On October 20, Al Jazeera-English TV ran a 25-minute segment about the Commission on Presidential Debates. See it at this link. Especially notable is the interview with George Farah, who mentions details about the Commission that are not generally known. The segment also contains a fairly lengthy interview with Jill Stein.

In 1990, the United States signed the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE. Among other things, the U.S. promised to “provide that no legal or administrative obstacle stands in the way of unimpeded access to the media on a non-discriminatory basis for all political groupings and individuals wishing to participate in the electoral process.” United States laws prop up the Commission on Presidential Debates, which are sponsored for the most part by profit-making corporations. The expenses are tax-deductible, meaning that the U.S. government is indirectly subsidizing the Commission. People in the world outside of the United States are interested in comparing U.S. rhetoric with U.S. reality.

On October 26, by apparent coincidence, both Yahoo!News and Salon carried columns condemning the arrest and incarceration of Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala on October 3, at the first presidential debate for the two major party nominees. Here is the Yahoo!News commentary, which is by Tom Bissell. Here is the Salon commentary, by Greg Olear.

Lawrence O’Donnell has a weekly appearance on MSNBC, called “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.” He has been a writer for “The West Wing” TV show, an actor, and a political commentator. Here he publicizes the October 23 debate between four minor party presidential candidates; criticizes the major party candidates for failing to discuss indefinite detention and drug laws; illustrates that the minor party candidates did debate these issues; and finally, urges voters in non-swing states to consider voting for the minor party presidential candidate who best represents that voter’s views. But he suggests voting for one of the two major party candidates if the voters lives in a swing state. The segment is 8 minutes long.