Politico’s Darren Goode reports that President Obama will formally reject the Keystone XL pipeline. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns is expected to make the announcement at a 3pm briefing. Goode notes that White House and State Department officials “have not commented publicly Wednesday, but Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney indicated the administration was concerned about the lack of an alternative route in Nebraska.”

Radio hosts Mike Gallagher and Alan Colmes faced off Friday on Megyn Kelly‘s Fox News program and debated the Obama Administration’s decision to delay his decision over the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. “20,000 jobs is important except if it comes to polluting the snail darter!” Gallagher exclaimed. “All we’ve heard from both parties, Alan, is it’s all about the jobs — 20,000 American jobs are being flushed down the toilet because they’re going to pollute a little bit of water! Are you kidding”

On Tuesday, the Morning Joe crew reacted to news that the White House is “shuffling roles” within its administration, placing White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley in a role better described as that of an “ambassador,” and handing some of his former day-to-day duties to longtime Obama ally Peter Rouse. What does this mean for the White House, the team wondered, and there a chance this can be perceived as anything other than a demotion for Daley?

At a classified briefing, head of the Air Force Space Command Gen. William Shelton informed House members that he he had been pressured to change prepared congressional testimony in order to better compliment a Virginia-based satellite and communications company funded by major Democratic donor Philip Falcone. The GOP has been wondering for some time now whether work done by that company, LightSquared, has been “unduly expedited” by the Obama administration in its push for nation-wide wireless network upgrades.

Fox News’s Bret Baier broke news this afternoon that the Obama administration is looking to draw American troop numbers in Iraq down to 3,000 by the end of this year. According to Fox’s sources, this number is significantly less than than the military personnel had expected, and, notedly, less than they believe they need. ”We can’t [...]

Representative-elect Allen West from Florida appeared on Fox News Sunday and host Chris Wallace offered him an opportunity to back away from his past comments where he called the Democratic agenda a “left-wing, vile, vicious, despicable machine.” Instead, West chose to double-down reaffirming his belief that the government for the past two years has in fact been, “tyrannical, socialist, despicable,” because so much of the country’s production has been nationalized.

Ann Coulter visited Fox Business’s Follow the Money this week to talk about the relationship between corporations and the White House. Speaking to host Eric Bolling, who had laid down his argument for the unhealthy relations between the government and private enterprise, Coulter boiled down the argument to the President Obama being both “a socialist” and “a fascist.”

It is a poorly-kept secret that President Obama is a poker aficionado. If the administration’s new posture on the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts are any indication, he’s a lousy one. Senior adviser David Axelrod, in an interview with Huffington Post, has signaled that the administration is all but ready to fold the strongest hand they’re likely to get in post-midterm Washington. While the President favors extending the middle class portion of the Bush tax cuts, while allowing those for the wealthiest Americans to expire, Axelrod has already resorted to the fallback position of a temporary extension for the rich. While that’s probably the best outcome, the timing of this move is bad politics, and will lead to bad policy.

So what’s the definition of Wednesday Morning Quarterbacking if it comes five days after the election?

Florida Gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, who lost to GOP candidate Rick Scott, had some harsh words for the Obama administration in an interview with Politico days after her loss.

Some have suggested that President Obama has neither the political capital nor will to see the termination of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” through, which was the topic of conversation during today’s White House Press conference. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dealt with a rather aggressive set of questions over the Obama Administration’s handling of the political hot potato. Gibbs did reaffirm his statement from the weekend in which he proclaimed that the controversial policy would end under Obama.

On The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart pointed out how the Obama Administraton has been sending Joe Biden around the country to be the face of the so-called “Summer of Recovery.”

But because Jon Stewart is, well, Jon Stewart, a clip of Biden touting his optimistically branded season was promptly followed by a mélange of cable news snippets that told of the summer’s “dismal,” “miserable,” and “record-low” economic numbers. Ahem. Funny.

Preceding his highly anticipated Special Comment tonight (anticipated because, for once, it would address problems on the left), Keith Olbermann did his best to find the one person that, to him, identified the “professional left,” in order to get as close to an official comment as possible. That person was director Michael Moore, and while he wasn’t particularly angry at the Obama administration, he was confused by their actions.

Remember Glenn Beck‘s special White House red phone, the number of which had only been given to the Obama administration, in the past year has never rang? Today, during a commercial break, the entire staff at Beck HQ held its breath as the phone began to ring for the first time. What did the White House have to say to Beck? Nothing, because the caller was Tim Griffin, a viewer who called to warn Beck that the number was visible on TV when he held the phone up.

On last night’s 4th of July episode of Hannity, Sean Hannity had “Rock Star/Hunter” Ted Nugent on to spread some holiday cheer, but thanks to the Obama administration, he only had bad news. Did you know that the White House is currently “spitting on the U.S. Constitution, the Bill Of Rights, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule”?

Last night word leaked from a Senate aide that a compromise had been reached between President Obama and Congressional Democrats that would allow gays to serve openly in the military. Dana Bash reported on CNN last night that while Senate Democrats are aggressively pushing for legislation this week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants time for the Pentagon to review.

Glenn Beck must have known before going on his weekly O’Reilly Factor segment that Bill O’Reilly was going to pick on him for being praised by the left for supporting Miranda rights for all US citizens. His usual pro-Constitution argument for Miranda, however, took a strange turn when he warned O’Reilly that there was something to the fact that “the usual suspects” against torture are suddenly in favor of increased security, like Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein. “I don’t care about Cass Sunstein,” O’Reilly replied lazily, before asking: “So, what’s the conspiracy of the day?”

Linda Douglass, who served as spokesperson for the Obama administration in charge of health care, is leaving the White House.

Douglass says the experience has been “exhilarating and grueling,” but it is Douglass’ past job, ABC News Congressional Correspondent, that raises questions about her future plans.

It’s very tempting to be sarcastic and say something along the lines of this is how serious journalism works. Except this is how serious journalism works. Turns out the Times had the story a few days ago and held it at the behest of the White House. Times managing editor Bill Keller appeared on the NPR show The Takeaway today, to explain how and why the Times held the story.

A very blunt assessment of the American political scene from a former Obama administration official is getting attention today.

John Podesta was asked by the Financial Times for his take on the “health” of American politics – and he thinks it “sucks.”

The No-Spin Zone has met its match. Bill O’Reilly welcomed disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich to The Factor last night to discuss his recent federal indictment for a bevy of corruption charges and, after a few pleasantries, it took one question to send Blagojevich running behind the curtain of his court ordered silence.

Today marks the auspicious launch of Tucker Carlson‘s The Daily Caller, and in light of Carlson’s insistence that they’re not out “to grind any axes,” I was a little bit surprised by a front page story that said of the Underwear Bomber “he was ‘singing like a canary’ until the Obama administration read him his rights.” I wanted to double-check the facts on that, but when I asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about The Daily Caller, he said “What’s that?”

On the heels of what might be the beginning of a truce between Fox News and the Obama administration, the White House is now calling out another major news organization. Late last night, the White House’s Recovery Implementation Office released a detailed rebuttal of what it called a “misleading” report by the Associated Press. While the AP hasn’t been stripped of its legitimacy, the reaction does seem a little bit harsh.

Politico is taking heat from all over the blogosphere for a story they posted Wednesday that conflated support for convicted rapist Roman Polanski with political donations to President Obama. The splashy headline read “Roman Polanski Backers Gave $34k to Barack Obama, DNC.”

Watching a few hours of Fox News these days amounts to a non-stop infomercial opposing the Obama Administration’s effort to reform Health Care. While there is always room for a healthy debate on the issues, please don’t look to FNC for a measured discourse – they rarely, if ever, present a constructive solution to the current health care problems (though there is the occasional admission that there is need for reform.) No single entity seems more entrenched in the opposition to the health care reform than Fox News.