You know we have Democratic centrists here to blame for the economic conditions driving this rightwing extremism. So the solution here, you know, is not Hillary Clinton and more of the Clintonism centrist, the centrist Clinton philosophy that is greeding this economic misery.
Jill SteinThe first time I ran for office in 2002, running for governor in Massachusetts against Mitt Romney, we actually worked with a Democratic legislator to file that bill, so that there would be no risk of splitting the vote. The Democrats had about 85% of the Legislature at that time. They could have easily protected their access to the governorship. But they refused to do so. They wouldn't let the bill out of committee.
Jill SteinWhich is a real heads-up about what Hillary's [Clinton] agenda is. We've seen Hillary flip-flop, but she's had a pretty consistent track record. Which is that she has been a very good friend to the banks, received enormous support from them.
Jill SteinI should mention there are many European countries right now that already protect children from Wi-Fi, so it's not like this is some preposterous idea. This is already embraced by many countries all around the world. I don't think it is preposterous to suggest that public health needs greater protection in this country, especially that of children, among whom there is a rising tide of brain cancer right now.
Jill SteinWe basically maintain that we can have an America and world that works for all of us, but that we need to really engage, and inform and empower the American voter, who are a bunch of very unhappy campers right now. They deserve to be informed.
Jill SteinWho passed Wall Street deregulation that enabled the meltdown of Wall Street and the disappearance of nine million jobs, the theft of 5 million homes?
Jill SteinYou have two parties that are funded by deep corporate interests, largely overlapping, that you begin to see a convergence. You have the Republican intelligentsia and the Republican spokespeople, and 50 GOP security figures who have all come into Hillary's [Clinton] camp. Not to mention Mitt Romney, who has defected from [Donald] Trump, although it's not clear where his vote is going to be. But everyone from John Negroponte to Meg Whitman have all declared allegiance to Hillary. And Hillary has likewise, very formally opened the door to encouraging Republicans to come in.
Jill SteinBernie Sanders started off at about three percent himself and skyrocketed as word got out about him.
Jill SteinI think we're at a really unique moment right now because the American people are waking up to the fact that it is a race to the bottom between these two corporate parties that are sending jobs overseas, putting downward pressure on wages, starving people out of healthcare, locking an entire generation into unpayable predatory student loan debt.
Jill SteinI mean, our disaster in Libya also unleashed enormous amounts of armaments. We are the world's leading arms dealer, arming all sides everywhere. And have we made the Middle East a more secure place? We're only making it more desperate, more catastrophic and more violent.
Jill SteinI think it's arguable about which one [Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump] will wind up being more harmful to us. But what I am very convinced of is that we're not going to move forward unless we stand up.
Jill SteinWe've got a lot of down-ballot candidates that are also being lifted up by this campaign [for Presidency in 2016]. If we don't take a stand at some point and begin to stand our ground, we are never going to begin to move forward. We've got to do that.
Jill SteinOn the other hand, there are plenty of red flags that link developmental disabilities to things like lead and mercury and pesticides and air pollution and certain kinds of unhealthy foods, and that's what's begging for a comprehensive and definitive study. We should have a long-term prospectus study that looks at all, you know, exposures, medications, life habits, etc., pollution, and traces people over a period of many years, starting with when - starting with their parents, from when they are healthy. This is how we learned what causes heart disease.
Jill SteinAccording to, for example, one academic by the name of Philip Harvey, whose expertise is basically how do we create a New Deal, today. According to his estimate, these jobs could be created for far less than the [Barack] Obama stimulus package, which cost, you know, $700 or $800 billion, something like that, and produced around 3 million jobs - not a lot. According to his estimates, it would cost less to produce two-thirds of 20 million.
Jill SteinI don't know if I ever mentioned back in 2002 we fought our way into a governor's debate in Massachusetts where, you know, this was televised and I articulated our usual agenda: cut the military, put the dollars into true security here at home, provide healthcare as a human right, raise wages which needed to be living wages, green our energy system, equal marriage? - we were the only ones talking about it back in 2002.
Jill SteinWe call for a new kind of offensive in the Middle East because our current approach has a track record and it's not a good one.
Jill SteinDonald Trump business connections, which are really horrifying. I mean, they make Hillary Clinton look like small change when it comes to influence peddlin and really engaging the most nefarious forces around the world.
Jill SteinThey have to earn our vote. Neither Hillary [Clinton] or Donald [Trump] have earned our votes, yet the media is kind of closing ranks around them to try to prevent before people find out that there is actually - you know, that we actually have other choices. We are not limited to two corporate candidates.
Jill SteinThe public is really not kept abreast, and our leaders are not clear and forthright about what the terms of engagement are right now - that we really have no choice except to undertake a wartime scale mobilization, but a mobilization knowing that we can actually fix this. It's only a disaster if we continue to plunge headlong into the problem, which is only accelerating in spite of everything that the Democrats have been willing to say and do about it.
Jill SteinIn the words of Alice Walker, the biggest way people give up power is by not knowing we have it to start with. We have it: just to look at the power of fighting student debt or 25 million Latinos who learned that the Republicans are the party that hate and fear but Democrats are the party of people deportation and detention.
Jill SteinHillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the most disliked and untrusted candidates for president in American history.
Jill SteinAs Bernie Sanders said himself, it's a movement, not a man. And that movement continues to move into our campaign.
Jill SteinThere are very complicated issues here [about NATO], and I don't want to give them short shrift.
Jill SteinIt's hard to think too hard about anything Donald Trump says because, you know, he will change his mind in the next hour, if not the next day, or whatever.
Jill SteinWe also call for a healthy food system that prioritizes sustainable healthy local food production.
Jill SteinWe've got a big happy, one corporate family now uniting the corporate Democrats and the corporate Republicans.
Jill SteinThey [Democrats and Republicans] agree with each other on either doing nothing or giving lip service to climate change and the really transformative changes that need to happen.
Jill SteinMoving to 100 percent renewable energy means we no longer need and can no longer justify wars for oil.
Jill SteinI have always been involved in issue-based politics, not party politics - I was never really originally drawn to party politics.
Jill SteinIt's rather remarkable Donald Trump has had over four billion dollars of free primetime media, Hillary's [Clinton] had over two billion worth, my campaign has had essentially zip, yet we are still pushing up around five percent in the polls, which is unprecedented for a non-corporate party without the big money to get the word out.
Jill SteinThe politics of fear has delivered everything we were afraid of. It's important to take a lesson from the days of Richard Nixon, when people stood up under a very oppressive president with a very oppressive Supreme Court.
Jill SteinDemocratic Party elites have been caught red-handed, sabotaging a grassroots campaign that tried to bring huge numbers of young people, independents and non-voters into their party. Instead, they have shown exactly why America needs a new major party, a truly democratic party for the people.
Jill SteinIt is so much fun to be out there on the campaign trail with Ajamu Baraka because who comes out is totally different from anything I have seen before in progressive campaigns because he is so empowering and inspiring.
Jill SteinWe have a First Amendment for good reasons. We need a free press because without an educated electorate we cannot have a functioning democracy.
Jill SteinWith the passion and the vision of the Berners [Sanders] coming into the Greens - we call it berning green - and the events that I'm going to that are being created around the country right now, it's the Bernie folks who are showing up in huge numbers along with the traditional Green. It's very powerful.
Jill SteinThere are potentially hundreds of billion dollars, potentially more, that could be saved by moving to a clean energy system. Studies [on healthier diet] show those savings, in fact, are enough to pay the costs of creating 100% clean renewable energy.
Jill SteinJust in the course of an hour, people didn't need to be persuaded. They just needed to hear, oh my god, there is another plan here which is about the public interest.
Jill SteinI feel like that is saying to young people, "You have no chance of ever getting out of debt in your life, right?" Personally, I think that the role of the press is to ensure that the American public understands who their choices are.
Jill SteinIf you've been paying attention to politics for the last, you know, 30 years, it would not have shocked you, but what was amazing was that there it was, you know, in irrefutable colors, you know, there on paper, or there on your computer screen.
Jill SteinWe call for, on the other hand - how do you deal with ISIS [Islamic State], of course, is the question that comes up immediately, ISIS and other terrorist groups.
Jill SteinTwenty million jobs is what we call for in the Green New Deal, which is essentially a New Deal focused on greening the economy on an emergency basis. So it's 20 million jobs, which are mixed, private sector, nonprofits, government jobs where others will not do the job and will not create the employment.
Jill Stein