tv Happening Now FOX News August 6, 2012 8:00am-10:00am PDT
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need. bill: can you guaranty that fresh? >> do you need pizza to be fresh? eat it day after. bill: eat it cold. press conference in wisconsin. >> see you later in the week. "happening now" starts right now. bye. gregg: breaking information on the massacre at a sikh temple in wisconsin, hello everyone, i'm gregg jarrett in for jon scott. jenna: nice to have you with us gregg. i'm jenna lee. we're awaiting a police news conference on that deadly shooting as officers search the suspect's apartment looking for clues for a possible motive. police calling the crime a act of domestic terrorism initially. the u.s. attorney's office identifying the suspect as wade michael page, a 40-year-old former soldier. here is what we we learned about him. still sketchy but we learned he had white supremacist tatoos. stationed at one time at
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fort bragg, north carolina. witnesses say he gunned down six people and critically wounded three others and before a police officer returned fire killing him. the suspect never said a word and began firing at worshippers during sunday services at the oak creek temple. >> some people walked in started shooting. there were little kids start screaming gunfire going on and the ladies and kids, hid in the closets. >> this is really scary and really unexpected happen to, even we never how the somebody would two that far. so this is --. jenna: rick leventhal live in oak creek, wisconsin, with more for us, rick? >> jenna, police are on scene in the area south of milwaukee. it is completely sealed off. they're still at the temple gathering forensic and other evidence after that man, wade michael page, walked in
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yesterday morning, 10 clone 30 a.m. including the first police officer on scene. a second officer engaged the gunman and killed him. this is a incident without precedent in wisconsin. the sikh community has thousands of members. they are often mistaken for muslims and targeted for hate crimes since 9/11 but police don't have a motive in the case. jenna: we expect a news conference any moment, rick. we mention ad few descriptions about the shooter. what more do we know about him today? >> reporter: well, we just came from the home that he was living in, just a few minutes from here. he had moved into just a few weeks ago. he is described as you mentioned as a white male. he is 40 years old. he was an army veteran. served six years from 1992 through '98 as a psychological operation specialists and hawk missile systems repairman before being discharged with
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patterns of misconduct which included drunk on duty. we learned about a dui arrest in colorado in 1999. sources tell us page had white supremacist tatoos. may have been a member of multiple skinhead bands. we can't confirm this, all more surprising the neighbor i spoke with this morning described page as a talktive, normal person. >> he would be very personable. a real, how are you doing, to the kids and how are you doing. there were construction crews in the neighborhood. kind of guy that would go and talk everybody. didn't seem like he had a dark side like that to him. everybody has a skeleton in the closest i guess his came out yesterday. >> reporter: members of the sikh community say they believe this was sheer bigotry, jenna. we hope to learn more from the news conference starting any minute. jenna: i'm keeping eye on some of the live feed we have, rick. you're outside where the news conference is taking
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place so you can't see it. we're waiting for someone two step to the microphone. what do the folks in the community, what are the questions they're asking today? what is just lingering out there right now as far as what law enforcement can provide to the public? >> well with the people that we've spoken with from the sikh community are obviously devastated by what happened here at temple which is over my shoulder, far enough away we can't actually see the exterior of the building. they called this bigotry and racism. they're convinced this guy went there targeting the people for no other reason than hatred for the way they dressed, what they wear, how they present themselves and religion that they follow. and, they're shocked and outraged by it. they're a peaceful people. they really can't understand it. and again the people that we spoke with in the neighborhood, most of the people didn't know this guy. the gentleman i spoke with this morning spoke with him quite often every time he
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walked back and forth in front of the guy's house with his grandkids and seemed very normal and talktive. he would chat up people in the neighborhood. he apparently said he was out of work. had broken up with a girlfriend recently. may have been troubled by that and may have had other troubles we're beginning to learn more about. jenna: important context, rick. we can see members of the sikh community present for the press conference we believe will begin any moment. rick leventhal, back to him as breaking news develops and back to the news conference once it begins. gregg: fox news is your election headquarters. the war of words heating up between supporters of governor mitt romney and senate majority leader harry reid. rnc chairman reince priebus, calling senator reid, quote a dirty liar. one of senator reid's aides calling romney's people cowards and henchman.
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because of claims unsubstantiated that romney hasn't paid taxes in 10 years. mike emanuel, mike i may have to interrupt you as the news conference getting underway. any signs of back checking by the rnc chairman today? >> reporter: gregg, no. reince priebus and continued punching hard at the rnc leader. hear is the rnc chairman on "fox & friends." there is no triple down on blackjack but i will triple down from my comments yesterday, speaking of las vegas. it's a just the truth. what else do you call somebody who goes onto the senate floor, and claims that someone, you know, hasn't paid any taxes in 10 years, a complete lie, uses his official office to do it. >> reporter: romney personally fired back at senator reid on friday in las vegas but today a campaign aide says he will meet at his home in new hampshire with senior advisors, gregg. gregg: does this allegation, mike, without providing
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proof put other allies of the president, maybe the president himself in a rather awkward spot? >> right because they have not seen any proof from senator reid either. so there has been some reluctance to fully embrace reid's charge on the tax issue. though david axelrod told chris wallace, governor romney could take action. gregg: mike emanuel. thanks very much. we're keeping an eye on the area in a courthouse, i think it is a court hours where the news conference will go live any moment. it hasn't yet. let's listen in. i'm sorry. mayor scapini. >> sunday was a tragic day for our city, especially give the fact it occurred in a place of worship at a sunday service, on a quiet sunny morning in wisconsin. our thoughts and prayers go out to the fam is of the
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victims, four our wounded officer and all our responders, fire, police, other agencies and the community which is still in shock. no doubt in my mind the heroic actions of our police officers prevented a greater tragedy and they should be commended for that. oak creek, is a diverse, welcoming city. we host 2 places of worship and the sikh community is part of that what makes our city strong. we will recover from this but i want to assure everyone that we were doing everything we can cooperating with federal agencies, local and state agencies, to get answers we need to resolve the situation and to begin the healing process. as part of that we have a community-wide vigil as part of our national night out event tomorrow night at 8:30, adjacent to the oak creek
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community center on howell avenue. >> hello, i'm police chief john edwards. first i would like to echo what the mayor said as far as our condolences to the sikh community. we consider them a partner in our community and they work with us and this is a tragedy for all including us. i'd like to first of all thank all agencies that assisted yesterday. we had quite the outpouring of help and resources. i'm just going to say what we have in milwaukee county is a smart response, mutual aid response of law enforcement. we put that out instead of naming all the agencies. there were 27 agencies throughout the milwaukee area, kenosha, racine, waukesha area that assisted and gave us officers and resources including tactical teams, k-9 and search unit investigators. as part of that we also had the milwaukee county
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sheriff's, milwaukee police department were huge as far as assisting us not only in the tactical portion but in the investigative portion. milwaukee pd is also assisting us in the officer-involved shooting portion of this investigation with the district attorney's office. i would like to thank the fbi, the atf, and also dci from the state of wisconsin. fbi we're working with and with atf currently on this investigation. it's a joint operation. fbi is lead on the investigation. dci provided agents for interviews. there were many witnesses that needed to be interviewed and people that needed to be talked to. so i thank all those agencies. i would like to also thank kudahey police department. their chief is here today. they assisted in follow-up that had to be done in their city and they were very cooperative with with us. like to introduce at this time to explain the fire
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response, fire chief tom rosen. >> first off fire service can be very proud that the fire and ems did to this incident. we also would twhapg our communities that responded mutually to us. we went to what was called a second alarm mutual aid box life safety card which brought in division 109, the city of milwaukee, division 107 which is milwaukee county suburbs and division 102, racine county. in that response included 22 units, 60 personnel which included tactical ems that worked directly with the police department and also our paramedic units that transported by ground to the respective hospitals that were designated for this. we also worked directly with our milwaukee county paramedic base in coordinating this potential
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mass casualty incident. in this regards we would call this a minor in this case but also we were ready to upgrade and we had several resources that were available to us if this had also upgraded. also in the activation that we where is proceeded in this was a partial activation of our eoc which brought in supporting agencies and our local county emergency management. thank you. >> i would like to do now start off a little synopsys scenario what happened and the time frame. yesterday at 10:25 @ we received a initial call from inside the sikh temple there was a problem going on and somebody was firing inside of there. we had officers responding to that seen. they responded there and arrived within hundreds of the initial call. first officer on scene as he
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entered into the driveway area he came upon a victim in the parking lot and exited his vehicle and went to assist that individual. he went to render aid. it was at that point he was met by the suspect, who, basically ambushed him around his vehicle. the officer was shot eight to nine times at this incident at very close range. with a handgun. at that point other officers were arriving on scene and heard those gunshots. they were not aware the other officer had been shot. they took up a position and did observe the suspect in the parking lot walking and at that point began to give him commands as far as dropping his weapon wand putting his hands up. our officers are equipped with squad rifles. the officers had armed themselves with those rifles prior, once they exited vehicle under protocol when we react to an active
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shooter and that's what we were treating this as. after giving commands to the individual which he didn't respond to, he did fire, one of our vehicles took some run through the windshield. another one where is took some round. one of the officers returned fire with his squad rifle putting the individual down. they then secured that individual and at that point, did what is a officer rescue. they did a part check which is common in the fire service which we've incorporated and basically a way to find out where everybody is at. one of our officers, senior officers, on scene called for the park check they weren't getting a response. you call with a park check, you respond with your badge number, so everybody knows you're okay. we weren't getting the response back from the officer. they knew they had to start looking for him. they went to where they last knew where his location was, as he approached them he waved them off, he had been shot nine times, one very
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serious in the neck area and he waved them off and told them to go into the temple to assist those in there. the officers did a officer rescue, provided cover and carried him to a squad and got him out of the scene even though he was trying to get them to go into the temple. the officers at that point made sure that the suspect was not a threat anymore, as far as securing him. and they started to set up a perimeter at that point. we didn't know how many individuals may be out there. there was multiple reports. we are confident at this time that was the only shooter involved in this and but they did set up a perimeter and then it turned into a tactical situation. we had tactical teams from around our county, other counties that maim through. who is here from milwaukee county sheriff's department coordinated with our captain and they did a fantastic job with quite a large area that
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we had to cover and secure. we want the city of oak creek citizens to understand what we did and the reason it took so long to clear that area not only did we clear the temple itself and we had reports possibly there were others in there, we then did a grid search of approximately, i'm guessing about three square miles with the tactical teams with air support. after that was completed, we did a door-to-door, knock and talk, of every residence, approximately, 200 in that area to make sure everybody was okay and everybody was safe. i want them all to know this was the only shooter and there is nothing more to worry about as far as this situation goes. at that point the investigation was, we locked down the scene, called in the tac teams and called in so we could start clearing that scene and turning it over to the fbi as far as their response and evidence
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collection. as far as our officers i want to explain some of the things they did. we train for active shooters. in my mind they're all heroes. they did exactly what was expected of them. they're senior officers. i was asked today, what do you think of their actions? didn't surprise me in the least what they did. they all did what they had to do much. helped another officer and stop ad worse tragedy from haing by their actions. the officer who was shot is listed right now as critical condition. his information, his name is lieutenant brian murphy. he's a 51-year-old officer with our department. he has 21 years on the department. he was a member of our tac team for years. he was actually a tactical team leader for years. so, he right now is with his family resting at the
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hospital. we brought family in from out-of-state also. the other officers involved in the shooting itself are not available to speak, nor but we will identifying them there is separate investigation going on because we do have a officer-involved shooting. we're working with the district attorney's office and milwaukee pd is assisting us with because of that they're not allowed to talk nor do we identify them at this point. that will be forthcoming when the investigation is completed. at this point what i would like to do is, we do have available shoots wit with the victim's information. and i'm going to read out some ages, and i don't know that i would be able to, unless someone were to assist me from the seek community.
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would you like to come up and pronounce the names for me properly so, so that you get them properly. just want to give their age, and name, mail or female. >> sure. 41 years old. male. 49 years old, male. 62 years old, male. male, 39 years old. 41 years old, female. 84 years old, male. >> thank you. provide a list for you all to have. the other injured parties in this, we do have some other individuals who were
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injured. we had one swrid who, was taken from the scene and taken to one of the local hospitals. owe is in critical condition at local hospital in icu. the second individual came into one of local hospitals with chest wounds. he is also in critical condition. we had a third individual come into a hospital with a wound that was treated and they were released because of that wound. the information on the suspect, his name is, wade michael page. spelled w, a, d, e. m, i, c, h, a, e, l, p, a, g, e. his date of birth is 11, 01, 71. some of the information on the investigation on this individual we'll cover with zack carlson as far as some
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of the information that was obtained on him. there is much been put out in the media already regarding him. and some of that we're looking at. we can say that he was in the military from 1992 to 1998. he had a general discharge and that he was inhe will eligible for reenlistment. i want to make it perfectly clear right now he is the only shooter that was involved in the temple. we will be following up with with the sikh community and myself, some of the dignitaries from the community, the mayor and meeting with them privately on this, afterwards away from the media and discuss some of the follow-up woe need to do with both of our communities and we look forward to that. at this time i'd like to turn this over to u.s. attorney james santelli.
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>> chief, thank you. my name is james santele. united states attorney for eastern district of wisconsin and principle chief and federal law enforcement for this federal district. on behalf of attorney general eric holder i want to convey the profound sympathy, and deep sorry row of the united states department of justice to all the members of the sikh community here in oak creek, throughout this district, throughout the state of wisconsin and throughout the nation. the terrible event that we witnessed yesterday should not be a part of america. the president of the united states of america yesterday also conveyed his similar condolences and his sympathies to this population and to all citizens of the united states of america who are caring and loving and justice-seeking. we are profoundly saddened by the events yesterday and the work that has been done
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by this law enforcement community which i will speak in just a moment or so is a reflection of and animated princely by our found respect and for the great loss the sikh community has suffered in the past 24 hours. our hearts are deep, our sadness is profound and we share with you great tears. the chief has already spoken this morning about the response to this time by state, local and federal law enforcement. i want to comment more about that and assure all the members of the citizenry here in wisconsin, the members of the sikh temple, and all those who may be watching in businesses and homes around the country that law enforcement has been prompt, responsive, focused and targeted virtually since the very moment that the initial calls came in about this
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matter. we speak often about the partnership that happens here in wisconsin and throughout this country between federal, state, and local law enforcement. that is a result of the directive and the animation provided by our attorney general, by our deputy attorney general, by the united states attorneys around the country and by all of our state and local and tribal partners. that partnership, that cooperation, that collaboration, animated and has animated every moment since 24 hours ago today. it is fair to say that the tremendous work still ongoing, that has been result, has resulted today in some of the findings that the chief and my colleagues will discuss with you in just a moment or so is a direct result of that very cooperative, very focused and very collaborative association and partnership among law enforcement. we could not benefit more from --. jenna: that is the latest from oak creek, wisconsin where we got a whole bunch
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of new details that happened yesterday at the sikh temple. we learned about six victims in all, five men, one woman. the oldest victim, 84 years old, the youngest, 39. a little more information about the victims we'll hear over the next several hours and bring you that information as we do. we learned a little bit more about the gunman and also i should say the suspected gunman and the police officer that was shot, lieutenant brian murphy. he was shot eight to nine times with a handgun. he is also in the hospital right now, 51 years old. more than 20 years of service to the department. again the shooter, there has been a lot of questions about this alleged shooter, his motivations. we haven't heard anything about that yet. we do know at least one of the guns being used we don't know if there is more at this time. that was a handgun. that was being used in the parking lot and apparently what also injured the officer in the parking lot. the news conference is still going on. if we get anymore information out of the news conference we'll bring it to you but certainly a
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developing story out of wisconsin for us today. gregg: we know fox news is america's election headquarters. the gop announcing a all-star lineup for this month's republican national convention in tampa. among the headliners, senator john mccain the nominee four years ago. former secretary of state, condoleezza rice and former arkansas governor mike huckabee as well. speaking at the convention, four of the most prominent republican governors. there they are. florida's rick scott, south carolina's nikki haley and, ohio's john kasich and susana martinez from new mexico. joining us david drucker from "roll call". you wrote a column about your top list of folks. i want to get to that in a moment these guests big stars like john mccain, condoleezza rice and mike huckabee, why were they chosen? what does the party hope to accomplish with them? >> well, gregg, first i think we should note that the real keynote stars are not going to be announced
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until after mitt romney makes his vice-presidential pick. announcing somebody like chris christie or marco rubio or rob portman would sort of give away the store in that regard. i think what we're seeing now are picks that will help mitt romney and republican party try to communicate a message and an image. that is why i think we're seeing susana martinez, the governor of news u -- new mexico. female and hispanic. popular in new mexico despite the fact that barack obama is favored in the polls. another reason you're seeing condoleezza rice, african-american, female. i think john mccain, despite being the 2008 nominee was really chosen because romney's push on fighting the sequestration of defense funds and i think they're going to use john mccain to highlight that and try to make the president look weak on national security. gregg: all right. now you didn't mention and i do want to ask you about florida governor rick scott, very unpopular in some of the recent polls in florida
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and yet florida is a key swing state for governor mitt romney. >> yeah. nobody likes rick scott but he is the host governor he will get a slot the i don't think it will be at a time when too many people are watching but you can't ignore the host governor when he is of your party. gregg: noticeably missing, you made reference to this, are some of the potential gop vice-presidential contenders. let's put them up on the screen. governor tim pawlenty, senator robb portman, senator marco rubio, representative paul ryan, governor bobby jindal. these are not designated yet. is that simply because they're on the short list for veep? >> correct. whoever is the vice-presidential nominee is of course going to get the witness night nomination speech for that slot. gregg: right. >> naming anyone as a keynote from this list that includes virginia governor bob mcdonnell. that would mean they're out of contention. that would be the news frenzy. i think the real stars or
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people that have been very, very helpful to romney and on the short list will not be given anything if they're going to get it until after that announcement is made. gregg: about what losers in the primary, i call them losers, they know what i mean, michele bachmann, herman cain, newt gingrich, rick perry, rick santorum. are they going to be speaking at all or are they going to be shunned? what's the deal? >> i think it depends. there are so many spots available. rick perry is successful governor of a very republican state. i wouldn't be surprised to see him. i don't know if ron paul will get a slot. i simply don't know if he is going to thoroughly and wholeheartedly endorse mitt romney in public. i think senator rand paul, who has endorsed romney will get a slot. for rick santorum it depends on whether he is willing to stick to a script vetted by the romney team and mitt romney and thoroughly and, with vigor. if he is willing to do that we might see him.
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but everybody who speaks all the way down to dog catcher, they all have to talk about why the nominee is the greatest thing since sliced bread and how they will make everything better and the other guy horrible. that is your job when you speak at the convention in addition to introducing yourself and taking advantage of the national spotlight. gregg: don't underestimate the dog catcher. david drucker, thanks very much. good to see you as always. >> anytime, gregg. jenna: everyone has a roll. gregg: that's right. we love the dog catchers in my neighborhood, that's for sure. jenna: a new week and yet more news over senate majority leader harry reid's comments over governor romney's taxes. one leading republican calling reid a dirty liar. democrats are firing back. we'll take a fair and balanced look on that. big news out of this world, the latest mars mission underway and remarkable images of the red planet. will man be next? we'll ask a former nasa astronaut just ahead. hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios
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concerned, listen, i know you might want to go down that road. i'm not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn't filed a single page of tax returns himself, complains about people with money but lives in the ritz-carlton here down the street. so, if that is on the agenda, i'm not going to go there. this is just a made-up issue and the fact not spending anytime. >> not going to respond but you called him a dirty liar? you stand by that, you think harry reid is dirty liar? >> i just said it. jenna: priebus reacting to the debbie wasserman schultz the dnc chair who says there is easy way to end this controversy, calling on governor romney to release tax returns. >> george, i don't know who harry reid's source is. >> that is the point, isn't it. >> i do know that mitt romney could clear this up in 10 seconds by releasing the 2 years of tax returns that he gave to john mccain when he, when he was being vetted for vice president. or even 12 years of tax
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returns, that his own father said were what was appropriate because one year of tax returns like he released could just be for show. jenna: usually only talk about taxing on april 15th. now this whole thing. sabrina schaeffer, executive director of independent women's forum joins us. margie o'mara, president of momentum analysis, llc. welcome to you both. ladies we would not be talking about this again unless there is more from reince priebus on it this morning. roll this from "fox & friends.". >> you want to back off your statement calling dirty harry, dirty harry? >> there is no triple down in blackjack but i will triple down on my comments from yesterday. so, speaking of las vegas. it's just the truth. the fact, what else do you call somebody who goes onto the senate floor and claims that someone, you know, hasn't paid any taxes in 10 years, complete lie, uses
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his official office to do it, and we all get it. he is just playing this game and, you know, it is amazing to me that there can be any honor in a position that he holds, that he has degraded so far down the tubes. so, you know, it is what it is. he is a dirty liar and we're moving on. we're moving on to defeating this president and saving this country. jenna: moving on but still going to talk about it. sabrina, why continue to dig spy it? why is the rnc continuing to talk about it? >> i feel like i'm a kid on a playground right now. seems like there is a lot of back and forth going on. to the rnc credit i think they're trying to push back on a narrative come to dominate the campaign, one of class warfare where the president or democrats in congress, where the obama campaign are really pitting americans against one another and they are using governor romney's wealth as sort of the focal point. i think reality is, governor romney hasn't done anything wrong.
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senator reid hasn't been able to provide any evidence to back up his claims. and speaker boehner said this is absolutely a sideshow. jenna: so, margie, sabrina saying this is a way for republicans to combat as she mentioned this class warfare argument by the democrats. what do you think democrats are accomplishing through all of this. >> this is not about harry reid. we've been talking about mitt romney's tax returns for some time and we'll con continue to talk about them. we would still talk about them if there wasn't a issue with senator reid. here is why it is important, first of all what is he hiding, what is mitt romney hiding? he made a political calculation is better than whatever is in the tax returns. second thing is, what does this say about his policies? that is why --. jenna: what does it say about the policies? >> there has been independent tax policy center, has issued a report that mitt romney's tax plan would be a tax increase in 95% of americans and decrease for the top 5%. and then when you have him,
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mitt romney's own tax returns show that he has tax havens in the cayman islands and switzerland, begs the question who is he really fighting for? you have policies plus his own personal how he stands to benefit taken together he is not on the side what poll after poll shows the american people want. jenna: this conversation has come up, there has been a few editorials come out that have mentioned that the reason why both sides are so concentrated on this is that neither side has really been able to define their own campaigns. sabrina, what is the deaf is -- definition of the mitt romney campaign? without talking about tax returns and what does mitt romney stand for and what is the message that is supposed to come out and what hasn't? >> i'm not a representative from the romney campaign. a lot of people are waiting to hear more details of his economic policy he talked for instance, about bringing down government spending from 24% to 20% by the end of his first term. one thing i wanted to
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respond to margie put out there that he is hiding something. the fact is all candidates have the same rights to privacy their tax returns but they do have to file with the fec. that lays out their assets and liabilities. in fact the sort of points a sharper, sharper light on their net worth rather than their income. so in many ways this really exposes romney to a lot more criticism than he would have if he just put a tax return out there. jenna: final thought from you what defines the president campaign that would make him different this time than what we've seen over the last couple years? >> well the president is talking about making america a country built to last focused on innovation and education and energy and improving our infrastructure. we've had 29 straight months of private sector job growth. there is still more work to be done but the economy he inherited poll after poll shows, the, figures back that up, that, the failed policies of the bush administration got us into a mess, is taking some time to get out of. jenna: looks forward to --
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>> going back to the retro policies of romney campaign. jenna: margie, sabrina, nice to have you both. thank you. >> thank you. gregg: exactly one year ago, one of the worst military tragedies ever and today, we remember the u.s. troops killed when the taliban shot down a u.s. helicopter in afghanistan. it marked the heaviest loss of life for navy seals in their service to their country. with 17 sales seals and five special operations troops that support the seals among the dead. killed in the attack, three us air force special forces along with five u.s. army personnel. and we wanted to tell you a little bit the brave men who lost their lives that day. they include chief petty officer brian bill. he was 31 years old, a native the stamford, connecticut. that city planning to build a memorial tribute to him. plus today in his honor his sister and brother-in-law ran a half-marathon in virginia beach. sailors on the uss iwo jima,
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running a half-marathon. they're calling it 13 for 31. anywhere where you you can join in today as well. petty officer john tumelson killed that day. he wall was 35 years old. he lived in san diego. a special five-k run was held at fees sta island. one of his friend decided to run 31 laps around fiesta island for 24 trait hours. chris campbell was another navy seal who lost his life in the chopper crash. he was the son of a marine. his father says he left behind a final mission for his family in his will. campbell saying if anything happened to him in combat his family should not focus on his loss but instead focus on wounded war yors. his father saying campbell wanted 100,000 people to donate $1 to the wounded warrior project. they are trying to fulfill his wish, setting up fund-raisers, auctions and memorial bike rides. if you would like any information on how you can
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jenna: brand new developments this hour in the sikh temple shooting with police giving a detailed account of the shooting rampage and the aftermath saying the accused gunman shot the first responding officer eight to nine times with a handgun at close range. that officer survived. he is now in critical condition surrounded by family. they also identified the gunman as wade michael page. now we wanted to take a closer look at the seek religion since 9/11 has seen an uptick in violence. a lot of question about why here. religion correspondent lauren green live with more.
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>> many don't know about the sikh religion as you pointed out and the religion was founded 500 years ago in the punjab region india. it grew out of mostly hindu and some muslim traditions but he belongs to neither. it is the fifth largest religion with the majority living in india, about half a million in the united states. like the abrahamic faiths of judaism, christianity and muslim it is monotheeistic. believing in one god. observant men do not cut their hair and cover their heads with turbines and refrain from shaving their beards. their temples mean doorway to god and the say croat tex is called the granth is a heeb. after 9/11 attacks the sikhs were often mistaken for muslims and sometimes tear -- retaliatory actions
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taken against them. in december 21 a sikh was shot and killed outside of his mesa, arizona gas station. the shooter reportedly wanted to kill a muslim in retaliation for the attacks on september 11th. since then there have been more than 700 attacks on sikhs in the united states according to the sikh coalition of washington. the shooting in wisconsin, the latest. >> why does a completely innocent community like the sikh community have to pay such a pef penalty for the ignorance and hatred in america? >> reporter: the shootings in wisconsin have only increase fears of violence among sikhs across the country and they work to educate people who they are and what they believe. jenna? jenna: lauren, thank you. gregg: some brand new stories coming up this next hour. a frequent accident at nascar, a deadly lightning strike that killed a fan and the warning that went out right before it. we're going to have a live story for you. word that accused mass
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minutes of terror, making a gentle landing on the red planet overnight. remarkable images already coming back to earth as the rover scans the landscape on the red planet. why is a mission like this so important? joining us former has at that astronaut, author of plan technology, a fox news contributor, tom jones. good to see you. derek pitts, from franklin institute planetarium. tom, we were talking about this yesterday and we were oh so optimistic and hopeful that it would succeed and did. kind of makes you proud to be an american. what a technological achievement here, a tribute to american industry justness and ingenuity, isn't it? >> a product of 10 years of intense design work and engineering to make the spacecraft survive. this is nail-biting landing on mars. con graltlations to the jet propulsion team and nasa. we'll have five years of amazing results coming from mars. it is the prelude to the
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next big step in mars exploration which is bringing samples back from the red planet. learning about possible life there and paving the way for human explorers. gregg: derek, when tom and i were covering yesterday, we got e-mails from people saying billions spent on this is a waste. there are no martians on mars. that is not the point. the point is we're not looking for existing life there but the conditions that may have existed for organic life at one time? >> yes. what nasa is doing here is doing what is called chasing the water. for the idea of trying to figure out whether or not there ever was life on mars or if there could still be life on mars the thing to do is look for places where there is evidence of environments that were con dus sieve to the development of life -- conducive. they're looking for organic compounds that might indicate such an environment. this is done step by step so that nasa scientists can be very, very careful about what results they report finding. gregg: tom, the president
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has said that the wheels of curiosity have begun to blaze a trail for human footprints on mars. should astronauts try to make the trip there assuming it could be safe and what would that accomplish? >> well the real reason for sending humans is to bring human skills to bear in this search for life. so if curiosity and its successors find evidence of organic material, find evidence of habitats on mars today that might support life i think the real answers to that question about microbes on mars is only likely to come with human skills. you will have to have a team of human astronauts drill well below the surface where there might be warm water circulating and right chemical conditions for life. it will not be right on the surface where sure rossty can see it that is the really the driver for humans getting there. gregg: and, derek, your take very quickly, man on mars, what are your thoughts? >> my thoughts are it takes humans to really integrate
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all the information that can be figured out immediately to determine whether or not those conditions are right or if life is there right now. it is great to have rovers there. they do fabulous work. humans do it much better than computers do. gregg: what a achievement that would be, putting a man on mars. derrick pitts, john jones, great day for america. >> it is. jenna: does that make him a martian by travel? gregg: love to be a martian. curiosity is registering radiation levels on mars and the trip there to make sure it is safe for astronauts to travel to mars. jenna: we'll hear from nasa by the way in a few minutes. they will have a live news conference. maybe they discovered something already. gregg: that would be great. jenna: we'll turn to oklahoma. that state having terrible trouble with 18 wildfires that are raging there, destroying dozens of homes. we'll be live with the governor of oklahoma coming up next. are you receiving a payout from a legal settlement
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jenna: fox news alert at the top of noon hour here on the east coast, a good news story to start off with, a picture-perfect landing for nasa's mission to mars, the robotic rover curiosity beaming back photos while landing in a giant crater on the planet. nasa is going to hold a news con tprez. take conference. take a look inside the control room when they determined it was a success. [cheering] jenna: like the super bowl in there. adam housley is live at nasa's jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena, california. not a bad place to be on a day like this. where does the rover go from here, adam. >> reporter: big night here in pasadena last night, a big day again today. we had our first images last night, a wide angle, low
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resolution, almost like a security camera set up that gave us a first view of mars. we expect new pictures literally in the next ten or 15 minutes, nasa will release some of those. they sent a one-ton small suv size craft 154 million miles away over 8 months. they slowed it down 60 feet above the ground, set it down with a crane next to a mountain the size of mount rainier inside a crater. take a listen to what they believe is going to happen in the next few weeks. >> in the days, years, weeks to come there is going to be enormous number of images, incredible images, color images, real color this time too, so kind of like the human eye will see, which will be really exciting. >> reporter: once again those pictures last night were exciting here. scientists are buzzing as they come into work after getting a few hours' sleep. they have a lot of work ahead of
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them. each morning they send out a game plan to the rover and it completes the whole day of what the plan was. the next day it will get a new plan. it's not necessarily like a remote control car where you move it a few seconds and it moves later, it's a full day's plan, jenna. jenna: it's fascinating. if et is out there we want to know. that is one of the big questions of what we're going to see with some of these pictures. you mentioned we started to get pictures. what should we see new ones? should we expect new pictures every day. >> reporter: yeah, every day. the last rover that was there sent back 25,000 photos. these are hd quality pictures and there will be more. we will see better pictures than last night. it has ten different instruments on it including a laser drill and the ability to sift through the dust on the planet. they have really an amazing piece of equipment here that everybody is so excited. and so far so good. last night they said not only did they stick the landing but it was the super bowl for them.
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they were on the one yard line, it was the last play of the game, they were either going to score or lose. last night nasa says they scored. of course this helps them with the budgetary process as well. jenna: there is always that point as well. adam are you first in line for a ticket for when the press core can get up to mars? >> reporter: i will go in a second, you know that. fox has sent me a lot of places. i'll go to mars. jenna: i bet you will. we'd love to see that some day, adam. thank you so much. we will monitor the nasa news conference, if anything comes back we'll have adam back. in the meantime we do have new information today. gregg: about the gunman suspected of killing six people at the sikh tell pel pell temple in wisconsin. his name is wade michael page, he used a .9mm gun, multiple
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ammunition, officers arrive arrived at the temple within minutes. they found an officer bleeding in the parking lot. when he got out to give aid the officer was ambushed. >> the officer was shot eight to nine times at this incident at very close range with a handgun. at that point other officers were arriving on scene and heard those gunshots and were not aware that the other officer had been shot. they took up a position and did observe the suspect in the parking lot walking and at that point began to give him commands, as far as dropping his weapon and putting his hands up. gregg: that officer who was shot now list ned critical condition. lieutenant brian murphy, 51 years old, he's been with the oak creek police department for 21 years. investigators are searching still the suspect's home, and they are treating the incident as a possible case of domestic terrorism. the suspect former member of the
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u.s. military was later killed by another officer. one woman and five men were killed in the shooting. the f.b.i. saying there is no reason to believe anybody else was involved. jenna: right now crews are getting ahead of a massive wildfire in oklahoma. officials say the fire burning in creek county, that is near tulsa, has been contained thanks to cooler temperatures out there and a little light rain overnight. that certainly doesn't hurt at all. as many as 18 fires are burning across the state destroying dozens of homes, one of those fires is now under investigation as possible arson. in the meantime many victims are just trying to get back home and see what is left. >> a lot of people lost a lot of stuff. it's just heartbreaking. my buddy here, he lost it all. there is nothing you can do now. >> when we got here there was flames shooting 300 feet above
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treetops and i was riding a cycle out, riding a zero lawnmower out, everything, they won't let us back in, they said if we didn't stay out wegoing t. jenna: joining us on the phone is the oklahoma governor. nice to have you today. a busy day, you say the creek county fire looks a little better this morning. what about the rest of the fires, what is the status today? >> we are trying to put out the hot spots across the state of oklahoma. it's been a week with hot temperatures we've experienced and the numerous fires that we've had, we've lost over 78,000 acres across the state of oklahoma. and the one fire that you were mentioning in creek county, it got as large as 58,000 acres and was 56 miles long. so it's been a real challenge for our fire department, for our first responders, certainly for the homeowners that have lost their homes, and we are
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heartbroken for them. all in all i'm very proud of the tremendous work that our firefighters have done and proud of our local charities stepping up to help. jenna: there is chatter about arson being to blame for one of the fires if not more. what can you tell bus that? >> we don't know yet. we are looking into a possible claim that someone saw a man who was in a pickup truck who threw a newspaper out of a window, that was lit. i certainly hope it's not true. we are investigating it. if it is true we need to prosecute that guy. jenna: we've talked a lot about the drought on this show, it's such a big story for so many states. how big of a deal is it for your state and what kind of role is that playing in the fires. >> we had a huge drought. a bad drought last year. this year we are still in the drought mode. it's certainly not helping. the lakes are down. there is less water in the lake. it's been one of the interesting challenges we face thed week is that th -- faced this week, the
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water being down, the power lines burned, they were literally gone. power lines fell to the ground waoefplt didn't have any power to pump the water from the local communities, and they didn't have anyway to store food. several of our towns had to be evacuated totally. one town that i visited yesterday, they actually had to move citizens out of a hospital and a nursing home to a totally separate town because they had no water or electricity, and no air-conditioning. jenna: it's such an interesting point you don't really think about water pressure, for example or the power going out when you think about the wildfires. obviously some serious consequences to that. what is the plan from here on out? >> we are still in the response mode, and that means that we are watching the hot spots around the state. what we find is when we get into the noon and the afternoon hours
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that these fires come back, they pop back up, because there is still a lot of burning embers that are out there. we are going to be experiencing more heat this week, and heat certainly doesn't help, because there is a lot of fuel on the ground, which just means it's extremely dry and a lot of grass that is dried out that could start these fires. we are encouraging our citizens, don't have any fires burning, certainly don't throw any cigarettes out of the window. we have a state-wide burn ban, an emergency declaration for our state now. now we are in the response mode trying to save homes and communities and protect the lives of our heroes which are our firefighters and first responders. jenna: thank you so much for the time today. our best wishess to you, the first responders and the folks out in oklahoma. thank you for the time. >> thank you, we appreciate you. gregg: a desperate situation there. how long will the milder weather last in oklahoma, meteorologist
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janice dean is following it all in the weather center. >> i wish i had better news. hearts and prayers go out to all the folks and the first responders. we will be dealing with hot conditions for most of the work week, in oklahoma. not 112 like we've seen over the past few weeks but still very warm. if there is any good news the winds will be light but we are not looking at any moisture really at all in this case, and the drought, we talked about that, with the governor just minutes ago, it is anywhere from moderate to severe, to extreme, so creek county is just southwest of tulsa where we're dealing with severe drought. it's going to take inches and inches and inches of rainfall, and man i wish i had better news in terms of a tropical system. you think that maybe a tropical system moving into the u.s. might help this area but we don't have that unfortunately. we are watching two top box entities, once is florence and one is ernesto, and there was some indication earlier last week that we could see ernesto
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moving closer to the u.s. but no it's going to be mainly a mexico event. there is ernesto gathering strength right now, 65-mile per hour sustained wind. we do expect it to become a hurricane as it continues to move mainly westward, making landfall some time between friday and saturday. florence is not a concern at all, way out in the atlantic and it will remain over the next several days. gregg back to you. gregg: thank you very much, jd we'll check back to you. fox news alert we are getting reports of a major power outage in connecticut. let's turn to julie banderas in the breaking news desk. >> reporter: that's right. a wealthy suburb in connecticut in the dark at this hour. greenwich, connecticut north of new york city where we are, connecticut lighting and power reporting 99% of greenwich is without power after a tree fell on a transmission line this morning. cl & p serves about 27,000 customers, about 27,800 customers in fact out of power right now. all power expected to be
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restored by approximately 8:00 this evening. one thing is for sure, though it won't be affecting president obama's visit to the state today. the president attending two fundraisers just about six miles away in stamford, connecticut where he holds a comfortable lead over republican mitt romney. the event includes $500 per person reception at the stamford marriott. in westport a $35,800 per-person dinner at the home of movie producer harvey weinstein. fortunately they will have plenty of power to serve all those wealthy sponsors back to you. gregg: but not in greenwich. all right. thank you very much. jenna: new developments in the case against gibson guitars, remember that big story with the justice department? the justice department reaching a deal that some say will cost the guitar maker hundreds of thousands of dollars and could send american jobs overseas. we'll take a closer look at that development coming up. gregg: a warning that came too late. nascar fans caught up in a heavy thunderstorm struck by
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gregg: back at home tragedy striking a nascar race. lightning killing a 41-year-old man yesterday at a racetrack in pennsylvania. nine others were hurt. racecar organizers mourning the loss of one of their fans. >> unfortunately a member of our raceway family here, a fan, has passed away, and on behalf of myself, the entire family and everybody here it's really heartfelt that this happened. gregg: we are learning people at the race were warned, take cover. laura ingle is live in our new york city room with more. >> the devastating lightning strikes happened as fans were trying to escape the rain and seek cover, in their cars, under tents and away from the
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grandstands at the pok pocono raceway. the odds being struck by lightning 1 in a million in any given year. they were not in the favor of one nascar fan who lost his life. the tricky triangle prompted the pennsylvania 400 to be called after lap 98 of 160 because of the weather. the alert system issued a severe thunderstorm warning just after 4:00pm, and the lightning struck outside the track a little after 5:00. >> i didn't see nothing but a bang and a flash, and people laying on the ground. that's all i seen. >> reporter: an estimated 85,000 fans had to quickly find somewhere safe to go after public announcement were made for people to take shelter and evacuate the grandstands. the track posted messages on the twitter page with warnings ever the storm. the monroe county coroner said the fan who died was in or near his car in the parking lot when
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lightning strikes. bystanders performed cpr on him after he went into cardiac arrest but efforts to revive him failed. nine others were injured. it's still unclear if they were all struck by light financing or injured by related bolts. jeff gordon who won the race said he could hear the crack of lightning after the race was called adding that his thoughts are with the victim. one person remains hospitalized. i just heard from the pocono spokesperson they will be releasing a statement in the next hour. we'll have that for you when we get it. gregg: thanks very much. jenna: state run television in syria today as we get reports of a major defection from the bashar al-assad regime. live to our mideast bureau for the latest developments on that. also developments in the tuscan-arizona shooting that year, that shooting including the murder of six people. that changed the life of congresswoman gabrielle giffords forever. what sources are telling fox about accused mass murderer jerod laughner, we have the breaking details on that next. mom: ready to go to work?
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the plea, a complete turn around to a not guilty plea to 49 federal charges stemming from a shooting outside of a super market will gabrielle giffords was holding a moat and greet with constituents. he opened fire on the crowd shooting gabrielle giffords in the head before being subdued by the crowd. they say he suffers from schizophrenia and prison official vs. been forcibly immediate indicating him with psychotropic drugs. the family's of the dead and the survivors are apparently backing the plea deal. we will learn tomorrow if a judge agrees with them. back to you. jenna: more on this now, july lee, thank you. gregg: want to talk about this new in dethat i will with criminal defense attorneys, two of best, former prosecute tad nelson and criminal defense attorney chip merlin. gentlemen, good to see you.
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i read through the 9th circuit court of appeals decision, they ordered him to be force-fed his meds. there are very detailed accounts in there, they describe him as being turned essentially from this crazed and dangerous delusional individual into a near catatonic state of his former self. and so, chip, i wonder, i seriously wonder, is he can he in a state like that, can he really assist in his own defense, which is, of course, the test for competency? >> well, that's the test for competency, and it would appear that at least now because he's gone through some of the medication, and the treatment, that the doctors have indicated, number one, that he will be able to understand the charges that are being brought against him, and assist his counsel for the defense of his case. gregg: if he's catatonic, chip, come on. >> well, that is not what the doctors are saying right now, otherwise, otherwise they would
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certainly indicate that he would not be competent to assist and stand trial. gregg: if a court appointed psychologist, you know, and i'm always skeptical of that. if laughner was so crazed that he wasn't even competent to stand trial, why not plead not guilty by reason of insanity? is a guilty plea real any his best interests? >> well, that's a great question. i don't think anybody on the outside, me or you, gregg can figure this out from just our limited information. you hit the nail on the head. we don't know about these court appointed psychologists that evaluate and ultimately give the courts their opinion. a lot of them do this. they are almost like a doctor mill, they just sit back and the majority of them always rubber stamp pretty much when the government wants unfortunately. and you're right, we don't know what this guy really is feeling, what his mental state is, and he might be giving up the house by taking a plea. in this situation he might want to go to a jury and get a not guilty by reason of insanity.
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gregg: chip, here is the thing, by forcing him onto his meds aren't you depriving the jury, potentially, of seeing the guy in the delusional state in which he committed his alleged crimes? >> that's an interesting point, one that i don't think has ever been raised. gregg: it was raised by the descent in the 9th circuit court of appeals. >> yeah, it's certainly the requirement that we try to get the defendant to a state that he can answer his charges and assist counsel in the defense. he can then go back and with all the other psychiatric information we've got make a determination whether or not he was insane or not. the question you asked for comes back to a very practical standpoint, if a person is this delusional he will probably end up if he's found insane, still in an institution for the remainder of his life. gregg: let me put it. >> you can save his life by making this plea, though and
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he's still in the same situation. so there is not that practical difference. gregg: let me put it a different way, tad, do the intended affects of the forced psych psychotropic drugs infringe on laughner's fair trial rights? >> i say no. when you get right down to brass tacks. it's a good point, but the reality of it is, if you're having mental issues at the time of a crime there is no reason not to cure those mental issues to bring you in -- gregg: by curing him they are not allowing him access to a chosen defense, which could be insanity, don't you see? >> well -- well, not necessarily. you can still use the defense, granted you're not going to be running around -- gregg: they won't be able to see him as he truly is and was arguably that day. >> they need to get some videotape then of him being crazy before trial because if they bring a crazy man to trial. gregg: they are not going to turn that over, you know that. >> absolutely not. gregg: it's been a year and a
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half, more than that since. jerd arguably and by eyewitness accounts haoes heinous horrible crimes. six people died, gabrielle giffords still recovering. i want to draw a comparison to the movie "massacre" the guy who claims, i'm the joker. could we see the same sort of thing, chip merlin in that case? there d could be a real hurdle here for prosecutors to prove that guy is competent. >> well, except that they never raised the competency issue at the hearing last week. i was kind of surprised that wasn't raised by the court, the prosecution and especially the defense team. it might be because he was not delusional. there was a significant amount of premeditation, letters to a psychiatrist, alleged letters to a psychiatrist outlining exactly what he was going to do, the booby trap towards the police. there was a lot of premeditation. it was tactical and strategic. gregg: you can raise it any time. >> absolutely you can raise it any time, the defense later on
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could do it. if he's truly delusional the best time to raise it is right after the incident, like in this particular case in arizona, to help show that the court appointed psychologist originally said he's not competent. it certainly would raise an issue right away whether or not because it's such a close period of time to the incident as to whether or not that mental disease prevented him from being sane nothing right from wrong at the time the incident took place. i don't think holmes is really going to have that chance in his case. he has a chance because it's the only one he's got, everybody clearly saw he did it. the difference in arizona, the difference in arizona is that that competency was done immediately afterwards and so close in time to the incident that the probability of an insanity plea being valid was very, very high. gregg: tad nelson, chip merlin, two terrific lawyers, thanks very much for being with us. again, tomorrow is the hearing a lot could happen in the. laughn.
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we'll watch that. jenna: police handing out a photo of the shooter at the sheik temple. wade michael page, 40 years old, according to the sources on the scene and again these are all allegations until proven in a court of law, he used a .9mm handgun to commit this crime, which would be the murder of six people, and the injuring of a police officer as well as others. what we do know about him at this time is that he was in the army at one time. he's an army veteran, he was discharged but not allowed to reenlist, if he wanted to. that was one of the side notes that was brought up in the description of him and his service to his country e. served from 1992 to 1998. he's been described in a few different ways. and i'm going to leave those to the different groups describing him. we have heard reports of some white supremacist tattoos. these are just reports right now and his affiliation has not been
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confirmed. we will be careful with that until we can confirm those reports. that is wade michael page on the screen, the alleged shooter in the shooting in wisconsin that just happened 24 hours ago. gregg: a political war of words heating up after harry reid charges about mitt romney's taxes. some calling reid a dirty liar. how the main team media is covering this latest showdown. our news watch panel weighing in next. >> what else do you call somebody who goes onto the senate floor and claims that someone, you know, hasn't paid any taxes in ten years, a complete lie, uses his official office to do it. [ male announcer ] research suggests the health of our cells plays a key role
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gregg: republican leaders hitting back hard against comments by senate majority leader harry reid concerning governor romney's tax returns. rnc chairman reince priebus and dnc chair deb rewasserman schultz going head-to-head over the weekend. >> i'm not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn't filed a single page of tax returns himself, complains about people with money but lives in the ritz-carlton here down the street. >> i don't know who harry read's source was. i do know this is a question
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that has swirled around mitt romney for his entire campaign. he could clear it up just like that, by releasing his tax returns. gregg: how is the media covering this. let's bring in our news watch panel. jim pinkerton is a contributing editor and writer for the american conservative magazine, a fox news contributor. alan colmes is the host of the alan colmes show. give me your take on how the media has treated this. >> it's been all over the media. you can't escape the story. gregg: is that good or bad? >> that's probably good. i mean i believe in sunlight being the best disinfect tiff. harry reid, i believe, should have had a source and should reveal it if he can't reveal it he probably shouldn't have said it. gregg: he doesn't have a source that's why he hasn't revealed it. >> he's setting himself up for a great deal of criticism to make these kind of charges. it's got even tremendous play as you pointed out on the sunday morning talks shows. it's all everybody seems to be talking about. gregg: jim it strikes me that the media is not siding on the
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liberal side at least with respect to this particular issue. i was watching bob schiefer yesterday he said reid reminds him of the lies spun by joe mccarthy, what do you think of that. >> they are saying that, but then they are doing what alan do, jumping all over the story. jonathan carl says it's outrage us that harry reid is bringing up all this tax stuff with allegations with no proof, now david let's talk about it. and that seems to be the model, it's probably wrong for harry reid to do that, but sure there is a lot swirling around out there as miss wasserman schultz said. now let's talk about the swirls. there are no facts, let's talk about the swirl instead. >> it's okay to talk about the harry reid of it but not talk about the mitt romney part of it, i get it okay there is only one side we should be talking about. gregg: alan let me just ask you
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this. why haven't democratic colleagues condemned crazy harry, or the white house? why haven't they done that? >> i don't know. believe it or not i'm not the spokesman for the democratic party. i'm a liberal service a democrat second. probably because you protect your own flank. gregg: you always say that to me. why do you always say that to me. >> it's true, gregg. gregg: you know that i know that, but, you know, should they, that is the question. >> the answer is they probably should. you always protect your own flank and you have more credibility when you actually do and say the right thing, which is why i think harry reid should not have said what he said unless he could reveal a source. it's too bad. to have reince priebus call him a dirty liar doesn't set the republicans up and take them to high ground, right? gregg: i want to move onto topic number two. the job numbers came out last friday ticking up unemployment to 8.3%, there was job growth. 163 adde163,000 added in jobs.
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jim, how has the media treat thed. >> treated this? >> whenever the unemployment goes up, the media has it going up. on friday we got headlines like new york times, hiring picks up. and "washington post," 163,000 jobs created. in other words, and they say oh, and by the way the unemployment rate went up. they are leading with the good news, it is good news that hiring is going up, of course the number of jobs needed to keep unemployment from rising is around 200,000. the 163,000 number is well short. i think they are deliberately choosing to emphasize the good news and deemphasize the bad news. my hunch here is this has something to do with media by as. >> no, no, no you're kidding, media by as. the fact of the matter is that they needed 150,000 jobs, they got 163,000. the other piece of information i don't think the media has reported much about, i saw it only in one place is that they
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round it off to the next tent of tenth of a point. when you adjust june and july to the next tenth the difference was .37th of a point which is statistically even and that's really the story there. there was not much of a change between june and july and the media hardly ever reported it. >> you say a hundred years of the way they calculate it because some smart guy in the obama white house with a cal latecal cue calculator does it that way. gregg: jenna lee happened to be in an airport and passed by a news stand and clicked all these three in a row. to the left is business week, bloomberg business week. carl is king. it's demonizing karl rove for helping republicans get elected. the win factor, picture of romney, is romney just too insecure to be president. on the right hand side of course time magazine the white house
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for sale, subtitle the gop's grandy sign. jim, media by as in pretty glaring visual terms? >> yeah, pictures don't lie. in keeping with the media research center's calculation that 86% of the coverage of romney's trip overseas was negative, 86% negative. on that money thing, that buying the white house thing "the new york times" yesterday had a story that the obama administration has spent $400 million on their campaign, not raised, spent, on the first half of 2012, that is way more than romney then strangely enough the media chooses to pick on romney instead of the guy who is spending more. gregg: jenna and i were talking about this before the program began, president obama sent all records four years ago for raising money and spending money that captured the white house for him. what, 160 fundraisers so far, more than the last five presidents combined? >> what changes it is citizens united. the law changed so that big
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bundlers, big money people on the right can give as much as they want without having to account to anybody. gregg: shouldn't be obama's grandy sign to buy the white house, shouldn't that be the title. >> if you want to spin it that way, i guess you could. jim calls it media by a i think it's news standby as. there must be a very liberal news stand own their put that up there. gregg: he didn't pick the magazines. >> obama out raised mccain 3-1 in 2008. no liberals complained then about campaign financing. obama is out raising romney and the media are khrobburg romney. gregg: certainly out spending romney so fjim pinkerton, thankg with us. alan colmes who loves to remind me he's not a spokesman for the white house or the democratic party. nice try, pal. thanks very much. jenna: all i was looking for was jr. mints and u.s. weekly. a little chocolate for a flight.
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jenna: now to the story on the crackdown on gibson gee tafrplts the justice department announcing an agreement. a case we've been following slowly. jonathan serrie is live in atlanta with more. >> reporter: this is huge, a potential resolution to a political firestorm that has been going on for years. on the one hand you had allegations of government over reach and on the other side environmental concerns. today nashville-based gibson guitar corporation has reportedly reached a deal with federal prosecutors. under that deal the government will not pursue criminal charges against the company, as long as gibson full tpeups it's side of thfulfills its side of the agreement. let's look at the major provisions of this agreement right now. under the agreement gibson will
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pay a $300,000 fine. the company will make a $50,000 donation toward tree conservation efforts, and the company will withdraw its claims to wood already confiscated by federal agents. federal agents first raided gibson in 2009 confiscating ebony from madagascar that they used to make finger boards. madagascar bans the export of certain materials. gibson said it was precut and approved for sale by local officials in madagascar. the government argued cutting the wood did not make it a product that could be exported. there were allegations that the company fraudulently labeled ebony from india to bypass their laws. gibson said it was a clerical error and the wood was legal for sale and approved by indian authorities. now the company is agreeing to
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pay fines and doe in it for the cause of preserving trees in exchange for the justice department dropping its criminal case against gibson. now we reached out to gibson officials to get their side of this story on this latest development. we have yet to hear any comment from the company. jenna back to you. jenna: we'll look forward to that update. there has been so many questions about what it means for the future of the company and jobs staying here at home. we'll continue to watch this story. jonathan, thank you. gregg: the search is on for two armed men who robbed a convenience store, incredible surveillance video coming out of lawrence massachusetts. there it is. it shows one of the bad guys jump on the counter, fight with the clerk who stood his ground. julie banderas has the details. >> reporter: police are hoping that some very clear surveillance video helps them find the new men wanted in a convenience store hold up. take a look at it for yourself. here is the video again, on it it shows two men entering the
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store, one wearing a blue shirt, the other walks in wearing a hat and sunglasses. you see the man has a gun in his hand, he jumps over the count tere and starts to fight with the clerk, but the clerk refused to back down and actually grabbed the gun and wouldn't let go. when the clerk was asked why he grabbed the gun the 53-year-old said, only, i lost my control. he later oupbd out it was just a bb gun but he thought it was real. he was tackled to the ground while another man who seemed to be a customer who didn't bother to cover his face ran behind the counter as the robber wrestles with the store homeowner. they got off with a couple hundred bucks but not until after the clerk got in a few hits with a rod he keeps behind the counter. they hope someone will recognize the two men in that video and call police. >> you can see one of the faces clearly the first guy that walks in. >> reporter: and they've been to the store before. the guy actually recognized him, which is why he buzzed him into the store to begin w. the begin
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with. they seem to be locals. gregg: the court clerk might want to update to something stronger and bigger than a curtain rod. >> reporter: you've got to give him prorpbgs it's a really brave guy. gregg: thank goodness it was a bb gun. jenna: the president of syria, signs he is losing control or is this just new of the same. a new bomb blast in damascus and a high level fight rocking syria. is there an end in sight? we'll tackle that just ahead. diarrhea, gas, bloating? yeah. one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. approved! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. or annuity over 10 or even 20 years? call imperial structured settlements. the experts at imperial can convert your long-term payout into a lump sum of cash today.
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what the facts are in this case is we're really not quite sure when it comes to the prime minister defection. it came shortly before a bomb blast ripped through offices of the state-run tv headquarters in damascus. michael singh joins us now. if this defection is true how big after deal is it? >> it's a big deal, jenna because it's quite symbo symbolic. this person, the prime minister was not a member of the inner circle of the regime. obviously he's the highest ranking official to flee the regime and it comes when the regime is having a hard time consolidating its control of aleppo and damascus, certificate yeah as largest cities. it looks like a further gradual erosion in bashar al-assad's power. jenna: apparently according to reports the prime minister fled to jordan. jordan denies that right now but it's tough to know what is true here. we do know that the saudis are involved here with the syrian rebels. we know jordan, turkey, qatar is
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involved, cutter is involved. what does it mean when they are all involved and the united states is not. >> it creates a risk. a lot of people are talking about looking for regional leadership here. would you the united states to lead that coalition, lead an international coalition, what you see is a risk of the conflict regional hraoeuzing turning into not only a civil war but a regional conflict much more dangerous to our interests. it is key for the united states to decide how it's going to act and get in there and show some leadership. jenna: senator graham, lieberman and mccain wrote an article in "the washington post" that made the argument as well about this dissolving further and affects on national security. what could the affects be. >> it could be many. if the syrian opposition seems to be turning to islamist extremists for help, that's bad for us. any successor government in
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syria won't be very happy with the west having failed to help it during this civil war. if you look more broadly and it's critical to look at the regional picture, what message does it send to iran that we are not willing to intervene even in a case like syria and yet we say the military option is on the table with respect to iran. i don't think that is a very credible message when we're not willing to act elsewhere. jenna: nice to have your thoughts today. a story we will continue to watch here on "happening now." thank you. we'll be right back with more. >> thanks, jenna. [ male announcer ] eligible for medicare?
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gregg: here is an easy health tip for you. according to a brand-new study at the university of notre dame honesty may actually improve your help. scientists look at over a hundred adults between the ages of 18 and 71. half of the participants instructed to stop telling lies for ten weeks. the other half received no instruction. results, the folks who took the oath of honesty had fewer physical and mental hea
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