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49 Dead in Train Wreck in Argentina; High Stakes in GOP Debate; Western Journalists Killed in Syria; White House Pushes Corporate Tax Cut; Same Sex Parenting; Lawmaker: Girl Scouts Are "Radicalized"; "Flying Baby" Pics Go Viral

Aired February 22, 2012 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And hello to you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Top of the hour. I want to get you caught up on everything making news, "Rapid Fire." Let's go.

Off the top here, I want to talk about what's happened in Argentina. At least 49 people were killed, hundreds -- the latest number we have, at least 600 -- have been injured in a train crash this morning in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Marcos Stupenengo is a journalist there.

And Marcos, tell me exactly where you are and what happened there this morning.

MARCOS STUPENENGO, ARGENTINIAN JOURNALIST: Hello, Brooke.

Now I am at the hospital in Buenos Aires, some blocks away from the place of the accident. It all happened at 8:30 in the morning, where this train, the formation, couldn't stop at a final destination which was Onset (ph) station.

Nobody really knows at this point this accident happened. It was after two days of holidays here in Argentina at the most crowded time of the service, the train service that comes from the suburbs into the city, when workers and families and kids have to go to school at that time, 8:30 in the morning.

Like, 1,000 passengers in that train with eight formations inside it. More than 600 injuries, 50 of them are in critical condition right now.

And what is happening right now here is there is no clear information for the families about, where are the passengers that are missing? For instance, we had an old lady that came to us minutes ago, and she told, "My son was on the train with his child on his arms. And I tried to reach him on his cell phone, I tried to call him on his cell phone, and I can't reach him." So she is going to each hospital that are receiving the injured to try to get to her son.

There is not much information yet about the 49 people that are already dead because of these accidents. BALDWIN: Sure. Feeling for these families who, of course, I'm sure, are showing up at that train station wondering if their loved ones -- where they are, if they're alive, if they're in the hospital.

Can you tell me -- you said that this accident happened right around 8:30 local time, rush hour, Marcos. Do we know how many people at the time were even on the platform? And is anyone still trapped?

STUPENENGO: Well, we don't have information about people trapped. We were told that probably, there are people dead that are trapped. Their remains are still on the train. There are not alive persons into the train. We have confirmation about that.

There were, like, 1,000 passengers into the train, on their way -- like, 3,000 passengers on both sides of the platform. You will probably see later security footage with a video of the actual accident with the train crashing into the station. It was, like, 12 miles per hour, the speed of the train. And passengers told they heard some strange noises and sounds coming out from their train minutes before the crash.

BALDWIN: So you say approximately 12 miles per hour. Did you have a chance to talk to people who were standing on the platform who are OK? How quickly did it happen, and what did it sound like?

STUPENENGO: Well, they said that it -- the train never stopped at its station that it was supposed to stop because this was a local station. People that were traveling on the train also said that they have several -- that they have really tried to leave the train.

And we have to say that, also, 50 of the severely injured, they almost (INAUDIBLE) to take them out from the train. And there were also, like, 39 ambulances going there to tend to these injured people.

BALDWIN: Marcos Stupenengo, thank you so much, reporting just a couple blocks away from that Station 11, basically one of the hub stations in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Marcos, thank you so much.

Now this. Opposition activists say another 35 people have been killed in Syria today under some very heavy shelling. Among the dead, two Western journalists, American-born Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, were killed in the city of Homs.

In fact, Colvin spoke with Anderson Cooper hours before she died.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIE COLVIN, JOURNALIST: Every civilian house on the street has been hit. We're talking about -- you know, this is a very kind of poor, popular neighborhood. The top of the building I'm in has been hit. In fact, totally destroyed. There are no military targets here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Stay with me. In just a couple minutes, we'll be speaking with a long-time friend of Colvin's, just about 15 minutes from now.

Meantime, no progress in Iran. After two days of talks with the head of the nuclear program, the head of the international nuclear watchdog team describes Iran's actions as "disappointing." The team was denied permission to visit a military base in Parchin that may have been used to test explosives capable of detonating a nuclear bomb. And all of this comes as Israel is believed to be considering an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Want to show you some pictures, live pictures, Tucson, Arizona. Here he is. Rick Santorum just walking into this Tea Party rally, speaking there.

You can watch it, CNN.com/live. You know he's been polling quite well.

Santorum and the other three Republican presidential candidates, they are in Mesa, Arizona -- they will be for our CNN debate tonight. And this is the last debate before Super Tuesday. That's March 6th.

You can watch tonight's debate live, right here, CNN, 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

In Florida, a firefighter is missing. Thirty-one-year-old Jerry Pardomo (ph) drove a rental car from Florida to Bangor, Maine, to visit a friend, and it turns out that car was found abandoned last Friday in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Bangor. When he didn't show up for work this week, his family and fellow firefighters, they got worried.

Pardomo's (ph) wife is a teacher in Florida, and he is the father of two. He served in the Marine Corps before becoming a firefighter.

Crews have found four more bodies on that Italian cruiser, Costa Concordia, more than five weeks after it ran aground. And among the latest discoveries, a little girl. That brings the confirmed death toll to 21, with 11 people still listed as missing. The Concordia hit the rocks just off the coast of an Italian island back on January 13th.

And a man is clinging to life after police say he was gunned down at a Richmond, Virginia, veterans hospital. Our affiliate WRIC is reporting that it all happened outside this hospital. This is a picture of the scene.

A suspect is in FBI custody. Police are not revealing his identity or the relationship to the victim, but they do say this was not a random act.

And a lot more to cover for you in the next two hours here, including this --

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: American companies pay one of the highest tax rates in the world, but it comes with a lot of loopholes. But today, the president is proposing a plan to close some of those. We'll tell you how that will work.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

(voice-over): Nearly a dozen kids found confined in a home, some of them tied to their beds.

Prepping for terror. Months before the Olympics in London, police fake an attack. We'll take you inside.

Plus, they sell cookies and wear badges, but one lawmaker calls the Girl Scouts of America radical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get on the Internet to do your research yourself.

BALDWIN: You'll hear his reasons.

And sometimes the pictures do the talking. I'll speak with the mom behind this camera.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Tonight is the last time all four Republican presidential hopefuls will be facing off man to man before a pair of key primaries next Tuesday. That's Michigan and Arizona, before the all-important Super Tuesday. That is coming up on March 6th.

This is our CNN Republican debate coming at you live 8:00 Eastern tonight from Mesa Arizona. And before I bring in Wolf Blitzer, I just wanted to once again show you Rick Santorum. And you can see, as it is Ash Wednesday, he does have ash on his forehead. He's a practicing Catholic.

And just during the commercial we were monitoring the feed in the control room, and from what I understand, he actually pulled out and held this pocket-size Constitution. This is a Tea Party rally. He holds up this pocket-size Constitution and says, "Yes, I carry this with me wherever I go."

Wolf Blitzer, let me bring you in. It's been, what, just about a month since the last debate? And oh so much has changed. So I feel like this is something we ask all the time, but it's always germane: Who has the highest stakes tonight?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I think Rick Santorum. He's certainly got so much of the political momentum in recent weeks. He's really doing remarkably well even here in Arizona, according to our latest CNN/"TIME"/ORC poll.

He's slightly ahead, according to most of the polls in Michigan. Nationally, he's now the front-runner if you take a look at the Gallup tracking poll, some of the other national polls. He's doing better than Mitt Romney, way better, obviously, than Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.

So there's going to be a lot of focus on Rick Santorum tonight. How's he going to do? Mitt Romney, let's see how tough he gets, and let's see how Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul respond to all of this as well.

I think most of the three candidates will be ganging up to a certain degree on Rick Santorum. So he's under enormous pressure to deliver. We'll see how he does under these circumstances, where he's arguably the front-runner, as opposed to someone trailing from behind.

BALDWIN: How about that? He is arguably the front-runner.

I suppose this is the first debate where we're actually seeing, based upon polling, we're seeing Santorum Mitt Romney smack dab in the center of the stage. And I'm also curious -- you know, there's a lot of talk about why Romney isn't gaining more traction, and one of his biggest supporters, as you know, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, he sort of had an answer, a theory about that this morning on "Good Morning America."

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": Why can't he close this deal?

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Listen, I think part of it is the nature of the way we change the rules. I think it was a big mistake. We voted against it in the New Jersey delegation, to go to proportional allocation of delegates. It's just going to string this thing out against an incumbent president, which makes no sense for us as a party. That's why I voted no, and I hope the people in the party who voted yes for that are now rethinking their position.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The changing of the rules, the delegates. Wolf Blitzer, does Christie have a point?

BLITZER: Well, the rules did change. The contests before April 1st were supposed to be proportional, according to the new rules, not winner take all in a state which the Republicans traditionally had -- the Democrats had that proportional rule in effect for some time now, including four years ago, in that long, drawn-out fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that took until June to wrap things up as far as the delegate count.

The Republicans wanted to try it this time around. And a lot of those Republican establishment, and maybe you can put the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, into that camp right now, they're not that happy. They would have liked Mitt Romney to wrap it up, certainly by Super Tuesday. They would have been thrilled to focus all their attentions on the president of the United States and try to defeat his bid for reelection.

But it's going to go on and on and on. It looks like this battle is not going to end anytime soon. Will it go through June? It's possible. Will it eventually go through the end of August, at the Republican Convention in Tampa -- BALDWIN: Oh boy.

BLITZER: -- whether a contested convention or a brokered convention, whatever you want to call it? It's possible as well. We'll just have to wait and see what goes on.

But I know a lot of establishment Republicans reflecting precisely what Chris Christie said. They're not very happy that this is going on and on and on. Traditionally, the Republicans like to wrap it up quickly.

BALDWIN: Wolf Blitzer, do me a favor. Stand by. We just want to dip in once more and listen to Rick Santorum. He is in the same state you are. He is Arizona, speaking in Tucson, and specifically right now on immigration.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN LIVE SPEECH)

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

SANTORUM: -- came to America, sacrificed five years of his life, worked in the auto factories for a couple of years, and then in the coal mines in a company town for three more years, until he was able to fulfill the requirements and then be able to bring the rest of the family over.

And so I understand the heartache when some people say, well, what happens if you send people back? They're going to be separated from their families. That's right. America is worth it to do it the right way.

(APPLAUSE)

SANTORUM: We are a country of laws. We are a country of laws. And the best way you can show your respect for our country is to respect our laws.

And so this is not a hostile -- this is just who we are. And if you want to be part of who we are, then be part of who we are. All right?

(APPLAUSE)

(END LIVE SPEECH)

BALDWIN: Speaking about his grandparents, his Italian roots, immigrants many years ago. Certainly the topic of immigration will come up in this debate.

Wolf Blitzer, as I know, it came up during the last debate. I remember watching all of them and you speaking about that in Jacksonville, Florida.

In addition to immigration, final question to you, what else are you looking for? And also, how last minute will John King be tweaking these questions?

BLITZER: I just came from that cone of silence, that room where he and his producers and researchers, they're going through all of their questions. I just sort of walked in to see what was going on, get a little flavor.

They're tweaking right now. They're finalizing, they're going through their strategy, they're going through their questions.

It's probably going to go for a while, I suspect. He's going to be with me in "THE SITUATION ROOM" at 4:00 p.m. Eastern, John. I'll ask him how he's doing getting ready for an important night in this Republican presidential contest. We'll get a sense of what's going on.

I assume by 4:00, 5:00, they will be done tweaking, although I'll share a secret with you, Brooke, if you want me to.

BALDWIN: What?

BLITZER: Do you want me to share a little secret with you?

BALDWIN: Yes, please. Bring it on.

BLITZER: When I did that last debate in Jacksonville, Florida, "THE SITUATION ROOM" was on from 4:00 to 6:00 Eastern, the debate started at 8:00 p.m. I went back to meet with all my producers in what we call our cone of silence after 6:00.

I got there about 6:15, and they were still tweaking, they still wanted to rearrange the order of some of the questions. At some point I just put my foot down and said --

BALDWIN: Enough is enough, guys.

BLITZER: -- "It's done. Let's get ready. I want to move on. We could be tweaking all night. Let's just calm down."

BALDWIN: Well, you've got some good producers, and they want --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: But we work hard.

BALDWIN: They want it to be timely. I get it.

Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much. We'll be looking for that chat about the cone of silence.

BLITZER: They're not just good producers, they're great producers. They do a fabulous job.

BALDWIN: They do, indeed.

Thank you, Wolf Blitzer. We'll talk next hour. Meantime, two journalists killed while covering the slaughter in Syrian, American-born reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Up next, I'll speak live with a long-time friend of Colvin's who just spoke with her on Facebook yesterday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: For months now we have been telling you about the nightmare that is Syria, and today we are dealing with the loss of two fellow journalists. American-born reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed today when Syrian troops shelled the house where they were staying.

In fact, we have some video of the aftermath of that house. This was in Homs. This was being used as a media center for journalists. In fact, our own Arwa Damon recently stayed at that exact home.

Marie Colvin was no stranger to war zones. She had been reporting from the front lines for "The Sunday Times of London" for the past two decades. She lost an eye from a shrapnel wound she suffered in Sri Lanka in 2001.

And she appeared here on CNN often, just last night, in fact, speaking with Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLVIN: Every civilian house on the street has been hit. We're talking about -- you know, this is a very kind of a poor, popular neighborhood. The top floor of the building I'm in has been hit. In fact, totally destroyed. There are no military targets here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Again, that was just last night.

I want to bring in Peter Bouckaert He is with Human Rights Watch and has known Colvin for at least 10 years. And he joins me on the phone from Geneva, Switzerland.

And Peter, just first, my thoughts, of course, and prayers to her family. And I'm just sorry you lost your friend.

And if I may, I just want to begin with this question: What made her tick? I understand this eye patch of hers, this war wound, sort of spoke volumes about her personality.

PETER BOUCKAERT, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Well, she was the quintessential war correspondent, a legend among her fellows. She was always the first one to show up long before anybody else would arrive, and she really had a passion to report from these difficult places. And Marie reporting from war zones was not just about calling a few people over and writing a story, it really was being there with them, understanding and sharing their suffering, and reporting from the ground.

BALDWIN: I understand you told one of my producers she had a choice between this eye patch and a glass eye. And she chose this patch because why?

BOUCKAERT: Well, I think she did look ravishing with her eye patch. It really was very much a part of her character, and it made her stand out in a crowd. You know, whenever I saw her with her eye patch and her notebook, it just put a smile on my face.

BALDWIN: I want to read something. This is a statement from "The Sunday Times."

"Marie was an extraordinary figure in the life of 'The Sunday Times,' driven by a passion to cover wars in the belief that what she did mattered. She believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice."

I know you, Peter, have written that Colvin was very anxious to get her latest story out of Syria about this child dying right in front of her. But it was on this Web site -- one of those Web sites where you have to pay to actually read the story, the content, and that frustrated her. What did she say to you about that?

BOUCKAERT: She contacted me yesterday and she said, "Please post my story. Get over the pay wall (ph) and I will face the firing squad tomorrow at the paper." And then she said, "I don't often do this, but it is sickening what is happening here."

So we posted the story on a private Facebook page for journalists, and another journalist commented and said that he was relieved that she had already left Homs. So her response -- her last message to us said, "I think the reports of my survival may be exaggerated. I'm in Baba Amr. It's sickening trying to understand how the world can stand by. And I should be hardened by now."

I watched a baby die today. Shrapnel. The doctors could do nothing. His little tummy just heaved and heaved until it stopped."

"I'm feeling helpless, as well as cold. I will try to keep getting out the information."

BALDWIN: "I should be hardened by now," she says. As you mentioned, she's a quintessential war journalist and reporter. Obviously, she knew this was a war zone, she knew it going in. She told Anderson last night that of all the conflicts she's covered in her years, that Syria was the worst she had ever seen.

What drew her to this type of work?

BOUCKAERT: I think, you know, after having covered so many wars -- she was in Misrata last year -- she realized that it's important that journalists are there to report from the ground. It's very easy for us to be abstract about war zones, but when we are there on the ground, reporting from the ground, like Ben Wedeman of CNN did all through last year from Libya, it makes a difference.

People can identify with what is happening on the ground. But it also comes at great personal risk, because when we report on indiscriminate attacks, all too often we ourselves become victims of those indiscriminate attacks. And that's what happened to Marie today on the ground in Homs, in Syria.

BALDWIN: Peter Bouckaert, thank you so much for calling in all the way from Geneva, Switzerland, to talk about your friend. We appreciate it.

BOUCKAERT: Thank you very much.

BALDWIN: Five people killed in a mass shooting in Georgia. It happened at, of all places, a spa. That story coming up in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It is a place to relax, get a massage, take a steam bath, a place where you let your guard down. But a gunman suddenly burst into this health spa.

This is suburban Atlanta. Our affiliate WSB says at least 20 people were inside when this man opened fire. By the time this whole thing was over, five people were dead, including the suspect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF WARREN SUMMERS, NORCROSS, GEORGIA, POLICE: It appears that this is a murder-suicide. There are five people dead, four inside the building. One died later at a local hospital. It appears that he walked in, had some conversation with one of the victims, and the shooting started.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Police have not released the victims' names, but they do say this time it does appear to be a domestic dispute. Investigators say the victims were two sisters and their husbands, and the gunman was the woman's brother. According to the family pastor, there was tension over financial problems.

And when we come back, we know American companies, they're taxed at one of the highest rates in the world, but not all of them are paying that much. In fact, some companies are making money because of the tax code.

We're going to tell you what industry is making the most and what the president is proposing to do about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's talk about corporate taxes. No, no, don't run away because we're talking about big money here. Big corporations have been complaining for years about paying the highest taxes on the planet. That number, 35, 35 percent.

That is a lot. But, of course, hardly anyone actually pays the 35 percent because big corporations shovel money at Congress and Congress gives them huge tax breaks, right?

I want you to take a look at this, if you would. This is from 2008 to 2010. This is according to a comprehensive study. The machinery industry here had an effective tax rate of negative. See the negative, negative 13.5 percent.

The government wrote them a check. I.T., information technology, effective tax rate of just 2.5 percent, utilities, 3.7 percent, telecom, 8.2 percent, the list goes on and on.

So the White House throwing up this plan that is designed to both answer its corporate critics and maybe smack them alive. The president's new proposal would drop the rate of corporate taxation from the current 35 percent down a couple notches to 28 percent, but here are the two key words here, eliminate subsidies. Not all, but some.

Joining me from New York, my buddy at "Forbes," Bob Lenzner, columnist for "Forbes" magazine. So Bob --

ROBERT LENZNER, COLUMNIST, "FORBES" MAGAZINE: You just broke the story, Brooke.

BALDWIN: We broke the story?

LENZNER: Yes.

BALDWIN: Because why?

LENZNER: About these actual -- well, because if he's trying to lower the tax rate to 28 percent from 35, and all these other industries are paying nothing, in effect, he's not really offering all that much.

I mean, basically, what I think he's trying to do here is get out in front and try to show that he wants to do something for the big corporations, that he's not anti-business. So on the one hand he wants to lower their rate to 28 percent from 35 percent, which is -- would be a reduction of 20 percent --

BALDWIN: But then also take away the loopholes.

LENZNER: Take away the loopholes, which are mainly for the oil industry about which there's going to be a big fight, but also make them pay a small tax on these tens or hundreds of billions that are being held offshore --

BALDWIN: So why do this, Bob Lenzner? What's the goal?

LENZNER: Why do that? Because he's trying to say, I'm going to give you something, and in return you have to give me back something that won't be as much as I'm giving you, but we have to make a trade-off here. You know, they've always been trying to work out some plan to make these companies bring the money back, but with the proviso that the money would be used to create jobs. So you've got this tremendous amount of cash that's all over the world -- this will be a hard thing to do.

What he's done here, basically, is, while the Republicans are arguing about abortion and same-sex marriage, he's saying he is drawing the attention of the country that the issue is economics.

BALDWIN: He's trying to bring it back to the economy.

LENZNER: Yes, right.

BALDWIN: We just ran through a couple different industries. I want to run through a couple more here. First you have --

LENZNER: You scooped me. I'm about to steal this from you.

BALDWIN: Well, I like that. Thank you very much. The chemical industry, effective tax rate, 15 percent. Remember, the rate is written as 35. Financial services industry, 15.5, oil and gas pipelines, 15.7, transportation, 16.4.

Straight up, Bob, do these loopholes spring from lobbying, all the lobbying efforts in Washington and the campaign contributions?

LENZNER: Well, I don't know whether, in all these cases -- can you state what study this is that you've got your hands on there because I'd like to have a look at it? Because you have to see whether it's loopholes that are giving --

BALDWIN: Citizens for Tax Justice.

LENZNER: Was it Citizens for Tax Justice.

BALDWIN: Yes.

LENZNER: All right, so we have to take a look at that and see how much of those low rates are the result of loopholes and how much of it is something else like accelerated depreciation and stuff like that.

But having said that, if what you're saying is true, I'm not sure it's going to make much sense to try to lower the rates from 35 to 28 because they're only paying 15 percent now, the way they've got it.

So it's going to be a hellish fight over this, and it's probably going to go nowhere, certainly, before Election Day.

BALDWIN: So you don't think, basically, based on what we just said, if we're talking mom and pops all the way to, you know, your General Motors that these companies will save much.

LENZNER: I think I don't know. I think it's a step in the right direction. I think that he's trying to show that these pro-business, that he wants to be pro-business. This is very important.

They've sent a signal -- there was a story a couple days ago that he's not going to say any horrible things about Wall Street for the next 10 months and all of that So he's trying to move and change the image of him in order to get re-elected.

BALDWIN: Change the conversation to economy instead of all these different social issues?

LENZNER: The economy is really important.

BALDWIN: I know, you can talk to any American and they'll agree with you. That's what they want to hear about.

LENZNER: Well, if they could reduce their taxes so they have more income to report, then they might, with lower taxes, decide to invest in the United States, which would create more jobs in the United States.

I imagine that's the rationale behind all this. Create more jobs. Because the decision, I think he's going to be re-elected myself, but the main issue is going to be, what's the unemployment rate going to be on October 1st, 2012?

BALDWIN: Bob Lenzner, whatever, however you feel about whichever candidate or the president, I think we all agree that we need more jobs in this country. We need the dial on the unemployment rate to change. Bob, thank you so much.

LENZNER: Not at all.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Bob Lenzner, "Forbes."

Coming up here, 11 kids, between the ages of 5 months and 11 years, removed from a home where a sex offender lives. Some of these kids were tied to the beds. The story will break your heart. It's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: What was going on inside this unassuming three-bedroom home? It happened in a small town north east of Houston. It's the subject of an intense investigation and a lot of speculation.

There's the home. This is where investigators found 11 children ranging from infants to pre-teens, some of them tied to their beds. As many as 10 adults also live here, including a registered sex offender. Neighbors? They're stunned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know of any neighbor that knew they had children in the house. We've never seen them outside. Usually kids come out and play, we never seen any children, ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: All 11 kids here have been removed from the home. They are in foster care. The district attorney is sending the case to a grand jury to determine if any crime has been committed.

An investigative reporter, Michelle Sigona, she's been digging into this for us today. Michelle, it's horrible when you hear about the conditions in some of these young people. Tell me a little bit about that and the conditions just of the home itself.

MICHELLE SIGONA, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, in speaking with the Dayton police and also the district attorney, and I just got the affidavit. Brooke, some of the details in here are very disturbing.

There were 11 children in total inside ranging from 5 months all the way up to 11 years old. Three of the children are actually school-age children. They were not enrolled in school.

What CPS told me earlier today was that they were looking into the fact that if these children were homeschooled or what curriculum they were following, if any at all.

According to the affidavit, when one of the investigators went in, there were eight children in a 10x10 room with a piece of plywood over the top of the window. It did not have any light in there.

Three of those children were restrained to beds using sort of a harness, a leash, something to hold them within their small area. Two of the children were 2 years old. Another one was 5 years old, a little girl, disabled and legally blind.

BALDWIN: And so you have all these kids. Help me understand the connection -- or the relationship between these kids and the owner of the home.

SIGONA: That's something -- the reason why it's taking a little bit of time for investigators to go through this case is because of that large connection. Apparently, the woman who owns the home is the grandmother.

Her name is Tanda Marsh Smith. She has a CPS history, significant history quoted with CPS and lost six children to CPS in Michigan in the early '80s. Apparently most of these children, if not all of them, CPS wasn't exactly sure, neither were the police, are her grandchildren.

And some of the other people who lived inside of the home, as many as 10 to 12 adults, some of them were her children. One of them is a registered sex offender, but what one of the investigators with the police department told me today was that he's not sure if he was home at the time when they went in there.

When they got this anonymous tip back at the end of January or if he sleeps at the home, but as far as he knows, he does not have any provisions from him being around other children.

BALDWIN: Just the sheer numbers of these kids. Michelle Sigona, let's stay on it and let us know as soon as you find --

SIGONA: March 9th that's the next court date.

BALDWIN: March 9th, they are in foster care. Michelle, thank you so much, horrendous.

SIGONA: Have a good day.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Two beautiful little boys, two moms to raise them. The face of the American family is changing in our "I am America" series. We're going to tell the story after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Who are we? It seems like every election year, we hear all this rhetoric about Americans who politicians think we are. But this week CNN NEWSROOM is examining what defines us by looking at the individuals that make up our own towns, our own communities, what do we like, what do we believe in?

What is it that unites all of us? Today, we meet a California couple raising their kids. The couple also happens to be gay.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you guys have in mind today, anything special?

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet the family, their kids, Toby and Gabriel. Their parents, Vanji and Marita.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This photo is of us. This is in our very early stages of early love?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is Gabriel's adoption day, and it was a really happy day. And this is Toby's first mother's day with us.

GUTIERREZ: Vanji and Marita showed me snap shots of their lives together as a couple, a relationship that has lasted a quarter of a century.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the first day, he loved his brother so much.

BALDWIN: For many years, they knew they wanted children, but as a lesbian couple, they had doubts about whether it would happen.

MARITA FORNEY, MOTHER OF TWO: I remember vividly Vanji when I was Vanji's friend, we had a friendship, and she came out to me. And she cried and the many things she said. One of the things she said to me was, I'll probably never have children and that was heartbreaking. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was agonizing for us because I mean, we thought we would, you know, are we hurting a child by bringing them into this life? They're going to have interracial parents. They're going to have lesbian parents.

GUTIERREZ: After a decade of introspection, Vanji and Marita adopted their first child.

FORNEY: This is the day that our first son, Gabriel was adopted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were just really happy. We were family.

GUTIERREZ: Six months later --

FORNEY: That was crazy. Just like it would be for anyone to receive a call, your child's baby brother was born. Do you want him and within hours you have two babies.

GUTIERREZ: And for a short four and a half month long window, when it was legal for gays and lesbians to marry in California, Vanji and Marita tied the knot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, I joke that it was really about saying I did rather than I do.

GUTIERREZ: Other gay lesbian couples are also coming out as families. New census figures show same-sex couples make up one in every 100 California households. And like this family, one in five in the state are raising children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've just sat down and just -- I cried. Look at us. We're here on the front page, two lesbians and a little daughter. We're finally here. They don't have to be afraid that their house is going to get firebombed or that their daughter is going to get attacked in any way. I mean, what courage.

GUTIERREZ: Families they say in generations past they were not allowed to have, but one in future generations will no longer be denied. Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Eagle Rock, California.

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BALDWIN: And Indiana state representative says the girl scouts is a radical organization that promotes not only Planned Parenthood, but also the homosexual agenda.

Yes, I'm talking about the thin minute selling girl scouts. We're going to hear from him, next.

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BALDWIN: Right now, all across the country, organized uniformed squads are roaming through neighborhoods united on a common mission, delivering cookies. For many, the girl scouts promote leadership, teamwork and empowerment. But for one Indiana lawmaker, there's something sinister behind those green sashes. State Representative Bob Morris is the only of the Indiana State House one who refused to sign a resolution celebrating the girl scouts' 100th anniversary.

Instead what did he do? He sent a letter to his fellow House Republicans detailing the minutes he believes they pose. Here are some choice quotes we have pulled for you. The girl scouts, Morris says, are a, quote, "radicalized organization."

They are quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood and they promote homosexual lifestyles. Both Planned Parenthood and the girl scouts say, this is ridiculous and so does the leader of Morris own party in the State House, Speaker Brian Bosma.

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BRIAN BOSMA (R), INDIANA STATE HOUSE SPEAKER: You know, there are a lot of side shows at the general assembly in all walks of life, and you just have to determine which ones you're going to go into.

CATHY RITCHIE, COO, GIRL SCOUTS OF CENTRAL INDIANA: We have no relationship with Planned Parenthood, doesn't exist. There's no formal relationship. There's no money that changes hands. We have no relationship and that's the bottom line.

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BALDWIN: Well, Morris says he is not backing down. He says he's putting his two daughters in the Christian-based American heritage girls.

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BOB MORRIS (R), INDIANA STATE HOUSE: My problem is on a personal level with my family and our beliefs, and my wife and I pulled our daughters out of girl scouts effective yesterday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

MORRIS: Because of my personal beliefs, what my family stands for. I challenge each of you to get on the internet and do research yourself in regards to the girl scouts of America, and you'll find many of the same findings that I found, and my wife.

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BALDWIN: Yes, so about that research. Morris says he did quote a small amount on the internet. Much of his objection here hinges on a single story that got kicked around right wing blogs about two years ago, which claims the girl scouts distributed a Planned Parenthood brochure during a workshop at the United Nations.

The girl scouts say that never happened and we definitely reached out to Representative Bob Morris who joined us on the program. Sir, I love to talk to you, but so far, we have received no response.

The girl scouts, meantime, did give a statement to us here at CNN, which reads in part, quote, "If the freshman representative wishes to discredit the contributions that hundreds of thousands of Indiana women and girls have made through the girl scouts program over the last 100 years, then he's entitled to his opinion."

Morris also criticized the girl scouts for letting Michelle Obama serve as honorary president and the scouts were also quick to point to us, every other first lady since 1917 has held that post as well.

Take a look at these pictures with me, baby flying. These pictures are trending right now online. Coming up next, we're going to ask the photographer/mom how she did it and why.

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BALDWIN: Trending today, the flying baby. Look at the picture. Adorable, little baby Henry, as some have described, levitating around his house, hovering above the bed in a hotel, through a barn, in a shower. These pictures have gone viral.

Propelling baby Henry and his mom, photographer, Rachel Hulin who took the pictures into the online spotlight and she joins me now from Rhode Island. Rachel, I got to ask. How did you do this?

RACHEL HULIN, PHOTOGRAPHER (via telephone): Well, everybody is asking. I do think it sort of ruins it to tell you the secret because it's not such a secret.

BALDWIN: Do what you can.

HULIN: Essentially, I mean, essentially I'm just removing myself. Henry is not being tossed into the air. He's being held up, and then through the magic of very slight photo shop because I'm much more of a photographer than a retoucher, but I will take myself out of the pictures.

BALDWIN: OK, slight photo shop, you say, so he is mysteriously flying. Why, how flying?

HULIN: Well, it started when he was very young. He just loved to be held up. He would giggle. He loved to be held upside down. It was so strange. Babies were so strange. It was my first baby, I didn't know what to expect.

As a photographer, I was just always taking pictures of him and realized graphically how great that was. I started thinking about it more as a project and realized if I were to take myself out of the equation, it would really represent the mystery and magic that a baby has. We've worked on it for a few months and it's just coming along.

BALDWIN: Last question, I mean, I imagine you're getting all kinds of feedback since these pictures are all over the internet. What are people saying to you? HULIN: Mostly they just think they're magic, and other parents know about this. They love to fly their babies, too. I think they're just not taking it to this degree, but most of the feedbacks have been good. Some people are like, come on, just tell us the secret. So there's been some of that, but I think mostly people are just spending time with them.

BALDWIN: I see superman in baby Henry's Halloween future from the magic mom, Rachel Hulin. Thanks for calling, cute kid.

HULIN: Thanks.