White House Visitors Log Lists Stars and C.E.O.'s

The Obama administration on Friday released a partial roster of visitors in the first six months of President Obama 's term, a disclosure that shows business executives, labor leaders, lobbyists and a sprinkling of celebrities were cleared into the White House for meetings, events or tours.

[gossamer]

The two biggest as s holes in the world first visted.

[Yeppers]

Like this is suppose to be some kind of big surprise...Obama is the same as Bush except Obama is more dangerous than Bush...With Bush you knew what you were getting, with Obama, he does his dog and pony show to fool the people that aren't smart enough to figure him out and then screws you...

[The laughing liberal]

Partial release? Obama is a maggot! Release the Entire LIST!

[The laughing liberal]

Obama Closes Doors on Openness

By Michael Isikoff
NEWSWEEK
Published Jun 20, 2009

As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House.

But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies.

One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure.

Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."

The hard line appears to be no accident.

After Obama's much-publicized Jan. 21 "transparency" memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts.

The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a "presumption" of disclosure for FOIA requests.

This reversal of Bush policy was intended to restore a standard set by President Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno. But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies "if practicable" for cases involving "pending litigation."

Dan Metcalfe, the former longtime chief of FOIA policy at Justice, says the passage and other "lawyerly hedges" means the Holder memo is now "astonishingly weaker" than the Reno policy.(The visitor-log request falls in this category because of a pending Bush-era lawsuit for such records.)

http://www.newsweek.com/id/202875

Obama = Lying POS

[The laughing liberal]

Yeppers wrote:

Like this is suppose to be some kind of big surprise...Obama is the same as Bush except Obama is more dangerous than Bush...With Bush you knew what you were getting, with Obama, he does his dog and pony show to fool the people that aren't smart enough to figure him out and then screws you...

Obama blocks list of visitors to White House..Just Like Bush Admin
By Bill Dedman
Investigative reporter
msnbc.com

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com 's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

CREW says it will file a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31373407/ns/polit...

[Lance Winslow]

Figure the White House should be opened to the homeless on cold D.C. nights?

[sue]

I hope Obama has a grand ole time with the time he has left in office. By the time his term is up he will have to move to Kenya and live in a hut.

[gossamer]

sue wrote:

I hope Obama has a grand ole time with the time he has left in office. By the time his term is up he will have to move to Kenya and live in a hut.

Yeah the one he probably rents to his brother.

[crazy ox3thong]

The laughing liberal wrote:

Partial release? Obama is a maggot! Release the Entire LIST!

black box in the white house?:)

[donkeyman]

most of these visitors i wouldnt allow in my home.