Barack Obama

House Republicans Want Obama's Emails

Susan Crabtree | October 7, 2011, 10:34AM

Blackberry Phone

Remember all the handwringing from the Secret Service and the National Security Agency over President Obama's decision to keep using a Blackberry while serving as commander-in-chief?

Turns out, it may have been warranted for reasons entirely unrelated to personal or national security. In every Washington scandal or headline grabbing lawsuit, it's the emails that getcha, and for the first time a sitting President is known to have plenty of the chatty Internet missives piling up.

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American Jobs Act

White House: How Jobs Plan Is Paid for Is A Sideshow

Susan Crabtree | October 5, 2011, 3:35PM

President Barack Obama

The White House is brushing off all the fuss over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's plans to scrap President Obama's suggested offsets for the Jobs Act before bringing it to the floor for a vote next week.

"The pay-fors are incidental, if you will," Carney told reporters at a Wednesday briefing. "The meat of this proposal is putting teachers back to work...incentivizing small businesses to hire more workers...and that will be voted on. How you pay for it has always been open to debate."

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Grover Norquist

GOP Rep. Denounces Norquist And His No New Taxes Pledge

Susan Crabtree | October 4, 2011, 6:34PM

Grover Norquist

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) unleashed a verbal fusillade on Anti-Tax Guru Grover Norquist Tuesday, calling him out as the main political force behind Washington gridlock.

Wolf took the House floor to lambaste Norquist's pledge, a promise not to raise taxes that all but six Republicans in Congress have signed, accusing him of using it to advance other pet issues that most Republicans -- if not most voters -- do not support.

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Barack Obama

Obama Has No Regrets For Acknowledging Economic Woes

Susan Crabtree | October 4, 2011, 2:12PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama is standing by his concession Monday in an interview with ABC News that Americans aren't better off than they were four years ago before the near collapse of the financial system and a deep economic recession -- both of which occurred at the tail end of President George W. Bush's term.

At a fundraiser in Dallas, Obama returned to the point he made in the interview, that Americans are still suffering through hard economic times.

"Of course they're still hurting," he said. "Every night I get letters and emails from families who are struggling."

He listed among his successes the auto bailout and Wall Street reform, noting Republican opposition to both.

The President doesn't regret acknowledging the truth, namely, that the economy is still flagging and is unlikely to quickly rebound any time soon, White House spokesman Jay Carney also told reporters Tuesday while traveling to Texas on Air Force One.

"It would be wrong to somehow suggest that the hole created by that recession was not very deep ... or that somehow we'll emerge from it overnight," Carney said.

But Carney also noted that "four years ago was 2007 -- prior to the point where the policies of the previous administration plunged us into the greatest recession since the Great Depression."

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Darrell Issa

Wartime Contracting Set To Spike Despite Rampant Fraud And Abuse

Susan Crabtree | October 4, 2011, 11:08AM

A soldier helps guard the Rumelia Oil Field in southern Iraq on April 2, 2003.

Despite recent warnings about unchecked fraud and abuse associated with wartime contracting, the number of private contractors and the costs associated with them are set to dramatically increase in the coming transition from the military to the State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, estimated that the State Department is set to increase its manpower in Iraq and Afghanistan from 8,000 to 17,000 -- the great majority of whom will be contractors for security, medical, maintenance, aviation, and other functions.

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Barack Obama

Obama Would Veto Latest GOP Assault On Pollution Controls

Susan Crabtree | October 3, 2011, 6:42PM

The Obama administration is rejecting House GOP leaders' latest attempt to box him into a corner on environmental protections.

Late Monday afternoon the Office of Management and Budget recommended the President veto two bills House Republicans are planning to bring to the floor for a vote later this week.

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American Jobs Act

Obama To Cantor: Dismantle My Jobs Bill At Your Own Risk

Susan Crabtree | October 3, 2011, 4:59PM

President Barack Obama

The White House Monday continued its war of words with House Republicans over their unwillingness to move his entire jobs package, confidently vowing to let voters decide how to react to Republicans' refusal to pass provisions such as infrastructure spending and retaining teachers.

"Congress can take it up, vote on it...then if there's a desire to take things out, we would accept that although we would not be satisfied by that... [President Obama] would say, 'Where's the rest of it? What about teachers and construction workers...or incentives to hire veterans?" White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters during a briefing Monday.

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Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi Quote Slamming Obama Advisers Is False

Susan Crabtree | October 3, 2011, 3:33PM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Some tough words from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) about President Obama and his team's communications strategy were raising eyebrows in Washington Monday morning, but that was before Pelosi disavowed the quote and Newsweek's Daily Beast admitted a mistake and retracted it.

"I think you need to talk about how poorly they [the White House] do on message," Pelosi is quoted as saying in a story by Howard Kurtz. "They can't see around corners; they anticipate nothing."

Pelosi's office quickly denied having ever made the comments, and Newsweek/Daily Beast has since issued a broad correction.

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John Boehner

Can Boehner Cement Some Common Ground With Obama?

Susan Crabtree | October 3, 2011, 11:34AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and the rest of the House GOP leadership team sent a letter to President Barack Obama Monday morning, touting what they say are two areas of common ground between themselves and Obama's jobs package.

Boehner et al are bringing the EPA Regulatory Relief Act and the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act, bills that would slash regulations on businesses, to the House floor for votes this week. The EPA bill, which would lift restrictions on boilers used by hospitals, factories and colleges, is likely a non-starter for the administration, which is already under fire from environmental activists for easing new clean air restrictions nearly a month ago.

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Budget

Key GOP Budget Cutter Exempts District From Belt-Tightening

Susan Crabtree | October 3, 2011, 5:55AM

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY)

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) just can't seem to stick to his new diet goal of abstaining from steering millions of federal dollars to his cash-strapped district.

Earlier this year, the chairman of the top House spending panel who made a career out of earmarking millions of dollars to district pet projects, joined the GOP budget austerity movement spurred by the Tea Party-fueled GOP takeover of the House.

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