>> absolutely. >> brian: he's unarmed. no sword! >> steve: that's going to wrap things up for today. join us tomorrow, another full program, ali, can you come back? >> happily. in the meantime, you want to say anything to the marines around the world? >> happy birthday, marines. >> steve: you want to wave good-bye? >> brian: stay tuned for mccallum and hemmer. >> steve: "america's news room" next. out only moments ago and here it is, 435,000 americans applying for unemployment benefits just last week, and that is the latest snapshot we have of our economy, sputtering along as we go, good morning, everybody, i'm bill hemmer, welcome to "america's newsroom". martha: good morning that, makes me martha maccallum, we're glad you're with us, the number was unexpected, folks, and it is the third

drop that we've seen in four weeks. bill: we're talking to analysts, trying to figure out which direction we go. is it a good sign that the job market is improving? stu varney, our first analyst up today, host of varney & company and fbn. what do you snng. >> it's a positive trend, no question about it, fewer jobless claims, good start. however, with 16 months after the recession ended the number of the claims is still far too high and at 435,000 for last week it's not going to make a dent in the millions of people who are unemployed. bill not even a dent. >> no. bill: okay. there's another story we came across, it has to do with federal salaries. and the report says this: they're doing okay. washington workers. the number of government employees earning $150,000 a year or more per year has soared in the past five years, doubling since president obama took office, some lawmakers getting ready to challenge the president's plan to give federal workers a pay raise of more than a percent. back to stu on that.

it's good money. >> oh yeah. bill: it's a good time to work for the government. >> look, it's an astonishing increase in high income earners who work for the federal government, a doubling in the number making 150k, just since president obama took office. that really is astonishing. add in basically a job for life, pretty good benefits, and this pay raise that is coming, you've got yourself a clash between the federal workers and their pay scale and the obama administration and the incoming republicans. the republicans want a pay freeze. in other words, no pay increase. and they want to cut the number of federal workers. you've got a big clash coming, and this report is in usa today, this comes just at the moment where the clash is about to arrive. bill: the obvious headline is the federal government is growing. >> oh yes. bill: growing in leaps and bounds for the past five years alone. >> if you work for the federal government you should be happy. by the way, the three wealthiest counties in the united states of america, because of high federal pay,

are three counties which are suburbs of washington, d.c. bill: really, you're talking northern virginia? >> yes. the three counties, immediately adjacent to the d.c. area, they have the highest median income of all the counties in america. they're the three of them. bill: thank you for that. you're going to talk more about that at fbn? >> all kinds of stuff coming up. bill thank you for that. martha: let's go overseas for a moment, president obama wrapping up his visit to indonesia with a wide ranging speech at the university of jakarta, reaching out to the muslim world and discussing indonesia's role in the global economy. take a look: >> the g20 is now the center of international economic cooperation so emerging economies like indonesia have a greater voice and bear greater responsibility for guiding the global economy. martha: the president later send ago letter to the g20 members in advance of the big upcoming summit in south

korea, the next stop on the tour of asia, saying a strong job creating u.s. economy is the nation's greatest contribution to global recovery. a lot of controversy about our currency, going to come up at that meeting, so he was allude to go that. bill: all about jobs, right? it is down to the ballot in alaska's hotly contested senate race. more than a week after voters cast their ballot, election officials start the painstaking task of counting more than 60,000 -- check that, 80,000 write-in ballots. write-in candidates which include lisa murkowski have 41 percent of the vote, joe miller has 35 percent and mcadams is trailing at 23 percent. murkowski says she is confident most of those write-in votes are for her, even though it's not clear whether or not the ballots were properly cast. so they will look at voter intent in alaska, starting today. martha: that's going to be fun, right? lots of lisa ms in there and all different kinds of spellings. that's going to be a fun one

to watch. spelling skills are going to make a big impact on this race. joe miller has already filed his lawsuit in all of this to make sure that state rules are being followed in the vote counting process. his campaign is asking a federal judge to keep the state from using discretion in counting those ballots. alaska state law says that a ballot oval must be filled in, here we go again, remember this, folks, and the candidate's last name for the write-in ballot must be written in correctly. state officials says they will use discretion if deciding whether voters meant to actually choose and vote for lisa murkowski. i don't think we're going to get an answer on this one any time soon, folks. bill: days or weeks? martha: i think weeks. bill: weeks it could be. martha: could be. bill: wouldn't that be extraordinary if the write-in candidate won? i'm going to start a write-in campaign. you write in my nail and i'm going to figure out a way to win. wow, joe miller, murkowski in alaska. that no fun cruise ship

on the high seas, carnival cruise's splendor expected to arrive in san diego sometime tomorrow night after an engine room fire that knocked out the ship's power, stranding the ship's nearly 4500 passengers and crew near the baja, california peninsula. no air conditioning, no hot water. folks had to make do with spam instead of a lavish seafood buffet. martha: this is supposed tore their vacation! pill -- bill: some of the supplies lifted by helicopters. the navy brought in the spam! the tug boat is towing the splendor to shore. martha: can you imagine your hard earned money on vacation? what are they going to name it? bill: so much for the splendor. martha: what are they going to call it? spam? spam on water? like smoke on the water? what about this? you look at this picture, at this video, was it a jet, was it a missile? was it something else?

who knows. the pentagon says it's a mysterious vapor trail that lit up the skies off of southern california, off the coastline, the other night. don't worry, it's not a threat! but so far, they don't really know what it is. no explanation for what is up there. and that, of course, leads to a whole lot of speculation. could it be something from outer space? could it be something evil? who knows. steve centanni joins us. he's been looking into this. steve? what is the latest word on what this thing is? >> reporter: well, defense officials still have not said exactly what the mysterious object was but they have done a lot of checking and here's the latest word from the pentagon, spokesman dave la pan saying in part, all dod entities with rocket and missile programs reported no launches scheduled or inadvertent, which would be a mistake or an accident, during the time period in the area where the con trail was reported. in addition the faa ran radar replays from monday

after that of a large area west of los angeles, those replays did not reveal any fast moving unidentified targets. which doesn't completely rule out some kind of secret operation of some kind but it leaves a much wider door open to the idea that this was just a commercial jetliner, martha. martha: this is -- this is what i don't understand, wouldn't we be able to pinpoint which commercial jetliner was with a code line of when this -- with a timeline of when the took plane off? >> good question. there's a lot of air traffic in that area, the faa was consulted. now, according to some experts, the atmospheric conditions and optics can create an optical illusion, monday night's so-called missile launch was compared to an earlier photo showing a jet aircraft and they look very much alike. we can put that comparison up, on the right side of your screen there, the jet con trail -- that's not exactly the one i was expecting, but similar. not quite the same.

but sometimes they look -- airplanes can look very much like the con trail we thought was a missile and here is admiral john sutt -- stuffelbeam talking about this effect. >> this was a late afternoon shot, it's a setting, western sun, and i'm pretty sure that the imagery would have come from the east, looking west. when you look at things that are silhouetted against the sun or at least from the sunlight direction that amplifies a whole lot more than if you were looking at something cross range or down range. >> so if you get any -- if we get any new information, we'll bring that to you. martha: we would appreciate that, steve, because we're trying to nail this down here in new york. steve centanni, thank you very much. it's a bizarre story, we're getting a lot of reaction from viewers. we want to hear what you think, log on, take our you decide question, we're asking the very simple what was it? tell us what you think it was, you'll see what other people think it was. we'll brpg you those results later in the show.

bill: michio kaku has some answers. 40,000 students at a yl he, mid-day, mid-afternoon in london, that's a bon fire, not quite sure what they're burning, they are protesting the tuition rise for university students, a rise they say of 300 percent. right now, tuition is 3000 pounds, about 5000 u.s. dollars. they want to hike it up to 9000 pounds per year, which would be, say, 15,000 u.s. dollars, and the students are not happy. they busted and trained in from all over the country, 40,000 strong, said to be now protesting at 2:00 in the afternoon in central london. that's the image. we'll get back to there and see what comes of that through our colleagues at our london bureau at ten minutes past the hour. martha: they're cutting back, making serious -- serious cutbacks in the u.k. and it's going be felt all over as the whole nation takes the paper of what this do to get the budget under

control and a lot of people wonder if it's a scene of things to come and cutting spending, speaking of, it's known as the beloved pork project, it may be the next big battle and this is one that the tea partiers are going to have to take on when they get to washington. we're going to tell you why some republican lawmakers are facing off over this issue of banning earmarks. it's a fascinating debate. we'll bring that to you. bill: so should the wealthy pay more for health care coverage because they make more money? a new plan reportedly being considered by many companies. we'll find out how it might affect your bottom line and some of your colleagues and coworkers too. martha: a word from the wise to the newly elected house republican members, sweat the small stuff, folks. go for it. we'll be right back. >> we've talked about principles and what we need to do to restore that accountability and restore peoples' faith in government and make sure that we're operating very transparent, so we have begun the conversation. there will be a lot of talk

and doing over the next few weeks. martha: a lot of talk or a lot of ac ion. we're going to speak to him, find out what republicans really plan to do now that they are almost in office, when we come back.

>> sweat the small stuff. at the end of the day, the small stuff matters. it matters as to how this institution operates t. matters how the public perceives this institution. it's very important. get deep into the weeds. bill: well, will they get deep into the weeds f. so, how many do they pull up? congressman greg wald, head of the republican transition team in washington, the republican party members sharing ideas and trying to get a plan together. my next guest is part of that. out of madison, wisconsin, congressman elect kinsinger, good morning to you and welcome. you have a fascinating story, frankly, america doesn't know your story, you

joined the u.s. military the day after 9/11, you served three tours of duty between iraq and afghanistan, and this morning i thank you for your service to our country. okay. let's talk about -- >> thank you. bill: you bet. let's talk about what you'll be able to get done in washington. you know what we heard yesterday? we heard accountability, we heard transparency, you can read the bill 72 years before you vote on it. we heard that stuff two years ago. why now -- >> you've heard that before, you've heard that from the other side of the aisle, you heard from frankly from us before we lost the majority and i think that's why we lost the majority. we had the faith of the american people and we lost it. look, it is important to remember why we're being sent to washington. you have a huge amount of new freshmen sent with a mandate, that mandate is restore that bridge, what i call the bridge between the american people and washington, d.c. the truth is washington, d.c. should be a reflection of us but the americans have felt alienated from it.

so whatever we have to do that, 72 hours of bills being available on the internet, we have to figure out how to do that, including amendments and things along that line and make sure in how we restore that thrust. -- that trust. we are renting the majority, we don't own it, in two years we have to come back and reown it and weapon ho -- hopefully we can win their trust. >> i don't need to tell you this but they will judge you on actions not just words and karl reeve said this, republicans are on probation. based on the first answer, i think you get that. do your colleagues also get that? >> yeah, absolutely, and in talking to some of the other incoming freshmen, we all realize we're being sent with a mandate. we can't show up and start doing business as usual again because people are fed up, they're tired of it. when you look in the polls you see that republicans and democrats are equally disliked, and we just happened to retake the majority because people were fed up and we were in the minority so now we have to

spend the next two years saying we asked to your trust, now we have to show you why we asked for your trust and earn it. bill: let me interrupt you in the interest of time. >> sure. bill: what's your priority, what will you get done, how will you get in the weeds as we just heard? when it comes to sweating the small stuff, how are you going to convince the american people they made the right call a week ago? >> that's the key in this transition team that i'm on, we began to talk about all the things going on from the rules on the hill to scheduling and all that kind of stuff, and where it's important that we can make sure that we maintain the connection with our district, that we can make sure that we maintain that transparency and we're getting to get into the weeds and talk about that. nothing is off the table now. you look at things, we've done business this way for 40 years, well, that's on the table, is this the right way to do business. bill: what about earmarks? >> i think we're going to continue the earmark ban, because until we have some serious, serious reform, we're going to continue the ban. so i think you'll see that come out, and again, the

american -- we're really sending a message we've got to get in there, we've got to cut spending. my goodness, i'm worried about leaving -- i don't have kids yet but leaving a country that's worse off than now, so we've got to get spending, get people back to work and restore that bridge between the american people and d.c. and having this conversation, holding ourselves accountable is the key. bill: we're going to keep in contact and follow your trail, okay, because you have embarked on another great american adventure. by the way, the reason you're in madison, wisconsin and not in your home state of illinois is because you're fulfilling your air national guard duty this week, is that right? >> that's right, i'll doing some make-up drills and catching up and flying airplanes. bill: get it out of the way because they need new d.c. adam kinzinger, republican out of illinois, thank you. >> good to be here, thank you. martha: very interesting. well, on the same topic, americans who voted for tea party candidates now want to really see those results.

so why earmarks are now being called a litmus test for these candidates who are now headed to washington. would your representative vote to ban earmarks? you will see. it is a showdown that is coming within the gop, a fair and balanced debate on that is coming up. bill: also that mystery missile, was it -- we have weird blue lights in the sky, huh? >> i mean, i'm pretty sure there are other things, other people, somewhere. bill: somewhere. what are they? answers in minutes.

bill: here we go now, fox

news alert to london, this is new videotape and look how the protests have gone now. forty thousand students, bused and trained in from all over the country now, protesting the tuition riseses proposed for -- well, keep your pants on there, screen right -- breaking windows there, they are near an area that's called millbank tower in central london. screen right was a few windows being smashed in. that's our sky reporter on scene, our sister network. we're going to talk to sky later. in the meantime, screen left is what we showed you about ten minutes ago, the bon fire that's now been set in central london, 40,000 strong, protesting tuition hikes. we're going to watch that throughout the morning there and hopefully it does not get too much out of hand. 9:24 now in new york. martha: this is going to be a big moment for terror trials, the first gitmo detainee is right now in the middle of his trial in new york city. prosecutors say that accused

terrorist ahmed ghailani is a cold blooded killer responsible for the deadly 1998 bombs of two u.s. embassies in africa where 12 americans lost their lives. ghailani's attorney says his client was a fall guy for al-qaeda operatives. david lee miller is covering this trial for us in lower manhattan. david lee, tell me more about what the defense has to say in this trial. >> reporter: yesterday, martha, the defense completed its closing arguments and ghailani's defense lawyer described him as a kid, a naive dupe, who really just fell in with the wrong people. yes, the defense says, he helped purchase a truck, yes, he helped purchase asset lien and oxygen tanks but ghailani had no idea items -- idea the items were going to be used to make a bomb to blow up embassies in tanzania, the defense also says the forensic evidence in this case is not to be trusted because proper procedures were not filed and much of the evidence is

contaminated and martha, one of the highlights yesterday was when the defense attorney quoted the grateful dead's jer yeah garcia saying that ahmed ghailani had been set up like a bowling pin, martha. martha: so the government's prosecutor, they're listening to all of this, how did they come back at what he's saying about ghailani? >> the prosecution in its rebuttal, their lost ward -- last word before the jury, said that ghailani is quoting now a mass murderer and they hammered away at one key point. twenty-four hours, they said, before the twin embassy blasts took place, ghailani got on a plane and flew to pakistan, leaving behind his life in tanzania. the prosecution further said even when news of the bombing spread around the world, this man who is now described as a dupe never told authorities that he helped purchase the truck and the supplies used to blow up the embassy.

the prosecution concluded by saying simply dupes don't flee. martha. martha: now we wait for the verdict. david lee, thank you very much. david lee miller, downtown manhattan. bill: another day and another troubling new health care report. could you find yourself paying more for your coverage than someone with the same plan, working at the same company? there's a move underway, and you need to know about it, coming up. martha: betty white has become quite the culture icon and now she's getting a whole new honor.

bill: 9:30 in new york, top stories, in case you're just waking up with us, elizabeth smart takes the witness stand for the third day today, testifying in the kidnapping trial of brian david mitchell, smart telling jurors that mitchell raped her every day and threatened to kill her family if she tried to run away. he faces life in prison if convicted. from france, nicolas sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 years old is now law. the move is necessary to cut back on government spending and save the country's pension system. unions, angry over that move, with massive strikes

across the country, crippling air travel and train travel. here's martha. martha: well, it is really considered a -- the tea party's first test in policy making when they come to washington and it's setting up a high stakes showdown right now between several high powered senate republicans. senior senator jim demint rounding up six members of the freshman gop class including tea party favorites marco rubio and rand paul and pushing a vote to ban earmarks or have a moratorium on ear mawks but the report suggests mitch mcconnell is working to defeat that plan for a variety of reasons that he says are substantial. let's bring in our panel, mary katharine hamm and bernard whitman is a former clinton pollster. this is fascinating to me, because this is sort of the front burner issue right now in terms of cutting spending mary katharine, you know, is this an important thing for

the gop to stand by or should they get to the bigger stuff first? >> i think it's something that a lot of folks who got elected talked about on the trail, so it's important for them, which is why you've got a budge of these incoming freshmen signed on already. to voters this feels like hey, are you guys actually going to make a good faith effort to cut spending and if you're not willing to do the low hanging fruit which is the earmarks, what are you going to do. mcconnell can't say because he wants jim bunning center for the study of awesome bluegrass in kentucky, that that's a reason not to do this and that's sort of the argument they're making now. martha: bernard? >> there's no question that cutting earmarks is politically popular but it's largely a side show that allows republicans to side step the real tough questions on what spending they're actually going to cut. i mean, the reality is that cutting all earmarks out of the decifit will have almost no impact on reducing our overall spending. it's less than one half of 1 percent of our 3 1/2 trillion dollars decifit. martha: you know what, i just want to show you this sound bite from president obama, because i think it's

about more than that, i think it's about putting your money where your mouth is and doing sort of the right thing, and it has been called the gateway drug, basically, for spending and for them -- if people get themselves over this, they might go bigger, but let's listen to what the president said on earmarks. >> i'm a strong believer that the earmarking process in congress isn't what the american people really want to see when it comes to making tough decisions about how taxpayer dollars are spent, and i in the rush to get things done had to sign a bunch of bills that had earmarks in them, which was contrary to what i had talked about. martha: let's look at a quote from james inhofe, of oklahoma, about this, he says i'm a strong believer, he says i know politically it's the dumbest thing for me to say is that i'm for earmarks, but it would creed off authority to president obama, but mccain and demint are not being honest about how they define them. so after having been ranked as one ofhe most conservative members of the

senate, this is coming from a conservative. mary katharine, what is the argument from inhofe and mcconnell, they're saying it would limit their power if they were to do away with earmarks. >> they say they're going to get this spending, anyway and somebody else will be allocating it, just not congress. there'a discussion to be had about it and as bernard said, there's a discussion to be had about the best way to cut spending. this is not the number one problem obviously with spending but what it is, if you guys can't sign on to a politically popular nonbinding conference rule about earmark reform, then that's a problem for doing entitlements which are not politically popular and it's going to be hard to tackle that problem. so this is like you need to prove that you can actually do the easy stuff before you move on to the other stuff. martha: but moving on to the other stuff is really what the american people are most interested in. >> it is, but if -- >> martha: can we start talking about defense and medicare, medicaid, and until we start talking about social security, we're not going to get anywhere in this project, but bernard, it sounds like you're saying, you know, democrats would be willing to do that, because you said that you're

criticizing them for starting with earmarks. >> but we need to tackle the tough things first, not last. martha: since when have democrats wanted to do that? i got to ask you bernard. >> i want to go back and look at what republicans said during the campaign, the only way to balance the budget by 2020 and protect all the programs the republicans said they would not cut, medicare, defense, and extend the bush-asia tax cuts is to eliminate the entire rest of the federal government. now the republicans are in control of the house, it's time they actually come down and say what programs are they going to cut, other than $16 billion, which is going to have no impact whatsoever. it makes no sense. martha: so you're saying that -- you're saying you're just giving lip service to this whole thing and they're not caring about it? >> i understand that, i frankly worry about that, but when you're on a diet you go after the cheatoes first, okay? that's the low hanging fruit. you go after that and if they can't do that, they've got a problem moving forward and this is an opportunity to do that and prove they can. martha: we'll see. a lot of folks, these folks

that have gotten elected if they get to the real bone and get past the cheatoes, they're only going to be around a couple of years. mary katharine hamm, bernard whitman, thank you guys. bill: his senate bill failed, but outgoing governor charlie crist, trying to make his mark in rock and roll history, he is trying to open the door to pardon jim morrison. that's the door's front man, screen right, he will be par donned for indecent exposure, steming from a 1969 concert in miami, florida, as the gov says, what the heck? >> i am considering it. gary has been encouraging me to consider it for quite some time, and you know, i think we want to get a sense of the other cabinet members, what their feeling might be, but i'm certainly willing to consider it. why not? martha: he wants to get a sense of what the other cabinet members are feeling? is anybody thinking about this or caring about this? >> bill: they're going to break on through to the other side. martha: you know what?

riders on the storm. why do they even care about this and how ridiculous is the path looking of governor crist, as you look at what he's gone through in the last six months from being republican governor of this state, to being an independent governor, to losing that, to basically becoming a democrat during the legs and now his outgoing theme is pardoning jim morrison? bill: maybe he's a doors fan. jim morrison died in paris in 1971, details surrounding his death is still a bit murky. martha: fascinating. let's get back here to northern virginia for a moment here, folks. they are talking about a mysterious blue light there, speaking of bizarre things, moving around the sky, last week, apparently, the blue ufo -- was it a ufo? i don't know -- it was in the sky for some ten minutes, though, and brian saines caught this on his cell phone camera. >> the light was so bright at nighttime and all of the sudden, it just stopped and it would go back like this

and at one point, it stopped and just went up like -- like up. it had to be a ufo. >> it was a distinct blue light. it never, like, flashed or blinked or nothing. it was just blue. martha: hmm, it just kind of went off. back to outer space, i guess. the area is not far from washington's dulles international airport, though, and some are speculating, once again, we're hearing the old it's just a plane story. is there another story out there? bill: we had a deal in lower manhattan and it turned out scien tiss were putting test necessary the air. martha: you never know. bill: big blue balloons. check out the markets right now, watching the open, down 21 points now. the dow closed yesterday down about 60 points. it's been on an absolute tear for two months, 11326 is your mark right now. there are concerns about all the money that's coming into

our system, and investors reacted to the jobs number that we first reported about at the top of the hour and concerns overseas, too, the president is -- we'll see what gets done. martha: a big concern in the markets now. in the meantime, passing on the costs to you. how much you make at work could affect how much you pay for your health care coverage. is that a good idea? maybe it is. and judging by these reactions, not too many people are too happy about it. just taking a guess. they're not happy, would you say? when we come back.

bill: they say all the bills will reduce cost, i think you are not informed. your own congressional budget office has said that this bill particularly will dramatically increase costs.

>> why on earth are you producing a health care bill that has so many pages in it and worded that we can't understand it and we quite frankly don't trust you all to be honest with us? bill: remember that month? it was august 2009, what a month it was. something to consider while enrolling in your company's health care plan this fall, you might have to cough up more money, depending upon how much you make. according to "the new york times", if you're one of the 23,000 people working at vanderbilt university you'll have to cough up $75 more per month, and if you make -- sorry, if you make more than $50,000 per year. and if you bring home more than $100,000 a year at bank of america, your premiums will jump on an average of 14 percent. bringing in our fox news contributor, michael goodwin, pulitzer prize winning columnist at the "new york post", good morning to you. what are we to make of this? >> i think this as trickle

down pain as part of the law of unintended consequences. with health care costs rising, in part because of obamacare and some of these rises, we've seen them year after year, before obamacare, but all of the new requirements for the insurance companies now are being passed on to corporations, and the corporations in turn, of course, are passing some of them on to workers and trying to decide what's the fairest way to do that. bill: like a hidden tax. >> absolutely. i think of bank of america, some people are paying 14 percent more, which the bank is saying what the company has -- it's the increase the company is facing, so 14 percent really comes right off the bottom line, unless it's passed on to the workers and it comes out of their paychecks. bill: was this forecast during the debate or is this something that companies were thinking about it, it just wasn't public at the time? >> i think we've seen a lot of things already, even before the law takes full effect, of things that were not hashed out and made public in the debate. for example, even president obama agreed that the 1099

form requirement for small business was onerous and would lead to too much paperwork, you've had other companies like mcdonald's saying if they didn't exemptions from some of the provision necessary the bill they would have to drop coverage and pay a fine rather than continue the way it's going, so we see the costs passed down to workers. yes, it is a tax and it is a tax that's not foreseen but there's another tax coming, which is the medicaid tax. most of the new people getting coverage under the plan will go on state medicaid rolls, which the federal government will pay until 2017, and then the states have to pick them -- pick them up. bill: one on top of the other. a kaiser family foundation study found this, on the screen t. found a 14 percent increase so, that again shows the shift is on. but would that have happened without the health care legislation? >> well, we'll never know for sure. it's hard to prove the negative here. but in fact, i think some of it would have happened without it. what the companies are saying, what a lot of the

employers are saying is that obamacare, some of the added mandates in this bill, that for example, you have to be able to keep your children on your policy until they're 26, well, somebody is going to pay for that, right? it's either the company, the insurance company, the corporation, or the individual. so we're seeing all three being hit. bill: if you don't want to pay the additional cost if a company is telling you to do that, do you leave that company's portfolio when it comes to health insurance? orioo and if so, where do you ghoa. >> that's the other problem. the individual market which you would go into hasn't really taken effect yet but you're probably not going to have any more security there because basically the companies can negotiate a better policy with the insurance company than you could on your own. so i think it's kind of a catch 22 for everybody involved. prices are going up. bill: it gets deeper and deeper, peeling away the layers on the onion. rasmussen found 46 percent say it's likely the health care law will be repealed,

44 percent say it's not likely to happen. which category are you in? >> it's not likely to happen, certainly in the short term. i think as others have noted, it's going to take a new president and a republican majority in congress in both houses. we're not there yet. but i do think this year will be interesting, because we'll see some votes, we'll see where people vote on it, but i think we will see modifications. the problem is, once you again to unravel the whole ball, it either all comes apart or doesn't work. so i think that's going to be the hurdle here, what can you pull out of it without destroying the whole thing. bill: you're a graift guest to have on, michael goodwin. next time we'll sit closer together. i guess we had the 14-foot spread over here. you got a question about health care? go to foxnews.com/"america's newsroom", click on the bya box, shoot me an e-mail, also twitter me, bill hemmer. we give you plenty of options to go, because you asked, bya, and there are tons of questions still about health care. michael, thank you. here's martha. martha: so how about that

mystery trail off the coast of california? what is it really? the pentagon says don't worry about it. but what was it? they say they don't know. michio kaku has some answers. bill: former president bush sitting down with sean hannity revealing what it was like to leave the -- to lead the country, what he had to say at a very poignant moment with his own father, next.

bill intoil the sun unleashing a massive solar flare. check this out now, astronomers say the sun storm was the most powerful they've seen in decades, radiation from the solar storms can cause a number of problems, such as crippling our satellites, we don't want that now, do we? where would we be without our blackberry? it can knock out grids on

earth. astronomers say expect a few more in the coming days. look at that, huh? like a funky lava lamp. martha: and in the past it's been catastrophic. hope it doesn't happen again. that's what this one looks like. how about this, september 11th, hurricane katrina and war in iraq, these were some of the toughest times for americans in recent years and the man who led the country during that time is sitting down with fox's own sean hannity, talking about a moment that he says he will never forget, it was when he received a written letter from his father, the former president george bush. watch this: >> your dad said you carry the burden, with strength and grace, and he said remember, robin's words, i love you more than time can tell. this is your devotedly dad. >> i barely made it through when you read the letter. yeah, that's a powerful letter, because he's -- you know, it was just one of those moments that it's historic because it's written by a former president, and it was a

powerful moment for me, and just hearing it read again is a powerful moment. it really expresses a love of a father. >> do you think your brother jeb would be president one day? >> i wish he would be. he has to run first and he's made it clear he's not runing in 2012. when the man says i'm not running, he means it. and i wish he would run. martha: fascinating stuff. and there's more of that to come. that's not all the former president had to say about some of the toughest times that he had while he was in office, and how he handled them. sean hannity's interview with george bush will air at a special 9:00 p.m. eastern right here on fox. you don't want to miss it. what an extraordinary relationship to have father and son as president of the united states, and to have the letters -- so who writers letters so how wonderful this world war ii hero is writing letters to his son so there's a record of their thoughts. it's remarkable.

bill: so many e-mails go off into the ether and you forget about them or don't know where to locate them. there was a clip -- there was a clip on hannity, i think it ran nine minutes long, it was president bush and sean, driving at his ranch in drawford. i don't think sean asked a single question, for nine minutes, george bush was just talking and it shows you his desire now and i guess the green light that he feels to go ahead and tell and explain about his decisions that he made over eight years. martha: and he felt he took the appropriate amount of time, and -- he says everyone around me encouraged me to tell my story, and that it was my historic duty really to tell my story about the way things were. so yeah, for something alt different on this subject, conan o'brien in his second show on his new network, also weighing in on "decision points" and the former president's appearance on the oprah winfrey show. watch this. >> just a few hours a. former president george w.

bush appeared on oprah. that's true. yeah. yeah. yeah. when asked about being the leader of the free world, oprah said it's not bad. martha: funny. bill: because she would know. what recession, you wonder, federal workers pay on the rise and some lawmakers are not happy about that. we'll talk to andy card, former chief of staff in the white house about that. martha. martha: and a slow tow and a whole lot of spam for thousands of cruise ship people who are stranded on this boat! what a spot, huh? we'll be learning when they heading back. what an ordeal they've been under. >> it was dead in the water from the fire and it was just stranded, adrift, not having the air conditioning working, not having the bathrooms working, and the cold water and hot food. it would be kind of trying times.

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martha: all right, we have been watching these unbelievable scenes this morning, a bonfire on the right-hand side of your screen, this is students protests, they are very angry about an increase intuition hikes, in the u.k., and all of this really goes back to the larger picture, of huge budget cuts that have been taking place, they've been slashing at the meat of the budget in the u.k., a lot of folks wonder if we'll get to that points in the u.s., huge protests break out and thousands of students, we're told, are involved and they have been breaking windows at the conservative party's headquarters in london, as well. so, pretty intense pictures we are seeing this morning, and 3:00 p.m. in london, right now, 1:00 a.m. on the east coast here in new york. martha: all right, imagine this, crawling back to shore. aboard a floating city that has no power. and, this is supposed to be your

vacation, your car breaks down, you call a tow truck and cruise ship stalls, you call an aircraft carrier, folks, the uss reagan is towing -- an unbelievable picture, towing the carnival splendor, there it is in its most splendid days, they stocked it with spam, and, thank you very much! and, for a few less than splendid days at sea, that is how you we start a brand new hour of "america's newsroom," i'm martha maccallum. bill: i'm bill hemmer. and, so much for vaca, huh. >> 5,000 passengers and crews on board riding a slow boat to san diego. a fire in the engine room crippling the crown jewel of carnival's massive fleet and friends and family say, folks on board are keeping their spirits high. >> we tried to call her and we were both in the car and were like, oh, my gosh, it is dad and tried to answer, nothing and it

was dead and we thought, if you can hear us, we know what is going on, we heard! martha: and, mom and dad, on a nice cruise and that is how things are going and anita vogel joins us live in los angeles, there she is, what is going on? >> reporter: hey there, you are right. sounds like the antithesis of a vacation and it started monday night when fire broke out in the engine room and all the power was knocked out and the ship has been operating on auxiliary power and like you said, no hot water, no food, no cell phones, no internet and as you mentioned this is on a slow, slow ride to san diego. the mexican navy is helping and the u.s. navy seahawk helicopters are ferrying supplies and you mentioned spam, and crab meat, croissants and pop tarts and the uss reagan is there and the helicopters are coming from the aircraft carrier and the reagan had to be diverted, from training maneuvers to help, but the word

is passengers are surviving. listen: >> it's my understanding august the passengers are safe, and as comfortable as they can be. i understand that they are not -- up on deck, i don't know -- i haven't gotten an update the last few hours as to whether they are allowed back into the skin of the ship yet. but as you can -- as the weather is amenable to that, they have weather and food and no reports of any mainly distress from any of the passengers. >> reporter: the good news is, the auxiliary power allowed for working toilets, and, at least cold showers, and we're told the ship is towed at 4 knots per hour, not past, four-and-a-half miles per hour and at that rate, it is expected to arrive in san diego, sometime late thursday, maybe as late as thursday evening. martha. martha: goodness, and, they say, come on, guys, we are not training today, we are going to

tow in a cruise ship, full of croissants and pop tarts, and what will the cruise line do for the passengers. >> reporter: apparently they'll refund them the cost of the cruise and give them another free crews and originally, the ship was going to be towed into encinada and the cruise line thought it would be better to tow them into san diego to make flight and transportation arrangements but at the end of the day, not a relaxing ending what was supposed to be a vacation. martha and bill. martha: thank you very much. reminder, what you might not want to do, not want to happen on your vacation, right? bill: lesson learned. hey, the count is on in the alaska senate battle. where is that music! election workers wading through thousands of write in ballots as joe miller's camp filed suit every them, arguing the spelling should not count, look at the latest numbers, write in ballots in the lead, i said, write in

ballots in lead to, miller gaining ground but is still down 11,000 votes an dan springer is watching it in juneau, alaska. is it the official recounts started. >> reporter: exactly, no hanging chads. that will not be the issue like tallahassee in 2000 but it will be a spelling contest. is murkowski's name spelled correctly? and, if it's not, is it close enough to count and if counted will there be a lawsuit, we'll answer the last question, let me show you around the room. this is where the counting will be done. each table will have two election workers, and next to them will be a representative from each of the campaigns. the miller campaign, and the murkowski campaign and they'll be watching what happens here and later on this morning, we'll see over here, we'll see ballots being driven in by a security company, all 230,000 ballots cast in this election. they'll be brought into the room and placed on the tables. and, then these election workers will go through and sort the votes, and, look at the write in and these are the two bins we

care about, because one says murkowski vote counted, murkowski's name spelled correctly. then we have another next to it and this is key, murkowski vote counted, but challenged. in other words, murkowski was spelled with a y, or with a c, or murkowski with another variation and is not -- counted for her and challenged by the people with the miller campaign. so, we have about 92,000 votes right now counted or write in, how many will be for murkowski, that is the question, she has a sizable lead, 11,333 vote lead. right now. but how many will she have after the process? that is the question. bill: that it is, thank you, dan springer is live in juneau, for us on that story again today. thanks, martha? martha: the congressional black caucus, breaking its silence on allowing two black g.o.p. congressman elect into their organization, and, the group now saying allen west of florida and tim scott of south carolina,

would be welcome to join the cbc and everyone at the congressional black caucus is a democrat. west says, yes. in fact he would like to sign up. scott is not sure, he says he's on the fence about that. they'd be the first black republicans in congress gines j. c. west in '03, from oklahoma and he did not join the cbc and other black republicans in the past have done so. interesting. bill: president obama -- sorry about that, president obama arrives in seoul, south korea and he'll be meeting with leaders of the world's largest economies, prior to the g20 summit. the president sent a letter to those leaders saying a strong u.s. economy is key to a global recovery. he's also defending steps in his administration and congress have taken to shore up the economy. martha: the federal reserve is taking action to rev up the economy, purchasing $600 billion worth of u.s. treasuries.

but, suffice to say that not everybody is applauding this move. some analysts say it is a violation of the u.s. constitution, among that, you have other countries including germany they are fed up with the action. elizabeth macdonald of the fox business network joins us, liz, this is a smoker. a hot story. >> yes. it is. martha: what is going on. >> what is happening, $600 billion in the new federal debt purchases, federal reserve debt purchases on top of the $1.7 trillion, the federal reserve already purchased and -- in mortgage backed securities. martha: the government is flooding the economy with cash. right. >> that's right. martha: created money and are buying our debt. >> that's right and the issue is this: is the federal reserve allowed to do that? does it violate the constitution? the constitution says the congress is only alloweded to... there is a statute, section 14b1 says the federal veesh is ashre

allowed to buy u.s. treasuries and debt and they did it in the 1930s a4-0s and it is not the massive intervention we are seeing now, is the federal reserve pushing the envelope? that is key and what will happen and what is this fed's exit strategy, will the dollar drop? you see the dollar is sliding, and will it cause inflation and undo the federal deficit spending for stimulus the congress wanted to spur the economy forward and what is the fed's exit strategy out of this? they have to sell treasuries to remove the liquidity out of the system and that means, a bond glut and yields would have to spike higher, because, you have to attract more investors into those bonds and into those treasuries, with higher yields, if there is a finite pool of investors to buy them and, so, also the issue is, what is behind the hiring strike in this country, martha? and businesses we have talked to, and i have talked to fed historians and economists and they say, routinely, they don't know what is in health reform, they don't know what is in financial reform. those rules have yet to be written and may be written in

pencil -- pen and not pencil and that is really not is scaring them. martha: looks to be leading to inflation issues in the country and you have places like germany and russia and brazil, tech us that we're not handling our monetary policy correctly. liz macdonald, good to see you. >> sure. martha: thanks for coming in. bill: that's a first, isn't it, martha. martha: i'll say. bill: my, not banking on the kind of cash you thought you would? dust off the resume and send one to uncle sam, former white house chief of staff andy card on a shocking new report about paychecks or federal employees. martha: we'll go live back to london to see what all of these students are upset about. windows are broken, fires starting, they are angry, angry, angry, across the pond, and might be a situation we'll have here. bill: and house democrats were hammered on election night and what does nancy pelosi think about the past two years in congress? the speaker of the house, in her own words. next. >> voters out right rejected the

agenda that she has been about and here they'll put her back in charge and in fact, chris, over the last two years, in fact almost four, at this point, she has refused to even meet with republican leadership to talk about any way forward together. q if you have osteoporosis, and you take once-monthly boniva,

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bill: break, news, now live in central london, look at the screen. there are 40,000 students who were trucked in or bussed in or took the train into central london to protest the on coming rise of tuition fees at universities in england. and they have taken out their frustration in part on what is known that's milbank tower, the home of the ruling conservative party, greg palkot, our london correspondent is watching these, and, he is with us now out of london, what is happening, greg and how extensive has it been.

>> reporter: interesting stuff, we are tracking the past hour-and-a-half what we feel are the first violent protests against a big, big budget cut planned by the government here, in particular, as you noted, students, students upset about rises intuition at the universities, to make up for cuts in government subsidies, to those universities. the police are calling these protesters, bill, a small violent group. but, they are making trouble. smashing windows, setting fires, hurling projectiles, pots, pans, rocks, firecrackers and jostling with police in on the of and in the lobby and now -- in front of and in the lobby and now, we see pictures, on the roof of the milbank tower, an office building, which is a symbolic target, however, bill. it is in fact the headquarters of the conservative party, the governing party in the u.k. right now and just about, maybe a quarter of a mile away from big ben. from parliament.

to give a little bit of background, americans used to high universities costs might be surprised at what the students are upset about, the proposal is to raise tuition from what it is, an average, equivalent of $5,000 to $10,000, maybe in some cases $15,000, and, it starts two years from now and the cuts planned by the government, 40%, again, americans used to spending intuition, oh, an average of maybe at least $25,000 and my alma mater intuition alone is $38,000. but, it is big news for these kids and they are out an out big time, bill. bill: you're with us here in the u.s., greg, these pictures are stunning. martha: they are. bill: and every picture seems to be more massive, than the one before, are they organized by a particular group, what is driving them. >> reporter: a union, bill and martha, of university students, that have organized this and have come to london, from across

the country. estimates, again, started at 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, and big numbers, again, a small group, i must emphasize, that is making the trouble. but, according to our contacts on the ground, talking to the police, these students came to make trouble, and they are making trouble. the police i must say, guys, a little bit less prepared than the students, they were in small numbers and we watched it, the first group of students, as they smashed their way in, pretty freely, into the lobby of the building, knocking out big, big plate glass windows, remarkably, however, we are not hearing of any injuries, and we're not hearing, also, of any arrests, but we are hearing about more reinforcements coming from the police, guys. martha: greg, i'm interested in the big picture here. you know? when you couple the situation we are seeing in london with what we have seen playing out in france, where they are trying to raise the retirement age, what you have is, you know, these

sort of semi socialist countries that have had huge benefit packages and huge entitlements for education and retirement packages and health and across the board who are making serious cuts now, because they have no choice, they have to deal with the tremendous amount of debt in these countries, how systematic what is we are seeing playing out en london now of a larger sentiment in the u.k.? >> reporter: martha, that was exactly, my next point. these cuts are huge. the government is planning, and, not just university, we are talking about policing and welfare and talking about benefits, up to 40%, swinging cuts as they all it here and we have been surprised at the relative calm of the u.k. public to this. but, the undercurrents has been as the cuts are voted on aas they are approved and enacted we could see more trouble, maybe in terms of the parlance here, a

winter of discontent and we have been tracking, already, very, very violent protests and mass riots in france, greece, elsewhere, across the continent, and, in fact europe, not just the u.k. but other countries go through the same kinds of cuts but, in fact those cuts have been less, the reaction has been more and maybe we're seeing more of a reaction now in the u.k., fascinating, because the u.k. prided itself on not having the kind of out busbursts we have s in continental europe, and, maybe now we are beginning to see it. thanks for your comfortable, in the u.k. and across europe, really, as we continue through "america's newsroom" and in the meantime, a photographer in a news helicopter sees something a little strange on the horizon and zooms in and captures this image, on camera. norad says, we don't know what it is. the pentagon. they don't know, either.

does michio know? we'll ask him, coming up. bill: he probably has theorieses. let's get chinese. should we order panda blossom, panda moon... how about chinese at home with wanchai ferry? you can make it in just 14 minutes. mmmh, orange chicken. great. i didn't feel like going out anyway.

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martha: this is a bit of an eye-catcher, a new report that shows the number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more has soared in the last five years. this is according to "usa today," they did an analysis of data, from the office of personal management, now, that number has actually doubled. this is what public, government workers make, that number has doubled since 2009.

if you can believe that. and the largest pay hikes have gone to employees working for the government, for 15 to 24 years. figure that out. andy card is a former chief of staff to president george w. bush, which makes you a former federal worker as well. good to have you here, andy, welcome. >> good to be with you. martha: i mean, for anybody who, you know, is in favor of the free market and smaller government, these numbers are shocking. >> well, they are disconnected from the reality of the economy, right now. and, this election was about washington waking up, it wasn't just about a signal to nancy pelosi, or to barack obama, it was a signal to washington, d.c. and i actually think that washington, right now, should work really hard to be part of the solution, rather than the problem. and, i hate to say it to all my friends who work in government, but, they need to take a haircut, at least have their salaries frozen, until the economy can get back on track. martha: i mean, that certainly is what the tea party aspect of the whole thing was about, smaller government. i mean, these folks were not

screaming about anything, more centrally than about the message and you know what everybody is saying, to the g.o.p. now in washington, do you have the guts to do it? >> well, i want government to work, so, i don't want people coming to washington with a demand for perfection. i think they should bring perfection to the debate and always have it in the debate, but, be willing to work for that which is perfectly good, so i want people to show up with the will to do the right thing. rather than just be exclusively pure. martha: if you start shrinking government and we have done nothing but expand it in the bush administration. >> that came primarily because of the need to protect america after the attacks of september 11th. martha: true, you know, but, it was expanding then and continued to through the fiscal disaster that happened toward the end of the administration and have continued at an accelerated pace as we see here. it is fascinating to note, since 2000, federal pay and benefits have gone up 3% every year, and, if you work in the old private sector which used to be the driving engine of the economy,

less than a tenth of a percent, increase. and, in order to get that reversed again, we need to cut the federal government, make it less attractive to work for the federal government and more attractive to work in the private sector, how will that happen. >> i want it to be attractive, to work for the federal government because you are helping solve a problem. martha: that is the reason people wanted to go into public service and now it is because you will be paid more. >> they have terrific benefits, defined benefits and defined contribution plans, attractive compared to the private sector and there are advantages, to working with the fpg federal government -- >> would you shrink the holy grail, medicare, social security, defense department, would you an advocate for that. >> first i want the president to be able to protect the country and i put national security -- >> everybody wants that. >> so, put that aside and beyond that, i think everyone should

work to be part of the solution in washington, d.c. and, the defense department has a lot of benefits that don't have anything to do with protecting the country, i think they should look at all of those to see how they can reduce them, so yes, the defense department should be at the table saying we want to be more disciplined and everyone in government should be, but, i really want the people who are leading our government to demonstrate the will to make a difference and, it starts with president obama. he has to say, i heard the people when they spoke on election day, and i want to be part of the solution, so far, he has said, his communications was the problem, it wasn't the policies. no, it was the policies, too, mr. president. come to the table. work for new policies that will make a difference. martha: andy card, the former chief of staff for president bush, used to speak on his behalf once in a while and he's speaking a lot on his own behalf. thanks, andy, great to see you, as always. bill: what was that in the skies off california? plenty of theories but no hard answers. we'll call on michio to tell us

if it was a missile or mirage and the out going speaker of the house claiming credit for accomplishments, what she plans now for later today, has a few folks shaking their heads. reaction and debate, fair and balanced, minutes away. >> john boehner and i and mitch mcconnell and harry reid and nancy pelosi will have to sit down and work together because i suspect that if you talk to any individual voter yesterday they would say, you know, there are some things i agree with, democrats on, and some things i agree with republicans on... let me tell you about a very important phone call i made.

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martha: incredible scenes on the streets of london here, where there has been an attack on the conservative party headquarters, students protesting, numbered in the tens of thousands, 20,000 according to one of the estimates we got, upset about the fact that tuition is going to increase, a huge effort underway in the u.k., to cut spending and they have been patting themselves on the back they haven't had the kind of violent out bust and protests in the streets we have seen in places like france but today that is very much the case in london, they were trying to break huge plate glass windows at the conservative party headquarters, in the milbank tower, what the building is known as, a lot of outrage, the deputy prime minister, who promised he would not increase tuition, if he were elected to that position, and he was, did gain that position of power, in

the u.k. and now is going back on the promise, that is one reason you see the huge outpouring of students in the street, bonfires in the streets, and we will continue to keep an eye on this unfolding, developing situation on the streets of london, right now. and we'll bring you back there, as news merits. bill: having a field day, aren't they. martha: sure are. bill: back in this country, now, and the fight for jobs goes on, after, quoted, a productive congress, the word from soon to be ex-house speaker nancy pelosi. she writes in part, u.s.a. todd, though they elected the majority in congress, americans did not vote for the special interests, they voted for jobs. democrats remain committed to fighting for the people's interests, not the special interests. they voted for jobs. alan colmes, host of the alan colmes radio show and fox news reand karen hanraty with the national republican committee. good morning to you. they voted for jobs.

karen, as in... >> this is nancy pelosi's mission accomplished tour, apparently. she's in denial about i think what happened on election day, and what it means to the democratic party, she's throwing a big party tonight in honor of all of the so-called accomplishments that voters rejected last tuesday evening. i think that the ego and delusion can be a toxic combination. bill: alan, going to the party. >> i didn't know -- i don't get invited. i'm a liberal, more than i am a democrat and maybe that is why i didn't get the invitation, what did she say in the piece today, that was not true? she, you know, detailed the accomplishments and did the olive branch and talked about how she wanted to work with conservatives and i heard the same kind of outreach coming from the right, where they stalk about, our goal is simply to get bush out of office, and they haven't -- >> she writes they voted for jobs. >> they did. bill: where are they.

>> she acknowledged they didn't come fast enough and more has to be done, what is the republican plan to get jobs, i'd like to know what it is. >> if they voted for jobs, clearly, i think the voters showed "no confidence" vote, the democratic party and president obama and the agenda of greater government spending, and an expansion of the federal government will create jobs and also, shows and all-time low of trust in the government to get anything done, and there's a private sector, that needs to be freed up to create jobs in america, and, the government cannot create enough jobs to make up for all of the losses of the past couple of years. bill: we're about to see what the private sector is allowed to do. >> ten months in a row we have had private sector job increases, and you supported the worst job creation of any recent president and i'd like the republican plan to get jobs and the stimulus plan achieved and saved jobs and business tax credits which you mentioned in niece which helps businesses, what is the republican plan? bill: apparently nancy pelosi is looking for republican ideas,

baon the screen, we must work together with president obama to prepare our nation for the 21st century and creating infrastructure and green energy and jobs as we go forward... we welcome republican ideas about job creation. >> good. like that one. love to hear one. >> let's talk about that. first of all, you will not create jobs in america if you are telling the manufacturing industry and the energy industry that you are going to put greater regulation on them, that makes it more difficult for them to manufacture and create jobs, in america, you will not create jobs if you are threatening businesses to increase their taxes. those are the things that are not going to create jobs and first of all -- >> you need the shackles off private industry when it comes to that. >> absolutely. absolutely. -- >> no, i don't, it depends on which regulation and i'm hearing the party of no and what we shouldn't do and i'm not hearing what we should do, i haven't heard a positive message from the right.

bill: karen, ideas. >> here's an area i think democrats and republicans can come together. and that is, manufacturing jobs. we need to be a country that is building. president obama just visited india, a growing, thriving economy, and they need our equipment, our cranes, they need our tractors and they need our equipment and we should be building that in the u.s.s and we need better free trade agreements which we democrats refused -- >> that is why obama is in india, and spent the largest time there than any other country and you should applaud the trip he took to promote technology and the kind of jobs -- >> republicans and democrats can agree on that. and they need to free up those free trade agreements to columbia, south korea, and panama, so we can sell our goods to other countries, that are growing and thriving, but you are not going to create -- build more equipment in america, if you have cap-and-trade as a threat and greater taxes, and greater regulations, as a threat, alan. >> they kept giving tax credits

to businesses and tax breaks to 95% of working families and that happened under the obama administration and things you are saying sar being done and i guess you are supporting obama, glad to hear it. >> and yet, yet voters, overwhelmingly have -- historically repudiated what obama and pelosi have stood for and a lot of democrats, what few moderate pragmatic democrats are left in the house, i think are very concerned about, a minority speaker pelosi who will be in front of the camera every opportunity as the left -- >> use epithets and hurl names but i am not hearing any vision from the right. bill: all right. >> what is obama doing, i haven't heard anything new from republicans. bill: we thought it would be a good pairing and it turned out. back to your corners. >> all right, thank you, bill. bill: see you both in the a week, karen, alan, thank you. martha: she's shining in her golden years, the golden girl. is she getting a new job? wouldn't that be good? all right, who says that too

much junk food is no good for you? the man who ate nothing but twinkies and snacks and stuff like that and you know what happened? high lost 27 pounds, i kid you not. he's here. we'll ask him how he did it. i'll sign up for that diet. ♪ [ upbeat instrumental ]

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missing something? now you get a cleanser with scope freshness. new fixodent plus scope ingredients. cleans and kills germs that cause odors to your dentures. new fixodent cleanser plus scope ingredients. >> i'm jon scott, when jenna lee joins me, the mystery in the sky continues. is it a plaine, a bird, a waywad inter continental missile? we know it's not superman, more on what looked like a rocket trail in the skies over los angeles and health care costs are going up. but, guess who is not likely to pick up the bill? your employer. are companies using the new health care law to squeeze more out of consumers? we'll get answers. plus or town hall u.s.a., america's asking, go to foxnews.com/happeningnow, send us your questions.

we'll put them to our panel. martha: we just heard jon scott talking about this. pragmatists would say it is just a plane and skeptics, and people who have conspiracy theories say no, no, no, no, no, the government is not telling us something, it is a missile and the images off the coast of southern california are generating a perfect storm of conspiracy theories, who better to separate fact from fiction, michio kaku, a professor of theoretical physics. the first time you saw the video, what was your initial reaction. >> my initial reaction was, oh, my god, an unauthorized, accidental launch of a ballistic missile. and, then i saw frame -- >> what made you say that. >> you saw a huge exhaust coming out and you say, it cannot be a plane, no way can it be a plane and is taking off and looks like the trajectory of a rocket and i looked at it frame by frame and

things didn't add up. first, rockets accelerate and go faster and faster, up to 15, 18,000 miles per hour and this object, this thing didn't accelerate at all. and, it changed course. missiles never change course, they are ballistic. like a rocket in the air, unless they don't work properly and they don't accelerate and fall into the ocean. >> but the acid test, smoking gun is the radar sightings, we have the radar images now, and we nothing moving at blinding speed and only see planes there and that is a tip off and only see planes in the radar image, now, if a plane takes off, and we look at it, edge-on it looks like it is taking off vertically, we are looking at a edge-on though it is gently coming up and, the tails expand, and it seems like it is moving away from you, but it is moving ford you.

martha: the plume and fire, people are seeing, behind it, we are looking at a now is why a lot of people think it is a missiles. >> it is going in the wrong direction, we fire east to west, from vandenberg, or from south to north and it is going in the easterly direction. martha: nobody knows what it belongs to, the pentagon says we don't know what it is and nothing to be worried about and norad doesn't know what it is and no commercial airliner said, that is our plane and takes off at 2:42 out of l.a. >> we're looking for planes that land in l.a. and look at planes that go over l.a., one goes from hawaii to phoenix, over los angeles. at about the same timeframe. and the tip off is, the eyewitness accounts, other pilots saw nothing unusual. now, if you are looking down on a comtrail it looks like an ordinary airplane, and, looking

up is, my gosh, a rocket ship. martha: we had an e-mailer who said, the government is lying as you, they are not telling us what is going on out there, and, something is up and they don't want to share it. >> that is my first reaction, it is a cover-up, if they have to admit there is an accidental launch of a ballistic missile, that is a huge, huge black eye. right? but the radar images came in, eyewitness accounts, showing nothing in the area. and, then, other people put up on the internet other comtrails of planes going up, looking like they blast off like a rocket ship and they are just taking off and look at it from the right angle. martha: no doubt. >> well there is still doubt, we like to hedge our bets, but right now, if i were to put money on the table i would put money on an airplane. martha: all of these will have been sending the e-mails and telling me you think the government is lying to you, michio says, a small chance you

might be right, but mostly not. michio kaku putting the missile launch plane controversy over the pacific coast to rest. thank you, sir. always good to see you. bill: as only you can, thanks, "fox news alert," back to london now, central london, where the protests continue, this has been going on for hours and what we saw earlier on top of the building, headquarters of the conservative party, is that some of the protesters actually made their way to the roof and now you see below, the thousands who have gathered. we were given a figure earlier of 40,000, some say that is too high. 30,000, 20,000, substantial numbers of students in the streets of central london protesting proposed tuition hikes, some suggest as high as 300% for universities in england and we are watching the story throughout the day here along with our viewer out of london, and greg palkot on the ground there, he lost 27 pounds in 60

days days. not a lean cuisine in sight, only a twinkie diet and the man behind it. martha: a have been had a a twinkie in a really long time. they look really good, don't they... >> ♪ ♪ you are my candy girl ♪ and you've got me wanting you...♪ or even 20 years? call imperial structured settlements. the experts at imperial can convert your long-term payout into a lump sum of cash today.

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bill: he says he lost 27 pounds in two months, scarfing down twinkies, professor of human nutrition at kansas state university. set out to prove it is about calorie counts and not nutrition and we wondered, did he prove his points. martha: that what is we wonder and, mark joins me now live, from kansas state university. we also have with us, a -- another professional, medical doctor, manny alvarez of the fox news medical a team, and in twe treeing idea -- an intriguing idea, when i used to eat a lot of twinkies, i felt tired after all of that sugar. >> good morning. thank you for having me on your show. . martha: how does it work? >> you know, i don't eat a lot of twinkies. i think the media has taken on the notion i'm eating and gorging on these and i'm not.

i'm eating 3 or 4 a day and each twinkie is about 150 calories and from the snack cake perspective it is not much and i also include multi-vitamins and minerals and a few vegetables, lo-calorie, low starch vegetables and protein, dairy protein as a source of protein and, it is also and exercise to teach students about the interactions between diet, weight and health and for us to discuss, as many of my critics raised publicly to discuss those with my students in class. martha: dr. manny? what do you make of this? >> look, kudos to the professor, you look marvelous, doc. you look marvelous. and, the way i read the story, basically, i got very encouraged because i'm off the political position that you know, again, you know, banning all of these things from our society doesn't necessarily splay a positive role a-- play a positive role

and, the doctor's experiment, he said, look i'll cut down my calories and maybe exercise a little bit more and i'll eat, junk food. for lack of a better word, so the quality of the food, at this point in time with the experiments, didn't matter. because, he was able, by reducing the calories, reduce 20 pounds, congratulations. now, that sends the message to me that you don't have to beat up kids every day with advertising, oh, my god, you drank a coke, you are going to go to hell. but, ultimately, this type of diet does have an impact. if i went and took the diet to kind of lose the 27 pounds, which, by the way, professor i need to lose, i would probably be in big trouble, because, of the quality of the food which in this particular case is junk food so i would not get the nutrients that a man my age in their 50s might need. bill: but you tell your kids they are going to hell, aren't you? mark, what do you think of that? >> you know, i have two young

boys, and so i have tried to keep this part of my life separate from my family life, because of those reasons and again, it was originally set for four weeks and i didn't know what the outcome would be and, much like the documentary i wanted to keep it short in case there were negative outcomes and cholesterol decreased and another question that comes up in class, is, and dr. manny mentioned it, is the nutrients and i'm getting the essential nutrients from a multi-vitamin and multi-mineral and the question in class is, is it okay to get them in a supplement form versus whole foods and that is a whole different discussion for -- probably a different show but it is one of the other tweaks of this, the discussion at least in a class. martha: you raise an interesting discussion to have with everybody and it is about eating less food, which as you point out you can eat tons of good food and you can still gain

weight and, the other side of things, you can sit down and have a twinkie. mark, thank you so much, good to have you with us today. >> a pleasure being with you this morning. bill: thanks, man. okay. martha: well, you know... gilligan actually had it pretty good when he was stranded on a beautiful island, with a movie star but these cruise ship passengers, not so much, toilets didn't work and there was no air-conditioning and we'll hear from the coast guard and someone who knows someone who was on what we are calling "the spam ship" now, when we come back. but now, to get it really cooking, you need a little website development. some transparent reporting, so you know it's working. online ads and 1-on-1 marketing consultation. yellowbook's got all that. yellowbook360 has a whole spectrum of tools.

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