country star miranda lambert says she has a warning for chris brown. >> my daddy taught me earlier in life how to use a shotgun. >> "friends" starts right now. >> ♪ always come back to new orleans ♪ >> translated mardi gras means fat tuesday. and it is a tuesday and take a look, it is a party in new orleans. french quarter, bourbon street. people living it up. they've got until midnight tonight before ash wednesday starts and people, they cut back on the hurricanes. >> they're just starting.

they got a lot of hours left to go. >> is that a live shot? >> i'd be scared to check in with them at 11:00 p.m. >> that's live? >> out there already, aren't you? >> are you jealous? >> not quite yet. >> eric is filling in for brian today. welcome again. we have brought a little taste of new orleans right here to our studio. later in our show, a live performance from brother jocephus and they've been waking us up around here. >> that's right. >> let's do some headlines. let's start with the fox news alert. a second massive bailout. eurozone finance ministers struck a deal to give the country $170 billion. agreement reached after 12 hours of talks at the european union headquarters in belgium. stock markets here expected to rally now when they open this morning after the long holiday weekend. he's one of the top hotel and restaurant leaders in the country. but at this early hour, no one knows where he is and now police

are saying they are not ruling out foul play. he vanished over the weekend. the 61-year-old is the ceo and president of the south carolina hospitality association. he was last seen at work on saturday in downtown columbia. and friends and family haven't been able to reach him ever since. he is a citadel graduate and former air force officer and married father of three. fox news extreme weather alert for you now. check out these clouds. oklahoma recovering from a wind storm today that left at least one person dead. the storms brought hail, rain and 70-mile-an-hour winds. another person was hurt when a mobile home flipped over in a small town east of ada. you can see crews digging through the rubble to find survivors. several homes and businesses were damaged throughout oklahoma city. his whirlwind nine day trip to the vatican officially over. this morning, newly elevated

cardinal timothy dolan flies back to new york city in time for ash wednesday services tomorrow. and the visit, he said, wouldn't have been complete without one thing. his 84-year-old mom had to meet pope benedict. check out shirley dolan shaking the pope's hands. dolan who is known for his sense of humor asked the pope if he could declare her first lady of the college of cardinals. those are your headlines. >> wonder what the mascot is at the college of cardinals. >> a cardinal. >> the hat? no. >> i don't know. >> won't race them on the plaza. >> i wouldn't. >> like yesterday, you took on those presidents. >> yeah. one of them took a spill. >> they did. >> well, let's talk a little a little bit about this and it's the high cost of gas where we are sitting right now, there's a gas station over at -- it's a citgo in the bronx, a gallon of regular is $4.49 a gallon. oh, my goodness. it's starting to impact people.

they're starting to cut back and we're not talking about cutting back for lent either. >> this is the problem. here's what happens. there's a natural national average $3.57. it's a nine month high based on all the things going on in the middle east and what not. when you see a gallon of gasoline in the bronx at -- >> $4.50. regular. >> very careful that these people on these corners aren't gouging. they hear the news story and they see what's going on and they start to jack up the price in the corner. there are anti-gouging laws. people actually see something like that send it in. >> they're not that far off. in california, the average is $4.03. >> i know. $4.03. california has a substantially higher tax structure that's higher in this area. new jersey is one of the lowest. >> "the daily news" looked into this particular station. the station overhead is $0.04 a gallon. the station profit is $0.02 a gallon. it's $0.67 in taxes.

no, i -- >> there's no way in the world that that guy is making $0.02 a gallon on that gas. there's no way. he could be making 30, 40, $0.50 a gallon. new york national average, if you can go to triple a, maybe we can get the producers to do it, find out what the new york national -- the new york state average is. if it's $3.58 or $3.60 or $3.65, he's got a $4.50 on there, something is wrong. >> we have a lot of different problems here. we can have gas stations maybe gouging and charging -- >> that's a problem when prices go up. >> bottom line is prices are going up and my question to you this morning is the expert on the couch on this issue, why? >> why are prices going up? well, number one, it's going into the driving season. peak demand hits around may or june. so it starts its way out -- its annual trek higher but number two, there's huge tension in the middle east. iran is enriching nuclear

facilities, they're enriching plutonium. they're -- >> supposed to be bigger -- >> israel is saying we're going to take you out. the middle east is ready to go. syria, unrest in syria, the middle east is a huge exporter of world oil and it matters because oil, remember, is one commodity. it's a currency. think if the whole globe was one currency, it's the same thing so if you pull oil off the market in the middle east, it doesn't matter if that oil was coming to the u.s. or not, it was going into the big sort of speak pool of oil. if you take that off, the balance is so tight that prices are going to go up. >> the prices were already high and my beef with this whole discussion is that nobody was talking about it when we were still paying $3.40 which was higher than we've been paying in recent history. >> you know why? you know why? >> why? i got to get to the candidates. >> $3.50 is the number that people start to say wow, i -- this hurts! when i fill my truck up, it's $75, $80, that $3.50 is --

>> it's also politics because when it -- depending on who is president, certain people say certain things and we didn't hear a lot about it when it was $3.50. candidates are talking about it, too, newt and santorum. >> there's a head wind ahead of it right now and it's called energy prices. same thing happened in 2008 that led us into this recession in the first place. it's coming back. why? because this president is doing everything he can to hurt energy production in this country. >> with gingrich's policies, what we know is we will dramatically expand our independence in the world market and dramatically expand our ability to produce oil and in the process, prices will clearly be a lot lower. i picked $2.50 as a stablizing price for capital investment reasons. it could easily go down to $2. here's a fact, it was $1.13 when i was speaker and $1.89 when obama was sworn in. >> newt is saying if he's

elected $2.50 gas, maybe $2 and you have santorum saying get ready, folks, for $5 gas. meanwhile, newt also, while in tulsa, took a little jab at the president's preferred mode of transportation, the electric car. in particular the volt! >> the president has said, you know, you ought to buy smaller cars. now, let me start with a simple premise that most oklahomans will understand. you cannot put a gun rack in a volt. >> good line. so the question is, does a president really have control over gas prices? is there anything that a president can do to control the gas prices? dick morris seems to say that yes, it will be a negative for this president. >> when he vetoed the keystone pipeline, he owned the gas price. at that point, the price of gas was his thing. and now that the instability is

-- of iran and possibly closing the gulf and possibly a war with israel, you're going to see a big increase in the price of gas, big runup in the price of oil and fundamentally, that's going to be obama's negative. >> so eric, can a president affect the price of gas? >> sure, he can get the gas price down to $2 a gallon easily. it was $1.873 years ago and $1.84 when he came on. here's three ways to do it. we talked about it countless times. xl pipeline, if you don't want to drill here, bring canadian oil down and that's really the issue with the xl pipeline. we need the xl pipeline because of what the obama administration is doing with off-shore drilling. he's slowed down the permitting. it's at a multidecades low in the number of permits being issued for off-shore drilling. increase the permits, bring the canadian oil in and this is a big one. reduce the e.p.a. demands on blending. there are about 30 different e.p.a. blends in america. in america alone, federally

mandated so east coast, west coast, summer blend, winter blend, midwest blend. just put one gasoline -- make one blend that's required and you can have every refinery in america blend the same gasoline so then you wouldn't have chicago at $5 a gallon and new york, by the way, they told me it's $3.90 in new york state average, again, new jersey is probably $3.40, $0.50 cheaper than that. you'd have one blend. this location wouldn't be an issue. there are ways to bring prices down. >> one of the other things impacting people in the east. three east coast refineries currently are shut down. meanwhile, joe biden's press office put out a list of where he was traveling to make some fundraising speeches and it said he would be traveling to boston, massachusetts, manchester, new hampshire and providence, rhode island. there's a problem with the way they spelled rhode. there are roads there and it's kind of islandish but it's not

spelled -- where's the h? where's the h, folks? oopsy daisy. >> maybe we do need a spelling czar for that particular state, the folks in rhode island know how to spell it. >> joe biden's staff is as funny as he is. >> i thought it was r-o-d-e. >> very funny. >> coming up on our show, unemployment benefits running out, no need to worry. now there's another way to collect a government check. claim mental illness. stuart varney has those details. >> so much for the happiest place on earth. a brawl breaks out at, where, disney? it's all caught on tape. >> that's goofy! [ male announcer ] at scottrade,

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>> call it the madness of unemployment. more and more of those on the jobless rolls are claiming mental illness and other disabilities as their unemployment insurance begins to run out. as of january, the cost of supporting those on federal disability reached $200 billion per year. stuart varney is here with more. tell us what happens, your unemployment benefits run out and so you say i have this other disability that you need to help me out with? >> that's what appears to be happening. at the moment, we have a very substantial number of people whose unemployment benefits run out, goes straight on to social security disability. we appear to be substituting social security disability in place of unemployment benefits. so the number of people on disability has exploded.

this artificially pushes down the unemployment rate and it bleeds the social security disability fund to the tune of $200 billion a year. it's already running at a deficit, it will totally run out of money in 2018 so we're adding to the overall deficit as we artificially cut the unemployment rate. >> is that because, stuart, once you go off unemployment benefits and go on disability benefits, you're pulled out of the system. >> yes, you're no longer considered unemployed. you're out of the system. you're out of the labor force. you are no longer counted. so the unemployment rate comes down at the number on disability goes up. >> and this -- this number is increasing, the number of people going on the disability, it's increasing over the -- with the new president? >> at the moment, just over 5% of people 25 to 64 are on federal disability. that's up from 4%, the 4% range in 2006, 2007, early 2008 so you've had a substantial jump in

the number going on. mainly for mental illness. >> is there a limit to that? there's 99 weeks for unemployment. is there a limit for disability? >> no, theoretically there is not. once you're on it, you stay on it. you have to be removed from it because your condition has improved. that's the only way you can come off it. it's essentially disability benefits for life replacing temporary unemployment benefits. that's what's going on. >> how did it get -- do they need a doctor to sign off on this? >> 43% of new claims are for mental illness. you need medical -- you need to prove medically that you are disabled. now, 43% of new claims are for mental disability. you can get what's called an effective disorder. if you've got a change of mood, can't sleep, loss of energy, you're in. >> that's the typical afternoon for my household. >> thank you so much. >> 9:20 today? >> yes, 9:20 sharp. >> thank you, sir. >> what if president reagan was running in this year's

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>> time for some headlines on this mardi gras tuesday. two iranian warships docked in the syrian port as a warning for the united states to stay out of the fight there. have reportedly left! iran says the united states better not send weapons to the rebels trying to overthrow the

syrian president or else. police have arrested a man for robbing supreme court justice stephen breyer with a machete. local is accused of stealing $1,200 at machete point from justice breyer. his wife and two friends while they were playing cards in their vacation home down there in the caribbean. and that's the news, gretch. >> from the g.o.p. candidates to president obama, it seems like everyone is invoking ronald reagan in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election. listen to this. >> this man understands the need for a strong military. as ronald reagan used to say, peace through strength. that's what mitt romney is committed to. >> i worked with president reagan. in his eight years, we created 16 million jobs. >> rather reduce deficits and interest rates by raising revenue from those who are not paying their fair share or would you rather accept larger budget

deficits, higher interest rates and higher unemployment? and i think i know your answer. those words were spoken by ronald reagan. >> but what would ronald reagan really do if he were running in the 2012 race? our next guest found out. i'm joined by matthew who is the new author of the new book "the choice, ronald reagan vs. barack obama and the campaign of 2012." fascinating way in which you bring rovennald reagan back to e using statements that he said when he was living. >> thanks for having me. i'm at home like everybody else watching these republican debates and one candidate after another is invoking reagan saying i'm the reagan of domestic policy. i'm the reagan of foreign policy. even have the white house, as you saw there, as the clip showed, again, tugging at reagan's corpse. my idea was to set reagan free, kind of cut the strings, put reagan out there on his own two feet using only his own words,

put him up against mitt romney. put him up against obama. and kind of push that narrative forward and i think the results are absolutely fascinating. >> right, so it's a hypothetical reagan in the 2012 election. let's take a look at something that president reagan said long before he was president, 1961 and you think this would be a good strategy if reagan were the candidate now against romney. it's a fictional 2012 primary debate. now, what reason could these other people have for backing a bill that says we insist on compulsory health insurance for citizens? i think we can be excused for believing this is simply an excuse to bring about what they wanted the entire time, socialized medicine. why would that be a great thing for him to say now? >> well, reagan -- reagan had a very good gift at getting to the core. the premise of an idea. so i think what he would do against romney, if running, is he'd attack him hard. very hard on romney's health care.

health care history in massachusetts. i do think he would attack -- he'd kind of package deal it with obama. moving forward in the republican primary, he could attack both at the same time. i think that's what the great communicator as we call him would do. >> here would be your strategy if ronald reagan were the candidate against president obama. fictional 2012 general election. in this present crisis government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem. that was from the inauguration january 20, 1981. a lot of people remember reagan saying that. why would that be effective against obama today? >> now, my -- my guess and my projection as i push reagan forward using his own thoughts and words is that obama would counter saying we need more investment which is what he's been doing, we need more spending. he's not going to use the word stimulus anymore. that doesn't pull so well. reagan again would attack it at the core. no pale pastels as he likes to say. he would hit him and say no, the

spending has to stop. no more government programs and no more government initiatives and that quote that he used in his operation, it hit it so hard right there. >> so you say reagan got right to the point and that's why he was so effective as a leader, which of the republican candidates in your mind after doing all this research best invoke ronald reagan? >> none of them. and the more i go through reagan's own words because you don't need to be a scholar to understand reagan's writings and speeches are exhaustive. it makes these other candidates look very small, frankly. this is in insight. obviously, the reagan we know now wasn't the reagan in 1976 when he ran against gerald ford or even of 1980. i think he would sit this out. i think if he had to endorse a candidate, i think he would take a sarah palin approach and sit back. >> interesting, his son michael reagan has endorsed newt gingrich and then your final conclusion of your book, you

have reagan beating president obama. >> thank you for giving away the ending of my book. i appreciate that. and i do think -- i think it would parallel 1980 against carter. i think it would, you know, the pundits and everybody would say, no offense, that race is too close to call. but when the people got to really see two very distinct philosophies in america, collectivism as represented by president obama vs. individualism as very articulately exemplified by reagan's words, i think the country would overwhelmingly choose reagan and usually country goes conservative when there's a true conservative running. >> the book is "the choice and the campaign of 2012." thanks so much. >> she's been accused of being out of touch. voters are making sure they're clear with nancy pelosi. congresswoman, can you hear them now? and rhianna and chris brown together again? the country singer miranda lambert has a warning for the

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>> here's your shot of the morning, talk about caught in the act. watch the finnish president's husband looking at cleavage. he quickly looks away once he sees her spot him but the princess maintained her royal composure and smiled as she put her hand over her chest. it all happened during a banquet in denmark. >> unfortunately for him, there's video. he's finished. >> oh, man! >> maybe he was eyeing her beautiful necklace. >> yeah, that was a beautiful necklace. >> good spin. good spin. the spin stops here. >> hey, did you watch the grammys? did you notice how chris brown did a number, you know, and he's had a history, remember, back in 2009, he was -- he pleaded guilty for one charge of assault against rhianna the night before the grammys. well, he performed at the grammys this year and then about 45 minutes later, rhianna

performed and there are also stories that they have gotten together again. but some of the other entertainers are taking a shot at him. >> miranda lambert who is well known country music star, she did it almost immediately. i think it was that night, she first tweeted on it she was wondering why there was so much air time given to chris brown. and now at this recent concert appearance that she had, this is what she said. >> beating up on a woman is never ok. so that's why my daddy taught me early on in life how to use a shotgun. >> yeah. somebody in the audience had a sign that said that chris brown should listen to her song "gunpowder and lead" and "gunpowder and lead" is a song where a woman grabs a gun in

defense of a man who beats her. >> for almost three years now, rhianna has had a restraining order against chris brown so they couldn't be in the same area so they had to pass each other, but now there's -- did we hear rumors they may be getting back together? >> that's been out there for a little while. >> said happy birthday and he had this tweet. using my name to get publicity, i love it. perform your heart out. go bye. this is to miranda lambert. originally, chris brown had tweeted happy birthday to rhianna. i don't know if they're together but that's what was out there. >> as a slap to miranda lambert, he's saying go buy her album. >> evangelical leaders joining roman catholics in the fight against the president's new birth control mandate. he said this is not a catholic issue, we will not tolerate any denomination having their religious freedom impinged upon

by the government. at least 2500 evangelicals signed a letter urging president obama to reverse the requirement that forces church groups to carry insurance that provides birth control for free. >> meanwhile, house minority leader nancy pelosi greeted by protesters at texas a&m university. the protesters bashing the democrat leader's job killing policy. pelosi took part in an event at the george herbert walker bush school of government. pelosi and her family spent a few minutes meeting with the 41st president and former first lady barbara bush. nice picture there. pelosi was invited to the school by former bush aide and chief of staff, andrew card. she said george herbert walker bush's name and presidency are synonymous with the word civility. that's nice. >> remember when rocker bret michaels got slammed in the face by a falling backdrop at the tony awards. >> oh, yeah.

>> the lead singer of poison now suing cbs and the producers of the tonys for $50 million. only reason they allowed that footage to air is to get ratings. look at that. michaels says the broadcast had a seven second delay that gave producers enough time to cut away from the shot rather than watching him get clocked. he suffered cuts to his face and later had a brain hemorrhage. on top of that, michaels says he was humiliated. >> good guy, though. >> would you believe they called this the happiest place on earth? >> security. i don't believe this. >> back up. >> this is disneyland, folks, security guards there had to tackle and pepper spray a drunk man for punching and kicking guests outside of one of the rides. witnesses don't know what set him off but says he wreaked of vodka. video of the attack and arrest was later posted to you tube and you can hear parents screaming for help as children helplessly

watched. one park employee was hurt and sent to the hospital before that man was apparently arrested. >> i don't think they sell vodka at disney world. he would have to have brought it in on his own. meanwhile, take a look at some weather and we have some spectacular pictures for you. one of the most spectacular sights on earth, red hot magma from an erupting volcano captured in the same shot as the bright blue and green northern lights. what are the odds of that? these pictures were taken in iceland. a british photographer says he wanted -- rather, he waited seven years for the exact moment when the two natural phenomenons would coincide. i would imagine he spent a lot of time in a tent. meanwhile, let's take a look at the 48 connected states. as you can see on this mardi gras, we got a big storm scooting through portions of the great lake states down through the ohio valley at this hour and also extends down through the panhandle of florida. in advance of it, for right now,

the northeastern corridor cities are nice and dry. current temperatures as you head out on this tuesday, you got 2 below in caribou, maine. 34 in minneapolis. 30's across the plain states. it's freezing right now in raleigh. 40's across much of dixie land and 50's around the gulf coast. later on today on this tuesday, things are going to warm up in new orleans where they're going to be partying till midnight. 74 is today's daytime highs. not that anybody is going to feel the temperature. 61 today in memphis. out west in el paso, looks like 67 there and in the city of angels, los angeles, it should be 70 degrees. that's a look at your fox travelcast. >> coming up on our show, does freedom of speech mean freedom to lie? what if you're lying about being a military hero? judge andrew napolitano says it might be perfectly legal. >> and our next guest puts the free in frequent flier. 52 cities in 52 weeks and do we

mention he's unemployed? how in the heck did he do that? find out when "fox & friends" comes right back. [ male announcer ] where's your road to happiness?

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>> some quick headlines. first, google was accused of bypassing privacy settings on the web browser safari and now microsoft says google is breaching privacy controls on internet explorer, too, but microsoft says the privacy

settings on newest version cannot be bypassed and he tried hard but this suspect could not escape the long arm of the law. look at this scene in california, the driver of a white truck that was stolen jumps out while the truck is still moving. he falls flat in his face. gets up and keeps running but the -- he didn't get very far. police arrested him a short time later. bump it up to you, steve. >> they always get caught. thank you very much. three years ago, that guy right there, scott ford lost his job but after not having any luck finding a job, he decided to book a one-way plane ticket to san diego from new york. he actually ended up not getting on that flight but something happened and there was a decision made that changed his life as well. >> since then, he's been on 62 vacations in 52 weeks and here's the kicker, all for free. he joins us to explain. >> good morning from portland, oregon. >> i know initially when you

lost your job, you did collect unemployment for a bit but then you got fed up and you were frustrated and you went to the airport and you were going to san diego, what happened? >> i volunteered to give up my seat. it was important for me to travel the world. and this experience to travel the world as a volunteer in exchange for airline vouchers was the opening ticket and opportunity for me to travel the world and do it for free. >> we've all been in an airport concourse and heard hi, we're looking for five passengers whose travel plans are flexible. you jumped at this. we have some tips on how folks at home can become a frequent flier, too. first one is at the ticket counter, ask, do you need a volunteer? don't wait for the announcement. just go out and volunteer to volunteer? >> automatically, always research the flight the night before and it's important to also research the flight the day of departure at the ticket counter, ask that same question when you go through security and you approach the gate agent for your flight, ask the same

question again, the information can change. >> ok. so you book with as many connections as possible? most people try and book direct, right, scott? >> most people do. if i flew from new york, j.f.k. to los angeles, i would never fly on the nonstop. i would try to make a double or triple connection purposely getting stuck in the middle of the country. >> maybe at each stop, you might wind up with a voucher from each. book the fullest and most popular flights. how do you figure what the most traveled routes are to get on those flights? >> it's always important to view seat maps to do your research on line or at home on your computer. if you can see how full flights are, you can get pretty much an interpretation how full the flights will be the morning of the departure. >> stick with one airline because you build up the frequent flier base. you have a million miles on one airline. you got that in one year? >> i'm approaching a million miles. i averaged 250,000 a year. >> you must feel almost like

george clooney in that movie. also -- >> it's all about miles. >> it is. and it's all about flexibility. i mean, if you've got to be, for instance, in portland, oregon, for a 6:45 hit in the morning, this would not work for you because you've got to be there at a special time but if you're flexible, you can really -- this can really pay off for you, can't it? >> it certainly can. it did for me and i'm so blessed by this experience to travel the world. i'm launching my very first travel web site, pack a bag and go.com and i truly want to educate others around the world to do what i did. traveling is beautiful and traveling solely is the best education in our school system. >> what are you going to do about a job now? >> i'm really welcoming the opportunities that will come in from this and again, i'm blessed by this amazing experience to see the world. it's so beautiful. it's so beautiful. >> you have visited 400 cities in three years. you ended up falling in love with portland, oregon and that's where you are now. amazing story. >> portland is beautiful. >> hopefully other people can learn his tips and they can cash

in a little bit, too. what an amazing story. thanks for joining us today. >> thank you. >> that ford has got a better idea. free! meanwhile, does your freedom of speech mean freedom to lie? even if you claim to be a war hero? the judge weighs in on this coming up next. >> and this victoria's secret angel trading in her bikini for the bible? find out why she took off her wings and left the business when she joins us next hour. >> plus a live look. it is fat tuesday and you're looking live at bourbon street. those people have been up all night! don't get in their car. i'm serious, we compare our direct rates side by side to find you a great deal, even if it's not with us. [ ding ] oh, that's helpful!

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>> the 2006 stolen valor act which makes it a crime to falsely claim you're a war hero faces a major test today. >> so today, eric, the supreme court will hear arguments claiming the law violates the first amendment right to free speech. fox news senior judicial analyst judge andrew napolitano joins us with his take on what the supreme court will do today. >> good morning. >> so you have this gentleman who dresses up in a military uniform with medals and speaks at public events saying hey, i was a veteran. but he's not. >> yeah, that uniform is a costume that looks like a real uniform and those medals are false even though they look like real medals. the question is -- can the government prosecute him and punish him for this form of free speech? that's what the supreme court will decide today. so the government's argument is the military consists of volunteers and they risk their lives to keep us safe.

we should protect them by not mimicking them and mocking them and we shouldn't let someone steal their -- their heroism and falsely claim it's his. the lawyers for this fellow claim hey, it's a matter of free speech. i can mock the military. i can mimic the military. i can even falsely claim that i was in the military because all this is protected by the first amendment. now, as reprehensible as his behavior is, in my view, it's seriously protected by the first amendment. it's the very nature of what the first amendment was intended to protect which is mocking or ridiculing the government. >> but judge, if he's not ridiculing or mocking, you know, first amendment, free speech vs. fraud and then comes to mind what if i put on a police uniform and walk down the street? >> well, that's a different issue because a police uniform would cause people to respond to what you say. i'm a cop. let me see your driver's license, registration, insurance, or whatever else the police would say to you. that's independently already

against the law as is fraud. let's not carry the free speech argument to the area of fraud. if this guy goes to an employer and says you're looking for an ex-military person who demonstrated heroism under fire, that's me and the employer hires him and then the employer loses clients because this guy can't do his job, that's fraud and he can pay for that fraud. but showing up at a town meeting saying i'm an ex-marine is protected free speech. think of it this way, how could the government make it a crime to lie? if that were the case, many people who voted for this could themselves be prosecuted because that's how they got into office by lying including their so-called military past like the senator in connecticut. >> exactly. that's an interesting point to make because there is a fine line here. >> yes. >> and the stolen valor act only came into being in 2006. you say it was a direct result after 9/11? >> yes, i think it was -- it

was an effort, a legitimate effort by the congress to protect returning veterans from being mimicked or having the -- the honor of their sacrifice and service diluted by frauds and phonies like this guy. but the government as it sometimes does, went too far. and forgot that this guy does have the right to mimic and even lie about the military if he wants to because the first amendment protects that. >> what do you think? how is this going to turn out sn? >> i think the supreme court will invalidate this statute. this is a very pro first amendment and it allows freedom of speech to be free in deference to the first amend. much that's the same way they'll go here. he was convicted and the conviction was overturned by an appeals court, the infamous ninth circuit in california and then the supreme court decided to hear it. i think they took the case because they think the congress went too far. >> very interesting.

you heard it from the judge's mouth and you'll see what the supreme court does. >> i'll not always right in these predictions. >> you're one of the smartest guys in the building. i think i'll go with you. >> have a nice day, guys. a big supporter who endorsed mitt romney for president now taking back his support and now he's throwing it to rick santorum. that man here live. >> and reading, writing and ridiculous? kids learning about the occupy movement in school. is that a good idea? >> no. >> we report, you're not supposed to answer, eric. we report, you decide. >> yes, then. ♪ ♪ [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ]

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gretchen carlson. hope you're going to have a fantastic day today. can't settle on a g.o.p. nominee? some say you might not have to. how voters can force something else to happen. we're going to tackle that one for you. >> and need some extra credit? one high school offering classes on occupy wall street or as they call it, the movement of justice. story you've got to hear to believe. >> there's a movement all right. meanwhile, from the runway to religion, this victoria's secret supermodel trading in her wings for a bible? wings of an angel? why she says modeling in lingerie clashes with her christianity. her story and so much more coming up live from new york and new orleans. it's mardi gras.

>> could be a dangerous shot. never know what people are going to do in the french quarter down there on bourbon street after a night of drinking. >> with beads. >> there are fewer people at 7:00 a.m. than at -- actually, they're in a different time zone, right? it's 6:00 a.m. there. there are fewer people than when we were up with them at 5:00 a.m. >> and what they do is -- >> that one has on a big necklace. >> the beads! they live it up today on fat tuesday because tomorrow is ash wednesday. also call this pancake tuesday because people eat pancakes because during lent, people give stuff up like eggs and cream and things like that so you live it up today. >> here comes the cleaning crew! get out of the way! the party is over. >> they're going to need five of those tonight at midnight when they go right through just about a minute after midnight. >> coming up, we're going to celebrate mardi gras with a

fantastic band. you have to stick around for this. we have a drum set and a lot of saxophones and lot of voices. they sound great. >> terrific. >> let's talk a little politics, shall we? a new poll shows most republicans and right leaning independents wish somebody else was in the race. how many times have we heard this in this election cycle? but at the same time that they wish that, according to this poll, they don't really want a brokered convention and what does that mean? that means that we go all the way to september and the four candidates currently in the race if they all stick in that you would actually have a vote on the convention floor similar to 1948 with dewey. >> and an important part of that, assuming none of the four candidates get the 1144 that would give them the nomination, then they would go to the convention and they'd horse trade and haggle and say if you do this and if i do that and if i pick you as my v.p., maybe we can get a ticket together, that would be the brokered vs. a contested which would mean, i don't know, people from the

outside, a jeb bush, a marco rubio, maybe even a sarah palin gets involved. >> and if you look at the map, if nobody and the experts say that the chances are slim that it would wind up a brokered convention. anything after the first -- you know, when we picked in each of these states, we picked the delegates, those delegates are obligated to vote for the candidate that wins their vote on the first vote. after that, it becomes brokered and then there's the horse trading and then the party insiders and the smoke filled room, you don't want that. anyway, let's take a look at some of the particular results from this "usa today" gallup poll. 66% as you can see, this is a poll of republican leaning independents want a candidate with enough delegates to secure the nomination before the convention so 2/3 of you don't want brokered. although the next number, about 30% favor a brokered convention with a brand new candidate. >> and 55% wish someone else was running the g.o.p.

nomination. which has sort of been a common theme in all the polls that have happened over the last couple of months. >> can i just ask you something? how can 66% say they want a nominee but 55% say they want someone else. >> because i think it just shows what this election cycle has been all about. people are frustrated. just watched the frontrunner that keeps changing, how many times have we gone -- >> can i throw a number out here? the fox nation did this. they said if it was someone else who would be -- and they went through the list of four or five different people and do you know who got 40% of that leading the other candidates? governor palin. look at that. i said it before, she has a uniting force behind her. anyway. >> there's also something interesting about the gallup polling. when you look at the national gallup poll, the tracking poll, rick santorum is leading mitt romney, right? 36% to 26%. but according to this very brand new "usa today"/gallup poll, most of the people see mitt romney as the eventual nominee

and when they line mitt romney up with president obama, once again, mitt romney is beating the president of the united states 50-46. when it's head to head barack obama and santorum, barack obama beat santorum by one. so there's a lot of difference. >> a couple of weeks ago in that, i think it was a "wall street journal" poll, rick santorum was the only republican candidate to beat president obama so there -- we're explaining exactly what we're talking about here, is that it's the ebb and flow. let me ask our viewers this this morning. e-mail us or twitter us, are you in favor of a brokered convention? do you think that would be good for the republican party to actually go back to the olden days where it was excitement right there on the convention floor or is it a bad idea? >> see, i worry about with the brokered convention, what goes on behind closed doors in those smoke-filled rooms and we're -- >> can't smoke in buildings anymore, though. >> they can do anything. when you're picking a president, you can do anything. and, you know, so many people are talking about well, the establishment wants this, wants that. who do you think is behind the

closed doors? it's a party inside, party bosses, they're doing the horse trading. >> anyway, assuming you're going with the four candidates, right? >> no. >> assuming you're not talking about someone from the outside. >> after the first ballot, it could be anybody. are you interested in president, joel? >> no. i guess not. >> that was not a very -- >> are you interested in vice president, joel? because fairly dickinson, a university out in -- across the river in hackensack, new jersey, asked an open-ended question, who should be vice president? didn't give a list or anything like that. who should be vice president? number one, marco rubio. followed by rick santorum and then chris christie, those are the top three. governor sarah palin was fourth. interestingly enough, mitt romney only got 2%. maybe people just think of him as presidential timber. he tied with michelle bachmann. >> but the interesting thing about that poll is it wasn't

multiple choice so people actually had to think of a candidate off the top of their heads. the scary thing about that poll is that 40% of the people couldn't come up with anybody. all right. we'll leave it there. >> i picked joel. >> you're welcome. >> all right. beginning with a fox news alert for you right now. while you were sleeping, a second massive financial bailout, eurozone finance ministers struck a deal to give the country $170 billion more now. the agreement reached after 12 hours of talks at the european union headquarters in belgium. stock markets expected to rally when they open this morning after the long holiday weekend. he's one of the top hotel and restaurant leaders in the country but at this very early hour, nobody knows where he is and now police are saying they're not ruling out foul play. he vanished over the weekend. this 61-year-old is ceo and president of the south carolina hospitality association. he was last seen at work on saturday in downtown columbia and friends and family had not

been able to reach him since. he is a citadel graduate and former air force officer and married father of three. fox news extreme weather alert now. check out these clouds. oklahoma recovering from a wind storm today that left at least one person dead. the storms brought hail, rain and 70-mile-an-hour winds. another person was hurt when a mobile home flipped over in a small town east of ada. crews were digging through the rubble to find the survivors. several homes and businesses were also damaged throughout oklahoma city. you remember president obama's new political mantra. >> everybody gets a fair shot. everybody does their fair share. >> well, that phrase might not go over as well as he had planned. according to a new report by the tax foundation, half of the american working population, fair share to them means paying almost no income taxes at all. the top wage earners pay 70% of all the income taxes and many of the people that pay no taxes get

tax credits and millions of dollars in tax refunds. those are your headlines this morning. >> let's take you down to. >> i was looking very quickly, the dow is right at 13,000, so with that new greek bailout, maybe you'll see north of 13,000 for the first time in a really long time. >> that means mainstream media will say happy days are here again. stock market crisis averted. meanwhile, let's talk a little bit about down in one of the washington suburbs in montgomery county, maryland, montgomery county community college, apparently what they're going to do this summer, there you can see it right there, what they're going to do is they're going to have, you know, they always have summer programs but how would you if you're a parent of an a.p. scholar in high school, how would you like your kid to go to college to learn about the occupy movement? forget about history. forget about english. forget about -- learn about that stuff. >> of course, the description -- the course is described as learn

about the occupy wall street movement and explore real life human rights implications, review social justice concepts and explore human rights issues related to current events young people hold the power to change their community, their schools, their future, are you ready to join the movement for justice? >> apparently, the class costs $190 for 10 three hour sessions. here's the thing, it's elective, right? so if parents want their kids to learn more about this, then they sign them up. if they don't want them to learn more about this and pay $190, they don't sign them up. >> is it false advertising, though? i mean, the way that it's described, i mean, they don't really point out some of the -- you know, some of the downsides, some of the dark sides of the occupy movement, you know, all the arrests that are going on, some of the alleged drug dealing, the alleged rapes. in fact, there were some communist groups who were signing on to the occupy wall street movement in chicago as well so there's a lot of other than what they're portraying. >> sure.

and montgomery county community college, county community college, there's a whole bunch of -- it's moco, they say they don't take a side but when they say, do you want them to join this movement for justice? you have to wonder. they say no homework or no field trips. i wonder if they'll have the drum out in the quad and will they actually take classes indoors or outside under a tarp? >> here's some of the other courses you can take if you don't want to learn about occupy wall street. 3d geometry, let's build a city, be a nurse or work with one. battle bot build-a-thon, be a real life investigative reporter. chemical wizardy. digging for dinosaur rocking rocks. so there's some other interesting classes. >> is this college or a preschool? >> no, it's a college but offering for high school students to explore their horizons, so to speak. >> what do you think? if you are a parent of a high school and an a.p. student, would you want your kid to spend part of his summer studying

occupy wall street? e-mail us, friends at foxnews.com. talk about this again a little later on in today's big fat tuesday telecast. >> he loves his country so why he setting a flag on fire? a father who lost his son in iraq claims he has a good reason to do it. will you take his side? >> then he wants his endorsement back, our next guest a high profile person in a state.

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fall. rick santorum is ready to lead us to defeat barack obama. rick santorum is ready to be the next president of the united states. my dear friend, rick santorum. >> there you go, his dear friend rick santorum getting a boost in ohio last week after picking up the endorsment of the ohio attorney general. but back in november, he endorsed mitt romney and they say as ohio goes, so goes the nation. so why did the former senator dewine change his mind? we got him live from columbus, ohio. good morning to you, senator. >> good morning. good to be with you. >> ok. i think in the very beginning, you may have endorsed tim pawlenty and then you followed that up in october on your facebook by saying you really liked mitt romney but now you're a rick santorum guy. why did you change your mind? >> first of all, pawlenty got out of the race very early. i always admired rick santorum

but i didn't think he could win. he was at 2% in the polls, he didn't have any money and i guess i really bought into the conventional wisdom a couple of things, one, that mitt romney's money was just going to overwhelm everybody else in his organization. and two, maybe more importantly, i bought into the idea that conventional wisdom that he was the strongest candidate in the fall. and we run campaigns for a reason and what's become abundantly clear to me as this campaign has gone on is that at least in ohio, governor romney while he's certainly a good person and i'm sure would make a very good president, there's no enthusiasm at all for him. his campaign has not gotten better over the last few months. on the other hand, there's a great interest in rick santorum. and as i talked to people and go from event to event, what people tell me, first of all, is they like him. he's very likable. he's real. he is genuine.

i can see a real movement for him. i think he has the best chance of beating barack obama in the fall. >> let me ask you to comment on this. a fellow from new hampshire who has endorsed mitt romney is john sununu, i think you know him. he has this bit of explanation as to why you switched your endorsement. he said i do understand that the criticism that has been levied on this vote, restoring voting rights to felons by some of the supporters of the romney camp is one of the reasons if not the biggest reason why mike dewine has decided to now be a supporter of senator santorum and apparently, romney's super pac, restore our future, has criticized santorum's support for a bill to restore voting rights to ex-felons which is a bill that you supported when you were in the senate with mr. santorum. anything to that, sir? >> no, just absolutely not true. you know, governor sununu with all due respect, that's not what he's talking bchlt i never saw the ad at all.

what i was feeling frankly and what i was seeing in ohio is a great support for rick santorum. yesterday, he was in stubenville. this is democrat country. he had a great, great turnout. i think he's going to run very, very well in the democrat parts of the state of ohio in the fall. so it's a real appeal that he has. and what i'm seeing on the ground is tremendous energy here in ohio for rick santorum. >> let me ask you about this. as the -- they're going to have another debate in a couple of days. and people are going to get another look at the four candidates who are still standing right now. is the fight, though, given the fact that there's, you know, the super pac ads are so vicious in some cases. is the fact hurting the eventual nominee and the party? >> well, you know, republicans, we get a little squeamish about going after each other.

it's a funny thing i've learned over the years, democrats have no problem with doing that and they fight real hard and then they get together and i think we need to learn something from the democrats. and look, whoever the nominee is and i certainly hope and think it's going to be rick santorum but we need to beat the president in the fall and i think you're going to see a united republican party. >> all right, mike dewine, he is the attorney general of the great state of ohio and a former u.s. senator. sir, thank you very much for getting up so early on this mardi gras tuesday. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, sir. all right, could this be a sad sign of the times for the president? the super pac spicket running dry, really dry. we'll tell you about that. and this victoria's secret angel trading in her bikini for the bible? she is here live to tell us why she took off her wings when she joins us next. [ male announcer ] where's your road to happiness?

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>> time for your news by the numbers. first $55,000. that's how much one pro obama super pac raised last month reportedly prompting the obama campaign to change its strategy. some say this could indicate a problem for democrats trying to compete against well funded conservative groups. a pro romney super pac raised $6.6 million during the same time. 29 million, that's how many iphone users will be eligible to receive $15 for new iphone case. this comes after apple settled

case with problems with the outside antenna. that's how much money that b.p. could possibly pay in a settlement for the gulf oil spill in 2010. over to you. >> thank you, eric. at the age of 19, she had already achieved her lifelong dream. she became a victoria's supermodel and a star. after two years of walking down the catwalk, she's trading in her wings. the reason, she says being a lingerie model clashes with her christian faith. joining me now is kylie, that is, basutie. i keep calling you kyle. thinking of that other housewives show, unfortunately. kylie, good to see you. this was your lifelong dream. you achieved it. you got there. and you thought it was what? >> it was all empty for me and it wasn't true happiness for me once i got it. >> it had to do with what you're wearing and we're looking at this beautiful shot of you and beautiful figure. what was it about the lingerie

that didn't match up with who you are? >> it just wasn't honoring my marriage. i had truly, truly believed that my body should be for my husband and him alone and here it was for all these other men and i was in men's magazines and it didn't feel right for me. >> you had a conversation with your 8-year-old cousin who is a girl, and what happened in that conversation? >> she basically just looked at me, looked at my life and wanted what i had. but she thought that she had to throw up her food to get it. and she told me she felt like she had to throw up her food to be beautiful. and it broke my heart. you know, it just -- i don't want to be that kind of person that makes little girls feel that way. >> as a mom of an 8-year-old myself, i know this is a struggle for so many parents, how do we raise our young girls and boys for that matter in this generation of showing so much? you decided to make this bold move, what was the reaction?

>> surprisingly, it was very positive. a lot of positive reaction about it. i thought my career was over. i was throwing in the bag and now, i'm just, i guess, so much more of a role model for young girls like your daughter and many others that people want to know about it. and -- >> because you have not stopped modeling. is this you in this shot as well? >> yes. >> so this is -- look at how beautiful she is in a full dress. it's strapless but this is what you're doing now. have you been able to get jobs doing this? >> yes, i have. and it's so much more fulfilling. i'm so much happier and i feel like it's my inner beauty coming out more and, you know, full clothing. >> and you also have aspirations to turn the modeling into acting. what would you like to do? >> i would love to get into comedies and action movies. and stuff like that where i can still be pure and wholesome and

have that career as well. >> so it's interesting to note that you were not raised a christian. what happened in your life? >> i was never raised in any specific religion, never went to church. but when i was 16, well 15 actually, i got invited to church and then i became baptized when i was 16. >> uh-huh. >> and this was a way in which you've chosen to live your life moving forward. what was the reaction from the other models, if any? >> i got a lot of positive reaction. and there was some negative feedback, too, but i think there's always going to be both sides and i try to listen to the positive feedback and try and influence other girls. >> so are you still friendly with some of the models who still have their wings on? >> yeah, definitely. i love them all. i don't judge anyone for what they're doing. this is a personal decision for me. and i think, you know, they're happy with doing what they're doing and i'm very happy doing what i'm doing. and that's what's important. >> it's interesting because a lot of people will probably think that you're a really brave young woman. you're only 21 still now.

but to take a stand like that and not know what the consequences might be, a lot of people are going to say that's brave of you. >> thank you. >> continued success as you continue to be a model and hopefully an actress one day. kylie, great to meet you. >> thank you. you, too. >> coming up on our show, he lost his son in iraq and now he's burning a flag because he's burning mad. does this father have a good reason to do that? we're going to report and you can decide. and then the g.o.p. candidates starting to pounce on the green energy debacle and another hike in gas prices. could democrats lose jobs over a botched energy agenda? that's straight ahead. ugh, my sinus congestion, and it's your fault.

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>> it's mardi gras, it's fat tuesday today and the celebration is your shot of the morning. this is a live look at the bourbon street. >> i figured it out. >> you have no microphone on.

>> where did it go? >> maybe you went down to mardi gras. >> let's talk about that shot for a second right there. so there it is, that's a live look at mardi gras right now, fat tuesday. but the point is when we came on air this morning at 5:59, this street was crowded. >> very crowded. >> because people were out from the prior night. now -->> the bars are still open at 5:00 a.m. for mardi gras. >> i think they are, yeah. >> cleaning crews taking to the streets. get ready, cleaning crews! because people are going to be back out all day long. >> that's right. >> to celebrate all the way into until midnight. >> get ready, bead throwers, it's almost time. >> looks like they were doing a k turn with an all terrain vehicle in the middle of bourbon street. tonight at midnight when they close the bars, they'll need it because there's so much trash that people leave behind as they live it up one last day before ash wednesday. all right. meanwhile, let's take a look at the weather. where is it raining and where is it snowing? the answer is it's raining and snowing around the great lakes

as you can see and then you got a front moving through portions of ohio at this hour. and indiana as well. down through virginia and also in south carolina, georgia, and even some action down along the gulf coast. also, through the mid missouri valley, we have thunderstorm activity this morning. current temperatures, a lot of 20's and 30's out west and in the northern plains. 29 right now in raleigh durham. and we got 36 in dallas. along the gulf coast currently, temperatures are in the 50's. and later today, in new orleans, the big easy, party town central, 74 should be the daytime high. only 43 in chicago where they, too, will be celebrating down along rush street on this fat tuesday. >> all right. let's hope that they maybe don't have to fill up their tanks of gas in their cars. >> they'll be tanked up. >> they might get tanked but they'll be walking down those streets. why would that be a good idea? look at those gas prices. yep, regular. $4.09.

here's the national average right now. $3.57. have you been noticing it when you go to fill up your car? and you might be asking the question -- why is nobody talking about this until the last few days? because it's been inching up slowly but surely and now here we are facing $4 a gallon. is that the new norm? >> very importantly, too, this is going to be a campaign issue. look at ohio. in the last week alone in cities in ohio, gas prices have spiked $0.17 a gallon. a couple much cities $0.17 a gallon, a couple of cities $0.15 a gallon. if you're living in ohio and you're going to vote either president obama same policies or let's try maybe a pro drilling republican. and i'm paying more and more at the pump, you start to swing your vote based on that. that's what matters to people right now. jobs and gas prices are front and center. >> right and the headline is gas prices have never, ever in history been this high in february. they've -- you know, they've gone up and down but never this

high this early and you got may coming when they start reformulating and that's when we could see gas closer to $5 a gallon. rick santorum was on the stump yesterday. he said get ready for $5 gas. newt gingrich down in tulsa said hold on, if i'm president, you could have gas for a little more than $2. listen. >> there's a head wind ahead of it right now and it's called energy prices. the same thing that happened in 2008 that led us into this recession in the first place. it's coming back. why? because this president is doing everything he can to hurt energy production in this country. >> with gingrich policies, what we know is we will dramatically spend our independence in the world market, dramatically expand our capacity to produce energy without regard to our foreign potential enemies and in the process, prices will clearly be a lot lower. now, i pick $2.50 as a stablizing price for capital investment reasons. it could easily go down to $2.

here's a fact. it was $1.13 when i was speaker and it was $1.89 when obama was sworn in. >> it's $4.50 here in new york. >> it will be interesting to see whether this is a big question and if it moves into foreign policy questions because iran is a piece of this puzzle. yesterday, we were reporting to you that they were cutting off their oil shipments to great britain and france and i think, eric, you chimed in saying that was 18% of the market, right? >> 18% to the european union. very important to understand the way oil works. it doesn't matter where it's being shipped because it's one global pool of oil, the world produces around 86, 85 million barrels a day and we use about 85 or 84 million barrels so the leeway, the pad is so thin, if you pull anything off the market, it has shock waves throughout the system. even if you pull it off. over there, it will affect here and when the price of oil goes up, price of gasoline has to go up. >> sure. well, newt gingrich out on the

stump in tulsa yesterday. he knows that the president is pushing clean energy. in particular, electric cars. down there in tulsa, the energy belt, newt gingrich smelled a joke. here it is. >> the president has said, you know, you ought to buy smaller cars. now, let me start with a simple premise that most oklahomans will understand. you cannot put a gun rack in a volt. you can't put a trailer hitch on it either, i would imagine, to pull something really big. >> well, i think you -- i drove a volt for about a week or two. i think you might be able to put a gun rack in the volt and hitch something to the volt. you won't be able to drive too far with it. >> electric hitch? >> no, because it switches from electric power to gasoline. >> that will happen quicker. >> much quicker. >> it happens quicker if you turn the heat on, i found out. >> i'm not kidding. >> are you serious? >> what about the dome light? >> can i make this clear?

it was a great car. i loved it when i was on gasoline. i couldn't deal with it when it was on power. g.m. doing a good job. get that battery better. >> buy one and get a $10,000 subsidy. >> that's a problem. 10 grand, yeah. $7500 the proposal in the new budget is for $10,000. >> thank you for clarifying that. let's do a couple of headlines right now. an extreme avalanche warning in effect right now for the oregon and washington state cascades. this coming just days after three expert skiers died when they were dragged 1500 feet down the side a mountain by a massive avalanche. the men, johnny brennan, chris rudolph and jim jack were wearing -- they were wearing those snow air bags that are supposed to inflate and carry them to the top of an avalanche. but those bags apparently didn't work. one skier did make it out alive thanks to one of the air bags and another survived by bear hugging a tree. >> governor chris christie's decision to fly jersey state flags at whitney houston's

funeral facing criticism this morning. john bury of michigan was so outraged he burned a new jersey state flag. his son died while serving in iraq. >> maybe it's a little drastic. that's a little extreme. i'm sorry. this is how much it hurts. this is how much of a slap in the face it is to all who have served and given their lives. >> although the flags were lowered when his son died, christie's decision took away from the significance of that gesture. steve? >> meanwhile, evangelical leaders joining roman catholics in the fight against the president's new birth control mandate. family research council president tony perkins speaking out against the mandate saying "this is not a catholic issue. we will not tolerate any denomination having their religious freedom impinged upon by the government." at least 2500 evangelicals signed a letter urging the government to reverse the decision calling church groups

to carry insurance that provides birth control. >> do you know there are 25 words that toddlers must be saying by the time they turn 2? according to new research, kids who do not master them might not just be late talkers. they could be showing signs of development delays, autism or hearing problems. so what are the words? here are a few for you to jot down. mommy, daddy, baby, hello, bye-bye, cat, cookie, and banana. there you have it. >> banana. that's a good one. >> nana is the way it might come out. >> 19 minutes before the top of the hour on this tuesday. we do this every week and, perhaps, today you might find a job if you need one. we will feature the five companies hiring right now. get a pencil. plus you remember this viral video? out of afghanistan. >> ♪ fever pitch and bringing me out the dark ♪ >> that army staff sergeant taking her voice to hollywood. she joins us next to explain. >> and she's been on our show.

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competition known as "the voice" on nbc. >> joining us now is staff sergeant angie johnson in person. good morning to you. >> good morning to you. how are you? >> i'm doing fantastic. i have to say we loved it when you were on "fox & friends" with sidewinder. you guys did such a fantastic job. we all felt like they all have careers in music and i happened to be flipping through the tv and there you were on "the voice." how did that happen? >> i know! it's a really -- it's a really crazy story. when we were deployed, we did a little gig, you know, and the video went viral from that gig. and carson daley got a hold of it and tweeted about it and went on a man hunt looking for the singer from the viral video and he personally invited me to come audition for "the voice" so that's how that happened. >> that is fantastic. you know, usually you join the military, you wind up getting sent to faraway places not hollywood and in this particular operation, probably singing anthems but instead, you're doing adele. tell us where do things stand

right now in the competition? on "the voice" with you? >> well, right now, the blind auditions are still airing. and after the blind auditions have all finished airing we'll go to the battle round and the battle round is basically where you get paired up with someone on your team to sing a duet and your coach picks who they think is the best. >> do you know who that is? >> do i know who i'm paired with? >> yeah. >> i might know. if i told you, i'd have to kill you, though. >> ok, never mind! >> she knows how to shoot a gun for sure. >> let me ask you this -- you say that the military background that you have has helped you in this competition. how? >> absolutely. 100%. it's just -- it's taken a lot of discipline and there have been a lot of long days. and it's -- i'm used to 14, 18 hour days anyway so it's just kind of, you know, given me practice in that realm. but just all the discipline and kind of just being able to do

what you're told. >> uh-huh. >> that's great. plus, i would imagine you have the support of many members of the military who look in on that show and they go, yep, she's one of us. >> i think that i truly have the best fans in the entire world. the people have come together from all over the world, service members, veterans, families of veterans and it's just been so heartwarming for me because they've really let me know that they follow the journey and they support me. >> well, you got a new supporter, too, you were just recently married? >> i've been married for two years now. but no, he's a great supporter. my husband, bobby. >> your backup man for life. fantastic. >> we're so -- >> look at that happy day. >> and you're still with sidewienlder and you're going to be touring with them, right? >> yes. i am still with sidewinder, still serve one weekend a month with them and we are gearing up for our summer concert tour. >> that's fantastic. we are so proud of you and it

was great when you stopped by and now that you're on "the voice", who knows? i the -- the sky's the limit. >> thank you so much. thank you for having me on again. >> angie johnson, continued success. coming up next, forget the classifieds, we're doing the work for you. the five companies with hundreds of jobs open today. get out your pen and paper. >> and on this date in history back in 1984, van halen jumped to number one. [ male announcer ] where's your road to happiness? what ithe first step on that road is a bowl of soup? delicious campbell's soups fill you with vegetable nutrition, farm-grown ingredients, and can help you keep a healthy weight. campbell's -- it's amazing what soup can do. you should know that just one dose of children's advil

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>> the answer to today's trivia question of the day is billy baldwin. the winner is john in

sayreville, new jersey. all right. each week on this show, we search the classifieds to help you land a job. here to make it happen with five companies hiring right now, cheryl casone from the fox business network. >> a little more than search the classifieds, eric bolling. anyway, yes, we found five companies hiring this week and a lot of them are actually business names, big names that you know and you know this one, motorola solutions, obviously. they make in particular, they're look for engineers. they do a lot of, you know, those portable police computers in the cars, they do radios for fire departments and things like that. they service a lot of government agencies as well as businesses. 650 positions, the range is from 50 to 150,000. some of the top jobs, account managers, $8.2 billion in revenue this company. you know motorola the name as well from the phones but this is a different side of the business and they're hiring as well. >> let's talk about bridgestone. >> yeah, bridgestone.

obviously, this is for tires. we all need tires and we all drive, 1100 positions right now. they're going to be expanding a south carolina plant. that's going to be about 1,000 jobs. that's happening this year. overall 1100 jobs, technicians, service managers, they also are hiring a lot of people in the las vegas area. i bring that up because las vegas, as everybody knows has been hard hit by the downturn in the economy. las vegas, they're going to be expanding and opening up some more stores. >> kind of a recessionproof company, right? >> yeah. tires still work, you know what i mean? >> marriott international. >> this is what i think is fascinating. this is the global hotel brand, you know, the ceo of this company was on a couple of times. 4500 job openings right now. 600 hotels, they're going to be opening by 2015. that's a massive number of hotels that are going to be expanding and they're going to be opening up the world's largest hotel in dubai at the end of the year. but why do i bring this up? you could work internationally for a company like this. they also have a very good training program, fortune name them as one of the most admired

hotel chains in the country but again, a lot of the managers, the hotel managers started as hourly employees. they really like to promote from within and i always highlight that when companies push that because that means you may start out as a housekeeper and that's the job that they mainly have right now, front desk, people like that. but, you know, think about working your way up, you have to think a little bit longer term with some of these companies. >> sure, how about mayo clinic? lot of family history with that group. fantastic hospital chain. go ahead. >> not for profit medical practice, medical research. they're known for taking some of the most difficult medical cases that are out there. they've been very successful and very well respected. why do i bring up mayo clinic? 1600 jobs. they've got jobs mainly in phoenix. rochester, minnesota, jacksonville, florida. they need registered nurses. i mean, everybody needs registered nurses but they really need them. research, finance and administrative. and the benefits, obviously are very well and you get to work for the mayo clinic. >> quickly, mansfield? >> mansfield is an oil company, obviously, eric bolling knows this one. fuel supply, distribution, delivery, dispensing solutions.

they have 20 jobs open now. 50 down the line but the reason i'm bringing this one up, benefits. medical, dental, 401k. why do you have -- >> because i was -- >> gas pump on the show. >> dispensing opportunities. no? >> i like -- i like the prop. eric bolling known on the fox business network for his props, by the way. >> you can cheryl at noon on the fox business network and look out for her new weekly advice column on how to further your job search, you can find it at casoneexchange.com. thanks so much. >> can you bring that on the noon show as well? >> yeah. i probably could do something like that. >> much more "fox & friends" to come. rick santorum ratchetting up his anti-obama rhetoric. will his strategy work with voters? laura ingraham weighs in. plus bad teacher, too bad. one state making a deal with unions promising not to fire any teachers for incompetence. how does that happen? [ male announcer ] got a cold? [ sniffles ]

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>> gretchen: top of the morning to you. it's tuesday, february 21. i hope you're going to have a fantastic day. i'm gretchen carlson. rick santorum ratcheting up religion in his fight for the white house. >> it's very clear that if you hold those types of beliefs that you're going to be held up for ridicule for doing so. >> gretchen: but banking on morality, could it backfire for santorum? we'll report and you can decide. >> steve: meanwhile, high gas prices and the green energy debauchle giving the gop a new opportunity to attack. >> you can not put a gun rack in a volt. [ laughter ] >> steve: that's funny, newt. could a botched energy agenda cost democrats the upcoming election? laura ingraham weighs in live from dc next. >> eric: and the white house may

need another czar, a spelling czar. the vice president's staff makes a gaffe as he prepares to hit the road. the road. "fox & friends" starts right now ♪ >> gretchen: people are coming back out on the streets in new orleans. it's mardi gras. happy mardi gras. it's only 7:01 right now central standard time, i believe it will be. the people are getting ready to party again today. >> steve: the bars will be open right up through midnight and at the stroke of midnight, ash wednesday. and the partying is gonna to be over. get your beads, people. it's gonna to be a busy day in the big easy. >> gretchen: we'll be celebrating with a great band.

bosefus. they'll be ending our show today. it will knock your socks off. >> steve: brother polling is with us. >> eric: no hurricane drinks or anything issues yet. i'll wait until after. that people can see. >> gretchen: unless you'll drink it out of that gas nozzle. >> eric: no. >> steve: you know what? i bet there are bars in america where you can drink out of that. >> eric: that would be good. >> steve: yeah, give me something high octane. >> eric: wouldn't be cheap. >> gretchen: since you are the oil and gas man, you may refer -- >> steve: that's enough, thank you. >> gretchen: okay. we'll continue to figure out -- >> eric: an arm and a leg, steve. >> steve: ethel. >> gretchen: that answer will come to you later in the show. i got to do headlines with you now. we've fox news alert. while you were sleeping, greece won a second massive financial bailout. euro zone finance ministers struck a deal. guess what? they'll give the country $170 billion. agreement reached after 12 hours of talks at the european union

headquarters in belgium. stock markets here expected to rally when they open this morning. are they over 13,000? >> eric: not yet. >> gretchen: after the holiday, we could see big rally today. the names of four u.s. airmen killed in the military plane crash in africa now being released. they are 29-year-old air force captain nicholas hitlock of noonan, georgia. ryan hall of colorado springs. 26-year-old senior airman julian shutten of upper marlboro, maryland. 26-year-old first lieutenant justin wilkens of bend, oregon. cause of the crash not known. but according to initial reports, the plane was not under enemy fire when it went down. fox news extreme weather alert. check out these clouds in oklahoma. they're covering from a wind storm that left at least one person dead. storms brought hail, rain, 70 mile-an-hour winds. another person was hurt when a mobile home flipped over in a small town east of ada.

crews dug through to find survivors. several homes and businesses were also damaged throughout oklahoma city. his whirlwind nine-day trip to the vatican officially over. this morning, newly elevated cardinal timothy dolan flies back in time for ash wednesday services tomorrow. the visit, he said, wouldn't have been complete without one thing, his 84-year-old mom had to meet pope benedict. check out shirley dolan shaking the pope's hand. she asked if she could declare her first lady at the college of cardinals. i'm sure the pope obliged. >> steve: she would be the first lady then. laura ingraham joins us. hello. >> hello. how are you? >> steve: doing okay. speaking of religion, with now cardinal dolan, yesterday on this program, we were talk being some comments that rick santorum made and he referred to the president's phony theology. we're going to get your comments on this in a moment.

but first we'll play a clip from last night's hannity on the former senator reacting to accusations that he is a zealot. here is rick. >> all of a sudden now, because your moral values don't comport with what their moral values are, all of a sudden, oh, he must be trying to impose his values. this is the -- this makes it really a war on people of faith, particularly the catholic faith, which again, it's very clear what the obama administration is doing on that front and it's very clear that if you hold those types of belief, that you're going to object held up for ridicule. >> steve: a strong statement. laura? >> yeah. well, look, i think what rick was talk being in that previous comment when he was talking about the phony theology, something i've written about in my books, which is the obama and the church of the global warming. right? that there are acceptable theologies out there for which you won't be ridiculed and one

of them is this adherence to global warming theories, despite the evidence that's out there that calls some of the theories into question. so church of the global warming, it's something that a lot of us have written about and spoken about and i'm pretty sure that's what he was getting at, and because he didn't say it just that way, he's a religious zealot. i think there is a lot of zealotry to go around in washington today and the zell rotary of division and demonizing and if you happen to be a wealth creator, you're someone who has to forcibly have income taken from you to spread to all these other pet projects. i think that's zealotry. and what the obama administration has done with this green energy fantasy that they have. zealotry to throw taxpayer money down a rat hole because you have some fantasy about cars that run on broccoli fuel. that's what i think zealotry is. >> gretchen: they're micking social issues with the economy

and i'm wondering what i get out of this is that if rick santorum is the nominee, will we suddenly be discussing social issues again? will that come front and center, because will there be a sharp difference in many people's minds between santorum and obama on social issues? >> i think his point is one that -- if we don't regain our economic footing, the social issues are going to become irrelevant because once america goes into a position of a decline, those other issues become academic. they aren't going to be debated again because america is going to go by the wayside and become a member nation in a global authority. so i think that's what he's getting a. no one is going to mistake rick santorum for kind of a squishy, middle of the road republican, at least i wouldn't. and that's his world view. i don't see the big controversy here. but it's clear what the media wants to do with the controversy. >> eric: we've been talking this morning about what gop and right

leaning moderates might want as far as maybe another candidate, maybe another choice. 66% in a recent poll say they want a candidate with enough delegates to secure the nomination before the convention, but then if you go further down in the study, 55% say they wish they had someone else. what is that telling you? >> i wish i hit lotto last week, but i didn't get the ticket. i wish i could have stayed in mexico for a few more days. the reality is what the reality is. we all have to be mature about it and i get the feeling that you want to have this perfect candidate who sounds the right way and hits all the right notes and has all the answers for the president. i get that. okay? but we have to also say that every person who is running right now and still in this race has put their families and themselves through an enormous meat grinder. they've walked it. they've campaigned. they've gone across this country and worked really hard. there are a lot of other people

who had the chance to do that and they decided either, well, i have other priorities. i want to do tv shows or i want to make more money in real estate or maybe i want to build a house, whatever it was and that's fine. that means their priorities weren't saving the country. these people really think the country has to be saved and stuck their neck out and i think people should take them seriously as candidates. >> gretchen: that's a great point. i hadn't thought about all the hard work that goes into being a candidate. if somebody comes into this contested contest -- >> waltzes in. >> gretchen: yeah. they wouldn't have paid their dues to suddenly be there. >> yeah. and also, i guess jeb bush could just come into the convention -- i'm just throwing his name out for the sake of argument -- and a -- republicans are going to free angst free about the whole process? if we get o that place, republicans are going to be

extremely vulnerable. >> gretchen: what about the brokered convention? what about the idea that these four candidates don't get enough delegates moving into september and it goes back to 1948 where campaigns were not a -- the end result was not a foregone conclusion? what about that? is that good or bad? >> well, it is what it is. ideally, republicans would have a strong candidate now who would unite conservatives and hawks and social conservatives and everybody marching to the same tune. that's the ideal. but that's not what it is right now. the convention what we'll have is we maybe have that alliance we talked about before that didn't happen in january. maybe that alliance does form and this whole issue goes away. within candidate seizes delegates to the other. that's probably what will happen. >> eric: can i add a sports analogy to this and it does apply perfectly. like saying, well, spring training and the yankees, they had a lot of games, they really worked hard and hitting the

weight rooms, but if you have a guy that comes in that can hit the homerun or another guy that comes in that can throw fast 100 miles an hour fast balls and shut the other team down, don't you want him on the team? don't you want this guy to be the leader of your team, even though he didn't go through spring training? >> gretchen: who is that. >> yeah what, candidate is that? what player is that? i guess it's possible, but all i'm saying is the idea that that's all we should be waiting for and oh, my god, if this happens, we'll all be saved, i think you've got to be very careful, sort of gaming this out to say, if, if, only jeb or if only paul ryan or if only -- it's not that simple. it's extremely chaotic and we don't know even know how the rules go at the convention. it's very fungible. we don't know who will be in charge of how it is all doled out. >> gretchen: we might have to dig through the dust to find out. >> yeah. it's foreign territory for a lot of us covering this and for the pear itself. >> steve: one thing that all the republicans are beating up the president on right now is the high cost of gas.

there is a gas station in new york city where it's 4.50 a gallon. >> that's nothing. >> steve: when you look at how hard the president tried to get that payroll tax cut that averages 20 bucks per week, you know, who isn't spending that and more, on the gas? so we were supposed to put it in the bank. instead we're putting it in the tank. >> i've been clanging the pots on this issue for quite some time on my radio show and i started tweeting every time i fill up my car, which is very exciting, i know. >> steve: it cost you $92 last week. >> yes! it does. >> steve: i saw it. >> you're on my tweet. so 93 bucks last week to fill up my yes, suv, which i'm proud of. and i think four years ago it cost like 63 or something like that, three years ago. so this is real money. this is money people spend every week. obama wants credit for growing some jobs every month, well, okay, he's got to take credit

and ownership of the things that aren't working and their little dance they're doing on how many acres in the offshore drilling areas that they've opened up has also been shown to be completely false compared to what bush opened up on the pacific coast and the east coast. so they've opened up almost nothing. >> steve: time for a prius, laura. >> no way, baby. you can't blow by the big semis on the highways with a prius. >> gretchen: you can't load your kids either. >> no. >> gretchen: thanks. we'll see you. why teachers deemed incompetent are getting their slates now wiped clean? >> eric: then we showed think video last hour. he lost his son in iraq. now he's burning a flag. you've been e-mailing us with your thoughts. we'll share a few of those in just a minute.

>> steve: another victory for the teachers unions and those being protected by them in a deal struck between new york state and its teachers union. thousands of troubled educators will be given a clean slate. >> eric: prior trouble or discrepancies? no problem under the terms of the no public school teacher in new york state can be fired for imcompetence until june of 2014. >> steve: here to explain, kyle olson, the one behind "the tale of two missions" and founder of the education inaction group. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> steve: so new yorkers woke up a while back and saw the paper, hey, they're going to start getting rid of these teachers who do a bad job. then you realize, wait a minute. it doesn't start until the next term and then teachers are going to be given two years where they've got to be deemed as doing a lousy job.

>> that's right. what's been happening is states now are moving towards evaluating teachers because teachers have not been in a meaningful way, been evaluated around the country. so now states are moving towards that. what's having to happen is they are having to negotiate that process, that evaluation process with the union. so what happened in new york is the unions said okay. we'll go along with that, but all of the teachers that have had substandard marks and those sorts of things, their slate will be wiped clean, they'll start from the beginning and move forward. so what's happening now is that there are 7,000 teachers that michael bloomberg's office, the mayor of new york city and his office controls the schools -- 7,000 teachers, they would like out of the classroom. but because of this agreement, they have to wait a minimum of two years in order to start that process. >> steve: that is crazy. >> eric: so is it performance? is it they've done something

wrong in the classroom? is it all of the above? >> it's all the above. an administrator said this teach service not having a profound effect on the class. teachers in the rubber room, teachers in the absent teacher reserve program. it's many, many teachers. this is a perfect example, i think, of where the unions are not putting the interest of children first. we talk about this every single week where examples from around the country where the union is not butting the interest of children first. so what i'd like to do this morning is challenge randy wine garten, who oversaw these negotiations, have her come on your program, you're harmless, right? and have her come on your program and just give us one example, one example where her union puts the interest of children first. >> steve: that is -- you know what? the invitation stands if they're watching right now. let's face it, 7,000 teachers,

this administration -- >> eric: a lot of money at stake. >> steve: all right. kyle, thank you very much for joining us today from grand rapids to tell bus this crazy story. >> thank you very much. >> eric: coming up, is the world health organization holding a potential bioterror threat over terrorists -- handing over to terrorist as soon as dr. mark sile is on the case. >> steve: we've got mardi gras music on this fat tuesday. here is a preview. the full performance coming up! ♪ what's this? it's progresso's loaded potato with bacon.

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>> steve: quick headlines. two iranian warships that docked in a syrian port as a warning for the united states to stay out of the fight there have reportedly left. iran says the united states better not send weapons to the rebels trying to overthrow the syrian president or else. he robbed a supreme court justice by machete and got away. but not for long. police now say they have their man. they arrested a local man for robbing justice steven breyer on the caribbean island. that guy is accused of stealing $1,200 at machete point. gretch? >> gretchen: despite concerns that it could be used by terrorists to start a pandemic, the world health organization will release full details of two studies on the bird flu.

it shows how the bird flu, which is mainly seen in birds, can be mutate to do easily affect humans. so why would they release this? joining me, the author of "bird flu, everything you need to know about the next pandemic," dr. mark siegle. you've got it covered in your book, right? >> let me take you back. in 1997, a bird flu virus that had been killing millions of birds suddenly started infecting humans. over the next 14, 15 years, it's infected 600 and half of them have died. so people are very afraid of this virus going easily from human to human. one scientist says, wait a minute. maybe many more people were infected than that and we don't even know about t. maybe it's not as bad a virus as we think. scientists have tried to manipulate this virus over the past 14 years to get it so it could travel easily human to human. why would they do that? why would they create the next contagion movie in real life? the answer is that scientists

need to understand how viruses work in order to prevent a pandemic from happening. they want to know what it would take. now, even if they get it so it could travel from you to me and all over the place, it's still no guarantee we'll actually happen. now there is a debate, should this be published in what if terrorists get it? anybody can use this. we're already afraid of bioterrorism. >> gretchen: so this report, which right now, 22 bird flu experts met in geneva to discuss this. they decided to eventually release it over the next few months. is it the world health organization leader? >> from the nih. >> gretchen: he disagrees. he's the american who disagrees with releasing it. you disagree with releasing it. why? >> because i'm concerned it actually has too much information in it. i agree with people that say it's not likely that a terrorist could actually use this to create a pandemic. but not likely is not impossible. i think we're going to have more and more problems with this going forward.

we have to look at the fact that we've got this internet now and we have terrorists out there. i also think scientists can use this information without it being widely available. scientists can pass this information from one to the other and they've already been doing it. gretchen, every scientist that needs to know this information already knows it. >> gretchen: why would -- what would be the argument for releasing it to the general public? >> it has to do almost with a first amendment right. you have this information. how can you possibly withhold it? should science ever be curtailed? should science ever be cut back? my argument would be in a case like this, yes. it should be rare, but if you think there is a potential public danger, you should cut back on the release of information. so i end up siding with souchi on this. the united states did, too. the united states is not agreeing with this information should be widely available and i agree with that. i think in this case with the potential danger, even though small, we should hold back. >> gretchen: all right. looks like it will be released none the less. thanks so much for your

thoughts. >> thane. >> gretchen: we showed you this video last hour. he lost his son in iraq, now he's burning a flag. you've been e-mailing us your thoughts and we will share them next. and the vice president's staff makes this gaffe. can you see what it is? been there before? ok, guys-- what's next ?

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>> eric: your shot of the morning. talk about caught in the act. watch this. checking out princess mary of denmark. he quickly looks away when she sees him. but the princess maintained her royal composure and smiled. >> gretchen: oopsy daisy. he's human. >> steve: he's in trouble. >> gretchen: allall right. you guys would never do that, right? at least not on camera. >> steve: inappropriate. earlier we told you a story about a guy out in michigan. his name is john birry. he lost his son in iraq. he was very upset that new jersey governor chris christie ordered the flags in new jersey lowered to half-staff for whitney houston. what did he do?

he lit on fire right there, that's a new jersey state flag. >> gretchen: so here is john, why he did it. >> maybe it's a little drastic. that's a little extreme. i'm sorry. this is how much it hurts. this is how much of a slap in the face it is to all that have served and given their life. >> gretchen: his son died in the war. there you can see the photo of his son behind him. so he felt that strongly about it. i don't know if any of us can really know, unless we've lost our child, in the war. i don't know how we can really say how that would feel or if we can pass judgment on any person who has gone through that kind of sadness. >> steve: what he says is he believes flags should only be lowered for those who died serving their country. we asked you what you thought. you e-mailed us. somebody in new jersey is rachel. >> eric: the sadness we feel for whitney houston who sang patriotically doesn't diminish our esteem and honor fort fallen

soldiers. i sympathize with the man's feelings, but don't agree with his burning of the state flag. >> gretchen: gabby said totally agree. cannot compare military service people with the crazies of hollywood. >> steve: the governor defended his remarks, calling her a daughter of new jersey and a cultural icon and if you watch the funeral on this past saturday when he was selected for a nod there in attendance, he got a standing ovation. >> gretchen: let's move on to the vice president of the united states. you know in the past he has made gaffes (come on. >> gretchen: just -- >> eric: come on. >> gretchen: just a couple. a lot of people love joe biden 'cause you never know what's going to happen next. now, has it become contagious? has it gone down to his press staff? 'cause they put out a press release that talked about the schedule for the president. he'll be going up and down the east expose actually going to go to rhode island. but we all know how it spell rhode island. right? it's not actually -- island is

not the name of a road there. it's spelled a little differently than how it came out. >> steve: if you're going to misspell one of the words wrong, it would be providence. it's tougher. somebody on the staff made this mistake. >> eric: this is a big deal. >> gretchen: they were not a rhodes scholar. >> steve: excuse me? >> eric: remember when he whispered into obama's ear? >> gretchen: i'm going to go to headlines. after that, evangelical leaders now joining roman catholics in the fight against the president's new birth control mandate. family research council president tony perkins speaking out against the man it is date saying, quote, this is not a catholic issue. we will not tolerate any denomination having their religious freedom impinged upon by the government. at least 2500 evangelicals signed a letter urging president obama to reverse the requirement, forcing church groups to carry insurance that

provides free birth control. >> eric: police in california led on a chase after a truck is reported stolen and check it out. the suspect tried -- >> steve: whoa. >> eric: the long arm of the law, he jumps from the truck while still moving and makes a run for it. he didn't get too far and neither did the rest of the people in the truck. police caught the runner a short time later and the three suspects still in the truck were arrested. >> steve: he almost wound up with his shnoz in the back of that car. meanwhile, look at these images. red hot magma. meet the cool blue northern lights. that's lava erupting from a volcano in iceland at the exact same moment as the aurora borealis. >> gretchen: wow. a lot of waiting time. beautiful shot. it's the reunion that's got

many shaking their head. rihanna and chris brown back together, possibly making music again? both released new songs on the same day, featuring each other. it was three years ago when brown brutally assaulted the singer and some celebrities aren't forgetting his bad behavior. it's called abuse, actually. country superstar miranda lambert said he should listen to her song titled "gun powder and lead." >> i just have to speak, beating up on a woman is never okay. [ cheers and applause ] that's what my daddy told me early on in life how to use shotgun. >> gretchen: brown fired back, saying, quote, using my name to get publicity, i love it. perform your heart out. go buy miranda lambert's album, so motivational and perfect. interesting. >> steve: i don't think he meant go buy her album. he was being polite. all right. coming up, we put your oscar

knowledge to the test, like which film gave martin scorcese his first oscar for best director? the answer is there somewhere. fred willard is here next to reveal the answer because he wrote the book on movie trivia. >> eric: plus, it's fat tuesday and what better way to celebrate than to listen to the great sounds of new orleans. ♪ ♪ i had enough of feeling embarrassed about my skin.

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>> gretchen: 42 minutes after the top of the hour. first google was accused of bypassing privacy settings. now microsoft says google is breaching privacy controls on internet explorer. but microsoft says the privacy settings on the newest version of internet explorer cannot be bypassed. and small town in new hampshire on the verge of buying an armored military truck? the town accepting the $285,000 grant from the u.s. department of homeland security for an eight ton armored personnel carrier. some folks are outraged, saying the town has no need for that tank. >> steve: let's hope they never do. look, special animation. he's appeared in dozens of tv shows and movies, fred willard, that funny guy who is always making people laugh. fred, watch yourself.

>> oh who cut the question mark on the teleprompter? for the last time, anything you on there, burgundy will read. >> gretchen: joining us, actor comedian fred willard. good morning to you. >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. i'm not going to give the weather report. but it's chilly. >> steve: it's winter. >> you can't be cold in february in new york, when can it be? >> steve: if it's not, we're in trouble. you're in new york to do hamlet, right? >> that's the word through the broadway community. seriously, i'm doing a reading tonight at the players club of hamlet. i've never done shakespeare. it's thrill. so i'm reading horatio. >> gretchen: in the meantime, you've been spending your time putting together movie trivia. >> that's an exciting one and they asked me to come out and mention it because it's almost the oscar time and it's a good thing to take to an oscar party. there is a lot -- they not only

give you the answer to the question, but a little trivia connected to it. it's fascinating. i don't know half the answers in it. >> gretchen: we probably don't either. but you're going to quiz us. >> i think i will. you want me to quiz you now? >> steve: we put the questions into the teleprompter, which ron would read anything. now it's your turn. all right? question number 1? >> which was martin scorcese's first academy award as director? you get multiple choice. you don't need that. i'll start you out. it's "the departed." >> steve: was that the answer? >> yeah. >> gretchen: you can't give us the answers. >> what was the first color motion picture to win the academy award? >> steve: first color motion picture? can you give us multiple choice? "gone with the wind"!

>> what was marlon brando's first academy award nomination? >> steve: "cat on a hot tin roof." >> you're swimming here. you're over your head. >> gretchen: come on! help me! >> here is one that has nothing to do with academy award. >> steve: you play trivia and charade, kind of. >> gretchen: 'cause we need it. >> i'm too nice let people floppedder. dracula, how many times did he play dracula? >> steve: one? >> two! abbott and costello meet someone. all right. make my day was from -- everyone thinks of dirty harry. i forget myself.

what? "sudden impact ." >> gretchen: you are never going to be president of the united states 'cause you can not read the teleprompter. you are not using it, fred. we've never been able to use our cards. >> steve: who came up with the questions? >> actually the publishers did. then they contacted -- >> steve: did you put your name on it? >> they asked me for some up put and i put a little input. but they came up with all the -- one thing that's good about it, not only gives the inworks it also a little trivia, hike on the set, so and so did this. >> eric: which preliminaried earned julia roberts an oscar nomination? >> gretchen: i know ha -- that. "pretty woman." right? >> it's kind of tricky, if you turn the page.

"pretty woman." >> gretchen: all right. i got one right. talk about the shows that you're doing right now. >> i just did a show in london called "trust us with your life," which is fantastic. i was the interviewer. i first interviewed jerry springer. at any point in his life, i would say hold it, that's a good spot for our improvisors to act out. we had four improvisors who were so funny, they would jump up and improvise this circumstance of his life and it was fascinating. we had david hasselhoff, the osborne kids, vienna williams. we did eight of them. they're in the can, as they say at abc, waiting to be unveiled. so they're either going to be a huge smash or never be seen again. but they were fun. >> steve: you know something about impromptu performances being a legend at the second city. >> i refer to myself as that. yes. it's awfully tough, improv. wayne brady, guys on a series called "trust us with your

life." >> gretchen: they were so good. >> create a scene in a minute. rickey injury -- gervais saying stop this. >> steve: his movie trivia. >> gretchen: can you read the tease out? >> eric: over here. >> do not miss fred willard in horatio in hamlet. no, it's fat tuesday. what better way to celebrate than to listen to the great sounds of new orleans music? first let's check in with bill hemmer for what's on at the top of the hour. >> i'm honored, fred. well done. you're great at promotion, too. 'cause you saw exactly on that prompter that your show needed to be promoted. what happened to wizard of oz? didn't that win? >> gretchen: that was going to be my guess! >> that was a tough year for the academy awards.

>> steve: you want to go upstairs and do his show? >> newt gingrich says your gun rack won't fit in your chevy volt. how gas prices suddenly exploded in the political arena. what do voters see in rick santorum? larry sabato analyzes some new polling numbers that tell an interesting story for the next two states, arizona and michigan. guess which republican governors are trying to cut taxes? this is fascinating. how about a tax break if you grow a mustache? lather up. we'll see you in ten minutes on "america'sne newsroom" three. one. -two. -three. -one. -two. -three. [ male announcer ] with the bankamericard cash rewards credit card, earn 1% cash back everywhere, every time. 2% back on groceries. and 3% back on gas. automatically. no hoops to jump through. -it's as easy as...one. -two. -three. [ male announcer ] 1, 2, 3 percent cash back for the things you buy most. the bankamericard cash rewards card.

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>> gretchen: it's mardi gras and party time. you're looking at a live picture of bourbon street where people are getting ready to kick off their celebrations. we're already getting started

right here on "fox & friends" with a band, brother bosephus. hey, guy. >> hey,. >> gretchen: and gals. >> steve: you're going to do a number, a child shall lead. i have a feeling there will be an umbrella in it. you guys ready? here is your fat tuesday tune, folks! ♪ ♪ ♪

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we know you'd like to see the same information your advisor does so you can get a deeper understanding of what's going on with your portfolio. we know all this because we asked you, and what we heard helped us create pnc wealth insight, a smarter way to work with your pnc advisor, so you can make better decisions and live achievement. >> gretchen: coming up tomorrow, larry sabato, and kenny thomas will join us