Jill Stein was a spoiler in 2016. She won enough votes in battleground states to enable Trump to win the electoral college, as he was losing the popular vote. She claims to represent the Green Party but her candidacy elected the most anti-environment President in recent memory. Other presidents may have been indifferent to climate change, but Trump aggressively insists it’s a hoax. He even made the bizarre claim that rising tides would create more waterfront property even though the opposite is true.
Now Jill Stein is up to her old tricks.
Politico reports that her third party candidacy is sponsored by GOP donors.
I’m not sure what her goal is but she risks returning Trump to the White House. That must be what she wants.
Adam Wren of Politico wrote:
A Republican-aligned super PAC is sending texts in Georgia telling voters to “Join The Movement For Equality” and vote for Jill Stein — a sign some Republicans believe her candidacy could harm Kamala Harris’ chances in the battleground.
American Environmental Justice PAC, which filed with the Federal Election Committee on Oct. 1, is urging voters to back the Green Party candidate.
The text calls the two parties “a uni-party,” and says “you can count on Jill Stein.” An X user shared a screenshot of one text with a disclosure that it was paid for by American Environmental Justice PAC.
In the group’s sole filing, it reported receiving the entirety of its $35,000 in funding from Lin Rogers of Atlanta. Rogers has donated tens of thousands to Trump, including $12,500 to The Trump 47 Committee, Inc. A call to the phone number listed for the treasurer on the federal filing led to an inoperable number.
The PAC is at least the second pro-Stein, GOP-backed entity of its kind operating in an electoral battleground that has emerged in recent days: CNN reported that Badger Values is backing Stein with robocalls in Wisconsin.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is Stein expecting to be given a position in a trump second term? Maybe she can share an office with Musk or RFK, Jr. If she hits the jackpot they can all be there together.
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Stein collects a lot of money when she campaigns. She ends up with a million or more. I wonder where it goes.
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I have to wonder what she gets from Putin, since God only knows why she ever met with him.
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I have long been intrigued by that photo of Jill Stein sitting at Putin’s head table in 2015 with Mike Flynn at the 10th anniversary of RT, Russia’s propaganda station.
Why would a Green Party leader be invited to a place of honor at Putin’s table? Russia has one of the worst environmental records of any country in the world. How did Putin know her name? Why the head table?
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The Washington Post reported on GOP funding for Jill Stein campaign on October 24.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/10/24/jill-stein-super-pac-republican-ties/
A super PAC with Republican Party ties has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent days to support the Green Party presidential candidacy of Jill Stein in Wisconsin, in another sign that the supporters of the major parties believe her campaign could affect the election result.
Badger Values PAC, a new federal PAC founded by a longtime Republican operative with ties to Senate GOP leadership, has reported in recent days matched expenditures opposing Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and supporting Stein. Other spending has been reported as supporting the campaign of Republican Donald Trump.
In total, the group reported $982,905 in spending through Oct. 23, including at least $307,000 that names Stein in direct mail or other advertising. The group has not reported any donors yet this cycle.
One direct mail piece from the group, which was obtained by the Post, shows a picture of Stein on one side gazing out over a midwestern river. On the other side, there is a picture of dirty water coming from a kitchen tap, with a claim about “our children” drinking poisoned water that Harris has declined to address.
“As President, JILL STEIN Would End Pollution in Our Great Lakes and Rivers,” it reads. “Kamala Harris and Co. Don’t Care About Our Environment. VOTE FOR JILL STEIN by November 5th.” Badger Values registered as an independent group intending to spend on federal elections on Sept. 24, according to federal records. The group has the same name, address and treasurer of a group that registered in 2022 in Wisconsin to support the failed Republican primary bid of state attorney general candidate Adam Jarchow.
Williamson worked as a deputy finance director at the NRSC in 2016 and helped create White Mountain PAC in 2022. That group was funded by the Senate Leadership Fund, a group run by aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Timothy Mellon, the heir to a steel and banking fortune, who is a top donor this year in support of Trump’s candidacy. Les Williamson, who helped to lead both groups as treasurer, has a long history of working on GOP Senate efforts including the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
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No wonder just repeatedly running for office seems to be rewarding and lucrative enough to satiate Stein, despite the likelihood of her losing, as well as the possibility of her preventing the better candidate for democracy from winning. I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is behind this, too. What a piece of work she turned out to be –putting money and power over principles, ethics, party and country. Sounds a lot like tRump!
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. A Jill Stein voter in a non swing state would never vote for Kamala Harris. There is a divide in the progressive community-those who believe in the lesser of two evils and those who believe that the only way to get progressive change is to grow a third party that isn’t compromised by special interests . I believe that the lesser of two evils is the only rational choice myself, but those who don’t would never vote for Harris. I really like the Green Party platform and wish the Dems were much “Greener”, but like I said, I believe that the lesser of two evils is the only rational choice. I don’t think Jill Stein should be attacked for providing an alternative for those who want one.
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In America today, a vote for a third party candidate is a wasted vote because, in modern history, no 3d party candidate has ever won the presidency. I voted for Jill Stein instead of voting for Obama again for his second term, because I was so disillusioned by his education and neoliberal economic policies. But I was relieved that Obama beat Mitt Romney. Then I really regretted my vote for Stein when I saw the picture of her with Putin, which Diane described above, and I vowed to never ever vote for a 3rd party candidate again.
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Jill Stein should definitely be criticized for enabling a Trump victory by sidelining progressive votes. A vote for Stein is wasted and ends up being a vote for Trump. However, this time around, I’m guessing that most progressives are acutely aware that Trump is a completely horrible and deplorable human being who should not be anywhere near the White House. They will vote for Harris in substantial numbers, in my humble opinion. The lesser of 2 evils does not work as a descriptive for this election because compared to Trump, Harris is a saint. Trump is that appalling, he is an abyss of petty hatreds, bigotries, prejudices, malignancies, major hatreds and authoritarian aspirations that threaten our fragile democracy.
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Yes, JJ, and he can’t control his mouth. He goes on and on about his violent wishes. Yesterday he said he should not have left on January 20, 2021. I wonder if the military would have been called to remove him from the White House if he locked himself into a bathroom.
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“The lesser of 2 evils does not work as a descriptive for this election”. I concede your point JJ. Harris is the much lesser of two evils. There’s still a lot of evil on the dem side due to corporate influence.
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“Yesterday he said he should not have left on January 20, 2021.”
I think this confirms that, if elected again, tRump will do whatever he can to make it a job for life. When he heard that Xi Jinping of China consolidated his power and extended his presidency indefinitely, tRump said he thought that was great and he would try that. (He’s aware of precious little in the Constitution, but he has got to know full well that presidents have a two term limit.)
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David,
I never doubted Ralph Nader’s sincerity, though I think he cost Al Gore the election in 2000. Something about Stein doesn’t smell right. Maybe her presence at Putin’s head table in 2015.
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You are so right about Nader, Diane! I liked him but due to the wasting of my vote, I never voted for a 3rd party candidate until Stein.
Nader played a huge role in Gore’s loss. A lot of people blamed that loss just on Bush family nepotism and GOP cronyism in high places (in Florida and SCOTUS). That was just part of the problem though. As when tRump was elected, the winner of that Popular Vote (Gore) did not have enough votes in the Electoral College –and Bush won Florida (and their 25 Electoral College votes at the time) by only 537 popular votes, so he was elected. This is a lesson every American voter should learn from –and urge their state reps to sign the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (though it’s too late for this election)
https://ballotpedia.org/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
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Nader got almost 100,000 votes in Florida in 2000. Gore would not have won them all, but he would have gotten far more than Bush.
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Diane, I figured most of Nader’s voters were Democrats, so Gore probably would have won. I was looking for that data but couldn’t find it, so I’m glad you knew it and appreciate your sharing it here, so thanks!
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Nader received 97,421 votes in Florida (and Pat Buchanan and Harry Browne received 17,484 and 16,415 respectively), which led to a general consensus that Nader’s campaign took enough votes from Gore in Florida to cost him the election.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › R…
Ralph Nader 2000 presidential campaign – Wikipedia
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BTW, when I was looking for info about prior elections, I ran across other instances where the GOP donated to 3rd party candidates in order to draw votes away from Democrats. Sorry, I can’t recall now for whom exactly they did it, but I didn’t know before that it’s a pattern of behavior for them.
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True to form consistent with tRump style projections, when I looked up info about the Republicans funding Independents in order to take votes from Democrats, I found trump supporting papers claiming Dems are the ones doing that to siphon votes from tRump…
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Has Stein’s campaign done much, if anything, to promote other Green Party candidates?
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