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Did White House Hide Lavish Costume Bash?

Nope, says spokesman: event reports, pics are online

By Mark Russell,  Newser Staff

Posted Jan 9, 2012 3:28 AM CST | Updated Jan 9, 2012 7:12 AM CST

(Newser) – At the nadir of the economic crisis, the Obama White House held a lavish Alice in Wonderland-themed Halloween costume party, organized by Johnny Depp and Tim Burton and full of Star Wars character. But with unemployment at 10%, the Tea Party at its apex, and the economic downturn still rocking the country, officials feared the 2009 party would look terribly decadent, so kept it a secret, reports the New York Post. “White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywood-esque party would look to jobless Americans—or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care—that the event was not discussed publicly, and Burton’s and Depp’s contributions went unacknowledged,” alleges Jodi Kantor in her new book, The Obamas.

But was it really a secret? The White House fired back yesterday, saying the party was no secret: Photos were released via the White House's Flickr account and websites and newspapers at the time mentioned Johnny Depp's attendance, reports Politico. "Just goes to show you can't believe everything you read in books these days," said a White House spokesman. You can see plenty of pics (including Chewbacca, but no mention of Depp or Burton) in the New York Times' original coverage of the event.

A lavish Halloween party held at the White House in 2009 was kept secret because the Obama administration feared it would look bad, given the depths of the recession at the time, alleges Jodi Kantor in her new book The Obamas.
A lavish Halloween party held at the White House in 2009 was kept secret because the Obama administration feared it would look bad, given the depths of the recession at the time, alleges Jodi Kantor in...   (White House)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 72 comments
hogorina
Jul 6, 2012 1:14 PM CDT
                                 PROFIT-RELIGION AND PROPHETS Why are the world's Gypsies treated so ugly. Under Zackariah, the prophet, these people were Jews. This prophet let them go into Egypt in order to get away from the famine in Canaan. No man is nothing that turns his back on his fellow man. We are all God's children and should come under the covenant in which our creator swore that all nations through Abraham's seed line would be blessed. However, the Gypsies are left on their own to be persecuted through out the world. The questioned remains : why can't these people get their palms into the U.S Treasury in using the organized religious scheme in raking in a few bucks from national tax payers. The rejuvenated scriptures-Come unto me and your man-made gods will fill thy thy temples, ( bodies ), worldly goods. Please do not turn thy backs on fellow creatures. This would be an insult to an unknown creator.
trailmix
Jan 10, 2012 9:50 PM CST
Had it been a republican party, they would be boasting job creation.
hogorina
Jan 10, 2012 7:40 PM CST
                        AMERICA HAS BECOME 0NE ALIEN METROPOLITAN SEWER       Wow! an international syndicate of social engineering finantial racketeers have finally accomplished   a long depressed disposition to drag the civilization of our Republic into the corrupted fangs of an in-   ternational octopus, moving amongst pre-bought presidential panhandlers, scheming behind an inbred    psycologically self-implanted nature, in concealing just what is money and its origin.    Theoretically, currency expressed through paper, silver or gold is worthess. However, for thousands   of years gold was the most precious in controlling various nations and societies. In fact. the power of   currency as to fueling the movement of goods and services, is unique in that all nations can be con-   trolled through financial marketeers, of whom collaborate with the international exchange rate as set   by several financial agents, being tied to the Bank of England. The Federal Reserve of America and    this institution through the interest ( usury ) system holds nations in finantial bondage.    Of course, our Republic is now run on ( FIAT ) money. That has no precious metal value at all. Primarily    the globe's gold supply, over all, rests in bens at Fort Knox, KN.  Gold backs up the American and   British empire, in renting out their military deployment world wide. All countries accept goods and services   in trading with various nations. Fiat moneys originated with our Congress and Britain's Parliament. Gold   is being hoarded in both America and England via the Rothschild banking networks. Together, both civi-   zations have turned to imperialism. Rothschild is a psuedo paternal name.    For sure, these collective revenue scavengers consider the above average individual, not in the house of    their blood-sucking covey. to be nothing less that ( cattle ). In cahoots with these consciouslesness fin-   nanciers ( usurers ) All America is driven like one vast horde of wild animals under stress, to pay through   the interst system, Organized usury. The banking system originated to control progressive civilizations   through specific self-serving sycophants in the field of political whoredom.   Still, we unable to establish when gold took over the ancient bartering nations of past millennials. But is  obvious Fiat moneys must be backed up. IT IS ! because citizens own homes and other property. Believe   it or not, your fixed and fluid wealth is being stolen through outrageous taxation. This ownership is stolen  from crininal taxation. It doesn't take a robber to take property dishonestly, for tax collections are running  them out of business. Any nation not falling in line with fiat currency is invaded and starved into  submission.   America has become a sewer for the globe's humanoidistic revolutionary driftwood from the pale of eastern  Europe. The banking intelligencia brings up the rear, in formating ethenic dissenion and community solvency  through control of all and any press or news outlet. We might say that the gold owners are forerunners  of  universal Bolshevism. This ancient psudo religious movement basis its determonation to sit up a so called  ONE WORLD government. In essence, gold is only a means to an end.   Absolutely, metropolitics is the gaul in financial entrenchment, in setting up the so-called city and county  manager organzation. Here citizens are merely mobs in the hands of socializing specific areas of America  in furthering incipient socialism, by bringing into poverty well established middle-class productive elements  via taxes, with inflationary funds to keep such subserviants to gradually drag any productive class into  a state that has ties to international finance. The unlawful to tax is the power to destroy a nation.   Looking back into the latter eighteen hundreds, we discover that the globe's chief bankers met in Vienna.  Here the banksters of the world decided to bring Europe under the scope, in buying up France, Berlin,  Belgium and the Netherlands. This gang brought America under its wings in  the latter eighteen hundreds.  And today, over taxed Americans have their heads in the ground, by supporting usury in a mad rush  to finally wind up in a future that heralds a home-made guillotine.
 

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