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Beheaded woman’s sister: I might have heard deadly confrontation

Muzzammil Hassan has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of his wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan.
A woman who was beheaded near Buffalo, New York — allegedly by her husband — may have been on the phone with her sister when she was killed.

Asma Firfirey of suburban Cape Town, South Africa, told the Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger that she was on the phone with her sister, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, last week when she heard Hassan tell her husband to calm down. She said she heard Hassan say the two could talk about their impending divorce the following day. Then she heard something that sounded like her sister struggling to breathe, she said. “I can only imagine how scared and emotional she must have been before she died,” Firfirey said in the interview, reported in English by South Africa’s News 24. Police have charged Hassan’s husband, Muzzammil Hassan, with second-degree, or intentional, murder in the death of his wife, according to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office. Her decapitated body was found at the offices of Bridges TV, the television network where Muzzammil Hassan was chief executive officer and Aasiya Hassan was general manager. Hassan told Orchard Park police his wife was dead, led officers to her body and was arrested Thursday, said Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita III. He is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.

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Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz on Tuesday contradicted a CNN report that quoted him as saying Hassan confessed to the crime. A Buffalo attorney told CNN on Tuesday that he expects to represent Hassan but declined further comment, saying details had not yet been worked out. Hassan came to America from Pakistan 25 years ago and became a successful banker, but he and his wife were troubled by the negative perception of Muslims, Voice of America reported in 2004. Speaking in December 2004, Hassan said his wife, then pregnant, was worried about that perception and “felt there should be an American Muslim media where her kids could grow up feeling really strong about their identity as an American Muslim.” “So she came up with the idea and turned to me and said, ‘Why don’t you do it’ ” he said. “And I was like, I have no clue about television. I’m a banker. … And her comment was, ‘You have an MBA. Why don’t you write a business plan’ ” Bridges TV began as a television network for Muslim-Americans, aimed at overcoming the negative stereotypes associated with the religion. “There should be a Muslim media,” Muzzammil Hassan told VOA, “so that Muslim children growing up in America grow up with the self-confidence and high self-esteem about their identity both as Americans and as Muslims.” In the past few years, according to a former employee who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, Bridges TV transformed itself into more of a cross-cultural network seeking to bridge the gap between all cultures. Most of their employees were not Muslim, the former employee said, and Muzzammil Hassan himself was not devout. Aasiya Hassan filed for divorce February 6, police said, and Muzzammil Hassan was served with divorce papers at the station. That night, he showed up at the couple’s home, she notified authorities and he was served with a restraining order. Police are not commenting on details of the crime, except to say the woman’s body did not appear to have been moved. They also would not divulge what Muzzammil Hassan told police or the suspected motive. The law firm representing Aasiya Hassan refused to comment, only confirming that she had filed for divorce. Benz told CNN on Tuesday that police had responded to several domestic violence calls at the couple’s address, but no one was arrested. Firfirey, as well as a Pakistani woman identifying herself as another of Aasiya Hassan’s sisters, characterized her as living in fear. Firfirey said the last time she saw her sister was in May 2008, when she visited South Africa. When she arrived, she was badly injured, and Firfirey’s family paid the equivalent of about $3,000 for her to be treated, she said. Aasiya Hassan returned to America, she said, because she wanted to complete her MBA degree and “didn’t want to leave her children with that monster.” She said she calls Muzzammil Hassan “the fat man with evil eyes.” Aasiya Hassan would have graduated March 6, Firfirey said. A woman in Pakistan using the name Salma Zubair posted on a blog that she is the sister of “this brutally murdered woman.” “She lived her 8 years of married life with fear in heart,” Zubair wrote. “He had already frightened her enough that she couldn’t muster up her guts and leave him, and when she finally did gather that much strength he killed her so brutally. She lived to protect her children from this man and his family and she died doing so.” She said Aasiya Hassan “had always been a very loving person, not even one person in this world can say a small wrong word about her … she had always dreamed a life of a happily married family, which she did her best to achieve.” Both women said they were worried about the couple’s children, ages 4 and 6. Firfirey said they were being cared for by a colleague of the couple. Muzzammil Hassan also has two older children from a previous marriage. Members of Muzzammil Hassan’s family did not return calls from CNN on Monday. The former employee told CNN that Aasiya Hassan was popular at the station and was very kind. Muzzammil Hassan was known among employees for having a temper — he sometimes would yell at and demean his wife, but at other times appeared to be a loving husband and father, the former employee said. Bridges TV released a statement Monday saying its staff was “deeply shocked and saddened by the murder of Aasiya Hassan and the subsequent arrest of Muzzammil Hassan. Our deepest condolences and prayers go out to the families of the victim.” Imam Mohamed Hagmagid Ali, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, said Aasiya Hassan’s death serves “as a wake-up call to call of us, that violence against women is real and cannot be ignored … the Muslim community is not exempt from this issue. We, the Muslim community, need to take a strong stand against domestic violence.”

Obama’s remarks on signing the stimulus plan

President Obama says the plan puts Americans to work doing the things America needs done.
President Obama signed the $787 economic stimulus bill Tuesday in Denver, Colorado. Here is a full transcript of his remarks.

President Obama: It is great to be in Denver. I was here last summer to accept the nomination of my party and to make a promise to people of all parties that I would do all I could to give every American the chance to make of their lives what they will and see their children climb higher than they did. I am back today to say that we have begun the difficult work of keeping that promise. We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time. Today does not mark the end of our economic troubles. Nor does it constitute all of what we must do to turn our economy around. But it does mark the beginning of the end — the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the wake of layoffs, to provide relief for families worried they won’t be able to pay next month’s bills and to set our economy on a firmer foundation, paving the way to long-term growth and prosperity. iReport.com: Stimulus thoughts: What would you fix first The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that I will sign today, a plan that meets the principles I laid out in January, is the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history. It is the product of broad consultations — and the recipient of broad support — from business leaders, unions and public interest groups, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Democrats and Republicans, mayors as well as governors.

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It is a rare thing in Washington for people with such different viewpoints to come together and support the same bill, and on behalf of our nation, I thank them for it, including your two outstanding new senators, Michael Bennet and Mark Udall. I also want to thank my vice president, Joe Biden, for working behind the scenes from the very start to make this recovery act possible. I want to thank Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid for acting so quickly and proving that Congress could step up to this challenge. I want to thank Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, without whom none of this would have happened. And I want to thank all the committee chairs and members of Congress for coming up with a plan that is both bold and balanced enough to meet the demands of this moment. The American people were looking to them for leadership, and that is what they provided. What makes this recovery plan so important is not just that it will create or save 3½ million jobs over the next two years, including nearly 60,000 in Colorado. It’s that we are putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done in critical areas that have been neglected for too long, work that will bring real and lasting change for generations to come. Because we know we can’t build our economic future on the transportation and information networks of the past, we are remaking the American landscape with the largest new investment in our nation’s infrastructure since Eisenhower built an interstate highway system in the 1950s. Because of this investment, nearly 400,000 men and women will go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our faulty dams and levees, bringing critical broadband connections to businesses and homes in nearly every community in America, upgrading mass transit and building high-speed rail lines that will improve travel and commerce throughout the nation. Because we know America can’t outcompete the world tomorrow if our children are being outeducated today, we are making the largest investment in education in our nation’s history. It’s an investment that will create jobs building 21st-century classrooms, libraries and labs for millions of children across America. It will provide funds to train a new generation of math and science teachers while giving aid to states and school districts to stop teachers from being laid off and education programs from being cut. In New York City alone, 14,000 teachers who were set to be let go may now be able to continue pursuing their critical mission. It’s an investment that will create a new $2,500 annual tax credit to put the dream of a college degree within reach for middle class families and make college affordable for seven million students, helping more of our sons and daughters aim higher, reach farther and fulfill their God-given potential. Because we know that spiraling health care costs are crushing families and businesses alike, we are taking the most meaningful steps in years towards modernizing our health care system. It’s an investment that will take the long overdue step of computerizing America’s medical records, to reduce the duplication and waste that costs billions of health care dollars and the medical errors that every year cost thousands of lives. Further, thanks to the action we have taken, 7 million Americans who lost their health care along with their jobs will continue to get the coverage they need, and roughly 20 million more can breathe a little easier, knowing that their health care won’t be cut due to a state budget shortfall. And an historic commitment to wellness initiatives will keep millions of Americans from setting foot in the doctor’s office for purely preventable diseases. Taken together with the enactment earlier this month of a long-delayed law to extend health care to millions more children of working families, we have done more in 30 days to advance the cause of health reform than this country has done in a decade. Because we know we can’t power America’s future on energy that’s controlled by foreign dictators, we are taking a big step down the road to energy independence and laying the groundwork for a new green energy economy that can create countless well-paying jobs. It’s an investment that will double the amount of renewable energy produced over the next three years and provide tax credits and loan guarantees to companies like Namaste Solar, a company that will be expanding, instead of laying people off, as a result of the plan I am signing. In the process, we will transform the way we use energy. Today, the electricity we use is carried along a grid of lines and wires that dates back to Thomas Edison, a grid that can’t support the demands of clean energy. This means we’re using 19th- and 20th-century technologies to battle 21st-century problems like climate change and energy security. It also means that places like North Dakota can produce a lot of wind energy but can’t deliver it to communities that want it, leading to a gap between how much clean energy we are using and how much we could be using. The investment we are making today will create a newer, smarter electric grid that will allow for the broader use of alternative energy. We will build on the work that’s being done in places like Boulder, Colorado, a community that is on pace to be the world’s first Smart Grid city. This investment will place Smart Meters in homes to make our energy bills lower, make outages less likely and make it easier to use clean energy. It’s an investment that will save taxpayers over $1 billion by slashing energy costs in our federal buildings by 25 percent and save working families hundreds of dollars a year on their energy bills by weatherizing over 1 million homes. And it’s an investment that takes the important first step towards a nationwide transmission superhighway that will connect our cities to the windy plains of the Dakotas and the sunny deserts of the Southwest. Even beyond energy, from the National Institutes of Health to the National Science Foundation, this recovery act represents the biggest increase in basic research funding in the long history of America’s noble endeavor to better understand our world. Just as President Kennedy sparked an explosion of innovation when he set America’s sights on the moon, I hope this investment will ignite our imagination once more, spurring new discoveries and breakthroughs that will make our economy stronger, our nation more secure and our planet safer for our children. While this package is mostly composed of critical investments, it also includes aid to state and local governments to prevent layoffs of firefighters or police recruits — recruits like the ones in Columbus, Ohio, who were told that instead of being sworn in as officers, they would be let go. It includes help for those hardest hit by our economic crisis, like the nearly 18 million Americans who will get larger unemployment checks in the mail. And about a third of this package comes in the form of tax cuts — the most progressive in our history — not only spurring job creation but putting money in the pockets of 95 percent of all hardworking families. Unlike tax cuts we’ve seen in recent years, the vast majority of these tax benefits will go not to the wealthiest Americans but to the middle class, with those workers who make the least benefiting the most. And it’s a plan that rewards responsibility, lifting 2 million Americans from poverty by ensuring that anyone who works hard does not have to raise a child below the poverty line. As a whole, this plan will help poor and working Americans pull themselves into the middle class in a way we haven’t seen in nearly 50 years. What I am signing, then, is a balanced plan with a mix of tax cuts and investments. It is a plan that’s been put together without earmarks or the usual pork-barrel spending. And it is a plan that will be implemented with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability. Watch Obama tout plan’s balance With a recovery package of this scale comes a responsibility to assure every taxpayer that we are being careful with the money they work so hard to earn. That’s why I am assigning a team of managers to ensure that the precious dollars we have invested are being spent wisely and well. We will hold the governors and local officials who receive money to the same high standards. And we expect you, the American people, to hold us accountable for the results. That is why we have created Recovery.gov, so every American can go online and see how their money is being spent. As important as the step we take today is, this legislation represents only the first part of the broad strategy we need to address our economic crisis. In the coming days and weeks, I will be launching other aspects of the plan. We will need to stabilize, repair and reform our banking system and get credit flowing again to families and businesses. We will need to end a culture where we ignore problems until they become full-blown crises instead of recognizing that the only way to build a thriving economy is to set and enforce firm rules of the road. We must stem the spread of foreclosures and falling home values for all Americans and do everything we can to help responsible homeowners stay in their homes, something I will talk more about tomorrow. And while we need to do everything in the short-term to get our economy moving again, we must recognize that having inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, we need to begin restoring fiscal discipline and taming our exploding deficits over the long-term. None of this will be easy. The road to recovery will not be straight and true. It will demand courage and discipline and a new sense of responsibility that has been missing, from Wall Street to Washington. There will be hazards and reverses along the way. But I have every confidence that if we are willing to continue doing the difficult work that must be done — by each of us and by all of us — then we will leave this struggling economy behind us, and come out on the other side, more prosperous as a people.

For our American story is not — and has never been — about things coming easy. It’s about rising to the moment when the moment is hard, converting crisis into opportunity and seeing to it that we emerge from whatever trials we face stronger than we were before. It’s about rejecting the notion that our fate is somehow written for us, and instead laying claim to a destiny of our own making. That is what earlier generations of Americans have done, and that is what we are doing today. Thank you.

Obama approves Afghanistan troop increase

Pentagon officials said Tuesday that President Obama will increase troops in Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama has approved a significant troop increase for Afghanistan, Pentagon officials told CNN Tuesday.

The new troop deployment is expected to include 8,000 Marines headquartered from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as well as 4,000 additional Army troops from Fort Lewis, Washington. “This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires,” Obama said in a written statement. “The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al Qaeda supports the insurgency and threatens America from its safe-haven along the Pakistani border.” Obama added that the troop increase in Afghanistan would be made possible in part by the impending troop drawdown in Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the original mission in Afghanistan was “too broad” and needs to be more “realistic and focused” for the United States to succeed. “If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose, because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience and money,” Gates said during a recent Senate hearing. About 38,000 U.S. troops are currently serving in Afghanistan.

Lessons Obama learned from stimulus deal

President Obama will pitch his plans this week for dealing with record home foreclosures and trying to thaw frozen credit markets — and taking some key lessons learned into consideration.

Aides said the White House has learned several lessons from the fight over the economic stimulus plan, including that the president is better at selling his ideas when he gets out of Washington. “He has learned, over the course of the last few weeks, getting out to the country, getting the people to remember why they elected him, and I think he’s going to continue to take the case directly to the American people,” said CNN contributor Hilary Rosen. A second lesson was articulated to a handful of newspaper columnists, including E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post, who were invited aboard Air Force One on Friday. The president suggested he will no longer let bipartisanship become the barometer of his success, telling the columnist: “You know, I am an eternal optimist. That doesn’t mean I’m a sap.” Dionne said, “By talking so much about bipartisanship, he allowed others to judge him by how much Republican support he got. He wants to get things done with or without Republican votes, preferably with them. But he will be happy if he just gets it through.”

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Lesson three: The president faced all kinds of criticism for the meandering nature of the stimulus negotiations. In the end, he won anyway. Obama said that “he wants to be pragmatic without being unprincipled. There are things he wants to get done,” Dionne said. “He’s much more concerned about where he’s going than the road there. If the road is a little crooked, but it gets you there, that’s better than not getting there at all.” Lesson four: It may have been a mistake for the president to give Republicans large tax cuts early in the stimulus talks. In his first presidential press conference, Obama suggested he would take a harder line with Republicans in future negotiations. “I mean, I suppose what I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some, and then let them take credit for all of them, and maybe that’s the lesson I learned. But there was consultation; there will continue to be consultation,” Obama said. For the rest of the month, the White House agenda will focus on addressing the housing crisis — including a stop Wednesday in Phoenix, Arizona — as well as cleaning up the banking mess and laying the groundwork for the overhaul of the health care system and entitlement programs such as Medicare. Watch more on Obama’s coming agenda »

The following week, the president will host what the White House is billing as a “fiscal responsibility” summit. The goal of Monday’s summit is to begin weighing the impact of massive federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare days before the president plans to unveil his first annual budget to congressional leaders. Then on February 24, the president will deliver his first speech to a joint session of Congress. Top aides said foreign policy could be addressed briefly, but the speech will focus heavily on the economy and the domestic agenda.

Ex-Border Patrol agents released early from prison

An artist's sketch shows Ignacio Ramos, left, and Jose Compean.
Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents — whose cases became flashpoints in the controversy over border security — were released early from prison Tuesday, one of their attorneys and a congressman said.

The agents were convicted in 2006 of shooting and wounding an unarmed illegal immigrant and then covering it up. President George W. Bush issued commutations for both men during his final days in office last month. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean had received 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively. After the commutation, their prison sentences were set to end March 20. Ramos was released on furlough to travel from prison in Phoenix, Arizona, to his home in El Paso, Texas, where he will serve the remaining portion of his sentence under house arrest, said his attorney, David L. Botsford of Austin, Texas. After March 20, Ramos will be on “supervised release” — similar to probation — for up to three years, Botsford said. Compean had been incarcerated in Elkton, Ohio, said U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California.

“At last, Ramos and Compean have been rightfully reunited with their families,” Rohrabacher said in a statement. “This day is long overdue. I wish the Ramos and Compean families the best as they now try to pick up the pieces and begin to heal from this terrible ordeal.” Both men had requested presidential clemency, and the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney was reviewing their requests when Bush made his decision, office spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said. “The president has reviewed the circumstances of this case as a whole and the conditions of confinement and believes the sentences they received are too harsh and that they, and their families, have suffered enough for their crimes,” a senior administration official said. The official noted that both Democratic and Republican members of Congress had supported a commutation, including President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Texas GOP Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Richard L. Skinner, in a statement posted on the agency’s Web site, confirmed that his staff wrongly told members of Congress last September that Compean had stated he “wanted to shoot a Mexican.” “At the time my staff made that statement, they believed it to be true, although we later learned it was inaccurate,” Skinner said. “In fact, Mr. Compean had stated in a sworn statement that ‘my intent was to kill the alien … and I think Nacho [Ramos] was also trying to kill the alien.’ ”

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Critics of U.S. immigration policy have been campaigning for a pardon for the two agents, arguing they were just doing their jobs. The shooting happened February 17, 2005, on the U.S.-Mexico border southeast of El Paso, Texas. During their trial, Ramos and Compean said that the illegal immigrant, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, had brandished a gun while actively resisting arrest. Aldrete-Davila said, however, that he was unarmed and trying to surrender when Compean attempted to beat him with a shotgun. Aldrete-Davila was shot while fleeing toward the Rio Grande. Ramos and Compean were convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon, lying about the incident and violating Aldrete-Davila’s Fourth Amendment right against illegal search and seizure. After receiving immunity to testify in the case against the two agents, Aldrete-Davila was arrested in 2007 on charges of bringing more than 750 pounds of marijuana into the United States. The case became a political flashpoint, with advocates of tighter border controls defending the agents and civil liberties groups saying that the agents had used illegal and excessive force against Aldrete-Davila. Bush granted 189 pardons and 11 commutations during his eight years in office, far fewer than Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan in their two-term administrations. A commutation reduces a convict’s prison term, but the conviction remains on the person’s record. A pardon wipes the slate clean by erasing the record of the conviction. A president has the sole authority to grant clemency to whomever he chooses, although a Justice Department office usually reviews applications and makes recommendations after considering such standards as a person’s degree of remorse and ability to lead a responsible and productive life after release. Those applying for a pardon through the Justice Department are required to wait at least five years after their conviction or release from confinement.

Obama to walk trade tightrope in Ottawa

Trade will be a major issue when President Obama visits Canada beginning Thursday.
President Obama takes his first foreign trip Thursday, but domestic politics will loom large as he tackles the explosive issue of protectionism in a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the leader of the United States’ largest trade partner.

At issue is a controversial so-called “Buy American” provision requiring the use of U.S.-produced iron, steel, and other manufactured goods in public works projects funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. Several Democratic-leaning unions and domestic steel and iron producers favor the provision; a large number of business and trade organizations are opposed. Administration officials altered the language in the final version of the stimulus bill to ensure that the provision will not trump existing trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. Canadian companies will therefore still have the chance to sell products used in stimulus-funded projects. Canadian government officials, however, are still concerned by what they perceive as rising protectionist sentiment in the United States that could potentially spark a trade war and, in their opinion, deepen the global economic crisis. Canada has been hit hard by the global downturn. The country’s critical manufacturing-based sales dropped 8 percent in December, reflecting roughly equal decreases in both volume and price, according to Statistics Canada, an agency charged with tracking key economic data for officials in Ottawa. In a recent letter to U.S. Senate leaders, Canada’s ambassador to the United States warned that the U.S. was losing the moral authority to pressure other nations not to erect their own trade barriers.

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“A rush to protectionist actions could create a downward spiral like the world experienced in the 1930s,” wrote Ambassador Michael Wilson. “In the end we got into this economic crisis together. We need to work together to build ourselves out of it.” Some Canadian leaders also cite unresolved concerns over what they perceive to be vague and potentially harmful language in the “Buy American” provision. Specifically, they are questioning whether NAFTA and World Trade Organization rules will apply to state and city governments receiving stimulus money for local infrastructure projects. They also cite uncertainty over what rules of origin apply to projects covered under the stimulus bill. A number of components in Canadian products come from countries such as China and India, which are effectively excluded by the “Buy American” provision. “This is no merely technical question; different parts of many products come from different places, and intricately entwined supply chains could be seriously disturbed if they have to be disentangled, to the detriment of both the U.S. and Canada,” the Toronto-based Globe and Mail newspaper editorialized Tuesday. “Such questions cannot wait for judgments in trade litigation,” the Globe and Mail argued. “Canadian governments and businesses … have to be ready for a long series of many minor battles.” Obama stumbled over Canadian trade issues during last year’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Shortly before the Ohio primary in March, he was extremely critical of NAFTA. Many Rust Belt voters believe the accord has cost countless jobs by accelerating the erosion of the U.S. industrial base. During a debate with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama agreed that the United States should abandon the treaty if it could not be renegotiated. It was later revealed that one of Obama’s economic advisers, Austan Goolsbee, had met with officials at Canada’s Chicago, Illinois, consulate and allegedly assured them that Obama’s trade rhetoric was more a function of politics than any deeply held policy position.

Commentary: Stimulus bill a sorry spectacle

Jack Cafferty says the House violated a pledge to make stimulus bill public 48 hours before vote.
What a joke. Your Congress has voted to spend almost $790 billion of your money on a stimulus package that not a single member of either chamber has read.

NEW YORK (CNN) — What a joke. Your Congress has voted to spend almost $790 billion of your money on a stimulus package that not a single member of either chamber has read. The 1,073-page document wasn’t posted on the government’s Web site until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote to pass it was taken. I don’t care if you’re Evelyn Wood, you can’t read almost 1,100 pages of the lawyer talk that makes up all legislation in eight or 10 hours. The criminal part of this boondoggle is divided into two parts. The first is the Democrats promised to post the bill a full 48 hours before the vote was taken to allow members of the public to see what they were getting for their money. Both parties voted unanimously to do this … and they lied. It didn’t happen. Why am I not surprised Congress lying to the American people has become part of their job description. They can’t be trusted on anything anymore. I’m sure part of the reason there was no time for the public to read the bill was the 11th-hour internecine warfare between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. When Reid first announced the compromise had been reached, Nancy Pelosi was nowhere to be seen. And it would take an act of God for this egotistical, arrogant woman to miss a photo op where she could take credit for anything. But she wasn’t there. She summoned Reid to her office, where unnamed sources said she blew her top over some provision for schools that she wasn’t happy with. Pelosi’s snit delayed everything.

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In Depth: Commentaries

It’s really too bad President Obama couldn’t figure out a way to jettison these two who are poster children for everything that is wrong in Washington. The Associated Press called the birth of the stimulus bill “sausage making” in the best tradition of Washington politics as usual. The second part of the crime is the contents of the bill itself. Far from being only about jobs, infrastructure and tax cuts as promised, the stimulus bill stimulates a bunch of other stuff as well. Eight billion dollars for high-speed rail lines, including a proposed line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. This little bit of second story work wasn’t even in the House version of the bill. It started in the Senate as a $2 billion project, and came out of the conference committee costing a whopping $8 billion. Gee, now who would that benefit Oh yeah, the Senate majority leader is from Nevada. Filipino veterans, most of whom don’t live in the U.S., will get $200 million in compensation for World War II injuries. And: $2 billion in grants and loans for battery companies, $100 million for small shipyards and a rollback of the alternative minimum tax at a cost of some $70 billion. The AMT provision is much-needed legislation, but it doesn’t belong in the stimulus bill. It forced other things out so Congress could keep to its self-imposed $800 billion cap. And when it comes to the tax cuts contained in the stimulus bill, experts have determined they will amount to about $13 per week after taxes for the average American. I’m not sure how much stimulation $13 a week buys. It depends on the neighborhood. The biggest problem of all is the stimulus bill may not be nearly enough. And if the president has to come back asking for more, the next time might not be so easy. So far, we have an anemic stimulus bill and some sort of vague proposal from the secretary of the Treasury to deal with the banking crisis — a proposal that landed with a thud last week — as the two first steps toward solving a financial crisis that is threatening to take down the country. Obama better step up his game, or it’s going to be a short four years in office. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jack Cafferty.

Saying No to a Car Czar: Obama’s Smart First Step on Detroit

Saying No to a Car Czar: Obamas Smart First Step on Detroit

Times are tough, but imagine how much worse they would be if the United States were dependent on foreign oil or Americans were still using illegal drugs.

Fortunately, our leaders solved those problems long ago, by boldly appointing czars to clean them up. So naturally, now faced with the near death of the U.S. auto industry, the government’s impulse was to crown a car czar.

But with time running out, the Obama Administration has decided to take the old-fashioned approach. Instead of creating a post with a big title and vague powers to deal with the problem, the elected President and his ample bureaucracy will decide what’s next for the cash-strapped industry.

When Congress extended emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler in December, lawmakers required the companies to deliver detailed plans for getting their houses in order. Management, labor and bondholders would all have to give ground — and the car czar was supposed to be the enforcer.

But a czar was never crowned. With those plans due Tuesday — and talks with union leaders and debtors apparently bogged down — President Barack Obama has reportedly decided to send an emissary to knock heads at the bargaining table, while saving the final decisions for himself and his existing economics team.

The key decision: more loans or a government-backed bankruptcy process Surely a question of such magnitude should end up in the Oval Office — which begs the question of why a czar was contemplated in the first place. There are two reasons, one good and one bad.

Washington czarism reflects the fact that some of our thorniest problems sprawl over turf belonging to more than one agency. Bruce Reed experienced this firsthand as director of domestic policy under President Clinton — the czar czar, if you will. He concluded that whether you say “czar” or “point person,” it’s important that someone have a mandate that cuts across competing domains. “The Cabinet may carry out policy,” Reed says, “but the White House makes policy. Every White House has to find the right balance to make clear who has responsibility for what and how to resolve differences when turfs collide.”

That’s the idea behind the Administration’s climate czar, Carol Browner; its yet-to-be-named health-care czar ; the contemplated urban-affairs czar; rumored soon-to-be-named drug czar Gil Kerlikowske; and other wonder-working bureaucratic potentates.

But creeping czarism is also a way of exploiting the undemocratic yearning for strongmen, playing on the idea that compromise is fine when the stakes are small, but when the chips are down, only a tyrant will do. Generations of Russian dissidents braved prison, execution and revolution to rid their nation of czars. And the Founding Fathers so feared czarlike power that they fashioned a government intricately checked and balanced. Hard to imagine Madison and Mason agreeing to put the really difficult problems in the hands of unelected superstaffers.
See pictures of Obama behind the scenes on Inauguration Day.
See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.

Five places to go before global warming messes them up

Glaciers in the European Alps may melt as soon as 2050, some scientists say.
Scientists expect some great travel spots to be altered or ruined by global climate change.

Some of the changes are already taking place. Others are expected to be seen in coming decades. There are two ways to look at this: Either stay home (which might be less depressing and won’t add more airline emissions) or get a move on it and see the hot spots you just can’t miss. For those who want to head out, CNN got advice on the best pre-warming travel destinations from Bob Henson, author of “The Rough Guide to Climate Change” and a writer at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Here are Henson’s top five choices: Great Barrier Reef, Australia Warming temperatures can spell disaster for coral reefs, which depend on a delicate balance of ocean temperature and chemistry to bloom into colorful displays. Many of the world’s reefs already are experiencing “bleaching” in which algae living in the coral die and leave behind whitened skeletons. The Great Barrier Reef — which is composed of about 2,900 individual reefs and is off the northeast coast of Australia — is seeing limited bleaching now, and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority expects the problem to grow in coming decades. Henson said the reefs’ colorful displays are not to be missed. “It’s a feast for the eyes in terms of color, texture variations — it’s just amazing to see,” he said. “It’s wonderful to be enveloped in the warm water and look down just a few feet below at this amazing spread of ocean life.” Boats of people with snorkels typically launch into the reefs from Cairns, Queensland. If you go, tread lightly, Henson said. Visitors can damage the reefs if they get too close.

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In Depth: Planet in peril

New Orleans, Louisiana How much sea levels will rise as the world warms is one of the trickiest parts of the climate change equation. If huge hunks of ice — such as parts of Greenland and the western shelf of Antarctica — melt, then the rise is expected to be more dramatic. “Nobody knows whether they’re going to completely melt or not, but we do know it’s not going to happen in the next 10 years,” Henson said. But for cities near the coast such as New Orleans, which already sits below sea level, rising waters could spell trouble for tourists and residents alike, even in the relative near term. “In the next several hundred years, life there may be difficult, and the cities may become impractical unless we can build large structures to keep the waters at bay,” he said. Henson doesn’t expect New Orleans to be underwater anytime soon. But travel to the Louisiana city may become more difficult in the future, he said. Scientists expect floods to become more frequent. “It’s sobering to be in New Orleans and look up at the levees that sit above you and keep out the Mississippi River,” he said. “You’re standing below the level of the river, looking up.” Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, Colorado Herds of tiny pine beetles are munching away at Colorado’s forests, turning the evergreens a sickly red and destroying large patches of trees. Cold snaps — which, in mountain terms, mean about five nights of minus-30 temperatures — usually kill off the native beetles. But winters are warming, and Henson and others said they worry the beetles can’t be stopped. The beetle infestation “has reached epidemic proportions as a result of climate issues,” said Kyle Patterson, spokeswoman for the Rocky Mountain National Park. The beetles are causing problems all over America’s mountainous west, but the issue is particularly visible at Patterson’s park, northwest of Denver. Henson recommends visiting the park this decade to ensure you can still see the dense forests in decent shape. Some of the reddened forests look beautiful in a strange way, Henson said, but visitors should note that the color isn’t natural for pine trees. “Come soon. It’s happening quickly,” he said. Visit in the summer or early fall and take a breathtaking drive to 12,183 feet, Patterson said. Or, come in the winter and enjoy snowshoeing and nearby skiing. Many of the park’s 355 miles of hiking trails are open year-round. Alpine Glaciers, Switzerland The European Alps sit at a lower altitude than the Rocky Mountains, and their glaciers and ski resorts are therefore more susceptible to melting, Henson said. A climate expert in Austria recently told National Geographic that the Alps’ famed glaciers will disappear entirely between 2030 and 2050. A 2006 report had said they would melt by the end of the century. Henson said he once took a train through the Alpine glaciers. They’re worth seeing before they go — whenever that happens, he said. “They’re beautiful; the light blue quality of the meltwater is really stunning,” he said. Amazon rain forest, Brazil Deforestation continues to be the major environmental issue in the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rain forest. But as locals and corporations chop down the Amazon’s rich forests to create farmland and to harvest biofuels, climate change may make things worse. “The fear is that there will be kind of a feedback where trees are cut down, and it gets warmer and drier” in the forest until it can’t grow back, Henson said. The best way to visit the forest is by boat, Henson said. That way, you’ll leave less of a mark on the struggling ecosystem. Of course, getting to a boat on the Amazon is not simple, and the long trip can create a lot of heat-trapping pollution. Henson said the destination might be one of those better left alone by tourists.

Bristol Palin: Abstinence for all teens ‘not realistic’

In her first interview since giving birth, the teenage daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said having a child is not "glamorous," and that telling young people to be abstinent is "not realistic at all."

“It’s just, like, I’m not living for myself anymore. It’s, like, for another person, so it’s different,” Bristol Palin told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “And just you’re up all night. And it’s not glamorous at all,” she said. “Like, your whole priorities change after having a baby.” The 18-year-old, who gave birth in late December, said she is being helped tremendously by her mother, grandmother, cousins and other family members. She is engaged to teen father Levi Johnston, who is now working for his father and trying to complete school, but said she wishes that she waited another 10 years to have a baby. It was “harder than labor” telling her parents she was pregnant. “Well, we were sitting on the couch, my best friend and Levi, and we had my parents come and sit on the couch, too. And we had my sisters go upstairs,” Bristol said. “And we just sat them down, and I just — I couldn’t even say it. I was just sick to my stomach. “And so finally, my best friend just, like, blurted it out. And it was just, like — I don’t even remember it because it was just, like, something I don’t want to remember.” Todd and Sarah Palin were “scared just because I have to — I had to grow up a lot faster than they ever would have imagined,” Bristol said. Her parents insisted that she and her boyfriend hash out a “game plan” immediately. And now her parents and relatives are all pitching in to help take care of the child, particularly when Bristol is at school during the day. Van Susteren was delicate with the teenager but pointedly asked if “contraception is an issue here.” “Is that something that you were just lazy about or not interested, or do you have philosophical or religious opposition to it,” Van Susteren asked. Bristol quickly answered that she didn’t want to get into specifics. The best option is abstinence, the teen said, but added that she didn’t think that was “realistic.” Watch Bristol Palin say that abstinence is “not realistic at all” » While her mother was running for vice president, the teenager said her treatment in the media was “evil.” She said she read some of the tabloids that wrote about her. People didn’t understand, she said, and some media reports perpetuated falsehoods about her experience. “They thought that, like, my mom was going to make me have the baby, and it was my choice to have the baby,” she said. “And it’s just — that kind of stuff just bothered me.” Van Susteren asked, “But this is your issue This is your decision” Bristol answered yes. “(It) doesn’t matter what my mom’s views are on it. It was my decision, and I wish people would realize that, too,” she said. The network interview was Bristol’s idea, the teen said. And she apparently sprung the news to her parents that she was going to speak publicly the day before the network taping. The teen said she wanted to tell her story so that other young people might think twice about having sex. “I’d love to [be] an advocate to prevent teen pregnancy because it’s not, like, a situation that you would want to strive for, I guess,” Bristol said. Gov. Palin made an unexpected appearance during the interview in Alaska, and Van Susteren asked her about her daughter’s pregnancy.

“Not the most ideal situation, certainly you make the most of it,” the governor said. Bristol is a “strong and bold woman, and she is an amazing mom,” Palin said. “And this little baby is very lucky to have her as a mama. He’s going to be just fine.”