The Curious Case of The Vermont Bernie Sanders Write-In

(IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THE TWISTED BACK-STORY REGARDING THE FALSE QUOTE OF JANE SANDERS AND HOW JANE PUBLICLY CAME OUT AND TOLD US THAT IT WAS OKAY TO WRITE BERNIE IN, THEN YOU CAN SCROLL DOWN TO THE SCREENSHOTS OF THE CONVERSATION WITH THE PERSON WHO INFILTRATED AND DECEIVED OUR GROUP AND SKIP THE SET-UP)

Hi,

My name is Michael E Sparks and I have spent the last year of my life trying to do everything I could to promote Bernie Sanders and the ideals he champions for our country.

I was a state and county delegate for Bernie Sanders and I have spent most of the past year traveling around to primary states canvassing on behalf of Sanders.

About a month ago I wrote THIS article, which asked people to volunteer and follow my crazy family to Vermont to convince the citizens there of what I referred to as a “Hail-Mary chance for Bernie Sanders to win the Presidency” by taking Vermont’s three electoral votes away from Hillary Clinton and forcing the Presidential race to be decided by the House of Representatives.

I stated from the beginning that it was a long shot, but for those of us who are desperate to break out of this awful Trump/Clinton conundrum, a long shot seemed infinitely better than what we felt would be certain war and hardship, if either of these two took office.

As soon as the article hit, my life became pretty chaotic.

My family and I started rearranging our work and school schedules to get to Vermont, which was pretty hectic.

Also we were contacted by an amazing group called #OpDeny270, which had the goal of organizing a Sanders write-in for the other states where a write-in victory would actually be counted.

Vermont, New Jersey, Alabama, New Hampshire, California, Oregon, Wyoming, Delaware and Iowa do not require the candidate to register in order to win a write-in campaign.

I expressed to our group that I wanted to keep our campaign separate from #OpDeny270, because time was limited and flipping a single state was already a monumental undertaking and also because most of the members of our group were Jill Stein supporters and we did not want to do anything to hurt Jill’s chances of attaining 5% of the national vote, which would qualify The Green Party for federal funding in the 2020 Presidential election and would go a long way towards our Progressive goal of busting up the corporate duopoly.

From the beginning we were very careful to be respectful of Jill Stein’s campaign.

Part of the reason why we were focusing on Vermont is that our numbers indicated that there was a very small Green Party presence there and most people were reluctantly voting for Hillary and had overwhelmingly voted for Sanders in the primary.

We crunched all the numbers beforehand, so we knew exactly what we needed to do in order to flip the state and we were absolutely positive that doing so would, in no way, hurt Jill’s chances at federal funding.

We checked the Vermont write-in laws extensively and found out that we could actually achieve our goal.

Terje Oseberg wrote a fantastic phone-banking program and imported every phone-number in Vermont into it.

People started phone-banking and Vermont residents were responding positively.

We needed to convert 25% of the state’s voters in order to achieve our goal and we were initially flipping 40%.

Terje was constantly telling us how many bankers we needed from day-to-day and really motivating people.

While waiting for my vacation time, I continued to work in my off hours canvassing for Jill Stein locally, so you can imagine my confusion when we started receiving angry responses from people claiming that they were Jill Stein supporters and that they knew that our movement was actually a plot to help Hillary Clinton.

There was no logic to the argument.

For one, I am a very public figure and everyone knows that I am a radical Sanders devotee.

I literally met thousands of Sanders and Stein supporters at the DNC protest in Philadelphia and have been interviewed by everyone from Fox News to Vox to The Washington Post regarding my passion for Bernie Sanders and the values he stands for.

The argument against our movement being for Hillary Clinton made zero sense, because getting Clinton voters to write-in Bernie Sanders was clearly intended to take Vermont away from Clinton, where she currently has a huge lead.

The entire genesis of our movement was an attempt to deprive Clinton of the Presidency and give it to Bernie Sanders, where it rightfully belonged after a rigged “Democratic” Primary.

As we began assigning volunteers and getting organized, we were hyper-conscious of being infiltrated by people who may want to sabotage our operation to insure that Clinton won Vermont.

We were not expecting to be infiltrated by anyone representing Jill Stein, because our group is full of Stein supporters and prior to the event that I am about to explain, we thought of these people as allies.

In fact, I still do feel that Stein supporters and Sanders supporters are allies.

At least I hope we are.

The events I am about to explain leave me saddened and wondering about the intentions of some of those who I thought were on our side.

It was going to be two weeks before our family could arrive in Vermont, so we needed a canvassing coordinator on the ground in Burlington.

Let me be clear, we were absolutely DESPERATE for an experienced canvasser who was already on the ground in Vermont, who could house and train our traveling canvassers.

Enter Nicole Guerin…

In the following conversation Nicole is the gray bubbles and I am the blue bubbles.

Nicole was the key to the entire operation.

She was exactly what we were looking for.

Nicole was an experienced canvasser who supported Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders.

It was a perfect match!!

As it was my job to interview the canvassing coordinator, I was extremely happy that we had found someone who was actually in Burlington, Vermont.

I immediately liked Nicole and went to the group with my recommendation that we train Nicole remotely and give her canvassing literature and allow her to train our traveling volunteers.

Then she informed us that she actually was friends with Bernie and Jane Sanders.

Nicole and I seemed to be on the same page. I was incredibly excited to recommend her to the group.

Nicole expressed concerns that the people of Vermont did not want any part of a campaign that could possibly result in a Trump Presidency.

I informed Nicole that we had changed our group mission statement, in light of Clinton taking a huge lead in the electoral college polls, after the Trump misogyny tape was released.

I told Nicole that we had reframed our mission and that we had accepted that Vermont’s three electoral votes were not going to be enough to stop Clinton, but that we really just wanted to honor Bernie Sanders for a lifetime of commitment to the people of Vermont.

Nicole agreed that this approach would work much better and I had received permission from our group to offer her the position as our canvassing coordinator (not before the higher-ups in our group asked me if I was sure that she was the “real deal” about ten times and every time I assured them that she was.)

Nicole was ecstatic.

Nicole accepted our offer and even said that she could lodge some of our traveling canvassers.

Our group celebrated.

We now had our foot in the door.

The following day, Nicole sent me this message.

 

It was a video from Claudia Stauber, someone who I have been a big fan of for a while now.

It was Claudia telling people that our movement was actually working for Hillary Clinton.

As you can imagine, we were all hurt and disappointed to hear that Claudia had been misinformed and was unknowingly spreading false information regarding our movement.

I told Nicole that our movement was not related to #OpDeny270 and that I didn’t think such a huge initiative could work and that I felt like it could interfere with Jill’s 5%.

(To my friends at #OpDeny270, I have since changed my opinion in light of the amazing work you guys are doing. I now feel that it is absolutely feasible for you guys to flip Wyoming. But I have to present the truth and the truth is that I did say that it wouldn’t work when I first head about your movement.)

At this point, things began to get interesting.

Nicole was having a crisis of conscience or at least this is what I was lead to believe.

She said that she felt bad about running a secret operation in Bernie and Jane’s backyard and wanted to talk to them about it before she went any further.

She also complimented our canvassing materials.

Nicole reminded me again, how important the Sanders’ approval was regarding our initiative.

I didn’t say anything to her, because I believed at the time that she was laboring under an intense dilemma, but I really feared that talking to Bernie would kill our initiative, because I know that he is bound by his agreement to support Hillary Clinton.

I wanted to ask her not to talk to them, but how could I?

Asking her not to talk to her “friends” would be overstepping a serious boundary.

 

Then things became strange.

As Nicole had offered her home for canvassers, I told her the days that we would be arriving and told her that we would accept her offer to use her guest room.

At this point Nicole informed me that the room was full and reiterated that she was uncomfortable running a campaign that may be against Bernie’s wishes.

I knew that Bernie would be forced by his position with the DNC to denounce the campaign, but I also knew that we were packed and on our way to Vermont in two days and we needed Nicole to feel strongly about what we were doing, so I suggested…

Nicole agreed to speak to Jane, but not to Bernie.

I supported Nicole’s choice and went to bed that night feeling scared, afraid that all of our work would be ended by a single conversation with Jane Sanders.

Nicole messaged me Sunday morning and told me that the Sanders family was not at home.

Then later that day, Nicole messaged me again and told me that she had spoken with Jane.

I nearly vomited when I saw the message.

I was so scared that we might offend Bernie and Jane in some way, when we had all worked so hard to honor them.

I sat on pins and needles for several hours until the infamous messages came in regarding Jane’s message for us to cease our movement and support the candidates who are “on the ballot”.

I was deeply saddened.

I wrote THIS article (since amended) telling everyone that our movement was over, because Jane Sanders did not approve of it.

Our volunteer group had a range of emotions.

Many were angry with me.

Many were crying and inconsolable.

I have been through some tough events in my life, including the recent death of my mother and the death of one of my children, but I was not at all prepared for the intense grief that overtook me that day.

I told my family..

“Everything aches from my stomach all the way up to my throat. I’ve never felt anything like this.”

Carrie and my daughter were also deeply saddened.

We had worked very hard to juggle our schedules to go to Vermont and thought we were doing something compassionate and decent.

Now, after receiving Nicole’s message and hearing what we believed was Jane’s request to stop the movement, I felt foolish and embarrassed.

So many had worked so hard so hard and for what?

I asked Nicole if I could “use her words” to explain to everyone why we needed to stop the movement and she said that it was okay.

Dave Weigel, at the Washington Post, had been speaking to me on the phone every couple of days and had flown into Vermont to interview me regarding our movement.

I told Nicole to go ahead and do the interview on my behalf.

Nicole told Dave Weigel that there was “no story” and that the movement was over.

This is the part where Nicole said that it was okay to use her words to let people know that our movement was over.

I thanked Nicole for speaking with Jane Sanders and told our group that the movement was over.

Our group unanimously said that they would continue on the movement with or without me.

I told them that I admired their spirit, but that I had already canceled my trip to Vermont and that we had all contacted work and school and told them that we would be in as originally planned.

It was an incredibly chaotic turn of events for our family and for our volunteers.

Nicole informed me that she was grieving too.

I thanked Nicole again for her efforts.

Nicole read my article and told me that she was not comfortable with me going public with her words.

She then told me that she went back to talk to Jane Sanders and that Jane had told her that I shouldn’t use her words.

At the time, I thought this was kind of odd, but as I was grieving, I told myself that I was just reading too much into it.

I reminded Nicole that she had given me permission to use her words.

I told Nicole that I did not feel that it was right to summarize, especially when she had given me permission to “use her words”.

Nicole told me that she visited Jane a third time.

I told Nicole that I was upset about all the misinformation coming from Stein supporters on our efforts and she agreed that it had been ugly.

I told her that the whole thing had soured me on The Green Party, but I still planned to vote for Jill.

And those  was the last words that Nicole and I spoke to each other.

Jane Sanders tweeted and said that the conversations were fabricated.

The people in our movement were incredibly angry.

Nicole immediately left our volunteer group.

I told the group members that we had to give Nicole 24 hours to tell her side of the story and we would not make any public statement until that time.

We asked Nicole publicly to make a statement and she did not respond.

Then someone sent us this.

Notice the date, October 13, around the time that Nicole said that she needed to talk to the Sanders family about our movement.

And then of course, Jane Sanders graciously came out and let the world know that Nicole had been lying to our group all along.

Once again, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jane for letting us know that our movement was accepted and for giving us permission to follow our hearts and write in Bernie Sanders on our ballots.

Sadly it appears as if Nicole infiltrated our efforts and fed us lies.

I take full responsibility for this, as I am the one who trusted her and told others to trust her.

I find it deeply troubling that people who we felt were on our same team, went to such great efforts to undermine weeks of work from people who wanted nothing more than to honor Bernie Sanders and his lifetime of fighting for our collective rights.

Has the left become so fractured that Jill Stein supporters are going to great efforts to undermine Bernie Sanders supporters?

And if so, who wins?

The establishment wins! That’s who!!

We all know what it has been like dealing with Hillary Clinton’s deceptive Super-PAC, Correct the Record and now it seems that the victims of these tactics have began using them on others who are on the same team.

And for what?

We made no effort to change the minds of Stein voters in Vermont.

We only tried to flip the Hillary voters to write-in Bernie.

Why would anyone attack such a pure and honest movement?

Apparently we are not alone.

Our friends at #OpDeny270 sent us this (you will have to click it, as every time I enlarged it, the script became too blurry to read).

They say that this is a phone-banking script that some Stein supporters were using to undermine our efforts in Vermont.

I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this script and I am not interested in pursuing some sick war with other people who share the same Progressive values as we do.

I do not think that a war between Stein supporters and Sanders supporters is advantageous to our collective cause, so I would like to take this opportunity to ask that we all take a breath and rejoin forces against the establishment.

When elephants fight, the grass suffers.

I am quick to forgive, but in light of this new information, I will be focusing exclusively on Bernie Sanders Write-in and down-ballot candidates.

I know that Jill Stein did not put anyone up to this.

I know that all candidates attract all kinds of people.

But this event has left lots of people deeply injured.

I would expect something like this from those who support Hillary Clinton.

I never expected anything like this from those who support Jill Stein.

Addendum: After our story was released last night, Nicole released a statement admitting guilt and apologizing.

I have empathy for Nicole and it was very difficult for me to go forward with this story, but our group was implicated in something that we were innocent in and the people deserved to know the truth.

We all wish Nicole all the best going forward and we are grateful for her for being an adult and owning up to her actions.

We encourage ALL people who are not happy with their ballot choices to write-in Bernie Sanders as a protest to a rigged election.

Regardless of who you vote for in the Presidential race, please vote in Progressives in all down-ballot races.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Sanders DID NOT SAY To Not Write-In Bernie Sanders

JANE SANDERS NEVER SAID NOT TO WRITE IN BERNIE SANDERS.

WE WERE FED MISINFORMATION FROM SOMEONE WHO HAD INFILTRATED OUR RANKS AND GAINED OUR TRUST.

THE STORY OF HOW THAT HAPPENED CAN BE FOUND HERE.

THE VERMONT BERNIE SANDERS WRITE-IN IS STILL ON AND WE ENCOURAGE ALL PEOPLE WHO ARE UNHAPPY WITH THEIR BALLOT CHOICES TO WRITE-IN BERNIE SANDERS NAME AS A MEANS OF PROTESTING THIS RIGGED ELECTION.

Here is the original story, with the false quote removed.

It’s a chilly overcast day here in Indiana and I just received some news that was kind of devastating.

And just to be clear, it was politically devastating, not REAL LIFE devastating.

Everyone in our home is happy and healthy, as we all grope along slowly, trying to deal with the craziness that life throws at us from day-to-day.

My family is giving me a lot of space.

Occasionally Carrie comes up to me and squeezes my shoulder and then drifts away.

They know how I am.

They know how personally I take all of this.

I drove to the coffee shop with my laptop and sat down to break the news, tears resting just behind my eyes.

My lap-top is covered in “Ask me about Bernie Sanders” stickers.

As I opened it up, a little black boy came up to me, maybe 10 years old and said..

“I’m mad about Bernie!!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’m mad that he’s not in the election anymore. I love Bernie Sanders. I’m mad about it!!”

As I fought back tears, I was able to choke out an ironic smile, swallow hard and find the words..

“I’m mad too.” I said.

I was hesitant to tell you about the little kid, because it sounds made up, but that really happened to me, just now, sitting here in Indiana and I know it’s politically incorrect to point out that the kid was black, but that’s relevant to me for a million tiny reasons.

Because wasn’t that one of the lies they told about Bernie?

They said that black people didn’t like him.

They said it was just a bunch of young white kids and that our movement wasn’t real.

So when a little black boy in Indiana comes up to me and says that he is “Mad about Bernie.” it means something to me.

It’s why I scrapped the entire opening to this article and just wrote down what happened instead.

Because “I’m mad about Bernie.” too.

I’m really incredibly angry about it.

And it sucks to see our voices taken from us.

And it sucks to see our movement divided and watered down.

And it sucks to be told a million times a day that I should vote for Hillary Clinton because that’s what Bernie asked me to do or that I should “grow a spine” and vote for Jill Stein because she has a “similar platform”, never mind that one candidate cheated millions of people who I care about out of a fair election and the other is running a campaign that is simply not very organized and not nearly as effective as it could have been.

But all of that will shake out on November 8 and I still have not even begun to explain why my heart is spinning at 33 1/3 rpm today…

Today we were headed to Vermont to canvass for Bernie Sanders.

A few weeks ago I wrote a quirky little article about how Bernie Sanders could win Vermont and theoretically throw the election into the House of Representatives, force a second round of voting and then have the new House vote him in to become the President of the United States.

I didn’t discover the idea, Dawn Papple did.

My article just called people to action and the idea spread more rapidly than I ever thought possible.

I did a lot of research before I wrote the article and if you understand the intricacies of how the House would have most-likely voted, you would have seen that Sanders had a way better chance of winning this way, than I initially stated.

I’m incredibly honored that so many people read the article.

My goal is to be an activist writer.

I want to develop a large enough group that we can direct our legions correcting the injustices we see in our country.

I want the establishment to fear our collective voice.

I want to carry on Sanders’ movement through collective activism and apparently it’s working, because in between the thousands of people telling us we could never do it, other people started to actually volunteer.

We worked hard behind the scenes in hidden Internet groups, screening out potential saboteurs and checking people’s past volunteering to see if they were legitimate.

We were actually concerned about the Clinton campaign finding out about our movement and trying to block it. In fact there were a few people who contacted us asking questions, pretending to be volunteers, that actually worked for the Democratic Party.

It was pretty exciting, being in a secret underground movement, but also it produced a lot of anxiety.

On top of dealing with fears of Clinton sabotaging our efforts, we were getting tons of anger from Jill Stein supporters, which was really frustrating seems how we ARE(!!) Jill Stein supporters and our movement’s official position was to encourage people to vote Stein in every state but Vermont, a state with only a few hundred thousand voters, specifically targeted as to NOT interfere with our goal to get Jill to 5% nationally, so the Green Party would get federal funding in the next election cycle!!!

We were getting attacked from all sides, which of course meant that we were actually onto something, but it was also very stressful.

But we ventured forth, thanks to our incredible team of volunteers.

We actually developed a cool little system where we would coordinate traveling canvassers with Vermont residents for shelter, someone wrote a phone-banking program that was just as good as the one we used on Bernie’s site and imported every phone-number in Vermont into it…

And PEOPLE WERE ACTUALLY PHONE-BANKING!!!

We had an amazing canvassing coordinator on the ground in Burlington and others en route from around the country to help knock on doors.

We even had The Washington Post flying into Burlington to write a story about our initiative.

We had well-written, simple to understand, literature to pass out to people and most importantly we had an incredibly high success rate of voter conversion.

40% of the people we spoke to in Vermont preferred writing-in Bernie Sanders over voting for any other candidate!!

Our movement was peaking at just the right time.

Our goal was to get the population converted in the last week before the election, so that the Clinton campaign wouldn’t have time to react.

Everything was perfect!!

Except for one thing..

Bernie didn’t want it.

He told us so.

And although I am rebelling against Bernie in my refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton, I really don’t feel comfortable showing up in his back yard and pissing him off.

If Bernie Sanders yelled at me, I’m pretty sure I would burst into tears.

To be honest, Bernie didn’t tell us.

It was Jane who told us that Bernie doesn’t want this.

Our canvassing trainer has been close friends with Bernie and Jane for her entire life.

So even though she was out canvassing with her team and getting positive responses, in her heart, a feeling of dread was growing.

“What if Bernie didn’t appreciate what we were doing? What if her lifetime friend became upset with her over our ‘gift’?”

Last week, she shared these fears with me and said that she wanted to talk to Bernie about this before we went any further.

I told her that Bernie would be forced to stand against our movement, due to his position with the DNC and I asked her if she would be willing to speak with Jane Sanders instead.

She agreed and headed over to visit Jane on Sunday afternoon, as I sat here in Indianapolis, with my traveling canvassing crew (my poor kids and my incredibly patient girlfriend) waiting to hear if we were hitting the road or not.

Here is what she said…

(THIS SECTION HAS BEEN REMOVED. PREVIOUSLY THIS WAS A SUMMATION OF A MESSAGE THAT OUR CANVASSING COORDINATOR, NICOLE GUERIN IN VERMONT HAD SENT ME THAT BASICALLY SAID THAT JANE SANDERS WAS ASKING US TO STOP OUR WRITE-IN CAMPAIGN FOR BERNIE SANDERS.

JANE SANDERS HAS SINCE TWEETED AND DENIED THAT THIS CONVERSATION EVER HAPPENED!!

I APOLOGIZE TO JANE FOR OUR SOURCE BEING INCORRECT.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON AT THIS TIME.

AS EVENT COME TO LIGHT OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS AND WE FIND OUT MORE, ALL WILL BE REVEALED.

AT THIS TIME IT SEEMS THAT OUR ORGANIZATION WAS INFILTRATED BY THE MEMBER OF A RIVAL CANDIDATE IN AN ATTEMPT TO SABOTAGE OUR WRITE-IN CAMPAIGN.

WE WILL KNOW MORE IN THE COMING DAYS.)

So that’s that.

We offered a gift that is not wanted.

We are trying to force something that is not there.

We are misguided in our efforts.

I’ve had so much anxiety about traveling to Vermont.

All these canvassing trips we made in the past year scared the hell out of me and I thought we were done with it.

I was hoping to move into the acceptance phase of my grief and here I was heading out to canvass for Bernie one last time, reopening the wound.

But he doesn’t want it.

At a certain point I have to accept that I am just a crazy person when the very person I’m fighting for tells me that my methods are not a good idea.

Activism without proper guidance is destructive.

The road to hell being paved with good intentions and all..

So we unloaded the car.

We aren’t going to Vermont.

Everyone is relieved and sad.

Because this is more than just the end of our crazy little movement.

This is the end of the denial phase of my grief.

Bernie Sanders isn’t going to be President and “I’m mad about it.”

But I’m also incredibly sad about it and I know that you are too.

Or maybe you are of the mindset that Jill Stein will save us.

I’m envious of you if you believe that.

I once believed it too.

But those feelings will have to be addressed in another article.

For now, I will just say that I really think you should vote for Jill Stein if you believe in her platform.

And if you really want to write Bernie in, then it’s your vote.

But he would prefer that you didn’t.

And whomever you vote for, I beg you to stop fighting with others who see things differently from you.

I know you are “mad about Bernie.”

We all are.

Let’s all take our collective rage out on the down-ballot Republicans and vote them out of office on November 8, so Bernie Sanders can be head of the House Budget Committee.

There is still a way that we can win.

But it won’t be from writing him in.

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A Close Friend of Mine is Voting for Hillary Clinton

The woman who picks up my kids for school every morning is voting for Hillary Clinton.

We have a system.

She drops them off in the morning.

I pick them up in the afternoon.

It saves both of us money and it lessens our carbon footprint.

Because, you know, we care about those things, being as we are both liberals and all.

Did I mention that this woman is voting for Hillary Clinton?

Crazy, right?

And I don’t trust just anyone with my kids.

My friend is incredibly trustworthy.

She’s an awesome human being and I care very deeply about her.

We’ve been close for a long time.

We watched each other’s kids grow up.

She’s like a member of my family and I’m like a member of hers.

I love my friend.

Did I mention that she is voting for Hillary Clinton?

Yeah. I know, right? What’s up with that?

I mean, how can you be a decent human being and support someone who is pure evil?

I was wondering that as well.

So I asked her.

You might imagine that my friend was once a Bernie supporter and now she is following Sanders’ request to vote for Hillary to defeat the evil Donald Trump.

You might imagine that she is “holding her nose and voting for Hillary”.

You might imagine that, being as she is such a close friend of mine, that she actually hates Hillary Clinton, but is just falling on the grenade to keep the Supreme Court from being all up in her uterus for the next 40 years.

You’d be wrong.

She’s freaking crazy about Hillary Clinton!!

My friend works for the government and has been following Clinton for years.

When she lived in D.C. she actually met Hillary and shook her hand.

She has a Hillary sign in her front yard!!

She used to hide it when I came over, but then I told her…

“I don’t hide my Bernie sign. You don’t need to hide your Hillary sign.”

Before our state’s primary (which Bernie won) I made several efforts to speak with my friend about Bernie Sanders, but she became upset each time and for a while she stopped speaking to me altogether.

That was probably for the best.

It probably saved our friendship.

I’m kind of radical about Bernie Sanders.

After Bernie dropped out and endorsed Hillary (GRRRRR!!!), I asked her if she was ready to have The Talk, the talk that ALL Sanders supporters must have with their Hillary friend(s) if there is any hope of the friendship returning to its previous form.

There are YUGE fundamental differences between Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters.

I can be friends with anyone, but if you vote for Hillary Clinton, then there is always going to be an elephant (or a donkey) in the room of our friendship and we are going to have to talk about it.

Because on the surface it would seem that I am in support of universal healthcare and you oppose it and the idea that poor people don’t deserve the same rights as the wealthy is deeply offensive to me.

Without sitting down with you, I would probably never be able to understand how you support fracking, when I am so radically opposed to it.

I’m going to need to hear your thoughts on this.

As a Clinton supporter, I would gather that you support big corporations running our government and I am violently in opposition to this above all, so I’d like to hear your reasoning on that subject as well.

Also, I’d love to hear your thinking on why you believe that it’s okay to lie to the American people repeatedly and hide your Wall Street transcripts, because I know that you are a super-smart person and I’ve always thought of you as extremely ethical.

And I know that you don’t want to see our children murdered in some billionaire’s war, so why is it that you support a candidate who wants to install a no-fly zone over Syria, a move that will likely lead to war with Russia.

I mean, you knew about all these things, right?

You have the Internet and know how to use a search engine, right?

And you actually want to know the policies of the person you are voting for, right?

I don’t want to overwhelm you.

I’ve got literally hundreds of concerns about your candidate and I need to know how you can feel good about voting for a woman who takes millions from the fossil-fuel industry and has no real plan to deal with climate change.

So can we talk?

Because right now, I’m feeling like I don’t even know you.

And I’d hate to let something as trivial as the fate of the entire world come between us.

Like I said, my friend is awesome.

She invited me over..

She was very cordial…

She poured the wine..

 

And we talked.

My friend agreed that healthcare is a right, not a privilege.

“So why didn’t you vote for Bernie?” I asked.

“Because Hillary is fighting for universal healthcare too.”

“No, she isn’t! In fact she said that it would NEVER happen!”

“She NEVER said that!”

I obnoxiously pulled out my phone and showed her the video.

“Well it must be out of context. Hillary would NEVER say that. Look, my main reason for supporting Hillary is that she supports equality for women. Women do not get equal pay and Hillary will address that, as well as other important women’s issues.”

I thought about bringing up Berta Caceres and other women who died as a result of Hillary’s foreign policy.

I considered bringing up the fact that Hillary Clinton basically starved over a million single mothers and their children when she gutted funding to the Children’s Defense Fund.

I thought about Jill Stein’s brilliant argument that when you make things harder on poor people, that you disproportionately hurt women.

I thought about Camille Paglia‘s points about how Hillary is anti-feminist and Bernie Sanders is a true feminist.

Finally I said…

“Then why did she pay her female employees .72 on the dollar compared to her male employees when she was Secretary of State?”

“No she DID NOT!!” my friend exclaimed.

“Would you like to see the evidence?”

“No, because it never happened.”

“It will take me five seconds.”

“I’ll research it on my own.”

“Will you?” I asked.

“No. Because it never happened.” she said.

We moved on to discussing TPP.

“Oh yeah! Hillary’s against that!” my friend said.

“She co-wrote it and toured the world selling it to other countries!!”

“But then she realized that it was a bad trade agreement and she came out against it.”

“Publicly, she did, but there are emails showing her pressuring Democratic Congressional members to pass it and then Obama sealed the emails, but I have the articles. Would you like to see them?”

“I don’t believe that, Michael.” she said exasperated.

“Well I have proof. Would you like to see it?”

“I’ll look it up on my own sometime.”

“Well you won’t find it on corporate media. Obama sealed the emails.”

“I just don’t believe that, Michael.”

“Okay fine. A year from now, when she is trying to push it through, I’m coming over.”

“Fine. You do that.”

“I will.”

“Good for you.”

“Bad for America. I won’t be happy when I’m right.”

The conversation went on like this for a while.

I talked policy and my friend agreed that Bernie’s policy was perfect, but then told me that Hillary supported the same policy.

When I tried to show her evidence that this was not true, she had no interest in looking at it.

She repeatedly regaled me with stories of how Hillary had overcome tough obstacles in her life.

There was the time when Bill had ran for some office and lost and became depressed and wasn’t bringing home any income, so Hillary had to take a job she didn’t like to support Chelsea.

It was as if she thought Hillary was waiting tables during the day and pole-dancing at night.

She truly believed that Hillary Clinton was some kind of rags to riches story.

To her, Hillary was the American dream wrapped in a pantsuit.

“Where did you get these stories?” I asked.

“Oh, I read her book.” she said.

“Oh, okay.” I said.

And there we sat, wasting time, speaking different languages.

I get my news from The Intercept and  The Guardian.

She gets hers from CNN.

There was no Lexis…no common ground.

She thinks I’m a Bernie-bro and I think she is uninformed.

What it really comes down to is that my friend sees herself in Hillary Clinton and that’s why she voted for her and will do so again and no amount of inconvenient facts will deter her.

It’s more about identity politics, than policy and there is some kind of sorting device that rest just inside the ear of the Hillary Clinton supporter that takes all criticisms against her and files them into one of two categories.

Either they are right-wing conspiracies designed to take down this model of feminism or Hillary actually did it, but “sometimes women just have to do things that they don’t want to for the greater good.”

With this line of thinking, Clinton is always the hero or the victim.

She has fostered some kind of faux feminism that pulls in angry women of a certain age, who feel like they have lived similar lives.

Never mind that Clinton wouldn’t throw her Fiji water on my friend if she were on fire.

My friend is convinced that Hillary’s fake victory is somehow HER victory.

Just as your ignorant, racist uncle has been duped into believing that billionaire, Donald Trump truly understands his problems, millions of mildly annoyed suburban women will proudly march into the voting booth and fill in that little oval unknowingly supporting genocide abroad and feel like they are true feminists.

And while I love my friend and would do anything for her, I probably won’t ever completely get over this.

Every time I see Hillary ship more young people off to die and murder the innocent for financial gain, I will think of my friend.

When I see trade agreements pass that will continue to destroy the middle-class and ship American jobs overseas, I will think of my friend.

And each time I see Hillary lie, I will think about how my friend is eating up that lie and enjoying it, because it makes her feel good about the choice she made to support women everywhere.

Alas, despite differences in politics, I am grateful for my friend.

I am grateful for the insight she gives me into the mind of the Hillary Clinton supporter.

She’s a really good person.

It’s just that she has chosen to stay ignorant on this one subject that is very important to me.

And considering how miserable this entire election has been..

I almost wish that I had chosen that path as well.

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What Are Jill Stein’s ACTUAL Poll Numbers?

I wanted to take a moment to address some rumors that have been circulating involving the corporate media lying about Jill Stein’s poll numbers.

There is actually a way that you can check polling numbers against donations, that are declared by the candidate, in order to see how accurate the poll numbers are.

It is no wonder that so many distrust corporate media, after the way they manipulated information in favor of Hillary Clinton in her race against Bernie Sanders.

By and large corporate media are not to be trusted, but when it comes to polling, they are historically quite accurate and in the case of Jill Stein, because she doesn’t accept money from corporations, you can actually gauge her popularity by looking at her donations, much in the same way you could with Bernie Sanders.

First, we need to establish that the magic number is 5%.

5% of the vote is what is needed for the Green Party to receive federal funding in the 2020 Presidential election cycle.

This would mean that the Green Party would receive somewhere between $10-$20 million, in the next cycle, which would give them a huge advantage in their attempts to compete with the two corporate parties.

Now that we recognize how incredibly important it is to vote for Jill Stein in this election, let’s see where she actually stands currently.

In 2012 Jill Stein ran for President and received just shy of 1% of the vote and raised just shy of $1 million dollars.

We see in the above Open Secrets chart that Jill has raised nearly twice that in her current Presidential run.

As Jill’s donations tend to run fairly commiserate with her poll numbers we can extrapolate that for every million dollars that Stein’s campaign raises her poll numbers will go up one point.

So if Jill Stein raised $1,000,000 in 2012 and was at 1%, then Jill Stein would be at 2% currently, because she has raised approximately $2,000,000 in this cycle.

But don’t despair, a recent upsurge in Stein donations shows her to be at nearly $3,000,000 at present day (this article was written on October 9) so Jill Stein should be polling at around 3%.

Corporate media polling shows her at 4%.

So the formula holds up.

Let’s remember, the ALL IMPORTANT number is 5%.

Without that, she will not get federal funding in the next election.

Although I submit that corporate media is not to be trusted, in this case, it is the people who tell you that Stein is really polling competitively, who are actually causing the most damage to her campaign.

If people believe that Stein is polling at higher rankings then she actually is, then they will be less likely to phone-bank and canvass for her.

If people are expecting Stein to actually win the Presidential election and then on November 8 they see that she only pulls a small percentage of the vote, they are likely to think that the voting was rigged and that there is no point to continuing on with politics.

They will walk away with a bad taste in their mouth and that would be extremely unfortunate to lose Progressives to apathy.

It is much better to know where we actually stand and be able to take massive action.

Right now is a very important time for the Green Party going forward.

There is only one month left before election day and if all Stein supporters can get out and knock on some doors, then the Green Party will hit the 5% and qualify for federal funding during the next cycle.

The next time someone tells you that corporate media is lying about Jill’s polling numbers, simply go and look at the financial data that HER CAMPAIGN has supplied and you will have a pretty good gauge of where she is at.

If you are anything like me, your radical leftist politics have left you in a social media echo-chamber.

This happens to people who are outspoken about their political views.

Those who disagree often are afraid to speak up, so they stop following you or just remain silent.

Echo-chambers can be extremely dangerous impediments to rational, logical thinking.

For example, if you see hundreds, or even thousands of Stein supporters every day in your Facebook feed, you may get the idea that Jill Stein is actually winning the election.

Yet, if you walked out your front door, you could probably walk for hundreds of miles in any direction and never see a Jill Stein sign or bumper-sticker.

It’s hard to know what reality is, when we are so able to create any reality we want in our smartphones and laptops, simply by finding thousands of others who agree with us.

Six months ago Bernie Sanders dominated my Facebook feed and when I walked out my front door and drove to work, I would see Sanders signs and stickers everywhere I went.

It was clear to me that my reality extended past my echo-chamber.

In fact, Sanders raised $238 million dollars from individual, non-corporate donors and had an incredibly active team of volunteers.

It is safe to say that Sanders volunteers literally called every phone in America and knocked on every single door.

When you compare $238,000,000 to $3,000,000, you see the incredible uphill battle that the Green Party has ahead of it, so don’t be fooled by people telling you that the work is already done and that Jill is actually polling higher.

She is not.

Take a drive.

Look around.

Jill Stein is a virtual unknown outside of leftist political circles.

If you want to change that, you will need to get out and go share Jill’s awesome platform with others.

Simply yelling into your own echo-chamber will not help her.

Before we wrap this up, let’s talk about writing in Bernie Sanders and how this affects Jill Stein.

In full-disclosure, I am part of a movement to write-in Bernie Sanders in Vermont.

I am NOT part of any other write-in Sanders movements, but I do not actively oppose them either.

There were many reasons why we targeted Vermont with our movement, but chief among them, is that we wanted to be careful not to pull any Jill Stein supporters away from her, because it is important to all of us that Jill Stein achieve the 5% funding goal.

Vermont is a state of traditional Democrats and there is almost no Green Party movement there in their tiny state.

We felt that we could set a historical precedent and honor Bernie Sanders without hurting Jill’s campaign if we targeted Vermont exclusively.

In fact, I have continued to canvass for Stein here in Indiana, while organizing the Vermont Write-In project remotely and our canvassers in Vermont are nearly all Jill Stein volunteers.

You can imagine how shocked we were to hear the unsubstantiated rumor that our movement was actually working for Hillary Clinton in a covert capacity.

The rumor, which I am actually embarrassed to even be addressing, due to its ludicrous nature, stated that we were attempting to get Jill Stein supporters to write-in Bernie Sanders, in an attempt to “steal votes” from Jill Stein.

There are so many logical holes in this rumor, that it makes me sad that anyone would fall for it.

First and foremost, you cannot sway a Jill Stein supporter.

It’s impossible.

They are absolute diehards for their candidate, so the idea that you can trick them into voting for ANYONE but Jill Stein is absurd.

Secondly, the rumor really underestimates the intelligence of Stein supporters.

You actually think that there is some sort of strategy that would make her supporters “throw their vote away”?

I find it very insulting that the people who spread this rumor, think that Stein supporters are so intellectually bankrupt that some slick speech by an “undercover Clinton operative” could trick them into changing their vote.

While it is true that Clinton did use Correct the Record hired trolls to attempt to sway Sanders supporters during the primaries, she has no such motivation to do so against Jill Stein, for the simple fact that Stein is not a threat to her candidacy.

Use your logic.

Don’t turn into the leftist Tea Party.

Don’t fall victim to paranoid propaganda.

Think about it.

If you were Clinton, your ultimate outcome would be to get people to vote for you.

Your secondary goal would be to get people to NOT vote for Donald Trump, who actually stands a chance of defeating you.

Every vote for Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders or Gary Johnson is a push, meaning it neither helps nor hurts Clinton’s chances.

The one thing that Clinton was really afraid of was that a bunch of angry leftist were going to vote for Donald Trump, just to keep her out of the White House.

That didn’t happen and now she is going to win and whether you cast your vote for Stein, Sanders, Johnson or Mickey Mouse, it will have zero effect on that outcome.

So you are free to vote your conscience.

If you like Jill Stein, you should definitely vote for her.

She really needs your support to get federal funding.

But if you don’t like any of the candidates, feel free to “throw your vote away” and write-in Sanders.

Your Presidential vote will be hand counted and then thrown out (unless you are in Vermont, New Jersey, Alabama, New Hampshire, Oregon, Wyoming, Delaware or Iowa. In those states it will be counted.) and your down-ballot will be recorded and counted.

There is some misinformation going around that they would throw your entire ballot out if you wrote in a Presidential candidate.

That is simply not true.

They count everything except the write-in vote.

Be skeptical of all claims.

It is very easy to tell people what they want to hear and hope that they never figure out the truth.

It is very easy to play on people’s fears and mislead them.

I hope you will take everything with great skepticism and do your own research on ALL matters.

We have a unique opportunity to take America back from the establishment by sticking together and fighting for truth.

Don’t let anyone mislead you.

We are all on the same team here.

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