Evidently for entertainment purposes only, the White House blog reads "Curious who's visited the White House? We're committed to government transparency and have been providing records of White House visitors since December 2009; have a look."
If we hadn't noticed more whistleblowers prosecuted in the Obama Administration than in all other administrations combined, the Administration has been observed ever-vigilant in blocking access to files requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Currently, it is TPP, of which Bill Curry writes
We don’t know what’s in it because our president won’t let us read it, and not out of respect for precedent or protocol. George W. Bush showed us drafts of his trade agreements. We’re negotiating one right now with Europe, and Europeans get to read those drafts. If a comma gets cut from the TPP, hundreds of corporate lobbyists know in an instant. The only people who don’t know are the American people — and that’s only because our president thinks our knowing would ruin everything.
But while the claim of transparency has fallen way short, more entertaining is the website's reminder "The White House is known as 'The People’s House.'"
Someone should have informed the current occupant. CNN reports
President Barack Obama is used to hecklers stopping him during speeches -- but he draws the line when the audience interrupts him in his own house.
As Obama was speaking at a White House event honoring LGBT Pride Month on Wednesday, an accented voice rang out from the crowd. Obama wasn't amused.
"Shame on you," he told his heckler, who was protesting deportations under the Obama administration.
Obama responded, "Listen you're in my house ... it's not respectful."
The interruption persisted, however, and Obama asked for the heckler to be removed from the East Room.
"As a general rule I am just fine with a few hecklers. But not when I'm up here in the house," he said, as Vice President Joe Biden clapped him on the back.
Obama said later if guests are "eating the hors d'oeuvres and drinking the booze," they're typically expected to listen respectfully.
Shortly after the incident, an immigration group claimed the protestor was an undocumented immigrant named Jennicet Gutiérrez, who is transgender. According to a press release, Gutiérrez was a founding member of FAMILIA TQLM, established to advocate for LGBTQ immigrants who the group says are often excluded in the immigration debate.
Let's get this out of the way: Gutierrez was rude, for she interrupted a speaker many people had gone to hear.
But Gutierrez wasn't elected; she is a private citizen. Citizens are that way sometimes. Presidents aren't supposed to be that way- at least, not in respect to "The People's House," paid for and owned by the American people.
"Listen, you're in my house," the current occupant says. He will be asked to leave in a year-and-a-half and will have no choice but to depart. He has no mortgage and knew from the beginning that the term of occupancy was four years, with the people holding an option for an additional four years.
Not only did neither he nor his wife prepare those hors d'oeuvres, it's a sure bet that neither paid for them, nor for the "booze" the President cited. Nor should they have- it's not their house.. Rather, they themselves are guests of the American people. And they have overstayed their welcome.
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