"Did You Know That A Presidential Candidate Was Arrested Last Tuesday Night"

"A Presidential Candidate was arrested last night AT THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE. And as if that's not insane enough, it's not even news?! Is that the kind of country you want to live in?"



You may have noticed that the Green party presidential candidate, Dr Jill Stein, was absent from the "town hall" presidential debate at Hofstra University the other night. That's because she was shackled to a chair in a nearby New York police facility, along with her running-mate, Green party vice-presidental nominee Cheri Honkala. Their crime: attempting to get to the debate so Stein could participate in it.

While Mitt Romney uttered the now-famous line that he was given "whole binders full of women" while seeking staff as newly-elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002, the real binders were handcuffs used to shackle these two women, who are mothers, activists and the Green party's presidential ticket for 2012. Dr Stein was interviewed the day after the debate, after their imprisonment (which ended, not surprisingly, not long after the debate ended).

 "We are on the ballot for 85% of voters. Americans deserve to know what their choices are. The police said they were only doing job. I said, 'This is about everyone's jobs, whether we can afford healthcare, whether students will be indentured.' There are critical issues left out of the debate.

 "Ninety million voters are predicted to stay home and vote with their feet that neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney represent them. That's twice as many voters than expected for either of them."

Even if Stein and Honkala hadn't been hauled off a public street and handcuffed to those chairs for eight hours, Stein's exclusion from the debate was certain. The debates are very closely controlled by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which excludes third-party candidates, among other things. George Farah is the founder and executive director of Open Debates, and author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates.

READ MORE ABOUT AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN ACTION HERE - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/jill-stein-arrest-green-party-presidential-debate

THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THAT THIS HAS OCCURRED ......