Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom 20121203 : vimarsana.com

CNNW CNN Newsroom December 3, 2012

Instead they stayed silent and the waiting game continues. Joe johns joins me from washington to tell us what this all means. First off, is there anything, joe, to read in to this mornings silence coupled with fridays silence on this issue . Honestly, nothing at all. They could still decide later in the week, quite frankly. They could decide next week. This is a thing about the court. They really dont send a lot of signals or messages to do something and we have been telling people all along that, you know, theres potential for this to come later on. They can still go in march with this. And we could still get a decision around june. So, dont read anything in to it. That said, you know the broad legal question the Supreme Court considers of equal protection. Basically do same sex couples deserve the same rights and benefits as all other americans . We dont know if the court wants to hear the case. It could be a much narrower case about the defensive marriage act, it could be limited to considering whether couples in states where samesex is legal and eligible for benefits and not a sweeping decision. The other parameter, of course, proposition 8 and a specific league question and referendum aboli abolished. A lot for them potentially to consider and the timetable up to them, ashleigh. Very complex for people that dont follow courts on a regular basis to sort this out and i mentioned right off the top no fewer than ten cases that the justices could take up. Yes. When you talk about the two areas, one of them as some Court Watchers say is dipping your toe in with the defensive marriage act and one way the Supreme Court could start the process of getting in to the cultural debate. The other one is prop 8 and two ways to go effect ily with prop 8. Take up the case or dont cake up the case. What happens if they just dont take up the case . Well, then samesex marriage essentially becomes law in california and it was about the referendum. Most Court Watchers would say defensive marriage act is the most likely of all the challenges to take up. The thinking they want to weigh in on a question dealing with what role the federal government can play when it comes to the issue of marriage because and we cant say this enough, throughout history, marriage is regulated by the states so, you know, important thing to consider there. And just quickly, also, joe, when it comes to the defensive marriage act, it is important for people to know if the Court Decides to adjudicate, it does not mean that thats the law of the land, that people can start getting married any which way they want to. Correct . No. It means theyre taking it up. They still have a decision thats down the road. Theres a variety of different ways they could decide on doma. You know, they dont have to decide on equal protection grounds but the narrow question of benefits or certain benefits or certain tax breaks that married people who happen to be same sex should get or shouldnt get. So, theres a whole range of ways they could consider this. It doesnt mean theyre just going to go in and determine that a law against samesex marriage is illegal discrimination. There are a lot of other things they can do with it. Benefits are one thing. Recognition and allowance is another thing. Heres the other thing. It is real hard to get breaking material and information out of the Supreme Court before theyre ready to give it but on occasion good connections yield something and yet a lockup in terms of what they might do with prop 8 and doma. Yeah. Thats true. But you have to remember, on these big, sweeping social issues that the court has decided throughout history, desegregation of Public Schools comes to mind, brown versus the board of education, that sat on peoples desks for a long time and a bunch of Different Cases that all sort of folded in to it. Loving versus virginia. That was interracial marriage. That was another case that sat around a long time because it seemed as though the Supreme Court, differently configured Supreme Court, actually wanted to wait and let the country lead. And when you look right now, even some people who have been fighting for samesex marriage for years say the math and the map dont make the Supreme Court taking this up right now a certainty. Your law professors are so thrilled with you right now, joe johns, that you could just spout that off and im impressed. Joe johns, thank you very much for that. See you probably friday. For the record, folks, nine states plus d. C. Have legalized samesex marriage to date. Exit polls of last months elections show that a slight majority of voters think that gay marriage should be legal in their states. Moving on now. Rain, wind and snow are hammering the west coast. Three separate storms in just one week have soaked oregon and washington and Northern California. By the way, Northern California has been hammered the worst and guess what. A fourth storm is on the way. A lot of areas already dealing with really bad flooding and they thought this was the worst of it. This thing just went up fast. Real fast. Fire department was out here. And got a lot of stuff, you know, away from the house so it didnt float down the road and stuff but this is the worst. Meteorologist chad myers joins us now at the Weather Center in atlanta. Round four. Yes. This seems just cruel. And it gets worse. There will be six more rounds in the next 16 days. I cant stress how much rain thats going to once you get rain on the ground like we have now, it doesnt just evaporate and run off. It does run off but doesnt just go away. Adding to injury. We have 20 inches in some spots on the ground in past 3 storms. We talked about this wednesday last week. I said this is the worst round 0 of storms that i have seen in Northern California, washington, oregon in careyears and still cg in. For tomorrow, a minor storm compared to whats coming. Minor storms. The moisture surge comes in one storm after the next so heres today in to tomorrow. It rains washington, oregon, cascades gown do down to northe california. Four feet at a time and then avalanche issues. One storm after another dill coming and three. There are five to six more on the way, ashleigh. I have a lot of friends who are weather men and women in california and say its the easiest job because they dont have to do anything. This seems out of the ordinary. Have you seen the pictures of napa and the Sonoma Valley . Water washing out. Valley, grapes under water. A tremendous amount of rain. Just seeing the water in to the lower elevations and now it isnt going to stop. Every extra inch we get will be another flood and were going to get five to six more inches in 120 hours which is 5 days and then more storms after this. All right. Chad, keep an eye on it for us, if you will. Appreciate it. Back in a moment. Americans are always ready to work hard for a better future. Since Ameriprise Financial was founded back in 1894, theyve been committed to putting clients first. Helping generations through tough times. Good times. Never taking a bailout. There when you need them. Helping millions of americans over the centuries. The strength of a Global Financial leader. The heart of a onetoone relationship. Together for your future. Nows a good time to think about your options. Are you looking for a plan that really meets your needs . 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Everybody knows you never ask a woman unless shes pregnant and look at whens below the screen there. Its official. Kate middleton is pregnant. So the duchess of cambridge has put out the announcement. The palace put out the announcement saying that were not going to tell you what the due date is but theyre telling us that shes been admitted to Central London hospital. Apparently she has acute morning sickness. The palace expect that is she will be in the hospital for efrl days so thats not great news but im sure that many will be thrilled for the confirmation because everyones been a bit abuzz for the last few months. She chose a glass of water for a toast in september instead of a glass of wine. Some speculated while she looked thin in so many of the photographs prior to and during the wedding she didnt look quite as thin in the last couple of months so there you go. Speculation is finished and you can officially now ask the duchess of cambridge if shes pregnant. I dont think youre supposed to ask the royals questions like that. Bring you back to this side of the pond. Less than a month left until we hit the fiscal cliff. I know you probably hate hearing about it but its coming and 29 days away now. This weekend both sides were counting how many ways they disagreed. We proposed a balanced mix. And look at it together. Its roughly 2 to 1, spending cuts to tax increases much we have been very detailed about the spending side. We proposed 600 billion cuts over 10 years. Now, republicans are we dont expect them to like all the proposals but lay out what we believe and then ask them to come become and tell us what they prefer to do. I would say were nowhere. Period. Were nowhere. Weve put a serious offer on the table by putting revenues up there to try to get the question resolved but the white house is responded with virtually nothing. So the speaker actually went on to say that the republicans are flabbergasted over that initial offer from the democrats. So is it just about the taxes for the wealthy versus the spending cuts . One gop leader has another take. I think were going over the cliff. Its pretty clear to me theyve made a political calculation. Political calculation. Thats south carolinas Lindsey Graham and joining me is White House Correspondent brianna keilar. There are people talking about what that political calculation means and even that term itself is becoming political. So spell it out if you would please, brianna. Reporter there is a political calculation going on over here at the white house, and thats that the white house and Congressional Democrats feel that they have more of the leverage and they do. They feel like when you look at polls that show increasing taxes on the wealthy is popular, that if the country were to go over the fiscal cliff, they would be more effective in blaming it on republicans than vice versa. They feel like republicans know that. And they feel like they can kind of paint republicans in to this corner on income tax rates but as you know, as of right now, december 3rd and we have obviously a few weeks here before the fiscal cliff hits, as of right now neither side is budging and republicans are saying that theyre not going to budge on those income tax rates but the white houses drawing a line over this. What do we know about plans for this week . I mean, apart from everybody spouting off hot air on talk shows do they have im sorry to be so crass but im getting a little annoyed by all the talk at us. Reporter yeah. Instead of with each other. Do they have any meetings planned . Reporter im not saying its not an annoying process and i think americans feel exactly that way. Theres no official meetings right now between the white house and congressional leaders. Of course, there are meetings going on behind the scenes and contacts between the white house and Congressional Republicans but nothing official. President obama is taking this sort of outside strategy where as we saw him last week he goes outside of washington. Hell be giving remarks to the Business Roundtable this week, meeting with Business Leaders tomorrow. Other stakeholders this week and hes trying to kind of put some pressure on congress and learn from a mistake that he made you might say during say the debt ceiling negotiations where you saw these meetings with congressional leaders but there really wasnt a whole lot of payoff and didnt make the president look particularly effective. An issue to be resolved is to tackle entitlement reform. You have the white house and republicans saying you need to put meat on the bones and going back and forth. Listen to what republican senator bob corker said. I think the really discussions around the fiscal cliff havent even begun to be serious yet and the reason they havent is we have really not begun to talk about real entitlement reforms and the only way of a true avoidance and until the debate moves to that point theres really no serious debate taking place and i think, by the way, i think over the course of the next week that is where youre going to see the debate move to. Reporter and so, theres no official proposal on entitlement reform in this moment but mitch mcconnell, the Senate Minority leader interviewed last week and talked about some ideas that might get republicans interested in revenue, raising taxes on the table. Higher medicare premiums for the wealthy, increasing the medicare eligibility age and slowing down the cost of living increase and no formal proposal but specifics he floated. Message to both sides, may not be the time to find your spine and dig in. Wheres the Christmas Spirit . For heavens sake, brianna. Brianna keilar reporting live for us at the white house, thank you. For more details of whats in the opposing plans, thats what this is all about and means for us because we have to pay. Be sure to check out cnn. Com. And you really dont want to pay more than you have to. Only citi price rewind automatically searches for the lowest price. And if it finds one, you get refunded the difference. Just use your citi card and register your purchase online. Have a super sparkly day ok. [ male announcer ] now all you need is a magic carriage. Citi price rewind. Start saving at citi. Com pricerewind. To practice math more . I love math but two ipads means two data plans . Thats crazy. Maybe not. With at t mobile share, adding an ipad is just 10 a month. But honestly, mom and dads love is all i really need. We should keep these for us. We should keep these. What . [ male announcer ] at t mobile share. Add an ipad for just 10 a month. One plan. Up to 10 devices. At t. Rethink possible. To syria now and heightened concerns of the chemical weapons. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton is in prague today and she issued this warning. We have made our views very clear. This is a red line for the united states. Im not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people but suffice it to say we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur. Sir whys Foreign Ministry issued a statement on syrian tv saying they would not use chemical weapons against syrian people. Cnns pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr live in new york with us. Good to see you. Good to see you. How much faith can we put in the Syrian Government spokesperson and suggestsiing tt the people of syria are safe from chemical weapons. There is a new wrinkle here. In the last couple of days u. S. Intelligence has got information that the Syrian Regime is moving its chemical weapons around. That basically, it looks like what theyre trying to do maybe combine them with the missls, the rockets, artillery shells. The worry of the u. S. Is latest movement signals they are preparing to put their weapons in a position to attack. Whether theyll go ahead with it remains to be seen. Why would they even be doing it right now . I think americans are familiar with hearing about saddam husseins weapons. This is different. It is not the same. Theyre sophisticated. They have surface to surface. They have viable weaponry in this country. They have a huge stockpile. They have viable weaponry. It is widely dispersed across the country. There is a threat as secretary clinton said of u. S. Military or action by other militaries in the region but what would they do about it . All of this stuff is mixed in with civilian populations. You cant strike from the air and, you know, kill a bunch of civilians. It becomes a very difficult problem. You can say red line but what do you do about it . To say red line, what does that mean . If we havent been willing to do anything about the carnage that we have been witnessing for more than 18 months how could this change the formula . Right. Because there you are. If you had god forbid a chemical weapons attack you have three four countries. You have got several, lebanon, turkey, iraq, jordan to the south. Israel. Israel. All of these countries, if theres a chemical weapons dispersal in the air, it drifts across international borders. Does anybody think the israelis will let that happen . You have a difficult problem. What if the opposition gets in control . The question right now, is this latest action directed from the assad regime or could it be rogue elements . What if the rebels get this stuff. They have a battery. The up until now the actual chemical stockpiles are said, said to be secure by the most elite forces of the regime and not letting them out of th

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