white house

The foreclosure scandal probe is now being investigate by all 50 states:

Regulators from all 50 states are launching a coordinated investigation into possibly "deceptive" and "unfair" foreclosure practices that may have illegally evicted families from their homes.

A bipartisan group of state attorneys general from 49 states and financial regulators from 39 states will work together to comb through foreclosure filings and documents from mortgage servicers to see if any state laws have been broken in the rush by services to kick borrowers out of their homes without following various state and local laws.

Of course it’s only national in the sense that all 50 states are looking into it. Congress and the White House don’t seem the keen on the idea. I guess it has something to do with “biting the hand that feeds you”. Is it any wonder the approval ratings are in the crapper?

Tomorrow the man who defines everything against progressiveness is set to leave the White House:

President Obama will give his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a send-off Friday as Mr. Emanuel officially announces his departure from the West Wing to run for mayor of Chicago, officials familiar with the decision said.

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, at his daily briefing on Thursday afternoon said that the president will give two personnel announcements on Friday morning from the East Room of the White House. Mr. Gibbs, admitting that he was being purposely “oblique,” would not confirm whether the announcements would concern Mr. Emanuel.

Tata Rahm. You won’t be missed.

CBS is reporting that David Axelrod will leave the White House in the Spring to take up his old mantle of campaign manager for the President’s 2012 run. The news doesn’t stop there though:

The dominoes don't stop there. Rahm Emanuel, the president's Chief of Staff, may leave the White House as soon as next month.

Emanuel has told colleagues that he's very likely to run for mayor of Chicago, and that could see him depart the White House in October.

A shuffle in the White House is a really good thing. We need better ideas and new advice hitting the President’s ear. Hopefully we will see that in the coming months.

If the Republicans win back the House then they plan on letting us relive the bad part of the 90’s:

If President Barack Obama needed any more incentive to go all out for Democrats this fall, here it is: Republicans are planning a wave of committee investigations targeting the White House and Democratic allies if they win back the majority.

Everything from the microscopic – the New Black Panther party – to the massive –- think bailouts – is on the GOP to-do list, according to a half-dozen Republican aides interviewed by POLITICO.

The Republicans aren’t concerned about getting our country back on track, or trying to get their economic agenda through. Their only goal is to demonize the President and sidetrack Congress with a bunch of useless investigations.

I know I am stuck on repeat with this phrase, but it is further proof that Republicans care nothing about the future of our country and only want to play political games. They are the epitome of what is broken in Washington.

Robert Gibbs gave an interview to The Hill in which he takes some shots at the left:

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

As Greg Sargent points out, Obama campaigned on a public option, ala “Canadian healthcare”. You think the President’s mouthpiece would realize that.

But there’s a much deeper problem here. We are 80 some days away from the midterms and polls are showing the enthusiasm on the left is very low. Is this how the White House plans on increasing enthusiasm, by insulting the base? What it’s going to do is piss some of the stronger voices on the left off enough that they encourage people to just stay home in November.

So how can the President fix this? It’s time to show that he listens to his base. He needs to replace Gibbs and issue a statement that Gibbs was NOT speaking on behalf of the White House. Of course none of that will happen and all that has happened now is that Gibbs has helped the Republicans out big time. Smooth move slick!

I meant to hit this story yesterday. It also exemplifies the problems I’ve posted about in the past when it comes to MSNBC.

Markos and Joe Scarborough got into a little Twitter back and forth a couple of months ago:

JoeNBC: The Sestak story is as unbelievable a cover story as Nixon throwing little Checkers under the bus. A farce on it's face. Luckily for the White House, the media has been negligent on this story since Day 1. The press will let this laughable story slide.

markos: Like story of a certain dead intern. RT @JoeNBC: Luckily for the White House, the media has been negligent on this story since Day 1.

Markos: But if you want to talk about bullshit "scandals", @JoeNBC, there's this one about Joe Sestak and the White House you might've heard of.

JoeNBC: @markos Unbelievable. You have a long history of spreading lies suggesting I am a murderer. This is the 3rd or 4th time by my count.

Markos: @JoeNBC, I've never suggested you're a murderer. I've noted media hypocrisy in going after Gary Condit. But he was Dem. You aren't.

JoeNBC: Anyone in media who interviews @markos, know that you're extending your credibility to someone who regularly suggests that I'm a murderer.

Markos: A bit touchy, @JoeNBC? Links for where I accuse you of being a murderer please.

Joe Scarborough, a person of such thin skin that he will block anyone that disagrees with him on Twitter, didn’t like that. Like a child being picked on in school, Joe ran and told the teacher principal, or in this case, the president of MSNBC. That resulted in this email being sent to Markos:

Markos,

Unbelievable:

Congressional Democrats and the White House are toying with different ways to force BP to cover the costs of damages from the Gulf oil spill. But they face stiff opposition from industry...and it seems leading Republicans. In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.

This would basically be a bailout for BP and Boehner is pushing for it? I wonder how the Tea Party would like that one.

Now that Blanche Lincoln has been able to hold onto her job, we are to expect little jabs from the right on how "the progressives lost big tonight". That, despite being untrue, is to be expected, but this is not:

A senior White House official just called me with a very pointed message for the administration's sometime allies in organized labor, who invested heavily in beating Blanche Lincoln, Obama's candidate, in Arkanas.

"Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toiled on a pointless exercise," the official said. "If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November."

Whoever this "administration official" is needs to be fired. Labor makes up a major chunk of the base for the left, and for someone at Obama's White House to make such a statement is in insult and indefensible. Maybe labor will tell the White House that they just flushed a huge chunk of their base?

This is the kind of typical politics that so many of us are tired of, and the kind we had hoped Obama was above. Sadly that hope is dead, unless Obama gets his political act together and get rid of these people.

UPDATE:

The AFL-CIO has fired back: