Visitor logs: Knock, knock, knockin’ on Barry’s door
Who’s there?
In another business-as-usual Friday night document dump, the White House released logs on 110 White House visitors and trumpeted “transparency like you’ve never seen before.”
The self-congratulatory announcement conveniently omits that Obama originally blocked the logs’ release and only disclosed them under threat of lawsuit.
Also, this “unprecedented” disclosure is severely limited:
Most of the visitors from Inauguration Day to September will never be released by the White House under this voluntary disclosure — unless the public can guess their names. The White House policy doesn’t allow members of the public or press to ask for “everyone who visited health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle,” or everyone who visited on May 4, or everyone from the American Medical Association. Only individual names can be checked.
The list released at 4:30 p.m. Friday includes just about 110 names with 481 visits. Those names were among those requested by members of the public so far, for visits during the period from Inauguration Day through July. (That’s why we know of visits by the wrong Bill Ayers, the wrong Angela Davis, etc., but we don’t know of visits by countless unnamed lobbyists.) Members of the public who used the White House online form to check names did not receive a personal reply indicating whether or not the request was received, or whether the name appeared on the list, so the system provides no feedback…A request for the complete records of all visitors from the first months of the administration, filed by msnbc.com, was rejected by the White House, and an appeal is pending. The news organization requested the names of all visitors to the Obama White House beginning with Inauguration Day. Msnbc.com has filed an administrative appeal with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.
Let’s dive into the data dump.
*ANDY STERN. If you’ve been following my reporting and Culture of Corruption work on Obama’s special friends at the SEIU, you won’t be surprised to learn that one of the most frequent visitor knocking on Barry’s door over the past several months was…SEIU president Andy Stern.
They really just need to set up a cot for him at 1600 Pennsylvania. Stern clocked in with 22 visits, including seven with the president, one with the vice president, and meetings with Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden chief of staff Ron Klain, OMB director Peter Orszag, health czar aide Jennifer Cannistra, and Valerie Jarrett’s high-powered aide and Chicago fund-raiser Tina Tchen.
As I’ve noted from Day One, Big Labor’s investment in Obama has paid off mightily.
*GEORGE SOROS. And let there be no doubt that other far Left kingpins have easy access to this White House. Billionaire George Soros dropped in on David Lipton, Obama’s special assistant for international economic affairs and a longtime Treasury bureaucrat in past Democrat administrations whose contact with Soros goes back to at least 1998.
Soros visited Lipton on February 25, just a few days after he made international headlines for statements at Columbia University about the global financial collapse, and again on March 25, the day he was quoted around the world gloating about “having a very good crisis.”
Soros also met with National Economic Council director Larry Summers and Valerie Jarrett’s gal Tina Tchen.
Inquiring minds want to know: Did Petrobras come up?
*JEFFREY IMMELT. GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt popped in for meetings with OMB director Peter Orszag and economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. Immelt serves on Obama’s economic advisory board. He also promoted smart grid programs at the White House — and then turned around at touted them on GE’s broadcast subsidiaries at NBC, CNBC and MSNBC. The perks of a left-wing corporate “news” empire.
*RACE HUSTLERS. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson checked in for various events ranging from poetry readings to congressional luaus to education and SCOTUS meetings, but “Malik H. Shabazz” in the visitor log is not the same Malik Zulu Shabazz who heads up the thug racketeers at the New Black Panther Party.
*HEALTH CARE LOBBYISTS. While far Left groups harass and demonize evil health insurance lobbyists, they’re more than welcome at the White House. UnitedHealth lobbyist Steve Elmendorf is listed five times and Alston & Bird “resource” (the kinder, gentler euphemism for lobbyist) Tom Daschle is listed 11 times.
*PAUL KRUGMAN. The NYT columnist spent two hours with Obama on April 27. Gen. McChrystal got 30 minutes.
*PHILIP GARA LAMARCHE. Another far Leftist philanthropist with repeat access to the White House, he’s listed nine times (two under “Gara LaMarche” and seven under “Philip G LaMarche.” LaMarche is President and CEO of The Atlantic Philanthropies. As I reported in June, LaMarche is a George Soros acolyte whose charity pitched in $10 million to help fund the astroturf Health Care Action Now group. LaMarche met with Valerie Jarrett for hours-long meetings on two disclosed occasions. Last year, LaMarche’s group donated $18 million to a Chicago charity headed by Jarrett.
*SCOTT LEVENSON. Matthew Vadum notes the visit by ACORN spokesman Levenson with SEIU/ACORN operative-turned-White House political director Patrick Gaspard.
Membership in radical Left circles has its privileges.
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Categories: ACORN Watch,Health care,MoveOn.org,SEIU,Valerie Jarrett
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Who cares what list he releases? It’s going to be a lie anyway. Face it, Obama is a lying crapweasel. Obama lied about something yesterday, he lied about something today, and he’ll lie about something tomorrow. Like the Clintons (I never had sex with that woman / I was named for Sir Edmund Hillary), he lies just for the sake of lying.
No matter who he or his team meets with, the agenda is the same. The destruction of this country as we know it.
The issue os not who he meets with. The issue is working to make sure he is able to conduct meetings in the White House for as short a time as possible.
Three observations.
1. How many times does Keynesian economics need to be proven wrong? Spending billions on pet projects does nothing. I mean really, that’s like me saying I can cause earthquakes with my mind. One will happen eventually, and I can say “I told you so”.
2. All Keynesians love to talk about spending, but how many discuss deficit reduction? Right, because that stuff works itself out. Just like a recession. Shhh!
3. When used as an expletive, the proper term is commie, not communist.
I am not going to argue the merits if Keynsian economics, Dave. Suffice to say that Krugman is one of the most influential Keynsian today and Obama has pursued Keynsian policies.
But your third point is well taken.
Commie.
They left out G.R. Richardwad.
How about Monica Lewinsky? I don’t think there was much disclosure there. Maybe some disrobing.
ummm…Monica was an employee.
One point that has been overlooked: Many of the visitors to the Obama White House are prominent medical malpractice lawyers who make their millions shaking down doctors and hospitals. Is it any coincidence that this health care bill is a giveaway to the trial lawyers? The Obama administration is literally as well as figuratively in bed with the trial lawyers. Although we all know that medical malpractice reform is the most important ingredient in making health care insurance available to most Americans, Obama won’t even consider it. So now we know why. A parade of medical malpractice lawyers goes through the White House on a daily basis dropping campaign dollars like Johnny Appleseed in the wilderness.
I wonder what Unions besides the SEIU had access. No way it was just the SEIU, almost very Union that I know of was in the tanks for Obama…UFCW, AFSCAM, etc.
You are woefully illl informed about the effectivness of tort reform, Marc. In Texas, tort reform was very effective on cutting malpractice suits: 50% in 18 months. But Texas’ health care premiums continue to rise at a precipitous rate: over 91% in the past decade.
Same story in Mississippi, where tort reform had dramatically cut suits but failed to do anything about the 109% increase in health care premiums in the last decade.
ummm…Don’t be so sure.
Lewinsky Story
From the article above:
“The Clinton Administration has rejected press requests for entry logs which would contain documentation of any Lewinsky visits to the White House after leaving her job there in April of 1997. But many media organizations have reported that Ms. Lewinsky visited the White House 37 times after moving to her job at the Pentagon.”
T-Bone. You are right. i forgot she moved to the Pentagon.
Is there a conservative equivalent of George Soros? The press would have had a field day bashing Bush if some money bags like Soros was visiting the WH. I find it particularly telling that Soros was there…isn’t he too busy trying to destroy capitalism in this country?