House Sets Vote on Health Care Law; DirecTV Pulls Plug on Viacom Net
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening right now in the NEWSROOM, Houston pitch. Mitt Romney, Texas bound to address the NAACP this morning after Attorney General Eric Holder called the Texas voter I.D. law a poll tax. What will Governor Romney say to the nation's oldest civil rights organization? Station break. If you're one of the 20 million DirectTV customers, you are waking up with more than two dozen fewer channels this morning. Comedy Central, mTV, BET, and the list goes on. Overnight, a deal between the satellite company and Viacom falling through, big time. Painkiller prescription. The makers of OxyContin planning to test their drug on children, kids as young as 6 years old. Our Jason Carroll with a NEWSROOM investigation as to what's behind the highly addictive drug. The cash behind the candidate as big corporations give millions to Obama and Romney. CNN digs into who's raking in the most green. Will the election be decided by Wall Street and not Main Street? And home of the beret? The U.S. Olympic team in French hats and blue blazers. Do these guys look ready for the Olympics or a croquet match in the Hamptons? NEWSROOM begins right now. And good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining us. We begin this morning with a terrifying airline flight into Miami. This morning, we are learning just how bad it was. Flight 1780 was en route from Aruba when it slammed into turbulence on its initial descent about 30 minutes before landing. Pilots were able to land the plane without major incident but about a dozen aboard that flight were injured, five of them taken to the hospital.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never felt it, something like that in the past. Basically, we didn't know anything. And the bumps, you just think that it's going down.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought we were going to die. It was scary.</s>COSTELLO: John Zarrella is in Miami, he's following the story. I guess American Airlines is saying there was nothing on the radar to indicate such violent turbulence in the air. So the passengers had no warning?</s>JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know that flight -- well, they had their seatbelts on because, as you mentioned, the flight was on its final descent, on its final descent into the Miami area, 30 minutes from landing. And you know anybody who flies in south Florida, in Florida, in the summertime, knows that turbulence is not unusual. In fact, it was just an article in one of the local papers about a week ago discussing the fact that in the summertime in Florida, afternoon, early evening thunderstorms, certainly can cause a lot of turbulence in the sky. We don't know if that's what caused it yesterday. It was a pretty nice day. There were some storms around. Pockets of storms around in the south Florida area yesterday. But at this point, we don't know what exactly caused it. And may never know. You get these updrafts during the summer here in south Florida that literally cause this kind of turbulence -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: John Zarrella, reporting live from Miami. Remember this video of a -- of a JetBlue pilot who had an in-flight meltdown and caused the plane to be diverted? Yes, that was the pilot. It was a terrible incident. We are now learning that a lack of sleep may have led to Clayton Osbon's outburst. A psychologist testified at Osbon's trial that the pilot suffered from brief psychotic disorder and delusions secondary to sleep deprivation. Last week, a federal judge found Osbon not guilty by reason of insanity for interfering with the flight crew. To Columbus, Ohio, now where a fiery train crash overnight forces people to evacuate from the one square mile that surrounds the site. That's because, you can see it, 11 cars that left the tracks were carrying chemicals like denatured alcohol and a chemical used to make plastic. Our affiliate WBNS reports at least two people were hurt. A pit maneuver could not stop an L.A. area police pursuit involving a teacher accused of lewd acts on a former student. Instead, the teacher himself ended the chase dramatically. There you see it, he went airborne, crashing through a guardrail, slamming into a tree. The teacher is expected to survive. He is probably in custody this morning. Nearly two weeks to the day after the U.S. Supreme Court left its stamp on President Obama's health care law, House Republicans are poised to do the same thing. But they are seeking a very different outcome.</s>REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: The American people do not want to go down the path of Obamacare. That's why we have voted over 30 times to repeal it, defund it, replace it, and we're -- we are resolved to have this law go away. And we're going to do everything we can to stop it.</s>COSTELLO: Senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash is on Capitol Hill. Some call this vote symbolic, noting that any measure would likely die in the Senate. But it will still be a pretty dramatic day, huh?</s>DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's no question about it. And, you know, Democrats are having a little bit of fun with this debate, trying to stay on message. But also say things like one said yesterday the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and trying to -- and expect a different result, which obviously will not happen ultimately. It will, as you said, not get past the Senate. And it certainly wouldn't get past the Democratic president who has made this his signature issue. Still, there has been debate from Democrats and Republicans and it will continue through the day.</s>COSTELLO: As far as what voters think of this, let's call it political theater for lack of a better term, what do voters think of it? Do they think it's a great thing that the Republicans are doing?</s>BASH: You know, they are really, really evenly split. The Democrats by and large support the president's health care law. Republicans by and large think it should be repealed. Independents, who both parties are really going for, are also pretty evenly split. If you'd take a look at what they want Congress to do, again, you know, either you see actually favor 52 percent, oppose most or all of it 47 percent. If you look at Congress, 51 percent say yes, repeal, 47 percent say no. So what this is, especially now where we are in the political calendar, Carol, is an attempt to really rile up the bases, to show the bases on both sides who may or may not be excited to get out and vote for the congressional candidates, the presidential candidates, that they are at least doing what they want them to do, and that's really a big part of what we're seeing today on Capitol Hill.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Dana Bash reporting live from Washington this morning. Mitt Romney will have a chance to score some points with African- American voters next hour as he addresses the NAACP convention in Houston. Every four years, the group invites the presidential candidates to speak. Mr. Obama spoke to the convention in 2008, but he will not be there this year. Vice President Joe Biden will fill in on Thursday. In his address to the NAACP yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder took on the proposed Texas voter I.D. law. Federal judges are reviewing that proposal this week after the Justice Department blocked it. Holder says the proposal would be discriminatory.</s>ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo I.D. but student I.D.s would not. Many of those without I.D.s would have to travel great distances to get them. And some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. We call those poll taxes.</s>COSTELLO: Holder said studies show one quarter of voting aged African-Americans do not have government-issued photo I.D.s. That compares to 8 percent of voting aged whites. No "Daily Show"? Cold turkey on "Colbert?" "Jersey Shore" jitters? Here's why.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a bad situation.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like the end of civilization.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tonight, DirectTV is getting rid of m</s>TV. SNOOKI: Really?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nickelodeon.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're doomed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Comedy Central.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's so sad.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can we see just the disturbing part again?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  BET. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to stop the show. Hold on, hold on, hold on.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And more.</s>COSTELLO: That is the reality for DirectTV viewers this morning. The satellite provider has dropped 26 Viacom Channels, including Comedy Central and mTV and viewers or customers I should say are not happy. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange. This was in "USA Today." Angry customers lashing out at DirectTV. What's going on?</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, but you know what, it's not only DirectTV in this equation. You know, if you go and ask Viacom what's going on, and Viacom says, you know what? DirecTV dropped its programming at 11:50 Eastern Time last night, and Viacom the last it heard from the carrier before that was more than 12 hours earlier at 11:00 a.m. so, sure, DirecTV dropped the station 10 minutes early, but what DirecTV is claiming is that Viacom sent a letter, threatening legal action at 11:24. So, yes, this was almost inevitable if they couldn't work it out, and they didn't. And you know this has been pretty publicized that the channels would go dark if the deal wasn't reached. DirecTV had previously said it was wiling to continue carrying the channels while the two sides do picked out. But they say that Viacom just wasn't up for them -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: OK. So DirectTV has 20 million subscribers. This is going to affect a lot of people, do you think, that people would dump DirecTV because of this?</s>KOSIK: I could be. You know, it's quite a possibility here. We'll have to wait and see we'd fund out. But remember this. Unlike horizon or Time-Warner DirecTV, Carol, is only a television provider it doesn't -- you know, it doesn't have things like phone or Internet to boost its bottom line so it really has to watch its pennies. Now DirecTV is using the rating slide on some of Viacom's channels as a bargaining chip in this catfight. It's saying it's annoyed because so much of the content you can get from Nickelodeon, mTV and other channels. You can get in online and on NetFlix, and if you ask DirecTV, they think that Viacom is taking away the number of people that are willing to pay for DirecTV when they can just get the channels for free -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Good point. Alison Kosik, live at the New York stock exchange. The temperatures are rising, you know that, but your grocery bill is rising, too. How this heat wave is hurting your budget.