Obama's CIO Once Pleaded Guilty to Theft

Computer chief isn't charged, but his old office is involved

(AP) - President Obama's new computer chief is on leave after the FBI raided his old DC government office and arrested a city employee and a technology consultant on corruption charges, a White House official said. Vivek Kundra has not been charged, and he does not appear to be a target of the investigation. But because he led the office, he's on leave until further details of the case become known. More»

Vivek Kundra not linked to DC investigation: FBI

(NEWSER) - FBI agents raided the office of the District of Columbia’s chief technology officer today as part of a federal bribery investigation, WTOP-AM reports. The FBI arrested an employee of the agency and a private contractor who has received several hundred thousand dollars in city contracts. Vivek Kundra, President Obama’s choice for chief information officer, headed the DC office before leaving last week and is not linked to the investigation, authorities say. More»

Chrysler ad a political football

(NEWSER) - God bless America ... and the Chrysler bailout ... seemed to be the message that left football fans misty-eyed after Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl Chrysler ad. It's "halftime" in America, and we're all pulling together for a brighter economic future, says the gravelly-voiced star. But Eastwood was opposed to the bailout that made the Chrysler turnaround possible, and now the ad has become a political football as Dems score points with it and the GOP tackles it, notes ABC News . “Saving the American Auto Industry: Something Eminem and Clint Eastwood can agree on," crowed White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer on Twitter, referring to Eminem’s Chrysler ad during last year's Super Bowl. "Powerful spot," chimed in Obama re-election strategist David Axelrod. But George Bush's political maven Karl Rove snapped that he was "offended" by the ad, which he argued was orchestrated by the administration to paint a rosy future. More»

Editorials largely take the president to task

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama's decision to reject TransCanada's Keystone XL oil pipeline has set a lot of tongues wagging, with some of the biggest papers in the country devoting today's editorials to it. Here's what they're saying:

• "We almost hope this was a political call," says the Washington Post , "because on substance, there should be no question." Without the pipeline, TransCanada will sell to China, and US refineries will import from the Middle East—resulting in a lot more oil crossing the ocean in tankers.

...because he's not terribly interested in fighting it

(NEWSER) - Democrats saw the way Mitt Romney's super PAC destroyed Newt Gingrich in Iowa, and it terrified them, because President Obama's super PAC—or as Politico terms it, "not-so-super PAC"—doesn't have the muscle for anything like that. "It's like when China got the bomb," says one Democrat close to the PAC, "We thought we were the ones with cash supremacy. That's clearly not the case." Obama's Priorities USA Action has just $5 million in the bank, less than half Romney's $12 million. More»