i'm going to be. coming up on r t it's election day twenty thirteen here in the u.s. from new york city to miami beach unconventional candidates are shaking up the usual red versus blue politics in-depth coverage of today's elections just ahead. and in washington state there's a major vote on labeling g.m.o. foods initiative passes it would force biotech manufacturers to disclose the use of genetically modified crops more on a vote for greater transparency coming up. and down in colorado there's an initiative to divide the state eleven counties in northeast colorado will vote on whether or not to secede so what are the chances of a fifty first state we'll tell you more later in the show.

it's tuesday november fifth four pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sax and you are watching r.t. and we begin with election day twenty thirteen that's right political junkies around the country can rejoice because big name elections are just reserved for an even number of years they have been an odd number of years too so let's take a look at the math in new jersey and in virginia voters head to the polls to elect a new governor and new york city detroit and miami beach a new mayor will be elected although we should put an asterisk on the detroit mayor all race as we'll explain a little bit later in the show and there are some important ballot question is to be voted on in colorado and in washington two states that made history last year when they legalized marijuana and are trying to make history again this year with a session vote and a vote to require g.m.o. labeling and we're going to bring you coverage of all these issues throughout the show but we begin. with the big races in our t.

team of correspondents positioned up and down the east coast on a stasi churkin in new york megan lopez in virginia and perrin boring in miami florida let's get to it megan i want to start with you in virginia so what is the landscape like in this state remember this is a state with a republican governor and now has two democratic senators and the democratic candidate terry mcauliffe is up in the polls this is been a battleground state in the past the present obama is one plus there's a libertarian candidate in the mix so how's all this going to shake out tonight in the governor's race. well sam as you mentioned it was shaping up and it had all of the elements it needed to be a very exciting election however critics are calling this one of the most boring elections in virginia's history with two of the most southpark candidates running those being terry mcauliffe and of course republican ken cuccinelli however of this election is very particular and very different from some of the other state

elections that you'll seeing play out throughout the day and the reason is because of its proximity to washington d.c. we're literally just a stone's throw away from washington d.c. so a lot of the national issues that play out within the real within the government have an effect on some of the state government elections now one of those obviously is the sequester virginia in particular was really affected by the suppressor because of the pentagon and because there is so many people that are working in the military living in virginia now one of the other issues that really is having an effect on this election is the government shutdown which lasted for sixteen days and the republicans were primarily blamed for that so obviously that played against and cuccinelli however something that played against democrat terry mcauliffe was the obamacare rollout which was disastrous to say the least and the glitches on the system are still prevalent so that played against terry mcauliffe but also played

for ken cuccinelli as he was one of the first attorney generals to actually sue the obama administration for that so those are some of the factors that are playing into this something else that's playing into this is the amount of money that's being spent on this we're joined as election is shaping up to be the most expensive gubernatorial election in state's history terry mcauliffe has spent thirty four million dollars in campaigns twice as much as ken cuccinelli who has raised about nineteen million dollars however despite all of this and all the funding and the negative ads that have gone on one person is really sticking out and that is libertarian. and it rob sarvis who was up until recently polling at about ten percent despite the fact that he has only a fraction of the amount of money that the other two candidates have with less than three hundred thousand dollars sam well let's talk about that candidate the libertarian rob sarvis you've been following him you mentioned a minute ago that you know these are two subpart candidates the democrat in the republican ken cuccinelli and terry mcauliffe so what is the third candidate here

robert sarvis hoping to accomplish today. well he's a proper service is very realistic about his chances of actually winning this however he is still going out in really campaigning in order to get those votes and the reason that ten percent number is so monumental is because it could set the precedent for libertarians and for third party candidates in particular in virginia in the future now the reason that is because in the virginia code of law for elections if a candidate for almost particular party garnered ten percent in the general election from the previous election that party is automatically on the ballot for the next year. and it looks like we lost they're not going to go to you in new york there's no there's there's a third party candidate they're running a guy name adolfo carry on but he was run as a democrat has run as a republican before he's looking to just kind of make a name for himself there but bill de blasio the guys expected to win today when the

mayor race is expected to be republican joe lhota in a landslide he's a bit unconventional he's looking to become the first democrat mayor in new york in over twelve years he's got kids who are in public school which is a rare thing for mayors of new york city seems to be the anti bloomberg type of politician so what does this tell us about the changing political landscape in new york and people's moods in general. well last time you're absolutely right we are looking to experience seeing bill de blasio really win in a landslide election and not only is he likely to become the first democratic mayor in twelve years but he is also really seems to be bringing this new message to new york and a lot of his supporters what they're saying is basically we want a new new york we want real change to take place and because he's going primarily his mean opponent is of course republican joe lhota who did say that he's going to basically follow up and bloomberg steps and he even though bloomberg is stepping down with quite an adequate approval rating certainly there seems to be

a lot of build up into in new york city especially after the years after the financial crisis and basically the points that de blasio has been bringing around our points that new yorkers who want change have been asking for he's been talking a lot about imposing a tax on the rich he's been talking a lot about the eradicating this enormous inequality gap that's existed in new york city over the last years he's talked about more affordable housing a major issue new york city for anybody living here and you know benefits for our smaller wage workers all of these things also we have to note kind of remind us of the occupy wall street message that did erupt here in new york city after the financial crisis and now we have a politician who seems to be backing these specifics topics that new yorkers who are calling for change have been have been demanding so and it will it looks likely how that he's going to win this election in terms of implementing these particular

policies that have certainly brought him to the forefront we're going to have to wait and see which specific steps he prioritizes for him rule those three my question or i mean here we have a candidate who is vocalising a lot of what the occupy wall street movement brought to the table but this is a city that's very cozy with wall street mayors who've been very cozy with wall street what are the chances that many of these policies the boss who is running will actually be implemented. well law that's the big question it seems sam what the people who are supporting has his message and are voting for him today they are concerned about whether or not this is going to be another politician that uses these he has been speaking about these topics over the years but whether or not he's using this particular platform because he understands that this is a message that needs to be addressed but it will be a tough battle ahead you know the close relationship with wall street that the financiers have to go have gotten used to over the years and you know the controversial stop and frisk policy for one that has been under

a lot of vice heat here in new york which he's against but certainly there's been major battles in courts recently surrounding that so it looks like quite a bit of a battle ahead for him or i want to go down to miami now where. boring is and this is really the just one of the more entertaining races around the country the miami beach mayoral election it's nonpartisan which is made for a fairly colorful field of candidates can you give us an idea of some of the characters that are down there. yeah this is truly the establishment versus a grassroots oriented. candidate we have philip levine who is the c.e.o. of royal media partners he is a very successful businessman. millionaire he has spent about one hundred and our one point five million dollars funding his campaign for a seat that only pays ten thousand dollars a year and he has the best people money can possibly by running his campaign for him he even had former u.s.

president bill clinton come down to miami beach to support him and then. going against him is steve burke now he has gotten national attention because he's so different from anyone we've ever seen he's thirty two years old he's a yale graduate and a former tennis pro he wants to decriminalize marijuana and he has only spent about twenty five thousand dollars on his campaign he is totally grassroots supported and he is a native of miami beach one of the most corrupt towns in america and he really just wants to clean up his city well let's talk about steve burke you've been following him he's a former tennis player turned comedian he's is running on a platform to legalize marijuana as kind of the subject of an m.t.v. two film crew can he win the how of his tactics proven unconventional but effective down there in miami you know he actually has a really good chance this is second time running he ran in two thousand and eleven and walked away with thirty percent of the vote and you know he was having issue of

people not taking him seriously and again folks will be and have the best people working for him and they have really painted him as an entertainer who has no interest in being mayor who just wants to be famous however just talking to him the past couple days i don't think that's true at all but why he's so different is because he reaches his his voters and the people in miami beach through very alternative means he's made a lot of you tube videos that are. comedic and or own origin and even a lot of parody videos they have been extremely successful some of them have twenty five fifty million hits on them people all across the country are tuning in to his message of breaking down the two party system and he doesn't he doesn't relate to either party republicans or democrats and he just wants to show that you don't have to be a part of the establishment in the forward here and he wants to change that and interesting ok so that was our t. correspondent on a saucer churkin in new york megan lopez in virginian period boring in miami florida will be checking in with all of you

a little bit later today. meanwhile in detroit voters are heading to the polls to elect a new mayor but it's an election unlike any in the city's history not only with the expected winner mike doogan be the first white mayor in the city since one nine hundred seventy four but also right now detroit is not even under the control of its mayor or locally elected representatives but instead a financial manager appointed by governor rick snyder in charge of managing the city's descent into bankruptcy so the winner of today's mayoral election will have very little power and said he will work under emergency financial manager kevyn orr who has full powers over the city's budget meaning the new mayor will have to get orders approval on any new spending while both candidates running for mayor of detroit stand opposed to the financial emergency manager in charge of their city neither they nor the voters have any power this election to remove him only governor rick snyder has the power and while snyder has refused to endorse either candidate for mayor he has supported his financial manager and insists the city of

detroit will be under kevin or its control through the bankruptcy process so it's an election in name only in detroit today. and then went to washington state where the g.m.o. industry finds itself in another fight against transparency on the ballot there's initiative five twenty two which requires companies to label foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. washington state is trying to do what california failed to do last year which become the first state in the nation to pass a g.m.o. labeling it's clear that eighty percent of packaged foods in the united states contain g.m. most of this debate has attracted in enormous amount of money a lot of it coming from out of the state of washington so far supporters of jama labeling requirements have raised more than seven million dollars in their efforts mostly from thousands of individual donors but on the other side opponents of g.m.o. labeling mostly biotech companies like monsanto and dupont have raised three times

as much more than twenty two million dollars and that cash influx has significantly move the polls a survey of likely voters in september show who has made sure the labeling measures passing with two thirds of voters in support and twenty two percent against but now those numbers have narrowed with only forty six percent favor and forty two percent opposed. we saw a similar polar shift in california last november just before the g.m.o. labeling measure was defeated germany now for more on this is alexis baden meyer political director of the organic consumers association alexis good to have you on the show thank you so let's first explain this ballot initiative we saw a similar one voted on in california last year what would this one in washington specifically do well it gives us what ninety three percent of the public is demanding our right to know what's in our food our right to know if our food contains genetically modified organisms it's very very important for consumers to be aware of this issue and unfortunately only about twenty six percent of the

american public actually knows they're already eating g.m.o. foods but the american medical association came out recently and said that these g.m.o. foods should have been safety tested before we started eating them and they weren't the american academy of environmental medicine doctors organization not quite as powerful as the a.m.a. but still a great group lots of pediatricians there saying that they're seeing problems in their patients now that they believe are related to dmoz these include include gastrointestinal problems allergies even autism may be linked to eating g.m. mouth so beyond just the common sense here that people should have a right to know what they're eating there's also a whole medical dynamic here because this is definitely an unsettled question in science whether these foods are healthy or not for you you know i mentioned enormous amounts of money flowing in the. opponents of general labeling mostly because g.m.o. companies like monsanto and dupont have spent twenty thirty million dollars in this

race to defeat it they did the same thing in california what's behind this why are they so adamantly opposed to something just as innocuous as labeling their products well i think it goes to that question of whether g.m. most are safe to eat if they're not safe to eat they've been feeding us poison essentially and they're not going to want. to admit that the money is having a profound effect though i mean in i remember last year we tie you on to talk about this issue in california and the polls showed that this was going to pass overwhelmingly and then monsanto and dupont in the restroom come in dump tens of million dollars in the polls just suddenly shift like that you know and i just mention in the in the intro to the here that the polls were similar overwhelmingly people supporting jim a labeling all this money gets dumped in and the polls change why why is money having such a impact on this issue and could it be that supporters of jamma labeling are not

doing the work they need to do to get the message out through this money is there more that they can be doing to compete against this money well it's tough because the message on the no side hasn't been that the companies are opposed to consumers' right to know they've been telling consumers that g.m.o. labels are fine but that this bill won't give the voters the labels that voters want the no side has focused on perceived probably made up exemptions and loopholes that don't actually exist in the law and they also kind of focus on extra costs that will burn these companies us right so you take the cost of what it would cost for every company to take the g.m.o. ingredients out of their products and they say that's what it would cost to label the product labels are virtually costly so most of the most of the money that's coming from the opposition side is is funneling misinformation based oh you have this issue because they can't win by thing they don't support consumers right now and as a result of the citizens united and other elections that have allowed all this

money to flow into these elections it's really hard to kind of speak through a lot of the misinformation that's coming out california tried to become the first state last year to to require g.m.o. labeling washington now is trying to become the first state to do it how important is it for that first state to break through what might we see on the national landscape once one state succeeds in passing jamma labeling could. have a ripple effect across the country oh yes already more than half of the states have entered used legislation to label to mouth and we will see a wave of new legislation being passed all across the country if we went today in washington state and i guess that's why you see those entities staking ground in these states to make sure make sure that you know labeling fails but we'll have to see what happens tonight alexis braden my a political director of the organic consumers association thank you. and last year colorado voters made history joining washington voters and becoming the first state in the states in the country to legalize marijuana well this year some colorado voters are trying to make history again by seceding and becoming

a fifty first state or tea is more important is in colorado with more. in a state of five point one million people democracy is failing the minority and a battle to break away has begun we're trying to address from a systemic issue within a country which is this rural versus urban divide eleven colorado counties approximately four hundred thousand citizens are voting on a ballot initiative that would pave the way for completing the fifty first us states the urban areas can assert their well against the rural communities and it is like taxation without representation and that the rural communities don't have a voice and things that are being forced upon them earlier this year colorado's democratically controlled legislature exerted its power by passing laws fiercely unpopular in the northeastern parts of the state among them. historic gun control laws and mandating only rural areas to produce twenty percent of their

energy from renewable sources a move officials say will crush farmers and ranchers while also raising the cost of electricity urban legislators imposed one standard on rural colorado and exempted themselves out of that same standard for their urban constituents one might call that tyranny in my thirteen years plus of being a county commissioner i have never seen folks this frustrated this discontent this feeling of this disenfranchise in addition to sending a message to lawmakers here in denver supporters of the fifty first state say their ballot initiative also serves as inspiration for the many other u.s. cities and states with their own secession movements i get fold calls on a regular basis. least once a week from citizens in other states that saying hey what are you guys doing out

there how you doing this from vermont and north carolina to texas and california the u.s. has seen a rapid spy. movements blazing across the nation in the past decade as the united states has grown extremely divided i hope that there's a recognition that a disconnect exists not just here in colorado but in other states and that we need to begin to address that problem the problem of america's partisan politics extends all the way up to the top of last month's dysfunctional stalemate in washington caused a sixteen day government shutdown the next step beyond this is going to be more than likely in twenty fourteen statewide ballot initiative which everybody in the state would be able to vote at that point which would redraw the boundaries of the state of colorado however this coveted swing state can only be torn in two with the approval of u.s. congress a powerful legislative body known best for its own failure at reaching compromise

marina point ny at r.t. colorado. ok shifting from elections to activism in the u.k. today is known as guy fawkes day commemorating the guy who tried to blow up the british parliament on this day more than four hundred years ago now thanks in part to the graphic novel and later movie v for vendetta guy fawkes visage has been immortalized on masks masks that were frequently worn by members of the occupy movement and mass that have become the symbol of the internet hacktivist group known as anonymous well today millions around the world turned out to major land parks as part of the million mask march and billionaire bankers and corporations who are corrupting politicians and perpetuating injustices around the planet always took place in more than four hundred locations around the world including right here in washington d.c. . and moving on don't do business with pat leonard that's the name given to a malaysian defense contractor at the center of a bribery scandal rocking the u.s. pentagon now here's the story

a navy commander stands accused of passing along confidential ship routes which is a major national security breach two hundred. rantis or fat leonard who runs a defense contractor known as g.d. . fat leonard use this information to bilk the us navy out of millions of dollars in fuel food and other services it's alleged his company defrauded the u.s. navy out of ten million dollars in just one year in thailand and in return for the information fat leonard wood had of gifts or bribes including lady gaga tickets and even prostitutes so far four people have been arrested including fat leonard and the navy commander selling secrets as well as another colleague of leonard's and a senior navy investigator who is keeping fat leonard informed of the investigation the pentagon believes the more people will likely be implicated in this massive bribery scheme. u.s. secretary of state john kerry is in poland there that he tried to ease concerns

from allies over the n.s.a. spying programs promising that a review of surveillance activities will strike the right balance between security and privacy we've heard a lot of talk lately about striking balances kerry also advised allies not to let n.s.a. revelations get in the way of trade deals between europe and the united states u.s. defense contractors are trying to get involved with a forty five billion dollars upgrade to an air base in central poland and talks are also underway over a new and much broader e.u. u.s. trade deal that as a result of the n.s.a. leaks could get shaken up all this comes as new allegations are leveled at the u.k. spy agency g.h.q. close partner of the n.s.a. over whether or not the brits are still spying on the germans artie's peter all over as more. because of another day another case of allies spying on each other this time it's the turn of the british it seems these allegations in documents

leaked by edward snowden suggest that on the roof of the british embassy here in lindh there was a on the roof listening post now if that's the case it comes just a week after the united states of supposedly removed a listening post of their own on the roof of their embassy which is just next door to the british embassy here in the german capital now there is the argument that they spy yes this is what they do however it is certainly going to be repercussions from this if it turns out that it is true that the british had this. this this was to be called an intercept nest on the roof of the embassy it's certainly going to be toxic for relations between germany and britain to close allies within europe and it also comes at a time when german it officials try and get some kind of agreement on not spying on each other so all of this information coming out it seems in a relentless fashion showing that all of these people who held hands as friends

around the world will secretly listening in to walk to each other we're doing now it's been said that the e.u. has asked david cameron's british government for answers on this the british government have said well it's a matter of security and they don't comment on masses of security it all seems like a very easy and safe to give put this and to be repercussions from mason it does seem that just because you're a little paranoid doesn't mean that everybody isn't spying on you and i was archies peter over and berlin germany and finally c.n.n. spent much of last week covering the problems with the health care dark of web site and contentious hearing on capitol hill with health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius and all that coverage earned c.n.n. its lowest week. the ratings of the year yep last week c.n.n. averaged three hundred eighty five thousand viewers putting it not only behind imus and d.c. and fox but also h l n headline news and c n b c but you can't blame simmons

editorial decision all the major cable news networks covered obamacare issues last week the only difference is republican and democrat partisans stuck to their own m s n b c and fox news camps to hunker down for the debate leaving c.n.n. behind without any viewers so what does this tell us c n n audiences which normally like watching hearings and trials just so long as they're blockbuster murder trials like casey anthony jodi areas for george zimmerman just don't like the partisan political hearings interestingly cnn's best night of last week was fried it when it covered the shooting at los angeles international airport so you can bet c.n.n. is already gearing up for the trial of the l.a.x. shooter and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com forward slash our team america check out our website r t v dot com forward slash usa you can follow me on twitter at sam sachs stay tuned boom bust it's

next. well. technology innovation all the developments around russia. that's you jerry. please please please they come up very hard to take a pledge to get along here a lot longer than that had sat with governor rick perry. let's play. live

live live. live. live. a little. clip underfloor harmon a life making news all the face i dislike you know alone please please. please please plug. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i roll researcher.

lead. their happy friday i marinate and this is going bust and here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today. and i say weeks are hurting tech companies but now those companies are bringing their monetary mike to capitol hill we'll tell you all about it and starbucks maybe having to work here but if shares are trading is we'll bring you the latest buzz on this coffee company and taipei's get excited your favorite store just had a spectacular i.p.o. so strong in fact that you might not be able to consume yourselves plus we'll be talking with richard abilene about quantitative easing in japan and whether the country's experiences can teach us anything about q.e. states and who needs love when you have money we've got a report about a new online dating site that uses bribery to make not.