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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  October 24, 2013 10:00am-11:01am PDT

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>> thanks for watching "around the world." "cnn newsroom" starts now. have a good afternoon. the blame game over the obama care website in full swing on capitol hill. contractors who worked on the site are testifying in a house committee hearing. details and a live report just ahead. right now, president obama's reinforcing his desire to get immigration reform passed. at a white house event, he said it's time for both sides to work together to get a final immigration bill done right away. right now, massachusetts town grieves for a beloved teacher, allegedly killed by one of her students. new details, details revealing the shocking way she died. hello, i'm wolf blitzer reporting from washington. the contractors behind the obama
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care website get grilled over the technical blunders surrounding the launch of of healthcare.gov. executives from four companies were called to testify today before the house energy and commerce committee. the company officials tried to deflect blame for the problems, some lawmakers sniped at one another for the reasons for holding the hearing. >> botched rollout is all the more reason that the individual mandate penalty should be delayed. average americans deserve a waiver from obama care, too, it's only fair, when the exchanges are such a mess. >> here we go again, another cynical effort by the republicans to delay, defund, or ultimately repeal the affordable care act. i'd like to think that somehow this hearing is above board and legitimate but it's not. >> tough exchange there. joe johns is here with me watching what's going on. you've been monitoring this hearing all morning. are they getting good answers from these four contractors?
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>> this is a massive project and when you look at it, there are 55 companies that have been signed up to work on healthcare.gov, only four witnesses at witness table so far, representing five companies. and there has been finger pointing today but no one stepped up and took responsibility for the problems with the website. take a listen. >> federal exchange including the ffm is not a standard consumer website. >> one of the reasons for the high concurrent volume at registration system was a late decision requiring consumers to register for an account before they could browse for insurance products. >> we have no role in the development of the website, no role in the determination of eligibility and no role in health plan selection. >> in fairness, one company, cgi, did say the problem started wirth the gateway portal to the
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site and pointed out that another contractor was responsible for that. that contractor responsible was quantum qssi, they say the problem occurred because the government made a late change requiring people to register on the website before they would be allowed to browse for insurance. we know from testimony that the government, the centers for medicare and medicaid services, asked for that most important change just two weeks before the site was scheduled to go live and it created a logjam, apparently. what we don't know is who made that decision to require registration to happen so late. we know that person apparently was at the centers for medicare and medicaid. >> you should not have to give the private password information to do window shopping for options. you should be able to go there, check out options and when you make a decision, then you go in, put the password, social security number, all of that very confidential information, and that decision was made only two weeks before october 1st.
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that's a blunder, that's a huge blunder. who is responsible for that? >> that's the million dollar question. someone at cms, we don't know who, the witnesses said they didn't know who, and we've asked before, you know, who was the project manager? who was the individual in charge. >> some person at department of health and human services. >> right. >> a government employee, not a contractor, made that obviously that horrible decision. >> that is what the witnesses said. >> committee's trying to find that out. do we have a better idea when the contractors believe all of the problems will be fixed? >> the message they're giving, wolf, is the very same message we've been getting from the white house, things are getting better incrementally every day but no unaone is willing to put end date on when all of the problems will be fixed because if they do that they have to stick to that and it could be a problem. >> one of the things that jumped out to me listening to the hearing a contractor said a lot of people are doing it the old
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fashioned way on paper, filling out forms, but then when the professionals, contractors take the forms and put data into the computers, guess what? they got problems with the computers. >> yeah. exactly. >> some person can fill out a form and think it's done but guess what it's not done. >> it's a very complex project. people are saying all of this information in one place really has never been tried before. so there are some challenges. similar things have been done, equifax, the credit agency, has got ain't lot of information to process it quickly but this is coming from a bunch of different areas and you're dealing with government and private enterprises. it's very complicated. >> joe johns, thank you. republicans, some democrats, want president obama to delay the date that penalties kick in if you don't have health insurance. there have been some confusion when the deadline is. now the white house is trying to clear up the confusion. some thought you needed to buy insurance by february 15th so it
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would take -- have time to take effect. the white house says, as long as you buy insurance by march 31st, you won't have to pay a penalty. after the government shutdown deal was signed, president obama laid out his priorities going forward. among them, comprehensive immigration reform. just a little while ago, the president talked about the senate bill that passed and the need to stop avoiding a fix for comprehensive immigration. >> obviously, just because something is smart and fair and good for the economy and fiscally responsible and supported by business and labor and the evangelical community and many democrats and republicans, that does not mean that it will actually get done. this is washington, after all. so, everything tends to be viewed through a political prism. and everybody's been looking at the politics of this. and i know there are some folks
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in this town thinking if obama's for it i'm against it. but i'd remind everybody that my republican predecessor was also for it when he proposed reforms like this almost a decade ago. and i joined with 23 senate republicans back then to support that reform. i'd remind you that this reform, won more than a dozen republican votes in theenate in june. i'm not running for office again. i just believe this is right thing to do. >> let's go to the white house. athena jones is standing by. the president admitted that everyone didn't get what they wanted in the senate immigration bill. does he still want that to be the basis for the final plan? obviously it's a tougher sell in the house of representatives. >> reporter: hi, wolf. well, it is a tougher sell but this is the bill the president was touting during the brief
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remarks and wants this to be a model. this senate bill takes a comprehensive approach. this bill passes by a big margin, 68-32, with a lot of republican support, 14 republicans. about would strengthen border security, create a 13-year path to citizenship for the undocumented, raise the cap on high-skilled visas, visas for high-skilled workers and create a new program for low-skilled workers. he said this doesn't do everything i want it to do but it's a big, good start. he made this economic argument saying independent economists have estimated if this bill becomes law, within two decades it would add 1.4 trillion more to the u.s. economy than without the bill. so that's what's part of his big push and that's what he wants to see done, wolf. >> the president clearly challenging congress to get work done on this immigration reform. let's continue the conversation with our chief political analyst, gloria borger. doable or not doable?
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can he get it done anytime soon? >> i hesitate to predict in congress anything can get done anytime soon. i have to say, look you had an overwhelming majority in the senate, you have the group, the hell no caucus in the house, they're not going to vote for this, any way, shape, or form, however, i do think there are national republicans and the business community who really wants this to get done and i think once they can get in place some kind of border enforcement that they all trust, that they believe will actually work, then you can move on to the other parts of immigration reform. i'm not saying they can get a huge comprehensive measure through, but i do believe that if they attack this and kind of a piecemeal way we might be surprised and they might be able to do something because after all, i think congress acts when it's in their own self-interest and i think lots of members of congress, particularly from the
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west who see the changing demographics, understand if they're going to win a presidential election, and if they're going to win re-election in their changing communities, they've got to fix this. >> george w. bush tried and he had john mccain, he had ted kennedy, he had a lot of bipartisan, didn't work out then. we'll see if this president can achieve this goal. let's get back to the obama care hearings, the website hearings. lively testimony from the four contractors, as you saw. kathleen sebelius, she'll testify next week. today she's in arizona at a call center promoting obama care. >> call center, right. >> people call in and they -- they put the information over the phone, sort of 1980 style. >> when you're trying to attract young people to enroll, because what you need to make this work is young, healthy people, the way to do it is obviously, wolf, over the internet. not through call centers. they have no choice, though, right now, to promote it through
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those call centers. what they're trying to do, by sending cabinet members out, sending kathleen sebelius out to say, obama care is not just the website. obama care is a plan that will work for you. and what's the one question you are not asked? one question you are not asked whether you have a preexisting condition and that should be liberating for you. this is a message they're trying to take to the american public and say, look, you have a bunch of time to get this done, don't be discouraged, this is really good for you, so keep trying. whatever way you can. >> the longer the fix is not completely there, the greater the pressure will be to delay the penalties, individual mandate, that pressure already growing. >> growing from democrats, i would say. >> especially democrats up for re-election next year. >> this business defunding obama care from the house republicans. this is from democrats who are up for re-election, who are getting a lot of pressure at home, and particularly in red
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state, red state democrats, somebody like jeanne shaheen from new hampshire said extend enrollment because they believe this isn't fair and you can't penalize people who haven't been able to log on and get in. so you know i wouldn't be surprised if eventually, if this continues, that they do -- they do make some amendments. but now -- >> the president has that authority. he has that ability to do it through executive action, as he did with the employer plan dates. he can make a decision to delay it if he wants. >> sure. >> but he hasn't made that decision. >> yesterday the white house finally met with the insurance company executives to ask them for help. these are the people who know how to do this kind of stuff. they're teaming up to come up with some technical way to fix all of this within the next few weeks. we'll see if they can do it. >> we'll see what happens in the course of today. high stakes allegations between a very close ally, germany, accusing the united states of eavesdropping on the
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chancellor. what angela merkel has to say about it, that's next. [ male announcer ] this is brad. his day of coaching begins with knee pain, when... [ man ] hey, brad, want to trade the all-day relief of two aleve for six tylenol? what's the catch? there's no catch. you want me to give up my two aleve for six tylenol? no. for my knee pain, nothing beats my aleve. she's always been able it's just her way.day. but your erectile dysfunction - that could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications,
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listen closely to what he said. >> we are not going to comment publicly on every specified, allege, intelligence activity. we have made clear the united states gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations. >> david ignatius, associate editor of "the washington post" and columnist. thanks for joining us. your take on clearly a tense moment in u.s.-german, shall i say u.s.-european relations? >> well, this does illustrate what i'm told is the first rule of intelligence operations overseas which is don't get caught, because once you get caught you're in this kind of situation in which people get furious, they feel their private communications have been exposed, the u.s. ends up issuing nondenial, denials what jay carney's comments which you showed sounded like to me. reality is that the united states hasek treatmently aggressive and effective
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capabilities for surveillance around the world. the nsa's the lead edge of that it's not the only part. and it does give the u.s. the ability to capture conversations in germany, brazil, all of these countries that are allies and as those cap abilities get disclosed they're creating real political backlash. >> we shouldn't be surprised. we have covered intelligence over many years and that friendly countries spy on each other, allies, spy on each other. this is nothing new, right? >> it's nothing new. it's not -- shouldn't necessarily be damaging. allies like to know what each other are doing, i mean i suppose sometimes you're doing trade negotiations and want to know what the german trade minister's planning to bring into the next round, but, yeah, this is the basic stuff of intelligence activities overseas. the germans, in particular,
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react extremely negatively to this. i've been with german friends over last few months after the exposures began and they were shaking they were so upset. it may come from their particular experiences with hitler's germany and then east germany, a surveillance state in both cases. maybe that makes them especially concerned about this and the u.s. has to take that into account. but the basic answer to your question is, yes, everybody does do this kind of thing. the u.s., through the nsa, does more aggressively because it's better at it it's got more capabilities. >> you had a column in which you had an interview with james clapper, director of national intelligence, let me read a line. the white house is generally deferred to clapper, letting him broker deals within the intelligence community rather than try to impose its own management. on redaction of nsa documents, for example, the white house
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left most decisions with clapper. so what do you think? does he get too much leeway? >> i think that clapper is trying to fill what is a bit of a policy vacuum and that's good. somebody should take charge and clapper's an experienced person. wolf, the simple point i would make is that, most of the u.s. government response, including by clapper to the nsa scandal, has focused on domestic reaction in the u.s. americans who say, wait a minute, you know, we don't want our data, our met ta data, saying who we called on cell phones, whatever, we don't want that collected by the nsa. clapper's responded to that he's pushed back against nsa and says you have to disclose more than you're comfortable with. u.s. officials sometimes say things like, look, sorry, the fourth amendment against
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unnecessary search and seizure, that doesn't apply to foreign citizens, that's for american citizens. i think they have to say more to people like chancellor angela merkel, a key u.s. friend and ally, because they're really mad. >> not only the germans, french are mad, mexicans are mad, brazilians. a lot of countries with good relations to the was angry right now. >> these days, throw a dart at a map of the world and you'll hit a country that's mad at the united states. hope it doesn't last forever. >> thanks very much. shocking, new details out about how the beloved massachusetts teacher was killed when her 14-year-old student is accused of doing. we have new information. this was the hardest decision i've ever had to make. jim, i adore the pool at your hotel. anna, your hotels have wondrous waffle bars. ryan, your hotels' robes are fabulous. i have twelve of them.
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some testy moments during a hearing with the problems of the obama website. two house committee members got into a heated exchange over motives behind the hearings and concerns about protect people's personal information. >> no health information is required in the application process and why is that? because preexisting conditions don't matter. so once again, here we have my republican colleagues trying to scare everybody. >> will you yooeield. >> i will not yield to a monkey court. >> this noise eight monkey court. >> i'm not yielding. the problem here -- >> protecting american citizens -- >> preexisting conditions don't matter, hipaa doesn't apply,
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there's no health information in the process, you're asked about your address, date of birth. you're not asked health information. why are we going down this path? because you are trying to scare people so they don't apply. >> republican congressman joe pitts of pennsylvania took part, has been taking part in the hearing, he's a member of committee joining us capitol hill. thanks for coming in. >> thank you. a pleasure to be with you. >> what do you think of congressman pallone's charge you're not trying to fix the website, you're trying to undermine obama care? >> well, that's from a man, although i highly respect him, who thinks everything's okay and we shouldn't ask questions. i think oversight, asking questions is an important role for our committee. >> when you hear him calling this, a quote, monkey court what do you say to him? >> well i didn't say anything to him in the heat of the moment. he used that phrase.
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it's unfortunate. the energy and commerce committee and the health subcommittee have a proper role of oversight in asking questions. and today we had vendors who we had on september 10th come before the subcommittee and say everything was a -okay. we know what happened with the disastrous rollout. we tried to find out what happened. they were not able to give us answers because they said cms contracts prohibited them from responding. they pointed the finger at cms as being the basic problem. so next week, when secretary sebelius comes, we'll ask her to respond to those questions. >> did you learn anything substantive, important today? >> well, we learned some things, although their testimony in the beginning seemed to indicate everything was still okay. we were able to drill down and
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find out more information. but really, we need cms, secretary sebelius to come before us get the basic answers. we found out that they did do very end on a very complex e system with multiple agencies and databases and millions of consumers. it's unthinkable, it's very shocking, that they would wait until the last minute to do the end to end testing. we learned that they made last-minute changes which complicated things. so, yeah, we learned some new information but we have more questions. >> in your opening statement, congressman, you said, among other things, you wanted to find out whether or not the administration, in your words, was simply incompetent or were they just lying to the american people? i wonder if you want to explain
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that second part, lying to the american people what were you driving at? >> well, i think what we got the information from secretary sebelius, from the cmsed apalestinian straighter that everything united states ready to roll out, they could go on the websites and shop and get the information and sign up, why that was not so. i think we were misled because that has not occurred. in addition to all of the other broken promises that if you like your health care, you can keep it. if you like your doctor, you can keep it the costs aren't going to go up, and you know that's not true. so i think to some degree, they have misled the american people on this affordable care act. >> but was that a deliberate misleading, deliberate lying, if you will, or blunders, mistakes? >> i don't know.
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i wouldn't say -- i don't want to impugn any motives here. but they obviously have misled the american people because this is a disaster right now. you can try to go on and we have numerous people mentioned that they tried to go on and could not. they had all kinds of problems. and i think the glitches, they call it it's more than glitches. and this is indicative, it's a good metaphor what's going to happen with the affordable care act. if they can't set up a website, what if they control the health care of million of americans? it's another problem. hiding the costs of health care with the information being put out there, i think that's wrong. we should let people go on and browse and see all of the different plans, mouch it's going to cost, shop, and then register. but that's not what they decided to do.
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>> yeah, they're fixing that now. but you're right, two weeks before the launch, all of a sudden they've changed it so you had to put a password, personal information in, simply to browse, simply to shop, and that clearly screwed up at least a big clung of the website. congressman, thanks for coming in. >> thank you. still ahead, new information on how a beloved massachusetts teacher was killed. stay with us. twins. i didn't see them coming. i have obligations. cute obligations, but obligations. i need to rethink the core of my portfolio. what i really need is sleep. introducing the ishares core, building blocks for the heart of your portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal.
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in massachusetts to classes in danvers high school. students and parents are talking to grief counselors after one of their teachers was killed. the suspect one of her students 14-year-old phillip chism charged with murder of the death of colleen ritzer. don lemon is joining us danvers, getting new information about the killing. what are you hearing, don? >> reporter: it's odd when you said there was no school today, i looked around, it's been awfully quiet today, there is no school. kids came out a short time ago, meeting with grief counselors earlier today, kids, staff members and family. we're learning new details about what led up to colleen ritzer's death and subsequently what happened after that. sources told our pamela brown this morning that she tried to go to a faculty rest room,
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someone was in it, it was locked. she went to a student rest room on the second floor and chism followed her into the rest room and hit her and used a boxcutter to -- in her death, in her demise and took her body and put it into a recycling bin and removed that from the building and took her body and dumped it into the woods. a source, just a short time ago, also tells me, wolf, that the body, when they did find the body, it was not in the recycling bin, it was not buried or covered with leaves or anything, and that the recycling bin was dumped about 100 feet away over an embankment and that the suspect did go to the movies, he did go to wendy's, and then after na police caught up with him in a neighboring town. >> what are authorities saying about a motive. >> reporter: wolf, no motive as of yet. still trying to figure it out. still talking to him.
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authorities aren't saying much, they're being very careful, as i told you in our conversation yesterday, they didn't want to say much because not much was entered into the record. prosecutors -- he is being charged as an adult, they're not saying much about that. fellow students, you spoke with one of them yesterday, others say, nothing out of the ordinary about a relationship between the two, as far as they know. he was a student in her classroom. he never relationally mentioned her. and this was some isolated incident. but still new york one knows why yet. >> is -- does he have a lawyer? his he cooperating? i read that original -- the criminal complaint and it looked like he was talking to police, basically acknowledging what happened. >> reporter: absolutely. and originally, they said they figured it out, and i think they went to look for her body, i'm sure they went to look for her
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body because of the initial interview and he incriminated himself in the interview. according to the sources that we have, what you have been reading, what i have been reading, yes, he appears to be cooperating. i imagine that investigators, at this point, would know some sort of motive, if there is one, or if this was just some incident where he, you know, kind of lost it and went off on a tangent and then killed her. but, yes, to answer your question, yes, he is cooperating with investigators. >> have you heard anything from his family? >> reporter: we -- i -- we went by the house this morning, knocked on the door, and there were people inside but they chose not to come out. a number of news organizations had left cards and had been there earlier. pamela brown went by just a short time ago and said there were people at home and earlier that they had seen some folks at the house, but nobody with the family so far is talking. the mother showed up at the
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police station yesterday and left but did not say anything as well. >> what a story. what a sad story, indeed. don lemon will have more on this later in "the situation room." thank you. cries of foul are being lobbed at number two democrat in the united states senate, after a post on facebook. what exactly did dick durbin do? stay with us. [ male announcer ] break the grip of back or arthritis pain
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a pretty da mr. ning quote from the senator dick durbin, quote, i cannot stand to look at you, he claims a republican said that directly to the president in the president's face during negotiations over the government's shutdown. now it seems senator durbin may have misspoken. looking into this, it's a very weird story. what's going on.
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>> well, dick durbin claims that it did happen but he was not in the meeting where it happened. it was related to him, apparently by some democratic senator but was came from a white house official. so this game of he said/she said. now the republican leader in the house, speaker john boehner, is defending whoever this republican lawmaker is, and i want to read you a comment from boehner's spokesman brendan buck. he basically is saying it appears to have been invented out of thin air, the senator should disclose who told him this account of events, retract his reckless allegation immediately and apologize. >> what is the white house saying about all of this. >> jay carney just was giving his briefing and said it was a miscommunication. we'll look at a comment from him right now as well. he says, the quote attributed to a republican lawmaker in the house gop with the president is not accurate, there was a miscommunication when the white house read out the meeting to democrats and we regret the misunderstanding.
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jay carney said this was during the heat of the government shutdown when house republicans shut down the government. so it's clear that something happened but we still don't know what yet, we're trying to get further to the bottom of it, we'll have more. >> the republican congressman, who supposedly made this comment, has he said something? >> not yet. >> we'll see what happens. see you later in "the situation room." a parent and politician criticized for looking the other way during a house party. there was alcohol. underaged son, why didn't he stop the party or take his son home? that's next. when you have diabetes like i do, you want a way to help minimize blood sugar spikes. support heart health. and your immune system. now there's new glucerna advance with three benefits in one. [ male announcer ] new glucerna advance. from the brand doctors recommend most. a man who doesn't stand still. but jim has afib, atrial fibrillation -- an irregular heartbeat, not caused by a heart valve problem.
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what's going on. what happened here? why is he under fire? >> reporter: wolf he's under fire at party in june he was photographed, a picture posted to instagram, moving through a crowd of kids, at a party, at a beach week party for a high school in bethany beach, delaware, a party that appeared to have teenagers and their ages are unclear, but according to the baltimore sun, and some accounts that the paper published, some kid as peered to be under age drinking at this party. legal drinking age in delaware and maryland is 21 years old. that he moved through the party of a lot of dancing and apparent drinking and didn't do anything to stop it. and he is under fire for that, as not only a parent, but as a chief law enforcement officer of a state. again, he is arguing that he was not the chief law enforcement officer of delaware, he is the chief law enforcement officer of maryland. but still, he's being criticized because doug gansler has worked
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on programs against underaged drinking, against substance abuse, done psas to that effect. i asked him a short time ago whether it wasn't hypocritical of him to move through the party and not iraqi it up after he had done that work for the public campaigns. >> if i had seen anything that i thought was, you know, bad behavior, bad drinking, then i might have acted differently, maybe i should have. >> was there drinking going on? >> certainly sounds like, from what i understand now, there's certainly some drinking. i guess going on. if you look at the picture, they're not -- not where i was, but some kids, one or two, holding red cups and generally, you know, there could be kool-aid in the red cups but probably beer in the red cups. i didn't stick my nose in and see and maybe high should have. that's all i can tell you about that. >> reporter: gansler said it was not even clear to them that
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night, when he moved through the party, kids were drinking. he says, looking back, it's a strong possibility they were but he wasn't sure at the time that those kids were drinking. he did say that his mistake was, his main mistake, was that he didn't investigate it further. there were other parents shap per reasons. he says he probably should have checked with them and looked into it >> brian will have more on this story later today in "the situation room" as well. brian, thank you very much. coming up, a milwaukee clinic is all set and ready for people to sign up for obama care, but so far, so far, no takers. drew griffin examines why the clinic has been unable to enroll people in the health care program.
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wall street in an optimistic
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mood today thanks to a strong round of corporate earnings reports. the dow, s&p 500 and nasdaq all gaining ground. investors are reacting to better than expected earnings reports from ford, at&t and 3m. you see where things stand, the dow up by 90 points right now. a milwaukee clinic that serves low-income residents is all geared up and ready to enroll people in obama care. but so far, no one has signed up. the clinic director said problems with the health care website are partly to blame and she's holding out hope that the health care law will eventually work. drew griffin has details. >> milwaukee's progressive community health care centers operates two clinics in some of the most low-income neighborhoods in all of wisconsin. 8,000 patients a year come here for almost free health care. and they've been doing that for years. that's why workers here were so
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excited about the affordable care act. finally, low-income patients would be able to get health insurance, many for the first time. the staff went through months of special training. >> you have a good day, sir. >> prepared for the official rollout on october 1st. and since that day, how many patients has the center been able to enroll in an affordable care act health plan? exactly zero. though ceo jenny insists they have come close. >> they get to the point where, yes, this is your tax credit. this is what you will be eligible for. and then the next step is going to be to actually pick your plan. but we can't quite get to that part of the site yet. >> so no one is actually enrolled in a plan. >> correct. >> why? >> because we can't get to that part in the system. >> because of the system itself? >> right. >> just look on enrollment specialist tina chang's computer screen. it's the message she has
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continually been shown why trying to register anyone. >> first week was kind of frustrating. >> the center says it's not keeping track of the number of people who tried to enroll, and it's not just technical glitches. since october 1st, chang and her other colleagues have helped 150 people sign up for medicaid, but not one under a health plan sponsored by the affordable care act. one woman went through the system, looked ought what she qualified for, and decided not to sign up, at least not yet. >> with that particular situation, the plan was about -- i believe it was a family of three, came to $820. your tax credits were high, too. >> do you know what her out of pocket would have been? >> she didn't select a plan. we went and compared plans. >> that's another worry, that patients of progressive health care centers are not used to playing monthly premiums for insurance. it's not clear just yet if any premium under the affordable care act will be deemed
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affordable at all to the lowest income consumers. even with a big subsidy from the government. >> so yes, they are -- they're not used to paying an insurance premium. >> still, ceo jenny says not to worry. computer issues, the process, the education will all get better. so will the idea about low-cost health insurance. she believes the law is good, no matter how bad the rollout. do you wish at this point in the game, what, three weeks in now, we would have some people from this community signed up, under the affordable care act, with a plan that they know they're going to get? >> sure. yeah, if i could wish something, i would wish that it would work. but you know, we have waited many years for something. and so three weeks seems like a short period of time. even to the people who are trying to apply, you know, they've gone years without insurance. so they are being very patient. and they're willing to come back.
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>> for now, progressive community health centers is willing to wait, too. three weeks so far. waiting for its very first patient to sign up for coverage under the affordable health care act. drew griffin, cnn, milwaukee. >> let's check out stories we're following. lawyers for michael skakel are preparing a bailout method to get him out of prison. he was found guilty of killing his neighbor, martha moxley, when they were both 15 years old. but yesterday, a connecticut judge granted him a new trial, saying his defense attorney was inadequate. prosecutors are planning to appeal. some other stories we're following. a u.s. flag oil platform supply ship has been attacked by pirates in the west african gulf of guinea, off the coast of niger nigeria. a u.s. official confirmed two crew members believed to be americans were taken off the ship by their captors.
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their whereabouts and the condition of the ship are unclear right now. we'll keep you updated on this story as it develops. the u.s. navy's first supercarrier has been sold. get this, it's been sold for 1 cent. the u.s.s. is headed to texas where it will be scrapped. it was called the biggest ship ever built when it was launched back in 1954. tragedy struck in 1967 when stray volten triggered a rocket to launch on the flight deck, striking a plane occupanted by then lieutenant commander john mccain. it triggered a chain reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors. it was in service for almost four 40 years. it was decommissioned back in 1993. this programming note. tonight, cnn films presents "blackfish." the film follows the history of killer whales in captivity, leading up to the death of a sea world trainer in 2010. don't miss it later tonight,
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9:00 p.m. eastern only here on cnn. that does it for me. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in washington. i'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "the situation room." news room continues right now with brooke baldwin. >> welcome to fenway park. last night, the red sox won big here, but tonight, find out why they will not be the biggest heroes in boston on this field. i'm brooke baldwin. the news is now. the weapon used to kill a math teacher revealed. but what's the motive? look closely. the man in the middle of this teenage house party is maryland's attorney general. and what's in those kids' cups? and why didn't he ask? plus, lawmakers grill the folks in charge of the obama care website. >> american public have been dumped with the ultimate cash for