In the run-up to the speech, media outlets reported that the speech would center on drones and Guantanamo prison; however, President Obama saved the issue of the 166 detainees for the end of his speech;

I once again call on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from Gitmo. I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I am appointing a new, senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries. I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries. Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and military justice system. And we will insist that judicial review be available for every detainee.

President Obama’s statements were contradictory. He blamed Congress for halting transfers, but announced he would be lifting the ban on transfers to Yemen, which is a self-imposed policy. “The idea that he has lifted the ban on returning Yemenis to Yemen is something you can’t give him too much credit for because he’s the one who put that in place,” said attorney David Remes, who represents 17 of the current prisoners at Gitmo, 14 of whom are Yemeni.  “It’s a meaningless statement. At the same time he’s saying Congress has tied his hands,” added Remes.  In an earlier conversation with MSNBC, Remes spoke of the needed action regarding the 56 cleared Yemeni detainees; “[Obama] cannot make meaningful progress without sending the Yemenis home…they all want to reunite with their families and rebuild their lives.”

While the appointment of a new envoy to oversee transfers is a step forward, it is mostly a symbolic one until prisoners start leaving Guantanamo.  That announcement also comes close on the heels of the closure of the  State Department’s office that served the same purpose, suggesting that the renewed spotlight due to the hunger strike may have forced the administration to retrace steps. The president’s remarks echoed much of what he said in 2009 when he called for the closing of the prison, citing its expenses, damage to the country’s reputation, and unjust practices.  “This is what he did in 2009 and everybody thought that the Guantanamo issue was over.  Everybody thought Guantanamo was closing and had been closed and simply fell out of public consciousness for four years or more and then it took this horrible hunger strike,” added Remes. “And now he’s put it away again.” Back in 2009, Obama announced he was ordering a review of all 240 Gitmo cases, 69% of those prisoners remain in Guantanamo.

The president concluded his statement on the detention facility by saying,

Even after we take these steps, one issue will remain: how to deal with those Gitmo detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks, but who cannot be prosecuted–for example because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. But once we commit to a process of closing Gitmo, I am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved, consistent with our commitment to the rule of law.

Those words are another endorsement of indefinite detention. In spite of the president’s calls for judicial process, he couched what is being hailed as a resumption of transfers with the option to continue holding prisoners regardless of evidence.  “We needed to hear [Obama] also make the case under the existing authority he has under the NDAA,” said Pardiss Kebriaei, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, on All in w/ Chris Hayes.  President Obama “said transfers will resume under the extent possible, we needed to hear him say now,” she continued. “He has said the right thing before.”

While the president referred to the ongoing hunger strike, he made no mention of the Joint Detention Group’s (JDG) treatment of prisoners.  Since the start of the hunger strike in February, guards at Guantanamo have removed prisoners’ basic necessities, interfered with sleep and prayer, and have recently begun conducting invasive searches whenever prisoners leave their cells in Camp 5 or Camp 6 to receive phone calls or meet with their attorneys in Camp Echo or Camp Delta.

Wednesday evening attorneys for Saeed Mohammed Saleh Hatim filed an emergency motion, with more than 10 addition legal teams joining, concerning prisoners’ access to counsel. The motion contends that these intrusive searches “which involves touching and holding a detainee’s genitals and buttocks” prevent legal counsel and that the “government had previously recognized that such searches offend and humiliate Islamic detainees and had banned them at Guantanamo.”

The president’s statements echoed 2009. Will his actions be different?

The president’s speech followed Attorney General Eric Holder’s release of a letter to congressional leaders in which the U.S. government, for the first time, acknowledged that it had killed four American citizens overseas.

In his speech, President Obama argued that although drone strikes had resulted in civilian casualties, they constituted a “course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life.”

Still, The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti told the panel that experts were divided about the efficacy of the drone program.

“There is certainly concern in the intelligence community that drone strikes are having a radicalizing effect, radicalizing people who would not otherwise have been so inclined to carry out terrorist attacks, Mazzetti said. “The question is, are the actions, the operations themselves creating possible new terrorists and possibly increasing the threat?”

Alex Wagner, who has been outspoken in her criticism of the White House’s counterterrorism policies, applauded the administration’s decision to be more forthcoming about its targeted killing program, calling it a “big step.” Not everyone on the panel agreed.

“I think you’re being generous in saying the president acknowledging what we all already know to be true is a big step,” said MSNBC.com Executive Editor Richard Wolffe. “I think the president is trying to make himself look great by imposing what are, in fact, minimal controls and transparency on this program.”

This year the magazine wrote that it chose women that go “beyond the traditional taxonomy of the power elite.”

The influential women hail from seven categories or power bases: billionaires, business, lifestyle, media, nonprofits and NGOs, politics, and technology. Forbes applied money, media presence, and impact to determine the rank within each category.

Several U.S. leaders made the annual list, including first lady Michelle Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Chairman of the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group Bonnie Hammer, author J.K. Rowling, New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust, designer Tory Burch, singer Beyonce Knowles, and comedian Ellen DeGeneres were also recognized as powerful women.

The winners were selected from a preliminary group of more than 250 candidates from around the world.

Are you making things happen like these women? Join the conversation and tweet us your brilliant ideas on today’s topics to #AfternoonMoJoe.

“Isn’t fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?” LaPierre said in a press conference on December 21, 2012. “In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes—every minute of every day of every month of every year.” LaPierre called out the “blood-soaked slasher films” of “American Psycho”and “Natural Born Killers” as specific offenders.

As it turns out, shoot-em-ups like “The Terminator,” “Die Hard” and “Zombieland” get the NRA stamp of approval. The pro-gun group offered up a surprise plot twist of its own by posting a list of the “coolest gun movies” on its affiliated website, American Rifleman.

While it notes the “inaccuracies in Hollywood films featuring firearms,” the top 10 list praises these movies for influencing gun purchases and making gun enthusiasts “think about situations for which we should be prepared.”

Lessons to be learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character and others in “The Terminator”? “In addition to introducing the mainstream world to laser sights on an AMT Hardballer Longslide in .45 ACP,” wrote magazine’s associate online editor Paul Rackley, “the movie featured an Ithaca Model 37 with an extended magazine, carried by Reese (played by Michael Biehn), an IMI Uzi and numerous other firearms. This movie made shooters realize the importance of firepower, and that preparedness might be needed in the future.”

The NRA publication admired “Die Hard” for its portrayal of a crime-fighting cop. “With awesome explosions and one-liners, Bruce Willis fostered those dreams as Sgt. John McClane in ‘Die Hard,’ with a Beretta 92F and a limited number of rounds,” the website read. “While few of us actually followed through and became police officers, which is probably best since this is very untypical in the life of most law enforcement officers, this movie reminds us that good can triumph over evil with skill, training, determination and a few well-placed shots. Yippee-ki-yay.”

The films “Red Dawn,” “The Alamo,” “The Godfather,” “The Matrix,” “The Delta Force,” “The Road Warrior” and “Tremors” also made the cut.

Joe Scarborough: I lived in Mississippi and Alabama for a decade so I grew up understanding the devastating power of tornadoes. Thirty years of living along Florida’s Gulf Coast exposed me to too many hurricanes. But nothing I saw growing up and in the news business other than Hurricane Katrina prepared me for the devastation that awaited us in Moore, Oklahoma last night.

MB: We arrived in Moore, Okla. in the middle of the night. One of our senior producers, Jesse Rodriguez, located a position just outside the Moore Medical Center, across the street from what had been a quiet residential neighborhood yesterday morning. The storm had reduced it to rubble.

The medical center in Moore, Okla. (Louis Burgdorf/Morning Joe)

MB: Our team of Morning Joe producers is a small group, and we all hustled. We swallowed our horror as reports filtered in about the lost children and casualty reports. The Medical Center was reduced to its concrete and steel framework, with debris still flying through now-empty window frames. Across the street, homes had been ripped off their foundations and scattered in different directions by the 200-mile-per-hour winds. Tornado damage is known for being indiscriminate, but with a mile-wide twister, the storm ravaged wide areas. There was no luck of the draw. Every house in the neighborhood was destroyed.

Moore, Okla. (Photo by Louis Burgdorf/Morning Joe)

JS: As we drove into town, we feared that the death toll estimate—at the time, 51—was optimistic. Law enforcement officers and rescue vehicles filled the streets. Dozens were feared missing and dead at the elementary school.

Moore, Okla. (Photo by Louis Burgdorf/Morning Joe)

MB: I found myself fixated on one room of a house that remained partially intact.  It had a little girl’s CDs, a mirror, and a butterfly-shaped lamp. The girl’s closet door had been ripped away, but all of her dresses were still lined up perfectly, hanging exactly where she put them. It was a haunting reminder of how precious the simple things in life can be and how ruthless a twister’s wrath often is. This one was a wretched, cruel monster.

JS: As we were finishing our third hour on air, Moore, Okla.’s mayor told us that he expected the casualty count to hold steady. He reported that the city’s fire department had accounted for every citizen in town. Only four people were still missing. We were relieved to hear such good news.

Scarborough and Brzezinski on location in Moore, Okla. (Photo by Louis Burgdorf/Morning Joe)

JS: An hour later, reports came that the death toll had been lowered to 24. We mourn the loss of those Americans, and are heartbroken by the tragic deaths of seven children who lost their lives inside Plaza Towers Elementary School, but we know the death count could have been so much higher given the severity of the storm. We thank God that so many were spared and we’re grateful that school teachers, employers, first responders and concerned citizens moved so quickly to save the lives of those around them.

Moore, Okla. (Photo by Louis Burgdorf/Morning Joe)

As of 11 a.m. ET, there had been more than 64,000 mentions of the #PrayForOklahoma hashtag across Twitter, according to Topsy.com.

]]> http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/21/prayforoklahoma-survivors-politicians-share-stories-and-support/feed/ 0 Image: caramaresca http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/20/journalism-is-heading-for-gop-style-problems-says-chideya/ http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/20/journalism-is-heading-for-gop-style-problems-says-chideya/#comments Tue, 21 May 2013 01:33:22 +0000 Collier Meyerson http://tv.msnbc.com/?p=143213 ]]> In her most recent piece for The Nation, acclaimed journalist Farai Chideya critiques the American news media’s lack of diversity: ”We are witnessing the resegregation of the American media.” According to the American Society of News Editors survey, minority newsroom positions dropped by 5.7%. MSNBC sat down with Chideya to further discuss the problems and glean some possible solutions.

How is news covered? If there are fewer people of color in newsrooms, does the nature of the news change? Chideya thinks the problem is more about the network news outlets’ intentions.

“What I see happening in media is not always caused by a lack of diversity, but rather a certain set of (flawed) assumptions, underlying business decisions that include not giving a whit about diversity. The media companies know they can make more, oftentimes, from catering to niche interest audiences: senior citizens and the near-senior Boomers are the bulk of network news audience. Rather than diversifying how they covered news, the networks began doubling down on issues like medical care, which are very popular with that demographic. There’s nothing wrong with covering medicine. But now network news is increasingly irrelevant to most people, including younger people and people of color. As a consequence of that type of thinking, reporters of color often find it hard to cover stories that are not as ‘mainstream.’”

However “irrelevant” network news may appear to vast swaths of the country, there is no denying its influence on cultural tones and trends. Journalists have clout and so it’s no surprise that the field is difficult for any aspiring news person to break through. Given the current climate, is there a way to address the media’s racial imbalance? Chideya emphasized the need for people of color to acquire technical skills.  ”As far as individual journalists are concerned— multimedia skills will make you employable. Learn all you can about slideshows; video editing; audio editing; and simple coding…And don’t be afraid to leave and come back, or multitask. In addition to being a journalist I’ve worked in tech and currently teach as well.”

There is scant attention being made to introduce technical skills to fledgling journalists of color. Programs like Black Girls Code and NPR’s Youth Radio are successfully ushering youth of color into viable jobs in tech and journalism. The moral imperative of programs like these is easy to understand, but what is the economic pay-off? And, what is the economic advantage of hiring journalists of color?

“First of all, it appears that journalism may be creating for itself GOP-style problems.  For instance, in the 2012 election, Latinos and African-Americans found the GOP message–and its messengers–so unappealing that there was a record-breaking turnout with black voting rates surpassing white rates; while Latinos voted for the GOP in much smaller numbers than they voted for George W. Bush. If this lack of diversity in journalism is ignored, the profession may marginalize itself and become unable to serve our purpose for our present audience, let alone the future audience.”

In 2013, the census counted more babies of color born in this country than white. By 2050, this country will have people of color in the majority. It is of economic interest to media outlets to begin to hire more people of color. Their issues will soon dominate the news cycle.

Chideya opens her piece by lamenting the lack of diversity in a CNN promotional graphic. It begs the question: who are the journalists of color to watch? Chideya names a few and then retorts, “There are so many, it’s hard to list. Might be a good one for you to crowdsource. Ask people to add favorites to their list.”

We oblige. Who are your favorite journalists of color?

Chideya is working on a crowdsourced book about women in technology. To find out more about it visit her indigogo site.

The revelation that the DOJ would classify a journalist as an un-indicted co-conspirator under the 1917 Espionage Act is “even a bigger deal” than the department’s seizure of Associated Press  phone records, said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

“A line has been crossed that has always been a very critical bulwark,” Wizner said to MSNBC. “That’s the line between government leakers and media publishers.” No journalist has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act,which has traditionally “only been used against those who gave or sold secrets to the enemy.”

The DOJ targeted Rosen because he allegedly received classified information from Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a security adviser at the State Department. According to the DOJ affidavit, Rosen cultivated Kim as a source “[m]uch like an intelligence officer would run a clandestine intelligence source.” But civil liberties advocates argue that Rosen was only doing what investigative reporters are supposed to do.

“Gathering information from sources is a basic tenet of good reporting, and criminalizing or threatening to criminalize the news-gathering process is a direct assault on the First Amendment and press freedom,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Trevor Timm, who also heads the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “We’ve been saying for years that this type of ‘conspiracy to commit espionage’ theory is incredibly dangerous for reporters.”

Last week, the DOJ revealed that it had obtained two months’ worth of the AP’s phone records as part of a leak investigation. While the phone records acquisition was unprecedented in its scope, AP journalists were not accused of committing espionage. Nonetheless, the DOJ’s investigations into both the AP and Fox News fit into a broader pattern of secrecy within the Obama administration.

Such aggressive tactics may have a chilling effect that will make it more difficult to reporters to inform the public, critics warn. On Sunday, AP’s president and CEO said that sources had already become more reluctant to speak to his reporters since the news of the DOJ’s phone record surveillance broke.

“Our democracy relies on unauthorized as well as authorized communication between government and the press,” said Wizner. If reporters who print unauthorized leaks are going to be accused of espionage, “it doesn’t mean there won’t be conversations; it means only the official version will be transmitted.”

Fox News executive vice president Michael Clemente roundly condemned the DOJ’s tactics in a statement.

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter,” he said. “In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

At a Monday press briefing, White House spokesperson Jay Carney said he would not comment on an ongoing investigation.

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For President Obama, April was a month full of highs and lows, from the aftermath of the Boston bombings and West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion to meeting Jackie Robinson’s widow Rachel Robinson and reuniting with his fellow presidents at the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas.

White House Photographer Pete Souza released a series of photos from April full of his favorites from the month to flickr on Monday.

Check them out and let us know which ones you enjoy most.

The DOJ disclosed last week that it had secretly acquired two months’ worth of AP phone records as part of an investigation into unauthorized leaks to the press. Thousands of news gathering calls were made during the two months. The secret subpoena included more than 20 phone toll records of reporters’ and editors’ cell, home, and office numbers.

“I think that it will hurt journalism,” Gary Pruitt told Bob Schieffer on CBS’ Face the Nation. “Already, officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of news gathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us. They fear that they will be monitored by the government.”

Last year the AP learned that the government had thwarted an al-Qaida plot to place a bomb on a plane headed to the United States on the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, Pruitt said. When the AP asked the government about the information, officials told the news service to hold the story because of a national security risk. After five days of not releasing the article, high officials told the AP the national security issues had passed.

The AP released the story, but the White House wanted it held another day to announce the successful foiling of the plot, which wasn’t a “legitimate” reason to halt publication, Pruitt said.

“If they restrict that news gathering apparatus, you’re right, the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know. And that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment.”

AP journalists don’t question the right to conduct similar investigations, but the DOJ handled it poorly, he said.

“The actions are unconstitutional,” Pruitt said.

When the DOJ in 2009 began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea, officials used security badge access records to track a reporter’s actions within the State Department. Investigators traced the timing of calls made by the journalist who was suspected of receiving the secret material. They also obtained a search warrant for the individual’s personal emails.

Last week more than 50 media companies signed a letter of protest to the attorney general requesting a strong federal shield law to protect reporters and their news-gathering materials in a court of law.