{"id":1358,"date":"2004-10-01T11:35:34","date_gmt":"2004-10-01T18:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/about-the-debates\/"},"modified":"2004-10-01T11:35:34","modified_gmt":"2004-10-01T18:35:34","slug":"about-the-debates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/about-the-debates\/","title":{"rendered":"About the Debates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Top 10 Secrets They Don't Want You to Know About the Debates\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=4052162\">NPR : Connie Rice: Top 10 Secrets They Don&#8217;t Want You to Know About the Debates<\/a><\/p>\n<p>(10.) They aren&#8217;t debates!<br \/>\n(9.) The debates were hijacked from the truly independent League of Women Voters in 1986.<br \/>\n(8.) The &#8220;independent and non-partisan&#8221; Commission on Presidential Debates is neither independent nor non-partisan.<br \/>\n(7.) The secretly negotiated debate contract bars Kerry and Bush from any and all other debates for the entire campaign.<br \/>\n(6.) The debate contract effectively excludes all other serious presidential candidates from participating in the debates.<br \/>\n(5.) All members of the studio audience must be certified as &#8220;soft&#8221; supporters of Bush and Kerry, under selection procedures they approve.<br \/>\n(4.) These &#8220;soft&#8221; audience members must &#8220;observe in silence.&#8221;<br \/>\n(3.) The &#8220;extended discussion&#8221; portion of the debate cannot exceed 30 seconds.<br \/>\n(2.) Important issues are locked out by the CPD debate rules and party control.<br \/>\n(1.) Fortune 100 corporations are the main funders of the CPD-sponsored debates, and the CPD&#8217;s co-chairs are corporate lobbyists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NPR : Connie Rice: Top 10 Secrets They Don&#8217;t Want You to Know About the Debates (10.) They aren&#8217;t debates! (9.) The debates were hijacked from the truly independent League of Women Voters in 1986. (8.) The &#8220;independent and non-partisan&#8221; Commission on Presidential Debates is neither independent nor non-partisan. (7.) The secretly negotiated debate contract &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/about-the-debates\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">About the Debates<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}