it looks they have found their messiah: either a mad woman ready to declare war on anything that moves or a mad man who wishes to make peace with the "devil", Russia.

Meanwhile the planet will be scorched by the burning of oil, coal and gas. The other candidates know that this is not the best way to go. They are sensible. They won't be elected.

They won't even be mentioned apart from a couple of asterisks. 

The media needs its first female Jesus but will release the insurrectionary Barabbas. We know the rest of the story, except nothing will go according to the script...


Gus Leonisky
Your local steam-engine commentariator

 

on the rise...

PHILADELPHIA--Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson says the Democratic and Republican nominees are out of synch with the country, and he expresses more confidence than ever that his campaign will reap a harvest of support this fall in his bid for the White House.

Johnson told me in a telephone interview Friday that neither Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton nor Republican nominee Donald Trump has connected with everyday Americans, and this creates a big opening for him.

Clinton, who formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, offered the "same old stuff," seemingly endless government programs and promises, Johnson said, that he estimates would increase the national debt to $40 trillion. The debt is now estimated at $19 trillion. Johnson said Clinton is "in la-la land," and the Democrats are still the party of the "status quo," and he argued that voters want something new. He argued that he would bring a refreshing change as a Washington outsider.

Johnson is fiscally conservative, socially liberal in a live-and-let-live mold, and non-interventionist in foreign policy.

As for Trump, who was nominated by the Republicans last week, Johnson said the billionaire real-estate developer has an excessively negative, pessimistic outlook that isn't what most Americans want. "He's living in a country I'm not living in," the Libertarian nominee said.

[READ: 2016 Could Be A Good Year for Third-Party Candidates Like Gary Johnson]

read more

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-07-29/libertarian-nominee-gary-...

even the koch brothers...

Charles Koch welcomed his 400 guests to the sprawling Broadmoor Hotel compound Saturday night with nary a word about the presidential race that has dominated American politics.

Just a day after Democrats decamped from Philadelphia’s nominating convention for Hillary Clinton, the billionaire industrialist made no mention of the White House contest in welcoming remarks in Colorado Springs, Colo. No fans of Republican nominee Donald Trump, either, Charles and David Koch instead are going to keep their focus on keeping Republicans’ majorities in the Senate as a check on the White House, as well as philanthropic initiatives aimed at foster case, free speech on campus and economic opportunities.

 

“People are looking for answers. And unfortunately, by and large, they’re looking to the wrong places. They’re looking to politicians. To me, the answers they are getting are frightening,” Charles Koch said in one ballroom of the grand, 3,000-acre property. (Rain forced donors indoors, where the mountains and lakes could be seen just out the windows.)

http://time.com/4432097/charles-koch-2016-race/?xid=homepage

selling weaponry...

 

Democrats and Republicans are controlled by banks, oil giants, insurance companies and war profiteers, says Green Party presidential candidate, Dr. Jill Stein. Her party, she claims, gets no money from corporations and has liberty to really address problems.
As the two major US political parties have officially selected their nominees for president, Chris Hedges, host of RT’s On Contact program, discussed with the Green Party candidate for president, Dr. Jill Stein, what could be an alternative way forward.

According to Dr Stein, in the current presidential race, the American public is “clamoring for something else at unprecedented levels”.

People have rejected not only both of these parties, which are minority parties by actual polling…Their candidates are running at record levels, all time highest for people disliking the Democratic and Republican candidates,” she said.

The American people and the people all over the world are being thrown under the bus by this political system…in which both parties are basically funded by and controlled by predatory banks, by fossil-fuel giants, by war-profiteers, the health insurance industry - the usual suspects who are calling the shots from behind the closed doors,” Stein says.

Stein says that since her campaign and the Green Party “are the only candidates and party” that do not take money from corporations and lobbyists, and do not have super PACs, they have “the liberty to address the crises” that the US people are facing.


‘What Trump says has already been done by Clinton’

Speaking about the frontrunners, the Green Party candidate noted that if you “look at the track record, the terrible things that Donald Trump says – which are truly reprehensible and horrific – have actually been done by Hillary Clinton”.


read more: https://www.rt.com/op-edge/354079-jill-stein-green-us-elections/


----------------------

With this news coming from Russian media, one could claim a certain Russian interest in promoting this item. Russia is the second biggest seller of weapons on the planet, though way behind the US in term of quantity. But there is an undeniable link between the US foreign policies and US weapons sellers...


Jill Stein — read article at top.

 

trump tactics and full frontals...

The furore regarding trump and the dead Muslim US soldier's family is quite mind boggling. Here the US public is being hookwoondled by a clever ploy. While this "news" item is hogging the front pages, it has relegated Hillary to the back pages... It won't hurt Trump so much as to make him loose a couple of points but it's a sacrifice he is prepared to make to also let out a little beast in the mind of unfair-minded red-necks: there are Muslim soldiers in the US army and these could turn around easily against the US. This has happen before in Iraq...

Meanwhile while this furore goes on, guess what? The New York Post is publishing full frontal pictures of Melania Trump in her birthday suit... WOW !

VP for jill

Presumptive Green Party presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein has selected human rights activist Ajamu Baraka as her vice presidential running mate.

Honored to announce human rights champion Ajamu Baraka as my VP running mate! #SteinBarakahttps://t.co/b0mo6QYoiopic.

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) August 2, 2016

 

Baraka has been a tireless champion of human rights for over 30 years, with roots in the Black Liberation Movement as well as anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity struggles. He was also the Founding Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network, which seeks to hold the United States to international human rights agreements.

 

http://usuncut.com/politics/jill-stein-vp-ajamu-baraka/

sandersiders for jill...

Soured by the Democratic Party's documented bias for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over rival Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator's supporters are considering the Green Party, which is holding its national convention this week in Houston.

The 2016 Green Party Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston, Texas, opened Thursday, August 4, and will run through the weekend. The party is expected to choose Massachusetts physician Jill Stein as its presidential nominee, along with her running mate, vice-presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka, a human rights activist. Stein was the party's presidential nominee in 2012.

The Green Party is poised for what could be an historic national election, as Greens are running in hundreds of campaigns across the US for offices as high as US senator. Stein has officially qualified to appear on the ballot in 23 states and the District of Columbia, and is expected to qualify in as many as 25 more states by the early-September filing deadline, according to Mark P. Jones, of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston.

The Greens said they chose Houston, famous for being the epicenter of the American oil and gas industries, in part because of the party's advocation for alternative fuels and its broader concern over global climate change.

"We're putting out the message that we've got to break the addiction to fossil fuels," Scott McLarty, media director of the Green Party, told KPRC. "That it's really an emergency this century. The great crisis of the 20th century is climate change."

https://www.rt.com/usa/354802-green-party-convention-houston/

 

"Houston, we have a problem..." The problem is that this will boost El Trumpo chances of becoming El Presidente...

the phoney debates...

by Danielle Ryan
With three months to go until decision day, the presidential election campaign in the United States is in full-swing — but there’s an unfortunate reality facing many American voters: They’re not really too fond of either major party candidate.
In one recent poll, more American voters viewed Hillary Clinton unfavorably (55 percent) than favorably (44 percent). In the same poll, Donald Trump fared even worse. Only 36 percent of voters had a positive opinion of him, while 63 percent expressed a negative opinion.

In that climate, both candidates’ strategies seem to rest not on proving how worthy they are of the top job, but how unworthy their opponent is. As a result, many voters will pull the lever for one candidate on November 8 simply so they can attempt to prevent the other one from winning. Voting for the ‘lesser evil’ seems to be the general theme.

But polls have also shown something else: American voters are increasingly open to the idea of third-party candidates — and some are actively looking for an alternative. About 44 percent are looking for an option beyond Trump and Clinton. In this focus group, a whole room full of undecided voters raised their hands when asked if they felt “embarrassed for the country” by Trump and Clinton. Sure, it’s only one example, but it’s not a great sign. The election is turning into a serious conundrum for voters who favor neither candidate.

Given that, wouldn’t it make sense to let people know that they are not simply restricted to voting Republican or Democrat? Plenty of Americans do know this, of course, but many don’t. And how could they? Neither the media nor the major parties really want to acknowledge that there are viable alternatives — and over time they’ve done everything in their power to maintain the two-party system. One of the ways they’ve done it is through the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Stealing the debates

The League of Women voters began organizing and overseeing presidential debates in 1976. That organization — beholden to neither party — operated in a fair, non-partisan manner and earned the public’s trust. In 1980, for example, when independent John B. Anderson was polling at 12 percent, the League ensured that he would be allowed to participate in debates. If the voting public wanted to hear him, it was only fair they argued that he should be heard. When Jimmy Carter refused to debate him, the League held the presidential debate with an empty chair on the stage to signify Carter’s absence.

But in 1988 the two major parties announced the formation of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). This essentially handed control of the debates over to the parties and effectively shut out interference from anyone else.

The president of the League of Women Voters at the time accused the parties of “trying to steal the debates from the American voters” and argued that third-party candidates needed to be included. She said the new system would leave presidential debates devoid of substance and spontaneity. Finally, the League said it had no intention of “becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.” The Democratic national chairman at the time had a different view, announcing that the two parties had assumed their “rightful responsibility” in taking control of the entire process.

There is now even a 21-page contract drawn up by both parties to dictate the terms, to the smallest detail, of all debates. The existence of this document was denied by the parties until it was leaked to the press. It showed how both parties agreed on multiple ways to prevent natural, spontaneous and vigorous debate: No follow-up questions may be asked by any audience member or moderator. Neither candidate may issue a challenge to his or her opponent for additional debates. Neither candidate may appear at any other debate except those agreed to by the parties.

 


 

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/355069-third-party-candidates-debates-elections/


 

Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance journalist and media analyst. She has lived in the US and Germany and is currently based in Moscow. She previously worked as a digital desk reporter for the Sunday Business Post in Dublin. She studied political reporting at the Washington Center for Politics & Journalism in Washington, DC and also has a degree in business and German. She focuses on US foreign policy, US-Russia relations and media bias.

 

assange talks to the greens...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke via video stream to the Green Party convention in Houston, Texas, about the corporate control of information during the 2016 election. He also predicted that attacks against Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein would surge ahead of November’s election.

TRANSCRIPTThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

DAVID COBB: Julian, Greens, like most Americans, are civil libertarians at heart. We believe in personal privacy. We believe in internet freedom, even as we call for complete public transparency and accountability. My question to you is: What can we do as individuals to protect ourselves, and what can we do to help build the movement for keeping the internet free and open, so we, the people, can talk to ourselves?

JULIAN ASSANGE: All right, great question. Well, first of all, have coherency in your own movement. I mean, you have to have coherency to be able to understand your own view of the world and the attacks that are occurring, which—let me tell you that I’ve just seen that the attacks have started to ramp up on Jill Stein. They are going to go through the roof. I’ve had attacks from what is effectively the Clinton threat machine. They’re now post-convention. You guys are going to be post-convention. Those attacks are going to be ferocious. But you’ll see from that and learn lessons from that about how the media works and how one can defend your principles and ideas in the face of that kind of media corruption.

So, to defend civil liberties and the internet, the first thing is to practice it. That’s the number one thing. That’s what we do. We defend the First Amendment and similar constitutional amendments in other states by practicing them. We have won every single court case that we have been involved in over the last 10 years. And that any right that is not fought for through practice and defense is very, very quickly lost. It is just a piece of paper unless you actually fight for it and practice for it.

Then there’s a range of technical measures and some good people, researchers, trying to push out those technical measures. WikiLeaks tweets about that. Edward Snowden tweets about what some of those technical measures are. Support those people who are engaged in trying to engineer, in a practical sense, how to protect people’s privacy. And the other is to support the various groups that are doing it and to build the ideological understanding that it is an important thing, because—let’s go back and look at Google.

Google is very different, in an important way, from Lockheed Martin. Yes, Google is building drones. Yes, Lockheed Martin was and is building F-16s. But Google also controls how we communicate with each other. So, Google is, in a sense, like HIV. It doesn’t—it’s not just something that afflicts your arm; it afflicts your ability to understand and fight the infection. That’s true of all media, libraries, communication services, etc. They’re involved in that part of society that we use to understand ourselves, and that is the freedom of communication. So, the freedom of communication, in some sense, is the fundamental right, because it is the enabling right that allows us to speak to each other to understand the importance of all our other rights. And so, when the freedom of communication is degraded or maligned, when whistleblowers are prosecuted, when one organization starts to develop a monopoly on the internet and interfere with our communication, then all our rights suffer, because this fundamental enabling right is degraded.

As the editor of WikiLeaks, I have gone through a lot of battles. I have seen corrupt mainstream media outlets try to not report initially on some of our materials, spin them in other directions—that’s happened just recently. And I have also seen good journalists, embedded in those institutions, fighting to be accurate and truthful. There are good people even in bad institutions. Most of our sources are good people wanting to do good things, within the U.S. military or intelligence or political parties.

So, my strong advice is to understand, first of all, the necessity to be very skeptical of the traditional media apparatus, which is ultimately owned by some of the largest industrial conglomerates in the world, that’s firmly connected to other points of power; work around it; become your own media in practice, in small ways, in big ways; to keep—to keep your principles and sense of clarity on principles.

What the Clinton campaign is doing at the moment is trying to say, "Well, OK, yes, maybe we’re connected to arms dealers and to Saudi Arabia, and, yes, maybe we subverted the integrity of the Democratic primaries, etc., etc., but you will just have to swallow that. You will just have to swallow that, or else you will get Donald Trump." That’s a form of extortion. And—well, it is. It is a form of extortion. And—

DAVID COBB: You have elicited applause, Julian.

JULIAN ASSANGE: And you can’t—you can’t permit—it’s very important not to allow the political process to suffer from extortion, or even yourself to be susceptible to extortion. One says one has certain principles. If these principles are not followed, then there is a price to be paid. And that creates a standard and a general deterrent. And I think it is important for those people who feel that their principles have been violated, in the way that the Democratic primary process has been run, or how Chelsea Manning has been imprisoned for 35 years and tortured, or the Espionage Act crackdowns, or many other things, to go, "OK, well, there’s a cost to violating principles," even if—even if there’s also a cost to yourself, even if you don’t like the risk, which seems to be getting very small, but the risk that Donald Trump becomes president, that one has to have a line somewhere. Otherwise, as each election cycle proceeds, you are pushed further and further into the corner.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking at the Green Party convention in Houston via video stream from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he’s been holed up for more than four years. He was speaking with the Green Party’s David Cobb. For transcript, podcast, more, go to democracynow.org. Special thanks to John Hamilton.

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/8/wikileaks_julian_assange_attacks_against_jill

 

News you won't see in the MMMM (mediocre mass media de mierda)

finding value in the other candidates...

From The Christian Post....

 

5 Presidential Candidates Not Named Trump or Clinton


BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER

August 11, 2016|1:40 pm


Many Americans do not want to vote for either Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton or Republican presidential hopeful Donald J. Trump.

According to a CBS News/New York Times poll from March, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have the highest unfavorability ratings of any major party nominee since 1984.

However, there are other individuals running for president this year. These third party candidates are hoping that the high rates of disapproval for Clinton and Trump will benefit their campaigns greatly.


1. Gary Johnson – Libertarian Party

Former two-term governor of New Mexico, businessman, and accomplished fitness guru Gary Johnson is running on the Libertarian Party ticket.

A fiscal conservative and social liberal, Johnson has occasionally worn the Republican Party label and in 2012 ran an unsuccessful primary campaign, blaming social conservatives for his defeat.

Johnson may actually have a chance at the big time stage, as his poll numbers have been surprisingly impressive in some states and at least one Republican congressman, Scott Rigell of Virginia, endorsed him.

However, Johnson has also garnered controversy in his much publicized attacks on religious freedom for opponents of same-sex marriage, claiming among other things that religious freedom is "a black hole."


2. Jill Stein – Green Party

A physician by profession, Dr. Jill Stein was previously nominated to represent the Green Party in 2012, making her one of a handful of American women to run a presidential campaign before Hillary Clinton.

Stein is progressive on most every issue, denouncing the power of big corporations and advocating for a higher minimum wage, renewable energy, and ending drone strikes.

With the defeat of the Bernie Sanders campaign, Stein has made many overtures to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in the hopes that they will come to her side.

A recent RealClearPolitics poll placed overall voter support for Stein at four percent, which was smaller than Gary Johnson's nine percent.

Both her and Johnson may have a chance to be at the primetime debates, as Politico noted earlier this week that the Commission on Presidential Debates expect more than two podiums for the stage.



3. Darrell Castle – Constitution Party

A native of Tennessee, Darrell Castle served as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War and oversees a Memphis-based law firm.

Castle is socially conservative. He supports limited government and foreign policy ideas like eliminating the Federal Reserve and withdrawing from the United Nations.

For the 2008 presidential election, Castle ran on the Constitution Party ticket as the vice presidential running mate of Chuck Baldwin.


4. Evan McMullin – Independent

A former CIA agent and ex-chief policy director for the House Republican conference, David Evan McMullin garnered big headlines when he announced his intention to run for president.

A devout Mormon, McMullin leans conservative on foreign policy and social issues and has a business education as well as experience on national security issues.

He has gotten much support from the super-PAC Better For America, an entity created by #NeverTrump movement Republicans.

His late hour entry into the race, however, has caused some complications for getting his name on the ballot in all fifty states.


5. Write-in

Never forget that you, the voter, can write-in a person when you cast a ballot in November. It is an option usually used as a means of electoral protest.

So technically, the options for voters wishing to protest the two major party candidates are vast, since one can write in Bernie Sanders, Mitt Romney, Elizabeth Warren, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Deez Nuts, or even Sweet Meteor O'Death.


Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/presidential-candidates-not-named-trum...

Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Dick Tracy, Krazy Kat figure prominently in the number five choice...

no spoiler...

Ralph Nader: I’m not a spoiler & neither is Jill Stein

Published time: 3 Sep, 2016 21:40Edited time: 4 Sep, 2016 13:15
Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader has fired back at Democratic Party critics, the Hillary Clinton campaign, and a Washington Post columnist for trotting out a 16-year-old argument that the legendary consumer advocate “spoiled” the 2000 election, prompting George W. Bush to be “elected.”
In a letter to the editor of the Washington Post (WaPo), printed very late on the Friday before Labor Day Weekend (when relatively few people would have been likely to read it), Nader responded to “one the most extreme ideologues in the business,” WaPo columnist Dana Milbank, who wrote a piece “From Jill Stein, disturbing echoes of Ralph Nader” late last month about the current and former Green Party candidates.
Ask most centrist Democrats, and they’ll tell you that Ralph Nader is responsible for the Bush presidency, the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the global financial crash in 2008, rather than blame Hillary Clinton, even though she voted for the invasion and backed her husband’s deregulation of Wall Street.

In the 2000 election, Democratic nominee Al Gore “lost” to Bush after the US Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore, “a classic example of judicial overreach,” according to judicial advocacy group, Alliance For Justice.  

“The Supreme Court never should have granted review of the case, as it was a matter of state law that typically would be – and should have been – left to the state Supreme Court,” their website noted in “Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor has second thoughts about Bush v. Gore,” in which they quote her doubts in 2013 expressed to the Chicago Tribune editorial board.

“Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision,” she said. “It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day,” she said.

Nader ran as a Green Party candidate calling for campaign finance reform, single-payer healthcare, and environmental protections. He appeared on the ballot in 43 states plus the District of Columbia and won 2.74 percent of the popular vote.

In Florida, Bush beat Gore by a mere 537 votes. Nader had 97,421 votes, which led to accusations that he had “stolen” votes meant for Gore. A controversial Supreme Court ruling halted the recounts that appeared to be moving in Gore’s favor, giving Bush the electoral votes he needed to become president.

However, a 2002 Progressive Review report found pre-election polling and election day voting showed voters moving between Bush and Gore and not Nader. Over 300,000 registered Democrats also voted for Bush in Florida. Gore also lost in his home state of Tennessee.

“No country in the Western world places more obstacles to third party and independent candidates getting on the ballot than the United States,” Nader recently wrote in the Washington Post.

The so-called “Nader effect” is used to create fear in voters so they only see the Democratic candidate as the only option against a greater evil.

“Everyone has an equal right to run for public office,” Nader said. “What kind of twisted logic insists that smaller-party competitors should forfeit their First Amendment rights to speak, petition and assemble freely?"

The myth re-intensified across 2016, after years of simmering, given the fear-mongering over the ‘alt right’ billionaire businessman running against the Democrats’ millionaire lawyer.

The surprise-but-ultimately-unsuccessful surge of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the primary left a vacuum after the convention in July, giving Stein an opening with millions of progressive voters, who accused Clinton and the Democratic National Committee of spoiling the system by “rigging” it against their candidate.

https://www.rt.com/usa/358173-jill-stein-ralph-nader/

sour grapes...

by Stephen Lendman
Jill Stein for Hillary


Shameful! What’s going on? Why did her campaign announce its “intent to file for a recount of votes in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, leading a multi-partisan effort to check the accuracy of the machine-counted vote tallies in these states in order to ensure the integrity of our election?”

Did she forget Hillary criticizing Trump’s possible refusal to accept electoral results when asked, calling it “a direct threat to our democracy?”

Does she support what war goddess, racketeer, perjurer Hillary stands for? Does she oppose Trump wanting normalized relations with Russia – crucial to prevent the threat of possible nuclear war with Hillary empowered as US military commander-in-chief.

I supported Stein, believed in her, wrote glowing articles about her campaign, her advocacy for world peace, equity and justice. Was I wrong? Did I misjudge her? Is she against what she claims to stand for?

Many times in articles I called Hillary the most ruthlessly dangerous presidential aspirant in US history. Does Stein support her? Want the election reversed in her favor? Why else would she want recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin? Outrageous!

Interviewed by Sputnik News, she said she raised over $3.7 million dollars so far, aiming for up to $7 million to cover all costs, and complete the task by filing deadlines – Nov. 25 in Wisconsin, Nov. 28 in Pennsylvania, and Nov. 30 in Michigan.

pre-Thanksgiving Day article asked if Hillary intended to challenge the electoral results. In my judgment, Trump won because deep state power brokers jettisoned her as damaged good, too scandal-ridden to serve effectively, choosing Trump instead.

Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night nor Stein’s misguided effort will change the electoral results – just stir the pot disruptively for some days, accomplishing nothing but shaming herself.

Claiming “we deserve some confidence in the outcome of this election” misses the crucial point.  Hillary as president risks possible cataclysmic nuclear war with Russia.

Trump want normalized ties, both countries cooperating in combating terrorism. That’s the core issue aside from all others – including the nonexistent integrity of America’s electoral system.

Failure to understand it shows poor judgment on Stein’s part at the least – recklessness at worst. And why did Sputnik News publicize her effort? Surely it knows Putin prefers Trump over Hillary. So do I.

Will recounts be held in the three states in question? Doubtful but we’ll see. Either way won’t matter. On January 20, Trump’s inauguration will proceed as scheduled.

https://off-guardian.org/2016/11/27/jill-stein-for-hillary/

 

Why would Jill Stein piss some of her supporters off by "demanding a recount"? Jill should actually blast the MMMM (the mediocre liberal media) for not having given her a voice in the election as the media's attention was directed at supporting Hillary, the Saintly woman.

 

Read from top, especially the bit that says:

The media needs its first female Jesus but will release the insurrectionary Barabbas. We know the rest of the story, except nothing will go according to the script...

Gus-the-Elder ws spot on in July...

a recount was not appropriate...

US District Judge Mark Goldsmith agreed with Republicans who argued that the three-day recount must end, a day after the state appeals court dealt a blow to the effort.

The court said Ms Stein, who finished fourth in Michigan on November 8, did not have a chance of winning even after a recount and therefore is not an "aggrieved" candidate.

"Because there is no basis for this court to ignore the Michigan court's ruling and make an independent judgment regarding what the Michigan Legislature intended by the term 'aggrieved', plaintiffs have not shown an entitlement to a recount," Mr Goldsmith said.

It was the judge's midnight ruling on Monday (local time) that started the recount in Michigan, but Goldsmith's order dealt with timing not whether a recount was appropriate.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-08/federal-judge-halts-candidate-jill...

more clintonite...

Former US President Bill Clinton's comments blaming Green Party candidate Jill Stein for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential loss is an attempt to diminish the legitimacy of third party challengers, Ajamu Baraka, the 2016 Green Party nominee for vice president of the United States, told Sputnik.

Speaking at a New York event on Wednesday, the former president told a crowd that Stein was the "preferred alternative of the Russians," further pushing the story that Russians played a role in the US election.

"We know that Jill Stein, preferred alternative of the Russians, got more [votes] — the difference in her vote in 2012, 2016, was that more than the difference in the election in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania," the 71-year-old said. "That doesn't mean the Russians did it, but it's — it makes you scratch your head… maybe the Russians did have a decisive impact."

But then again, it could've been the FBI that cost his wife her shot at becoming commander in chief. According to Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey's announcement that he was reopening his investigation into Hillary's email practices could've also swung voters away.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201806081065214359-bill-clinton-remarks...

 

 

Read from top. the clintonite was Murdoch and the evangelicals...

the new green deal...


Summary of the Green New Deal


The Green New Deal is a four part program for moving America quickly out of crisis into a secure, sustainable future. Inspired by the New Deal programs that helped us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Green New Deal will provide similar relief and create an economy that makes our communities sustainable, healthy and just.


THE FOUR PILLARS OF THE GREEN NEW DEAL


I - THE ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS


Our country cannot truly move forward until the roots of inequality are pulled up, and the seeds of a new, healthier economy are planted. Thus, the Green New Deal begins with an Economic Bill of Rights that ensures all citizens: 1. The right to employment through a Full Employment Program that will create 25 million jobs by implementing a nationally funded, but locally controlled direct employment initiative replacing unemployment offices with local employment offices offering public sector jobs which are "stored" in job banks in order to take up any slack in private sector employment.

  • Local communities will use a process of broad stakeholder input and democratic decisionmaking to fairly implement these programs.
  • Pay-to-play prohibitions will ensure that campaign contributions or lobbying favors do not impact decision-making.
  • We will end unemployment in America once and for all by guaranteeing a job at a living wage for every American willing and able to work.

2. Worker's rights including the right to a living wage, to a safe workplace, to fair trade, and to organize a union at work without fear of firing or reprisal.

3. The right to quality health care which will be achieved through a single-payer Medicare-for-All program.

4. The right to a tuition-free, quality, federally funded, local controlled public education system from pre-school through college. We will also forgive student loan debt from the current era of unaffordable college education.

5. The right to decent affordable housing, including an immediate halt to all foreclosures and evictions. We will:

  • create a federal bank with local branches to take over homes with distressed mortgages and either restructure the mortgages to affordable levels, or if the occupants cannot afford a mortgage, rent homes to the occupants;
  • expand rental and home ownership assistance;
  • create ample public housing; and,
  • offer capital grants to non-profit developers of affordable housing until all people can obtain decent housing at no more than 25% of their income.

6. The right to accessible and affordable utilities – heat, electricity, phone, internet, and public transportation – through democratically run, publicly owned utilities that operate at cost, not for profit.

7. The right to fair taxation that's distributed in proportion to ability to pay. In addition, corporate tax subsidies will be made transparent by detailing them in public budgets where they can be scrutinized, not hidden as tax breaks.

II - A GREEN TRANSITION

The second priority of the Green New Deal is a Green Transition Program that will convert the old, gray economy into a new, sustainable economy that is environmentally sound, economically viable and socially responsible. We will:

1. Invest in green business by providing grants and low-interest loans to grow green businesses and cooperatives, with an emphasis on small, locally-based companies that keep the wealth created by local labor circulating in the community rather than being drained off to enrich absentee investors.

2. Prioritize green research by redirecting research funds from fossil fuels and other dead-end industries toward research in wind, solar and geothermal. We will invest in research in sustainable, nontoxic materials, closed-loop cycles that eliminate waste and pollution, as well as organic agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.

3. Provide green jobs by enacting the Full Employment Program which will directly provide 16 million jobs in sustainable energy and energy efficiency retrofitting, mass transit and "complete streets" that promote safe bike and pedestrian traffic, regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture, and clean manufacturing.

III - REAL FINANCIAL REFORM

The takeover of our economy by big banks and well-connected financiers has destabilized both our democracy and our economy. It's time to take Wall Street out of the driver's seat and to free the truly productive segments of working America to make this economy work for all of us. Real Financial Reform will:

1. Relieve the debt overhang holding back the economy by reducing homeowner and student debt burdens.

2. Democratize monetary policy to bring about public control of the money supply and credit creation. This means we'll nationalize the private bank-dominated Federal Reserve Banks and place them under a Monetary Authority within the Treasury Department.

3. Break up the oversized banks that are "too big to fail."

4. End taxpayer-funded bailouts for banks, insurers, and other financial companies. We'll use the FDIC resolution process for failed banks to reopen them as public banks where possible after failed loans and underlying assets are auctioned off.

5. Regulate all financial derivatives and require them to be traded on open exchanges.

6. Restore the Glass-Steagall separation of depository commercial banks from speculative investment banks.

7. Establish a 90% tax on bonuses for bailed out bankers.

8. Support the formation of federal, state, and municipal public-owned banks that function as non-profit utilities. Under the Green New Deal we will start building a financial system that is open, honest, stable, and serves the real economy rather than the phony economy of high finance.

IV - A FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACY

We won't get these vital reforms without a fourth and final set of reforms to give us a real, functioning democracy. Just as we are replacing the old economy with a new one, we need a new politics to restore the promise of American democracy. The New Green Deal will:

1. Revoke corporate personhood by amending our Constitution to make clear that corporations are not persons and money is not speech. Those rights belong to living, breathing human beings - not to business entities controlled by the wealthy.

2. Protect our right to vote by supporting Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s proposed "Right to Vote Amendment," to clarify to the Supreme Court that yes, we do have a constitutional right to vote.

3. Enact the Voter Bill of Rights that will:

  • guarantee us a voter-marked paper ballot for all voting;
  • require that all votes are counted before election results are released;
  • replace partisan oversight of elections with non-partisan election commissions;
  • celebrate our democratic aspirations by making Election Day a national holiday;
  • bring simplified, safe same-day voter registration to the nation so that no qualified voter is barred from the polls;
  • do away with so-called "winner take all" elections in which the "winner" does not have the support of most of the voters, and replace that system with instant runoff voting and proportional representation, systems most advanced countries now use to good effect;
  • replace big money control of election campaigns with full public financing and free and equal access to the airwaves;
  • guarantee equal access to the ballot and to the debates to all qualified candidates;
  • abolish the Electoral College and implement direct election of the President;
  • restore the vote to ex-offenders who've paid their debt to society; and,
  • enact Statehood for the District of Columbia so that those Americans have representation in Congress and full rights to self rule like the rest of us.

4. Protect local democracy and democratic rights by commissioning a thorough review of federal preemption law and its impact on the practice of local democracy in the United States. This review will put at its center the "democracy question" – that is, what level of government is most open to democratic participation and most suited to protecting democratic rights.

5. Create a Corporation for Economic Democracy, a new federal corporation (like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) to provide publicity, training, education, and direct financing for cooperative development and for democratic reforms to make government agencies, private associations, and business enterprises more participatory.

6. Strengthen media democracy by expanding federal support for locally-owned broadcast media and local print media.

7. Protect our personal liberty and freedoms by:

  • repealing the Patriot Act and those parts of the National Defense Authorization Act that violate our civil liberties;
  • prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI from conspiring with local police forces to suppress our freedoms of assembly and of speech; and,
  • ending the war on immigrants – including the cruel, so-called "secure communities" program.

8. Rein in the military-industrial complex by

  • reducing military spending by 50% and closing U.S. military bases around the world;
  • restoring the National Guard as the centerpiece of our system of national defense; and,
  • creating a new round of nuclear disarmament initiatives.

Let us not rest until we have pulled our nation back from the brink, and until we have secured the peaceful, just, green future we all deserve.

 

 

Read more:

http://www.gp.org/green_new_deal

 

Good luck...

 

Read from top.

hillary is plundering herself...

During an interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein responded to former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's accusation that she was a "Russian asset."



MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Johnny Rivers from 1966, "Secret Agent Man." It seemed appropriate. I'm Michael Smerconish in Philadelphia. A political war of words has erupted into a full-blown public feud. It's playing itself out between two Democrats, 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, current 2020 contender Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and neither are mincing words. The battle started when Clinton said this about Gabbard during a podcast.

HILLARY CLINTON, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far and that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Agent. Yes.

CLINTON: Yes. She's a Russian asset. I mean totally.


SMERCONISH: Gabbard didn't hold back in slamming Clinton, calling her "the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long." Clinton didn't name Gabbard, but when asked if she was in fact referring to the Hawaii congresswoman, her spokesman said, "If the nesting doll fits." Her spokesman then said the initial grooming comment referred to Republicans, not Russia. Gabbard again denied that she would launch a third-party run last night.

My next guest is the other person that Secretary Clinton mentioned in that interview calling her, quote-unquote, "totally a Russian asset," former Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein. Dr. Stein, I went to Merriam-Webster, looked up "asset" just to be sure. Here's what it says. "Something useful in an effort to foil or defeat an enemy, such as a piece of military equipment or a spy." Are you a Russian spy?

JILL STEIN, FORMER GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, I am not a Russian spy. I think this is a completely unhinged conspiracy theory for which there is absolutely no basis. In fact, not for myself and not for Tulsi Gabbard. I think it's really outrageous that Hillary Clinton is trying to promote this crazy idea. You know, you can't just slander people. You have to present some basis and fact. Tulsi has said that she is dedicated to running as a Green -- as a Democrat and she has been for her whole life, so that's pretty believable.

I am not running for office. Somehow Hillary Clinton didn't do her Google research or she would know that I am not running. So it's preposterous to say if I will give it up. You know, this is just a -- it's a wild and insulting theory and I think it speaks to Hillary's need to try to explain, perhaps to herself, you know, why her campaign was not successful. People really wanted change and unfortunately believed Donald Trump's lies that he was going to bring change.

We need a voting system, you know, in which people can actually vote for what they want and if people are concerned that independent candidates and campaigns are Russian plots, there's a very simple solution.

Ranked-choice voting prevents any evil, foreign asset or anyone from splitting the vote. It lets you rank your choices. You never have to worry about your vote being, quote, "thrown away" or your vote not counting or spoiling the election. That doesn't happen under ranked- choice voting. If your first choice loses, your vote is automatically reassigned to your second choice. It's a win-win.

And, you know, that's the solution here. The solution is not to silence political dissent. You know, the basis of our democracy is supposed to be political dialogue and competition. We shouldn't be in the business of, you know, throwing just terrible accusations and calling tyranny and traitor for people who are standing up for very important values that the American people badly need to hear about.

You know, 70 percent, in a recent "Wall Street Journal" poll, 70 percent of Americans said they're not just fed up, they are fighting angry with a political establishment that's thrown them under the business. So we shouldn't be in the business ...

SMERCONISH: Do you ...

STEIN: ... of silencing diverse political choices.

[09:05:00] We need ranked-choice voting to make that OK and bring our values back into our vote.

SMERCONISH: Do you think that she's trying to draw a nefarious inference from that photograph we've all seen so many times of the dinner that you attended at which President Putin was present? I think that General Flynn was somebody else who was at the table. Is that what's driving her as far as you know?

STEIN: Well, let me just say there are many pictures, many more pictures, of Hillary Clinton having intimate conversations with Putin whispering in her ear and we actually know there was some real money exchanged, for example when her husband was paying something like $0.5 million to give a single speech to a Kremlin-connected Russian Bank associated with the sale of part of the U.S. uranium supply approved under Hillary Clinton's watch.

So that might be the kind of thing you'd want to investigate, but simply attending a dinner at a conference where I went to basically tell Russia they needed to stop bombing Syria and to advocate for a ceasefire in the Middle East, that's a good thing. I think we need more of that kind of dialogue. You have to talk with your adversaries ...

SMERCONISH: Dr. Stein ...

STEIN: ... as well as with your allies. Yes.

SMERCONISH: Do you think -- do you think that her comments were designed to intimidate the emergence of any third party candidate, whether it's Dr. Jill Stein, whether it's Congresswoman Gabbard or someone else who right now might be planning on getting into the race?

STEIN: Absolutely and I think, you know, she and the Democratic Party have been in that business for a long time. As I mentioned, ranked- choice voting solves this problem of, you know, worrying about is your vote going to have unintended consequences.

The state of Maine, the entire state, has adopted ranked-choice voting. It could be adopted in a heartbeat by legislatures across the country. It eliminates the hysteria about spoiled elections and it really liberates people to be able to vote for what you want instead of against what you fear.

SMERCONISH: Right.

STEIN: We know from polls ...

SMERCONISH: Well ...

STEIN: ... most people who voted for Donald Trump were not voting for him, they were voting against what they saw as his only opponent. We need that change to our voting system ...

SMERCONISH: Let me add something to this.

STEIN: ... and we could have it now.

SMERCONISH: Let me just add something to this if I might and I want -- I have a statistic drawn from the United States Elections Project which I think is relevant. I want to put it on the screen. In the 2016 cycle, there it is, 42 percent, this is key, of eligible Americans did not vote.

I don't know why the focus from Secretary Clinton and others, instead of training their sights on you or Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, isn't to say, wow, we need to get the 42 percent who didn't participate into the game instead of concentrating on those who earnestly get into the arena. You get the final word.

STEIN: Exactly. That's why we need more choices and more voices and where ranked-choice voting has been passed, as in the state of Maine, in fact that's what's happening. More people are coming in to vote because -- you know, because they have a greater variety of candidates that can speak to them, their need for jobs, for health care as a human right, to abolish student debt, make higher education free and to cut, you know, this bloated and dangerous war budget that's actually getting us into more wars. It's not making us safer.

 

 

 

Read more:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/10/22/jill_stein_hillary_clinton