Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

White House Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 01, 2016 7 Comments
With President-elect Donald Trump a month away from taking the White House, President Barack Obama's administration has put pressure on Cuba's regime to make deals with GE and Google for the companies to operate on the island:
White House officials are unsure how Mr. Trump, the president-elect, will approach Mr. Obama’s Cuba policy. He has said he would reverse the effort to build relations, and this week wrote on Twitter that “if Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate the deal.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 10, 2016 18 Comments
President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama met at the White House for around 90 minutes to discuss transition of power. Trump called Obama a very good man and hopes to work with him in the future, while Obama called the meeting excellent:
Obama said the two men talked about foreign policy and domestic policy and said he was encouraged by Trump's interest in working together during the transition. "As I said last night, my No. 1 priority in the next two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful," Obama said.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 07, 2016 11 Comments
The Republican National Committee (RNC) provided a few documents to The Wall Street Journal that shows the White House worked with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign over her private email server when she served as secretary of state:
Their discussion included a request from the White House communications director to her counterpart at the State Department to see if it was possible to arrange for Secretary of State John Kerry to avoid questions during media appearances about Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement. In another instance, a top State Department official assured an attorney for Mrs. Clinton that, contrary to media reports, a department official hadn’t told Congress that Mrs. Clinton erred in using a private email account.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 19, 2016 27 Comments

Authorities now believe the bombing that rocked lower Manhattan Saturday night was an act of international terrorism and announced their search for 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami. Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary, Josh Earnst, joined MSNBC where he suggested the fight against ISIS is nothing more than...

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 15, 2016 13 Comments
The White House held a State of Women Summit this week and for some reason, chose Vice President Joe Biden to represent the Obama administration at the event. Joe Biden isn't guilty of any crimes against women but he does have a demonstrable habit of being a little too intimate with ladies. Wired has a report on the summit:
VP Biden: Changing Rape Culture Will Take All of Us Biden, speaking today at the White House State of Women Summit, made two things abundantly clear: violence against women is an epidemic, and the country is a long, long way from eradicating it.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 09, 2016 17 Comments
Bret Baier of FOX News recently did a report on how the military has shrunk under Obama, and the response was so great, he went back and aired interviews that didn't make it into the program. Baier spoke with three of Obama's former secretaries of defense, and they all told a similar story. The Washington Free Beacon has more:
Obama’s Former Pentagon Chiefs: Military Suffered From Overbearing, Inexperienced White House The U.S. military has been hindered by an overbearing and inexperienced White House under President Barack Obama, according to each of his three former defense secretaries, causing the Pentagon to struggle to carry out operations and make decisions.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 13, 2016 24 Comments
What better way to start the new year than a little "audacious" executive action? White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, "we’ll do audacious executive action throughout the course of the rest of the year, I am confident of that." The Hill has the story:
The comments are a clear sign the president will continue his go-it-alone approach, which has angered Republicans in Congress.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 11, 2016 6 Comments
Monday morning, the White House announced they'd added another social media platform to their repertoire -- Snapchat. Beginning as an app that allowed users to privately share photo messages with friends, messages that would vanish after viewing (it's biggest selling point early on), Snapchat quickly evolved to include video messaging, a chat feature, and most recently, Story Explorer. Story Explorer allows users to take videos or photos and add them to their "Story"; essentially, the apps version of a public profile. Unique to Snapchat, Story Explorer has become more than a personalized user perspective and is now used by media outlets, brands of various kinds, and as of today -- the White House. The White House explained:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 20, 2015 8 Comments
Chuck Hagel was Obama's third Defense Secretary--the other two: Robert Gates and Leon Panetta--to leave his position under difficult circumstances. As late as November 19, 2014, Hagel told Charlie Rose that he didn't wake up in the morning worried about his job, and in less than a week, on the 24th of November, news broke that Hagel had "stepped down."  Despite the rumors addressed by Rose, people were surprised by the news, and Joe Biden is reported to have been "ticked off" by the move. At the time, The New York Times reported that Hagel had stepped down "under pressure" from the White House.
Aides said Mr. Obama made the decision to remove his defense secretary on Friday after weeks of rising tension over a variety of issues, including what administration officials said were Mr. Hagel’s delays in transferring detainees from the military prison in Guantánamo Bay and a dispute with Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, over Syria policy.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 25, 2015 11 Comments
Only in Washington D.C. would someone like Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Katherine Archuleta still have a job. In a hearing Thursday, Archueleta was questioned by an annoyed Sen. McCain over the agency's massive data breach, now believed to be much worse than originally reported. Fox News reported Thursday that the White House intentionally hid the extent of the OPM hack:
The Obama administration reportedly concealed the true amount of information compromised by a cyberattack on the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for several days after the initial disclosure of the hack, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the day after the White House admitted that hackers had breached personnel files, OPM publicly denied that the security clearance forms had been compromised despite receiving information to the contrary from the FBI. The administration did not say that security clearance forms had likely been accessed by the intruders until more than a week had passed. A OPM spokeswoman denied the claims, telling the Journal the agency had been "completely consistent" in its reporting of the data breach.
Thursday, Senator McCain grilled Archuleta, attempting to get solid answer about the scope of the OPM data breach. Aruchuelta had few answers and often deferred to colleagues in other federal agencies. On the Sony hacking by China, Archuleta had no answer. On the issue of prescription and other health related data breaches, Archuleta also had no answer. It's almost like there's a theme here...

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 12, 2015 28 Comments
Friday, House Democrats bucked President Obama when they voted to torpedo "trade authority." As Amy wrote this morning:
The debate surrounding congressional approval of “fast track” trade authority has officially taken a swan dive through the looking glass. Obama wants it. House republicans want it. Democrats, for the most part, are ready to vote “no”—their union backers are making them more nervous than the White House ever could—even if it prevents their president from advancing more legacy-building legislation.
This afternoon, the AP reports with Nancy Pelosi at the helm, House Democrats sunk President Obama's trade authority hopes. From Yahoo News:

Posted by Amy Miller on June 09, 2015 27 Comments
Somewhere in America, Jon Stewart's brain is dribbling out of his ears. Today, fast food chain McDonald's announced that former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs will be joining the company as its global chief communications officer. He'll be managing the department that manages government and public affairs. More from the official press release:
In his new role, Gibbs will lead McDonald's corporate relations group, which manages internal and external communications and government and public affairs. He will lead McDonald's in communicating clear, coordinated messages to internal and external constituencies, enhancing the brand and supporting corporate strategies. Gibbs joins McDonald's from The Incite Agency, a strategic communications advisory firm he co-founded in 2013. Prior to that he held several senior advisory roles in the White House, serving as President Barack Obama's press secretary during his first term, then as senior campaign advisor during his re-election campaign. He will replace Bridget Coffing who announced her retirement earlier this year after 30 years with the company.
There's something delicious about this, no?

Posted by Amy Miller on April 04, 2015 26 Comments
We in the conservative media have spent a great deal of time over the past 6 years criticizing the Obama comms shop for freezing the media out of its most controversial decisions. Conservatives are used to a biased press pool, and for the most part, this group hasn't disappointed in that regard, even when they haven't had all the information they needed to write a story. Apparently, though, the lack of information flowing from the White House to the press pool has slowed to a trickle---and the corps is ready to fight back. The White House Correspondents Association is preparing a list of demands promises they hope the White House will commit to. The corps has been working on the list for over a year, but a recent snub on the part of the President's team has kicked the conversation about press access into high gear. The Washington Examiner explains what happened:

Posted by Amy Miller on March 02, 2015 10 Comments
There are snipers on the White House roof. Forget teams of fences, dogs, pressure-triggered alarms, or roving bands of secret agents. We have snipers. Can you imagine the conversations those snipers have when some yahoo hops a barrier and makes a run at the front door? Because that happened again today. Twice. Via the Daily Mail:
On Sunday night, an unnamed suspect stepped over a bike rack situated outside the White House fence. The bike racks were installed last year following a high-profile fence-jumping incident that involved an Army veteran armed with a knife. Early Monday morning, another person attempted to walk through a gate while a construction crew were leaving. According to NBC, both men were taken into custody, and the Secret Service has given the all-clear at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The agency has been tight-lipped about the two breaches, which are now under investigation. The suspects have not been named. The bike rack-jumping incident took place at around 11.30pm Sunday near the southwest corner of the presidential residence, reported MyFox DC. The male suspect was arrested and charged with unlawful entry. The breach led to a 30-minute lockdown at the White House. Just before 7am Monday, another man allegedly tried to walk into a pedestrian entrance as construction workers were leaving the area. A Secret Service agent stopped the intruder in his tracks and arrested him after a brief confrontation. The White House was placed on another lockdown that lasted only a few minutes following the second incident.

Posted by Amy Miller on January 26, 2015 21 Comments
I suppose it will eventually stop being disconcerting every time someone breaches the 4 invisible walls surrounding the White House, but until that day happens, I think there's an argument for license to make a "concerned-and-confused-and-even-disgusted" face when these sorts of things happen. I woke up early this morning to a message from a friend asking, [w]hat is going on with the security at the White House? I mean, besides the obvious racism of the secret service? That's when I found out that this had happened, via the Daily News:
There was a security scare at the White House early Monday when a two-foot quadcopter drone was found in the middle of the night on the executive mansion's grounds. The U.S. Secret Service is investigating, White House spokesman John Earnest said, but the aircraft did not pose a threat to the building. President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were on a three-day visit to India, but their daughters, Sasha and Malia, were at the White House. An unnamed law enforcement official told NBC News the drone landed in a tree just after 3 a.m. Monday on the southeast side of the complex. "An investigation is underway to determine the origin of this commercially available device, motive, and to identify suspects," said Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary.
According to reports, the drone was not "weaponized," but thank God the Obamas were out of town, anyway.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 09, 2014 16 Comments
Today's "Worst Administration Ever" story is a throwback to the Great Secret Service Sex Scandal of 2012, in which almost two dozen Secret Service personnel were fired after allegations surfaced that several agents had engaged in misconduct involving Colombian prostitutes. Now, reports have surfaced refuting White House claims that no staff members had been involved in any wrongdoing. The Washington Post reports:
As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved. But new details drawn from government documents and interviews show that senior White House aides were given information at the time suggesting that a prostitute was an overnight guest in the hotel room of a presidential advance-team member — yet that information was never thoroughly investigated or publicly acknowledged.... The Secret Service shared its findings twice in the weeks after the scandal with top White House officials, including then-White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. Each time, she and other presidential aides conducted an interview with the advance-team member and concluded that he had done nothing wrong. Meanwhile, the new details also show that a separate set of investigators in the inspector general’s office of the Department of Homeland Security — tasked by a Senate committee with digging more deeply into misconduct on the trip — found additional evidence from records and eyewitnesses who had accompanied the team member in Colombia.
According to WaPo, the team member in question was Jonathan Dach, who now is a full time employee with the State Department's Office on Global Women’s Issues. Through a family attorney, Dach denies any "inappropriate conduct":

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 01, 2014 13 Comments
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit wrote a column for USA Today this week suggesting that it would be smart for Obama to appoint a Republican as Eric Holder's replacement for attorney general:
For next attorney general, reach across aisle Having a Defense secretary from the other party makes war bipartisan, and reassures members of the opposition that the powers of the sword aren't being abused. Likewise, naming an attorney general from the opposite party would tend to make the administration of justice bipartisan, and would provide considerable reassurance, as Holder's tenure in office emphatically did not, that the powers of law enforcement were not being abused in service of partisan ends. In an age of all-encompassing criminal laws, and pervasive government spying, that's a big deal.
While I think that's a good idea, this suggestion in the Washington Post from Dan Emmett, a secret service expert and former Marine, is a great idea.
Accessibility by WAH