here s a look at the top stories this hour. an historic day for gays and lesbians. they will be able to serve openly in the military after the senate reappealed the don t ask, kept on tell policy by a 61-35 vote. the house already passed it. now it is awaiting the president s signature. a massive winter storm has grounded all flights at london s heathrow airport. as of right now, it is closed indefinitely. it was the same story i should say, across much of europe with blizzard conditions from northern ireland to bulgaria. up to 40 inches. more than three feet has fallen in parts of bulgaria. make sure you join me at the bottom of the hour for an update on the case of the grim sleeper. nearly 1,000 images were found in the possession of the man found in the case. l.a. police say they may have identified some of them after
signed into law. 59% approve in an nbc/ wall street journal poll, 69% in a washington post /abc survey. so the majority folks are pleased that the two warring parties finally got together and did something. the press reviews must be turning positive, right? not so much. i think the deal was terrible for barack obama. not getting the deal would be catastrophic for barack obama. more good news about the tax compromise. may compromise this country s international credit rating. moody s says any economic growth the tax cuts create will be wiebed away by the piped away by the added deficit, terrific. president obama s political clout has been hit hard by house democrats who are furious over the so-called compromise. this tax compromise that s what they want to call it, it s a cave-in. this could be the beginning of the end of entitlements as we know it. on another divisive issue, eight republican senators joined the democrats yesterday in repealing the don t ask, don t tell
combat arms. there are gay people serving right now in every rank in every specialty, and i don t think it will be a big deal at all. after 18 years of work on this i witness the end. these are tears of joichlt i ve got to tell you. these are tears of joy. so happy to be present for this day that i d always dreamed of. america realizes its promise to everybody to live fairly and serve openly and be able to give all of themselves to this great country of ours. join joint chief s chairman says they will be better as a result of the appeal but opponents say the appeal could endanger troops. president obama is expected to sign this bill. even congress has voted to repeat the don t ask, don t tell policy, first up, the defense department is expected to train on all new forces on the new
and it seems to me the secretary of defense makes the argument that the military can do a better job putting this into effect and it has much less legitimacy coming from the courts than from our appeal. in support of the democrats, how significant a victory is this? i think it s a big victory. even a few days ago it didn t look like this was going to happen. there was a plan hatched to decome this repeal that was moving that was basically launched by sententeny hoyer in house. there was reluctance and arguments about the strategy, whether i would work and spring the defense bill and leave don t ask, don t tell bhieehi. it ended up working for them. i think it was a situation for
joe manchin didn t vote at all. when he voted against the filibuster loft time around last week, he apologized for having to vote against the don t ask, don t tell. this time he decided not to vote. he said there were family matters that kept him away from the vote, but this was going to be a tricky vote for him. the question is whether skipping the vote altogether will hurt him or help him. now he can t be targeted of how he would have voted. let s look very quickly at the dream act. it needed to get 60. why didn t this one pass? there s been a simple formula. things that have passed have had uniform democratic support on don t ask, don t tell. the only one who didn t vote is joe manchin. on the dream act you saw several including matt baucas and john.