No public schedule

Live stream of Carney briefing with National Security Adviser Tom Donilon at 2:00 pm ET

President Obama’s schedule Thursday is suspiciously empty, a possible sign that he will actually hold a press conference.

This would be a perfect moment to stage what would be only his second full, solo press conference of the year. He hates doing them, but there are many issues stirring that he may want to frame to his liking, and there’s nothing like a big White House bully pulpit to help him do it.

Obama’s announcement last week that he supports gay marriage was rolled out hastily following Vice President Biden’s decision to blurt out his own support. It’s sparked various conflagrations across the political spectrum, and Obama could use a press conference to try to douse some fires and maybe fuel some others.

The president has recently adopted the role of being serious about moving legislation through Congress this year, apparently coming to the conclusion his previously planned Do-Nothing Congress campaign could backfire into a perception that the country has a Do-Nothing President. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today actually commended Congress on some of the legislation it has passed this year. And so Obama could use a news conference to harangue Republicans about getting busy on the “To Do List” of items he has set out for them.

He’ll also want to respond to House Speaker John Boehner’s threat to block a debt ceiling increase unless Obama cuts spending.

And perhaps most crucially of all, with the Greek economy about to topple into the Aegean Sea and the G-8 ministers to gather in Washington Friday, Obama can use a presser to clarify U.S. positions ahead of what will be a crucial meeting for the world economy.

We should know by sometime tomorrow morning.

The Mainstream Media wonders to itself why Fox News exists and why blogs and alternative news websites have proliferated in recent years to help them cover the news.

Here’s why.

Writing in the Washington Times, Charlie Hurt notes that President Obama’s ABC go-to gal didn’t even care to try to hide her lack of objectivity when it comes to covering the president.

Another of America’s most highly esteemed “mainstream” journalists, the former ESPN sports reporter who drew out Mr. Obama’s big gay marriage flip-flop, kept her wits about her. No crying from that steely paragon of journalistic integrity.

“There is no denying when a president speaks out for the first time like that, it is history,” Robin Roberts gushed to her ABC News co-host and Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos.

Then she lost it.

“And let me tell you, George, I’m getting chills again,” she emoted on-air in footage that the network actually broadcast and did not even try to bleep out.

It was unclear when precisely the first time it was that Ms. Roberts got “chills.” Or, perhaps, she was piggy-backing on MSNBC’s Democratic operative, Chris Matthews, who once talked about the “thrill” shooting up his leg at hearing Mr. Obama speak.

Worth mentioning here that Stephanopoulos has reached the very height of journalistic respectability, even after serving as a Democratic operative who rose to chief spinner of the press in the early years of the Clinton White House.

Let’s see if you can possibly imagine: “The CBS Evening News with Ari Fleischer.” Somehow, I don’t think so.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney moved to squelch any talk that he might be committing sexist activity in the White House briefing room, going almost immediately to CBS White House reporter Norah O’Donnell after being accused Tuesday of routinely skipping her and moving from the front row, where she sits and where he starts taking questions, to reporters in the back of the room.

Here was Tuesday’s exchange.

CARNEY: I’m going to move around a little bit.

Q    That’s not fair.

Q    You just go with the same exact order every time –

Q    That’s so unfair.  You call on the boys and then when it comes to Norah, you go to the back.

CARNEY:  Come on.

Q    If you’re going to move around, move around from the beginning.  I think that’s a fair way to –

Q    That’s a good idea.  We like that.

CARNEY:  Fair enough.  Norah.

It’s not that Norah doesn’t get a question in – she always eventually gets a few, and generally sooner rather than later. Nor is it the case that women are always ignored before Carney starts to “move around a little bit,” since the Associated Press and Reuters reporters in the front row he always calls on first are sometimes women.

It’s just that it gets a little hard to charge that Republicans are waging a War on Women when you stand accused of waging one in the White House briefing room.

Don’t be surprised if Thursday Norah is invited to give the briefing herself.

The briefing is over.

Some of you are probably aware of reports that the White House has polluted the biographies of presidents on the White House website with crass promotional references to President Obama added in at the end of many of them.

For example:

Ronald Reagan:

Did you know? 

• President Reagan designated Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday; today the Obama Administration honors this tradition, with the First and Second Families participating in service projects on this day.
• In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.

John F. Kennedy:

Did you know?

• President John F. Kennedy famously suggested the American people: “Ask what you can do for your country.” In 1961, the Peace Corps was created, facilitating service among citizens working toward peace in developing countries. In 2011, President Obama celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps with a Presidential Proclamation.

Franklin Roosevelt:

Did you know?

• On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama Administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.

Did you know Obama continues to protect Social Security? Did you know?

The White House added insult to injury by trying to pretend to Fox News that it was merely offering some links to other parts of the website, “a commonly used best practice to encourage people to browse more pages on a site.”

A ham-handed attempt at deception that demonstrates how stupid the White House thinks you are. Or thinks Fox News is. I’ve removed the links, BTW.

The effort to piggy back Obama atop is being lampooned on very active Twitter hashtag, #ObamaInHistory. Here’s a photo someone uploaded. It possibly has been photoshopped.

H/T to Redstate Editor Erick Ericson on whose Twitter feed I found this.

President Obama’s campaign raised $43.6 million in April, a decline from the $53 million it collecting during March, the campaign announced this morning.

The campaign offered no explanation for the drop in fundraising – actually, it didn’t mention the drop.

The cause of the decline is unclear. There doesn’t seem to have been any lessening of Obama’s personal fundraising efforts, which remained robust. And the drop off came as the Obama campaign continued to ramp up operations and as the Republican race clarified, with Mitt Romney becoming the presumptive nominee.

Romney, with his glass-of-milk persona, may not be a galvanizing force for conservatives, but Obama’s fundraising drop off also suggests he’s not scaring Democrats the way a more severely conservative candidate might have.

In a video, Obama campaign Manager Jim Messina bragged about the grass roots nature of the fundraising, saying that 98 percent of donors contributed less than $250 and that the average donation was below $50.

These small donor numbers are pumped up, of course, by the relentless calls for $3 donations by the campaign, including $3 raffle tickets for a meal with the president.

But the numbers also point to what some have described as a problem for the campaign – the unwillingness of big donors whose income and industries have been vilified by Obama to give him money this time around.

10:30 am || Holds a roundtable discussion with small business owners; Washington
11:30 am || Lunch with the Congressional leadership; Private Dining Room
2:30 pm || Meets with Secretary of State Clinton
3:10 pm || Awards Specialist Leslie H. Sabo, Jr., U.S. Army, the Medal of Honor

All times Eastern

President Obama is barely leading an out of state challenger in the May 22 Arkansas Democratic primary, according to a local poll conducted by the respected Hendrix College and Talk Business Research.

The poll of likely voters has Obama leading Tennessee attorney John Wolfe by 45-38 percent. Wolfe is also running against Obama in the May 29 Texas primary, according to the Weekly Standard.

Wolfe’s apparently credible challenge comes just a week after Keith Judd, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas, picked up 40 percent of the vote against Obama in the West Virginia primary.

If I were the RNC, I’d be pouring money into the Wolfe campaign. A Wolfe victory would actually be A SERIOUS MATTER for the Obama campaign.

Why? Because the president would begin to look a little ridiculous. Wolfe will start appearing on talk shows, gain momentum in Texas, and arrive at the Democratic convention parading around with his delegates and generally creating a spectacle that will attract reporters bored to tears by the Obama coronation.

They’ll do the roll call and someone will say, “The great state of Arkansas casts its votes for John Wolfe.”

One problem for Obama is that Wolfe doesn’t sound like a lunatic. I’m not saying he isn’t a lunatic. Just that he doesn’t sound like one.

Presidents really should not be losing primaries. Lyndon Johnson withdrew in 1968 simply because he didn’t win New Hampshire by as many votes as he was expected to.

Losing Arkansas would help create a sense among voters that something is very wrong. I would expect over the next week an strange infusion of buses and passenger vans into Arkansas to get Obama supporters to the polls.

As I remember it, I was in the White House Briefing Room in February 2009 when I heard something shocking. I’d covered the White House since 1997, and I couldn’t really remember hearing something like this before.

The White House, in the person of Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, was assailing a private citizen. CNBC reporter Rick Santelli had had the nerve to object volubly to President Obama’s mortgage refinancing assistance plan. And so Gibbs attacked:

Well, let’s go through this, because I do think this is very important. And I’ve watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives, or in what house he lives, but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, stay in their job, pay their bills, to send their kids to school, and to hope that they don’t get sick or that somebody they care for gets sick and sends them into bankruptcy.

I also think it’s tremendously important that for people who rant on cable television to be responsible and understand what it is they’re talking about. I feel assured that Mr. Santelli doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Many brushed it off because Santelli was on TV and presumably was used to rough and tumble and could defend himself. That he was on TV, of course, actually made Gibbs’ comments worse, because the president’s press secretary was chilling free speech.

Soon enough, Gibbs went on to others, sticking it to Rush Limbaugh and even an entire network, Fox News.

People got used to it. Attacking private citizens became the new normal.

But what a slippery slope Mr. Gibbs put us on. I hope you noticed this piece Friday by Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal. The Obama campaign is busying itself looking into the private lives of donors to Mitt Romney. It is merely the logical extension of the thinking at the White House, which makes Obama enemies in the private sector – and their speech – fair game.

From her piece:

Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, “Keeping GOP Honest,” took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney. Titled “Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney’s donors,” the post accused the eight of being “wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.” Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being “litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”

About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot’s divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.

This is the very worst thing a government – or its proxies – can do. It is the practice of the world’s small petty satraps and its totalitarian behemoths. It’s just not tolerable here.

And yet, it’s happening. The White House has gone from criticizing private citizens to investigating them. What’s next, arresting them?

What if Mr. Wolf comes up with some illegal activity on the part of Mr. VanderSloot. Well, it’s his duty – just doing his duty – to alert Mr. Holder.

And then we have our very first political prisoner. Hopefully Mr. Gibbs will bake him a cake.

He’s finished.

A new poll in the New York Times, of all places, shows exactly why the White House hesitated so long before announcing President Obama’s support for gay marriage and why there must be FEAR in the West Wing of the political consequences and LOATHING of Vice President Biden for forcing the issue.

Biden has no control over his mouth, and uses it way beyond the point of diminishing returns. And with Biden, the diminishing returns start quickly, sometimes immediately.

Ask any reporter who ever covered him. When Senator Biden stepped to the mikes, we used to flee en masse. “Oh no, it’s Biden, gotta escape.” For those who didn’t, you could soon hear them pleading, “Water. Somebody get me water. Please!”

It’s all kind of amusing, except this time, by prattling on about his support for gay marriage before David Plouffe gave the green light and forcing Obama to express the same, he may have cost Obama the election.

Even if Obama were going to announce this anyway before Election Day, the White House needed to control the roll out, given how sensitive a topic it is. But being forced into a hasty pronouncement, the whole thing looks very political and unseemly.

Which of course it is – I find it really hard to believe that Obama’s “opposition” to gay was rooted in the Bible and not David Plouffe’s political playbook – but the White House needed to make it look like a moral stand for God, Home, and Country, albeit a home with two husbands.

The New York Times poll contains a startling statistic, which somehow mainstream media analysts have not put together, but I’m sure the Obama folks have.

Give three choices instead of the usual two, fully 57 percent support either civil unions for gays or no legal recognition at all – that is, the status quo – compared to 38 percent who say gay marriage should be legal.

THAT’S A 19-POINT DIFFERENCE.

Of the 57 percent, 33 percent say same-sex marriage should be illegal, while 24 percent support civil unions.

Told they must choose between legal or not legal, 51 percent said same-sex marriage should not be legal, while 42 percent say it should.

That’s still a substantial margin, but it really doesn’t reflect reality. Because in fact there are three options, and Obama has chosen something that is overwhelmingly opposed by the public, which backs civil unions of no legality at all.

And – thank you, Joe – fully 67 percent of those polled say Obama announced his support for political reasons, while 24 percent believe he wanted to do “what is right.”

Which is why the Obama campaign knows it can’t fool anyone this year with a slogan along the lines of “Hope and Change.”

“What? Are you telling me some investors lost some money? Where’s Geithner? Tell him to write some new regulations, NOW!”

- Barack Obama

A note from our attorneys: This is not a real quote

9:30 am || Receives the Presidential Daily Briefing
10:55 am || Delivers remarks at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service; U.S. Capitol
2:15 pm || Welcomes Major League Soccer champions, the LA Galaxy, to the White House; East Room
3:30 pm || Meets with Treasury Secretary Geithner
4:30 pm || Meets with Defense Secretary Panetta
5:30 pm || Meets with the Combatant Commanders
7:00 pm || Hosts a dinner for the Combatant Commanders and spouses; Blue Room

All times Eastern
Live stream of Carney briefing at 12:30 pm

Michelle Obama is once again opening up an historic White House chamber to a sweaty sports event, hosting a soccer clinic Tuesday in the State Dining Room.

The event, which will include youth soccer players from low income and urban areas and the Major League Soccer champion L.A. Galaxy, is designed to promote Michelle’s “Let’s Move” kids health initiative.

The clinic was originally scheduled to be held on the South Lawn – what many would regard as a more appropriate venue – but has been moved inside due to rain.

Michelle recently turned the East Room into a gym, hosting a taping there of a workout for participants in NBC’s The Biggest Loser weight loss reality show. Michelle also staged a potato sac race with Jimmy Fallon in the East Room and a tug of war with the comedian in the Diplomatic Room.

The State Dining Room has been the scene of dozens of State Dinners, including soirées for Nelson Mandela, Boris Yeltsin, Vaclav Havel, Queen Elizabeth II, Golda Meir and many other of the 20th century’s most famous figures.

Earlier this year, President Obama shot a marshmallow across the State Dining Room.

Et tu, Mitt?

I thought it was pretty degrading that President Obama is in the business of auctioning himself off to donors to raise cash. Which makes it only slightly less degrading that his challenger IS DOING EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

The “Grab a Bite with Mitt” contest is the top item on his website and the subject of an email just sent out to supporters.

On the campaign trail, I’m always on the go. So it’s nice when I can sit down and eat a meal — especially with supporters like you.

We’ve done this sort of thing before, and I always look forward to it. It gives me a chance to hear your ideas about turning this country around. And I never turn down a chance to grab a burger or a stack of pancakes — just ask Ann.

Donate $3 today to be automatically entered for a chance to join me and grab a bite to eat on the campaign trail.

Note the ticket price of $3 is even exactly what obama is asking for.

I’m not sure which is more disconcerting, that Romney thinks it’s Okay to raffle himself off, or that his campaign has to rip off Obama for fundraising ideas.

What’s next, a bake sale? Or five bucks to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar? Hit the target and dump Mitt in a vat of water?

Well, I guess it’s only fair play. Obama copied Mitt on Romneycare, so the president owes his challenger a little intellectual property.

The Department of Health and Human Services last week announced it had awarded a $5.9 million grant to a University of Chicago Medical Center program tied to Michelle Obama and run by Eric Whitaker, one of President Obama’s closest friends.

The Urban Health Initiative, which received the award, was originally based on a smaller program launched during the last decade by Michelle Obama, who was an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center before she departed to become first lady. The UHI is headed up by Obama basketball and golf buddy Whitaker, who has known the president since Obama’s days in law school and who also vacations with the first family.

Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett also has ties to the UHI. Until resigning to go work at the White House, Jarrett was Chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees. And in 2007, a PR firm run by former senior White House adviser and Obama political guru David Axelrod provided provided public relations strategy advice to the UHI, according to the Washington Post.

There is no specific evidence that any of those linked to the Obamas, or the Obamas themselves, influenced the HHS decision to grant the funding to the UHI. But the large award raises questions about appearance, given the number of Obama associates connected to the program and the involvement of the first lady with its founding.

The UHI won out over lots of competition. According to HHS, some 3,000 applications were received for a share on the $1 billion in 3-year grants available. Only 26 programs were included in the first batch of awards doled out.

An HHS spokesperson said that while “final determinations” were made by the HHS’s CMS Innovation Center Director, objective standards were used in selecting the awards and the White House was not “in any way” involved in the selection of grantees.

“Applications that met the basic eligibility requirements underwent a competitive, objective review,” the spokesperson said. “Independent health care expert review panels  from outside government and staff from all across the Department of Health and Human Services reviewed the applications for how well they met the criteria outlined in the grant solicitation, and made recommendations regarding funding . . . scoring was conducted by an independent panel of content experts that was organized by an experienced contractor.”

The awards have been politicized by the administration, which is touting them as part of its “We Can’t Wait” initiative to create jobs by executive action while the White House “waits” for the Republican-led House to act. The Innovation Center was established under Obamacare.

The Urban Health Initiative was founded to help link low-income patients to health providers in their communities.

According to HHS, UHI received the grant to help it, in partnership with other groups, increase patients’ access to health resources by developing an electronic database of health providers that links to electronic health records maintained by “local safety net providers.”

Last week’s award is not the first time money directed toward the UHI has raised red flags. In September, The Daily Caller reported that the private philanthropy of billionaire Obama supporter and donor George Kaiser had donated $10,000 to the UHI during 2009, the same year Kaiser secured the now-infamous $535 million government loan guarantee to failed solar panel maker Solyndra.

Another dose of dignity for the presidency as Obama appears on The View to dish it with the Yentas. I gather he’ll be taking a victory lap for coming out in support of gay marriage.

Maybe the White House will count this as a press conference.

9:35 am || Departs White House
10:45 am || Arrives New York
1:10 pm || Delivers commencement address at Barnard College
3:00 pm || Tapes an appearance on The View
5:05 pm || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser, Rubin Museum of Art
6:50 pm || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; private residence
8:30 pm || Departs New York City
9:40 pm || Arrives White House

All times Eastern