says he had to borrow from his retirement fund just to make the monthsly payment on his health insurance. >> i started getting behind on it, and it was -- it was $1900 that i had to take from my ira, which was a big decision, that now it's 30 days later and i'm getting behind again. rabbits are a more popular pet. >> reporter: now as a result of the skyrocketing health care costs, he may have to drop his own health care insurance in order for his business to survive. >> i have 30 days to decide. i don't know. it's a pretty scary thought. but the landlord is not going to wait, and my mortgage company is not. i need my house. so that's probably going to have to be a tough decision. this is a macaw. come on. >> reporter: after amount two decades of caring for the animals and his store, ken hopes the future of health care will care for his family. ted rowlands, cnn. >> as quickly as we can, let's get you to the next hour.

as tony said, i'm ali velshi. in this two hours, every weekday as i take every important topic that we cover and break it down for you. i'm going to drive to give you a level of detail that will help you make important decisions about your mortgage, your taxes, your health care and your securi security. the administration announcing help. if your mortgage is bigger than your house, but does this reward irresponsibility? are we bailing out people who don't deserve it and who gets to decide who deserves it? we'll show you how the new plan affects you. your health care questions keep coming in so we keep inventing new avatars. today you'll meet infertile irene. we're not holding back. that said, there are people who should be holding back, especially if they're about to raise a fist, hurl a brick or cock a gun. the health care battle is nasty. who is fueling the extremist? the political right? the left? the media?

or plain old anger and frustration. it's hard to conceal. it's hard to have one in economic recovery when so many people still don't have jobs. look, i'm the chief business correspondent at cnn. they pay me for those kinds of insights but the government has tried all kinds of programs to save jobs and homes. and some of them haven't worked very well. now comes one more. it's aimed at helping as many as 4 million struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure. 4 million. that would be about 23 times as many people has got permanent mortgage makeovers under the current plans. the new plan would use $14 billion from t.a.r.p. that's the bailout. that's from october of 2008. you will remember that big plan. it will use $14 billion of that money to pay lenders to write off some of the principle that is owed to them by underwater borrowers. you may know that name, underwater means that your home is worthless than the mortgage, the value of the home. your mortgage is worth more than the house.

it's called negative equity. what makes houses lose value? well, other houses getting foreclosed, for a start. it's a very, very vicious circle. let me break this down. i'm going to borrow a technique from elizabeth cohen. she's been using it to talk about medical stories and health care. i'm going to bring the avatars out. this is hard luck harry. he is underwater, his home is worthless than his mortgage. and he's also -- see the pink slip? he's unemployed. under the new plan, hard luck harry could see his mortgage payments lowered to no more than 31% of his income for at least three months and maybe longer. now let me show you struggling sarah. struggling sara is underwater. her house is worthless than her mortgage. that's the house underwater. but she's working and she's just getting by. she's got a wage-earning job. she could get lower payments. but if she's not delinquent, she might get a reduction in the

principle, the actual amount that she owes the bank. let me show you responsible roger. responsible roger also underwater. his house is also worthless than the mortgage on it but he's employed and he's been making his payments more or less comfortably. you know what he gets? he gets the government's best wishes. that's about it. and finally, there is irritated iris. we've gn hearing from some of you. irritated iris is not underwater. her mortgage is substantially lower in value than her house is. she has no sympathy for her neighbors who bought houses they couldn't afford or took out crazy loans with impossible terms. guess what? no help for her either but she may be reap the indirect benefit because if there are fewer foreclosures, property values in her neighborhood might increase. and that is basically the bottom line for all of us. you may not like how this works, but you may -- it may have some benefit for you in the end. i want to bring in some people who know a little bit more about this than i do.

let's introduce my co-anchor from "your money" christine romans. peter is an international business professor at the university of maryland and steven leeb, economist and investment analyst joining us from new york. these three all have something to say about this. and i will talk to them as soon and i will talk to them as soon as we come back.

break the cycle, the vicious cycle of home foreclosures and declining property values. besides my avatar friends you just met, hard luck harry, responsible roger and the others, i'm joined by some non-avatars to have the discussion because we can't really talk to avatars. christine romans is my co-anchor on "your money," peter is a professional in business and steven leeb is an investment analyst, editor of "the complete investor news letter" and he's also an economist.

thank you for joining us. peter, i want to start with you because there's surprising disagreement on the value of this program and one that was announced by bank of america earlier this week. i'm hearing these terms moral hazard again, rewarding irresponsible behavior. largely from people who didn't do anything wrong. not that people who got into trouble necessarily did anything wrong. but a bunch of people saying we're helping everybody but those who didn't over-extend themselves in their homes and continue to make payments. i want your thoughts. >> the people who will get the largest benefits from this program are people with a mortgage that they're underwater because they borrowed everything theyan and top oft payments so president is going to buy them down? what are they going to do? they're going to go get in doubt again. there was another avatar you didn't show. and that's newlywed nelly and ned. they can't affords a home but they qualified for a mortgage because prices are still too hi. by keeping these irresponsible harry in his house, it keeps the value of that home from falling

to the level that they could afford it. there's no such thing as a free lunch. >> this is an interesting point, steven. i want to go to you about this. for all those people who have told me i don't know why they're being rewarded. i'm telling them, well, bottom line is would you like it if this program causes your home prices to increase? they say yes. so peter is saying, we're going to be artificially inflating home prices. a lot of other people are saying at least if my home prices go up, that's good for the economy, good for me, good for the economy. >> ali, that's the point. i mean, we're all in this together. and you know, it doesn't really pay to think of this v vindictively. they were talked into it by scrupulous sellers of these mortgages to any number of reasons. i think these people have paid a tremendous price. how would you like to sit around day after day for a couple of years wondering whether or not you're going to be able to buy food? to me, that's enough of a price.

but even more telling, is that we are all in the same soup. and it's a very complicated soup. and in order to help this economy recover some of those lost -- some of its lost waeeal and get us on a stronger footing we're going to have to try to help the people that most need help. even if you wanted to argue that they could have avoided it in the first place. it has nothing to do with it. we're all in this together. >> christine, there are two issues here we need to confront. one is the government says we're not going to impose any new taxes as a result of this but it is using money from t.a.r.p., the bailout, which is money that was all ours in the first place. and second issue is the effectiveness. we have tried this. it's been a year since the government first introduced the making home affordable program. is this effective and what does it cost us? >> well, we haven't got this right yet. here's the thing. it's a disaster out there for the people who are facing foreclosure, people who are

underwater. it is an utter disaster. they haven't gotten this right yet. $170,000 people have had permanent modifications. even if you get people in a program and start to help them out, ali, 30, 60, 90 days down the road they fall behind again. that's because you're trying to keep some people in homes that they are never ever going to be able to afford. it is taxpayer money. it is t.a.r.p. money, bank bailout money. that's your money and my money to begin with. that is taxpayer money. make no mistake, this is taxpayers trying to find a way out of this solution. we are all exposed. this story is about everybody. i want to bring in one more avatar, ali, and that's -- you had responsible roger. i've been hearing from a lot of retired responsible rogers who bought their home 20 years ago, who have also suffered from a decline in their home value but they're not underwater because maybe they paid off their house. well, they want to know, well, well, you know, i'd like something, too. you know, why is it that taxpayer money is going to be

going to help people who are maybe bought at the peak or who are leveraged to the hit. maybe i should get that to compensate me for decline in home value. everyone is looking for quote, unquote, free government money and how is it going to affect them. it is actually tearing neighborhoods apart in some ace where's some people are fighting to keep the homes, some are walking away and some are saying it's not fair. >> i got to take a commercial break. i want to ask you, i want to have this discussion between peter and steven. do we have that facebook comment? can i show that before i go out to the commercial. i want to discuss it when we come back. this is one of the comments i've asked people for on facebook. we're going to bring it up for you. here we go. all right. this comment is from scott. he says, i have made my payments on time for the past ten years. i have my own business. i pay tons of taxes. now with the health care reform, i have to pay more and provide health insurance or get fined. scott continues to say, i hate

to say it but the only people hurting are the ones still trying. i should just give up and let everyone else take care of me. i want to hear steven leeb's response to that as soon as we response to that as soon as we come back from this commercial.

breaking now the latest attempt by washington to break the vicious cycle of home foreclosures and declining property values. let's be joined by our real life friends, not just our avatars. christine romans, coanchor on "your money" and peter and

steven leeb, investment analyst, editor of "the complete investor" news letter and economist. steven, you heard this issue. it's two issues. we call it moral hazard, the idea you're rewarding somebody for behavior that might have been irresponsible. scott was not talking about that. he talks about the fact that there appears to be no reward for not buying morehouse than you could have afforded. you say it's passed but how do we answer that politically? >> well, i think people have to point out to scott, again, ali, that, yeah, it is unfair. and i certainly sympathize with scott. and it's unfair to, you know, a lot of people that are doing reasonably well in this economy. but there's never been, at least in post-depression history, we've never had an economy in which there are more people doing absolutely terribly. and the point i would make to scott, if i were a politician, i would drum in to scott's -- into

all the scots, i would really make it clear to them, that if you lift this economy up, i mean, we're really just sort of pedaling along bottom right now. but if you lift this economy up, scott is a businessman is going to benefit. and unfortunately, i mean, you can't lift the economy up by giving someone who is making $100 million, $200 million. but you can lift the economy up by giving people that are destitu destitute, the wherewithal to buy goods, et cetera. if you do that for enough people, scott in the end will be a winner, he has to be more patient. and you know, realize that we don't live on separate islands in this world. we live together. and i think what we're doing now will make all of us safe together. it's not going to do scott any good if we had a financial crisis that, you know, in which we bought the ranch, the entire economy. just collapsed on to itself. >> peter, what do you think of that? it does sound like a reasoned argument that we're all going to

do better if the economy does better. >> i disagree on two points. first of all, the people who are going to be helped are not destitute. they're making their mortgage payments but they find it uncomfortable because they borrowed too much in the past. they're not going hungry. previous programs have failed to help more than a couple hundred,000 people. ve an overhang of millions of homes underwater. we have too many homes that have been built and so forth. we just have a glut on the market. and so this program is not going to lift the price of housing. it's not going to save the housing market. it's arbitrarily going to take some people and reward them for being very poor spenders, very poor savers. the lesson of all of this is if you work hard, pay your bills and save your money, you're a loser with this president. because he's knot taking care of them. responsible roger is correct to be angry. >> christine, what do you think? >> peter, what you just round up all of these people and put them in jail in come on. >> i didn't say that. you keep creating false arguments.

they're neither destitute nor do i want to go to jail. >> they may be destitute. >> let them make their payments. >> peter, when you have a we -- >> you're not talking a helping. >> let me jump in here, guys, because i want to get to a point here. hold on. i want to make a point here. every situation is different. you can't make generalizations, first of all, because you have 7 million people, 6 or 7 million people not paying their bills. some are just losers. some people have really lost out by the economy. some of these people had a perfectly fine loan and we know the fastest rate of defaults right now are people who have prime credit histories. these are people who did nothing wrong for many, many years, paid their bills on time, and now they're defaulting because of a job loss, a job loss that's caused by the economy overall. so we can't make generalizations. one thing that i can say about how scary this is for policymakers and for the banks and for homeowners and consumer advocates are trying to help people and financial counselors. more people are getting a

foreclosure notice in the mail than are buying their first home. that means there's something wrong in america with the housing market. that means the american dream has become the american nightmare. it's imperative they figure out what to do. everyone disagrees on how to do it. some people say we're just tinkering around the edges, rewarding people for bad behavior. we can agree here this is something that stuck with us. we're talking about recovery in the economy. it's 2010, maybe 2011, and we still have a major foreclosure issues that we have not figured out how to handle or philosophically how to handle it. should we let the whole thing blow up and start over? remember, it was government intervention, many people argue, that helped drive so many people into homes and now it's government intervention trying to keep them in their homes. how are we going to handle it? >> pete, 30-second view on this. what's the 30-second view on what degree of government intervention is necessary to help out this housing market? absolutely none or should something be done to help stabilize this housing market and stop some of the foreclosures? >> do what we did during the

savings and loan crisis and use the t.a.r.p. as intended to create a resolution corporation to work out the paper on the books of the banks. put it all in one place. it would be possible to work out many more mortgages that way than with this scatter shot approach. the programs working for the banks indirectly don't work. >> gentlemen, and christine, thank you very much. always a passionate discussion. i'm glad you brought everything to it because this is exactly the discussion that's taking place in america right now. some people think this is great. this is the cavalry coming to the rescue. some o. these think it's the wrong thing to do. if you want to see more of this discussion, tune in to christine and me saturdays at 1:00 p.m. eastern and sundays at 3:00 p.m. eastern. we'll be getting more into this discussion this weekend. all right. covering a few top stories for you here at cnn. in washington a major agreement to slash the number of nuclear weapons in the united states and

russia. the strategic arms reduction treaty builds on another one that expires. they require u.s. and russia to get rid of a third of their nukes. they will sign it on april 8th. richmond, virginia, the bull lot shot into the campaign office of eric cantor was random gunfire. some speculation this was related to the threats that several lawmakers have received over health care reform. cantor already said he received threatening messages. no one was hurt at his office. across the country, 27 states are reporting a rise in unemployment rates in february. while that might not sound great it is down from 30 states the month before. we're going to take a break. when we come back, i am going to hear from elizabeth cohen. i've been using some of those avatars that were really her invention. but she's actually bringing them back for the purpose for which they were invented. you heard the broad strokes. we are getting into specifics about health care reform and how it affects you now that it's a done deal. done deal. and the avatars are back. back i?

okay. normally in this business in the commercial break i go to the next person i'm talking to. i go to the next place and i get a head start before we come out of a commercial. i deliberately didn't come here because elizabeth cohen is here and i'm not quite sure if she's mad at me or not. i took the whole avatar concept to describe the mortgage business. >> i'm honored. >> good. as long as you take it as flattery because that's why meant. i love it. we are doing this every day because you have been asking us at cnn about how health care afri affects you. you have more avatars. >> we have a couple more people here. let's take a look at infertile irene. she is unhappy because she has trouble conceiving. she's happy and unhappy about it. she's happy because she has a pre-existing condition which is her infertility. and now health insurance companies can't say no to her or charge her ridiculous amounts. she's unhappy because insurance companies won't have to cover

her infertility. they will have to cover her if she gets cancer or whatever. but infertility is not in the long list of things that insurance companies will have to cover. >> they can't deny her insurance for health care generally because of her pre-existing condition but they don't have to cover her infertility that she was suffering from. >> right. all other sorts of other things but not that. >> how interesting. that's why this is useful because we don't know about things like that. you've also got part-time patrick. >> we have part-time patrick. >> he does not look happy either. >> no. he works at a restaurant that serves only water. that might be part of the problem here. part-time patrick is unhappy because he is only working part time and employers do not have to give him health insurance. there is no employer requirement there. so i'm going to write down no coverage because if he were full time and working for a sizable company, they would, but he's part time. >> under the system of insurance exchanges, in theory, he might be able to buy insurance for himself at a better rate than he

could today, for instance? >> not necessarily a better rate because he will get subsidies starting in 2014. in 2014 he'll get some money. money coming to him. >> less money that he puts out but not that the insurance is a better rate. >> in 2014 he's going to get money from the government to help him buy insurance. from now until 2014 he's going to have to dig deep and find that money. >> or get full-time work. >> maybe they'll start serving something other than water. >> that's part of the economy. he wants that tray to be full of stuff and get more hours. interesting. part-time patrick. stay with us. we're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about some more people and how they are seffected by health cae reform.

i promised to you here is that we break down the issues that are important to you. elizabeth cohen is like getting a christmas gift every day because she's making this very understandable to specific people with specific circumstances. gary and gabe. >> gary and gabe are partners. i don't mean business partners. they have been a couple for many, many years now. fill in that heart. here's the deal. >> i got sort of clearly say, opposites attract. >> i think so. they don't look like a likely

couple. but gabe has been getting his benefits from gary's job. gary has a job and gabe doesn't. so he gets his benefits from him. but here's the catch. forever, basically. gary has to pay $1,000 in taxes because those benefits that his partner is getting are treated like income. >> okay. >> that's not the case. like my husband gets benefits through me but i don't have to pay taxes on that. it's just a benefit i get for working here. and there was some hope that health care reform would change that and get rid of that tax. but didn't happen. >> so they are going to continue to have to pay that. things don't change fundamentally for them. gabe is going to have to watch that there. i know from what elizabeth tells me, you've got tovegetables. i'm suspicious about who does your artwork. if i don't watch out that could be me a little bit. >> already is a little bit. >> exactly. elizabeth is going to keep on doing this. please keep sending us your questions about these things because every one of these

specific circumstances allow us to understand a little better who gets coverage and what changes. all right. listen, if you do have other questions, dr. sanjay gupta tomorrow morning is going to be taking your calls live, 7:30 a.m. eastern time on a special a.m. eastern time on a special edition of "sanjay gupta md."

gold is at one of the highest levels it's ever been at p. need cash? put your gold into an envelope

and sent it to -- you've probably heard an ad like that. that's got some people a little worried about what exactly they're supposed to do with their gold and whether or not they should be selling it by sending it to someone they don't know anything about. check in with poppy harlow from cnnmoney.com. she's been looking carefully into this story. it can be very attractive at times when people are short of money to put it into a pouch and send it off and get a check in return. >> it can, especially if you're the pitchman, ali. you did a good job there enticing people. but, yeah, a few months ago we hit the streets trying to sell our gold jewelry in different stores. we saw it's easy to get ripped off. a lot of people are mailing in their gold. you've seen the commercials. some cia, hsay, hey, it's a gre opportunity. others say take a look at it carefully first because it's not necessarily a quick financial fix. take a look at what we found out. >> i can get cash for this gold medallion of me wearing a gold me dad i don't know. >> reporter: their adds are pervasive but some cash 4 gold

customers are saying they are getting a raw deal. >> they slap you in the face with an absurd amount. >> a golden opportunity to be fleeced. >> reporter: there are just a lot of people selling their gold right now. and there are some people that say they're getting ripped off. there's actually a class action lawsuit against cash 4 gold right now. they invited us down to their headquarters here in florida so we came and we can't show you the outside of the building for security reasons, but we really wanted to come in and see exactly what was going on. >> i'll make sure that everything is here is what i received. >> reporter: the gold is tested. >> we just simply just scratch lightly. >> reporter: appraised. >> we add it up. >> reporter: and an offer is made and customers have 12 days to decide whether or not to accept it. >> it will get 1800 degrees. >> reporter: if they do, their gold is melted down. but consumer reports finds mail-in companies, including cash 4 gold, sometimes pay out as little as 11% of the gold's value. i think some concerns are whether they're valid or not,

that maybe more gold is getting processed here that someone sent in than they are getting paid for. >> i know exactly what comes in is weighed up. a value is assigned to it right from the computer. my people don't make more money off of it. >> reporter: cash 4 gold says it pays 20% to 80% of the gold's value. but that's not what frank poindexter claims he got. >> about a week and a half, i think, after i sent the package off to them with the gold in it, i received a check. >> reporter: how much for? how much was the check for? >> i was astounded. it was for 15 cents. >> reporter: 15 cents. >> 15 cents. >> reporter: 15 cents for what he says was more than a dozen pieces of gold, appraised at roughly 200 bucks. but cash 4 gold's internal documentation says just this single gold earring was in frank's packet. are you saying he lied to you? >> i'm just tell dwroug facts. >> reporter: in the end, cash 4

gold settled with frank for $150. frank poindexter is not alone. he's join that lawsuit against cash 4 gold which alleges that the company sometimes melts down the gold before the 12-day return period has ended and sometimes blames the post office for losing items in the mail. >> the class action is -- is meritless. there are three main complainants on the class action suit, three. >> reporter: after numerous complaints about several companies, new york democrat introduced the gold act, pushing for more stringent regulation of the industry on a national scale. >> basically when you put that gold in that envelope you're sending it off to the wild west. >> ali, if that gold act becomes law, it would require consumers accept any offer before their gold is melted down. companies would be fined if they don't comply. it would also make sure that companies insure any jewelry they send back to consumers for the same have it was insured at when they sent it in.

there this is a big problem. you see stricter regulations in florida but not worldwide. >> poppy, thanks for joining us. poppy can be seen on cnnmoney.com. thanks, poppy. good to see you. one what do these things have in common, condoms, bricks, violence, shredded american flags? that wasn't a slip of the tongue, i meant to say condom because all of these things have been sent to lawmakers in protest of health care reform. we're going to talk about civility, a conversation that affects us all when we come back.

check out the top stories. help for homeowners under water. the obama administration announced new initiatives including refinancing millions of mortgages into government-backed loans with lower month lly payments. and temporarily reducing mortgage payments for those who lost their jobs. in washington, slashing the number of nuclear weapons in the united states and russia. the treaty builds on another one that expired in december. it requires a u.s. and russia to get rid of a third of their nukes. president obama and russian president medvedev will sign it in april. sok an officials are calling for an emergency cabinet session today. one of their navy ships sanked near the disputed maritime border with north korea. it's not clear why but north korea recently warned it's boosting the military defenses in the area.

we're following that story and we will take a look at that. we've been talking about political incivility or civility over the last few days. let me tell you, if you haven't been following closely, some of the things that have been going on. obviously threats sent to various lawmakers. we had seen a gas line cut at a home that was believed to be congressman's home. it wasn't actually his home. we've seen a brick thrown through one office of a congressman. we've talked about a coffin that was placed on a lawmaker's lawn. can you believe that? a coffin. and here's one i told you about this before the break. an unwrapped condom was sent to the office of a democratic representative with a phrase attached to it that we can't talk about here on cnn. shredded american flag was sent to a lawmaker caused in gasoline. and one of the scariest incidents involved the number two republican in the house of representatives, eric cantor. yesterday he told reporters that he was receiving threatening messages and that a bullet was shot through a window in his

campaign office in virginia. authorities came out today and preliminarily quoted -- called it a, quote, case of random gunfire. richmond police say the bullet was fired in the air and struck the window in a downward direction landing on a floor a foot from the window. the round struck with enough force to break the window pane but didn't penetrate the window blind. we don't know if it was directed at eric cantor's office or whether it was random gunfire. hard to know. there are a lot of facts here not clear. i want to bring in mark scoda with the memphis tea party. you've seen him on cnn. mark, thank you for being with us. >> ali, thanks for having me on the show again today. >> you and i have talked a lot on tv. we're going to talk as friends here. this is lridiculous. you have to agree. >> we've stated that. first of all, let me say this. a lot of these commentaries going on with respect to all these incidents want to lay the blame at the foot of the tea party. with all due respect there is not any proof of that, first of

all. secondly, we absolutely reject this kind of behavior. we've made press releases, we've indicated we do not support any kind of violence or violent acts. any kind of action where we've had this health care bill jammed down the throats of the people of the united states, unfortunate li that anger is spilling over into his events. it's not clear to me that any of this has to do with the tea party. in particular, we haven't had any evidence it does. >> just a statement from the press release you're referring to. i want to read this. tea party movement is a peaceful movement. we denounce all forms of violence. we do not condone, accept or encourage such behavior andq0 fully understand that while no evidence of such behavior has been offered we believe it's important to condemn it, none the less. i congratulate you for that. i have been to tea party rallies where you have got some people there, you and i have discussed this in the past, who might be in instances like this better to have been disassociated with. we've seen pictures of president

obama in a coffin. we've seen pictures of the president with a bone through his nose and a loin cloth. we have seen signs that do see on the fringes to attract violent or extremist behavior. what do you have to do to sort of say this isn't who we are? >> well, i think it starts by really having a dialogue. the press has amped this up. congress has amped this up. with what is truly regrettable is a use of race as a fundamental issue that is trying to separate the tea party movement from what i'll call reasoned dialogue. the leaders i speak to and the people i've been associated with clearly reject any kind of behavior that borders on these kinds of threats and these kinds of actions. that's first and foremost a key element. i will tell you that people are concerned about this nation. we are going to have a revolution but it will be at the ballot box. i think relative to disassociating people ands us m such actions evident would be clearly in no one's interest.

i will tell you this much. there are people on our side who clearly will disassociate themselves, begin to try to tone down the rhetoric. we also ask the left to do the same. we recognize a lot of that has come from the democrats and, in fact -- >> here's a perfect point for us to leave it at. i want to stay there because i want to take this away from the tea party and i want to talk about civility in politics and how we get this dialogue going in a way that makes a lot of sense.

♪ ♪ i gave my love a cherry that had no stone i gave my love a chicken that had bone ♪ ♪ i gave my love a story that had no end i gave ♪ >> sorry. all right, some of you will be old enough to remember "animal hughes" john blutarsky not being all that civil.

i got mark code da with me from the memphis tea party, we're talking about the tone in weren't, the threat, the accusations of, the tone and threats. a great conversation this morning about who really fuels these people that do these kinds of things. is it media? is it frustration? what is it? what do you think fuels these people to do things like that? because that's not part of the dialogue, that's not part of the dialogue of reformers like yourself, it's not part of the dialogue that want to change the way things were done. >> i grew up in the vietnam war and the protestations that went on there. there are times in history, whether it was vietnam, whether it was the 2000 election of president george bush versus al gore, i think when we look at the iraq war, i think there are timeness the history of our nation when people get very excited, very animated about issues. i think today we have the culmination of not only the problems with jobs and the

economy itself, which breeds a lot of fear and, frankly, a lot of concern with what i think people believe their government not listening to them. i think we saw that in terms of even this health care legislation. we can be vociferous and anxious about legislation and issues, and there's what we'd prefer to be attacking, not individuals, not people. >> this is the beauty of this country and a movement like yours, that it can start, and you can go to the ballot box and you can vote people out. i mean, don't we as americans realize that that can happen? why would there be a need to resort to violence, because no matter how powerless you feel, you go to the ballot box. we don't do that as much as we should, do we? >> indeed. it's something i cover with my group and particularly the radio show, look, if you cannot perform the basic civic duty of raw voting, then don't get anxious about the rest of the outcome. to your point, there are always fringe people that take advantage of movements to use it to their own means for 15 minutes of fame.

i think it's cowardly when people take the actions anonymo anonymously, i think the government should expose the people and if they're part of a particular group or tea party, we'll be the first to ostracize and support prosecution of these people. however, i also think that the means for politicians uses to besmirch an entire movement like the tea party movement is completely inappropriate. using the race card frankly, and i was there on saturday where people walked through the crowd, the congressional black caucus members who marches while taking videos of their actions hoping, i believe, for some activity that would have besmirched the actual rally is also part of the problem. and add on top of the 24x7 news cycle that gives us chances to have conversations about civility and also amps up if you will the actions of some of the outliers. >> mark, thank you for being with us and we appreciate your group's condemnation of these kind of actions. mark code da is with the memphis tea party joining to us talk

about political civility. all right, coming up, take a listen to this -- >> right, kandahar, we traveled here from kabul because this is now the part of afghanistan that everyone is talking about. and we'll be talking about it, too, michael holmes and "backstory" up next. 4 times the number...uld g of pills compared to aleve. choose aleve and you could start taking fewer pills. just 2 aleve have the strength... to relieve arthritis pain all day.

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research poll on afghanistan. it feels americans are feeling more optimistic about the military campaign there and now we need to hear from afghans on the ground. cnn's michael holmes is heading there in two weeks you were telling me to swap out with one of our other correspondents and michael's here with a "back story" on afghanistan. >> the correspondent in there right now, chris lawrence is there at the moment and phil black just came out. when phil was there, he actually did a road trip down to kandahar. we just did helmand province and marja, kandahar is the next focus of the campaign, the nato and the u.s. campaign, sort of the spiritual home of the taliban if you like. >> right. >> it's been known that way. phil went down there and hit the streets, did not embed, which is unusual these days. went out and deemed it was okay to go out and have a look on the streets, which is always a bit risky in a place like kandahar. >> sure. >> he went with the crew and did a great story, but he also, as

he does, did the "back story" of how they operate down there. here he is. >> reporter: kandahar, we traveled from kabul, because this is the part of afghanistan that everyone is talking about. the american international forces said kandahar is next, they're going to clear it next, it's the next offensive. the taliban have already responded with a big, coordinated bomb strike in the city that killed 35 people just the other day. so, we've come here just to get a sense of what it's actually like on the ground. this is kandahar hospital, we've come to talk to some of the people that were injured in last saturday's explosion. we just heard that a police unit was struck by an ied just this morning. "he's over there, and he is dead," this man cries. his son was a police officer. his unit had already found and disabled four roadside bombs that day. the fifth detonated.

yeah. kandahar -- it's all right, go. kandahar can be a dangerous place to work, so we are taking precautions. we've got a security team. we're mixing up routine. we never stay in one place for very long. the whole idea is to keep a low profile. it's like we're dressed like locals. we haven't shaved for a few days. and it generally works. you can generally move around and not get noticed, until you take out the big, shiny camera, and it attracts a little bit of a crowd. it's probably time to go. we just spoke to this u.s. military patrol. they're initially a little bit nervous when they saw us dressed like this with a big camera. we explained that we were cnn, and things got cool pretty quickly after that.

but they gave us some interesting insight to the security situation here on the ground. can i get your full name, mate? >> aaron thomas. >> reporter: and title, rank? >> sergeant. >> reporter: how would you describe the mood in kandahar right now? >> the mood in kandahar right now, it's kind of -- it's kind of weird, because you can tell they're mad. it's getting -- it's getting hot. it's getting real hot right now. >> reporter: yeah, i think that kid's about 5 years old. not more than that. he's having a very good time. our guys keep saying, this is kandahar. the "back story," remember i said we hadn't shaved for a while. well, i want you to rate who's got the best beard. this is after a few days. this is what i got. take a look. check out dave's fluff. >> get sideways, that shot. >> reporter: you, too.

>> wow. that kid driving the car. >> that's amazing, isn't it? you see the most amazing things. a lot of people, too, we went out and pulled up at the money exchange, this kid came out to the side of the car, must have been 8 years old, held up a baseball-sized, wrapped in plastic lump of hash and said, $10. are you kidding me? >> as a business guy, i'm not going to comment whether it's a deal. >> it's afghanistan. it's a great report by phil. it's a hard place. >> you're going in a couple weeks. >> in a couple weeks. i hope to get down there. >> we want to hear from you. we want a "back story." >> i better. or i'll be in trouble. >> if you want to see more, check out cnn.com/blackstory. the administration announces help fur moif your mortgage is than your house is worth. we'll see who deserves it.

we'll see how the new plan affects you. and senator john mccain is being challenged from the right as a right to run as a republican again. today he's getting a little help from an old friend, soiarah pal. we'll take you live to mccain's home state to see how that reunion is working out. and what if you could make anything you wanted simply disappear? i'm not taking about your mortgage or your rivals, i'm talking about real stuff, gone. poof. just like that. remember harry potter's invisibility cloak? it is not fiction anymore. i'll explain. but, first, we're breaking down the latest attempt by washington to break a vicious cycle of home foreclosures and sliding property values, as you may know a program unveiled a little more than a year ago has been modified. mortgages for some struggling homeowners, not that many, fewer than 200,000. the plan unveiled today could help millions of people. it would use about $14 billion in t.a.r.p. or bail out money to pay lenders to write off some of

their principal owed by underwater borrowers. now, underwater, here's a term you need to understand. it means that your home is worth less than your mortgage. and what makes houses lose their value? well, for one thing, other houses getting foreclosed on. so, to break this down, i'm going to come back to a technique, pioneered by my friend and colleague, elizabeth cohen, the avatars. i want to bring you some avatars and tell you about how they're being affected. you might see yourself in this. this one here is hard luck harry. now, hard luck harry is underwater. you can see here's his house and a glass of water. his house is worth less than the level of the water, so his mortgage is bigger than his house. he's underwater, and see the pink slip? he's unemployed. under the new plan, hard luck harry could see his mortgage payments lowered to no more than one-third of his income for six months, and i'll give you another avatar, struggling sarah, the same thing, her house

is underwater. she is, however, working. as you can see. she's a wait fres aress and she one glass on there, and he's just getting by. and she could get new louered payments under the new program, she's not delinquent, and she could get a reduction in the principal, the amount she owes. i'll show you responsible roger, his house is underwater, but he's employed and he's working. and more or less comfortably, he has been making his payments. so do you know what he gets under the government under this new program? he gets the government's best wishes and that's about it. and finally there is irritated iris. look at her house. it's a little did it biff. there's the waterline and there's the roof of her house. she is not underwater. her house is worth more than her mortgage. she has zero sympathy by the look other faces by her neighbors who bought houses they

couldn't afford and took out loans with impossible terms. guess what, she gets nothing. but here's the indirect benefit. if there are fewer foreclosures, property values may increase and that's basically the bottom line for all of us. is it good, while it may not be good for individuals, is it generally good for the economy. i want to join -- i want to bring christine romans into this conversation, because she's been following with me, she's my co-host on cnn's "your $$$$$." christine, an hour ago we were part of a very heated discussion between peter moricci and stephen leeb that have different views about it. stephen thinks it's necessary because it brings values up and helps people out, and he thinks we should be helping people out. and peter takes a different take, what do you mean by no fault of their own, people got in over their head and didn't plan properly. make some sense of this. >> that's the balancing acting the government has to make,

right? they have to try to stem the tide of foreclosures and get the right borrower help who can pay their loan, right, and stay in the home and continue to be kind of productive homeowners? that home, but they can't give too much of a break, because then you have a lot of other people saying, well, wait, a second, i need a break on my mortgage. i would like pmy mortgage principal written down and i'm suffering, too, and you don't want to tick off the responsible buyers who have been in the same home for 10 or 15 years. irritated iris is the avatar. it's a fine balancing act, and, ali, until now it's been tricky and there hasn't been a lot of appetite for writing down mortgage principal. it's basically an solving you part of the loan. that's something that people are wary about doing. the housing advocates have been really pushing for something like that, saying that we've tried to extend and pretend, right? we've tried to extend the length of the loan. >> yep. >> we've tried to lower interest rates but we've still got people

in trouble. but what we're doing is working on the edges and we haven't found quite the right combination yet. >> then there's this issue, you brought it up, some people call it moral hazard but are you extending benefits to people who had irresponsible behavior? keep in mind we had it when we had t.a.r.p., when we rescued companies that hadn't done well and rescued wall street. why is it different to extend the help to individuals than it is to wall street? >> a housing advocate earlier today mentioned earlier how come it's moral hazard when it's a little borrower and it's not a moral hazard when it's a big bank. why are the banks concerned about moral hazard and people walking away and people owe them money and not the other way around. it's still the borrowers versus banks concern, that you've already had a big bailout for the banks and now the borrower wants a bailout and people are up in arms about what irresponsible behavior it will spark. but you're absolutely right, moral hazard, the idea of why should i be paying my bills if i get in trouble, somebody out

there's going to write off a little bit of my mortgage principal. >> right. >> one way that bank of america is kind of trying to address that, its program that it announced yesterday, you have to be -- they will -- they will write down some of your mortgage principal, ali, but not permanently until after you've paid on time for five years. >> right. >> so, the goal here is that would be something that you had would earn, not something they would give you. >> to be clear, the rules for that program are different from the government program we're talking about. >> that's right. >> go to our website and check it out. not everybody qualifies for both, it continues to be a complicated question. christine, thank you. you can watch us both on "your $$$$$" on cnn on saturdays at 1:00 p.m. eastern and sundays at 3:00 p.m. eastern. christine, i'll see you tomorrow on tv. >> bye, ali. we'll take you live to arizona, senator john mccain, presidential candidate in the past john mccain, is in the fight of his life, attacked from the right, but he's getting extra special help from sarah

palin. jessica yellin is there and she'll tell us about it. a list of features? what about the strength of the steel? the integrity of its design... or how it responds... in extreme situations? the deeper you look, the more you see the real differences. and the more you understand what it means to own a mercedes-benz. the c-class. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial. ♪

it was really nice to meet you, a.j. yeah, you too. a.j.? (alarm blasting) (screaming) (phone rings) hello? this is bill with broadview security. is everything okay? no. there's this guy - he just smashed in my door. i'm sending help right now. thank you.

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arizona. cnn's jessica yellin is there. what is going on? spell this out for us? >> reporter: yeah, ali, pretty fascinating how quickly political fates can change. a year and a half ago, john mccain was the standard-bearer, the front-runner in the republican party, the leader, and now he needs his once obscure vice presidential candidate, sarah palin, to come into town to save him from political defeat in the primary. the bottom line is just as the republican party has broadly heard its most conservative voices speak its loudest lately, mccain has felt the same pressure here with a challenge from his right and he needs sarah palin to help him pull out a win in the republican primary later this year. and a big crowd is turning out here, mostly to see sarah palin, ali. >> she's the headliner, is she? >> reporter: yeah, she's the head liner. pretty amazing. usually you have the endorser speak and then introduce the endorsee, this time it's mccain

first and then palin. >> let's talk about sarah palin's website, sarapac.com. >> reporter: yeah. >> there's some controversy over her suggestion that certain places be targeted, but in what some people think is the way sarah palin does things, the targets are actually targets, and in this week of political incivility that's some under some criticism? >> reporter: yeah. she put online the pictures of some members of congress in the crosshairs, and there's been some criticism that this is too overtly violent. john mccain was asked about this, and broadly about whether the republican party leadership should be responsible for toning down some of the rhetoric. john king asked about that on his show last night, and this was john mccain's response, defending palin and others -- >> the rhetoric that we use in everyday language about political campaigns, battleground states, it's going to be a war, all of those things we have used for years and years.

they are in the crosshairs. i've heard you use that language. i've heard every commentator use that language. the fact is, this is a very emotional issue. >> reporter: so, ali, the bottom line is the republican party doesn't want to be tagged as responsible for some of the most outrageo ouous cook ouous kooks, john mccain said he is not responsible for what is going on by every american using free speech. >> i wanted to circle back to where we started, j.d. hayworth, he's coming in from the right, a position that some people think sarah palin also occupies. what does he have to say about sarah palin endorsing mccain? >> reporter: well, he held an event last night. it's definitely a blow to his campaign, because he's the natural direction for the tea party. he's a natural tea party

candidate, if you will, in this race. last night he said he understands why palin's here. let's listen. >> i think what we're seeing from the governor is just a very understandable example of gratitude. i mean, after all, it was john who really gave her her entree into the national stage. we all understand gratitude. that's fine. >> reporter: and i'll be honest with you, ali, there are plenty of people we've spoken with who say they are here because they love sarah palin and they want to hear her speak, but it's not going to change their vote. it does not mean they'll vote for mccain. so, it's unclear how much her endorsement will help him. but it certainly won't hurt. >> all right. jessica, great to see you. thanks very much. it looks like a fun party over there. don't get too carried away while you're covering it. jessica yellin in tucson, arizona. next we'll check in with a cnn hero who brought people in from the street to their feet and how it has changed their stride.

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to see how the recognition has helped them expand their extraordinary work. well, our 2008 top ten hero ann malune, has recently been named a fitness champion along with first lady, michelle obama, and she's getting the homeless back on their feet literally. >> cnn hero, ann malune. >> you can't change the world, but you can do some hugh planty a humanity and kindness and encouragement if you give people a chance. >> reporter: ann was honored as a cnn hero to helping people that otherwise might have been forgotten the homeless. her back on my feet program inspires homeless men and women to change their own lives, sharing the benefits of running as well as providing jock train

i job training skills. what started off as a small running job of 300 has expanded to more than 1,500 members with 17 teams running 3 times a week. spread throughout philadelphia and baltimore and, just this week, washington, d.c. >> you're doing great. >> thank you. >> since being a cnn hero, it's been extraordinary. we're receiving so many requests for expansion and people wanting to bring this program to their city. >> reporter: ann has done more than just help get them off the streets. last year alone, more than 170 members found work, started job training, or moved out of shelters. and ann isn't stopping anytime soon. >> all right. we're at the homestretch, guys. so, pick it up! >> reporter: along with first lady, michelle obama, she's featured in this month's "fitness" magazine and has plans to expand to austin and chicago later this year. >> we just gave them the opportunity to do something great. they took advantage of it, and they did it. >> i love that story. to find out if ann's program is coming to your city next, or to

nominate someone who you think is changing the world, it's such a good thing, go to cnn.com/heroes. all right, i need to give you a check on some of the stop sto top stories on cnn. some help for homeowners who are underwater, the obama administration has announced new initiatives including refinancing millions of mortgages to government-backed loans with lower monthly payments and temporarily reducing mortgage payments for folks who have lost their jobs. at vatican, church officials are denying a "new york times" report that involves pope benedict and his days as a cardinal in the 1980s. the report claims the pope knew a german reverend returning to work after he had psychiatric treatment for pedophilia. earth hour is happening tomorrow. supporters are asking people around the world to shut off their lights for one hour. it's happening at 8:30 p.m. local time, whenever that happens to be for you. okay. coming up in just a moment,

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okay. want to bring you up to speed on some news that we've got from iraq, from the parliamentary elections. i want to go straight to mohammed jamjoom, our correspondent in baghdad. mohammed, what have you got for us? >> reporter: ali, nearly three weeks after the march 7th parliamentary elections in iraq, we found out that former prime minister ayad allawi has won, the coalition of nuri al maliki has picked up 89 parliamentary

seats. what does that mean in the end? really not that much, because in iraq politics are complicated, and right now what you're going to see, you're going to see challenges to these results. you're going to see appeals lodged. people are going to be asking for recounts. and even if all that doesn't happen, you'll still have to have to have the parties to come together in order to form a coalition in order to get the number of seats in parliament so they can form a government. still, far from over and this is where the hard work has to happen. >> how many seats do they need to get to govern? is it like any other parliament, where you need more than 50% of the seats so you'll have to make deals with other, smaller parties? >> reporter: yes, in order to get the number of seats they need, they are going to have to make deals with all the other parties, all the other blocs, you'll have to see the sunnis included, the shiites included, the kurds included. many are wondering who in the coalitions that are going to be built will bed king makers. we don't know yet, that's how complex it is. negotiations began several weeks ago even before the elections took place, in the last few days

as the margin of votes between the candidates has narrowed substantially and it's become so close, you've just seen so many of these politicians cowl calling for recounts saying there's fraud and voter manipulation and it goes on and on and on. there are windows by which they can appeal the final results, as i said today, nearly three weeks after the elections took place. we heard from nuri al maliki saying he's sure there will be complaints and he's sure people will lodge complaints, and we don't know who will win this and it's still complex and a lot more remains to be seen. >> it's unclear who the prime minister will be, whether it's the current prime minister, nuri al maliki, or ayad allawi, all we know is they are both in the running. they're both in contention at the moment. >> reporter: absolutely, ali. right now everything is up for grabs in iraq. it's still very much a surprised, a lot of people are surprised that at the end of the day that former minister "ayad

allowey, picked up the votes and won the election, but it's still up in the air. >> thank you, mohammed, joining us now from baghdad. all right, when we come back, we'll carry on the health insurance coverage explanations. we're going to introduce you to accouple of avatars, we'll explained you might have in common with them when it comes to health care reform and insurance. [ male announcer ] parents magazine and edmunds.com called it "one of the best family cars of 2009." the insurance institute for highway safety calls it a 2010 top safety pick. with automatic crash response from onstar that can call for help, even when you can't.

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all right. i'm here with elizabeth cohen, we've been talking to you about the -- these avatars. they are representative of -- of some of you and how you might be affected by health care reform. you've got a few more for us. this one is about abortion. abortion is the thing that nearly sunk health care reform. tell us about how your avatars are relating to abortion and health coverage. >> okay, before i get to abortion, i want to talk about doctors. >> fair enough. >> it's not about abortion. the doctor here is not necessarily happy about health care reform, she's got a scowl on her face, for a couple of reasons, one, there's some reason to think that her medicare reimbursements are going to go down. >> right. >> she's a little bit concerned about that, and she's not -- one thing that makes her or should

make her a little bit happy is that more of her patients will have insurance now. >> right. >> so, she likes that because she's doing -- >> and there will be more people insured here over time -- >> right. >> -- so some of the reimbursements might be lower but maybe they can see more patients. >> right, she can see more patients. another thing that makes her unhappy is tort reform, she was really helping for tort reform in this legislation. >> right. >> she is tired about hearing about the multimillion dollar settlements against doctors. >> right. >> the tort reform didn't happen, the ama fought hard for it. >> for diane, her premiums to practice med sicine are higher because she has to insure against lawsuits. >> she's tired of hearing and learning about the things and practicing what she calls defensive medicine and she has to do all the different tests that the she doesn't have to do. >> and let's talk about abortion. >>fhúc we have abortion rights e and annie wants to have insurance that two allow her to

have abortion, that would cover an abortion. but annie will get subsidies under health care reform because she only makes $40,000, and she'll get subsidies from the government, and if she wants insurance that will fund an aborti abortion, she'll have to face a surcharge. it won't be wrapped into the regular insurance. >> this is what so much of the debate was about, this is abortion rights annie. who have you got on the other side of this? >> this is anti-abortion alice over here, this is how they worked it to make mher happy. she does want to buy into an insurance policy because, she believes it's murder. what happens now when she goes on this newly created exchange, sort of this marketplace on the internet where you can buy insurance, it will be clear which policies don't cover abortion. >> okay. >> so that she will know how to buy a policy that goes with her ethical beliefs. >> this is anti-abortion alice

that got cut off. >> exactly. >> and we saw -- we met medicare marlene the other day. >> yes. >> tell bus her. >> there she is. here's the deal with medicare marlene, there was just a study that came out from fidelity investments that said medicare marlene and her husband medicare mark, that they are going to have to spend $250,000 of their own money between age 65 and death to cover medical expenses, and you might think, well, wait -- >> what's the point of the medicare? >> but even medicare doesn't cover things like vision and dental and other kinds of doctors' visits and so she has -- >> i think the study comes out regularly. it comes out every year, and no reason to doubt it, but it did make me scratch my head. it's leally $225,000 between retirement and the end of your life? >> highway cords to fidelity. it's an average. it depenlds on how long you-and how long you live. and health care reform will

bring it down, but not by much, $30,000. we think the elderly are taken care of and they are fine and dandy, med chair does not cover everything. >> it's interesting. >> also reminds me that people that are saving for retirement, and they don't think that saving for retirement so much will be for health care. >> they think i turn 65, i get medicare. so medicare is great and it does a lot of things, but it doesn't do everything. >> if for no other reason for these changes it's worth looking at it, to say what exactly will be covered as things stand when i retire. >> right. >> when i retire. elizabe elizabeth, thank you for that. elizabeth cohen. >> thanks. we're taking a break. when we come back, here's something that also surprised me, not just this business about how much people spend on drugs in retirement, drugs in general, what are the most used and abused types of drugs in america? i was very surprised with what's in the number one spot. i think you will be, too. hey, ask our doctor about garlique, okay?

garlique's clinically tested ingredient maintains healthy cholesterol naturally. eat right. exercise. garlique. we've been spending a lot of time today telling you about how new rules from the federal government could affect you and your mortgage. i want to bring in fha commissioner david stevens. he's on the phone right now. earlier i was giving you some avatars about how these rules would affect specific people, and if we can just bring up roger, responsible roger. i was telling you how roger is one of these guys whose house is underwater. it is worth less than the mortgage. so, the mortgage is worth more than the house. but roger has been making his

payments. he's been -- he's been struggling, but he's making them and he is not happy with others getting help. i want to bring in david stevens. david, are you there? >> i'm here. >> david, i want to ask you, is that a proper representation, he's making payments and he's employed and his house is underwater, because i suggested he didn't? >> no, he absolutely could qualify for help. the fha portion of what was announced today as part of a series of administration policies is designed to allow anybody who's underwater to potentially get a principal reduction and refinance into an fha loan. >> okay. do you have any details about somebody can do that? how much they can have their capital reduced and how we would do that? >> so, here's the challenge, and this may relate to roger, who you're referring to -- >> right. >> -- is that this is an optional program, but it gives a vehicle used in an fha program to allow an investor who views a borrower who is -- who has

negative equity who may be at risk of default, has no way out other than to potentially default, particularly if they're stressed on their mortgage payments and barely surviving to be able to refinance. the investor would then decide to write down a portion of the principal balance, and refinance the loan into a new fha loan which goes up to a little over 97% of the value. >> okay. >> that borrower, then, can refinance. so, they need to call -- when we roll the program out, which is still not for a couple months at this point, when it's officially ready to be introduced, they can -- they'll be able to call their servicer -- >> yeah. >> -- who will negotiate with the investor. if the investor believes the borrower is going into default, they write down the principal balance and they get a new fha loan, and they get to stay in their home, and everybody has a secure marketplace. >> here's where i was wrong, if responsible roger is not struggling with his loan, there's no hardship, his house is underwater and he's got a job and can pay it, he's not getting

any help. if he's struggling, he may be able to get help. >> none of this is meant to be a bailout for anyone who has negative equity in america. but i will put it to you this way in terms of how the program is being designed. first of all, responsible roger may be so deeply in negative equity the investor still believes it's important to get the equity right-sized for long-term performance of the loan, and they may do it. >> okay. >> but, more importantly, keep in mind, this is for borrowers who through no fault of their own and potentially of impacts of the income curtailment are most distressed and that's what we're trying to address with these solutions. and responsible roger, whether he stays in the home or not, a home that goes on foreclosure on my block or my neighborhood or my community, brings back values to everybody else, that's what we're trying to do is bring stability to the housing sector. >> david stevens, thank you for watching and you and your staff calling to correct that. we'll have you back when we are

not just on the phone. >> thank you very much. we'll be back on the other side. [ crowd cheering ] [ male announcer ] competition... it pushes us to work harder. to be better. to win. but sometimes even rivals realize they share a common goal.

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all right. we're in college basketball's biggest month i'm told, although it's actually two months because it goes into april. i know nothing about this, because i can't pretend, it's one of those instances why bother pretending. i'm bringing back jason reid, he's the cnn basketball analyst and he's with the cnn team. thank you for being with us and talking about basketball. we enjoyed talking to you about this last friday, so we wanted to bring you back in. during march madness, i thought somebody was having a birthday, because everybody talked about the sweet 16. >> it has nothing to do with a birthday. it's the last remaining 16 teams in the ncaa tournament. and it started last night. >> we're getting down to the final crunch. >> sweet 16 is where we are. >> we started with 64.

>> yes. they are divided into regions, east, south, midwest and west. and then you go from 64 to 32, 16, then to elite 8. >> and then the final 4. >> and you got that one, huh? >> let's talk about seed. >> all right, seedings, you can basically think about this as rankings, based on performance and your wins and losses and the strength of your schedule, that's how the ncaa seeds the team. you got the number one seed to the 16th seed. >> we've heard it in other sports and that's basically your ranking. and last time you were here you showed me a great video of buzzer beater. and now i've got another alliteration, brackest bust p e. >> you're learning. a big bracket buster is kansas falling to defeat. and i think if i'm not mistaken, president obama had kansas -- >> oh. >> -- winning the whole thing. >> okay. >> so his bracket is essentially busted. >> it matches up.

let's watch this -- or listen to it. >> i, too, feel your pain, because in my bracket i had kansas winning it all. i feel a little bitter. >> and this one messed a lot of people up. >> it did. it definitely did. my bracket is÷ pretty much busted. i ripped it up and threw it away. >> it ruined it. >> because if you have the team going all the way to the finals, the team is out so -- >> are we talking about the last eight? >> we'll be talking about the final four a week from now. >> okay. >> and then to the championship game. >> all right. >> and that's for all the marbles. >> let's get on my facebook page if you got questions you want jason to answer, go to facebookcom/alivelshicnn, my facebook page. i'm not the only one, based on the comments, i'm not the only

one in america that doesn't know about it. jason reid is our basketball analyst and associate producer. all right, check this out. check this out. here i am. i'm right here, i'm solid as can be, but this invisibility cloak, do you remember harry potter's invisibility cloak? there is such a thing. it makes things and people completely, completely disappear. we're going to show you about this when i come back.

what is this? >> some kind of cloak. well, we'll see, then, put it on. >> whoa! my body's gone. >> i know what that is. that's an invisibility cloak. >> i'm invisible? >> you are. i wonder who gave it to you. >> there was no name. it just said "use it well." >> all right, the invisibility cloak. most of you that tuned in to this hour know that we should be talking to ed henry, but we're not, because we put him in an invisibility cloak and he disappeared.

let me tell you about it, it's described in the journal "science" forget harry potter, as being able to hide an object from detection of using lights wavelength close to those that are visible to humans. scientists have been able to hide tiny particles but so far nothing much larger than that has been able to be hidden. that's all changed. i'm joined by nicole dier, she's a senior editor for "popular science." nicole, thank you for being with me. help me understand how the science of this works. how is it -- how is it that you can disappear things? >> i know, it's amazing technology. and the trick to it is really creating a material that can bend light waves, in this case it's infrared waves, so we can't actually see them. that's next. >> well, let's just see. i think we've got a graphic here that describes how we see things. this, as you can tell, nicole, i'm way out of my depth here, refraction and reflection, tell me about what we're looking at here.

>> the easiest way to think about these cloaks is if you can imagine how air goes over an airplane wing. >> yep. >> so that it's neither be been absorbed or reflected back, and if light doesn't reflect, you can't see the objects that it's bouncing off, so that's really the secret here. and what makes this particular study really interesting is they've been able to do it in three dimensions so that you can't see the object when you look at it from different angles, so before they could do it with -- they could do it with light coming in at one angle, but that would mean if you moved to a slightly different view, you could see the objection and, of course, that really wouldn't pass for harry potter. >> what is this? is this a discovery? is it an invention, is it an advancement of existing sign tisk knowledge? what happened? clearly we don't have an invisibility cloak, but is there an advance that we're talking about? >> well, there has been an advance. and one of the things that's really interesting about it they managed to do it using infra red

waves and sort of the holy grail is being able to do it with visible light waves and before they were doing it with microwaves, so we're eventually getting closer and closer to having a really practical technology that we can scale up and be able to, you know, cloak -- >> yeah. >> -- actual objects as opposed to things so small we can't see them in the first place. >> other than being able to cloak my good friend, ed henry, that was supposed to be on this segment, what are the practical applications, if we can succeed in cloaking larger objects, why would you use it? >> well, you can use it for obviously for military purposes, for entertainment purposes, but there are some other applications. you could make superfast optics, you could make super powerful antennas, so there's a lot of things that we can do with the technology that aren't so harry potter-like. >> and going back to harry potter for a second, we talked about an invisibility cloak. is this the kind of thing that has consumer application?

would it be generated by a computer in your house, or is it a large-lab sort of thing? >> well, right now it's still in the lab, but it's a physical material, it's made of the crystal structures with air pockets in them. it looks sort of like if you can imagine a pile of wood, so it would be, you know, a physical object. >> and would it -- it would still be there. we just couldn't see it. we're not actually getting rid of it. >> exactly. >> i don't mean to sound silly about the whole thing, but you can actually make things disappear. i think this is fascinating. i think i might have to picki aiss aissue of "popular science" thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> and nicole took the cloak off of ed. there he is. we'll take a break and come back and talk to our senior white house correspondent, ed henry. >> reporter: good to see you. suddenly i noticed my smile wasn't white enough.

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♪ that's what you get for all right, ed henry, made invisible just for a few moments. we have got him back. was it cool? >> reporter: it was a pretty neat segment. i'm out here with klas in las vegas, you probably wondering why i'm out here. >> why are you out there? >> reporter: we've got a tea party rally in searchlight, nevada, and paul steinhauser called me up and said how would you like to go out to

searchlight, an hour from las vegas, on the company's dime? and, of course, i'm here for all the work and everything tomorrow, but i figure, hey, i've got an extra day here, check things out. this is a big deal with the tea party, sarah palin will be here tomorrow, and want to make a statement in harry reid's home town of searchlight, ann coulter will be there and joed plumber will be there, they're trying to make a statement and get the bus tour going. it's going to start in searchlight and then go to 20 or so states and wind up on tax day, april 15th, in washington, d.c. so, you know, the president may have won the health care battle, but the tea party movement is still out there making some noise and hoping they'll have an impact on the election. >> are you in a newsroom? you don't seem as expansive as you usually do. >> reporter: i'm at an affili e affiliate, and they told me i was overmodulated and i can't give you that much energy as usual. >> they tell me i'm overmodulated all the time.

you have interesting travel mates. >> reporter: senator john ensign, a republican in hot water recently, and who will sit next to him during the five-hour flight, congresswoman titus, who voted for health care, and you saw them up close talking amicably and talking politics and health care and you get the lawmakers out of washington and all of a sudden democrat, republican, they can get along, and after the flight i spoke to congresswoman titus as she represents henderson out in the las vegas suburbs, and she told me he's staying as far away from the tea party folks as she can, because they've pressured her a lot, and her office has gotten a couple of threats, she thinks they are angry people, nobody who will act on it or anything. but she's one of the many democrats who are coming home after all the votes to see exactly what the folks back home will say. she tells me she believes when she does town halls in the next few weeks out here in nevada when people hear the details of

the plan and pushback on the scare tactics as she put it, she believes people will give her credit, ali? >> i spoke to somebody from the tea party earlier, and they put out a press release saying they are distancing themselves from the threats and the violence, and it's interesting. what's up with this larry king? >> reporter: i didn't want you to take offense, because we can get along. i consider you part the east coast posse, bi've got a few, larry king and snoop dogg, they are goes to drive over to vegas. i understand snoop's on larry's show tonight, make sure you watch it. and the photo poped up, on