Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is holding another big meeting at the White House today on Afghanistan. All the major national security players will be there again, including Biden, Clinton, Gates, Panetta, Mullen and Petraeus. Gen. McChrystal will be on videoconference from Afghanistan. This war has gotten more attention in the past few weeks than it did during eight years of the Bush administration. Bush launched that war eight years ago today, on October 7, 2001.

The House Democrats are holding a meeting today to discuss the final version of their health insurance reform bill. In the Senate, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will be "scoring" the Senate Finance Committee bill. That basically means they'll provide the estimated cost of the legislation and how that compares to the overall budget, then the Committee will vote it out -- or not. So, we are getting closer, day by day, to floor action in both houses.

Also, expect final action over the next week on the Department of Defense (DoD) Authorization, which includes the Hate Crimes legislation. The House GOPers forced a vote last night on an instruction to remove hate crimes from the DoD bill, but failed.

Plenty going on...start threading.