[ male announcer ] nothing says, "you're my #1 copilot," like a milk-bone biscuit. ♪ say it with milk-bone. this morning, my question, is wall street finally investing in distressed communities or risking another housing fail? plus, an important vote in the middle of the night in west virginia. and harvard's hip hop fellow comes, of course, to nerdland. but first, nearly two days later and the search for an airplane and answers continues. and good morning. i am ari melber in for melissa harris-perry. it has been nearly 48 hours since the last contact was made with malaysia airlines flight mh

703 seen here in a 2009 photo. it took off friday from kuala lumpur and was scheduled to land in beijing, saturday, at 5:30 friday afternoon here on the east coast. the u.s. is now joining china and other countries in bolstering this search with the federal and tsv sending investigators to help. a navy p-3 has arrived in the area, nbc news reports both are searching over the last-known communication and radar positions of the flight. malaysia airlines held a press conference earlier today. >> so far, there's no sign of the aircraft. and although we have confirmed reports of some oil spills, but there's not been verified. and not been verified, not been confirmed by the authorities. >> some officials also think the plane may have tried to turn around before disappearing, but

239 people on board. now, phillip wood, an ibm executive and 50-year-old father of two is one of the three american passengers on that flight manifest. we now have a statement from his family, which reads in part, phillip wood was a man of god, a man of honor and integrity. we ask for your prayers, not only for ourselves, but for all involved during this difficult time. as a family, we're sticking together through christ to get through this. and it is, of course, a terribly difficult time for all the families of the passengers. wood's brother, tom, also spoke to our nbc affiliate in dallas, kxas. >> just shock, you know? this kind of thing doesn't happen, you know? like, this shouldn't be happening. this shouldn't happen to us. >> he was excited to be moving kuala lumpur, you know, he was telling me how beautiful it was. he was my hero, my friend, and we were very close. so it's tough. it's tough times. >> and as investigators search for clues to what happened here

to this plane, there is a growing concern over the two passengers who apparently boarded this flight using stolen passports. interpol this morning confirmed that the stolen documents were l listed in its database, but no checks on those stolen passports were made by any nation. european authorities confirm the stolen european-issued document was issued to luigi maraldi and the austrian passport was under the name christian kozel. one senior u.s. official said, quote, we've not determined a nexus to terrorism yet, although it's still very early, and that's by no means definitive. joining us now is cnbc's grarra in kuala lumpur. we have a little bit of a tape delay on our satellite, so just tell us, what is the latest, what do we know? >> reporter: well, the latest, ari, is that a press conference

just wrapped up here about two hours ago, at the airport hotel that you can see behind me, and unfortunately, it's not really good news. the director general of the civil aviation authority here in malaysia have said despite extensive search, they have yet to find any remnants of this missing plane, of mh-370. and it's almost 48 hours since this flight disappeared off the radar. but you've got to remember, they are covering an extensive spade of water here between the malaysian peninsula and vietnam as well. this is a huge, huge exercise, search and rescue operation, involving a flotilla, if you will, of almost 40 naval vessels from at least seven different countries. you mentioned the u.s. southern fleet, also australia, singapore has assets in those waters as well. on top of that, there's an arir

yell search as well. 24 aircraft are involved. but as of now, they have not found any dwrebris. they have not found the missing aircraft. the only real tangible lead we have are two large oil slicks that are found off southern vietnam. now, what we understand is that the authorities here have got the oil, they've got the material oil, and they are running it through the analysis, through the labs, and they are yet to determine and verify whether this oil did come from the airliner in question, mh-370. at this point, they are exploring all the possibilities. but the main message here, the main priority here is to find this aircraft. ari, back to you. >> thank you, cnbc's sri jegabrara. now joining us, a consultant to boston's logan airport. thanks for joining us.

walk us through what, if anything, we should make of the missing passports in this story. >> well, one thing has been established, and that is the fact that there are two passengers on board the aircraft that we don't know who they are. and they must have had reason to conceal their identity, which is probably related to something illegal that they were involved in. whether this is terrorism or something else, this is yet to be determined. but at this point in time, this is one of the focal points of the investigation and until the investigators would reach a conclusion about the identity of these two people and the and will be able to make assumptions about their intentions, we will not be able to clear that possibility off the table.

>> yeah, i appreciate your note of caution there, rafi. and another big question that people have when they look at this situation is, all right, we obviously know a lot more about the passengers on this manifest because of this incident. how frequent, though, in your experience, doing airport security consulting, how frequent would you find a flight with say, one or two people who had false documentation? >> well, i think that one of the areas that perhaps was less effectively covered since we started qulemting most of the airport security procedure is the issue of identification of passengers. the reason for that, we have been verifying documents rather than people. when somebody presented a passport, we were looking at the passport and checking the passport, and there was very little that we knew about the person. it has been only lately that by

ometric signatures like fingerprinting or other biometric signatures, have been added to identification documents, but at this point in time, most passports around the world, including european and ours, do not include the biometric signature. >> yeah. i want to ask you one more question, briefly. when you look at this type of situation, a plane that literally vanishes and a few days out, people want answers, but the investigators want to be careful. as we continue to follow this, when will we know what happened, in your view? >> i think the final answer will be when the aircraft will be found, and we would have access to the information in the black box. as long as we don't have access to that, i think that we would not be able to reach a

conclusive decision. >> all right. thank you very much, rafi ron in washington. appreciate your views here and your expertise. what we are going to do next is brick in a pretty awesome panel i will tell you about. we'll stay on top of this story, but also look at the latest developments in ukraine and the masculinity crisis that faces president obama. if you've been following the news or cpac, you may have heard about that. so please, stay with us. fruit, with fresh mint. new herbal essences naked shampoo. no silicone, parabens or dyes. [ wind whisping ] bare your softest hair with new herbal essences naked. [ woman ] ahh. even the ends of my hair are tingling. [ female announcer ] herbal essences. [ ding ] aye, or...a mornin' of tiny voices crying out, "feed us -- we've awakened from our long winter's nap and we're peckish to the point of starvin'"!! i don't understand... your grass, man! it's a living, breathing thing. it's hungry, and you've got to feed it with scotts turf builder. that a boy, mikey! two feedings now...in the springtime strengthens and helps protect your lawn from future problems.

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welcome back. this weekend, international leaders continued their efforts to bring about a diplomatic solution to the tense situation in the crimea region of ukraine. on sunday, the ukrainian prime minister said he would travel the u.s. this weak for high-level talks about the crisis. yesterday, for the fourth day in a row, secretary of state john kerry spoke directly with

russian foreign minister sergey lavrov about those issues with crimea. steps to annex the region to russia would close steps for diplomacy. the foreign minister denied they have direct involvement in crimea and accused the ukrainian government of taking orders from extremists. latv latvia, the united kingdom, estonia, and italy, and according to the white house, human rights monitors into crimea, such observers have been repeatedly blocked from using the region. the white house said that on the calls, the leaders rejacketed the planned referendum to leave ukraine and joined russia in saying it would be, quote, a violation to join russia would be a violation of ukraine's constitution. any decision about the future of the nation must involve the central government in kiev. joining us now for a report from

kiev and to tell us more about the situation there is nbc news correspondent, ian williams. ian, tell us, how is this planned succession vote being perceived by the ukrainian government or the people there? >> reporter: well, there's a lot of frustration here, ari, and a sense that this creeping annexation is going forward with no apparent impact, no apparent influence on the russians from the threats of sanctions and, of course, still no discussions within the ukrainian government and the russians. now, today is a big day here in ukraine. behind me in the square there are thousands that have gathered to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of a big cultural figure here. but underlying the somber mood here is a lot of anger about events in crimea. we've seen protesters on the square, demanding that putin gets out, that he gets his hands

off crimea. there's a similar protest today down in simferopol, the capital of crimea, where several hundred gathered under a statue, demanding unity. but several hundred russians assembled in a nearby square under a statue of lennon, singing patriotic russian songs and there were minor clashes on the fringes of that, with russians chasing down a number of ukrainian supporters and some beatings, one with a whip. so fairly ugly scenes there. and increasing tension as we run up to this referendum, which has been called illegal and unconstitutional, not only by the ukrainian government, but also by the west, ari. >> and ian, you look at that referendum, which will be a week from today. you look at the world's eyes on ukraine. do you feel from being there and talking to folks that they see this and realize how much attention there is, what kind of

almost cold war dynamics there are over this dispute, or are folks just obviously more focused on their day-to-day lives there? >> i think people here are very worried, ari. and they do realize that the tension of the world is on ukraine. the president here, who we interviewed just two or three days ago said he was confident the world would not desert his country. and there's a real feeling and a real hope that pressure from the west, from the europeans, from washington, can have some impact on russia, on president putin, but the reality on the ground down there, with more and more troops moving in, it seems, a convoy of unmarked vehicles arriving in crimea yesterday, the belligerence, more border posts being taken care of, still a refoouls to let in international security monitors. the sense with the referendum coming that putin is in a real hurry to annex crimea as quickly as he can, or maybe establish a

fact on the ground down there before the west can effectively push back. also, a feeling here that irrespective of what happens in crimea, they need really to stabilize the situation in thin ukraine. >> ian williams in kiev, ukraine. thank you for joining us. we'll turn now to our foreign policy here at the table, ian brerp, elise jordan, contributor for the daily beast now and formerly a speechwriter for condoleezza rice. and katrina vanden heuvel, my boss from "the nation" magazine. and of course, professor dorian warren, an mhp first hand and a professor at the department of political science at the school of international public affairs at columbia university. welcome to you all. ado dorian wh dorian, when you look at this countdown, no agreement between

the main players between russia and what we might call the west on the legitimacy soft this looming vote. >> and i don't think there will be by the time we get to next sunday. i think there are so many options that are limited at this point, not only for the u.s., but also for countries in the eu, it's unclear what could possibly be done to stop this process in the immediate future, in terms of the referendum, as well as, look, crimea's probably going to be annexed to russia. so we have to think about what are all the tools in the tool box to prevent this, or at least to try to isolate russia. and they are actually weak tools that we have. >> and katrina, you've studied and written about russia for a long time and spent time with leaders from various eras. what are we learning about this phase of the putin era? >> first of all, ukraine is so deeply divided, your correspondent is standing in kiev and this situation deserves more common sense, more history, more realism. the history, which is important, promises broke 20 years ago,

james baker, then secretary of state, george h.w. bush, soviet leader mikhail gorbachev that after the collapse of the berlin wall, nato would not expand one inch eastward. we now see seven or eight warsaw-packed countries, three former soviet countries in nato. the more recent history, and this is contested, but in november, there didn't need to be an either/or for ukraine between the european association agreement and the russian customs union. what was on the table was the eu offering $160 million for five years over five years. ukraine is bankrupt. this is a sober reality. and it's going to require a negotiated settlement to provide for the territorial integrity of ukraine, for fair and free elections, fair and free because russia, and i'm, you know, russia does not consider the kiev government legitimate. fair and free elections, a promise not to expand nato into

ukraine, and an agreement that ukraine can be part of both eu and the russian customs union. i mean, the scope and scale of what confronts this country, if it's going to be a democratically viable, economically viable country, requires we stop this talk of cold war. no americans, by the way, have desire or reason to go to war with russian over ukraine. no european does. so let's stop the bluster, let's work towards a negotiated settlement. and putin, i guarantee you, you may know more about this, but the back channels are being worked like crazy, angela merkel is critical. >> and katrina's raising such an important point here. if we take this conflict serious will, and not just look at it as everything russia's doing is awful and terrible because we don't like their leader or something, the point about nato is, there is a legitimate argument on that side that nato was originally designed to be something defense i haive and t

feel it has become offensive. >> sure. >> look, everything we've done so far from this administration and from the u.s. media has been, russia is awful and their behaviors are unjustified. i agree with katrina's history, but there's a more recent history as well, which is the european foreign ministers, the germans, the poles, went to kiev, they pushed really hard and got a deal signed with the president, and the opposition. they didn't like that deal. usually you work really hard for a day and end up with a deal that nobody likes and everybody signs it. it's a sign that it's a compromise. that deal was breached within a day. and the russians therefore see it as illegitimate. look, i don't like the russian position on this. putin fostered bloodshed to get a couple billion dollars during the olympics. he told yanukovych, you crack some heads. my problem with the obama policy is it's predicated on two things that are false. number one, that we can effectively isolate the

russians. we can't. our businesses won't support it and our allies in europe don't want to. not even to kick them out of the g-8. the germans have said no to that. do you think they going to sp t support sanctions? they won't. number two, it's predicated on the notion that we can push the russians hard enough they won't push with this revolution in crimea. that's false. they're going to do. >> and the energy markets won't really deal with this level of isolation we're threatening either. >> i don't think so, but i also think we could crack down on the oligarchs and the cloe. and if you put pressure on the oligarch's wallets, that puts pressure on putin. >> but elise, it's interesting that the government in kiev have appointed ukrainian oligarchs to be governs of regions, which is a violation of the very protests the brave, courageous people

were saying, we want an end to corruption, whether it's yanukovych or the oligarchs. >> exactly. that's the problem, too, they have to have some type of reconciliation within their own government and we aren't seeing that right now in what the opposition has pushed forward. >> let me pick up on that, because we're going to go to a break. when we get back from the break, we'll have a shirtless picture of putin, which i know something is something we wanted to get to. the message some republicans are having has a not so subtle ring to it. but we have an update that we were reporting a segment about cpac. last night, trults did come in on their famous straw po, kentucky senator rand paul was the bigger winner. he came in with 31% of the 2,459 votes, 20 points ahead of ted cruz. it was the second win in a row for rand paul, who ron paul, who won the poll as well.

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androgel 1.62%. as we make sense of the escalating tensions in ukraine, a major theme has emerged in our domestic political response here at home. >> every time the president goes on national television and threatens putin or anyone like putin, everybody's eyes roll, including mine. we have a weak and indecisive president. >> putin decides what he wants to do and he does it in half a day. that's what you call a leader. president obama, he's got to think about it, he's got to go over it again, he's got to talk to more people about it. >> i know the only time vladimir put putin shivers is when he he has shirt off in a cold russian winter. that he's not the least bit worried about what we think of him or what that we may pretend we're going to do about it. >> look it, people are looking

at putin as one that wrestles bears and drills for oil. they look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates. >> yes, the manly, strong-willed, decisive putin versus the wimpy, whiney, president obama. according to these ideas, putin evinces strength, he wrestles bears, he goes shirtless in the weren't, and he invades crimea. he's a hunky, shirt leman on the cover of a romance novel like this one we made for you. but the president is reduced to some sort of stereotype view of a female approach. now, this use of stale gender roles is an epic fail. but it also has real consequences. perhaps more than any other debate we have, foreign policy turns on frameworks, on paradigms. in the cold war, it was the domino theory that if one

country became communist, more would follow. after 9/11, it was bush's framework that countries were either with us or against us. and today, we have to ask, should we accept a framework of personality, that our geo strategic interests should turn on whether our leader strikes a tough personality. >> i think the toughest and hardheaded, by the way, mean is no new ideas can come into your head, have lead us into unnecessary wars, have led us into military adventures that have looted the treasure and lives of our country. putin, i mean, you know, the right, it's interesting, doesn't know whether to bash putin or bash obama, which one to hate more. they get all confused. there you see giuliani's man crush on putin, you see sarah palin all confused. i think the more serious question here, any might, is to step back a little bit. and was it masculinity or weakness that led the two leaders, putin and obama, to extricate this country from military action in syria, which

was a very wise thing to do, and on behalf of everybody, and was strong leadership. the danger is, our leadership is too often defined by militaryism, by military means. when the challenges of our time from extreme inequality and extreme poverty change to economic instability demand not militaryism and not a guy strutting around in the forest with his shirt off, but sober, tough diplomacy. >> well, first of all, i would just like to question why we are dignifying sarah palin's comments, when she's not proven exactly to be a huge russia expert. >> she can see russia from alaska. >> we're highlighting some of the more base elements of commentary on putin. and so, i think it's a little bit comical. >> it is comical, which is part of why we're talking about it, but it is also everywhere. and let me pick up your pushback and then go back to you for a response. michael crowley is at "time" magazine. he is the chief foreign affairs

magazine for "time" magazine. let me put up on the screen what he put on twitter that got picked up on fox news and by a lot of other places. he put up a tweet of barack obama riding a bicycle and putin on the horse, the famous picture. and he says, as a journalist, he says, not a character judgment, but this does kind of capture the moment. and there's been a lot of that discussion in the press, because we put this up, we reached out to michael and he said, well, the tweet illustrates the white house's line that this is a 21st century view versus a 19th century one. obama believes in following orderly rules, acting with prudence and caution. putin's world view is brutish. but a lot of the media has looked at this as saying, basically, putin's tougher. >> well, putin, when he makes a threat, he follows up on it. and i do think that obama's syria policy of setting a red line and not following up on the red line has been really disastrous. and i think that you make a threat, you have to -- and he needs to be more careful with his rhetoric. which i think this go-around, he

is being more careful and trying not to make threats that he isn't going to follow up on. but i do find the state department's posture throughout all of this very interesting. that facts, ten corrections about what russia has said about this crisis, that is the most aggressive, grefly political document i think i've ever seen out of a state department press office. >> we're putting that up on the screen. it did get our attention and a lot of people's attention. a lot of folks thought it was a misfire. let me get your response. >> what's frustrating an this conversation is the fundamental contradiction about president obama on the right. on the one hand with domestic policy, he's a dictator, he's all-powerful, it's part of a big conspiracy, nobody can stop him. he's taken over the government. but then on foreign policy, all of a sudden, he is the weakest person in the world. he's not manly enough. they can't have it both ways. >> let me push back on that to ian and then elise, i see you want to get in. lbj had a big, warm, bleeding heart at home. civil rights act, voting rights

act, the great society. i love lbj as a domestic american president. and i think he was, if you want to use this weird frame, he was a softy and he was a militant invading guy on foreign policy. you can have two world views, ian. speak to elise's point that the president made a mistake on syria that's haunting him now. is that valid? >> yes, of course it is. look. i don't think this is about bomb being feminine. this is about obama talking strong and blustering, and then not following through. that's typical guy behavior, from my perspective. but the fact is, look, as syria, you push really hard, you set a red line, you then backed off a red line, you asked congress for a vote, and at the last minute, you went to russia and took chemical weapons that probably won't get implemented. 150 syrians dead. they don't care if they're killed by chemical weapons or by -- >> let me get -- when we come back. when we come back, let me get katrina and elise's response to that. we have to take this break. also, we have liam neeson from

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welcome back. we've been talking about the issue of perception and manliness when it comes to president obama and putin. now, i just want to show this panel, we've been going pretty hot here, a clip from last night's "saturday night live". >> vladimir, watch closely. we're going to speak to you now a language you can understand. >> obama! >> you know, you got to -- >> you got -- >> you got to take your shirt off if you want to be taken seriously. >> you know, ari, someone who's studied russian history, putin comes, he was appointed by yeltsin.

his first act was to give yeltsin and his family immunity. but yeltsin was a doddering drunk. so putin had to come in and show the country there was someone in charge. the fact he needs to do it with his shirt off, he is an athlete. two points, we were talking about syria. i think the ability to avert military strikes, and i don't know why you don't think weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons won't be destroyed per diplomacy, as according to war, was critical. we also need russia moving forward, for better or worse, to manage syria, to negotiate with iran, which is critical. to deal with terrorism. to manage china. the last point we were talking about is lbj, okay. lbj, to me, this is a measure of the -- how weak toughness is in our country. that is, he didn't want to escalate in vietnam. he didn't want to be perceived as soft on communism. so this ability to define wisdom, alternatives, as soft,

led the toughest man in congressional history to escalate a war that was unnecessary and killed -- >> but i would also argue that obama didn't want to escalate in afghanistan, but he did, and then he didn't back the policy, which is why, ultimately, it was a failure. you deploy a ton of troops and then you aren't behind the follows that you, throughout your campaign, have said is your number one foreign policy. >> but let's pick up on your point as well about syria. that's where a lot of the republican criticism has been. you were saying, and ian was echoing, that this somehow was a predicate for putin's actions here? >> well, i think it was the loose talk. i think that obama made a threat he did not intend to follow up on, and it became just this, everyone around the world was watching that threat. i think in the u.s., domestically, it hasn't been as big of a deal. but i think outside the u.s. with our allies, they were listening, and they saw that obama would use empty rhetoric. >> let's get back to ukraine for a second.

the fact is that putin, his most important national security interest outside his country, nothing else is even close, is ukraine, right? it's the only warm water port. it's considered part of russia by pretty much every russian, for 300 years. and whether or not we greet with that is really not the issue. the fact is, we don't care as much. it's not even close. and the ability of the americans to say, if you don't behave the way you want, we'll isolate you. that's the kind of language we use against cuba, countries without friends with economies that don't matter. you don't use that language against russia when you can't follow through. >> since this is our simplistic analogy day on mhp, for whatever reason, maybe because i'm a bad guest host, the analogy you're making is important, because it's not about how tough are you, as a neutral kind of general frame, it's about, what is the interest at stake. and whether you can walk away from a dispute in a bar about over who put a drink down that no one cares about is different if smp comes in your backyard or

in your house or at your family, is that what you're saying? >> yes. and i'm surprised that obama, he's had some off-ramps to de-escalate here and he hasn't taken them. >> i think there are two things here. one, the argument about syria and the world paying attention to president obama, let's see the evidence that somehow putin used that in his calculations in here. we don't have any evidence of that. but more important, we're not understanding the risks that putin himself is taking. this is a rescuey strategy. there are other regions in russia that want to succeed from russia. and if he's setting a precedent here with crimea, he opens himself up to some other internal domestic problems in russia. >> we'll go to elise then katrina. >> i think it's a bit naive, though, to think that putin doesn't have expansionist vision here. i mean, he certainly has shown -- so, like, when is he going to stop? >> i'm saying, they shouldn't make him out to be some

mastermind, with all this bravado that's figured all this out. >> i think we should talk about what his political risks are in taking this action. >> no one is condoning putin's actions, but in order to have an astute foreign policy, which is in our national security interest, you need to understand russia's motivations. there is no question that ukraine is criminal. in the eastern and southern part of ukraine. the other thing that is often ignored is putin is an authoritarian leader, but he is not a full autocrat. he has people, his war party right now, akin to mccain and gram and our country, foreign ministers, others are calling for the russian military to be increased. he's not the most nationalist. and also, we haven't talked about this. if we're really going to talk about tough men, i know people are dismissing it, because they see it as russian propaganda, but you currently have in the kiev government, leaders of a party, which the european parliament a year ago condemned

as racist, anti-semitic, and zionist. you may have without a settlement an inclusive election in may. >> leave it to katrina vanden heuvel to bring up the linsdsey grahams and john mccains of russia. we're out of time on the foreign policy segment. i'll meet you on twitter if you want to talk more about it today. i want to thank you and katrina vanden heuvel for being here and bringing some of your expertise to an important issue, masculinity or not. dorian and elise are sticking around. we're also going to have in the broadcast today some more politics. but first, up next, an update on the malaysian airliner that has gone missing, when we come back. . sure. you seem knowledgeable, professional. i'm actually a dj. [ dance music plays ] woman: [laughs] no way! that really is you? if they're not a cfp pro, you just don't know. cfp -- work with the highest standard. i'm a messy person. i don't like cleaning. i love my son, but he never cleans up.

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the waters around malaysia and off the coast of vietnam. malaysia's air force chief says radar indicates now that the plane tried to turn back before it vanished on its way from kuala lumpur to beijing. that was, of course, more than 48 hours ago. securities are also checking varian surveillance video of two passengers after they confirmed they boarded the flight using stolen passports. the u.s. also sending a team of experts, including members of the national transportation safety board to help with this important investigation. a naval destroyer, the "uss pickny" was deployed. they've also deployed a patrol and surveillance plane. we will continue to update this story throughout the show as merited. and when we come back, a community taking safety into their own hands. what super poligrip does for me is it keeps the food out. before those little pieces

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welcome back. and now to some big news you have to west virginia. the state's legislature just passed senate bill 373, right after 10:00 p.m., just last night, with less than two hours left in their 2014 legislative session. why does this matter? well, it provides protections the to water resources and regulations for chemical storage tanks, a step in the right direction after the january 9th chemical spill. now, the announcement on january 24th that it a previously undisclosed chemical mixture had also leaked into the river in charleston, west virginia, and teachers and students being sent home sick thought to be related to the vapors from the chemical spill caused a lot of problems there. and before the bill's passage, some enterprising west virginians stopped waiting altogether and tried to make the water safer by taking matter into their own hands, collecting rainwater as an alternative. a rain club was even founded and a local charity distributed free bottled water.

will this new bill help to change all their minds? i'm joined by jeremy richardson, he's from west virginia and joining us from washington. welcome to you. a big story here. how strong is this brand-new bill, this water storage bill that passed, and why should people care about it. >> good morning, ari. thanks for having me. my really appreciate it. it is definitely a great step in the right direction, for west virginia. what the bill does, two important things. it establishes regulations that make it so we have to inspect the tanks, the aboveground storage tanks, like the one that leaked on january 9th, and it also, it instructs utilities to work with communities to plan to write contingency plans, to that we are prepared in the event of another emergency. >> let me play some new sound from the governor, talking about this, and some of these so-called upstream issues.

take a listen. >> it's the most debatable bill we've had all session, going through five committees. once again, it gives us the tools we need to go in and inspect, to know what's in these tanks that's all around the state. and hopefully, will help us never to have another spill the way we did before. basically, by having this information on what's upstream from the water tank, we will put the water companies on notice. >> and that's the question, right? wherever we find out about these incidents, people say, how does this happen, how can this happen, and will the companies be held accountable? does this bill do that? >> well, that's absolutely right. it's really kind of astounding, if you think about it that these regulations didn't already exist. i think if you ask the average guy on the street, do you think the government is inspecting these chemical tanks, we're talking, the valley is called chemical valley for a reason, so

i think you're absolutely right. it's about making sure that industries are held accountable. and it's important to recognize, we're not done now that we've passed this bill and the governor is presumably going to sign it. we have to make sure that the department of environmental protection, which is now, you know, charged with writing these rules and then enforcing the rules that they write, we have to hold their feet to the fire and make sure they do a good job and make sure this doesn't happen again. >> and as you know, this is not just a west virginia issue, although a lot of the nation's eyes were on west virginia. if you look across the country, you have 37 states that are net importers of coal. we're putting that up on the screen for our viewers there from 2012, 37 states. walk us through the larger national context here. >> right. the larger national context the the idea that coal-fired electricity is not cheap. you pay lower electricity rates,

but the use of coal for electricity causes a number of damages and has a lot of inherent risks with it. and look, i come from a third generation coal mining family, okay? >> yeah, you look like a coal miner, buddy. that's the first thing i thought, like, i'm seeing zoolander. >> but i think it's really important to recognize, you know, that coal has kept the lights on in our country for the last hundred years. it's important ton recognize that and own that. but at the same time, coal, in my mind, has really become the 21st century version of the horse drawn carriage, right? it's not that we're trying to get rid of it or that, you know, there's some war on coal, it's about the fact that something better has come along. and that something better has been the availability of cheap natural gas, and it's, you know, if you look at the electricity system over the last few years, what we're seeing is a huge increase in the amount of

renewable energy that's on the grid. and so what a place like west virginia needs to do is to think about, you know, how do we move into the future? how do we diversify our economy, so we haven't put all of our regulars in one basket. and we're just depending on one industry or one or two industries, you know, for all of our economic activity. i think if you asked the average person on the street, they would say, yeah, that makes sense. why would we just bet everything on one thing? >> yeah. and that goes to the policy piece of this. i was talking to some of our team here and the view as well, you rush to these incidents when they happen, right? and they tug at your heartstrings and you wonder, what kind of country are we living in when we still have these kind of problems, but a lot of it goes to policy and what are the regulations are going to be. jeremy richardson, coal miner family, coming to us from washington, thanks for your time. >> thanks, ari. >> yeah, the latest on the disappearance of the malaysian airlines flight is something

we're also keeping an eye on. and a new trend raising some concern among housing advocates. could a wall street bet on your landlord or your neighborhood be bad or good for your community? more nerdland at top of the hour. [ female announcer ] what's a powerful way to cut through everyday greasy messes? [ male announcer ] sponges, take your mark! ♪ [ female announcer ] one drop of ultra dawn has twice the everyday grease-cleaning ingredients of one drop of the leading non-concentrated brand... ♪ [ crowd cheering ] ...to clean two times more greasy dishes. dawn does more, so it's not a chore. my sinuses are acting up and i've got this runny nose. i better take something. truth is, sudafed pe pressure and pain won't treat all of your symptoms. really? alka seltzer plus severe sinus fights your tough sinus symptoms plus your runny nose. oh what a relief it is

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yep. yep. yep. yep. yep. yep. introducing our best-ever family pricing for instance, a family of four gets 10 gigs of data with unlimited talk and text for 160 dollars a month. only from at&t. welcome back. i'm ari melber in for melissa harris-per harris-perry. we have a lot of politics this hour, but we begin with the biggest breaking news story in the world right now. a malaysia airline, 777 jumbo jet carrying 239 people that vanished over the south china sea on friday afternoon is still missing today. it even has a multi-national search going for the plane. that resumed this morning on what we have suggesting is a possibility that the plane may have turned back from its original route before it disappeared. it's been almost two full days since the flight from kuala lumpur first lost contact with air traffic control in beijing,

as you can see there, where it had been scheduled to land friday evening at 3:30 p.m. there are still many questions that remain unanswered, but here is what we know for certain at this point. the flight was carrying 12 crew members and 227 passengers from 14 nations, including three u.s. citizens, confirmed now to have been on board. that includes a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, according to the passenger manifest. today, we also know that among those americans was 50-year-old texan, phillip wood, a father of two and an executive at ibm. he just visited his family last week in his hometown of keller, texas. and yesterday, his brother, tom wood, talked about his family's reaction to this news. >> just shock, you know? this kind of thing doesn't happen, you know? this is like, this shouldn't be happening. this shouldn't happen to us. he was excited to be moving to kuala lumpur, he was talking about how beautiful it was. he was my hero, my friend, and we were very close. so it's tough.

it's tough times. >> meanwhile, an international search and rescue mission continues. it got underway yesterday, after the plane was reported missing. planes, boats, and helicopters were dispatched from at least six countries, including the u.s., which diverted a u.s. destroyer to the plane's location. we also sent a plane that was in the region to assist with this search. the u.s. has also now dispatched fbi agents and a team of investigators from the national transportation safety board to asia to assist. the search team has found no evidence of plane wrecking an at this point, but saturday morning, we did get the first indication the flight may have crashed when vietnamese air force planes noticed these spotted oil slicks you can see there in the waters between malaysia and vietnam. distraught family members have been notified by airlines of the plane's disappearance. and of course these families, and many around the world, continue to await news of the status of these individuals.

malaysia airlines has dispatched a team of caregivers to beijing, providing a kind of emotional support and update to the families, who according to a malaysia airlines families, are among the foremost priorities of the company. >> we have communicated to the family members that after more than 30 hours without any contact with the aircraft, we believe, that the family members should prepare themselves for the worst. and the primary focus is really, how do we take care of these people who are grieving. that is the focus. >> and again, as we've been reporting, the discovery that two passengers on this flight were using stolen passports, it raises suspicions, of course, of u.s. and foreign intelligence officials. interpol confirmed today one austrian and one italian passport, both previously recorded in the theft database, were used by passengers to board this plane. malaysian officials said a total of four names on the passenger

list are now under investigation and that they would be giving a close look to the entire passenger manifest. u.s. authorities, meanwhile, a careful to note there are many reasons, including nonviolent crimes, like drug smuggling or violent crimes like human trafficking that passports could be stolen and used that would not involve an incident or terrorism that would affect the entire plane. now, a senior u.s. official told nbc news, quote, we have not determined a nexus to terrorism yet, although it's still very early, and that is by no means definiti definitive, end quote. so we turn now to a guest we have standing by in washington. you saw him here on the mhp show around this time yesterday. joining us again, michael goldfarb, a former faa chief of staff, president of aviation consulting. thank you again for joining us on this story. an important story and a concerning one. let's start with the fact it's been almost 24 hours since we last spoke. what do we know now that we didn't know yesterday? >> to provide some context for the stolen passports, quite

frankly, it's because we have no evidence of the physical breakup of the aircraft, we have no evidence of a catastrophic failure, that most aviation safety people, when they hear about the passports, probably overly fixate on them. we know we have an aviation security problem, but as it was said with safety officials, we don't know, in fact, that these passports that were stolen, millions are stolen every year, in fact, had anything to do with this crash. i mean, it's interesting to note that you can get strip searched at an airport, and yet a passport isn't verified through interpol. let's put all of that aside, not to get ahead of the facts. but here's what's most pabaffli. a high-performing, safe, capable airline, run by a well-maintained airline disappears at 35,000 feet. we have some theeories about that. last year, faa fined them $2.7 million for faulty fasteners, a quality control problem. they fixed that. as has been reported by tom

costello and others, they had a wing tip damage, boeing fixed it, taken care of. they had some frozen fuel lines of a rolls royce engine, taken care of. the aircraft itself is structurally sound. it's highly unlikely that a plane with that -- it's like an iphone in the sky. it's beeping and binging, there's texts, data, voice, satellite. it's highly unlikely that all those communication systems would simultaneously go out, without something catastrophic happening within seconds that would disable that aircraft. number two is that we don't know where, in fact, the plane and the debris field is. this is eerily similar, ari, not 1996 tw-800, when the fbi joined the ntsb, and to be politically correct, there's tension between the bureau and the ntsb. the ntsb wants to put things together to find out why a plane crashed, and the bureau wants to find out who did it and tear things apart. we have quite a mess, an

international incident, and we don't have a clue. >> we put it that way, and it's blunt and true. the investigators working on all these lids in a situation that's on the one hand fast moving with the updates we're getting with and on the other hand, still mystifying. michael goldfarb, thank you for putting it in context with us. now we'll turn to another guest within president and ceo of new age security solutions and a former security director at the israel airport authority and a consultant to boston's logan airport. good to see you again, sir. i do want to start with the passports. michael said we can put it to the side. another thing we can do, as i've discussed with you, so to put it in context. for folks watching at home trying to understand, how unusual is it that someone would be on a plane with this kind of documentation? >> well, we all hope that it is unusual, but i'm afraid that reality is different and i think that the measures that we have been using in order to verify the identity of the people on board, has been limited to

checking documents rather than checking the american himself. in other terms, using any kind of biometric signature. so we are limited in that respect, but in this specific case, i think there's a lot of failure, which is substantial, which we should pay a lot of attention to. and that is the fact that those two names have appeared on the list of stolen passports. and that list is available to the airlines before they allow people on board. so, obviously, if, and i want to everyone sizemphasize if, becau right now there's no indication, but if we can end up with the conclusion that this has to do with -- that these two people had something to do with the destruction of the aircraft, then i think that there would be a very serious lesson to be learned. >> right. and a big if.

but, definitely something that goes to the security screenings. speak to what michael mentioned, giving your experience in boston and israel, about what happens when we are tracking these aircraft, as we do with multiple delivery redundancy, and yet the entire communication system disappears relatively instantaneously. >> well, that's a real puzzle. i can tell you that i was as -- i witnessed a similar incident years ago, when an airliner, a russian airliner was shot by mistake over the black sea and the beginning of the scenario was very much the same. suddenly, the aircraft disappeared, as a result of being hit by a military missile, by mistake, as they emphasized.

and it took some intelligence from various sources to realize exactly what happened to it. but the first hours, when you have no information whatsoever, except for the fact that the aircraft has disappeared from the screens, actually send you into an investigating everything that is relevant to that flight, trying to find some kind of a hint to what has happened. >> yeah. and that's what people are doing now. is sifting through all the hints and all the leads. rafi ron in washington, thank for sharing your expertise and reporting with us again today. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> i'm going to now welcome back to the table, elise jordan, contributor to the daily beast, a former speechwriter for condoleezza rice, as well as director of communications for the nsc. possibly relevant, possibly not. as well as david cay johnston, pulitzer prize winning author, among other things, if you don't mind being introduced that way. >> fine with me. >> the reason why i mentioned

that, elise, is this could be a homeland security situation, a ntsb technical malfunction. from your experience on the nsc, just briefly, how do they keep track of something like this when it is such a question mark. >> i think it would definitely be a high alert in the situation room. and during the bush administration, it would have been the homeland security council, headed by fran townsend. i'm not sure how exactly the obama administration, i believe that's under the usauspices of e nsc, which is now the nss. so it would be monitored by the nss. >> but they basically are waiting for intelligence to find out, was this a malfunction or something we should be concerned about? >> i think it's still such an evolving situation, i don't think anyone really knows anything at all. >> one would hope they're using all that electronic intercept technology to find out everything they mobile can. one of the significant things about this crash -- and we're assuming the plane has crashed, this incident, is you're not --

there's not a lot of debris -- no debris has been found on the surface of the sea. normally when a plane comes down, you find debris. even the air france flight that went down not atlantic a couple of years ago, there was a whole bunch of floating debris. why are we not finding floating debris and what does that tell us. >> and you talk about this from the view of the assumptions made. we've got family members who are speaking in terms of grieving, but you have interpol and some of the intelligence agencies treating this as essentially kind of like an unknown event at this point. >> it could be not a political act, but a criminal act. 1955, united airlines dc-6 was blown up over colorado by a man who wanted to collect the life insurance policy on his mother. he was eventually executed after trial. so you can have severe criminal acts, you can have, something went wrong with the operation of the airplane. the most dangerous times, though, for an airplane are on landing and takeoff. >> and that's something the experts have emphasized. the nature of this incident and

just disappearing off the map. i want to thank elise jordan for a bunch of interesting thoughts today on more than one topic and staying with us is david. what we're going to do now is talk a little bit more in our next segment about a housing crisis that is a very important issue, according to some advocates. and yet we also have reporting, new reporting from blackstone, a company in this space saying they're actually trying to help distressed communities. it's an interesting debate. we will also keep you updated with the latest on this missing plane story as events warrant. stay with us. if you wear a den, touch it with your tongue. if your denture moves, it can irritate your gums. try fixodent plus gum care. it helps stop denture movement and prevents gum irritation. fixodent. and forget it.

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it turns out 2013 was a good year for the housing recovery. national home prices rose nearly 12% from january 2013 to january 2014. that's the strongest gain since 2006.

there were more than 5 million existing home sales. that's the highest number since 2006. the february jobs report, as you may have heard, showed that another 15,000 jobs added in construction, despite all that rough winter weather and foreclosure filings were the lowest since, again, that magic year of 2006. that's down more than 50% since their record high in 2010, when they were about 2.9 million foreclosure filings. together, all these numbers for 2013 seem to spell good news. good enough news, in fact, that investors are following that old advice of buy low, betting that existing pool of foreclosed homes at depressed market prices, well, might help them sell high. they're putting money on that bet. those aren't my words, they are straight from the mouth of the private equity firm spearheading this financial innovation. >> i think at heart, we're making a bet on america with this investment strategy. we're betting that housing prices are going to begin to recover. >> there's that recovery they're talking about. now, wall street is using some

pretty complex financial systems, which are hard for some people to understand, a lot of basic investors, and they're looking to turn a profit into making what we think is an untested bet on our housing market. and as we have all learned, that can be something we should keep an eye on. in fact, even economists at the federal reserve have said, quote, it will be important to monitor developments in these markets for signs of the potential to destabilize financial markets. that's a big warning. now, stay with us. we're going to have this story, up next. [ woman ] i've always tried to see things from the best angle i could.

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by blackstone group, a multi-billion dollar investment firm, which now owns more than of these homes than any other company. blackstone is using invitation homes to purchase homes, rent them out, and cut up and distribute the profits. in finance, they call that securitization. and it enables investors to receive funds from different rental units. here's how blackstone put it in a 2012 press release. the program removes distressed inventory from the market, which has been suppressing national home prices, creating jobs and providing high-quality, affordable housing for families. blackstone says that by enabling more investors to buy a piece of this market, new capital actually goes to communities that need it most, as sort of a win-win. and other companies are following suit. but here's the thing. given the track record of wall street in our housing market, are these efforts right? well, they're drawing scrutiny.

fed chair janet yellen said during her november confirmation hearing, this market should be watched very carefully. she also said the interest in low-cost homes is a logical response of the market. meanwhile, 75 housing and consumer groups sent a new letter, warning, we may be headed towards the creation of another housing bubble. and a new article in "mother jones" magazine questions, what happens if this security blows up? and then, there's this exhaustive report from the center for american progress, the progressive policy shop, suggesting that blackstone's approach could hurt renters and potentially destabilize communities if these financial products, these bonds, sour. now, we asked invitation homes about all of this. they responded with a statement to msnbc, saying in part, quote, we're committed to building a national long-term network that caters to the portion of the market that will always need or prefer to rent. our investments have played a small but positive role in stabilizing housing markets. economists have said that

institutional investors' collective purchases of 200,000 home out of the more than 5,000 sold last year has had a negligible impact on rental rates, end quote. and for this reporting, we also spoke with blackstone right here in new york and invited their staff to appear on this segment. they declined, but they emphasized that blackstone securities, based on these rental homes, are a tiny part of the housing market, currently. they are only present in 14 markets, they say. more than 70% of their aren'ts renew, and their purchase of foreclosed homes lead to new ten innoce informants in better neighborhoods. they also disputed reports that their security depends on rental income. they told us, quote, there's no such thing as a rental bond. center for american progress and others have mischaracterized this securitization as that of a rental income from the homes. that's incorrect. this is a securitization of assets themselves. in this case, about 350,000 homes. the same process is currently

used to finance seat assets of type. but one congressman is pushing back saying, it just reminds met of the too big to fail schemes of the subprime mortgage crisis. he's now calling for investigative hearings and joins us today. if we've learned anything from the last housing crisis, it's to ask questions early and loudly before some of these confusing financial products spread and create bubbles we may not be able to afford to pop. with us to discuss all of this is josh barrow, a national correspondent for "the new york times" and an msnbc contributor, david cay johnston, contribute g ing editor at "newsweek," laura g godsteiner, a journalist, dorian warren is also back with us, the author of the book, "a dream foreclosed." i want to go directly to you, congressman. you've said this is an issue for your constituents.

you've heard our reporting today, congressmen, on the issue and the responses from blackstone. tell us what's important here in your mind. >> well, what's important is that we get ahead of the curve this time. you know, with the subprime mortgage crises and the mortgage-backed securities, we just weren't fully understanding of what risks they pose for the economy. and i'm not calling for a ban for this new instrument. and i want to emphasize, it is a new security that blackstone has developed. i represent a represent a part of the country that was very hard hit. we've seen one out of every ten homes foreclosed upon in my county of riverside, california. and we've suffered greatly. i just think that it behooves us to understand these securities and to understand what risks they might pose to the economy and, you know, more importantly,

what it means to the areas of the country like mine. >> and that makes a lot of sense, which is why i wanted to talk to you. i want to get your sense directly. what blackstone and invitation homes are saying here is that basically, people like you, sir, not specifically you, but people who have been critical in raising these questions, have had it backwards about bringing new capital into these communities. are they wrong? >> well, they're not wrong. we've seen a run-up in prices, 20% in one year. so, not everything is bad. i mean, i can't say that they're entirely bad, and i'm not calling for an outright ban. i'm calling, simply, for hearings. i'm calling for regulatory agencies to do more due diligence. look, standard & poor's and fitch are rating agencies that gave blessings to these mortgage backed securities. this time around, they're withholding the full blessings on these securities and as well, you've also mentioned the fed had its concerns as well.

so i think at the very least, we need to do more due diligence and it's more than just a congressional staff needs to look into these securities. we need other agencies and the financial services need to look at them as well, >> congressman, the ratings agencies basically said some of the most toxic, dangerous investments last time around were almost perfect, the highest rating they can get. and they were far from perfect. so i think you raise a cautionary point there. i want to keep you here, but broaden out to our panel. laura, you've written about this a lot. what do you make of it? >> i think it's important to say, you know, we're seeing an incredible amount of reporting on the housing recovery. who is this housing recovery for? who's benefiting from this recovery? who's benefiting, who's making money off of the rising home values? i think it's important to say, you know, we're seeing wall street consolidating an incredible number of houses, 200,000 single family rental homes and counting, across the

country. that doesn't sound like a regular housing recovery to me. that doesn't sound like a housing recovery that's going to benefit ordinary americans. >> what's it sound like? >> like a wall street housing recovery. it sounds like they're consolidating greater grip over our everyday lives, and not just buying these houses and renting them back to the very same families that were just foreclosed on, but creating a new security asset class that is going to become, economists are estimating, a $1 trillion market in the next six years. >> josh? >> i think this is something that needs to be watched, but i think it's a pretty hopeful thing. the way these homes are being owned and financed looks to me very similar to the way apartment buildings across the country have been owned and financed for decades. that's a system that works pretty well. one problem we had in the u.s. that led to the housing bubble was that if you want to live in a single family home, in most cases, you have to buy it. the rental market is not deep. it's a difficult challenge to own and manage these properties as rentals. so to the extent that we can have a deep, institutional market in single family home rentals that will allow people

to not take all the money they have in the world and put it in a highly leveraged real estate investment in a home that might go bad. instead, blackstone will take on that investment and take on the investment risk. >> i think we should learn the lessons of recent history here. history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme sometimes. this raises red flags. and so one question we have to ask is in what communities are we seeing this? because if they're in communities of color, that should be the first red flag. we saw this in the 1990s with the creation and expansion of subprime lending into minority communities that have been racially discriminated is against, redlined for decades, by state policy and discrimination by lenders. then all of a sudden, it's almost like, reverse red flag. 900%. that was the increase in subprime loans in the 1990s. so we knew this was a problem in minority communities before we even crossed the threshold to the 21st century that led to the burst of the bubble. >> so an important point and context in markets that we know

that have been found to have aggregate discrimination. congressman, i want to bring you back in, and rebutted by blackstone, the argument that this could lead to people being forcibly removed from their properties. do you think that's a possibility here? >> well, that's a -- there's a consumer protection issue. you know, blackstone and other large investors have very little track record or experience in managing properties this extensively. 40,000 homes across the country. these single family homes were not built or designed to be renter occupied, they were designed to be occupied by individual homeowners. and people in these neighborhoods have expressed concerns to me, in my own district, about what's going to happen to the neighborhoods, how the character of them is going to change, how well these properties are going to be

maintained. and indeed, the risk for the ratings agencies is just how local governments might respond. they may impose rent control, they may impose all sorts of other -- there are a lot of uncertainties they impose for the investors who buy these bonds. so, you know, the risks of being a landlord are being spread across to investors without a lot of skin in the game by, you know, these investment groups like blackstone. >> david? >> well, congressman is exactly right. i've been a landlord. there's a reason it's a mom and pop business in housing as opposed to josh mentioned managing big apartment complexes. maintaining these properties is not easy. and one of the things we're likely to see is deterioration in the quality of real estate. and blackstone has no skin in this game. they are borrowing the money to acquiring these buildings. that statement you put out that i'm sure to a lot of people was gobbledygook, well, it's not the rental income that secures the property, it's a mortgage on the property itself. if the mortgages aren't paid

because there's no rental income, then the property will be foreclosed on again. >> but that's not right. blackstone has the equity in these things. it's different from the situation we had during the housing -- >> blackstone says in its 10k, we own no one real estate -- >> but blackstone funds -- >> let me pick up that point. that is a dispute for a good reason. i want to go to that when we come back. the housing crisis across the kr color line. that's next plus the response. when jake and i first set out on our own, we ate anything. but in time you realize the better you eat, the better you feel. these days we both eat smarter. and i give jake purina cat chow naturals. made with real chicken and salmon, it's high in protein like a cat's natural diet. and no added artificial flavors. we've come a long way. and whatever's ahead, we'll be there for each other. naturally. purina cat chow naturals. save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.ould

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you're not doing anything as fast as you used to, which is funny, 'cause i still do it better than her.

you know, i don't think i was meant to sweep. it's a little frustrating. look. [ zach ] i can't help out as much as i used to. do you need help? [ doorbell rings ] let's open it up. it's a swiffer sweeper. it's a swiffer dusters. it can extend so i don't have to get on the step stool. i don't know how it stays on there. it's like a dirt magnet -- just like my kids. [ afi ] this is a danger zone. that is crazy. ah-ha-ha! [ zach ] yeah. no, this definitely beats hanging out on a step ladder. what's up, baby? welcome back. the effects of the subprime mortgage crisis were felt deeply not only because of the extent of the financial impact, which was big, but also because of the direct impact that it had on so many people's lives, the loss of their homes, home ownership has long, of course, been hailed a as the staple of the american dream and we've been reminded of how housing is also a civil rights issue, so many times, especially in these past few years. black homeowners, for example, were three times as likely to get the highest rated mortgages, which helped lead to the housing

bubble, and they lost more home equity when it burst. the justice department under president obama has been actively bringing forward cases of discriminatory lending practices, discrimination in rentals and sales that disproportionately impact african-american and hispanic borrows. housing isn't just any market, it is, in many ways, the market. it's where people live and their ability to access housing has been critical to their ties to their community and their entire lives, obviously. we go back to our panel here. dorian, i want to start with you on this point. when we talk about corrections, apple overstates something and the stock is corrected and the stock moves up and down, and investors lose or gain money, we as a society have generally said, we're more comfortable with that and that fluctuation, buyer beware, than a correction in a housing market, which means you lose your home because of a macroeconomic factor you had nothing to do with. >> and as you pointed out, the racial disparities are stark, because home ownership is the primary source of wealth for most people, and because blacks

and latinos were targeted more than white families for these subprime loans. it means when the bubble burst, they lost much more of their wealth than did whites and by the way, that added to the already existing disparity. so i think what we're seeing and what we should be worried about something very similar to blackstone, when wells fargo settles with the u.s. government for $175 million for its subprime practices and markets that settlement back to black and latino families in the very communities that have the highest rates of foreclosure as if it's a good corporate citizen, that should worry us. >> and the link we're talking about and the reason we did play so much sound and quotes from blackstone is a link we don't know where it leads yet. that is debated, david. and yet the leverage and the complexity, if it's hard to no this segment, right, for some folks, although they're interested, it's also hard to follow these documents and understand just what's in the security, and that could be bad

for us, right? >> here's the simple things we do know. the bottom is down since 2009, which means housing prices can't be rising. people can't afford more housing. we know that blackstone and others are trying to once again weaken the standards for underwriting. who benefits from that? people who make the money off fees connected to housing. this is not good for the housing market. so i think we ought to be very skeptical about -- >> yet, josh, go ahead. >> this is a reason to be glad to have a deeper rental market. owning a home is fundamentally an investment. it's an investment in real estate. and if you owe have and have a mortgage on it with a low interest, it's a speculative investment. and obama who has been pushing back on banks has been pushing them to weaken credit standards and to offer higher leverage mortgages, because they too want to push people into home ownership and prop up housing prices. this i see as an alternative model in which people can live in homes without owning them and without taking on that investment risk. so if we don't want families to

be in this position where they are the ones left holding the bag when housing prices fall, we have figure out who else is going to own the home and take on that risk. >> and what he's talking about is an argument that the industry makes, that you get people in single family homes who otherwise wouldn't be in them. >> well, look, we've seen a run-up in just a single year of 20% in prices. we have a dual problem here. rents are rising because of the lack of inventory and also housing prices. middle class families, aspiring homeowners, simply can't compete against that kind of price appreciation and the cash buyers, the power of them. look, my neighborhoods, my mayors wimayor s wi s, my cities would want people with a stake in the communities in the homes. we want homeowners. they simply make much, much better, you know, bet for the community. so i'm concerned about that. and i'm concerned about that we should be doing more to help the middle class get into these

homes. >> congressman, i appreciate that and i know you're working on this issue and i think if you do get those hearings melissa harris-perry would probably love to get an update from you. appreciate your time today from los angeles. >> thank you. >> all right. i'm asking everyone else to stay here and stick around. and laura's going to give us a peek at alternatives to this approach when we come back. if you wear a denture, touch it with your tongue. if your denture moves, it can irritate your gums. try fixodent plus gum care. it helps stop denture movement and prevents gum irritation. fixodent. and forget it. and prevents gum irritation. to manage your money.r guy around 2 percent that's not much, you think except it's 2 percent every year. go to e*trade and find out how much our advice and guidance costs. spoiler alert. it's low. it's guidance on your terms not ours. e*trade. less for us, more for you. [ male announcer ] that's why there's ocuvite.

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that helps prevent the urge to smoke all day long. ♪ make every day, her day with a full menu of appetizers and entrées crafted with care and designed to delight. fancy feast. love served daily. we are back, talking about the housing market. i want to go right to you, laura. we were discussing this in the last segment. and you said, look, there's an important debate here. we've talked about some of it, but there also are alternatives that could be better for mainstream. >> yeah, i think it's important to understand, this is part of a cycle in which we are assuming that, you know, finance capital got us into this mess and finance capital can get us out of this mess. and it's important to say, there are alternatives to the land grab that blackstone and other private equity firms are

currently executing. and what that looks like is redefining what security in the housing market means. so we need to start saying, what would it look like for our neighborhoods to be more secure? does that look like blackstone partnering with jpmorgan or does that look like moving to a system where the community has more control over land. we're not going to get there without fighting for it, but there are structures like community land trusts if we organize and protest and fight back, we can say, we want our neighborhoods to be more secure. >> can the federal government make that happen and get communities in more of an ownership model? >> the federal government can certainly help support communities that are fighting on the ground to take more -- to make their communities more secure. they can make financing for community land trusts and other structures that allow for community control of land to be more readily available, but it's important to say, we're talking about moving towards a model in which land does not have a speculative value. >> what does that mean? >> a community land trust works by dividing the house on top of

the land from the land. so a home, somebody would live in it like a regular home ownership model. but the land underneath can actually not be bought and sold and it does not any longer have a speculative value, because it is controlled by the entire community. >> which you're saying, as a practical matter, when we talk about wall street coming in, you're saying under that model, there would be less destabilization of the community? >> absolutely. it's a weigh that, and maybe dorian can speak to this more, but a way that communities of color and all communities can stop this displacement. it's about the way that wall street is making an incredible amount of money by pushing millions of americans out of their homes by destabilizing communities. >> dorian, i don't know if they call this the spike lee plan in congress, but do you want to make some connections here for us? >> the only thing else i'll add to what laura said, there is tremendous organizing happening across communities of color and in big cities, precisely

pursuing these alternatives, community land trusts, other models of ownership that protects communities instead of setting them up to be exploited. >> i think that is so well put. i'm really glad you guys have been reporting on this, all of you working on it. as we mentioned, we invited blackstone to appear and that's an open invitation, somewhere on msnbc, if they want to do follow-up and really appreciate it. this is an important one. in new york, my thanks to josh, laura, and dorian warren. still to come, gram award winner, ninth wonder, also known as harvard's hip hop fellow. that is next. starts with back pain... ...and a choice. take 4 advil in a day which is 2 aleve... ...for all day relief. "start your engines"

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so what happens when you give a producer a fellowship to teach at harvard? the result? some lucky students wore enriched with learning the history of a living legend.

a feature called the hip-hop fellow. chronicles the historic moment when it's fully accepted as a viable discipline within the academy. >> i would get to harvard at night, stay at a bed and breakfast. up the next morning to teach class at 10:00, clock weiums at 12, to the archives, i would jump on a plane and come back or i would stay. that was the majority of all the year. just that whole thing, to say i'm leaving one duke class and going to my harvard classes unbelievable for me to say. >> from lectures to complete -- it is a they to welcome to the program also known as ninth wonder. how are you? >> i'm doing good. >> i'm excited to have you here. teaching at duke university as

well as the harvard fellowship. what was your biggest challenge? >> i think the biggest challenge was my schedule. just to be able to teach at duke in the afternoon, sometimes catching the last flight out of the raleigh, going up to boston, then the next morning teach a class, do the colloquialm, and the lunch, and i had to discipline myself to make sure i stayed on task. >> this film looks at that. we have a nice clip from it. take a look. >> i have that tape. and he said, no, it's not who got the props. i'm like, it is who got the props. i'm about to tell you who -- no, he said, my dad gave it to me. it's ronny laws, the saxophone is jazz funk.

the name is called "tidal wave" actually the year i was born, this is what started my worm hole, starting me to dig for records. this is what made me want to know what's going on in the background. why did they take that song to make this song? what was it about that and that particular part to make them take that part. this is the worm hole that let me here. but it was a very crushing, crushing feeling to find out that the things i was listening to and fell in love with came from the '70s. it's kind of a point when you realize your generation of music sucks. >> i love that moment there, and you're sharing with people -- you're teaching, but also explaining house music has taught you, you you thought about when you were young being a teacher. speak about the interplay. there's some arts we might enjoy, but music is clearly something people learn from. >> music is really the

university language, along with the math. if you think about it, the ab counterss and requests twinkle twinkle little star" even when you learn a phone number, you learn it by ritle. my mom is an educator, has been an educator for 41 years. that's kind of where i got it from. it extended to me being a band geek. i played sports, but i always loved music, even when i was a history major, i turned it over to being a music producer and became a teacher anyway. everything came around. >> it all comes together. the order piece, of course, is putting this archive at harvard, this hip-hop archive. speak about your work here, which is the shifting position, to use a fancy word, hip-hop in the canon, or in the academy. the academy has a tremendous amount of influence. we talk about that when we think about types of individuals who have been written out of history

or literature, the women's studies programs. hip-hop i would argue at one point was isolated that way, but no more. >> exactly. we're in a situation where hip-hop is not in a lot of books at this particular point. we're writing the history as we go along, lying my big brother says, this is still a young culture. as a matter of fact, we're writing history, because today we celebrate the death of notorious b.i.g. christopher wallace, he was a poet, he was an mc, and was a shape in our culture. that's what it is. it's about making it relevant and putting it in the proper space it needs to be in, even at harvard. >> that's something i've always wondered about. if you like rap and listen to lyrics, they gets in your head. if you read about it, jay-z's "decoded" or genius, every line

has ten more lines of analysis. there's so much meaning in the departmentths below. why do you think there's been a divide in the culture where mainstream culture has not understood that, this is just noise, just simple lyrics? >> i think hip-hop is attached to the community. we talk about the 1960s and '700s when hip-hop came from soul. it was 12i8 connected to the community. hip-hop is a have deep inner laid, just a very deep culture. just back mc set one thing, you have you have to look at more than what they're saying. i mean, even they thought shakespeare was vulgar in his time, right? >> you're right. >> in the 1600s they thought it was a vulgar situation. >> and 9th wonder, i sad to say

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just two springtime feedings with scotts turf builder lawn food helps strengthen and protect your lawn from future problems. thanks scott. [ scott ] feed your lawn. feed it. into no answers, plenty of questions, the mystery deepens. did the pilot try to turn around mid flight? even more puzzling. it may not have just been two stolen passports. could there have been others on the plane with false i.d.s? i do not like this uncle sam, i do not like hi health care scam. >> sarah palin co-ops dr. seuss, but the big winner -- rand paul. reaction is ahead. in a james, a new study on the worst cities for traffic trouble. that's in today's number one.