Reminder to Ask Lynn Kahn if She's a Vegan

Since Matt wouldn't tell me.

I do not believe that any of these "environmentalists" is a vegan and that is pretty relevant given that livestock agriculture is either 38% or 51% responsible for climate change (depending on whether you believe the EPA or the UN). So, seems like some reading may be in order for all of these candidates. Was plant-based agriculture at least brought up as a topic at the forum? The story does not indicate that it was. Very sad.

As for "Kevin the baker" and his continuing attacks on Greens and Green candidates, the corporate Dems running his war party will take money from anyone who offers it. I am sure that Doctor Kahn, who is NOT from Kevin's corporate party, will take small individual donations from any voter of any party who wishes to support her. What an absurd thing to suggest that she should refuse Republican support ... how could anyone win our solidly GOP district without support from at least some Republicans??? It's patently ridiculous. It sure doesn't look like the Democrats are going to win by running Don Boyajian and hating on Donald Trump but I guess that's really all they've got. I would estimate that 25% of NY21 GOP voters would need to peel off and vote for someone other than Elise to see the district switch hands. So, Kevin, try to slow down your DNC rhetoric for just a minute and actually think about the mean-spirited things you say. You sound an awful lot like John Kerry in 2004 whining about how Ralph Nader had taken about $200,000 in inividual donations when Kerry, himself, had already taken $7,000,000 in individual GOP donations. It's called being a "hypocrite", Kevin. Try not to be one.

I like how he's doing the Trump very sad thing. 

I will vote for Kahn because I have spoken with her at length and believe her to be sincere and goodhearted. FAR more important to me, she is carrying the Green standard into battle with her and my vote always goes to support the building of our principled non-corporate political party. 

That still doesn't tell me if she's a vegan or not. He wouldn't tell me if Jill Stein was either. Should've asked if he'd vote for a Dem vegan over a Green meat eater. Next time. 

Sweet Jesus, I Hate Jill Stein

Not really, but she's seriously annoying.

Both war profiteer parties are screaming that supporting diplomacy is treason. It was the same during the run-up to attacking Iraq & Libya.

How many ways is that bullshit? I don't like the GOP, but I don't go around saying stuff that mind-numbingly stupid about them. 

A Couple of Stein Stories

I love this one. I love it like the Mooch loves Trump. God, I hope there's something to it.

Third party candidate Jill Stein was a surprising addition this week to investigators casting an increasingly wide net in the congressional probe into Russian interference in the presidential campaign.

Stein’s name was included in a Senate Judiciary Committee letter requesting all communication between President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and a number of others, including Russian officials and other members of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Yeah, it's a smear and McCarthyism and blargh! Hope not.

I'd be more than willing to give her a pass on this if it wasn't for Matt Funiciello. That and the general holier than thouness of the Green Party. 

She has made purity a central pillar of her presidential candidacy, and she has held that the Green Party reigns above all others with respect to moral and ethical supremacy. In an interview with CNN last April, she said, “I have long since thrown in the towel on the Democratic and Republican parties because they are really a front group for the 1 percent, for predatory banks, fossil-fuel giants, and war profiteers.”

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. She's invested in mutual funds that invest in companies that include predatory banks, fossil-fuel giants and war profiteers. Not directly invested. But you know what, she doesn't deserve a break for it anyway. 

Stein has invested $995,011 to $2.2 million in funds such as the Vanguard 500 fund that maintain significant stakes in Exxon and other energy companies like Chevron, Duke Energy, Conoco Phillips, and Toho Gas, a Japanese company that engages in the sale of natural gas, tar, and coke, a fuel made from coal.

...

Stein has invested roughly $1.2 to $2.65 million in funds like the TIAA-CREF Equity Index that have big stakes in the financial-services industry. Holdings in these funds include big banks like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank as major parts of their investment portfolios. Five of the funds that Stein invests in maintain large positions in Wells Fargo, which has come under fire recently amid charges that its employees were pressured to open up fraudulent new accounts for clients.

One of the funds Stein has invested in maintains a significant position in Goldman Sachs bonds. Stein once referred to Goldman Sachs as Hillary Clinton’s best friend.

…

In one of the handful of direct stock investments Stein holds, she listed between $50,001 and $100,000 in the pharmaceutical giant Merck, which paid a record fine for overbilling Medicaid. She has also invested $1,130,010 to $2,400,000 in funds that maintain significant stakes in Pfizer, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, and Allergan.

…

Stein has between $500,004 to $1,100,000 invested in funds that maintain significant stakes in Phillip Morris International, the tobacco giant that manufactures Marlboro cigarettes and 17 other tobacco brands.

…

(S)he has between $50,001-$100,000 invested in a fund that has Raytheon Corp. as its fourth largest holding, a $38 million investment. Raytheon, which is the fourth largest defense contractor in the world and derives 90 percent of its revenue from military contracts, manufactures drone systems, which Stein has committed to ending, and significant missile systems.

And for the height of dis-ingenuousness. 

Stein said that she has “explored” more socially responsible funds but “found their investments in fracking and large-scale biofuels not much better than the non-green funds. I have not yet found the mutual funds that represent my goals of advancing the cause of people, planet, and peace.”

It took me less than 30 seconds with a web search to find funds that don't invest in fracking. 

Many critics say clean-energy and socially responsible investment funds offer a poor rate of return and should generally be avoided… Which likely explains why Stein chose to invest her wealth in funds that have often offered double-digit returns.

Yes, maybe that's it. And what does Matthew Pureheart have to do with it? 

(I)t was his wife's money and it was made by investing in some pretty damaging and unconscious companies (Monsanto, McDonald's, tobacco and oil companies and several hedge funds to name but a few.)

That was about Aaron Woolf, his Democratic opponent in 2014. I suspect he's referring to Woolf's wife owning mutual funds that invested in those companies and industries and that she's not directly invested in them. I can hardly wait to be in a comment thread involving or including MF and linking to this Stein story. C'mon 2018. 

Fuck the Green Party

John Cole went with fuck Jill Stein. He probably doesn't have a perennial GP candidate running for Congress in his district. A year from now I'll be listening to Matt Funiciello inform me, condescendingly, how there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Fuck the whole party.

Stein didn’t just attend the gala—dressed in a shimmering silver shawl, she sat at the same table as Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has barely disguised his glee at the political chaos that what he calls “patriotic” Russian hackers have unleashed in the United States. And she recorded a video from Moscow’s famous Red Square, in which she talked about “the need to rein in American exceptionalism” and replace “a U.S. policy based on domination”—words that sounded like they were ripped from Putin’s talking points.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut myself, who knows what the Russians are capable of? Yes, I'm aware it sounds crazy. We'll see, though. 

All of Moscow's Men

Drip. Drip. Drip. 

Two days after the presidential election, a Russian official speaking to a reporter in Moscow offered a surprising acknowledgment: The Kremlin had been in contact with Donald Trump’s campaign.

The claim, coming amid allegations that Russia had interfered with the election, was met with an immediate no-wiggle-room, blanket denial from Trump’s spokeswoman. “It never happened,” Hope Hicks told the Associated Press at the time. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”

In fact, it is now clear it did happen.

Never say never. I mean unless it never happened. And is this guy visiting Russia on a tour with Moscow Jill. 

In early June, a little-known adviser to Donald Trump stunned a gathering of high-powered Washington foreign policy experts meeting with the visiting prime minister of India, going off topic with effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.

The adviser, Carter Page, hailed Putin as stronger and more reliable than President Obama, according to three people who were present at the closed-door meeting at Blair House — and then touted the positive effect a Trump presidency would have on U.S.-Russia relations.

A month later, Page dumbfounded foreign policy experts again by giving another speech harshly critical of U.S. policy — this time in Moscow.

Jesus, I can see why Obama was tapping his phones. 

Jill Stein is an Idiot

That would be useful idiot of the Republicans and Russians. But, I repeat myself there. ?From Driftglass with a hat tip to Green Eagle and Infidel who sent me to GE. It's a tangled web, the interwebs.

Why would we have a tie on such an egregious nominee? Because Democrats serve corporate interests. 

That's a Jill Stein tweet. She's the regular kind of idiot, too. 

A Not So Hinged Comment From the GP

Heeeeeere"s Matt:

Bravado from the Democratic marketing machine trying hard to sway votes toward one of the two brands of toothpaste the two corporate war parties are trying to sell here. Good luck, Mike Derrick! We have internal polls as well and they show you losing this race more terribly than even Aaron Woolf did. Worse yet, you aren't even running to represent US but because you think that the job is likely to open up avenues of greater wealth for you. The most important thing we've learned is that almost 45% of "likely voters" are still undecided in our district (slightly ahead of the historic and unprecedented national numbers of undecideds). That says to me that you and your corporate buddy, Elise ... and your two corporate war parties ... are just like your two fiendish and horrific presidential candidates ... confused and in trouble. You have no idea what is going to happen. If you weren't so busy "campaigning" on Wall Street and on K Street and were focused instead on the voters in our actual district, you would already know that very few people are drinking your Koolaid. When I am campaigning, here in our actual district, I meet very few people (especially Democrats) who are excited about having a rich, Reagan Republican from Colorado "represent" them. You're not inspiring anyone. Drop out and stop playing this little cynical game with people's lives.

First Recorded Use of the Term Greensplaining

Yet to be recognized by spell check. This is a draft of a letter to the Post Star. Unfortunately, I'm out of letters until September 15. Two per 30 days is the limit and I've been prolific lately.

     I’d like to comment on Matt Funiciello’s latest attempt to extort Democrats into not running a candidate for Congress. Now or ever. “I’m intending to, whether I win or not on election night, announce on election night, that it is time for the Democrats to stop running.” He’s been announcing that since 2014. It’s pretty moldy. “I think what’s going to happen is I’m going to beat the Democrat in this election cycle.” Yeah, okay. As flawed a candidate as Aaron Woolf was; he beat Mr. Funiciello by 200 votes in Warren County, won Essex and Clinton Counties outright and received three times the number of votes overall. “In the next race hopefully Democrats will say, you know what, let’s let Funiciello have a shot at this. Let’s let Greens have a shot at it.” Keep hoping. If no one else runs, I will. And I’ve been living in the district for 59 years and was a Democrat out of the womb, raised on tales of FDR.

     Far be it from me to discount the amusement value of the ads the Stefanik campaign would run in a one on one race. I can see some of his Greensplaining, from the recent debate, to the folks in the Adirondacks in a TV spot. He’d be as popular as the APA upstate. And then there are some of his other interesting ideas.

     If he wants to be the Lyndon LaRouche of New York’s 21^st district, he has every right to. I hope Democrats who aren’t saying “let’s let Funiciello have a shot at this” will join me in making sure he gets less than the ten percent he got last time, though. And even less in 2018 than this November. And on and on steadily until he evaporates. 

 Here's an oldie with MF suggesting, at about 3;30, that he should have veto power over the 2016 Democratic candidate. 

And if you watch all of it you'll see that despite the title, "Funiciello concession," it's very light on any conceding. 

Green Party Saboteur

Is Matt Funiciello's goal to win as representative of the district? Don't be silly.

Then, in a series of interviews, Funiciello declared that he was mostly putting his sights on Derrick, the Democrat from the town of Peru. Speaking with the Watertown Daily Times Editorial board, Funiciello said that he will probably lose the race this year, but hopes to set the stage for a win in 2018.

“I think what’s going to happen is I’m going to beat the Democrat in this election cycle,” Funiciello said. “And I’m going to show that we really better talk together about doing something with the voters who are out there for the next election cycle.”

Yes, he knows he's not going to win, but he wants to so damage the Democrats that they don't run a candidate in 2018. And no, he's not going to beat the Democrat in this cycle. 

It’s unconventional for a candidate to talk in these terms in the middle of an on-going election, not least because Funiciello also says bluntly that many Democrats in the North Country may not support him, even if he is the only candidate on the left. "I think there are many [Democrats] who would support Elise in a third race, honestly," Funiciello said. "Those voters are going to keep voting for war and empire and economic injustice, so long as they've got theirs."

Funiciello went on to predict that a "huge majority" of voters made up of "non-voters, independents, Democrats, Greens and Socialists who are going to say enough is enough" could eventually give him a majority of votes.

Let's go to last night's debate to address that idea of the "majority" he's going to put together in defeating Stefanik one on one. 

Stefanik and Derrick said they are in favor of expanding broadband access into the North Country. Funiciello cited the peacefulness of the area and said he does not want to see “forever wild” land turned over to cell towers.

“One of the things I find most wonderful about the Adirondacks is my phone does not work most of the time,” he said, adding he is more worried about government surveillance of citizens’ activity on the internet.

Leaving aside the fact that it would be nice to be able make a call to AAA or 9/11 if the need was to arise. I spent the first 19 years of my life in the Adirondacks. I remember how widely loathed the APA was because they were outsiders telling park residents how to live. He just took his vote count among anyone who has ever lived in the Park to zero. This is a guy who lives in Hudson Falls and works in Glens Falls and Moreau is saying people upstate have to stay "forever wild" and can't have cell service because it's so wonderful for him not to have it when he's driving through.

UPDATE: I neglected to provide a link to the video of the debate.

In case you don't want to listen to the whole thing. At around 19:00, Matt is telling the farmers of the North Country what they should be producing on their farms. At around 27:00, he's telling the "exhibits" in the Adirondacks how lucky they are not to have broadband or cell reception. And BTW, they should stay "forever wild." Adirondackers love when a flatlander who has never lived within miles of the Park tells them how they should live. I've been gone for 40 years and that still pisses me off to hear it. 

Funiciello Vows to Become a Perennial Candidate

Like I didn't already know this.

Funiciello has a strategy, one that involves edging Democrats out of the race altogether in 2018.

He says that's because of their weak showing with Aaron Woolf two years ago and the similar outcome he expects with Derrick this year. 

And if Derrick does well? I'm sure he'll be back anyway. I'm torn between comparing him to Jason from Friday the 13th or Lyndon LaRouche. We'll go with the scarier choice.

Due to lack of time and interest, I'm not going through the beliefs of LaRouchites. Yikes! It's bad enough being subjected to the beliefs of the Funicielloites. Its' probably safe to say there is some overlap.

Charles Pierce on the Third Party Options

Damn, the title said it all again.

Between Johnson on climate change, and Jill Stein's conviction that a Republican congress will obstruct a Republican president, the argument for more political parties in this country is not faring well.

And wow.

Is Truther in the Green DNA?

Jill Stein doesn't shy away from the occasional conspiracy theory anymore than Funiciello. She seems to be saying something completely different.

And thank you, Charles Pierce. Yes, Jill Stein sounds exactly like Funiciello here. They must have "a script that they read from."

But her contempt has a more cutting quality when she talks about Clinton. She mocks Trump as braying menace; Stein thinks he's, at heart, a bumbler who will be neutered by his own party after being elected. But it's Clinton who poses the greater threat, in Stein's estimation, because she knows how to move the levers of Washington. 

Yeah, it would be really great to have her at the debates.

Wrong Way Jill

This is not reassuring in a presidential candidate.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was scheduled to speak at Capital University in Bexley at noon today but it looks like she's running a little late.

That's because instead of flying into Columbus, she accidentally went to Cincinnati instead, according to the Capital University Greens Student Organization who is sponsoring the event.

Maybe I should suggest to Matt that he send her a map. 

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is expected to return to the area in September to campaign with local Green Party candidates, Green Party congressional candidate Matt Funiciello said Monday.

Matt Trolling the St. Lawrence County Dems

They made the mistake of supporting the Democratic candidate in our district. Matt showed to make a pitch to Bernie supporters, I guess. Here's what he said on his facebook page some time back.

 I have a feeling he's saving himself solely for national media, Joanne.

During my congressional campaign, we reached out to Bernie and were completely ignored.

Ralph Nader has told me that Bernie doesn't ever respond to any of his letters. Nor does his staff.

You could reach out to Bernie's people on my behalf but he's being pretty clear, by running as a Democrat, that he is choosing to not be part of a movement forward.

I certainly wish that, at least, he'd write an essay explaining what he's trying to build by running with a corporatist war party.

Bernie doesn't have the love for the Greens!

Trump Versus Green Throwdown

It's occurred to me, and likely others (if not, FIRST!), that there is an equivalence between Donald Trump and the Greens. I've been comparing The Donald and The Matt for some time. They are both captivated by conspiracy theories. They both employ the ad hominem attack as their primal means of debate. They're both raging narcissists. The crazy is strong in both of them.
   
I had thought that Jill Stein, though I wasn't apt to vote for her, was at least sane (for a Green anyway). Not so, as I previously posted. Something that escaped me until recently was the whole anti-science, neo-Luddite platform inherent in the Green Party. Stein recently revealing herself as an anti-vaxer and the weird beliefs about wi-fi is part of it. There's also the evil of GMO's. They're manufactured by corporations, and corporations are evil through and through, so GMO's must be evil. As a left-winger, I know I'm expected to have a knee-jerk opposition to them. It's like being a right-winger and being expected to automatically deny climate change. God knows I'm not a scientist, but my belief is that there may be some good in GMO's. I do know there are a lot of hungry people in the world.

Some emerging genetic engineering technologies have the potential to create novel plant varieties that are hard to distinguish genetically from plants produced through conventional breeding or processes that occur in nature. A plant variety that is conventionally bred to be resistant to a herbicide and one that is genetically engineered to be resistant to the same herbicide can be expected to have similar associated benefits and risks.

Damn you, Mendel!

   
There's a quip that Green stands for Getting Republicans Elected Every November. Not sure that's fair and I don't want to stand in the way of anyone running for office. I actually want to express my appreciation for them, to some extent. Groups on the right and left have always had the crazy aunts in the basement. The Green Party provides an outlet for that lunacy on the left. It allows us to keep that basement door locked so they can enjoy their own party and play their own games. The Republican Party is missing that locked door. That allowed crazy Aunt Donald to come up the stairs and piss in the punch bowl. The Right is going to need to figure out a way to siphon off the crazy cluster and isolate them at their own little kiddie's table after this election. Good luck to them on that. The punch bowl still has piss in it, though.

Along these lines is a great piece I saw at NCPR. This is a list of 20 important questions presidential candidates should have to address to be taken seriously.

I am hopeful that these questions get their airtime in the campaign. That was the point of formulating them. If nothing else, however, they remind us of just how broadly and deeply these sci-tech issues appear in our daily lives.

I've been reading John Grant recently. He writes a lot about debunking. Most of my letters to the editor are debunking stupidity. Don't tolerate ignorance. Call it out.

Odds and Ends on Jill Stein

More odd than anything else. I thought she was more sane than the average Green despite the anti-vaccination thing. I saw this link to her trip to Moscow at Charles Pierce's home.

Stein noted that we “need to rein in US exceptionalism, and totally reform and revise our foreign policy so that it is based on international law, human rights and diplomacy.” Making those comments from Moscow, at this time, is rather unconventional, unless you work for Donald Trump.

With Red Square as her backdrop, Stein suggested that we need to “replace a US policy of domination with a way forward based on respect, collaboration, international law and human rights.”

She added, “we’ve seen that vision really resonate here.”

So, that's not really insane, though. Just really disgusting. Oh, but there's insanity, too. 

Person from crowd: What about the wireless?

Jill Stein: We should not be subjecting kids’ brains especially to that. And we don’t follow that issue in this country, but in Europe where they do, they have good precautions around wireless—maybe not good enough, because it’s very hard to study this stuff. We make guinea pigs out of whole populations and then we discover how many die. 

But why would they do that?

And this is another corporate ruse. This is another gimmick to try to make a buck. To make big bucks in fact. 

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! Not the fuckin' corporations! 

At least she and her running mate are better than the alternative, the lesser of two evils. That's what I hear. So, about her running mate. 

Stein has reportedly settled on self-proclaimed “human rights activist, organizer and geo-political analyst” Ajamu Baraka.

Oh, he sounds good.

“This corrupt, degenerate, white supremacist monstrosity called the United States.”

He certainly talks like a Green. 

Letter From Matt

So, Matt Funiciello deigned to write a letter to the "Compost Star" (his term, not mine) today. It's mostly about his fight to keep the Green Party ballot line pure and not allow the Dems and Reps to sap and impurify all of their precious bodily fluids. I don't care about that. This is what I do care about.

If your party does not run its own candidates, it is just carrying water for the corporate war parties. 

That last part has been bugging me for some time. Like Popeye, I can't stands no more and am working on a response to it, making this post a work in progress.

Jill Stein, Faux Doctor

I didn't know much about Jill Stein. I thought maybe she was one of the few sane Greens. Such was not to be.

Thank you, Mistermix.

Thank You Bernie

Charles Pierce has a post up today reporting on how Dr. Stein of the Not Ripe Party offered to step aside for Bernie Sanders if he wished to run as a Green.

"I've invited Bernie to sit down explore collaboration—everything is on the table," she said. "If he saw that you can't have a revolutionary campaign in a counter-revolutionary party, he'd be welcomed to the Green party. He could lead the ticket and build a political movement," she said. Stein said she had made her offer directly to Sanders in an email at the end of the primary season, although she had not received a response.

Bless you, Bernie, for not responding. He also does not return calls to St. Ralph and did not get back to Matt Funiciello when MF wanted Sanders to come campaign for him. 

$15 an Hour Minimum Wage, Green Party Bitchez

What are you running on now, Matt?

The language includes calls for a "living wage" and mentions raising the minimum to $15 an hour.

I want you to know that I worked really hard on this post.

And never forget that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Capping off his weekend of inflammatory comments after the Dallas police shooting, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called Black Lives Matter “inherently racist” and “anti-American” — and even incorrectly claiming that black children have “a 99% chance” of killing each other.

Appearing on CBS’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday, Giuliani had little to say about the deadly police shootings that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement and nationwide protests — including the one in Dallas that was ambushed by a cop killer.

Instead, he said it is up to the “blacks” to show respect to police officers.

Please crawl back under your rock now.