The Daily Jackass: Voting third party is just like sending 'thoughts and prayers'

Congratulations, Jef Rouner of Free Press Houston.

Every four years we get together and play American President Idol, electing either a Republican or a Democrat. And, every four years this is when some fringe kook or two tries to tell us about all those parties outside the system, man. The ones who are really woke, as my white ass should probably not be saying, and aren’t corrupt by Big Scaryword.

See, Noah Horwitz, this is how you move to the head of the class.  Note that a clear path could involve going "anti-vaxxer" a full week after that smear has been debunked.  If you truck in lies that have been demonstrated to be lies, you're a pretty big Jackass.  But this is Rouner's moment; let's allow him to revel in it.

Between the carnival of carnage that was the Republican primary choosing the form of Gozer the Destructor and the bitter hold out of Bernie Sanders to the end of the Democratic one, emotions on both sides got a little high. I’ve never seen so much announcing that people were voting third party, and every single bit of it is as bloody useless as the Republicans offering their thoughts and prayers to the victims of the mass shooting (does it really matter which one I name?).

[...]

Which is why voting third party is mostly an empty gesture meant to telegraph a person’s own virtue without actually involving real work. If Stein really wanted to do some progressive good or even pass her bonkers woo ideas, she’d be a Democrat or at least an Independent who works with Democrats like Sanders. If Johnson actually cared about letting you smoke weed hassle-free, he should have done something about it when he was a Republican in actual power.

I was a Democrat who worked for ten years attempting to to pull the Texas Democratic Party to the left.  I wasn't alone; the Progressive Populist Caucus was, in 2006, the largest in the TDP, with several hundred members.  You have perhaps noted over the past decade how successful we were.

There's a better analogy if your intention was to crack on both progressives and religious extremists simultaneously: "the best way to make change for the better in ISIS is to join them and transform the organization from within".  Not ludicrous at all, is it?

Nothing Stein or Johnson say matters. At all. Their platforms are meaningless because neither of them will ever be called to do any of it or have to answer for the promises that they made to voters. Theirs is a consequence-free existence. Politifact is never going to check them on the Johnsonmeter or the Steinmeter like they did for Barack Obama and will certainly do to whoever wins this long-ass trudge to the future of the country.

Actually what they say and do does matter, as history has demonstrated.  Where do you think all this "spoiler" nonsense comes from?  It's that sort of progress that duopolists fear.  Even Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton's not-so-useful idiot, fell for the 'spoiler' BS right from the beginning of his campaign.  See, you can't really spoil an election that's already spoiled.

More importantly, the two major parties often co-opt the messages of the minor parties (Tea Party subsumed into GOP, sad attempts by Dems to occupy Occupy, Green becomes 'green' without those dirty hippies).  So they must be doing something right if their best ideas are being shoplifted.

Most importantly, political scientists get it and have for a long time.

"The irony is that no leading political scientist who studies political party systems believes that it is necessary to squelch minor parties in order to 'defend' the two-party system. The true definition of 'two-party system' is a system in which two particular parties are much bigger than all the others; it doesn't mean a system in which minor parties have atrophied into non-existence. The last leading political scientist who believed that it is socially useful to squelch minor parties was Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, but he changed his mind over five years ago, and now advocates that election laws treat minor parties equitably." -- Richard Winger, Ballot Access News December 12, 1996

Logic needs to stay out of Rouner's way, however.  He thinks he's on a roll.

That’s politics, and more importantly, that’s America. It’s not a place built by storming out of the room in a moralistic crusade, and it’s certainly not a place where sitting on the side-lines free from any blame deserves virtuous acclaim. There’s a reason Hillary Clinton wrote a book called Hard Choices, and even Donald Trump recognizes that if his vision for America is to matter he has to actually get in the game on a team that can win. So did Sanders. You have three choices. The last one is “do nothing,” and voting third party for president is just doing nothing with a big old bowl of sanctimonious bullshit on top. Just like praying for shooting victims who need blood donations and cities that need lead out of their water.  

Maybe I've missed it, but did Democrats get the lead out of the water while I wasn't paying attention?  Have they stopped the police from killing unarmed black men?  Have they banned fracking yet?  Repealed Citizens United?  Halted the TPP?

Ohhhhh: they just need more help in Congress, where all the guys and gals on both sides of the aisle are already owned by the banks, the pharmaceutical companies, and the NRA.  I think maybe Rouner missed the whole 'revolution' part of the equation.

As you might imagine, today's Jackass has been excoriated by the readers of FPH on the original page and on the Facebook page, very few of which happen to be orthodox Democrats or Republicans waiting to be scolded about not conforming.  This seems more like a successful clickbait trolling excursion, and if you read only a few of the responses at either place, you'll see our boy has been roasted and then seared in his own juices to a greater degree than I need to add to.

Much like the Texas Observer, Free Press Houston used to be a radical, iconoclastic, unabashedly liberal-before-progressive-was-the-word newspaper.  Then they went out and hired all these angry Hillbots, and then wonder why their subscriber base has abandoned them.

Sad!

Better Choices Funnies

There are more palatable options than chicken or fish ...

#GNCinHOU - Assange, Stein, Baraka, West, and YOU

Today's speeches and the roll call of states will culminate a furious week of Green Party events, media coverage, and high profile exposure (at last) of America's only political option for peace.  One highlight breaking late is the "chairman" of Wikileaks, making some remarks from long distance just before lunchtime.  Perhaps you saw him last night on Bill Maher.

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, the organization that recently posted thousands of the Democratic Party's internal emails online, will speak via live stream at the Green Party national convention, party officials announced Friday.

Assange is scheduled to speak at 11:45 a.m. Saturday over a live stream from the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

He will speak on the third day of the progressive party's national convention at the University of Houston, before the party nominates its 2016 presidential nominee, widely expected to be Jill Stein.

Assange is expected to be interviewed by 2004 Green Party presidential nominee David Cobb, party officials said in a statement Friday.

Wikileaks recently made headlines by releasing thousands of Democratic Party emails on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, suggesting that some DNC party officials quietly had backed Clinton. The revelations angered Sanders supporters, rocked the Democratic gathering and prompted the ouster of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The keynote speakers today will be Dr. Cornel West and YahNé Ndgo, late of the Bernie Sanders campaign and now -- like so many others -- advocates for Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka.

West was appointed to the Democratic Party's platform drafting committee by Sanders. The activist raised concerns over the party's stance on Palestinian rights, and later endorsed the Green Party, saying "there’s no way, based on moral grounds, those based on my own moral conscience, that I could support [the Democratic Party] platform."

He added about Sanders' ultimate support for Clinton's nomination at the Democratic National Convention: "And once my dear brother moved into his endorsement, his strong endorsement of the neoliberal disaster that Sister Hillary represents, there was no way that I could stay with Bernie Sanders any longer, had to break with the two-party system."

That should get a few pairs of Jockeys in a wad.

Not attending the Green Party's Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston. #GNCinHOU pic.twitter.com/Myfy0byIN9

— Green Party US (@GreenPartyUS) August 5, 2016

Here's a schedule of speakers and events.  Note that political conventions don't always run on time, but Assange will likely be prompt (satellite time is neither inexpensive nor flexible).  Dr. West is slated for 2 pm.  Videos from yesterday's pressers are already posted; Texas Green candidates down the ballot are represented in the third one there.

"Come for the revolution, stay for the party". Tonight, after the formalities conclude.

Music, food, a cash bar and lots more.

Throw some caysh into Jill's money boom.  She's already purchased some national teevee advertising, jumping ahead of Trump there and in this poll of voters under thirty.

If you can't be in Houston today for a little history, find a livestream.

Voter ID affidavits, and election day in HD 146

Charles has kept us up to date on both items, so I can only add a couple thoughts.

-- Twenty-seven four Democratic precinct chairs will select their (and my) new state representative from among a field of half a dozen or so contenders.  The favorites are Erica Lee Carter -- daughter of Cong. Sheila Jackson Lee and the oligarchs' pick -- and Shawn Thierry, a frequent Harris County judicial candidate for the Democrats in recent years.

My money is on Lee.  She opened her campaign at the SD-13 special election, which former HD-146 Rep. Borris Miles won (a prediction of the vote count I happened to nail).  HGLBT activist, social media marvel, and recent Daily Jackass award winner Kris Banks will probably have the live-Tweeting.  I'll check with him late morning to see who won, being elsewhere doing more exciting things personally.

Update: In the closest possible outcome, Thierry defeated Lee 13-11 when third challenger Larry Blackmon's vote opted not to force the top two into overtime.

After one round of voting by raising hands, Thierry had 12 votes, Carter had 11 and Blackmon 1. This led to an immediate runoff between Thierry and Carter, with a request for a change of voting procedure. Instead of raising hands, precinct chairs stood in line next to their candidate of choice. This time, Thierry beat Carter by two votes.

Charles with his take from the scene.

-- The parties in Veazey v. Abbott, the voter/photo ID litigation finally decided a couple of weeks ago by the Fifth Circuit, came to an agreement and the rules have been relaxed for voters.  Essentially those without picture ID may present their voter reg card, or phone bill, water bill, etc. confirming their identity, swear and sign (the affidavit) that they are who they say they are, and cast a provisional ballot.  In elections past, very few of those were ever counted because they generally involved the voter taking some kind of action between Election Day and the county canvass, which finalizes the election.  First, Matt Angle at Lone Star Project ...

The order would essentially allow voters whose name appears on the voter rolls but lacks a photo ID to cast a ballot if they can present other appropriate proof of identification including a utility bill, a bank statement, a paycheck, or a voter registration card.  Their vote can only be challenged if there is conclusive proof that the voter is not the person listed on the voter roll.

A person who is involved in this process locally spoke with me and explained how the verification process differs this time.  I have paraphrased that response in the next graf.

For BBM (ballot-by mail) voters, signature verification -- comparing the sigs on the current ballot with recent past ballots -- is the method by which those votes are certified as legitimate.  In the case of a provisional vote without ID, the voter has signed their voter registration card and their affidavit, and those two signatures can be compared just as they are (electronically, scanned) for BBM.  Beyond an obvious mismatch, they only reason a vote would not be counted is if someone came forward with compelling evidence that the provisional voter is not who they represented themselves to be when voting (and signing the affidavit).   Quite a high bar to clear for a ballot to be rejected.

Expect there to be many folks in Harris County and across the state who are delighted with the fact that they have been re-enfranchised for the coming election.

Update: Ernest Canning at Bradblog with more.

"The Greater Good"

Jill Stein's latest ad.



More posts today than yesterday, as the registration and kickoff obligated my time offline.  (Daily Jackass candidates are lining up for judging.)  Follow the Twitter feed to the right for the latest or check in here and on Facebook.  Read a summary of the opening day and see some pics on Flickr.

Here's a few more pics from the GPTX FB page.

Greens get CNN town hall for August 17

The Libertarians, Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, held their second one just last night, and now the party of the progressive people are getting theirs, in two weeks.

CNN announced Wednesday it will host one of its town hall events with the Green Party's presumptive presidential nominee Jill Stein and her presumptive running mate, Ajamu Baraka.

The hour-long event will be held on Wednesday, August 17 at 9:00 p.m. ET. The event will broadcast live on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Espanol and online via CNNgo.

Libertarians draw from Clinton to some small degree greater than Jill Stein does in recent polling.  One more thing for nervous Clinton folks to be concerned with.  If somebody happens to post something about Libs "siphoning" from Dems, I'll have to feature it in the Daily Jackass.

Meanwhile, here's a mathematical analysis of how to not waste your vote.

Follow me on Twitter @PDiddie or watch this space for developments from the Greens' presidential nominating convention, opening today at U of H.

Yes, Trump is terrible (but the next Republican will be worse)

And speaking of shitty, why isn't Hillary beating Drumpf by a greater margin?  (That's a rhetorical question, most of us -- even Erick Erickson -- already know why.)

By any conventional standard, Donald Trump just blundered through the worst three days of any presidential candidate in living memory.

Showing a characteristic refusal to back down from a fight, Trump took the almost unthinkable step of publicly escalating a feud with the parents of fallen US solider, Capt. Humayun Khan, who blasted Trump at last week's Democratic convention as unfit for the presidency.

And in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn't make a military move into Ukraine -- even though Putin has already done that by seizing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

In any normal political campaign, these stumbles would hobble Trump's ability to pass the fabled commander in chief test, in which Americans take their measure of a candidate and decide whether he is fit to lead them.

But no one needs reminding that 2016 is not a conventional political year.

The Republican Party is NOT imploding, but they are having an existential crisis.  Let's admit it: this cycle wouldn't be much different if Ted Cruz was the nominee.  I agree with this guy's premise (but not his rationale -- "Free trade GOOD!"), who says that the GOP has to lose this year so that they can win in 2020.

There is a Simpsons episode where two aliens, Kang and Kodos, invade our planet and scheme to take charge by abducting and impersonating the two US presidential candidates.

They are discovered before polling day, but this does not prevent their triumph.  Kodos declares: “It’s true, we are aliens, but what are you going to do about it?  It’s a two party system; you have to vote for one of us”.  One plucky man says: “I believe I’ll vote for a third party candidate”.  But Kang responds witheringly: “Go ahead, throw your vote away!”

No, seriously.

The key dividing line in the United States (has) little to do with Republican vs. Democrat, rich vs. poor, or liberal vs. conservative. To explode these conventional oppositions, it would take a billionaire Republican populist, who had once been a solid Democrat and who offered a political program that mixed together liberal and conservative ideas, conspiracy theories and racial animus, but above all else exhortations [...] to rise up and retake the country. Indeed, the triumph of Trump in the Republican primaries -- based, in part, on his appeal to former white working-class Democrats and independents, his fierce attacks on mainstream Republicans, and his flouting of what passes for conventional wisdom about electability -- sent the pundits back to their think tanks to figure out what on earth was happening with American voters.

Trump was, they concluded, sui generis, a peculiar mutation of the American political system generated by the unholy coupling of reality television and the Tea Party revolt. But Trump is not, in fact, a sport of nature. He reflects trends taking place around the world. He is, in many ways, just a mouthpiece ... 

Trump won't be able to overcome his raging ego, narcissism, or lack of emotional maturity (Clinton was spot on when she said he can be baited with a Tweet), and that's before you consider his hideous bigotry and highly questionable business dealings.  He's quite the fraud, but he'll fail, and the GOP nominee next go-round will not make his rookie mistakes.

Cruz is taking copious notes, and Paul Ryan can surely put a shinier coat of lacquer on his own neo-fascism to fool enough people disgusted with Hillary's presidency four years from now.  And that dynamic will hold irrespective of how well the Greens and Libertarians can do in the next cycle, after what portends to be a banner year in 2016.

This cycle is unprecedented but reasonably predictable.  Twenty twenty?  Not so much.

Scattershooting more donkeys

-- Your Daily Jackass is John Cobarruvias of Bay Area Houston.  Previous jacks and jennets are here, here, and here.  John was a runaway winner based on his command -- he's reliving his days as an Aggie Cadet -- that can be countered simply enough with "No, we must not".

The difference between Clinton and Trump is the degree to which you would prefer a war-mongering corporatist who might be a sociopath versus an actual sociopath.  You know what they say about voting for a Democrat pretending to be a Republican running against an actual Republican: people go for the real thing every time.  It is, as most of us know, questionable as to whether Drumpf is an actual Republican, and that's causing an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance on the right.

If a Jackass of the 2016 Cycle is eventually awarded, John's got a strong lead on the rest of the herd (or drove, or pace).

Jackasses on deck : "Repeat after me", and "Why Berners should be good losers".

-- Amaju Baraka is Jill Stein's running mate.  If you have to ask, "who?" then you qualify for enlightenment.  Don't forget that fear is the path to the Dark Side.

-- More debunking of the anti-vax smear of Stein by the scummiest of Democrats.

I support preventative health care as a human right (including vaccines), now let's discuss why the DNC rejected universal health care.

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 30, 2016

Time to Move On, Donks?

That's all I have time for.  Follow me on Twitter (@PDiddie) for Green convention updates, daily recaps in this space, and whatever winds up on the Texas Green Party Facebook page.

Debating Blue vs. Green with SCOTUS as backdrop

Ed. note: As this post was being composed, Jill Stein has selected human rights activist Ajamu Baraka to be her vice-presidential running mate.  More on that later.

I don't want to be harsh every single day for the next three months to all of these binary thinkers, but I need to point out how often they use the same threadbare logic.

-- Ben Jealous debated Jill Stein on Democracy Now (you may recall he was a Sanders supporter up to last week) and the tropes he employed were, in order, "Trump", "privilege", "George W. Bush in 2000", and "Greens need to start at the bottom", all of which have been debunked in these pages in recent days.

Jealous also referenced at the end a mashup of 'pie in the sky' and Nader.  ('Pie in the sky' is one of John Coby's old standbys; he's earned future Daily Jackass consideration with his 'pinch your nose because you must'.)

-- Robert Reich and Chris Hedges had the same faceoff in the same venue, and Reich went Trump, "Supreme Court", "wait until next cycle", and followed that with Hillary's own faux pas, which riffed off Ted Cruz at the RNC's 'vote your conscience'.

These debates would be very instructive for those who still have an open mind as to whether to vote for Clinton or Stein.  There are always going to be certain understandings -- biases -- that each person listens or reads with, so in that sense there are very few true undecideds.  The arguments against Stein, as Jealous and Reich demonstrate, are always rooted in the same handful of lame rebuttals.

Let's examine one that rarely gets scrutiny: the SCOTUS premise, beaten like a rug previously here but this time we take a look from a more nuanced perspective.  In 2000, Barbra Streisand hosted a gala fundraiser for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman in Los Angeles and raised what at the time was reported as a record-breaking amount of money, $5.1 million.  I remember watching at least part of the event, though not live, perhaps on YouTube or as part of some other documentary some years later.  Tommy Lee Jones, Gore's old college roommate, did the introductions.  Streisand and several other prominent artists of the time performed, and Barbra gave a short speech, calling for Gore's election to "reform campaign finance regulations, strengthen gun control laws, improve education and healthcare, safeguard a woman's right to choose, and control homophobia".

Isn't it fascinating how little things change in our presidential politics?

Streisand's brief mention of the Supreme Court's importance in the 2000 election was direct and blunt (I can still see her holding up her fingers with a determined look on her face): "The first three reasons to vote for Al Gore are the Supreme Court... the Supreme Court... and the Supreme Court."  You can read the rest here.

At the beginning of this primary season about a year ago, I polled a handful of Democratic activists about their choice for nominee and why, and a couple of them, sadly, named 'Clinton, because of the Supreme Court'.  Leaving aside the question of picking a party nominee on this uncareful logic, it seems obvious even to your average Democrat fifth-grader that electing a Democrat and not a Republican because of the SCOTUS makes sense for the same reason that it does for a Republican to vote for a Republican instead of a Democrat.

Having cleared that up, let's return again to the year 2000 and Gore and W. Bush and the infamous circumstances that occurred in Florida that year.  The myth that Ralph Nader is to blame for the outcome has been thoroughly refuted, but let's look closer at the numbers laid out by Jim Hightower in the oft-cited Salon piece from November 27, 2000 -- a full two weeks before Gore actually quit, on December 12.  Bold emphasis is mine.

Now it gets really ugly for the Gore campaign, for there are two other Florida constituencies that cost them more votes than Nader did. First, Democrats. Yes, Democrats! Nader only drew 24,000 Democrats to his cause, yet 308,000 Democrats voted for Bush. Hello. If Gore had taken even 1 percent of these Democrats from Bush, Nader’s votes wouldn’t have mattered. Second, liberals. Sheesh. Gore lost 191,000 self-described liberals to Bush, compared to less than 34,000 who voted for Nader. 

If the Supreme Court was such a vital part of the message to Democrats to elect Gore, why did over 300,000 registered Florida Democrats vote for Bush instead?  Did they miss the memo?  Did they defy the exhortations of thousands of their fellow Democrats, from Barbra Streisand on down?  Were they just, as so many people have delighted in saying about Florida Democrats in 2000, stupid?

What about those 191K who self-identify as 'liberal" Democrats?  What in the world was going on inside those people's brains?

I've not been able to track down -- in a decade of searching -- a single solitary response from the Blame Nader crowd, or anybody else for that matter, as to why these folks cast a ballot for Bush and not Gore.  I know they've never been appropriately held to account for Gore's defeat, while Nader's 90,000 or so votes always are.  Which begs the next question: how is it that Nader's votes are assumed to belong to Democrats, when more than triple that number of Ds can run off the reservation and vote Republican without consequence?  Whatever conclusions we might draw, one thing seems certain: "SCOTUS" was obviously not an important enough reason for them to vote for their own party's nominee, no matter what Barbra Streisand said.

(Sidebar: "SCOTUS" is a tenuous argument also because so many Justices have not turned out to be the "slam dunks" John Sununu, to use one example, predicted David Souter would be.  Hillary Clinton will likely appoint judges whom she believes most closely resemble her own mushy middle, corporate-styled centrism: Merrick Garland, Sri Srinivasan, Amy Klobuchar.  We're more likely to see those political types grow more conservative than liberal as the years pass.)

I suspect to the chagrin of Hillary supporters everywhere that history may be repeating itself in 2016.  It might be that the old and tired arguments to vote for the moderate Democrat against the freak-right fascist might carry even less weight than they have in elections past.  Let's establish clearly that a Trump presidency would be a disaster for all of us, irrespective of our class and/or privilege.

But it is still not a good enough reason for progressive Democrats -- who have been bullied and defrauded from start to finish in the just-completed primary -- to abandon their principles, pinch their noses, and avert disaster on behalf of others.  If Clinton is to win the Sanders bloc, she's going to have to do so without the standard guilt and shaming.  She and her supporters are going to have to come up with some more intelligent reasons for people to vote for her.

I don't see it happening, but they have a few final shots at it.  If they want to take them, that is.

The Daily Jackasses: "Anti-science pandering"

Did you know there was a massive group of voters out there just waiting to have their concerns acknowledged by a political party?  Like the renowned Chupacabra, the existence of the formidable Anti-Science Caucus by a couple of Hillbots has been exposed.

Kris Banks and Allan Brain, fairly devoted Democrats in the fine Blue Dog/Houston tradition, have made certain that everyone is aware of this terrible development by interpreting the words of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein's views as ... well, as the headline above indicates.

(These guys don't often make their FB posts public, and they may delete this one or block me eventually -- which is why I'll edit this post with screenshots if they do -- so go look and read while you can, and while their "friends" are chiming in.  Importance of full context and all that.)

Let's begin at the beginning.  Back in March, a Reddit began on this topic, and a rabid tome added there took off like Zika among the haters of the Green.  A couple of weeks ago, someone brought it to my attention and I responded in the comments of this post, reprinted below.

I read the Reddit; you are mistaken. She is NOT anti-vax. The WORST characterization you could imply is that she is "pro-choice" for parents about vaccinations (which might be a problem if there were only public schools in the nation).

1. All 50 states have a parental waiver of some kind, be it medical, religious, philosophical, or all three (like Texas). Forty-seven plus DC allow a religious exemption.

You want to argue egregious, start there.

2. This astronomer makes your case better than any I've read, for what it's worth (and is certainly closer to my own view). And schools have the right to ban students who haven't been vaccinated, particularly when there's an outbreak in their district, because of the legal liability they risk.

3. Anyway, Luddites mostly home-school these days -- when they can't afford to send their unvaccinated children to a private school, that is.

4. Stein is also an MD, which is to say that she knows more about these things than people who post to Reddit or comment on blogs or Google up someone's screed.

5. The bottom line is that you simply cannot force parents to vaccinate their children.

6. Because Stein is not strongly-enough-pro-vax for you is not the same thing as being anti-vax. That's the Brockolli part.

So the issue seemed resolved ... until David Brock and his compensated minions got busy with the propaganda catapult last week.  Then Snopes weighed in, first with "Unproven" and revised just yesterday with "False".  You'd think that would have settled the matter, but there's this thing about lies being repeated often enough, you know.

(If you wish to understand precisely what the issue and the problem is in Texas, Anna Dragsbaek at TribTalk has your explainer.  There may be some side-eye at Stein mashed up in there but unlike the Jackasses I'll not read too much into it; Dragsbaek makes the points that need to be made.)

That brings us to Wonkette, a late addition to this morning's other two Jackasses.  If you're Banks, Brain, some of their friends or any other Hillbot looking to justify your festering resentment at this cycle's surge of the third party candidates, there you go.

Where the whole pandering premise fails is at its foundation: there simply aren't enough people in the Anti-Vax Caucus to help Stein register so much as a blip higher in the polls, much less put her in the White House.  I shouldn't have to remind anybody that she's focusing on disillusioned Democrats, aka Berners, a much larger target.

There's no pandering because there's statistically nobody to pander to.  This is simply a sad attempt by Blue Dogs and Yellow Dogs looking to cast a smear in her direction.  Because that 3% or 5% of the popular vote, max, that Stein stands to collect is more than enough to aggravate the longest-running horror show orthodox Democrats torture themselves with: Hillary will be "Nader-ed" in a battleground state, just like Al Gore in Florida in 2000, the PTSD from which yesterday's poor Jackass still suffers.  And so they are compelled to lash out, like the man who comes home from work after a tongue-lashing from the boss and kicks his cat.

Whaddaya gon' do when grownups who claim to be the smarter of the two major party's voters are scared of monsters under their bed?  Shit, I'm so old I remember when Bill White was afraid that Barack Obama might endorse him in his bid for Texas governor in 2010.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Update: Socratic Gadfly distills it as well.  There are honest objections to hold if people want to do the depth of thinking about them.  None of today's Jackasses managed that; it wasn't their intention to do much thinking anyway.

Update II: And yet more nuance on this topic.  It's perfectly okay with me for people to disagree with a candidate's stand on an issue, but it is duplicitous to put words in her mouth and then condemn those words (i.e. strawman).

The Weekly Wrangle

Off the Kuff wrote about the latest voting rights lawsuit in the state of Texas.

"The Daily Jackass", a new series beginning at PDiddie's Brains and Eggs, spotlights the unhinged, unsubstantiated rants of hard-boiled Democrats who hold something hostile against Jill Stein and the Green Party.  The first Jackass featured is Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer.

SocraticGadfly, after defending Donald Trump from conspiratorial accusations of being a Manchurian Candidate, eventually fesses up to being a Manchurian Blogger.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme says kudos to McAllen for policing their police force. Power requires responsibility and accountability.

Neil at All People Have Value notes that the NFL keeps on lying about how football causes concussions at the youth football level. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

US Rep. Michael Burgess held a town hall meeting in Lewisville, reports the Texan-Journal.

Asian American Action Fund celebrates the election of Rep. Grace Meng to DNC vice-chair.

In the wake of the DNC convention, Christina Gleason at MOMocrats offers a primer on how to reach out to disaffected Bernie Sanders supporters.

Texas Leftist was thrilled to see Broadway's brightest lights unite for Orlando at the DNC to sing "What the World Needs Now".

And in more music news, Dos Centavos posted about The Krayolas' two new tunes, “Piñata Trump” and “El Cucuy”.

Texas Vox writes about Austin's energy rate case and its environmental impacts.

=================

These blogs are also keeping Texas great (no makeover necessary).

TFN Insider sees former SBOE's Cynthia Dunbar making a poor case for her company's seriously-flawed Mexican American studies textbook.

Ashton Woods at Strength in Numbers made a point about Greg Abbott's support of the Black Lives Matter movement by calling for a new law to make it a hate crime if a police officer is killed in the line of duty.

An intoxicated former Somervell County deputy discharged his weapon while shouting racial epithets inside an Ellis County church, notes the Salon.

Space City Weather lets us a breathe a sigh of relief as the first tropical disturbance of the hurricane season seems to be veering away from Texas.

The Fort Wort Star-Telegram, via Sayfie Review Texas, marks today as the first in Texas that concealed handguns are allowed on university campuses.

The Texas Tribune points out that as Texas Democrats left Philadelphia for home, they do so with very few electoral prospects.

Anna Dragsbaek objects to "conscientious" vaccine exemptions.

Brantley Hightower considers the evolution of Whataburger's architecture.

The Bloggess explains how Pokemon Go helps her with her anxiety and agoraphobia.

Eileen Smith makes a triumphant return to blogging.

Paradise In Hell is excited by recent archaeological finds at the Alamo.

And Pages of Victory isn't 'feeling the Johnson'.

#GNCinHOU readies for kickoff

Before we send up the profile of the two local Daily Jackasses today -- previewed at the end of yesterday's DJ -- here's some good news to report.  (Not for them, I suspect.)

Nina Turner, former Democratic state senator from Cleveland and high profile Bernie Sanders supporter, has confirmed that she’s received an offer from the Green Party to run for Vice President under Jill Stein. Turner said that she is still considering the offer to cleveland.com today in a telephone interview.

Both Stein and Turner have become rallying figures for Bernie Sanders supporters who have become disenchanted by the Democratic party and the Clinton campaign.

Turner was at the center of controversy last week when her previously scheduled speech nominating Bernie Sanders for President was cancelled by the Democratic National Convention at the last minute. A small rally protesting her treatment by the Democrats was held on Wednesday involving Hollywood actors Rosario Dawson, Susan Surandon, and Danny Glover. Some Sanders delegates at the DNC even pushed to nominate Turner for Vice President as an alternative to Senator Tim Kaine.

The Green Party holds its convention in Houston starting this Thursday, so Turner’s answer to the Stein campaign’s invitation is expected within the next few days.

Check the #ImWithNina hashtag for more background, or the new #RunNinaRun one for the latest, trending as this is posted.

Even if Turner takes a pass (which I kind of expect; it's very difficult to transition from Blue to Green in a matter of months), the media has been alerted, and the one thing that's still missing from this weekend's convention is some corporate teevee coverage, even in limited amount.  Like grinding out ballot access, it's hard work getting the talking heads to talk about something besides the 'he said/she said' BS.

These developments are making Shrillary Democrats nervous, and the very first 'Daily Jackass' has made travel plans to be in town this weekend.  Looking forward to welcoming you to the convention, Chris!  Are you one of the "anonymous" registrants on the media credentialing page?  We don't want you to have to pay the buck fifty to get in -- I know how tight the Observer's budget is -- so check with me at the registration table on Thursday morning if you have problems.

Perhaps we should all be aware that it's now legal to carry a concealed weapon on Texas university campuses as of today.  I'm certain it's just an unfortunate coincidence that it comes on the anniversary of one of the Lone Star State's most infamous gun violence legacies.

Half a century ago, a sniper perched on a University of Texas tower unleashed a killing spree that left 16 dead, and for the first time since then the school will hold an official memorial for an event that shocked the nation.

But overshadowing the anniversary of the Aug. 1, 1966 tower shooting is the start of a new law backed by Republican lawmakers to allow more guns in more places at public universities. 

The lawmakers say the "campus carry" law, which goes into effect August 1, could prevent another mass shooting, while many survivors of the university tower shooting half a century ago see it as a chillingly wrong-headed approach that could spark more killing. 

The campus carry law allows those over 21 with a concealed handgun permit to take guns into classrooms and several parts of the campus.

Probably a good idea to keep disruptions to a minimum, yes?