Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.

This thread has been declared open source, so feel free to add your insights.

On a local note: The Pentagon Metro stop reopened this afternoon. More details on that over the fold.

Here's what we have this Friday...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.

Help me out. Add some news...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.

Programming Note: Casual Wednesday has a real job, graduate student at American University. Tonight is a midterm so I am filling in today, on short notice, so bear with me.

Help me out. Add some news...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.

No real programming notes today, so here's the news...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.

Below the electronic fold, we have news...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.

We were busy yesterday watching this summit thing. This was actually pretty historic. Someone feel free to correct me, but I can't remember a time when the President had a major sit down with Congress since George HW Bush's budget meeting at Andrews Air Force Base in 1990. The elder Bush was forced to break his "no new taxes" promise. That one was done in secret, by the way.

Anyway, here's the news. But the summit is so yesterday, and I'll get to that eventually.

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.

On a programing note, you still have time to kick in a vote for this series. We are up for a kOscar (it really was an honor just to be nominated). You can vote for this series here nominated in (#7) "News or Political." The other diary for more categories is posted here. Many thanks to Laughing Planet and Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse for their work on this.

Below the electronic fold, we have news...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.

Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.

So I'm spending all weekend reading, writing a review and preparing a presentation on The Presidency in a Separated System by Charles O. Jones. My section is on the various ways bills become laws. Wish me luck.

Here's the Washington news for this Friday.

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.

Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post your manifestos.

On a programing note, we did miss a couple of days. I'm blaming the Olympics.

Across the digital fold, you will find all of the Congress news that's fit to repost.

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers and happy Darwin Day. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.

It seems the snow has shifted south and now Atlanta is getting hit. I guess this means we can completely stop all efforts to cap carbon emissions, or something.

Meanwhile, the Winter Olympics kick off tonight. Too bad there's no snow in Vancouver. Anyway, good luck to Robel Teklemariam, Ethiopia's best (okay, only) hope for a medal in skiing. I wonder if they are getting snow in Addis Ababa. In sad news, thoughts and prayers to the family of Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luger who died today.

Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.

Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post your manifestos.

Here in the District, it's snowing. Really effing hard. Again. The city is shut down and Congress is out of session. Want to see how bad it is? Click here. The government has ground to a halt and snow in DC "proves" there is no global warming. Somewhere a teabagger is experiencing the ultimate in human pleasure.

Anyway, here's a few items floating around the Internet news machine today.

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post your manifestos.

On a programming note, this entry is going to be a bit thin and probably rather bitter. The Federal Government is closed for the second day in a row, costing $100 million in lost productivity. Tomorrow's not looking very good, either. Now I'm from Pennsylvania but this is getting ridiculous. And it really isn't helping that a quarter of the district's snowplows are out of order.

Anyway, all the news that's blah, blah, blah...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.

Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.

All the Hill news that fit to blog is over the fold...

Good afternoon, Congress Matters readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.

Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...