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President Obama won't throw the ceremonial first pitch before the Washington Nationals' home opener Monday. According to a White House aide, Obama will decline the team's invitation to throw the pitch before the game against the Philadelphia Phillies, brushing back a presidential tradition that dates to 1910.

The weather was so nice in fact, that, after President Obama received his economic briefing and met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Oval Office, the POTUS and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to hold their 4:15 meeting out behind the White House—next to the swing set installed for the Obama girls in March. Striding out from the West Wing, the two seemed thick as thieves—smiling, Secretary Clinton casually swung her leg over the bench on the east side of the playground, and the president grinned and waved to gawking reporters and staff as he sat down across...

The Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is urging President Obama to stay away from flood areas in North Dakota and Minnesota ... for now. While the President might want so survey the region first hand, Napolitano told reporters on a conference call Friday that she would advise the president to wait, given the "extraordinary circumstances" facing the area. "The focus needs to be on taking care of the residents of Fargo, [N.D.,] Moorhead [Minn.,] all those surrounding communities through the most serious part of this flood," she said. "And then we can begin to work on the issues...

Michelle Obama and 26 local elementary school children broke ground this morning on the first White House kitchen garden since World War II. (snip) And during the ground breaking, the first lady didn't just stand by. We have photos of her and the kids using shovels, rakes, pitchforks and pushing wheelbarrows. There's no telling whether they were staged just for the photo op, but I have my reservations, given that Mrs. Obama was attired in neat-but-casual attire and what appear to be dress boots,

Now bowling is again causing the president problems: As has been widely reported, the president quipped last night on the “Tonight Show,” in reference to his recent attempt to bowl, that “it was like Special Olympics." (snip) But the damage was done. The gaffe marked something of an appropriate coda to a tough week for the president, who has seen his efforts to convince Americans of the importance of his ambitious budget plan partially drowned-out amid populist anger over the AIG bonuses. As CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller points out, the crack wasn’t even original: In the Bill...

Proposal Could Put Housing Recovery Programs at Risk if Employees Leave Legislation to severely tax bonuses at companies receiving government aid may imperil the Obama administration's housing recovery program by igniting an exodus of employees from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, employees at the companies said. (snip) By including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the measure, legislators fueled feelings of fear and betrayal at those two companies, where some employees polished their résumés and began to call headhunters who had tried to recruit them in recent months. (snip) The legislation could affect hundreds of people at the companies, which...

roanoke,va - WASHINGTON (AP) - Now it can be told: The mysterious petty theft that President Barack Obama’s new computer chief committed at age 21 was shoplifting four dress shirts worth $134 from J.C. Penney. A 1996 Montgomery County, Md., police report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday under a public records law shows Vivek Kundra was observed by a security guard putting the men’s shirts into a shopping bag and leaving the store without paying. Sgt. Tom Stanton wrote that Kundra was arrested after a brief foot chase and the property was recovered

Rep. Carolyn Maloney has come up with a solution to the AIG bonus conundrum: Tax them into oblivion. The New York Democrat is proposing legislation that would tax the offending bonuses at 100 percent. “This will allow AIG to continue to meet their ‘contractual obligation’ to pay these bonuses, but will ensure that the recipients are not allowed to keep this money,” Maloney explained in a Dear Colleague letter sent out today asking for co-sponsors. Entitled the “AIG Taxpayer Protection Act,” the Maloney legislation would instruct Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service to develop guidelines that tax at 100 percent...

President Barack Obama has established a new staff position in his White House with the task of overseeing arts and culture, Kareem Dale. Dale, a partially-blind lawyer previously served as national disability director for Obama's campaign and served on the arts policy committee for Obama in Illinois. No details have been provided about the specific job duties as of yet, but it's been described as "a big step forward in terms of connecting cultural and goverment with mainstream administration policy."

Chicago has yet to recoup the $1.74 million cost of President Obama's victory celebration in Grant Park -- despite a burgeoning $50.5 million budget shortfall that threatens more layoffs and union concessions. "The Democratic National Committee has not yet paid us,'' Peter Scales, a spokesman for the city's Office of Budget and Management, said Thursday after questions from the Chicago Sun-Times. "We're reaching out to them this week." The Democratic National Committee has not paid Chicago for the cost of Barack Obama's election night rally in Grant Park. Stacie Paxton, a spokeswoman for the Obama-controlled DNC, explained the reimbursement delay...

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s decision to act as his own “car czar” means that in the next few months he faces decisions no American president has made since the invention of the automobile. The most urgent among them: whether two of America’s three surviving domestic carmakers should be forced into bankruptcy, how many more concessions should be extracted from unions that helped propel him into the Oval Office and, perhaps, even what kind of cars will be produced in the United States.

A day like this on Wall Street should drive the conspiracy theorists wild. For nearly the entire session the Dow Jones industrial average threatened to drop below its Nov. 20 close of 7,552.29, which had marked the worst of the 2008 sell-off. Each time the Dow got within range of that number today, it bounced up. Then, in the last two minutes of trading, the index sank as low as 7,551.33, before a few final trades managed to lift it a hairbreadth above the Nov. 20 close to finish at 7,552.60. So on the same day that President Obama signs...

The Obama administration is close to creating an office of urban policy to allocate funds to urban areas for a range of initiatives, including job training and the creation of new jobs, BlackAmericaWeb.com has learned.

"You guys know your president right? You know the one with the big ears. Yeah, wait a minute, he ain't my president, he might be yours. I tell you that woman he had singing for him, singing my song, she gonna get her a** whipped. The great Beyonce! Now like I said, she ain't mine. I can't stand Beyonce! She had no business up there singing. Singing on a big ole, big ole president day and going be singing my song that I've been singing forever." – 71-year-old Blues legend Etta James dogged both President Barack Obama and singer Beyonce...

The brains behind President Barack Obama’s primary strategy has joined the D.C. office of a major St. Louis law firm. Jeff Berman is joining Bryan Cave LLP’s new 25-member public policy and governmental affairs group, after serving as the national delegate director for the Obama campaign. In that capacity, Berman devised the strategy to focus on unpledged delegates, caucus states and states that allocate delegates proportionally. (snip) “Jeff will join Broderick Johnson and other government affairs staff at our firm in providing strategic counsel on emerging public policies at the White House, federal agencies and Capitol Hill, plus in state...

Republican lawmakers today signed petitions protesting a possible transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Colorado, saying the state shouldn't be a dumping ground for terrorists. "The type of terrorists these would be, I'd be ill at ease if I lived in Florence or Canon City or Pueblo West," said Republican Sen. Ken Kester of Las Animas "I don't think we need 200 or 300 terrorists in Colorado. They will infiltrate the other convicts that are there." President Barack Obama announced Thursday he would close the Guantanamo Bay prison, located on an American naval base in Cuba, that has held suspected...

Many states permit early voting in presidential elections. While early voting as good public policy may be a matter of fair debate, the practice is in direct violation of federal law. Under the Constitution, states are of course free to adopt whatever procedures they deem appropriate for the election of state, county and local officials as long as those procedures do not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution or the guarantee of Republican state government as set forth in Article IV, Section 4. States are also free to appoint presidential electors in any manner they choose, although since...

Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, selected Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate for sexist reasons because she is unqualified to be vice president, women's activist Gloria Steinem said in a news conference today. "John McCain is the sexist here for choosing an unqualified for candidate," Stein said. "Sarah Palin was chosen for sexist reasons — to please the evangelical right and to confuse women voters." Steinem held a news conference at Salem College where she will be speaking later this evening

McCain Ad using debate material "John is right"

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Party leaders want to regain control of the primary calendar and reduce the number of superdelegates through a new commission announced Wednesday. They also want to review the caucus system, which presumed nominee Barack Obama used so successfully this year. The commission would work over the next year and make recommendations by January 2010