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Aired March 17, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY PRATT, GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA: It's no different for a law enforcement agency to sell its guns than it is for a private dealer to sell its guns. They're both going to be going into the private market, and a gun ban or any kind of restriction that might otherwise be placed on these guns doesn't make any difference in crime. We know that.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In Tennessee the practice will likely continue. Under new state legislation, law enforcement agencies have to trade or sell most of their confiscated weapons. A gun can only be destroyed if it's unsafe or inoperable.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone. I'm off to celebrate. CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with the man, Ali Velshi.
ALI VELSHI, HOST: Save a stool for me, Tony. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you.
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you out there. I'm Ali O'Velshi [SIC] for the next two hours. And I'll be with you for the next two hours today and every day. Going to try and break things down for you, try and make it easier to understand the things that will help you make better decisions on how to spend, what to put on the Internet, and how to think about health care.
Let me tell you where we're starting today. Here's what I've got on the rundown for you. We are getting closer to health-care reform, and we're getting closer to defeating health-care reform. It's an all-or- nothing battle on Capitol Hill this week, and both sides are getting closer to victory and/or defeat. It all comes down to the holdouts.
Plus, it's spring break time and resorts in Mexico are offering ridiculously low rates. But a lot of students and parents are saying, no mas (ph), fearing they won't make it back from their vacation.
And another airline strands passengers on the tarmac, this time for seven hours. It got so bad they were rationing potato chips. The airline is giving them 100 bucks apiece. Try this next month, and it will cost $27,000 apiece. Think about that.
All right. I'm going to go over to Chad right now at the severe weather center. We are watching very carefully the rivers, the flooding, the danger of flooding in the upper Midwest.
What's the situation, Chad?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, every county that you see here in bright green all the way from Canada, all the way down into Iowa, those are under some type of flood warning: either a creek or stream or a river out of its banks. The problem is the topography. We'll get to this real quickly. We also have the mayor on the line, as well.
But here is the problem. When you get up into northern North Dakota and also into Minnesota, the land becomes very, very flat. If the -- if the land is straight down a hill...
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: ... your stream or your creek is going to be a straight line.
Here is the river. The Red River they're trying to protect. Look at the distance. Look at the square footage that you have to make sandbags, sand barriers...
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: All the way back and forth. This river meanders like the Mississippi.
VELSHI: And that creates quite a floodplain, too.
MYERS: That creates a floodplain.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: And look at the mileage of sandbags you have to put down to protect the city. So let's get to the mayor.
VELSHI: Yes. Yes. All right. So the mayor is standing by. Mayor Dennis Walaker. He's the mayor of Fargo, North Dakota. We also, by the way, have Chris Welch. He's our all-platform journalist. He's in Fargo. He's on -- he's down by the river there.
Mayor, let's start with you. What's the situation since the last time we talked to you?
DENNIS WALAKER, MAYOR, FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA (via phone): Well, the sun is shining for the first time in ten days. That's good news.
VELSHI: That's on the good side.
WALAKER: That's the good news. We had a significant turn out of volunteers there. You know, spring break is not good for everybody. Our university, 13,000 students, they're out of town on spring break. So that's one of our manpower pools that volunteer and so forth.
But the high-school kids and the junior -- junior college, they really came forth yesterday to participate in not only the making of sandbags but placing the sandbags. So we had a good day again yesterday, and if we have a good day today and tomorrow, maybe by Friday night we'll be ready for what the weather service is calling our crest Monday night.
MYERS: Mister -- Mr. Mayor, we've just looked at a Google Earth map of the length of the Red River in your community. Can you tell me how many miles of sandbags you are making?
WALAKER: Well, probably, you know, OK, the river right now is projected to go to 38 feet, which is about 23 feet above normal winter flows. OK? So that's the significant amount here in the valley that only has one foot of drop per mile.
VELSHI: Wow.
WALAKER: And it meanders -- meanders through it, so basically the river is twice as long river miles than it is for land miles.
VELSHI: Wow.
WALAKER: So you've got some kind of understanding what the Red River is all about.
VELSHI: Are you concerned, mayor, that it's going to get to that 38 feet? It's about 30 1/2 right now?
WALAKER: Well, we -- we have a difference of opinion there. I'm hoping, you know, maybe some of this is wishful thinking, that it will come in around 37, 36. But right now we're -- we're preparing for 38 feet with 2 feet of free boards. We're protecting our city right now to 40-feet river stage.
MYERS: Mr. Mayor, is there any thought of allowing the river to flood south of your town and just let the water go into the floodplain like it's supposed to?
WALAKER: No, no, it's...
MYERS: No, it's a bad idea.
WALAKER: What the Corps of Engineers has basically told us is to get one foot to a foot to a foot-and-a-half of reduction in the peaks would take between 400 and 600,000 acre-feet of storage. And that's probably a 50-year or 75-year process, trying to find places to store water. We'd only gain about a foot, foot and a half.
If we can get a diversion, which we're trying to get right now -- we've never come this far and fast -- if we can get a diversion, we can get six, seven feet of stage reduction. And that's where we're trying to get to here with the help of the Corps of Engineers and the Congress of the United States to be a partner with us and the state of North Dakota and the state of Minnesota.
So that's some of the problems that we have here. But today -- we were up yesterday in a Blackhawk helicopter, and things do not look as dire as they were in 2009. In fact, they look pretty good. VELSHI: Well, that's good. Mayor, we'll keep checking in on you. Thanks very much. Mayor Dennis Walaker is the mayor of Fargo, North Dakota. We're keeping a close eye on that.
Chris Welch is our all-platform journalist in Fargo right now.
Chris, what's it looking like? It looks calm right now. The river behind you does not look like a river that is about to endanger a community.
CHRIS WALSH, REPORTER: Well, you can't really see the river rushing too fast but what you see is the river rising.
Let me walk behind the camera here, if I could. I'm going to zoom in on a couple of things to give you a little bit of a better idea. Put this in perspective, I guess.
I'm standing right next to basically what is a shopping mall in Moorhead, Minnesota here. And these streets that are right on the edge are on the edge of the river. There's a parking garage here. You're looking at -- I think you can see it -- a stop sign that has been taken over by water.
And I want to also show you another part of the river here, if I can. Some street signs here that have been taken over by the water, as well.
There's a bridge that goes over this part of the river here. That has not been closed as of yet. But I do want to point out, you know, the mayor mentioned and everyone I talked to here has talked about how this flood will be less severe than, you know, last year. We expect it to be about three feet less if the crest is correct.
But that is still, if it reaches 38 or 39 feet, that is still in the top four floods in the last 100 years for this area. So that's a pretty significant flood, I guess.
VELSHI: Chris, what's the sense of urgency amongst the people in Fargo?
WELCH: Well, they're taking it, I guess, a little more calmly than they were last year. Last year they had eight days to prepare for what they -- what ended up being a 41-foot crest. And they did it. They scrambled; they got things together. And they say last year is what helped them prepare for this year. They taught themselves how to do it last year. They taught the city how to do it.
This year everyone has the lessons from last year, and they're going to get it done faster. This year they have five days to do it. They're going to be making about a million sandbags. They've got about 750,000 done so far. And they expect to be fine.
But again, you know, last year we saw surprises. There could be surprises again this year.
VELSHI: All right, Chris, yes. Chad was just showing us how windy the river is. Not a long, straight river. You've got to make twice as many sandbags as you'd think you would because of the way it winds.
Chris, we'll stay in touch with you, of course, and the mayor and everybody in Fargo. Keep us posted with what's going on there. Chris Welch in Fargo, North Dakota.
Well, let's go to the other side of the country right now. It's spring break time, or spring break is right around the corner for some. Mexico is looking very attractive when you're comparing prices, but boy, you had to have your head under a rock to not hear about the violence going on in Mexico right now. It's having an impact on people's decisions to travel there. We'll tell you about it when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: You might think that you've -- it sounds familiar, when you hear about these drug-war-fueled deaths in Mexico. You've been hearing about them for the last few years. But things have actually changed. There are many, many more deaths in Mexico from -- from the drug war in the last year than you've seen since, say, 2005 or 2006, actually.
Let's take a look at some numbers, and I'll give you a sense of how it's increased since 2006.
Back in 2006, there were 1,500 drug-related violence deaths, according to the government of Mexico. In 2007 that number jumped to 2,700. By 2008 -- look at that -- doubled again to 5,630. And now up in 2009 to 7,600. This isn't a number the government has confirmed, but it's a number reported by newspapers. Now in 2010, we're hearing a lot more about the violence.
There has been a State Department warning for travel to border states of Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua on the heels of one of the most violent weekends in Mexican history.
Let me just tell you a little about this if you haven't been following it. A U.S. consulate employee and his pregnant wife were killed in a drive-by shooting on the weekend. Their child survived the attack. But a short time later the spouse of another consulate employee was murdered.
But this is not just related to these areas. On -- on Saturday, in Acapulco, which is often thought of as a sort of an immune place, a tourist destination, 13 people were killed, including five police officers. And get this: four of the victims were beheaded.
I want to bring in Rafael Romo. He is our senior Latin-American affairs editor, to talk a little about this. He follows this very closely.
We talked to you while you -- while you've been covering this. What has changed, Rafael? What's the difference now? Why is this seeming so much more heated than it has in the past?
RAFAEL ROMO, SENIOR LATIN-AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Ali, let me first show you a map that tells you clearly what's going on in Mexico.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMO: You have presence of very powerful cartels really taking control of the situation. And the map that we're going to show you tells you exactly that violence is not a problem in the north. It is a problem in the north, but not in the south, where most beach resorts are. We're talking about places like Cancun, Acapulco, but still you have the presence of drug cartels like La Familia and others that have a presence there.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMO: Now, the United States has been spending money, trying to help Mexico, trying to reduce the violence there. But so far, as you mentioned before, the deaths keeps on increasing. Yesterday...
VELSHI: Is this what you were looking for?
ROMO: Yes. This is the map. Acapulco is right here, and you have a concentration of the cartel, La Familia, and the Sinaloa cartel conflicting in this part.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMO: Then, let's go to the right, to the east, to Cancun. It's right here you see the presence of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas (ph) and Sinaloa. But at the same time, Cilaqua (ph) is where most of the violence...
VELSHI: Right.
ROMO: ... has been concentrated is in this area here, where all -- three different cartels have control over that territory. And that's the problem.
Now, the State Department had something to say yesterday, and P.J. Crowley said that this is a shared responsibility, because the United States is the main consumer of drugs for Mexico, and Mexico also has the responsibility in solving this problem.
VELSHI: OK. So the United States is funding some of the -- some of the pushback on this violence. Mexico gets a lot of tourism dollars. There seems to be a lot of money behind the fight against this. Why has the Mexican government not been able to -- to get a handle on this?
ROMO: That's the 100 million question.
VELSHI: Yes. Or, actually, the $450 million question, apparently.
ROMO: They're -- they're competing against very powerful drug cartels.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMO: Just as powerful as the Mexican army. But let's hear what P.J. Crowley from the State Department had to say yesterday.
VELSHI: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
P.J. CROWLEY, STATE DEPARTMENT: I think it's going to take enlisting the support of the population, both the Mexican population to, themselves, take back their own communities, it's also going to take cooperation by -- by the American people to understand that -- that, you know, there are things that we do on this side of the border, you know, that compound the challenge for Mexico.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Is he talking about, when he says there are things we do on this side of the border, what is he talking about? About buying drugs?
ROMO: Yes, well, exactly. That's -- that's the main market for Mexican drugs, is definitely the United States.
But also, Ali, it's having a very direct influence on the Mexican economy. Look at the graph here. In 2008, $13.3 billion direct money from tourism.
VELSHI: Wow.
ROMO: Take a look at 2009. There's a drop of 15 percent. And we don't have, obviously, numbers for this year yet.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMO: So it remains to be seen what's going to happen with the spring breakers.
VELSHI: Could some of this have been -- have been H1N1?
ROMO: Exactly. Last year, in March and April, a lot of people canceled their travel to Mexico.
VELSHI: Yes, yes.
ROMO: But what we're hearing is people who had already made their plans for spring break, they're still going. So it remains to see how these numb year.
VELSHI: OK, Rafael, thanks very much for keeping us up to speed on this. It's important to realize how much worse this situation is getting, not better.
Rafael Romo is our senior Latin affairs -- Latin-American affairs editor.
OK. If you watch the show a few times you understand we deal with Facebook a lot. Christine Romans, my colleague and I, both use it a lot. If you have not come into contact with Facebook, then you are missing something, because it is now the most visited U.S. Web site. Christine and I are going to talk about the implications of that when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It's one of my favorite times of the day. Christine joins me now. Christine Romans is my co-host on "YOUR $$$$$." We're on TV on the weekends. But we get to be on TV every single day.
OK, Christine, this one I wouldn't have thought the two comparable. I use Facebook, I use Google.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Right.
VELSHI: I don't think of them as same thing. I use them for entirely different things. But the competition has heated up. Facebook is now more visited than Google. Is that the news?
ROMANS: That's right. In the latest week, there were more visits to Facebook over Google. This happened before, like on Christmas Day and New Year's Day.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: A few random times. But for a full week, this the first time it's happened. So of all of the traffic on the Internet, on the U.S. Web, 7.07 percent of it was Facebook, and 7.03 percent of it was Google.
Now, in fairness to Google, I have to say, that's just plain Google. That's not Gmail. That's not Google Maps.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: Google Earth. That's not any of the other Google products, including YouTube. You throw all those in, and Google beats everybody hands down.
VELSHI: But as you and I know from years and years of reporting on business, it's not the sheer size that makes something more valuable; it's growth.
ROMANS: Right. It is growth.
VELSHI: And Facebook is on this tear.
ROMANS: You can -- you can see that Facebook -- and it might be the maturity level of these two companies, by the way, because Facebook is only, what, like five or six years old.
But look at this. You can see that Facebook's growth right now is about -- year over year growth, about 185 percent compared to Google, its growth rate up 9 percent.
Well, remember, Google is slightly more mature. Google has already been a little bit more established. So that might be why. Also, some people look at these numbers and they say, "Well, Facebook is in a spurt. How long can that spurt go on? Are these new people coming on? You know, what is this exactly?"
And the whole -- Ali, as you know, it's changing. Everything is changing so quickly.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: Even Twitter, we did this story last week about Twitter. A lot of people now are using Twitter as a -- as a news feed. Not necessarily for social media.
VELSHI: Yes, right.
ROMANS: Things kind of -- things are changing all the time in this area.
VELSHI: Well, here's -- this is the weird thing about the Internet. You measure things differently.
If you're a cab driver in New York, the amount of time somebody spends in your car is something you want to minimize. You want them around less. But if you're a retailer you want them in your store longer.
On the Internet, there's a measure of time spent on each one of these sites. And again, I do spend more time on Facebook than I do on Google because I go to Google for a reason.
ROMANS: I do, too. And these Nielsen numbers also showed something really interesting, that in December they showed that the average amount of time you spend on any single Web site is 56 seconds.
VELSHI: Wow.
ROMANS: So compare that to how much time you're spending on Facebook and Google.
So look at this. In December 2009, Google for the month, people spent, altogether, 2 hours 21 minutes. So that's all your Google searches, 2 hours and 21 minutes for month.
For the Facebook, people spent almost 6 1/2 hours. So think of that. That's almost, you know, it's not quite a workday, not one of our workdays, certainly, Ali. But 6 1/2 hours in a month on Facebook. Think of the business opportunities that that brings up for those eyeballs on that Web site.
The question is, if you try to -- try to overtly make money on Facebook, you will have a revolt on your hands. Don't you think?
VELSHI: Yes. Yes. People think of it as a community. Now they have responded well. There are some companies that have really, really done well on Facebook, because they seem to have created these communities. People feel like it's actually bringing them value. But straight kind of just ads, "buy this," unless you think you're getting something in return for it, people don't seem to like on Facebook.
ROMANS: Yes, it's very true. And I also think that it's very important to notice that Google and Facebook are apples and oranges. So it's fun to look at how Facebook has grown and how much time spending on the Web, but Google does something different. It's a difference between just searches...
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: ... and talking and community and that sort of thing.
But I think the bottom line here, Ali, is that things are changing quickly. They're changing at a very rapid pace. People, the communities are changing how they use the technology. And these things -- I mean, it's just fascinating to watch. We haven't even hardly talked about Twitter. MySpace, which you know, a few years ago...
VELSHI: Where did they go? Where did they go?
ROMANS: Well, now they're using it for music and art. And they have found a new niche that's changing and growing and developing, too. So all of this stuff is changing.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: We have no idea what it's going to look like in three years or five years.
VELSHI: It's fun. It's fun to watch.
ROMANS: It is fun. And it's so much fun that, please, would you get on and talk to Ali and I?
VELSHI: Tell us -- tell us what you think. Get on your Facebook and Twitter. We're both at Twitter: @ChristineRomans, @AliVelshi.
What a pleasure, as always, to see you.
Christine Romans is my co-host on "YOUR $$$$$."
ROMANS: See you tomorrow.
VELSHI: You can watch us at 1 p.m. Eastern on Saturdays or 3 p.m. Eastern on Sundays.
Look at that picture of me. Did I not look skinny back then? One day I'll look like that again.
All right, let's check on some of our top stories right now.
House Democrats are really making a big push here to get enough support to pass health-care reform. They picked up a vote today from Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. He had voted against the plan last time, thinking it didn't go far enough. A final decision on the bill is expected this week. The Senate has just put the final seal of approval on a $17.6 billion jobs bill. It did get some bipartisan support, passing 68-29. Bipartisanship is not dead in Washington, as they say. The measure includes a tax break for businesses hiring the unemployed, and it helps pay for highway and transit projects until the end of the year.
And at the Vatican today, Pope Benedict says he's written a pastoral letter on the scandal over child abuse, sexual and otherwise, at the hands of Catholic priests in Ireland. The pope says he'll sign the letter on Friday and send it off soon after. The remarks to the faithful on St. Patrick's Day, the pontiff didn't mention the child sex abuse scandal, now rocking his native country, Germany.
All right. When we come back, remember Baby Jenny? She was injured in the Haiti earthquake and flown to Miami for treatment. Well, we finally know who Baby Jenny's parents are. We'll tell you on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Well, great news for a Haitian couple that was waiting to see if an injured baby girl after the Haitian earthquake was their daughter. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now with the story on this. Baby Jenny.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just incredible. She's Baby Jenny now.
VELSHI: Yes.
COHEN: They called her Baby Patricia...
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: ... because that was the name of the ambulance driver who saved her.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: The parents were told yesterday by the International Red Cross the DNA is a match.
VELSHI: Oh, wow.
COHEN: And they really are her parents. So as the judge said in a hearing today, they said, this is a happy, happy day because this baby, if you remember correctly -- we all remember this -- she was thought to be an orphan.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: And they worked on her in the hospital. She spent five days in the rubble in the arms of her dead babysitter.
VELSHI: Right. There she is. COHEN: The doctors who were working on her here, I talked to them. I was right there. And they said, "We thought this baby was going to die." She was so dehydrated, Ali, they couldn't get an IV in her. They had to put an IV in through her bone marrow.
VELSHI: I remember that.
COHEN: I mean, that's -- that's bad.
VELSHI: Yes, because I can see how sort of excited you are about this. But you were there.
COHEN: Right.
VELSHI: You were part of the team that was there. And it didn't look like we were going to be celebrating any victories.
COHEN: No.
VELSHI: It was just so devastating. More than 200,000 people dead. And you were right there as people were dying. So it's quite heartening to see just one little glimmer of hope coming out of this thing.
COHEN: Absolutely. Because this baby could have died.
VELSHI: Yes.
COHEN: Or they could never have found her parents.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: But these parents have come forward. She is in not perfect health.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: She is having trouble grasping with her left hand. You know how babies usually do this.
VELSHI: Yes, yes.
COHEN: She's having trouble with that. They're a little afraid that she might have some cracks on her skull still and they need to do more testing, but they say she's cooing and eating. and they're all excited.
VELSHI: So excellent. Well, it's great to have some little victories there, Elizabeth.
And I just want to remind everybody, you know, with that time that it was, in those days that it just seemed so hopeless. And we were talking about the supplies not getting in and -- and the roadblocks. So it's good to be at a different place in this conversation.
COHEN: That's right. VELSHI: Elizabeth Cohen is our senior medical correspondent.
Let's take it over to Chad now. There's flooding and flooding concerns in Minnesota and North Dakota.
Chad, what's the situation? You were telling me all -- everywhere I see in green there we've got issues.
MYERS: Some river is out of its banks or will be out of its banks in every single county you see here.
VELSHI: Wow.
MYERS: I'm not even showing you all of them. There are even some down here into Iowa, as well.
We even had one issue yesterday where the flood warning banner pops up. If you ever see an orange banner just flash up on our screen...
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: It means there's an immediate danger somewhere. And we had an ice jam against one of the bridges in Iowa.
VELSHI: Right.
(WEATHER REPORT)
VELSHI: When I come back, I want to talk about health care. We're bringing you up to speed on the debate, the vote. A major no vote has switched to yes. The yes side one vote closer to victory. I'll tell you about it when we get back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. If you've seen this show even once, you know that we're about breaking things down, numbers, issues, controversies. So all the moving parts are out in the open. Now, that is true with health care. But those parts are moving so quickly that the most anybody can say is this, every vote counts.
Whether you are for or against the health care overhaul being pushed by the White House, you are scrambling or you're rooting for 216 votes in the House of Representatives. That is the number that is needed to prevail. And both sides are very close to it. The outcome depends on a few Democrats who voted no on the House reform bill but may vote yes on the final plan. Plus, a few Democrats who voted yes the first time but are unhappy with the plan now.
And that number depends on whom you talk to. And by the way, it changes by the hour. Here is the biggest change in quite some time, however. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a liberal Democrat, a giant among progressives, a former presidential candidate himself, swallowing his passion for government-run health care for all, in favor of the measure that he opposed last November. Listen to him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D), OHIO: I have doubts about the bill. I do not think it is a step toward anything I've supported in the past. This is not the bill I wanted to support, even as I continue efforts into the last minute to try to modify the bill.
However, after careful discussions with President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, my wife Elizabeth, and close friends, I've decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation. If my vote is to be counted, let it count now for passage of the bill, hopefully in the direction of comprehensive health care reform.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Now, among the remaining Democratic fence sitters is Pennsylvania's Jason Altmire. He voted no on the first House plan. And by the way, his district went for John McCain in 2008. He tells CNN he may vote yes this week. I repeat, he may. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JASON ALTMIRE (D), PENNSYLVANIA: The only absolute definitive red line that there is for me is I will not vote for a bill that increases the deficit by even one penny. Everything else, I'm going to look at the bill in total, including the process. But I will tell you it doesn't help me to get to yes to go through this process, and I know it's making my constituents more nervous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: This process that he talks about is the one we broke down for you on yesterday's show. It's the so-called deem and pass plan, by which House members can pass the Senate health bill without actually voting on it directly. I know, that one's got us all confused. House leaders maintain it's a valid tactic used many times by both parties, most recently just last month, by the way.
I also want you to see where another undecided congressman is going through. Freshman Representative John Boccieri opened his office yesterday to our congressional correspondent, Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOCCIERI (D), OHIO: VELSHI: The decision I'm faced with is voting on an imperfect bill or doing nothing. We just had calls from constituents. My chief of staff, his wife works for a small business and understands that they just had an increase in premiums.
I'm not afraid to stand up and take a tough vote, and even if it means taking on, you know, our leadership. And it was a very difficult decision to come to, you know, on the first version.
Our office is under siege right now. We're getting calls from not only in the district but all over the country.
DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look at this. The phones have not stopped ringing.
BOCCIERI: You should see our district office. I answer my calls from time to time, and hear what folks have to say.
It's Congressman Boccieri. We can agree on this, that the system does need to be reformed, and we need to do it in a way that allows folks to have better choices. Would you agree?
BASH: You're a freshman. This is a very tough vote. This could be a make it or break it vote. Maybe decide whether you come back or not.
BOCCIERI: Like I said, whether I serve two terms or 20, we want to make the right decision for the people of our district in Ohio and the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: One final point, most of the truly undecided House members are waiting on word from the Congressional Budget Office. Those are the non-partisan number crunchers, who tell lawmakers how much a bill is likely to cost. They provide an estimate. The bill is supposed to come in at under a trillion dollars. It's supposed to be fully paid for, which means it will bring down the deficit in the decade ahead, or it won't increase it.
Exactly when the CBO will weigh in is yet another one of those moving parts. "LARRY KING LIVE" has Dennis Kucinich -- Congressman Dennis Kucinich live tonight at 9:00 pm Eastern.
VELSHI: We're going to take a complete left turn here and, in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, when we come back, our resident Irish, Mary Snow, is going to teach us a little bit about step dancing. Stay with us.
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VELSHI: Let going to give you a check of the top stories that we're working on here on CNN. A couple of group of American terror suspects known as the DC Five have been formally charged in Pakistan on suspicion of trying to join Jihadists across the border in Afghanistan. The men, all from the Washington suburbs, pleaded not guilty today to a list of charges, including conspiracy to commit terrorism and waging war against Pakistan.
Secretary of State Clinton is now downplaying a disagreement between the United States and Israel. At issue, the announcement last week of a new Jewish settlement in Arab East Jerusalem. Clinton says the US and Israel share an unshakeable bond and that the US has an absolute commitment to Israel's security.
Back here at home, a wrecked 2005 Prius in the New York suburbs is getting looked over by Toyota and federal investigators. They're looking for clues as to why it suddenly accelerated earlier this month. The driver says the car sped up on its own, hitting a wall across the street. And -- all right, it's St. Patrick's Day. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. We want to introduce you to a unique group of Irish step dancers. CNN's Mary Snow joins us now from Washington with more on that. Mary, good to see you again. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you.
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Happy St. Patrick's Day to you, Ali.
VELSHI: When you were growing up and having some experiences with step dancing yourself, it didn't look the same as this group that you're about to show us.
SNOW: It certainly did not. And these girls that you're about to meet certainly are worthwhile taking a look at. They're called the Celtic Dreams. They're unlikely Irish dancers. They say that because none of the kids in this group are Irish. They're largely Latino, African-American. But they have a teacher, Carolyn Duggen, who over from Dublin about eight years ago to teach a PS-59 in the Bronx. Eight years later, they're a group. They travel all over the place, including Washington, D.C. They're going to be performing at the White House tonight. Take a look at last night's performance.
SNOW: What they've done here is they've added a little bit of salsa, a little bit of hip-hop. Last night, they were at an event where former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were there. And they will be at the White House later. And these kids, it really has changed their lives. They said they had never met an Irish person before. They were really intrigued by their teacher. They thought she had a very funny accent.
And, hence, this group started. It's really taken on. There are 35 kids. It's become so popular that the kids have to audition now in order to be part of it. And they've gone to Ireland a couple of times.
VELSHI: What a great story. I sort of teased you about it, because people who know you know what you are as New York Irish as they get. You did some step dancing yourself when you were younger.
SNOW: Thank you, Ali, for sharing that with the class. Thankfully, there is no video of that. But, you know, it was very stiff when I was growing up. Obviously it has changed a lot. And these kids certainly bring so much enthusiasm to it. And it's just their curiosity is really what strikes me.
I met them this morning in DC, getting ready. And you know, this has really brought them out. They said some of them were very shy. They feel very lucky to have this group. It's also helped school-wise. They have to keep up their grades. They have to have high attendance. Their teachers credit that with having the kids doing better at school.
VELSHI: Good fun, it looks like. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you. Great to see you, Mary. Come visit us on our show more often. I know you're busy and you have to work on that other Sit-Room show. But good to see you. Mary Snow from DC. All right, you can hear more from the Celtic Dreams tonight on "THE SITUATION ROOM," that other show that Mary works on, at 5:00 pm Eastern.
How does a trip from LA to New York take longer than a trip from LA to Sydney? We're going to ask the folks aboard Virgin American Flight 404. Their 16 hour debacle documented by a fellow passenger, and he joins us next.
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VELSHI: You know, a month ago, it was Kevin Smith versus Southwest in a social media slug-fest. The latest airline with a virtual black eye, Virgin America. One of its flights from LA to New York was diverted over the weekend because of that bad storm battering the northeast. Passengers did finally get to JFK on a bus, after hours stranded on the tarmac. Food, drinks and tempers all in short supply.
The reason we know so much about this, well, this guy. David Martin, he was a passenger on Flight 404. He's also the CEO of the social networking site Kontain.com. That's Kontain with a K. And he posted updates throughout his 16-hour ordeal. David, thank you for joining us. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you.
DAVID MARTIN, KONTAIN.COM: How are you doing, Ali?
(IRISH)
MARTIN: That's Irish for, how's it going?
VELSHI: Thank you. Well, listen, things are better for you. Tell me what happened. Tell me a little bit about the situation.
MARTIN: All right. We had a little bit of an incident when we left LAX, and we got to JFK airspace. We had to be diverted after hovering in the air for about two hours in some turbulence. We landed in a place called Stewart International Airport in Orange County, about 90 miles north of Manhattan. The problem really started when we were sitting there on the aircraft and people tried to get off the plane and passengers get a little bit upset with what was going on, with the lack of information. And so on.
So we had -- we had a couple of incidents there. I can describe them to you in a little bit of detail.
VELSHI: The one I want to get to is -- so you're delayed for a while on the tarmac, which is frustrating for all sorts of people. But there were people on the plane who needed some water and some food. Tell me what happened.
MARTIN: That's right. So people needed water, so what we had to do is we had no water. We had no food. At one stage, we had to get some cookies from the front of the cabin, bring them down to the moms that had babies and children, and distribute them evenly. One of those incidents, one woman wanted a cookie that wasn't a mother, and one of the flight attendants snapping at that particular woman. It led up that woman, unfortunately, being taken off the aircraft by police.
VELSHI: I understand somebody had -- maybe this was the situation, but somebody seemed to get an anxiety attack or panic attack?
MARTIN: Well, you know, that woman had a panic attack earlier on, on the aircraft, which we took that woman aside and calmed her down and talked to her, because the crew weren't able to do that at that time. But this was the same woman. But it was nothing to do with an anxiety attack that time, why that woman, that flight attendant snapped at her.
VELSHI: What was the general tone of the crew with passengers?
MARTIN: Lack of leadership is the best way I can describe it, passive-aggressive and definitely frantic.
VELSHI: Were you up in the front cabin or were you in the coach?
MARTIN: I fortunately enjoyed the seat of 1-A, which had a bit more room for my weight. Basically I could get to see everything. I was right beside the door of the aircraft, right beside the cockpit, which was always open. So I could hear everything that was going on.
There was a couple of shuffles throughout the -- this ordeal that we wanted to get out there and -- because we were in shock. So what we did is we took out a little -- what's called our Kontain.com iPhone app, and we took photos and videos to share with our friends and family around the world, to let them know, look, this is what's going on.
So, we were able to keep well updated and abreast as things were happening. So, that's really for me the big reason why I'm sitting here right now, is because we're able to get this story, this nightmare, of this 16-hour so-called flight out there to other people that have similar experiences and, you know, have phobias of being stuck in aircraft.
VELSHI: I'm one of those. I travel all the time. I have a phobia of being stuck in an aircraft.
MARTIN: Me, too.
VELSHI: What happened when you were told that the water was only -- the food and water that was on the plane was only for the people in first class?
MARTIN: Well -- yes. Not the water. So, we got some water. I took on some water from the door from Jet Blue, who -- thanks very much, by the way, Jet Blue, for doing that. And we distributed that to the passengers. But there was a small, a very small thing of cookies, in the front, that was just supposed to be for the first class passengers.
But my seat mate said to me, you know, we need to get things down to the babies and the moms. So we went down and distributed those to the -- to the moms and the babies down back. VELSHI: The CEO -- the CEO of Virgin America reached out to the passengers. The airfare's been refunded and everybody I think got 100 dollar credit?
MARTIN: Well, hold on a second. There's a little bit -- I want to clarify something.
VELSHI: Yeah.
MARTIN: So Sunday night, the CEO of Virgin America, David Kush, called me up and we spoke about it, because he had seen everything on Kontain.com, all the videos and photos that were posted via the iPhone app. And basically what happened was we agreed that the passengers should get a full refund, because initially people wrote in and complained and they were just getting offered 100 dollars. But because they've seen the affect that social media had on this, where all this stuff was exposed on Kontain.com, basically what happened was they changed their tune and said, well, now this is public, and everyone can see this; it's not just some text Tweets, for example.
They were, like, OK, we got to do something more. And they agreed to give everyone a refund.
VELSHI: Very interesting. David, thanks very much for joining us. David Martin got the message out when they were on the aircraft that ultimately Jet Blue came and bused you guys to your destination.
David, thanks for joining us. Glad to see you. Glad to see you outside of that.
I want to tell you a little bit about what's going to change, by the way. The Department of Transportation is enhancing airline passengers protections package. It is scheduled to take effect on April 29th. Had this happened, there would have been a rule that said after three hours stuck on the tarmac, the airline is liable for a fine of 27,500 dollars per passenger. If this had happened on April 29th or later, Virgin would have had a fine of 3.5 million -- up to 3.5 million dollars for that.
Do me a favor, if you get stuck on one of these airlines, Tweet, send a message out, put it on Facebook. Do something. Get that message out. This is not the way airlines are supposed to be treating their passengers. I'll have more on that in about an hour.
When we come back, we're going to talk about a topic we've been talking about for weeks here. Josh Levs is talking about the struggle of public schools across the nation to stay open. What about stimulus money? Isn't that what so much of the stimulus money was supposed to do? We'll check in with Josh when we come back.
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VELSHI: You know, normally you see us sitting down, so you never really get a sense of how much taller Josh Levs is than I am. It's quite a difference. Isn't it. We should go back. I'm just fooling around. JOSH LEVS, CNN INTERNET CORRESPONDENT: Now it doesn't look so bad.
VELSHI: It's kind of weird. We're not at the stimulus desk. You're like a whole different human being outside of this --
LEVS: I am capable of standing up and walking. I don't always wear glass.
VELSHI: Josh is staffing our stimulus desk, where he's following stimulus dollars. And we've been following two simultaneous stories here, where stimulus is going and where it's going with public education. And they dovetail in Michigan.
LEVS: Yes, they dovetail in Michigan. Now it's happening all over the country. You know what's happening in many places across America? They are terrified about this money running out. There's actually a term for it. They call it the Cliff.
What's happening is, as bad as it is right now, it gets worse from here, because all these places have been propped up over the last year. I have one figure -- take a look at this -- 100 billion dollars from the Education Department -- here it is. It's basically 100 billion dollars that the Education Department has gotten -- 98.3 billion dollars -- and 71 billion has already been distributed. That's a ton of money.
But they've used it up. Most states out there have used it up. I was just looking at the reporting here. Michigan says they've used up most of their more than a billion. California has used up more of their six billion that they go. More and more states using up the majority of it. Now they're like, what do we do, cutting.
VELSHI: Remember, when we started the stimulus project, one of the responses we were getting from the US government was that a lot of jobs were preserved with teachers and policemen.
LEVS: That's true.
VELSHI: So, a lot of these states got money and that just kept them from laying people off who they might have otherwise laid off.
VELSHI: Three hundred thousand education jobs have been created or saved by this money they've gotten so far. Now think about it; this money goes away, what are the schools doing? They are cutting like crazy, and they're also fighting for more dollars. There's this thing called Race to the Top. The states are clamoring for it. They are now saying they're going to do more cuts than we've heard of already, unless they get more from the stimulus.
So the big question, how long does this go? We don't have this money. It's all borrowed money. So there has to be a real solution that is not about borrowing more money and trying to prop up your schools temporarily.
VELSHI: If you find that solution, we'll give you lots of air-time for it. Let me know. Race to the Top, we're going to be talking about that a lot. We have talked about it. This is the money that schools can get for better performance -- school districts.
VELSHI: They have to compete for it. It's not just stimulus money.
VELSHI: Josh, thanks very much. Good to see you here.
Again, we're talking a lot about Detroit. We're going to be talking more about that with Poppy Harlow when we come back. They've had changes to their school systems. Officials saying that the school closing plan creates a leaner, smarter school system. But Poppy has spoken to some parents and other people who say otherwise. She'll have that for us when we come back.
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