Stein/Baraka campaign slams Daily Kos blog site for publishing false claims and attacking a young woman of color
The Stein/Baraka Green Party presidential campaign responded today to false claims circulated on blog site Daily Kos that the Green Party and the Stein campaign had endorsed Donald Trump.“The Green Party has endorsed Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, and any claims that the Green Party has endorsed or otherwise encouraged support for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, or any other representative of the two predatory corporate political parties is a bald-faced lie,” said Stein/Baraka campaign manager David Cobb. “In a year when record numbers of Americans consider both corporate party nominees to be untrustworthy due to their documented history of lying, it’s not unsurprising that many of their supporters would resort to this sort of dishonesty. Sadly, this just makes the political process even more toxic and divisive.”The false claim has been debunked by the popular fact-checking website Snopes.com, which rated the article’s headline and central claim false (along with similar claims from other sources).
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Jill Stein op-ed: The real reason millennials are going Green
Young people are planning to break from the two-party system in unprecedented numbers this year. Their discontent is real: one May 2016 poll showed 91 percent of voters under age 29 wanted an independent challenger to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Media pundits have reacted harshly toward these young rebels, especially those supporting me and Ajamu Baraka, who as progressive Green candidates are constantly framed as taking votes from Clinton.
But instead of attacking our young voters, why not ask what’s motivating them to vote outside the two-party box? They’re well aware of the conventional wisdom that they should vote for the “lesser evil,” which the media has beaten into them for months. What few pundits have been willing to admit is that for many young people, voting Green is not a whim but a well-considered decision.
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Mainstream Presidential Polls Fuel Illusion That Voters Are Stuck With Only Two Choices
By Meleiza Figueroa
Editor’s note: Meleiza Figueroa is the press director for the Jill Stein-Ajamu Baraka campaign and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a longtime activist and organizer in California.
Corporate media are focused on Donald Trump’s accusations of “oversampling” on the part of Democrats against Republicans. He’s half right, because polls do oversample declared Democrats by up to 14 percent in polls that compose the RealClearPolitics average.
The deeper story is that mainstream polls skew against youth and independents, who are undersampled in most polls up to a whopping 30 percent. A recent CNN poll sampled few people under the age of 50. Not one major poll lists alternative-party identification in the breakdown of its sample.
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More Than a Protest: Why Voting Green Counts
Jill Stein's campaign manager makes the case for a Green political revolution.By David Cobb originally published at In These Times
This November, millions of Americans will vote for non-violent revolution by casting ballots for Dr. Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka on the Green Party ticket. Let that sink in for a moment. Millions of people rejecting the politics of fear and embracing the vision that together we can transform society.
The Stein/Baraka campaign (for which I am the campaign manager) is not about mere “protest,” although we are proud of our candidates’ courageous stand at the Dakota Access pipeline demonstrations. It goes deeper than that. It is a movement campaign that is designed to serve as the electoral arm for the growing demands for structural change. Greens know that unless we transform existing social, political, economic and legal systems, we cannot have a peaceful, just, democratic and sustainable future for our children and ourselves.
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The media — and many Democrats — need to stop attacking Jill Stein unfairly
Originally posted at Vox.com
There is both a principled and strategic component to voting choices in presidential elections. In principle, citizens should cast their votes for whichever candidate’s views align most with their own. Strategic voting, on the other hand, includes a voter’s assessment of the probability that various voting choices will lead to desired outcomes.
These components are related to some degree; voters are more likely to agree about which candidate to vote for if they agree in principle on which candidate is best. Yet principled and strategic voting are not the same. One might believe a third-party candidate to be optimal, for example, but still vote for a major party candidate because of the higher probability that the major party candidate will win the election.
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Jill Stein: Why 5% for the Green Party is a win for America
In 1854, a few thousand people gathered in Jackson, Michigan to launch an independent challenge to a national political system dominated by two parties. "Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements," a party leader later recalled, "we gathered from the four winds…[with] every external circumstance against us." This challenge was fueled by the radical abolitionist movement that united white workers and formerly enslaved Africans against the criminal institution of slavery, as a response to the political crisis caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
In just two years, this insurgent third party — created by movement activists — had gained ground across the Northern states, challenging the Whig Party. In short order this insurgent "third party" had become a major opposition party. By 1858 they had won an influential foothold in Congress, and by 1860, that party leader — Abraham Lincoln — was elected President of the United States.
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The Best Ballot Plan Now? ‘Strategic’ Voting for the Stein-Baraka Green Party Ticket
By Kevin Zeese Originally published at Truthdig.com
Editor’s note: Kevin Zeese is co-director of Popular Resistance and a senior adviser to the Green Party’s Jill Stein-Ajamu Baraka campaign.
Donald Trump is campaigning to win 40 percent of the vote for president—and he’s close, with recent polls showing him in the high 30s. But his final performance will not help.
Trump is focusing on topics that will prevent him from broadening his base, such as the women he accuses of lying about his alleged sexual assaults, and what he calls the rigged election. He is fighting with other Republicans, like Paul Ryan, and with Republican state leaders, most notably in Ohio. His refusal to say he will accept the outcome of the election is creating more conflict with Republicans and raising doubts with voters.
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Jill Stein: The Best Way to Boost the Economy Is by Saving the Planet
Originally published at Fortune.com
Dr. Stein holds “People’s Debate” outside Hofstra gates on September 26, 2016. Photo by Erik McGregor —Pacific Press/AP
Our nation — and our world — face a perfect storm of economic and environmental crises that threaten not only the global economy, but life on Earth as we know it. The dire, existential threats of climate change, wars for oil, and a stagnating, crisis-ridden economic system require bold and visionary solutions. In this election, we are deciding not just what kind of a world we want, but whether we will have a world at all.
There is a growing concern in advanced economies that governments are running out of options to stabilize a precarious and volatile global economic system. Since the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, the Fed’s large-scale bond purchases, called quantitative easing, have helped push interest rates close to 0% and have done more to serve Wall Streets’ interests by way of propping up the stock market than by boosting the overall economy for average Americans.
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A Good Year to Go Green (Party)
Originally published October 25 at The Hill
We were treated to a double “October surprise” on Friday, Oct. 7.
The video of Donald Trump crowing that his celebrity status entitles him to assault women slightly eclipsed Hillary Clinton's leaked speeches. But we still learned that Clinton holds "public and private positions," that her populist promises regarding free trade, preserving Social Security, and checking the power of Wall Street probably won't survive Inauguration Day.
Millions of voters have figured out that the two major parties don't represent them. They're right. It's not a two-party system, it's a two-party racket.
They're frustrated with a choice that, we're told, is limited to two nominees with deep disapproval ratings. Voter dissatisfaction is reflected in polls that show broad support for a choice of more than two on the ballot.
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Jill Stein op-ed: Break the blackout on political competition in America
October 20, 2016The Chicago TribuneBy Jill SteinA voter revolt is brewing in America. People are fed up, and they should be. The super rich are destroying our economy, sending our jobs overseas and making our planet uninhabitable. But instead of offering real solutions, the two-party system has produced the two most disliked and distrusted candidates in history.In a Fox News poll from Sept. 30, 57 percent of voters said their choice in the presidential election is motivated primarily not by enthusiasm, but by fear of the other candidate.Democrats and Republicans have lost ground to independents, now the largest voting block. Meanwhile, an incredible 57 percent of Americans polled recently by Gallup say the Democratic and Republican parties have failed and we need a new major party. In short, the American people are ready for real competition to the two-party system.
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