āJill Stein is a useful idiot for Russia. After parroting Kremlin talking points and being propped up by bad actors in 2016 sheās at it again,ā DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni said in a statement toĀ The Bulwark. āJill Stein wonāt become president, but her spoiler candidacyāthat both the GOP and Putin have previously shown interest inācan help decide who wins. A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.ā
Forget debates. I would pay good money to see an episode of Jeopardy with Harris, Stein, and Trump.
The categories could be content from a high school civics class.
I doubt anyone dumb enough to vote for Stein are Harris voters anyway. So now than likely a vote for Stein will be one taken for Trump. So Trump and Putin can waste all the money they want on her campaign.
Theyāre probably ****trying to scoop up the Republican voters that are disillusioned with Trump and prevent them from going to Harris. Itās actually a decent strategy in that light.
Jill is here to collect some donations then disappear for 4 years. Again.
Narrator: the DNC is correct.
Is the DNC actually trying to woo Stein voters? They could shift swing states into Blue States, but for some reason they think bashing her will get her voters?
Has the DNC learned nothing from 2016?
What has Stein learned over the years, pray tell?
Jill has ruined a lot of credibility.
iām glad the āyouāre pro-genocide if you vote anything but 3rd partyā morons finally shut the fuck up around here
edit: LOL
have you had ANYONE turn around and say " you know what, youāre right!" on lemmy? or ANYWHERE?
gtfo russian cumfarts
Those MAGAs cosplaying as lefties will have an even harder time now that the Uncommitted group have said they cannot support Harris but Donald will be worse. The same as we have all be saying.
Not just Trump will be worse as some sort of abstract moral statement. Their statement is that Uncommitted voters should actively vote against Donald Trump no matter how inadequate Harrisās statements and commitments have been.
Probably doesnāt help that Stein refuses to call Putin a war criminal.
https://www.newsweek.com/jill-stein-vladimir-putin-war-criminal-1954965
"Hasan later asked Stein why she had labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal, but not Putin.
āWell, as John F. Kennedy said, we must not negotiate out of fear and we must not fear to negotiate,ā she replied. āSo, if you want to be an effective world leader, you donāt start by name-calling and hurling epithets.ā
āSo, how will President Stein negotiate with Israel then if youāve called Netanyahu a war criminal?ā Hasan asked in response.
āWell, because he very clearly is a war criminal,ā Stein said, prompting Hasan to ask: āSo Putin clearly isnāt a war criminal?ā
āWell, we donāt have a decisionāput it this wayāby the International Criminal Court,ā Stein said.
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, alleging that he is responsible for war crimes. No such warrant has been issued for Netanyahu, whose war on Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians. However, the chief prosecutor of the ICC has applied for an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.
āThereās an arrest warrant for Putin and there isnāt an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, so why is Putin not a war criminal, but Netanyahu is?ā Hasan asked.
āYeah. Well, let me say this. We are sponsoring that war. We are sponsoring Netanyahu,ā Stein responded. āHe is our dog in this fight. That is why we have a responsibility to pull him back.ā"
Fwiw after that whole thing made news she released a press statement that did call him a war criminal
And anyone paying attention realizes she only put out the statement after she got called on it and had time to think about what it meant that she was actively avoiding doing so. This is 100% optics and nothing more.
Her statement is about as believable as a kid with crumbs on their face saying they didnāt eat all the cookiesā¦
Way too little, way too late. Medhi cut her up so surgically I donāt even know if sheās gonna have the stones to resurface four years from now. Hopefully being a Russian asset pays well, Shill is done
Aha, you fool! You think she feels shame?
āHey, Vladimir? I need to actually call you a war criminal now, yeah, I almost got found out. Thanks! I knew youād understand!ā
You forgot this part from the beginning
"Mehdi Hasan: Vladimir Putin is a war criminal?
Jill Stein: Yes, we did condemn ā"
She called him a war criminal several times in the interview
Not directly though, thatās why she got roasted. It was a lot of dissembly.
Yes, directly and specifically about Putin. The quote is right there.
āYes we did condemnā¦ā is not the same as āYes, Putin is a war criminal.ā
The passive accusations run all through it.
āSo, what we said about Putin was that his invasion of Ukraine is criminal. Itās a criminal and murderous war,ā
āWell, by implication, by implication,ā Stein said.
āIn so many words, yes he is,ā Stein said. āIf you want to pull him back, if you are a world leader, you donāt begin your conversation by calling someone a war criminal.ā
Itā¦is when the question is literally āis putin a war criminal?ā
No, itās not. āIn so many wordsā does not have a direct meaning.
LOL, that just proves his point. I read the transcript, and Stein had every opportunity to clearly and definitively repudiate Putin. Not only did she refuse to do so, she continues to refuse, dishonestly misrepresents being called out on her bad faith as a āmisunderstanding,ā and doubles down with bullshit "both sides"ism.
In fact, that press release has sealed the deal on convincing me that sheās a deeply unserious piece of shit and a Russian asset.
So congratulations troll farm vatniks, youāve played yourselves.
I mustāve missed when Kamala Harris called Netanyahu a war criminal.
Just out of curiosity, do you think it would help her win the election if she did? She boycotted his speech in congress. She is treading a really thin line, and the only winning gambit seems to be keeping her messaging neutral until after the election. Rocking that boat right now gives the Republicans further ammunition to use against her, and will embolden Netanyahu to militarily escalate.
At the moment she can hide behind the veil of the current policy being driven exclusively by Biden rather than inserting herself in the middle of things, and therefore presenting additional leverage to her enemies. I donāt like the situation, but I donāt see how it was possible to play things any differently while still preserving a serious chance to win the election.
We normally see eye to eye on a lot of things, but in this case I think it is disengenuous to conflate the motivations of Jill Stein & Kamala Harris.
I donāt think it would help Harris to call Netanyahu a war criminal. I understand the reasoning. But, to attack Stein for inconsistencies in an interview, which she has since corrected by releasing a statement, is hypocritical. If Harris isnāt willing to call Netanyahu a war criminal, because of the election, then how can it be possible to hold Stein to a different standard?
Because Stein has notthing to lose. She could easily take a stand on something like Netanyahu but it was pulling teeth to condemn Putin. When the stakes are so low she can make any statement she wants.
Well, I think for one thing because Jill Stein seemingly had nothing to lose in that interview with Mehdi. The whole thing just came off as weird to me, and clearly that sentiment was pretty widely shared. I just donāt understand it I guess. If she had provided more context around her initial hesitancy perhaps I would feel differently.
I am also totally willing to admit that it is an intellectual double standard, but it isnāt a strategic one because the outcome of Kamala Harrisā speech has the ability to affect the outcome of this election in a huge way. I guess you could argue that Jill Steinās does too since she is potentially peeling votes from the Democrats, but if she was actually serious about affecting change she could be lobbying Kamala Harris for policy concessions behind the scenes instead of just grandstanding.
Jill Stein in that Mehdi interview really gave off the same energy as Kim Iversen in her debate with Destiny yesterday. Neither one of them did much to counter the narrative that they were sympathetic to Russia at best, or closeted Russian assets at worst. It was all just weird as fuck to meā¦
She had to get the fax from Putin. Puppets donāt talk for themselves
Ahahaha oh no the āoffice workersā are still all over here, their content usually just gets downvoted into being permanently hidden and theyāve stopped picking fights outside of their own posts.
Donāt forget there was also a bunch of government-backed troll farms shut down recently
And yet Iām still here. Weird
their content usually just gets downvoted into being permanently hidden
At first I read this as something that existed at the post level, too. Man, I sometimes wish something like that existed - posts below a certain rating could just be hidden (like Slashdot, for instance).
They havenāt, they just get downvoted pretty quickly.
tweedledee and tweedledipshit right here in this thread fighting the stupid fight
Maybe they saw we wonāt put up with their bullshit. Donāt sleep, though. Theyāll probably be back once they figure out new tactics to try.
How does it feel when you rationalize ethnic cleansing? Did you ever imagine youād be this person?
Youāre pro genocide if you vote for anyone that has explicitly voted to arm and fund the genocide
You are pro genocide if you are supporting those funding and providing weapons for genocide
LOL it took a whole hour
you kids are slacking
and no. voting for harris does NOT make me āpro-genocide,ā no matter how much you wish it did.
have fun watching jill stein get a single digit percentage of the vote. if that. but donāt feel like you accomplished something by throwing your vote away, because you didnāt
and no. voting for harris does NOT make me āpro-genocide,ā no matter how much you wish it did.
Of course not. You being pro-genocide means that you have two candidates to choose from.
Liberals love infantilizing everyone they disagree with. And is a sign of narcissistic personality disorder
They donāt infantilize the right. Then again, you did say everyone they disagree with.
Not even gonna try to rationalize it huh.
Tell us which non-genocide candidate has any sort of chance to win the election.
Man, things have gotten that bad huh. What a sentence.
šš§āšš«š§āš
The problem is that āsupport genocideā is being used overly broadly.
The stated policy of the Biden/Harris administration is that Israel has a right to defend itself.
Surprise! They do. Every sovereign nation has that right.
As a result of that stated policy, Biden and Harris both support providing weapons and funding for the continual defense of Israel.
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/23/g-s1-19232/kamala-harris-israel-gaza-dnc
So follow me here:
- Israel has a right to defend itself.
- The US will support that defense.
Where it breaks down is Bibi and Likud taking that defensive support and directing it into the Genocide.
Thatās on THEM. The United States is making a good faith effort to provide support for the defense of Israel. Israel is intentionally misapplying that support.
Trumpās stated policy is that Israel needs to kill everyone quicker.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-israel-pr-hugh-hewitt-21faee332d95fec99652c112fbdcd35d
āTheyāre losing the PR war. Theyāre losing it big. But theyāve got to finish what they started, and theyāve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.ā
Only one of these two policies is pro-genocide, Trumps.
Biden/Harris is pro-defense which is illegitimately being used for genocide, not at all the same as being pro-genocide.
Thatās on THEM. The United States is making a good faith effort to provide support for the defense of Israel. Israel is intentionally misapplying that support.
This is not a good argument. Theyāre not infants, they have agency and the ability to perceive the impacts of their actions.
Biden/Harris is pro-defense which is illegitimately being used for genocide, not at all the same as being pro-genocide.
Eh, it certainly means theyāre not proactively anti-genocide.
But more importantly itās not going to move someone uncomfortable with the Democratic material support for the genocide a single iota closer to accepting that there is still a better candidate both for Palestine and for all the aspects where theyāre actually good, not just not as a bad.
This shit is so disjointed. Its not a genocide, its only a genocide because the countrys leaders want it to be, Biden is only arming a genocide because those leaders want to use the weapons for genocide. Youāre stuck, man, you cant get past any of the uncomfortable truths. You cant make an argument that its not a genocide. You cant make an argument that our government is not arming and funding that genocide. You cant make an argument that youre not supporting a candidate that is likely to continue to arm and fund that genocide.
So is your argument that the Biden/Harris administration is blind, or stupid?
If I give my kid an AR-15 and they shoot up a school, I may or may not be culpable.
But if I hand them another AR after the first shooting, they kill again, and then I give them another, and another, and keep handing them weapons for months, and theres a pile of 15,000 dead children, then I am definitely culpable.
It doesnāt matter how many times I tell the kid āthis AR is for defense onlyā.
Every sovereign nation has that right.
Per the UN and international law and occupying country can NOT claim self defense
Biden/Harris providing unlimited weapons and money is allowing Israel to finish the job before January 2025.
Turning a blind eye and genocide denial because itās team blue committing it is weird and inhumane
LOL ok, youāre cool with throwing your vote away
that doesnāt mean anyone else is obliged to waste time ārationalizingā NOT throwing their vote away to you
do what you want. just know that your third party vote did NOTHING for palestine. and NOTHING for anyone else either.
Telling someone they are throwing away their vote because they wonāt support your team is right wing authoritarian voter suppression.
āTeamsā donāt enter into it.
One candidate poses an existential threat to our country and way of life.
One other candidate can defeat them.
Taking a vote away from the 2nd candidate has the same net effect as voting for the first one.
You either help beat Trump or you help elect him. A 3rd party will not win, so voting 3rd party doesnāt help beat Trump.
I wish it meant we did nothing for palestine. Instead of it meaning bombs and funding continues to pour into the arms of the country thats killing them.
so throw your fucking vote away
Nah im voting for a candidate that has not voted to arm and fund an ongoing genocide.
Why do you love Trump so much youāre trying so hard to get him into power?
Democrats supporting a genocide is whats gonna do it.
Thereās photos of Shill Stein dining with Putin. How much more evidence do you need?
She wasnāt even the worst at the table, that āhonorā goes to convicted felon Mike Flynn:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Flynn
More on Flynn and his connecting Trump to Russia here:
p.s. Trumpās āNational Security Advisorā.
Oh oh but if I mention it to certain folk, thatās āold newsā and āwhy do you only ever bring that image upā and ālol libs sure are grasping at strawsā
Fascism and political interference does not have an expiration date.
Worth bringing the image up because itās from 2015ā¦ 6 months after she announced she was running.
political interference does not have an expiration date.
Sure as fuck doesnāt, as we are still being impacted by the Clinton administration interfering in 1996 Russian elections that ended up resulting in Putin as President.
You know what, you convinced me. Iāve decided not to vote for Clinton.
His bad decisions still haunt our society.
Lest anyone try to claim Stein isnāt running purely as a spoiler candidate.
Provide links from the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation showing there was wrong doing with the event. Theyāve investigated and found nothing. Implying guilt by association is dishonest and should be labeled misinformation.
Hereās the problem, legally, private citizens canāt engage in diplomatic actions like this:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/953
āAny citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.ā
You would think anyone who just announced their candidacy 6 months before this dinner would know thatā¦
But then youād also think anyone running for President would also know how many Congressmen there areā¦
https://www.salon.com/2024/09/12/jill-stein-schooled-on-in-brutal-breakfast-club-interview/
And yet the Senate intelligence committee found nothing wrong or nefarious.
youād also think anyone running for President would also know how many Congressmen there are
One would think the former 2 term VP under the first black President would remember his name
Great point. I definitely wonāt vote for Biden this year.
It was ok when your team was doing it but one error from someone else and itās the end of the world and completely makes them ineligible.
No, you see they just happened to put her at the same table as Putin and the other scumbags. She had no say in it! And she couldnāt do anything about it! Sheās the victim here, donāt ya know!
ā¦This is the common response you see from the Stein cultists when this photo is brought up. And itās pure horseshit. If she had anywhere near the principles and ethics she claims to have she would have got up and left from that table immediately. But she didnāt. Because sheās a hypocritical con-artist, a charlatan.
Stein plays the morally-upright crusader, waltzing around casting sanctimonious judgements on others. But at the end of the day sheās a far right stooge who is only interested in stroking her own ego and discretely ingratiating herself to tyrants. She can say what she want and has no accountability held against her.
She had done so much damage to the Green movement over the past decade+. She only pops up at election time to try to make life easier for far right movements whose policies are often the antithesis of what she pretend to support.
The Democrats should be doing more on environmental issues and holding Israel accountable for whatās going on in Palestine. But at least they arenāt hiding behind their own self-righteousness to anywhere near the degree that Stein is.
Universalmonk bouta flip a table.
Theyāre not wrong, but they could stand to recognize that some of their own policy shortcomings opened the door to her challenge.
Thatās always going to be the case with a first past the post election system. There can only be 2 parties with a chance to win at any one time and both are forced to be big tents. Because they have no chance at winning third parties get more choice on the issues they focus on and more freedom in how they talk about those issues.
We need election reform. We need a voting system that gives more power to minority voices and we need an election system that makes Congress better reflect the actual vote. I like STAR voting and want to move the house to proportional representation. We would most likely still have 2 big tent more or less center parties that will trade the plurality but the big tents would have to work with the minority party representatives to get enough votes to pass legislation. Itās possible that more minority party visibility and them being taken more seriously would lead to a more ideologically diverse Senate and it would almost certainly boost minority party power in state and local elections.
She is their stooge.
Russia is bad and all, but sheās much more directly a useful idiot for Republicans who are not only more directly focused on directly harming the people Steinās campaign is targeting, but have a significantly greater ability to actually accomplish it. No one needs to trust the US establishment that Russia is bad, they know Republicans and how theyāre bad.
Also, DNC, why are you make this new on The Bulwark? Way to undercut your message.
Well thatās the whole point, Putinās goal is to destabilize the West, thatās why he backed Trump and Stein in 2016 and 2020, itās why he backed Brexit in 2016.
Now, for the DNC and Bulwark, thereās a more strongly worded article on democrats.org which is straight from the DNC, unfortunately the DNC doesnāt meet our credibility guidelines for posts. LOL.
https://democrats.org/news/icymi-jill-stein-to-campaign-today-with-alleged-russian-assets/
"Engaging with foreign assets is a pattern for Stein. Previously, theĀ Senate Intelligence CommitteeĀ investigated links between Steinās 2016 campaign and Russiaās efforts to interfere in the election, while an indictment brought byĀ Special Counsel Robert MuellerĀ found that the Kremlinās Internet Research Agency had used social media to promote her candidacy. In 2015, SteinĀ attendedĀ a gala in support ofĀ Russian propaganda television network, RT, where she sat at the head table alongside Vladimir Putin andĀ Michael Flynn. Stein hasĀ repeatedly parrotedĀ Kremlin views and posted aĀ campaign videoĀ from Moscowās Red Square with language āripped from Putinās talking points.ā
Despite her ties to the Kremlin and Putin, the GOP has still embraced Jill Stein as a spoiler candidate.Ā Donald TrumpĀ praised Jill Stein, saying he likes her āvery much.āĀ Additionally, the GOP has beenĀ helping Stein with ballot accessĀ in an attempt toĀ prop up her spoiler candidacy.Ā "
Putin isnāt all that powerful a force in our society. He has limited influence and capability to disrupt operations. The GOP on the other hand has the ability and intention to drastically curtail our freedoms while sacrificing our well-being so rich people can get marginally richer. Theyāre the ones who can spend billions of dollars running sham efforts to get Stein on the ballot, theyāre the ones who can give money to her campaign, and theyāre the ones who have the cultural knowledge to run truly dangerous influence operations.
Iām much more worried and angered by a āleftā voice allying with the GOP than I am with some idea of foreign influence. The foreigners arenāt the problem. There are plenty of fascists right here at home and no remote ideological excuse for working with them in any fashion regardless of how angry you are with the DNC.
If all you have is āRussiaā lol
Her platform literally calls for the disbanding of NATO
Sure, but what leftist wouldnāt call for the disbanding of NATO?
The Bulwark - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for The Bulwark:
MBFC: Right-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/useful-idiot-for-putin-russia-dnc-jill-stein-green-party
P.S. can I just say how bad does it have to be that a Right-Center news source agrees and promotes the DNC?
Thatās the whole point of the bulwark. Itās the official organ of never-trump republicans.
Seems a little cruel.
Her policies are far better than the DNCās, though I understand that part of being a candidate with zero chance to win is being able to say whatever you want without consequence.
I donāt think thereās any pragmatic reason to vote for Stein, since itās so incredibly important that Trump not win, but I think calling her a useful idiot isnāt helpful.
In this instance, āuseful idiotā has a very specific meaning:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/useful idiot
:Ā a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda
It is one task of the KGB [in 1982] to apply its skills of secrecy and deception to projecting the Soviet partyās influence. This it does through contacts with legal Communist Parties abroad, with groups sympathetic to Soviet goals, with do-gooders of the type that Lenin once described as āuseful idiotsā ā¦ .
Re: the Lenin thing:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
āAĀ useful idiotĀ orĀ useful foolĀ is aĀ pejorativeĀ description of a person, suggesting that the person thinks they are fighting for a cause without fully comprehending the consequences of their actions, and who does not realize they are being cynically manipulated by the causeās leaders or by other political players.[1][2]Ā The term was often used during theĀ Cold WarĀ to describe non-communistsĀ regarded as susceptible toĀ communist propagandaĀ andĀ psychological manipulation.[1]Ā A number of authors attribute this phrase toĀ Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is not supported by any evidence. Similar terms exist in other languages.ā
She can say her policies are whatever gets votes. She has no chance of winning and having a chance to implement them.
If you know you wonāt ever have to follow through, thereās no punishment for promising anything.
Yes, youāve paraphrased what I said expertly.
Policy that never gets implemented is meaningless. It cannot be better. I mean if that werenāt the case youād be a fool not to elect me. Because of my policy is that every person in America gets a million dollars. And I guarantee you that will help people far more than anything Stein is proposing.
What the Simple Minds donāt comprehend or want to understand. Is that Jill Stein is in many ways exactly like Donald Trump. They will tell you what you want to hear. Regardless of their ability to deliver on it.
All liberal policy sucks. Regardless of whether itās conservative or progressive. Their reflexive recoiling from anything even tangentially related to socialism. Their need to shove capitalism in everything especially in places it should never be. If you vote for conservative. You get sodomized against your will. Dry and rough. When you vote for progressive. They sodomize you against your will still. But they will be gentle about it provide lube and even sometimes a reach around. Voting for Jill Stein you are lied to and told that the outcome will be better than either of those. Only to find that you will still be sodomized dry by a conservative. Only now Jill Stein and Putin will be standing behind you high-fiving. Which is actually worse.
Not to demean or Kink shame those that like sodomy. But even they like some consideration from their partner. Something which sadly only one of the parties currently in this presidential election can actually offer.