Category: Journalists

CeCe McDonald, Woman, Being Held In Male Prison

January 19, 2014 - Full Interviews With Our Guests, Journalists, The News From Around The World, Top Stories, Transcripts

  • Trans woman acting in self defense, CeCe McDonald killed her attacker.
  • Judge sentenced CeCe to 41 months inside a male prison.
  • Katie Couric under fire for focusing more on transgender body parts than why a woman is in a man’s prison.
  • Zach Ford from ThinkProgress.org has the latest.

Katie Couric is under fire for an interview with two transgender women during which she focused, some say, far too much on whether or not the women had penises but not enough on what it means to be a transgender woman.

Listen to the original broadcast

David: For more on this, we are joined by Zack Ford, who covers LGBT issues for ThinkProgress.org. Sometimes curiosity can be detrimental to a transgender person, right?

Zack: Sure. This is a phenomenon that happens across all different kinds of groups where someone who’s a member of a group that’s often in the majority encounters someone who’s not part of that group, and tries to figure out what makes them different. So a white person asking a person of color if they can touch their hair, it minimizes that individual to the parts of their identity that set them apart and doesn’t embrace them as a full person.

So this is something that we saw in this Katie Couric interview where she’s focused so much on the process you go through, and for those women that were on the stage being interviewed by her, it reduces them to their bodies, and it’s very reductionist.

Critics say Katie Couric focused too much on the sizzle and too little on the plight of CeCe McDonald.

Critics say Katie Couric focused too much on the sizzle and too little on the plight of CeCe McDonald.

David: You write that a transgender person can’t discuss transgender issues in the media without first divulging the current status of their body.

Zack: They can say whatever they want to say. The problem is that those are the questions that they get asked. They have to defend and legitimize what it means to be transgender and what they’ve done to their bodies to realize their identities before they’re given the validity and respect that they deserve for just being people.

David: When we talk with a transgender person, it’s nobody’s business what the current state of their body is.

Zack: We lose the story of their community when we focus just on their bodies. They’re people just like the rest of us, and we need to focus on what will best support them and help them thrive and help them get out of poverty and help them get jobs and help them find places to live instead of just worrying about what body parts they have.

David:  Exactly. How many transgender Americans are there?

Zack:  That’s a complicated question to ask, just like it’s a complicated question to ask how many gay people are there. The best estimate that we have of people who openly identify as transgender is about 0.3% of adults in the population. So a little less than about a million people in the country.

But again, that’s people who openly identify as trans, people who might have gone through some sort of transition. It doesn’t really count for a lot of Americans who might have some variations in their gender identity but don’t “own” that as a trans identity.  Or people who are still struggling to figure that out and have not come out and begun to transition.

Actress Laverne Cox is producing a documentary about CeCe McDonald.

Actress Laverne Cox is producing a documentary about CeCe McDonald.

So about 0.3% is the estimate that we have. It’s probably actually higher than a lot of people think it is, but it is a small population.

David: What do transgender Americans need to watch out for?

Zack: One big problem is not acknowledging your trans-identity can really have a lot of mental health consequences, and so we want trans people to feel safe to come out. What we have to do as a society is make sure that it’s safe for them to do that and to go through a process that allows them to find that unanimity within themselves.

David: Who is CeCe McDonald?

Zack:  CeCe McDonald is a trans woman of color from Minnesota, and in June of 2011, she was out with some friends, and on the street they were assaulted by two white women and a man and a fight ensued. CeCe herself was punctured with a piece of glass in her cheek that also hurt her salivary gland. So she and her friends fought back, and in the end, the man who assaulted them was found dead. CeCe was arrested, was forced to plead guilty, and sentenced to 41 months in jail. This happened in 2011.

David: Any effort to get CeCe released?

Zach: Right now, Laverne Cox, the trans actress who stars on Orange Is the New Black, is producing a documentary called Free CeCe, which is about the way that CeCe, along with many trans women of color, are themselves the subject of persecution and often are not given justice through the justice system.

David: Is CeCe in a women’s prison or a men’s prison?

Zack: CeCe is in a men’s prison serving for second degree manslaughter.

David: Would Americans better serve the transgender community by getting past the physical and focusing solely on issues of identity?

CeCe McDonald is serving in a Men's prison.

CeCe McDonald is serving in a Men’s prison.

Zack: I think I’d start by saying that I don’t think of trans people as struggling by nature. Being trans is not something that is a problem for them, but there are problems that society creates for them because of the fact that they’re trans.

Zack: So, yes, they go through their own journey that’s physical, and sometimes that can be a financial hardship for them if they can’t afford the surgery that will help them best realize their identities. But moreover, they are subject to rampant discrimination, not unlike CeCe has experienced both for being targeted with an act of violence and then not given justice in the end.

So it’s often a problem when we get so caught up in understanding what it means to be trans. It’s something so strange to us, we don’t understand what it must be like to not have a gender that corresponds with our body. We get caught up in their journeys physically with their bodies. But then we lose sight of the lived experience that they have and the way that they suffer discrimination both for being trans and just for being women sometimes, for trans women who are facing their own kind of discrimination.

So I think that we have so much to learn from the trans community because the kinds of identities that they find in themselves teach us a lot about ourselves and the boxes that we often put ourselves into. So I think it’s great to explore that diversity and celebrate all the different identities within that community.

Zack Ford covers LGBT issues for ThinkProgress.org.

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Dennis Rodman Checks Into Rehab

January 18, 2014 - Full Interviews With Our Guests, Journalists, The News From Around The World, Top Stories, Transcripts

  • Dennis Rodman checked himself into rehab Wednesday.
  • Less than a week after returning home from his fourth trip to North Korea.
  • Agent says Rodman will be in alcohol treatment facility for one month.
  • Rodman and agent still refuse to apologize for “basketball diplomacy.”
  • Sobriety may not be the only hurdle the 52-year-old basketball legend faces.
  • Today’s guest Hayes Brown says charity Rodman claimed to be playing for  in North Korea may not even exist.

Dennis Rodman has checked himself into rehab less than one week after returning from North Korea. Hayes Brown from ThinkProgress.org says Rodman may have misled us about the charity he was reportedly playing for

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Dennis Rodman makes his fourth trip to North Korea to play in what he calls a ‘charity basketball game’ raising money for North Korea’s deaf.  Not so, says Hayes Brown, who is a national security reporter for ThinkProgress.org. He joins us from Washington, D.C.

David: Today, you’re reporting over at ThinkProgress.org that Rodman’s agent and the sponsor of his trip know nothing about this charity for the deaf?

Hayes: That is correct. So, Rodman, when he first landed in North Korea, they told the Associated Press that the proceeds from this game, whatever those might be, will be going to a North Korean charity for the deaf. When I reached out to Paddy Power, the sponsor of the event, they directed me to Rodman’s agent. Then Rodman’s agents still didn’t give me any information about this charity.

Dennis Rodman checks into rehab less than a week after returning home from North Korea.

Dennis Rodman checked into rehab last Wednesday, less than a week after returning home from North Korea.

David: Who is Paddy Power?

Hayes: Paddy Power is an Irish bookmaking website, actually. They’re online gambling, and they decided to sponsor this trip for Dennis Rodman and several former NBA players to go over and play a North Korean basketball team and get all the publicity that comes with it.

But I do know that Paddy Power is no longer interested in the Rodman name. It turns out, right before the New Year, they pulled their name from the sponsorship saying they don’t want to be associated with North Korea anymore. Instead, they are just paying for the trip due to the contractual obligations of the agreement they already agreed to with Rodman.

David: This is his fourth trip. Were the three previous trips for charity?

Hayes: None of them were for charity. The first one was with VICE magazine to go and do a cultural diplomacy sort of thing. At that point, he struck up a weird friendship with Kim Jong-Un, the leader of North Korea, and at that point, he decided to go back, to everyone’s surprise, and he met up with the dictator again. And then on his third trip, he was coaching the North Korean Olympic basketball team a little – I mean, it’s unclear exactly what he was doing at that stage. So on this fourth one, charity, that’s why it’s a little questionable.

David: How does North Korea treat its deaf?

Hayes: The parents of disabled children are forced to move from Pyongyang, the capital, because they want to present a perfect city. They’re sent off to isolation basically where they can’t be seen or heard from, and their medical infrastructure is in no way adequate to provide for the disabled.

David: We’re on Pacifica Radio. Pacifica’s mandate is to promote peaceful dialogue. Dennis Rodman going to North Korea falls under the purview of Pacifica’s mission statement. Isn’t this a good thing? Isn’t this the right thing to do for one of our own, to reach out to a potential enemy?

Hayes: You’d think so, if Kim Jong-Un had shown any sort of willingness to have peaceful dialogue, to give up its nuclear weapons, to treat humans with respect and dignity, none of which seemed to be the case. The prisons are still full, labor camps are still active, and there’s just still no sign of any sort of improvement on human rights from the North Koreans, one of the reasons why the claims of this being a charity game were met with such skepticism.

Rodman now says alcohol played a role in his calling the North Korean leader a friend.

Rodman now says alcohol played a role in his calling the North Korean leader a friend.

David: Well, we know nothing about what’s going on in North Korea. There was a report that Kim Jong-Un last week fed his uncle to the dogs, and now we’re being told that just might be apocryphal.

Sending Dennis Rodman to North Korea, is it possible his real sponsor isn’t Paddy Power, but our intelligence agencies.

Hayes: I mean, anything is possible, but the U.S. government has been very vehement that Rodman has been acting as a private citizen. When questioned directly, they’ve said that they have not debriefed him on his trips. If they actually are the sponsor of Rodman going to North Korea, they are lying straight to the face of the media without blinking.

David: Yeah, because our intelligence agencies would never lie to us. The NSA…

Hayes: Paragons of honesty, those guys. But on this one, I’m pretty sure that Dennis Rodman is not the secret ambassador to North Korea.

David: It’s so bipolar, it just might work. I mean, it’s beyond crazy. No one would believe that Dennis Rodman was working for the NSA. But we know with certainty that North Korea is probably the worst of the worst, right?

According to our guest nobody is sure if Kim Jong Un is really running North Korea.

According to our guest nobody is sure if Kim Jong Un is really running North Korea.

Hayes: I would agree with that. I mean, it’s not just the U.S. and its allies saying this. A United Nations investigator early this year said that he had not seen the sort of atrocities perpetrated in North Korea since the time of the Nazis. That’s not an American government official, that’s someone from the United Nations saying this. And we get all these horror stories out from the defectors who actually make it out, the ones who risk their lives to cross the border to leave North Korea.

David: How old is Kim Jong-Un?

Hayes: That’s a great question. No one is really sure. They think his birthday is Wednesday, but that’s a guess. So one of the things is that this game is supposedly kind of a birthday present for Kim the younger. I think he’s supposed to be in his late 20’s, like 28, maybe 29. That’s one of the things about North Korea, their isolation is so all-encompassing.

David: It would be great if the NSA could find out what’s going on in North Korea.

Hayes: They’re trying as hard as they can, but North Korea is just so hard to penetrate that it’s almost impossible to get information out, even with our top people on it.

David: Maybe they should take a break from spying on Americans and find out what’s going on in North Korea.

Hayes Brown covers national security issues for ThinkProgress.org.

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George Zornick On Obamacare

January 11, 2014 - Journalists, The News From Around The World, Top Stories, Transcripts

Originally broadcast on January 10, 2014:

George Zornick covers Washington for The Nation

George Zornick covers Washington for The Nation.

Republicans want you to believe that millions of Americans are losing their health insurance due to Obamacare, and that President Obama lied when he said “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”

George Zornick writes for The Nation magazine. He’s been looking into this for the Washington Post and writes that when all is said and done, only ten thousand Americans will lose their coverage, not the five million that conservative pundits would want us to believe. He joins us from Washington, DC.

David: George, Republicans want us to believe that Americans are losing their health insurance because of Obamacare. Let’s deal with anecdotal evidence first. These victims of Obamacare Republicans keep introducing us to, do any of their stories ever pan out?

George: You know, I don’t want to absolutely say that not a single one has, but a lot of the ones that we’ve been looking into and certainly some of the ones that have been featured in a lot of these ads that are hitting Democrats for supporting Obamacare have not panned out, or at least they haven’t given us the complete story so that we can’t know if what they’re saying is actually true.

10,000 Americans will lose their coverage not the 5 million Republicans want you to believe, according to our guest George Zornick.

10,000 Americans will lose their coverage not the 5 million Republicans want you to believe, according to our guest George Zornick.

So, you know, a lot people may end up losing a health insurance plan because as the President has been extremely open and well publicized about is that if a health care plan, say, for example, doesn’t cover mammograms or is allowed to discriminate based on preexisting conditions or is basically what you would call a junk health insurance plan, that it wouldn’t be allowed to be sold on the new health insurance exchanges, and this is sort of . . . that was a big piece, that was a big virtue of the law that they were very public about. So obviously reading between the lines, what that means is if you have one of these plans, you’re going to have to change it. Now that’s different than losing it.

So a lot of the people that they’ve trotted out will be someone whose plan was changed, who their company writes them and says “we can no longer offer you this plan.” But, of course, there’s always a part B which is “however, we can offer you this plan or that plan.” So a lot of times when you actually pull the thread and look at these people who say “oh, I lost my plan,” there’s a second half of the story which is “oh, I got this other one, and by the way, it might actually have been cheaper than the one I was using and certainly offered better coverage.”

David: George, what is the difference between losing your insurance coverage and losing your insurance plan?

George: Yeah, you know, if you watch Fox News long enough, you’ll notice a very slippery sleight of hand happening between losing health insurance plans and losing health insurance coverage. So if you had a plan that is ineligible to have been sold on the exchanges because it didn’t cover enough or it was a plan that was extremely cheap because the company was denying people who had preexisting conditions, even things like heartburn or something like that, well, then that plan has to kind of go by the wayside. But that doesn’t mean, and we’ll stipulate-although there isn’t a central repository of data-we’ll stipulate for a moment that five million people perhaps got a notice like that, that the plan they were on had to be changed. So technically speaking, did they lose that plan? Yes. But whether they lost coverage is another story entirely.

President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010.

President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010.

First of all, the White House passed a rule that said for all of 2014, people will actually be able to renew in their old bad plan even if, you know, they got a notice saying they couldn’t, just to ease the transition for people and give them more time to find a new one. So that immediately wipes out about half of the five million figure. A lot of the rest of the people when the health insurance company says “we can’t give you this plan anymore,” they say “well, but we can give you this plan.” And almost by definition, that plan has better coverage because, you know, it meets the standards of the health insurance exchanges. And then that person is also, unless they’re wealthy, also likely eligible to get subsidies on the exchanges to help pay for that plan.

So in the end what you have is people who lose their plan but then get a plan that certainly has better coverage and may be cheaper. And when you boil it all down, and the Democrats in Congress have done an interesting study that shows that when you boil it all down, there’s actually only, of that five million, there’s only ten thousand people who got a notice that their plan was changing and were not able to find another one. So that’s certainly a problem, but ten thousand is a lot different than five million.

David: I want to get to that in a second. Would President Obama have served Obamacare better if he said: “Five million Americans are losing their plans because those plans are now illegal. We’ve outlawed these plans. They’re junk plans”? Did he not clarify that properly?

Calling the mandate a "tax" the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare on June 28, 2012 by a vote of 5-4.

Calling the mandate a “tax” the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare on June 28, 2012 by a vote of 5-4.

George: He, no doubt, could have been more clear about that. But I think Republicans here are kind of playing dumb because he did also at the same time say, you know, a lot of these junk plans are not going to be allowed on the insurance markets if they don’t cover mammograms or if they don’t cover x, y, and z, or we’re going to make sure that the plans offered on the exchanges are up to those standards. And he also said if there are companies that are keeping their plans cheap because they’re denying people based on preexisting conditions, well, we’re going to put an end to that.

So it’s not that he said no plan will ever, ever change or be taken away, and he could have, I suppose, been more forthright about that, but the point is that Republicans knew and have known for three years that this is exactly what was going to happen. And if they want to sort of grandstand on the inconvenience of people having to change their plans, which I’m sure for some is an inconvenience, then they should always be sure to tell the second half of the story which is-what is the new plan that this person got and are they better served by the new plan than they were under the old plan?

David: Right.

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Is Dennis Rodman’s Trip To North Korea Based On A Lie?

January 8, 2014 - Journalists, The News From Around The World, Top Stories

Dennis Rodman claims to be playing for charity in North Korea this week. Hayes Brown from Think Progress looks into this claim. Below is his article for Think Progress on Rodman’s “charity” and an audio excerpt from his appearance on our show that we uploaded to You Tube.

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The Gop Can Only Lie About Obamacare

January 8, 2014 - Journalists, The News From Around The World, Top Stories

Republicans want you to believe that millions of Americans are losing their health insurance due to Obamacare, and that President Obama lied when he said, “If you liked your plan you could keep it.” George Zornick writes for The Nation Magazine, he’s been looking into this for the Washington Post and writes that when all is said and done only ten thousand Americans will lose their coverage, not the five million conservative pundits would want us to believe. He joins us from Washington DC. Below are the show notes including an audio excerpt of the interview we posted on You Tube:

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