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American Morning
Life-Threatening Flood Risk; New Offshore Oil Drilling Plans; African-American Tea Party; First-Time Homebuyers Tax Credit. Female Army Recruits
Aired March 31, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. It's Wednesday, March 31st. Glad you're with us on this AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. Thanks so much for being with us.
Here are the big stories coming up we'll be telling you about coming up in the next 15 minutes.
Back-to-back storms have the Northeast on flood alert this morning. The big worry: the Pawtuxet River in Rhode Island, which is expected to crest at any moment now. We'll show you what it's like there right now.
CHETRY: Well, President Obama is getting set to announce some new plans and it's raising some controversy about offshore oil drilling. It would reverse a long-standing ban on the practice and also open new areas for drilling along the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. We're following developments live in the White House -- just ahead.
ROBERTS: And the militia movement in America. It's growing. But how do authorities determine which groups pose a real threat to your security? We'll break it down this morning with Brian Levin. He's the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino.
And, of course, the amFIX blog is up and running. Join the live conversation right now. We want to hear from you about what's in the news this morning. Just go to CNN.com/amFIX. And we'll be reading some of your comments throughout the show.
CHETRY: First, though, rivers are rising across the Northeast right now. Rhode Island is bearing the brunt of a storm that stalled over the region for days, dropping many inches of rain. The predictions are now getting more dire. Forecasters now say that the Pawtuxet River could crest at 12 feet above flood stage any moment. That's a foot higher than what we were hearing about an hour ago, and that people's lives are at risk.
Reynolds Wolf is live along the river in Cranston, Rhode Island. And, you know, the sun is up. They're getting a chance to see the worst of it and what a difference just a foot makes when you're talking about the river cresting, right?
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Oh, it's mind-numbing. I mean, I can tell you, just yesterday, parts of our crew were out here and about, and they're looking around. And Desmond Garrison, he's the photojournalist. He's on the other side of the camera. He actually came out here and was looking at some of the ground here. This was all dry.
Of course, now, we got a foot of water in some places, other places a bit more. And, you know, one thing you mentioned, Kiran, was about how this is a potentially dangerous situation, possibly life- threatening. Well, that's absolutely dead on. Four people actually died during flood issues, more weather-related deaths occur in floods than any other weather phenomena.
And this weather phenomenon that we're seeing right there is all done from the Pawtuxet River, as you mentioned, that it's well above flood stage -- originally, it was forecast to go to about 20.2 feet, and it's well exceeded that. One reading we had earlier this morning 20.62 inches -- 20.62 feet of water, well above normal.
It all goes back to other numbers. The incredible rainfall during the month of March: 15.42 inches of rainfall, an all-time record. And, you know, Tuesday we had that low that was parked over parts of the Atlantic. It dumped 7.9 inches of rainfall over this particular area and you can see the result.
Here in this corner, you got Third Avenue. In this direction, you can see the dead end sign. And as far as the eye can see, you see plenty of the water. A couple cars here are in pretty good shape.
But then off in the distance, you can see a jeep that is partially submerged this time, and that is the number-one way people perish in floodwaters. They get stuck in vehicles. They become death traps. And then, of course, they succumb to the water. It's certainly a scary thing to see.
I'll tell you, something else that's been frightening is, again, the number of people that have been evacuated. Hundreds of people, hundreds of homes, hundreds of businesses in the region have been evacuated. We've got two sewage plants, one in Warwick, the other in West Warwick, that had been shut down due to the flood waters. It's a tremendous issue, and in the state that has really been suffering from the rough economic times we've been having as a nation, certainly, this is the worst thing that they could possibly expect.
One bright bit of life they have that's coming will be the forecast itself. We can expect drier conditions as we get into the weekend, possibly a few stray showers today but for the most part, we should see a bit of a drying trend.
And trust me -- the people here can certainly breathe a bit of a sigh of relief looking ahead. But for the time being, it's water everywhere and certainly a frustrating prospect at that.
That's the latest we got here. More updates coming up throughout the morning and, of course, Jacqui Jeras is going to have the latest on your forecast with, again, the better news for Rhode Island in terms of that rainfall.
Let's send it back to you.
CHETRY: Reynolds, thanks a lot.
ROBERTS: Hey, let's go to Jacqui Jeras. She's tracking the storm from the extreme weather center.
And, Jacqui, not all of it is gone. We're expecting a little bit more rain today. How much and what will the weather be like when this thing finally moves offshore?
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Well, very little additional rainfall in the area where the worst of the flooding is. And, you know, that's really focused in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. In fact, go ahead and take a look at the warnings that we have on the map for you to show you how widespread this is -- warnings from New Jersey all the way into parts of Maine.
I want to show you some pictures and this really gives you an idea of how critical these upcoming hours are now. There you can see emergency crews are out. They've got the boats and are ready to make any rescues as necessary.
And as Reynolds mentioned, most of these deaths happen because people choose to try and drive through this water and you just never know how deep it is. So, we ask that you don't do that.
While the rivers are cresting for the most part today, they're going to be staying in flood at least until the early part of next week. So, that means water is going to continue to stay around at least through your weekend, so keep that in mind in your travels.
Speaking of travel today, even though the showers are starting to pull out, we got a chance of them continuing at least through the middle part of the afternoon for today. So, we do expect to have some airport delays across the Northeast.
Best thing I can tell you is that our weather pattern overall is doing a big flip-flop. So, that's great news in the east, the drier, warmer weather is on the way. But bad news for the west because it means that critical fire danger and much cooler temperatures, and even snow into the mountains.
John and Kiran, back to you.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, we'll take it while we can get it. Jacqui Jeras this morning -- Jacqui, thanks so much.
In just a couple hours, President Obama will spell out his plans for expanding oil and gas drilling in American waters, opening new areas for drilling along the east coast from Delaware to Florida, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the northern coast of Alaska -- sure to have environmentalists up in arms.
Suzanne Malveaux is live for us at the White House where we seem to have found a little bit of good weather, a little sunshine out there.
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ROBERTS: Good morning, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. It's a little windy out here, too, but, yes, it's warming up a little bit here.
And, obviously, the environmentalists are quite angry and upset about this, because this is something that President Bush had actually tried to push through in his administration the last couple of years. We also heard the mantra "drill, baby, drill" -- that coming from the Republican side, McCain and Palin on the campaign. So, coming from the Obama administration, it is quite alarming to some environmentalists.
Here's what they're proposing to end that moratorium on offshore drilling -- what is opening up here is the east coast from Delaware to central Florida and that particular area, as well as northern coast of Alaska. Now, what is off-limits here because of environmental concerns would be from New Jersey northward to Canada, as well as the entire Pacific coast from Mexico to Canada, as well, including Alaska's Bristol Bay because of environmental concerns.
This is what the Obama administration is trying to pitch as a compromise here when it comes to the climate change legislation that they're trying to push desperately, John, trying to get moderate Democrats and some Republicans on board so they can push this thing through. It's a big gift to the oil companies and a gift to some of those legislators.
ROBERTS: Some people are championing expansion of offshore oil drilling. Other people are adamantly against it. Is there any way to gauge at this point what the impact, politically, will be for the White House?
MALVEAUX: It's kind of tough right now because there's a big process that they have to go through. They have to have -- they have studies to go and show whether or not this is environmentally sound, and then you have this whole bidding process to see if people or private companies are even going to be interested in drilling in those areas. So, this is still years away if anything is going to happen.
But you got some senators from the coastal states who are already crying foul -- from Delaware, Maryland, Oregon -- those type of communities who are saying that the fisheries is going to -- fishing industry is going to be damaged, as well as the environment.
But this is not something that should come as a complete surprise to folks. It is something that President Obama as a candidate had actually mentioned during the campaign. He also pushed it in the State of the Union address.
Take a listen, John.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But to create more of these clean-energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.
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MALVEAUX: So, John, really the timing of this is interesting, as well, because the Senate is expected to take up that climate bill in the next couple of weeks. Once again, this is really seen as a carrot for some of those Republicans and moderate Democrats to get on board, and the president announcing this at a time when he feels particularly strong after the health care reform lobbying passed, the nuclear deal with Russia, as well as his trip to Afghanistan.
So, he's pushing forward something that's a little risky, a little controversial, but they think that they can handle that.
ROBERTS: When you've got the political capital, you spend it. Suzanne Malveaux for us at the White House -- Suzanne, thanks.
MALVEAUX: Sure.
CHETRY: Well, these tea party rallies that we've been talking about and showing you -- is there diversity in the audience or on stage? We're going to be taking a look -- coming up.
Ten minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
More kids are kicked out of the Massachusetts high school where prosecutors say a teen was relentlessly bullied until she took her own life. The "Boston Herald" is reporting now that two more of Phoebe Prince's accused classmates have been expelled. They're also saying that others who were in school were not in class yesterday, but they're not saying the names of these people. Nine have been charged in the case.
Meanwhile, some of the parents are now saying that the superintendent as well as the principal mishandled the bullying and should at the very least step down.
ROBERTS: Five young men from the Washington, D.C., area face life in prison when they go on trial today in Pakistan. The "D.C. 5," as they're called, charged with conspiring to commit criminal acts of terror and wage war against Pakistan and its allies. The suspects all worshipped together at a mosque in Virginia until they vanished last November and then turned up in Pakistan.
CHETRY: And an apology from retired U.S. General John Sheehan. The former supreme Allied commander told Congress this month that Dutch troops were defeated by Serb forces in 1995 because too many openly gay soldiers served in the Dutch military. Now, those comments caused an uproar in the Netherlands. General Sheehan has now retracted those comments in an apology letter to a Dutch military commander.
ROBERTS: Well, when you size up the crowds at tea party rallies, diversity is not necessarily the first word that comes to mind. It's right there to see in black and white.
CHETRY: Minorities don't appear to be playing a significant role in the movement. And Ed Lavandera tells us that some people believe it could be a problem for the party when America votes.
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ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Kiran, the crowds turning out for the Tea Party Express rallies are overwhelmingly white. Is this lack of diversity a problem for the Tea Party movement? We're taking a closer look.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Hip-hop rhymes with a tea party flair.
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LAVANDERA: Lloyd Marcus (ph) fires up the crowd.
LLOYD MARCUS, TEA PARTY MEMBER: I am not an African-American. I am Lloyd Marcus, American!
LAVANDERA: Subtle efforts to make the tea party appear diverse. But wherever the Tea Party Express goes, Lloyd Marcus will be one of the few minorities in the crowd. That doesn't bother him. He feels at home with his tea party brothers.
MARCUS: I think that there's not a lot of black folks here basically because they haven't seen the light yet. They are still hypnotized by the first black or African-American president. But they haven't really looked at the man and what he's doing.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Critics argue there's an anti-minority undertone to these rallies. One anti-tea party protester lashed out at a campaigning candidate about the issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Other than the people that are covering the story here, the only people I see are retired white people. LAVANDERA: At the tea party express kickoff rally, one woman carried a sign with a stuffed monkey that read, "Send Obama back to Kenya." Tea party activists signs also rail against immigration reform with a tone that could offend Latinos. Tea party activists though, say, attempts to portray the group as racist or not open to welcoming minorities is a biased, unfair attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't believe the crock you're reading in some media about racism. I don't see the lack of diversity at all.
LAVANDERA: Tea party chairman Mark Williams argues the movement is incredibly diverse and says there are no specific efforts to reach out to minorities.
LAVANDERA (on camera): So there's no sense that you maybe need to go out and target black people, Hispanic people, to bring them into the fold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All they need to do is read the constitution and they'll come find us.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The tea party express cross-country tour moves into Colorado on Wednesday with rallies in Grand Junction and Denver. John and Kiran --
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Ed Lavandera this morning. Ed, thanks so much. The home buyer tax credit. It's expiring soon. So what should you do if you want your money? Should you rush out and buy? Or is it worth it? Christine Romans "Minding Your Business" this morning. She has the breakdown for you. 16 and a half minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Something we wanted to share with you this morning. This is so great. We recorded it just a few minutes ago, we reracked the tape, playing it back. This is sunrise in Cincinnati where it's fair and 38 degrees right now. Later on today it's going to be a big, big, big change, not so much in, you know, in terms of what it looks like. It will be partly cloudy, plenty of sunshine, but it's going to be 74 degrees there in Cincinnati.
CHETRY: They're lucky.
ROBERTS: Some of that moving into the northeast over the next couple of days, as well. Time for "Minding Your Business" this morning, investors looking to Dow 11,000. After zigzagging for much of the last year, this morning, the Dow opens at an 18-month high. It added 11 points yesterday to close at more than 10,900.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Zigzag. It's gone straight up the last year. Look at that! It's been crazy.
ROBERTS: A little zigzag in there. Wasn't like a flat curve.
CHETRY: You are saying 100 points in 44 days, right? Is that what you were saying yesterday -- 1,000 points, 1,000 points in 44 days, and you were saying that that would be considered a banner year let alone about a month and a half.
ROMANS: And the banner that actually year's some 60 percent -70 percent, almost 70 percent. I mean, look at the NASDAQ. The NASDAQ, gosh, I mean, it's added almost maybe 70 percent or something. It's just incredible.
CHETRY: You're being too optimistic.
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: She points out, though, that it's down 23 percent from its all-time high. Right?
ROMANS: It is. Because every time I say how great the Dow is, people, you know, people write me and say yes, but I've lost 25 percent of my kids' college education. How can you be so optimistic about stocks? I get it. I get that it has been really good the past year. But it's down from its peak.
Home buyer tax credit running out. That's what I've dropped by to talk to you about. You've got less than a month now to get your first-time home buyer tax credit, folks, if you're going to sign a deal on a house, a contract to a house, you have to do it by April 30th, close by June 30th. As you're doing your taxes or you are hiring someone to try to help you do your taxes, remember that its form 5405 for those of you who already have bought your house for your first-time home buyer tax credit, you get $8,000 first-time home buyers up to a certain income restriction.
People pointing out to me this morning maybe they would have liked to have bought but not everybody can buy them after somebody considered wealthy is not allowed and doesn't get this. And repeat buyers get $6,500.
Now, one of the reasons why we haven't seen I think the big push for the repeat home buyers out there is because you still have to pay those closing costs and the commission and all that other stuff, so it kind of wipes it out. My advice to people who are thinking about maybe time is running out and I want to get this first- time home buyer tax credit, buy a house because you can live in it, because you can afford it, because it's in a good school district, because it's good for your life. I think there are a lot of people out there who are not buying a house because of $8,000 free money from the government.
CHETRY: You have to see what works for you and if you can take advantage it's certainly a bonus.
ROMANS: And be careful where you are. Because, in some places of the country they're expecting home prices to fall this year. So, it might eat away your home buyer tax credit a little bit if you do it right now.
ROBERTS: That said, though, still a great time for first time buyers to get in the market.
ROMANS: Oh, yes. And we know that the average age of people doing this is about 30 years old. It helps people get in who have been priced out of the market for a long time.
ROBERTS: Christine Romans, "Minding Your Business" this morning. Thanks.
ROMANS: Sure.
CHETRY: Still ahead, we are going to be taking a look at some of these growing extremist groups. Are there more than there used to be? And are they more dangerous? 22 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Top stories just five minutes away. First, though, an A.M. Original, something you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING. The military is letting our camera show you what it's like, really like, to serve in uniform.
ROBERTS: And this morning we have something that civilians almost never see. One woman, a wife and mom, getting ready for her first days of life in the Army. Jason Carroll is following new recruit Latricia Rose in our ongoing series "A Soldier's Story."
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you have a little peek of her there, just that little video clip. She's a great girl, and a pleasure to follow her along. You know, right now women make up about 14 percent of the active Army. Many of those women are also mothers. And as you are about to see some face special challenges in dealing with the realities of military life.
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BRANDON ROSE, HUSBAND: One. Two. Three.
CARROLL (voice-over): Latricia Rose doesn't yet have a drill sergeant barking orders to help her get into shape. So instead, her husband, Brandon, gently eggs her on.
ROSE: Come on, you got it. Come on, you got it.
CARROLL: Rose is 20 years old, a new mother, and weeks away from starting a new career -- Army private.
(on camera): Are you prepared to go through what they have to do in terms of basic training?
LATRICIA ROSE, NEW RECRUIT: No, but --
CARROLL: No?
ROSE: No. I'm just being honest.
CARROLL (voice-over): Honest, too, about what she sees as her greatest challenge when she becomes a soldier, and it's not physical. It's emotional.
ROSE: I can't deal with not being with my baby, and I don't know how I'm going to deal with it. I'm probably going to be crying and everything. Honestly. I know I'm going to be crying.
CARROLL: Latricia, Brandon, and their 2-year-old daughter, Ayana (ph), live in Columbus, Georgia, about two hours outside Atlanta. It's where she went to high school and met her husband. First there were thoughts of nursing school, but early motherhood and marriage put those plans on hold. Brandon struggled to find work. Latricia's earnings supported the family.
ROSE: Mommy can't kick. I wanted to work and I want to go to school, and it's kind of hard to do both of them. And so I was, like, well, with the military, you know, they'll help me go to school.
CARROLL: And now as Latricia counts down the weeks before she leaves her family behind for basic training in Missouri, Brandon says the sacrifice ahead is worth it.
ROSE: It's hard. There's not a day that I don't think about it. But I also think it is, you know, good for our family.
CARROLL: Not everyone in the family agrees.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wasn't happy. I tried for months to talk her out of it.
CARROLL: Latricia's mother saw college in her daughter's future and worries Latricia's separation from her daughter may be too much to handle. Yaronda Neel says, she should know. She was once in the Army.
YARONDA NEEL, MOTHER: It's going to be very difficult, you know, her just missing out on the day-to-day things and her not being there to see it. But she'll hear about it from other people when she's calling home, her hearing her daughter cry for her. That just makes it very hard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mwah!
CARROLL: And how do you tell a 2-year-old that mommy's leaving for a few months?
(on camera): Will you do the explaining, will you do it, or will both of you explain or try to?
ROSE: We'll both talk to her. Maybe we should do it tonight.
CARROLL (voice-over): But they hold off.
ROSE: There's the husband over there.
CARROLL: Latricia captures her life at home before the new chapter begins.
ROSE: Alpha, Bravo.
ROSE: C.
ROSE: Charlie.
ROSE: D.
ROSE: Delta.
ROSE: E.
ROSE: Echo.
ROSE: This is not about the Army. This is about my life.
CARROLL: Time with family, more precious now.
ROSE: This is my angel when she finally got asleep. I'm going to miss her so much when I leave. But she's my motivation, so I know she'll be okay.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: Well, Latricia's husband, Brandon, is actually in somewhat a unique category -- Army -- male Army spouse. Only about 6.5 percent of Army spouses are male. As for Latricia, she heads to basic training on April 14th and we'll be there for every step of the way. You know what's interesting when we were doing that interview, her daughter, Ayana (ph) wouldn't even leave her side, not even for the interview so, you can imagine what the separation is going to be.
ROBERTS: Has her husband given any thought to enlisting?
CARROLL: Very good point. Actually, he is. He's waiting to see what her experience is like, and if it's something that works for her, he may join as well.
CHETRY: The difficulty, though, is, what happens when there are two people. You have to sign, as we talked about earlier, that agreement about having somebody to watch your child. If they both get deployed in different places, who would watch the little girl?
CARROLL: And this is the reality of a lot of military families who are trying to make ends meet. They see the military as an option. This is what their lives are like.
ROBERTS: All right. Look forward to seeing more of this story. Jason, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Thanks, Jason.
ROBERTS: Crossing the half hour, here are this morning's top stories, a flood emergency across the northeast this morning. Forecasters are predicting life-threatening floods in Rhode Island where the Pawtucket River is expected to crest at any moment at about 12 feet above flood stage. A storm that sat over New England for two days has dumped over eight inches of rain there.
CHETRY: Also, in just a couple of hours, President Obama will announce plans to open more areas to offshore oil and gas drilling. The move would lead to two-decade ban on drilling, an open up parts of the east coast from Delaware to the center Florida coast. The White House says, it should open a path to energy independence.
ROBERTS: And Barbara Bush is expected to leave a Houston hospital and head home this morning. She has been there for four days now. A family spokesman says, the former first lady has been feeling out of sorts for the past few weeks. Doctors are not saying, whether they found anything wrong.
CHETRY: Well, in Michigan today, a bond hearing scheduled for the nine members of an alleged Militia group. Officials accuse the Hutaree Militia of plotting to kill a Michigan police officer and then to attack other police who would gather at the funeral.
ROBERTS: Well, joining us to talk about the danger of extremist groups is Brian Levin, he is the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State University in San Bernardino.
Brian, great to see you this morning.
A figure that we often cite and it bears repeating again, the Southern Poverty Law Center says, in the past few year, there's been a 244 percent increase in the number of so-called patriot groups, which includes militias. There have been rises in the past, Minutemen in the 1960s, Christian Patriots defense league in the '80s, and a lot certainly a lot of militias forming in the '90s, but what's different this time around and how do you know if these groups are truly dangerous?
BRIAN LEVIN, CRIMINOLOGIST, HATE GROUPS EXPERT: Great question. A of couple things. One thing that's different is I think how technology has aided the growth of these militias. And let's remember, too, though, this dramatic growth which took place, let me just put a couple of codicils on there. One, it grew off of a very low base, so there was a period of quiescence for a while after the '90s movement kind of imploded. But the growth had been unmistakable. It had been dramatic. But it's been off of a small base, number one.
Number two, is it's not evenly distributed geographically across the nation, so places like Michigan are hotbeds. Ohio, Texas, even a bit out here in California. The Appalachian area and the Border States. But like the breadbasket, for instance, and some of the major eastern metropolitan areas, you're not going to see them. YouTube has played a significant role, and we see this group itself had a page on the web but also on YouTube. Back in the '90s, we saw short wave radio and FOX Networks as well as the just beginning of the internet aiding the Militia movement. Now we're seeing actually, YouTube play a significant role where we saw starting a couple years ago just an explosion of these new videos from Militia groups that we never heard of who in the past we never would have known about.
CHETRY: Right. So, it's interesting, though, because it's something like we talk about, as well, when we talk about law enforcement trying to keep an eye on and track, let's say, Islamic extremism or more efforts to get more people to join the cause, Islamic radical cause, which is that they're able to recruit more using these websites, but they're also easier to track and figure out. And in this case, it was this YouTube video that ultimately led to them catching the eye of law enforcement. So in some ways, is it almost a helpful tool, the internet?
LEVIN: It's helpful because we can keep track of groups like this. And my friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center and others of us have known about these and similarly situated groups. The difference between these domestic groups and, for instance, Jihadists is there is more of an organized structure to the media marketing, if you will. Al-Sahab, for instance, which is the media arm of Al-Qaeda, is very active with putting out videos. And as you've shown on your network, you can buy these types of videos and others of sermons of the streets of London and even here in the United States. Here with regard to the domestic anti-government threat, the videos are produced much more locally and tend to be much more idiosyncratic than the more structured, if you will, Jihadists videos that are out there and more heavily distributed.
ROBERTS: Brian, let me come back to the point that I asked about at the top. How do you know which of these groups truly are dangerous?
LEVIN: Great question. First of all, most of them aren't. Most of them are quite benign. But here's the problem. You have a very widespread of anger across the country, so you have more potential recruits in this elastic pool of angry people that appears to be growing because of the economy, because of also what's going on in the political climate where people today are taking legislative losses not merely as part of the ebb and flow of the political process but rather a reason to declare war and opt out of our systems and institutions of our pluralistic democracy.
Most of these people are not a threat, they're letting off steam both rhetorically and by just, you know, doing something on the weekends, for instance, but we don't know whose anger is going to transform from just merely letting off steam to hooking into a belief system and then getting radicalized with others in inbred small group dynamic. And that's the difficult thing.
CHETRY: Right. You know, it's interesting to get your take on how do you think these Michigan Militia indictments will going to play out? I mean, after we saw the Oklahoma City bombings, and there was a sharp decline in these types of groups. What about what we're dealing with Hutaree situation right now?
LEVIN: Kiran, great point. And here's the difference, though. The difference was first of all, the militia movement actually peaked about a year after Oklahoma City, so it still had some momentum going, but actually the bombing took a lot of the loose cherries out of the extremist world. And this is the issue. When you have a mass act of terrorism that will take people who might have had some kind of sympathy and say wait a minute, no, we haven't opted out like this. Here, because they didn't actually execute their act, I think things are going to get worse, and particularly with the political climate.
And the fact there are folks out there on major media saying that, you know, well, maybe there were FEMA concentration camps, oh, that's not true or even, you know, the birther movement which you got some play even on your own network. This is scary because when conspiracy theories are given legitimacy, that increases again the pool of people who would go into these movements who are angry and they get anchored in this conspiratorial belief system. And then you have the overlay of a religious yet twisted ideology as well.
ROBERTS: Yes. We have more development expected today in this case. Brian Levin from Cal State in San Bernardino, good talking to you. Thanks for joining us.
LEVIN: Thank you so much for having me.
CHETRY: Sure.
ROBERTS: Thirty seven and a half minutes after the hour. Coming up next, the latest installment in the building of America. What happens when a chicken farm burns down? The neighbors come into rescue. Stay with us.
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ROBERTS: Coming up now on 19 minutes to the top of the hour. Barnyard sounds. Today in our "Building Up American" series, a story of friends, neighbors, loyal costumers all pitching in this ever place close to their hearts and their stomachs. It's a real example of a community coming together to make the recession a little bit better.
Dan Simon's got story.
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DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Apparently green eggs aren't just found in the Dr. Seuss Classic. You almost don't want to eat it because it's so pretty.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I know.
SIMON: We're at the organic soul food chicken farm an hour from San Francisco. It's a business that stirs such passion that loyal customers refuse quite literally to let it go down in flames. After a fire killed 1,200 chicks and destroyed their coops last September, Alexis Koefed and her husband, Eric, thought the struggling farm they started just three years ago was finished.
(on camera): Did you think you were going to be out of business?
ALEXIS KOEFED, CHICKEN FARMER: Oh, I was convinced we were done. You know, we already were skating by. Eric had lost his job. We were just living off of this land. That was a half month's income that went up in smoke and I thought I'll never recover from that. It's just too hard. SIMON (voice-over): Starting the farm wasn't easy. Alexis and her husband had no farming experience. She was in marketing. He was a structural engineer. Yet as soon as they began selling their chicken eggs, many chefs from the finest local restaurants, including Alice Waters from the nationally renowned Chez Panisse said, they were among the best they ever tasted.
ALICE WATERS, CHEZ PANISSE RESTAURANT: Grow something that really is tasty, I'll buy it all.
SIMON: The farm was saved not just because of its high-quality eggs and meat but also because of its philosophy.
WATERS: This egg comes from chickens that are probably crammed in cages, maybe eight, ten birds in a cage.
SIMON: She explains by showing us two different eggs, one from a chain grocery store and one of hers.
WATERS: And this is a chicken egg that she got to lay her egg how she felt like after being outside eating grass and bugs.
SIMON (on camera): This is what those chefs like so much, what you're seeing right here -- the chickens roam the fields freely and eat the natural grass, and that, they believe, makes for a higher quality egg, eggs they apparently could not live without because when the fire seemingly destroyed the business, her customers got together and said we're not going to let that happen.
BONNIE POWELL, FRIEND: We had a fancy auction, we had a raffle, we had several fund-raising dinners.
SIMON (voice-over): Bonnie Powell led the effort to raise $30,000 to keep the farm in business.
POWELL: It was kind of amazing how many people just felt touched by this, like, no, we can't let soul food farm die.
SIMON: The farm still struggles to make money, but Alexis loves her land, loves her way of life.
KOEFED: Thank you very much. My husband will be excited.
SIMON: You could say she's just fine putting all her eggs in one basket.
KOEFED: Thank you.
SIMON: Dan Simon, CNN, Vacaville, California.
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CHETRY: Love it. It's hard work, but it pays off.
ROBERTS: Yes. It's nice when everybody pitches in to help out. CHETRY: All right. Well, still ahead. Actually, check out this video. We're going to show it to you right now. This is in Cranston, Rhode Island as we said before the Pawtucket River is expected to crest any moment now about a foot higher than they thought before, 12 feet above flood stage. They've got record rainfall and a life- threatening situation there.
Our Reynolds Wolf is also there. We're going to check in with him to see how things are going as we're watching yet another rescue in progress. Forty four minutes after the hour.
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CHETRY: Forty seven minutes past the hour.
We've been keeping an eye on Cranston, Rhode Island, probably one of the hardest hit areas right now because of all the rain and the swollen river there.
Reynolds Wolf is along the Pawtuxet River this morning. What -- right now, is this the crest time, is this when it's expected to crest?
WOLF: If it's not right now it's going to be very close. It's expected to crest well over the 20.2 feet that was originally forecast, possibly to 20.62, which was recorded earlier.
So it's going to be kind of interesting to see how it levels out. And it's very interesting to see how it's been playing out in the lives of people throughout the region.
Just a while ago, we were able to get some fresh video that we're sharing with you across America, this video of Ed Flynn. Eddie Flynn has been a lifelong resident here of Cranston, Rhode Island, was evacuated from his home with his -- with his wife, their children, a couple of dogs, other few prized possessions.
Now if you're watching this you're saying, you know, why didn't he evacuate earlier? Look at all the water around his house. Well, I can tell you that only less than 12 hours ago, there wasn't any water around his house. So it was very dry around there.
Again, that -- what is brought to them is -- I can tell you has been quite a bit of damage and obviously a lot of heartbreak.
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WOLF: How quickly did the water come up?
ED FLYNN, RESCUED FROM FLOODED HOME: Five o'clock is when it really -- because I had to shut down one of the pumps. I was running out of generator, so you know, so then the Fire Department told me to shut the generator off. I had it in the garage. I had the doors open and everything. That's when I lost everything, once I shut the pumps off. My furnace is under water, hot water, everything.
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WOLF: Again, that is a scene that's been playing out with a lot of people around the region. And firefighters have been telling us that if you have the means to evacuate immediately, by all means do so, especially if you're in some of the flood areas. Otherwise, again it's just going to be some rough going and certainly as the river continues to rise, it's going to be big thing that you're going to have to endure. And then, of course the waters recede, that's when the cleanup begins.
Let's send it back to you in the studio.
CHETRY: All right, Reynolds Wolf for us this morning. Good luck out there for everyone who has been dealing with that situation. Not fun.
Thanks.
ROBERTS: The health care reform bill. What does it mean for you? Who pays for emergency room visits and mental health issues?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta has got the "AM Breakdown" coming up next.
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ROBERTS: Welcome back to "The Most News in the Morning". Time now for your "AM House Call": stories about your health. President Obama has signed off on the final package of fixes to the health care bill, but you still have lots of questions about the new law and what it all means for you.
CHETRY: Yes our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is with us this morning from Atlanta to answer some of those questions. Hey Sanjay. Good to see you this morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Good to see you.
CHETRY: So we want to try to get to as many as possible. Let's dive right in. Question number one -- will co-pays for ER visits go down?
GUPTA: Well, the answer to that is not necessarily. And there's two ways to sort of think about it. First in terms of the details, there's going to be health exchanges that people have heard about by 2014. You can sign up for one of these exchanges if you don't already have insurance through Medicare or through your employer, something like that.
When you join this exchange, you can opt for either having higher premiums and lower cost-sharing, meaning lower co-pays, lower deductibles, things like that, or the opposite, you can have lower premiums and higher cost-sharing.
When we do all the math, though, it doesn't mean that the ER co- payers are going to go down in any of those scenarios. Sort of the macro look at this is if you look at the health care plans overall, there seems to be more incentives towards preventive medicine, so even scrapping co-pays for example, for medicine, for visits -- for example that focus on prevention. But as far as emergency visits, it's probably going to stay the same, at least as far as we can tell doing the math.
ROBERTS: I got a question from our "AM Blog" this morning. The person asks, "Most insurers don't cover infertility. Will the bill address this?"
GUPTA: Right, right. You know, going through the entire bill, there's nothing specifically with regard to infertility. We didn't find any sort of incentive or some sort of money to help alleviate some of the costs associated with infertility treatments which can be quite expensive.
The one thing I will say is there have been situations where people have been deemed to have a pre-existing condition because they've gone through infertility treatments, making it difficult for them to get insurance down the road. That won't happen eventually as this non-discrimination for pre-existing conditions goes into effect in 2014.
So a little bit of help but not to help defray some of those costs directly.
ROBERTS: Ok.
CHETRY: We've gotten many questions about this one. "How will the bill affect people dealing with mental health issues?" Judith via e-mail asked this question as well.
GUPTA: Yes. You know, this is something we've really looked into quite a bit and done a lot of stories on this. There's something known as parity, p-a-r-i-t-y, sort of making mental health on par with physical health in terms of how it is treated, how it is reimbursed and to even being able to pay for some of those things.
So parity does seem to be a part of this bill. There has been limited mental health parity in the past, meaning that -- only a certain number of visits were covered; only a certain amount of the money for medications were covered. A lot of those discrepancies should go away.
It looks like most of that will take place in 2014, but eventually putting mental health sort of on the same par as physical health.
ROBERTS: This question comes to us via Twitter from Kyle. I guess he's talking about the run-up to one of those insurance exchanges that are implemented. He says, "Will insurance companies be allowed to raise premiums to lock us in at a higher rate?"
GUPTA: Yes, I mean, this has been obviously a hot topic right now; the secretary of health, Kathleen Sebelius, out there talking about some of these double-digit premium increases already happening. Some people think it's a defensive posturing based on what's coming down the pike with health care reform.
You know, it's interesting. It's hard to say exactly what will transpire over the next six months until some of this goes into effect. You see this sort of back and forth right now.
I can tell you that by 2011 there's going to be some specific health insurance regulation in place setting up a very formal appeals process, for example, for the consumer to the insurance company if premiums would go up, if claims are denied, really trying to target those things.
And by 2014 there's going to be a real specific plan to try and have insurance companies always pay a certain percentage of what they're taking in towards health care as opposed towards profits or administrative expenses.
If there's money left over, the idea is that the money would actually go back to the consumer eventually. Whether that will happen, how that will play out is a little bit hard to tell but that's the health insurance regulation part of this whole thing.
CHETRY: All right. Interesting. We got to a lot of questions, so we're glad about that but I'm sure there's many more. So keep them coming and we'll try to get Sanjay to answer --
GUPTA: I'll keep my thinking cap on.
CHETRY: -- as many as possible. Yes, exactly.
Good to see you this morning. Thanks, Sanjay.
GUPTA: See you guys.
CHETRY: Fifty-seven minutes past the hour.
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ROBERTS: Continue the conversation on today's stories; go to our blog at CNN.com/amFIX. That will wrap it up for us today. We'll see you back here early tomorrow morning.
CHETRY: That's right. And good luck to everybody who's dealing with this severe weather situation out there. Hopefully things will be better tomorrow. That's what they tell us so -- fingers crossed.
ROBERTS: Yes. Getting some sunshine; some nice warm temperatures tomorrow. Hang in there.
CHETRY: Yes. Meanwhile, here's "CNN NEWSROOM" with Kyra Phillips. Good morning, Kyra.
