>> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm david shuster, here are the top stories we are following - president obama and the first family headed to hawaii, set to spend 17 days there on holiday vacation. thee flew on marine 1 before boarding air force one for the trip to hawaii. >> a federal judge ruled that utah's same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional: salt lake county is issues marriage licences to same-sex couples. >> there was a ruling in canada

on efferents to stop prostitution. canada's supreme court voted to stop bans on brothels and street sollistation saying they compromise the safety of sex workers. the decision will take effect in a year. the big apple is getting in the holiday spirit with help from the empire state building. it is putting on its first christmas light show ever. the finale is set for christmas eve. >> those are the headlines, "consider this" is up next. you can get the latest news online at aljazeera.com. >> president obama took to the podium today to give the white house press corps a postmore tell on the year.

but what start ed as a look back quickly became a discussion of his biggest failures. "consider this identity is twir 14 look -- 2014 looking any better? utah has allowed same sex marriage to gay and lesbian couples. we'll talk to the clerk who started it all. and remember the comuns of the 60s and 70s? a surprising number of them are still around today. hello i'm antonio mora. we begin with president obama's final press conference of 2013. >> has this been the worst year of your presidency? >> the question quickly dodged but it largely set the tone for a barrage on the nsa, iran, the winter olympics and of course obamacare. >> you know what they say it's the most wonderful press conference of the year.

i firmly believe that 2014 can be a break through year for america. >> for more i'm joined by james warren, the washington, d.c. bureau chief for the new york daily news. he joins us from our studio in chicago, illinois and michael roy, in los angeles tonight. great to have you on the show. the press conference had the feel of let's get 2013 over and head to hawaii. the president's approval rating has been at an all time low. 56% of americans disproving of approving. do you think this press conference helped at all, michael? >> i can't say absolutely that it helped. reading the transcript, watching the president, like you said in your open, antonio, it seemed like he had half of his body already on the plane to hawaii. what dit do was round out a --

it did do was round out a bad year for the president but it didn't leave with a great amount of swagger. one of the telling take aways for me was a small item, when he talked about adding john podesta to the white house, the clear message is communication -- >> his dealing with the white house press corps which is an issue all along. there is an antagonistic discussion behind the scenes. they asked him about his roftion and he said to be nicer to the press corps. >> and i said i would lose weight this year. the fact that the president didn't make any definitive answers to the nsa question only

tabled it to january. closing the year by the fact that the economy got better. there wasn't any bombshell about this. >> let's talk about the nsa, he was asked about the federal judge's decision where the united states failed to give an analysis in which the metmetadatastopped any terroris. >> it's possible for example that some of the same information that the intelligence community feels is required to keep people safe can be obtained by having the private phone companies keep these records longer, and to create some mechanism where they can be accessed in an effective fashion. people right now are concerned. that maybe their phone calls are

being listened to, even if they're not and we've got to factor that in. >> of course none of this would have happened jim without edward snowden. the president said he would make some sort of definitive statement what they were going to do about the program in january, what do you think will come of it? what will he recommend? >> i think this included the notion that this panel several of high schoo whom are buddies, long term buddies of president obama, 63,000 word report, 46 recommendations unanimously held by a rather eclectic group of former snoops, civil liberty academics, several high ranking cia officials, rearts significant recommendation -- rather significant

recommendations, they agreed on them. according to the source of mine who may or may not be one of the people on the panel, who sat down and mountain with the president i think in the situation room, he made quite clear that he is inclined to be very sympathetic to a good many of those. a real sex 801, the metadata, the collection of our phone records, despite what people may think, the nsa, according to my data, who may or may not be one of those five people, made clear to them in their discussions in their investigation that they would basically be pretty cool with that, they wouldn't have a huge problem. there are a lot of other things that will be push back from the nsa when it comes to their jurisdiction but on that i suspect the presidential will go along -- president will go along along. >> the president

was questioned, sort of float that as a possibility and the president kind of avoided it saying he'd leave it to the courts. and to the attorney general. do you think it's realistic, is this something that's actually being talked about? >> well i mean it's certainly being talked about outside the office of the attorney general, outside the white house. but i actually don't think it's real ink right now. i don't think he wants to pull focus to another controversial move. this would anger not only republicans but democrats as well. pulling focus on something not the president's agenda is not what he wants to do now. these are across the board. last year at the press conference he said we are definitely going to have gun allocation. legislation. that didn't happen.

he was resolute that there would be something pretty definitive about the nsa, how can something definitive be definitive? i don't think he wants to bring attention to another issue. >> to michael's point, the pet did say he had hope for the country in the new year, 2014 needs to be a year of action, he's hopeful in the economy, budget deal is a good sign, mentioned immigration. what do you think? >> given at least some of this rapprochement between the republicans and democrats do you think he'll get things done this year? >> i think a couple of things. first of all he's a lame duck, the conventional wisdom would be, in the second term you got the first 18, 20 months to get stuff done and after that come those elections and then everybody is thinking about the next presidential election who is going to run on each side. so he probably has a pretty good sense of that.

at the same time, as someone who helped edit the best obama biography so far, came to the notion that obama has already operated with certainly a different sense of time of the political class and the media class. whether it was the way he decided to run his presidential campaign in some cases tactically against some top aids, or don't ask don't tell, he waited a few years and then got it through, on a couple of matters, notably immigration, there's a sense on his part that timing will be next year, republican leadership led by john boehner to get something done. they know ultimately if they want to win the white house

again in our lifetimes that they can't keep alienate be. yes, two quick things he'll get through next year. >> is the big thing on iran facing rebellion in congress, the iran yants say more -- the iranians say if more sanctions then forget pit. >> the president will speak to leadership after the holiday break and he's going osay we cannot do this now. that's something about which he is going to be resolute is fighting this because he doesn't want to undo this six month window he has now. if iran is saying that i believe the president believes them. >> the president was on the defensive again, that he will absolutely keep in that americans buy insurance. but just near the deadline,

another sanction, assuressers not happ insuressers nothappy about that. >> shuj amount of fodder. the primary reason poll ratings have gone down. but at the same time he notes website problems are lessened. more and more people are signing up. i think critical constituency to look at are the insurance companies. they are in it for the money. they know particularly, they got to get a lot of young people to sign up or they're going to have to jack up folks' premium something fierce. there's a firm bedrock belief on his part guide what he acknowledged, he used the word screw up, is that in the long term to pull this off,

ultimately it is better than the alternative which is an awful status quo that all of us know ultimately is simply too costly. >> we're going to take a closer look at obamacare, jim, michael glad to have you join us. >> thank you antonio. sarah, she is in washington, d.c. tonight sarah great to have you with us. i loved your last article about all this. is it fair to say that the underlying message there was that it still is just total confusion about where we are with obamacare? >> it is. you know it is a complex insurance marked we have in the utters and that makes it very, very difficult to tell in january had the coverage expansion starts where we'll actually get a net gain or net loss of private insurance. the folks i talked to are a pretty confident that we'll we'll be at a net gain in january but it's hard to know. that's one of the things that's

difficult for the obama administration here that they are going to make the case this is an expansion and a lot of people are getting benefits, you'll have a lot of stories from people who had their coverage cancelled and have trouble accessing the services they had in the past. >> it's not clear on january 1 whether we'll have more people with insurance than fewer? >> we'll probably have more people with coverage, the reason i make that distinction is medicaid has seen robust enrollment. 3.9 million people have been found eligible for that program and will be enrolling. >> that's the issue though sarah, those not signing up for private insurance doesn't that create economic issues for obamacare? >> it's hard to say, they don't get the choice between the two programs. it's essentially how much you earn determines whether you go insurance. it is not if people are deciding

on pled caid instead. what we are saying is that medicaid which does not have a premium and is a public program, is a more robust program. that makes sense, it's easier for people to sign up for something that is not a monthly premium, where they're not going to have to pay for the program. >> cancelled policies and plans, can't find something more affordable all of a sudden now they are going to be allowed to get catastrophic insurance. >> that's right. that's what was announced last night by the white house, these folks who had their policies cancelled will essentially go without coverage and not face a penalty. it's really one of the biggest and perhaps only cracks we've seen in the mandate that we've seen from the obama administration, that the white house has been adamant that the ability to buy coverage is really important to get the young healthy people to sign up. one thing health economists will

watch with this delay is the young people who have had their policies cancelled that they decide to sit out the marketplace and whether that raises premiums for everyone else. >> this is what the president had to say friday at his final press conference of 2013. >> what we're talking about is a very specific population that received cancellation notices from insurance companies. the majority of them are either keeping their old plan, because the grandfather clause has been extended further or they're finding a better deal, a significantly smaller subset than some of the numbers that have been advertised, that are still looking for options. >> so he's making it sound like it's not a big deal. the whrows will say fewer than 500,000 people will enter the news year with their policies cancelled.

where do these cracks end up breaking the whole thing? >> that's an interesting question and one thing i think we'll all be watching very closely early this next year. one point health economists have made, the people who are receiving cancellation notices that they will likely buy some kind of coverage. these are people who decided it was worth it to buy insurance before there was a mandate. so they think it is likely these people will continue to buy coverage. the question is, are the premiums affordable, do they think they can get a good deal in the new health care marketplace. actually it's a lot more expensive so i'm going ogo for a year and maybe risk the possibility of not having shealt insurance coverage. >> now are insurance companies are not happy with this change. health care better and cheaper,

65% thought by 2020 that health care will be better. 93% thought their own institution would improve. knife% thought would reduce cost by 11 11.5%. i guess one question that comes up is, wouldn't they have said the same thing had obamacare not been in place, that in ten years things would be better? >> that's a good points. one thing about the affordable care act that doesn't get a lot of attention is that actually half of the law is a lot of really big changes to the medicare program, the way that medicare which covers those over 65 pays for coverage. and what the healthcare law does is it startle dozens of experiments for paying doctors for value of the care they provide. giving doctors more money for providing better kay and that's a big shift how we pay doctors right now, where we just pay for

each service provided regardless whether it makes somebody healthier or not. that's a big change to the health care system. one key question is do these little experiments scale up and become a force of change or will they force experiments and not make a big change how we pay for health care here? >> a very important question and we'll have to wait for the answer to that. sarah cliff from the washington post, thank you for doing this for us. >> thank you. >> next, the supreme court many in mexico, we'll talk to the county clerk who started it all. and our associate producer hermella aregawi, what's trending? >> documents of college students a break. i'll tell you more coming up. what do you think? join the conversation at twitter, @aj consider this.

>> evey sunday night, join us for exclusive, revealing, and suprizing talks with the most interesting people of our time. this sunday, >> i spent my whole life thinking about themes and thinking about how to structure movies, so this is highly unusual. >> the director of the sixth sense, says there are five things we can do to fix education in america >> the united states has education apartheid, that's the facts... >> talk to al jazeera with m. night shayamalan sunday at 7et / 4pt on al jazeera america

>> ten years ago, not a single state in the country recognized same-sex marriages. on thursday, new mexico became the 17th state to legalize them. the new mexico state ruling came months after clerks took the issue into their own hands, issuing licenses to people of the same sex. the man who start id it all is lirn ellins, a county clerk at dona ana county. he joined us back in august and he joins us now from las cruces, new mexico.

you must feel vindicated. >> you're the second person who asked me this. i don't feel vindicated bought i didn't have a vendetta. i'm satisfied that my decision has been affirmed at the high court. i got some criticism but the overwhelming majority of response that i got was totally favorable. i didn't expect that, but that's what happened and that was very satisfying as well. >> now what does it mean for new mexico? people can start getting married now immediately? >> oh yes. the ruling was immediate. in fact, the court came down with its decision at 11:00 yesterday. and those county clerks that were not issuing licenses up until then began to issue them yesterday. there was no time requirement set forth, i.t. just said go ahead -- it just said go ahead and do it, many of them have today.

>> there is still some major opposition. republican state senator bill sherer is trying to move to amend the constitution and repeal, do you think it will succeed? >> i think it's a totally bad idea. you don't put minority rights up to the vote of the majority. if we had done that back in virginia some years ago when the supreme court said that interracial marriage had to be permitted under the constitution, that had been put to the vote of the people in virginia it would have passed it would have been forbidden. >> it is a still divisive issue. a county clerk in your region resigned because they didn't want to issue same sex licenses.

>> i heard that, that a county clir resigned, because of their religion beliefs they could not in good faith issue those licenses and i respect that decision. >> eight counties were already processing same sex licenses in new mexico before the supreme court decision. do you think that could be a strategy used in other states, or was this because new mexico's constitution was unique, and you believed it allowed you to do this? >> well, the eight counties that are at issue, three including my county did it voluntarily, i was the first county. this is a strategy that i know has been attempted by a county clerk in pennsylvania. he began issuing licenses but he was enjoined by one of the pennsylvania district courts. so whether this is a strategy that is successful or not i think depends on the state in which you are in. >> lynn ellins, county

clerk of dona ana county in new mexico, we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> as new mexico, uganda's passed a law that makes it illegal for same sex marriage. we are joined by matthew breen and by academy award winner ross adams, god loves uganda, on a shortly list for 2014 academy awards for best documentary. they had talked about the death penalty for homosexual acts. they now passed life in prison. this is actually something supported 50 people of uganda. >> at the very, very popular by

the people of uganda. i think 97% of the people of uganda want this law and they got it. but it's all fueled by the churches in uganda. >> i want to get to that in a moment. but how do they justify this? >> they justify this, they say that gay people recruit children. so they equate homosexuality with being a pedophile, with is absurd and ridiculous but that is their justification. >> a parliamentarian named david bahadi said that parliament showed courage. let's see what they say? >> i want to protect our marriages to defend our culture and to defend future of our children.

>> matthew, why this kind of ignorance? i understand different cultures have different beliefs but that they would be saying something like this? >> to the accident that there is a culture war in the united states that certain evangelicals have lost. like the family that have felt that they have lost their turf in the united states, so they exported. they found a new mission from god, to take their very homophobic views, very antigay views and to use gawn uh ga uganda as a testing ground. >> there musting be a fertile ground for them to do that. do you think a country that has tens of millions of people that they can be that influential? >> they can be that influential. but there's been a basis for

this sort of export of a born-again culture since the 1930s, in rwanda and uganda. it's a base i of this sort of impulse. >> that's what your documentary is about, you focus on what's going on in uganda with evangelical missionaries. >> absolutely, scott lively went there and addressed the parliament for five hours about the threat of homosexuality. homosexuals purpose was to destroy democracy. you had lou who went there, i interviewed him, he is totally frustrate they'd they are losing the culture war but they're winning it in uganda, it is a very susceptible population.

>> this is not just happening in uganda but other places. >> people are talking about russia in advance of the sochi olympics. >> but it's a problem across africa. they reported amnesty international, homosexuality is outlawed in 38 african countries. is it inherent to the culture there? i guess the reality is prejudice against homosexuals examine exists in almost every culture. >> there is. there is a wave of antihomosexuality passing across the country. in tanzania, fueled by american evangelicalles evangelicals who go in there with these ideas that they are

that -- >> that is so unnecessary because homosexuality was illegal in many of these countries already. >> but it seems to be devil's advocate, it seems that 38 countries making this illegal, some as extreme as uganda giving life imprisonment for homosexual acts, that there isn't enough american evangelicals to create this kind of hatred for homosexuals. >> a lot of this attitude you see in places that have a colonial heritage. i'm not versed enough in what the colonial attitude is fertile ground for this hate but it seems like there's a correlation and a very strong one. >> what americans represent, wealth and power and money, and americans weren't the colonial

power there, weren't the british in uganda, and wave a lot of power and they're bringing in money, and that money talks. >> and again as you sort of say matthew, this is not just africa, russia has got a lot of attention because of their antigay laws over the past year and their controversy for the sochi olympics, what americans should or shouldn't do when they go to the olympics, this is a problem in a lot of other countries. >> it is. i see hope in india and in australia, which recently overruled its laws allowing for same sex marriage because there's herrera been transition in some of those areas. it was legal in some of those areas for a time, it was legal in australia for a time. it's hard to come back from that.

we saw from prop 8 it in -- in california it was hard to come back from that. i have hope for lots of places around the world, new zealand just legalized same sex marriage. >> we're still seeing 78 countries where they've got penalties that include hard labor, whipping and stoning for homosexuality. i am sure it is a battle you still intend to fight and we appreciate you coming in to talk about it tonight. roger ross williams and matthew breen. let's check in with hermella. >> on friday, new jersey became the first state that undocumented citizens to pay the same tuition as undocumen regular citizens of new jersey.

out of state tuition can be up to $14,000 more expensive than in-state tuition. al isn't happy of this. american born citizens from different states can't even get in-state tuition in a different state. cody sees a benefit, it provides an opportunity to increase revenue for the state. you can read more at @consider this, al jazeera.com. >> the

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is. >> communes promised what sounded like an capitulates. in the

60s, large numbers of people on big pieces of land. however many didn't last, an american commune, airing on sunday at 9:00 eastern on al jazeera. >> we knew where water came from when we were growing up and we did every single thing from scratch. >> we use our resources uneconomically, so we learned how to make soy milk. >> if you are treated well, you will have a good flavor from that that will last you a lifetime. >> we were instilled with the idea that it was our responsibility to grow up and change the world . >> why are communes coming back? let's ask the producer of the

piece, and her mom. a former resident of that communal. jan, explain to people what was life like on that commune? >> we were young. idealistic and started basically building a town in the middle of nowhere from scratch. >> how hard was it? >> we worked hard. there was no sort of lazy hippies did not apply. we were out to change the world starting from the square-inch field. >> what were you hoping to be? >> we were basically hoping to live in the righteous way, get off the grid, be more healthy, kind of change -- we were coming from leave it to beaver culture. the

hippie commune, be more healthy, take pack some of the things that were taken away from us, like the birth and death, have them be more close to us. >> move away from a lot of the modern changes. >> yeah, in a way. >> rena you grew up on that one, in that commune in rural tennessee and then you left when you were 13. you hid that, after that, for years, why were you embarrassed? >> i would say that coming from a commune, we moved to los angeles in the mid '80s, was pretty much moving from a different country, like being an alien, so wasn't something that my peers could understand. so yeah, for a long time my sister nadine mundo who is the co-director of the film both of us really did not talk about it

for a very long time until we really started making the film. >> why do you think this one didn't work out? jan? why did this commune fail? >> i don't know if it really did fail. it grew from 250 people, 300 people to 1500 people. and we learned how to do so many things and made our mark on culture today. so it changed in structure. and i think people went when they were very long, we had a charismatic teacher, our leader, and as people grew more independent and knew more about the world from being 20 to mid and late 30s that they started to want to take things into their own hands more. so i think some of it was that. and that we had resisted, that

our teacher had resisted outside help as far as organization or financial plans that might help. so -- >> failure might have been the wrong word to use but certainly rena our researchers found that there are hundreds of communes that have survived at least, kept live, out there today hundreds by the research we've done. how widespread are they? are they all over the country? >> i don't know about really -- i mean i'm not an expert on how many communes there are. but i was recently reading, i think there was actually a new york times article on the resurgence of communes in san francisco. but they're sort of tech communes. so they're not -- they're sort of like using technology to facilitate the communal experience. one was talking about how they use apps for everything so they're not sitting around the table with 40 people arguing

over who did the dishes but they're signing up for the app and it's done so it's interesting. >> it's a different kind. there are a bunch of stereotypes about the communes of the past. the new york times paraphrased saying, communal living is a dangerous petrie dish of occasional spurts of violence. that's a false stereotype? rena? >> i think so. i think so. i mean, you know, the stereotypes are stereotypes and i think that nadine and i really wanted to tell a story, and make a film that was a little bit more nuanced. and you know if you look at a lot of what our parents were doing at that time really sowed the seeds for a lot of the more progressive things today,

organic farming and midwifery. i think they're stereotypes. >> jan has a point. the communes have had a influence on things that are mainstream now. >> there concerned whole foods, or tons of brands, the midwifes, helping birthing mothers, a lot of kids, rena's age kids, rena's age young adults are wanting to go back to the land and wanting to join together and get off the grid and be more healthy and just have that control of their lives. >> was it a good thing for your family? >> i think so. i mean they were exposed to just being on the land, and being with other people, and having extended families.

and then with modern culture in this country they've moved away from that so i think people yearn for that, that collective spirit to do things together. >> and rena we only have about 20 seconds back. how do you feel about it? was it a good thing for you? >> i think so. yeah, it was. it gave me a completely different perspective. it was such a different way of existing, i feel like in a lot of ways i've lived in another country. i feel like i've had the experience of being able to look at our current culture, it was different for me. >> that different experience will be seen on american commune. seen sun night. the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @aj consider this.

>> since i'm in charge, obviously we screwed it up. >> president obama addresses the health care rollout and what else went wrong and right this year in a last scheduled news conference for 2013. >> the conflict in south sudan is getting worse. tens of thousands are trying to escape the violence. >> overturned - a federal judge ruled utah's same-se marriage ban is