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Another Goldman employee marries into the power-borg The former First Daughter and her investment banker boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky became engaged before Thanksgiving, ABC News' Jake Tapper reports. Via Tapper's "Political Punch" blog: The two sent out an email the morning of Friday November 27 saying: "We're sorry for the mass email but we wanted to wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving! We also wanted to share that we are engaged! We didn't get married this past summer despite the stories to the contrary, but we are looking toward next summer and hope you all will be there to celebrate with...

This really takes the cake: “What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don't, you're subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it's affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there's a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are -- are burdened by because of the fact that people don't have health insurance, you know, there's nothing wrong with a penalty.” -...

Alternate headline: “Rabidly pro-choice president sides with pro-choicers.” TAPPER: Here’s a question a lot of Senate Democrats want to know. You said, when you gave your joint address to Congress, that under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions. This amendment passed Saturday night which not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public option, but also prohibits women who receive subsidies from taking out plans that — that provide abortion coverage. Does that meet the promise that you set out or does it over reach, does it go too far? OBAMA: You know, I laid out...

Obama said the main message he took from last week’s election results – with Republicans winning gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia – was that Americans are “nervous, and they’re worried and they’re anxious.” “I don't think there's any denying the fact that people are worried out there,” he said in an interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper today. Obama said Democrat Bill Owens victory in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district, the one bright spot for the president’s party last Tuesday, “sent an important signal.”

NBC's "The Biggest Loser" is at the White House tonight. This is not a joke.

ABC News fields at least one real reporter. He’s White House correspondent Jake Tapper. Most AT readers, like many Americans, are thoroughly convinced that the legacy media reports with a bias toward Obama and the policies of his administration. So, when a notable exception surfaces, it’s only right that he or she be acknowledged. Jake Tapper has a front row seat at the White House (WH) briefings. He shows all the signs of being a for-real reporter. Here’s visual evidence of that. Remember the cell phone irruption episode back on May 19th during one of Robert Gibbs’ press conferences before...

With Democrats poised to lose the governor's race in Virginia, and to possibly lose the governor's race in New Jersey and a special election for a House seat in New York, the White House has started insisting any pending losses will not have any significance. "Whatever the results are I don't think they portend a lot in dealing with the future," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Friday, pointing to the fact that Democrats won the Virginia and New Jersey governors' races in 2001 despite a very popular President Bush, with Republicans picking up seats in Congress...

Here is a video report on ABC's Jake Tapper confronting White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the White House's decision to attack Fox News as not being a real news organization. Tapper asked Gibbs why they were doing that and what gave them the right to do so. Gibbs eventually said, "That's our opinion." Gibbs made the comment in an "off-camera" White House briefing yesterday. "It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of...

On Tuesday, another prominent media member challenged the White House strategy of attacking the Fox News Channel. This time up at the plate was ABC's Jake Tapper who asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs during today's gaggle: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one?

It's tough to imagine this year's Republican National Convention featuring a prime-time speaker who once said that that "Zionism is a kind of poisonous weed that is choking Judaism." Or that he was "sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust." Or that traditional Democratic support for Israel is because of "the Jewish element in the party ... a kind of glorified form of bribery." And certainly not if he had ever referred to Jews as "Hymies" and New York as "Hymietown." The Rev. Jesse Jackson, of course, has made all of these comments, and more.

President Obama at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner last night, discussing false claims made about the health care reform bill, told a little anecdote. "I was up at the G20 -- just a little aside -- I was up at the G20, and some of you saw those big flags and all the world leaders come in and Michelle and I are shaking hands with them," the president said. "One of the leaders -- I won't mention who it was -- he comes up to me. We take the picture, we go behind. "He says, 'Barack, explain to me...

As we all know, in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. Last night's episode of television's longest running drama -- NBC's "Law & Order" -- featured District Attorney Jack McCoy prosecuting a John Yoo-esque Bush administration Justice Department attorney for writing a legal memo authorizing the torture of detainees. "Jack, you want to prosecute a member of the Bush administration for assaulting suspected terrorists?" McCoy is asked in the season premiere episode, titled "Memo from the Dark Side."...

A short time ago, President Obama's Justice Department filed a brief in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts defending the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defends the right of states to not recognize same-sex marriages from other states -- a law President Obama opposes. You can read the brief HERE. Unlike the administration's previous filing in June -- which upset gays and lesbians by seeming to compare the illegitimacy of same sex couples to incestuous couples -- this filing states right off the bat that the president opposes DOMA because it is "discriminatory." "The government’s filing continues to make...

ABC News has learned that President Obama will be meeting with 16 Democratic senators (and one "Independent Democrat") this afternoon at the White House. They are: Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mark Warner of Virginia, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Tom Carper of Delaware, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, and Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

ABC News’ Rachel Martin and Sunlen Miller Report: President Obama said that on Labor Day it’s time to “reaffirm” the nation’s commitment to rebuild, and declared that the stimulus plan is working. Speaking before the friendly crowd during the annual AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati Ohio this afternoon, the President said that it’s time to ensure that the middle class remains the backbone of the economy, “not just a vanishing ideal we celebrate a picnics once a year as summer turns to fall.” In rhetoric similar to the campaign trail, the President said this has been is an ideal...

[Title was edited to comply with space requirements. Full, accurate title is: "Controversial Obama Administration Official Denies Being Part of 9/11 "Truther" Movement, Apologizes for Past Comments" A top environmental official of the Obama administration issued a statement Thursday apologizing for past incendiary statement and denying that he ever agreed with a 2004 petition on which his name appears, a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into "evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur." Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at...

A top environmental official of the Obama administration issued a statement Thursday apologizing for past incendiary statement and denying that he ever agreed with a 2004 petition on which his name appears, a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into "evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur." Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is Number 46 of the petitioners from the so-called "Truther" movement which suggests that people in the administration of President...

ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Karen Travers report: In a conference call with liberal and progressive religious leaders Wednesday afternoon, President Obama railed against those who were “bearing false witness” in the debate over health care reform. “I know there's been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness, but I want everyone to know what health insurance reform is all about,” the president said. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor,” is, of course, one of the Ten Commandments. (It’s the 9th Commandment in all...

Amidst questions of whether or not any Senate Republicans will support a health care reform bill, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., today said that the “White House and the Senate Democratic leadership still prefer a bipartisan bill.” The Reid spokesman said that “neither the White House nor the leadership have made a decision to pursue reconciliation,” the somewhat controversial legislative process by which a bill is introduced in such a manner so that it requires merely 50 votes instead of 60 to proceed to a vote, thus removing the threat of filibuster. Manley said that...

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the health-policy adviser at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget -- who has been caricatured by conservatives as a “Dr. Death” seeking to pull the I.V.s out of your grandparents’ arms in the name of cost containment -- is not happy. Asked by ABC News in an interview about the thoroughly discredited claim by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to paint his philosophical writings as evidence -- along with a provision providing optional end of life counseling in the House Democrats’ health care reform bill -- that President Obama wants to set up “death panels”...

The White House disagreed this afternoon with the contention by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, that the disruptions at town hall meetings are "un-American," as the Democratic congressional leaders contended in a USA Today op-ed this morning. "I think there's actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments. "The President thinks that if people want to come and have a spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it,...

ABC News' Kirit Radia reports: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost her cool Monday after a Congolese student, speaking through a translator, asked her what "Mr. Clinton" thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" Clinton replied, clearly irked by the thought of being her husband Bill's spokeswoman.

Two months ago the POTUS and his Democratic allies announced with great fanfare a health care breakthrough, a deal with the pharmaceutical industry that will save $80 billion dollars. "The agreement reached today to lower prescription drug costs for seniors will be an important part of the legislation I expect to sign into law in December," Obama said in a statement this afternoon. "This is a tangible example of the type of reform that will lower costs while assuring quality health care for every American." The $80 Billion itself was bogus number, $30 billion (over 10 years) of it was...

When we last heard from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin she was -- not without some justification -- beseeching some members of the media to "quit making things up." But in a post on her Facebook Page today, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee seemed to take some liberties of her own. In a column titled "Statement on the Current Health Care Debate," Palin wrote that as "Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell...

TAPPER:  And just one follow-up, to Ben’s*question about the town hall meetings. This week, there's just been an amplification in terms of the rhetoric.  Some of the protesters against the president's position on health care reform have used Nazi imagery.  A Democratic congressman said that the protesters were using brown shirt tactics.  A Democratic senator called protesters' behavior un-American, although she retracted it.  Rush Limbaugh went on a very long speech yesterday during his radio show in which he compared Democrats to Nazis, the president to Hitler. And I'm wondering if the president has seen any of this, has a...

TAPPER: Both in terms of this deadline and also the detainee task force deadlines, the group has asked for a two-month and a six- month extension -- six-month extension respectively. Has the president learned any lessons about setting deadlines? GIBBS: Not that I know of, no.

WaPo Shocker: President Is Hiding Costs of Obamacare By Noel Sheppard Created 2009-07-26 14:45 What was a terrible week for Barack Obama likely worsened Sunday when the Washington Post editorial board accused the President of withholding from the public the true costs of the healthcare reform he so eagerly seeks. Makes one wonder if the White House will view the Post's criticisms much as former President Lyndon Johnson did Walter Cronkite's 1968 declaration that the Vietnam War was a stalement. With as much as Obama has on the line with this agenda item, these words [1] from the Post have...

President Obama cast out fighting words tonight in the ever-intensifying debate over health care reform. Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser tonight in Chicago, Obama responded to criticism from some in the GOP who have suggested that health care reform could "break" the President. In front of a lively crowd of hometown supporters he said, "Let me tell you something. I'm from Chicago. I don't break." He went on to make his case for health care reform saying it is a "moral imperative" to fix a system in which 46 million Americans are living without health insurance.

ABC News' Jake Tapper and Z. Byron Wolf report: How is health care reform progressing on Capitol Hill? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., today insisted everything is smooth sailing with the House bill that would require every American to have health insurance or pay a fine; create a government run health plan to compete with private insurers to drive costs down; and impose an up to 5.4% new tax on top wage-earners. “I have no question that we have the votes on the floor of the House to pass this legislation,” Pelosi told reporters. But a leading conservative...

Here is a video report from ABC and Jake Tapper which says President Obama is losing ground on both the economy and health care. The report shows a new Washington Post/ABC News poll that has Obama's approval dropping dramatically on his handling of the economy, the deficit, and health care. Jake Tapper reports that is why Obama will talk health care all five days this week, including a prime time Press Conference on Wednesday night, and a visit to the Cleveland Clinic on Thursday. Tapper also reports that Obama is counting on an essay by ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy to...

TAPPER: On April 20th -- I know you remember when the president said that he'd asked all the Cabinet secretaries to identify at least $100 million in additional cuts to their administrative budgets, separate and apart from the work Orszag and the rest of the team did. And they were required to report back with their savings at the end of 90 days. So that was 91 days ago, and I'm wondering if you guys have any list of the spending cuts. GIBBS: The -- those are being reviewed now, and we'll release something in the coming days. TAPPER: OK,...

Barack Obama and his administration don’t mind playing hardball on the stimulus package, as Jake Tapper reports. Yesterday, Senator Jon Kyl suggested that not only should Congress refuse to consider a second stimulus package, they should bring the current Porkulus to a halt before it wastes even more money. Rather than make a reasoned argument for their stimulus package, however, the White House threatened to choke Arizona’s federal funds in retaliation: "On This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said of the $787 billion stimulus package, “the reality is it hasn’t helped yet. Only about 6.8...

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has received lettres from Obama cabinet secretaries reminding her how much money her state stands to lose if stimuls spending is halted as Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) called for on Sunday saying it hasn't done what the administration promised it would. From ABC News' Jake Tapper In a coordinated response to comments made by an Arizona Republican senator calling for a the stimulus bill to be halted, the Obama administration this week coordinated a series of letters to the governor of Arizona, with the implicit message: put up or shut up. Arizona Republicans responded that the...

If a teleprompter falls in the White House, does it make a sound? Yes, especially when it’s the President’s teleprompter – or TOTUS as it is often referred to. Midway through his speech on urban and metropolitan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building this afternoon, one of his two small glass prompters came crashing down, hitting the wood floor and crashing in many pieces. It made quite a ruckus. “Oh, goodness,” a startled President Obama said. “Sorry about that, guys.” He then proceeded on with his remarks, “To pull our economy back from the brink, including the largest and...

Yes, especially when it’s the President’s teleprompter – or TOTUS as it is often referred to. Midway through his speech on urban and metropolitan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building this afternoon, one of his two small glass prompters came crashing down, hitting the wood floor and crashing in many pieces. It made quite a ruckus. “Oh, goodness,” a startled President Obama said. “Sorry about that, guys.” He then proceeded on with his remarks, “To pull our economy back from the brink, including the largest and most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation's history…” For the rest of...

Despite devoting almost the entire Good Morning America program on Tuesday to Michael Jackson, ABC could only find three minutes for a hard-hitting Jake Tapper interview with Barack Obama. And even though co-host Diane Sawyer promised at the close of the piece, "And we'll have more of the President's interview with Jake Tapper later in the broadcast," the show never returned. Tapper, who was in Moscow to cover Obama's summit with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, quizzed, "Whether it's this summit with President Medvedev, or anything else, can you point to any reason why you're encouraged that your approach to Iran...

President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people -- like the president himself -- wouldn't face. The probing questions came from two skeptical neurologists during ABC News' special on health care reform, "Questions for the President: Prescription for America," anchored from the White House by Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson. Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge...

While being interviewed by ABC News’ Jake Tapper, potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) admitted that Cheney and Limbaugh’s leadership probably isn’t good for the Republican Party. He said that Limbaugh is one of those leaders, “who have had more than their share of time at a front-row seat.” Here is the audio courtesy of Think Progress: When asked if Cheney’s upfront role was good for the GOP, Sanford said, “Probably isn’t…Everybody needs a rest from any of us in the world of politics. It’s why I am such a proponent of term limits. For a republic...

"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people," President Obama told the American Medical Association on June 15. "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." But today the president clarified that promise. It seems he wasn’t saying “no one” will take away any American’s health insurance – he was saying the government wouldn’t. Which is not to say that...

As the Obama administration faces questions about the president's firing of the Corporation for National and Community Service Inspector General last week, and about the Treasury Department challenging the independence of the Special Inspector General dedicated to federal bailout dollars for the financial bailout money, a third inspector general controversy has emerged. This week Judith Gwynn, the Inspector General for the International Trade Commission, was told that her contract would not be renewed. The news was delivered to Gwynn within three hours of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sending the chair of the ITC a letter asking about a March 5...

ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports: In the heat of the debate on the Hill over health care reform, President Obama spoke at a fundraiser tonight for the Democratic party, calling out the critics for “tinkering” around the edge of health care reform with their own plans. “I sincerely hope that there are members of both parties who will participate in reform,” the President said, “But for those who simply criticize without offering new ideas of their own, I have to ask —what’s your answer?” The feisty President said it’s not acceptable to “pretend” that offering “meager tax cuts” is a...

If, like me, you haven't had time over the last few days to keep up with the story of Barack Obama's firing of Gerald Walpin, the Inspector General who has responsibility for the AmeriCorps program (Bruon York) will bring you up to speed. The story is an interesting one that sheds light on the lawless, bullying nature of the Obama administration. Walpin, who by statute is supposed to be independent of White House control, ran afoul of Obama because he investigated a charity operated by former pro basketball player Kevin Johnson, a prominent Obama supporter. The non-profit, St. Hope, received...

It was Wednesday evening and Gerald Walpin was pleading for his job. Just a few hours before, at around 5:20 pm, Walpin -- , Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) -- was driving on a highway when he had received a phone call from Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, informing him that President Obama no longer had confidence in him and wanted him to resign. Walpin had an hour to make up his mind as to whether he was going to resign or have the president seek his...

TAPPER: I have two questions, Robert. First, how do you respond to the charge that in the hurry to make the president's deadline of closing Guantanamo within a year some decisions are being made without proper consultation? A senior State Department official yesterday said that the British government was, quote-unquote, 'pissed' that they had not been consulted about Uighurs going to Bermuda. GIBBS: I think they were -- if I'm not mistaken, and I don't want to parse the word 'pissed,' but I think they... (LAUGHTER) TAPPER: It was your administration's word, not mine. GIBBS: All right. But I --...

President Obama’s Justice Department filed legal papers late Thursday to dismiss the first same sex marriage case filed in federal court. The Justice Department defended the Defense Of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which as a candidate then-Sen. Obama opposed, saying that the plaintiffs Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer are seeking a ruling on "whether by virtue of their marital status they are constitutionally entitled to acknowledgment of their union by states that do not recognize same-sex marriage, and whether they are similarly entitled to certain federal benefits. Under the law binding on this Court, the answer to these questions must...

ABC News' Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller report: A cynic might wonder why the Obama White House feels the need to open up its own informal taxpayer-financed television broadcasts to run puff pieces about President Obama and his team, given the willingness of so many others to do the job for free, but once again we bring you an installment of OTV. This episode features White House chef Sam Kass and Phillies 1st Baseman Ryan Howard, who just gained a World Series Ring and dropped twenty pounds. They talk nutrition and healthy diet! It's really one to grow on.

Just a day after President Obama announced he was nominating appellate court judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the battle over her confirmation has begun with former House speaker Newt Gingrich branding her a racist and saying she should withdraw. Gingrich today joined the chorus of conservatives such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, who called Sotomayor a "reverse racist." The accusations are aimed at comments Sotomayor made during a 2001 lecture at the University of California-Berkeley. Referring to former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's saying that "a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion...

Somebody in the lamestream media tries to do some actual reporting.

In his weekly address today, President Obama calls for fiscal discipline and says his administration will eliminate waste and increase efficiency. "We cannot settle for a future of rising deficits and debts that our children cannot pay," the president says, adding that we must "recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking. So much of our government was built to deal with different challenges from a different era. Too often, the result is wasteful spending, bloated programs, and inefficient results. It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington."...

President Holds Open Door For Prosecutions of Bush Officials For Interrogation Policies, Truth Commission President Obama suggested today that it remained a possibility that the Justice Department might bring charges against officials of the Bush administration who devised harsh interrogation policies that some see as torture. He also suggested that if there is any sort of investigation into these past policies and practices, he would be more inclined to support an independent commission outside the typical congressional hearing process. Both statements represented breaks from previous White House statements on the matter. While the Bush-era memos providing legal justifications for enhanced...