Susan Crabtree

Obama pushes housing plan for vets

President Obama on Tuesday announced a new plan to provide mortgage relief for veterans and active members of the military with government-backed loans, his latest attempt to bolster the housing sector.

March 6, 2012

Coal heats up as campaign issue for Obama

As gasoline prices continue to rise and keep the heat on President Obama's energy policies, critics also are accusing the president of shifting support away from the coal industry, a major source of fuel and jobs in several battleground states, including Colorado, Michigan and Ohio.

March 5, 2012

Meeting Netanyahu, Obama tries to tamp down war talk

In a show of solidarity, President Obama sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to reassure him that the U.S. would always be there for Israel, even as he continued to try to tamp down talk of a military strike against Iran.

March 5, 2012

Obama rebuts criticism he’s an education ‘snob’

President Obama used his speech Monday to the National Governors Association to again make the case for more spending, not less, on education — and to take a swipe at former Sen. Rick Santorum, who has called Mr. Obama a "snob" for suggesting that all American children should attend college.

February 27, 2012

Sessions: Obama ‘defeatist’ on rising gas prices

President Obama's indignant defense this week of his administration's energy policies has done nothing to deter GOP critics, as gas prices continue to rise amid worries that their continued climb could throw the economic recovery off course.

February 24, 2012

Obama hits back at GOP detractors of energy policies

As gas prices rise and President Obama faces growing criticism of his energy policies from the right, Mr. Obama aggressively — and at times angrily — defended his drilling and clean-energy record at a Thursday speech.

February 23, 2012

Obama pushes tech companies on consumer privacy

The Obama administration is calling on technology companies to do a better job safeguarding consumer privacy as more people use mobile devices and other Internet tools that can track where they go and what they buy and read.

February 23, 2012

Obama calls for cut in corporate tax rate

President Obama's plan to overhaul the country's corporate tax system — unveiled by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Wednesday — calls for cutting the overall tax rates for businesses while eliminating loopholes and special subsidies for certain industries.

February 22, 2012

Santorum stirs new talk of Obama’s faith

The White House on Tuesday attempted to brush aside comments about President Obama's theology from Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, as well as more pointed remarks by the Rev. Franklin Graham that cast doubt on Mr. Obama's religion.

February 21, 2012

Obama fails to share credit for payroll-tax cut

Signing ceremonies for important bills often include the Republican and Democratic lawmakers instrumental in getting the legislation passed — but there are no such plans in the works for when President Obama signs the payroll-tax compromise scheduled to reach his desk later this week.

February 21, 2012

In San Diego, a high-stakes battle over pensions

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders has spent more than six years in office trying to dig the city out of a fiscal mess his predecessors and the global economic crisis helped to create, and the city workers' unions have fought him nearly every step of the way.

February 20, 2012

Obama stays on ‘message,’ gets boost in ratings amid GOP strife

President Obama's rising job-approval ratings are the result of a go-it-alone strategy against Congress and a bitter Republican presidential primary, political analysts say.

February 19, 2012

Six House members recuse themselves from Waters’ case

Six members of the House Ethics Committee including its chairman have recused themselves from any matter involving Rep. Maxine Waters, including an internal investigation looking into whether the panel mishandled a two-year conflict-of-interest case against the California Democrat.

February 17, 2012

Obama says China must play by trade rules

Facing accusations from Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney that he's soft on China, President Obama told Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping on Tuesday that China needs to play fair in international trade.

February 14, 2012

Obama backtracks on contraception mandate

Reacting to an election-year firestorm, the White House on Friday shifted course on its health care contraception mandate, announcing that religious employers will not have to cover free birth control for their employees and that the responsibility would instead fall to private insurers.

February 10, 2012

Sen. Coburn wants NYC museum funds cut

Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, isn't backing down from his decision to block $20 million a year in new funding for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, despite pleas from museum officials who also had family members die in the attack.

February 9, 2012

Government announces $25 billion deal on mortgage abuses

The Obama administration and 49 states announced on Thursday a record $25 billion mortgage settlement with the nation's five largest banks - the president's latest attempt to help homeowners and halt the still-sagging housing market's drag on the economy.

February 9, 2012

In about-face, Obama campaign to ramp up super PAC

The Obama campaign's abrupt reversal on super PACs this week — from bashing the "independent" political groups as destructive to embracing their fundraising muscle — has opened the president's re-election team to charges of hypocrisy and blatant political expediency.

February 7, 2012

Clint Eastwood: ‘I am certainly not affiliated with Obama’

Clint Eastwood is setting the record straight on the Chrysler Super Bowl ad and claims in the liberal blogosphere and elsewhere that it was an implicit endorsement of President Obama and his decision to support the bailout of the U.S. auto industry.