White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of one of the most powerful clubs in America.

Obama Would Probably Chose The Horse-Sized Duck

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President Barack Obama made the toughest decision of his political career when he managed to break Reddit during the 2012 campaign. He’d fight the horse-sized duck. Maybe.

The answer is just as strange as the question, but since it’s a staple meme on Reddit it comes as a surprise to no one. Buzzfeed released another chapter from their upcoming campaign e-book, “Panic 2012: The Sublime and Terrifying Inside Story of Obama’s Final Campaign.” The chapter is dedicated to the day that Obama took to Reddit on his own AMA, or Ask Me Anything. The president showed the importance of “being yourself” on social media, but only days later did his digital campaign team notice one forgotten question: would he fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?
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Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis Resigns Before Inauguration

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Susan Axelrod, Secretary Solis, Wendi and Rupert Murdoch,

Hilda Solis, the 25th secretary of labor, resigned this afternoon according to Buzzfeed.

The resignation is abrupt as almost no one saw it coming. In their examination of Obama’s second-term cabinet, Politico mused “There’s not much discussion about Hilda Solis — who did not play a significant campaign role despite being a Latino woman with deep connections to unions. Labor isn’t seen as a department that’s likely to face a change soon[.]”

She previously served in the House of Representatives from 2001 until her appointment as Secretary in 2009.

Update: the official statement from President Obama:
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The Ticketing Mistakes and Quadrennial Loss of the 2013 Inauguration

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Chances are you don’t have a ticket to the 2013 Inaugural Ball. You can all thank technology.

As the Washington Post reports, “People who had signed up to attend the Inaugural Ball at the Washington Convention Center received e-mails Sunday from Ticketmaster that said tickets would go on sale Monday. It told recipients that they would receive a link sometime Monday with an exclusive link to buy a limited number of tickets for $60 each. But instead, e-mails went out hours later with a link to the Web site to buy them.”
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Nate Silver To Break Internet Tomorrow During Reddit AMA

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If you throw questions about narwhals and wizards at Nate Silver on the Internet, will he answer? At least he will tomorrow.

The FiveThirtyEight blogger/statician announced yesterday that he’ll be taking tomorrow on Reddit’s AMA. There’re already nine posts heralding the overlord of the Internet and wondering if he’ll answer whether he really is a witch. People like to speculate on Silver’s predictions being mixed with magic after late-night photos featuring one of the many hats he wears.
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Cliff's Notes For 2013

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President Obama makes a lay-up
Great news, everyone! The Fiscal Cliff happened and then didn’t happen and now everyone is a winner!

No, we’re serious. Politico‘s epic reveal of the event that lead up to and enveloped the District could be summed up with John Boehner’s own advice from an F-bomb:

The harsh exchange just a few steps from the Oval Office — which Boehner later bragged about to fellow Republicans — was only one episode in nearly two months of high-stakes negotiations laced with distrust, miscommunication, false starts and yelling matches as Washington struggled to ward off $500 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts.

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Looking Back at 2012 From The 'Cliff'

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Welcome to the end of 2012 and the start of 2013 just beyond the (fiscal) cliff!

After a particularly rough election year, it almost seems unfair that we’re ending on the threat of the fiscal cliff. While the president is due to speak at 5:45 p.m. today, sources have already been spilling out as fast as they can to say there isn’t a deal. The National Journal already consultated their crystal ball to see what this means for Obama’s second term:

“After the debacle that resulted from Boehner’s pre-Christmas effort to pass a GOP fallback plan for resolving the cliff, Republicans seem poised to shoulder a bigger share of the blame if Washington misses the Jan. 1 deadline. Going over the cliff would also bring some tactical advantages to Obama and the Democrats. Once the Bush tax cuts lapse, the conversation will shift away from tax increases to enacting tax cuts, putting pressure on Republicans to drop their opposition to legislation that would renew the tax cuts only for the middle class.”

Still there’s more to 2012 than cliff crisises and elections–Think Progress goes over the year that was for bills blocked by the GOP. Even if there is “no White House bill” there was still so much that the last year gave us.

We found out Joe Biden could crash a party AND give a moving speech to a gathered crowd in Georgetown. That films shown at 48 frames per second need to be about hobbits, dragons and giant eagles. That Daniel Day-Lewis is a very convincing Abraham Lincoln. That anthropomorphic eggs are more fun at the White House than anywhere else. But more importantly, we learned in 2012 that no matter what cold or dark thing that happens that there’s always a silver lining.

Whether it’s a lifelong Star Trek fan getting his last wish or the WMATA not completely ruining the trains for one weekend. Also, that tickets for the Redskins/Dallas game this weekend are crazier than some of the things being said around the House and Senate aside from “cliff” talk. We even beat the apocalypse! So on that note, as the rest of Washington nervously watches the cliff talks now, be as calm as an Egg-man at the White House Easter Egg hunt.

We’ll be back in the new year with more insider intrigue and finding ways to help explain why the Beltway is so addictive despite it just being two loops inside of a larger loop. So why not leave a comment about what you’re thankful for in 2012 while we say Happy New Year.

Starbucks Comes Together for DC Despite Slushy Cliff

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The holiday cheer still lingers around DC, despite the slushy weather topped off with sleet. Except instead of the gingerbread and tickets to Les Miz—or Mis!–the Capitol is chugging back to work on the looming fiscal cliff. The White House Pool reports that President Obama is heading back from Hawaii tonight to DC, which seems like a positive sign for the cliff standstill. Heck, even Starbucks is getting an opinion about the cliff.
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Ambassador Susan Rice Withdraws from Secretary of State Nomination

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From Rice’s desk to our eyes.


Susan Rice, ambassador to the United Nations, is out of the running for the coveted secretary of state seat. After weeks of harassment from congress

ABC News published the letter that Ambassador Rice sent to President Obama, which is avaliable here. She starts her letter off thanking the president.
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Insider Round-Ups: How To Fix Fox, Stephanopoulos Stays At This Week and D.C. Loves Zero Dark Thirty

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It’s hard to figure out what’s worth your time with all the first reads, politico blasts and tweets that race by before your third coffee of the morning. So let us provide some curation to your otherwise blur of a morning before your second conference call.

  • Ana Marie Cox thinks less work for Rove at Fox is more of a “promotion” than a network reorganization.
  • TV Newser has George Stephanopoulos at ABC’s This Week through 2013.
  • The D.C. Metro area film critics love Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty (and The Master!)
  • Buzzfeed speaks to a Cory Booker backer betting big–to hell with alliteration–for a 2016 run.
  • Politico reports:South Carolina demands the good Dr. Stephen T. Colbert.
  • NPR lays out the differences in President Obama‘s second inauguration.

    • That should get you through at least your first lunch-that-gets-turned-into-a-coffee-break.