jason. professor johnson, two of the big overseas stories had tremendous repercussions here at home.spying on foreign leaders and heavy surveillance operations going on in foreign countries. and also the step back at the last minute from going ahead with some sort of strike in syria to move against the stock piles of chemical weapons held by bashar al-assad. what do you make of those, and how did americans looking at that was there a certain weariness with the rest of the world that made americans want to pull back? >> it's completely two different situations. edward snowden, the significant of him was to those active american citizen who is were already fearing the encroachment of the state. this has been going on since the passage of the patriot act and there was another group of people who said this has been going on for years. edward snowden just put a white middle class face on it. it's going going on for years. it brought up the debate of what our government is doing and do we trust the transparency promoted by the obama administration. but syria is different. using the beliger

we are joined by jason johnson, a professor of political science. how do you explain so few bills getting through? >> you have large numbers of members of congress who thing it's their job to stop the administration passing bills, rather than coming up with policy to pass. that's the root of it. for many observers, we operated under the assumption that the 2012 election would break the fever, that members of the republican party say president obama gets re-elected, we should pass laws. in many ways members of congress become more entrenched. that's why we are here. >> there has been idea logs in congress. shelby. he says: >> what is wrong with the ideological view that the role of congress is to keep the administration from creating new laws because it gets in the way of men people. >> we have multiple laws, high levels of unemployment, student loan rates that are out of control. there's absolutely no excuse for congress to be this ipp effective given the problems that what the country faces are obvious. i said congressional approval rates are at 9%

and also by jason johnson, an al jazeera consultant and professor at hiram college.hank you for joining us. the influence of individual men on historical event is often overstated. in this case do we have a clear example of a man who made a dramatic difference, especially when you compare what happened in south africa to nearby rhodesia and zimbabwe, where there was apartheid and that country descended into chaos? >> absolutely. leaders make the difference and the contrast you drew against nelson mandela, and robert mugabe. as great as nelson mandela was, one of his greatest aspect that hadn't been touched on by a sufficient number of people is that he was a team player. the anc was a large big tent national organization, tumbo was the leader until his death in the 1990s. he led while nelson mandela was in prison. armond. and chris honey mentioned earlier. he pulled the group together and his wisdom and patients, gentleness and toughness. the form area apartheid regime tried to play him off against other leaders to split the anc. he never allowed it to happen. >> tou

jason johnson, thanks so much. >> thank you.>> happy holiday. >>> the color lines surrounding the debate about santa claus' race were blurred at one southern california mall. there santa takes a multicu multicultural look. >> reporter: elves, cameras, crying babies. all to see the obligatory mall santa, but it's a rare sort of santa at the baldwin hills crenshaw plaza in south los angeles. >> we come to see the black santa. >> reporter: he draws crowds of pint sized preschoolers and their patient patients. >> merry christmas. >> reporter: just like every santa in mall america -- >> what do you want for christmas? >> reporter: the pictures of characteristically christmas. at the same time, they're not. >> they feel good about themselves. >> reporte there was no black santa in chicago in 1953. >> reporter: so it's important for them to see this? >> yes, it is. >> reporter: turn on the tv this christmas, all you see is one shade of santa. like most ben neevolent charact children growing up seeing, the good guy is white. but not at

jason johnson with us now from washington, an hln contributor. on, nearly 2 million visits to the website on monday. is that the kind of figure you think they were looking for? would you see that as successful? >> yeah, i think the obama administration sees it as successful, but in all honesty, there's no chance they're going to have 7 million people signed up by march. but if they get on average 2, maybe 3 million people to at least log on to the site over the next couple of months, i think the obama administration would say that's a success, given how bad things were in october. >> well, we're also hearing that the white house is gearing up for some sort of pr push to get the numbers up by march. i mean, looking ahead, would you expect, you know, perhaps a grand gesture by the president to encourage people to enroll? they could do all the pr they want, but it's got to be working and it's got to be understandable. >> right. and those are the two biggest issues. yesterday i had two friends who tried to sign up. one was my trainer. she said, the ma

professor of political science, jason johnson. reporter for politico, juana summers.lo to the tree of you. let's talk about the two big developments today on stories that the gop has used to criticize the white house this year. i'm going to go robert to you first with obamacare with the 1.1 million people now having si signed up on the federal exchange s the tide turning? do you think republicans no longer have the obama rollout as a talking point to criticize the president? >> it appears the tide is turning to a certain degree. we still have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of americans that are getting cancellation notices. the fact still remains that the president said, one, if you like your health care, you could keep it, and b, that's not the case. i think we're still trying to see where the dust is going to settle. i agree republicans have to move on to another talking point. that most likely probably will be the fiscal cliff -- i'm sorry, the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis. >> it's coming up mid-february. juana, we have a "new york times" repo

msnbc contributor goldie taylor, professor of political science, jason johnson, and msnbc contributorg the corner. the president spoke about his second term and legacy with barbara walters. let's take a listen. >> every president in their second term is, you know, mindful that you've only got a limited amount of time left, and you want to make sure that you are squeezing every last ounce of energy that you have to try to deliver on the commitments you made to the american people. >> give me your best guesstimate as to how much the president will be able to accomplish in his remaining three years. >> with what we've seen from this current congress and what we expect going forward, it's going to be tough to execute on any number of policy issues. chief among them, immigration reform. we talked about earlier, environmental stewardship and our energy policy. i think it's going to be very tough for the president to formulate a legislative proposal that this congress will pass. i think they're not interested in negotiating, but i think we'll have to see what happens after 2014 and see what

msnbc.com national reporter, msnbc contributor robert traynam, and professor of political science jason johnsonhis week's address. here's part of it. >> no matter how many rappers and actors and rock stars the president rolls out, the best sales pitch in the world can't sell a bad product. and this health care law is a bad product for young people. >> robert, it's the law of the land. is this the wrong message to the gop? what's the alternative? >> well, the youngest member of congress talking on a college campus. college students and young people are the invincibles. they're healthy. they're young. and let's face it, the obamacare machinery, if you will, needs young people to buy into the system. if not, it will certainly collapse. the question becomes, is it a gad deal for young people? we don't know yet because we're still having a lot of problems with people signing up. i think the jury is still out. the economy's a scale here. if young people do not sign up, it's not going to work. >> jason, your reaction? >> as somebody who deals with young people every day, it's great for most young peop

msnbc contributor goldie taylor, professor of political science, jason johnson, and msnbc contributories first. the fed up. nbc news helped conduct a focus group of 11 cincinnati area voters who described themselves as independents. here's what they said about congress and the shutdown earlier this year. take a listen. >> i think they were selfish, not caring about themselves but hurting the people they're supposed to be in there helping and representing. >> i thought it showed a lack of concern by our leaders for the people that they represent. they had their own agenda. i don't think they had people's best interest at heart. >> i felt like certain people decided to shut down the government to prove a point rather than to work towards making improvements. i have no problem they disagree with the affordable care act, but they could have worked to improve it. >> you think? anyway, how fed up is middle america with washington right now? >> i think they're damn fed up. i think they ought to be. a government that is callous enough to forget about the lives of federal workers and shut down

. >> jason's fan base quickly expands into a much wider audience thanks to those amateur videos. >> i received a lot of letters from the white house, getting to meet president bush and magic johnsonnt in 2006. but in 2009 returns to his alma mater, this time as an assistant coach. no one would deny it's a triumph jason has earned. >> it feels great to get back to the game that i always loved. >> now everyone is saying an autistic kid can do this. ks autistic is not bad, if he can achieve this, it's nothing to run from. it's nothing to be afraid of who you are. i feel like he inspired probably millions of people. >> do whatever you put your mind to. you can achieve anything you want. just don't give up. >>> ordinary people rising up. toppling tyrants. shutting down cities. >> who's in charge of seattle today? >> we are. >> he simply walked up and just started spraying across the line. >> from tahrir square to occupy wall street, video seen around the world. >> medic! >> that stoked the fires of freedom and sparked political change. >> ever since then the camera has been a feature of every protest. ♪

jason, thank you very much. >> thank you. >>> and now to a story that cnn for months and months has pushed for answers. the mysterious death of georgia teenager kendrick johnsont at his high school, almost a year ago now. officials ruled johnson's death an accident, but his parents all along have maintained their son was murdered. and now a major development that we have been waiting for involving this surveillance footage that may show how kendrick johnson died. i want to bring in cnn's victor blackwell who joins me in atlanta. victor has been breaking every development of the story for months. so, you know, we've seen some of the video last month. didn't answer the big question, how did kendrick johnson die? so now the fbi is involved. tell me how. >> brooke, cnn has learned from a source with knowledge of the investigation surrounding the hard drives that the fbi, fbi agents will be at lowndes high school, likely today, to seize the hard drives from the surveillance system at lowndes high school, potentially to get the video from the day that kendrick johnson died and the following day when his body was found. this is the result, we have also learned from