interests unitas." how are they going forward? >> it is primarily a security interest, that afghanistan does not fall back into a playground for jihadist groups. that remains at the core. the way he phrased it was he was referring to the 9/11 tragedy but the underlying reality or the purpose for which the united states and its allies went into afghanistan in the first place, they continue to exist. although not at that level perhaps. mark: the american military challenge has come from the taliban. with islamic state president obama has retreated from plans to slash u.s. forces in the country by the end of this year. will the reversal of the timetable be enough to ensure stability in afghanistan? >> depends on a number of factors. how the negotiations at the united states -- that the united's been conducting with the taliban movement are going forward. a brief opening of an office in the capital for the telegram was quickly shut down within days. there seems to be a renewed effort to negotiate and this t

unitas an issue that mark and sean have talked about, about a private they could afford that was contractedto keep their workers said to keep the compound, their equipment safe. but there certainly was, i never encountered any conflict with any chinese entity anywhere on the african continent. certainly, you know, i think there's a pretty significant economic competition between the united states and others and china on the african continent, but it never struck me as anything other than competition certainly nothing adversarial. >> the interesting part if i can follow up, what's interesting is that chinese incentives and policies is almost the opposite or the reflection of our own. whereas sean has mentioned how the u.s. has been reluctant put boots on the ground in some cases. china has in u.n. peacekeeping the largest contribution among the p5 and african -- if bobby but 1800 chinese peacekeepers operating in africa on the continent in various missions, plus sense the end of 2008 there's been a three vessel squadron, at least task force of the chinese navy off the coast of somalia contin

it might be a very large muumuu unitas and shut the belt but it is the sort of thing that is scalable. so the largest jurisdictions, i know, what a visual, right? [laughter] of course i had to point directly at dean logan, largest jurisdiction. your muumuu is kind of tight because you are the largest jurisdiction but small jurisdictions also appreciate having this nature of able to the. and even though we publish it send it out a year ago, every time we go out in public and meet with election administrators i talk to people who are hearing it, seeing it, feeling it excited about it for the very first time. because the truth is that we brought together the 18. we heard from either list of ministers. we have many of them here today. that there are many more who don't have the resources to go to national conferences, maybe don't even have the resources to go to the state conferences when they have that they're capable. so having this as a resource is very, very hopeful. that's why i think it's critical that we do have it reconstitute because that's another resource and we relied on in th

how many people in unitas tasted a prolonged to a union? guest: ok, let's take a quick look. i have to switch pages here. host: oh, sorry about that. guest: that's ok. in terms of levels, the numbers stand at about 14.6 million. host: and that is down from a high of? guest: 14.7. in terms of the 1983 figures. host: and that is the run number. but let's get some calls in here as we go through some of these charts and look of the study. derek in minnesota. derek, you are on the air. caller: yes, good morning. here is a question, i think that has always bugged me. and your graphs are proving it quite interestingly. you said the peak was in 1953. if i remember right jfk signed a law that made the ability for public employees to unionize. do you see how the graph of the private sector union went down as the public sector went, you know, pretty much straightforward? but here's my question. why do public employees need to be in unions? don't you see that is the most corrupting thing of the whole thing? i support private sector unions. i can't stand public-sector unions because it is