The threshold by the Commission on Presidential Debates. In the words of the League of Women Voters, they are a fraud being perpetrated on the American public.
I don't know if I ever mentioned back in 2002 we fought our way into a governor's debate in Massachusetts where, you know, this was televised and I articulated our usual agenda: cut the military, put the dollars into true security here at home, provide healthcare as a human right, raise wages which needed to be living wages, green our energy system, equal marriage? - we were the only ones talking about it back in 2002.
We need a nonpartisan debate commission that actually allows candidates, who are on the ballot in enough states that they could win the election - voters not only have a right to vote, we have a right to know who we can vote for.
We now have over a hundred thousand people who are signed up on our campaign and our petition to open up the debate, and we're encouraging people to come and to join us and to insist that we need to be included.
If my campaign is not in the debate, we will not have a real discussion of the emergency of climate change and why in fact we need a Green New Deal type national mobilization at the scale of a wartime mobilization in order to address this emergency.
If my campaign is not in the debate, we will not be talking about how we really fix this problem of endless and expanding war, why we need to cut the military budget by 50%, why we need to bring back our troops scattered overseas, the police force of the world, in over a hundred countries, something like eight hundred bases, but who's counting, why we need to basically bring those troops home and why we need to stop this policy of regime change, these wars on terror, which only create more terror. This needs to be debated.
Why should the Democratic and Republican parties be in charge of the debates, especially at a time when the largest block of voters has repudiated the Democratic and Republican parties? Why are they still in charge?
Over three-quarters of the American people are saying it's time to open up the debates. We have rejected these two candidates [Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump] at the highest levels of disapproval in our history.
Seventy-five percent of voters now [in September 2016], according to the latest poll, want third-party candidates included in the debate. We have the highest disapproval and distrust rates ever in our history for these two presidential candidates, which the system is doing everything it can to force down our throats.
It's time to override this fraud being committed on the American voter of the two-party tyranny of this private corporation of the Commission on Presidential Debates.
All the more reason we need to stand up for our democracy now. If we're going to solve the crises that are barreling down on us, we need democracy, and our democracy needs to start with an open and inclusive debate. That doesn't mean 20 candidates. There are four candidates who are on the ballot for just about every voter in America.
Democracy needs to start with an open Presidential debate. So come on out and let's take back the promise of our democracy.
If we're not in the debates there will be no real discussion of climate change, because Hillary Clinton's policy does not begin to address the threat.
Right now we have a bipartisan debate commission, when most Americans are not members of the bipartisan establishment.
I think there are a lot of people who feel very passionate about needing to have an open debate. And I think it's a real sign of leadership that the press needs to be actually standing up for that.
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