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This shouldn't surprise anyone. This administration is all about secret meetings, underhanded and sneaky dealings and activity that certainly shouldn't be representative of our government. obama talked so much about transparency during his campaign and still tries to bring the term up on accasion, but his gang of thugs is the worst in the history of our Country. It is easy to appear to be transparent when everything untoward is hidden, right up to the point that you are caught. Their first instinct when busted is to lie and deny. It's seems like it is a full time job for many in the administration, since they commit so many offenses.
Most political promises are filled with untruths and half truths, but obama made an artform out of outright lies. While I have never believed anything this man has said, even the most trusting amongst us should have been able to spot the transparency lie even during the campaign when obama refused to release records that other candidates freely make available.
When November 2012 rolls around, we have an opportunity to make things right. We will have an opportunity to tell the political class of this Country that the days of secret meetings and back room deals are over. That these activities will not be tolerated. We pay the bills. We have the last word...
By Chris Frates - Politico
Caught between their boss’s anti-lobbyist rhetoric and the reality of governing, President barack obama’s aides often steer meetings with lobbyists to a complex just off the White House grounds – and several of the lobbyists involved say they believe the choice of venue is no accident.
It allows the obama administration to keep these lobbyist meetings shielded from public view — and out of Secret Service logs collected on visitors to the White House and later released to the public.
“They’re doing it on the side. It’s better than nothing,” said immigration reform lobbyist Tamar Jacoby, who has attended meetings at the nearby Jackson Place complex and believes the undisclosed gatherings are better than none.
The White House scoffs at the notion of an ulterior motive for scheduling meetings in what are, after all, meeting rooms. But at least four lobbyists who’ve been to the conference rooms just off Lafayette Square tell POLITICO they had the distinct impression they were being shunted off to Jackson Place – and off the books – so their visits wouldn’t later be made public.
obama’s administration has touted its release of White House visitors logs as a breakthrough in transparency, as the first White House team ever to reveal the comings and goings around the West Wing and the Old Executive Office Building.
The Jackson Place townhouses are a different story.
There are no records of meetings at the row houses just off Lafayette Square that house the White House Conference Center and the Council on Environmental Quality, home to two of the busiest meeting spaces. The White House can’t say who attended meetings there, or how often. The Secret Service doesn’t log in visitors or require a background check the way it does at the main gates of the White House.