Skip Those, Read This: The Daily Beast leads with a Washington Post report on House Republicans threatening to refuse President Barack Obama's invitation to a health care summit unless the president scraps Congress' existing two reform bills. "'Bipartisanship is not writing proposals of your own behind closed doors, then unveiling them and demanding Republican support," two House Republican leaders wrote in a letter to the White House. "Bipartisan ends require bipartisan means." If you're following the ongoing health care debate, it's worth checking in with Jonathan Cohn's blog at The New Republic.
Enrichment in Iran: The Slatest leads with a New York Times story indicating that Iran has begun enriching its uranium stockpile, despite international calls for the nation to cease its nuclear program. Iran plans to enrich to 20 percent purity, which is sufficient to power a medical reactor in Tehran but well short of the at least 90 percent purity needed for weapons-grade uranium. Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse (via The Daily Beast) reports that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, delivered a warning to the West on the eve of the country's Islamic revolution anniversary festivities. "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance [Western powers] on the 22nd of Bahman [February 11] in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei said.
Dear "Bonus Babies": The Huffington Post leads with its analysis of a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Elizabeth Warren, in which the Harvard Law professor and middle-class economic rights advocate called on Wall Street CEOs to cooperate with financial reforms and own up to their abuses of the public trust. (Warren's piece is behind the Journal's pay wall.) She calls for the creation of a new regulatory watchdog, which Wall Street opposes. And she says Wall Street has a choice to make: "When the history of the Great Recession is written, they can be singled out as the bonus babies who were so shortsighted that they put the economy at risk and contributed to the destruction of their own companies. Or they can acknowledge how Americans' trust has been lost and take the first steps to earn it back."
Catch of the Day: The Daily Beast runs with the ongoing, rumor-driven controversy surrounding New York Gov. David Paterson, but leads, refreshingly, with hard news: Paterson will seek another term. "For the last couple of weeks, I have been the subject of what, even by Albany standards, has been a spate of outrageous rumors about me," Paterson says to the New York Post, which predictably offers up a great headline (Furious Gov: I've Been Sexploited). "There is an accountability that should exist in the media. How do I get my reputation back?" The rumors stem from reports of a yet-to-be published profile of Paterson by The New York Times that is believed -- why, no one is quite sure -- to be so salacious that it will prompt the governor to resign.
Suing Hef: The Daily Beast links to a TMZ report that a Playboy shareholder is suing Hugh Hefner for allegedly continuing to live it up as the company goes into a financial tailspin. The class-action suit also alleges that Hefner has sabotaged two potential deals for selling the company. The lawsuit quotes analysis by a company that also fingered Hefner. "[W]e think the wild card here is Hugh Hefner. ... If you were Hugh Hefner, 81, would you give up the parade of busty blonds, the fancy mansion and the reality-TV show for a payout?"
