Maybe you can elaborate and state say why you believe her to be so shallow and ill-informed? Otherwise people may have to assume that you're ill-informed yourself and are just parroting mainstream media nonsense.

Admittedly, I didn't watch her nomination speech, but I thought she did very well in every interview I've seen of her.

I voted for the candidate Bernie supports, Hillary Clinton. The only candidate who can support a Democratic Senate.

John Oliver has a pretty good piece on 3rd party candidates in general, with some mostly funny, but some serious stuff on Stein.





Her student debt forgiveness as QE plan is shockingly ignorant of what even just what those words mean. The fact that it is actually a major part of her platform is terrifying....does nobody in the Green Party have a wikiepedia level understanding of QE?

Stein (and her running mate) are happy to engage in pseudoscience and conspiracy theories across a variety of domains. The Greens (like the Libertarians) invest this effort to get on the ballot but then put worthless candidates on the party line. I guess it's just hard to get non-joke candidates but I can't believe there's no one who isn't selling a book.

It's not even the minor leagues, it's little league.

Sanders, of course, ran for (and now supports) a viable ticket.

Yeah, and I'd encourage people to protest vote against the third parties. They can whine all they want about the media being the reason they aren't taken seriously, but the main reason is how clownish the platforms and candidates are.

It's a perfectly functioning two party system that was designed that way. Your ignorance of how our system works isn't a great excuse to throw your vote away, but it's not exactly a surprising one.

lol
Maybe people will read your post and assume you're just another twenty-something jobless slacker, trolling away from a couch in your parents basenent all day long.

voting third party this election gives people an out against having to choose between a xenophobic nationalist with a penchant for fascism and a corporatist plutocrat who is under continuous fbi investigation. a third party vote is a way to participate in the political process and be heard while at the same time being a vote of conscience with no personal regret.

perfectly functioning? come on man... the fact that donald trump is the nominee of a major political party should tell you that something is very wrong.

If you are casting a "vote of conscience with no personal regret" because the possibility of meaningfully voting for an imperfect candidate with a measurable chance of victory is just too much to bear and you'd rather self-indulge...

...I really hope you have someone better than Stein or Johnson or whomever picked out.

This pretty much sums up why we have a 2 party system. There is no positive case to be made for voting for a third party other than its not one of the other 2. If third parties deserved to be voted for they would have candidates and platforms that stood on their own.

So you're voting for more wars, oil pipelines, nuclear spending, wall street deregulation, bogus trade deals, and pay to play schemes. Congratulations bro.

So the Fed can generate trillions via QE to prop up the banks, but they can't use it to nullify student debt? Seems like a smear job.

The claims of her being anti-science are baseless smear tactics. She supports vaccinations. They merely twisted her words when she expressed concerns about corporate influence over regulators in the medical industry.

Not sure what you're referring to when you mention "conspiracy theories", but dismissively marginalizing so-called radical opinions as conspiracy theory as a means of circumventing any serious debate about those ideas/issues seems to be a common tactic in mainstream American political discourse. That along with ignorantly labeling dissenters as being "unamerican" or "anti-american".

No, it's because we have a corporate media (all of which is owned by six corporations, soon to be five) that makes tons of money in advertising from the two main parties and whose interests often align with that of Wall Street's. But I'll agree that Gary Johnson is a clown (though sadly still a better option than either of the two main candidates).

Nonsense. The Republican Party rose up as a third party amidst the abolitionist movement in the mid-1800s. The currently elected party in Greece was polling at 4% a decade ago. The point in voting third party is not to win the 2016 election, but to empower that party in future elections. Movements require investment.

Thanks for your substantive opinion.

In all seriousness though, I've yet to see one post that actually addresses Stein's proposed policies.

maybe cause she isnt worth the time

For Sanders supporters, she should be worth the time to at least watch one interview of her on youtube and find out what she's about. She is basically Bernie 2.0 in that in addition to wanting everything Bernie wants, she is also willing to go against the military industrial complex and Obama's drone campaigns.

Stein has no federal experience, no executive experience, essentially no government experience, can't win and can drain votes that would otherwise be against Trump.

Bernie made a good showing and made it clear that there's a constituency which can not be ignored.

Easy Clinton vote.

In non swing states? Where the outcome is inevitable i think a vote for green is more a vote against trump and Hillary and their parity's. Socialist friend of mine wont vote either party because he hates them. Hes defintly voting against both.

W/e. In real life I wouldn't really be mad at anyone voting for anyone other than Trump.

Yeah Clinton has so much experience. Only it's incredibly horrible experience. Like the kind of experience that brought NAFTA and will get us the TPP (which she is clearly for and will probably look for some excuse to pass, despite pressure from Sanders' campaign that forced her to reject it), voted to go into Iraq got us into Libya and helped expand the wars and now trying to start cold war 2.0 with Russia, pollutes our water and agricultural lands by promoting fracking, lies through her teeth about everything, takes millions from banks pharma private prisons foreign governments and you still believe she will work for your best interests.

Please educate yourselves. Democratic Party no longer cares about you. In fact, I'd say Democrats are more dangerous nowadays since they enjoy less scrutiny than Republicans. Right now Obama is trying to fast track the TPP under your nose. Bush's father in the 90s couldn't get NAFTA through Congress or repeal Glass Steagal. It took a Democrat, Bill Clinton, to do that.

When more than 50% of the country no longer identifies as either Democrat or Republican, you know it's time to build a new party.

Oh id be mad at all kinds of people if trump got elected... swing state 3rd party voters would be in there.

It's only a smear job if you know literally nothing about what QE is or what powers the Fed and the President have. Stein is either hugely ignorant about something any serious presidential candidate should easily understand or is lying to get support from the gullible and ignorant.


I just gave you one. Her plans on student debt are ridiculous.

My guess is that Stein referred to QE as a "magic trick" to avoid talking over the heads of a general audience. The Fed essentially uses QE to create money out of thin air and give to whomever it deems appropriate. During the financial crises, the Fed generated trillions with QE to prop up the banks and financial institutions. Yes, money creation without increased economic activity can lead to inflation. But Stein argues that a student loan bailout would be an economic stimulus package in and of itself due to increased spending by millenials freed from student debt.

Moreover, Stein has said that there are in fact several ways to pay for a student bailout, QE being just one of them. Another one would be a reallocation of military spending (funny how no one ever screams "But how are you going to pay for that!?" when we want to drop bombs on another country, isn't it?).

But keep parroting morons like John Olliver without even trying to explain why she's wrong.

No, they purchased assets on the open market. It's just a liquidity swap. Anybody who received and funds from QE had to transfer assets of equal value to the Fed. The people who owed the money from those debts (people with mortgages, the treasury etc) still makes payments on those debts. They simply go to the Fed rather than somebody else.

It's not remotely the same thing. The Fed has the power to engage in assets purchases. They do not have the power to forgive student debt. That would take an act of congress and is not related at all to QE.

It is absolutely not a way to pay for a student bailout. Anybody who tells you so is a moron or lying.

I thought it was at a level even a Stein fan could understand. I was clearly wrong.

I think the argument against bailing out student debt is mostly "why?".

Most of the debt is not bad debt.
The allegation doesn't seem to be that the debtors were misled by the lenders.

So, it's an aid package directed at people mostly with college degrees, the biggest debtors having gone to the most expensive colleges and having advanced degrees.

(not that some relief/refinancing opportunities with government help (like guarantees which allow for lower interest rates) wouldn't be a good idea)

That's better than making the world safe for the AIG CEO's $34 million 2008 bonus, but it's not necessarily the best or most stimulating way to use federal money.

Where did the Fed get the money that they used to purchase those assets?

Was some other account somewhere debited?

The Fed would not be forgiving student debt, as in stiffing the lender, it would be paying off the loans. Seems like that's what's meant anyway.

Hmm. Let's see where this patronizing bull**** opening line goes...

Wait that's the exact explanation Stein uses! It's also wrong, of course, but it's the magic trick explanation.

So just like Stein's idiocy, the Advanced Discussion here from Stein fans is ALSO to completely confuse fiscal policy and monetary policy? How far up the chain do we have to go to find someone who knows that those are two different things. The student loan plan is fiscal, QE is monetary.


John Oliver explained why she was wrong! In the video! Dang I did not see Oliver getting the knives turned on him by the deeply deluded "left". But QE is not "a way to pay for" things at all!