THE WHITE HOUSE: If they have nothing to cover up, why are they covering everything up? Read more below, but first, this:
Peace activist extraordinaire, the inimitable Teddi Winograd — one of my heroes, mother of the amazing Marcy Winograd who ran for Congress last fall -- and one of the greatest women in America, passed on Tuesday. "During her final hours, my mother took great pleasure in seeing me in my Impeach Bush and Cheney t-shirt. When I changed clothes, she said, 'Where's the Impeach t-shirt? I like to look at it.' Wanting to please my mother, I wore the shirt and read to her about Karl Rove's resignation. Rove's exit made her feel good when her health failed. For more on my fabulous mother, please read on" ... Warm regards, Marcy
Linda Milazzo writes: "What most amazed me about Teddi is how much more stoic she was than those of us who are decades her junior. She never complained. In fact, she wore the rest of us out. But I understand the source of her strength. She was, as Tom Brokaw would come to say, part of the "Greatest Generation." She gave birth to her son Barry while Sam was away in the Second World War. She fended for herself with dignity and strength. Barry was twelve months old the first time he saw his father.
If you want to know how a woman can go from being a millinery worker at thirteen to owning a home on Rodeo Drive, you have to read Teddi's autobiography, "Chit Chat This 'n That." If you want to understand how a woman can know EVERYTHING about owning and operating a multi-million dollar business, how a woman who never went to college self-educated herself to grasp the innermost workings of the stock market, you must read this book. If you want to understand the depth of undying love and devotion to a spouse, how deeply a parent loves her children, how much she'll do for her grandchildren, how she weathers great tragedy with dignity and grace — and how one lives with endless enthusiasm, read it.
If you want to see how Teddi and Sam Winograd dedicated their entire lives to the cause of peace, read it and you will understand why the door to Teddi's home was always open to anyone with a commitment to bettering our world.
What is left for us ... are the very same orders Sam gave Teddi in 1998 when Parkinsons took him away: "CONTINUE TO WORK FOR PEACE."
Teddi, we will!!
For many of us, the only good that has come out of the downfall of our democracy over the past seven years has been the creation of our own progressive community that embraces Teddi's passion for peace. In Los Angeles, Marcy and Teddi have been leaders in the progressive community. Teddi's lovely home has been a welcoming hub for democratic activism, intellectual stimulation, and political and social education for countless guest speakers and eager attendees.
The maternal heart of The Progressive Democrats of America, Teddi hosted the Great Minds Series at her home in Beverly Hills, where she welcomed authors and speakers Gore Vidal, John Dean, Elizabeth de la Vega, John Nichols, Cynthia McKinney, Syd Blumenthal, Cindy Sheehan, Tim Carpenter, Mimi Kennedy, Lila Garrett, Danny Schector, Harvey Wasserman, Joy Horowitz, Joe Mealey, Michael Shoob and others. She was waiting for my book to come out and had invited me to be part of the Great Mind series. I now feel Teddi is sitting on my shoulder, giving me the courage to go forward without fear.
A week before she died of cancer, she enjoyed an anti-war serenade in her peach bedroom, then courageously went to the window to wave to Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich addressing a fundraiser in her backyard garden. (Marcy Winograd: winogradblog
Teddi ready to hit the streets with her placard opposing Schwarzenegger's special election ballot measures. Photos by Margery Epstein.
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WHITE HOUSE SECRETS
If they have nothing to cover up, why are they covering everything up? Not only are they trying to prevent the people from knowing what was contained in the 5 million missing e-mails, but Dick Cheney's lawyer instructed the Secret Service that it "shall not retain any copy" of material identifying visitors to the vice president's official residence. Why? Isn't the government in our country, THE PEOPLE? This administration is the most dishonest bunch of crooks in the history of our nation. Even Nixon didn't go this far.WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Tuesday that records about missing White House e-mails are not subject to public disclosure, the latest effort by the Bush administration to expand the boundaries of government secrecy.
Administration lawyers detailed the legal position in a lawsuit trying to force the White House Office of Administration to reveal what it knows about the disappearance of White House e-mails.
The Office of Administration provides administrative services, including information technology support, to the Executive Office of the President.
The office has prepared estimates that there are at least 5 million missing White House e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005, according to the lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private advocacy group.
More....
In court papers seeking to end the case, the Justice Department said the White House Office of Administration has no substantial authority independent of President Bush and therefore is not subject to the disclosure requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.The issue came into focus early this year amid the uproar over the firing of U.S. attorneys. It turned out that aides to Bush improperly used Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts for official business and that an undetermined number of e-mails had been lost in the process.
The Justice Department Web site, which lists all FOIA contacts inside the government, identifies seven units inside the Executive Office of the President as responding to FOIA requests, including the Office of Administration.
The Office of Administration "has certainly acted like an agency in the past," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, a private group advocating public disclosure of government secrets.
Fuchs' organization filed a request in February 2006 after Fitzgerald revealed that e-mails might be missing. When the Office of Administration finally denied the private group's request in June of this year, the office said it was not an "agency" as defined by the Freedom of Information Act and was therefore not subject to the law's requirements.
The administration has been resisting disclosure of information on an array of fronts.
In September 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney's lawyer instructed the Secret Service that it "shall not retain any copy" of material identifying visitors to the vice president's official residence. The lawyer, Shannen Coffin, wrote the letter as The Washington Post sought copies of Cheney's visitors.
The letter regarding the vice president's residence was in addition to an agreement quietly signed between the White House and the Secret Service when questions were raised about visits to the executive compound by convicted influence peddler Jack Abramoff.
That agreement, which didn't surface publicly until late last year, said White House entry and exit logs were presidential records not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
When the agreement was signed in May 2006, a number of private groups and news organizations had filed FOIA requests with the Secret Service in an effort to identify how many times Abramoff or members of his lobbying team visited the White House.
(read the entire article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070821/white-house-secrecy
PARTING SHOT
