Published on Oct 26, 2012 by MoyersandCompany

Four debates have come and gone, and in the aftermath of the pomp, points, and politics, what have we learned? And how has democracy been served? Two of the country’s most astute political media observers — Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Marty Kaplan — join Bill to weigh in on the rhetoric and realities of two campaigns now in the home stretch, looking to make their cases by any means affordable.

Jamieson is director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the driving force behind the acclaimed online watchdog FactCheck.org. Marty Kaplan is the founding director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Bill is later joined by Neil Barofsky, who held the thankless job of special inspector general in charge of policing TARP, the bailout’s Troubled Asset and Relief Plan. Between President Obama’s ineffectual proposals and Mitt Romney’s loving embrace, bankers have little to fear from either administration, and that leaves the rest of America on perilously thin economic ice. Barofsky discusses the critical yet unmet need to tackle banking reform and avoid another financial meltdown.

Currently a senior fellow and adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law, Barofsky is the author of Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.

You know those Balsa wood airplanes – not the glider-types but the deluxe models, powered by rubber bands, with little propellers on the nose? I thought of those planes watching Mitt Romney debate Barack Obama the other night.

Romney’s journey toward the presidency has been a marvel to behold. Dating back to his first political steps – his race against Ted Kennedy, followed by his assault on the Massachusetts governorship – Romney has been constantly twisting and contorting himself, exchanging position for position, trading pro-choice for anti-choice, flirting with pro-gay rhetoric before shifting swiftly the other way, pioneering state health care reform before bashing virtually the same plan designed on a national scale, claiming the center on everything from guns to global warming before careening right as a presidential candidate.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/finally-liberated-from-facts-mitt-romney-the-pure-bull-artist-takes-flight-20121019#ixzz29mMUiAb3

When the dust settles after next week’s third and final debate between US President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, Americans will be left to choose between just two men to run the country. Unless, of course, they turn to RT.

In response to widespread blackout from both the mainstream media and political establishment alike, RT is honored to be presenting a platform for the major third-party candidates also vying for the White House this election year to debate. The event will be moderated by multi-award winning broadcast journalist Larry King and will be broadcast live from Chicago, Illinois on October 23. RT America and RT.com will offer the event live in cooperation with the debate’s organizers, the Free and Equal Elections Foundation.

Thom Hartmann, the star of RT’s The Big Picture and noted radio host, is one of a few select journalists hand-picked to hit the candidates with questions about their campaign.

continued via RT presents third-party presidential debate — RT.