Category: Top Stories

Nun Gives Birth, Names Baby After New Pope

A nun has just given birth to a baby and says she’s named it after the new Pope. Hopefully the kid is called Francis and not Pope. The nun says she had no idea she was pregnant. With that kind of anatomical certitude sounds like she should be dispensing birth control advice to Republicans.

‘Nun gives birth in Italy, names baby Francis’ (via AFP)

A Salvadorean nun who said she had no idea she was pregnant gave birth in Italy this week after she felt stomach cramps in her convent and was rushed to hospital, Italian media reported on Friday. The 31-year-old mother and her baby boy, who weighs…

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Finally! Obama Says Pot No More Dangerous Than Alcohol

In an interview with The New Yorker President Obama cheered on efforts in Washington and Colorado to legalize marijuana saying pot is no more lethal than alcohol. Wait, if pot is no more lethal than alcohol that means our criminal justice system is more lethal than pot. OK, Mr. President, now how about pardoning all those two million Americans behind bars for pot related offenses?

Obama: Pot is ‘a bad habit’ that is no ‘more dangerous than alcohol’ (via Raw Story )

In an interview with David Remnick published in The New Yorker on Sunday, President Obama equated smoking marijuana with “a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult…

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CeCe McDonald, Woman, Being Held In Male Prison

  • 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.

Listen to the original broadcast

What do you think? Please join the conversation below.

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Dennis Rodman Checks Into Rehab

  • 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

Listen to the original broadcast

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.

Listen to the original broadcast

Should Americans be reaching out to the North Korean leadership? Join the conversation below.

 

 

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Self Policing The Chemical Industry Is A Hoax – YouTube

300,000 West Virginia residents were left without water for six days  after 7,500 gallons of a coal cleaning chemical known as “crude MCHM” spilled into the ELK River. The spill took place a mile and a half upstream from where parts of West Virginia gets its drinking water. For more on this we are joined by Meteorologist and Climate Change expert Mark Thompson.

 Self Policing The Chemical Industry Is A Hoax – YouTube.

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“The 5 Biggest Lies Told To You This Week” Our Entire Radio Show on YouTube

West Virginia’s chemical spill demonstrates why we need a more powerful EPA and John Boehner is lying when he says coal is “regulated enough.”  The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is the most corrupt man in Washington and is lying when he tell us why he’s retiring. A new documentary reveals that Donald Rumsfeld is delusional and a liar. Is Egypt ready for Democracy? Is America ready for Democracy? And with North Korea and Iran pursuing their nuclear ambitions does America really have the ability to shoot incoming missiles out of the sky? Or is Raytheon lying to us? Today’s show features the following Truth Tellers: Will Ryan, Cactus Chloe Fiorenzo, Westy Westenhofer, Benny Brydern and JT “Tornado Thomas,” Hal Lublin, Mark Thompson, Howie Klein, Hayes Brown and Michael Snyder. Portions of our show are written by Hal Lublin and David Feldman. Please subscribe to this for free as a podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.

The 5 Biggest Lies Told To You This Week – YouTube.

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