Putin says no plans to leave power

Obama to let Pentagon deploy even more troops, but numbers remain murky

President Obama has authorized Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to deploy several thousand additional troops, as needed, beyond the 30,000 that Obama on Tuesday said he would send to Afghanistan, according to a Pentagon official.

Investigation Request Filed Against Unregistered Lobbyist SEIU Treasurer Anna Burger

America’s largest union, the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) is a common utterance within the White House and will be a major player at the December jobs summit. In 2008 they gave almost $30 million to Obama’s campaign. SEIU President Andy Stern is the most frequent visitor to the White House according to their visitors’ log. Anna Burger, Treasurer of the SEIU and Chairwoman of their Change to Win campaign has even been appointed to Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and is scheduled to attend the December jobs summit at the White House.

The problem; until 2007, both Stern and Burger were registered lobbyists until they terminated their status, yet their job duties or descriptions have not changed. This plus other evidence appears to indicate that both are continuing to lobby without registering and thus are violating federal law (and Obama’s campaign promises).

Today, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) formally requested an investigation by the acting United States Attorney Channing D. Phillips, Esq., into the potentially illegal lobbying activities of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Treasurer and Change to Win Chairwoman Anna Burger.

http://www.atr.org/investigation-request-filed-against-unregistered-lobbyist-a4270#

Somebody at Fort Hood Should Be Walking the Plank   [Andy McCarthy]

Prepare to be infuriated.

It's been brought to my attention by several reliable sources that the Defense Department has brought Louay Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor, and that he has been lecturing on Islam to our troops in Fort Hood who are about to deploy to Afghanistan. Safi is a top official of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and served as research director at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Worse, last evening, Safi was apparently permitted to present a check (evidently on behalf of ISNA) to the families of the victims of last month's Fort Hood massacre. A military source told the blogger Barbarossa at the Jawa Report: "This is nothing short of blood money. This is criminal and the Ft. Hood base commander should be fired right now."

ISNA was identified by the Justice Department at the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing conspiracy trial as an unindicted co-conspirator. The defendants at that trial were convicted of funding Hamas to the tune of millions of dollars. This should have come as no surprise. ISNA is the Muslim Brotherhood's umbrella entity for Islamist organizations in the United States. It was established in 1981 to enable Muslims in North America "to adopt Islam as a complete way of life" — i.e., to further the Brotherhood's strategy of establishing enclaves in the West that are governed by sharia. As I detailed in an essay for the April 20 edition of NR, the Brotherhood's rally-cry remains, to this day, "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The Brotherhood's spiritual guide, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who issued a fatwa in 2004 calling for attacks on American forces in Afghanistan, openly declares that Islam will "conquer America" and "conquer Europe."

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2QxNWFlZDM5MDQ0NzM4MDg3ZjA3MDE5ZjNmYzBjYzU=

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, the Justice Department's second in command, will step aside Feb. 10 to return to private law practice in Washington.

The deputy AG post, one of the most critical in the department, will be filled on an acting basis by deputy assistant attorney general Gary Grindler, said two sources familiar with the move, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters. Grindler has been handling sensitive issues this year for the department's criminal division.

White House Blocks Testimony on Party Crashers

Updated | 10:22 p.m. The White House on Wednesday invoked the separation of powers to keep Desiree Rogers, President Obama’s social secretary, from testifying on Capitol Hill about how a couple of aspiring reality television show celebrities crashed a state dinner for the prime minister of India last week.

And the couple will not testify, either, according to a statement released late Wednesday by a public relations firm.

Wall Street tax "has a great deal of merit": Pelosi

Unanimous Supreme Court Recognizes Unborn Human Being to Be a “Child”   [Ed Whelan]

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous per curiam opinion in Porter v. McCollum in favor of the habeas petition filed by a death-row inmate.  Specifically, the Court ruled that the inmate was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when his counsel failed to discover significant mitigating evidence and to present that evidence at the sentencing phase of his trial.

By e-mail, Walter Weber of the American Center for Law and Justice highlights an interesting phrase in the Court’s opinion:

In the course of relating the criminal convict’s troubled childhood, the unanimous Court states, “Porter routinely witnessed his father beat his mother, one time so severely that she had to go to the hospital and lost a child.” Slip op. at 4. The unmistakable reference is to a miscarriage. The stage of gestation is not mentioned.

Outside the abortion context, every Justice knows that a pregnant woman carries “a child.”

http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzU4OWEzZjZhZDgwMDAyNTk3YzI3ZGM1YjZhNmJkMDU=

Job proposals from Democrats could add $300 billion in new federal spending

Exclusive: White House aides insisted F-22 be removed from Obama speech venue

Feinstein, Durbin Seek To Limit Citizen Journalism

Update: Link to the actual bill as kos doesn't seem to provide one. The amendment in question is addressed below.

S.448 Title: A bill to maintain the free flow of information to the public by providing conditions for the federally compelled disclosure of information by certain persons connected with the news media. Sponsor: Sen Specter, Arlen [PA] (introduced 2/13/2009) Cosponsors (10) Latest Major Action: 12/3/2009 Senate committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Committee on the Judiciary. Date of scheduled consideration. SD-226. 10:00 a.m.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/12/feinstein-durbin-seek-to-limit-citizen-journalism.html

Prominent liberal activists are warning Democratic leaders that they face a problem with the party’s base heading into an election year.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and other Senate Democrats on Thursday strongly backed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s nomination for a second term.

Mike Mullen disputes Donald Rumsfeld on Afghan troop request

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pushed back in a fact-checking dispute with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asserting that the Bush administration rejected a Pentagon request for more troops for Afghanistan last year.

Adm. Michael Mullen told a House committee Wednesday that Gen. David McKiernan, who led U.S. troops in Afghanistan between 2008 and this year, had asked for 20,000 troops for the effort but was rebuffed.

“We didn’t have them because they were pushed to Iraq,” the four-star admiral said during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in response to a question from Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence. “That was the priority of the president.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30138.html