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Anchored by Jake Tapper, The Lead airs at 4 p.m. ET on CNN.
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politics lead
Crossfire preview: Should teachers be armed?
One brave bookkeeper near Atlanta potentially saved a school full of children from what could have been an all-too familiar nightmare.
Suspected shooter Michael Brandon Hill was allegedly armed with an AK-47 and off his medication when he entered Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy.
Antoinette Tuff was not armed in the literal sense but she had a weapon of her own – her words.
"He said that no one loved him and I told him that I loved him and that he was going be okay, that we were going get out safely,” Tuff told ABC. “Then I told him that if he would just go ahead and surrender, since he hadn't hurt anyone, I would stay there with him until they came to get him."
Tuff helped the suspect unpack his extra ammunition and put down his weapon.
She's a hero.
Still, the question remains: should Tuff, and school faculty members like her across the country have the right to be armed with more than her wits?
national lead
NSA violating surveillance laws
The nation’s top intelligence official is making public three secret court opinions outlining how the National Security Agency collected tens of thousands of emails from Americans with no connection to terrorism.
It all comes amid the deluge of accusations that the government has been unlawfully breaching the public’s privacy in the name of national security.
In October 2011 James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, proactively came to the court and explained how the NSA had collected citizens’ content and metadata. The NSA agreed to find new ways to remove domestic data and internet traffic from its collections. That promise was made three years ago and the NSA failed to keep it.
Today, the FISA Court judge accused the NSA of misrepresenting what it’s been doing for three years.
“The judge was essentially catalouguing all the things the NSA was doing,” said CNN’s Justice Reporter Evan Perez.
“In essence the NSA had been telling the court it had been doing a certain amount of this but it was taking care to make sure all of the domestic data was left out, and it wasn’t doing that,” Perez explained.
The FISA Court’s action against the NSA proved both that it isn’t just a rubber stamp, and that it is limited in what it can accomplish.
“The court has really no leeway," said Perez. "They can order the government to follow the law but if the government doesn’t follow the law there’s really nothing the court can do.”
politics lead
Fla. governor expresses new Obamacare concerns
Reminiscent of the angry townhalls about Obamacare in 2009, the Republicans are bringing back the movement, but this time there is an unexpected twist.
Last night Republican Senator Ted Cruz, one of the leading voices of the movement and a recent favorite for 2016, discovered that some members of his party aren't as receptive to the message anymore. He was heckled multiple times during a speech he gave at his Obamacare town hall.
The battle against Obamacare is being fought state by state. As the launch of the healthcare exchange inches closer, Republicans such as Cruz say this is the GOP’s last and best chance to kill the bill that will impact millions of Americans.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Rick Scott supports replacing Obamacare and is fighting his own battle on the state level.
“Obamacare is going to cause a lot of problems. It's not a good law. I did not support it,” the governor said. “They are going to have to figure out how they are going to replace it with something that proves to have quality, access, and reduces the cost. However they do that, is the right thing to do.”
While voicing his dissatisfaction with Obamacare, Scott never supported Sen. Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio's plan to refuse to fund the government unless money for Obamacare is taken out of the budget.
He is more concerned about healthcare “navigators.”
world lead
Goldberg: “No one will do a darn thing to stop” Assad, chemical weapons in Syria
One year ago this week, President Obama laid down the line on chemical weapons in Syria.
“We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around being utilized,” Obama said. “That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”
Amid brand new allegations of a barbaric gas attack in the war-ravaged country, Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg argues, even if that red line exists, the President has no intention to do anything to punish Assad for crossing it.
“Assad believes that no one – not the UN, not President Obama, not other Western powers, not the Arab League – will do a darn thing to stop him,” Goldberg wrote.
Syria is again denying this latest round of gas attacks happened, dismissing video released by activists showing scores of dead children in a makeshift morgue as propaganda.
sports lead
Live-streaming NFL games on YouTube? It could happen.
Most NFL watchers have moved beyond being tired of shelling out cold hard cash for a pair of nose-bleeds and a case of frost-bite. Now, they’re merely weary from forking over money to Direct TV for the satellite provider’s “Sunday Ticket” package, which lets football fanatics watch every game, every Sunday.
And Google is taking notice.
The tech-giant wants to stream NFL games on YouTube and is reportedly in talks with the NFL to buy the rights to its “Sunday Ticket” package, according to the industry blog, “All Things D.” The report says Google CEO Larry Page met with an NFL delegation, including commissioner Roger Goodell and the league’s broadcast rights – Direct TV’s exclusive deal with the league expires at the end of the 2014 NFL season – were among the topics discussed.
But even if the NFL’s front office thinks Google can revolutionize how fans watch the game, Deadspin.com Editor Tim Burke predicts the path from small screen to your laptop won’t be seamless.
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