Greetings and sell you take shims. Here in the united states, the air is thick and my friends. It is thick with them to suppression. As we wait for the final counts to come in and we finally get a new president crowned. But while that American Idol section of the us version of democracy is yet to be concluded, that wasnt the only big decision made by us citizens on tuesday night that will affect the future of lives across this great country. Some 32 states, as well as the district of columbia, am puerto rico, had 124. 00 Ballot Initiatives spread out amongst them this year. According to the folks at the National Conference of state legislatures these ballot. 5 initiatives that initiatives included california as that involves oberon, lips, multimillion dollar fight to keep their drivers labeled as independent contractors rather than employees. Because you know, hey, i mean, who wants to provide benefits and protections to thousands upon thousands of drivers when youve got Company Shareholders to appease and Bank Accounts to colorado and louisiana, voters weigh in on the the surrounding abortion laws in a womans right to choose as we discussed on our election fallout show just a few days ago. You also had a slew of voters in states across the nation, including washington d. C. Vote to decriminalize various Illegal Drugs like marijuana magic mushrooms. You even had voters in mississippi deciding on giving the Southern State a brand new flag, which was, i think, long overdue given that their original state flag up until tuesday night featured the confederate battle cross of civil war era fame. But while the initiatives across the country covered a wide range of important subject, it was 20 twentieths most notorious Party Crasher cope with 19, who kept many important issues off of the ballots. In this years elections, the New York Times reported that if ever there was a doubt about the coronaviruses impact on american democracy, look no further than the sharp decline on citizen initiatives this year. There are 38 such measures slated across the country. Around half the level in the last president ial election when you saw about 32 or 72. So today, my friends, lets dive into an exam and some of the vital issues of our time that us voters finally got to weigh in on. As we start watching the hawks, if you will, whats going on a city street, you want to see the crisis. You always stay on see a great city. This least systemic dissent says the late show which some things billed as all right, welcome one and all are watching the hard world and im amazed. So michel, i love Ballot Initiatives when they come up every, every Election Year because those are the, those of the initiatives, the people in various states across the country really get to exercise democracy on and say we love this idea or we reject this idea. And you can only hold the people of the state accountable for the, for the rejection or the whim of the idea rather than a politician or a Lobbyist Group or whatever. Absolutely, and i think that in 2020, these Ballot Initiatives take on a whole nother type of meeting just because of the sheer amount of people weve seen come out to vote. Typically Ballot Initiatives, even if theyre good, dont always pass because you have such low voter turnout in awful lection years that are outside of the president ial election. Now weve had hundreds of millions of people show up. So i think that its spread across the board to really see what people in each state, what, you know, what their policy is to replace a really good point. I mean, and well start with the, i want to get your, your opinion on. This will start with the big win by the lift, another ride sharing essential against employee protections. I mean, in voting against proposition 22, california voters essential e gave lift a blank check and they prevented the state from enforcing these companies to provide the basic employments to their driver such as health insurance, minimum wage, overtime and reimbursement for expenses. 58 percent of voters rejected prop 22. 00 and that keeps the oberoi and lift drivers as independent contractors. See this almost brush rating and confusing at the same time because a lot of even outside of a lot of californias work force is contracted. A lot of americas workforce is contract. So we would assume that, you know, fighting for the protections specifically around health care around, you know, paid holiday sick days, things like that would be something that people would want. But the thing here that is really important is the amount of money that was put in a different from a campaign, as well as the, the funding from some of the Lobbyist Groups that really helped to take this. You know, i think that, you know, there were people more fully informed about what this meant for drivers. What this war, you know, a win would be huge, would have been huge for the entire industry. And you know right now that just looks like it was another opportunity lost 200000000. 00 according to lift and other like right hailing Delivery Services to get people to vote against this 200000000. But one interesting thing that also came out when you look at the ballot measures across the country was florida. Now florida went red like they normally do, theyre very republican about, but they did something thats much more in the Bernie SandersProgressive Left wheel house. They voted in approved a Ballot Initiative to raise the minimum wage in florida. The 15. 00 an hour from 56. 00 an hour 8 dollars 56 cents. They jumped it up to 15. So now its new york, washington d. C. And florida have the highest minimum wages in the country. Does that surprise you . It surprises me. But its also interesting because i want to see how the governor respond when i say this, because the last time a Ballot Initiative, no buy pot. What path in florida did it was to provide Voting Rights and access to those who have been previously incarcerated. That passed overwhelmingly in florida and the governor and the state legislature bought it tooth and nail and developed propositions to make sure that it never thought eliab it. So im interested in seeing the devil in the implementation and how that minimum wage is actually going to come to light in florida. And if it ever will. Speaking of the devil in implementation, this is to me more than 62 percent of louisiana voters voted support an amendment to the state constitution that would limit abortion protections. The amendment prevents state lawmakers from declaring that abortion restrictions are unconstitutional. Should the Supreme Court ever decide over turn roe v wade and reads quote to protect human life and nothing in this constitution shall be constructed to secure a protected right to abortion, or require the funding of abortion . No. Converse of the colorado voters and citizens, there struck down proposition 115. 00, which was a measure that sought to ban abortions, 22. 00 weeks after pregnancy. So you could see the states are still divided about how they want to play out. The prochoice controversy in the abortion controversy. Absolutely. And louisiana is trying its level best to be mississippi. I made a phone fresh rating to watch this happen because what we know is that on both sides of the aisle when it comes to women, specifically women who are still of reproductive years. They want to see abortion rights access open. And we also have to think about the fact that in the majority of cases, most women do not find out that theyre pregnant until theyre already a least 12 weeks along. So i think that theres some confusion or just again this information when it comes to republicans who are trying to push these laws irrespective to what they think may or may not happen at the Supreme Court level. Good boy and but you know, its nice to see though i do love to see the states voting on issues like these. Its not just left up to elected officials. You never know what youre going to do it with them, especially with lobbyists and ball exactly happens though, the u. S. President ial election continues to dominate headlines. A very disturbing story from the New York Times dropped just 5 days prior to election day. The article titled, arrested tortured imprisoned the u. S. Contractors abandoned to wait, took a deep dive into the torture abuse and trumped up criminal charges. Black contractors are facing abroad. In one case, nicodemus, accosted a black navy veteran explained how his experience in kuwait doesnt jibe with President Trump the narrative of love and protection of u. S. Troops. A cough that recently spent over a year imprisoned in kuwait for a crime, he didnt commit. But regardless of his military service and the lack of consequential evidence, in the quakes case against him, the u. S. Government left the casa to fend for himself. But like a customer, a total of 28. 00 americans have served time for drug offenses over the last 5 years, with little to no help from the state department at all. And their cases are eerily similar. All 28 are private contractors supporting u. S. Military operations in the middle east and all worth intially victims to know not raid in the dead of night, where they were arrested by the way, the police, many of these contractors were forced into both confessions through torture methods and extreme brutality, kuwaits all the files often support this and the state department is well aware. In fact, the state department has been aware way to torture of americans for years, yet theyve done nothing. Now generally, the treatment of American Service members abroad is a matter of national security, and theyre considered a protected class. But over the past 2 decades, the us military has expanded its labor force dramatically due to outsourcing to the private sector. This created a new class of citizens serving military interests that arent currently listed and dont have the protections of enlisted members. And that brings us back to the issue in kuwait, under the trump administration. The basic responsibilities of protection of u. S. Citizens abroad havent been enforced in particular, in cases like a cost is, the reason seems to be obvious because this is black. The majority of arrested, tortured and abused are as well. But what will the American Government do to protect those, serving its interests in kuwait who find themselves at the crossroads of prejudice and torture. If history tells us anything, these contractors there on their own, and theyre on their own because they are contractors, they are mercenaries. That is what the whole idea. And remember, this started way way back, you know, during the Bush Administration and dick cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and all of them said, hey, rather than spend money on our own u. S. Military, we can make deals with the military Defense Industry corporations and start having contractors do all the work centrally mercenaries, and youre absolutely correct in these contractors, do a variety of things for the military. Some of them are that intelligent. Some of them are analysts. Some argue no working in tech and influencing social media and things like that. Others are involved in some of the higher level operations and some of the most dangerous villains across the middle east and other areas. And mind you, many of these people over 80 percent are folks who have served the military have had long and steady careers in the military. And now theyre serving in this element. But they have no the protections they did while they were enlisted members know, and this is one of those sad moments that you see where you see guys be left out to dry. I mean, its one thing when you see, you know, mercenaries and contractors involved like that massive square shooting where, you know, theyre being charged with major crimes because theyre shooting up the place to the committing crime like committing very heinous crimes against humanity. But theres a situations where the crimes are not these, they are real, these are trumped up charges and low level trumped up charges. So were talking small possession of wheat. Were talking things that honestly in america you would not really thin time, you know, in prison for specially, you know, were still web recent elections. Exactly. So its one of those things where especially in a cost this case, what ended up happening was he was convicted of basically having a quantity of marijuana that was over the limit. And the reason why is because they arrested him based on some text messages. They found between him and a friend of his who was also in the military. 9 and they had small of that we nothing that they would even nothing worthy of a criminal charge even there. But when they found them, they put them in a jar and they measure the weight of the jar. And that is the weight of the actual marijuana. And from picture evidence and all of the conversations this should have been ruled out in the jump. He never should have spent over a year in a cell and shouldnt be our state department now kind of fighting for that saying like, hey, look, we understand this man may or may not have broken one of your laws. We respect the laws, you know, examine, youre in a foreign country, you have to respect the laws of the country. You know, if youre there, as an american citizen, or even if youre working there in respect to, you know, youre paid to be there by the african descent in general. And the state department in the u. S. Government has not stepped in. Even though they know that these cases are extremely heinous and they have evidence that thing about this case and several others is the state department has files on these issues and they still have not moved. And just so people have an understanding of how much our military is now, the president these contractors, as of the 2010 Congressional ResearchService Report estimate of the contractors a comparable to percent or more of the total Defense Department presence in both afghanistan and brad, just chew on that number for a minute. All right, everybody as we go to break, remember that you can also start watching the hawks on demand through the brand new portable t. V. App, which is available on all platforms. Definitely pick it up if you havent already coming up author and editor, margaret. Kimberly joins us to shed some light on the future of black america in the wake of these now finished 2020 election. So stay tuned. Watching the hot button sunday. Make no, certainly no blood is just blind to nationalities. Play as much time with the we do a back seat. The whole world needs to be judged as comedy classes with the sentence we can do better, we should be everyone is contributing each of our own way. But we also know that this crisis will not go on forever. The challenges created with the response has been met. So many good people are helping us. It makes us feel very proud that we are in it together. Is your media a reflection of reality . In a world transformed what will make you feel safe . Isolation or community . Are you going the right way or are you being led by what is true . What is faith . In the world corrupted, you need to descend to join us in the depths, aura, made in the shallowness. This is a story of women. Women with troubled histories and complex court cases. You know, some of those deadly leave awful lives out there. Where not, the person that theres a cheesiness and b. , they are considered the most dangerous of criminals. Shes in a still all the off, 23 hours of the day. Tell me that its not enough punishment. It will give women on death row. The election dissections and postmortems continue journalists, pundits, twitter selfappointed, political gurus. And everyone in between has something to say. On the heels of what now appears to be a Biden Victory in official call. Still outstanding. In the words of sam cooke, a change is gonna come. But what kind of change we know that the black but continues to be the stronghold of the Democratic Party and also the boat that provides the strongest support for joe biden. But what will black people get for the overwhelming loyalty and historic turnout in this election cycle . In article titled, freedom rider black people lose in 2020, presents a grim reality for the black policy agenda and her opening margaret. Kimberly doesnt mince words saying, quote, black people will get nothing from a job. I did ministration except fiscal austerity and the precarity that comes with it. Yet. In her piece, kimberly argues that america is equally racist and the make America Great. Again, maga mentality, clearly resonates for millions of people across the country. She calls out the Democratic Party for its star liberalism and questions. James kleiber, the kingmaker of the Congressional Black Caucus and the place that laid the groundwork for biden, South Carolina primary win. The win that eventually led to him winning the democratic nomination. Lots to unpack. Here. Joining us now is mark kelly, author of president ial black america, and the president s black agenda reporter, editor, and senior columnist, what the market did to be back. While your piece is no chaser view of what black america can expect moving forward in your view, neo liberalism is a problem for the Democratic Party that continues to win even when progressive cant. Its like Bernie Sanders rise up with that being said, though, we just saw a record turnout for an election in america. Hundreds of millions of voters, many of them 1st time voters, Y