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Amy Goodman, Op-Ed: Freeport, Ill., is the site of one of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. On Aug. 27, 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated there in their campaign for Illinois' seat in the U.S. Senate. Lincoln lost that race, but the Freeport debate set the stage for his eventual defeat of Douglas in the presidential election of 1860, and thus the Civil War. Today, as the African-American president of the United States prepares to debate the candidate from the party of Lincoln, workers in Freeport are staging a protest, hoping to put their plight into the center of the national debate this election season. 
Mike Spahr, News Report: Out of all of the super donors that have given heavily to the 2012 election cycle, the most outstanding peddler of influence is casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who's name is now synonymous with the phrase "money in politics." Adelson has spent over $70 million on the 2012 election alone, which is nearly afifth of what presidential hopeful John McCain spent on his 2008 presidential bid in total. Politico had a rare interview with Adelson, where he cites the motivation of his spending is that: "[He doesn't] believe one person should influence an election," he said… "So, I suppose you'll ask me, 'How come I'm doing it?' Because other single people influence elections." 
Richard (RJ) Eskow, Op-Ed: Strange stories from the newswires: Thousands of Wall Street traders subscribe to "financial astrology" newsletters. A series of wealthy Americans erupt into rage-filled public outbursts. Mitt Romney wonders why you can't open a jet's windows in mid-flight. This isn't an episode of the X-Files. These seemingly unrelated stories are part of a larger pattern. What appears to be a sudden epidemic of magical thinking actually reflects something else: the rise of a financial sector whose economic incentives have tilted away from core business competencies - and toward something like that looks a little more like madness. 
Beverly Ford and Evelyn Larrubia, News Report: In Oak Creek, Wis., a fence slashed with holes surrounds a barren 300-acre complex of buckling former factories where the soil and groundwater are polluted with arsenic and other chemicals. Asbestos sprayed for almost six miles from a shuttered textile mill in Sprague, Connecticut when children trying to free a canoe set it on fire. A toxic cocktail of volatile organic compounds, petroleum, hydrocarbons and metals lies along the banks of Massachusetts's Malden River. 
Dave Llindorff, Op-Ed: The United States never misses an opportunity to castigate other countries for "uncivilized" behavior, and certainly there is enough of that to go around almost anywhere you look in the world. But there's plenty of it here in the U.S. too. Just consider the case of Terry Williams. Williams, a 47-year-old black man, has spent almost 30 years on Pennsylvania's crowded death row while lawyers appealed his death penalty for two murders committed back when he was a 17 and 18-year old boy. Now he's about to be killed by the state for those crimes. 
Medea Benjamin, Op-Ed: There are questions our friends and relatives are asking as we embark on a delegation to Pakistan to protest the drone attacks that have killed so many innocent Pakistanis over the past 8 years. But the Pakistanis have been asking us very different questions. "Why do the American people support these barbaric and cowardly drone attacks?" "How would you like it if foreigners flew death machines into your airspace, murdering innocent men, women and children?" "Don't you know that these attacks are counterproductive, driving locals into the hands of extremist groups out of a desire for revenge?" 
Travis Waldron, News Analysis: The budget and tax proposals put forth by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would not lead to the economic prosperity and job growth he has claimed, according to a new study released this week. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute found that Romney's plans would actually lead to a net loss of jobs over the first two years of his administration, and the losses could grow even larger if Romney were to stick to his promise of reaching a balanced budget. 
Amy Goodman, Video Interview: "Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may have been designated an 'enemy of the state' by the United States. U.S. Air Force counter-intelligence documents show military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or its supporters may be at risk of being charged with 'communicating with the enemy' — a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death. We speak to attorney Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a legal advisor to Assange and WikiLeaks." 
Robert Reich, Op-Ed: Up until now, Romney's stories on the campaign trail have been about business successes – people who started businesses in garages and grew their companies into global giants, entrepreneurs who succeeded because of grit and determination, millionaires who began poor. Horatio Alger updated. Curiously absent from these narratives have been the stories of ordinary Americans caught in an economy over which they have no control. That is, most of us. 
Anthony Gucciardi, News Report: "With Russia now acting to secure food safety, many other nations will surely follow. While the United States may continue to ignore the issues surrounding GMOs and Monsanto's blatant disregard for human health (they were caught running 'slave-like' working rings, after all), many foreign nations will not. Countries like Poland, Peru, and Hungary have already taken action in banning or removing Monsanto's GMO crops." 
Phil Rockstroh, Op-Ed: Weltschmerz (from German; from Welt (world) + Schmerz (pain) delineates the type of sadness experienced when the world revealed does not reflect the image of the world that one believes, or has been led to believe, should exist. The corporate/consumer state (as well as, its scion, the present day presidential election cycle) has brought us, as a people, into a wilderness of weltschmerz. 
Ashfaq Yusufzai, News Report: Over thirty thousand children in the remote Tirah area of the Khyber Agency, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Northern Pakistan, have waited four years for protection from polio, a viral disease that is sometimes referred to as 'infantile paralysis' due to its crippling effects on children. A massive government and civil society effort through the month of September finally began to reverse the trend that had kept the children of Tirah, along with hundreds of thousands in the greater FATA area, under the shadow of polio. --
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