No Labels Wants to Reassure Us That They Are Not Threatening to Blow Things up if They Don’t Get What They Want

Instead, they are generously offering to not blow things up as long as everyone does what they tell them to do.

See?  Totally different things.

This story makes me sad because it involved an otherwise estimable elder -- Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Junior, a distinguished gentleman of 75 years, with a long list of accomplishments including being the former chair of the NAACP -- ducking into the truck stop Men's Room wall of political tout sheets -- The Hill -- to reassure America that No Labels is definitely not a third party spoiler.  So everybody just calm down.

Which only goes to show that even a celebrated grandpa can get snookered.

Instead, No Labels is "...a national movement of Democrats, Republicans and Independents working to bring America’s leaders together to develop common-sense two-party solutions to America's biggest problems."

Yeah, but what if America's biggest problem is that one of its political parties is insane?

OK, never mind.  This is why I don't get invited to No Labels booze cruises.  Instead, please, tell us all, Dr. Chavis, what are America's biggest problems?

What is spoiling American politics today at the federal, state and local levels is the absence of civility, bipartisanship, and respect for equality and democracy.

Got it.

And who exactly is it that's raising all this ruckus and spoiling American politics?

Wait for it...

Wait for it... (emphasis added)

Two things, however, are abundantly clear in American politics today. First, the ideological extremes have become more powerful than ever within the two parties. You need to look no further than the divisive rhetoric that drips from small-dollar fundraising appeals to see how bad it’s gotten: Extremists on both sides use over-heated rhetoric to argue that donations are required to help them stop the “threat” posed by the other.

Sigh.

And just for shits & giggles, what's the other thing spoling America?

Second, we know that the American people are growing increasingly disgusted by a politics that speaks more to our fear than our hopes. 

Golly!  So...what's to be done about it?

That’s why some are suddenly now mobilizing to attack and to stop No Labels’ efforts to establish the groundwork for a potential independent ticket that reflects a bipartisan platform of key policies and issues that will be our nation’s major focus in 2024. 

But... you literally just said five paragraphs ago that you were not a third party spoiler.

Then comes the usual bullshit polls about how many people are unhappy with the state of politics, which has been the common lament of the common man since the Delian League.

And then comes big, dumb, ham-handed and inevitable iron fist in the ill-fitting velvet glove.  

Those who have a stake in maintaining the old duopoly claim that insurgent tickets will only serve to spoil the results. But that’s an old way of thinking. ... If establishment figures in both parties don’t want an independent ticket to run, they can simply stop pandering to the loudest and most extreme voices in their respective parties.

Sigh.  

Dr. Chavis declines to specify what he means by "loud" or "extreme" only that, if both parties won't cater to the vague whims of the No Labels scam, they damn well will run as a third-party spoiler.

So, extortion...but humbly and with a smile.  

And what is Dr. Chavis up to these days that moves him to write this tripe?

Along with Paul Hogan, and Joe Fucking Lieberman, he's now the co-chair of No Labels. 

No Labels, a nonprofit think tank that describes itself as a national movement of Democrats, Republicans, and independents working to solve the country’s most complex problems, has named Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. as its national co-chair.

The formal announcement occurred during a Zoom news conference on January 22.

It included welcome messages from Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), and former Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, among others.

Recording star Deborah Cox opened the introductory news conference by performing a spirited song about No Labels...

Ah well, when one door opens... or closes... or whatever.  From Politico, March 7, 2023:

Mark Halperin leaving No Labels

The former NBC commentator had been the group’s highest paid employee.

Mark Halperin, the former top political commentator who was fired from NBC under a cloud of scandal, is leaving his current position as a senior communications adviser to the bipartisan group No Labels, the organization confirmed.

Halperin had been No Labels’ highest-paid employee after joining the group in 2021. The circumstances of his departure were not immediately clear. Two people familiar with the matter said he was forced out. A statement from No Labels framed the exit more amicably...

Multiple No Labels staffers objected to Halperin joining the organization in April 2021. But the group’s co-executive director Liz Morrison told POLITICO last year that Halperin was “incredibly brilliant” and was an asset to the organization. In 2021, he received nearly $260,000 in total compensation, making him No Labels’ highest-paid employee, according to the organization’s 990 tax form...

Two people familiar with the situation said Halperin, who is no longer listed as an employee on the group’s website, had been unhappy with No Labels and had begun to bristle at the office culture there.

“He didn’t like the fact that his career had reached the point where he was running the digital team for Nancy Jacobson,” said one former No Labels employee who worked closely with him. 

Reminder:  The only outfit who would give Halperin a job before his featherbedding No Labels pityfuck gig was NewsMax.  And if Halperin thinks doing busywork for No Labels was a step down from swapping digital spit on Zoom with Hogan Gidley on NewsMax, maybe its time to see a career councilor.  

Anyway, if you'd like to read what I wrote about the transparently dishonest No Labels grift just two days after it launched back in December of 2010, you'll find the whole post here ("Dead Center").  

Honestly, wouldn't change a word.  Got it 100% right, right out of the gate.

Of  if  you'd prefer just a sip or two, here you go:

But nothing we did not expect, right?

...I mean, ever since the Republican Base ducked out on paying the tab for a generation of being loudly and catastrophically wrong about everything by putting on funny hats, screaming about liberty and calling themselves "The Tea Party", their sleazy Centrist enablers have been seething with jealously. Quite suddenly the monster they built didn't need them anymore and the skeevy hustlers who had helped create the Racist/Corporatist/Dominionist Confederacy on the bones of the New Deal and the grave of the American Dream found themselves cast out and looking for their next meal ticket.

Preferably a meal ticket under a banner that -- like "Tea Party -- wouldn't keep bringing up their horribly inconvenient past as the sleazy, enabling hustlers.

Hey, kids! I have an idea! Lets peel those the icky, damning labels off of everything and -- presto! -- there is magically no longer any difference between rat poison and apple sauce!

Can I haz my million dollars now?...

Never got my million dollars, but it does strike me that the corrupt origins of the No Labels grift and its subsequent, zombie unkillability might make a very fine episode of two of No Fair Remembering Stuff.

Both Sides Don't