#Jill Nader

[decolonize-the-everything]

Hi :3

So someone said Kamala is the female Obama and I've been thinking about it....

And then did some internet sleuthing about it.

Hear me out

Didn't Dems use Obama to win Black voters after losing the previous election to Bush cuz Al Gore (like Clinton) lost?

And didn't they blame the 3rd party candidate Ralph Nader for Al Gore's loss?? Much like they blamed Bernie Bros?? Even tho the truth was that al Gore was hardly better and lacked the charisma Bush had? (Again, like Trump?)

So are we sure this is actually democrats conceding anything at all?? Are we not sure they put Kamala in the WH just to adjust voters to the idea of her being president anyway? That maybe they do realize the need for change but have chosen to err on the side of token progress that keeps them in power...again?

Article from Dec 2010:

At first glance, the president and Harris have much in common: Both are mixed-race children of immigrants raised by a single mother; both are eloquent, telegenic big-city lawyers with strong liberal credentials who catapulted from relative obscurity to the national stage. And like the first African-American president, Harris has broken a long-standing barrier — she’s California’s first African-American attorney general and the first woman to hold the office.

[...]“She’s a rare talent who will be a national figure shortly,” said Chris Lehane, a former Clinton aide who is now a consultant in California. “People call her the female Obama. It’s more apt to say she is the female Obama that progressives thought they were voting for.”

Are we absolutely positive that we have been learning lessons from history; like even recent history even? Because she isn't actually much different from Obama at all and this was Obama's legacy:

People were then reassured by Obama and rather than voting for 3rd parties in 2012 like they said, they elected Obama again. Just like y'all tried to do with Biden. And definitely like what will happen under Kamala.

He even got people to vote for him cuz of his promise to secure abortion rights and he did this right:

But tell me how that stopped the supreme court from stripping it???

Don't fall for this again

Cuz people were fucking pissed after Obama weren't they. Progressives wouldn't put up with a moderate like Clinton even compared to Trump. And that was unexpected wasn't it, progress that they couldn't come back from. So they lost to Trump, but what a convenient reset! Suddenly settling wasn't so bad for the American people, huh? And y'all elected Biden.

Who, outside the homoerotic Biden/Obama memes, people didn't like (and I'd argue those memes are what made him likeable to the younger generations to begin with).

But things have been tense, haven't they? The displeasure of voters didn't completely go away when Biden remained a centrist. It wasn't enough, especially when he supported genocide. And now they give us Kamala after we wanted Biden to step down for supporting Israel?

....But she still supports Israel?

Nobody knows how/if progressives will show up for Kamala because we can all feel how much Kamala isn't pleasing anyone. The tension is still palpable. Democrats have made an awful bet.

And I am DONE.

Dems have been manipulating voters away from 3rd parties every single election while making promises they never keep good on, while doing NOTHING to actually protect any of us or make anything better. While killing people, deporting them, and justifying war crimes! While liberals promise to push them left and never do and ALSO tell everyone not to vote 3rd party "right now"

All they do is perpetuate the systems that serve each other. I mean we're in 2000 & 2008 again, politically. Already.

They will never ever systematically support progress the way that 3rd parties do. And they don't care to listen or change cuz they know they can Force you to vote for less by making sure that a centrist Democrat is always on the ticket with ballot access in every state and nobody else is.

They make sure if it in fact

If progress is what you want it's time to Genuinely start listening to people who tell you a vote for democrats is worthless for your goals.

I'm just fed up mexi-ojibwe american adult who grew up with shitty presidents and grew up with full access of the internet to educate myself about what led to this mess.

So are a LOT of other adults who feel this way!!!

And what we know led to this situation is the two party system. And how the system has been enabled by scared liberals who listen to fear-mongerering Democrats every election.

Democrats want history to repeat because it keeps them in power. Because what they do and how they treat you keeps them in power.

Is that what you want? To be treated like this in perpetuity for almost nothing in return?

Me neither.

So unless you have a better idea or plan to start burning shit down yourself then your most realistic option to break out of this abusive cycle is to vote 3rd party.

"vote blue in the primary, it's our only realistic option!" -> "if you don't vote blue you deserve trump" -> "can't you just be happy republican/trump lost?" -> quietly not doing much between elections-> "vote blue in the-" etc

Cycles don't end on their own, that's the thing about cycles in fact.

So vote 3rd party. Yeah it's scary. Yeah it might not work. But again, do you have a better idea? Because what we're doing and have been doing for the last 30 years, this "lesser evil" & "vbnmw" thing was the liberals' idea and that isn't working for any of us At All. Its keeping us here in this cycle where nothing gets better but it can Always get worse.

If you can't vote 3rd party in your state ask yourself why that is then do something about it.

Quit expecting democrats to give a shit about the equality you need when you've been protesting genocide for nearly a year and they still welcomed the war criminal for a conversation in the white house.

Any right you've won under democrats is as superficial as Obama's executive order and that's been proven.

⭐ Tldr ⭐

According to all available history: FUCK DEMOCRATS; You NEED to be supporting 3rd parties if you support progress and you need to do the work of getting their names out. Democrats DO fight and suppress 3rd parties. So its more work to support a 3rd party than a democrat, yeah.

But if progress is worth anything at all it should be worth at least trying to do the work it takes to get a viable 3rd party on the ballot.

DO THAT PLEASE.

Thank you

[tomorrowusa]

If you like the bulk of terrible Supreme Court decisions (including repeal of Roe v. Wade) over the past 15 years, be sure to thank people who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 or for Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in 2016.

Indirectly helping Republican presidents and Republican senators get elected will result in awful Republican SCOTUS justices sitting on the court for decades.

The consequences of your vote far outlast the intention of your vote.

[deadendtracks]

the thing about jill stein et all is they crawl out of the woodwork every four years claiming to be the only moral candidate, and they may even (on paper) share all of your political views, but they are never going to win.

because they haven't put in the work! they never do!

putting in the work would be running local candidates and building support and running state wide races and running for senate/the house etc. it would be building an actual party, not trotting out every so often to literally be a spoiler, and yes, i'm sorry, after watching so many elections during my adult life hinge on these fuckers, that's what they are.

because they are not serious people.

does voting for them make you feel personally better in your feelings? okay. but what actual practical good is any of that doing. nothing. it's doing fucking nothing. worse than nothing.

[garthnadermemestash]

None of these candidates got my vote in swing state Nevada

[plitnick]

Cornel West Is a Great Presidential Candidate, But His "People's Party" Run Is a Big Mistake

Cornel West launched a presidential campaign this week. he is running as the candidate of the so-called People’s Party. There’s been a good deal of backlash at his decision to run. I would support him running a primary campaign against Joe Biden, but this third-party run is a mistake. I outline why and what a preferable alternative is in this piece at Medium.

[kp777]

By Ralph Nader

Common Dreams

May 25, 2024

Even though fascist Donald Trump is still worse, just look at the latest polls in the swing states and recognize where we are heading. A true leader doesn't zig and zag when innocent people are being killed.

As the keynote speaker at Morehouse College in Atlanta last week, Joe Biden listened to the class Valedictorian’s call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. The President nodded and applauded with others in the assembly. In contrast, he had just approved another billion dollars in killer weapons for the genocidal Netanyahu regime to blow up what’s left of the Death Camps in Gaza. “Stop it, stop it now, Joe,” declared his wife, Dr. Jill Biden months ago.

Countless times Joe Biden has publicly urged Netanyahu to allow the waiting trucks carrying – food, water, and medicine – blocked at the Egyptian and Israeli borders to deliver this humanitarian aid. But Biden declined to demand sanctions and an end to the Israeli military blocking hundreds of trucks, paid for by the U.S., into Gaza to help the dying population. He could have draped American flags over these trucks and dared the Israeli state terrorists to stop them. Biden showed lethal weakness from an unused position of great presidential power. “Stop it, stop it now, Joe,” implored his wife Dr. Jill Biden as thousands of children are being killed who could have been saved.

When Biden took his oath of office, he swore to uphold the laws of the land. That oath requires action.

Biden asked early on that Netanyahu comply with international law. His government commits daily overt numerous war crimes targeting civilians, homes, schools, markets, hospitals and health clinics, ambulances, fleeing refugees, and even Mosques and Churches. The Israeli regime also violates the international law that requires the conquerors to protect the civilian population. Biden, Blinken and Austin have refused to condemn such “crimes against humanity,” halt arms shipments and thereby obey five federal laws prohibiting the U.S. from sending weapons to countries that are violating human rights or being used for offensive purposes. When Biden took his oath of office, he swore to uphold the laws of the land. That oath requires action. His State Department, in a required compliance report this month to Congress, disgracefully punted. “Stop it, stop it now, Joe,” beseeched Dr. Jill Biden. From the beginning, Biden has backed a two-state solution publicly and in private conversations with Netanyahu. These words support a peaceful settlement. Yet whether under Obama as vice president for eight years or since 2021, as president, Biden has not connected to any action advancing the two-state proposal. Worse, he has never called out Netanyahu, with consequences, for bragging year after year to his Likud Party that he has been supporting the Hamas regime and helping to fund it because Hamas, like Netanyahu, opposes a two-state solution. Biden is still rejecting the recognition of a Palestinian state by 143 of the 193 member states of the United Nations. This week Spain, Norway and Ireland said they would recognize a Palestinian state. Biden bizarrely insists statehood be negotiated with Israel. He knows, of course, how many Israeli colonies (so-called settlements) exist in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel rejects outright any such Free Palestine. Weak Joe Biden is okay with that brutal occupation. “Stop it, stop it now, Joe,” says Dr. Jill Biden. Joe Biden is always condemning anti-semitism against Jews, while he spends billions of dollars weaponizing Netanyahu’s violent anti-semitism against Arab semites in Palestine. This “other” anti-semitism has been violently inflicted, with very racist epithets, on defenseless, subjugated Palestinian families for over fifty-five years. The violence includes U.S. fighter planes bombing, ground troops smashing homes, and refugee camps, blowing up homes, imprisoning and torturing thousands of men, women and children, without charges, and hundreds of dictates, checkpoints, and other maddening harassments. (See the New York Times Magazine Sunday, May 19, 2024 piece “The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel”). Biden and Netanyahu are arm-in-arm anti-semites against Arabs. (See the “Anti-Semitism Against Arab and Jewish Americans” speech by Jim Zogby and DebatingTaboos.org).

It’s the ongoing massacre of these little innocents—in their mother’s or father’s arms or in crumbling hospitals that led Dr. Jill Biden to admonish: “Stop it, stop it now, Joe.” Throughout his fifty-year political career, Biden has never said that “Palestinians have a right to defend themselves.” Only the overwhelmingly more powerful, occupying Israelis have this right, as he has repeated hundreds of times. “Stop it, stop it now, Joe,” advises Dr. Jill Biden. Biden has expressed doubt about the Hamas Health Ministry’s fatality count in Gaza – itself a huge undercount. (See my column March 5, 2024 column: Stop the Worsening UNDERCOUNT of Palestinian Casualties in Gaza). His actions enabling the Israeli annihilations (“over the top” he once blurted) are moving the real fatality toll, especially with the Rafah invasion and starvation, to the fastest rate ever recorded in 21st century conflicts, according to experts. This includes the bloody, accelerating deaths of babies and children. It’s the ongoing massacre of these little innocents—in their mother’s or father’s arms or in crumbling hospitals that led Dr. Jill Biden to admonish: “Stop it, stop it now, Joe.” Still, Joe Biden conveys weakness to Netanyahu, to Netanyahu’s Congress and its omnipresent “Israel-can-do-no-wrong” lobby. Being weak on such a high visibility and protested genocide in Gaza is bad for your re-election, Joe. Even though Der Führer Donald is worse. Look at the latest polls in the swing states! A true leader doesn’t zig and zag when innocent people are being killed. “Stop it, stop it now, Joe.”

[usa2024election]

I hate that in the United States, a third party can rarely if ever win even a down ballot race. The presidency? Third party only came close once in recent time, in 1992. Since then it's been a constant: voting third party in a USA Presidential election is akin to throwing your vote on the trash.

Google Ralph Nader Florida 2000. He and a corrupt SCOTUS decision gave us George W. Bush.

Remember 2016. The people who hate Hillary so much they sacrificed our country to Trump by pissing away protest votes for Jill Stein.

Don't let history repeat. We need to stop Trump. If you're old enough to vote, you're old enough to remember how bad 2017-2021 was. Don't let it happen again.

[bluebelly-sun-serpentine]

Genuinely terrified of what's going to happen in November. It's hard to believe people are willing to usher in project 2025 in order to wash their hands of the issue. Abstention isn't going to make any of us less complicit in crimes against Gaza, and I don't know, I just think it's a bad idea to give the reigns of power to proud christofascists whose eschatological wet dreams literally require war in Israel/Palestine.

I know vote shaming doesn't work and I don't know what to say. There's no real reset after this election. Our hands aren't going to be clean no matter what. There's not going to be one big blow up where things are bad for a little bit before the dust settles and we somehow start working on fixing things. The religious right are long-term planners with the worst kind of short term goals and they absolutely will continue to stack the courts, secure even more tax breaks for the wealthy, make the world more unsafe for anyone that's not white and male and christian and rich, and I really want to stress this. These people don't care about Gaza. They don't even care about Israel except in the sense that they need it for their disgusting little end-times prophesies. They're a death cult.

I am not a liberal and I have not voted for Biden in a single primary and I really am just as horrified as anyone that we didn't get a primary this go around, but I will vote for him. I wish we had deeply progressive candidates on the ballot who'd make more bold choices but we don't. His handling of this genocide and his refusal to call it what it is is going to be seen not just as the horror that it is but also as one of the biggest fumbles made by an otherwise fairly adept politician accustomed to making bigger moves behind the scenes than while mugging to cameras. But I'm also just barely old enough to remember people voting for Ralph Nader and then Jill Stein in general elections to keep their hands clean and make a point and I'm old enough to remember how ineffectual that turned out to be. I'm trying to imagine a world where Al Gore had been president, had it not come down to some 600 votes and some hanging chads. Had I been old enough to vote in that election I might have held my nose and voted for neoliberal gore despite his involvement in a deeply corrupt administration. And you know what, in hindsight I'm almost 100% sure we'd have been better off as a planet if more people had done that. I don't know what kind of response Gore would have had to 9/11. Maybe it would have been no better – and it's hard not to draw parallels between the stupidity and profound cruelty of the US's response to those attacks and the stupidity and profound cruelty of Israel's response to last October's attacks. Who knows. But I DO think we wouldn't have been careening toward total climate catastrophe quite as quickly as we have been, and I do actually think that one less bad thing is one less bad thing, and when you're interested in material reality harm reduction actually IS important.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

The Republikkkans have been covertly funding minor 3rd party candidates for decades. The RepubliKKKlans are a vocal “numerical MINORITY.” To be successful, which they are more often than the Dems, they must pull out all the stops and do everything possible to siphon votes away from the Dems. They suppress black votes, or any group or geographic region which tends to lean blue. They also fund the “my vote doesn’t matter” and “both parties are the same” propaganda that keeps people who would have other wise voted blue from voting at all. At the local level the often fund someone with a similar name to their Dem rival. They encourage Kanye in the hopes of diverting black votes and they are pushing RFK junior in the hopes of diverting uniformed Dems. RFK Jr is the black sheep of the family and shares No Democratic values with his strongly Democratic family but many people don’t know that.

Putin and the GOP oligarchs channeled money into Jill Stein in 2016 and again this year. The Green Party always siphons off votes from the Dems since they both support the same ideals. The “Bernie or Bust” movement was pushed heavily by oligarch political operatives to siphon off first time voters from Hilary. Many of those voters didn’t understand the primary process where you first vote the person who most represents you before rallying around the party in the general election. A low-level Republican operative even claims to have started the Bernie or Bust movement although this is debatable.

Ralph Nader has said that had he known he would cost Dem Al Gore the win in 2000 that he would not have run. That blunder doomed us to two terms of dumb ass George “Dubya” Bush/Darth Cheney, which in many ways was worse than Trump. Those two clowns (Cheney was literally the shadow president) gave us the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars turned the entire Muslim world against us and strained relations with our NATO allies, cost us trillions, led to tens of thousands of American soldiers being killed or maimed, and raised the deficit to unheard of levels. They also caused two energy crises,one before 9/11 and one after Katrina, that led to record high gas prices that were higher than pandemic levels in many parts of the country. They also allowed a major city, New Orleans, to be wiped off the map and forcibly relocated its residents its poor and minority communities across the country at gun point.

Republikkkans win because they always vote as a solid block in every single election and they do it as if their very lives depended on it. Now some might rebut this by bringing up the Libertarian Party. This lunatic fringe party is basically the same as the Republicans. Most of them in the general election will end up voting GOP but an insignificant number spread out nationwide.

The Dems need to stop trying to claim every single group out their and desperately need to help recreate their union base which Republicans, starting with Reagan, have been killing off. The Dems claim both the Jewish and Muslim people but both groups largely vote Republican. The Dems try to claim all immigrant groups but many don’t vote, aren’t citizens yet, or lean to the autocratic Republican Party because it reminds them of the strongmen of their home countries. The Hispanics are claimed by the Dems but fully one third of them are registered Republicans with the rest going either way. How many elections have the south Florida Cubans cost us with their unyielding support of Republicans wanting to endlessly punish the Castro brothers in Cuba?

The left needs to realize the Hispanics are not a solid block and need to launch a massive outreach program to those who could be swayed left. A disproportionate number of Hispanics are white or white passing and heavily favor the racist Republicans. The letting go of unions and the failure to recruit Hispanics are the two biggest ongoing mistakes of the Dems. But the Dems aren’t as organized or as well funded as the GOP which has unlimited dark money from neo-Nazi autocrats. The legions of dumb ass Evangelicals and racist alt-right groups also help in bringing the Dems down and that’s something else entirely that needs to be addressed. We can’t win playing the game of division. We need to win over voters in massive numbers and do it asap. Dem leadership needs to convince the rank and file that the GOP only supports the wealthy, the religious fringe, and the deplorable racists.

[nodynasty4us]

Given the stated goal of No Labels, this makes no sense. They're going to offer a centrist alternative if the far-right Trump is on the ballot, but not if the farther-right DeSantis is? This would seem to suggest that the real goal of the organization is to stop Trump from becoming president. Except that it's abundantly clear that a No Labels candidate would siphon far more votes from Joe Biden than they would from Donald Trump. Anyone who is planning to vote for Trump is going to vote for Trump. It's centrists and anti-Trump Republicans who are going to avail themselves of a No Labels candidate, since that would allow them to vote against Trump without having to vote for Biden. And this brings us to what is clearly the real goal of No Labels. They want to get their foot in the door of presidential politics, and to use this election as a springboard to bigger and better things they envision in the future. But Trump is the only opponent who is hated enough for them to fundraise off of. This is the only scenario in which it makes sense to run against Trump, but not against DeSantis. That means that like a Jill Stein in 2016 or a Ralph Nader in 2000, the No Labels folks are willing to help elect a president they clearly consider to be problematic in service of their own agenda.

Electoral-vote.com

[badgraph1csghost]

Other people with more followers than I've got have said this more eloquently, but I just saw a post from February encouraging Americans to throw the system by not voting in November.

The fact is, 18-45 year old voters are going to hand republicans the biggest wins in history by not showing up on election day because of "genocide Joe".

Fine. And while you're making your asinine and wholly futile political statements, the Heritage Foundation is going to install Donald Trump as dictator, kneecap the right to privacy, and kill anyone on the LGBT spectrum.

I'm sorry that "guy who's going to kill palestinians and other people he doesn't like" and "guy who's only going to kill palestinians" are our only two choices here. But, they ARE our only two choices. This is a deeply corrupt system, but withholding your vote is not the answer.

"Well, I'M better because I'm going to vote for a third party, so fuck you." Third parties are decoys that republicans use to split liberal voters from the democrats. In 2000, people said "Oh, I can't vote for Al Gore in good concience," voted for Nader, and Bush won. In 2016, people said, "Oh, I can't vote for Hilary Clinton in good concience", voted for Jill Stein, and Trump won. 2024, people are going to say, "Oh, I can't vote for Joe Biden in good concience", vote for whoever the fuck is the third party candidate, and hand Trump a second presidency.

I cannot stress this enough: if Trump wins again, there will NEVER be another free election held in this country again.

We don't have the luxury of staying home on election day and hoping Joe and Donald both die of COVID-19. Vote for Biden, then hit yourself or whatever it is you do. Because there is quite literally no other way.

[spurgie-cousin]

Hoo boy SpurgieCousin, these anons sitting out the election to protest the war in Gaza or voting 3rd party to teach the democrats a lesson, or whatever their reason is have me stressed! As an elder millennial, I remember Ralph Nader peeling away enough 3rd party votes to give the election to Bush over Gore in 2000. Even though that administration gave us wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, the deaths of my friends, classmates, etc in those wars, the destruction of their futures when they came home with PTSD and missing limbs, lies about weapons of mass destruction, war crimes, Guantanamo bay AND the worst economic recession since the Great Depression- which was a fantastic time to try and enter the job market after college btw- I still think a 2nd Trump term would be worse. The only reason Trump’s first term was only a partial catastrophe was because it was incredibly incompetent and we were able to coast on a lot of momentum of the Obama years. I don’t think a 2nd term would flounder as much. I really really hope (beg)your readers reconsider their choice regarding Joe Biden. It’s not a perfect system and it’s not a perfect candidate-it never is. I appreciate their idealism- I was young once too- but not voting does not absolve them from the consequences of what may happen if this country elects Trump again. You will have complicity in negative things either way you vote, so please please vote in a way that does not make things worse. Ok, thank you for letting this geriatric millennial rant!

Oh I think that's a perfect example tbh. I'm a younger millennial so I was growing up as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars played out, and it was the first thing that ever really ignited a political rage in me. Horrible news for my very republican/George Bush voting family lol.

Unless they're very politically versed, I don't know if Gen Z or even the youngest tier of millennials really get how fucking awful the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan was. Just tons of civilians and American soldiers dead because of Bush's ego, and his ego is nothing compared to Trump's.

I think the only big difference is a lot of third party voters at that time didn't totally understand what Bush was capable of, whereas we know what a Trump presidency will be like..... we know if he promises to make gay marriage illegal and strip back more women's Healthcare rights and and more money to Netanyahu to destroy Gaza, he WILL try to do it. He's already had similar successes.

I have voted third party, I hate to discourage people from doing so because I think a third party candidate that we can rally behind is our only hope out of this 2 party shit show. We don't have anyone like that this election season, far left progressives hate Jill Stein, nobody else has the name recognition at this point to have any chance against with major candidate, and we know the end result will be either the trash can on fire that is our government right now or that trash can on fire with an added layer of dog shit on top, y'know? They're both bad sure but I just highly disagree that one isn't worse for vulnerable Americans and Gazans alike.

[tomorrowusa]

It's no mystery how the GOP got a majority on the US Supreme Court.

The most immediate explanation for the earthquake is the weight of three conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump and confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate during his term. Trump was able to fill more seats in a single term than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. But that is far from the whole story. The current supermajority on the court exists because of major political factors that have favored Republicans in the postwar era and historic circumstances that were windows of opportunity for all six conservatives to be appointed and confirmed.

The longest-serving member of the current court, Clarence Thomas, was confirmed in 1991. At the time, Republicans had won the popular vote for president in seven of the previous ten election cycles (1952 - 1988). But in the eight presidential elections since then, Republicans have won the popular vote only once. Two Republicans who lost the popular vote reached the Oval Office by prevailing in the Electoral College. Those two — George W. Bush and Donald Trump — would eventually appoint the five justices who, with Thomas, make up the current 6-3 conservative supermajority. (Democrats also had five appointees in this period, but one died and one retired and both were replaced by Republicans.)

The biggest contributor on this score was Trump's 2016 win in the Electoral College against Hillary Clinton. George W. Bush also came to the presidency initially via the Electoral College after losing the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000. (Bush did win the popular vote in his reelection year, before he appointed any justices.) Republicans have also had far more luck in having Supreme Court vacancies occur when they controlled the White House and a working majority in the Senate.

Republicans have better understood and appreciated the power of the federal courts in the long term. They even have scouts for the federal bench in the form of the Federalist Society.

Thomas was the first new justice on the court who had been associated with the Federalist Society, a campus gathering of conservative law students and faculty at Yale, the University of Chicago and other schools. Rising up in the wake of Roe, the group was formally founded in 1982. Their animating idea was that federal judges were arrogating too much power to themselves and playing fast and loose with the Constitution to accommodate their own policy preferences. Many of the rulings of the Supreme Court under Chief Warren Burger and his predecessor Earl Warren were regarded as egregious examples of "activist judges" run amok. Since then, the Society has grown and prospered in numbers, influence and fundraising prowess. Succeeding perhaps beyond its dreams, it now counts the six conservative members of the Supreme Court among its current or former members. It has had no small role in their elevation, aggressively recruiting and promoting candidates for the bench and supporting conservative Republican candidates for president.

Read the entire excellent article by Ron Elving via the link at the top of the post.

One thing Mr. Elving doesn't get into is how Trump and G.W. Bush, who appointed five current justices between them, came to power in the first place.

In 2016 Donald Trump won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania by margins smaller in those three states than number of votes in each cast for Green Party candidate (and onetime Putin dinner companion) Jill Stein. If Hillary had taken those states she would have had 273 electoral votes instead of 227.

In 2000 G.W. Bush won Florida by just 537 votes. Ralph Nader got 97,488 votes in the state. If Gore had won Florida he would have had 291 electoral votes instead of 266.

On Election Night 2016 Rachel Maddow told viewers at MSNBC...

"If you vote for somebody who can’t win for president, it means that you don’t care who wins for president."

And I'd add that when you vote for president you are implicitly also casting a vote for SCOTUS.

[cleoselene]

I find it frustrating that you assume I’m seeking attention and refuse to earnestly engage with my feelings when I say I don’t wanna vote for the guy who is actively helping Israel commit genocide. Also, as a disabled person like me, why aren’t you mad at him for pretending the pandemic is over and removing all covid mitigations and making society unsafe for us?

if you're voting for Cornel West, you're voting for whoever Harlan Crow wants you to vote for. If you're voting for Jill Stein, you're voting for whoever Vladimir Putin wants you to vote for. Either way, it's nonsensical and useless. My first election was 2000, go read the wikipedia article about Florida and Ralph Nader, it's not my fucking job to educate you on the meaning of a third party candidate in an electoral system that is a Single Member District Plurality.

As a disabled person on Social Security and living in the bottom quintile of this economy, the Biden Administration has made my life MARKEDLY better. Medicare improvements alone have been a revelation. I now have so much more money in my pocket, no copays on my medications or any of my doctor visits ever, my food stamps have gone up. We are the only major economy in the west that is experiencing economy growth.

Biden has been dealing with a 50-50 Senate and has accomplished more than Obama did with a Supermajority in 8 years. I'm sorry that you probably learned about foreign policy three months ago, but if you think literally anyone else who has a snowball's chance in fucking hell will be better for Palestine, you are delulu as all fuck. Biden is not helping commit genocide, you are spouting internet catchphrases. Biden is not even on speaking terms with Netanyahu at the moment. Blinken has been repeatedly pressuring Israel to pause the fighting because Americans are being held hostage in Gaza. You speak like someone who learns literally all of their information from social media.

You're disabled like me, why are you giving away your country to fascism for one foreign policy issue you probably barely understand and literally no other viable candidate will be to the left of Biden on? Do you think Trump, who your vote will actively assist, will be any better? The guy who literally moved the American embassy in Israel to Palestine in a move designed to be deliberately provocative to Palestine? That Donald Trump?

Assume Biden literally told Netanyahu to stop. Netanyahu would not stop. It would not happen. We have not approved any aid to Israel, even, because guess what: Congress hasn't approved anything whatsoever.

And that is more words than I have been willing to give to anyone who responds to this post because in 2016 I gave a lot of words to people who ended up being Russian psyops agents, and I am tired.

But hey, vote for Jill Stein. Women dying in Texas of miscarriages going septic clearly mean fucking nothing to you, as long as you can keep your Internet Moral Purity Fad Of The Moment.

edit: re Covid that was a global loss and it sucks and I have no Immune B cells and I don't go out anymore but that is hardly uniquely American. Everywhere is pretending it's over. no one cares about sick people anywhere. anyway grow up and realize the world is complicated and if you're a single issue voter like this you are cutting off your nose to spite your face

[garthnadermemestash]

✅ None of these candidates 2024

[man-reading]

2023 POLARI PRIZE SHORTLISTS CELEBRATE QUEER STORIES THAT “ENTERTAIN, ENRICH AND INSPIRE”

Memoir, non-fiction, and critically acclaimed literary fiction from a mixture of independent presses and larger publishers dominate the dynamic shortlists for this year’s Polari Prize and Polari First Book Prize, the UK’s only dedicated awards for LGBTQ+ literature.

“The quality of long-listed titles this year was so exceptionally high, a number of much-loved titles didn’t make the shortlists” said Paul Burston, founder of the prizes. “Taken together, this year’s shortlists are a powerful testament to the quality and diversity of LGBTQ+ writing in the UK and Ireland today. From dazzling debuts to writers delivering on their earlier promise and really upping their game, these are books to entertain, enrich and inspire.”

Powerful stories of resilience and resistance are the focus of this year’s Polari First Book Prize. None

of the Above by Travis Alabanza (Canongate) is an electric memoir exploring life outside the gender boundaries imposed on us by society. Edward Enninful’s A Visible Man (Bloomsbury) also makes

the list, detailing how the man behind British Vogue has built an extraordinary life; more memoir makes an appearance with It’s A Sin’s Jill Nader and her heartbreaking and eye-opening memoir, Love from the Pink Palace (Wildfire). Fiction titles spotlighted in this category are Jon Ransom’s complex and transporting The Whale Tattoo (Muswell Press) and Tom Crewe’s historical debut novel, The New Life (Chatto & Windus). Rounding up the Polari First Book Prize is Livia Kojo Alour with Rising of the Black Sheep, the only poetry title in the shortlists.

Poet Sophia Blackwell, Polari First Book Prize judge, said:

“The shortlist is full of fearless, moving and original stories. Full of insights about how the authors came to occupy their particular places in the world, they also set out hopeful, ambitious visions for the future.”

Rachel Holmes, Polari First Book Prize judge, said: “Look no further for this year’s quintessential queer bookshelf to illuminate and inspire the approaching autumn evenings, winter weekends and festive season. There’s a beautiful, brilliant read here for all the queer family. Comfortably encompassing diverse genres and multiple points of view, fledgling emerging talent and celebrated household names, this year’s shortlist bravely re-empowers the past, interprets the present, and boldly imagines the future.”

Adam Zmith, Polari First Book Prize judge, said: “The titles on the shortlist for this year’s Polari First Book Prize wrestle with history and the present moment in engaging and empathetic ways. I loved reading these books, and feeling the queer power in them and their authors’ visions.”

Karen McLeod, Polari First Book Prize judge, said: “This shortlist is dynamic, expansive, moving and truly novel (is it too late to request a box of tissues as a rider?) I am proud we have such a diverse and emotionally intelligent set of queer voices being published today.”

Queer utopias, further memoir and exquisite prose feature in the Polari Book Prize shortlist with Jack Parlett’s Fire Island (Granta), a vivid hymn to an iconic destination, being selected and poet Seán Hewitt turns his hand to memoir in All Down Darkness Wide (Jonathan Cape). A varied spread of fiction completes the shortlist with Julia Armfield’s deep sea love story Our Wives Under the Sea, Okechukwu Nzelu’s tender study of family and grief Here Again Now (Dialogue Books), Sophie Ward’s gripping thriller The Schoolhouse (Corsair) and concluding the list is Douglas Stuart’s heartbreaking Young Mungo (Picador).

Joelle Taylor, Polari Book Prize judge, said: “This year’s Polari Prize shortlist reflects the complexities of contemporary LGBT+ lives in work that is nuanced, expansive, intimate and strange. History, futurism, crime, poetic memoir, and social commentary collide to create rich narratives that rewrite us even as we read.”

VG Lee, Polari Book Prize judge, said: “We have a strong and diverse shortlist for the Polari Prize. These are books that will appeal to many. They are that odd word, “keepers”- books to return to.”

Suzi Feay, Polari Book Prize judge, said: “This year’s shortlist highlights the sheer range and power of LGBTQ+ writing across all genres. Passionate, stylish and outspoken, these are voices to haunt and seduce. Our six choices deserve the widest readership.”

Chris Gribble, Polari Book Prize judge, said: “This year’s Polari Prize shortlist lays out the joys, challenges and complexities of contemporary and historical LGBTQ+ lives in a brilliant array of fiction and non-fiction that will leave no one in any doubt that our stories are worthy of their places on every book shelf and in every library. These writers are working at the peak of their powers and if you haven’t read their work yet, you have a real treat in store.”

2023 Polari Book Prize (non-debut)

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield (Picador)

All Down Darkness Wide by Seán Hewitt (Jonathan Cape)

Here Again Now by Okechukwu Nzelu (Dialogue Books) Fire Island by Jack Parlett (Granta Books)

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart (Picador)

The Schoolhouse by Sophie Ward (Corsair)

2023 Polari First Book Prize

None of the Above by Travis Alabanza (Canongate Books)

Rising of the Black Sheep by Livia Kojo Alour (Polari Press)

The New Life by Tom Crewe (Chatto & Windus)

A Visible Man by Edward Enninful (Bloomsbury)

Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder (Wildfire)

The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom (Muswell Press)

Established in 2011, The Polari First Book Prize is awarded annually to a debut book that explores the LGBTQ+ experience, and has previously been won by writers including Kirsty Logan, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Mohsin Zaidi and last year’s winner Adam Zmith, for his keenly-researched history of poppers, Deep Sniff.

Established in 2019, The Polari Book Prize awards an overall book of the year, excluding debuts, and previous winners include Andrew McMillan (Playtime), Kate Davies (In At the Deep End), Diana Souhami (No Modernism Without Lesbians) and last year’s winner Joelle Taylor for her remarkable collection C+nto & Othered Poems which explores butch lesbian counterculture in London.