Philly DA Larry Krasner talks Crime, Public Safety, Voting, President Trump & More

Six squire. I think, you know, some of the old ways don't work, but community, having those days of street cleaning, knowing who your neighbor is, making sure that mister Tom on the block, if he's an elder, his wife passed away, that he has a plate. I think that that's community to me, and I think that a lot of times if we were to have that understanding, knowing who the moms are. You know your child is acting up, and now you see miss Johnson. I think I think those things worked. What do y'all think? Yeah, what about you? I think probably for me, one of the most important things that I would like to see is that a lot of our young people being supported with resources. We're seeing a lot of the resources being taken away. There's a lot of stuff that's going on federally that I'm concerned will at some point affect our communities, Black and brown communities specifically, especially like the young people when it comes to education, having different things to do after school, even you know, just like them having jobs and stuff like that. So those are my concerns. I really would like to see those resources for our young people in the community, because if if you don't support them, you don't meet them where they are. You don't try to have things for them to do. They're going to find things to do that they shouldn't be doing. And if it's a problem with our youth, it's a problem for the whole community. So that's that's just that's my take. Fantastic well with us, But that said, it's nothing else left to be said. Well, we're going to get into our guests. You know, we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the things that's actually happening. Uh, you know, we have an election coming up. We have a lot of people that's you know, out there in those streets and you know, advocating for you know, certain policies, certain changes, right, and so I'm super excited about having this young man here today that's going to talk a little bit about some of the things that he's doing. So without further d classic, lady, do we have to day? Do we have to date? Today? We have Larry Krasner, who was born in Saint Louis, Yeah, a distinguished attorney in the current DA of Philadelphia. He earned his degree from the University of Chicago and Stanford Law School, focusing on criminal defense and civil rights and he has defended the rights of marginalized communities throughout his career. After founding his own law practice, Larry became a passionate advocate for criminal justice reform, holding police accountable and reducing incarceration while addressing the root cause of violence. Larry lives in Philadelphia with his wife of thirty seven years. Y'all already know what to do. Let's give a warm we talk weekly. Welcome to district attorney. How are you? How are you so you're talking about me? That's right, I am. Sixty four. You know, before we start this interview, I like to ask you know, all our guests, you know, how are you? How are you feeling the current days? I mean, now you know they they ramping up or you've been out in the streets pretty much every day all day long with you know, uh, you know this selection coming up. So how are you feeling? How would your day? Well, you know, it was a long day, but it was kind of a nice day because I got to spend my day with outsiders. I got my doubts about insider I'd rather spend my day with outsiders. So it was a good day because I didn't have to spend much time with insiders inside. I got you, I got you, I got you. So let's start with some uh, you know, let's let's start with some insider stuff in terms of you per se as it relates to, you know, one, your advocacy work and what got you into you know, just you know, law specifically, and then let's walk up into where we are today. But we like to kind of like humanize the person who we have here, just to get to know them about who they are. So did do I guess your parents were they into law? Did they get you on to? Do you have siblings? Like, yo, you talk real goode? We need to know, like what are you doing? So what got you into that? Well, my parents were pretty idealistic, but none of them were lawyers. And as far as I know, I'm the first lawyer in the family. But you know, I mean that was a better version of the truth what you just did there was just said. My brothers and sisters would all tell me that I'm good with words. Actually, what my brother said is you'd just like to argue. As I came out of college, I was thinking of doing three different things and he's just like be a lawyer. You just like to fight with people, just like to argue. So I became a lawyer. But it actually had a lot to do, you know, because I was undecided coming out of college. It had a lot to do with being selected to serve on a jury in a homicide case, which was actually a potential death penalty homicide case. And by the time I was done serving on that jury, I just knew I wanted to be a lawyer doing criminal justice. Now, your first you graduate. So you graduate and you come to the position or you come to the understanding that this is what I want to do. Your first law school, you going to law school? What was that? Like? Law school's awful. Anybody who tells you otherwise not being honest. And the most awful thing about law school is the other law students that you know. I got to say, It's like college. I really enjoyed in a lot of different ways, all kinds of different creative people coming from different places, having great conversations into the night. I got to law school just kind of like, can you stop name dropping? Can you stop telling me what fancy school you went to. I went to public school. Can you just stop showing off in the classroom. We've heard from you three times. The class is one hour. We need to confine you to one time. We don't need to hear it three times. So I was not in love with law school, but I have truly loved being a lawyer ever since. You know, I really like to try cases. My career before I became DA was spent trying cases four to five days a week. I thought it was important, I thought it was interesting. I just didn't think I had enough sweeping impact. Now as a DA, I have much more of a sweeping impact. And how do you believe that impact parallels or supports your initial vision of what you were doing. Well, you know, every road is windy, but it really is very consistent. I mean, if you go back to something nobody else remembers, but I remember because I did it, which was being at this very studio, the public access cable studio. Or I did my announcement in twenty seventeen that I was going to run, and everybody laughed and laughed and laughed, if you remember that. At that time, I said, we need to get more people out of jail, right, we need to work on prevention, we need to use forensics to solve more cases. And you know, even though the details shift, the values have not shifted. We are a significantly less incarcerated city than we were. I can give you the specifics. You know, on this day, which is the tenth of May twenty twenty five as we're recording this, or maybe it's live, I don't know, on this very day, we have fewer homicides than we have had on this day for the last fifty years, this day, that's right. Well, we'll get a round of applause for that. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah. So you know, it turns out you can have your safety and you can have your fairness. We've led forty five people out of jail who were basically innocent people sitting in jail for somebody else's crime. You can't have your safety, you can't have your fairness, and you can have your freedom all at the same time. And they work together because when you stop spending crazy money to lock up people who don't need to be there, now you can fund your public schools, your mental health treatment, your drug treatment, all the all the you know. I mean, look, I went to public school. I went to public school inner City Saint Louis, and out here we had a school nurse, we had a school counselor. You know, my classes were usually like twenty two people in the class, not thirty five. That's how you get the work done. That's how we have to do it. But it's not what we've been doing for the last forty years, when we took all those resources, all that money, and just built more jails. Yeah, my question is basically, you've been in the community, You've been to the recreational centers, you've been to the barbershops. What do you think, in your opinion, is the most pressing issue within Philadelphia as far as community. Wow, such a great question. Well, pressing issue within community. You know, in many ways, I think community is actually the key to all of our pressing issues. I almost feel like it's not about going into the community to fix the problem. It's more like when we engage community the right way, it fixes most of our problems. You know. One of the things that we have seen in the last seven years was that when we took this money that we receive because it's confiscated from drug dealers, you know, other people who are committing crimes, and I can't use it for salary, so we have to put it back into community to try to fix the harm that that criminal activity has caused. What we've seen is there are so many good organizations in the community, little mom and pop five to one season nonprofit based organizations. And when you give them a little money, which is what we've done, and we only give between like five and fifty thousand dollars to these groups, right and instead of going to the big organizations with the big budgets, you go to the little ones where they've been running off of goodwill and you know, paying for it out of their back pocket. You get a tremendous return. We just gave twenty eight organizations a little bit of money. The total for all twenty eight was about one point two million dollars, and that now completes almost five million dollars of putting money into these little organizations. The work that they do is so impactful, It is so effective that we you know, I'm able to sit here and talk to you at a time when Philly is still the poorest of the of the big cities, at a time when there's more guns on the street today than yesterday, and yesterday there were more than the day before. And I could keep saying that for the last fifty years. How is it that we have so many more guns on the street. Fifty years in, we're still broke and we have the lowest number of from sides. And I'm telling you right now, modern enforcement has its place, but investment in community based organizations. That's how you bring down crime and incarceration. You bring them both down at the same time. I agree with that, and I think one of the issues that I have all always had with leadership was the idea of creating all of these new, bright ideas and policies when you have people that's in the streets, people that's in those communities, that's already doing the work, that's working right, and so to you know, move that or to displace that because you believe your idea is accurate or the right one, it does a disservice to the community. And so when we talk about civically engaged in the community, I think that's one of the biggest faults that I see with leadership, Right, and so, what do you believe and uh, what do you believe we can do with sharing more information or you know, giving the idea that let's look more into those communities, because essentially that becomes the community policing part. Right, Ms Johnson, Nos, Aaron john and Mark that grew up on that street and can go to look. I know your parents, y'all better go in the house. I have seen it happen. Right, So what do you believe the solutions are It's release today. Well, what you're talking about is that unique credibility and understanding that people who are on the block. Half. I lived in mount Airy twenty six years. I lived near the corner of Westwarder in Emlyn Street, and I watched kids grow up across the street. You know, I would hire them the shovel snow or cut the grass or this kind of stuff. And some of them came out really well. You know, one of them, young man, got in trouble for stealing grandma's car, but right now, you know, he's had an excellent military career. He has a great life. He's really an expert and very technical things. Another one of them actually died young, and he was a drug dealer, you know. And it wasn't sadly the only death that we had in the neighborhood of a young person. There was another one which also occurred. There is a unique ability that people on the block who are concerned about the young people on the block have to bring things together. It's not just solved by naming another government entity. It's not just solved by sending another police officer who doesn't know the community. There no disrespect to the police because they have a very important role. But what you're describing is real. I mean, you know, I guess I'd be stealing somebody else's phrase. But a village gets some things done. They just don't get done if you act like, well, society is broken, we need to helicopter in and fix it. You have to let society have the resources to fix itself. You have to stop tearing down society. You can to start meeting people's basic needs. And it is true all over the world that when you meet people's basic needs, you have a lot less crime. So the murder rates down. Let's come down significantly significantly. Since twenty twenty one. Could you talk a little bit about some of the work that you've done, especially collaborating with judges, the Police Department and the Public Defenders Association, all the work that you guys have done. Could you for our listeners, could you talk a little bit about specifically the things that you've done to reduce those numbers from twenty twenty one up until now. Because there's people that are like you know, even the ones that are not as informed and they're not tuned in. They don't know what's going on behind the scenes. They may just hear about the numbers coming down. But can you talk a little bit about what you've done to see that decline. Sure, well, you know, excuse me, I'll get a little bit of a cold. But it takes many different forms, and you know, it includes things like expanding diversion. Diversion is a way of holding. People accountable who are basically not criminal, but they made a mistake and we're trying to steer them in the direction of doing the right thing by not making it impossible for them to get a job. You know, you get a conviction, especially for a felony, you may be unemployable the rest of your life. And that's if you're out shooting people too bad. But if what's going on is you know you made a mistake, you're basically a good person, then I would rather make you work really hard and end up with no conviction because I know that in the long run, society we'll be safe for if we do that. So we've done a lot with diversion. We started a restorative justice program that never existed before. We started an immigration unit to deal with the issues of victims, witnesses and also sometimes defendants who are undocumented. We've done a lot of that stuff. But what I think a lot of people probably know the least about is what we have done in terms of using forensics, in other words, using cutting edge science to solve cases that were not being solved before. And it is pretty clear in my mind that what we've been able to accomplish there is permanently shutting down certain shooting groups that you know, many of the shooting groups have gone on for decades in Philadelphia, and the police would get an individual in that group for a murder or for a shooting, take the individual down, but the group went on, and it even went on to the point where you had the grandkids of whoever was in that beef thirty years ago and they're beefing but they don't even remember how it started. I mean, it went on like that. But it's a different world when you have cameras in a lot of places, when you have license plate readers in the city that are looking at publicly visible license plates and they're charting the time, the location, the date they were in a particular place. When you have cutting edge DNA that will allow us to get tiny amounts of DNA off of things you could hardly even imagine, things like a fired cartridge casing that's the brass end of a bullet that flies out of a semi automatic gun when you fire it. Imagine a world where you can have a bullet, have an explosion, get incredibly hot, fly out of a gun, bounce on the sidewalk, and we can pull DNA off and know who loaded it. I mean, that's just an amazing thing. So you know, when you start to have a bunch of machines that will crack open cell phones, they'll get past passwords, and now you're able to put together an entire case off of things like the geolocation that's in that phone right that shows where the phone was at the time of the shooting, Where was it before going towards the shooting, Where was it during the shooting, at the shooting, where was it after the shooting running away from the shooting. This is how you start to solve crimes that were never solved before. It's how you start to make it so that young people are thinking of picking up the gun to night decide this is not the night. You know. It has made a tremendous difference. So for me, prevention is absolutely key. But it's also key that Philly catch up with other cities and that we have the ability to solve more cases leave more mothers with answers about whatever happened to their child than we have been able to do in the past. So are you concerned about any of the things that could be coming down the pike when it comes to some of the executive orders that have been past affecting what you're doing and if you're elected, what you plan to do. Well, I'm very concerned about that lunatic we have in d C. I mean, let's call it what it is. You have an orange man with gold shoes whose hair goes backwards, and this dude, you know, I mean, Frankly, if he came to my house about airon and he wanted to sell me anything, I would say, get off the property, and that would be the first time I saw him before I knew who he was. I can't even understand the suit. I can't understand why the tie hangs down to his knees. I can't understand why anybody believes a single word this wacko says. So I'm very concerned about him. But you know, and I think he fully intends to try to take over the government of the United States, and I think he fully intends to carry out a military coup. But I also think it's going to fail. Okay. I think what's going to happen is the public are going to get more and more sour on what a nut he is, and that by the time we get to the midterms, the Democrats are going to take back the United States House, which is now controlled by Republicans. I think they're going to take back to some of the spots in the Senate. I think we're going to see the public get more and more disgusted with how this man is trying to rip off everybody and break everything. So I'm hopeful in that regard. But in terms of his specific executive orders, well, let me see. One of them was We're going to end birthright citizenship, and the court said, no, it's in the US Constitution. You can't just write crazy on a napkin. Okay. You know. Other ones that he's come up with are that he's going to order local law enforcement to do immigration enforcement. And the answer once again is no. The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution says you can order federal law enforcement to do it, not many of them, but you can't make local mayors, local police commissioners, local prosecutors do it. And I've already said publicly many times, no, it is not my job to do your job. I'm going to stick with the homicides and the rapes. Things. You can spend your time dragging people who for the most part are just here to try to support their kids and be able to eat. You can drag them out the front door, so long as you do it lawfully. But I ain't helping, right. So you know, once again, people talk about how he's going to cut off money to sanctuary cities or welcoming cities or constitutional cities, call them what you call them. He tried this in his first term. He tried it against Philly. He lost in the courts. The courts at that time said you can't do this. So he writes a lot of stuff. He holds a Bible upside down. He's got funny hair and silly clothes, and he where's a girdle? I mean, let's be honest, we all know that man's wearing a girdle, right, But I'm just not that intimidated by this foolishness, you know. And if he wants to lock me up, I hope you all visit me. Yeah, you know. Then you know what's funny about this is that you know you stany intental tools down as it relates to truly supporting and protecting the community. I think, and this is a personal opinion, not necessarily reflecting views that we taught weekly. But what I will say, however, is because we taught weekly is nonpartisan, right, we don't pick any sides. I always say that I'm always for the person who I see that's actually in the streets, that's doing the work, and I see you doing the work. I believe that you have been getting getting unfair rap, so to speak, as it relates to the work that you tirelessly do for the community. I want to know your your opillion or your feelings or opinion on you know, the perception that some have of your your naysayers, but those that's in my circles don't necessarily feel that way, right, and so it's starting to look very peculiar as it relates to and there I say, you know, conspiracy, but it does look really peculiar when I see people who are really supporting the community, helping the community, but you have a mass amount of kind of like wave of well that person isn't right, something is wrong with that. What is your position on it? Your take on it? Well, my mother was I come from a very interesting background, but my mother was an evangelist. She was a tent preacher, among other things. She used to say, you know you're doing something right when you're angry at that. And I was just talking about Donald Trump, So I guess that's the devil because he does have Philly in his mouth, and he's got my name in his mouth. And then too, that's kind of how it happens. What do I think about that? Well, I don't want to be so dismissive because that's not fair. But you know, I did start this whole thing by saying I had a good day because I was with the outsiders. Okay, you're talking about the one point five to five million people in Philly who are outsiders. There's probably fifty thousand or insiders. And the heat that we get is usually coming from people who are making a lot of power, and they're making a lot of money off of things continuing the way they were under Seth. Williams or under Lenn Abraham for example. You know, I got impeached, impeached I say, by the Pennsylvania legislature, meaning a whole bunch of Republicans who live in counties that are either named after coal or they're named after Elk. Right, those dudes, well they wanted to impeach me, and they said from jump, Well, he didn't do anything corrupt, he didn't committee crimes. That's not the point. We don't like his ideas. We don't like his policies. You know why they didn't like my ideas and my policies because they make a lot of money off of having the thirteen thousand Philadelphians who were in their state prisons. Yes there, they make sixty thousand dollars a year per person locking them up. And now we're not at thirteen thousand, we are at nine thousand. So I mean they are boohoo, and like you haven't heard about the possibility they might have to close jail. These are Republican leaders who have failed their people. When coal disappeared, they didn't have an answer. When steel disappeared, they didn't have an answer until they decided, we got it. Let's take a bunch of people from Philly, lock them up here and make money off of that. Yeah, because they their address becomes the jail where they live, not the Philadelphia where they say. A very important point too, that when you take a Philadelphian and you move them to another county, county in I think forty eight out of the fifty states, that person is counted as living in Elk County or whatever it is, and that gives them highway funds, and that gives them more political representation. This is highway funds for people who can't drive because they're in jail. This is political representation for people who can't vote yet because they're serving a sentence and they're in jail. It's a pretty twisted up system. So they're not only filling their tax base with taxes from correctional officers because that's the only employment these loser leaders have been able to manage for their county, but they're getting all kinds of power, and we all know what's going to happen to the Yeah, I said, loser leaders who if they don't succeed in keeping these prisons full of people who don't live there because haven't forbid, they don't want to lock up people who live in their own county. Those people might vote against them, their families might vote against them. So what they want is a nice conveyor belt of Philadelphians out to their prisons who they can incarcerate for as long as possible, get all that money in and stay in their office as a state rep or as a state senator. But we stand in the path of that. We've reduced the number so drastically that it's literally worth billions of dollars. They're not getting They're starting to hear about prisons closing. That means they might lose their jobs, and what do they do. They do what they do. So you know, to me, that is actually good because it means we're having an impact. We angried up the devil. I think that's a great And I want to talk about this quote that you mentioned on an interview from I Believe in Young Turks. I have my own views on that, but you said we were able to stop our jails from becoming super spread of COVID, which was an additional and very important factor. And right now we are enjoying the lowest number of people in county custody that anyone seems to remember. You know, we used to have almost ten thousand people in county custody. We're down to thirty six hundred, and yet we simultaneously have lowest numbers of homicide in fifty years. I thought that, I thought that was pretty profound. Why do you think that's one of the facts. That's a fact, ladies and gentlemen. Why do you think that's one of the facts that we don't hear about? Is Philadelphian's as a relate to your office. Well, I mean, I hate to say it, but unfortunately there has been a long history of not having really accurate politics, entertainment, or reporting. Just to give you another example, this is probably something you've never heard, but something I didn't know until I had some people who do data in my office check it out. Do you know that the homicide rate in the Republican States, which are the states that voted in the last presidential election for a Republican president. The homicide rate in the Republican states. You know, Republicans, the ones who supposedly are tough on crime and they know how to fix everything. Homicide rate is one hundred and thirty three percent of the homicide rate in the Democratic States. For the last twenty five years, twenty four of those twenty five years, you have been in more danger of being murdered in a Republican state than in a Democratic state. That has never come out of the mouth of Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, or any Republican. Instead, we get to listen to Richard Nixon, a criminal, talk about law and order, or Donald Trump, a thirty four time felon talk about law and order. That's a problem that our society does not know that you know, and this is not just about politics. Those Republican states have a set of policies. They love the death penalty, They want everybody to have guns. They don't want social programs, they don't want public schools, they don't want to allow you know, choice about your reproductive rights. It goes on and on. Yeah, that's what they want, and that kills people. And yet you probably have never heard that before, haven't because it's just not covered as fully as it should be. Wow. Wow. Here's another quote from you which was very interesting. You said, we know that the lengfless sentencings is not really a deterrent, But what is a deterrent is fear of getting caught. That's about how many of these cases you can solve, and whether you can solve them quickly or you're only solving them thirty years later. When when we think of that position of the fear of getting caught, what is the impetus of that is it? Is it that, oh, I'm getting caught, so I'm gonna go to jail. If we're saying that once you're in jail, we don't care about how long we're in there. That's a that's a really fair question. I'm not saying that there should you know. I'm not saying that kill somebody get probation is the same thing as killed somebody get twenty years. I'm not saying that. What I'm speaking of is more like, does it really matter whether it's twenty five years or twenty Does it really matter whether it's twenty five years or fifteen? And all the criminological research shows that what really stops people from picking up the gun on a Thursday night. Is that they're afraid they're gonna get caught. They're not actually sitting there saying, well, you know, I'll do it and get caught and do fifteen. But if you're telling me there's a mandatory twenty five all, in that case, I'm out. Nobody is signing up, you know, for a lengthy sentence. And this is, after all, the most locked up incarcerated big country in the world. It's also one of the most violent countries in the world. Locking everybody up for a long periods of time when you have low rates of solving them, you know, they are places where homicides only saw that a rate of ten percent or twenty percent. There was a study of shootings of African American men in Philadelphia. They looked at five thousand shootings over a period of years. Yeah, one thousand were saw one thousand. How scared is someone of a twenty percent chance of getting caught? A little bit? Right? Not nothing? But wouldn't they be a whole lot more scared if it was forty five percent or if it was fifty two percent. Isn't that more like? Yeah, that kind of thing, But I'll just I'll just sit here with my PlayStation instead of going on that drill because my knucklehead friends told me we should. Why do you think the Philadelphia, especially within the youth of black men ages eighteen to let's say, thirty five, is very low for voting. Why do you think that is and why is it important for them to come out and vote? You know, that is a really interesting question, and I think, strangely enough, I have an answer, and that is this. I think there are an awful lot of people who don't vote at all, or who are unlikely to vote because they don't feel like government has done anything for them. They feel like everybody chases them for a vote and then goes away. And I mean, I'll be honest, a lot of them are right. That is kind of what happens. What we have seen though, when I ran in seventeen and in twenty one, and I hope what we're going to see again pretty soon, is that there's a lot of people out there who are really touched by criminal justice issues. Hundreds of thousands of people who have suffered a conviction. Not all of them deserved it, some of them absolutely did, but they've had a conviction it's affected their life, or someone they know whose drug addiction was not addressed properly and died of a fade overdose. You know, people thinking back on the person they dated in high school who now is unemployable because he sold you know, twelve bags of drugs on a street corner now can't get a job. This is an issue that really touches a lot of people who don't necessarily vote. And what we saw when we started talking about these issues the way we do talk about them in twenty seventeen is we saw a huge increase in voting. Okay, So, for example, when Lynn Abraham and Seth Williams were running, and they run in the same election cycle as we do, which is, you know one where there's no governor on the ballot, there's no senator on the ballot, there's no president on the ballot, so it's expected to be a low turnout. Well, Lynn Abraham and Seth would bring out nine percent or twelve percent of the vote. So we run in twenty seventeen and lo and behold, we bring out nineteen percent of the vote. And then we run again in twenty twenty one, and everybody's saying you'll never get that turnout. You just got that big turnout because of Donald trumpet Joe Biden had just been elected in twenty twenty one. So Philly's happy because Philly loves Joe and hates Trump. Right, you'll never get nineteen percent. We got twenty and a half percent. Okay. It's the same phenomenon that we saw after the United States Supreme Court decided the case that took away some reproductive rights, and you saw all of these young women who would not necessarily have voted otherwise. And not just women, but you saw a lot of people, most of them women, including ones who don't always vote, coming out to vote, coming out to march. So fundamentally, what has happened here is the parties have failed to connect with a lot of young voters on the issues that matter to them. And I regret to say, as a lifelong Democrat, the Democratic Party has failed in that too. That's part of the reason it's so important when you have a race that's simple like this one. Is this race is about criminal justice. Fundamentally, there's some judges on the ballot, there's a da on the ballot. That's what it's about. It's so important to engage young people who care about those issues, to get them registered, get them to vote the first time, because once you vote the first time, it is habitual. It's easy after the first time you do it, and you want to do it after the first time you do it. The meek Mill Bill at forty four, probation reform, you've been involved in that. How do you think, because now we're starting to see some progress with those cases in Pennsylvania, how do you think it's going to affect the success rate of probation, the recidivism rate in prison reform, which you've also been working on. Well, I can tell you that the criminology, the science around this is that the first couple of years of supervision for someone on probation or on parole coming out of jail, those first couple of years clearly do some good. The third year it's kind of a wash, does some good, does some harm. But after three years, the criminology all says it just makes things worse. Not in every single case, but on average, it makes things worse. It tends to become a bunch of trip wires that people who are getting it together at trip over and then they end up back in jail. You know, the things that really help are having close connection to family, it's having employment, it's being able to pay your bills. And if you think about what happens on probation and parole, sometimes you have to pay for your own supervision. You have to leave your family and leave your work to go to check in with a probation officer, which is not the best thing for your employer, or hanging on to that job. And let's also remember, you know, there used to be an awful lot of people going back to jail for what because they had THCHC in their blood. They'd smoke some weed. So here we have Judge Grumpy sitting up there. This man took down a nice chunk of a bottle of brown liquor the night before, because some judges do that, and he thinks some hard working guy is the devil because he's got a little bit of THCHC in his blood, and he's sending that man off the jail because he doesn't know the difference between weed and heroin. You know, that used to go on all the time. To some extent, it was generational to some extent. You know, it just had to do with people living in totally different neighborhoods, in different economic status, different kinds of experience. But to some extent it was straight up discrimination. It was just Richard Nixon's crazy playbook all over for how he would get at the people who weren't his biggest fans. And those people, of course were anti war protesters and black people, and you know, to some extent it's that. So sometimes it's good not to give judges so much control over the life of another human being forever. You know, let's do what is scientific. We know it helps to do proper supervision for the first two to three years, which is part of the reason that my office has a policy since I came in that you shouldn't do more than three years of supervision unless there's a good reason approved by a supervisor, unless the science supports it, or unless they're special circumstances. You know. Just our policies have really reduced the amount of supervision by almost two thirds. And then the meek Mill Bill, as you put it, that is that is doing a lot of good too. It's relatively early and its effects, but I think we're going to see some very positive effects, especially if the Pennsylvania legislature continues to come with more good ideas. Fantastic you uh you mentioned I'll just I just want to back up a little bit because we were talking about voting and importance of vote. One of the things that I'm very hard on is me feeling uh, this particular election right because it is a closed primary and so everyone don't know it's a close primary. We talked about the effects of closed primary. So, but that said, there's a lot of uh, there's little to no promotion, so to speak, for this particular election. We look at you know, Donald Trump and Kamala Harrison the presidential election. Everyone is, oh, yes, this election. No one even knows who the judges are, you know, people know you know the DA of course, but you know, we talk about people who's running, and these are most of the judges, right, judges who potentially can be appointed later on to the Supreme Court that we're saying that we have a problem with right now, right, Why do you think there is no amplification during this election like it should be. Well, you know, my wife actually ran for judge back around the year two thousand and she won, and she was on her second try, and she was on the bench for almost nineteen years. She was actually an excellent judge all the way through, but she also was a political outsider like I was. Unfortunately, this city has a pretty sad tradition of having the leaders, well one leader anyway of the Democratic Party pick people who are somebody's nephew, or pick people who did free work for him for the last ten years. That is not how you pick the best judges in the world. The way you pick the best judges in the world is on their character. It's on their values, it's on their educational achievements, it's on their experience, it's on their life's work. If they have been civil rights attorneys for outsiders, if they have represented disabled people, if they did educational work for kids who are on the spectrum, if they spent their career doing other kinds of public service genuinely directed at improving the world rather than just trying to line their pockets. In my opinion, those are the people you want, right But that's just not how it's worked. It has been a patronage machine for the longest and unfortunately, sometimes certain leadership in the party will get behind candidates because they got money. Because there's somebody's nephew, or because they did free work, and that's just not the way to do it. There is an answer to all of this, but it's a tough one. The tough one is because you're electing several judges every election cycle. This time it's going to be about ten or eleven judges doing that. They're almost all unknown people to the general public because they've just been working with as lawyers somewhere. They don't usually have a ton of money to get the message out about who they are. And there's kind of a long, sad tradition of people, either you know, just picking people because they like that gender, or just picking people because they think that last name sounds like their last name, or just picking people because you know, the Democratic committee person, the Democratic ward leader told them to. Sometimes those ward leaders and committee people are doing exactly the right thing, and they've carefully studied them, but we all know the realities. Sometimes they haven't, and they're just being told from above what to do because somebody got some money in the back pocket. A young guy comes to you and he's disgruntled or he feels that I shouldn't vote right, I don't care about voting why should I vote? I know you're running, but I'm not voting anymore because my vote doesn't matter. What would you. Say, well, I mean, if I was a smart ass, I'd say where are you going to vote for? And then I take it from there. But no, all right, let me give you a series answer. What I would say is what you know, the great maryon Tasco, who was a city council person here and one of the greatest political minds of any generation in Philadelphia, would say, which is vote like your life depends on it. Because it does. It does. I mean, we are being affected in the most fundamental ways by having the wrong guy in the White House, by having some of the wrong legislators. This city will never get what it deserves from some of this upstate crew unless we are able to show big numbers. You know, if you want to look at the communities that have been the most ignored, the least served, the most damaged, they are overwhelmingly the communities that have not voted. You know, it is something that has gone with poverty for a long time. It goes with other things, language barriers and so on. But I get it. You know, this is probably a young person who has lived in a neighborhood where it doesn't seem like voting makes any difference, doesn't seem like government makes any difference. I get that, But I would just hope they would imagine a world where a lot of these problems are getting fixed, you know, where you don't have trash being dumped everywhere, where you do have a proper class size, where you can get the medical treatment that is necessary. Where you don't have the entire city coming up with tax breaks for Comcast that are not available to ordinary working people. You know that sort of thing. And I guess that just sounds like a sixty four year old old guy talking in a way that's not persuasive. But I would also invite him to go to the polls with me, because I'm telling you, for anybody who has not voted, the first time you vote, you get it. You start to understand what is at stake, and you start to feel that excitement, and then it becomes a habit that you're going to keep. Speaking of a elections, right, speaking of the polls, You're running against someone, right, Dugan? I believe right? Is Dan? Did I say that? Right? Dugan? So I'm having a little trouble remembering this game right now? So, uh, in all fairness, did you say who? In all fairness? Right? Because we're nonpartisan and so we try best to be you know, fair across the board. But in comparison to him, why should someone vote for you versus your competitor? What makes you stand out as the candidate for people to continue to have as DA of Philadelphia. I think it's really the difference between actions and words. You know, words are really cheap in a political cycle. I still can't figure out whether my opponent is the great reformer he claims to be or the hang him high law and order guy he is In the next sentence, you know, he talks a real good game about police accountability, except for anybody who's familiar with the Josie case, which is an infamous, infamous case in Philly. You know, he's the judge who said not guilty after he watched the video that made it crystal clear how guilty that much larger and brutal officer was. Right. So I think ultimately you got to look at people's life's work, You got to look at what they have done rather than just listen to their words. But another way to look at it is real simple. He just talks over and over and over about doing things that are old, about going backward. We can't go backwards. This is a country that was the most incarcerated big country in the world and also hyper violent. Philly's moving in the right direction. We have far fewer people in jail, We have far fewer homicides. What is the issue. You've lived in Philadelphia for many, many years now. What makes this city feel like home to you? Oh? Man? I mean everything, everything makes it feel like home to me. You know, I do a lot of travel to recruit. We recruit lawyers all over the country for a whole lot of reasons, including getting the best talent and getting really diverse talent. We go all over the country, and so I get to see a whole lot of cities. Some I know, I got no Chicago because I went to college there, and I love Chicago. It's actually the city that reminds me of the most of Philly, other ones where I've never been. Right. But a lot of people don't understand that this is a city with so many positives. It's a city where a lot of people are walking around. Spend some time in la you think La is nice. You better like the inside of your car, because that's where you're going to be. You know. It's a walking around city. It's a city where people, even if they have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder, because that's a Philly thing. It is, they will talk grit. They got grit, but they will talk to you at that bus stop. They will talk to you on jury duty. You know, they will engage with you on the street. It's a very affordable city. This is a city that has a great restaurant life. It has a great musical and cultural history tree. You know, it's one of the better cities. For riding a bike around actually in the United States, and which is important to me because I like to ride my bike. It's just, you know, it's just a city that is very, very livable. And I got to tell you, I remember the bad old days of Frank Rizzo. I once even met Frank Rizzo. You know, Philly is so much better, so much better than it was in the late nineteen sixties. It's so much better than it was even in the early two thousands. It just keeps getting better. There is a reason why a lot of us consider the five boroughs in New York to be the boroughs of Philadelphia. Yeah, interesting, yeah, yeah, you know we say in Philly, we just say we're our own city and steak, our own city of steak. There's a question for you, favorite cheese steak? Oh, Dellas andres. Okay, where were you when the Eagles won? Jumping up and down in my living room? I try to keep my try to keep my athletic viewing near the kitchen. That's key to me. I find it more affordable. Fantastic, Okay, shout out to des If someone asked you, what is the legacy that you would like to leave, right, what would you how would you answer? Mm hmm, I shouldn't say silence? Right? What is the legacy? The legacy safer, fairer, freer and now he gets to sit on the beach. How about that? Fantastic? Fantastic. What are some of the biggest or what would you say is the biggest misconception about District Attorney Larry Krasner. That's the biggest misconception. I mean, like this could be a book, right, there's a lot of misconceptions, and I'm not trying to avoid your question, but honestly, I guess I don't really know, because what I tend to know is what I do every day and what the numbers say. And that's kind of the world where I live. I don't actually spend all my time watching, you know, late night local news or hanging out at the Mayfair diner to hear what the diners there might say, which might not be one hundred positive. You know, I don't know exactly, but you know, I do think the most important thing is just put your head down and do the work, keep moving, don't don't get too bothered when people say things that are untrue or say things that are inaccurate. I get more irritated at myself when they say things that are true that are mistakes I made. But I also know I make mistakes every single day. I mean, that's that's just how it is. You have to It's all about trying. It's about trying to be fair. It's about trying to do the right thing. It's about putting the time. It's about connecting with community, it's about outsiders. So I just want to thank you for coming to the show. I know you're very busy, and I know it was some challenges in getting here. And so I really appreciate your time. I'm gonna give you my last question that I normally give to you know, guess that I like right, and I happen to like you, right. So the question that I have is, I want you to dig deep, dig deep, dig deep into that you know that library information. What's the one thing thing that no one else knows about? D Larry krast No one else knows that you could tell us today. Well, there's some things I can't. We won't get into that. But what's the one thing that nobody knows exclusive? I was a I was friendly in grade school with a girl who does not professionally sing by the name under which I knew her when we were both in elementary school. But she has gone on to be uh Philadelphia based, nationally significant singer. And I will not tell. You we talk. Quick shout out to United for Strife. Thank you so much, dear Larry Krasner. And when is the voting coming out? Okay? Yeah, that was it? Yeah, if you could you know kind of you know, let people at home know, like the vote in you know them. All that good old stuff. Where the vote, when the vote? How do you get in contact. With you all that good stuff. Yeah, all right, well number one, uh, voting day is May the twentieth, May the twentieth of twenty twenty five, That is a week from Tuesday. The polls will be opening at seven o'clock in the morning. They close at eight o'clock at night, but not exactly because if you're still in line at eight o'clock at night, they will let you vote. Interesting get out of line, not get out of line. Here's here's another important thing for people to know, and that is that even for people who have been in jail foreign offense, if you are in county custody and you're waiting for trial, you can vote. You can vote before you are convicted of a crime. If you are serving a sentence of jail, you cannot vote while you're serving your jail sentence, but you can vote as soon as you get out of custody. There are a lot of people who have an old conviction and they are under the false impression that they can never vote. Wrong. In Pennsylvania, if you're not locked up, then you can vote even if you have a prior conviction, which is how it should be. Otherwise we're going to have a bunch of you know, we're going to be disqualifying so many people from voting, and they have a voice and they have things to say, so that is true. It is too late to register to vote if you have not already registered, but you can go to city hall and you can vote on paper if you wish to do so, you know. But for me, it's all about election day. I really enjoy the process of going to vote early. I still remember standing in line and what was it twenty twelve when Obama got election, so that the first time or was it way it was twelve, yeah, because o wait. Still I still remember standing in line the first time in Oait and see at seven in the morning in Mount Areas, seeing the line go around now blocking right. It's really a moment. It's really exciting. You know. If you're the kind of person who feeds off of going to a live sports performance or going to a live concert, you are missing the boat. If you don't go vote. You need to go vote. It's it's really very exciting. Take your children with you, Take your kids with. You, take them in the booth, show them how it's done. That's how we can actually save this country from you know who. Let me do this I D because you still ain't say how they can get in contact with you. But I gotta do this name I D real quick. You're listening too. We talk week. He's after the talk on WPP MLP Philadelphia one o six point five film We talked week. He's acted to talk with your boy Charles Gregory and beautiful. Ladies, beautiful, And. This is Larry Krasner. And you can find me at krasnerford DA dot com. That's k r A s ny R f O r d A dot co. And where you can volunteer, where you can donate, and where you can learn more about what we stand for. Fantastic, fantastic. Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Look, this is our civic duty. It's very important for us to give the information to the people. Right when we talk about even you know, preventing preventing false information, false narratives, right, it's better for you to hear them from the horse's mouth, so to speak, right, to hear the candidates who are doing some work to say some of the things that they're doing. To truly know what's going on, you need platforms like this. That's why we always say, support independent media. Support we talk, we can support people who are actually in those streets that's doing the work. So I don't want you to go anywhere. When we come back, we got more interviews to come. So let's put in our little we got a little journalists out there, U Civic News. Let's go to Ella Ell. It's been doing some great work in those communities. We'll be right back, y'all. Reporter Ella presents a new recipe that can help the the communities. Over to you, Ella, Thanks fellow. Now that follows upon its What's not a better way to start the fall seasons than an easy and simple recipe. Pumpkin bread is the most delicious and easiest food you can make for yourself, family, and friends in your community. Take a look. Okay, we're gonna make pumpkin bread, so make sure you screenshot this recipe and let's get started. First, preheat you up into three fifty degrees. In one of your bowls. Mixt your flour, baking soda, bacon, powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice with your fork. Mix Now with your second bowl, mix your sugar, oil and apple sauce with a whisk. Once everything is mixed together, Add your pumpkin and mix again. When everything is mixed evenly, combine both mixtures together. Make sure you scrape everything out is wasted. Now mix evenly until there's no lumps. After that, you want to set that aside and grab your breadpan. Lather some butter all around and add a little flour and spread it around until it looks like this. Now you want to pour the bread batter into the breadpan. Sure you scrape everything else so nothing is wasted. Cut a line in the middle, and it's ready for the oven. Make sure you were up and mix and let the bread bake for sixty minutes. Once the sixty minutes is up, take it out of the oven and let it sit. For a few minutes. When the breadpan is safe to touch, use a straight edge to separate the pan and bread. This stuff is optional, but if you would like, sliced the bread into thick slices and it should look something like this. You are all done. Dig in and enjoy your pumpkin bread. We just want to get a little background as to who are fantastic noises and the noisemakers. If you can let us know, Yes, absolutely so. Once again, fantastic noise. I am the original noisemaker, so no one's gonna make as much noise in it to me. Okay. And right here we have the Noisemaker Band. This is only half of it and the other stuffs are upstairs. The my My, Kevin, Kevin, Lamar, Lannie and Dobbs, who are the actual band members. These are the background singers, and we can to make some noise. We can to bring that noise today. So that's that's what we would do. That's right. How did you guys get together? Man? So it started with I've been doing this on my own for almost three years now, and man, I guess each of these people here have different background stories. Most of us went to the same church together, and we just kept going. This one her, this is my one of my assistants, saying one of like the my my biggest support of my biggest shitary. Hear, she's assistant. So we just been building it. The same thing with upstairs with the band, just meeting through. People kept networking, kept saying it was just like God or dang bab here we are awesome. Yeah. Well, could you guys do we talked weekly a favor? Yeah? Can you give us a drop in a melody type way. Okay. So we talked weekly, yakay, So we're gonna do something like this. Wa talk weekly. Come in here with us, we talk. We come in here them we talk. We come in here, now we talk. Make me come in here, we talk. We come in here now we talk. Week me come in. You just gave me like, okay, give beautify already, cord yo, I very much. We talked weekly. After they're talking w p PP you Philadelphia, one of six point five. That's when we talked weekly. After they talk with you, boy, George gird getting. Beautiful, classy ladies, beautiful Lauren. There you go. And we got someone here with whom I have a tremendous amount of respect. She's no longer a guest. She's a friend to the show. She's like one of our I call her political co hosts or something like that. She's she's family now right, one of my favorite people. I can gush about her all day long. But yeah, let's tell us what you want. Let's jump run into it. You want, John, Yes, Tis, she's not a guest. Make sure you don't say you our guests, our. Friend and family to the show. Tunisia Bezou Beijing Beiju, program manager at the Community Committee of seventy leads voter engagement and public education initiatives across Pennsylvania. A Tech for America alumni with thirteen years of teaching experience, she also serves as Judge of Election since twenty twenty. The Committee of seventy promotes ethical government and voter confidence, ensuring free, fair and secure elections for all. Y'all already know what to do for our family member, Tanisia Beiju give a warn we talk weekly. Welcome, How are you? How are you feeling good? O? Your mic up just a little bit? How is that a little bit? It's all good, you know, you know. One of the things that you know, we just happen to have uh d a Larry. Krash on, you know, and it was interesting, you know, he talked a little bit about, you know, some of the you know things who he has been working on, some of the you. Know conversations we you know, has he had I can't speak he has been having with some of the you know, interviews he has been doing, and just some of the pushback. But it was interesting to see his uh his positions on even accepting the naysayers right, and how open he was to community and community change and working with the community. And I thought that was really interesting what that said. Right, What has the Committee of seventy been doing as it relates to kind of following the candidates and really, you know, giving platform for the community to know who the candidates are and you know who potentially you can't tell them who to vote for, but at he's given them the information. You know, what was the Committee of seventy What have you got been doing? Oh? Man, how much time do I have? Again? I have the whole evening, right, So I love that question. This is definitely hits the educator in me scratches that itch. You know, I talked for thirteen years here in the city and now having the opportunity to work with adults and to make sure that adults know what's on the ballot. So that's one of the presentations that Committee of seventy offers. I've done those virtually in person, and we have information about the offices more so than the candidates. We have an interactive voter tool for people to learn about the candidates, and that's at ballot dot seventy dot org. You type in your address. Since this is a primary, you next after your address so I can pull up exactly what you're going to see, whether you're here in Philly or the Coller counties. Then you have to hit Democrat or Republican since you will only see here in PA. We have closed primaries, and so if you type in Democrat, then you'll see the two candidates for DA and you get to learn more about them, and then you can compare their specific positions and be. Able to vote your values. But with the what's on your ballot presentation, it's not just the DA's race, although that one does have the biggest headlines. There's also a city controller, which is so important. When we talk about our budget, we are. I'm just going to ask you, let's see, yeah, I want to I want to expand because a lot of people don't talk about Oh. I've been talking about the budget. I can't wait to do that. But that's a whole lot to talk about, so we do city controller. There are the three ballot questions, and the three ballot questions are so important and they hit topically things that are really close to all of our hearts. So those are ballot questions. About on house people about affordable housing, and then about an oversight an office of panel and oversight panel, and then an office to oversee prison so making sure that people who are just impacted are treated with respect. So we have those, and then finally we have judges. And so there are a number of judges not only statewide but also here in the counties that are super important for us to know about and to vote on. So there's so much, and sadly this is traditionally a low voter turnout time period, even though these are offices that truly impact us. Like when we think about judges. We have the municipal Court, which is down at City Hall, and of course that's like the lower level court that has like small claims, which is really important if you're in a tenant landlord situation and you have issues of like are you going to be evicted? Like so it might seem small to other people, but it's huge for you. There's traffic Court like the smaller pieces. But then there's the Court of Common Pleas. That's the court that had that we go have jury duty for. And I always remember that court because that's the court you're going to hear the word please. In the most that's family court, so we're thinking custody, domestic disputes, like, there's all types of issues. There and with. Philly courts most often cases and there they don't often go to appeals. So while many people don't love that we. Vote for judges. Usually in other states, you' they're more merit based. But here where we vote for them, we have to make sure we vote our values because these are people who can make life altering decisions of who gets custody if people stay in their homes. It's here in the city, so it's not like it's somewhere far away. And then finally, like I said, this is sometimes the end of the road for these cases. They're one and done here. So making sure that we know who's on that ballot again doing the ballot dot seventy dot org our interactive voter guide to learn who these people are so that you can have an informed vote. Oh go ahead, cysel, go Oh no. I was just gonna say, I. Don't hear one second. Leta make sure your mic is a god. Uh yeah, I was just gonna say, with all of the work that Committee of seventy has been doing with preparing the you know, the information so that voters are informed when it comes to the judges are there without saying any names or anything. Are there any specific concerns that you may have, like, for example, if voters don't go out in volte and there are potentially some judges who may get in that may not have done things that are beneficial to black and brown communities, Are there any specific things that you're concerned about, you know, like potentially getting in, like if people don't go out in vote. So I think what is most heartwarming for me is that many people use the Philadelphia Bar Association's recommendations. So one of the ways, since there's not a ton of money that goes into some of these judges races, people voters really rely on a lot of wards. So when you see your many people like they hand you the papers of who to vote for, a lot of them depend on the Philly Bar Association. They have a judicial Commission where they have hundreds of people who are going through and doing these really rigorous evaluations of the candidates. And so. It's like the most intense job interview ever because the judicial candidates not only have to have a certain amount of recommenders that they put forward. They also know that other ones are going to be found from them, and they're looking at every single part of your life, and so people that don't participate are automatically listed as not recommended. There's only three ratings. There's not recommended, recommended, highly recommended. And it's not just when you hear Philly Bar Association. Of course you're thinking lawyers, but it's not only lawyers who are part of the Judicial Commission. They have a whole realm of people to be able to fully vet these candidates. And for disclosure, our president and CEO, Lauren Crissell is part of the Judicial Commission, which is how we know so much about what goes into that rigorous study. And so I feel really good knowing that there are some candidates. To go back to your actual question, there are some candidates who are listed as not recommended, but that is put forth and many people are looking at the not recommended and why but there are of course recommended and highly recommended candidates. Because I've never known that. Yeah, I love my job, I learned new things all the time, and I'm like, yes, how do I live? How am I am? I forties? And it's like, how did I've not known this. Yeah, I've never known that. My question to you is that when you go into the voting poll or booth, it can sometimes be very intimidating. And Da Cresny was just here saying how after the first time it gets easier take your children, which I've done that, but there are But you got to understand when you're going into that booth, especially now for the elder because at one time it didn't look the way it does. How can we make a voter, especially first time voters or elderly voters, feel more confident in in you know, choosing or picking or even understanding how the how the voting is, what your your opinion. I so I am a judge of election. We don't have a very visible role where a pole worker who oversees the division and so what people are usually used to they come in and now in Philly we have the e pole books, which are a godsend. They are wonderful. I mean, I know people are used to like the really big book and like you flip through and try and find it alphabetically, but these ep pole books just make it easier for both the voter and the poll workers. So for those who don't know what that is. Oh, absolutely, So here in Philly we have So when you come, when you find your polling place, which you can do on seventies website, you just sipe in find my polling place. And so when you go in, you're going to find your ward and division and you'll see a bunch of friendly faces. They should be friendly. That is my dream is that one day election day will be a holiday and we'll all have off and we'll all be able to vote and we'll take our kids. This is my dream world. But you'll see that there should be about five people. There's someone who's off to the side in case you have an issue. So say you come in and you thought you were going to vote by mail, and you got your mail in ballot, but you decide you want to vote in person. So there's a person called a Judge of Elections. They can help take your mail in ballot and then get you set up to vote on the machine. Most people, if they come in, they already knew they wanted to vote in person. They'll go up to two people who have what looks like an iPad, And that iPad is such a godsend because it is basically on a stop light system, red, yellow, green. So if you have voted at your polling place many times you come in, you say your name, You're like, hi, how you. Do and blah blah blah, sneche beje you. They type in your name. You're green. You're good to go. You voted there before. You don't have to take out ID or anything. You're good right, And so then there's yellow, which means maybe your first time voter. Maybe your first time voter there, like you've moved from somewhere else, and so it'll say, oh, this is your first time voting. Welcome. You'll show an ID, and there are so many different types of IDs that you can show, both photo and non photo. And if anyone has kept their voter ID card many people don't. I keep everything. I keep absolutely everything so they can use that. Students can use their campus ID, people can use their different utility bills. There's all kinds of ways that you can prove your right who you are, and so that's the l that's kind of the let's just prove who you are. You're good to go, and then read. If someone is flagged, read on the book. It'll show you and hopefully your pullworker will flip it over so that you can see too. Then it'll say, oh, this might not be where you're supposed to vote. Sometimes in a location they'll have a few different voting locations, and so they might say, oh, you're not with us, like you're across the way, or oh you got a mail in ballot, so we need you to surrender that and then you can vote on the machine. But that E poll book, it's really helpful that way, there's no confusion. Everyone is doing the exact same thing. It doesn't leave anything up to interpretation. That way, it's a superstreamlined system and everyone can see it. This is amazing. Shout out to the Committee of seventy. I actually just went on a site and one of the things that I always talk about as it relates to knowing or having challenges people having challenges in voting, is it necessarily the candidates? Is more of these questions? Yeah? So, oh, I'd love to get into the question. Let's get into these questions. Come on, come on, come. On, all right, So one of the things that people always ask, and then I do want to before I leave, get back to all the help that people can get in the voting. So I'm not gonna forget that because people can get assistance in all kinds of ways. But with the battle questions, people are always asking. Why are they written like that? Why are they so complicated? Because once I, you know, break this down, we're all chit chatting, it's gonna be like this is a great question when they just write it like this. So the beginning of all the questions always starts shall the Philadelphia Home Role Charter be amended? So the Philadelphia Home World Charter is our constitution, it's our city. It's what sets up our city government. And when they say shall it be amended, they're saying should we change the way we set up our government? So the beginning part you never have to read that again. It's always just saying, should we change our city constitution? But it's complicated the language because they don't want to do a bait and switch. So they're going to take that language and put it in the Philly Home World Charter. So if they put it in. Everyday regular language, then they'd have to change it to put it into government wording, and you change like every word has a different meaning. And so they want us to vote on exactly what is going to be put in the Home World Charter. So that's why it's tunky. Let's get into what it means though. So the first question, which is about having a new office for the Office of Homeless Service OMBUDS person. So that question which is going to ask about that office is more of a clear one because then it goes on to say to provide oversight, to do. Blah blah blah blah blah. Well, that question is asking has only a little bit of a need for backstory. So during the pandemic, there was between twenty twenty and twenty twenty three, there was about fifteen million that was allegedly like mismanaged by the Office of Homeless Service, and there were some nonprofits that weren't being paid on time in a timely fashion for the services that they were providing because the city contracts with nonprofits to provide those And so what a council member Gilmore Richardson wants with this ballot measure. So of course ballot measures, they get approved by city council, but we have the final as voters have the final say of yes or no. So when she put this forward with city, so her reasoning was that if we have an additional office. It's an independent watchdog where people if they are either a service provider or a service user, someone who is experiencing homelessness, or someone who is helping, they can report to someone else, like what is happening with the Office of Homeless Service, and they can kind of investigate and kind of also to help the office itself, the Office of Homelessess Service. If they're like, we would love to do these things, we just our hands are bound by these rules. So it's someone who's going to like track and follow through to make sure that we're providing people the service they need. So that's the first question. And then you mentioned about the assistance for voters. That for voters. Yeah, but there are two more ballot questions. Do we want to do the other ballot questions? Give me one second. I'm trying to pull this up as you're speaking so people can actually see what you're referring to. And this is, ladies and gentlemen. This is directly from the Committee of seventy Sight. I mean, this is a resource for you guys. There we go, and so we want to go to question two. Is what you're saying. Yeah, we also have questions too, so question two needs a whole lot more backstory. Let me just read this. Question said, should the Homeroom Charter be admitted to increase the minimum amount that must be appropriated for spending on Housing Trust Fund purposes in the city's operating budget each year? It does not roll off the tongue for most people the way you just made that and we were like, oh, okay, I get it. Like, yeah, did you like to explain? Yeah? Absolutely, So the very first part is the Philadelphia home the Housing Trust Fund. I don't know if you guys. Are familiar with the Housing Trust Fun because I wasn't familiar with it before. I'm telling you, I learned so many things. You have so many partnerships and friends, and like we're always all over the city and it's like, oh, I need to rush up on this and know what the heck I'm talking about. So it is such a. Phenomenal program that people should know about because it is providing not only new construction of affordable houses, but also it provides funding for repairs to help people stay in their homes. So it provides money for all kinds of basic repairs for homes so that people, especially older folks can age in place, and then it also provides for people experiencing homelessness. They do a really great report. I think their impact report comes out every two or three years, and they like go into detail of everything they're doing with their money. Okay, so that's the Housing Trust Fund. That's great. I love. But I haven't even told you what So that's just that's just making sure we knew what the thing was. I'm just like, so what happens with developers? We I live in South Philly and so I drive down Washington App. And there's always all these new buildings popping up all the time with rent that I'm like, is that rent? Like for Washington App? No shade, no shade. But it's like, how is there all of this new construction? And my mom lives in West Philly and University City, same thing. So developers, they are able to make all of this really expensive market rate housing and make it really down to have tons of apartments without doing affordable housing because they pay a portion, They pay a fee so that they don't have to make affordable housing. They pay that fee to the city. They're like, you do it, that's that's on you. I'm trying. I'm trying to make this you know, new Big marcur Rape place. We'll pay a fee to the city, and the city does affordable housing, and then the city takes that money. Some goes into our general fund and some goes to the Housing Trust Fund. Now, council Member Jamie Gattier was like, if developers are paying a fee for affordable housing, all of it you go straight into the trust fund without the city being a middleman. And so that's what this question is asking is instead of having the city have any say and the apportion in that minimum amount that goes to the Housing Trust Fund, just have it all go there directly. Jeremy go to a She's throwing some great stuff over there. I was a little hard on her, but she she's putting some stuff. Okay, all right, cool, cool, cool. All right, and then we have our last question. There we go out. Let me read it for you guys. A shot for Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended to provide for the creation of an independent Philadelphia Prison Community Oversight Board and Office of Prison Oversight in or further authorized City Council to determine the compass position, powers, and duties of the Board and yes they need some mosite, no question, but go ahead. Committee is seventy also says yes on this one. And we don't take positions. We don't often take positions. We last last time we took a position I believe was for the Department of Oversight for PPD. We definitely believe in oversight where it's needed. And this one, this one, I don't have to dude tons of backstory and why we made this. I do want to lift up, of course, that we have eight hundred unfilled positions in our prisons, and so that not only impacts our people who are incarcerated, that also impacts the people providing services. So everyone is impacted. And then think of families and friends who want to see their loved ones. There's also a lot of work that Committee of seventy wants to do to make sure that people who are incarcerated are able to vote. Because the only time that you are not able to is if you're currently incarcerated on a felmy But if you are in pre trial detention, you can vote. If you're incarcerated on a misdemeanor, you can vote. So to make sure that our prisons are humane and safe, what this ballot question is asking is if we replace the current board and oversight with nine people. So four would be chosen by the mayor, four would be chosen by council president, one would be chosen by a city controller. But all nine would need to be residents of Philadelphia. Could not work in police, sheriff or blanket on the last place that they can't work all law enforcement places. And then at minimum one person needs to be a formally incarcerated person. Orders So you said controller, uh, and President City Council, So, Council President Kanyata Johnson. So I'm making my plea right now, so Mayors Roe, Parker Council President Kenyada Johnson. Oh, who's the controller? So right now, our city controller is Christi Brady and she is on the ballot. Christy Oh that's what I'm interested. Okay, Well, I want to be on his poor it's no question like yo, I think that, and I would love to work with you guys on this because I love won my return of citizens, and I love my citizens that's incarcerated. A lot of them are incarcerated unfairly, unjustly in all of that, right, but I feel that they need more advocacy. Uh, it's people to represent them, to make sure that their their voices are amplified. So all my people out there, that's that's in them cages, we love you. We got you, no doubt. Yeah, no, I was just going to say, we absolutely agree. We had an event earlier this week at Eastern State there was a panel with council Member Thomas, a member of the PA Prison Society, was speaking just in answering people's questions and explaining why we're in favor of this ballid question. So absolutely fantastic. So, ladies and gentlemen, for those who I'm gonna read, I didn't read the question for number one. I'm gonna read that for those who are listening because we're live on a radio. Also, so we read question two of what would these be considered the home charter questions for the ballot question the vollid questions. Okay, so we read question two. When we write question three, I'm gonna read question one and I'll have our esteemed. She's not our guests anymore, she's part of the family. Just talk about a little bit more for those who are on the radio. So this is question one, should the Philadelphia Home rule Charter be amended to create the Office of Homeless Services. I'm buds person. I'm bud person, Thank you for that. To assist residents experience seen homelessness, help provide fear access to essential resource resources, improve quality of life in the shelter system, which is very important, investigate client complaints need that, and provide oversight and recommendations to the city providers of homeless services. So you want to talk. About Yeah, that was the one that we talked about at the at the top where we said that because the pandemic saw between twenty twenty and twenty twenty three, we saw fifteen million misvantage that we want to have an ombuds person, which rolls off my song only because I've kind of. Stumbled on it and maybe like four or five I'm. Used to ombudsmen like and so it's the person that and we love inclusive language of course, but that one I just need to work on. So the ombuds person is really the independent watchdog who is going to be the person tracking and receiving these complaints and also not just complaints from people who are receiving services, but maybe being able to be responsive to o eaches's needs. Itself fantastic. How does one become an obs but arms bud. Personally, I do not know that one. That one I am not sure of. But we do have an amazing VP who of External Affairs that I just did a member election briefing with yesterday and he was able to answer so many questions. So I'm just gonna throw this out to him. I will make sure to get back to you. Yeah, definitely, Section. I have a question now. May seventh has passed, but that's like this big thing about the real ID. So with the real idea, I know that they want you to have it if you don't have a passport, if you're flying domestically, if you're going into federal buildings, things like that. Will this impact voting? Will they require a real ID for voters? So that is an excellent question. And there are lots of questions in Harrisburg about voting an ID right now when it comes to the primary on May twenty, of the real ideas are not needed. There are about twenty different ideas that people can bring to prove who they are. And that's both photo and mom photo. If people have signed up for like I said them, if they've retained their little voter ID square when you for your voter registration college IDs you can use. There's also a form for you to sign. If you don't have either of those, there is a possibility for someone to vouch for you, to say like okay, like I know this is Nisha, I will sign this paper verifying. There are many different ways and it says it again on that epole book. So this isn't just knowledge is within the poll workers and people can't see. There should be a form too that it's on the voter table that list out all of the acceptable IDs, because we really do want it to be an inclusive place. There's been such a push in Philly alone. We need eighty five hundred poll workers and so we in the work that we do a committee of seventy. We work really closely with the city commissioners, and they really want to bring in lots of young people. Like for a while me in my forties, I was considered young as a poll worker, and we want it to be even younger because you can be seventeen and be a poll worker. You can't vote yet, but you can be part of the process. So just like you want to build the healthy habits, by bringing your kids to the polls and having them. Parents always like can they go in? Yes, absolutely, have them go and have them see that. So a seventeen year old can be a poll worker. You get page two hundred dollars. There's fifty dollars for the training that you get paid. You get that two hundred and fifty within two weeks. So that's great for a young person to be able to see what happens when you go and vote. So there's lots of different ideas you can use. Hopefully people are going to answer your questions. If you walk in and you forget this conversation about the ballot questions, you should turn and talk to poll workers. We are going to be so bored. This is a low turnout election. Talk to us, Please talk to us. We are allowed to ask you're allowed to ask us questions. Also, if to answer your earlier question about if you have older people who are going, you're actually allowed to have assistance in the voting booth, so you can sign another form and get assistant. So in my. Division, we have people who can't stand for long periods, people with arthritic hands. There's a young lady who goes in with her mom because she has an intellectual disabilit And so whenever I'm doing a presentation, whether it's what's on your ballot or teaching people how to work the polls, I always say, if you see two people in the booth and you're wondering what's going on, Like what's going on there? It's like first mania business maya business because it's absolutely fine, and we need to normalize making sure that people get the support they need. The other pieces. If someone starts to feel frazzled, because maybe you haven't used ballot, do seventy dot org to a preview all your choices, because there's judges on this ballot, and you can you'll see at the top of the ballot district attorney, city Controller, you'll see the three ballot questions. On the other side, you'll see all those judges. It might feel overwhelming. You might press the wrong button. That's fine. We can spoil your ballot. You just find your way out of the curtain. Spur over to someone like I need to I need to do this again. We will be so happy, we will be bored. Give us something to do. Talk to us. You are allowed to as long as you don't hit vote and don't like keep going through because that's happened before where people are like, I think I messed up on it, like but you know it is what it is, and it's like, no, it is not. What we are you're talking about. So I for you before, like before you hip vote, you're able to just reach out to us and go, can I cancel this? And there is a way to cancel before you hit it all through and your vote goes away. There is no kind of like Haymar blue Light special thing that sounds you know, there is no one's gonna shame you. You're actually allowed to do that up to three times. After that we don't trust you. Then it's like no, no, get we get the we get the little little cane, we pull you out. But yeah, you're allowed exactly, but you are allowed to show an age here. I don't think no one knows what blue Light. Specialists or anything like that. I'm sorry about that. But it's a place where it's fine to make mistakes. It's fine to ask for help, whether you need physical help, you need to just ask questions. You're also allowed to wear your parties and stuff, so if you as long as you aren't in the space, sharing your ideas, pressuring people. You can wear whatever you want, go in, you can have your phone with you. It should be it should be a place where you feel good. And I know with my team, I'm always like happy election date. I hope whoever you voted for wins. I don't mean that for everyone because I know exactly what party they're a part of, but I still want them to feel good. And I want everyone to feel like your vote matters, your vote counts fantastic. I mean every time you come, I get super excited because you do. You make understanding voting fun. Thank you absolutely, And I think that it's important for us to continue to amplify people like you, because because literally most people get overwhelmed when we start to hear about it's time to vote, and we're like, oh my god, want either I hate all the candidates or I don't know who to vote for. And I think it needs to be some constant information that's going out continuously. The problem for me and I will always stand on this is especially when it comes to safe example, the primary. You you don't hear, but I think that this is probably the most important electly. These are the judges that can keep you away from the kids, Judges that don't lock you up, Judges that potentially will be appointed to the Supreme Court, which we have a problem with right now. And so when we talk about just information, information, information, I just want to thank you for that. You know, these these these are this is a very important election. So when I hear people. Saying, oh, this is the most important election of your life, I get so tired of hearing it, because the only election that they care about, or seem to care about, is the presidential election. And these are things that are in our neighborhood. Is helping the affordable housing here, is helping our incarcerated loved ones, it's you know, the judges. As you mentioned, It's so important, and it does beyond just Philly and beyond Pier. Like when we think about in twenty twenty, with all the challenges to that election, so much of it went to our pa Supreme Court, so we have all different layers of court, like whether we want to think about it being very close and personal or mattering to the whole country. Like, it is so important to have these conversations. And I love being on and I think one of the things that is really helpful is once we break it down, then we can disagree on how to do these things in the best way. Like these are conversations that people should be having on their soup, on their porch wherever. If they're like, do we need yet another office, Like why don't we put this money into instead of having the office of Ambad's person? Why don't we put more money into the office a homeless service? Or how are they going to pick these people for the prison oversight? Like that's the type of conversation we should be having and we can disagree, reasonable people can disagree on these things, but we need to be able to have these conversations. And sadly, it's not a quick, easy like let me tell you in one sentence, like we do have to kind of make space for it. But it shouldn't it shouldn't be overwhelming, and it shouldn't make people ever feel them you know. And that's what I always want to make sure that when we're on that we're having conversations and people are like, oh, yeah, that's it interesting, that's relevant, I do care about that, and then they can hopefully go and talk to their. People about it. It's one of the unsung heroes here in Philadelphia doing this. This work me a hero. Absolutely. You've been educated through Rutgers as well as University of Penn. How has that like molded to what you're doing. I think that the best education that I've had was in the classroom, was with young people. So I had been a temple for a bit because I thought I wanted to do I thought I wanted to do a PhD and and teach adults. And then I eventually got back to teaching adults, but left from temple to do Teach for America to teach young people. And it's really I had so much like like bias in my own kind of hang ups before going into the classroom, like preconceived notions of like what do little people even know? And what do they care about? And you know, oh my god, how am I gonna dumb this down? And little people care? They they have eyes and ears as young I mean, everybody knows that kids will mimic things back, and they have opinions on everyone and everything, even people in the White House. They have serious opinions. And so we should be respectful of meeting people where they are with information that's successful and relevant. And so through thirteen years of students telling me this is great, this is not it really helped to shape how I deliver things for adults, making sure that it's fun, it's relevant, it's you know that I also share my own authentic joy. I was just inter you'd buy some students at Parkway who are working on a civic engagement campaign, right, like, look at the Parkway students, and so they were like, you know, what's the best way for you to communicate information? Should you do it? Like very niche and specific, very broad. I'm like, I just am true to myself and I lean into my nerdiness and how excited I am to be like, I learned this thing and one day Charles is gonna let me just come on here and talk all about the city budgets, I know every single thing about I want to nerd out. Come on right, we want you. And so I think learning and kids respond to that. It might not be their thing, but you just truly owning your own kind of this is how I am and this is what I love. And so that was the true education and teaching for thirteen years. It's basically what like K through twelve. So that was the best education I got was I'm little people. Little people. Yeah, it's not in my home though, because I don't. Have that. Twelve nieces and nephews and yeah, so. Yeah, all right, this time flew so quick, man, But you got about fifteen minutes. Yeah all right, so you're gonna stay You're gonna stay home with us because the interview is over, you know, but we got about fifteen more minutes and we're gonna get some more stories. So I want you to hang out with it is. Let's okay, absolutely there. You got ladies and gentlemen, so I don't want you guys to go anywhere. I'm your boy, breaking the beautiful ladies, beautiful Laurence beautiful. And we'll be right back after this, because we do have some good news. But we got we got a story entertainment. We got this right, we. Got yeah, the story. We got a story, right. And so let's go to one. And since we talking about our young people, let's go to Wilow from our US Civic News and who's been doing some dynamic reports. Then we'll be right back after this. Hot. Hi, I'm Willo Jordan with you Civic News, and I'm here with my grandfather, Willie Jordan and Gpa. What brings you out tonight? Well, I'm here to discuss the importance of the election that's coming up and important. The responsibility that we have to do is out, get out to vote. What is your role? I have wear many hats, but one is a community activist, and that means to keep people aware and make them informed on the issues of the day so they can come out and make a real good choice on voting for the right candidates. What are some of the issues you see? Housing, education, transportation. There's a lot of things. Anything that we do in our lives, it has to do with elections, politicians, elective officials making those The amount of time that you stay in school and the amount of days you stay in school is based on what some elected official. Came up with. How important? How important is it to vote? It is very important. It's not just important, it's responsible. Voting shit is not a selfish activity. It's a selfless You vote to help others. So as you help others, people help you and be a better world, a better city, a better country to live in. Where do some of your beliefs come from? Well, my belief is based on I guess. I would first come from my home training. My parents told me the importance of civic responsibility, caring, loving, sharing, being involved, being responsible on your actions. Is there any positive knowledge you would give to the people who don't vote. I would tell them if they can't come up with a reason why they should vote of themselves, come up with a reason why they should vote. For someone else, for their parents. For their children, for more street lights, how they want a better community, do it for someone else. I'm Willow Jordan reporting from U Civic News, and I'm here with my grandfather, Willie Jordan. Thank you, you're well. Shout out to Willow that young lady has a bright future. Very proud of her doing a work civically engage in her community. So I'm super excited about that. I'm your boy, Greg with the Beautiful, Beautiful La Beautiful, and we are here. We talk weeklies after talking w PPM or Philadelphia one six point five FM. We talked weeklies after the talk. So do we have good news and bad news? We have some bad news. I'm gonna keep it. Yeah, I don't be waiting for a right. Okay, yeah something all right, Well, this is probably a very tragic and controversial h story that a lot of people have been hearing about. It's about a man named Rodney Hinton Junior from Cincinnati, Ohio. He's accused of intentionally striking and killing Hamilton County Sheriff's Deputy Larry Henderson. He's basically in jail right now without bond. Uh He's waiting trial for aggravated murder. The incident occurred on May second. It was following the fatal police shooting of Hinton's Tinton Junior, eighteen year old son Ryan. Authority say Hinton Junior, the father drove directly at Deputy Henderson, killing him shortly after watching body camera footage of his son's death. So pretty much the police killed the son allegedly, and it was also found on the body camera that he had no weapons and was shot in the back. So now the father, Hinton Junior, is in court. His attorney argued that he should be viewed as a person suffering from mental illness and not a cop killer. However, prosecutors presented testimonies suggesting that Hinton Junior's actions were intentional and citing witnesses and statements and video evidence. A disturbing there was a disturbance during the hearing which led to Hinton Junior being rushed out of court, adding to the tense atmosphere. Do you have any footage on that don't have. His picture up though? Okay, well there's a if you all want to like google it, it's on like YouTube and TikTok. Pretty much when he was in the in the courtroom, uh, there were all the share of I want to say, let's just say about fifteen of them, and they were giving these stairs. It was like intimidating stairs. And once after Hinton I guess was facing the judge and then being walked out of the courtroom, he gave a stare back with his head hell high as if he was not intimidated, and showed these officers that he wasn't intimidated. It's also said that the man who killed his son is not the man that he murdered in the car. There's also another incident where there's one cop of collar a woman who did not look at him as if in solidarity. And this is just my view that she wasn't going to give him the death of stare like her colleagues did. Judge tyrone Yates denied bail for him in citing the defendant's mental state and the risk posted to the public. Hinton's next court date is set for men twelve. All around that was said, it's just said. The whole situation is saying. And it's hard to I hate to say, even take sids because as a father and I believe that's his only child. Yeah, son, I mean literally, I know he went crazy after that, but. After he only after he saw the body camera of his son being killed and not being armed and being killed in the back, he just lost it in minutes after that is when he went to kill the officer. Yeah. But it's unfortunate for the officer and his family because he had nothing to do with that. Right, So there is two sides to this that it's just sad. It's just said. And there's a long history too people who don't trust the court systems, right, And so in addition to any kind of psychological break, there's also a historical legacy of like can we trust it, which, of course. I'm gonna bring it back to voting. Yeah, but it's the little we need to make sure that we trust the judges who are there. But another thing that seventy is working on is a jury service campaign, because we see all the time that everyone but especially people of color, needs to serve on juries. And we're working to you know, get the word out, etc. And maybe do things around like increasing the jury pay. But when we think about the court system, we want to make sure that. We are judged by a jury of our peers. And so as people of color, it is so important for us not to try and get out of those as much as we're like, oh, I got other things, but when we think of situations like these, that's the first thing I was thinking of, is that I hope that he has a jury that looks like him. And you made a good point, because the reason that he did what he did is he didn't trust the justice system. He's like, oh no, they're going to get off or whatever he thought. But you're right, it's like he didn't have trust in it. Exactly, and that might be unfounded or but we know in that particular instance, but we know overwhelmingly, we have seen so many examples and in distressed you know, at least for us, if we're gonna take a lesson from that, it's that we need to make sure that we make sure that people don't do the same here, that they feel like they can trust our course in our journeys. That's right, that's right, all right, well, ladies and gentlemen, So as the time takes, we're gonna go right into the sizzle. You ready for me? I am ready? But before I go right into that, I have my little spiel. With public media losing federal funding, the trickle down in fact, hits independent media even harder. It's extremely important to support independent media. So you can do so in three ways. You can subscribe Number one too, we Talk weekly on all social media and major podcast platforms. Number two, you can like, share and comment on our content, and finally support us number three by making a donation on cash to dollar tign we Talk Weekly. Or you can go to we Talkweekly dot com and click the donate tab and make a donation on our PayPal and coming soon, you can make a tax deductible donation to our nonprofit project Steed. Well, you've posted about that, all right. So our guy, Ryan Coogler, his film Centers, is still tearing up the box office after crossing the two hundred dollars two hundred million dollar thresholds domestically on like short shortening his coins. So yeah, So the synopsis, two brothers returned to their hometown and the Jim Crow error south, seeking a fresh start, only to find that an even greater evil, including the Ku Klux Klan, has taken root. Michael B. Jordan's stars as twins in this vampire thriller directed by Ryan Coogler, blending supernatural horror and his with historical tension. So Coogler has been behind several successful films such as Black Panther and Creed. So have you seen it yet? I haven't? I can you need to? It's definitely interesting. It's a lot of different hitting gems in there. There are and the music music is incredible, like just beat yourself. I'm yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So finally, uh, this year's mett Galla was a whole movie with many celebrities showing up in some of the most finest threads y'all. So this year's theme super fine tailor tailoring, black style, that. Was the theme. It made a powerful, power full statement. So Coleman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A st Rocky, Pharrell Williams, and Anna Winter. They co chaired the met Gala this year and Lebron James served as an honorary chair. So some of the highlights of the event included athletes such as Shakari Richardson, hat some mom boughs, and Breonna Stewart, who had some pretty interesting looks. Rihanna revealed that she is pregnant. She is pregnant with her and Aset Rocky's third child, and I'm pretty sure her fans were very disappointed because they, you know, they you're not get You're not getting that music, so no time soon, say forget about it. I hope, I hope. I kind of feel like, if this is not the girl, they're going to try again. I don't know. It's just made like I feel like they might try again. Diana Ross, she looks super amazing and her beautiful white, crystal embellish gown with a super long train. It was like seven time. Oh my gosh, she just and her daughter Tracy looked amazing. Yeah, I love Tracy. She looks so gorgeous. And then former Vice President Kamala Harrah. She made a surprise appearance wearing a black and off white gown with a modest train, but it was beautiful. Bad bunny. He paid homage to Puerto Rico with his chocolate brown protestuit. Madonna strode up to the met Gala like a g with a silk champagne color suit and smoking a cigar. I was like, okay, but many of the best dressed honorable mentions included Janelle Monnet. You had Coleman Domingo who honored Andre Leon Tailor Tally, and then you had Tianna Taylor's and Deya Jody Turner. Smith Andre three thousand had a mini Steinway can did I see? No? No, yeah, I left him out. I'm glad you bought him in but he yes, yes he killed it, but yeah. The met Gala theme this year left many people asking the question like what is black dandyism? So black dandyism is a cultural movement and fashion style which began in the late nineteenth early twentieth century where black people use clothing and personal style as they. Specifically yes, all the brothers come. On Yes, as a form of self expression in a way to address societal limitations. So this started after emancipation and the Gain traction brought the Harlem Renaissance. So it's about being impeccably groomed and well dressed and also in what I thought was super cool was that in nineteen seventeen, the Black Dandy Has held a silent protest parade where there was ten thousand black individuals in formal wear marching on Fifth Avenue in New York City's Manhattan to protest. Jim crow Era discriminated, right, that's right. So that was just amazing. Like and and you know, see, I know you're you're heavy in fashion. What do you think about. We're gonna talk about that because we only got a minute left, but I want to revisit that because that particular piece that you're talking about need to be amplified more because that's one thing that always flies under the radar. You got about about thirty seconds left. I want you to give me one last start. Everybody, give me one last start real quick. Yeah, I just say, like, I don't know, you caught me off girl with the last level, but like yeah, yeah, like I always say, live life to the fullest. That's my that's my little piece of advice. No doubt. Real quick. We talked these have to Talk w P one on six point five film. We talked these have to Talk with beautiful and beautiful and the beautiful and we'll be back next week. Y'all want you all to go nowhere we talk weekly and we out here like last year, hollo peace. All right, Now that we're off the radio, go ahead, give me. I want you to finish, finish your piece because I know everybody was listening. So we're on the radio live right, and so we got to go through. Yeah, so now we're on automation, so it goes to the radio stuff. So go ahead, finish your thought because we still record. Now. Yeah, what I what I would like to say, And it just came to me. I've been last couple of months. I've been like really big on self care, which I think is extremely important. Like we're going through some you know times where it's just it's getting difficult, you know, and even more difficult for some people. So I think it's important that a lot of people focus on self care, you know, the the meditation, the uh, you know, just anything that you can do to kind of like take care of your mental health. Like that's so important right now. So yeah, I just want to emphasize it. What about you, Uh, definitely want to co sign the taking care of yourself at the end of every meeting. It used to be, well, it's going to be your joy today, but then the election happens. So now now I say, how are you going to be kind to yourself? Because no matter what your day is like, you have to find time to be kind to yourself. There might not be anyone else who has that on there to do a list, and so that is so important. And going and seeing Sinners was definitely on my self care. But it's interesting that both Sinners and the MCALA had the Jim Crow kind of historical pieces in it, and you know, we are one hundred years from it, and yet you know there's so much ansisting kind of angst that you see in both of those, like in the movie and then also in the dressing of like I'm gonna put on all my finery almost as an armor. Like you see that now of people whether they choose to totally like move away from elections in the political space, or like I need to take care of myself so I need to like. Not be involved, or people who are all in. You know, I think there's definitely so much of like history and legacy and you have to find your own balance with voting. But I do implore people like to make sure that they find some time to carve out to vote your values and to talk with people. It's definitely not a simple you know, I can just like, look, I'll press these buttons, I can move on. You definitely have to put in the time. But like anything, it is worth it. There I wish there was no zembic for right for this, but for some things there's not, and like that's part of the beauty of it. And so maybe twentieth is when we vote. But it is important to be a good citizen, a good resident if you are not a citizen, to be a good resident every day, and to do that work, whether it's historical or current, you know, and also to take care of yourself. That's right open, so you. Can vote as early as seven am. Some people and my precinct love to be the very first person, and as long as you are in line. By eight pm, you're able to vote. We definitely don't expect there to be a huge line of people. If you're not available on Tuesdays, you can also go to our satellite election offices. There are ten around the city, including the City Hall, where you can go up until Tuesday. You can request a mail in ballot Tuesday by five, So there are satellite election offices all over the city. You don't have to. Go to the one in your neighborhood. You can go wherever it's easiest for you. You can request a mail in ballot, you can ask questions there, you can fill it out, drop it all. PA does not have early voting, but technically you can request that mail in ballot and that you can use all the way up to election day and drop off. Interesting. I know that, Wow, interesting, Abut how can I get in contact with you all that goodle stuff. I would love for people to go to seventy dot org. It's the number. Seventy dot org is our website. That's where you can find our interactive voter guide so that you can find out all about those judges. You can find out more about the ballot questions. If you're interested in being a pollworker, you're like, why the kid's only able to get this two hundred dollars plus fifty dollars with the training. You can find more. About that at be a poll worker if you would love to have There's so many nonprofits that I go out to all around the city and they have me come in and do presentations, hand out materials. People can contact me at can I say my email? Yeah, so it's t beij U t b e z u E at seventy dot org. Email me. I will do things virtually. I'll come out. Look, you need me to bring my own projector get you. I'm all about making sure that every single voter is informed and feels confident. I love your name. You need like a perfume color. The question? Oh wait, okay, yes, all right. It was so packed with a lot of information. Sorry, no, no, it's from good information. So I do have a quote. The quote is not my quote, but it's a quote that I go by. You have to live life forward to understand it backwards. And I definitely agree with both Sizzle and Antonisia about being kind to yourself. I want women specifically to know that everyone, but specifically women. The goal is to get old. That's the goal. And as we. Age, we think that we have to be perfect, and we're doing all these things to try to keep the youth in us. And know your wrinkles, your gray hair, all those things. They exemplify you being seasoned and you being wisdom, and you going through things and experience and that you're able to talk to the younger generation about what you've been through. That's the thing where seasoned women they have experience that they can share. The younger ones don't. They haven't lived as long as you have. Two other things I want to add to that is I did see the met gala. You all looked beautiful. See where fabulous five? Yeah, the watch party, y'all looked gorgeous. I've seen it on Facebook, and you had the right idea with the top hats, which is the two favorites of mine were Tianna Taylor and will Be Goldbert like, whoop be oh my gosh, it's like she looked good. After the view, it was like something. Yes, yes, I loved it, will be just what I just loved what Yes? And my girl one she did she she kept, Yeah, she kept what was supposed to be worn. And then with Sinners, I definitely seen that there was a lot of different gems and impact. I don't want to give out any spoilers, but even that with the way they dressed, the the way they approached it was like even the the younger cousin who was in it. It's not a spoiler, but. Even the young people knew how to be appropriate. My generation growing up, it was like if you're going to to church, if you're going to eat dinner, you had to get up and get dressed in a certain way. And you know, I know that everything can't go back because we want to be progressive, but some things do have to be back to basics where nothing's new under the sun. Everything that comes around what's old becomes new, and what's new becomes old. So I think we're starting to understand to get back to that. So well, I'm gonna just tell you because you mentioned church, and it's a whole nother story about Sunday's Best that I won't get into. But when we talk about, you know, certain movements and the reason why we dressed the way that we do, even dandyism and the reason why that's so profound, we'll get into that because I mean, you know, fascion, we always put the sauce in everything. Anyway, you already know that black fool, that's what we do. I know, it's a name for it. I like it. That's a movement. It's not just a look. It was a protest. It was it was you know, to make a statement, a visual statement. You know, it's one of those things I have to do it, but let me show you how to really do it. And so so there you have it. Ladies and gentlemen, we talk. You have to talk. So I got something mo mom, man, I got tiktext mon just like. That's why I sound like that. What a dynamic show. Excellent, excellent show. Has some fantastic guests. We have family in the house, you know, who will be here at least once a month, you know, and we're corring, you know, host of ours that we talked we to be in the building. So I want you guys to go, yeah, we'll see you next week. I don't know who we have next week. I never knowing back time sing back channel. You already know we talked weekly last year. Ye