September, 27 2016, 03:45pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Ethan Rabin, Open Debate Coalition,John Kartch, Americans for Tax Reform,Kait Sweeney, Progressive Change Campaign Committee,press@opendebatecoalition.com
For Presidential Town Hall Debate, Public Will Vote On Questions At Cross-Partisan Open Debate Coalition's PresidentialOpenQuestions.com
After Meetings With Right-Left-Tech Coalition, ABC, CNN Agree to Receive Top 30 Bottom-Up Questions For Consideration In Debate
WASHINGTON
Immediately after the first presidential debate, the cross-partisan Open Debate Coalition is announcing that the public will submit and vote on questions at PresidentialOpenQuestions.com -- and ABC and CNN have agreed to receive the most popular 30 questions for consideration in the October 9 presidential town hall debate.
For the first time, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has mandated that moderators of the town hall debate ask questions with input from the internet -- not just questions from voters in the physical room. In 2008, President Obama and Senator McCain endorsed the coalition's call for bottom-up questions, but the CPD did not incorporate the idea until this year.
"The commission was watching closely as the Open Debate Coalition tested out their innovative bottom-up question submission and voting platform in the primaries this year, and we were impressed with the results," said Mike McCurry, Co-Chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, "This year's presidential debate moderators will have a rich pool of voter-submitted questions they can draw on that carry greater weight because they are backed by votes from the American people."
"After coalition meetings with ABC and CNN, the networks have agreed to receive the top 30 questions submitted and voted on by the public at PresidentialOpenQuestions.com for consideration in the portion of the town hall debate featuring questions from the internet," said Lilia Tamm Dixon, Open Debate Coalition Director. "This coalition effort is a first-of-its-kind attempt to ensure moderators can ask questions that are not just submitted by the public, but voted on by the public to truly represent what Republican, Democratic, and Independent families are discussing around their dinner tables. Open Debates are the future."
Top ABC and CNN debate producers had meetings recently with Open Debate Coalition Director Lilia Tamm Dixon, Americans For Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, and Progressive Change Campaign Committee Co-Founder Adam Green -- leading to their agreement. This followed over a year of engagement between the coalition and CPD in advance of the historic announcement that town hall moderators must ask questions with input from the internet. Question submission and voting is now open at PresidentalOpenQuestions.com and coalition organizations will ask their supporters to participate.
The Open Debate Coalition has successfully held open debates in the 2013 special election for Congress in Massachusetts and in the 2016 U.S. Senate debate in Florida. Between the two open debates, more than 2,500 questions were submitted and over 450,000 votes were cast. The Florida debate received over half a million views and was aired on C-SPAN several times. The AP reported, "Both candidates said they enjoyed the format...saying they were more substantive than a typical debate would have been."
"There is a mutual frustration with presidential debate questions dominated by a handful of television personalities rather than average voters," said Grover Norquist, Founder of Americans for Tax Reform. "Our coalition meetings with ABC and CNN have been constructive, and we're eager to see both candidates answer questions that are submitted and voted on by the public in a nationally-televised presidential debate. We anticipate many more Open Debates in the future -- up and down the ballot."
"Bottom-up participation isn't just about choosing topics. It's about allowing the public to truly frame the questions in a way that addresses what voters are actually asking at their kitchen tables," said Adam Green, Co-Founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "We are very hopeful that ABC and CNN will maximize this opportunity. They seem genuinely excited to be leaders in debate innovation, and we hope to make Open Debates the new norm for debates in American politics."
"A more open democracy is always a better one," said Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post and health-and-wellness startup Thrive Global. "In this critical election year, it is imperative that the questions on the minds of voters are asked and answered. ABC and CNN deserve kudos for embracing this participatory model."
"As technology changes, questions posed by moderators to candidates should reflect bottom-up participation from the public -- reinforced by strong follow-up questions and fact checking to ensure the public's questions are answered," said Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist. "I'm proud to be a founding member of the Open Debate Coalition because bottom-up questions and trustworthy moderation that represents the will of the people is an idea whose time has come."
The Open Debate Coalition was formed during the 2008 election cycle. It includes: Americans for Tax Reform, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, FreedomWorks, NARAL, Faith & Freedom Coalition Founder Ralph Reed, the National Organization for Women, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Color Of Change, Numbers USA, Presente, MoveOn.org, Arianna Huffington, former Romney senior aide Mindy Finn, craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Electronic Frontier Foundation President Cindy Cohn, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and many more. (See full list of coalition members below.)
"We've seen bottom-up online energy thrust new ideas like debt-free college into the national spotlight and 2016 presidential campaign," said Heather McGhee, President of Demos Action, the action arm of think tank Demos. "This same ethos would be a breath of fresh air for our political debates and a major step forward for democratic participation."
"At Define American, we believe that in order to change politics, we first have to change culture. For years, conversations about immigrants have been held without including immigrant families themselves, and this exciting effort will change that," said Jose Antonio Vargas, Founder & CEO of Define American. "This will be a rare opportunity to have candidates for the most critical position in the world respond directly to those they'll represent: the increasingly diverse American public."
"NumbersUSA will reach out to the seven million Americans in our network, urging them to participate in this innovative bottom-up process to ensure that moderators can engage on topics such as immigration and border security in a way that educates voters and truly addresses their questions," said Roy Beck, Executive Director of NumbersUSA.
Open Debate Coalition is the sponsor of the OpenPresidentalQuestions.com project--bringing together the PCCC, Americans for Tax Reform, and dozens of influential left, right, and Silicon Valley coalition members to give the public a voice in the second debate, which will feature questions from the internet.
LATEST NEWS
State Department Spokesman Urged to Resign Over 'Despicable' Attack on UN Expert
One critic described Matthew Miller's attack on United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese as a "Trumpian smearing of a principled human rights expert."
Mar 28, 2024
U.S. State Department Matthew Miller faced calls to resign Thursday after he accused a United Nations special rapporteur of engaging in antisemitism—an attack that came days after the human rights expert presented a report concluding that Israel's assault on Gaza has met the threshold of genocide.
Asked about the report during a press briefing on Wednesday, Miller said the U.S. has "for a longstanding period of time opposed the mandate of this special rapporteur, which we believe is not productive."
"And when it comes to the individual who holds that position, I can't help but note a history of antisemitic comments that she has made that have been reported," Miller added, pointing to comments that Francesca Albanese—the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories—"made in December that appeared to justify the attacks of October 7."
A new low by the Biden team.
In response to UN Special Rapporteur @FranceskAlbs new report - Anatomy of a Genocide - concluding that the threshold of genocide has reasonably been met, the State Dep chooses to attack her persona and accuse her of antisemitism :( :( pic.twitter.com/iNpVT3BWQy
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) March 27, 2024
It's not entirely clear which comments Miller was referencing.
In an interview with Jewish News Syndicate in December, Albanese was asked whether Palestinian militants' killing of Israeli soldiers on October 7 was a violation of international law. Albanese, an Italian attorney and academic, said that "killing a soldier is a tragedy under international law, but when there is an armed conflict, like in this case, killing a soldier is not illegal."
But Albanese stressed in the interview that the Hamas-led attacks on Israeli civilians—including the taking of hostages—were "not legitimate resistance."
"These are crimes and cannot be justified," she added.
Miller's attack on Albanese Wednesday—which echoed earlier attacks on the special rapporteur by U.S. officials and lawmakers—sparked immediate backlash and calls for his resignation.
"Matthew Miller should be forced to resign for trying to endanger the life of a U.N. official with falsehoods," Ashish Prashar, a spokesperson for Gaza Voices, said in a statement. Albanese said earlier this week that she has faced threats following the publication of her report accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, called the State Department spokesman's remarks a "truly despicable, Trumpian smearing of a principled human rights expert."
"Note the lack of substantive rebuttals of her careful analysis, and the resort to ad hominem attacks," Talbot wrote on social media. "Not the sign of a confident administration."
"Israel has a long history of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to attack and undermine those fighting for human rights for Palestinians."
The Israeli government has similarly attempted to cast Albanese as an antisemite, drawing pushback from human rights organizations and academics who say the claim is a baseless attempt to discredit her work.
"Israel has a long history of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to attack and undermine those fighting for human rights for Palestinians—and U.N. officials and experts have been among the most consistent victims of those attacks," Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Common Dreams.
"Almost 15 years ago Richard Falk," Bennis added, "an internationally respected Princeton professor of international law who had just been appointed special rapporteur, was not only denied access to the occupied Palestinian territory to carry out the terms of his U.N. mandate, but was also arrested and jailed by Israeli authorities."
"Since then every special rapporteur has been similarly excluded, their mandate and their work undermined, and their commitment to international law and human rights attacked as antisemitic," she said. "Francesca Albanese has been among the bravest of these SRs, maintaining her commitment to calling out all violations of international law relevant to her mandate—including when Israel has violated international covenants against apartheid and now, against genocide."
Albanese's 25-page report, which she delivered to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday, argues that "the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group."
"There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the following acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to groups' members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," the report states. "Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by senior military and government officials."
Amnesty International praised the report as "a crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action."
The Biden State Department has publicly rejected genocide accusations against Israel as "meritless" and said it has not found Israel's military to be in violation of international law during its monthslong war on Gaza—an assessment that conflicts with the findings of leading human rights organizations and U.N. experts.
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Mar 28, 2024
Video footage broadcast Wednesday by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of them waves what appears to be a piece of white fabric.
The footage shows one of the men walking in the direction of an Israeli military vehicle with both hands raised. Despite the absence of any clear evidence that the man posed a threat, Israeli forces shot him from a short distance away. Another man is seen on the ground not far behind.
Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum said the killings took place near where World Central Kitchen recently dropped off food aid.
The video then shows Israeli soldiers burying the bodies with a bulldozer.
"Probably certain words should be invented for this sort of thing," Marwan Bishara, AI Jazeera's chief political analyst, said in response to the footage. "I am not sure we have the sufficient vocabulary to describe this sort of twilight zone of Israel's fantasy of being the world's most moral army."
"It's a fantasy that meets the reality of a genocide," Bishara added. "An attempt to kill or destroy much of Palestine and Palestinians and hide the evidence and lie about it. When the Israeli army can do these things and get away with it, it can only then do more of it knowing that it will not meet any punishment."
Watch:
مشاهد حصرية للجزيرة لإعدام جنود إسرائيليين مدنيين فلسطينيين أثناء محاولتهم العودة لشمال قطاع غزة#الأخبار #حرب_غزة pic.twitter.com/QER98mv2n6
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) March 27, 2024
Richard Falk, former United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, toldAl Jazeera that the footage provides "vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities" and spotlights the "unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis."
"The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behavior," said Falk. "It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment."
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, whose board Falk chairs, has documented numerous examples of Israeli soldiers conducting close-range field executions in Gaza since October 7, when Israel launched its latest assault following a Hamas-led attack.
In less than six months, Israeli forces have killed more than 32,500 people in Gaza and sparked one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history.
The video footage emerged just days after the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The U.S., Israel's leading arms supplier, abstained from the vote and falsely claimed the measure was "nonbinding."
The Israeli government, for its part, immediately signaled that it would disregard the resolution, just as it has ignored orders from the International Court of Justice.
Sophie McNeill, a human rights campaigner, called the footage released Wednesday "horrifying" and demanded that the International Criminal Court "urgently prioritize investigating and charging all those carrying out war crimes in Gaza."
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Joe Lieberman, Iraq War Cheerleader and Killer of Public Option, Dead at 82
"Joe Lieberman's legacy will live on as your medical debt."
Mar 27, 2024
While current and former officials across the U.S. political spectrum shared praise for and fond memories of former Sen. Joe Lieberman in response to news of his death on Wednesday, critics highlighted how some of his key positions led to the deaths of many others.
Lieberman's family said the 82-year-old died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital after a fall at his home in the Bronx. He served in the Connecticut Senate, as the state's attorney general, and in the U.S. Senate—initially as a Democrat and eventually as an Independent. He was also Democratic former Vice President Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election.
"Up until the very end, Joe Lieberman enjoyed the high-quality, government-financed healthcare that he worked diligently to deny the rest of us. That's his legacy," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal, single-payer healthcare.
As Warren Gunnels, majority staff director for Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),
explained, "Joe Lieberman led the effort to ensure the Affordable Care Act did not include a public option or a reduction in the Medicare eligibility age to 55."
Noting that Lieberman also lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq—which was used to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion—Gunnels asked, "How many people unnecessarily died as a result?"
He was far from alone in highlighting the two defining positions.
The Lever's David Sirota declared, "RIP Joe Lieberman, Iraq War cheerleader who led the fight to make sure Medicare was not extended to millions of Americans who desperately needed the kind of healthcare coverage he enjoyed in the Senate."
The Debt Collective said on social media that "Joe Lieberman killed so many people when he killed the public option. Not to mention all the people he killed by cheerleading every war and every lie that led to war. A truly horrible person with a shameful legacy."
Journalist Jon Schwarz pointed out that Lieberman continued to lie about the WMDs long after the claims were debunked.
FormerMSNBC host Mehdi Hasan noted that Lieberman declined an opportunity to apologize for the disastrous war, sharing a clip from his on-camera interview with the ex-senator in 2021.
And please don\u2019t give me this \u2018don\u2019t speak ill of the dead\u2019 stuff - 1) I\u2019m not speaking ill, I\u2019m stating facts, and 2) public figures are public figures, and their obits reflect their legacies and so we should be honest in our accounts of their legacies. Not offensive but honest— (@)
"We lost a giant today. I often disagreed with Joe Lieberman but he was always honorable in the way he called for American troops to murder people abroad so he could get his jollies," said Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project in a series of sarcastic social media posts.
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