‘Useful Idiot for Russia’: DNC Decides to Go Off on Jill Stein

Probably doesn't 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.

"Well, as John F. Kennedy said, we must not negotiate out of fear and we must not fear to negotiate," she replied. "So, if you want to be an effective world leader, you don't start by name-calling and hurling epithets."

"So, how will President Stein negotiate with Israel then if you've called Netanyahu a war criminal?" Hasan asked in response.

"Well, because he very clearly is a war criminal," Stein said, prompting Hasan to ask: "So Putin clearly isn't a war criminal?"

"Well, we don't have a decision—put it this way—by the International Criminal Court," 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.

"There's an arrest warrant for Putin and there isn't an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, so why is Putin not a war criminal, but Netanyahu is?" Hasan asked.

"Yeah. Well, let me say this. We are sponsoring that war. We are sponsoring Netanyahu," Stein responded. "He is our dog in this fight. That is why we have a responsibility to pull him back.""

Ahahaha oh no the "office workers" are still all over here, their content usually just gets downvoted into being permanently hidden and they've stopped picking fights outside of their own posts.

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.

Of course it's exactly who I expected to show up and say that lmao. They're so fucking predictable. It's hilarious.

They haven't, they just get downvoted pretty quickly.

lol, where's dufusbaan?

There are other third parties you can vote for

How does it feel when you rationalize ethnic cleansing? Did you ever imagine you'd be this person?

You're 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

As someone in a state where my presidential vote is very much decided... I voted Gary Johnson in 2016. I know there are a lot of very real critiques of the libertarian party and/or platform, but it's really sad the green party puts it to shame... it's not a high bar.

My point being... wtf is she still doing doing this stuff? Libertarians push local candidates all the damn time, and make a push for the presidential seat when they can, but soundly rejected Trump, and hell, even in 2016 you had the VP libertarian cantidate saying "vote Hillary". Like I am upset as anyone else, but if you're still in the green party you're just kidding yourself... and thats from a freaking libertarian that hates his party a good 50% of the time.

She wasn't even the worst at the table, that "honor" 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:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868/

p.s. Trump's "National Security Advisor".

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 couldn't do anything about it! She's the victim here, don't ya know!

...This is the common response you see from the Stein cultists when this photo is brought up. And it's 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 didn't. Because she's 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 she's 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 what's going on in Palestine. But at least they aren't hiding behind their own self-righteousness to anywhere near the degree that Stein is.

The system is rigged and you are being play around, how much more evidence do you need?

Yup! This exactly.

literally only capable of helping the orange bad

The folks voting Green have already folded on the other options. If you're picking a fight with Jill, you're only driving her base farther from your candidate.

Here you go again. Not you personally, but everyone who says that you're either with us or against us. That didn't make sense, it doesn't make sense now, it never will, and it won't get Harris any more votes. If you don't believe me, ask Hillary Clinton. Her supporters said the same thing, and then she lost. At some point you have to face the reality that people can and do vote for third-party candidates, and then you need to decide how you're going to convince them that they ought to vote for your candidate, and usually that's effective if your candidate has some policies that the voters appreciate. Or don't try to get their votes and move on with life, that's okay too.

But maybe you're looking for someone to blame, in case Harris loses. You want to be able to blame those third-party voters. I'm not going to let you off the hook. If she throws away third party votes, she knew exactly what she was doing, she took the risk and it paid off or it didn't.

But even if we ignore that, you've also forgotten that many people don't live in swing states, and because of the electoral college, their vote probably is not going to impact the outcome. In that case, shouldn't they feel free to vote how their conscience dictates? But of course you didn't take this into account, because you didn't think about their situation.

But let's ignore the electoral college. Let's assume that everyone is equal on Election Day, that all of our votes count for something. It's well known that no one is asking for our vote the day after election day. As voters, we have power in the lead up to the election and in the election itself, if we have any power at all. But you want us to throw that away. Not only that, you keep repeating the same script every 4 years, which means we never have any power, and we never will, if we listen to you.

Obviously you personally did not write all of the arguments that I'm referring to above, but it's important for people to deal with all of the above arguments if they're arguing that third parties ought not exist or that nobody should even consider supporting them.

This just isn't true. Third party candidates put pressure on the duopoly candidates to adopt a diversity of policies that better represent the interests of the country.

If the democrats wanted to make the Green and PSL parties irrelevant this election, all they have to do is drop their unconditional support for Israel's genocide.

Democrats desperately want to be able to run with status quo positions without risking a loss, and stein makes that just barely difficult enough as to go after her candidacy, because that's easier than attacking her policy positions.

The categories could be content from a high school civics class.

How is this the first time me hearing this wonderful idea?

"I'll take Jap Anus Relations for $200 Alex"

I'd much rather see them in a game show than a debate. Debates are pretty much boring game shows these days anyways.

@LorneMichaels We need this stat!

Yeah useful idiots are volunteers, she's a paid collaborator.

They're probably trying to scoop up the Republican voters that are disillusioned with Trump and prevent them from going to Harris. It's actually a decent strategy in that light.

You don't have to be "smart" to vote for a good candidate.

Stein is the nominally "more liberal than the Democrats are willing to be" candidate. So most likely if they were forced to vote and could only vote for Trump or Harris, then I'd wager they'd mostly go Harris.

A relative weakness is that on the left there are currently more people ready to discard strategic thinking and stand on what they consider their absolute principles. The right is currently a bit more unified, as they are more willing to yield on their differences to vote closest to their overall goal with a decent chance to win.

Or the left is fairly unified in practice but Internet manipulations present the illusion otherwise, I have no idea

That's 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. It's 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.

The whole point is that there is no challenge. It is sabotage funded by Republicans and Putin.

What challenges has she done when not running for POTUS?

Well, that's a good point, but Stein and the Green party are going about it the wrong way. Even Stein's predecessor, Ralph Nader, has stated that they need to spend more time at the grassroots and building up local support, including getting folks elected to local school boards, state legislatures, and the like.

Trump and his team believe the same thing Democrats do: so-called third parties "steal" votes from the dominant parties. just because they believe it doesn't make it true

in that interview she immediately says "yes". framing it as though she isn't saying it is just lying.

Or anyone not in Putin's pocket. Yes.

she has done that

Then you need to get out more because she's been on a whole mess of main stream media.

Well that's the whole point, Putin's goal is to destabilize the West, that's why he backed Trump and Stein in 2016 and 2020, it's why he backed Brexit in 2016.

Now, for the DNC and Bulwark, there's a more strongly worded article on democrats.org which is straight from the DNC, unfortunately the DNC doesn't 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, the Senate Intelligence Committee investigated links between Stein’s 2016 campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the election, while an indictment brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller found that the Kremlin’s Internet Research Agency had used social media to promote her candidacy. In 2015, Stein attended a gala in support of Russian propaganda television network, RT, where she sat at the head table alongside Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn. Stein has repeatedly parroted Kremlin views and posted a campaign video from Moscow’s Red Square with language “ripped from Putin’s talking points.”

Despite her ties to the Kremlin and Putin, the GOP has still embraced Jill Stein as a spoiler candidate. Donald Trump praised Jill Stein, saying he likes her “very much.”  Additionally, the GOP has been helping Stein with ballot access in an attempt to prop up her spoiler candidacy. "

Bulwark has been on a good article blitz recently.

Oh, it can be done, but that means amending the Constitution.

To do that you need 290 votes in the House, the people who needed 15 tries to get a simple 218 vote majority to pick their own leader.

Then you need 67 votes in the Senate, a body that's incapactitated by needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

Then you need ratification from 38 states, when 25 went to Biden in 2020 and 25 went to Trump.

There may be a way around it, but that doesn't kick in until enough states with 270 Electoral College votes agree to it, and that hasn't happened yet either:

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation

If you don't want Trump, you only have one choice.

They arent going to convince anyone to vote for Trump either, so what's your point, comrade?

Trump doesn't care about Ukraine at all. What do you think of that?

I agree. This feels the similar to gerrymandering or restricting access to vote for minorities. They should be able to win without having to walk through a gutter.

P.S. can I just say how bad does it have to be that a Right-Center news source agrees and promotes the DNC?

No, not a threat, the winner will be either Harris or Trump, but they could keep Harris from winning in key swing states.

The propaganda has been on rapid fire lately,

My thoughts exactly... Though I suspect we are not referring to the same people.

What has Stein learned over the years, pray tell?

Sure, feel free. It's your vote. Hope you have the same energy to wag your finger at genocide when Republicans kick it into overdrive. Hope your disapproval is strong enough to get you off your couch to do something about it.

Look, another useful idiot

Fine, I’ll vote for a different 3rd party candidate.

You sound like a fucking child. Are you sure you're old enough to vote?

Leave the Palestinian people out of your childish temper tantrum.

Which people?

Her platform literally calls for the disbanding of NATO

It's not conservative voters who are going to be voting for her.

Again. This is not how this works.

Stein isn't taking Trump voters. She's a Left-Wing distraction candidate. In some systems, like RCV or Proportional Representation, her candidacy wouldn't hurt the Dem as long as voters were thoughtful with their votes. But in FPTP, which we have here, she's definitely a threat. We're bitterly divided here, to the tune of close to 51% wanting lefties and 49% wanting righties. All she needs to do to throw this election to the Right is poach 3% plus whatever Right-Wing third party candidates there are. Since the Right is unifying behind the Shitgibbon, it's real easy for her to spoil the election and get all 51% who want progressive and/or liberal policies to get conservative policies instead. This is even worse when you realise Conservatives have gone Fascist.

That's because third parties only show up every 4 years to play useful idiot.

We'd hear about them more if they'd run in smaller elections - elections they might actually have a fighting chance at winning. Having some political foothold might be helpful if they're going to participate in larger elections where the two-party dichotomy is hardest to overcome.

But that's not how it works. They exist, fundamentally, to be a threat to one party or the other. That's what their donors pay them to do. Nobody is paying them to be a threat to both parties, because nobody legitimately believes that the American Green Party actually has a platform. People usually vote for them out of spite because they think the Democratic nominee is too weak. Likewise the Libertarian Party caters to right-wingers who think the Republican nominee is too government-y for them.

In this instance, "useful idiot" has a very specific meaning:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/useful idiot

: 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 party's 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 "useful idiots" … .

Re: the Lenin thing:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

"A useful idiot or useful fool is a pejorative 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 cause's leaders or by other political players.[1][2] The term was often used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and psychological manipulation.[1] A number of authors attribute this phrase to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is not supported by any evidence. Similar terms exist in other languages."

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 won't ever have to follow through, there's no punishment for promising anything.

Policy that never gets implemented is meaningless. It cannot be better. I mean if that weren't the case you'd 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 don't 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 it's 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.