but i think this case is -- i roemer and exclude them from this part of society. awhat goal is california trying to accomplish and what it has accomplished in proposition 8, does it pursue those goals in a proper way. that's where the rational basis falls completely down. you might say left-handed people are color blind, you might make some distinctions but if you're saying they can't participate in a right because of an immutable characteristic you have not only a due process violation but an equal protection violation and ultimately that's the decision i'd like to see this court issue. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> miss stewart? >> thank you, may it please the court, i want to focus on the circumstances in the context particular to california, that show how singularly irrational proposition 8 really is. first, and there are four things, but the first i want to talk about is that it imposes a special disability on gay people for reasons thaticalical has disavowed, and it doesn't attempt to pursue in any other arena. california regulates child rearing and parenta

roemer has not participated in any of the republican debates.is not even mentioned in most polling figures but today, he did something that none of his other competitors are can lay claim to. not that they would probably want to: roemer qualified for matching funds by collecting $5,000. that means the u.s. treasury will cut him a check for 100 granted which will leave him $57 million of matching mitt romney's war chest. if one of the reasons he got into the race was to reform campaign finance, how much weight does today's news carry? let's ask him. the former governor of louisiana joins us from baton rouge. governor roemer welcome here into the war room. >> good to be in the war room. i should bring a weapon of some sort. >> bring the weapon of your minds and your persuasive ability, which i know you have ample amount of. what should voters take away from the fact that you did qualify today for matching funds? congratulations. >> thank you. not only was it in 20 different states. it was an average contribution of $25. so we didn't get one person

what does president roemer do. >> well, they should be upset.would be like we had a force in our country who decided to burn a stack of bibles or the constitution or the declaration of independence and as president, i would view it that way. i would call the leaders of the country immediately and i think our president has done that correctly. i would apologize profusely. they would be effects on the troops and particularly, the leaders who made that decision and we would pledge that would not happen again. >> a website sort of trying to support third party candidacy has some interesting sort of numbers in terms of what folks would like to see. you see ron paul there is number one. governor jon huntsman, number two, bernie sanders, number three. president obama, mayor bloomberg, buddy roemer, most online support. you're number six, but behind paul and huntsman and bernie sanders, who's not even in the race. why are you so far behind there? >> well, i think i'm relatively unknown, luke. i've been a congressman and a governor. the only person runni

also, presidential candidate buddy roemer, and republican senator rob portman of ohio. up next, nbc's chuck todd, david gregory, and tony perkins joins us. >>> but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> good morning to you, mika. a little bit of light rain greeting people this morning from d.c. to philly to new york. so far, the airports are doing all right. no delays reported. we could have minor delays, but it's going to be another warm day. not going to rain in this region of the country. just light rain on and off from now until about noon. forecast today, look at these temperatures. this is march weather, folks. 67 in d.c. today, 62 in new york. and just soak it up while it lasts. temperatures around the southeast also warm. as we look toward the west coast, rain this morning in seattle, that should clear out for this afternoon. a peek at tomorrow's forecast, a big highlight come thursday and friday. a little rare winter snowstorm. do you believe that? it can snow this winter. watch out denver to omaha. you're watching "morning joe"

you are on with governor roemer. caller: i am a former truck driver, and i have seen your state go from bad, and they have done a lot of good building in your state. i have a car loan financed through my trucking company and i just got that car. guest: by the way, i am -- go ahead. caller: ibm a conservative. i used to be a democrat. i changed to a republican, and i want to be independent. i believe in limited government, strong border control, and obama seems like a good guy, but i think he is trapped by his own party, and the politics as bad. he hired the wrong people to do the wrong job. it just seems like he can not find a way to leave the country. he is a good speaker, but not a great leader. guest: thank you. i'm a member, to, by the way. i have to go to a $650 million bank here in louisiana -- i have built a 67 $50 million bank. louisiana. we did not foreclose on homeowners. we are old fashioned that way. for a lot of obvious reasons, i think the president is trapped. he is trapped in his own party. he is trap

. >> one more thing, here comes buddy roemer. you never heard of buddy roemer, but he's a former louisiana congressman and governor, he's ending his run for the gop nomination and he's going to run as an independent on the americans elect ticket. he's seeking the nomination of the reform party. let's bring in mike papantonio, host "ring of fire" on radio stations across the stations. sort out the possible from the crazy, what is happening? >> first of all, palin does see herself as a candidate. she wants a brokered convention because in her crazy, delusional mind she sees herself at the top of the ticket, santorum running as a vp. she is manipulative opportunityist who never stopped trying to run for president. she destroyed the republican ticket in 2008. you will see her unleash her flying monkey type of campaign more and more as we get closer to the convention. remember this -- >> you think she is serious or is she just talking smack for the tv camera, what do you think? >> no, she is always serious. she is delusional, ed, in h

he e-mails christina roemer and says we'd like to interwithdrew you for a job.et advice about getting a job in the obama administration. she was naive about how this stuff works. she didn't realize they wanted to interview her. she's very naive about the way government works and the political continue stranlts but sophisticated about the way the economy works and really sizes this thing up better than anyone else on the team and sees -- >> at the very least perhaps by assessing the scale of the liability. >> yes. >> even if you don't like her solution, she was the one person in the room saying the scope of the problem that we are trying to solve, like the 30 million jobs, it sounds like she was arguing we didn't even understand the scale of the problem. >> that's right. on top of that, she argued the president should see these tradeoffs clearly. even if you're not going to recommend $1.8 trillion, he should see how far away you are from the ideal. >> one premise, noam, which if you spent more the economy would be better. mostly the republican party and all the a

you have the roemer decision and the roemer decision was 5-4 but once the romer decision is controlling law you would expect that justices... even justices who might not have written the roemer decision the way it came down would just following precedent would be supportive of marriage equality in this particular case. in addition to that, this country has moved tremendously on this issue over the last few years. there's a recent gallup poll that shows that 53% of the country favors gay and lesbian marriage. only 35% of the country opposes marriage equality. you have a 70% of everybody who's 35 and younger favors marriage equality. so i think when you see that kind of shift in people's attitudes what you can expect to see is the supreme court recognizing that it's simply not tolerable any longer to deprive people of the ability to get married based on their sexual orientation. >> rose: so you have... it seems also, i mean in terms of certain political constituencies beyond some of the gay and lesbian community that it is almost a test now. >> absolutely. and if you look at the way racia

ron paul and even governor buddy roemer who's also running for president are not getting much coverage and when they do it tends to be negative and so we just took a lock at mainstream media this trend of literally embedding their reporters with candidates how do you think this practice and other journalism practices a fax campaign coverage so when you embed a journalist in a war zone for example that has some very legitimate journalistic uses because you have somebody on the ground with a camera who can speak to soldiers and all that but when you have embedded reporters who are on the campaign trail and have you know sort of an unspoken allegiance to a certain candidate that's very dangerous because you have a reporter who's acting more like a p.r. person than an actual journalist because they know if they dig a little too deep or dig a little too hard that they can be thrown off that campaign bus you know they can stop being invited to these press conferences where there is limited space and i don't like a lot of the embedded reporting that we've seen so far in the g.o.p. primary and

what the relied upon was a major decision by the united states supreme court, roemer versus colorado, colorado restricted the rights of gay and lesbian individuals and the supreme court of the united states struck that down as unconstitutional. but both in that roemer case and this case today the court said the -- if you're going to select a class of our citizens, these are our citizens, that are presumptively entitled to be treated like other citizens, and select them out on the basis of characteristics that are peculiar to them, you have to have a reason for doing so. the reasons that were articulated by the proponents throughout the litigation were found completely lacking by the 9th circuit and the court below it and so those principles are going to be very important for states that have not yet recognized a right for individuals to get married to the person they love who happens to be someone of the same sex. the united states supreme court 40 some years ago struck down a similar prohibition that existed in 16 states that prohibited people from different races from getting marrie

well i actually had buddy roemer on this show last month and while it's great the buddy has sworn off pac donations and deep pocketed donors partly because he's not getting that money anyway it's still ultimately comes down to ideas about governance and buddy and i don't agree all that much these kinds of things including health care which we debated on my show in december. even like our current system i think that we should have a national health insurer all that really works good it works good for the other three have a good let me give an example like the post office tom you're crazy for what for you could use a one to sixty cent embrace and to let it all away across you won't choice and competition in our society that works best right now we don't have to show you want or profit motive and you want the profit motive could mean for profit or nonprofit that's up to the person perhaps that's up to you from going to the world they say ask to be nonprofit clearly are for profit health insurance system is broken and i don't thing buddy has the right ideas to fix it but is more than welc

in which you delegates left and right which could bring about so i was speaking of all this buddy roemer the former governor of louisiana who was running as a republican has decided he's still a republican but he's not going to be running for president of the republican ticket instead he's throwing to the citizens elect thing so this is a like is this are americans like rather is this shadowy group was put together by a bunch of hedge fund managers and billionaires and wall street we still don't know all of them. they're hiding behind total secrecy they've raised twenty two million dollars their own fourteen states ballots including california they say they've got enough money to get all fifty states on their website they're promoting mayor bloomberg might give you a clue who's behind this thing and and mitch daniels. and then they're saying that they their executive committee and we don't know who these people are that they're going to have a national vote and whoever wins the vote is going to be the candidate and they're going to put their candidate up as a third party candidate but if

not take a penny of pac money and limits all contributions to one hundred dollars per person buddy roemer is not bought out by these special interests he should be invited to your show every week to promote his campaign well i actually had buddy roemer on this show last month and while it's great the buddy has sworn off pat donations and deep pocketed donors partly because he's not getting that money anyway it's still alternately comes down to ideas about governance and buddy and i don't agree all that much on these kinds of things including health care which we debated on my show in december. you know like our current system i think that we should have a national health insurer all that really works good it works good for the other three i'm a girl let me give an example like the post office tom you're crazy for what for you to use a one to sixty so numbers and to let it go all the way across you want choice and competition in our society that works best right now we don't have to show you want the profit motive you want the profit motive could mean for profit or non profit that's up to

you are on with governor roemer. caller: i am a former truck driver, and i have seen your state go from bad, and they have done a lot of good building in your state. i have a car loan financed through my trucking company and i just got that car. guest: by the way, i am -- go ahead. caller: ibm a conservative. i used to be a democrat. i changed to a republican, and i want to be independent. i believe in limited government, strong border control, and obama seems like a good guy, but i think he is trapped by his own party, and the politics as bad. he hired the wrong people to do the wrong job. it just seems like he can not find a way to leave the country. he is a good speaker, but not a great leader. guest: thank you. i'm a member, to, by the way. i have to go to a $650 million bank here in louisiana -- i have built a 67 $50 million bank. louisiana. we did not foreclose on homeowners. we are old fashioned that way. for a lot of obvious reasons, i think the president is trapped. he is trapped in his own party. he is trap

former louisiana governor buddy roemer is expected to announce his departure from the develop presidential race and plans to run for president as an independent. >>> happy birthday to dakota fanning. she turns 18 years old. all day long you can stay on top of those stories and others as they break on msnbc. and tonight be sure to watch brian williams with "nbc nightly news". >>> finally, here's a look at what is coming up later this morning on the "today" show. the latest details of the guilty verdict in the university of virginia lacrosse murder trial, plus reaction from the victim's family. and the wife of an amazing race producer speaks out on the mysterious death of her husband in africa. >>> keep it on this channel for continuing local news, weather, sports and more. i'm lynn berry. thank you for watching "early today," your first stop of the day today on your nbc station. have a good one. >> reporter: an overnight fire in sunnyvale destroys a home, concerns, questions now about the whereabouts of the family of four who lives here. i'm bob redell. we'll take you here live coming up. >

>> your honor, in roemer, the court was dealing with a sweeping law that placed undifferentiated burdens and disqualifications on homosexuals -- >> so if you take away a bunch of rights, that is bad but if you just take away one right, it's okay? >> your honor, it isn't a question of taking them away. the supreme court -- did or did not same-sex couples have the right to marry before the passage of proposition 8? in california? >> your honor, the california supreme court affirmed that they did, yes, and the people of california disagreed with that and the people of california reversed it. >> how is that different from what happened in colorado? a few local communities decided they wanted to extend preferred status to individuals, homosexuals, gays, lesbians, et cetera, and the voters of colorado passed a proposition saying you cannot do that. your have no right to do that. stop doing that. >> your honor, amendment 2 rendered homosexuals strangers to the law. it eliminate any and all protections for homosexuals with respect to the ordinary pursuits of civic life. it was a weaponing, undif

do with this case, and i would be happy to put the crawford case against the wrightman case, the roemer case, the loving case, it cannot possibly penetrate the full weight of those four decisions, and i guess one additional answer and i think it's important, since i slipped into mentioning the lawrence case, the united states supreme court has determined that intimate sexual conduct between persons of the same sex is constitutionally protected, and the supreme court has said, as i said, marriage is a fundamental right. how can the fundamental right of marriage be taken away by californians from persons because they're engaged in a constitutionally protected activity? how can the constitutional right be taken away because of the constitutionally protected activi activity? it cannot exist. if you put the lawrence case together with the marriage cases, loving case and so on and so forth, you cannot take away that right, which is not a right of same-sex persons. it's a right of all citizens, and it's a right to be with the person that they love, to have an association that they select to li

me guys but they're pretty right so thanks for trying to get admission to come back tomorrow buddy roemer a former louisiana governor and third party presidential candidate is going to be back on the shelf and meantime don't forget to have you want to facebook the policy on twitter if there's anything you ever miss you can find out some stuff. and that's the. issue is that so much there's a huge music issue on. the right to protect the rights to penetrate syria continues down the path of destruction and civil war there are loud voices on the international stage. download the official auntie ugly cation joe i phone or i pod touch from the i choose option. which are cheap life on the go. video on demand g.'s my bold colors and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the dot com it also measures the a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you tear see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

>>neil: would you elect buddy roemer? >>guest: you tell me.ant a republican and democrat. doesn't matter who is on top or bottom. >>guest: it don't matter. the rules say it has to be a moderate republican and a moderate democrat so a mitch daniels and john warners or general petraeus and chris christie. >>neil: you looking for modest. the reason i say it is year, is that you wanted hillary clinton. she was a liberal. >>guest: hillary clinton was not a liberal. hillary clinton was a democrat --. >>neil: who was a liberal. >>guest: depends on where you start. hillary clinton was a person who believed in a strong america. >>neil: would you want her on your ticket? >>guest: i would want her as president any day of the week. >>shepard: she would be part of this if she were so inclined? >>guest: or mitch daniels, chris christie, any of them. right now on www.americanselectorg people can draft whoever they want. who do you think should be president in what we are saying is elect a president, not a party. because the parties are trying to shoehorn the

the most interesting person is buddy roemer. he used to be a democrat. now is a republican. system as it were. the president with the move into the super pacs is making that case a little easier for someone like that. he did it for good reason. he had to do it because the republicans have raised so much, but it does create an environment -- >> let's look at the situation. if you're counting strategies, the swing states that mattered the most, voters see the gop nomination battle as weakening the republican nominee so far. that's 53% of those people in the swing states say this whole primary season has hurt. only 21% say it strengthened the eventual winner. >> i think it's awfully hard when you're right in the middle of the battle to see this is something that could strengthen the nominee. but four years ago in the middle of the clinton/obama fight, i don't think many people were looking beyond the here and now, the immediacy and thinking eventually this is really going to help us. but obviously -- there are still schisms -- >> i think it was a strong contest of two strong ca

union about bank overdraft fees and a former louisiana governor and presidential candidate buddy roemer. "washington journal" is next. ♪ good morning, today is saturday,

. >>> not sure about the odds on buddy roemer winning the white house. probably not very good.overnor is expected to drop out of the race for the gop nomination in about 15 minutes. he will instead try to run as -- if you remember this, jesse ventura, pat buchanan, the reform party candidate. the ratings have taken a huge hit since he released the controversial super bowl ad featuring an asian woman speaking broken english, that holds a 21% lead. hoekstra is hoping to receive support from herman cain. we'll all see that in november. wake up! that's good morning, veggie style. hmmm. for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. oh! [ baby crying ] ♪ what started as a whisper ♪ every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing. ♪ slowly turned to a scream ♪ there's an insurance company that does that, too. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? ♪ amen, omen >>> one told of us how embarrassed and just powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter and learned for the first time the contraception was not covered on