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Number of Anti-Government Groups Rising; Video of African Warlord Goes Viral; Details of an Attempted Murder for Hire; Living with a Big Secret; Financial Tips

Aired March 09, 2012 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: We are now at the top of the hour. Take a look at this. I'm Brooke Baldwin, couple working we're for you here.

More jobs added in the month of February. I have got some numbers for you. Also, top soda makers change an ingredient in their sodas to avoid cancer labels.

And we talked a lot about that solar flare yesterday, remember? So the solar storm leads to some amazing pictures, extra impressive Northern Lights. Time to play "Reporter Roulette."

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

BALDWIN: Let's talk soda, shall we? Two major soda makers asking one supply to change an ingredient.

Next on "Reporter Roulette" senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

What are we talking about? Why the change?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We're talking about caramel coloring. That's what makes your soda brown, Brooke, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest says they want to see the FDA ban it because it contains two ingredients that they say are carcinogenic in animals.

What's interesting is the soda industry says, we say this is safe and that our products are safe. And, in fact, the Food and Drug Administration also says the products are safe, but the Center for Science in the Public Interest stands by their studies or the studies that they're quoting, and they say this stuff should come off the market.

BALDWIN: Bottom line, is there something wrong with the chemical?

COHEN: We did ask a toxicologist at Vanderbilt University who is not affiliated with the soda industry, doesn't get money from them, and he said, look, you would have to drink thousands and thousands of cans of soda in order to see the kinds of effects you saw in animals.

In other words, if you look at the levels of soda or caramel coloring that caused problems in animals, you would have to drink thousands of sodas in order to get that same level. That's his take on it.

BALDWIN: Nobody is doing that, hopefully.

COHEN: Gosh, I hope not.

BALDWIN: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

BALDWIN: Now to this: The number of people in anti-government groups, it is absolutely exploding, when you look at these latest numbers.

We're going to dig deeper into why this is happening.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: This just in to us here at CNN.

We're going to show you some brand-new video and we will also listen to it as well. This is of an incident on an American Airlines flight. Let me just set it up for you before we actually listen.

A flight attendant started ranting over the plane's intercom about the airline's bankruptcy. She also referred to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And then imagine sitting on the plane and you hear this over the intercom, that the plane will crash if it takes off.

Apparently, that's what she was saying. Take a listen to the video just uploaded to CNN iReport. All right, again, this is iReport video, and I'm being told that that screaming you hear is apparently the flight attendant.

I can't really make out what she's saying. Perhaps I heard, "Get off the plane." All these onlookers thinking, what is going on? This is Flight 2332. They were headed to Chicago. It was taxiing down the runway, and so ultimately, the passengers, the cabin crew, they did take this flight attendant down, as the plane swiveled back around, headed back to the gate.

The airline says the flight attendant and another attendant who tried to calm her down were both taken to the hospital. Then the in-flight crew was replaced and the flight finally left for Chicago. Wow.

Well, a lot has happened in the country since 2008. That's perhaps an understatement. You think about it, that's the year the economy turned sour, housing collapsed, Senator Barack Obama was elected president and membership in the so-called patriot groups started to swell.

I want you to listen to this. This is actually a portion of a 2009 report from one of our correspondents.

Jim Acosta was reporting on a patriot group in Michigan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRIAN, SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN VOLUNTEER MILITIA: Well, any time we get a Democratic president in the office, people become concerned, including myself and we get a resurgence out here.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Others just don't like President Obama.

So, you don't trust him?

MICHAEL LACKOMAR, SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN VOLUNTEER MILITIA: In short, I think he could be dangerous for the nation.

ACOSTA: Michael Lackomar sees the militia as a check against government overreach.

LACKOMAR: Just the simple fact that we are out here doing this will give somebody pause, will make them think twice.

ACOSTA: Because you're ready to defend your rights?

LACKOMAR: Ultimately, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The Southern Poverty Law Center says memberships in the so- called patriot groups is exploding now faster than ever.

I want to bring in Heidi Beirich. She is with the Law Center and has written extensively about hate groups and extremism.

And, Heidi, you heard some of that in Jim's piece from his reporting in 1979. That was then. What's happened since then?

HEIDI BEIRICH, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: Well, his reporting was dead on, and it's actually gotten worse, just like some of the people he interviewed said.

We have seen a rise basically from 140 anti-government groups before Obama was elected to 1,274 as of this year. It's been an astounding rise in these number of these kinds of extremist groups.

BALDWIN: Let me go a little bit more closely, Heidi. Stand by because I want to run through more numbers specifically. When you take a look at this, it totally visualizes the group and these groups, as they view the government as their enemy.

So, again, as you mentioned, 149 in 2008, those were those patriot groups. Then the next year it swelled to 512, 2010, 824, 2011, as you point out, more than 1,200. The numbers absolutely exploded.

I guess I have a couple questions, one being, where are these people coming from? Rural parts of the country, cities, Southwest, all of the above?

BEIRICH: They're pretty much everywhere. When you look at anti- government groups, they're probably a little more rural than urban, than, for example, hate groups, which are like white supremacist groups, but they're all over the country.

The Midwest has seen a lot of them. The South now has quite a few of these groups. It's a pretty widespread phenomenon, and oftentimes these are people who were involved in the militia movement back when Clinton was president in the 1990s who have returned to the fold after an eight-year hiatus under Bush.

So it's -- but 1,274, that's the highest number of anti-government groups the Southern Poverty Law Center has ever counted.

BALDWIN: Obviously I have got to ask why. Before I do that, I just want to play one more piece. Again, this is Jim Acosta reporting in 2009. And then I will ask you why this happening.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: How many of you are new to the militia?

It's getting more worried.

How many of you are worried about the Constitution right now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Worried as in the sense that it's not being followed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's going away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, the why. Why the explosive growth, Heidi?

BEIRICH: Well, there's basically two factors that have driven the anti-government groups up. One is the bad economy. That always adds to any kind of extremism you have.

BALDWIN: How so? Be more specific.

(CROSSTALK)

BEIRICH: ... the election of a Democratic...

BALDWIN: How so? Just be more specific.

BEIRICH: I was going to say the bad economy tends to drive people into extremist groups. They're unemployed, they're frustrated, they're angry, and so they start joining them up.

But more importantly is really the election of Barack Obama and the swing to the left in the presidency. We had the same thing happen in the 1990s with Clinton when the first militia movement occurred. But this time it's a little different because Obama is an African- American.

So there are all these crazy racial theories that you hear about Obama, that he's not really a citizen, that he's maybe a secret Muslim, and all of this has created an incredible amount of paranoia on the far, far right, which is expressed in this kind of anti- government activism.

BALDWIN: So what, if anything, is being done to combat some of this paranoia?

BEIRICH: Well, probably the most important thing that needs to be done is that law enforcement has to watch out for them.

The fact of the matter is that anti-government groups have been known to be involved in a lot of domestic terrorism. We have had militia arrests in Michigan this year, Alaska, most recently in Georgia, where a group of militiamen were going to spread ricin in big cities like Atlanta and Baltimore.

It's a major law enforcement problem. And luckily for us, the FBI has been on top of this and so has the Department of Homeland Security, and that's what needs to happen.

BALDWIN: Heidi Beirich, Southern Poverty Law Center, thank you.

The campaign to track down an African warlord. He is accused of killing innocent people, forcing children to become soldiers. You may not be familiar with this man or this story, but I am willing to bet that your child, if he or she is in high school right now, knows exactly what "Kony 2012" is, this online campaign. It has gone viral. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We have spent some time today on this conversation that has just absolutely erupted surrounding a murderous warlord.

It's this man. His name is Joseph Kony. But here's the interesting part. As we have pointed out, this particular conversation, it is not being driven by the government, by human right groups, by movie stars. In case you haven't heard, this conversation is being driven by perhaps your own kids, middle, high school kids. That's right, kids who have gotten onto YouTube to watch this half-hour documentary. Here it is again.

This is a clip from "Kony 2012." It was just released on Monday. Already, it has gotten more than 50 million views, 50 million clicks driven by viewers under the age of 25. So all of these kids have -- suddenly have a sense of activism. It's now awakened. Great for them, but this warlord Joseph Kony has been terrorizing parts of Africa for two decades.

And actress Mia Farrow, she is actually one of the people who has tried to draw attention to Joseph Kony. And we spoke with her.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MIA FARROW, ACTRESS: I spoke with young mothers who said, we don't know in the morning if we will wake up. And another group of people said it was common practice in that area of South Sudan. LRA would raid. They would take small babies and to terrorize the rest of the community would pound -- they described a mortar and pestle, a smashing of the baby in a kind of bowl with a mortar.

Now, these -- atrocities are known by some that I have spoken to, actual victims is, of course, unforgettable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: It's horrendous to hear of these accounts. And we want to just help fill in the picture surrounding this man, Joseph Kony.

And for that we turn to Nairobi, to our correspondent there, CNN's David McKenzie.

David, we mentioned this film. It suggests that Joseph Kony is in Uganda, but we just heard Mia Farrow say he was operating in Sudan. We have also heard Democratic Republic of Congo.

Where is he?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it a good question, and it's the 50 million viewer question at this point. Where is Joseph Kony?

Well, he's in the bush of Central African Republic, which is a remote part of Africa, one of the least developed countries in Africa. Actually, I have traveled with Mia Farrow through Central African Republic some years ago.

There is a sense that, yes, there are some inaccuracies to this video, to this "Kony 2012" campaign. He's no longer in Uganda. In fact, LRA has left Uganda and isn't causing any trouble there and hasn't caused any trouble since at least 2006, Brooke. So there is some confusion by some people who might be looking at this for the first time.

The LRA were pushed out by the Ugandan military. They moved across the border into the Southern Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We can't get mired too much in the detail, though. The fact is, is that Joseph Kony and the LRA have wreaked havoc for more than 20 years in this region and many people, millions now, it seems, want to see him brought to justice.

BALDWIN: David McKenzie for us in Nairobi. We're going to have much more on this later, including some words from the makers of "Kony 2012," the documentary, as we mentioned, that has gone taken this conversation absolutely viral this week.

But my next, this guy, Ben Stein, he says today's jobs report has good news, but not great news in it.

So, what does that mean, Ben Stein?

We will get his take and also get his advice if you're one of the 13 million Americans still out of work.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: All right, here's the news today. The economy gained 227,000 jobs in the month of February. This is all according to the Department of Labor.

Great news, but is it too early to use the R-word, rebound?

Economist, author, actor Ben Stein, my friend now, joining me live from Los Angeles -- hello, sir -- with your take.

Ben, you we read about this. People are saying, oh, it's encouraging, robust, the job market has turned the corner. Are we doing something right here?

BEN STEIN, ACTOR, AUTHOR, ECONOMIST: Well, the recovery is happening whether or not we're doing something right. We're clearly not doing anything terribly wrong.

We're adding about the number of new jobs as there are new people entering the labor force, so the number of unemployed is not shrinking or barely shrinking. The percentage of the labor force that is unemployed is not shrinking. But it's a lot better than the unemployment rate getting worse. So we are in an extremely shallow recovery. It's a recovery, but extremely shallow.

BALDWIN: I like that R-word, recovery, albeit shallow.

I do want to play a little sound from the president. He seemed pretty pleased, speaking out in Virginia at that Rolls-Royce...

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: Well, he's hardly going to criticize himself.

BALDWIN: Well, let's take a listen, shall we?

STEIN: He's not going to criticize himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The key now, our job now, is to keep this economic engine churning. We can't go back to the same policies that got us into this mess. We can't go back to an economy that was weakened by outsourcing and bad debt and phony financial profits. We've got to have any economy that's built to last.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But here's my question for you, sir. How does it seem to happen that before any kind of presidential election, the unemployment rate just magically seems to drop?

STEIN: It isn't magic and it doesn't always happen. It certainly did not happen in 1932. It did not happen in 1976.

But it does sometimes happen. The government is churning out money like mad and trying to get people to borrow it and use it to finance expansion. But, look, the president was at a plant in Virginia today that makes parts for Rolls-Royce jet engines.

There are 140 people employed at that. There are 140 people. That's great, but there are 142 million in the labor force. So that does not make much of a difference. Obviously, we're going in the right direction. But at this rate, we will not have any improvement in the above 8 percent unemployment rate forever.

So we need to have -- even if we had twice as many new jobs created as we had now, it would take many years for us to get back to a 4 or 5 percent unemployment rate. So we're not even close to a robust recovery, but we are in a little tiny bit of a recovery, which is worse (sic) than it being stuck or still falling, but it's not a real recovery. I mean, it's not a real strong recovery.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Right. And you talk to 13 million Americans who would agree with you who are out of work. Just about half of them I know have been out of work for about six months or more. Here's my question.

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: And that number is not dropping.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Which is unfortunate.

STEIN: Very.

BALDWIN: But if you are an American looking for work, I want some advice from you.

STEIN: Sure.

BALDWIN: I guess, to kind of quote your book, what would Ben Stein do? What would Ben Stein do if you're sitting at home out of work?

STEIN: There are lots of jobs out there. They're not the jobs people necessarily want to take, but there are jobs.

And it's an astonishing thing, Brooke, how much some of these manual -- some of them are manual labor jobs, retail clerk jobs. I know where I live during part of the summer out in the desert near Palm Springs, there are help wanted signs in many, many, many windows.

I had a very funny experience. I just hired some men to clean my windows. I had to pay them almost $80 an hour for scraping a squeegee with Windex along the windows.

BALDWIN: Why?

STEIN: That's what the going rate is out there.

That shows you an ingenious person who is willing to charge only $60 an hour could really clean up down there.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Are these college-educated people, though? Because you talk to people with degrees, sometimes multiple degrees, and they don't want to do manual labor.

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: These are -- well, I don't know if they want to or not, but I figured out, on an annualized basis, these window cleaners are getting paid more than professors at the State University of California.

BALDWIN: Wow.

STEIN: So maybe they might want to reconsider.

But the point is there are jobs out there. If people persist, they will find jobs even if they're not the jobs they want. In a recession, people have to take jobs they don't want. That's a large part of life, is doing things you don't want to do.

BALDWIN: You mentioned maybe in a couple years, we will be back to where we are.

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: Well, many years.

BALDWIN: Many years -- that we get back to pre-recession levels? I mean, we have recovered -- I was looking at the numbers -- like a third of the jobs we lost. So when will we get back there?

STEIN: We don't know -- predictions about the future, as we say...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: You can't do that?

STEIN: That's a joke. That's impossible to do.

But I would say we have never had a recession in which we didn't recover. So we will recover. But, look, the Eurozone is going into recession. South America seems to be slowing down. China is slowing down.

It's going to be tough for us to have a sustained, robust recovery with so many regions of the world slowing down. We may still have one, but it complicates things a great deal.

BALDWIN: A shallow recovery, so precarious, still recovering.

STEIN: Shallow recovery, that is the best I can do for you.

BALDWIN: All right.

STEIN: That is the best I can do. I wish we could say it was morning in America, but it's not.

BALDWIN: All right, Ben Stein, reality check time. We appreciate it. Good to see you. Come back any time.

STEIN: Good to see you, thank you.

BALDWIN: In the meantime, a wife blogs about her true love for her husband. Police say she was trying to hire a hit man to kill him off. We're on that case, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Oh, boy. Oh boy, what a case we have for you today out of Texas. So a wife and mom, she blogs about renewing her vows with her husband. But while blogging about this marital bliss, Houston police say this wife was actually arranging to have her husband killed. Joey Jackson on the case with us today.

And, Joey, let me just take a look here, before we chat, at Brittany Martinez in court. Here she is. Prosecutors say this 24-year-old tried to arrange the murder of her husband, basically a murder for hire. And let's listen to this local reporter explain the case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEMOND FERNANDEZ, REPORTER: According to court documents, Martinez told the informant she wanted the killer to park a block away from the fire station. It says she also made it clear she wanted that murder to be committed in the employee's back parking lot.

(voice-over): Prosecutors say Martinez gave the informant her husband's photos, work schedule, and two upwards payments of $500.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: So maybe not marital bliss, after all. What kind of charges does she face?

JOEY JACKSON, LEGAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, the biggest charge, Brooke, is something called "criminal facilitation to commit a capital offense." What is that? It's when you induce, you encourage, you facilitate someone else in order to engage in a killing of another.

In addition to that, if that's not bad enough, you also have the conspiracy charge, and whenever there is a conspiracy, which is basically an agreement, Brooke, it's when you agree to commit a criminal act. You have to do and act in furtherance of that. It's called an "over act" in legalese.

And what is that? There's a number here. One is the February 4th meeting where she says, I'm having marital problems, do you think you could help me to kill my husband? The other is the subsequent meeting that she has on another date. It was, I think, January 17th, then three weeks later she has another meeting saying, here's $500, I'm really serious about it, here's a physical description.

And so given the fact that she does engage in those overt acts, it goes to show that she had the intention of getting this done.

BALDWIN: OK. So as you talk conspiracy as, you know, according to police, the prosecutors are claiming that this was worked out over the course of multiple months. Can we be more specific? What are police saying as far as what was involved, how this whole thing went down, and won't defense attorneys really have to work pretty hard to defend her?

JACKSON: Oh, absolutely they do. Well, what ends up happening, Brooke, is the reason -- now the police are going to focus on this. The first thing they're going to focus on is they're going to say, OK, there was an initial meeting. Apparently it was a friend of hers, it was the manager of some restaurant, and she then goes and says, I'm having issues, can you help me?

Well, what issues are those? I need my husband killed. OK? Big issue that is, you know, and I'll give you money in order to do it. And apparently she made a commitment to give him 500 initially and promised him another 1,000 to 2,000 when he got the job done.

She goes back to him again, and then she gives him more money, and she also gives him the description, his work schedule. And what's bad enough here, and these are cases hard to defend, Brooke, for the following reason, whenever you have wire taps and whenever you have surveillance, and in this case, apparently, you do, you have the indication that she made on tape that, you know what, not only do I want him killed, but this is how you're going to do it and this is where I want you to do it.

And so it's very difficult under those circumstances when you have damning evidence involved of corroboration. Not only, don't take my word for it, says the informant, listen to the tape, all right, and the tape will show you exactly what she told me.

So it's an uphill battle for her attorneys to be sure.

BALDWIN: Wait, so meantime as you're telling me all of this, I can't help but thinking about this husband. Has anyone heard from him?

JACKSON: Well, apparently, you know, while we may not have heard from him, we certainly have heard from her. And apparently she blogs about it, and what she says at some point in between giving money to have her husband killed is, you know, my husband is wonderful, he's a firefighter, he works so hard, on his spare time, he's a technician, we're renewing our vows this October, I picked out a dress.

And so apparently he's keeping low key, but she was pretty fond of him. I say that facetiously. I mean, if you're the prosecution you're going to argue that that was a ruse, that was sort of to cover your tracks.

And if you're the defense, you're going to say, well, look, this shows she never had the intent. This shows that she was renouncing her involvement in this and never at all would harm her precious husband. So it cuts both ways at all times.

BALDWIN: I guess if I were him I would be low-key as well. Joey Jackson, good to see you on the case on a Friday.

JACKSON: Pleasure, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Now to this 91-year-old man. He hid this disability from his family for years and years. We have his inspiring story of overcoming that disability, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Dr. Sanjay Gupta introduces us to a Mystic, Connecticut, man who raised a family, built an entire life, but when he was finally in his 90s, he told the ones he loved that he suffered from a disability they never knew about. How he turned his life around is his focus of today's "Human Factor."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 90 mostly seafaring years, Jim Henry harbored a secret. The lobsterman and fishing boat captain couldn't read or write.

JIM HENRY, LOBSTERMAN & FISHING BOAT CAPTAIN : I was so ashamed of myself that I never told anyone.

GUPTA: Growing up with a strict Portuguese father, Henry was put to work as a young child. His father didn't care about school, so Henry seldom went to class.

HENRY: I didn't learn a thing. I didn't know nothing, absolutely nothing.

GUTPA: Yet his teachers kept promoting him to the next grade. Henry eventually dropped out of school. He kept working, he got married, and he used his street smarts to get by.

His wife knew he couldn't read a word. Friends and family had their suspicions but never asked. It wasn't until his wife became ill that he finally openly admitted he was illiterate.

HENRY: I says, I've got to do something. I says, I can't go on for all my life this way.

GUPTA: With the help of family and friends, Henry began to teach himself.

MARLISA MCLAUGHLIN, GRANDDAUGHTER: He went through the entire dictionary from back to front, reading.

GUPTA: Studies show as the human brain ages, it becomes more difficult for someone to learn a new skill, especially at the age of 90. But Henry thought time might be running out, so he hired a tutor to help him. And two years later, he succeeded.

But Henry decided to take it a step further. He had all these stories stuck inside his head with no way to pass them along. So now armed with the written word, he put them in a book called "In a Fisherman's Language." It's a reflection of his life.

He published it at the age of 96. It has become very popular, especially among people with learning disabilities.

MARK MORGAN, TUTOR: I always thought that he would draw on something of his life. I never realized that this would happen, that this book would be so popular.

GUTPA: Today Henry shakes his head when somebody calls him an author. It's hard for him to process the last few years. But he says it has been a journey like no other.

HENRY: I don't know how I survived, but here I am.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Time now for the "Help Desk" where we get answers to your financial questions. And joining me this hour, John Ulzheimer, is the president of Consumer Education with smartcredit.com; Lynette Khalfani-Cox is a personal financial author and founder of the financial advice blog askthemoneycoach.com.

Thank you both for being here. Lynette, your question comes from Osborne in New York. Osborne wrote in: "I have a 30-year fixed mortgage with a rate of 4.75 percent, and a balance of $273,000. Is it worth it to refinancing to get a seven-year ARM with a lower interest rate?"

So what he's talking about adjusting to -- moving to an adjustable rate.

LYNETTE KHALFANI-COX, FOUNDER, ASKTHEMONEYCOACH.COM: Right. The idea here is that you really won't know if it's quote-unquote "worth it" to refinance until you do a break-even analysis. And really what that means is that you have got to think about the cost of the refi. Maybe it costs $3,000 to get the deal done.

Then you have to divide that by the number of months that you're going to still be living in the house and figure out whether or not it's going to make sense for you to do it. Sometimes people do these deals, and frankly, it doesn't make sense.

He's saying a seven-year ARM. If he plans to live in the house for that long, it could make sense because rates right now for those with really high credit scores are well under 4.8 percent, but he has to do the math. And we don't know yet how much the refi is actually going to cost to actually get done.

HARLOW: Absolutely. All right. And, John, your question comes from Pam in North Dakota. Pam wrote in: "My husband and I were recently called by a debt collector regarding a cell phone bill from a year- and-a-half ago. We contacted the cell carrier who sent us back to the debt collection agency again. If it's a legitimate bill, we want to pay it so that we maintain our credit, but none of the people we have reached out to have been willing to answer our questions. What should we do?"

JOHN ULZHEIMER, PRESIDENT OF CONSUMER EDUCATION, SMARTCREDIT.COM: Well, the fact that the original creditor won't talk to them means that they have sold the debt to the collection agency or the debt buyer. So the consumer is not going to be able to go pay the original merchant. They're going to have to deal with the collection agency.

Say that the credit is -- that bell has already been rung. The fact that it's with a collection agency means it's already on the credit report, but that's not the end of the world.

Do this. Offer a settlement. Usually about 20 percent of what they say you owe because they don't have the same skin in the game as the original creditor because they bought it for pennies on the dollar.

Offer a settlement. Get it to a zero balance as quickly as possible. And then you end any future collection activities, including collection lawsuits.

HARLOW: OK. Get it in writing as well always. Thank you, guys, both, very much.

Folks, if you have a question you want answered, just send us an email any time to "CNN Help Desk" at cnn.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We have spent quite a bit of time today talking about this film, this documentary that has really gone viral on the Web. It's called "Kony 2012." It's the story of an African warlord that has awakened a sense of activism in millions of school-aged kids. So I want to play just another bit of this documentary and then we'll hear from the filmmakers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON RUSSELL, FILMMAKER, "KONY 2012": We have reached a crucial time in history where what we do or don't do right now will affect every generation to come. Arresting Joseph Kony will prove that the world we live in has new rules, that the technology that has brought our planet together is allowing us to respond to the problems of our friends.

BEN KEESEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & CEO, INVISIBLE CHILDREN: The next step is how do you translate the awareness and how do you translate this amazing movement into tangible change and action? And so the beauty of "Kony 2012" is it starts with the movie.

The movie is an entry point to a mission, and the mission involves influencing in our policymakers, influence in our culture-makers so they can take the steps on the ground, from disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of all of the LRA fighters. RUSSELL: And here's the beauty of what -- about the times we're living. We're living in dramatic times. And so the world is waking up to the facts that Joseph Kony right now is listening to the world.

And what we want the world to know and start hashtagging right now, because he can hear my voice, hashtag "Kony Surrender." "Kony Surrender." Because he can hear us. He knows. He is watching. And we don't want this to end with war. We don't want a bullet through his head and we don't want bombs dropped on him because there are innocent children and women surrounding him.

That's why he's gotten away with murder for this long. But he can hear us and he can make the choice to surrender. A 14-year-old boy came out this last December and has talked to Kony. And Kony was debating whether he should surrender or not because the great power is after him.

That's what he said. So he knows, he's aware. And we'll stop at nothing to make sure it happens and it happens soon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Again, those were the filmmakers speaking with Piers Morgan just last night. More than 50 million clicks, 50 million views on the Internet so far, and that movie just came out, I believe it was this past Monday.

Wolf Blitzer coming up next in THE SITUATION ROOM. I know you and Brian Todd continuing to file reports on that on your show. I was actually talking to someone with Human Rights Watch on my show who has obviously been trying to, you know, focus on this man for years and years and all his atrocities.

And she's just shocked and amazed by this sudden outpouring.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It's amazing. A few days ago 1 million may have seen it, then 5 million, then 30 million, now more than 50 million people have looked at this video that has gone viral. It really is an amazing development. I don't remember a time I've ever seen anything like this before.

We're going to follow up, as you say, Brian Todd is getting new information on "Kony 2012," so we're going to have that as well.

We're also going to speak with the president's top economic adviser, Alan Krueger, on these new numbers, these unemployment numbers that just came in. Erin Burnett is going to join me. We're going to discuss what's going on with Alan Krueger, does it look good for the rest of the year, not so good? We'll get his forecast.

And also, Brooke, I don't know if you have seen -- have you seen the new film "Game Change" by our sister network HBO?

BALDWIN: I have. We interviewed the writer.

BLITZER: I saw it last night and I'm writing my blog post about it now. We're going to post it in a few minutes. But I've got some thoughts about what was in that film, what wasn't in the film. Gloria Borger was there as well. A big Washington turnout at the Newseum here in Washington to see that film, a lot of Washington insiders, shall we say. So we're going to discuss the film "Game Change," Sarah Palin, John McCain, and what happened four years ago.

BALDWIN: I thought Woody Harrelson just absolutely stole the show, but we'll wait, we'll wait for your discussion with Gloria coming up on THE SITUATION ROOM. We'll see you then, Wolf Blitzer, thank you.

Meantime, Peter Gabriel, the band Rush, telling radio host Rush Limbaugh to stop playing their music. But can they do that? We're talking to Rolling Stone, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Certainly by now we've all seen the destruction left by last week's rash of deadly tornadoes, but amid all that devastation, a "CNN Hero" is hard at work, offering free recovery assistance to strangers in need.

And CNN's Rob Marciano caught up with Tad Agoglia in the hills of Kentucky. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As severe storms tore through the Midwest and South last weekend, taking 40 lives, emergency recovery teams scrambled to respond to devastated communities across 10 states.

Among the relief workers heading into the destruction zone was "CNN Hero" Tad Agoglia and his First Response Team of America.

TAD AGOGLIA, CNN HERO: Let's go ahead and get the debris cleared enough so we can get the grapple claw in here. We got here just a few hours after the tornado struck this community.

We've cleared the road. We provided the light towers. We powered up the grocery store. We powered up the gas station to provide the essentials that this community needs.

MARCIANO: Since 2007, Agoglia's team has crisscrossed the country providing recovery assistance to thousands of people at 40 disaster sites for free. This week they've worked tirelessly for days restoring services and clearing tons of debris.

AGOGLIA: Steve, you can grab the claw and actually cut the roof right in half.

It's very hard for traditional equipment without the claws to actually grab this debris. That's why you need specialty equipment like this.

MARCIANO (on camera): What do you do with it?

AGOGLIA: We remove it from the community, but time is of the essence. There are a lot of people that want to get back in here. They're looking for anything they can salvage.

MARCIANO: Why do you do this? Why did you choose this road?

AGOGLIA: When I'm watching those supercells go right over these small communities, I want to be there to help.

MARCIANO: We'll let you get to work. You do good stuff.

AGOGLIA: Thank you.

MARCIANO: Thanks, Tad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Remember, nominations for "CNN Heroes" are open, and all of our heroes are chosen from people you tell us about. So you can nominate someone who is obviously making an amazing difference in the community. All you have to do, go to cnnheroes.com, cnnheroes.com. Your nomination could help them help others.

And new details today on that New York soccer mom turned alleged brothel boss. The New York Post scored this exclusive interview of Anna Gristina from behind bars, remember, she's on Riker's Island in a jail cell. So The Post is describing hours of interrogation with Gristina reportedly saying investigators repeatedly showed her a list of 10 New York power players they reportedly wanted her to tell them what she knew about the men.

So let me quote her. The Post quotes her as saying: "It's not about me, it's bigger than me. They're trying to sweat me out. They are clearly trying to break me." She goes on, I would bite my tongue off before I would tell them anything."

Now, newspaper headlines make Gristina out to be worth millions of dollars, but a man who lives on the same block from this walk-up where she allegedly worked says he did see limos, town cars at night. As for the passengers...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTY GARRETT, NEIGHBOR: They're very well dressed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Men.

GARRETT: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of them men?

GARRETT: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But Gristina paints a far less luxurious picture. She told The Post, quote: "They say I've made millions for years, and I have for other people. I've been struggling to keep my daughter in college to pay the tuition, our utilities are always on the verge of being shut off. We live very much a simple life."

And a friend who is also a private investigator tells us she isn't rich.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VINCENT PARCO, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: It's sexy. It makes for a good headline. But a lot of the things that they're talking about are not true.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Such as?

PARCO: All right. That she's a millionaire madam. Definitely not a millionaire. If she was a millionaire madam, she would be out on bail now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The New York Post says Gristina teared up once when she was talking about her four kids. She told them her youngest, her 9-year- old boy thought she was dead when she didn't come home last month. Quoting: "He knows now that's not true, but it's just really hard. I just don't want to see my kids to see me here."

And with 227,000 jobs gained in February, some economists say the job market has turned a corner, and most of them are at least cautiously optimistic. The unemployment rate holding steady at that 8.3 percent mark. And President Obama speaking out today. Sort of seizing on this good news, speaking out at a Rolls Royce aircraft plant in Virginia. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But here's the good news. Over the past two years, our businesses have added nearly 4 million new jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And as Wolf mentioned, he will be speaking to Alan Krueger, the economic adviser to the president.

Meantime, you're looking at these pictures, we're talking Mississippi here. Mississippi's attorney general speaking out today, discussing the Mississippi Supreme Court's decision. Just yesterday, let stand more than 200 convict pardons, including those four convicted murderers granted by the state's former governor, Governor Haley Barbour. That decision not sitting very well with one of the victims, who is calling this really more politics than justice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY WALKER, SHOOTING VICTIM: The Supreme Court weighed in and they've weighed in on the wrong side of the issue. I think they did what was politically easy for them rather than what was right for the people of Mississippi. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And finally, a bizarre accident in Florida. An elderly woman run over by her own car. She was getting out to get her mail. Police say she forgot to put it in park. In fact a fire chief came, tried to help her, he got knocked down. Neighbors rushed over, pulled this woman to safety. A sheriff's deputy finally rammed the car to stop it from spinning. No word as to how this woman is doing.

And with that, I tell you, have a great weekend. Thanks so much for watching. Now to Wolf Blitzer in Washington, your SITUATION ROOM begins right now.