Via Daniel Foster on the Corner:

Boehner Wants Stupak Invited to Health-Care Summit   [Daniel Foster]

In a letter to the president, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) asks that Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) be invited to participate in tomorrow's health-care summit:

Dear President Obama,

During legislative action on the House Democratic leadership’s health care legislation (H.R. 3200) last November, a majority of members of the House of Representatives voted in favor of a bipartisan amendment authored by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-MI) that would prohibit federal funding of abortion. The Stupak amendment passed the House by a bipartisan vote of [240-194] and is part of the House-passed health care bill.

As you know, the Stupak amendment is not included in the Senate version of the health care bill, nor in the new proposal you put forth earlier this week and designated as the starting point for the discussion that will take place at Blair House on February 25. But public opinion surveys (including two recent surveys conducted by CNN and Quinnipiac University) consistently indicate that the Stupak amendment reflects the will of the American people. . . .

On February 8, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) and I wrote a letter to your chief of staff, Mr. Emanuel, posing a number of questions about the proposed February 25 summit. Among the questions we asked was whether congressional Democrats who are opposed to the House or Senate versions of the health care bill would be invited to participate in the summit. As of this writing, Mr. Emanuel has not responded to our letter, and the Democratic leadership in the House has not indicated any plans to include such members in the delegations they are sending to Blair House.

I write today to respectfully ask that you invite Rep. Stupak to participate in the February 25 health care summit so that the will of the American people – and that of a bipartisan majority in the House – on the critical issue of life will be appropriately represented during the discussion.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGE3OTlmMWFkMjdiZTVhNWY3NWEzYThmNDEwY2VkZWI=

Wall Street shifting political contributions to Republicans

By Dan Eggen and Tomoeh Murakami Tse

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Commercial banks and high-flying investment firms have shifted their political contributions toward Republicans in recent months amid harsh rhetoric from Democrats about fat bank profits, generous bonuses and stingy lending policies on Wall Street.

The wealthy securities and investment industry, for example, went from giving 2 to 1 to Democrats at the start of 2009 to providing almost half of its donations to Republicans by the end of the year, according to new data compiled for The Washington Post by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Commercial banks and their employees also returned to their traditional tilt in favor of the GOP after a brief dalliance with Democrats, giving nearly twice as much to Republicans during the last three months of 2009, the data show. At the same time, total political donations by the major banks and investment houses alike dropped in the waning months of that year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/23/AR2010022305537.html

Via Breitbart.tv:

Fearing Obama Agenda, States Push to Loosen Gun Laws

By IAN URBINA

Published: February 23, 2010

And yet the opposite is happening. Mr. Obama has been largely silent on the issue while states are engaged in a new and largely successful push for expanded gun rights, even passing measures that have been rejected in the past.

In Virginia, the General Assembly approved a bill last week that allows people to carry concealed weapons in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, and the House of Delegates voted to repeal a 17-year-old ban on buying more than one handgun a month. The actions came less than three years after the shootings at Virginia Tech that claimed 33 lives and prompted a major national push for increased gun control.

Arizona and Wyoming lawmakers are considering nearly a half dozen pro-gun measures, including one that would allow residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit. And lawmakers in Montana and Tennessee passed measures last year — the first of their kind — to exempt their states from federal regulation of firearms and ammunition that are made, sold and used in state. Similar bills have been proposed in at least three other states.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/us/24guns.html?hp

Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Regarding Congressional CIA "Torture Briefings"

IA Briefed At least 68 Members of Congress on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" Between 2001 and 2007

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

My Gift to the Obama Presidency

Though the White House won't want to admit it, Bush lawyers were protecting the executive's power to fight a vigorous war on terror.

By JOHN YOO

Barack Obama may not realize it, but I may have just helped save his presidency. How? By winning a drawn-out fight to protect his powers as commander in chief to wage war and keep Americans safe.

He sure didn't make it easy. When Mr. Obama took office a year ago, receiving help from one of the lawyers involved in the development of George W. Bush's counterterrorism policies was the furthest thing from his mind. Having won a great electoral victory, the new president promised a quick about-face. He rejected "as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" and moved to restore the law-enforcement system as the first line of defense against a hardened enemy devoted to killing Americans.

In office only one day, Mr. Obama ordered the shuttering of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, followed later by the announcement that he would bring terrorists to an Illinois prison. He terminated the Central Intelligence Agency's ability to use "enhanced interrogations techniques" to question al Qaeda operatives. He stayed the military trial, approved by Congress, of al Qaeda leaders. He ultimately decided to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planner of the 9/11 attacks, to a civilian court in New York City, and automatically treated Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, as a criminal suspect (not an illegal enemy combatant). Nothing better could have symbolized the new president's determination to take us back to a Sept. 10, 2001, approach to terrorism.

Part of Mr. Obama's plan included hounding those who developed, approved or carried out Bush policies, despite the enormous pressures of time and circumstance in the months immediately after the September 11 attacks. Although career prosecutors had previously reviewed the evidence and determined that no charges are warranted, last year Attorney General Eric Holder appointed a new prosecutor to re-investigate the CIA's detention and interrogation of al Qaeda leaders.

In my case, he let loose the ethics investigators of the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) to smear my reputation and that of Jay Bybee, who now sits as a federal judge on the court of appeals in San Francisco. Our crime? While serving in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in the weeks and months after 9/11, we answered in the form of memoranda extremely difficult questions from the leaders of the CIA, the National Security Council and the White House on when interrogation methods crossed the line into prohibited acts of torture.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704188104575083473537079844.html

Faced with strong headwinds, Democrats say no more Senate retirements and are moving to push Republicans to the right.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) previewed the 2010 strategy with reporters Wednesday during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

Faced with an increasingly tough political environment and a public that Menendez said was anxious about the economy, the Democrats’ campaign guru emphasized that Republicans face contested primaries in the majority of the seats they are targeting.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/83379-menendez-says-republicans-can-be-marginalized

Energy Protection Agency delays greenhouse gas curbs

By LISA LERER | 2/22/10 11:12 PM EST

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson reassured Democrats that the agency would take a cautious approach to regulating greenhouse gases, in a letter sent to coal state representatives on Monday.

An agency plan to regulate greenhouse gases from large, industrial sources has come under fierce criticism from Republicans, coal state Democrats, and industry groups.

Jackson's quick response is an attempt to keep Democrats from voting to veto the agency plan.

In her letter, Jackson said that no industrial facilities will be required to curb greenhouse gas emissions in this year. The agency would phase-in permit requirements starting in 2011. The smallest sources would not be subjected to permitting for emissions until 2016, she wrote.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33328.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Toomey Holds Big Leads in Pennsylvania

A new Franklin & Marshall poll in Pennsylvania finds Pat Toomey (R) leading both Sen. Arlen Specter (D) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D) by double-digits in general election match ups.

Toomey leads Specter, 44% to 34%, and tops Sestak, 38% to 20%.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/02/24/toomey_holds_big_leads_in_pennsylvania.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PoliticalWire+%28Political+Wire%29

Report: Son of Hamas founder was top Israeli agent

JERUSALEM – The son of one of Hamas' founders served as a top informant for Israel for more than a decade, providing top-secret intelligence that helped prevent dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, dubbed as "the Green Prince" by his handlers, was one of the Shin Bet security service's most valuable sources, Israel's Haaretz daily said. His reports led to the arrests of several high-ranking Palestinian figures during the violent Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, according to the newspaper.

Yousef's father — Sheik Hassan Yousef — was a founding member of the Islamic militant group Hamas in the 1980s. He is currently serving a six-year sentence in an Israeli prison for his political activities.

The younger Yousef converted to Christianity and moved to California in 2007.

If the Haaretz report is true, the revelation would deal another setback to Hamas, which is reeling from the assassination of a top operative in Dubai last month. There have been reports that a Hamas insider assisted the killers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_hamas_spy

The bill passed in the Senate 70-28. 13 Republicans voted for the bill. 1 Democrat (Nelson D-Nebraska) voted against the bill.

YEAs ---70
Akaka (D-HI) Alexander (R-TN) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Bingaman (D-NM) Bond (R-MO) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Brown (R-MA) Burr (R-NC) Burris (D-IL) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL)	Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Inhofe (R-OK) Inouye (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kaufman (D-DE) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) LeMieux (R-FL) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD)	Murkowski (R-AK) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (D-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (D-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wicker (R-MS) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---28
Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC)	Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) Lugar (R-IN) McCain (R-AZ)	McConnell (R-KY) Nelson (D-NE) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA)

Not Voting - 2
Hutchison (R-TX)	Lautenberg (D-NJ)

Senate Passes Jobs Bill Offering Tax Breaks for New Hires

AP

The Senate has passed a bill aimed at boosting job growth by giving tax breaks to businesses that hire the unemployed.

The jobs legislation would also extend highway and mass transit programs through the end of the year and pump $20 billion into them in time for the construction season. Economists say the tax breaks could create perhaps 250,000 jobs.

It's the first of several job-creation measures promised by Democrats, who also want to give cash-strapped states further help with their budgets and give subsidies to people who make their homes more energy efficient.

The measure passed by a bipartisan 70-28 and now goes back to the House, which passed a far more ambitious version in December.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/24/senate-vote-jobs-passage-likely/

Airport scanners still in storage

By KASIE HUNT | 2/22/10 7:38 PM EST

President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan included $25 million for airport screening machines capable of detecting explosives like those carried by the Christmas Day bomber.

But more than a year after passage of the stimulus, the Department of Homeland Security has yet to install a single scanner paid for by the bill.

"We have not outlined our deployment schedule as yet," said Amy Kudwa, a DHS spokeswoman. "We're very actively working on a deployment plan. That process has not been completed."

Records show that it took the department almost seven months just to order the 150 Advanced Imaging Technology units covered by the stimulus bill. A spokesman for Rapiscan, the California-based company that builds the machines, said the company has since delivered more than 100 of them to the Transportation Security Administration.

And that’s where they remain.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33316.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

A Third of All U.S. Casualties in Eight-Year Afghan War Have Occurred Since Obama Ordered Escalation
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
By Edwin Mora
(CNSNews.com) -- More than 300 U.S. soldiers have died in  the war in Afghanistan since May 15, 2009, the day when the first major wave of new troops ordered by President Barack Obama arrived in the country.
 
The 308 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan since then account for about a third of the total of 920 U.S. casualties in the eight-year war. 
 
Of the 308 soldiers who have died since mid-May 2009, 287 were killed by enemy action, according to a CNSNews.com database of all casualties in the Afghanistan theatre of war.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/61811