and took ibuprofen, i went to the doctor and there was a spot they thought it was pneumonia. in the end i had cancer when i had surgery and woke up, i looked at my father and said, if i survive this, we're going to the world cup. father and son have tickets to watch other countries, but not argentina. they say living this well come together is their biggest gift. have, you know, we're, we're leveraging our whole lives change. we have a new calendar which are his controls that happen every month and living. this has been a challenge on the economic side, on the personal side. we still don't have tickets to see argentina, but i'm hoping we will get them. oh, passion for food boy and unit macy runs. hi here. fans traveling to qatar are leaving all their troubles behind with one thing in common. their support for that he may love that he said, well, i'll just see that when a site is ah,

this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. the sour, moscow backed officials in the her song region say they have been power outages after russian reports that ukrainian forces attacked a dam. since october, both russia and ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of planning to bridge the damned using explosives. what we're hearing from the russian back authority, because of course on is that they say that ukrainian must be constant armoured vehicles along the 1st on axis and a high number of run, there's been increased number of artillery strikes, taking place on the city. and of course, her son is a very important city, both politically and militarily for russia is the only regional capital that they've managed to capture. since the start of the war. it's a gateway to crimea and the rest of the size of also the ukrainian managed to take a both the russian troops. the so far what we hear is that there's no electricity

in carson. and the reason, given that by the russian forces is what they, according to the act of public college, under politicians in the us making a last ditch attempt to sway voters ahead of tuesday's mid term elections. republicans are looking to win back control of congress. they hope voters will punish prison. jo biden's, democrats, the high inflation making at least 19 people have been killed in a plane crash and tens in the in the craft operated by precision. it crashed into like victoria, as it attempted to land in the nearby town. rescue was able to wade through the water to bring some of those still inside the plane to safety. the crash of being blamed on bad weather, but investigations are ongoing. the u ins. climate change summit has opened an egypt with a warning that our planet is sending a distress signal. deerish delegates a comp 27 have a great to officially add to the agenda. the issue of who should pay compensation for the impacts of climate change. representatives from nearly 200 countries will

hold talks in the city of shamela shake for 2 weeks by shelling by a syrian government forces has reportedly killed 9 people in western illinois province. 30 rockets targeted rural held areas, which include a camp for displaced people. medical sources say, a woman and 2 children are among the did. well, those are the headlines. the news continues after upfront. ah hm.

in the united states, the right to vote is just that a right not a privilege. however, in the run up to the november mid term elections, there has been a slew of legislation pushed through aiming to curtail which should be the right of every us citizen to have their voice heard in electoral politics. currently, there are a number of cases before the united states supreme court challenging measures that would undermine representation and participation of black people and other minorities if past adding to that is the growing number of tactics being carried out on the ground right now that are suppressing people's access to the ballot. so what does this mean for us democracy in the voting process? ah, joining us today is latasha brown, co founder of black voters matter. ari berman senior reporter at mother jones and the author of give us the ballot. the modern struggle for voting rights in america, and sarah brannon, managing attorney at the a c l u voting rights project. thank you all for joining us on

a front latasha. i'm going to start with you because you are in georgia, which is a republican stronghold reportedly, but it's a read state. this kind of turned it into a battle ground state. black people they are though, are having to contend with some sweeping voting restrictions. and i'm trying to get an understanding here of what the state of things are in georgia right now for black voters. you know, as you said, people may recall that right after the 202021 election. what we saw on the state legislature there was a beal call s b 2 o 2, senate bill til 2 that passed on the sign into law by the governor who i call the brand capital was the vote suppression. i'm chief, i think around the country that part of what they bill did. and the short way of understanding is that there are components of that bill that one restricted access to the ballot to it literally, weapon, as administrative process in such a way that the governor republican party can actually were challenging take over on election results of if it's not to their liking,

i'm in the 3rd thing that it does as creates this culture fear by criminal as an organizations such as our own and others that are literally doing things like comfort care to provide just water, a pizza and copper care for people. good standing in line for hours and so like this by 1000 cuts. so they've been using these different tactics to write, restrict access to create this culture fear, and to really be able to weaponized as administrator process. the good news is that what is happening, george is that we've broken all kinds of records related to having more people to turn out for early voting. you know, the narrative from republicans is that, well, this proves that voters suppression does were the real narrative. is that because of both suppression, certain communities like the african american community, is pissed off. but we've decided to organize ourselves is taking a tremendous amount of time. human capital and resources to really be able to combat these barriers. i've been placed in a place. and what we're seeing is that african american voters are literally making up of the school over performing that,

between the report between 38 and 40 percent of the early african american, both ari, i mean, the whole point of the 1965 voting rights act was to prevent their from being buried and constitutionally black people and all populate, all citizens have the right to vote. but historically, things like poll taxes, grandfather, cause all sorts of stuff stopped. black people in real life for being able to vote 1965 voting rights acts as okay, we'll stop this. now you have real representation, real access to the vote, and yet right now where to moment where it seems like for the 3rd time the legislation is being got it. we're literally re battling re litigating the same battles. we that we fought 60 years ago. i walk me through one why this piece of legislation is so important in to how is it being struggled over now? well, that's absolutely right mark. we had decades of disenfranchisement in this country of black americans really going back to the founding itself when only white male property owners could vote and then voting rights were steadily expanded. first,

fir, white men who didn't own property and then dramatically expanded for black men. with the passage of the 14th and the 15th amendment, then many of those rights were taken away. and it wasn't until the 1965 voting rights act that everyone got the right to vote in this country regardless of race or color. and that was a monumental achievement because you had a situation where in states like mississippi only 6 percent of african americans were registered to vote. before the passage of the voting rights act. you had counties and alabama that were 8090 percent black. and there was a single black registered voter before the 1965 voting rights act. so it revolutionized american democracy. it made america a true democracy for the 1st time. there have been efforts to try to chip away it for years. but those efforts have dramatically accelerated in the past decade. and i think the reason why those efforts have dramatically accelerated in the past

decade is because number one, the republican party itself has radicalized against american democracy. but number 2, they've taken over the courts and the courts and the congress with the 2 entities that always protected the voting rights at the voting rights act was reauthorized 4 times by the congress. and it was also say that those re authorizations were all signed by republican presidents. so there was a broad bipartisan consensus for the voting rights act for many years. but republicans have now turned against the voting rights acted in particular, the supreme court with 5 and then now 6, conservative justice has dramatically weakened the voting rights act. in 2021, they severely weakened the law. it harder to strike down discriminatory voting changes. and now they're basically on the verge of legalizing racial, jerry bedroom. so the combination of republicans turning against the voting rights act and capturing the course and weakening the voting rights act has left it in a very perilous position. you mentioned gerrymandering. oh, i want to go there latasha. i know you have

a lot of expertise some as bizarre. i want to bring you in 1st on this because what's happening in places is there literally redrawing districts so that black people there vote counts, but there's no powerful black voting block there, busily diluting the black vote. there's a case marrow versus milligan in alabama. what we're seeing this very thing, and the argument from republican seems to be, well, we're, we're, we're caught was, was the color blind. so there's no black voltage is volts. awful to matter. right? so, how do you make sense of this? how can we resist this narrative and how dangerous is it? so we're very worried about the supreme court case, which is marrow versus milligan, which is the alabama our district in case i think it's worth noting that the alabama legislature drew the alabama maps. and in the congressional map, a 3 judge panel which included 2 drum, trump appointees at unanimously ruled that the congressional map and alabama violated the voting rights act. and part of the reason to understand is exactly what you're saying, which is the map that they drew. the state legislature drew really packs and cracks

as the words that we used to deny that. so they put all of the african american populations in sort of all together in one district, instead of a really drawing maps that reflect where like people live in alabama. so what happened in alabama is after that decision was re issued, the supreme court stayed that decision and then took the case up with recently heard our arguments on that case in early october. and the concern is that the u. s . supreme court is going to undermine that ruling, undermine the voting rights act, undermine the voting rights act, which has been incredibly successful when you talk about a re districting and vote delusion to sort of in sure and protect and make sure that minority voters by letters get equal opportunities to elect candidates of their choice is that a persuasive argument are not to you, but perhaps to the courts in your anticipation. that voting is race neutral, that every vote should count, but they, black people don't have a right to elect black candidates so that you know,

as long as your vote counts in this district of that district, it shouldn't matter where it counts. i mean that this is what the republican legislative legislatures are arguing. yeah, i mean end, the thing is it doesn't really matter what we think. it just matters what 5 conservative justices of the supreme court. and so clearly they think that that's gonna be an appealing argument to them. you have to go back though, because this argument has been made by republicans for decades. that basically the voting rights act was becoming a form of affirmative action in the electoral sphere. and it's been made more aggressively by republicans in the last redistricting cycle. and they've taken some really dramatic steps in florida, for example, in the maps that were put forth by the governor rhonda santas which in and of itself was extraordinary. is a governor's not supposed to control redistricting, they just filed, dismantled, majority black districts in a way that was clearly thought to violate the voting rights act. southern states have very clearly diluted the power of black votes deny them representation. so

you're not saying one group should be favored over another. you're just saying that the group should have equal access to the political process. and it doesn't really make sense in a state like alabama, which is over a quarter black, that they would only control one of 7 districts or that in a state like florida. there could be no black representatives or very few black representatives after this redistricting cycle as done. so i don't think it's about special treatment. it's about everyone treated the same and right now white republicans in states like alabama are being treated differently more advantageous . lee, then black democrats are black voters writ large because black voters are much more likely to associate with the democrats. so i think on the merits of the case, it's pretty clear. that's why they one in the lower courts, a sarah said, but i think you have a supreme court that is extremely ideological when it comes to the voting rights act. and they're going to find a way to rule in favor of alabama. that's what they want to do. there's another piece to this latasha i want to talk about, which is the actual voter suppression bill. since january of 2021. there had been

400 restrictive bills introduced into legislatures around the country. that is a stunning number. there are those that were point at this being part of a larger kind of racial backlash against the black community and minorities. ah, there is a fear of black political power. ah, that is motivating jim crow era voting restrictions. some would argue we're seeing efforts to criminalize, we see people who have food and water, we see the lines get longer. we seen fewer voting locations. i mean, it seems to me that this could have a material impact on the midterm elections. if, if, if black you will have it harder to vote and it could be harder for their vote to count this as a material election on literally not just on black voters, but it actually unravels democracy that we have to really recognize the fragility of democracy. that we're dealing with right now, so i can talk about george. i can also talk about florida, where in florida, where the centers is actually created a police force, essentially to actually be in the termination to for voters the are. there's one

voter who was a former incarcerated returning citizen who had registered to vote because his county said that he could register to vote. he was awakened one morning at 5 o'clock in the morning with a swat team at his door and a helicopter over his house. and police in his back yard that is at his most, that is not only traumatized in an intimidation, but really when we look at it, those a signs of ashes, we have to really recognize what we're up against. this is not just another election around the democrats and republicans. we're literally an election that we are determining what is the future of democracy in this country. not just what the black people can vote, but whether people can vote who may or may not have the same opinion as those that are in power. will we have free and fair access? will we have a system that people are not punished because they participate in their lunch? so sarah, there's a way that we've talked about this along racial lines. but in this country, it's also more difficult for trans folk to vote, a disabled folk to vote ah, 9 english speaking people to vote a poor and working class people to vote. i mean,

structurally, it seems to me that the most vulnerable in society have it hardest when it comes to accessing one of the very things that might make their lives easier, right. which is access to the democratic process. um, is this a new thing or has every we, historically always me to harder for all these wonderful groups to vote? i think we have, there has been some history of always making it harder for these vulnerable groups to vote. but i think it's a fair assessment to say that it has gotten worse in more and recent history the last 10 years. i think one thing to understand about it is, and this is, comes up particularly in georgia, was that the early vote is a good example, which is that as we, as a society have modern i and our technology and our access to try and, and figure out how to do things. there's great opportunities, early voting, registering to vote online, automatic voter registration, just all of these ideas that take it a vote by mail that really good example that take advantage of some of the technology advances we have as a society. and in some places, there's

a lot of effort to try and implement those improvements to make it easier for everybody to vote. particularly people of color people who are lower income people who have disabilities and need more assistance with voting. people who have, you know, our english is not their 1st language. we have the capacity to help those people participate in numbers that reflect who they are and how they fit and r and r a populace. but the response of republican legislators and unfortunately on some of our chords is to discourage those modernization, ari and another group that faces these challenges. the systemic barriers is the native american community. i mean, you see lack of access to ballad boxes. you see native american citizens being a rendered ineligible voters sometimes because they don't have standard uh, street addresses which of course is very common if you live on a reservation. for example, i talked to me about the obstacles that native american populations experience in

why there are so many of them. huge obstacles to native americans voting. first off, they often live in more remote places, particularly on reservations. and i don't want to say that everyone does, but obviously in no places like north dakota, for example. and the navajo nation, people could live a very far from a polling place. there were efforts, for example, to help people drop off their mail balance because polling places were far away. those efforts have been cut down. there were efforts so that they could register to vote on election day because registration could be difficult. these areas of those courts were cut down. there were tribal ideas that they could use for anything in their lives. but the law for it in such a way that you had to have addresses on your ideas and there were no addresses on some of the reservation so that you couldn't vote with your tribal id. that was an issue we saw in north dakota a few elections ago. so i think sarah is actually right that groups that her,

her story disenfranchised at her historically marginalized, that of other socio economic difficulties. those play out when it comes to the voting process and those are the lot of the same issues that are facing a native american communities where it's not just that they lack access to voting. is that there's other issues that they have in their lives that they're manifested by not having easy access to voting and, and the laws have been written in such a way to target those voters. because native american voters are also a constituency that tends to favor democrats in places like north dakota, in places like arizona doesn't get talked about a lot on a group that's mentioned very often. but for example, in arizona, the navajo nation is going to play a very important role in the outcome of that election. and so i think you're absolutely right, and it's very good that you brought up those barriers because are often overlooked . sir, there's a legal theory that's been gaining traction with some republicans. now, i'm going to stipulate that this is fringed theory. we're talking about here,

the independent state legislature theory or the iso is the idea that the state legislature has pre eminent power over other parts of a states legal process, including the ability to override a governor, veto air or state court decisions. now, while some would argue that this is an obscure theory, there is a pro i s l case before the supreme court right now. should people be worried about, ah, the push to kind of these centralized power give states the last word. yes. okay, and as i think is important, and that was a quick yes, cuz i actually was expecting you to say something quite different. i mean, i was hoping you'd say something went on now. i think there's reasons civic vari. so the current case before the supreme court that will or are going to be heard in december is out of north carolina. the north carolina state constitution has a very clear protection of the right to vote. and an inherent history in the case law in north carolina. that there should not be partisan gerra mattering. so of course, the republican legislature in north carolina drew both the state legislative map

and the congressional maps very partisan lead. jerry mander, there were successful litigation. the north carolina supreme court agreed. this is the state supreme court agreed that those maps violated the north carolina state constitution and violated the right to vote in the state of north carolina, because they were so partisan, jerry mander, and demanded that their legislature draw a new map. so they got, there are actually new congressional map, there's a new state legislative map there was, will actually be in effect in november. but the republican legislature appealed to the u. s. supreme court, which then took the case and they're making the argument based on the provision of the us constitution that has never been interpreted to mean this, that the state legislature is the one that should have the final word on all things related to voting. so your state supreme court, your state constitution would have no impact. so what that would do is feel so obviously absurd. yes. and it would create completely power in a state legislature,

making it a logical political process part is in process even rather than totally and completely opposite of the concept in american government, which is both true in the state and federal level. a balance of power that you should have more than one institution, courts, a governor, a legislature making these decisions, and that that is how we get to the fairest and best place in most circumstances. and the fact that the u. s. supreme court has even entertained this argument and is now having an oral argument and has said they're going to entertain this. this particular concept is very concerning because it's concerning is an extravagant understatement. verify ari wasting a lot of legislation enabling voters. suppression, but some were still hoping for a big voter turnout, especially from young people, you know, in light of the overturning of roe. v wade. how important is the youth vote to the mid term elections? very important, particularly in a mid term election because the fact is a lot of young voters just don't turn out in

a mid term election. a lot of people just don't turn out period in a mid term election. and we're going to see probably less than 50 percent of americans turn out in this next election. and we're going to see even lower turn out among younger voters because that's just what happens. people get really excited about the presidential election and they're much less excited over who the governor might be, or who the secretary of state might be, or the attorney general beer who their member of congress might be. even though those things are extremely important. and in some cases affect their lives more than who the president is. and so i think there is a growing realization that rights can be taken away in this country. i think roe v wade was an extremely illuminating moment for a lot of younger people who thought will always have reproductive rights. always have a right to control what happens with my own body. and now they don't of, not just because of the supreme court, but the fact that so many states, immediately criminalized abortion in a way that was unthinkable in wisconsin. for example,

there's an abortion been from 1849. that's one year after wisconsin. well, he mistake that immediately went into effect. after roe v wade was overturned, it makes no exceptions for rape or incest. it's totally out of step with what voters in wisconsin won. and so i hope this will be an illuminating moment for younger people to get out and defend those rights. but my concern is that not enough people are paying attention to mid term elections. not enough people are paying attention to what state races do and not enough people are connecting the value of their vote to change. i think there's a frustration here that democrats have to address in terms of getting but developed quickly younger people. so i want you to help me look forward a bit, you know, given all of the voting issues, getting all the tax on the voting rights act. what are we looking at beyond midterms and other than the court fight, which are essential? what should individuals be doing to protect voting rights? so i think i'm, you know,

advocating to your local and state officials because they're the ones that really control a lot of elections. and that's going to be true. unfortunately, more and more as the courts are less of an avenue. so i think one thing you can do, it's really important is to pay attention to these issues. as ari says, to make sure that you are voting to make sure that you're paying attention to the impact that you're a, that your votes have both the midterms and, and, but also in some of your local state elections. because that's really important in terms of determining who is actually making decisions about how electrons are run at it in your state. and that's where some of these decisions come from. and so i think it's a fundamentally important, i mean people need to pay attention and understand that there are consequences for voting to understand that and more important consequences for not val, yes, consequences are not added to the are i would say you, well, i think sarah is absolutely right of that, that i think 1st it starts with voting in these elections because these electrons are going to shape american democracy for years to call me. and the question we're

facing now is, will people who don't believe in free and fair elections be elected to take over election system and that, is it extremely frightening, frightening process. so i think 1st it starts with voting, then it starts with deeper structural change. and the fact is, democrats would have been able to pass these voting rights bills if they had modified the filibuster, they refuse to do so. so that's really not just on republicans on them for not doing it. and that's why we need structural change in this country. to make our institutions more reflective, because whether it's jerry mender, state legislatures, whether structure the u. s. senate whether it's the electoral college too often there is very popular support for certain policies, but those policies don't become law because they're able to be blocked by a much smaller minority of americans or the way our institutions are structured. so i'm very concerned not just about what's gonna happen is next election, but are our institutions going to be moved in

a way that is more and more undemocratic? and that's why i think we need a more long term movement for deep pro, structural change in those countries. what latasha you're on the ground, you talk to the people all the time, which individuals be doing to act to help change the circumstances were. so i say 3 things, why? and i call it the 3 ours, they've got to respond, which means you've got to respond to what is happening right now. if you're not registered, you need to register to vote. if you are register voted, you have to respond by literally making sure that you go out and vote you get other people to vote. vote with you that this isn't a mom to stand on the sidelines, that there are consequences that will have long last in effect on our community. the 2nd thing is you've got, we've got to resist it, have to be completely unacceptable that any national party in this country can align itself with white nationalists. it can be okay. they have to feel consequences. we have to recognise this isn't just about the policy. i'm different, this isn't just about party power. this is really around a sending

a message loud and clear that white naturalists will not be tolerated in any form. and the 3rd thing we have to do is we have to radically re imagine what do i mean by that? that is not okay just for us to really continue to engage as we were ever engaging right now. yes, we've got a boat. yes. you gotta organize, but that's not enough. what we have to do is radically, we imagine every single system in this country recognized that it was all formed out in the contents of white male page white, racist patriarchy. and we've got to create systems that are literally got a be designed to be inclusive and to create us and get us back, get us to a more reflective representative democracy. so those are the things that we have to do. we have to respond. we have to resist and we have to re a match latasha ari there. thanks so much for joining me. is a great conversation. everybody that is our show up for it will be back. ah

ah and this is a region that is rapidly developing, but it's one also that is afflicted by conflict. political up to steve was some of those we talked to elsewhere as saying that they fled after hearing that other villages had been attacked. what we do, and i'll just, sarah, is tried to balance these stories, the good, the bad, the ugly, tell it as it was, and leave the people who allow us into their lives, dignity and humanity. ask you to tell their story. with across the u. s. millions of americans rely on conservative talk radio shows for their news and entertainment. these are all real issues for real people. the

listening post tunes in and asks is talk radio divided america. there is no room for counseling. unless more how democracy works. it's really just acknowledging differences that are already there. if anything, conservative talk radio created the republican party. talk to of a to park special on a jesse eat up watching the world cup in 1982 glorious technicolor from spain. i've never seen anything like these plays a lot of come from a different planets. and after that, i was all in on the welcome. i think we're forcing from doha, which is now my home on the very 1st woke up was going to take place in the middle east. it's going to be a night. it is a hugely complex and often controversial events cover. but once a ball is kicked, the passion and the excitement of football takes a.