This just in: The USA Green Party and Jill Stein are still scum

Politics & Elections
61

I despise Jill Stein for running in elections she knows she has no chance of winning. She knows she’s not going to achieve shit but runs anyway because that has become her career. Having said that, I tend to give her the benefit of the doubt in that she probably doesn’t believe what she’s doing is particularly dangerous and she probably does believe that Hillary Clinton’s Russia policy is potentially ruinous. FTR, reasonably-minded people of all stripes can conclude that Clintonian diplomacy wasn’t effective.

My take on Jill Stein is that she’s so full of left-wing smug, so in love with herself, that she probably bottles her own farts and tries to sell them on E-Bay.

62

Why are you asking them to defend something that they never said? They explained why Russia was an enemy. That’s the part SD said they disagreed with. They said nothing about Stein’s actions at all. They specifically didn’t disagree with your statement about treason.

Your defenses seem, well, odd. It is of course worrying that she’s lying about what the document asked her to do, and is impeding the investigation. Russia is indeed our enemy in regards to the 2016 election. All possible ties from candidates need to be investigated, whether on the Republican, Democrat, or third party sides.

The fact that she’s pretending this is about correspondence with people of Russian decent instead of the obvious interpretation of Russian people (as the document actually says) is suspicious as hell. It suggests there is some interaction that she’s trying to hide, and using that as a fig leaf.

That’s what we believe about Trump. When he tries to do things that impede the investigation, it implies there is something to hide. Same goes here. When you try to wrangle out of an investigation, then it is inherently suspicious.

When some of Trump’s lackeys said they wouldn’t turn over info, you guys freaked out at how horrible that was, for good reason. Why should Stein be different?

And it’s not like there’s no reason to suspect her, to believe this is a wild goose chase. There’s likely more information, but what I gathered in a quick Google search is as follows: she did go to a dinner about supporting Russian state-sponsored news. Why would anyone who supports free speech ever go anywhere near supporting propaganda networks? She was indeed there with Flynn when Flynn was doing some bad stuff. She has stated that she doesn’t believe that there was any Russian meddling in the elections, something that has been proven. She stated she doesn’t regret how her campaign led to Trump becoming president.
No, none of that is some sort of smoking gun, but it is reason enough to investigate her. She was a part of the 2016 election, the thing that we are investigating. And spoilers are a way that Russia could influence the election. For instance, if all Stein voters in Florida voted for Clinton, she would be president right now. (That’s not to say the would have done so, but an example.)
This is nothing like McCarthyism, which basically boiled down to an ideological purity test for everyone. This is investigating someone who actually was involved in the thing under investigation: the 2016 election. It’s no different from checking on Trump’s campaign.
And her choice to pick out one specific thing to not support, and then to make a stupid excuse for it, does make me genuinely suspicious. I’m not normally a fan of “if you did nothing wrong, there’s nothing to hide,” but it does apply when you are a person of interest in an investigation.
I literally went from “there’s probably nothing” to “there’s possibly something” over this when I first read about it. I didn’t even think to bring it up here, since I thought the suspiciousness would be obvious, and there’d be nothing to discuss.

63

And this is what is known as “whataboutism.” It says nothing about the situation at hand, but points at something else and says we should be more worried about that.

And “that’s just me” == “I’m just sayin’”

64

His point stands with me, and I don’t pay enough attention to Ms Stein to dislike her more than I do. Jill Stein is a public creature, she’s not afraid of being investigated, its unlikely anyone is trying to bribe her to throw her massive political clout in their favor. She’s not afraid of the FBI, she’s afraid of calling a press conference and nobody shows.

And the sooner, the better. Still, maybe its better that the eco-movement not be a political party with a fixation on the one massive issue. We’ll get to green clean energy a damn sight quicker once the greed-freaks realize what a good investment it can be.

'Course, there are risks. Just the other day, one of those wind generators totally broke down, spilled wind all over the place! There is currently no estimate on clean up costs.

65

In this particular case, I think we should be more concerned about Trump than Stein, because he had a closer relationship with Flynn, benefited more from any electoral interference, and is in a position to do more damage to democratic institutions. But yes, resources permitting, both should be investigated, and any wrongdoing brought to light.

And besides that, isn’t this entire thread an exercise in whataboutism? Trump has been under investigation for his contacts with Russians and their possible interference in the U.S. election. “But what about Stein? She was running for president and she had contacts with Russians, too! What about her?”

66

She should comply with it because it’s a congressional inquiry, and it’s relevant to the question of whether or not her campaign got Russian help in the last election.

67

Whataboutism is trying to discredit an argument by pointing at something shiny. This thread is trying to add to the sense of Russian conspiracy.

68

Which “you guys” are you talking about? Because it almost seems like you think Stein voters are the people defending her in this thread, which would be wrong afaik.

69

Also, Stein’s organization turned over info about meetings with Russian officials and media folks. They have so far declined to address an overly-broad request for info about meetings with “all Russian persons”, and I think they are justified in holding back.

70

Stein’s and the Green Party’s behavior in the 2016 election is quite suspicious.

People often think of the Green party as the left’s equivelant to the Libertarian party. But that’s not a good comparison. Whatever you think of the Libertarian Party, they’re a real political party. They stay active all the time. They run candidates from the local level through the presidential level and honestly do their best to win.

The Green Party is not really a political party in the same way. They don’t run local or state candidates. They basically go dormant between presidential elections. Their party, such as it is, is basically just a token formality to let them run a presidential candidate every 4 years.

They seem to exist not to promote a real party with a real agenda, like the Libertarian party attempts to do, but to play the spoiler in presidential elections.

Now - you could say that maybe they just want to get on the national stage and spread their message. But Jill Stein didn’t campaign widely as someone who wanted to promote a leftist message. One goal of third party presidential candidates is to get enough of the vote to get federal funding in the next election and be invited to presidential debates. This is actually probably their #1 practical goal they might achieve.

So if Jill Stein was a well-meaning leftist who wanted to try to promote her party to get her message out, you would expect her to campaign in places like California, where people might feel like they can safely “throw their vote away” on a third party because Clinton would definitely win. Relatively easy votes for the picking, and it doesn’t hurt your ideology as much because you aren’t as likely to play as big a spoiler, thereby letting the Republicans win (which you should, as a leftist, oppose far more than the democrats).

But what did Jill Stein actually do? She campaigned in swing states. That amplified the potential spoiler effect (boosting the chance of Republicans winning that election) while also minimizing the votes for her own party relative to a place where people could safely vote Green Party. That’s exactly the wrong strategy to use if you were promoting a leftist agenda. But exactly the right strategy you would use if you were trying hard to play the spoiler so Republicans could win.

Combine this with the fact that the Russians meddled in our elections in multiple vectors, and Stein has no particular businesses at a dinner with Putin and Manafort, and the fact that she still tries to promote Trump, which is antithetical to any sort of leftist, and her behavior is extremely suspicious.

I think the most plain reading of this situation is that she’s working to undermine the democratic party in presidential elections and may be receiving from Russia to do so.

71

McCarthyism is located over here.

72

Do you have a cite for the “fact that she still tries to promote Trump”?

73

This idea of Stein working nefariously with the Russkies is being promoted mainly by Right Wing Conspiracy web sites, trying to deflect the attention away from Trump. I understand that some folks are sill in stage 1 or 2 of the grieving process over the Hillary loss, but care should be taken not to promote this agenda accidentally.

74

I actually think it’s likely that the Green Party received Russian backing. It is Russia’s MO when they interfere in other countries’ elections. They pump up extremist parties on both the left and right. I see no reason why they would make an exception for their US influence campaign.

I think an audit of funds from Russian nationals is a pretty reasonable response, given what we now know about Russia’s efforts in the US. I wouldn’t want them to turn the info over to anyone else. I would be pissed if they did that and I were a Green Party donor. But the responsible thing would be to hire some respected outside firm to do a private audit and commit to publishing the results.

75

Well it’s more than “likely”. RT gave Stein lots of coverage and they broadcast the Green Party nomination debate. But my instinct is that the Russians just pumped her in that fashion rather than anything more direct. Too hard to hide amongst the Green Party donors/supporters compared to GOP boosters and kompromat is basicly worthless against the Greens. ISTM, divulging all Russian media, government and business contacts should suffice for the committee.

76

First of all, this is far from whataboutism. It is an undisputed fact that Jill Stein sat at Vladimir Putin’s table at a ten anniversary celebration for Russia Today. How the hell does an extremely minor USA political figure, who has only served on a suburban Boston town council get invited to such a dinner? The other people at that table, aside from Putin himself were all very close to Putin with the possible exception of Emir Kusturica,a very controversial film director who has defended Putin.There is no doubt that Putin and his advsors were well aware of the Greens role in the 2000 election.

The Green Party only exists to ratfuck elections. While they usually do go dormant in non-Presidential elections, they’re up to their old tricks with Republican support in Montana in a tough Senate election there in heavily Trump country. http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/381819-green-party-puts-dem-seat-at-risk-in-montana

I actually watched some of the Green Party’s so-called convention in 2016. They spent more time discussing 19th century history, mainly focusing on the Trail of Tears and what type of genocide to label the Indian removals than anything related to 2016. It seriously reminded me of a late night college dorm chat among left of center friends than a modern political party.

And yes, Stein campaigned in swing states, even though she doesn’t know the difference between Cincinnati and Columbus. Green Party's Stein mistakenly flies to Cincinnati for Columbus rally

77

The way the Democrats think they’re somehow entitled to all voters left of Trump is a big part of why I usually vote Green.

If Democrats want those votes, don’t shame other candidates, earn those votes.

But we all know they won’t. Instead they’ll run entirely on “That Republican is scary.” and after they lose they’ll sputter about a lack of unity and poor enthusiasm.

78

The smartest thing for the Democrats to do is ignore the hard core purity voters who will never be satisfied with the Democratic candidate and focus on the young and politically naive voters who can be distracted by a shiny object such as a 3rd party.

Some of the best political advice I ever got was when I canvassed for Kerry. We put the hard core left into the same category rating as the hard core Republicans. They weren’t worth the time, they’d give you a 100 question purity test, then they’d whip out another once you’re addressed the first one. In the end, they’d end up throwing their vote away or being a ‘conscientious voting objector’

79

So you want Republicans to win. Hard to see you voting Democratic under any circumstances, then.

80

That’s exactly right. And it’s obvious with the disdain and scorn they pile upon people who don’t stay on the plantation.