Snow What

Happy Monday. Turns out the weather experts finally got one right. We endured quite the brutal snow beating this weekend. I took the photo to the left on my hike home from a friend’s house Saturday at about noon.

DC’s not well-equipped to handle inclement weather. The streets and sidewalks that are passable are slick and slushy at best, and the city’s far from dug out. Metro’s running sporadically and only to and from the underground stations. My commute’s not bad, but half the office is working from home.

Rumor has it we’re due for another 5-10 inches tomorrow. That should make things interesting.

On the health care front, this is all the news today:

President Obama said Sunday that he would convene a half-day bipartisan health care session at the White House to be televised live this month…The idea for the bipartisan meeting, set for Feb. 25, was reached in recent weeks, aides said, as part of the White House strategy to intensify its push to engage Congressional Republicans in policy negotiations, share the burden of governing and put more scrutiny on Republican initiatives.

Richard’s been chatting with reporters. From TPMDC:

“If this is what it takes–if doing this will make Democrats say, ok, go ahead and use their majorities to pass reform, then do it,” said Richard Kirsch, director of the reform campaign Health Care for America Now.

Kirsch says Democrats have to remember that this isn’t going to make Republicans any less intransigent. “They’re still going to vote no,” he said. “Their entire political strategy is to burn the House down, whether or not people get caught inside.”

“The point is, if it’s helpful to clarify for people, remind people, that Republicans don’t have ideas to really address the health care problems, and will say no to anything–if it does that it’s good,” Kirsch said. “If this is helps, then so be it. But at this point its up to Democrats to use their majorities to pass reform.”

And that’s basically what aides in both the House and Senate think: that the meeting can be used to clearly differentiate who is fighting for what, while deflating the GOP charge that the reform process has been too secretive.


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