tv Disrupt With Karen Finney MSNBC November 9, 2013 4:00pm-5:00pm EST
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delicious, but say i press a few out flat, add some beef, sloppy joe sauce and cheese, fold it all up and boom! delicious unsloppy joes perfect for a school night. pillsbury grands biscuits. make dinner pop. all right disrupters, thanks for joining me. is sanity making a comeback? women rule, insurance companies being dishonest? i know you're shocked. and laverne cox drops some shock on us. plagiarism is -- >> republicans ought to leave this stuff alone. >> you send a message to the president of the united states. >> the democratic candidate for governor has been narrowly elected in virginia. >> i'll tell you, it's a shame what happened to ken because he
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was betrayed. >> i'm never going to be a democrat to get in the middle of a gop bottle rocket fight. >> you are not useful to us anymore. >> i notice the left and little echo chamber is trying to accuse you of plagiarism. >> i think it's a standard no one else is being held to and i think it's politically motivated. >> i didn't have enough money for cab fair. >> i get offended when people try to cast dispersions on my character. aside from chris christie and ken cucinelli, who were winners and losers from this week's off year election? from new york city to new jersey to virginia and alabama there were a few surprises, a few key lessons that both democrats and republicans should probably pay attention to. among them, the rise of the new
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electorate growing momentum for raising the minimum wage and a possible comeback story for the establishment gop. here to help me sort through all the messy details, msnbc contributor maria and my colleague host of "up with steve cornaki." it seems possibility of women who will make a big difference in 2014 because they've been so energized by so many of the sort of crazy measures passed at the state level. >> i mean, this is a huge warning sign, i think, for the republican party. and specifically look at virginia, everything was in line for favor of republicans winning this election. it had been 40 years since the white house party had won an election, a gubernatorial election, in virginia. this was an off year election. we have been talking nonstop for
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the last two years about how this democratic coalition only shows up in presidential elections. >> that's right. >> only shows up when obama's on the ballot. and let's be honest about it, the democratic nominee in virginia was not the most inspiring candidate. this was a candidate with dangerously poisonously high unfavorable numbers. so republicans should have won this election. not only did they fail to win the election, but when you look closer at the numbers you're seeing this pronounced gender gap. and you're seeing it's not just, you say the issue of abortion and ken's activism on abortion, but i think it's a wider range of cultural messages that ken cucinelli and that brand that alienates women voters and suburban educated female voters and you saw that as the reason why history was defied in virginia this week. >> one of the things i thought was interesting i mean, the writing for a lot of us, the writing seemed to be on the wall we expected that women would be energized and women would pay attention because it's been so ridiculous between vaginal ultrasounds over the last couple of years, just the litany of
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things and the level of conversation as you point out so disrespectful. and yet it seemed like the cucinelli campaign didn't think it was going to be a problem. somehow they thought women would step in line and do what they thought they would do and just vote along with them. and yet terry was able to turnout, women in particularly black women i thought was interesting. >> let's be honest, what the republicans and what ken cucinelli was counting on was this old model, the old cynical model we've been talking about for the last woup l years when president obama's not on the ballot, when it's not a presidential election year, women, nonwhite voters, young vote voters, they do not tend to show up. you can run a more conservative campaign and you can run up big numbers like in southwestern virginia, you look at the sort of emerging demographics outside washington, d.c. and northern virginia and they're not going to show up. that is the revelation of this election. president obama is not on the ballot, they shoeded up. it's a huge difference. >> do you think -- it was kind of part of the missology of 2012
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talking about the rising electorate, african-americans, latin latinos, obviously the republican party got a big surprise. but i wonder if you look at terry's race like you said and the fact that i actually have two data points i look at. one, terry did the work of reaching out and he knew where those voters were, he reached out to them and had a good ground game. also in new jersey chris christie made an effort and made some inroads with blacks and latinos in a way we haven't seen republican candidates necessarily do. so it strikes me that this narrative that somehow they won't show up actually could be dispelled but the point is you got to do the work of showing up and courting those voters and turning those voters out. >> yeah, i think that's true. and i think part of the question to what i'm curious about as well is president obama himself was a draw for this sort of new emerging majority in 2008.
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one thing we can establish is the threat of ken cucinelli, cultural views in particular that was a motivating factor. so if somebody like ken is a nominee and you want to extrapolate that to 2016, if ted cruz -- >> right. >> this is the effect you're going to see. with christie though it's a little different. at the statewide level of course having shaquille o neil coming in at the last minute doesn't hurt. this is very intentional in his part he has separated himself to the best he can, the national republican party brand from the debate in congress about immigration, from all of these issues at the national level that are driving this emerging coalition away from the republican party. chris christie was basically able to put the message out that, hey, you don't like them, fine. but i'm different. chris christie on the national stage that might change. >> he spent $24 million separating himself from the cory booker election. you know, it's interesting because, you know, one of the
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issues from their own autopsy, rielgt, that they've talked about is the need to make inroads with latino voters and yet this week you had kevin mccarthy, the republican house whip say we're not going to get to immigration reform this year, we don't have enough time. which is always their excuse. i feel the rest of us have several months left. i don't know how many days you're talking about. but it sprieds o surprise me that now earlier in the year i think we were so hopeful because it was in the political interest of the gop to get immigration reform done and now just seems like they just don't care. >> i mean, i bet there will be time to repeal obama care once or twice more before the end of the year. >> of course. >> but that's an interesting thing. look at the autopsy that the republican national committee put out after losing in 2012. what they're basically offering is a blueprint for the entire party. if collectively the entire party does x, y and z, then the entire party is going to be more appealing to the electorate. the problem is for the entire party to do that every individual member of the party has to go along, has to play the
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part, has to vote for immigration reform. in just about every individual member of the party in the house to vote for immigration reform would be doing it in a district where they get no reward in the general election because these are sort of gerrymandered districts, these are safely republican districts where they only have the threat of a republican primary challenge. if somebody coming along and saying, hey, so and so sold out conservatism, gave amnesty to the illegals, all these things. so individually there's no -- there's a collective incentive, but they have not established an individual incentive. it shows you we are 12 months past mitt romney losing last year the same diagnosis you gave a year ago you could give now but no new individual incentive for these republicans. >> what's interesting, we'll switch gears a little bit because not only is there no new incentive, we've seen the republican party fracture even more dramatically and forces on the far right see what happens when we nominate that kind of fake republican. so it was interesting, but, you know, so we come out of the
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government shutdown and we have the chamber of commerce saying they're thinking about actually supporting moderates. there's a new group main street partnership, they're saying they're going to spend about $8 million to run and support moderate republican candidates. and then a lot of people are looking at alabama one, the special election where you had two republicans, one cast himself as more of the i think the ted cruz of the house and the other one sort of more of the establishment gop kind of got mind. and that's the person who won. so a lot of people are taking that as a sign that, hey, maybe -- i mean, i take it as a positive that maybe the message is, you know, being coo coo crazy tea party not necessarily winning strategy. >> i would like to take that message. i take the exact opposite message. >> of course you do, steve. >> so we're talking about dean young, was the tea party guy in this republican runoff in alabama. and we're saying he was defeated. he's the guy who said obama was born in kenya and he's the crazy one. okay, he lost. that's a great victory.
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but how did he lose? how did bradley byrne, the so-called moderate win this race? with the backing of commerce and the money. what did that money do? all it did was conveyed a message that, hey, bradley byrne thinks we should have shut the government down. all of the specific tea party agenda items bradley checked off. he signed off on them and the money amplified that message. he didn't say obama was born in kenya, that may be the big id logical difference between these two, but shows to me the tea party won because the tea party now taken an establishment figure like bradley byrne, tea party is so in their heads they have to endorse every tea party vision and i say that's a victory for the tea party. >> what you're saying though is it's the person who has the right talking points, right? i was also in the autopsy we don't change what we believe, we
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have to change what we say. so to your argument that's maybe the difference between these two less on substance, more on style. >> and maybe it's almost -- and this is as cynical as it gets, maybe a real long game by the republican establishment where they figure if they can get enough bradley byrnes in there in office like this that they can fake their way into office, fake it with the tea party -- >> oh, steve, it's never good when you try to fake it. >> to me that's the best case because to me it's like the first contentious vote he faces pits him between the tea party and moderates, tea party and democratic party, he's going to side with the tea party. why? he's not going to want to give an inch on his right. maybe in his heart of hearts he doesn't believe this stuff, but for his own political preservation he's going to be voting that way. those are all the positions he took as a candidate. >> basically we're going back to candidates who say maybe believe in something called legitimate rape, we just don't talk about legitimate rape or believe the president was born in kenya but
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you don't say that. >> almost the mitt romney model from last year. well, maybe he's a secret moderate, maybe ten years ago -- but if you look at the platform mitt romney forced to run it's as conservative as anything since the goldwater days. >> the lesson everybody from my pal steve here is we have to watch out for the moderates in sheeps clothing, not the rhinos. i want to thank you, steve. we had some technical issues with me ris sa. you can watch steve every weekend morning up at 8:00 a.m. i am usually trying to get up at that hour to watch steve, i'll be honest. next, it's a fact that many insurance companies should be the ones to apologize for the problems with the aca. >> i can't tell you how many people across texas -- >> i understand. sure. >> i'm losing my health care, trying to take care of my kids, we've got real challenges -- >> but doesn't the state of texas don't want obama care there? >> we don't want obama care because it's taken away health
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care. >> but 25% of the state doesn't have health care any way. so obama care would help them, wouldn't it? there are seniors who have left hundreds of dollars of savings on the table by not choosing the right medicare d plan. no one could have left this much money here. whoo-hoo-hoo! yet many seniors who compare medicare d plans realize they can save hundreds of dollars. cvs/pharmacy wants to help you save on medicare expenses. talk to your cvs pharmacist, call, or go to cvs.com/compare to get your free, personalized plan comparison today. call, go online, or visit your local store today. be careful babe. [ doorbell rings ] let's see what's cookin'. look at this. that's a swiffer. i don't have to climb up. did you notice how clean it looks? morty are you listening? morty? [ morty ] i'm listening! i want you to know.
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as we head towards veterans day, we have a bit of good news for the men and women who served our country. veterans affairs secretary announced this week that vet disability claims have actually dropped by more than a third since march. that is a welcome sign of progress after years of backlog. and tomorrow at noon on msnbc, my colleague, former congressman and iraq war vet patrick murphy will host a one-hour program dedicated to veterans issues live from the national september 11th memorial in lower
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manhattan. msnbc will also premiere the first of 12 documentaries called "wounded" with issues and personal stories of veterans. we hope you'll tune in. ahead, laverne cox of "orange" is the new black end up being the new no for john boehner and friends. that's coming up. >> and force religious business owners and workplaces such as christian bookstores to accept as normal transvestites and drag queens. oh, yeah. it is well-known that bet didler over here is just doing those cabaret acts until she can land her dream job of selling figu figurines of jesus teaching baseball. not the "limit the cash i earn every month" card. it's not the "i only earn decent rewards at the gas station" card. it's the no-games, no-signing up, everyday-rewarding, kung-fu-fighting, silver-lightning-in-a-bottle,
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marriage equality. a number of openly gay americans were elected to various offices on tuesday. and in an historic move, the senate passed the employment nondiscrimination act which prohibits workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender americans. as my beloved gay husband of "the washington post" said "it's been another big gay week." this equality seems so simple to so many americans. in fact, evangelicals, a majority of republicans and the future of the gop young republicans strongly favor the legislation that passed this week. now, remember the gop post 2012 autopsy? so in a week where voters rejected the extremism of the gop, you'd actually think republicans would come running to show their support. not so much. one hold up, i'm going to let old rush bo explain that one to you. >> you ever notice when democrats get what they want it's historic?
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historic gay rights bill passes in senate. somebody tell me what gay rights are denied now? >> you know what, rush, let me try to make this really simple for you. let's say you were gay living in your home state of florida and you tried to get married, or you were fired. yes, a girl can dream. you'd have absolutely no rights. now, another hold up for some conservatives, the legislation covers transgender people, the very people who are discriminated against the most in the workplace among the lgbt community. here's vice president of the conservative group liberty council, matt barber, on monday. >> if a, you know, 6'4", 250-pound former linebacker who now fancies himself a woman comes and applies for a job at a church to be a receptionist or janitor, if they're not directly in a pastoral role or some kind
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of role, then it would still apply. >> this kind of ignorance and fear is exactly the reason we need enda in the first place. it's also why transgender awareness week, which kicks off this monday, provides an important opportunity to break down these barriers. joining me now is laverne cox, star of the netflix series "orange is the new black" and first transwoman of color to have a leading role on a mainstream scripted television show. i'm so glad to have you here. >> so excited to be here. >> so exciting. it was a big week. a lot happened that i thought was really positive. i want to start with enda because obviously we know it passed in the senate. and the belief is it could pass in the house except john boehner is going to play a little trick like he did with the continuing resolution and just not bring it to the floor. and the thing that strikes me is the gop just does not get they are on the wrong side of history on this one. >> it's a shame. you know, i get to live my dream out by having my dream job basically. so many transpeople are denied
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that opportunity. i just met a young transwoman in kansas city, missouri, this week who got up and told us a story about how she lost her job when she decided to transition on her job. she has no legal recourse. and that is really fundamentally un-american. and the pain really that she expressed of not only being, you know, fired but then just feeling who she is is not really accepted in this culture. and i think the big piece that so often it's still socially acceptable to make fun of, to ridicule transgender people. we need to begin to make a culture where that's not acceptable, where that's not okay. transgender people, we just want dignity. >> one of the things i find interesting is if you ask someone, if you say do you think somebody should be fired because they're gay, lesbian, transsexual, bigender, they'd cias sa no. one of the things that i think is so important and i want to talk about your role on "orange
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is the new black" because one of the things that we've seen my family's biracial, that used to be illegal. and it's like the more you meet people who are different than yourself and know gay people and know gay people who are married and have good marriages and know transgender people, you sort of take the boog giman out of it. your role is important in putting that out there for people to see a character they can laugh with, cry with, relate to. talk to us about your character. >> what's been great is she's a character who's in prison and she's faced a lot of issues transgender people face. helps with health care when they deny her hormones and so many transgender people in prison experience that. what's amazing is people -- a woman wrote a blog saying she used to have these misconceptions about who transpeople are and after watching the show and experiencing my character those ideas changed. that's really exciting to me. if we can sort of humanize
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transpeople, transpeople just want the same things that everyone else does. all the stigmatizing and sort of criminalizing of our identities, we want to be able to work and live our dreams and be happy. >> do you have input on the scripts to make sure they accurately reflect? or do you feel the writers do a good job of making sure reflects -- that your character reflects the transjentder experience? >> the writers have done an amazing job. i get asked this a lot. folks assume i've had a lot of role in telling them what's real. but sean who wrote episode three, she just did a lot of research. and the writers are interested in telling human stories. so we are interested in like creating walking, talking, multidimensional human beings a lot of the ideas and stereotypes we have about them are going for a joke which is traditionally seen when transfolks are represented on tv that goes away. >> that's sort of the key to all of this is that when you, again, the human stories, when you see somebody as a human being not
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just as a lambeau or stereotype, then it's a very different conversation. i know that actually one of the things you also do is you give speeches. i would imagine particularly for young people it must be incredible because i can't remember -- i mean, when i was a kid, there weren't really many gay characters on television, certainly not transgender. that must be huge for young people. >> i think the big piece that a transperson is being played by a transperson. >> that's a great point. >> apparently revolutionary. and i'm having a ball going around -- >> it's like a black person playing a black person. how about that? >> finally. and i'm having a ball going around the country talking to kids, college kids, they're so enthusiastic and they want to learn. what excites me about this is these are the kids who can make policy in the future. they can hire someone who's tra transgender. everyone out there listening saying what can i do, maybe i can give them a job, maybe if someone is making fun, i can
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call them out and say that's not acceptable. everyone out there can do something for transequality and transrights. i don't have a lot of faith in john boehner and our congress, but i have faith in the people of america. >> you know, and to that point actually having faith in people, i mean one of the things that was interesting in the passage of enda this week and i think i have it here somewhere and i'm going to read it, was, you know, some of the senators made the point that it was actually one of the witnesses who was a transgender person listening to that story, that human story, actually changed some of their minds. and i think they're playing this sound bite. okay. so they're not. so i'll just read it. and i can't read it because i don't have it in front of me. anyway, you remember it. >> what's exciting is that the person who testified, his name was kyler, he's a wonderful advocate and activist for transequality in this country. i've gotten a chance to work with him and he's amazing. it's a really great example of, again, if we get to know
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transpeople, it's like all of the boogeyman and the fear monogoring that happens sort of melts away when we see the humanity of people. >> you watched the testimony. what did he talk about that really you think maybe was the part that really struck people? >> i think it's the piece of -- i mean, so a lot of the work kyler is doing is around people of color, transpeople of color because so often the intersectionalty of race and class disproportionately affect people of color. so talking about that and speaking to that and putting a human face on it i think is really the biggest gain. >> i sure wish they would let him go and speak on the house side. maybe he could help change a few minds over there. they should have you come up there and talk to them. that would change a few minds. >> i would love to. >> tell me last question, transgender awareness week next week, are you doing anything specific? >> i'm at four different colleges next week, so i'm talking. i'm telling my story. talking about issues of
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intersectionalty, issues of race, class and gender and telling my story at four different universities next week. super excited about that. >> wonderful. thank you so much for doing that. and thank you for joining me today. i really preeshtd it. from another rubio hypocrisy to women with big thighs. a few big stories you may have missed this week. my asthma's under control. i don't miss out... you sat out most of our game yesterday! asthma doesn't affect my job... you were out sick last week. my asthma doesn't bother my family... you coughed all through our date night! i hardly use my rescue inhaler at all. what did you say? how about - every day? coping with asthma isn't controlling it. test your level of control at asthma.com, then talk to your doctor. there may be more you could do for your asthma. but it sure feels that way. because with power ports... and wi-fi...
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in ten minutes zap those grays and get on with your day. nice 'n easy root touch-up. [ ding! ] losing your chex mix too easily? time to deploy the boring-popcorn decoy bucket. then no one will want to steal the deliciousness. with a variety of tastes and textures only chex mix is a bag of interesting. now it's time for fyi. some of the news that you may have missed this week. first n a stunning break with his party, marco rubio has come out in support of background checks. oh, wait, we're not talking about background checks for gun buyers. the legislation rubio introduced thursday would require a criminal check, credit report and fingerprinting for potential obama care navigators. you know, the friendly faces meant to lead you through the insurance enrollment process. the good senator from florida
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says his bill's meant to cut down on fraud and minimize the risk to enrollees personal information. he said "it is unacceptable that president obama suggests that the american people simply trust the federal government and its network of obama care navigators." you know what, marco, you're right. why would we trust you? i mean, you're an elected part of government, aren't you? next, in news that makes a little bit more sense, sweden introduced a new system that rates movies based on their level of gender bias. to earn an a grade, a movie must pass the bekhtel test, it's got to have two named female characters who at some point in the film talk to each other about something other than men. now, that sounds easy, right? think again. most of the biggest blockbusters can't even pass the test including i'm sad to say "star wars," "avatar," "the dark
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knight" and all but one of the harry potter movies. walmart had a glitch of its own when listing a big ticket item for a fraction of those price. anticipating extra holiday pounds, you can buy a walmart treadmill for $33. how about a projector? originally $600, yours for the low price of $8.85. now, walmart has said it won't honor the purchases. instead it will offer customers a refund and a $10 gift card. for the customer who is thought they were getting the deal of the century, that brings a whole new meaning to the term black friday. and finally, remember all that controversy over lululemon's see through yoga pants? the founder now says it's not the pants that's the problem, no, ladies, it's our bodies. >> put frankly, some womens bodies actually don't work for it. and i can't be -- >> they don't work for the pant sns. >> no, they don't work for
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certain some women's bodies. >> this isn't the first time the yoga wear retailer's come under fire for weight discrimination. many former employees have admitted that larger sizes are regularly shoved to the back of the stores and rarely restocked. they can't have all us size 12 and 14 gals scaring off the zeros. come on. next, it's a fact that many insurance companies should be the ones to apologize for the problems with the affordable care act. ing the moon in 1971. afghanistan in 2009. on the u.s.s. saratoga in 1982. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve. this is the creamy chicken corn chowder.
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once a day xarelto® means no regular blood monitoring -- no known dietary restrictions. for more information and savings options, call 1-888-xarelto or visit goxarelto.com. i want it fixed so the affordable care act will succeed. will succeed. not be torn down. as the president has said, the promise of the affordable care act is far more than just a website. the promise the affordable care act is a benefit to 105 million americans who have been protected against lifetime
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limits since 2010. >> that was senator tom harkin this week listing one of the many reasons to be thankful for the affordable care act chlgt it's a fact there's plenty of blame to go around when it comes to troubles with the affordable care rollout, from companies denying to leaders. only one person has stepped up to take responsibility, and that would be president obama. this week he made an apology in an interview with nbc's chuck todd. >> i regret very much that what we intended to do, which is to make sure that everybody is moving into better plans because they want them as opposed to because they're forced into it, that you know we weren't as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taken place. and i am sorry that they are, you know, finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me. we've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them
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and that we're going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this. >> now, as i said, it is a fact that multiple forces have been shall we say less than honest, even misleading about coverage options for americans. it's a fact that some insurance companies pushed customers to sign expensive new policies instead of providing information about the options offered by obama care. with potentially cheaper and better coverage. a talking points memo investigation looked at complaints raised in four states. and one woman in seattle named donna. she was told by her insurance company that a new plan would cost $1,000 a month with a more than $6,000 deductible. she did her homework and went to the marketplace and found herself a plan with a subsidy costing her just $80 a month with a $250 deductible. now, that's a big difference. especially for a family living on a $40,000 a year income. and if you thought you could get
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help in person with a navigator, well, tough luck. while the government spent nearly $70 million to hire men and women to provide in-person assistance with the navigators and the new law signing up, it's a fact 17 states have made it harder or impossible for navigators to meet with people who need their help. according to the commonwealth fund. now, i'm honored to be joined by someone who knows the facts better than anyone, it's iowa senator tom harkin, who is chairman of the senate health committee. >> nice to be with you, karen, thank you. >> so i want to start, you had quite a moment this week where, senator, you pointed out and helped to dispel one of the biggest complaints that we hear from conservatives or from those forces opposing the affordable care act with the excuse that they don't want to have to pay for maternity care costs. can you tell us a little about that? >> well, yeah. we heard, you know, some of the republicans were complaining they got one person who said,
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well, i've got to pay maternity coverage, but my husband and i, we're too old, we're not having anymore children. why should i pay for maternity care? i said, you know, that's like my wife and i, our kids are grown, they no longer go to public schools in our neighborhood, so why should we have to pay our property taxes to pay for the schools? maybe the only parents with kids in school should pay those taxes for the schools. you see, that's what they're missing, that we're all in this together. and we're a better society when we do these things all together. >> and you know, senator, the other thing as i was talking about it and i know you have talked about this a bit, when you sort of dig down past the rhetoric, i mean, we're learning a lot more about the nature of the letters that were sent to people, sometimes giving them misinformation. but also a lot of people don't realize that it's not in terms of figuring out your cost it's not actually just your deductible. there's your out of pocket cost, there's, you know, prescription drugs and all that.
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part of it is just the challenge this is a complicated issue. >> it is. and you were right to cite that case in washington. i read that letter. i personally looked at it and read the letter that was sent out by the blue cross subsidiary in washington state. it was very misleading. very misleading. i don't know if you know this, karen, but in kentucky the insurance commissioner fined humana $65,000 because they had sent out misleading letters to people. true in colorado also. they didn't fine them but had offered an apology and sent letters out to their customers correcting a situation. this is happening all over the country. the other thing that republicans and others are forgetting is that a couple years ago when insurers and the individual and small marketplace, when they read through the obama care and what it was going to do, they then started selling junk policies. >> right. >> junk policies. they knew darn well those pol y
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policies couldn't exist beyond this year. and then what happened is they send these letters out to people saying, guess what, your policy's going to have to be canceled and you're going to have to pay a lot more money because of obama care. >> right. >> but in fact they had policies that were worthless. i have one -- a lot of cases of this. i'm reminded of one in florida where a woman had a policy that only cost her $650 a year. a year. >> right. >> and she was mad because now she's going to have to pay more for a different policy. you know what that $650 covered? it covered the first $50 of hospitalization. >> oh, my goodness. >> what's that ten minutes in the hospital? >> i was going to say can you even get in the door with that. >> it was worthless. in effect she was paying $650 a year to be uninsured. >> so i want to switch gears because i do think there's another issue that you've been a leader on that i think had a good week. and that is an increase in the minimum wage.
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we saw seatac in new jersey, people overwhelmingly supporting an increase in minimum wage to help get the ball rolling. the president had talked about this earlier this year. and from what i've been reading, you seem very hopeful that this is going to get done. >> well, i am hopeful. we've done this in the past. you know, the last time we raised the minimum wage we did it with a bipartisan vote of over 80 senators, republicans and democrats supported it. it's time to raise it again. the raise we are asking for to go to $10.10 is about the same percentage raise as we had the last time we raised it under george bush, who was a republican president. it's sort of in line with what we've done in the past. >> although, senator, i feel like we hear from republicans that if we -- we just can't afford doing something like that. it's going to be a job killer, it will hurt businesses if we do it. instead of thinking about how it might actually put money into the economy because it puts more money in people's pockets. >> absolutely.
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i mean, there is not one scintilla of evidence to show that raising the minimum wage in the past has cost jobs. but there is a lot of evidence to show that when people get paid higher minimum wage -- you're talking low income people. they tend to spend every buck they make. and when they do that -- and they're buying locally, they're shopping locally. it helps the local economy a great deal when you raise the minimum wage. >> senator harkin, i hope you're successful in that effort and thank you for your work in the senator. >> thanks, karen. next, randitis. it's a medical condition most known for the thinning of one's skin. i'm paging you, dr. paul. many cereals say they're good for your heart, but did you know there's a cereal that's recommended by doctors? it's post shredded wheat. recommended by nine out of ten doctors to help reduce the risk of heart disease. post shredded wheat is made with only one ingredient: one hundred percent whole grain wheat, with no added sugar or salt. try adding fruit for more health benefits
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i don't want to be accused of using someone else's material without atri bugs. senator rand paul gave those excuses this week to the national review, abcs this week and the "new york times" all in response to his plagiarism scandal. turns out the senator is kind of thin skinned and that can be a liability when you play as fast and loose with sources as paul does. now, this time his sourcing problem is that he used other people's material without giving them credit, stolen passages in speeches, columns and books have been turning up all week, right up to yesterday. his sourcing problem earlier this year was a little bit different because the source of his information was just garbage. you may remember the benghazi hearings last january. shortly after telling hillary clinton he would have fired her, senator paul mentioned reports which turned out to be crazy conspiracy theories out of the right wing blogosphere about a gun running scheme. it turned up on outlets such as glenn beck's show and that is what rand paul called news. now, dr. paul may still have
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another sourcing problem. the source of his medical certification. according to "the washington post," not only does his credential not come from the american board of optimal gist. not only from something called the national board of apt mall ji but that national board of apthamology, it actually went out of business in 2011. so considering his free use of the truth, senator paul better learn to be more graceful when he gets caught. remember he's always first in line to pass judgment on others. if rand paul thinks he's going to be president and call president obama a liar and fire hillary clinton, he should probably hold himself to the same standard and apologize sincerely for stealing. now, speaking of steal, what do rand paul and contestant from "big brother" have in common? they both plagiarized my guest. dan stewart is reporter of the week and author of rethinking
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mandatory sentencing and the article from which rand paul used several passages verbatim for his own column in "the washington post" called the devastating collateral damage of an insidious drug war. welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> i love this i was plagiarized by rand paul and i don't care. >> that's right. when i found out, i got a call from the buzz feed reporter who got the story. when i found out i said i thought to myself how should i feel about this? should i be angry that the senator has used my work, this guy who's several rungs up the social ladder from me? but i really didn't. i felt kind of indifferent towards it. that's my own experience. i don't want to be apologizing on senator rand's behalf. >> and you did mention that more people actually ended up seeing your article. >> that's right. something about having a u.s. senator -- >> cramp from your stuff. >> right. that brings you a lot of
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attention. so that's great. but it made me think about, you know, as writers when you put things on the internet, you lose some of the expectation of ownership. it's very easy. plagiarizing is so easy these days. >> but let us think it is easy, but i think we have the merriam webster definition of plagiarism, but it is made easier on the internet. plagiarism, the act of using another person's words or ideas without giving credit to that person. i actually last week did a little bit of checking and it's pretty easy to figure out whether you're giving a speech or writing something to still give people credit for their work. >> right. it's the easiest thing in the world. but in today's online world, sometimes you see your work being taken out of context or being quoted at length verdict. and, you know, there's just a single line saying dan stewart wrote this in the week. >> that would be the
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gop-controlled congress seem taken out of context. >> right, of course. and it makes you think about how it is to have those words of difference between that and something like senator paul's done. if in his article he said and dan stewart says, i wouldn't be here right now. i wouldn't be talking to you. it's such an easy thing to do. >> or maybe we would have come to you saying, oh, dan stewart is the brilliant man who wrote that. you never know. the other thing is citing wikipedia ya, i've worked with younger people and tell them you can go to wikipedia to start, but that's not original source material. there's a wikipedia page out on me that says i was born in virginia, which i was not and i can't even change it. as a journalist you don't use wikipedia as a source. >> no, you don't. and publications have a responsibility to making sure what we write is well sourced and we credit the right people. but i do think that if you're a college student and you've grown
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up with free television, free movies, free music, you might think, well, this whole idea of owning intellectual property is a little old fashioned. >> it does strike me if you think you're going to run for president this level of scrutiny is nothing compare today what happens in a presidential campaign. >> absolutely. you know, most college students do know that it's not right. and so, yeah, you'd hope that someone with aspirations to be a leader within their party will have an idea about that. >> just sayin. and if not i think he's probably learned his lesson now that even "the washington post" has dropped him. thanks so much, dan stewart, for joining me. >> you're welcome. >> that does it for me. thanks so much for joining us. please don't forget to share your thoughts. find us on facebook and tweet us. i will see you right back here tomorrow afternoon.
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