Daily Democratic Wire 2-14-2010

George Wenschhof

Invitations sent for health care summit scheduled for February 25 - 9 Senators and 12 Representatives have been invited, who comprise the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress. 12 are Democrats and 9 are Republicans - Time.com has the list here.

President Obama has posted the full plan for health care reform online and has asked the Republicans to do the same prior to the summit. WhiteHouse.gov has the full plan here. It is also available to be downloaded and printed.

In addition, President Obama has a short four minute video which covers the basics of the proposed health care reform you can watch below.



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House Minority John Boehner (R-Ohio) responds yesterday with health care summit "is political theater" - he wants to start from scratch and toss the passed Senate and House health care bills out. TheHill.com has more here.

Doubtful, that will happen. He should instead be appreciative of the invitation for bipartisan talks and publish the Republican proposals on health care reform so discussions in the light of day can move forward.

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Continued filibuster action by Republicans to lead to more use of executive authority by President Obama - The NY Times has a good read today of how Presidents in the past often used their authority to move forward agenda items stalled in Congress. You can read it here.

They report President Obama and his staff are making plans to use such authority if the Republicans continue to stall legislation. Just this past week, it took the threat by Obama to use the upcoming recess to appoint agency directors to get the Senate to approve 27 of 63 appointments held up by the party of "no".

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Vice President Joe Biden appeared on NBC "Meet The Press" this morning and challenges former Vice President Dick Cheney's repeated statements that the Obama administration has been soft on terror - You can watch below, the segment taped yesterday from Vancouver where Biden was attending the opening of the winter Olympics. Biden says Cheney "is entitled to his own opinion. However,he is not entitled to rewrite history".

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Two Democrats are quick to announce they are running for the U.S. House seat to be vacated by Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) - within days of Kennedy's announcement he would not be seeking reelection, David Cicillino who is mayor of Providence and former state Democratic Party chair Bill Lynch have announced their intentions to run for the seat. MSNBC.com has more here.

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