The Golden Report

HAPPENING NOW: On NBC, the first interview with Former Penn State Assistant Football Coach Gary Sandusky- who agreed to a brief telephone interview with Bob Costas today. The full interview is airing on Rock Center with Brian Williams tonight.

From the conversation:

Sandusky: “I say that I am innocent of those charges.”

Costas: “Are you a pedophile?” 

Sandusky: “No.”

Sandusky: “I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact.”

“I shouldn’t have showered with those kids.”

“I enjoy being around children. I enjoy their enthusiasm. I just have a good time with them”

HAPPENING NOW: On ABC, the first interview with Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly. The interview, with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, is airing on a special edition of 20/20 tonight. From the interview:

Sawyer: “How do you feel?”

Giffords: “Pretty good.”

Sawyer: “Is it painful?”

Giffords: “It’s difficult, difficult.”

The special will also contain home videos that Mark Kelly made through Gifford’s recovery which show her soon after the shooting at the hospital, and during rehabilitation and speech therapy.

TOP STORY: The Supreme Court of the United States today agreed to hear oral arguments on cases challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.

With its decision today, the Court is setting itself up to inject its ruling, which could come in the summer of 2012, in the midst of a highly charged political season. Its decision, whether to uphold or strike down the constitutionality of the Act’s individual mandate provision will become a major decision point for voters in the final months of the election. However, there is a possibility that the Court could punt in its ruling and decline to issue a definitive yes or no to the constitutionality question.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg described the Court’s decision today in a report on the broadcast All Things Considered:

“In an apparent effort to be as comprehensive as possible, the court certified four questions for review. First, and most important: Did Congress exceed its constitutional authority in requiring virtually all Americans to have basic health care coverage?

The second: If the individual mandate is unconstitutional, does the rest of the law stand? Even the government now says there would be no way to provide the goodies everyone likes in this law without the expanded pool of people paying into the system.

The third question: Does the law impose unconstitutional conditions on the states by requiring them to pay 5 percent more into Medicaid by 2017 to cover the increased number of people under the program?

And the last question: Is it is premature to decide the first three?”

As if to underline the significance of the case, the court allocated 5 1/2 hours for oral argument, the longest argument in modern times.

Were the court to invalidate the statute in its entirety, it would roll back many of the provisions already benefiting millions of Americans.

FOR BRET- a soon-to-be lawyer…

“The length of the oral argument set by the court for the health care challenge is a recognition of the case’s importance. At 5 1/2 hours, the argument will be the longest in more than 45 years.

Time set aside for argument has changed markedly over the course of American legal history. Before 1849, there was no time limit at all, and counsel would often go on for days. In 1849, the increased caseload caused the justices to set a two-hour limit per side, which was reduced to one hour in 1925, and a half-hour per side in 1970, which is where it remains for most cases today.

But big cases, with many parties and complexities, sometimes get more time. The 1974 Nixon tapes case lasted three hours. Bush v. Gore went 90 minutes. The 1971 Pentagon Papers took two hours; the challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law in 2003 was four hours.”

DRIVING THE 2012 CAMPAIGN TONIGHT- “Rambling Cain has an ‘Oops’ Moment” by Alexander Burns in POLITICO.

Today, Herman Cain gave an editorial board interview to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, but he gave less than a clear answer on his opinion on the US military operation in Libya. From the transcript:

“OK, Libya. President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of Qadhafi. Just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say, ‘yes I agree,’ or ‘no I didn’t agree.’ I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason – nope, that’s a different one. I gotta go back to, see … Got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically, what are you asking me, did I agree or not disagree with Obama on?”

AND THEN [After the question- on whether Cain supported Pres. Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya-was rephrased and asked again]…

“Here’s what I would have – I would have done a better job of determining who the opposition is and I’m sure that our intelligence people have some of that information. Based upon who made up that opposition, OK, based upon who made up that opposition, might have caused me to make some different decisions about how we participated.

“Secondly, no, I did not agree with Qadhafi killing his citizens. Absolutely not. So something would have had to been – I would have supported many of the things they did in order to help stop that. It’s not a simple yes-no, because there are different pieces and I would have gone about assessing the situation differently, which might have caused us to end up in the same place. But where I think more could have been done was, what’s the nature of the opposition?”

It’s a rambling response, for sure. Watch the full video:

THE LATEST POLLS- out today-

POLITICO/Battleground States:

• Cain 27%
• Romney 25%
• Gingrich 14%
• Perry 14%
• Paul 5%
• Santorum 2%
• Bachmann 2%

OBAMA 41%, GENERIC REPUBLICAN, 41%, Undecided 13%

CNN Poll (with difference from October):

• Romney 24% (-2%)
• Gingrich 22% (+14%)
• Cain 14% (-11%)
• Perry 12% (-1%)
• Paul 8% (-1%)
• Bachmann 6% (-)
• Huntsman 3% (+2%)
• Santorum 3% (+1%)

The big story coming out of the CNN poll is the surge in support for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has now eclipsed Herman Cain and is statistically-tied with Mitt Romney for front-runner status.

WALL STREET

• Dow down 75
• Nasdaq down 22
• S&P 500 down 12

DRIVING WASHINGTON TONIGHT: “Supercommittee could punt on tough calls” as Manu Raju & Jake Sherman write tonight in POLITICO

“There’s increasing talk of punting some of the toughest issues to the congressional committees charged with doing this job in the first place. That could mean giving the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance panels an order to come up with a specific amount of savings and a broad directive to rewrite the Tax Code.

This potential abdication of power from a special committee that was granted sweeping authority to tackle the staggering deficit shows just how badly gridlocked Congress remains.

To some, it sounds like the supercommittee is trying to figure out how to maximize political cover if it fails — a far cry from the mandate to achieve major deficit reductions where the rest of Congress has fallen short.

PRESIDENT OBAMA departs Hawaii in a few hours en route to Australia, where he will be on a State Visit as part of a 9-day Asian-Pacific tour

FINALLY…Brad Pitt today announced that he would be retiring from acting when he turns 50, in 3 years. In an interview with an Australian news program, Pitt hinted at what may be next:

“I am really enjoying the producing side and development of stories and putting those pieces together … getting stories to the plate that might have had a tougher time otherwise.

“You know, I don’t know that we’re finished” adopting or conceiving more tots with Angelina Jolie. “Those late nights are so fun when one of them’s up or those mornings when they get up and make pancakes or something. That’s what it’s about.”

POST-DEBATE EDITION

BREAKING: The Trustees of Pennsylvania State University held a news conference at 10pm to announce that they have fired head football coach Joe Paterno and University President Graham Spanier amid a growing child sex abuse scandal with allegations of abuse facing a longtime assistant coach. Yesterday, Paterno announced that he had planned to retire after this season.

THE DEBATE:

The Ninth Republican Presidential Candidates Debate just concluded from the campus of Oakland University in Oakland (outside of Rochester), Michigan. The one-hour forty-five minute debate aired on CNBC and was moderated by John Harwood and Maria Bartiromo.

THREE Takeaway from tonight’s debate:

1/ Rick Perry suffered a seemingly devastating moment for his campaign when he suggested that he would eliminate three federal departments under his budget/deficit reduction plan, then turned to Ron Paul (who proposes eliminating five departments) to list them, and could not remember the third, after Education and Commerce.

Another candidate on stage said “EPA” in an attempt to help Perry recover. But then Perry was prompted by Harwood “seriously? seriously, EPA was the one you were looking for?” he asked. And Perry was still not able to come up with the third cabinet department…Harwood “but you can’t name the third one?” Perry “I would do away with education…with commerce..and..let’s see…I can’t..the third one…I’m sorry.”

Twenty minutes later, when answering a different question, Perry finally said that he was trying to remember that it was the department of energy.

Here’s the video of the full question (it’s about 2 minutes long, forward to 1:40 for the Perry “oops” moment)

2/ Herman Cain went through the debate nearly unscathed. Now in the second week of allegations of sexual harassment, and with four accusers who have come forward with statements alleging misconduct by Cain, this was the dominant campaign narrative going into the debate.

But we knew this debate was hard-centered around jobs and the economy. Indeed, although the first question (on the Italian debt crisis) did go to Cain, it wasn’t until 20 minutes into the debate that Cain was asked directly about the allegations. Moderator Maria Bartaromo was booed by the audience for asking the question and Cain gave what has become his standard response- blaming the media and saying that he does not deserve to be judged in the court of public opinion.

Harwood asked a follow-up question to Romney- asking whether he would fire Cain if he was CEO of his company. Romney ducked and avoided an opportunity to draw distance between himself and (for now) his chief rival for the Republican nomination. That was a telling exchange that ended the discussion of Cain’s allegations at the debate. And now with a Perry fumble, it is possible that Cain has escaped completely from allegations that threatened his candidacy.

3/ Mitt Romney looked and sounded like the Republican presidential nominee. With the exception of messed up hair tonight, Romney was in control when answering questions and gave solid, well-rounded answers on everything from taxes to the European debt crisis to Chinese currency manipulation. He avoided calling out other candidates by name, choosing instead to focus all criticism on President Obama. Likewise, only Jon Huntsman took a serious shot at Romney (continuing a theme he started on Meet the Press on Sunday), accusing Romney of waffling on his Chinese policy. Despite some edging by Harwood, the exchange did not result in any of the intra-candidate fireworks like we have seen in previous debates

THE EVENING REPORT DEBATE SCORECARD: Romney, Cain, Gingrich, Huntsman, Santorum, Bachmann, Paul, Perry.

IN OTHER NEWS:

AWFUL STORY FOR VETERANS DAY: Breaking tonight from the Washington Post- “Remains of war dead dumped in landfill”

“The Dover Air Force Base mortuary for years disposed of portions of troops’ remains by cremating them and dumping the ashes in a Virginia landfill, a practice that officials have since abandoned in favor of burial at sea.

The Dover, Del., mortuary, the main point of entry for the nation’s war dead and the target of federal investigations of alleged mishandling of remains, engaged in the practice from 2003 to 2008, according to Air Force officials. The manner of disposal was not disclosed to relatives of fallen service members.”

IS ITALY NEXT IN EUROPEAN DEBT CRISIS? The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down over 3% today on new fears from Europe that Italy may be the next county to suffer from a growing sovereign debt crisis. Borrowing costs today hit 7% as the BBC reports:

“Italy’s cost of borrowing has touched a new record, a day after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he would resign once budget reforms were passed. If Italy tried to borrow money today, payable in 10 years, it would have to pay an interest rate of more than 7%.

Investors fear that Italy could become the next victim of the debt crisis. In a bid to calm markets, President Giorgio Napolitano said reforms would be passed and Mr Berlusconi would resign “within a few days. The 7% level is widely viewed as unsustainable and was the point at which Portugal, Greece and the Irish Republic were forced to seek a bailout.”

WALL STREET

• Dow down 328
• NASDAQ down 106
• S&P 500 down 47

FINALLY- Today the federal government conducted the first ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS), broadcasting a 30-second alert at 2pm ET on all television and radio stations across the country. The FCC, other federal agencies, and the private sector are still reviewing the data from today’s test- which worked well in some places, and not so well in others, according to a statement from the FCC,

“The Nationwide EAS Test served the purpose for which it was intended, to identify gaps and generate a comprehensive set of data to help strengthen our ability to communicate during real emergencies. Based on preliminary data, large regions of the country received the test but some areas did not. We are currently in the process of collecting and analyzing data, and will reach a conclusion when that process is complete.”

Here’s how the test looked today: (scroll to about 2 minutes in this amateur video).