Comments

1
nah, he'll take that donation and commission some hot-takey bachelorette recaps. but yeah, get to work greens! I mean, this dude has baume covering the election cycle for chrissakes. he's got a column to bust out otherwise he'd respond, but I'm glad people beyond Seattle are waking up to his entitled, hypocritical bullshit drivel.
2
What's missing here is a description of the political coalition that the Greens would assemble which:

1) Is able to win a Presidential Election
2) Does not include the components of the Democrat's coalition to which the Greens object.

And she does not include a description of this coalition for the excellent reason that no such coalition can be plausibly described. There are not enough liberals in this country to dominate politics. And therefore, liberals will have to form coalitions with moderates or we will accomplish nothing. There is already a party that comprises a coalition of liberals and moderates: The Democrats.

Go ahead and lament the structural disadvantages confronting the Greens. Call them unfair or unjust or whatever you want. But unless you have a plan to reform them, those obstacles aren't going anywhere. Politics is about power, not principles.
3
Remember... Democrats are never to blame when they lose elections. It's the voters, stupid! Keep this in mind as Hillary, who is inexplicably in a tight race against a fascist Republican who has the highest disapproval numbers in history, is about to nominate a corporatist, Wall Street friendly running mate to further alienate a large chunk of the Democratic electorate.
4
@3 FTW. Shillary and the dreadful, dreadful DNC are grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory over and over with their tone-deaf, brain-dead campaign/candidate.
5
Thank you for posting this. Reforming the corrupt, corporate-owned Democratic party is impossible with amoral, greed-crazed, self-serving kleptocrats like the Clintons at the helm. We need the Green Party now more than ever.
6
Andrea Mérida Cuéllar's thoughtful, measured, response to Dan Savage's angry, condescending, attack on the Green Party is spot on!

The tone of Savage's attack is difficult to understand. As an LGBTQ advocate, Savage should know better than most that real change in this country happens through grass roots activism and INSPITE of Centrist Democrats like Bill "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and Hillary "Slow Evolution" Clinton, NOT because of them.
7
@6: Who appointed the SCOTUS justices who voted for Obergefell?

Reagan appointees: 1
Clinton appointees: 2
Obama appointees: 2

You can deride both Clintons as much as you'd like, but the simple fact of the matter is that if a Democrat hadn't been in the White House from 93-01, this never would've happened.

The court is going to look very, very different in eight years: Scalia's seat will have been filled, Kennedy will likely be gone, Ginsburg will almost certainly be gone, and Breyer will likely be gone.

If a Republican is elected in November, that will mean that future Obergefell cases are decided *7-2* against us.

If a Democrat is elected in November, future cases will likely be decided 6-3 in our favor.

That's what's really at stake here: corporations as people, money as free speech, a woman's right to choose, gay rights, minority rights.

Your protest vote might make you feel good, but it'll make a lot of people (yourself included) feel really fucking bad for the next 20-30 years.

8
What @2 said.

I'd love me some green party, or really any non-major parties to gain some real power.

However, there's idealizing and then there's reality. The reality is that a democrat or a republican is going to be the next president. Everyone with a brain knows this.

Also, I think it is idealistic to believe that a bunch of votes for the green party in the presidential race will have any impact whatsoever on the DNC. Shit, if they're so corrupt as everyone claims, then why would they give a fuck about what a bunch of green party voters do or don't do? You guys say the DNC is run by the corporations and wall street and money, yeah? Then unless you're planning to spend a bunch of money opposing them, simply voting against them won't do shit. Right?
8
In fact Nader was a spoiler in 2000, and the Green Party should take responsibilty for the damage they helped cause the country because of it, which includes the Iraq War and Citizens United:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nade…
9
@4 You're right. If only she would take on those highly popular Sanders (and I'd suspect Green) positions like raising taxes on the middle class and 'taking away your health care'. Then I'm sure she would be clobbering Trump but good.

The Greens have and will always have absolutely zero chance of playing any other role in a presidential election than spoiler. If you don't understand that you have no idea whatsoever what sort of country you live in.
10
@ 8, Well, then why are the Democrats on a kamikaze mission to drive liberal voters away from the party? They also sold the country on the Iraq War. They're the ones trying to lose in 2016, and they didn't learn jackshit from 2000.
11
An alternative course would be for Green Party members to become active in the Democratic Party, acquire votes, and remake it to something that more suits their goals, like Sanders just did surprisingly well. The people they would be trying to convert would be more like minded and it would avoid the collateral damage that occurs when the GOP starts wars, appoints judges, and wrecks environmental regulations. The reason they don't is that they are attempting to have an influence beyond their numbers, a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction: if you don't give us all that we want we're going to turn everything over to the Republicans! Many are not really capable of compromise and that's why they end up marginalized, if can't give up some of what you want to get most of what you want you won't get anywhere.
12
@9 "If only she would take on those highly popular Sanders (and I'd suspect Green) positions like raising taxes on the middle class and 'taking away your health care'. Then I'm sure she would be clobbering Trump but good."

Sounds like someone took away your psych meds.

13
@10 Bernie Sanders has said "I intend to do everything I can to make certain she [Hillary Clinton] will be the next president of the United States."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/h…

If you think Senator Sanders is "on a kamikaze mission to drive liberal voters away from the [Democratic] party", then your group has marginalized itself and the only role you can hope to play is as a spoiler electing more Republicans.
14
The Dems in Congress also blithely rubber-stamped the worst abuses of CaliguBush's administration, which turned off voters and caused them to lose control of both chambers.

Now they're about to nominate the most loathed candidate on their roster that makes over half the country cross-eyed crazy with rage, and it's a total mystery to them why people aren't super-stoked to GOTV. Like the Republicans, the federal-level Dems are completely incompetent at everything except their own self-enrichment.
15
While Dan was far too harsh on the Greens, I'd like to call a little bullshit on the response of "We are running people for offices!". Looking through my Voter's Pamphlet at statewide offices up for the current primary, I don't see any Green Party candidates. This is Washington, the EverGREEN State, with the supposedly greenest Governor in the nation.

Cadidates for Governor: 11; no Greens but a Socialist Worker, 5th Republic (?), Holistic Party candidate.
Lt. Gov: 11; no Greens, but the Citizens Party and a Libertarian got on the ballot
US Senator: 17!; no Greens, but Human Rights Party, Standupamerica, Lincoln Caucus, and System Reboot Party candidates are up for the vote with Dems, GOP, LIbertarian and Indy types.
There are 7 candidates for Commission or Public Lands (of the EverGREEN state!), but none of them are Green Party folks.

It apparently isn't very hard to get on the primary ballot here, and many of those candidates are loons (talking about you, Alex Tsimerman), so how the fuck can the Green Party not run a single candidate for these offices and still claim to be relevant?
16
@15: Yup. I can't recall interviewing a single Green Party candidate in the last three years of endorsement meetings. If they aren't even attempting to make inroads here, of all places, I'm not sure how we're supposed to take them seriously.
17
Excellent response from the Green Party.

Dan Savage subscribes to what I call the "Rahm Emmanuel Doctrine." This doctrine states that to advance a progressive agenda, progressives should sit down and shut up and surrender unconditionally to the center-right leadership of the Democratic Party; that we should cheerfully go along with the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, extrajudicial execution/kill lists, double-tap drone strikes, the imprisonment of whistleblowers, prosecution of child soldiers (using evidence obtained through torture), slaughter of Palestinian children, warrantless surveillance, etc, etc; and that by proclaiming our unconditional devotion to the proponents of these policies (as long as they have that magical "-D" after their name), and letting them know we will vote for them no matter how savagely they trample upon human rights and civil liberties, we will somehow be advancing progressive ideals.

Of course, Rahm Emmanuel doesn't really believe in this doctrine; he simply espouses it as part of his agenda to shut down progressives. I suspect Dan Savage is the same way.
18
The douopoly system is broken. Voting for Goldman Sachs / Hillary Clinton isn't going to fix it. I'm voting my conscience, not my fears. Jill Stein "the greater good, not the lesser evil."
www.jill2016.com
19
It's significant, that Ms. Cuéllar, when given the opportunity to toot her Party's horn by providing a list of their electoral victories only chooses to list a mere eight: one mayor, one constable (whatever that is), two school board members, and four city council members (and those from only four states), and then has to pad this out by dropping the names of a pair of FORMER office-holders. Furthermore, her link to a list of current candidates has a mere 116 names, which although it does include a number of candidates for federal office ( mainly U.S. House seats that, based on a very cursory examination, not only do they have absolutely no chance of winning - e.g. Lamar Alexander's seat in the TX 21st District, Nancy Pelosi's in CA 12th, Jared Polis' in CO 2nd, etc., etc. - but will barely be noticed), is also comprised mostly of low level offices.

Okay, so lets give them some credit for getting a few candidates on ballots, but as I've indicated elsewhere, this number doesn't even amount to a drop in a bucket; more akin to a single snowflake in an avalanche, and representing such a small fraction of a percentage of the total number of elected offices in this country that it is almost statistically non-existent. In short, Ms. Cuéllar can crow all she wants about how the Green Party is taking on the dreaded "dupoly", and how "willing" they are to "build a strong third-party alternative", but from the looks of things they certainly haven't made much progress in that direction in the past 32 years of their existence.
20
From Dan's original statement:
"And there've been — and I'm sure we're going hear from lots of people out there listening — there have been a couple of Green Party candidates who’ve run in other races here and there across the country. But no sustained effort to build a Green Party nationally. Just this griping, bullshitty, grandstanding, fault-finding, purity-testing, holier than thou-ing, that we are all subjected to every four fucking years by the Green Party candidate."
Ms. Cuéllar walked right into that one, huh? But yeah, what #15 said.

@2: Word.

I, of course, cannot in good conscience vote for a Green Party candidate even if they DID field a viable one. A party that is just so anti-science (anti-GMO, anti-nuclear, anti-vaccine, knee-jerk opposition to fracking) and so pro-Russia will not have my support if there is any viable alternative. Espousing those kinds of batshit and objectively harmful policies just because they talk a big talk about economic issues and inequality doesn't mean you're refusing to vote for the lesser evil, but rather that you're deluding yourself into ignoring the evil in your preferred candidate. And if you're "voting [your] conscience", as ChuckChuck is, then your conscience is hypocritical and corrupt, and if we went to the same school I'd steal your Pokemon cards.
21
Also, can I take a moment to make a brief rebuttal?

Cheri Honkala is HELLACIOUSLY pasty white. Yeah, I know, she's got some Native American ancestry, but will you take a look at her? She's paler than my Litvak ass!
22
@12 Were you unaware that Sander's health plan included a significant middle class tax increase and a move to a single payer system (also known on the right as 'taking away your healthcare')? It would not surprise me if you were unaware of that as most denizens of the fringe left seem to be just about as well informed as your average Trump supporter. Not saying I am against those things but if you imagine that those ideas are popular with the electorate I think you have been huffing too much stale air inside your left coast bubble for too long.

Honestly it seems like there are basically no issues at all at stake in this election to you cranks other than drones, the Iraq war and Wall Street something or other. Climate change, the Supreme Court, reproductive rights, immigration reform etc etc, none of these things matter in the least.
23
I agree that Gore shares responsibility for his loss (I still don't know why the hell he picked the execrable Lieberman as a running mate, knowing progressives were already mad at him and Clinton for their many sell-outs) but the fact is, if Nader hadn't been in the race we probably would have been spared W, along with the Iraq war and multi-trillion-dollar high-end tax cuts we'll still be paying for in 2050. I also share the writer's dismay that the two-party system severely limits our choices, and have always supported proportional and instant-runoff voting schemes to address this whenever they have been on the ballot. But we don't yet have those reforms, and the choices before us right now, in 2016, are Trump and Pence vs. a pro-LGBT, pro-choice feminist, as ethically and ideologically compromised as she is. Ignore the third-party white noise (that's all it is) and choose accordingly.
24
When the Green Party stops making the 'perfect the enemy of the good' and learns that one needs to barter in order to move things along, I'll start taking them seriously.

Until then they're just another curiosity a roadside attraction on the political road.
25
@2 "There are not enough liberals in this country to dominate politics."

Not true at all. Overwhelming majorities of Americans support progressive policies. What Americans call themselves to fit the mold provided by corporate media is meaningless.
26
A lot of inexplicable hatred for a political party that is just operating as a political party, not harming, or attempting to harm anyone. And don't bring up Nader, if you still think Bush won due to Nader at this point, you are just an idiot.

I see people bemoaning the two party system all the time, yet they fight so ferociously to demean and degrade any party that attempts to edge themselves into some sort of power.
27
Democrats: You only run prez candidates! Try some fucking grass roots why don't you?

Greens: We are grass roots. We run every election we can, no matter how small. It's an uphill battle, but we're working our butts off. ::provides link::

Democrats: ::points and laughs:: You hardly ever win! Look at those small, insignificant strides you've been making. You're losers. I don't like losers. You don't win. I like people who win. As Democrats, we will win on everything we do.
28
If the Greens were serious they would have more than 100 elected officials (some of them in quite minor roles) in more than two states. By their own count, their success has been pretty thin on the ground. Savage is right. They don't play a very good electoral game. The most prominent of their elected officials is a Mayor in a town of 20,000 people in California.

When they have elected officials in 30 states and legislators in 5 or 10 of them, then they can call themselves a serious party. Until then, they're little more than a blip on the screen.
29
Also, the Green Party isn't new. It's been around since 1986. That's hardly a new party.
30
True. It's never the team's fault that they lose. It's the fan's fault, who screamed their bloody heads off in the stadium. Yup. That sounds about right. :p
31
@20 I call bullshit on the GP being anti-vaccination. In your haste to smear anti-nuke, anti-GMO, anti-fracking, you made up the anti-vax claim. You are a shameless propagandist because plenty of excellent science tells us that nukes, GMO's, and fracking aren't sustainable activities and surely, should not be axes of economic developments at any significant scale.
32
Since when does the list of sexual identifications include a mathematics symbol? How is "doesn't fit into the other categories" not already covered by the Q? Are emojis coming next?

"Something you should know about me before we go any further: I identify as 'plus sign,' sexually."
"...Okay."
33
@27,
Read @15's post. The green party isn't fielding a single candidate in the upcoming primaries for WA state.
34
@15 Well, very unfortunately it appears the Green Party isn't everywhere strong enough to run electoral campaigns. Why do you think that is?
35
@27:

You have just described the basic characteristic of the American psyche, regardless of political party affiliation or ideology, and made clear precisely why the Green Party, as it currently exists, will never be a major player in electoral politics in this country.

As the late General George S. Patton so succinctly put it to his troops in 1944:

"Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time."
36
@22 You're just repeating a dishonest attack. The move to single payer, would save a lot of money. Yes, the middle class would pay more taxes. But they would not be paying insurance company premiums and deductibles. Thus, a net savings. The status quo - having close to 30 million people without health coverage, insurance companies skimming cash out of the system, and pharmaceutical companies over charging for drugs - is why many people want change.

All the issues you listed the Sanders' wing of the party "not caring about," were prominent in his platform.

Trump is a true danger - that's why it's so disappointing that Clinton is such a weak candidate. Her and the Democrats need to give people a reason to vote for her. The status quo will not cut it.
38
Dan is a nice guy, but he knows nothing about politics.
39
HAH !! IN your FACE, Dan Savage.

And this?!: 'At that time, Savage said about Romanelli, “The idiot Green? . . . Carl Romanelli should be dragged behind a pickup truck until there's nothing left but the rope."'

So not just advocating violence and murder, but demonstrating complete lack of sensitivity to James Byrd Jr. and so many other victims of hate crimes. Add to that his total ignorance of issues before he bellows out uninformed bullshit to his followers ... plus the low class overuse of "fucking" more than he uses commas, and, well, ... I used to like Dan, but I see now he's not too much different than Donald Trump.

Pardon me for stating the obvious, but since it's a eureka moment for me, I have to celebrate and say it out loud: Dan Savage is an ignorant, uneducated, intolerant "fucking" prick.
40
@27
baloney, they don't even run for office here in Port Townsend, which is overwhelmingly liberal. Year after year, no one one on the ballot from the green party except D Millholland who runs for fucking congress despite never having held ANY kind of office. Even I am not taking that seriously, and my precinct carried Nader (and i sent Kshama Sawant a campaign donation despite not living in Seattle!) The green party is a joke in the US (just compare it with Germany!) and Jill Stein is nothing but an attention whore.
41
@36 Really, you think the idiot electorate is going to rationally and soberly consider those arguments? These central positions in Sanders' platform would have made him unelectable, even against Trump. Absolutely no doubt about it. No need to even bother with the red-baiting that I'm quite certain Trump would have very much bothered with.
42
What @2 said.

This "rebuttal" by the Greens is totally misses Savages point. Having a handful of people in five states is not a stable political base to then launch a presidential bid. 90% of America has no fucking clue who the Greens even are.

I'll tell you when they are ready. When there are Green state reps in in at least 30 state legislatures and when they have at least 5-10 congress people. Until then running presidential candidates like Stein is merely a delusional vanity.

Prove you can pass laws. Prove you can do the groundwork.
43
Maybe the Greens should take a fucking science class first before calling themselves a progressive alternative.
44
Of course I want Chelsea Manning, the people's Commander in Chief but I heard Dr. Stein will pardon her if elected POTUS.
45
I'll respond to this bullshit tomorrow. But what @42 said.
46
"Those of us who live outside of privileged circles know that voting for either lobe of the corporate party brings us more of the same." So the millions of us who vote Democrat live in privileged circles? Yeah, cause I see your people all the time in my blue collar neighborhood. You know, the kind where lots of people vote Democratic but don't even know you exist. Through experience I associate The Greens with the middle-upper and middle class, and the Nader rally at Madison Square Garden was the whitest large gathering I ever saw in NYC. Of the many politically involved people I know here in Ohio, the African Americans I know are all Dems, and that includes those who are or who grew up low income. But I guess they're all rolling in privilege.
47
@43 Here comes the shill for GMOs, nukes and fracking. Quite some progressive alternative right there, LOL
48
"We hate the toxic, corrupt, two-party system that always stabs us in the back, but we'll never vote for a third party because they can't win--infinity!"
50
I knew Dan was going to take flak over his comments regarding down-ballot offices.

But then Ms Cuéllar deserves some flak for this bullshit:
the rhetoric and track record of the presidential candidates of both parties sounds like the other.


I know this a popular rhetorical point among Greens, but what a load of horse shit!

Anyone who catches even a glimpse of the party conventions, glances at the party platforms, or pays attention to even the most scant of campaign news will know this allegation is just flat out nonsense. Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in a fantasy world where all nuance has been driven out by unicorns.

It certainly is the case that the Republican and Democratic parties converge on some important points, often unfortunately. But they diverge on many other points. To believe otherwise is just straight up madness.

Yes, they're both parties under the influence of corporations and other status quo interests, and they're both various shades of corrupt and misguided— but the difference in those shades matters immensely! And it matters even more immensely this year, now that the GOP has gone full white nationalist. I'm sorry the Overton Window has not moved to the left as far as I and many others would like— but that doesn't mean we burn our house down.

I get it: achieving the elusive 5% to get federal funding is a valiant goal. But that is going to matter for fucking shit if it means letting the party of white nationalism, headed by a bona fide psycopath, get into office. I'm sorry, but this year, the lesser evil is a lot less evil. I, for one, will vote for remaining in a centrist purgatory over letting my country descend straight into hell.
51
@31: We've been over this already, you fruitsy nutbar. Jill Stein thinks that vaccines in America can't be trusted to be safe because of the "medical-indsutrial [sic] complex". TREMENDOUS pander to the anti-vax fringe right there coming directly from the head of the party.

@47: I support the responsible and measured use of genetic modification in agriculture, nuclear fission in power generation, and hydraulic fracturing in hydrocarbon extraction. I hold these positions because I actually have a background in and knowledge of the relevant issues.
As opposed to the Green Party, which is full of reactionary fearmongers who don't understand science. Did you know they finally removed explicit support for homeopathy from their platform earlier this year?
52
@42 "90% of America has no fucking clue who the Greens even are."

Oh yeah, staying out of the presidential should solve that problem right up. Not only you won't lift a finger about Democrats doing everything they can to preserve the duopoly, but the greens shouldn't even try? How preposterous.

If you guys are so concerned that a tiny progressive party may spoil the coronation, may be you should argue for a compromise rather than serving us the usual bs about going after the mythical center and independents (many of whom are in fact to the left of the dem party). Throwing hissing fits about people not trusting Clinton won't do a thing. In fact, only pushing her to the left will generate the probable necessary voter turnout.
53
@51 It is as I said: you are a propagandist who distorts people's words to better smear them. Here is what Stein said, who is personally and unequivocally supportive of vaccination, yet reminds us that corporation shouldn't make the rules. From your link:
Vaccines in general have made a huge contribution to public health. Reducing or eliminating devastating diseases like small pox and polio. In Canada, where I happen to have some numbers, hundreds of annual death from measles and whooping cough were eliminated after vaccines were introduced. Still, vaccines should be treated like any medical procedure–each one needs to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them. In an age when industry lobbyists and CEOs are routinely appointed to key regulatory positions through the notorious revolving door, its no wonder many Americans don’t trust the FDA to be an unbiased source of sound advice.


Given that you support Obama's and Clinton's energy policies, anyone can readily see that your definitions of "responsible" and "measured" are self serving. Thanks to Obama and Clinton (and Bush) pushing natural gas and fracking, emissions of methane, a GHG with 80 times the warming potential of CO2, have skyrocketed almost single-handledly due to US extractions over the last decade. Similar story for 99.99% of GMOs that are unsustainable industrial crops drenched in herbicides, which is NOT what we need. As for nuclear, the industry is pretty much dead in the water and it takes people like you to invoke sinking billions into it when we can't get the funds to finance renewables properly.
54
@7 You don't actually think Establishment Democrats are serious about ending "corporate personhood" and ending "money as speech" do you?

If they were, they would all be co-sponsors of Move To Amend's WE THE PEOPLE AMENDMENT, the ONLY proposed Constitutional amendment currently before Congress (HJR 48) that says the two things that need to be said: 1) inalienable constitutional rights belong to natural human beings only (and, thus, not to Corporations); and, 2) that money is not speech (and thus political fundraising and political spending can, and should be, regulated). www.movetoamend.org/wethepeopleamendment

Do you know how many Democratic Co-sponsors that Amendment has in the Senate? ZERO!

Do you know how many it has in the House? 14.

The Corporatist Wing of the Democratic Party - including HRC - is all about LOOKING like it is working for real change without ever running the risk of actually getting it.

The WE THE PEOPLE AMENDMENT would effect REAL change. That is why Democratic leaders do not support it.
55
@45 Nobody wants to hear a rebuttal from you, Squishbrain.
56
IF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TRUMPISM IS NOT AGAINST FASCISM WHAT THE HELL IS IT??

You can like which ever party you like but if you do not vote to stop TRUMP and FASCISM you are voting for TRUMP and FASCISM. Often in the Cold War GREEN PARTY = CIA
In Germany it allowed Angela Merkel to expand the role of the German Military outside of Germany. So it can not be said this is without merit.

Don't be mistaken war against Trump is against fascism & the police state some nice people support him so does every SOB bastard. Ted Cruz might not be liked as the right winger he is but in calling Donald Trump a Sociopath Liar and then standing before the whole Republican
National Convention to refuse to bow down to Donald Trump he showed himself to be a man of courage and integrity where as the Establishment of the Republican showed themselves to be without integrity and cowards. It amazed me as Susan Sarandon and Roseann Barr seemingly endorse Trump as if brainless agents for the CHUMP as well as the self-serving egos of Jill Stein and Cornel West.

For as the the alleged left yelled and threw the epithets of fascist around against Trump so as to score points and not lose credibility amongst the LEFT rank and file (like me) with predictability they are discretely selling out the American working class through clever uses of rhetoric and mumble jumbo much like New Labour Blairites have been attempting to sabotage Jeremy Corbyn in the UK so as to re-lect a Tory government.

Turkey has become by a betrayal of its President and PM a dictatorship with the arrest of tens of thousands of government employees, while in Greece the alleged Leftist government has sold out and reneged on its promises firmly stated in the elections against austerity by a people bleed dry by the status quo. Where in each country fascism appears with a different face it is a shape shifter a political poltergeist .

There is a German expression "you could tell who someone is by the friends they have" perhaps in that the Clintons attended the wedding of the Trumps they are friends and I have no doubt that in a confrontation with the working class they will both unite against it just as Hillary Clinton was a on the Board of Directors of Walmart and was legal counsel of Tyson Foods Donald Trump represented his interests against those who worked for him.

Most people of Color women and unions are people peoples who almost unanimously oppose Trump and ipso fgacto every racist in American and the world oppose them so the question is on which stand one stands.

Many people have been fooled into supporting this loud vulgar boisterous self-serving fickle capricious arbitrary abusive racist mean-spirited bully but the fact of the matter is every shallow nasty loud vulgar boisterous self-serving fickle capricious arbitrary abusive racist mean-spirited bully has moved to endorse a BILLIONAIRE and every progressive has opposed him with few exceptions as he represents the worst of the worst.

In what he responds he "would like to punch that guy (me) in the mouth which I would like to see in fact I dare him to come on his own and try as he has spent a life time of getting others to do his dirty work for him.

As Mickey O'Rouke said he is a "PUNK".the stalking horse to mislead the majority of working class people to vote for him, as it was often noted most of his supporters have lower reading scores than those supporting Democrats and as such represent the for the most part the poorest sections of the working class who struggle by in non-union jobs, often working two or three part time jobs to make ends meet. As I stated I do not trust CHUMP or Hillary but I will hold my nose and vote for Hillary for this election has become a struggle for the soul of American and Against a Nascent Racist Proto-Fascist Movement.for it has been noted in the mainstream media he represents not the smaller government Republicans that were once but now represented by Ted Cruz but he represents the ascent of angry White Nationalism that was once thought buried long ago but which has risen with the election of President O'Bomber the moderate Nelson Rockefeller type republican Democrat that lost out to Barry Goldwater in the GOP 1964 convention that Hillary Clinton once supported.

So you can like which ever party you like but if you do not vote to stop TRUMP and FASCISM you are voting for TRUMP and FASCISM.
57
First, this was a beautiful response from the Green Party.

Second, the ease with which a liberal like Dan Savage (or an adderall-and-Red Bull pounding rage-poster like Venomlash) will engage in whitewashing to fabricate a point is astounding. I'm sure every person of color who has run for office as a third party candidate feels really respected as a human being when they hear that they're just a pasty white, lazy, racist, privileged fool with no empathy.

The reality is this: Your vote for President is meaningless if you live in a safe state. Democrats don't give a fuck about you; Republicans don't give a fuck about you. They roll out a non-binding party platform to placate their base (that's you, Dan!), and then they do what they please for the next four years, believing that there won't be any consequences for their actions from that docile, frightened base. Which, for the most part, is true. When they do experience some sort of backlash, they get to create a 3rd party scapegoat, like Nader, and shame and bully those voters out of supporting a humanistic candidate, or building an alternative party.

Dan and the other fanatical centrists in the media have an incredibly important role in this process. They are the bullies. They aim to hurt you and shame you and isolate you for believing that something better is possible. Saying a third party candidate should be murdered, and describing that murder, is Trump-level psychological abuse.

After reading The Stranger these last few weeks, I'm proud to say I'm supporting, donating to, and campaigning for Jill Stein. She provides leverage to the Sanders wing of the Democratic party, which, if the reports of Hillary's highly qualified, eminently rational, Presidential mind are true, will force greater concessions should Stein continue to poll around 5-10%. Once Hillary is elected and ignores those concessions in favor of her corporate agenda, like the rest of the Democratic party, the Sanders wing and Brand New Congress will have quite a bit more to run on during the midterms. And if Hillary by some miracle does keep to her word, all the better.

Voting for Stein also helps the Green Party qualify for ballot access (something that costs an absurd amount of money), matching Federal funding, and introduces the party and its ideology to a larger voter base. Creating a genuine political movement representative of the people is too complex an idea for a bully, Dan. At least you and Trump have that in common.
58
@57 Very, very well said.
59
@53: Jill Stein is making excuses for opposition to mandatory vaccination programs. That's close enough to anti-vaxxer in my book.
"In the US, however, regulatory agencies are routinely packed with corporate lobbyists and CEOs. So the foxes are guarding the chicken coop as usual in the US. So who wouldn’t be skeptical?"
Even calling it "skeptical" rather than "contrarian" is a capitulation to the anti-vaxxer cause. (Also, didja like the part where she expressed support for fucking homeopathy?)

On to the red meat!

"emissions of methane, a GHG with 80 times the warming potential of CO2, have skyrocketed almost single-handledly due to US extractions over the last decade"
Here's where that pesky bit about basic familiarity with science comes into play. METHANE HAS A SHORT RESIDENCE TIME IN THE ATMOSPHERE. Methane that goes into the atmosphere is gone within a decade; CO2 can linger for timescales on the order of a century. Not to mention, more natural gas means less coal being burned. And that's a good thing! Coal burning not only produces CO2, but releases quite a lot of heavy metals and nitrogen and sulfur oxides into the atmosphere.
Of course, the bigger issue is BASIC FACTUAL ACCURACY. It turns out that American methane emissions are actually down 6% in the past quarter century, with that decline driven by lower emissions from petroleum exploration/exploitation. In other words, what you claimed here is entirely untrue.

"99.99% of GMOs that are unsustainable industrial crops drenched in herbicides"
Aaand a big fat fucking [citation needed] on that one, buddy.
Here, I'll do you better:
According to the USDA, adoption of GMO crops has actually enabled a MAJOR REDUCTION in pesticide use, partly through the implementation of herbicide tolerance and partly through the planting of Bt crops. Heck, insecticide use on cornfields is down literally 90% from 1995 to 2010! Yeah, there are issues with herbicide tolerance leading to overreliance on a single herbicide to control weeds and hence to herbicide resistance among said weeds (cough cough, glyphosate), but that's no basis for banning all genetic modification in agriculture. Your argument here is basically "well, some people do it wrong, so nobody should do it at all". Can you tell me why we shouldn't plant Arctic apple trees?

"As for nuclear, the industry is pretty much dead in the water"
The industry is in the shitter because NIMBYs and anti-nuke zealots like you have cut off funding for construction of new and more efficient plants. We're running on 1960s-70s technology here, because there's been a near-moratorium on new nuclear projects. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point, you ratfinks.
60
@55: I'm interested in his rebuttal.
Quidnunc
Eat a
Dick

@57: One, I don't need to resort to stims. I'm naturally a very angry person who has developed a wide array of methods for channeling it into productive avenues. That's my secret, Cap; I'm always angry.
Two, have you SEEN Ms. Honkala? Her ancestry notwithstanding, she's REALLY FUKKEN PALE. And THAT, dear reader, is my whole point there. Pull that stick out of your ass and beat some sense into your anti-science head with it.
62
@47: "Here comes the shill for GMOs"

True progressives aren't anti-science whackadoodles that belong more with the Republicans.
63
Awww, it's the widdle Green Party. I just want to pinch its adorable little cheek.
64
Our lives are governed by unlimited need, and a scarcity of resources. We use money as a means to compete for these resources. This principle affects everything in our lives, including government, and therefore politics.

Man's inherent quest for control & affection is a competition for scarce power. For politicians, they are in great competition to control the allocation of resources. To attain power, politicians must reach the people's attention and influence their mindset. With scarce opportunities to influence the people, large scale financing is required. Advertising, in-person meetings, media, and the perception of success, all just a few examples of the need for significant funding. This is especially important in a large & widespread population like the USA.

Overall, we are a centrist country, with relatively slight swings to either side. With any presidential election, a "landslide win" is only a few points difference. Historically, the reaction to a swing will bring the country back to the center. This is why Buffett openly states why he cares less about politics, overtime the country stays centered and moving upwards. Yes, we have a wide range of opinions in the country. The two parties represent the two sides of the needle, with many degrees within the two parties. Each party goes through a process of compromise in choosing their representative. By influencing within "your" side, you can hope to effect the slight movement of your party, and the large needle overall.

With a finite resource of people, politics exists as a zero-sum game. An introduction of a 3rd party will take away people & resources from within one of the parties (or unevenly from both parties). A 3rd party takes the scarce finances & influence from one of the parties. Look at any presidential race with a significant 3rd party candidate, and they are always a spoiler for one of the parties (Tea Party, Perot, Nader, etc).

In order to win an election, one of the parties would have to be replaced via a mass exodus of votes. In a massive country, with people's (1) inherent self-preservation, (2) self-interest in the status quo, (3) avoidance of the unknown, and (4) the ability to access politicians in power; there isn't the opportunity to win over enough of the scarce population & finances.

To make a change and take control, it needs to be done at the ground level. A new party's realistic challenge to the status quo requires working from the ground up. In a local setting, there is both the financial and logistical opportunity to wins seats at the small tables. A party should climb the ladder, one rung at a time. Both Sanders & Trump were able to accomplish their impressive political feats by working within the existing 2-party system. Both adopted the rules and guidelines set by their respective party. Trump could care less about religion and abortion, but he needed to quickly "evolve" into these Republican positions.

Now, why we even care... In the USA, politics is a national pastime /sport /game. People wish to matter enough to affect the outcome, or feel like they are. People feel the need to be part of a winning team. People are drawn to the hyped up excitement of our star-studded extravagant process. Our country was born through people banding together to create change. Overall, presential election are relatively irrelevant. Local and state elections have far more relevance to, and power over our lives. Still, our own little Game of Thrones is entertaining, though rife with inconspicuous consumption of our resources. It is also an incentive to form one's own opinion on the issues at hand, for the purposes of affecting the local and state elections that matter.

I will be impressed if anyone made it through my stream of consciousness diatribe. Furthermore, if the Sanders-like, revolutionary, change-the-world, can't-we-all-getalong readers did so without destroying the screen in a fit of distain. I wish you all Good Night, and Good Luck!!
65
@2 had a great early post. My biggest problem with #BernieOrBust people and the Green Party in general is that they don't seem to want to recognize how many people don't agree with them and therefore don't realize what actual options there are.

It's fine that you think that veganism is the only morally right diet for a person to have, but most other people don't feel that way (yet). That means when everybody gets together to vote on which catering menu is provided, the choices you have are between the vegetarian menu and the one with lobster, veal, and foie gras. You may continue to criticize the vegetarians and try to move more of them over to your beliefs, but if you, the vegetarians, and pescetarians don't pool your votes to get most of what you want, you're all going to be eating blood sausage together.

You're going to have to eat, and I don't see how you can feel morally superior for choosing something you knew from the outset you were never going to get instead of getting the closest thing to what you want that's available.
66
@56: Everything you say WOULD be true of we weren't ALREADY living in a "Corporate Oligharchy," which is just more polite way of saying "Fascist State."

And it's not just me saying that. Former President Jimmy Carter has acknowledged it - saying we live in "Corporate Oligarchy." Professors Gillen and Paige, out of Princeton and Northwestern, respectively, have concluded it after studying American political decisions for the last 20 years, finding that while the interests of Big Business are catered to by government at all levels, the wishes of the people have a statistically insignificant impact on government decision makers; and Political theorist Sheldon Wolen has written an entire book on it, calling it "Inverted Totolitarianism."

That is the fascist America that we live in today, under Democratic President Obama, and Democratic President Hillary Clinton isn't going to do anything to change that Corporate Fascist status quo.
67
It is true that Trump's Republican brand of Fascism will be harsher and more authoritarian than Clinton's Corporate Fasism - Fascism with a happy face - will leave us equally politically powerless.
68
Here are just a few

Yes, eight is a very, very, very few. Extremely few. Resoundingly few. In a country of 400 million people, statistically hard to differentiate from zero. So points for unintentional honesty I guess?
69
@59 Jill Stein is 100% correct that regulatory agencies have been captured by corporatists and that people are justified to be skeptical about whether these agencies are doing their jobs of protecting consumers. As she claimed, there is a mountain of evidence suggesting that the fox has been in charge of the hen house at the FDA, the EPA, the FCC, etc and your denying it just points to your own incompetence or your being deceitful.

"Food and Drug Administration conducted an extensive spying campaign against its own scientists. The spying began after the scientists warned the FDA had faultily approved medical imaging devices for colonoscopies and mammograms that endangered patients with high levels of radiation." Spying on Scientists

"Dan Troy laments the development of what he terms “a whistleblower culture” at FDA (FDA Webview, 4/12). The former chief counsel of the agency made this remark at the recent annual conference of the Food and Drug Law Institute. There is too much irony here: Ask an FDA scientist or medical officer what drove them to blow the whistle and they are apt to cite the anti-regulatory culture fashioned by this very same Dan Troy

"Graham, a physician in the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, made news nearly two years ago when he told a Senate panel that the agency was "virtually defenseless" in preventing a "tragedy and profound regulatory failure" such as Vioxx

There are tons more links to evidence where these came from.

As we have seen, you are already absurdly denying that the revolving door between gov agencies and industries is a major corrupting influence so I guess you are being consistent in being an establishment shill.

Stein didn't express support for homeopathy. On the contrary, she is associating it with snake oil. Stop being dishonest.

Methane has indeed a shorter residence time in the atmosphere than CO2 (stop pretending that your grad student level status confers you the ability to wrap yourself in the mantle of science, you nitwit) but it has 80 times its warming potential over a 20 year period. 20 years is the time scale of interest when climate change will cross thresholds of no return for key climate impacts like the melting of unstable icesheets.

"Basic factual accuracy" means reporting that fugitive methane emissions are between 1 and 9% of natural gas production. Fugitive emissions are NOT reported by the EPA (doh!) but several studies have shown that fugitive methane emissions were real and significant, and concentration of methane in the atmosphere have abruptly started to rise again since the onset of fracking. In fact, they amount to the CO2 equivalent emitted by between 35 and 314 coal plants."Basic factual accuracy"

"Using these new, best available data and a 20-year time period for comparing the warming potential of methane to carbon dioxide, the conclusion stands that both shale gas and conventional natural gas have a larger GHG than do coal or oil, for any possible use of natural gas and particularly for the primary uses of residential and commercial heating" Howarth, 2014

At this point in time, ignoring fugitive methane emissions LIKE YOU ARE DOING is fundamental ignorance or/and quack science.

I'll continue later when and if I have more time.

70
@62 Pay attention please. He is not a shill for pointing out that existing science shows no adverse effect on human health. He is a shill for claiming that being anti-GMO is being anti-science when there exists plenty of good science showing that 99.99% of GM crops are unsustainable monocultures leading to loss of biodiversity.
71
Andrea Merida wrote this article. - GOD, what a terrible Denver school board member she was. She rudely took her seat early on a technicality, got nothing accomplished because she was so abrasive, lost her re-election bid, and generally does nothing but complain. A perfect representative of the Greens.
72
Anyway, she misses the point. The point is that the Greens shouldn't run any individual for POTUS (or governor, senator, or Congress) until they've built up a base on which to elect those officials. The only purpose alternative candidates serve for higher office is to give people who are sick of things something to feel good about, because they feel guilty if they don't vote at all.
73
"That's what's really at stake here: corporations as people, money as free speech, a woman's right to choose, gay rights, minority rights.

Your protest vote might make you feel good, but it'll make a lot of people (yourself included) feel really fucking bad for the next 20-30 years."

THIS. THIS. THIS. PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR VOTES ON A THIRD PARTY, GOOD PEOPLE!

She named less than 10 people in local office from the Green Party across the entire US! Get more people into office and change the system from the ground up--it is so disheartening to see the Green Party do this to themselves and to the Democratic party. There's too much at stake this year, guys! Regardless of how sure you are that your vote doesn't matter in a strong-Democratic or strong-Republican state, Nader taught us in 2000, and Bush taught us from 2000-2008 that EVERY VOTE MATTERS.

PLEASE vote for the greater good this year and leave third party candidates out of it. You have zero chance, and you're only hurting your own agenda if you vote third party. I would say this to anyone regardless of their political bent.
74
BOOM! B O O M! I'm a Libertarian wildly clapping inside. I can see the appeal of wanting to declare victory and keep dissenting voices out of the party. Dan wants to be at the White House dinners clinking glasses with people he imagines are all for him and his politics. He's fought hard, or at least written hard, for it. Greens and Libertarians remind all that the work is far from done. Who wants them at the party spoiling the fun? I can understand that. I'd like to see the causes I believe in be won in my lifetime, too. But they won't be as long as we continue the duopoly. Dan knows it's true. He doth protest too much for it to be otherwise.
75
@69: In other words, you're dismissing the evidence I've brought to support my points by claiming that it's all a big corporate conspiracy. Okay, I knew you were nuts, but I didn't know you were THAT nuts.

Despite the fact that I didn't reference the FDA anywhere in my post, you've decided to list some controversies related to the FDA as evidence that, I dunno, all my evidence is faked or something?
The spying began after FDA employees repeatedly sent confidential documents to Congress AFTER a Congressional committee had concluded that there was no wrongdoing in the part of the FDA. And given the history of some of those employees, their motives are certainly suspect; one expressed an intention "to sue the hell out of the agency ... get a couple cool mill and get out". Not exactly an unbiased whistleblower; more like a litigious opportunist.
None of the other claims are "evidence"; they're the sort of thing more properly called "allegations". We can talk about this when you have actual "evidence" of "wrongdoing".

If you actually read Stein's AMA post, it's clear she used the phrase "snake oil" to refer to unreliable approval processes tainted by regulatory capture, not to homeopathy. Need I remind you that the official Green Party platform explicitly endorses homeopathy?

Now, I'm going to give the methane issue its own post because WOW, there's a lot of lies in there to tackle.
76
@69: "20 years is the time scale of interest when climate change will cross thresholds of no return for key climate impacts like the melting of unstable icesheets"
20 years is not the only timescale of interest. If we're hitting a tipping point where we're talking about deglaciating Greenland and Antarctica, methane emissions are going to be the LEAST of our worries. I'm concerned about reducing the effects of sustained warming and ocean acidification in the long term; focusing ONLY on the short term will screw us down the road. (I notice you're also not interested in addressing the massive amounts of heavy metals and nitrogen and sulfur oxides that coal power plants spew out. Are you some kind of big fan of acid rain?)

"Fugitive emissions are NOT reported by the EPA (doh!) but several studies have shown that fugitive methane emissions were real and significant, and concentration of methane in the atmosphere have abruptly started to rise again since the onset of fracking"
ONE, your link doesn't make any claims about the trend in methane emissions. TWO, the EPA ACTUALLY DOES TRACK FUGITIVE METHANE, YOU LYING SCRUB. (source, see Fig. 3-2 for the summary.) What, you couldn't click through to the source material you were so eager to dismiss? Including fugitive methane, both petroleum-related and total methane emissions are falling slightly DESPITE the rise of hydrofracturing.
You want to talk about BASIC FACTUAL ACCURACY? You just built your whole argument on an entirely false claim, one which you'd have known was false if you just took a quick look at the sources I linked.

As for Dr. Howarth, he makes a decent point that methane emissions from natural gas exploitation cause problems. (I'll forgive his repeated reference to a previous paper of his and his use of emissions estimates from that paper that are significantly higher than other estimates, under the assumption that he might very well be right.) However, said paper raises the promising possibility of advanced retention techniques being used to reduce methane losses at well sites, with a reduction estimated at 40% with the adoption of best practices. A 40% reduction of methane losses would make natural gas far more efficient than coal at minimizing warming, but this is tantalizing possibility is entirely ignored in the 2014 paper. When planning future energy policy, shouldn't we base our decisions on what can be done, not what is currently being done?

But to reiterate: you made entirely unsupported claims, completely dismissed the evidence I cited against them, and attempted to explain away the evidence by telling a baldfaced and imbecilic lie. And then YOU had the nerve to lecture ME on basic factual accuracy? Chutzpah!

And I'm talking big game on this issue not because I'm a graduate student, but because I am a geoscientist who actually studies this sort of shit instead of reading somebody's tinfoil blog all day. You don't even know what you're talking about, but you're determined to advance your own political opinions.
77
@75 & 76

sigh. The EPA’s Natural Gas Problem

Now, go back to wallowing in the mud that you seem to like so much.
78
@77: Oh, I do love me some mud. Micrite, phyllosilicates, benthic silica ooze...good stuff. It's fascinating geochemically all the way from origin to diagenesis, and it's excellent at preserving fossils in fine detail. Why, I've been writing my thesis on some beautiful silicified trilobites found in some Ordovician-age argillaceous marls, which are basically just a mix of skeletal fragments in various types of mud.

Of course, all you did was post a source reiterating Dr. Howarth's concerns, while completely ignoring the fact that you lied outright about what the EPA does and doesn't track. Your argument seems to be based entirely on bold claims that all the evidence is invalid. Why? Because you say it's biased by special interests, even though you can't be arsed to show any actual undue influence or to provide any competing evidence to corroborate your claims. You're EXACTLY THE SAME in this regard as the climate deniers, who insist that all evidence against their opinions is the result of some massive conspiracy, that all statistics provided by government agencies are faked, and that they alone know the truth.
Come back when you want to talk evidence instead of conspiracy theory, you tinfoil hatter. In the mean time, I'll base my positions on reality. (Remember, you are dealing with a GEOSCIENTIST here.)
79
@ 78 EPA does NOT track fugitive emissions, it estimates them based on industry data, which leads to a large underestimate of methane emissions. It's all in the article I just posted @77. If you want to call it a conspiracy, suit yourself. As for your ridiculous posturing, you can stick where the sun doesn't shine.
80
@79: ...I hope you realize that the alternate estimates you've been pushing ARE EXACTLY THAT, JUST ESTIMATES.
How do you know that the highball estimates you prefer are any more accurate than the more moderate ones the EPA uses? You're falsely claiming that the EPA doesn't keep track of (your word: "report") methane leaks from natural gas extraction because it doesn't directly measure every milliliter that escapes to the atmosphere, while simultaneously insisting that YOUR preferred estimates of total fugitive methane (from far less comprehensive source material) are beyond reproach. And to compound your dishonesty, you've invented out of whole cloth the claim that American methane emissions are rising because of the use of hydraulic fracturing, a claim directly refuted by the evidence and which is not even supported by your linked sources.
(What does your latest linked source support? The same implementation of upstream loss-reduction technologies that I've been touting here, and which Dr. Howarth acknowledged and then promptly brushed under the rug.)

And while you're whining about "posturing" and hedging on whether or not your wild allegations of pervasive corruption and falsification of data constitute a "conspiracy theory", I'm actually bringing in evidence to support my claims and attack yours. If all you've got is innuendo and histrionics, well, too bad for you.
81
@80
Abstract

The global burden of atmospheric methane has been increasing over the past decade, but the causes are not well understood. National inventory estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicate no significant trend in U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions from 2002 to present. Here we use satellite retrievals and surface observations of atmospheric methane to suggest that U.S. methane emissions have increased by more than 30% over the 2002–2014 period. The trend is largest in the central part of the country, but we cannot readily attribute it to any specific source type. This large increase in U.S. methane emissions could account for 30–60% of the global growth of atmospheric methane seen in the past decade.


82
This spoiler argument is for the birds. In 2012 almost 100 million eligible American voters DIDN'T VOTE. How do you think these numbers stand up to the mere thousands that vote for a 3rd party left-wing candidate like Stein or Nader - or the hundreds of thousands, even, out of the Democratic Party who opt to vote for the Republican?

Go get yourselves another scapegoat! This spoiler argument is pathetic - statistically, rationally, and for anyone with a whit of education in scientific reasoning as to cause and effect vs correlations.

The Democrats are pathetic using this again and again. They have only themselves to blame. Look at how much MONEY they are taking in BRIBES from the most corrupt and disgraceful interests in American history.

Who do you think is running the show here? Don't you think that, if they want the Democratic candidate to win - she will win! AND - if they want the Republican neo-fascist Donald Trump to win - HE WILL.

Why should any of us THROW AWAY OUR VOTE?

Why should you - a struggling middle or lower income American - without sufficient health care, social security, sunken in various form of debt, future insecurities, on the brink of poverty if not already there - THROW AWAY YOUR VOTE - HAND IT TO WALL ST WHO IS SCREWING YOU ?

Hell, make your vote count for something. Don't vote on your knees, Americans.
83
@81: I'm just going to ignore the fact that you linked a paper entirely unrelated to the abstract you posted, and assume you made a minor error. Now, as for the paper (Turner et. al 2016) whose abstract you posted:
Really? THIS is your best evidence that there's actually an increasing trend in methane emissions due to natural gas extraction? First off, their argument hinges on a trendline drawn through three points, as seen in Figure 1. What are those points? They're the Ch4 emissions (in Tg/yr) at three points in time as estimated by three separate groups using three separate methodologies. They're comparing apples and oranges; to be precise, they're comparing aircraft and satellite measurements using entirely different models. While all of those are useful on their own, it's hilariously irresponsible to draw conclusions from direct comparison. Chronologically, they show increasingly high emissions estimates, but chronologically, they also reflect a shift from atmospheric to satellite measurements; there is no attempt to address this possible confounding factor. (If satellite measurements tend to overestimate emissions relative to atmospheric measurements, that's the trend explained by measurement errors right there.)
You may also note that they mapped out where, in the continental USA, estimated methane emissions have increased the most. (See Figure 2.) If you look at a map of shale gas reservoirs, you'll notice several dramatic discrepancies. Why would there be negligible increases over the Barnett and Antrim plays, which are major areas of gas production from fracked reservoirs, and yet massive increases over northern Baja California and over Georgia, where there is practically no gas extraction going on? It doesn't exactly fit with your narrative.

Next time, I recommend you actually read the papers you're looking at before you share them. Don't just skim the abstracts to see if they agree with you; READ the body of the paper to see if it's worth citing.
84
@83 I see that you now also consider yourself some kind of expert in modeling CH4 emissions data (or at least you became one over the last few hours) whereas reviewers at GPR are "hilariously irresponsible" for publishing the stuff. Anyhow, the findings of that paper above are consistent with a slew of others that find fugitive emissions from shale gas operations grossly underestimated. Example :

Remote sensing of fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas production in North American tight geologic formations, Schneising et al, 2014

Abstract
In the past decade, there has been a massive growth in the horizontal drilling and hydraulicfracturing of shale gas and tight oil reservoirs to exploit formerly inaccessible or unprofitable energy resources in rock formations with low permeability. In North America, these unconventional domestic sources of natural gas and oil provide an opportunity to achieve energy self-sufficiency and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when displacing coal as a source of energy in power plants. However, fugitive methane emissions in the production process may counter the benefit over coal with respect to climate change and therefore need to be well quantified. Here we demonstrate that positive methane anomalies
associated with the oil and gas industries can be detected from space and that corresponding regional emissions can be constrained using satellite observations. On the basis of a mass-balance approach, we estimate that methane emissions for two of the fastest growing production regions in the United States, the Bakken and Eagle Ford formations, have increased by 990 ±650 kt CH4 yr−1 and 530 ± 330 ktCH4 yr−1 between the periods 2006–2008 and 2009–2011. Relative to the respective increases in oil and gas production, these emission estimates correspond to leakages of 10.1% ± 7.3% and 9.1% ± 6.2% in terms of energy content, calling immediate climate benefit into question and indicating that current inventories likely underestimate the fugitive emissions from Bakken and Eagle Ford.

85
@84: I'm not claiming expertise in this field; I'm just capable of reading papers and understanding what information is being conveyed. And yes, it is hilariously irresponsible to draw a trendline through three solitary points obtained through three entirely different methodological approaches and expect people to believe that the line accurately models a long-term trend. That's literally what climate deniers do in their attempt to prove that the earth is cooling.

Now, you might also have bothered to read THIS latest paper before posting it in favor of your arguments.
First off, it doesn't support your claim that overall methane emissions in the USA are increasing. It's speaking only in regards to two regions where production is being significantly stepped up. (Emissions increase locally when drilling increases? SHOCKER.) Kudos to the authors for being honest and clear about this, though, and emphasizing that their results are not representative of the country at large.
Secondly, they highlight some big problems with production at Bakken and Eagle Ford. There's atypically high flaring and venting of petroleum, leading to higher emissions. I've already made it clear that I'm in favor of mandating loss-reduction technology (which you've entirely ignored in your zeal to make natural gas the bad guy) in order to curb such carelessness.
Three, and this is the part where your lack of a scientific education comes in, have you SEEN the uncertainties? The uncertainties listed are nearly as big as the statistics to which they pertain!

Any fool can post a study. Apparently it takes a college education to actually READ a study.
86
@85 As if shale gas fugitives CH4 emissions rates that are ~one order of magnitude greater than those used by EPA as found by Schneising et al, combined with an order of magnitude increase in shale gas production wasn't consistent with an increase in methane emissions since the beginning of massive hydraulic fracturing. Your algebra level math must really suck to not see it or you are being very obtuse in your will to deny the science that shows you to be very wrong.

Glad to know you think the reviewers for that paper have the scientific ability of climate deniers. Just make sure to link to your own publications establishing your credentials in data analysis and modeling of atmospheric gases. Do you know what deniers do? they consistently demonize their opponents and obfuscate to create doubt; you have done plenty of both recently. But I am glad that you are showing your nasty colors for everyone to see.
87
I'm new to the site, signed up just to comment. The commenting process is confusing though, and since I could not find comment access on the latest article "How Green", I'll express my thoughts here.

I've never respected Savage much, he always struck me as a more profane but less intelligent Dr. Drew. And I've never thought much of his political engagement. This is a person whose major political contribution so far is associating a person's last name with butt fluid (to add to the hilarity, he actually thinks that mattered and we should thank him! "you're welcome America"? lol get over yourself). So it's not really a surprise to hear that his "measured and thoughtful" response to 3rd party candidates is "fuck you, fuck you all". I'll try to go thru his screed, point by point, and break it down.

"aren't allowed to hold or share political opinions" Savage swings at a point no one even said. Who said you can't hold or share opinions if you haven't run for office??? Savage should brush up on his listening skills, judging by this and how this all started, with a woman taking 1 minute to say she support Stein, and Savage spending 8 saying "fuck you" over and over.

"I'd like to see a breakdown of Green Party membership by race." Guess what Savage? The Democrats will be majority white. As will the Republicans. As will damn near any political party because guess what? The majority of this country is white. Whites, as a single "racial group", make up the largest chunk of this country, so it isn't strange to see so many white people in a political party. What is strange is the leap that this must mean, what? The Green party is "anti-black", that they exclude black people? Here's some info that matters: how many of the green party positions are supported by black people. How many have even heard of the Green party (name recognition between Clinton and Sanders was an issue too). That's what matters. People may not have heard of the Green party, due to barriers of entry, but that doesn't mean those people and that party are incompatible. So instead of taking a superficial headcount and purporting to look out for black people this way, how about showing some respect to the party (by evaluating the positions, not their racial makeup) and the people (by asking about their values, not just who they've heard of). But judging by what I've read and heard so far, respect and thoughtfulness must be like a foreign concepts to Savage.

" proud anti-vaxxer quack and sexist shitbag Dr. Jill Stein."

Here's what Stein said on vaccines "Vaccines in general have made a huge contribution to public health. Reducing or eliminating devastating diseases like small pox and polio. In Canada, where I happen to have some numbers, hundreds of annual death from measles and whooping cough were eliminated after vaccines were introduced. Still, vaccines should be treated like any medical procedure–each one needs to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them." Wow, what a quack. Actually no, that seems reasonable. To Savage, she might as well be on the View saying vaccines cause autism.

Stein's "sexism"? She states that Clinton's vote for the Iraq War don't reflect the values of motherhood. OMG, how sexist! That really just puts women down! (wait, isn't this sexist against men by implying fatherhood isn't against war? how is this sexist against Clinton at all?) This is another example of Savage's political "contribution", recycled talking points, but hey, he added some profanity. To date Savage's major contribution to the political conversation has been name-calling.

"117 out of 520,000" I can't wait for Savage to talk about the barriers to entry nationwide, monetary support, political entrechment, eletion rules. Does Savage think there's like thousands more candidates that the Green party could run, but they aren't for sheer laziness? Maybe he could, IDK, talk to the Green party and find out why, like a thoughtful person would. I wonder if he can make a connection between people like him calling Green party candidates spoilers, saying a vote for them is a vote for the Apocyplse, saying they shouldn't be around, and their lack of representation? Did he read the email leaks about how the Dem party actively colludes to keep non-Dems out? Surely he'll consider.... No, none of that? Ok, Savage, just throw in a some profanity as you are wont to do and move one.

"actually doing the work." That's rich" The Green party is working for votes, they are putting their platform out there, aligning with the people, and hoping for the best. Savage and his ilk are the ones saying "any non-Clinton vote is a vote for Trump". Who sounds entitled again? Did Dan "fuck you if you don't vote for Clinton you've ruined the world" Savage just say "guilt trip"? Did that really just happen? He has all the self-importance and lack of self-awareness of a celebrity, but without actually being one. Amzaing.

Dr. Zaius gives us this insight from Ape Planet: "90% of America has no fucking clue who the Greens even are." And 90% will keep shying away from the Greens if people like Savage and his ape conpatriots shit on them at every turn. It's a catch 22. "You need to be popular to deserve exposure, and you aren't exposed enough to be popular!"

"I supported Sawant!" Great! Did anyone tell you a vote for Sawant is a vote for Republicans? What did you say to that? What if some people see Clinton as a "corporate-hack-o-Dem", is that okay with you Savage? you know, Savage you can support or not support whomever you want inside or outside Seattle. That's real respect by the way. Not "I respect you so I won't wear kids gloves and I'll say fuck you and your family and everyone like you who votes for your shitbag candidate".

"As for that drag-behind-a-truck thing. Yeah, I said that" Yeah, you did. And a apology is nothing if not learned from and the behavior doesn't improve. You've shown your apology was an empty as your political commentary.

"A vote for Jill Stein in 2016 is a vote for Donald Trump." Nope. logic fail. A vote for Stein is... a vote for Stein. Deal with it.
88
@86: Here we go again. The high estimates you prefer are God's own truth, according to you, while the lower ones used by the EPA are clearly lies.
Hey, can you tell me where exactly in Schneising et al. they claim that actual emissions are "~one order of magnitude greater" than EPA figures? Because that assertion doesn't appear to be backed up by ANYTHING in the paper. Just another flagrant lie out of you in an attempt to mask your opinions under the guise of science. Not to mention, actual emissions being higher than EPA estimates does NOT equate to an increasing trend. You are conflating E(t) with E'(t), and I'm not certain whether you somehow think I wouldn't notice or whether you honestly don't know the difference yourself.

I dunno, I guess I was too harsh on the authors. They didn't make a huge deal out of the trendline; that was almost entirely your doing. So what I mean to say is Schneising et al. did some decent work, concluding what they could while reporting the drawbacks and limitations of their method, but you, YOU, are engaging in the same sort of misleading abuse of data that the climate deniers do. They'll show you a graph with a line on it and act like it proves everything, while glossing over where the graph came from. And so, in a nutshell, do you.

And from there on out it's just a blatant appeal to authority on your part. Hey, care to show me YOUR credentials? After all, you're the one claiming the ability to know which estimates are accurate and which aren't.
And the funniest thing is that you end it with a lovely example of projection. You started out calling me a quack and a propagandist (demonizing an opponent), threw a bunch of divergent estimates of methane emissions and wild allegations against the FDA at me in an effort to delegitimize the work done by the EPA (obfuscation and doubt), and have proceeded to cite a bunch of papers that don't actually say what you're claiming they do. TEXTBOOK pseudoscience right there.
90
@88
If you knew what you were talking about on this topic, you'd understand that fugitive methane emissions according to Schneissing are ~13-12% of production (including emissions incurred during transport and processing), whereas EPA uses somewhere ~2-3% if I recall correctly.

So, I am multiplying an emission rate that is on average greater than prior to fracking by a production rate that increased since the beginning of fracking. Both terms of the product are greater today than prior to fracking how would you not end up with greater fugitive emissions? I think you should be embarrassed, honestly, but I harbor no hope of your changing considering how much your little ego seems to hurt.

My credentials aren't needed here. I am not the one contesting the content of peer-reviewed publications, you are.
91
@90: Except that's not what Schneissing et al. says, you absolute imbecile. (I'm going to leave aside for the moment that you seem unclear on what an order of magnitude is.) You're attempting to compare estimated leakage rates for two fields KNOWN TO BE PARTICULARLY LEAKY AND WHICH ARE UNDERGOING A LOT OF NEW DRILLING to estimated leakage rates for the entire country.
This is why it's important to actually read the article, so you don't end up trying to compare nationwide estimates to regional ones.

You're also assuming that relative loss (leakage rates) has increased overall for the natural gas industry ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. Given the increased availability of low-loss technologies, it's entirely plausible that the industry as a whole has maybe gotten a little more efficient in the past quarter century. Not to mention, natural gas is by no means the only source of methane emissions from petroleum. Your arguments, as usual, hinge on making all sorts of assumptions favorable to them and then attacking anyone who questions the accuracy of those assumptions.

If you were just reporting what the papers you cite were saying, I wouldn't care who the hell you were. But you're not doing that; you're attempting to twist the research of others into saying something it doesn't, and the repeated lies you've told here (particularly regarding the content of those papers) demonstrate that. So let's hear it; what's your background in atmospheric science, petroleum geology, and energy policy?
92
@91 More complete nonsense from you. May be, you'll get a complete cerebral cortex when you eventually grow up.

Of course, Schneissing et al are extrapolating high emissions rates for operations nationwide that demand a high frequency of drilling when most of the leakage occurs. Not only do they cite other studies that found high emission rates, but they conclude that if these rates are confirmed by further study, there are no climate benefits to replacing coal with fracking gas, which they clearly wouldn't do solely based on Bakken and Eagle Ford. In other word, they are claiming higher national fugitive emissions rates ON AVERAGE (like I did in my previous comment) because much more of national production is through fracking. Hydraulic fracturing demands replacing 1 out of 2 wells every year, a much higher frequency than traditional extraction methods. Fracking operations with low leakage are those not drilling new wells either because of depletion or economics, i.e. not the standard hydraulic fracturing operation.Traditional extraction has lower leakage rates but traditional production is declining rapidly which has been more than replaced by fracking. It's should not be rocket science, even for you.
93
Schneising, not Schneissing.
94
@91 In other words, your propaganda "bridge to clean energy" very likely messed climate some more despite our warnings and for what? an energy bubble that will last a small fraction of the vastly overestimated 100 year reserve of gas. An external cost fest (utterly destroyed environment, huge infrastructure burden) with an EROI somewhere in the shitter, a balance sheet in the red and it is now dead in the water because of the expected oil price wild fluctuations at peak conventional oil. Good job, asshole.
95
@94 "it is now dead in the water because of the expected oil price wild fluctuations at peak conventional oil"

oops, I shouldn't rant I guess.
96
@91 You also appear ignore that Bakken and Eagle Ford (featured in Schneising study), account for 80% of all shale play production (~fracking). This is beyond embarrassing even without my having to claim that you are lying.
97
@92: In other words, it's perfectly fine to extrapolate because it gives you a result you like, even though Schneising et al. specifically avoided doing so because they actually knew what they were talking about. (That is, Bakken and Eagle Ford are DIFFERENT in several crucial ways from shale gas extraction as a whole.)
Maybe (again, if you READ THE ARTICLE) you'd see that they registered no increase in fugitive emissions over the Permian and Haynesville plays despite increasing productivity, a benefit they attribute to the same kinds of loss-reduction technologies which I have been relentlessly promoting and which you have been relentlessly ignoring.

@96: Are you some kind of pathological liar? Bakken and Eagle Ford combined account for only ~7% of US shale gas production. (source)
It's hard to take you seriously when you just keep making shit up.
98
@96 & 97 I did misread a chart. I apologize, you are correct regarding this particular piece of data. My comment @96 is void.

Your are obviously reading only what you want to read. As said @92 Schneising wouldn't make the claim they do regarding the climate coal versus natural gas if they didn't think that actively developed shale play emissions appear to be greater due to fracking methodology as they make clear in the introduction, and indeed this is what they find.

99
@97 Assuming that remediation technology is available and that corporate regulatory capture would allow putting in place effective emissions regulations (huge ifs) still doesn't address any of the other elephants in the room as listed @94.

The findings discussed and even your acknowledgement that shale play emissions remediation is necessary shows that your "bridge to clean energy" has been implemented without any regard for the claims that it would be better for climate to substitute coal with fracking gas. If the EPA missed something that momentous and clearly didn't bother to find out, how can we trust the same people to make the right decisions?
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@97 The only thing that is for sure regarding the Permian and Haynesville plays are the lower rig counts with sustained high production that is atypical of fracking. If I recall correctly, the production of the average hydraulically fractured wells declines 50-70% within a year, which shows these plays aren't representative.
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@94 Where Money Goes to Die: How Fracking Blows Up Balance Sheets of Oil and Gas Companies

" In 2010, the hole left behind by fracking was only $18 billion. During each of the last three years, the gap was over $100 billion.[..]Just to maintain production, companies have to drill more and more and incur more and more debt, even as revenues are disappointing. In addition, drillers with heavy reliance on natural gas have faced prices for dry gas that have been so low for years that most wells will never generate enough cash to cover the costs of production. And much of the capital that went into them has been destroyed.
A Bloomberg analysis of 61 companies drilling for shale oil and gas found that debt among them nearly doubled over the past four years, while revenues inched up only 5.6%. And interest payments on that ballooning debt is taking up an ever larger portion of the revenues – even at today’s record low interest rates – with 12 of the companies already paying over 10% of their revenues in interest.

The financial hype around fracking, the limitless, nearly free liquidity provided by the Fed since late 2008, and investors so desperate for yield that they’re willing to incur just about any risks in their vain battle to come out ahead have had Wall Street frothing at the mouth. The sweeps of creative destruction have broken down. Instead, the boundless stream of money has been searching for a place to go, and it went to an economic activity – fracking – where money goes to die. What’s left is debt, and wells, especially gas wells, that will never produce enough to pay off the debt that was incurred to drill them."

102
@98: You don't get to lie, make wild accusations, and then go "oops, my bad, it was a mistake" when someone calls you on it. You're dealing with the adults now. If you can't stick to the facts, go back to the kids' table.
Like I said before: basic factual accuracy.

@99: It's not a question of "if" loss-reduction technology is available; the PBS article you linked in #77 confirms that it is, and that it is even economical. Sure, it represents an initial outlay, but it does pay for itself through massive reductions in upstream losses. All it will take is regulation mandating its use to push the industry past the usual inertia.
Your claims of "utterly destroyed environment" are completely fabricated. I'm saying we should exploit natural gas to reduce the amount of coal used; do you have any idea what coal mining does to an ecosystem? Natural gas extraction is about as benign as fossil fuels get, as far as ecological impact goes.

@100: You can't have it both ways. You're complaining that the Permian and Haynesville fields are atypical, but you're demanding that I treat the Eagle Ford and Bakken fields as representative of the entire USA despite how far they diverge from usual industry practices.

@101: The petroleum industry as a whole is hurting because of worldwide overproduction. You don't get to hang that one on fracking.

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