http://rt.com/usa/news/police-jill-stein-debate-589/ ‘);
Edited: 17 October, 2012, 13:18
Video from Long Island Report http://longislandreport.org/ (3.3Mb) embed video
Police arrested Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, after they tried to enter the site of tonight’s presidential debate at Hofstra University.
The two were protesting against the exclusion of all but the two major political parties from taking part in the debate.
“Jill Stein, Cheri Honkala arrested, call tonight’s #debate a “mockumentary”,” said a tweet posted on her account.
The presidential candidate and her vice-presidential nominee were arrested by local police when they tried to enter the grounds of Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York, Stein’s campaign website says. The women were later released from police custody.
A video posted on YouTube shows police officers ushering Stein and Honkala away after they apparently tried to stage a sit-in.
The arrest comes after an announcement by the Green Party that the candidates will take “Occupy the Commission on Presidential Debates” action on the night of the debate.
“Stein and Honkala will walk from Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum at 2 PM to the debate perimeter at Hofstra, where they will then attempt to walk through security checkpoints and reach the debate hall,” read the release.
“This is a great day for democracy,” Stein told The Philadelphia Weekly by phone as she headed to the debate site. “It’s a great day for the politics of courage.”
The candidates claim that the Commission on Presidential Debates is an unfair entity formed by Democratic and Republican leaders designed to exclude any opposition.
Jill Stein is the Green Party’s nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. A Harvard-educated physician, she also stood for election for Governor of Massachusetts in both 2002 and 2010. A staple of her campaign is the “Green New Deal,” a plan to recharge the US by giving “every American willing and able to work” a job on renewable energy projects in the country. She is backed by American leftist icon Noam Chomsky and acclaimed journalist and harsh critic of unregulated capitalism Chris Hedges.
Screenshot from YouTube user LongIslandReport
Bob speaks at the Franklin County Consortium for Good Government Candidate Forum October 10 at the Peace Lutheran Church in Gahanna.
Bob hangs out with Democratic Congressional Candidate (12th district) Jim Reece
Bob discusses disability issues with Bob Thurman of the Ohio Rehabilitative Services Commission
Bob Fitrakis testifies with Richard Hayes Phillips and the late Bill Moss before the Election Assessment Committee in Houston in 2005. The testimony was submitted to the Carter-Baker Commission which was looking at improving U.S. elections.
Bob and members of the Franklin County Green Party protest that Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was left out of the National Disabilities Forum in Columbus. The Green Party position on disabilities is:
Rights of the Disabled
We support the full enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act to enable all people with disabilities to achieve independence and function at the highest possible level. Government should work to ensure that children with disabilities are provided with the same educational opportunities as those without disabilities.
The physically and mentally challenged are people who are differently abled from the majority, but who are nevertheless able to live independently. The mentally ill are people with serious mental problems who often need social support networks. Physically and mentally challenged people have the right to live independently in their communities. The mentally ill also have the right to live independently, circumscribed only by the limitations of their illness. These people are their own best advocates in securing their rights and for living in the social and economic mainstream.
Current Medicaid policy forces many challenged people to live in costly state-funded institutions. Excluding these people from society alienates them; excluding them from the work force denies them the chance to use their potentials.
The diminishing funds available to provide care for the growing number of the mentally ill often result in their homelessness, vagrancy and dependence on short-term crisis facilities. Lack of funding also increases the necessity of placing them in long-term, locked facilities.
The Green Party urges the government to:
a. Increase rehabilitation funding so that persons with disabilities can pursue education and training to reach their highest potential. The differently abled should participate fully in the allocation decisions of state rehabilitation departments’ funds.
b. Aggressively implement the Americans with Disabilities Act.
c. Fund in-home support services to allow the differently abled to hire personal care attendants while remaining at home.
d. Allocate adequate funding to support community-based programs that provide out-patient medical services, case management services and counseling programs. We should provide a residential setting within the community for those who do not need institutional care but who are unable to live independently.
e. Make it easier for the chronically mentally ill to apply for and receive Supplemental Security Income.
f. Mainstream the differently abled. Increase the training of teachers in regards to the needs of differently abled students.
g. Discourage stereotyping of the mentally and physically challenged by the entertainment industry and the media.
h. Fund programs to increase public sensitivity to the needs of the mentally ill and differently abled.
What about this Republican convention?? Listen and call-in to Bob Fitrakis on Fight Back – Saturday, Sept. 1 from 11am-12noon.
WVKO 1580AM or www.wvko1580.com/listen
1-614-821-1580
Tom Over will call in – news from the protest outside the convention in Tampa.
