president obama kicked off his second term last night with his state of the union address but does his vision for the u.s. match the reality of what's going on in america that's one question will ask next. and will they or won't they chuck hagel faces a vote before the senate to become the next secretary of defense but his nomination has not been an easy process if confirmed what can we expect for the new man who will lead the pentagon. and its back to the cybersecurity bill cispa has returned from the graveyard we'll tell you about the proposed bill that could give the n.s.a. power to snoop on your internet activities. it's wednesday february thirteenth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our. start of taking

a look at president obama's state of the union address. last night touched on everything from jobs to guns to immigration the president covered a lot of ground in artie's meghan lopez was at the capitol last night to ask lawmakers some critical questions mr speaker. the president of united states a phrase that brings the media to the steps of capitol hill year after year five hundred thirty five lawmakers some forty four million viewers all looking to hear one man's plan for our country's future party was there and beyond the pomp. the grand handing and yes the clapping by we had our team came to capitol hill to find out what the real state of the union is when the actual hill blogger said that he believes that the civil union a strong the state of the government is in shambles you believe that i think there's a lot to be said about that i mean i think one of the things that this speech hopefully will do is elevate the conversation so that we're not just having these

squabbles about you know basically self-inflicted wounds the question to me is are we getting stronger and i think the answer is yes not fast enough but we are moving in the right direction gun control immigration education and the economy were all topics discussed at last night's state of the union perhaps less popular but equally as important were the issues of cyber security and defense and america's dependence on foreign oil and those are the issues we chose to focus on with lawmakers last night first up drones the idea of these machines has sparked as much conversation as it has conflict within the halls of capitol hill i don't like the idea of killing i don't like the idea of being involved in combat when we have a declared war i support the drone program but with its happy essential it's totally within the international law i don't care who you are you just can't. cause the death of anybody using the resources of the american government even under the best of attention we need a framework

a very clearly defined framework i think drones are necessary to. to fight terrorism despite mixed reviews the drone program is flying high although the president did promise i will continue to engage congress to ensure not only there are targeting detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances but that our efforts are even more transparent to the american people and to the work something congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz says is already happening the president keeps the kind of the congressional leadership of the intelligence committees as well as the leadership in the house and senate fully informed as he indicated tonight another issue that gets at the core of transparency in defense cybersecurity america but also face the rapidly growing threat from cyber attacks we cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our although all of the lawmakers are to spoke to agree that something needs to be done in the realm of cyber security the question is how how can we balance

a person's privacy and also balance our national security and economic interests when it comes to cyber technology it's not easy obviously and we're going to have to develop legislation that will attempt to do it and and with the understanding that nothing is perfect but no matter what law comes to pass one platform stands to be a functioning democracy we need a free internet and internet that's that's free of government or ference and respect for civil liberties finally climate change and america's dependence on foreign oil a problem president obama has acknowledged in every state of the union since he took the oval office and an issue he reiterated last night even threatening executive action if congress won't act to protect future generations i will i will direct five i will direct my cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take

now and in the future to reduce pollution for. there are communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy so where is america's energy future headed we've got to continue to develop the energy in solar energy in efficiency of our homes and. in the things that we do despite the overwhelming challenges ahead to catch up with countries like germany and china despite past embarrassments like cylinder and the volt at least one congressman remains optimistic we have pioneered breakthrough technologies in energy before if we do it again we've got to keep the home and we need to manufacture what was created here at the state of the union as president obama's chance to lay out his vision for the next four years but it's often more of a wish list than an actual to do list are to he will be returning back here to the capitol to find out how many of these agenda policies will actually be achieved in washington. r t a l r t is meghan lopez and abby martin join me

a short while ago to discuss president obama's remarks during the state of the union last night and what that means for the u.s. moving forward we've seen over the last four years and give so many of these state of the union speeches every single time he lays out this really bold agenda and we want to say that everything that happens comes true comes into fruition but oftentimes that's just not the case yes certainly if you know the past year and we look at his first term a lot of those promises made and the prior state of the unions not all of or those policies were implemented to say the least abbi what do you think i think that it's all like you said i mean. talk is bigger whatever actions speak louder than words you know i mean it's really just a bit of mrs obama in his first term you really do bring very little promises to fruition so i don't expect any different this time all right when it comes to foreign policy he talked about kind of minimizing our involvement and afghanistan

bringing the troops home so not this boots on the ground approach he's talking. about kind of being more in the background working with our allies so that kind of sounds to me that like the drone campaign or drones that's that's why we saw a record number of drones in afghanistan last year over three hundred and so when he's talking about you know shifting from the ground troops to counterterrorism operations what does that mean special ops military contractors and drones so it's really hard to tell what kind of forces will see remain afghan as their question of course is a will there be more transparency the drone campaign we saw senator is now calling for more more transparency on this and president obama of course has vowed to be more transparent i guess we'll have to wait and see if that doesn't factor play out in his second term another thing that the president made clear last night is that if congress doesn't act he will meeting executive orders and we already see that he is taking chance steps to do that he signed an executive order last night in

regards to cyber security so is this a preview of more executive orders to come in what does that mean what are the implications of that it might be he actually threatened another executive order now is in the realm of energy so what we saw with the first of all with the cybersecurity is him saying that he wants and he's going to do whatever it takes to make us safer and that means both building up our infrastructure but also in terms of innovation allowing people to develop the kind of cyber technologies that we want to see in the future in terms of energy he was very worried he did mention the power grid but he also mentioned that he is demanding to see more of more alternative energies more clean energy he also opened up more pathways for clean. fracking and whatnot so-called clean bracket but also you know he he really focused on getting this energy policy moving forward it's something that he's talked about in every single state of the union that we just haven't seen you know play out yet

in a way that he wants. you know he says everybody you know has the chance to get involved in this and really make it the technology of the future but yet speaking of executive orders that kind of means that he's going to act unilaterally kind of bypass congress and we've seen a lot of gridlock in congress but also called into question is the power that that gives to the executive branch of the what do you think well we saw a bush give a record number of signing statements on executive orders and i was really against that so i don't want to be hypocritical and say that even though some things might be good that's the way to go because i do think ultimate power corrupts absolutely and you know making executive orders that are kind of sweeping what the language pretty broad still do we see the private privacy protections necessary to really be comfortable with this executive order made on cyber legislation so hopefully provides the framework for the congress to kind of act and get the hint that this needs to happen with privacy safeguards i don't you know i don't necessarily agree

with executive orders being made the last play of everybody's mind these days the economy right now we've got a seven point nine percent unemployment rate we saw the last three months of two thousand and twelve our economy is shrinking megan what kind of new proposals did he map out last night if any law that actually he talked about reforming both the tax code and also reforming the entitlement programs he said obviously these are not going to be popular decisions and it's going to be very hard to get them passed but he expects congress to be able to actually get them passed he also talks about increasing manufacturing he proposed three different hubs that would work with both the energy department and also with the department of defense to kind of get manufacturing going as a way to increase jobs and finally he wanted to do a mix of tax increases in our tax increases and spending cuts in order to kind of get the economy back where it is of course it's stubbornly high with unemployment right now which is not moving right and so i guess the question is is this rhetoric are is this going to be a reality we're going to be keeping

a very close eye you know you guys well i don't have any is certainly a welcome thing. for the both of you for a way again that was our to correspondent in lopez and abby martin host of breaking the set with lose a listener vote for president obama's pick for defense secretary was filibustered today by republicans now it looks like the vote on chuck hagel nomination will happen on friday and it's the first time a defense secretary nomination has been filibustered from his comments on israel to his views on the wars abroad his nomination is not happening without a heated debate to discuss j. dilla barito former marine and political researcher at the university of birmingham joins us now welcome there mr della barito. not beloved by his fellow republicans as sam's part of that has to do with his remarks on israel why no love for members of his own party well check cables for a long time he has been are critical of neoconservatives foreign policy he's been critical of a lot of extreme right wing domestic stuff on the g.o.p.

members have done so that's the big christmas is coming and this goes back to during the iraq war when the middle the iraq war he was very critical of the surge is very critical of the tray as and all that sort of stuff so for a short chuck a goal has a long history of being conservative he's got a long history of supporting the military and being strong in american defense however he was all she's also very wise in some of his remarks in the sense that he was critical of the unique relationship that the israel lobby hours with washington d.c. inner city israel lobby not so much the state of israel but he's also critical of american foreign policy so that's that's a result comes from critics as you had mentioned they say he's not sufficiently supportive of israel they also say that. is doesn't criticize iran enough that he is anti iran are these kind of make it or break ads for members of the republican

party. yeah and this is is this comes from from some of the the whack a doodle like ted cruz and some of the other name computes and capitol hill that seem to think that you know if you criticize israel at all and you're you know if you say anything a slightly critical that somehow your you're useless to american society so he's been he i want i want the entire hearing i read the transcript word for word tell you this he said so many times over other times they supported israel he said over one hundred times that he would leave military options on the table for so overall i think does a goal would probably be very good moderate in the secretary defense position and then to the much and ted courier there who was one of the more outspoken critics call and what he said today is that if hey the last confirmed quote

military conflict and the next four years will be substantially more likely what you make of that what you think you meant by that. well ted cruz knows about just about as much about foreign policy as i know about the bottom of your shoe you know i i don't know anything about your shoes just like you know ted cruz nothing about foreign policy so his remarks are really just inflammatory of cindy airy remarks trying to attack the obama administration chuck hagel who is using a test a well tested season fighter in combat is a smart politician the advice both republicans and democrats are ready for sea and the you use very robust and have a well nuanced discussion is regarding american foreign policy so this is again this is whack a doodle talk from right wing fanatics saying nonsense and people like ted cruz will always vote no against the president just because that's what

they're there to do i mean we're certainly seeing this debate very divisive the first time a filibuster has happened when it comes to nominating a secretary of defense so what do you think jake do you get a sense of taking on this position sector the the new defense secretary will lead to a policy envisioned an approach much different than his predecessor leon panetta. well i'm going to call it three big predict predictions here first prediction is that chuck eagle will get nominated he will pass through the senate he will be the next secretary of defense the second prediction i'm going to make is doubt the secret deceit restoration is going to happen and it's because there's so much gridlock on capitol hill that they don't have the ability to stop it so and you're going to see chuckles first challenge out there when secrets are a sugar and. basically what we're going to see how much how big of

a manager he can handle in crisis and is there prediction i'm going to make is there. iran will not get a nuclear weapon but however it's going to be a multilateral military option to make it so you know we have jake's predictions mapped out there we'll see if they do in fact become a reality we will be keeping a close eye jake appreciated former marine and political researcher at the university of birmingham. and now to a look at the next presidential election coming up in two thousand and sixteen night i know we hardly got past the two thousand and twelve election but we're not talking about potential candidates let's view some of the power plays that could completely change the game the united states still uses the electoral college to determine the winner of the presidential elections it's a complex system that apportions a point value to different states and most states it's winner take all red means the republican candidate won the state and blue means democrat currently maine and

nebraska are the only states that can split their electoral votes but all of that could change so-called swing states that went blue in two thousand and twelve despite having republicans in charge at the state house like michigan virginia ohio florida pennsylvania and wisconsin began to consider changing the rules the change would result in the electoral votes being spread out between candidates so instead of this winner takes all approach. to give you an idea what this would mean if these changes were enacted before the two thousand and twelve election republican candidate mitt romney would have be an incumbent president obama two seventy six to two sixty two despite losing the popular vote by almost four percentage points well after outrage some of those states house state houses have backed away from the idea which has been disavowed by democrats but it is significant that while other media outlets speculate on the players in the two thousand and sixteen election

politicians are already trying to change the game. and now to another issue that played a prominent role in last night's state of the union address cyber security after announcing the signing of a new executive order designed to strengthen cyber infrastructure the president made a push for congress to pass comprehensive legislation focused on addressing the issue and today he just might get his wish chairman of the house intelligence committee mike rogers and congressman dutch ruppersberger are resubmitting the cyber intelligence sharing and protection act better known as sis but for more on this i'm joined now by our team producer bob english bob nice to see you q so cispa is back tell us more about this announcement today well this is a rehashed version then we haven't seen it yet of last year's bill that passed the house but president obama had threatened to veto it so it died in this is one of a handful of cyber related bills that is yet to be passed and it has to do with

cyber security in particular in the cooperation between the public and private sectors ok so this bill was proposed last year it didn't get very far there was a lot of outcry over a possible privacy concerns what differences are there. with this with this version we can only speculate now because the actual version will not be released for a couple of weeks now that i've been told there might be a narrower definition of cyber security threat we might also see penalties imposed for the government for private sector misuse of the shared information in there they've also said that they're going to try to address some of president obama's concerns that he had last year regarding it not addressing infrastructure so we'll have to wait and see. i know they you got a chance he had to speak some of the law speak to some of the lawmakers about this

because they have to say they were careful to point out that this is not sopa that it's not the senate bill that has. an internet kill switch that the government is not interested in reading your e-mail your twitter your facebook stuff but what it is is it provides a framework for the cooperation between the public in the private sectors and it also gives legal immunity to the to the private sector if they use their information in other words the customers cannot sue them for using that information ok so perhaps that might not be what they're interested in but privacy advocates still might be a little bit weary of the a possibility there that there are the doors that it may open certainly and there is there was a tone of exasperate today with the privacy experts and this was on the part of the congressman that i saw and they just seemed to not understand where the privacy advocates were coming from and that they would were not really budging so i think

from this standpoint were they coming from well this particular ad doesn't necessarily isn't necessarily so onerous but once you have that framework in place it's very easy to change this voluntary program to something that's compulsory or to make other tweaks that really destroy civil liberties. this bill lets the government use information collected about citizens for national security purposes and we've talked you know when it comes to the n.b.a. kind of having this vague language that could lead to a simple slippery slope or or that's what some of these advocates are worried about is that an issue with this new suspect new system bill sure and we have to consider what we were talking about the other day what happens when there is an emergency in an executive order comes up from the president it's very easy to take a piece of legislation like this. change it a little bit and make it a little bit onerous for the american people so that's where the concerns are coming from all right cyber security we have the state of the union address last

night and cyber security president obama did valid that that was going to be. one of the things that are going to be on the top of his agenda and so he signed this executive order on cyber security can you tell us more about what this is and what kind of power this gives to the executive branch sure he's using his existing authority to kind of beef up the cooperation between the public and private sectors and he's giving this mainly toward infrastructure so once you consider that the president really doesn't have the legal authority to give these companies immunity so that has to come in through a law like cispa and that's where this takes place very interesting bob thanks for staying on top of the story today that was our t.v. producer bob english. all the manhunt for former l.a.p.d. officer christopher dorner came to a dramatic ending last night after a firefight in big bear malice in a body pulled out of a burned down cabin is believed to be that of dorner and as you know dorner was

fired from the l.a.p.d. back in two thousand and nine and he vowed to kill police officers to avenge what he called in unfair terminations a deputy death in the shootout yesterday brings the total number to four people believed to be killed by dorner all in the suspects manifesto he details a culture of racism in misconduct within the department so we want to take a moment now to talk about some of the controversy surrounding the l.a.p.d. to discuss i'm joined now by tracy oppenheimer a producer for reason t.v. tracy welcome thanks for having me let's all right so we have four innocent people that are dead and dorner we're seeing still has his supporters a relatively small group but can you tell us about these supporters why why do they support him. well his manifesto detailed a lot of problems that he had with the l.a.p.d. i think what was so comforting not comforting but the thing that the instances

described in the manifesto that the supporters really backed him on are things that the l.a.p.d. that were already suspected about the l.a.p.d. and it's confirming these preexisting notions that people have about the l.a.p.d. so we don't know whether his manifesto is factual his claims are factual but i don't think they came as a surprise to anyone and i think that's why people have gotten behind him it is a minority of people and i don't think there's any doubt that what he did i mean he's murdered four people now very tragic and i think it's unfortunate that he has these backers but i don't think it's all that surprising certainly there is no justification for killing innocent people but i want to ask you tracy what do we know about the culture of racism and corruption within the l.a.p.d. . well i just want to make the point that what went on last night that was san bernardino that was an l.a.p.d. but what dorner was describing in his manifesto about the l.a.p.d. about there being excessive force police if that was brought up last week when the

police actually fired mistakenly on two women and man because their truck somewhat resembled dorner is even though it didn't match at all none of the descriptions the race gender anything so this would indicate that they were trigger happy i don't want to speculate on whether this has greater resonance throughout the l.a.p.d. there have been cases of police abuse in the past that's not news to anyone but. i don't i don't think dorner was really making any accusations that about the culture of the l.a.p.d. that haven't been suspected already right and now. of course this has captured mesmerized the people and a lot of very high profile case and it's seems like he wanted to bring attention to this but you got to wonder if this actually did anything to help the cause or what do you think. i think the media didn't go it didn't really cover the police abuse

cases as much as they probably should have last week because they were so focused on dorner and i think his own shooting spree really covered that aspect of it up however. his his own shooting it really doesn't make a great case for him because the excessive abuse that he's talking about in his manifesto is really really what he's perpetrating and. so when it comes to the l.a.p.d. . it wasn't a segar it was no secret that there were problems to say the least with this with this police department do you think there will ever be a time when a police chief or a police commissioner commissioner will come out and say that there are institutional problems within the department and there needs to be change this needs to be addressed i think i haven't seen it they called it a mistaken identity which would imply that i mean this was attempted murder i mean

these these poor innocent people who are drawn into this that had no resemblance so in calling a mistaken identity when they didn't have any visual confirmation on these people is sort of an error in itself and by not owning up to this i think i don't see the l.a.p.d. owning up to the abuse and the institutional change that needs to come about. and certainly pulling the trigger should be a last resort we don't really know what led up to them actually pulling the trigger on these people that of course were not the suspect i don't know maybe it wasn't an isolated incidents either i mean this happened twice with the trucks and there were other cases last week well we're going to have to see if this leads to any change tracy appreciate you coming on that was tracey oppenheimer producer at reason t.v. thank you for having me. and now to a public figure who always gets the mainstream media buzzing sarah palin may no longer be a politician or a fox news contributor but she still makes headlines and the washington post

reported that upon departing from fox she landed a gig as a contributor at al-jazeera turns out that's not true now the washington post has issued this correction quote an earlier version of this post in the post a u.r.l. incorrectly reported that sarah palin had signed on as a contributor to the al-jazeera american news network the blogger cited a report on the daily current website as the basis for that information without realizing that the piece was satirical or palin seize the moment and responded via twitter let's take a look at some of her tweets she tweeted to the washington post i'm having coffee with elvis this week he works at the mocha moose in the hash tag of their media another tweet to the post a writer once promised not to write about me for a month that was a good month for me another one of our hashtags idiot media and another one

washington post and like minded mainstream media entities you're about as credible as credible as well barack obama can't wait for tonight's state of the union to point out more examples but haven't always been the case in the past clashes with the media but this time sarah palin may have not in the last laugh and we are going to leave it off there bud for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash america we post all our interviews online there in full and you can also check out our website r t v dot com slash u.s. air web producers are busy working on stories we don't always have time to get to on the air and you can also follow me on twitter atlas wall stay tuned for breaking the set in a half hour we will be right back here and a half hour.