Obama White House

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are accusing President Obama's White House, and at least one key member of his reelection team, of breaking Obama's 2008 campaign promise to make the executive branch more transparent. The accusation is contained in a report, released Tuesday night by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which suggests that White House officials purposefully avoided disclosing key meetings and discussions by moving emails through personal accounts and taking off-campus meetings with lobbyists.

Having already dominated the Grammy Awards, late-night television and the Billboard 200, Justin Timberlake rode his rolling promotional juggernaut to the White House on Tuesday night, taking part in an all-star tribute to Memphis soul along with Mavis Staples, Booker T. Jones and Queen Latifah, among others. And, yes, he wore his suit and tie . The invite-only concert, to be broadcast April 16 on PBS, was the latest installment in a series of "In Performance at the White House" events that have seen President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama celebrate country music, Motown and the work of Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.

Tommy Vietor was the first youthful convert to pack his bags, leave home and sign on to the Barack Obama campaign, joining the Chicago operation before his boss, then running for the Senate, had even given the convention speech by which the rest of Democratic America would discover him. He rose from driver of a press van across rural Illinois to fixture of the White House situation room. Now, the 32-year-old is contemplating something new -- a future not working for Obama. Amid the high-level departures and appointments of Obama's second term, a quieter changing of the guard is taking place farther down the food chain.

JOIN THE LIVE CHAT VISIT WHITEHOUSE.GOV   The Stanley Cup champions Kings and the MLS Cup champions Galaxy visit President Obama at the White House today, and you can watch all the festivities in the video above. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 10:45 a.m. PT. As Times Kings reporter Lisa Dillman wrote earlier today , "Kings captain Dustin Brown already had his semi-private talk with President Obama , shortly after the Kings won the Stanley Cup in June.

When Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, was under investigation last year for alleged financial misdeeds and inappropriate behavior with female students, he had an important ally behind the scenes. Michelle Rhee, the nationally known education reformer who is now head of the Washington, D.C., public schools, had several conversations with a federal inspector general in which she made the case for Johnson and the school he ran in Sacramento, according to the inspector general.

What's the hottest ticket in the nation's capital? An engraved invitation to Tuesday's White House state dinner, the first hosted by President Obama. He and the first lady will honor India's prime minister. But in a departure from the traditional venue -- the elegant State Dining Room -- the Obamas will gather with a few hundred VIPs in a huge, heated tent on the South Lawn. The guest list for the black-tie gala remains a closely guarded secret. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will certainly be there.

After years as an outsider who watched in frustration as the U.S. failed to stop foreign atrocities, Samantha Power now is an influential White House insider in a position to try to help prevent mass killings and limit the influence of rogue leaders. Power is part of a small circle of presidential advisors shaping the U.S. approach to multiple crises rippling through the Middle East and North Africa. An outspoken author and academic before joining the Obama administration, she pressed in recent weeks for military intervention in Libya in the face of misgivings voiced by her superiors on the president's National Security Council.

The Obama White House, stepping in where other Democrats feared to tread, has launched a potentially risky fight with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- attempting to bypass the nation's most powerful business organization and develop independent ties to corporate America. In recent weeks, President Obama, his Energy secretary and one of his other most senior advisors have begun criticizing the chamber publicly, casting it as a profligate lobbying organization at odds with its members in opposing the administration on such issues as consumer protection and climate change.

WASHINGTON - Just as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was about to vote Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena for documents in the flawed Fast and Furious gun-tracking case, President Obama asserted executive privilege and backed up the attorney general's position in refusing to turn over the material. The fast-moving events Wednesday morning at the White House and on Capitol Hill significantly ratcheted up a growing constitutional clash between the two branches of the federal government, one that ultimately may not be resolved until it reaches the courts.

WASHINGTON -- One of Ben Rhodes' first tasks when he followed Barack Obama to the White House in 2009 was to help craft the presidential speech, delivered in Cairo, that urged a restart of Mideast peace talks, called America's alliance with Israel “unbreakable” and described Palestinian statelessness as “intolerable.” Four years and a stillborn peace attempt later, Rhodes accompanies the president to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this...

WASHINGTON -- One of Ben Rhodes' first tasks when he followed Barack Obama to the White House in 2009 was to help craft the presidential speech, delivered in Cairo, that urged a restart of Mideast peace talks, called America's alliance with Israel “unbreakable” and described Palestinian statelessness as “intolerable.” Four years and a stillborn peace attempt later, Rhodes accompanies the president to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this...

Tommy Vietor was the first youthful convert to pack his bags, leave home and sign on to the Barack Obama campaign, joining the Chicago operation before his boss, then running for the Senate, had even given the convention speech by which the rest of Democratic America would discover him. He rose from driver of a press van across rural Illinois to fixture of the White House situation room. Now, the 32-year-old is contemplating something new -- a future not working for Obama. Amid the high-level departures and appointments of Obama's second term, a quieter changing of the guard is taking place farther down the food chain.

In the wake of President Obama's reelection, there was much clucking about the demise of the political power of white men and the inability of Mitt Romney -- the quintessential Republican white man -- to capture the support and votes of women and minorities and other Americans increasingly disenchanted with the conservative party's message. Yet, if you looked at the Dec. 29 photo of Obama meeting with senior advisors in the Oval Office, which made the front of the New York Times on Wednesday, you would rest assured that white men are still very much in power -- in the first black president's White House, as it turns out.  In the photo, 10 of his 11 advisors standing before him are men, and eight of them are white.  The one woman, who is black, in the photo is Valerie Jarrett, which you only know because it says so in the caption of the photo.

WASHINGTON - Seeking to leverage the momentum of his reelection victory for a partisan budget battle, President Obama called on Americans to use social media to pressure Congress in his efforts to keep tax breaks for most Americans while raising taxes on the wealthiest 2%. The president's attempt to rally public support Wednesday via Twitter, Facebook and email marks a new strategy for the Obama White House - a dramatic shift from the grinding legislative...

WASHINGTON -- The official White House Christmas tree arrived Friday morning from a prize-winning farm in the North Carolina mountains. The tree -- a 19-foot tall Fraser fir from Peak Farms in Ashe County -- arrived at the North Portico of the White House by horse-drawn carriage. First Lady Michelle Obama, along with daughters Malia and Sasha and their dog Bo, were there to receive it. Growers Rusty and Beau Estes were also at the White House for the tree's arrival. "I think we'll take it!"

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are accusing President Obama's White House, and at least one key member of his reelection team, of breaking Obama's 2008 campaign promise to make the executive branch more transparent. The accusation is contained in a report, released Tuesday night by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which suggests that White House officials purposefully avoided disclosing key meetings and discussions by moving emails through personal accounts and taking off-campus meetings with lobbyists.

One question that has arisen since the publication of “Confidence Men,” an insider account of the Obama White House, concerns the care and feeding of author Ron Suskind. Why did White House advisors let Suskind sit for an interview with the president? As any White House reporter can tell you, scoring an interview with Barack Obama is no small feat. His time is pretty important; ours, not so much. Here, though, Suskind was granted face time with Obama and went on to produce a book that portrayed him as a chief executive who struggled to manage his own team of economic advisors.