Enjoy:

Sorry, Biebs — people have a right to take a picture of you when you’re out-and-about in public:

According to the photographer, who asked not to be identified, one of Bieber’s boys came over and demanded he delete the picture from his cell phone. Then the bodyguard approached and made the same request. 

[. . .]

Before the exchange got out of hand, a security guard for AmericanAirlines Arena stepped in and basically told the bodyguard to get lost. 

Joe Concha of Mediaite wrote me to point out a few things I got wrong in my post responding to his review of Sunday’s Game of Thrones episode.

Concha rightfully points out that the character of Robb Stark’s wife who was killed on Sunday is different from the character in George R. R. Martin’s series of books. He adds that her death, and that of her unborn child, was added by HBO writers to add “shock value” to the scene.

The main point in my post is that the violence in Sunday’s episode — while graphic — was par for the course for the show and shouldn’t have been unexpected. The entires series is popular becasue of its “shock value.”

We see characters beheaded, tortured, castrated, raped — and I could go on. The stabbing death of the pregnant woman on Sunday was definitely shocking, but so was the scene from last season where two orphan boys were killed, burned, and hung in a castle courtyard. So was the scene with a full-grown boy breastfeeding (Vanity Fair called their piece on the episode “Still Shocking.”) Or, even more disturbing, there’s crazy old Craster, who lives north of the Wall has sex with dozens of his daughter-wives and only allows baby girls to live, leaving any newborn boys to be carried off by the abominable-snowmen-zombie White Walkers.

As for the killing of the wolf, which Concha objects to, this is actually the second of the Stark family direwolves killed off on the show, the first being in season one.

The HBO version of the “Red Wedding” is no more shocking than the version that appears in A Storm of Swords. You can read the summary here. Don’t click on the link if you are reading the books and don’t want it spoiled — if not, scroll down to see what they do with the wolf, if you don’t believe me. Imagine if that was on television.

So, that was my point. HBO’s Game of Thrones, since its first episode, has been a graphic, disturbing show filled with violence, sex, and torture. And as for what happened on Sunday, it was supposed to be disturbing. George R. R. Martin calling the Red Wedding “. . . probably the most powerful scene in the books.”

If Concha feels Sunday’s episode is cancel-your-subscription worthy, that’s fine. But he should have known what he was getting into.

Well, anyboy who read the book could see this coming as it was in China where the zombie outbreak started, and it was spread due to China’s trade in illegal organs. Maybe they can just have the virus start in North Korea like they did for the remake of Red Dawn? 

Via The Wrap:

Chinese censors have rejected a cut of “World War Z,” Paramount’s film about the zombie apocalypse starring Brad Pitt, an executive familiar with upcoming releases in China told TheWrap. A Paramount executive said that the studio had not yet heard back from China’s censorship office, and was unaware of any rejection. 

The decision is potentially significant as the inability to screen in China would limit one of the year’s most expensive movies, reportedly $200 million, from having access to the world’s second biggest market. A release in China could contribute tens of millions of dollars in grosses to the film’s bottom line. 

“It definitely got rejected the first time” it was submitted, said the executive, who is close to China’s decision-making structure, which is run by the state. “It has not been cleared.” He said the decision came down a week ago. 

Also read: Fearing Chinese Censors, Paramount Changes ‘World War Z’ (Exclusive) 

The Paramount executive countered: “We have submitted one version and have yet to receive a response.”  

Paramount is angling for a precious release slot in a quota-driven system in China. It may yet be approved; Paramount can still resubmit the film, which opens in the United States on June 21, and hope censors change their minds.

The rest here.

Here’s MSNBC president Phil Griffin in an interview with the New York Times: 

At MSNBC they view it as rooting against death and destruction: the last thing the channel wants is more months like the last two, filled with terror bombings, tornadoes and plant accidents.

It’s not all altruism. The destruction MSNBC also wants to avoid is the havoc such news has been wreaking on its competitive standing.

In May, MSNBC, which generally runs second to the dominant leader, Fox News, among cable news channels, plunged all the way to fourth place, dropping behind not only its closest rival, CNN, but also that network’s sister channel, HLN (formerly Headline News).

At a time of intensely high interest in news, MSNBC’s ratings declined from the same period a year ago by about 20 percent. The explanation, in the network’s own analysis, comes down to this: breaking news is not really what MSNBC does.

“We’re not the place for that,” said Phil Griffin, the channel’s president, in reference to covering breaking events as CNN does. “Our brand is not that.”

This has to be one of the stupider things I’ve ever heard, especially after NBC and MSNBC were praised for getting their coverage of the Boston manhunt correct while CNN botched it.

When will MSNBC get it that “progressive talk” fails?(Air America, anyone?) Blaming “breaking news” is a cop-out because Griffin doesn’t want to address the reality that viewers just don’t like the channel’s on-air talent. Oh, and remember this bull from above when MSNBC goes all-in with breaking-news coverage from the George Zimmerman trial.

Joe Concha of Mediaite gives one of the stupider reasons I’ve read for someone to stop watching a television show, especially since the show in question — Game of Thrones on HBO — is based on a series of best-selling books and anybody who has read the book, or at the very least skimmed Wikipedia, knew exactly what was going to happen last night. In summary, Concha didn’t like the way they killed off a character last night, and now he wants to cancel his HBO subscription: 

Game of Thrones has been mentioned in this space before as my favorite show on television.

Sure, half the time—like the rest of America—I’ve been utterly confused, wishing characters wore name tags or had VH-1 pop-up bubbles explain who they were and what their role represented. But in the end, the acting is superb, the visuals stunning and the tone of every scene always feeling so damn…important.

But the episode just witnessed (“The Rains of Castamere”)…the show that will go down as the most-talked-about-on-Twitter episode in the history of the program…went way, way (way) too far. And that’s saying a lot considering everything we’ve seen on the hit HBO original series to this point.

Having said that, the following declaration comes without ambiguity: I am done with Thrones. Never again will I watch another episode. And with Entourage long gone and Curb Your Enthusiasm stuck in some kind of abyss, there’s really no need to continue my subscription, particularly after the offensive and appalling display the show just put on.

So what was different about Sunday night’s episode? If you haven’t seen it yet, it might be time to read another one of the fine columns Mediaite has to offer right about now.

But if you have, you know exactly where I’m going with this.

That said, there are two hard and fast rules every television show and movie should live by:

• Never kill a dog or an animal that looks like a dog (like a brave wolf protective of certain humans)
• Never stab a pregnant woman repeatedly in the womb

Thrones blatantly broke both of those rules.

And in regards to the latter, in patently-disturbing fashion.

Well, duh. Oddly enough, what happens in the books also happens in the HBO series. Just as you get to liking a character, that character dies. Gruesomely. 

Concha ends with:

Murder a pregnant woman by going after a baby in the womb first?

It’s not TV, it’s HBO.

A cable network that just lost one subscriber for good.

As for gruesome deaths on HBO, last night’s murder of boy-king Rob Stark and the stabbing of his pregnant wife is about par for the course for an HBO drama now-a-days. Earlier this season, the sadistic king Joffrey tied a prostitute to his bed post — naked, of course — and used her as a target for his crossbow. But last night was “cancel my subscription” worthy? 

And honestly, the writers were telegraphing the murders of the King in the North and and his queen at the Twins for weeks. You really had to be kinda clueless to miss that something really, really bad was going to happen. 

Oh, and a non-spoiler alert: there will be more blood and more characters you’ve grown to like (or hate) gone very soon. Stay tuned!

Another one of the news stories Tom Friedman won’t write about in his ongoing series of China-Is-Aweseome columns. 

I hope there are no leaks. Via the HuffPo:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to meet this week with the Washington bureau chiefs of several major media outlets to discuss the Justice Department’s guidelines for dealing with journalists in leak investigations.

It’s not yet certain exactly when the meeting (or meetings) will take place, but a Justice Department official confirmed to The Huffington Post that it would be sometime over the next two days. Politico’s Mike Allen reported Wednesday morning that the DOJ began contacting bureau chiefs on Tuesday. The Huffington Post’s Washington bureau chief, Ryan Grim, also has been contacted.

The news of a meeting between Holder and the bureau chiefs comes amid widespread criticism from journalists and civil liberties advocates over the the DOJ’s seizure of Associated Press phone records and an accusation that Fox News reporter James Rosen could be part of a criminal conspiracy for his reporting.

The fact that Holder is meeting with the bureau chiefs is on the record, according to a network source, but the actual discussion is expected to be off the record. Media organizations will surely want such a newsworthy meeting with the attorney general to be on the record, and it remains to be seen if they will agree to meet under off-the-record ground rules.

Nanda Chitre, acting director of the DOJ’s public affairs office, confirmed to The Huffington Post that the meeting will be off the record.

The great placenta-hunter weighs in on a recent Ezra Klein — Jonathan Chait — Josh Barro — Ross Douthat debate with this:

He is indeed a moderate Republican, which is why I’ve always liked his approach to governing and to policy. And that, of course, makes Ross Douthat nervous, because Ross is a smart man trying to engage a party that is currently out of its tiny mind. He reminds me of sane and sober Labourites in the early 1980s. But at least they fully copped to the extremism of their own side.

Potato, potahto. 

Does Sullivan really think calling Obama a moderate Republican will make conservative voters like him more?

Do Price Is Right rules apply? If so, I bid $1.00.

Politico has the details.

I received an interesting email today from President Obama where he asks me to add my name to an e-mail list for the independent 501(c)(4) Organizing for Action. Here’s the text:

Greg –

This is an experiment.

Organizing for Action isn’t like any other organization. It’s based in Chicago, not Washington, and its task is to help restore the balance of power in government.

We’ve seen that a bottom-up movement of passionate people can still win an election in the era of big campaign spending. That’s not what this is about.

Organizing for Action is about discovering whether ordinary people can reclaim the process of legislating from special-interest groups and lobbyists, and help give your friends and neighbors the voice they deserve in Washington.

This project needs your support — I’m counting on you to be there for the fights ahead.

Say you’re in today:

http://my.barackobama.com/Are-You-In

Let’s finish what we started.

Thanks,

Barack

And when I clicked on the link above, I was sent to a page to thank me for signing up and then asking me to donate.

Really? The president just did this at the same time the IRS is under scrutiny for its treatment of conservative 501(c)(4) organizations?

This is also the same president who in a State of the Union address hammered the Supreme Court for its decision on Citizens United — a 501(c)(4).

Hypocrites.

Not quite yet, but she’s not happy. Here’s the opener from her column today titled, “Oval Office is no classroom”:

No doubt: Barack Obama has what it takes to be a terrific law student. It’s less clear those are the ingredients of a successful president.

A great law student excels at reading the fact pattern on an exam and spotting the legal issues. The student then analyzes the situation and presents the pros and cons of each side in a dispassionate, balanced way.

It is less important, for grading purposes, to come down on one side or another than to demonstrate a mastery of the precedents and complexities.

By that rubric, Obama’s speech last week at the National Defense University deserves a solid A. I do not say this dismissively. The analytical skills of the lawyer are valuable attributes in a president.

But a good law student doesn’t make a good president:

Thus, Obama on drone strikes: On the one hand, the risk of civilian casualties from drones must be weighed against the cost of inaction. The risk of using drones must be weighed against the risk of conventional military means, simultaneously less precise and more dangerous.

On the other, “the very precision of drone strikes and the necessary secrecy often involved in such actions can end up shielding our government from the public scrutiny that a troop deployment invites. It can also lead a president and his team to view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism.”

All true, and so Obama, ever the A-plus student, posits the need for additional oversight and poses options, each of which “has virtues in theory, but poses difficulties in practice.”

A special court “has the benefit of bringing a third branch of government into the process, but raises serious constitutional issues about presidential and judicial authority.” Likewise, an internal oversight board “avoids those problems, but may introduce a layer of bureaucracy into national security decision-making, without inspiring additional public confidence in the process.”

Brilliant, if you were scribbling exam answers in a blue book. Less impressive five years into a presidency. It seems a little late in the day for the president to talk about looking forward “to actively engaging Congress to explore these and other options for increased oversight.”

The law student gets points for identifying the issue. The president only succeeds by proposing — and implementing — a solution.

The whole piece is worth a read as she goes on to dissect the president’s law-school rhetoric on Guantanamo, prosecuting detainees and Holder’s leak investigations.

Hastings, the author of that Rolling Stone interview that led to the sacking of General McChrystal, is not happy with President Obama’s foreign-policy speech, saying Obama ”enshrines killing people and spying on journalists as the two major tenets of his national-security state.” And then he called MSNBC contributor Perry Bacon, Jr. a “stenographer” for the White House. Good stuff,  via Up With Steve Kornacki (Fast forward to 5:51 for the beginning of his comments)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the President’s big speech on terrorism yesterday:

Today, Osama bin Laden is dead, and so are most of his top lieutenants. There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our homeland is more secure. Fewer of our troops are in harm’s way, and over the next 19 months they will continue to come home. Our alliances are strong, and so is our standing in the world. In sum, we are safer because of our efforts.

Again with the Osama bin Laden is dead. Really, that’s all he has?

And then there’s this vomit-inducing rhetoric:

There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our homeland is more secure.

Please, Mr. President, enlighten us: how many have to die or suffer injury in an attack to elevate it to “large-scale” status?

But don’t answer me. Direct your response to Jane Richard and her family. Jane is the seven-year-old sister of Martin, the eight-year-old killed in the small-scale Boston Marathon bombing. Jane was relesased from the hospital yesterday after 39 days and 12 surgeries. Additionally, close to 300 people were wounded during this small-scale attack. Tell them why Boston was small-scale. You owe it to them.

We want a president, but what we get is this:

Stop spiking the football on that OBL touchdown of yours (and by yours, I mean the one performed by a group of American warriors who were carrying out the raid while you were golfing) and start taking responsibility for your administration’s terrorism failures in Boston and Benghazi.

Here’s President Obama from the DNC convention in 2012:

We believe the little girl who’s offered an escape from poverty by a great teacher or a grant for college could become the next Steve Jobs or the scientist who cures cancer or the president of the United States — (cheers, applause) — and it is in our power to give her that chance. (Cheers, applause.)

But here’s the reality today, a long seven months later:

Apple grilled about tax havens

Apple executives defended the company’s tax strategy on Capitol Hill Tuesday, claiming that it pays one of the highest effective tax rates of any major corporation.

A Senate panel called the hearing to examine what committee leadership said was the iPhone maker’s strategy of shifting income to an Irish subsidiary to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Apple officials said the money resided with its overseas operations, such as those in Ireland, not to avoid taxes but because of the growth of Apple’s sales overseas.

And after listening to Senators Levin and McCain, you’d think that criminal charges against Apple are imminent. . .

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and ranking member John McCain of Arizona both started the hearing with withering criticism of Apple’s practice of shifting income to Ireland to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Levin, a Democrat, called the practice a “sham,” while McCain, a Republican, said that Apple’s claims that it use of the Irish subsidiary did not reduce its U.S. taxes is “demonstrably false.”

“U.S. corporations cannot continue to avoid paying their appropriate share in taxes,” said McCain. “Our military can’t afford it. Our economy cannot endure it. And the American people will not tolerate it.”

. . .except. . .

Even the critics of Apple at the hearing did not claim that it was doing anything illegal with its tax strategy, they were only saying that the way the current tax system is now set up was bad policy.

So the entire hearing was a stunt?

Jack Shafer — former media critic at Slate, now at Reuters — writes that James Rosen’s reporting skills are what got him in trouble in the first place. An excerpt:

Rosen’s alleged source, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, was indicted in 2010 for disclosing national defense information. Although no charges have been filed against Rosen, journalists are logically demanding that the government explain how it can be a crime for a reporter to pursue government secrets when it is not (yet) a crime to publish them. If that’s the case, then hundreds, if not thousands, of current Washington reporters are criminals.

The search warrant — like the recently reported seizure of Associated Press telephone records by Department of Justice — indicates the federal government may be changing the rules on how it spars with reporters. If that’s the case, and I’m not sure it is, journalists should use whatever legal means at their disposal to resist.

But reporters should never depend on the law alone to protect them and their sources from exposure. By observing sound tradecraft in the reporting of such delicate stories, they can keep themselves and their sources from getting buried when digging for a story.

Rosen’s journalistic technique, if the Post story is accurate, leaves much to be desired. He would have been less conspicuous had he walked into the State Department wearing a sandwich board lettered with his intentions to obtain classified information and then blasted an air horn to further alert authorities to his business. For example, one data point investigators used to connect Rosen with his alleged source, Kim, was the visitor’s badge the reporter wore when calling on the State Department offices. According to security records, Rosen and his source left the building within one minute of each other and then returned only several minutes apart inside the half-hour. A few hours later that day (June 11, 2009), Rosen’s secret-busting story was published.

Even teenagers practice better tradecraft than this when deceiving parents.

I don’t agree at all. Technology today makes discovering who leaked what much easier than just a decade ago. The first Blackberry smartphone was released in 2003; the first iPhone in 2007. It not that Rosen’s techniques are shoddy, it’s that for the first time, the Department of Justice can easily track the the communications of government employees.

As for teenagers and their tradecraft, one of the counts against Kim is lying to the F.B.I. Shafer’s advice for journalists applies equally to those in the government who leak information: your parents always know when you’re lying, so, don’t.

Dogs and cats, living together . . .

Odd that the president never once mentions the importance of DOJ investigations of reporters in any of his WHCD speeches. But he does have a lot of praise for the press and the job they do. . .

From 2009:

I just — I want to end by saying a few words about the men and women in this room whose job it is to inform the public and pursue the truth. You know, we meet tonight at a moment of extraordinary challenge for this nation and for the world, but it’s also a time of real hardship for the field of journalism. And like so many other businesses in this global age, you’ve seen sweeping changes and technology and communications that lead to a sense of uncertainty and anxiety about what the future will hold. 
Across the country, there are extraordinary, hardworking journalists who have lost their jobs in recent days, recent weeks, recent months. And I know that each newspaper and media outlet is wrestling with how to respond to these changes, and some are struggling simply to stay open. And it won’t be easy. Not every ending will be a happy one. 

But it’s also true that your ultimate success as an industry is essential to the success of our democracy. It’s what makes this thing work. You know, Thomas Jefferson once said that if he had the choice between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, he would not hesitate to choose the latter. 

Clearly, Thomas Jefferson never had cable news to contend with — (laughter) — but his central point remains: A government without newspapers, a government without a tough and vibrant media of all sorts, is not an option for the United States of America. (Applause.)

From 2010:

Earlier today I gave the commencement address at Michigan, where I spoke to the graduates about what is required to keep out democracy thriving in the 21st century. And one of the points I made is that for all the changes and challenges facing your industry, this country absolutely needs a healthy, vibrant media. ‘Probably needs it more than ever now.’

From 2011:

You know, in the last months, we’ve seen journalists threatened, arrested, beaten, attacked, and in some cases even killed simply for doing their best to bring us the story, to give people a voice, and to hold leaders accountable. And through it all, we’ve seen daring men and women risk their lives for the simple idea that no one should be silenced, and everyone deserves to know the truth.

From 2012:

I do want to end tonight on a slightly more serious note — whoever takes the oath of office next January will face some great challenges, but he will also inherit traditions that make us greater than the challenges we face.  And one of those traditions is represented here tonight:  a free press that isn’t afraid to ask questions, to examine and to criticize.  And in service of that mission, all of you make sacrifices.

And finally, from 2013:

But even when the days seemed darkest, we have seen humanity shine at its brightest.  We’ve seen first responders and National Guardsmen who have dashed into danger, law enforcement officers who lived their oath to serve and to protect, and everyday Americans who are opening their homes and their hearts to perfect strangers.

And we also saw journalists at their best — especially those who took the time to wade upstream through the torrent of digital rumors to chase down leads and verify facts and painstakingly put the pieces together to inform, and to educate, and to tell stories that demanded to be told.

Here’s an idea: If The White House Correspondents’ Association is really concerned with press freedoms, they shouldn’t invite the president to the 2014 dinner. 

Washington Post:

The Obama administration has pursued more such cases than all previous administrations combined, including one against a former CIA official charged with leaking U.S. intelligence on Iran and another against a former FBI contract linguist who pleaded guilty to leaking to a blogger.

The Kim case began in June 2009, when Rosen reported that U.S. intelligence officials were warning that North Korea was likely to respond to United Nations sanctions with more nuclear tests. The CIA had learned the information, Rosen wrote, from sources inside North Korea.

The story was published online the same day that a top-secret report was made available to a small circle within the intelligence community — including Kim, who at the time was a State Department arms expert with security clearance.

FBI investigators used the security-badge data, phone records and e-mail exchanges to build a case that Kim shared the report with Rosen soon after receiving it, court records show.

In the documents, FBI agent Reginald Reyes described in detail how Kim and Rosen moved in and out of the State Department headquarters at 2201 C St. NW a few hours before the story was published on June 11, 2009.

“Mr. Kim departed DoS at or around 12:02 p.m. followed shortly thereafter by the reporter at or around 12:03 p.m.,” Reyes wrote. Next, the agent said, “Mr. Kim returned to DoS at or around 12:26 p.m. followed shortly thereafter by the reporter at or around 12:30 p.m.”

The rest here.

A question I have: Are there actually more leaks during the Obama administration or is it that the Obama administration is using tools that other presidents haven’t to track administration ineraction with journalists?

David Shuster hits a new low with his latest comment on the Washington Post’s Jenifer Rubin:

He’s referring to his joint appearance with Rubin on Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources.

Does Kurtz consider Shuster a “reliable source” based on this rhetoric?