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American Morning
'Kamber and May'; Massachusetts Backyard Treasure
Aired April 27, 2005 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: That is one wet morning in New York City.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It started off crummy, it's going to continue to be crummy.
HEMMER: Good day to be inside.
O'BRIEN: Yes, it is.
HEMMER: 8:30 in New York. Good morning, everyone. In a moment here, this great story of buried treasure in Massachusetts. Look at these guys. In a few moments, we'll meet the guys who found a giant stash of some really old money, but it's still worth an awful lot today. We'll also meet some of that money, too. They're in our studio. We'll feel from them in a moment.
O'BRIEN: Also this morning, new research showing some pretty promising results for treating breast cancer. We're going to take a look at the potentially important findings about a drug that's called Herceptin.
Before that, though, let's get right to the headlines. Carol Costello, good morning.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. This news just in to CNN, and sad news it is. A female member of Iraq's national assembly has been gunned down. It happened in eastern Baghdad just a short time ago. The woman had been a member of the outgoing prime minister Ayad Allawi's legislative block. The attack comes as the assembly is trying to decide on a cabinet.
A man known as the millennium bomber faces up to 35 years in prison for plotting to attack the Los Angeles Airport. The sentencing hearing for Ahmed Ressam is set to take place in the next three hours. Ressam was caught on the U.S.-Canada border with a car full of explosives in late 1999. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit international terrorism. Federal agents have boosted security at the courthouse ahead of today's hearing.
Authorities looking for another missing girl in Florida. 12- year-old Margarita Aguilar-Lopez was last seen Monday night. She was apparently taken from a motel some 30 miles outside of Tampa. The suspect apparently has ties to the girl's family.
And the woman suspected of planting a human finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili says she is ready for a fight. Anna Ayala appeared in a Nevada courtroom Tuesday. She'll face charges in California, where the actual incident took place. Her lawyers say Ayala is eager to go back to San Jose and clear her name. Still no word on where that finger came from.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay at the center of a huge political storm over ethics allegations. Still, the Texas Republican got a strong show of support from President Bush this week, including thanks for his leadership in Congress and a ride on board Air Force One.
Joining us this morning us talk about DeLay's political fortunes and many other things, in Washington from the left, Democratic consultant Victor Kamber; in Denver from the right, former RNC communications director, Cliff May. Good morning, gentleman. Nice to see you, as always.
CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIR.: Good morning, Vic. Good morning, Soledad.
VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: The president clearly standing by Tom DeLay, but wouldn't you know there are other people who appear to have similar problems. Vic, kind of hard for the Democrats to take the high road on this one, right?
KAMBER: Not at all. As a matter of fact, I think yesterday, we understand, the Ethics Committee finally has agreed to reverse the rules so that they can be an Ethics Committee. And I'm a believer, let's go after everybody. Let's start with the leader of the pack, Tom DeLay, but if there's Democrats that have problems, they should be investigated, too. This is not a House of make my own decisions. It's the House of Representatives. Tom DeLay is ethically challenged. If there are others that are ethically challenged, then we should find out about them.
MAY: Soledad, your question is exactly right. Take, for example, the charge that Tom DeLay had members of his family on his campaign staff. He did. And many other members did, too. Now I was with the editorial page editor of the "Rocky Mountain News" here, Vince Cowell (ph). He made a -- last night -- and he made a very good point to me that maybe you shouldn't allow members of families to work on campaigns, but that's got to be a rule and it's got to apply to everybody. You can't just apply it to Tom DeLay when you want to get him.
O'BRIEN: Not exactly a great defense. And you're right, not the issue en toto, but still, not a great defense when you say, well, you know, my guy did it, but other people are doing it, too.
MAY: But there's no rule against it, Soledad. There's no rule against hiring...
O'BRIEN: OK, well on that particular thing, but certainly...
MAY: You can't say there should be a rule and we're...
O'BRIEN: ... but certainly there are ethics rules against having lobbyists pay for your tickets.
MAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: No question about that. That's another maybe more important allegation. Let's talk about that. To say hey, well, maybe we did it, but other people are doing it, too, doesn't make you look so great.
MAY: You're absolutely right.
KAMBER: We haven't seen other people do it. We've seen on the front page of "The Washington Post" a copy of the credit card and a copy of the charge. We haven't seen that with others. That's an exact example. If there are others, let's bring also them in, but we know that's wrong and Tom DeLay knows that's wrong.
MAY: Vic, no, Vic, read the rest of the article. Nancy Pelosi's staff says there's a $9,000 trip and they can't account for it. And also, again...
O'BRIEN: By a staffer.
MAY: By a staffer.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: The rules have to be clear and they have to apply to everybody equally.
KAMBER: Agreed.
MAY: For example, you cannot take a trip from a lobbyist, but congressmen constantly take trips paid for by nonprofits and educational institutions. Now, what do you do if there's a lobbyist who is a board member for a nonprofit, which was evidently what happened in Tom DeLay's instance?
KAMBER: We have the Ethics Committee investigate and clear them if they're innocent.
MAY: And Tom DeLay has called for that and Democrats haven't wanted to do it. But right now, you start this kind of a witch-hunt against Tom DeLay and it's going to have ramifications throughout the House, if you start to do it. You've got to make clear rules and they got to apply to everybody. That's all.
O'BRIEN: I want to move on to our next topic. Let's talk a little bit about the judicial nominees. Harry Reid offering a compromise, "compromise." Bill Frist sort of saying, no way, Jose, or no way, Hary, in that case. Where do you think -- for both of you -- where do you think this ends up being resolved? I mean, what happens? KAMBER: I would hope they could come to a compromise, but what Harry Reid offered is not something Bill Frist can take. Look, it should be this way, as it always has been in the past. Every member of the Senate should get to vote on pretty much every judicial nominee and filibusters should only be used in very extreme circumstances. You can't change the system and you shouldn't change the system so that a small minority of one party or the other gets to essentially veto the president's choice. That's never the way we've done it in the past.
O'BRIEN: Yes, but the filibuster itself, what you're saying.
KAMBER: That's just not true. That's just not true, Cliff. The whole process of filibuster is to protect the minority and give them the minority a voice, and for 200 years, they've had that right.
MAY: Nothing like this going on.
KAMBER: This Congress wants to change it because they have the majority. This isn't about judicial nominations. Let's also make that clear. This is about Frist's leadership, his desire to run for president, his willingness to appease a small group of the hardcore conservatives out there, that if he doesn't deliver on this, he's out of luck for '08.
MAY: Look, let me -- you're just wrong historically. Justice Scalia is probably the most conservative member of the U.S. Supreme Court. When he was up, when he was nominated, the entire Senate went and voted and it was decided. There was no filibuster. Clarence Thomas was very controversial. You remember that. But the Senate voted. The idea now, using filibusters...
KAMBER: Yes, but they could have filibustered.
MAY: ... to prevents. Victor, it's like spanking. You shouldn't take it off the table, but if do you it to your kid every day, it's abuse.
KAMBER: They haven't done it every day.
O'BRIEN: Cliff, I'm confused.
MAY: They're doing it constantly.
O'BRIEN: Are you saying -- Cliff, are you saying get rid of the filibuster or keep the filibuster?
MAY: No, I'm saying a compromise should allow the filibuster only to be used in extraordinary circumstances. We don't want to change the rules where most Senate...
KAMBER: That's just baloney.
MAY: ... where the Senate doesn't get to vote on judges.
KAMBER: You are changing the rules. MAY: No, no, no, you...
KAMBER: Ten judges in four years that haven't been approved by this Senate. There were more in two years under Bill Clinton's thing.
MAY: You're playing with numbers.
KAMBER: Judges get voted on, the Senate can vote, but the Senate has the right to filibuster.
MAY: You're playing with numbers. What we're talking about are the judges for the circuit court, for the appellate court, and we know for the Supreme Court, too. We've had a problem with this going back a long way to Judge Vorck (ph), who is -- Vorck, we know have a verb in the vocabulary to say how you demonize somebody.
O'BRIEN: Oh, we do not.
MAY: But there still should be a vote by every member of the Senate. That's the system we have.
O'BRIEN: Guys, we're out of time. I'm shocked that you would accuse someone of playing with numbers, Cliff. Utterly shocked. You guys, as always, nice to see you. Thanks a lot.
MAY: Thanks, Soledad.
KAMBER: Good seeing you.
O'BRIEN: Of course, Victor Kamber and Clifford May, joining us this morning -- Bill.
HEMMER: Now from the category of we cannot make this up. Two friends in Massachusetts are $100,000 richer. They found a buried treasure chest while digging in their own backyard. Inside, the found cash and banknotes and some gold and silver certificates, some worth than -- more than a hundred years old. The lucky guy that dug up the treasure is Tim Crebase. The homeowner -- that's Tim with his hand up in here. The homeowner is Kevin Kozak.
Kevin, good morning to you.
And the coin shop owner down the street is Domenic Mangano.
DOMENIC MANGANO, OWNER, VILLAGE COIN SHOP: Good morning.
HEMMER: How're you doing?
MANGANO: Very good.
HEMMER: Here is the loot. How much is this worth?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In face value, probably around -- what did we say about 15.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right over, about $100,000. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, in face value.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, in face value it's about $4,000.
HEMMER: And you trust us to have all this? I need change for a $20, by the way. Now you're getting cocky. What happened when you were digging in the backyard, Tim?
TIM CREBASE, DISCOVERED BURIED TREASURE: Well, I was -- we were going to rip up a bush because the roots were going into the stairs and, like, breaking up the stairs, so my buddy brought a new Expedition, so we wanted to check out how the four-wheel drive works, so I go up there, start kind of digging around the bush so we can cut up the roots and tie a tow rope to it and just rip the bush right out of the ground. And so I start digging, and my buddy Barry goes back to the truck, and I start digging away, and I hit some kind of box, and so I keep digging and, like, I uncover this box, and, like, the shovel went through the box. The whole box just kind of disintegrated.
HEMMER: And you were like, hey, I got something down here.
CREBASE: Yes, I didn't know what, and, like, I uncovered this can, one of the cans I hit with...
HEMMER: It this one of those cans?
CREBASE: That's not -- it's one of the cans, but not the one I hit. The one I hit, like, cracked open, so I saw the money in it, and, like, I was just beside myself. I was like, wow. I was like, this is just my dumb luck.
HEMMER: So what do you do. You call your buddy Kevin inside, or where were you?
KEVIN KOZAK, TREASURE DISCOVERED IN HIS YARD: I was at work. He called me. I got to bother you for a second. I'm like, what's up? What's going on? You know he's like, I found a $10 bill. That's all he told me. I was like, OK, you're going to bother me for a $10 bill. He's like, it's like twice the size of a normal dollar bill. Do you know anything about it? I'm like, I think so. You know, when's it from? He's like, I don't know, I can't read the date. He's like, you got to come home, you got to come home, you got to tell me what's going on. I'm like, I'm not coming home for a $10 bill. He's like, all right, all right.
HEMMER: Some friend you are.
KOZAK: Yes, exactly.
He's like, all right, all right. I found a lot. He's like I found a lot. I don't know how much. He's like thousands and thousands. He goes, I don't know. It's from 1800's. You got to get home now.
HEMMER: Wow. So you come home and all this cash is laying in your backyard. You thought it was just a pear tree.
KOZAK: Yes.
HEMMER: My gosh.
Where do you come into this story, Domenic? What, you working down the street and these guys come in and say what?
MANGANO: I come in a little bit down the road, maybe about four or five hours down the road. They come walking in to my place of business, Village Coin Shop in (INAUDIBLE) New Hampshire, and they -- I guess they checked around. You people checked around.
CREBASE: Like, after we found it, we talked to our friends and family, and everybody kept saying bring it to Village Coin.
HEMMER: And that's why Domenic is here.
MANGANO: That's where I come in.
HEMMER: Show us something you think is really valuable.
MANGANO: Some of these notes are worth many times over face value. This one right here particularly. This is what they call a national bank note. Back in the early 1900s, they issued these notes to each one of the banks. They have the bank's name on it and the state, and it makes it very valuable because at that time there was no Federal Reserve.
HEMMER: If you were a collector, what would that be worth then, Domenic?
MANGANO: This note right probably would be around $400, $500.
HEMMER: Show me something else.
MANGANO: Another note that's very collectible -- by the way, on these notes here, they found multiples of these. They probably found -- this is a stack of them right here.
HEMMER: You've got the loot.
What is that there?
MANGANO: This is a bison note. It's a $10 bison note. It's a very collectible note. It was circulated in 1901. And what makes it a very collectible item is because it shows two pictures of Lewis and Clark. That's Lewis and Clark on there.
HEMMER: Wow, that's beautiful.
MANGANO: And this bill here is worth about $500.
HEMMER: Look at you guys, huh? Check that out. Are you guys still digging, by the way?
KOZAK: We're all done digging.
HEMMER: You are?
KOZAK: You are?
HEMMER: Have you gone through the whole backyard?
KOZAK: Haven't slept in a couple of days.
MANGANO: I want to add one thing.
HEMMER: Sure.
MANGANO: After they brought the bills in and we went through them. It took us six hours to go through them, by the way. After we went through them, I asked them, there is a lot of currency here. Where is the coin? Went back there to take a look at the coin, to find the coin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No coin.
MANGANO: No coin.
HEMMER: How are you going to divide this up, by the way?
CREBASE: How we're dividing it up, like...
HEMMER: Well, now we get to the tricky issue, don't we?
KOZAK: This is what I'd like to do. I'd like to donate, like, a good portion of it to my buddy's band, 'Til We Die.
HEMMER: Very cool. I'm sure he'd like that.
KOZAK: Absolutely.
HEMMER: Thanks, guys. Good luck to you.
Tim, Kevin, Domenic, good luck to you, OK, getting out of this building with all this stuff.
Here's Soledad now.
See you guys later.
O'BRIEN: In just a moment new hope this morning for thousands of breast cancer patients. Doctors may have found a promising new use for an old drug. That's up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Medical news this morning, a breast cancer drug shows new promise for those in the early stages of the disease.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen at the CNN Center with details for us. Good morning, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Soledad, the drug is called Herceptin, and doctors previously had thought that it was only useful for women with advanced breast cancer, in other words breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, but now two new big studies from the National Cancer Institute show that it seems to works for women even at the early stages of breast cancer. These were studies that involved more than 3,000 women.
And let's look at the results. When these women only had chemotherapy, 30 percent of them had the cancer come back. But when they had chemotherapy, plus this drug, Herceptin, only 15 percent of the women had the cancer come back. That is obviously a huge difference.
Now these results are so promising that doctors have decided to release the results early so that women in their early stages of breast cancer can talk to their doctors about taking these drugs.
Now there are two caveats. One, this is a very expensive drug. It cost nearly $25,000 for a round of treatment. This obviously could be a problem for women who don't have health insurance. Another caveat, this drug can lead to congestive heart failure, so patients need to be monitored very closely -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Is this the kind of drug that can be used in all women who have breast cancer?
COHEN: It can't be used in all women. It's only for women with a certain type of breast cancer. About one out of four women with breast cans could benefit from this drug.
O'BRIEN: Does it sort of work the same way that standard chemotherapy would work?
COHEN: Actually it's quite different from standard chemotherapy, Soledad. This is really a new generation of breast-cancer drugs. What it does is it attacks a specific bad protein, a protein that can really cause problems. It's called Herc 2 (ph), and it attacks the protein and either kills it or slows down the growth of the cancer cells.
O'BRIEN: Still good news, very, very good news for women with a particular type of breast cancer.
Elizabeth Cohen for us this morning. Elizabeth, thanks -- Bill.
HEMMER: Andy's "Minding Your Business." In a moment here, details on the comeback of the personalized stamp, but pranksters don't get your hopes up. A company's found a way to keep these stamps clean. Andy has that right after the break here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: All right, welcome back.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Personalized postage stamps are returning. I've been waiting for this. Now they're getting sticky, though, about what you can put on them. That story and a preview of the markets, Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Pushing the envelope here this morning.
CAFFERTY: Yes, we can say that.
You remember this story we had? I think we had an image of you on a personalized stamp.
(CROSSTALK)
SERWER: It was a barrel of laughs. No, it was good stuff actually. And this is a company, stamps.com. You may remember they were in the business of making personalized postage stamps. They started up last year, and everything was going along just fine. Most people putting up images of their babies and pets and loved ones. 2.75 million stamps were made. The problem is there are some people out there, and the USPS -- that being our postal service -- did not like it. People were making stamps of Ted Kaczynski, Linda Tripp, Jimmy Hoffa, and they were going out into the system, and the postal system did not like that, so they shut them down.
CAFFERTY: Is the postal service allowed to censor what people put on their letters?
SERWER: Well, in a matter of speaking, because they just said that we don't want this stuff done, so they shot the stamps.com operation down. But now they're letting stamps.com reopen as of May 16th, but they've got some very stringent regulations. Here's who you can not put on stamps at stamps.com: celebrities, politicians, world leaders, convicted criminals, or items considered newsworthy. Wow. Obscene, offensive, blasphemous -- when's the last time you've seen that -- blasphemous. Pornographic, menacing -- menacing.
CAFFERTY: And the Postal Service is going to decide what this stuff is?
SERWER: Supportive of unlawful action.
Well, apparently stamps.com, they've got two people who will look at every single image, and they've got thousands of images, like, for instance, a youth picture of Pol Pot, if you put that on your stamp, they're going to catch you and throw that out. Now so here are some stamps that we made up that you'll never see, that you can't do, I guess.
OK, you can't do that. He's not a convicted criminal. He's a celebrity, though. Can't do that.
Here's another one. No, that's Prince Abdullah. No, you can't do that.
With the Funyuns, you see the Funyuns? Enjoyed by crown princes everywhere, you can't do that. And now here's an interesting one, what about that? Chad Myers, can you do that? can you do Chad? I guess he's a celebrity. Is he? Yes. Can't do Chad probably. So it's kind of cute. You can't do Jack.
CAFFERTY: Don't know Jack, can't do Jack.
SERWER: All right, let's talk about the markets here quickly to finish things up. Yesterday a downer on Wall Street, concerns about consumer confidence, probably higher gas prices. And this morning durable goods coming out very poorly. Lowest number in 2 1/2 years, and the trend is not good either, down three months in a row. So the futures are weak.
CAFFERTY: Stock market is just struggling, isn't it?
SERWER: Back and forth, and a lot of forth.
CAFFERTY: A lot of forth. Thanks, Andy.
SERWER: You're welcome.
CAFFERTY: Wednesday, time for "Things People Say," beginning with, "Remember the Alamo. Shoot them. I want the bad guys dead. No court case, no parole, no early release. I want them dead. Get a gun, and when attack them, shoot them." That would be rocker Ted Nugent speaking to the National Rifle Association convention on his preferred method of criminal justice.
SERWER: "Cat Scratch Fever."
CAFFERTY: "We dropped the ball, but we're not trying to cover anything up." Walter Weber is the town clerk at Monticello, Wisconsin on local officials forgetting to hold the spring election, which is required by law. They just forgot.
"You're boredom just cost you $1,000. I'm finding you in contempt. Are you quite so bored now?" Los Angeles Craig Veals to a yawning juror who explained that the proceedings bored him.
"I think that fellow is still writing for 'The New York Times.'" That's President George Bush, after quoting a "New York Times" article from 1861 that made fun of the way Abraham Lincoln used the English language.
O'BRIEN: Very funny.
CAFFERTY: And finally this, "I didn't want to end up being the governor of California." New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, onetime draft pick of the Kansas City Athletics, on why he didn't use steroids when he played baseball.
O'BRIEN: Ouch.
SERWER: Whoa, I get that.
O'BRIEN: Kind of a low political blow, I think.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Very good file today, Jack. Thank you.
SERWER: Good stuff.
O'BRIEN: In just a moment the super jumbo jet that gives the spruce goose a run for its money. The world's biggest passenger jet flies into history. Richard Quest saw it all. He's going to join us ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired April 27, 2005 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: That is one wet morning in New York City.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It started off crummy, it's going to continue to be crummy.
HEMMER: Good day to be inside.
O'BRIEN: Yes, it is.
HEMMER: 8:30 in New York. Good morning, everyone. In a moment here, this great story of buried treasure in Massachusetts. Look at these guys. In a few moments, we'll meet the guys who found a giant stash of some really old money, but it's still worth an awful lot today. We'll also meet some of that money, too. They're in our studio. We'll feel from them in a moment.
O'BRIEN: Also this morning, new research showing some pretty promising results for treating breast cancer. We're going to take a look at the potentially important findings about a drug that's called Herceptin.
Before that, though, let's get right to the headlines. Carol Costello, good morning.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. This news just in to CNN, and sad news it is. A female member of Iraq's national assembly has been gunned down. It happened in eastern Baghdad just a short time ago. The woman had been a member of the outgoing prime minister Ayad Allawi's legislative block. The attack comes as the assembly is trying to decide on a cabinet.
A man known as the millennium bomber faces up to 35 years in prison for plotting to attack the Los Angeles Airport. The sentencing hearing for Ahmed Ressam is set to take place in the next three hours. Ressam was caught on the U.S.-Canada border with a car full of explosives in late 1999. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit international terrorism. Federal agents have boosted security at the courthouse ahead of today's hearing.
Authorities looking for another missing girl in Florida. 12- year-old Margarita Aguilar-Lopez was last seen Monday night. She was apparently taken from a motel some 30 miles outside of Tampa. The suspect apparently has ties to the girl's family.
And the woman suspected of planting a human finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili says she is ready for a fight. Anna Ayala appeared in a Nevada courtroom Tuesday. She'll face charges in California, where the actual incident took place. Her lawyers say Ayala is eager to go back to San Jose and clear her name. Still no word on where that finger came from.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay at the center of a huge political storm over ethics allegations. Still, the Texas Republican got a strong show of support from President Bush this week, including thanks for his leadership in Congress and a ride on board Air Force One.
Joining us this morning us talk about DeLay's political fortunes and many other things, in Washington from the left, Democratic consultant Victor Kamber; in Denver from the right, former RNC communications director, Cliff May. Good morning, gentleman. Nice to see you, as always.
CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIR.: Good morning, Vic. Good morning, Soledad.
VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: The president clearly standing by Tom DeLay, but wouldn't you know there are other people who appear to have similar problems. Vic, kind of hard for the Democrats to take the high road on this one, right?
KAMBER: Not at all. As a matter of fact, I think yesterday, we understand, the Ethics Committee finally has agreed to reverse the rules so that they can be an Ethics Committee. And I'm a believer, let's go after everybody. Let's start with the leader of the pack, Tom DeLay, but if there's Democrats that have problems, they should be investigated, too. This is not a House of make my own decisions. It's the House of Representatives. Tom DeLay is ethically challenged. If there are others that are ethically challenged, then we should find out about them.
MAY: Soledad, your question is exactly right. Take, for example, the charge that Tom DeLay had members of his family on his campaign staff. He did. And many other members did, too. Now I was with the editorial page editor of the "Rocky Mountain News" here, Vince Cowell (ph). He made a -- last night -- and he made a very good point to me that maybe you shouldn't allow members of families to work on campaigns, but that's got to be a rule and it's got to apply to everybody. You can't just apply it to Tom DeLay when you want to get him.
O'BRIEN: Not exactly a great defense. And you're right, not the issue en toto, but still, not a great defense when you say, well, you know, my guy did it, but other people are doing it, too.
MAY: But there's no rule against it, Soledad. There's no rule against hiring...
O'BRIEN: OK, well on that particular thing, but certainly...
MAY: You can't say there should be a rule and we're...
O'BRIEN: ... but certainly there are ethics rules against having lobbyists pay for your tickets.
MAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: No question about that. That's another maybe more important allegation. Let's talk about that. To say hey, well, maybe we did it, but other people are doing it, too, doesn't make you look so great.
MAY: You're absolutely right.
KAMBER: We haven't seen other people do it. We've seen on the front page of "The Washington Post" a copy of the credit card and a copy of the charge. We haven't seen that with others. That's an exact example. If there are others, let's bring also them in, but we know that's wrong and Tom DeLay knows that's wrong.
MAY: Vic, no, Vic, read the rest of the article. Nancy Pelosi's staff says there's a $9,000 trip and they can't account for it. And also, again...
O'BRIEN: By a staffer.
MAY: By a staffer.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: The rules have to be clear and they have to apply to everybody equally.
KAMBER: Agreed.
MAY: For example, you cannot take a trip from a lobbyist, but congressmen constantly take trips paid for by nonprofits and educational institutions. Now, what do you do if there's a lobbyist who is a board member for a nonprofit, which was evidently what happened in Tom DeLay's instance?
KAMBER: We have the Ethics Committee investigate and clear them if they're innocent.
MAY: And Tom DeLay has called for that and Democrats haven't wanted to do it. But right now, you start this kind of a witch-hunt against Tom DeLay and it's going to have ramifications throughout the House, if you start to do it. You've got to make clear rules and they got to apply to everybody. That's all.
O'BRIEN: I want to move on to our next topic. Let's talk a little bit about the judicial nominees. Harry Reid offering a compromise, "compromise." Bill Frist sort of saying, no way, Jose, or no way, Hary, in that case. Where do you think -- for both of you -- where do you think this ends up being resolved? I mean, what happens? KAMBER: I would hope they could come to a compromise, but what Harry Reid offered is not something Bill Frist can take. Look, it should be this way, as it always has been in the past. Every member of the Senate should get to vote on pretty much every judicial nominee and filibusters should only be used in very extreme circumstances. You can't change the system and you shouldn't change the system so that a small minority of one party or the other gets to essentially veto the president's choice. That's never the way we've done it in the past.
O'BRIEN: Yes, but the filibuster itself, what you're saying.
KAMBER: That's just not true. That's just not true, Cliff. The whole process of filibuster is to protect the minority and give them the minority a voice, and for 200 years, they've had that right.
MAY: Nothing like this going on.
KAMBER: This Congress wants to change it because they have the majority. This isn't about judicial nominations. Let's also make that clear. This is about Frist's leadership, his desire to run for president, his willingness to appease a small group of the hardcore conservatives out there, that if he doesn't deliver on this, he's out of luck for '08.
MAY: Look, let me -- you're just wrong historically. Justice Scalia is probably the most conservative member of the U.S. Supreme Court. When he was up, when he was nominated, the entire Senate went and voted and it was decided. There was no filibuster. Clarence Thomas was very controversial. You remember that. But the Senate voted. The idea now, using filibusters...
KAMBER: Yes, but they could have filibustered.
MAY: ... to prevents. Victor, it's like spanking. You shouldn't take it off the table, but if do you it to your kid every day, it's abuse.
KAMBER: They haven't done it every day.
O'BRIEN: Cliff, I'm confused.
MAY: They're doing it constantly.
O'BRIEN: Are you saying -- Cliff, are you saying get rid of the filibuster or keep the filibuster?
MAY: No, I'm saying a compromise should allow the filibuster only to be used in extraordinary circumstances. We don't want to change the rules where most Senate...
KAMBER: That's just baloney.
MAY: ... where the Senate doesn't get to vote on judges.
KAMBER: You are changing the rules. MAY: No, no, no, you...
KAMBER: Ten judges in four years that haven't been approved by this Senate. There were more in two years under Bill Clinton's thing.
MAY: You're playing with numbers.
KAMBER: Judges get voted on, the Senate can vote, but the Senate has the right to filibuster.
MAY: You're playing with numbers. What we're talking about are the judges for the circuit court, for the appellate court, and we know for the Supreme Court, too. We've had a problem with this going back a long way to Judge Vorck (ph), who is -- Vorck, we know have a verb in the vocabulary to say how you demonize somebody.
O'BRIEN: Oh, we do not.
MAY: But there still should be a vote by every member of the Senate. That's the system we have.
O'BRIEN: Guys, we're out of time. I'm shocked that you would accuse someone of playing with numbers, Cliff. Utterly shocked. You guys, as always, nice to see you. Thanks a lot.
MAY: Thanks, Soledad.
KAMBER: Good seeing you.
O'BRIEN: Of course, Victor Kamber and Clifford May, joining us this morning -- Bill.
HEMMER: Now from the category of we cannot make this up. Two friends in Massachusetts are $100,000 richer. They found a buried treasure chest while digging in their own backyard. Inside, the found cash and banknotes and some gold and silver certificates, some worth than -- more than a hundred years old. The lucky guy that dug up the treasure is Tim Crebase. The homeowner -- that's Tim with his hand up in here. The homeowner is Kevin Kozak.
Kevin, good morning to you.
And the coin shop owner down the street is Domenic Mangano.
DOMENIC MANGANO, OWNER, VILLAGE COIN SHOP: Good morning.
HEMMER: How're you doing?
MANGANO: Very good.
HEMMER: Here is the loot. How much is this worth?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In face value, probably around -- what did we say about 15.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right over, about $100,000. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, in face value.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, in face value it's about $4,000.
HEMMER: And you trust us to have all this? I need change for a $20, by the way. Now you're getting cocky. What happened when you were digging in the backyard, Tim?
TIM CREBASE, DISCOVERED BURIED TREASURE: Well, I was -- we were going to rip up a bush because the roots were going into the stairs and, like, breaking up the stairs, so my buddy brought a new Expedition, so we wanted to check out how the four-wheel drive works, so I go up there, start kind of digging around the bush so we can cut up the roots and tie a tow rope to it and just rip the bush right out of the ground. And so I start digging, and my buddy Barry goes back to the truck, and I start digging away, and I hit some kind of box, and so I keep digging and, like, I uncover this box, and, like, the shovel went through the box. The whole box just kind of disintegrated.
HEMMER: And you were like, hey, I got something down here.
CREBASE: Yes, I didn't know what, and, like, I uncovered this can, one of the cans I hit with...
HEMMER: It this one of those cans?
CREBASE: That's not -- it's one of the cans, but not the one I hit. The one I hit, like, cracked open, so I saw the money in it, and, like, I was just beside myself. I was like, wow. I was like, this is just my dumb luck.
HEMMER: So what do you do. You call your buddy Kevin inside, or where were you?
KEVIN KOZAK, TREASURE DISCOVERED IN HIS YARD: I was at work. He called me. I got to bother you for a second. I'm like, what's up? What's going on? You know he's like, I found a $10 bill. That's all he told me. I was like, OK, you're going to bother me for a $10 bill. He's like, it's like twice the size of a normal dollar bill. Do you know anything about it? I'm like, I think so. You know, when's it from? He's like, I don't know, I can't read the date. He's like, you got to come home, you got to come home, you got to tell me what's going on. I'm like, I'm not coming home for a $10 bill. He's like, all right, all right.
HEMMER: Some friend you are.
KOZAK: Yes, exactly.
He's like, all right, all right. I found a lot. He's like I found a lot. I don't know how much. He's like thousands and thousands. He goes, I don't know. It's from 1800's. You got to get home now.
HEMMER: Wow. So you come home and all this cash is laying in your backyard. You thought it was just a pear tree.
KOZAK: Yes.
HEMMER: My gosh.
Where do you come into this story, Domenic? What, you working down the street and these guys come in and say what?
MANGANO: I come in a little bit down the road, maybe about four or five hours down the road. They come walking in to my place of business, Village Coin Shop in (INAUDIBLE) New Hampshire, and they -- I guess they checked around. You people checked around.
CREBASE: Like, after we found it, we talked to our friends and family, and everybody kept saying bring it to Village Coin.
HEMMER: And that's why Domenic is here.
MANGANO: That's where I come in.
HEMMER: Show us something you think is really valuable.
MANGANO: Some of these notes are worth many times over face value. This one right here particularly. This is what they call a national bank note. Back in the early 1900s, they issued these notes to each one of the banks. They have the bank's name on it and the state, and it makes it very valuable because at that time there was no Federal Reserve.
HEMMER: If you were a collector, what would that be worth then, Domenic?
MANGANO: This note right probably would be around $400, $500.
HEMMER: Show me something else.
MANGANO: Another note that's very collectible -- by the way, on these notes here, they found multiples of these. They probably found -- this is a stack of them right here.
HEMMER: You've got the loot.
What is that there?
MANGANO: This is a bison note. It's a $10 bison note. It's a very collectible note. It was circulated in 1901. And what makes it a very collectible item is because it shows two pictures of Lewis and Clark. That's Lewis and Clark on there.
HEMMER: Wow, that's beautiful.
MANGANO: And this bill here is worth about $500.
HEMMER: Look at you guys, huh? Check that out. Are you guys still digging, by the way?
KOZAK: We're all done digging.
HEMMER: You are?
KOZAK: You are?
HEMMER: Have you gone through the whole backyard?
KOZAK: Haven't slept in a couple of days.
MANGANO: I want to add one thing.
HEMMER: Sure.
MANGANO: After they brought the bills in and we went through them. It took us six hours to go through them, by the way. After we went through them, I asked them, there is a lot of currency here. Where is the coin? Went back there to take a look at the coin, to find the coin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No coin.
MANGANO: No coin.
HEMMER: How are you going to divide this up, by the way?
CREBASE: How we're dividing it up, like...
HEMMER: Well, now we get to the tricky issue, don't we?
KOZAK: This is what I'd like to do. I'd like to donate, like, a good portion of it to my buddy's band, 'Til We Die.
HEMMER: Very cool. I'm sure he'd like that.
KOZAK: Absolutely.
HEMMER: Thanks, guys. Good luck to you.
Tim, Kevin, Domenic, good luck to you, OK, getting out of this building with all this stuff.
Here's Soledad now.
See you guys later.
O'BRIEN: In just a moment new hope this morning for thousands of breast cancer patients. Doctors may have found a promising new use for an old drug. That's up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
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O'BRIEN: Medical news this morning, a breast cancer drug shows new promise for those in the early stages of the disease.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen at the CNN Center with details for us. Good morning, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Soledad, the drug is called Herceptin, and doctors previously had thought that it was only useful for women with advanced breast cancer, in other words breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, but now two new big studies from the National Cancer Institute show that it seems to works for women even at the early stages of breast cancer. These were studies that involved more than 3,000 women.
And let's look at the results. When these women only had chemotherapy, 30 percent of them had the cancer come back. But when they had chemotherapy, plus this drug, Herceptin, only 15 percent of the women had the cancer come back. That is obviously a huge difference.
Now these results are so promising that doctors have decided to release the results early so that women in their early stages of breast cancer can talk to their doctors about taking these drugs.
Now there are two caveats. One, this is a very expensive drug. It cost nearly $25,000 for a round of treatment. This obviously could be a problem for women who don't have health insurance. Another caveat, this drug can lead to congestive heart failure, so patients need to be monitored very closely -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Is this the kind of drug that can be used in all women who have breast cancer?
COHEN: It can't be used in all women. It's only for women with a certain type of breast cancer. About one out of four women with breast cans could benefit from this drug.
O'BRIEN: Does it sort of work the same way that standard chemotherapy would work?
COHEN: Actually it's quite different from standard chemotherapy, Soledad. This is really a new generation of breast-cancer drugs. What it does is it attacks a specific bad protein, a protein that can really cause problems. It's called Herc 2 (ph), and it attacks the protein and either kills it or slows down the growth of the cancer cells.
O'BRIEN: Still good news, very, very good news for women with a particular type of breast cancer.
Elizabeth Cohen for us this morning. Elizabeth, thanks -- Bill.
HEMMER: Andy's "Minding Your Business." In a moment here, details on the comeback of the personalized stamp, but pranksters don't get your hopes up. A company's found a way to keep these stamps clean. Andy has that right after the break here.
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HEMMER: All right, welcome back.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Personalized postage stamps are returning. I've been waiting for this. Now they're getting sticky, though, about what you can put on them. That story and a preview of the markets, Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Pushing the envelope here this morning.
CAFFERTY: Yes, we can say that.
You remember this story we had? I think we had an image of you on a personalized stamp.
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SERWER: It was a barrel of laughs. No, it was good stuff actually. And this is a company, stamps.com. You may remember they were in the business of making personalized postage stamps. They started up last year, and everything was going along just fine. Most people putting up images of their babies and pets and loved ones. 2.75 million stamps were made. The problem is there are some people out there, and the USPS -- that being our postal service -- did not like it. People were making stamps of Ted Kaczynski, Linda Tripp, Jimmy Hoffa, and they were going out into the system, and the postal system did not like that, so they shut them down.
CAFFERTY: Is the postal service allowed to censor what people put on their letters?
SERWER: Well, in a matter of speaking, because they just said that we don't want this stuff done, so they shot the stamps.com operation down. But now they're letting stamps.com reopen as of May 16th, but they've got some very stringent regulations. Here's who you can not put on stamps at stamps.com: celebrities, politicians, world leaders, convicted criminals, or items considered newsworthy. Wow. Obscene, offensive, blasphemous -- when's the last time you've seen that -- blasphemous. Pornographic, menacing -- menacing.
CAFFERTY: And the Postal Service is going to decide what this stuff is?
SERWER: Supportive of unlawful action.
Well, apparently stamps.com, they've got two people who will look at every single image, and they've got thousands of images, like, for instance, a youth picture of Pol Pot, if you put that on your stamp, they're going to catch you and throw that out. Now so here are some stamps that we made up that you'll never see, that you can't do, I guess.
OK, you can't do that. He's not a convicted criminal. He's a celebrity, though. Can't do that.
Here's another one. No, that's Prince Abdullah. No, you can't do that.
With the Funyuns, you see the Funyuns? Enjoyed by crown princes everywhere, you can't do that. And now here's an interesting one, what about that? Chad Myers, can you do that? can you do Chad? I guess he's a celebrity. Is he? Yes. Can't do Chad probably. So it's kind of cute. You can't do Jack.
CAFFERTY: Don't know Jack, can't do Jack.
SERWER: All right, let's talk about the markets here quickly to finish things up. Yesterday a downer on Wall Street, concerns about consumer confidence, probably higher gas prices. And this morning durable goods coming out very poorly. Lowest number in 2 1/2 years, and the trend is not good either, down three months in a row. So the futures are weak.
CAFFERTY: Stock market is just struggling, isn't it?
SERWER: Back and forth, and a lot of forth.
CAFFERTY: A lot of forth. Thanks, Andy.
SERWER: You're welcome.
CAFFERTY: Wednesday, time for "Things People Say," beginning with, "Remember the Alamo. Shoot them. I want the bad guys dead. No court case, no parole, no early release. I want them dead. Get a gun, and when attack them, shoot them." That would be rocker Ted Nugent speaking to the National Rifle Association convention on his preferred method of criminal justice.
SERWER: "Cat Scratch Fever."
CAFFERTY: "We dropped the ball, but we're not trying to cover anything up." Walter Weber is the town clerk at Monticello, Wisconsin on local officials forgetting to hold the spring election, which is required by law. They just forgot.
"You're boredom just cost you $1,000. I'm finding you in contempt. Are you quite so bored now?" Los Angeles Craig Veals to a yawning juror who explained that the proceedings bored him.
"I think that fellow is still writing for 'The New York Times.'" That's President George Bush, after quoting a "New York Times" article from 1861 that made fun of the way Abraham Lincoln used the English language.
O'BRIEN: Very funny.
CAFFERTY: And finally this, "I didn't want to end up being the governor of California." New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, onetime draft pick of the Kansas City Athletics, on why he didn't use steroids when he played baseball.
O'BRIEN: Ouch.
SERWER: Whoa, I get that.
O'BRIEN: Kind of a low political blow, I think.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Very good file today, Jack. Thank you.
SERWER: Good stuff.
O'BRIEN: In just a moment the super jumbo jet that gives the spruce goose a run for its money. The world's biggest passenger jet flies into history. Richard Quest saw it all. He's going to join us ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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