thank you for much for being was. and joe bebe is back, contributinged for for "rolling stone." let's get right to it this mo morni morning. the investigation into whitney houston's death, her body is back in new jersey. they are refusing to say whether or not she drowned. they're waiting for the toxicology reports. in past cases, we know it could take weeks or weeks. he also won't comment on whether alcohol or drugs may have played a role in her death. >> look at a body and not know what the cause of death is. you might have a suspicion, but the person could have suffered a heart attack or an embolism or something. and no matter what medications they're taking, until we run a toxin and see the level and see what's in the system, we're not going to speculate. >> he's been on tv a lot saying a lot of nothing lately. how come it takes eight weeks to do a toxicology report? >> this is typical. let's be honest. we're talking at many, many tests. you know, initial reports say i -- >> right, but eight weeks? >> they don't want to get it wrong. and goodness knows we need to be careful here. we don't know exactly what happened. what i like is when he gets up there and says if you're wondering, if there was an embolism or a heart attack, immediately now i'm wondering about that. that's what i think may have -- >> he's very -- >> not as if it's weapons of mass destruction. it is a sad, horrible death, but it is a celebrity story. i mean, you know, they have to take their time and do it right. >> we should mention, i haven't officially introduced you. i introduced the song. senior writer with "newsweek" and also qutd the daily beast." it's nice to have you talking about this. it's been interesting to compare and contrast the different versions of whitney houston's last days with people who knew her very, very well. chaka khan and kelly -- she used to be a backup singer with chaka khan. she used to be a backup singer with kelly price. here's what they had to say last night. >> i was coming through a city like l.a. we made specific plans. i come in day -- night before, the day of performance. especially if you're still -- if you're not -- you've gone into proper treatment and gotten really handled, gotten your situation handled, yeah, that was the first big mistake, for her to come in an entire week before her performance at the party. >> she was not high. i'm a girl that grew up in the projects in new york city. i know high when i see it. she was not high. >> i stand on that whoever flew her out to perform at that party should have provided someone to be there, to somehow look -- just keep the riffraff out of the situation. just keep some of the dangerous people away. >> i saw her with a couple of glasses of champagne. and our interactions were normal. there was nothing that seemed that it was over the top. she didn't seem to be intoxicated to me. >> i thought was amazing last night when she was talking to piers morgan. this is a woman who knows what she's talking about. any concert she goes to and stands up and talks about songs she's written and can't remember them because she was high. yeah, i wrote that. i can't tell you the story behind it because i was high when i wrote that song. she's constantly talking about her drug use. interesting perspective that differs from kelly price's because the riffraff thing, seems like it was more prescription drugs at this point, we don't know, than riff rap, random people sellingi her drugs. >> i think there's a loft minimizing going on and a lot of people pretending that nothing was quite wrong. all of these comeback albums that seemed -- you know, she would go on tv and she was probably sober for a few weeks before she went on, but we heard this overwhelmingly from people who worked with her that, you know, on the 2002 album she wasn't sober when she went into that diane sawyer interview and i don't even think she was really sober when she did "i look to you" in 2009. >> where does the investigation go now? if you're talking about drugs now, and again, the coroner has said a lot about nothing at this point but reports there was valium in the room, xanax, lorazepam, midol. >> prescription drugs can be abus abused. >> i can answer that. >> these are extremely powerful drugs found there. xanax is an extremely powerful drug. it's an anxiety drug. it's easy to abuse. and it's bad to mix with alcohol. when you listen to kelly price, if you examine all of her statements what she initially said was whitney was sober, yeah, she had a little champagne. that's the question now. were the people around her as jacob were saying, enablers or like chaka khan, people who have been through this, recovered from those, there is not such a thing as a little champagne if you're struggling with addiction. >> other people say whitney houston was a person that could clean up very well. she could make a comeback and make a comeback and look amazing. there are reports that her body was flown from california to new jersey on tyler perry's plane. i hadn't seen that confirmed anywhere yet. what happens now in terms of funeral and memorial service, do you know? >> apparently a giant thing at the prudential center. over 10,000 fans will be allowed in. and i don't know how she would have felt about it. i mean, she was so uneasy with her celebrity in a lot of ways. for a person who is one of the biggest stars of the era, she -- she was -- she was not warm and fuzzy about her celebrity, though she was -- she seemed like she was our princess. she wasn't. and she had a hard time with what she was marketed as. >> she did an interview with katie couric when she was talking about some of her critics the, which i thought it was interesting. 1996. i think we have a clip of it. could we play that, guys? it was full screen. i know katie well so i think i can do a dramatic representation of katie couric. she said, talking about her critics. you're not black enough for them. you're not r&b enough. you're not pop. the white audience has taken you away from them. is this the issue for a search for who you are in terms of credibility and there's search for who you are in her oprah interview -- >> obviously it was a real issue. the criticism got to her. at the start she participated in getting this massive, massive pop audience and bag crossover artist but the criticism was consistent right from the start. that she whiteney was one of the names thrown at her. >> i did not know that. >> did you know that? >> i had no idea. but the criticism also goes from people like j.lo. she's not latina enough. a lot of minority stars fall into that trap. >> crossover, bigger audience and yet at the same time -- >> they're turning their back on their community. >> you have a lot of issue, when you listen to her oprah winfrey interview which i think was a fascinating interview she was really ambivalent about the fame part of success. you know, like couldn't be normal anymore, you can't just go out to the grocery store anymore. everybody is watching every single thing you do. >> and almost the entire family was financially dependent on her. >> not unusual. >> two brothers who one of whom was a backup singer and another of whom who had -- was busted, you know, with cocaine in his car. and you know, dionne warwick has had a lot of problems herself despite being very successful. and i think it was -- she just had a lot of people in the payroll. and one thing we heard is that the reason she went on tour last year when she was really in no position to go on tour was the family needed money. you know, she didn't go broke from drugs. she went broke partly from having so many people on the sort of extended list that she was -- that she was helping. >> this is a very, very familiar story in the entertainment industry. you build an organization around you and you need to keep it running. >> right. right. so sad. we're going to keep talking obviously about whitney houston and the latest in the investigation and also the plans for the funeral and memorial service. later this morning we're going to talk to gloria estefan. in the '80s two of them were vying for the top spot. she has amazing memories of whitney houston. she's going to join us as well. other stories making news today. good moshing. >> good morning. can't wait for that gloria e estefan interview. government forces bombarding the city of homs again this morning. witnesses say it's the heaviest shelling this week with six deaths reported so far today. 30 civilians were killed yesterday. arwa damon has been able to cross into syria but we're not disclosing her location for safety reasons. she says the situation is rapidly deteriorating. >> reporter: the area where's the government crack down is at i its worst, people say there are snipers positioned on every single street, corner, you can hardly cross a marry thorough fair without coming across government snipers. then, of course, there are all of the tanks at the government checkpoints. it's an incredibly intense situation here. it's also incredibly emotional. anger is running at an all-time high, as is frustration and desperation. in washington, an about face by house republicans. they've now agreed to extend the payroll tax cut without demanding spending cuts to offset the $100 billion estimated cost. a vote could take place this week. house speaker john boehner says other costly measures like renewing jobless benefit, for example, those will have to be paid for before they can be passed. rick santorum surging ahead of mitt romney by six points in michigan. that's the latest american research group poll. that has romney's super pac spending extra half a million dollars on ads in washington where romney was born, by the way, in michigan, rather, to try to avoid a loss. conservative republican national review is calling on newt gingrich to drop out of the gop race. the editors there say they want to see a romney/santorum contest. moody's is threatening to cut the aaa ratings of britain, france, and austria. they downgrading six other european nations including spain, italy, and for chew gal. mod difficult's is worried about the ability to enact the necessary reforms it needs to look at the debt crisis. stock futures and the u.s. trading up right now. that follows european markets up. markets getting a boost over night with positive. and the german economy, largest single economy in europe. markets are volatile right now. all the uncertainty in the eu. we'll see what happens as we get closer to the opening bell. also, check out tef lugs of the drive-thru at this ski resort in squaw valley, california. they just opened a starbucks ski-through at 8,000 feet. it's exactly what it sounds like. you just ski up to the window. you order a piping hot caramel macchiato and no need to take the skis off. >> great idea if i could ski because i tore it my knee last year. why take the effort to get in your car and drive. i love it. with our panel again, talking jeremy lin. new york nick. first u.s. born nba player of asian decent who is performing. and a lot of people coming down on him. have you heard these? floyd mayweather who is never all that ever, he tweeted this. jeremy lin is a good player. oh, really? but all the hype because he's asian. black player s do what he does every night and don't get the same praise. that's just not true. >> i don't actually think black players school kobe every single night. i don't think that happens every night. >> he is a harvard grad. i love him for that. very rare that harvard people go off to the nba. handful or maybe just a couple. great tweets about this, spike lee, if you follow him on twitter has been running a contest to see how you can use lin's name. he's having people submit sentences like he's school-lin, ball-lin. i love it. here's stephan colbert talking about jeremy lin. >> folks, there is a name for what we're all feeling. >> lin-sanity can't. >> it becomes lin-sanofi in new york. >> basketball fans have a raging case of linsan any ty. >> yes, i've had a raging case of linsanity. i've been called legally linsane. my symptoms, linsome nialinsomn. and folks, it's an exciting time. fans have not come down with a basketball born disease this intense since the mid '70s outbreak of kareem abdul jabot chew lymph. >> it's been interesting to hear lin himself talk about kind of the racism and discrimination he's experienced along the way. back in 2008 he said there is a sport for white and black players. sorry, 2008. i hear everything go back to china. other side of campus, open up your eyes. >> i can't -- look, race may have something to do with the story. the smallest piece of the pie in the story. this guy's story, i'm a huge fan of dallas mavmavericks. his story is the guy that's been cut by three teams who came from the end of the bench, who was a couple days away from being cut by the knicks and now he is this out of nowhere superstar. that, by the way, is taking place in new york. >> and by the way, the knicks really need him desperately. >> that's the story. >> i think the criticism of him has been race based, has been, you know, often people tweet things around the fact that he's asian. and it's unusual in the nba but also particularly, i think, cruel and discriminatory. really, who cares. the guy is helping the knicks. >> jeremy lin is going to be fine. he's not the first asian-american player. yao ming came before he did. we're going to move on. ahead this morning on "starting point," president obama is meeting china's next possibly leader. the author of the book "the coming collapse of china" is going to talk to us about why he thinks the u.s. still holds the cards of this meeting. censoring teachers. there is a bill in this state that would bleep them like they're on tv. this is odd. our "get real" this morning, my favorite story of the day. an epic coaching rant and it's been caught on tape which is why we like talking about it this morning. high school cheerleading coach goes completely sylvester on her squad. nuts. we're going to play it for you straight ahead. i'm good about washing my face. but sometimes i wonder... what's left behind? 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>> i think there are so many issues that the united states has with china and china have with us. so all of these things are going to be discussed from iran to trade to north korea. you name it. you know, there's not an issue in the world today that doesn't affect china and doesn't affect us. >> there's a lot that's known about xi, partly because of wickly leaks some of that was release and partly because he has a daughter who is a an undergraduate at harvard. tell us more about him. >> he's a prince-ling. a guerrilla leader before that. so essentially he's the number sixth ranked member on the standing committee which is top of the chinese political system. he's a hard liner. he's not shy of saying things that other chinese leaders won't talk about. for instance, a couple years ago in mexico he criticized foreigners up and down. it's a pretty tough words. you normally don't hear that from chinese leaders. he's confident enough to be able to do that. >> people have said this is a get to know you trip, which of course it is. you don't do a get to know you trip with the president. what is the agenda of this trip? >> well, for him, for xi jinping it's not to make a mistake. the reason is his whole path to power is not so clear as it was two weeks ago. >> what happened? >> about a week ago there was an extraordinary series of events. while we were watching the super bowl, mid-level chinese official tried to defect to a u.s. consulate in western china. one provincial leader invaded another province with hundreds of armed security troops to prevent all of this from going on. essentially, many people say that this was engineered by hu jintao, the senior leader of china, to sort of attack one of the allies of xi jinping. that means that xi jinping while he looked 100% a couple weeks ago now looks only 80% in terms of being able to get to the path of being the leader of china. >> so he is pro-western. how is that going to play -- you don't think so? unfair characteristic? >> i don't think so. >> when you read his quotes from iowa he speaks very much with great affection for the united states. >> well, you know hrks we may have affection for the united states but every communist leader has institutional constraints which he acts under. and right now the hard liners dominate in beijing and if xi jinping wants to be the next general party secretary, top of the political food chain in china, he's got to be a hard liner. the military has become more independent, becoming more hostile. xi jinping's power base is the military so that really is the problem for us. >> the role of china, every single candidate at some point is -- even the president as well, talking about china. how is that a tricky situation, certainly while you had the visitor here? >> well, there's a lot of political constituenties in the united states and a lot of people want a hard one in china and some want a soft one. we sell stuff in china. when you look at labor to business and to all different group, trying to coordinate that is difficult. some people go hard line like romney, others go soft line. but the problem is that you just don't know where the political center of the united states is on china. >> everybody is watching it very closely to see on all sides what exactly happens here. gordon chang, nice to have you. senator is going to join us talking about the obama budget. look at his plan for his budget. we'll talk about thanchts plus "get real," epic rant from high school cheerleading coach. she calls her team the high heifers. we'll tell you what happened after that as "starting point" continues. ♪[music plays] ♪[music plays] purina one beyond. food for your cat or dog. ♪ you have specifically made fun of leonard cohen and how slow it is? >> you're about to get yourself banished off -- i did. really, will cain does -- because i love him. i love him so i make fun of his musical tastes. sometimes they're really bad. but joe levy is a guest in our house today so it is a