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The lunch conversation inevitably turned to whether the White House would display its crèche, customarily placed in a prominent spot in the East Room. Ms. Rogers, this participant said, replied that the Obamas did not intend to put the manger scene on display — a remark that drew an audible gasp from the tight-knit social secretary sisterhood. (A White House official confirmed that there had been internal discussions about making Christmas more inclusive and whether to display the crèche.) Yet in the end, tradition won out; the executive mansion is now decorated for the Christmas holiday, and the crèche is...

Outrage: Red Chinese flag to be flown on September 20 at the White House. (anyone able to organize a protest?)

Not long ago, the first lady planted the first seeds for the White House's own organic garden. Now the Obamas want to expand the idea to set up a farmers market just outside the White House. One aim of the market will be to help local farmers deliver fresh produce to D.C. school cafeterias, to encourage kids to make healthier choices in their diet. The president announced the plan at an interactive health care strategy meeting yesterday:"When it comes to food, one of the things that we are doing is working with school districts...Let's figure out how can we get...

Below Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck explains the Apollo Alliance on his July 28 show. Beck mentions the Obama administration’s “stimulus” blueprint, “The New Apollo Program: Clean Energy, Good Jobs,” which you can read here.

Perhaps it's the Russ Feingold influence. Feingold, when he served in the Wisconsin Legislature before traipsing off to Washington, was the bulldog behind legislation that outlawed gifts and other perks to legislators, things like free dinners and drinks, pen sets and the like, or even a cup of coffee. The idea was that legislators ought not be beholden to anyone except the people who elected them. Conversely, lawmakers are not to lavish favors on lobbyists and other influence peddlers. So by law they are to pay for their own meals and reimburse their hosts when they get something of value...

The House investigative committee’s top-ranking Republican wants White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to answer for allegations that he used “Chicago-style scare tactics” to intimidate lawmakers who say the economic stimulus has failed. In a letter sent to Emanuel on Tuesday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) demanded to know how involved the chief of staff was in an effort to “threaten” Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer after Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said the president’s Recovery Act was a failure. According to reports, Emanuel directed four Cabinet secretaries to send what Issa characterized as “threatening...

Attention: Obama Team Snitches Send all snitches to: flag@whitehouse.gov

Recently, high-profile visitors to the White House, including senior corporate executives, have found themselves paying for their own meals when sitting down with President Barack Obama, something unheard of in previous White Houses, according to former aides to President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. Thus far, there have been at least three instances -- the most recent coming last Friday -- where CEOs or other non-political guests were asked before arriving to the West Wing to provide credit card information so that their meals could be billed to them. According to one source, the meals cost between $20...

There are few subjects on the planet that I would like to touch less than this Professor Henry Gates/Sgt. Joseph Crowley mess. I'm guessing that whatever position I take, the comments would be even harsher than the time I admitting to liking Oakland. But as an American, there is one element of President Barack Obama's sit-down beer-drinking dialogue with Gates and Crowley that deserves further comment: I can't believe the president doesn't have better patio furniture. In reality, the Rose Garden patio furniture is probably quite expensive -- made of the best wrought iron, with wicker that was weaved at...

New homes are full of questions and possibilities. What color to paint the walls? How to arrange the furniture? What to plant in the garden? The Obama family must have asked a lot of those same questions when they moved into the White House. However, the first lady's dreams of growing an organic vegetable garden have been dragged down by a previous resident that refuses to leave: sludge.

When First Lady Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March 2009, she hoped to both set an example of healthy eating and to grow tasty edibles for her daughters and husband. But Michelle's organic dream has been dashed by a nasty toxic legacy lurking in the soils of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It turns out that a previous Presidential gardening team had used sewage sludge for fertilizer

Yes, big business has not covered itself with glory over the last several years. Yes, it's unfair that the banks managed to screw up multiple times -- and still got bailed out to the tune of $700 billion in taxpayer money. Yes, the U.S. automakers have been messing up for decades; they shouldn't have had one more cent in bailout money. Yes, AIG insurance giant should have been left to rot rather than getting billions on the taxpayer dime. But, does the White House really think that the best way to hold some of these corporate miscreants -- or, at...

Four of the most powerful business leaders in America arrived at the White House one day last month for lunch with President Barack Obama, sitting down in his private dining room just steps from the Oval Office. But even for powerful CEOs, there’s no such thing as a free lunch: White House staffers collected credit card numbers for each executive and carefully billed them for the cost of the meal with the president. The White House defended the unusual move as a way to avoid conflicts of interest. But the Bush administration didn’t charge presidential guests for meals, one former...

(CNSNews.com) – The traffic at President Obama's official White House Web site--whitehouse.gov--has fallen from a post-Inauguration peak to nearly the same level it was during the waning days of the Bush administration. The dramatic drop in traffic has happened despite the Obama Administration's complete redesign of the site. According to the web-traffic tracking site Alexa.com, whitehouse.gov was almost the 500th most popular Web site in the world in February. Since then, it has fallen to the 3,732 ranked Web site in the world. Traffic to the site has fallen 51.6 percent in the last three months. People are also spending...

On Tuesday, July 21, Brad Paisley, Alison Krauss and Charley Pride played to a very special audience. As part of the White House Summer Music series, the country music luminaries were in charge of serenading the First Lady and President Barack Obama. “I know folks think I’m a city boy, but I do appreciate listening to country music,” President Obama said as he introduced the concert. And what followed was a series of emotional performances from some of country’s biggest icons. The evening was especially meaningful for Charley Pride, who remains one of the few black performers to find success...

Obama detractors are suggesting that the garden on the South Lawn (planted by Mrs. Obama and schoolchildren in March) is fake. The conspiracy theorists claim that, despite a lot of compost and a very rainy spring, the vegetables harvested by the first lady and those same schoolchildren last Tuesday could not have grown so big in just 90 days. These critics surmise that the White House substituted mature plants for immature ones - in the dead of night, I guess - in order to fool the American public. An actual-dirt dirty trick that would live up to the name Watercressgate....

Professional skateboarder Tony Hawk on Friday took a brief ride at the White House as part of a Father's Day celebration. Hawk, 41, skated in the grand foyer and the nearby Old Executive Office Building, with the permission of White House officials.

Am I an old fart or am I right to be pissed that some jackass is skateboarding down the halls of the White House while all this Iranian shit is going down? We truly have succumbed to the idiocy of the MTV/Mountain Dew/Road Rules backward hat and baggy short culture. Did I miss something, or is the White House the future set for the next Real World? Where are the wallet chains? Is Hot Topic handling our foreign policy? Obama should be grounded for a week for letting Tony Hawk play in OUR house. Where in hell are the adults?...

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WASHINGTON – Hey, kids, don't try this at home. Professional skateboarder Tony Hawk on Friday took a brief ride at the White House as part of a Father's Day celebration.