Reading List: December 3, 2016

The weekend starts now. Short list today but I’ll make it up on Sunday.

I wrote about the Green Party’s internal division over the recount at Paste.

Jill Stein’s recount effort is dividing members of her own party.

A number of Green Party officials have made their opposition to Stein’s efforts to challenge the vote totals in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania public over the past week. The recount in Wisconsin was joined by the Hillary Clinton campaign on Nov. 26, raising eyebrows within and without the Green Party about Stein’s motivations. After all, flipping those three states would reverse a Trump victory and deliver the presidency to Clinton.

Matthew Vernon Whalan reflects on Obama’s legacy at Counterpunch.

Under Obama, we did see some cosmetic reforms to a society in rapid tailspin: The Iran Nuclear Deal, the Paris climate agreements, the pardoning of some nonviolent prisoners from our repulsive penal colonies, are all better to have than not. But all of these concessions — with the exception of the legalization of gay marriage — are not only flawed, but they are just that: concessions. Here is the only substantial difference between Democrats and Republicans: Republicans speak for evil and commit evil, while Democrats speak for good but also commit evil.

Also at CounterPunch, Andrew Levine opines on what we’ve avoided by avoiding a Clinton presidency.

I would have rather bathed in vomit than voted for Hillary Clinton. I thought that before she astonished the world by losing to Donald Trump, and I have not changed my mind.

That Trump is likely to be an even more awful President than George W. Bush changes nothing. As of now, for sheer awfulness, the Bush presidency is the gold standard. It wasn’t just the class war he waged (on the wrong side) or his assaults on civil liberties; Bush broke the Middle East, with consequences that will continue to reverberate for years to come. The Donald could be worse.

Nevertheless, I do not regret not voting for Hillary and trying to persuade others to do the same — not one bit.

More tomorrow!