What Will Hurt Trump More-- His Lying Nature Or Justin Amash?

Perception by Nancy Ohanian

The thing about the Trump/Stephanopoulous interview that was so mind-boggling was how Trump admitted he would break the law to get his tiny little hands on Russian intelligence about the elections again. But there was something else that caught my attention-- and apparently other people's as well. Andrew Sullivan wrote it up for New York Magazine: Donald Trump and the Art of the Lie.

“I like the truth. I’m actually a very honest guy,” President Trump told a slightly incredulous George Stephanopoulos this week. Like almost everything Trump says, it was, of course, a lie. But it was a particularly Trumpish kind of lie. It was so staggeringly, self-evidently untrue, and so confidently, breezily said, it was less a statement of nonfact than an expression of pure power.

For Trump, lying is central to his disturbed psyche, and to his success. The brazenness of it unbalances and stupefies sane and adjusted people, thereby constantly giving him an edge and a little breathing space while we try to absorb it, during which he proceeds to the next lie. And on it goes. It’s like swimming in choppy water. Just when you get to the surface to breathe, another wave crashes into you.

This particular lie was in the context of a report from the New York Times this week, independently confirmed by ABC News, that Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio had found Trump lagging Joe Biden in most of the states he needed to win-- even in Texas. The Times reported that Trump had instructed his staff to lie about this polling. When asked about it by Stephanopoulos, Trump simply followed his own advice. “No, my polls show that I’m winning everywhere,” he said blithely. And when you hear him, it sounds as if he is telling the truth. He’s gooood.

In Michael Wolff’s new book, Siege... Bannon, Wolff writes, came to understand that the lies were “compulsive, persistent and without even a minimal grounding in reality.” This is not to deceive the public. This is simply the way Trump behaves-- in private and public. It’s why I have long believed he is mentally unwell.

At some point, the law usually catches up with this kind of con artist, and Trump has had quite a few close calls over the years (and paid out a lot in settlements). But a presidential con man at this level of talent, legitimized by public opinion, enlarged and enhanced by the office and its trappings, is far harder to catch. It seems to me we had one shot of doing this definitively-- the Mueller investigation-- and we failed. Trump’s lies about the report, and his attorney general’s genius move of lying about its conclusion before the rest of us could check it out fully, helped. So did conservative media’s blackout of the actual substance of the report. Trump’s Roy Cohn tactic of accusing his accusers of the same flaw-- it was Hillary who colluded with the Russians!-- was another masterstroke of distraction. But it’s hard to deny at this point that in the battle between Trump and Mueller, Trump just won.

...So, of course, Trump has upped the ante again. Why wouldn’t he? He has proven that he can obstruct justice and get away with it, so now he is not only refusing to comply with any subpoenas and barring critical witnesses from testifying, but claiming, through his lawyers, that the only branch of government that can investigate the president’s compliance with the law is the executive branch itself, over which the president has total control: “Congress is simply not allowed to conduct law-enforcement investigations of the president.” Congressional oversight of possible crimes by the president “improperly impinges upon and hence interferes with the independence that is imperative to the functioning of the executive branch.” The president, they argue, is the only person who can determine if the president breaks the law. The only possible exception, Trump’s lawyers grudgingly concede, is in an impeachment proceeding-- which they well know Pelosi doesn’t have the guts to invoke.

If the president is judge and jury in his own case, he is a monarch, not a president. To add to this, we also have both Trump and his Botoxed dauphin, Jared Kushner, recently express the belief that they did nothing wrong in inviting, welcoming, and encouraging a foreign enemy of the United States to interfere in an American election. Trump, contradicting his own FBI director, told Stephanopoulos this week he’d be open to receiving dirt on a political opponent from a foreign power again in 2020. Hey, why not? “If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent’-- oh, I think I’d want to hear it,” the president said. He might tell the FBI, or he might not. I know we’re used to this kind of thing-- he openly invited Russia to intervene in 2016, after all, and they did-- but it is vital to repeat that this is about as impeachable a statement as could be uttered by any president.

The worry about a president receiving assistance from a foreign country, let alone inviting it, was one of the central concerns of the Founders when they came up with the mechanism of impeachment. It need not be a conspiracy or a crime. It was about violating the integrity of the American political system-- to the advantage of another country. They were thinking of Britain and France, their equivalent of Russia and China. And they were understandably paranoid about it. “He might betray his trust to foreign powers,” Madison worried about waiting for the next election to call a president to account. Combine the blithe ease with which Trump considers this impeachable offense with his now-demonstrated attempts to obstruct justice, and now add a legal claim that the Congress cannot oversee what might be presidential criminality … well, you have a situation that impeachment was specifically designed for.

It is worth adding to this, for good measure, that, all the while, the president has been attempting to buttress Republican-- and essentially white-- power, by rigging the census to deny Democrats future seats, and thereby resources. We now have incontrovertible proof that this was the intention behind adding a citizenship question to the Census-- thanks to a leaked hard drive. Put all this together and you begin to get a sense of how contested the result of the next election could be. Trump is deliberately undermining public confidence in its integrity. He did this rhetorically as a candidate. Doing it as an incumbent president is an even graver assault on our liberal democracy. Imagine Bush v. Gore, but with an incumbent president who controls the executive branch and has the Supreme Court in his pocket, and you begin to see the risk we are taking by leaving him in place.

He will do anything, we have to understand, to protect his psychic attachment to his own self-interest. Anything. I’ll repeat what I believe: He will not leave his office if he narrowly loses in 2020. He’ll fight — and rally his supporters to fight with him. He’s not Nixon. He’s Erdoğan. When, since becoming president, has Trump conceded anything?

A tyrant’s path to power is not a straight line, it’s dynamic. Each concession is instantly banked, past vices are turned into virtues, and then the ante is upped once again. The threat rises exponentially with time. If we can’t see this in front of our own eyes, and impeach this man now, even if he will not be convicted, we are flirting with the very stability of our political system. It is not impregnable. Why is Putin the only person who seems to grasp this?

Although there are plenty of Republicans on Capitol Hill who understand all this as well as Andrew Sullivan does, they're all sticking with the tribe for one reason or another, political cowardice probably being the overwhelming factor. No one wants to mess with a pig like Trump. There's one exception: Justin Amash (R-MI). He not only repeatedly said Trump should be the subject of impeachment proceedings, on Wednesday he broke ranks with the other Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and voted to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas regarding the U.S. Census.

Trumpanzee, Jr already tried tangling with Amash-- and came out a laughing stock:

But there is little Trump, Sr can do to stop himself from going on the attack against Amash himself. There are now 2 crackpot Trumpists who have declared for the seat, state Rep. Jim Lower and perennial candidate Tom Norton. (There are also two Democrats engaging, Doug Booth and Amanda Brunzell.) Amash has fought off attempts by both the GOP establishment to beat him in primaries and the lame Michigan Democrats to beat him in a general election. He's very popular in Michigan and especially in Kent County, which decides election in his district. It's an independent-minded district where voters don't give a hoot about what party bosses want. In 2016, each of the district's 5 counties, for example, rejected Hillary-- the party establishment favorite-- and went heavily for Bernie:

• Kent-- Bernie- 62.5%, Hillary- 37.3%
• Calhoun-- Bernie- 51.5%, Hillary- 46.4%
• Barry-- Bernie- 62.8%, Hillary- 35.4%
• Ionia-- Bernie- 64.1%, Hillary- 34.0%
• Montcalm-- Bernie- 60.5%, Hillary- 36.8%

I wouldn't worry too much about an MIRS poll that shows Lower beating Amash 49-33%. You think voters are stupid enough to buy into this Lower talking point: "At this point, Justin Amash has more in common with Rashida Tlaib than he does the average Republican primary voter in the district?" The DeVos family has already cut off normal GOP funding for Amash. And if Trump gets too heavy-handed, Amash could very well wind up as the presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, offering plenty of right-of-center voters who fancy themselves constitutionalists and detest Trump but won't vote for a Democrat, a place to go. If Amash runs as a Libertarian, not only can Trump forget about Michigan, he's likely to be critically wounded in states where he he can't afford it-- Arizona, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, Iowa, Georgia, North Carolina. Wisconsin...

Don't Trust Republicans Just Because They Oppose Trump... They're Still Republicans, Including Bill Weld

Not a hero, not then, not now, not ever-- just a right-wing kook

Tucker Carlson, Max Boot and Bill Kristol... what comes to mind? Conservative Republicans, right? Stop there. Don't over-think it. That's the answer. No, "buts" about how Boot and Kristol are anti-Trump. Glad they are, but it doesn't matter about who they are and what their advice on anything other than-- very precisely-- Trump's odiousness, means. In yesterday's American Conservative, oddly enough, it was Carlson-- a much bigger face of odiousness than the other two of late-- who pointed out why we should never get sucked into any sympathy for what they all are (as we agreed, conservative Republicans). "Why," he asked, "are these professional war peddlers still around?, pointing out that "pundits like Max Boot and Bill Kristol got everything after 9/11 wrong but are still considered "experts." Not in our world but in the conservative Republican world these 3 live in.

There's plenty in Carlson's-- and remember, we're talking about Trump Machine Fox propagandist Tucker Carlson-- little essay to agree with. Like, right off the bat: "One thing that every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for mediocrity. Standards decline, the edges fray, but nobody in charge seems to notice. They’re happy in their sinecures and getting richer. In a culture like this, there’s no penalty for being wrong. The talentless prosper, rising inexorably toward positions of greater power, and breaking things along the way. It happened to the Ottomans. Max Boot is living proof that it’s happening in America." Boot's foreign policy recipes have all tasted like raw sewage... basically because they are. Back in the day, Boot wrote that "Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul,” Boot wrote. “To turn Iraq into a beacon of hope for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East: Now that would be a historic war aim. Is this an ambitious agenda? Without a doubt. Does America have the resources to carry it out? Also without a doubt." Yes, he hates Trump now-- and Carlson's head resides up Trump's ass-- but that doesn't make Boot's opinions on anything, other than Trump's unsuitability, worth listening to. Same for Kristol. As for Tucker, nothing he says is ever worth listening to, except how terrible Max Boot and Bill Kristol are. (I'd be happy to hear him go off on the MSNBC Republicans as well. No doubt he feels as strongly about them as we feel about the Fox Democrats.)



Bill Weld isn't usually referred to as a "conservative Republican." Bozos in the media call him a "moderate Republican." Others refer to him as a "libertarian Republican." This might be as good a time as any that many Libertarians really do not like their 2016 vice presidential nominee at all. He screwed them when he ran fro governor of New York in 2006, when he endorsed Obama in 2008, when he virtually endorsed Hillary in 2016 and just recently when the man who announced at the 2016 Libertarian Party convention that he was a Libertarian member for life switched his party registration to the GOP again. "Weld lacks loyalty," wrote Grant Deltz for the Libertarian Republic this week. "He embodies the meaning of the stereotypical career politician... Weld is simply an opportunist... He’ll probably be endorsing Kamala Harris before it’s all said and done."

Weld was the Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1991 through 1997, when he resigned to concentrate on an unsuccessful battle with Jesse Helms over his nomination by Bill Clinton to be ambassador to Mexico. Yesterday he announced an exploratory committee to run for president as a Republican. (He had endorsed Kasich for president in 2016.)

Reporting for the Boston Herald, Joe Battenfeld, wrote that, "in prepared remarks at the Politics & Eggs breakfast in Bedford, N. H., Weld delivered a blistering critique of Trump, saying 'we have a president whose priorities are skewed toward promotion of himself rather than toward the good of the country. To compound matters, our President is simply too unstable to carry out the duties of the highest executive office-- which include the specific duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed-- in a competent and professional matter. He is simply in the wrong place.'"

In his speech, the former federal prosecutor called out his own party for supporting Trump, saying “many Republicans exhibit all the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome, identifying with their captor.”

“The truth is that we have wasted an enormous amount of time by humoring this President, indulging him in his narcissism and his compulsive, irrational behaviors,” Weld said.

The former governor, who served in Massachusetts from 1990 to 1997, did not mention the “impeachment” word but hinted he would like to see Trump removed even before the 2020 election.

“The situation is not yet hopeless but we do need a mid-course correction,” he said. “We don’t need six more years of the antics we have seen. We need to make a change, and install leaders who know that character counts.”

...Weld’s announcement is likely to trigger anger among President Trump and his supporters, who see the former governor as a flip-flopper who deserted the Republican Party. The New Hampshire GOP chairman told the Herald he doesn’t expect Weld to get a welcome reception from voters there, and polls show a vast majority of GOP voters back Trump.

But sources close to Weld say he is determined to make life difficult for Trump, even if his candidacy is a long shot.

While Weld was harshest in his criticism of Trump, he also singled out Democrats for drifting too far left toward socialism.

“We need the opposite of socialism,” he said. “In the federal budget, the two most important tasks are to cut spending and to cut taxes-- and spending comes first.”

Weld laid out his positions on other issues, calling for less government intervention in health care and for more intervention to prevent climate change.

Yesterday, writing at the neoCon website, The Bulwark, for Jeb Bush operative Tim Miller explained why he thinks Trump has lost it (mentally) and is now running our country based on his hallucinations about marauding Hispanic invaders.

[M]aybe Trump is really a 243-pound (lol) septuagenarian Haley Joel Osment, and he’s seeing the corpses of contractors he and his father have screwed over in decades past? Or maybe he’s gone deep down a YouTube suggested video rabbit hole and he’s watching clips from a Middle Eastern war zone that have been mislabeled as present-day Mexico and Trump is convinced its real because the people are brown-skinned and it looks kinda like what he imagines the border to be. I don’t know. As I said, I’m not a doctor.

We should also consider the possibility that a member of the Deep State has been dosing his Diet Coke with acid. After all, they never found out who wrote that anonymous New York Times op-ed.

What I know for certain is that here on the physical plane of existence there is no security emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. The incursion the president describes is not the lived reality of any actual Americans. Border crossings are down, crime is down, employment is up. Yet the president’s hallucinations persist, and in the past week they seem to be growing more severe.

At a speech in El Paso, rather than just talking about the imaginary caravan of people invading the country, Trump actually claimed that he had invented the word “caravan” altogether. (In fact, the word is sourced from medieval Latin, caravana, picked up during the Crusades from Persian karwan “group of desert travelers.” Donald Trump is very old but this is slightly before his time.)

He has also begun touting the construction of an imaginary wall. “The wall is being built. It’ll continue. It’s going at a rapid pace,” he said. “Now you really mean ‘finish the wall’ because we’ve built a lot of it,” he continued. None of these statements are remotely true. And rather than be alarmed that the president is having a wall-themed seance, everyone is going along with it. After all, the wall is in our hearts.

So then I start to wonder-- maybe I’m the crazy one. Maybe this is all just equal parts Trumpian hyperbole and good old fashioned gaslighting.

But if so, what explains the other delusions, like the blubbering tough guys crying whenever they meet Trump. And it’s not just this one time. Trump seems to keep meeting “monster” sized buff men who are brought to tears by their gratitude to him. For a wall that doesn’t exist. That’s designed to stop an infiltration that isn’t happening.

The layers of unreality build upon itself.

After-all, whatever happened to the president’s friend “Jim” who used to go to Paris every year but now doesn’t? He was scared of the imaginary brown-skinned “infiltration” of the City of Lights. We haven’t heard from him in a while. Are you in there Jim?

Now the dots are being connected . . . Pepe Silva . . . Time replaced by a fever dream . . . Paris under siege. The apparitions in Trump’s delusions are having menacing delusions of their own.

So now the Orange King is set to act. Haunted by these threats he is poised to declare an extralegal national emergency to prevent a U.S.-Carcosan nightmare. This, you would hope, would be the moment for those close to the president recognize this illness and shake him back to reality. To stand with him by the window and with kind eyes let him know that, no there is no ominous car out there. There are no barbarians at the gates.

But no, the delusions persist. The fantasy is fed. And at times even those who can see the light can feel our definitions fading.

Miller may be right about Trump, and he's funny to read, but do you care what he has to say about Jeb Bush? Or AOC? Or Ilhan Omar? Or democracy? Why would you?

Will New Mexico Voters Make The GOP The #3 Party?

How many candidates want to pose for a photo with Trump?

When former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson-- then a Republican, now a Libertarian-- jumped into the state's Senate race last week, Ed Kilgore called him a cranky professional spoiler in New York Magazine. And a "a lovable goofball with serious ideas." Kilgore noted that "It’s unclear what sort of resources Johnson can bring to the race, and what he will choose to say about the current president of the United States, which will help determine which pool of major-party voters he is likely to dip into most effectively. At the time of his interview with Weigel, he was saying Trump’s presidency 'could be the end of the republic as we know it.' It’s also worth knowing that most analyses of the 2016 vote concluded that Johnson drew more voters from Clinton than from Trump (though many Johnson voters would have just stayed home had the Libertarian option not been available to them)."

In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Schultz had fixed it so that Hillary took home 27 New Mexico convention delegates to Bernie's 16, even though the 2 campaigns ran neck-and-neck in the primary, another example of how the Democratic establishment turns off voters. Bernalillo County, setting of Breaking Bad, is, by far the biggest country in the state and includes Albuquerque, the only big city in the state. It was very close but Bernie won it by around a point, a little over 38,000 votes to Hillary's 36,000 votes. Trump won the Republican primary there, but with just over 21,000 votes. Bernie beat the 6 Republican candidates combined!

Martin Heinrich has been a decent U.S. senator. ProgressivePunch rates his record an "A," not as strongly as Tom Udall's, but close enough. He was first elected in 2012, running for an open seat when Jeff Bingaman retired. The GOP put up their strongest candidate, ex-Congresswoman Heather Wilson. Despite being outspent Heinrich beat her 395,717 (51.01%) to 351,295 (45.28%). This cycle Heinrich is going up against Republican Mick Rich, a wealthy contractor. Neither was challenged in their June 5 primaries but Heinrich drew 152,145 votes and Rich drew 67,502 votes. But then the Libertarian candidate dropped out and the party named Johnson as their candidate.

Monday, Emerson released a poll showing that Johnson may wipe out the GOP altogether. Even though Johnson and Rich combined don't do as well as Heinrich, Republicans are split, with 27% voting for Johnson and 25% for Rich. Among Independents, Heinrich polls 32%, Johnson 25%, and Rich just at 7%.


Rich is scratching his head in wonder. "What a crazy, wacky world we live in. [Johnson is] more in sync with Bernie Sanders than he is with Republicans." Maybe the two establishment parties in Washington should spend some time thinking about that.

Libertarians Have Long Been Waiting For A Smart, Respectable Candidate To Represent Their Values... And The Wait Continues

When MSNBC's colossal bore, Chris Matthews, sprung his gotcha question on poor, befuddled Gary Johnson about what foreign leader he admires and looks up to-- is there one YOU admire and look up to?-- he succeeded in getting himself into the next day's news flow. But did he succeed in making a dent in Johnson's 7% national support? Probably not. I'd wager that Johnson's fans like him a lot more than they like the annoyingly shrill get-off-my-lawn asshole Chris Matthews. According to Quinnipiac almost 30% of voters under 35 said they would vote for Johnson. That's gargantuan-- and a very real problem for Hillary.

What Matthews and others on Team Hillary don't seem to grok is that the vast majority of people who are willing to vote for Johnson (or Stein or McMullin), aren't voting for them because they think they should or will become president-- or even necessarily because they want them to be. It's a very legitimate expression among young people that they are dissatisfied with the lesser-of-two evils choice the two dysfunctional careerist mainstream parties are offering. Is that so crazy?

What is crazy, however, is that any Bernie backers would show their displeasure with Clinton and Trump by backing Johnson rather than Stein. Stein basically agrees with everything Bernie stands for. Berniecrats in safe blue states like California, New York, Maryland, Hawaii and safe red states like Alabama, Idaho, Wyoming and North Dakota should vote for Stein. It's a luxury they and the country can afford. Voting for Johnson is a poorly conceived protest that won't do anyone any good at all.
It's not about Aleppo or other gaffes. Is it just because Johnson is a pot head? Is that the criterion? What millennial voters might want to consider before they waste a good protest vote on Johnson is that he's, at heart, just a somewhat stoned Republican who wants to repeal Obamacare, derides Hillary and Bernie for wanting to bring back free college tuition in public universities and, as Colbert pointed out above, is a Climate Change neanderthal. On top of that, he totally backs the Citizens United decision which allows the free flow of dark money into politics, backs NAFTA, CAFTA and the TPP, says private prisons are part of the solution rather than part of the criminal justice problem and-- most Republican of all-- wants to cut federal programs to the bone and cut taxes for the very wealthy. Just scratching the surface shows someone who disagrees with millennials on just about every important issue (but pot).

When really clueless hard-core Republican editorial boards, like the Chicago Tribune or the Detroit News, know they can't endorse Trump and won't endorse Hillary, they go for the implausible Johnson. "Today," crowed the editors of the Detroit News, "this newspaper does something it has never done in its 143-year history: endorse someone other than the Republican candidate in a presidential contest." Yep, every cockamamie Republican since 1873. "We abandon that long and estimable tradition this year for one reason: Donald J. Trump." They actually cite permission from the Koch brothers to do this! And they then went on to tell their readers that Trump is "unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous. He can not be president." OK, so they then made it easier for that to happen by urging those readers to waste their votes on Johnson and calling it "an endorsement of conscience, reflecting our confidence that Johnson would be a competent and capable president and an honorable one."

The right-wing Chicago Tribube did much the same this morning. "The Republicans," the editorial board whined, collectively, "have nominated Donald Trump, a man not fit to be president of the United States. We first wrote on March 10 that we would not, could not, endorse him. And in the intervening six-plus months he has splendidly reinforced our verdict: Trump has gone out of his way to anger world leaders, giant swaths of the American public, and people of other lands who aspire to immigrate here legally. He has neither the character nor the prudent disposition for the job. The mystery and shame of Trump's rise... is the party's inability or unwillingness to repulse his hostile takeover." They wrote that Johnson's anti-progressive agenda "appeals not only to the Tribune's principles but to those of the many Americans who say they are socially tolerant but fiscally responsible." In other words, someone from the Greed and Selfishness wing of the Republican Party, which is what the Chicago Tribune has always represented. They usually play footsie with the Hatred and Bigotry wing of the party but... Trump just takes it a tad too far for them.

We can't afford a Trump presidency. So voters in swing states like Florida, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Arizona, New Hampshire, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, Colorado-- and even folks up in the Alagash, down in Lewiston-Auburn or those crazy and wild college students in Bangor, Bar Harbor, Presque Isle and Orono-- just need to get a clothespin and help rescue the country from the MUCH greater and more existential evil. Everyone else: Jill Stein.

Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Will Back Hillary-- But How Many Bernie Supporters Will Discover Jill Stein?

There may be some Bernie voters who persuade themselves that the way to teach the corrupt and repulsive Democratic Party a lesson is to vote for Trump. There aren't many Bernie supporters that out of their minds though. My guess is that most will vote for Hillary and that some will stay home or skip the presidential race and that others will write in Bernie. I suspect, however that the number of votes Green Party candidate Jill Stein gets in November will be significantly higher than the 469,501 show got in 2012 against Obama and Romney. Agenda-wise, she's a far better fit for Bernie backers than Hillary-- let along the racist, misogynistic xenophobic narcissist the GOP is about to nominate. The mass media has moved to marginalize her campaign of course, and Hillary's campaign will do whatever it takes to keep her out of the debates and any other national exposure. (I wonder when the contemptible David Brocks of the Hillary Sewer will start calling her a sexist for opposing her highness.) That 469,501 votes from 2012 were already more than any other female presidential candidate ever got in a general election. Bill Sher sized her up for Politico readers over the weekend.

Stein talks about continuing Bernie's political revolution but it's extremely unlikely Bernie will risk his status in the Senate by doing anything but endorsing Hillary. (He already buckled to overt threats from Schumer that he would lose his chairmanship if he dared to endorse progressive Senate candidates running against DSCC hacks in Ohio, Pennsylvania and, most importantly, Florida, where Wall Street/Schumercat Patrick Murphy is in a tight race against Bernie super-delegate Alan Grayson.) So the chances of Bernie ecen tacitly backing Stein? Zero.

Many of his backers-- how many is the question-- are, by nature, independent-minded and if Stein can persuade some of them, she can make a significant dent in Hillary's operation. Sher says she's "undaunted by the Democratic coalescing around Clinton. Asked in an interview with Politico Magazine this week whether the Warren endorsement presents a problem for her, Stein suggested that the Massachusetts senator lacks the progressive credibility to sway Sanders voters. She could be right-- about a few Sanders voters, but the bulk take Elizabeth Warren very seriously... which doesn't mean they will necessarily follow her into the Clinton camp.

You may be wondering: The Green Party? What’s that-- one of those European lefty outfits? And do they have a prayer of getting more than a fraction of the vote? As of today, Stein is but a blip. Eighty-seven percent of voters don’t know enough about her to register an opinion in a late May Quinnipiac poll. And Clinton’s lead over Trump appears big enough to weather a little left-wing erosion. But with a recent Bloomberg poll showing that only 55 percent of Sanders voters are ready for Hillary, the conditions exist for Stein to spark a larger exodus–if she can raise her profile and if Democrats can’t unify at next month’s convention.

And while the Greens have been under the radar in America for the past several years, they proudly claim at least 100 municipal officeholders, and from 2007 to 2015 they controlled the mayoralty of the 100,000-person city of Richmond, California. Now, like the Libertarian Party, the Green Party sees its moment in this season of widespread discontent, when both Clinton and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump begin the general election campaign with record-high unfavorables. Stein’s platform is nearly identical to Sanders’, only more pacifist (the two diverge on the use of military drones) and more ambitious (beyond providing free college, Stein would cancel all existing student debt).

And Stein may be making big strides toward being treated like a legitimate presidential candidate. In her 2012 Green Party run, she appeared on only 36 state ballots. But her campaign’s ballot access coordinator told Counterpunch last week that “we fully expect to get on the ballot in all but three states due to our petition drives” and will then litigate the “onerous” requirements in the three remaining states in hopes of hitting 50.

...She is beginning to register in the polls as well, at least when the polls mention her, hitting 5 percent in a NBC/SurveyMonkey poll and 4 percent in Ipsos/Reuters. Does that hurt Hillary? Maybe. The inclusion of Stein in the NBC/SurveyMonkey poll helped trim a 7-point Clinton lead over Trump down to a tighter four, whereas in Ipsos/Reuters, an already comfortable 9-point lead was bumped up to 10.

Sanders has drawn fire from Democrats for staying in the race despite lacking the delegates to win the nomination, but Stein may be even more politically brash than Bernie. Not only does she lack Sanders’ squeamishness about tipping the race to the Republicans, she is burying the tentative approach to presidential campaigning tried by 2004 Green candidate David Cobb. Following the 2000 election, when many blamed Nader for contributing to Democrat Al Gore’s defeat in Florida, Cobb pioneered a “safe-state” strategy-- hunting only for votes in deep blue and deep red states, thus successfully protecting the Greens from the “spoiler” label. But he wasn’t successful in winning votes, garnering only 120,000 votes compared to Nader’s 2.9 million.

Stein defiantly told Politico Magazine she has a “No Safe State strategy,” because “there is no safe state under a Democratic or Republican future.” She’ll be stumping in Pennsylvania later this month.

Stein’s willingness to antagonize Democrats goes beyond her travel itinerary. She laces into Clinton and the Democratic Party on a regular basis in her media appearances and on her Twitter feed.

“While it's horrifying to hear the draconian things that @realDonaldTrump is talking about, we've actually seen @HillaryClinton doing them,” she blasted last Thursday. On the online show The Young Turks, hosted by Sanders backer Cenk Uygur, Stein characterized Clinton’s record as anti-feminist: “I think it’s an offense to the concept of feminism to say that Hillary Clinton-- and her advocacy for war, for Wall Street and for the ‘Walmart Economy’-- represents feminism.”

But while Stein potentially has a bigger pool of leftist voters to chase compared to four years ago, she also has stiffer competition: the Libertarian Party ticket of former Republican governors Gary Johnson and William Weld.

Stein and Johnson are potentially in each other’s way in the pursuit of the third-party candidate’s holy grail: an invitation from the Commission of Presidential Debates to square off against the two major party candidates, which hasn’t happened since Ross Perot in 1992.

The Commission says it will invite only candidates who average 15 percent in "five national public opinion polling organizations selected by CPD.” But the commission hasn’t determined yet which five it will use or, more importantly, whether it will use three-way or four-way trial heats to gauge support. That would potentially make a huge difference. Johnson just hit 12 percent in a three-way race tested by Fox News (one of the five polls used by the commission in 2012), putting him in striking distance. But in four-way polls that include Stein, Johnson’s number has ranged from 4 to 9 points. The better Stein does, both in polls and ballot access, the harder it will be for polling outfits tapped by the commission to exclude her. In this respect, Stein is a major threat to Johnson’s hopes for a campaign breakthrough.

The appeal to Sanders supporters will be critical for both the Greens and the Libertarians. While the Libertarians are often viewed as an escape hatch for disaffected conservatives, Johnson also has been sharpening his pitch to the Feel-the-Bern crowd. And, so far, he has a bigger media platform than Stein’s on which to make it. Last month he made it onto the coveted set of NBC’s Meet the Press, and he can probably expect the bookings to keep coming thanks to his credible presidential résumé. The former two-term New Mexico governor has more elected-executive office experience than anyone other presidential candidate running, as does his veep. (Stein, conversely, is like the Ben Carson of the left—a citizen-doctor who argues she’s the right person to administer “political medicine.”)

Johnson, in an interview with Politico, hit on the themes that make him a plausible choice for the #NeverHillary left. But he also made clear there are ideological places he will not go, which may limit his appeal.

“We’re the same when it comes to social issues, marriage equality, woman’s right to choose, legalize marijuana, let’s stop dropping bombs,” said Johnson of Sanders. He even offers to solve the problem of “crony capitalism” noting that “government can play a role in leveling that playing field.”

But the libertarian is no socialist. “We do come to a ‘T’ in the road when it comes to anything free,” said Johnson, not even bothering to dance around the subject. “Somebody’s got to pay for what is free.”

And while Johnson sounded critical of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in an earlier Politico interview, in this later one he appeared to support it. “It is my understanding that the TPP does advance free trade,” he said. “Is it a perfect document? Probably not. But based on my understanding of the document, I would be supporting it [though] in a perfect world there wouldn’t be a document like that, there would just be free trade.” The statement makes him the only candidate in the four-person field indicating he would ratify the pact, which may raise his stock with anti-Trump free trade Republicans but muddles his case for the Bernie camp.

Johnson also drew a bright line between himself and Stein: “She is on the giveaway side. She is on the controlling the economy side, which in my opinion, that’s where you get crony capitalism.” Stein shot back that the Libertarian Party believes “there should be no restrictions on your freedom to put your money into the political candidate of your choice. … it will be very hard to end crony capitalism if you can continue to buy your way into whatever influence and position you want with government.” (Johnson has said he believes in “100 percent transparency” but not limits on donations.)

The two third-party candidates are not expending a lot of energy attacking each other, though Stein threw a little extra shade Johnson’s way regarding his campaign schedule: “I don’t know if Gary Johnson is out there doing a campaign actually. I think he’s talking to press a little bit, but I don’t think they hold events.” (A Johnson spokesman said the campaign is “underwater” with media requests but is looking to arrange an event in Washington, D.C., “in a few weeks due to demand from interested voters and media alike.”)

Johnson is also standing in Stein’s way on another big front: the goal of winning 5 percent of the national popular vote, which would give a big boost to a third party by qualifying it for federal public campaign funds in the next presidential election. With Stein presently polling at or just under that threshold, she may conclude a sharper attack is necessary to prevent him from scooping up voters she desperately needs.

Both candidates vehemently reject the notion that they are “spoilers.” But whether or not they end up impacting the final result of the presidential race, they may end up being spoilers for each other.

If Trump were smart-- he isn't-- he would funnel a few million dollars into Stein's campaign as a way of harming both the Libertarians (who will take general election votes from him) and, of course, Hillary. This was Stein explaining what would happen to Bernie 6 months ago:

Will 2016 Be The Year Of The Third Party?

Last night we saw a pretty stark case-- made by Noam Chomsky no less-- for "holding your nose" and voting for the lesser of two evils, especially in swing states like Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina and-- at least this year-- Arizona and Georgia. He told a radio audience that abstaining from voting or voting for a third party candidate, "just amounts to a vote for Donald Trump, which I think is a devastating prospect." But while Democrats hope to see a vibrant Libertarian campaign by Republican ex-Governors Gary Johnson (NM) and Bill Weld (MA) pull right-of-center votes from Trump, Johnson thinks he can lure Bernie voters away from Hillary. "I side with myself 99 percent of the time, but then the next politician that I most align with is Bernie Sanders at 73 percent," Johnson explained on MSNBC... There's more to agree with Bernie Sanders than to disagree."



So what about Jill Stein? Ideologically, her campaign is the normal home for Bernie voters if he doesn't get the nomination. No doubt someone in the GOP will be smart enough to figure that out and push it-- unless Trump stops them, delusional that Bernie supporters will transfer their allegiance to a racist, sexist, xenophobic lying sack of crrap. The Hill took a little look at the case for Stein this week. Niall Strange invoked the memory of Ralph Nader: "The Green Party suddenly has a chance to make an impact in the presidential election, with polls showing that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are set to be the most unpopular nominees in modern times. The possibility of disaffected liberals going to a third-party candidate sends a shiver through Democrats-- especially those with memories of the 2000 presidential election-- even as it delights the Greens and their likely nominee, Jill Stein."

Stein is making a play for Sanders supporters. In an interview with The Hill, she praised him for “really putting forward great policies.”

She added that there is “an incredible love affair between our supporters and Bernie supporters. You can’t distinguish them; they are already comingled.”

Whether the Green Party can harvest those votes, however, remains an open question.

“The simple reality is that there is no proof that the Green Party can win a national election, especially one with the Electoral College as it is,” said Neil Sroka, communications director for the progressive group Democracy for America (DFA).

“In order to make any sort of argument, you would have to explain how a vote for the Green Party isn’t just a way that Donald Trump wins the White House. Even more importantly, it would potentially throw away the power that has been built over the course of this campaign for progressives within the Democratic Party,” Sroka added.

The DFA endorsed Sanders but has always pledged to back the eventual Democratic nominee. Sanders himself has made the same promise.

Stein, on the other hand, said she would “feel horrible” if either Trump or Clinton were elected in November.

Her argument is not only that Clinton is “the lesser of two evils”-- a phrase that Sanders has used. She also contends that Clinton is a proponent of the same kind of centrist economic policies put forth by her husband. The policies of former President Bill Clinton, Stein said, have led to the wage stagnation and economic malaise that she believes made Trump’s rise possible.

Asked what she would say to a voter who was sympathetic to Green Party policies but feared gifting the White House to Trump, Stein replied: “The first thing I would say is that Trump was created by the politics of the Clintons. Putting the Clintons in power will only fan the flames. Hillary is not a solution to Trump; the Clintons are the cause of Trump.”

She added, “The second thing I would say is, ‘Don’t be talked out of your own power.’… We need a policy of courage, not cowardice. We need to bring that courage into the voting booth. To adopt a position of cowardice in the voting booth is to surrender to a predatory political system on all fronts.”

But that is the kind of claim that brings a combination of bemusement and horror from Democrats who were on the front lines during the 2000 election.

“Is it theoretically a cause for concern? You bet,” said Michael Feldman, a Democratic strategist who was Gore’s traveling chief of staff during the 2000 campaign. But he added, “I think people learned the hard way in 2000 that a protest vote can swing things in ways that are damaging and dangerous.”

Chris Lehane, who was press secretary for Gore’s 2000 bid, said, “2000 made clear that a presidential vote is not an academic exercise, but the ultimate right every voter has to affirmatively shape the kind of country they desire. … The importance of using that vote responsibly is something that 2000 speaks to.”

Independent experts also suggest the mere presence of Trump on the ballot could prompt liberals to come out to back Clinton, even if they are unenthusiastic about her.

Lawrence Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota and an expert on third-party politics, recalled that during the 2000 campaign Bush presented himself as the smiling face of “compassionate conservatism.”

This year, Jacobs said, “the conditions are there” for a strong Green Party performance. “But by the time November rolls around, the Democratic Party campaign machine will have framed this election as an end-of-all-life choice between Trump and Clinton.”

Still, Stein is defiant.

“You have got to fix the rigged political system,” she said. “If you only have choices that are funded by the big banks, fossil fuels and the war profiteers, that’s what you’re going to get.”

This is what came back when a took the I Side With poll. Have you tried it yet?

Whether you're a Bernie supporter, a Hillary supporter, a Jill Stein supporter-- or even a Libertarian-- it's essential to replace as many of the garbage congressmembers as possible with serious, values-driven progressives. You can help do that by clicking on the thermometer:

A Sensible Odyssey: East Texas Congressional Candidate Michael Cole Explains Why He Switched Parties

The other day, we met Jason Thigpen, a progressive Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina who realized his positions are more in line with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party. He switched. Some Republicans, like Jason, become Democrats because of values. Others, like conservative Florida Democratic congressman Patrick Murphy, for example, switch for expediency or political opportunism. There's a difference, a really big one. In the eastern Texas suburbs around Houston, from Baytown up to backward Jasper in KKK country, the congressman is domestic terrorism suspect and former meth-freak, Steve Stockman. Last year, Libertarian Michael Cole ran against him. Together, Cole and the Democrat only managed to win 30% of the vote in this deep red district with an R+25 PVI and where Obama took just 26% of the vote against Romney. This year Cole is running again, but as a Democrat. I asked him to write a guest post about why and how he made that decision.

Why I am a Democrat
by Michael Cole

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…” Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776.

It would seem at first glance odd to use the first line of the Declaration of Independence as the lead off on an explanation of why a candidate, or a private citizen, had switched from the Libertarian to the Democrat Party; but, on reflection, it is possibly the best way to start. 237 years ago, the Declaration served as the explanation to the world as to why America would break off from the British Empire, our Founding Fathers addressed their grievances and the statement that the Empire no longer represented their needs, their desires or fit into their future. Over the past year, I have discovered that the Libertarian Party no longer addresses my needs, my desires or my vision of the future of this country. I have come to the conclusion that in examination of my core beliefs, that I am more aligned with the Democrat Party; as such, I seek to be elected as a Democrat.

The best way to begin explaining why I made the choice to switch parties could best be explained in why I was a Libertarian. The idea of personal freedom is an appealing call. At first glance the idea of the level of personal freedom would be attractive to any American. We fought a revolution for the right to make our own path. The Civil War, the First and Second World Wars have proven that Americans are willing to not only fight and die for their own freedoms, but to give the last full measure of human sacrifice for the freedoms of others.

When taken at first glance, the Libertarian Party is attractive. When you look at the looming federal debt; out of control spending, a federal government that seems to be out of control and mismanaged the idea of less government can be appealing. After all, if the American people are entrusting that much money to the government, then it MUST handle that money efficiently and currently there is no proof that the Federal Government is doing that. Too many times we see Libertarians pointing out the corruption of government.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary," James Madison- The Federalist Papers

The corruptibility of man is listed as the major flaw of government. That the individual can make better choices that a government that is riddled with corruption; after a while I began to wonder; if government fails because of corrupt men, then will not the same corruptness be found outside of government?

However, the answer is not the dismantling of our nation. If our government is corrupt and out of touch, it is because we allow it. You get the government that you vote in. Shutting down the government is not the answer. It is reform that is needed; it is a return to the progressive nature of Lincoln, of Theodore Roosevelt of FDR of JFK that we need.

The first real time that I began to second guess the Libertarian movement is when I took a class on the Gilded Age. The class was a real eye opener. For those that are not well versed on the time period, government regulations would have been a Libertarian dream; there was little or no regulation of business. Government was small. The nation was exploding in economic growth.

Unfortunately it was only to the benefit of the robber barons, the captains of industry. Unless you were affluent, life was hard. Workers were paid next to nothing; working conditions were horrid, children were worked just as hard as adults. Any attempts at organizing or redressing these wrongs were met with sometimes deadly force. If you were a minority or a woman, your rights were a joke at best. There were no protections for the worker, the consumer or the nation from the whims of the elite.

There was no limit to what a business could do. Prices rose. The gap between rich and poor widened. Government corruption was at an all time high. We were a rich nation, that was fast becoming a economic power house, but at what price?

The rise of the Progressives in the early 1900s began to change all that. Anti-Trust acts opened up the door to innovation and competition by making unfair business practices illegal. Workers rights and child protection laws were passed. The old adage, if you make overtime or your kid does not work in a sweat shop thank a Union is true.

So why would anyone want to return to that?

The answer simply could be the law of unintended consequences. In the quest for government reform, we do not see the downside to what we propose. We want less government, but do not realize that the loss of the EPA will not spur business as much as it would spur pollution. We do not realize that a loss of the FDA will not streamline the process for better drugs, but allow unsafe drugs to be marketed. We do not seem to understand that business will seek to make a profit even if it puts lives at risk. That is an acceptable cost for them. No business does the moral thing if it is unprofitable.

The idea of laissez-faire economics will not work, it never has. Society should be about helping as many people as possible, not enriching a few. That is not to say that success should not be encouraged, merely that it is possible to have more than a few win.

I began to question many things in the Libertarian ideologies. Extremely limited government is the calling card of the Libertarian side. They point out the Austrian Economists of Misses, Hayek and Freidman as the shining path to a better economy. In that path they oppose most if not all forms of government forays into the economy and most forms of government assistance. However, they seem at times to cherry pick their works.

“There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision.”

Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

Even the pillars of the Libertarian economic system felt that true freedom could only be ensured with a social safety net. So if they would have been in favor of modern Democrat Party issues, then it is arguable that any reasonable Libertarian should take a hard look at the Democrat Party.

So I took a hard look at the Democrat Party. Both my personal belief on liberty and individual responsibility is held in the party platform. Like the Democrat Party, I do not believe that money is equated to free speech, that corporations are NOT people. Like the Democratic platform I believe that the middle class is the bastion if greatness for our nation. That if we want to be truly strong and truly great we must invest in ourselves.

Democrats have traditionally felt the nation could achieve greatness. At the height of the Depression, FDR felt that America could afford Social Security. Kennedy felt that we could touch the surface of another planetary surface. LBJ felt that we could be a great society.

America is about dreams. America is about a better tomorrow. America is about ensuring that all succeed. It should be about how as many people as possible win.

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

Kennedy and Hayek were right in that regard. A free nation that lets its weaker members fail for the benefit of the wealthy is not truly free. A society is no stronger than its weakest citizens. And from the best I can see, the Democrat party wants the most success for the most people. For that reason, I am proud to go Blue.

But, in this era of politicians speaking what they feel needs to be said to be elected; I expect many to doubt that sincerity. I understand it. I would be leery as well. I can only state that I ask that you judge me not only by my words, but my actions.

Independent Candidates Cost The Republicans 5 House Seats Last Month

I've always bitten the bullet in the past and voted for the lesser of two evils, even pulling the lever for the much-hated Joe Lieberman when he ran for Vice President with Al Gore. Even voting for the very compromised Gore was a stretch for me. He was never the kind of populist, like his father, I prefer. But last month-- first time ever-- I came out of the voting booth feeling somehow clean. I didn't vote for Obama, absolutely the far lesser of two evils compared to Romney. Of course, I live in California, where Obama would be getting over 60% of the vote anyway, regardless of what I did. It would be a lot tougher in Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa or Colorado where every vote counted in the struggle to keep Romney away from the White House. But in sunny California, I voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, who drew around 100,000 votes nationally.

The first time I had ever heard of Dianne Feinstein she was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (the City Council) and a close friend was also on the Board, Harvey Milk. He old me what a tool of anti-working family Big Business interests she was. She still is and I'm happy to say I've never voted for her, not when she ran for mayor of San Francisco-- I helped Jello Biafra run against her-- and not in any of her Senate campaigns-- including not last month.

I didn't vote for the Blue Dog, Adam Schiff, who was gerrymandered into my ultra-blue congressional district either. But there was no independent, just a Republican... so I left that slot blank.

President Obama was reelected with 51% of the vote and his main rival, Romney, wound up-- ironically-- with barely 47%. About 2.2 million voters (1.7%) cast their ballots for independent candidates, like I did. (343,586 of them where in California, 2.64%.) But there was no plausible scenario in which the third party candidates swung that race against Romney electoral college-wise. Obama's electoral college victory was just too massive for it to have mattered if Florida or Virginia independent votes could have switched their states' electoral votes. In Florida, for example, Obama beat Romney by only 46,061. If everyone who supported a third-party candidate had instead voted for Romney-- a big "if" when you consider that many of the independent votes were from the left, not the right-- the Republican candidate would have won the Sunshine State by 24,892 votes. That would have gained Romney 29 votes in the Electoral College for a total of 235-- still 35 short of the 270 needed to win... In Virginia, it had been feared that former Congressman Virgil Goode’s Constitutional Party candidacy would leach off enough conservative votes to give the state’s Electoral College votes to Obama. However, Obama won the state’s 13 Electoral College ballots by 54,924 votes. Only 51,802 Virginians voted for all of the third-party candidates combined-- close, but not enough to matter.

However, there actually were some congressional seats where the number of third party votes were greater than the difference between the Democrat and the Republican. Let's take a look at the districts with the biggest number of third party voters... but keep in mind, the ones with the really big numbers are cases where either the Democrat or the Republican was otherwise unchallenged, like in the case of CA-33, where Bill Bloomfield, a big-spending ($5,654,105) multimillionaire challenged longtime incumbent-- though in a significantly redrawn district-- Henry Waxman and walked off with 46.04% of the vote to Waxman's 53.96%. There was no Republican in the race because Bloomfield had come in second in California's crazy new top-two primary system.

Nationally, there were 24 Republicans who faced no Democratic opponent and 19 Democrats who faced no Republican opponent. First the Republicans:

Jo Bonner (AL-01)- 196,374 (97.86%) vs other- 4,302 (2.14%)
Steve Womack (AR-03)- 186,467 (75.9%) vs Rebekah Kennedy (Green)- 59,193 (24.1%)
Paul Cook (CA-08)- 95,962 (57.6) vs Gregg Imus (R)- 70,608 (42.4%)
Kevin McCarthy (CA-23)- 144,477 (73.9%) vs Terry Phillips (I)- 51,101 (26.1%)
Gary Miller (CA-31)- 82,212 (55.2%) vs Bob Dutton (R)- 66,603 (44.8%)
Doug Lamborn (CO-05)- 191,198 (65.3%) vs Dave Anderson (I)- 50,876 (17.4%)
Ander Crenshaw (FL-04)- 239,988 (76.7%) vs Jim Klauder (I)- 75,482 (23.93%)
Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25)- 151,466 (75.65%) vs Stanley Blumenthal (I)- 48,763 (24.4%)
Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03)- 232,380 (99.95%) vs other- 105 (0.05%)
Austin Scott (GA-08)- 197,789 (100%)
Paul Broun (GA-10)- 211,065 (99.81%) vs other- 401 (0.19%)
Tim Huelskamp (KS-01)- 211,337 (100%)
Kevin Yoder (KS-03)- 201,087 (68.45%) vs Joel Balam (Libertarian)- 92,675 (31.55%)
John Fleming (LA-04)- 187,894 (75.3%) vs Randall Lord (Libertarian)- 61,637 (24.7%)
Rodney Alexander (LA-05)- 202,536 (77.83) vs Ron Ceasar (I)- 57,680 (22.2%)
Bill Cassidy (LA-06)- 243,553 (79.41%) vs Rufus Craig (Libertarian)- 63,160 (20.6%)
Gregg Harper (MS-03)- 234,717 (80.02%) vs Luke Pannell (Reform)- 20,090 (19.98%)
John Boehner (OH-08)- 246,378 (99.22%) vs other- 1,938 (.78%)
Joe Wilson (SC-02)- 196,116 (96.27%) vs other- 7,602 (3.73%)
Diane Black (TN-06)- 184,264 (77%) vs Scott Beasley (I)- 34,746 (14%) vs Pat Riley (Green)- 21,613 (9%)
Sam Johnson (TX-03)- 187,180 (100%)
Mac Thornberry (TX-13)- 187,775 (90.98%) vs John Deek (Libertarian)- 12,671 (6.2%)
Bill Flores (TX-17)- 143,284 (79.93%) vs Ben Easton (Libertarian)- 35,978 (20.07%)
Randy Neugebauer (TX-19)- 163,239 (84.99%) vs Chip Peterson (Libertarian)- 28,824 (15.01%)

And now the Democrats with no Republican opponent:

Ed Pastor (AZ-07)- 104,489 (81.74%) vs Joe Cobb (Libertarian)- 23,338 (18.26)
Barbara Lee (CA-13)- 250,436 (86.78%) vs Marilyn Singleton (I)- 38,146 (13.22%)
Eric Swalwell (CA-15)- 115,694 (52.2%) vs Pete Stark (D)- 105,872 (47.8%)
Tony Cardenas (CA-29)- 86,848 (74.0%) vs David Hernandez (I)- 38,994 (25.95%)
Brad Sherman (CA-30)- 117,374 (60.4%) vs Howard Berman (D)- 77,003 (39.6%)
Henry Waxman (CA-33)- 171,860 (53.96%) vs Bill Bloomfield (I)- 146,660 (46.04%)
Gloria McLeod (CA-35)- 72,562 (55.9%) vs Joe Baca (Blue Dog)- 57,304 (44.1%)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-40)- 125,553 (100%)
Maxine Waters (CA-43)- 200,894 (100%)
Janice Hahn (CA-44)- 82,577 (60.1%) vs Laura Richardson (D)- 54,852 (39.9%)
Alcee Hastings (FL-20)- 214,727 (87.9%) vs Randall Terry (I)- 29,553 (12.1%)
Ted Deutsch (FL-21)- 221,263 (77.8%) vs Michael Trout (I)- 63,137 (22.2%)
Richard Neal (MA-01)- 261,936 (98.42%) vs other- 4,197 (1.58%)
Jim McGovern (MA-02)- 259,257 (98.45) vs other- 4,078 (1.55%)
Mike Capuano (MA-07)- 210,794 (83.37%) vs Karla Romero (I)- 42,042 (16.63%)
Nydia Velazquez (NY-07)- 116,873 (94.48) vs James Murray (Conservative)- 6,823 (5.5%)
Marcia Fudge (OH-11)- 258,359 (100%)
Jim Clyburn (SC-06)- 218,717 (93.62%) vs Nammu Muhammad (Green)- 14,898 (6.38%)
Gene Green (TX-29)- 86,053 (90.0%) vs Jamey Stanczak (Libertarian)- 4,988 (5.2%)

Before we even suppose that an independent bid cost a major party candidate a seat, we have to understand that a Green running against a Democrat or a Conservative running against a Republican, is unlikely to attract voters who would have otherwise all voted for the major party opponent. Example, Green Party candidate Ursula Rozum attracted 21,327 votes (7.87%) and nearly cost New Dem Daniel Maffei the election. But those were predominantly progressive voters protesting against Maffei's record as a corporate whore and they wouldn't have otherwise gone to teabagger incumbent Ann Marie Buerkle. These are the districts where tight Democratic vs Republican races included independent candidates who got more votes that the difference between the two major party contestants:

AZ-01: Ann Kirkpatrick (D)- 122,774 (48.8%) vs Jonathan Paton 113,594 (45.15%) vs Kim Allen (Libertarian)- 15,227 (6.05%)
AZ-09: Kyrsten Sinema (D)- 121,881 (48.73%) vs Vernon Parker (R)- 111,630 (44.63%) vs Powell Gammill (Libertarian)- 16,620 (6.64%)
CO-06: Mike Coffman (R)- 163,922 (47.81%) vs Joe Miklosi (D)- 156,929 (45.77%) vs Kathy Polhemus (I) and Patrick Provost (Libertarian)- 22,039 (6.43%)
IL-13: Rodney Davis (R)- 137,034 (46.55%) vs David Gill (D)- 136,032 (46.21) vs John Hartman (I)- 21,319 (7.24%)
IN-02: Jackie Walorski (R)- 134,033 (49.01%) vs Brendan Mullen (Blue Dog)- 130,113 (47.58%) vs Joe Ruiz (Libertarian)- 9,326 (3.4%)
MA-06: John Tierney (D)- 180,942 (48.28%) vs Richard Tisei (R)- 176,612 (47.12%) vs Daniel Fishman (Libertarian)- 16,739 (4.3%)
MI-01: Dan Benishek (R)-167,060 (48.14%) vs Gary McDowell (Blue Dog)- 165,179 (47.6%) vs Emily Salvette (Libertarian)- 10,630 (3.1%) vs Ellis Boal (Green)- 4,168 (1.2%)
NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter (D)- 171,650 (49.75%) vs Frank Guinta (R)- 158,659 (45.99%) vs Brandan Kelly (Libertarian)- 14,521 (4.2%)
NY-24: Daniel Maffei (D)- 130,969 (48.35%) vs Ann Marie Buerkle (R)- 118,578 (43.78%) vs Ursula Rozum (Green)- 21,327 (7.87%)
UT-04: Jim Matheson (Blue Dog)- 119,803 (48.84%) vs Mia Love (R)- 119,035 (48.53%) vs Jim Vein (Libertarian)- 6,439 (2.63%)

We're just dealing in probabilities here but if any outcomes were changed it looks pretty certain that Libertarians cost the GOP five seats: AZ-01, AZ-09, MA-06, NH-01, UT-04, all of which were seats the Republicans spent gigantically on. And a conservative Independent who favors Simpson-Bowles, John Hartman, cost David Gill the IL-13 seat, a real tragedy.