What will Democrats do when they can’t campaign as the “least-worst” option, then shame and blame anyone who dares to vote Green? Greens are running against incumbent Democrats in three California congressional races with no Republican bogeymen in sight. The names of all three Greens will appear right alongside the Democrats’ names on the November ballot, so voters will readily see that they have a choice besides writing in their cat, their cousin, a Green, or some other marginalized candidate. In Districts 13, 34, and 40, there’ll be no Republicans, no least-worst Democrats, and no excuse for shame and blame. In these races Democrats have to make their case on its own merits instead of arguing that Green voters risk electing a Republican and should therefore suffer eternal damnation.The argument that anyone to the left of Donald Trump owes their vote to a Democrat, no matter how despicable, has always been stupid and arrogant, but in these races it’s not even relevant.
“In these races Democrats have to make their case on its own merits.”
Want Medicare-for-All? Free public college tuition and the cancelation of student debt? Sustainable energy and agriculture? Economic human rights? The end of homelessness, gentrification, mass incarceration, and police and border militarization? Want to stop the wars, close the empire of bases, radically cut the military budget, and repurpose resources to meet human needs and build sustainable infrastructure? Want to live in a world where everyone has dignity and purpose, and society respects and protects the life of every individual? No problem if that’s what you’d like to say with your vote in November and you live in the Golden State’s Districts 13, 34, and 40. There’s no need to vote for the least of what you want or against the worst of what you fear. You can vote your conscience by voting Green—for Laura Wells in D13, Kenneth Mejia in D34, or Rodolfo Cortes Barragan in D40.
California Districts 13, 34, and 40 are so solidly Democratic that no Republicans bothered to pay the $1740 filing fee or gather the 2000 signatures required to put their name on the ballot. Green candidate Laura Wells advanced to the general election by handily winning the write-in vote against Republican, Libertarian, and American Independent write-in candidates.
There are real choices and we need to have more of them.
We'll have to battle a lot of stupid to get there. Stupid like this idiot:
- Why would @Ocasio2018 associate herself with @SusanSarandon who helped creating this mess? We wouldn’t have to march, protest and worry every night what’s going to happen next if we had our #legitimatePresident @HillaryClinton right now! #Onward #Resist #Insist #Persist #Enlist
Susan Sarandon was not going to vote for Hillary. That's reality. Grow up. She voted for who she wanted. She didn't owe Hillary a vote. And what she says there? About Hillary's record of corruption? I'm right there with her.
Kiss my Black ass if you don't like it.
Never think you own my vote because you don't.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Madeline Albright is responsible for criminal sanctions that killed over 500,000 children in #Iraq. She told “60 minutes” it was “worth the cost.” She considered the #Baath govt to be #fascist. This kind of “#antifascism” is not Progressive.
Mad Maddie Albright is the one who should come with a warning label. Her actions should have resulted in a mass shunning. Instead, she's allowed to pose as a humanitarian and someone worth listening to.
People like Maddie destroy the world and then stand around as though they have done something worthy of applause. Booing is too kind for the likes of Maddie.
Returning to the topic of the drought in Iraq, Philip Issa (AP) reports:
Iraq has banned its farmers from planting summer
crops this year as the country grapples with a crippling water shortage
that shows few signs of abating.
Citing high
temperatures and insufficient rains, Dhafer Abdalla, an adviser to
Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources, told The Associated Press that the
country has only enough water to irrigate half its farmland this summer.
But
farmers fault the government for failing to modernize how it manages
water and irrigation, and they blame neighboring Turkey for stopping up
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers behind dams it wants to keep building.
A water shortage in the summer? It's been a 118 degrees Fahrenheit day for Iraq today. And they suffer a water shortage.
The water issue is not a new one. So why didn't Hayder al-Abadi do anything over the last four years as prime minister to address the issue? Last February, some were sure that a hard summer would be avoidable due to some heavy rains that had fallen. Now that notion is so outrageous that we'll be kind and not name the non-Iraqi outlets that pimped that lie.
The big lie, of course, is that voting helps Iraq. Over and over, Iraq's prime ministers do nothing. The problems are known. They are identified. Then four years fly by and nothing has been done. Over and over this happens. Starting to grasp why so few bothered to vote last May?
#Iraq's treasured amber rice crop devastated by drought
iraqdailyjournal.com/story-z17408425
How does this happen?
As Patrick Cockburn observes, this is a human-made drought.
It did not happen overnight.
Nor was it a surprise.
In other news, Margaret Griffis (ANTIWAR.COM) notes, "Unidentified gunmen killed a top aide to Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr at his home in Najaf. Shawqi Hadad was also a commander of Saraya al-Ashura, one of the Shi’ite militias."
Moqtada's bloc came in first in the May elections. Partial recounts are currently taking place. Apparently, there are no real changes because Kirkuk is the only thing anyone's pointing to.
And any issue with Kirkuk's votes would not be a surprise. They were questioned the day of the election by the governor of Kirkuk who imposed a curfew and called for a manual recount.
So the partial recount appears to be producing no real changes.
Which means the politicians will have less excuses for foot dragging. We're now nearing two months since the election and still no government has been formed.
Lastly . . .
US Iraq war veteran: ‘To prevent veterans’ suicide, US should stop waging wars across the globe’ on.rt.com/995t
Check out the RT article.
AFP).
