Barack Obama has promised to preside over the most transparent presidency ever. Those were his words. And 7 days go, his transition chief echoed that sentiment:
Barack Obama promised to run the most transparent White House in history—disclosing donations, shunning lobbyists, and broadcasting important meetings on C-SPAN. Transition captain John Podesta reiterated the point Tuesday when he said Obama's would be "the most open and transparent transition in history."It would appear, however, that one man's "transparency" is another man's "secrecy". The same transition chief that promised the most transparent administration in history is allegedly now telling anyone within earshot to zip it. This report from The Atlantic:
"If You Leak, You're Gone."This is not the transparency Obama once knew.
Several Obama transition staffers have put a version of that quotation in transition co-chief John Podesta's mouth.
Many of the major staff appointments so far - Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff, Greg Craig as White House counsel, the fact of the Clinton meeting, along with details about internal thinking on Gitmo and other subjects - have escaped whatever barriers the Obama team has set in place.
Every transition staffer and adviser has signed a non-disclosure agreement, and staff members are regularly warned by their superiors not to talk to the press.
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Now that the anti-science, superstition-based initiative presidency is coming to an end, we need several public works science Manhattan projects to make us great again and boost us out of this Grotesque Depression. First we must provide free advertising-based wireless internet to everyone. Then we must criscross the land with high speed rail. We must develop microorganisms that may be freely distributed like bread yeast and become commonplace to improve our future. Because bovine flatulence is the major source of greenhouse gases, we must develop microorganisms which can be grow in the home that will provide all of our nutrition. Then we must create microorganisms which turn our sewage and waste into fuel. Since paranoid schizophrenia is the cause of racism, bigotry, homelessness, terrorism, ignorance, exploitation and criminality, we must provide put the appropriate medications, like lithium, in the water supply. We must require dangerous wingnuts who refuse free mental health care to be implanted with drug release devices and microorganisms. Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh were the ultimate superstition based initiatives. We should encourage international organizations to do likewise. In order to fund this we must nationalize the entire financial, electrical and transportation system and abolish the silly feudal notion that each industry should be regulated by its peers. Real estate and insurance, the engines of feudalism, must be brought under the Federal Reserve so we may replace all buildings with hazardous materials to provide public works. Insects, flooding and fire spread asbestos, lead and mold which prematurely disables the disadvantaged. Furthermore, as feudalism is the threat to progress everywhere, we must abolish large land holdings by farmers, foresters or religions and instead make all such large landholding part of the forest service so our trees may diminish greenhouse gases. We must abolish executive pay and make sure all employees in a company are all paid equally. We must abolish this exploitative idea of trade and make every home self sufficient through the microorganisms we invent.
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