Last night, Martin and I, after a number of email exchanges, mutually agreed that I will no longer post to the front page here at Booman Tribune. The reasons for why we arrived at that decision are not important or particularly relevant to anyone either than the two of us, and I feel no need to go into them in any further detail.
At this time, I want to express my deepest gratitude to Martin for the opportunity to post here since 2005 as a front pager. I owe a great deal to him for that, and will always consider him my friend. During the time I spent here, I also greatly enjoyed this community’s input, criticism and support for my work. So, I am deeply grateful to all of you, as well, for all you have given me.
For those of you who feel so inclined, I still will be posting at the blog caucus99percent, and my blog posts can be read there on their front page. I welcome anyone to drop in and take a gander at the site. c99 (shorthand name) was originally created about a year prior to Kos’ “Ides of March” decree (google if the reference is not known to you) at Daily Kos, which led to the banning or exodus of a number of Bernie Sanders supporters, many of them who found a new online home and a welcoming community of like minded progressives. At c99, there is no community moderation as exists at Daily Kos and no censorship of what may be posted other than the obvious right wing crap, etc.. It possesses an active community who post what are referred to as “essays” (i.e., diaries). Indeed a number of the most popular posts are found in what is call their “Community Content” section.” The only real rule is DBAD.
I also have a YouTube channel Steven D Talks, which I started as an alternative to written blog posts when my illness took a turn for the worse this last year. It has little to recommend it other than the chance to listen to me ramble on, unfiltered as it were, in a slow-paced, monotonous tone that my daughter claims is perfect for curing insomnia. Well, that and it’s ad free and I am not asking anyone for donations.
Well that is all for now. I won’t say “Goodbye Cruel World” here, but merely farewell for now. After all, I am terrible at predicting the future. I even predicted an easy victory for Hillary Clinton, which like a lot of other people shows how smart we all are when it comes to making political prognostications. Go figure.
All my best to each and everyone of you,
Steve
We’ll miss you here Steve. Your humanity always shone through. I hope your illness is in remission and that you will contribute when and where you can. All the best!
Thanks Frank. I appreciate that.
I’m not surprised. I always learn from your posts. I was disappointed that so many are youtube which I can’t follow for technical reasons, but I understand why you do that. Do you know of any speech to text software that would work on youtube?
For those don’t know, at c99 there are no troll ratings or negative ratings, only positive. If you really hate what was posted, you either ignore it or post a reply. Ad hominem attacks are not allowed but you can dispute opinions to your heart’s content. It might even be called Freedom of Speech. What a novel concept! Most of the members have been banned for thought crime from DKos.
I’ve seen several familiar faces there and hope to see many more.
Thank you.
PS. Sorry, I don’t have an answer for you on the videos. If I ran ads and paid for a higher YouTube “level” I thing I could get closed captioning, but I don’t want to have ads, so that avenue is out for me.
I’ll check with my daughter who is much more internet savvy than I.
http://www.caucus99percent.com
I’ll take a look.
Thanks…
AG
Thank you AG
I don’t think anyone who’s seen your posts at c99 could be surprised by this.
Be well.
Perhaps not. Thanks for your kind words re: my illness.
Thanks for all your work here, Steven. I will have to get back to caucus99.
Thank you
Thanks for your work here. You always had thorough posts on important topics. Best wishes from our family for your dealing with a difficult illness.
Dropping by for a comment or two would be appreciated by some of the denizens of the frog pond.
Thank you Tarheel.
Whatever you wrote here struck me as completely honest and from the heart. I’ll miss your posts and will try to catch you over at c99. Thanks for all your efforts, Steven.
I appreciate that. No one is perfect, and I certainly do not claim the status of a Pope. I do not wish for anyone to assume that I was the party in the right in this situation or in the wrong. That would be unfair to both Martin and I. All things come to an end, yes? I do hope people will remember me here as someone who did his best during trying times in our nation’s history to oppose injustice, little enough as it was.
I wish you better health.
I was at caucus99 for a while though I doubt I will be back.
Question: if people knew it was a 50-50 race do you think they would have view voting for Stein in the same way?
I wonder if people thought it was safe to vote for her because Clinton was going to win anyway.
I do not know. She garnered far fewer votes that Gary Johnson in practically every state they were on the ballot together. I know a lot of people voted of her in traditionally blue states, as I did in NY. Overall, voter turnout was less this year with fewer votes being cast for either major party though Trump seemed to come closest to the usual GOP vote totals of the last several elections.
I personally think that Clinton ran a poor campaign. All to often she did not provide a message to vote for her other than I’m better than Trump. She also neglected states that her campaign clearly thought were in her corner, such as Wisconsin, when in fact it turned out to be very much in play. The number of undervotes, i.e., people who voted but did not choose either candidate was also higher than in previous elections. Further she under-performed with voters of the Obama coalition – AAs, Hispanic, people under 30, and she did not increase her total among women compared to Obama in 2012.
One cannot discount the fact that voter suppression efforts, such as in North Carolina impacted her results, or the possibility of election fraud in Ohio, a state that was stolen in my view from Kerry in 2004 by election fraud. There are a number of reasons why she didn’t win. The third party votes, in my opinion, were the least of her problems.
Here is my analysis of that meme making it’s way around the internet, if you are interested: Link
Even if every Green voter had voted for Hillary in Florida and PA, she still would have lost those states. I also believe that Johnson had a greater impact in Trump’s vote totals than Stein on Clinton’s. Trump’s totals per state more often than not,trailed the votes numbers received by Republican Senate candidates, for example, which I think you can partly attribute to Libertarian voters who voted for Gary Johns who received far higher numbers than any other third party (around 3%).
Ultimately Clinton ran a “Rose Garden” type of campaign making fewer appearances in many states than Trump. She also, imo, expected that voters would turn out for her as they had for Obama (i.e., inherit Onbama’s coalition) and believed in her extensive official GOTV operation, and Trump’s lack of one. Those to me were critical errors in judgment by her campaign. But what do I know?
Please excuse the typos.
I don’t want to get into it: the voter fraud is just..
very wrong.
I worked for Bernie in Iowa.
Clinton ran a terrible campaign.
That does not excuse people taking a pass at allowing a racist into the White House.
To stay neutral in that fight is profoundly immoral.
There is just not one excuse for it and the people who will pay the price for it are the most vulnerable in this society.
Already we have seen an explosion of racist incidents take place.
Incidents that would not have happened had Clinton won.
Any data to base your speculation on Johnson?
Wait – I know the answer to that question.
No – you just want make excuses.
It’s in my post at c99
Clinton lost Ohio by 8.6 points.
The idea that this is voter fraud is just idiotic.
There is no other word for it.
In few elections in my lifetime has race been a more clearly at issue.
You took a pass.
Sorry there is no excuse for it.