markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser reports on r.g.p. . it is tuesday october twenty third eight pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you are watching our team. we are just about an hour away from a third party presidential debate in chicago our tea will bring you the debate live but before the debate kicks off there will be a panel discussion here is

a live look from chicago as you can see people are gathering to hear what the four candidates have to say and as you know third party candidates have been shut out of the presidential debates between president obama and governor romney as i said there will be a panel discussion ahead of the debate and one of the moderators will be our very own tom hartman who hosts the big picture here on our t.v. and when the discussion gets underway we'll go back live to chicago to listen in. now that president obama and governor romney have gone their debates out of the way both candidates are now swing state tours of course these are states where they have most at stake if they want to be reelected why would they waste their time on the majority of america where the voting outcome is known but while they embark on this last ditch effort to win over undecided americans it is after all the electoral college that gets the final say on who america is going on who is elected

to be america's commander in chief artie's an associate churkin to reports on a practice that many americans despise. the game of thrones the battle of obama versus romney thanks americans presume they're the ones doing the picking but it's the mystical electoral college that plays a crucial role in every us presidential election a lot of people despise it they don't understand it but it is built into our constitution it's the process that can make or break a candidate shatter their dream or lead them right into that coveted spot in the palace people don't know who's in the electoral college they don't know what it really does but they do know that it determines the outcome of elections and exceptional mom direct voting system put in place by the founding fathers some states with more packages or less and in order to prevent domination by the larger states over the smaller states the electoral college was set up to be. one of the

ways in which that would be done and so that. the states would have their own amount of electors that would go. to a successful candidate five hundred thirty eight electors make up the electoral college when americans cast a ballot it's a vote for their candidate selected this is practiced only in the us and only in presidential elections it's the only election like that in this country i've been a mayor you were you get the most votes wins governor congress senate most states have a preferred party before election day so presidential hopefuls focus on undecided or swing states that will ultimately impact the outcome a lot of the smaller states have more influence than the larger population centers and so there is an argument that is now unfair that it's outlived its usefulness devoted to that while supporters insist the practice draws attention and cash to smaller states critics say the system is ancient and wastes time and money the

electoral college was good when they put it you know why. you had to travel by horseback to washington as well as undermining standards the u.s. prides itself on if you're in favor of democracy if you're in favor of an electoral process where things are discussed and debated then it's a disaster with potential to manipulate the outcome of an election the electoral college is also said to undermine the real opinion of the majority under certain conditions and certain circumstances the electoral college can decide differently than the popular vote so help me god that was the case when george w. bush came to power in two thousand al gore even with all the cheating and funny business in florida he still had half a million more votes than george bush and yet the electoral college and the supreme court gave the presidency to george bush horribly anti-democratic democratic i don't know thomas say that with america's mainstream media today treating elections

like a horse race the media critique of elections is really like who's up and who's down in the polls and politicians caring about being elected more than the ways in which they win the spot because we have imagined that we are a democracy and therefore don't have anything to improve the election process is unlikely to change regardless of its obvious flaws in direction we don't need that it's convoluted when we don't need that and it tends to be kind of demobilizing and demoralizing to the popular will and of course the popular will is what we all hope shapes the future course of a country politically and a democracy while the time for a truly democratic rejig up the system has long been knocking on the u.s. door we need thorough and radical sweeping election reform and democracy is the rule of the people where the opinion of the majority shapes the government and what that government does but the existing barriers put in place more than two hundred years ago are not just obstructing the voters but also the fundamental values of a genuine democracy which this country strives to be and especially if you're going

to artsy new york. that was the stasi of their reporting on the controversial toral process want to take another look now to the venue over there in chicago tom hartman is hosting one of the moderators of a panel we are just waiting for jill stein to arrive we will bring you that discussion in just a few moments. but for now the final presidential debate between president obama and governor romney has wrapped up and you wouldn't know it by watching the mainstream media but the presidential debates are not over as you saw we just saw that live look another one is about to begin. these are the voices that we don't hear a lot about on the mainstream media so we are bringing it to you here on r t to weigh in on the debate that is just moments away now our very own our producer. and abby

martin host of breaking the set welcome ladies. all right so what just moments away now we're less than an hour what issues can we expect to hear discussed that weren't discussed last night or think what's really interesting to see the live look is how low key it is you don't have the billion dollar glitz and glamor of you know these ridiculous. debates going on but i think the number one issue on a point earlier is climate change that we're really here a lot about which haven't been mentioned at all i think the surveillance the police state and also foreign policy the topics that were talked about drone warfare. extensively about. winding down the wars realistic we want to know actually and also the drug war that's definitely going to likely going to come up i mean that's one of johnson's big issues so that's for sure going to be something to going to be talked about in also i think campaign finance that's going to be another thing i

think that is you know it's going to be around because many of these candidates do have an eighty citizens united states a lot of them do believe that money should be you know extricated from the conversation when it comes to politics so i think that's going to also play a part that's right and you know i just got word that rocky anderson one of the candidates that will be part of this debate tonight joined the panel let's take a listen to the discussion. issues this isn't just something i talk about during a campaign these are things i've worked on all my adult life they represent what the majority of people in poll after poll show that they want whether it's getting out of afghanistan whether it's ending the budget busting bush tax cuts whether it's getting it finally seeing an end to the disastrous spelled war on drugs there is so much that we can get done as americans but not if the debate is so constricted as we've seen during these three presidential debates and the vice

presidential debate i mean there are what are they arguing about who can drill on public lands the most who can raise military spending the most what kinds of arms are we going to send over to syria to set those poor people up for an absolute bloodbath our foreign policy is so belligerent and republican and democratic parties have been in collusion on this for decades and we've got to put it to one have and that's what the american people want to see so when you say what are we trying to accomplish certainly raising awareness about not only the issues but a path to ramp possibilities of the people of this country returning our government to a real democracy government offered by and for the people rather than this flipped ocracy where the white house and congress are up for sell to the highest how would you suggest we do that well i think a major people's movement

a democratic movement and we saw a lot of that happening with the occupy movement but we've got great examples in our nation's history that the woman suffrage movement the civil rights movement the labor movement people came together at the grassroots they were just waiting until the next election rolled around good to put the right people in office who are going to perform these miracles we can perform those who. recalls by taking on the leadership as a gauge citizen so each of those each i'm sorry but if i may if each each of those movements and you can take a back to the ball most party or you could take it back you know but long before that each of those movements has either infected influenced or pushed one of the two major political parties but they've never shaken those two party system which comes out of the way that our constitution is written we have first past the post winner take all lections shouldn't we be looking at things like instead of voting range voting commercial voting or i mean isn't this really

a systemic problem far more than it's a nasty conspiracy between two evil parties who are electoral system is rotten to the core from front to back but is going through already system seven hundred ninety three but these two parties collude to keep alternatives off the ballot i never knew how bad it was or read teresa's amazing book math that almost convinced me let's not even try if it was but we are here and we have the nightmare story about getting kicked off the ballot including getting kicked off in illinois. but. we can't we can't let up and. certainly run off voting would be a great solution but there are parties that are benefiting from the system we have now they're not going to put it into place so we need that there is a many people who belong to every political part of this can't be partisanship anymore this should be the people of the united states are not going to go around saying get the corrupting money out of our government let's start abiding by the

constitution and amisom puro presidency the strength of our constitution and our out seem like the system that makes sense and provides a true democracy for the people of this country rocky where we're out of time in here going to have a lot of time during this debate i think you still much for coming and i see this thing so take it getting knowing you this half a year or so actually we've been talking. thank you so what your time but i think you. respond. you know i'm honored to read the best and as mentioned number of the provisions that need to be reformed we should also talk and maybe ask dr starting if she's a sister some of the other candidate gary johnson nonpartisan administration. elections what would what will we do to get media to provide more air time so that groups are have to. use these debates that they're actually they kept on the just.

what are we going to do. with these what are we going to do to federalize and make sure that what i would suspect was so that it's not typical and so that a candidate like rocky anderson who's been the mayor of the city doesn't have to get kicked off the ballot nor do i raise our lives as some journalists interviewing rocky anderson he is the candidate for the justice party and we're told gary johnson will be up next and just a few minutes want to go back to our panel here in washington d.c. we have host of breaking the set abby martin and one of our team lead producers no well no we have our our our to you producer and get this straight i don't get it and has been there on day so kind of want to reiterate or talk more about what the justice party candidate was talking about there you spoke a little bit about it before we went live there one of the things that was not mentioned during the debates the main mainstream debates that were broadcasted

nationwide is the war on drugs absolutely absolutely and that's something i feel that will play a prominent role in these debates i mean it was just very surprising but not even a word not even a mention of that was even brought up in the foreign policy debate you wouldn't you would figure that that would be just you know something that would have to you know bring up an entire region with a. and of summarily ignored and i likely will see a change of pace i'm guessing that they're going to latin america once out there searching the light of day men one time talent and then mitt romney said lead america said we needed to increase trade my mccain knows it and that they don't talk about of the d.a.'s going over there and killing people no no informed soil and then the prison industrial complex and how this all fits and i think domestic policy and foreign policy hate to interrupt the conversation guys but i did just get word that gary johnson has joined the panel political lesson in reality based

my entire life when when two parties become obsolete it's the duty of other parties to try and supplant. those two so i'm engaged in that process and i appreciate you having this to mean it's a great opportunity to voice. a difference on really all the issues of the day. no your campaign is doing something strategic and that is going after the voters who work for ron paul now that ron paul is no longer in the running for his party's nomination a large segments of that voting bloc has moved to you and it also represents a growing segment of the republican party itself how do you think that's going to play out when we move towards november for your campaign specifically well you know we never targeted a anybody but i do believe that when i ran for when i was running for president in the republican party i really thought it was going to be hard to marginalize two people on stage talking about the same things myself and ron paul i didn't find

myself marginalized and i found myself very unfairly excluded what i thought it would just was ron paul continuing to be marginalized and in december i looked into my crystal ball and i didn't see ron paul as the republican nominee so where where is the voice for what i think is the fastest growing segment of american politics today in the lip. the movement well it was going to be the libertarian nominee for president and i saw an opportunity to be able to get that nomination and participated maybe and twelve state conventions where there were twelve debates with twelve libertarian candidates running for president of united states. how do you define the comics and what is the government's role relative to the comments that when you say common what do you mean those things we own in common. well i think that speaking with a broad brush stroke i think the majority of americans are fiscally responsible and

socially accepting now that's where the broad brushstrokes i'm in that category i think the majority of americans are in that category i think that really kind of represents the libertarian party the notion of being more liberal than obama on many issues social issues more conservative than romney on many issues its fiscal issues how do you define a cut with the military is part of the commons nobody's talking about privatizing the military the police departments of fire departments typically should our public should a public education be considered part of the commons or should it be open to corporate takeover should our you know hat more than half of electricity that's generated in this country is generated by public utilities should they be privatized what what were the boundary points for the commons things that get those things that you open your government well as governor of new mexico i always said that government should be about best product best service at the lowest price and so wherever

privatization was able to come in and provide a better product a better service at a lower price i'm i was always for it i was probably more outspoken than any governor in the country regarding school choice believing that to improve education we should bring competition to public education and i still believe that what what should the role be of the federal government when it comes to education. it would be getting out of education completely established in one thousand and seventy nine hundred jimmy carter i don't think there's been anything value added when it comes to education since one thousand and seventy nine and another thing people don't recognize that the federal government gives each state about eleven cents out of every school dollar that every state spends they give illinois eleven cents and they say you have to do a b. c. d. but to do a b. c. d. it costs illinois sixteen cents to deliver on a b. c. d. so it's really a negative to take federal money if you just got the federal government out of

education gave it up to the states fifty laboratories of innovation and best practice i think that's exactly what you would have to have some fabulous success that would get emulated you'd also have some horrible failure that would get avoided that fifty states working on that kind of model. i think creates a better model government has a fundamental role in my opinion to protect you and i against individuals groups corporations that would do us harm. and as a nation. i'm going to start interrupt you because we're out of time we wish you the best you want to know you so much thank you very much thank you for listening gary and we're all here again to be your night and find a lot of things in common as well tonight is on the phone for the for us and or hire a we were just listening and on tom hartman and some fellow journalists over there interviewing gary johnson he is the libertarian presidential candidate he is going to be speaking and less than an hour now for the first third party presidential

debate i want to go back to my panel now abby martin adriano the cerro. gary johnson he's the libertarian candidate of course. one of the libertarians that you know is running under the republican take and ron paul in this ron paul resolute revolution as it was called. a lot of people saying you know even though he didn't even make it to the the by. annele debate that you know one of his main. goals was to get his message out and so going along with this it seems like there is a growing party a growing movement and this is the libertarian movement i think it's very interesting the way that governor johnson just put it which was you know this is what you know the libertarian party is or what a libertarian is which is you know being more liberal than obama and more conservative than romney so that libertarians are actually like fiscally responsible and socially accepting and that's just very interesting that he's

presenting you know what libertarianism in his mind not the caricature the stuff that is you know sort of being touted along you know the regular mainstream media and we're you this is especially among the young i was around in the young voters in the last year i think that libertarianism is becoming very popular because it is i mean i like gary johnson because he is a progressive libertarian i mean he talks about gay rights he talks about the two tiered justice system and really the way to solve it which is just installing very basic rules that apply toward everyone not you know not allowing corporations to really get away with everything and not appoint a justice system to them so that's really it's very intriguing and of course the foreign policy civil liberties front of a lot of progressives are interesting don't i don't mean to cut you off but i just got word that joel stein has now joined the panel joel stein appearing on target let's take a listen i would like to get arrested to get into to that when you attempted to become part of the commission on presidential debates just. thank you both really

important issues so you know the green new deal is a emergency plan to solve two really critical problems that the american people. and which the democrats and republicans have virtually nothing about it creates twenty five million jobs it puts an end to unemployment and. starts the green economy and that green economy can put a halt to climate change and it makes wars for oil obsolete which is a critical part of how we can fund the screen new deal which would cost about the cost of the first stimulus package of two thousand and nine around six hundred billion dollars or so and it basically puts resources in the hands of communities so they can create the jobs they need to become sustainable ecologically socially and economically the spectrum of green jobs clean renewable energy healthy local food production public transportation plus the jobs that need our social kyra and

that the teachers childcare after school affordable housing starts things like that so it's a win win for jobs for the economy but also for him in climate change and for allowing us to bring back. hundreds of billions of dollars from those wars for oil which the green new deal makes unnecessary and the and the rest question was. quite shocking as an experience my running mate and i went to hofstra university attempting to just get on to the ground and to be able to go in and challenge the commission and they. we were not allowed even to come in. and we were arrested put in type plastic restraints and then taken to a dark side which no one was supposed to know about and in fact when our team found

us there the security officers were really alarmed and actually rather hostile that they had been found out and they wanted to know how what was our intelligence and enabled us to locate their dark side because it was supposed to be top secret but there we were for eight hours the two of us very scary you know big burly grandmothers. tell him cuffed and handcuffed chairs it was such a case of overkill and also a case of our tax dollars hard work there was the facility decked out for the arrest of hundreds of people and with sixteen officers who all just stood around and watched my running mate and i am cuffed to tears for eight hour ride to get on the grounds of that mission i'm sure you know charging into a public event which is supposed to be you know if it masquerades as being the commission on presidential debates you would think that the public would have something to do with this and the candidates who are on the ballot for eighty five

percent of voters who basically met the criteria of the league of women voters for participating in a public debate you'd think that that's what it's supposed to be about the commission is extremely weak i think what's happened to you ma'am you see is symbolic though all of this distrust that the voters have with their government so going to your new green deal would that be something that would be allocated solely from a federal level or would you seek to more spread it out amongst state exactly got one minute left here jailbreak and that's a very important question because it's not a top down washington based cookie cutter program rather the funding would be provided nationally but then distributed to local communities so they can decide to an inclusive and participatory process what kinds of jobs are the priority for that community on the great still so great to have you and i know why we didn't get into ballot access various i know finance your campaign manager it's been quite uphill battle there i would do you and gary johnson on these candidates and in the way it

works and they keep you busy running in circles for the first eighty percent of your campaign so it's only in the last few weeks that we were able to get the word out but it was extremely uplifting and. affirming of our shared values the word about the campaign has gotten out it has spread it's been like giving up candy at christmas hanukkah and kwanzaa. rolled into one to tell people they have an id and they're all wrapped up in the ballot box it's very the created the grand illusion based in the eighty ninety australian ballot so thank you so much jill for coming and also the one stage with larry king right away all right that would be presidential candidate for the green party talking to our panel there our very own tom hartman is on that panel back to our panel here in washington d.c. we have abby martin and andre on in the cerro so a jail cell i know not too long ago she got arrested yes she got arrested out in

front of the second to the last presidential debates. on the streets demanding i mean she was calling the whole debate a charade a sham saying that why can't boys be heard her and gary johnson are suing the commission on presidential debates which you know are funded by giant corporations in part by the coal industry i mean we haven't seen an alternative voice since ross perot in one thousand nine hundred ninety two i mean he's been ridiculous when you completely exclude alternative voices in the corporate media is complicit in their signs. yeah yeah absolutely and i want to ask you we just heard from jail sign or so i was like i think i'm a change right like anyone can really separates her the other candidates i think well i think it's she's the one that's most on the left out of all of them and also her entire green new deal that entire initiative that is essentially advocating for advancements in green technology clean energy which you know the president has

hinted about that and sort of you know sort of danced around it a little bit in debates however that's an issue that's been widely politicized by both the right and the left so you see you know someone a different tone from her i mean she's actually saying hey guys i got this plan this is the future this is the way that we're able to push the country forward and how my going to pay for it i'm going to cut the military so it's all very interesting things you know i. on face value they would make sense of course but very very sticky political arguments for sure so i mean it's a i think that's what really really you know separates her you know from the pack right i just know where they are virgil goode has joined the panel let's let's take a listen palin on why democrats and republicans you know have to stay there. all those that have white and ballots where ryan go for it like north carolina the only right you can select and altera our fish we had to get the same way in texas are same way in illinois right so what difficulty distant you find with the

electoral process and how would you fix our broken electoral system given that you've experienced candidates see in the two major parties and now as a third party really a presidential campaign is fifty state campaign i think you need grassroots effort yeah date such as so almost with chad the. ballot saying that doors are much the same way. california. make it more via i need to borrow things. and i say if you give more opportunity for greater ease to have what it has come up. would you consider federalizing one of the former ballot access standards that are ok. it's soft at the federal government should work with the states but really. we are a federal system of fifty states.