The Official Jill Stein Thread

[Art Vandelay]

Any #ImWithHer folks here?

The Other Woman Running for President Starts to Get Noticed
The Fiscal Times
7/7/2016

With the threat of a federal indictment behind her, Hillary Clinton will head to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 25 as the tarnished presumptive presidential nominee whom a majority of Americans don’t like.

And with the usual swirl of controversy surrounding him (this time accusations of veiled anti-Semitism), Donald Trump will private-jet into the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 18 as the divisive presumptive presidential nominee whom a majority of American really don’t like.

Clinton’s unfavorability rating stands at 55.5 percent, according to the latest read from Real Clear Politics. But Trump has her beat with 61.1 percent.

Those negatives are one reason disenchanted voters, many of them independents, are starting to look around.

Support for former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate currently on the ballot in 33 states, is climbing but still in the single digits, with a Real Clear Politics polling average of 7.3 percent.

But a sleeper candidate, who happens to be the other woman running for president, is starting to get noticed.

While Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party nominee, polls at just 3.8 percent in a four-way matchup with Clinton, Trump and Johnson, she could attract independents who Trump has turned off and disaffected Bernie Sanders supporters who can’t bring themselves to vote for Clinton.

In fact, Stein’s agenda is a lot like Bernie’s – and a lot like the progressive positions taken by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

As a Green candidate, Stein wants the U.S to take the lead on halting climate change, end fracking and offshore oil drilling, and declare a moratorium on GMOs and pesticides until proven safe.

But she is also for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, a $15 minimum wage, free college, universal healthcare, putting a tax squeeze on Wall Street and the rich, breaking up too-big-to-fail banks, reforming the criminal justice system, legalizing marijuana and terminating “unconstitutional surveillance.”

On militarization and foreign entanglements, Stein is considerably more to the left than Sanders or Warren. She would cut Pentagon spending by 50 percent and close some 700 U.S. military installations overseas.

Last April in an open letter to Sanders, the democratic socialist senator from Vermont, Stein suggested they join forces to provide a more powerful alternative to the two major parties.

She wrote, in part: “You've proven that in today’s rapidly changing America, a populist progressive agenda covered by the media and the televised debates can catch on like wildfire and shake the foundations of a political establishment that seemed invulnerable just a few short months ago.

“As the neoliberal Democratic machine mobilizes to quash revolution in its ranks, I urge you to consider opening a window of historic possibility outside the Democratic Party,” Stein went on. “I would love to explore with you collaborative ways to advance that effort and ensure the revolution for people, planet and peace will prevail.”

Sanders didn’t bite and has said he will be voting for Clinton, although he has not yet endorsed her.

But the lack of real alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans is a theme that Stein keeps hitting hard.

“People are hungering for more choices, but the American political system excels at suppressing the voices of opposition,” she says in a video on her website, “In fact, we are probably the only major developed country limited to two parties.”

A Chicago-born physician with degrees from Harvard and Harvard Medical School, the 66-year-old Stein also shares more than a passing similarity to Warren. In addition to their progressive views, both Massachusetts residents are outspoken and highly articulate.

Unlike Warren, who was elected to the Senate in her first try at public office, however, Stein has been defeated in a string of state and national elections.

As the Green Party candidate in 2012, she pulled in a statistically insignificant 0.36 percent of the popular vote, and so far this year the Greens are on only 20 state ballots – although those ballots cover 55 percent of the population and the ballot-access campaign is far from over.

But the election of 2012 was nothing like 2016. And both Johnson, who won only 0.99 percent of the popular vote as the Libertarian nominee in 2012, and Stein see a chance to make a more significant showing.

Who would they help and who would they hurt?

In a two-way race, according to RCP poll averages, Clinton wins 44.9 percent of the vote to Trump’s 40.3 percent. In a four-way race among Clinton, Trump, Johnson and Stein, Clinton takes 41.3 percent of the vote to 36.5 percent for Trump, 7 percent for Johnson and 3.8 percent for Stein.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Debate Commission to Keep ’15 Percent Rule’ for Presidential Candidates

Despite a lawsuit from the Libertarian and Green parties, the Commission on Presidential Debates is sticking to its 15 percent rule for inclusion in the general election debates.

“Their argument is they can’t get to 15 percent if they are not in the debate. We just think in the modern environment we are in that’s just not true,” said Commission on Presidential Debates Co-Chairman Mike McCurry during an event at George Washington University.

Co-Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf Jr. said the commission has been sued over the same issue since 1988 and won every time. Fahrenkopf explained that 2008 was the only election the commission was not sued for the 15 percent rule but had to deal with issues surrounding whether then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) were natural-born citizens.

“We have the same rule today – the 15 percent rule. Our commission spent a lot of time looking at this – whether to lower it, whether to raise it. There’s a great deal of controversy on how you go about doing it. We reached a determination – our commission did – that if it’s one month before the presidential election and you’re not at 15 percent in the five leading polls and these are not the kind of polls you have been reading about in the primaries,” Fahrenkopf said.

“If you look at those, there is usually 400 or 500 people involved in those polls. We’re talking about polls that are big polls that are over 1,000 people and then if you are 15 percent you are in. Ross Perot was in in 1992 and that’s the only time since we’ve been involved with it we have had three people.”

The moderator told Martha Raddatz, chief global affairs correspondent at ABC News, it is “totally plausible” this year that a third-party candidate could erode support from the Republican or Democrat nominee with only 10 percent support and tip the election. Raddatz was asked if the 15 percent rule is fair given that potential scenario.

“I mean, if those rules have applied for all these years I don’t really see why you would change it. I get your point. There are different venues where that candidate can talk and try to swing that election,” said Raddatz, who moderated the 2012 vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

McCurry shot down an idea of having an “undercard debate” for independent candidates in the general election.

“Is that the responsibility of our commission? We’ve elected to say no because we put on three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate and the logistical challenge for what is a fairly small nonprofit operation that does this because we work with the networks to put this on and others who support our work,” he said.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Obama has failed victims of racism and police brutality
The president and his cheerleaders refused to engage deeply with systemic problems facing our country. That came back to haunt America last week.
Cornel West
Thursday 14 July 2016

A long and deep legacy of white supremacy has always arrested the development of US democracy. We either hit it head on, or it comes back to haunt us. That’s why a few of us have pressed the president for seven years not to ignore issues of poverty, police abuse and mass unemployment. Barack Obama said it very well, following the shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, that some communities “have been forgotten by all of us”.

And now – in Dallas, Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights and beyond – this legacy has comes back to haunt the whole country.

Obama and his cheerleaders should take responsibility for being so reluctant to engage with these issues. It’s not a question of interest group or constituencies. Unfortunately for so much of the Obama administration its been a question of “I’m not the president of black people, I’m the president of everyone.” But this is a question of justice. It’s about being concerned about racism and police brutality.

I have deep empathy for brothers and sisters who are shot in the police force. I also have profound empathy for people of color who are shot by the police. I have always believed deliberate killing to be a crime against humanity.

Yet, Obama didn’t go to Baton Rouge. He didn’t go to Minneapolis. He flew over their heads to go to Dallas. You can’t do that. His fundamental concern was to speak to the police, that was his priority. When he references the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s to speak to the police. But the people who are struggling have a different perspective.

The very notion that Dallas is the paragon of policing is something that needs to be interrogated. The Dallas mayor said we have done nothing wrong, but look at your history. Ask people in southern Dallas about the police. Ask Clinton Allen, an unarmed black man fatally shot by the Dallas police in 2013. I was with his mother, Collette Flanagan, the founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, last year. Countless people came up and told us about all the struggles black communities are having with the Dallas police.

Unfortunately, Obama thrives on being in the middle. He has no backbone to fight for justice. He likes to be above the fray. But for those us us who are in the fray, there is a different sensibility. You have to choose which side you’re on, and he doesn’t want to do that. Fundamentally, he’s not a love warrior. He’s a polished professional. Martin Luther King Jr, Adam Clayton Powell Jr and Ella Baker – they were warriors.

Obama’s attitude is that of a neo-liberal, and they rarely have solidarity with poor and working people. Whatever solidarity he does offer is just lip-service to suffering but he never makes it a priority to end that suffering.

Obama has power right now to enact the recommendations made after Ferguson. Better training, independent civilian oversight boards, body cameras. But he has not used executive orders to push any of these changes through.

This November, we need change. Yet we are tied in a choice between Trump, who would be a neo-fascist catastrophe, and Clinton, a neo-liberal disaster. That’s why I am supporting Jill Stein. I am with her – the only progressive woman in the race – because we’ve got to get beyond this lock-jaw situation. I have a deep love for my brother Bernie Sanders, but I disagree with him on Hillary Clinton. I don’t think she would be an “outstanding president.” Her militarism makes the world a less safe place.

Clinton policies of the 1990s generated inequality, mass incarceration, privatization of schools and Wall Street domination. There is also a sense that the Clinton policies helped produce the right-wing populism that we’re seeing now in the country. And we think she’s going to come to the rescue? That’s not going to happen.

The American empire is in deep spiritual decline and cultural decay. The levels of wealth inequality and environmental degradation is grotesque. The correct response to this is: tell the truth about what is going on. Bear witness. Be willing to go to jail to fight for justice if need be.

When the system is declining, it can bring despair. That’s why Black Lives Matter – and all other young people of all colors who are mobilizing – is a beautiful thing. We are having a moral and spiritual awakening. It gives us democratic hope. Its not about having hope but being hope. It’s time to move from being spectators, to being actors.

 

[thoughtone]

source: NBC News

Russians launched pro-Jill Stein social media blitz to help Trump win election, reports say

Building support for Stein was one of a “roster of themes” the Moscow-sanctioned internet trolls “turned to repeatedly,” report says.

Two days before the 2016 presidential election, an Instagram account called @woke_blacks posted a message in support of long-shot Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

“The excuse that a lost Black vote for Hillary is a Trump win is bs,” it read. “It could be late, but y’all might want to support Jill Stein instead.”


According to a report commissioned by the Senate, the account was a fake, part of the Russian campaign to sway the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.

The report was one of two that leaked this week saying the Russian effort to disrupt the election specifically targeted black voters and harnessed America’s top social media platforms. But the reports contained another finding that was largely overlooked — the Russians also focused on boosting Stein’s candidacy through social media posts like the one from @woke_blacks.


Building support for Stein was one of a “roster of themes” the Moscow-sanctioned internet trolls “turned to repeatedly” in their effort to disrupt the election, according to a research team led by the New Knowledge cybersecurity firm. The researchers also found that the campaign to bolster Stein gained in intensity in the final days of the presidential campaign and largely targeted African-American voters.

The reports, prepared by separate groups of cyber experts, add to the growing body of evidence that the Russians worked to boost the Stein campaign as part of the effort to siphon support away from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and tilt the election to Trump.

An NBC News analysis found that Russians working under the direction of the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based firm run by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, tweeted the phrase “Jill Stein” over 1,000 times around the time of the election.

The posts were often accompanied by variations of the same hashtag, “Grow a spine and vote Jill Stein.”

“This hasn’t gotten enough attention,” said Andrew Weiss, a Russian expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, referring to Moscow’s efforts to promote Stein.

“The fact that the Russian propaganda apparatus helped create awareness and support for her candidacy and promoted her candidacy is critical to our understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“The Russians played this extremely adroitly,” Weiss added.

The Green Party did not respond to multiple requests for comment. NBC News also left messages with two Stein spokespersons, but they went unreturned.

There’s nothing in the reports to suggest that Stein was aware of the influence operation, but the Massachusetts physician has long been criticized for her support of international policies that mirror Russian foreign policy goals.

As a frequent guest on the Russian state-owned English language broadcast and online outlets RT and Sputnik, Stein has also benefited from Moscow’s help during her presidential runs in 2012 and 2016.

An NBC News review of the archives of RT and Sputnik, which the CIA has described as part of “Russia’s state-run propaganda machine,” from early 2015 to the 2016 election shows more than 100 stories, on-air and online, friendly to Stein and the Green Party.

Weiss said Moscow's support for Stein in fact began well before she became a presidential candidate.

“The Russian embrace of fringe voices like Stein goes back more than a decade to the earlier days of RT,” said Weiss.

Weiss also noted that the Stein campaign parroted the Russian position on Ukraine in 2016 and criticized the U.S. for installing a government in Kiev “hostile to Russia.”

In Feb. 2015, Stein announced her decision to form a presidential exploratory committee on the U.S.-based RT program “Redacted Tonight."

In the closing weeks of the campaign, RT quoted Stein suggesting that Hillary Clinton could lead the U.S. into a nuclear war with Russia and saying Trump was a safer choice.

"On the issue of war and nuclear weapons," Stein said, according to RT, "it is actually Hillary's policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia."

Most famously, Stein was one of two Americans invited to sit with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the head table of the RT 10th anniversary dinner in Dec. 2015. The other was General Michael Flynn, who was advising then candidate Donald J. Trump and is now awaiting sentencing in the special counsel’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The head table of a gala celebrating the tenth anniversary of Russia Today in December of 2015 included
Russian President Vladimir Putin, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Jill Stein of the U.S. Green Party.
Mikhail Klimentyev / Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP file

Also at the table: Putin’s chief of staff, a former KGB general who had been sanctioned by the Obama administration for his role in 2014 annexation of Crimea and a deputy chief of staff who U.S. intelligence referred to as Putin's head propagandist.

Stein, in explaining why she traveled to Moscow for the event, has said she had hoped to speak with the Russian president about his policy in Syria, climate change and other issues. The Russian president declined the opportunity, Stein admitted. Stein has repeatedly said she did not accept any Russian support for her trip.

Clint Watts, an NBC News analyst who has been tracking Russian election interference at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, says none of what’s in the reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee should be seen as surprising.

“Is Stein a fellow traveler or a useful idiot?” Watts asked rhetorically. “I don’t know, but even after the election she played into Russia disinformation by pursuing a recount so heavily and claiming election fraud. This was a post-election coup for Kremlin propagandists.”

 

[thoughtone]

She's back...on Faux News, no doubt!

If this doesn't confirm the connection between the rethuglican party and the Russians, then there is no convincing you.

 

[Politic Negro]