Health Reform Triggers Hate; Dr. Gupta Answers Viewer Health Questions
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Thanks for joining us in the Most News in the Morning on this Thursday, the 25th of March. I'm John Roberts.</s>KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us. Here are the big stories we're talking about this morning. The FBI looking into death threats, harassment and vandalism against several Democrats who voted for the health care bill. We're following that story and we're talking to one of the congressmen involved.</s>ROBERTS: The Pentagon is expected to ease part its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy for gays and lesbians serving in the military. This is another step toward President Obama's plan to repeal the controversial law.</s>CHETRY: And California could become the first state in the nation to legalize marijuana, not medicinal marijuana, just pot in general. A measure to do it will now be on the ballot in November. And, by the way, if you have an opinion about any of the stories or anything you see on the show this morning, go to CNN.com/am fix. We're live blogging, getting a lot of comments and we've been reading them throughout the hour.</s>ROBERTS: Another significant development with health care reform, the so-called fixes to the health care law now on their way back to the House. A live picture of the Capital Dome this morning. Senators are expected to reconvene shortly before 10:00 a.m. They didn't quit until nearly 3:00 this morning, following through with the pledge to slow things down. Republicans uncovering two flaws in the bill, forcing it back to the House for a revote. Last hour we asked House Majority Leader, Congressman Steny Hoyer, if he had any concerns.</s>REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD), MAJORITY LEADER: No. I don't think there's any danger. Obviously this bill is the - what we call the improvement section of the bill was the agreement between the House and the Senate to make improvements in the Senate bill. The Senate's bill has been signed by the president. This is effectively the amendments. Of our conference report, this would have been the amendments and I have no belief that we'll have any trouble passing it through the House.</s>ROBERTS: Meanwhile, many House Democrats claim they have been the victims of health care hate. They say they are bearing the brunt of voter backlash, facing death threats and acts of vandalism. And the anger is not confined to Capitol Hill, at least 10 members of Congress with home districts stretching from New York to Arizona are reporting acts of harassment or worse. Michigan's Bart Stupak, who switched his vote and seal the deal for the bill, is releasing a threatening voice mail that he received.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE CALLER (via telephone): Stupak, you are a lowlife, baby-murdering scumbag, pile of steaming crap. You're a cowardly punk, Stupak, that's what you are. You and your family are scum. That's what you are, Stupak. You are a piece of crap.</s>ROBERTS: Our Jim Acosta is with us now. And what kind of threats are Democrats saying that they are dealing with now other than the one that we heard there in Congressman Stupak's voice mail?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know this started building over the weekend, right, when the health care vote was taking place in Washington. Democrats like Jim Clyburn, John Lewis were saying they were hearing the N-word up on Capitol Hill among some of these protesters. And now, it appears that some of this vitriol has escalated into actual threats. And we want to show you some of these pictures of these lawmakers that we are talking about. Roughly 10 or 11 lawmakers who have reported some kinds of threatening behavior directed either at them or their congressional offices. Take, for example, Congressman Tom Perriello. He represents a very conservative district in central Virginia. He just barely won that seat in the last congressional elections. A conservative blogger, a Tea Party activist, posted his brother's address by accident on the Internet, basically saying, hey, go by Congressman Perriello's house, tell him what you think about the health care vote. He accidentally posted his brother's -- Perriello's brother's address. The brother went home to his house and found the propane line cut to his barbecue grill. And so, that is just one incident. Up in north, in Louise Slaughter's district -- a glass was broken at her front door. And also, in the Tucson office of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. So, all of this is escalating. It's got Democratic lawmakers very concerned about this. The House majority leader is essentially saying, hey, this is -- it's time to calm things down now. Things are getting out of control.</s>ROBERTS: Do we know if the propane line was turned on at the time?</s>ACOSTA: We don't know that actually. And the problem is, obviously, we don't know at this point, you know, was this definitively connected --</s>ROBERTS: Right.</s>ACOSTA: -- to what has been happening with the health care vote. But, obviously, people are saying that there's a problem here. There's another congressman in Cincinnati who found apparently a coffin placed near his house. His family's photograph was posted in one of the newspapers saying, hey, thanks for what you did. So, obviously, this is getting out of control. Congressman Slaughter has said that she thinks that Republicans are egging this on. Obviously, there's -- you know, the House minority leader, John Boehner, has come out with a statement saying, this needs to stop.</s>CHETRY: Right. He did come out with that and said that he doesn't condone that. However, people are also taking issue with Sarah Palin's Web site in which she wrote in Twitter saying it's now time to reload.</s>ACOSTA: Exactly.</s>CHETRY: And on her Web site there are sort of bullet bull's eyes --</s>ACOSTA: Right.</s>CHETRY: -- you know, like gun sights actually.</s>ACOSTA: Right. On her Facebook page, she put up essentially a map of the United States with congressional districts that she would like to see conservatives target in the upcoming elections. And when she said target, she meant. She put crosshairs over the districts of some of these members of congress, including Tom Perriello. This is a congressman who has been essentially pointed out amongst Tea Party activists as one guy they would like to see voted out of office come this fall. The problem is, and the house minority leader, you know, talked about this yesterday, and I assume we'll hear more from him over the coming days, that the way to do this obviously is at the ballot box, that these escalating threats and name-calling is just getting out of hand.</s>ROBERTS: Yes. Well, the police are investigating some of these complaints. So, we'll see where this goes.</s>ACOSTA: Right. The FBI, Capitol Police are on it, local jurisdictions across the country. So, this is -- this is not just talk. You know, action is coming.</s>CHETRY: Right.</s>ROBERTS: Jim, thanks so much.</s>ACOSTA: You bet.</s>CHETRY: We're actually going to be talking to Congressman Perriello in a few minutes.</s>ROBERTS: Yes.</s>CHETRY: More about this threat, and whether or not he feels that he and his family are safe. Thanks a lot, Jim. Also, we mentioned Congressman Bart Stupak. He's been a popular target -- almost from the moment that the pro-life Democrat helped seal the deal on health care reform. Carol Costello is following that part of the story for us this morning.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some conservatives have made Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak a verb, Stupaked, definition -- betrayed. And for some that sense of betrayal from a man who is pro-life is vitriol. These kinds of calls have been coming into Stupak's D.C. office since this weekend.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via telephone): You're a cowardly punk, Stupak. That's what you are, you and your family, scum.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via telephone): Go to hell, you piece of</s>COSTELLO: Stupak has also received thousands of letters and faxes, some threatening his family. This one shows a noose with the words "all baby killers come to unseemly ends either by the hand of man or the hand of God." The calls and letters kept coming as Stupak and 12 other pro-life Democratic lawmakers to witness the president sign an order he says confirms the ban on federal funding for abortions in the new health care law.</s>REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D), OHIO: It was very joyous. After the president finished signing it, we all clapped.</s>COSTELLO: Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has also experienced some pushback for her support but nothing like Stupak. She finds it disturbing and says it has little to do with the abortion issue.</s>KAPTUR: There were a lot of individuals who really didn't want this bill at all, and I think that's where some of this vitriol is still coming from.</s>COSTELLO: Stupak is getting hammered on other fronts too.</s>REP. RANDY NEUGEBAUER (R), TEXAS: You know what I'm never going to quit speaking on behalf of the unborn.</s>COSTELLO: The Texas Republican congressman who interrupted Stupak's speech on the House floor with shouts of "baby killer" is now using the incident in a campaign ad. Back in Michigan, the little- known Republican running against Stupak suddenly has thousands of friends on his Facebook page. Dr. Ben Banaszak (ph) is richer, too. In the past two days, he says he received $60,000 in donations.</s>ADVERTISEMENT NARRATOR: Join the Tea Party Express showdown and searchlight rally March 27th.</s>COSTELLO: The Tea Party Express tour with Sarah Palin on board will now include Stupak's district, not because of the abortion issue but because his vote on health care will burden the American people with even more debt and even more government control.</s>SISTER SIMONE CAMPBELL, PROGRESSIVE CATHOLIC: What a great day for health care reform.</s>COSTELLO: Sister Simone Campbell, a progressive Catholic, feels for Stupak. She and other Catholic nuns came out in favor of health care reform. She's getting hammered, too, even though she's against abortion.</s>CAMPBELL: One person called me a baby killer.</s>COSTELLO: Sister Simone is saddened by the vitriol. She actually met with Congressman Stupak to offer comfort.</s>COSTELLO: And she did. Sister Simone met with Congressman Stupak yesterday to tell him he followed his conscious in faith and that she's grateful because she knows it has been a big price to pay -- Kiran.</s>CHETRY: All right. Carol Costello for us this morning -- thanks.</s>ROBERTS: Other stories new this morning, President Obama is in Iowa today to push the benefits of his newly-signed health care bill. The White House says small businesses can get tax credits of up to 35 percent of their premiums. Iowa is where the president first started his fight for health care reform back in 2007.</s>CHETRY: And this viral video has people asking: did former President George W. Bush wipe his hand on former President Bill Clinton after doing some glad-handing in Haiti? We're tracking down a couple of theories. Plenty of news reports imply or flat-out say, yes, that's exactly what happened. But other reports say it was probably maybe an affectionate pat or he was trying to grab him and get his attention, or, you know, because former President Bush was known for being on time, maybe he was tagging on former President Clinton's sleeve since he notoriously runs late oftentimes because he's stopping to say hello and chat people up.</s>ROBERTS: There you go. Varying opinions on that this morning. Eight minutes after the hour. Let's get a quick check of this morning's weather headlines. Here's Rob Marciano in Atlanta. Good morning, Rob.</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, guys. We have some thunderstorms that are rolling across the South. Let's take a look at the radar. Some of these might get rough especially later on today. But some of them right now look to be a little bit more active than we thought. In the Lafayette, Louisiana, along I-10, that's about to move across the</s>ROBERTS: It's great. What an inspiration.</s>CHETRY: It's pretty cool. He's playing with a lot of guys that, you know, could be his son or his son's friends.</s>MARCIANO: He's in amazing shape and all the guys respect him for sure. He is a cool guy.</s>ROBERTS: I love the way you qualified that.</s>CHETRY: What?</s>ROBERTS: The Pentagon today is expected to ease rules on gays in the military. We're live in Afghanistan with the reaction coming up. What do you think about the "don't ask, don't tell" policy? Let us know at CNN.com/amFIX. We're back right after this.