Visible signs are all around us – whether we pay attention to them or not, they still exist.

WASHINGTON DC – Hours after CIA Director John Brennan took the oath of office—behind closed doors, far away from the press, perhaps befitting his status as America’s top spy—the White House took pains to emphasize the symbolism of the ceremony.

“There’s one piece of this that I wanted to note for you,” spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at their daily briefing. “Director Brennan was sworn in with his hand on an original draft of the Constitution that had George Washington’s personal handwriting and annotations on it, dating from 1787.” […] (more…)

Maryland schools may have dispatched counselers to evaluate the psychological damage from a child nibbling a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun, but Michigan goes one step further when cupcakes adorned with toy soldiers show up.

MICHIGAN – A Michigan elementary school is defending its decision to confiscate a third-graders batch of homemade cupcakes because the birthday treats were decorated with plastic green Army soldiers.

Casey Fountain told Fox News that the principal of his son’s elementary school called the cupcakes “insensitive” — in light of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

“It disgusted me,” he said. “It’s vile they lump true American heroes with psychopathic killers.”

Fountain’s wife made a batch of 30 chocolate cupcakes for their son Hunter’s classmates at Schall Elementary School in the town of Caro. The 9-year-old helped decorate the treats with plastic figurines representing World War Two soldiers. (more…)

Will the grown-ups please report to the White House…..

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is postponing an award for an Egyptian activist who rallied worldwide attention against forced “virginity tests” on female protesters because of anti-American and anti-Semitic comments discovered on her Twitter account.

The State Department announced earlier this week that Samira Ibrahim would be among 10 recipients of the International Women of Courage award presented by Secretary of State John Kerry and first lady Michelle Obama on Friday.

But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday the U.S. would hold off on awarding Ibrahim while officials investigate the tweets, which include support for attacks against U.S. diplomatic installations and praise for a terrorist assault against Israeli citizens in Bulgaria. (more…)

(By:  Jack Cashill)  The headline of the Orlando Sentinel on March 5 introduced a harsh note of  reality into the darkly comic opera the major media have been spinning around  the death of Trayvon Martin, “Lawyer: State’s main witness in George Zimmerman  murder case lied.”

That witness, Witness No. 8, Trayvon’s alleged 16-year-old sweetheart “Dee  Dee,” captivated the media when the story surfaced on March 20, 2012.

CNN covered it live. Anchor Kyra Phillips enthused about the “chilling new  perspective” added to the case by the testimony of this heartsick girl who was  on the phone with Trayvon when he was shot by George Zimmerman.

Phillips then introduced CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin.  Hostin had spoken  with a Martin family attorney and shared with the CNN audience what he had  learned. (more…)

7  8 9  10  11 12+ Hours and It’s Over…

UPDATE:  (Hufington Post) After nearly 13 hours on the Senate floor, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has ended his filibuster of the nomination of John Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“I will speak until I can no longer speak,” Paul said at the beginning of the filibuster, which he used to address concerns over President Obama’s policies on civil liberties, including the president’s controversial drone program.

Paul began the filibuster at 11:47 a.m. ET on Wednesday, and concluded at 12:39 a.m. on Thursday. After Paul ceded the floor, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) filed for cloture on Brennan’s nomination, adjourning the Senate until 10 a.m. Thursday.  (read more)

(more…)

What it’s like to live in the land of the perpetually aggrieved

[excerpt from PhillyMag.com]  I’ve shared my view of North Broad Street with people—white friends and colleagues—who see something else there: New buildings. Progress. Gentrification. They’re sunny about the area around Temple. I think they’re blind, that they’ve stopped looking. Indeed, I’ve begun to think that most white people stopped looking around at large segments of our city, at our poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods, a long time ago. One of the reasons, plainly put, is queasiness over race. Many of those neighborhoods are predominantly African-American. And if you’re white, you don’t merely avoid them—you do your best to erase them from your thoughts.

At the same time, white Philadelphians think a great deal about race. Begin to talk to people, and it’s clear it’s a dominant motif in and around our city. Everyone seems to have a story, often an uncomfortable story, about how white and black people relate. (more…)

Trying to take full advantage of a faux-crisis….

WASHINGTON DC – Never say the White House isn’t affected by sequestration. The Visitors Office just notified Congress that tours of the White House are cancelled until further notice.

“Due to staffing reductions resulting from sequestration, we regret to inform you that White House Tours will be canceled effective Saturday, March 9, 2013 until further notice,” the White House email to legislative offices explains.

“Unfortunately, we will not be able to reschedule affected tours. We very much regret having to take this action, particularly during the popular Spring touring season.”  (more)

WASHINGTON DC – The Obama administration denied an appeal for flexibility in lessening the sequester’s effects, with an email this week appearing to show officials in Washington that because they already had promised the cuts would be devastating, they now have to follow through on that.

In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked “if there was any latitude” in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections. (more…)

The Media Is *BEGINNING* To Sniff The Lying Blood In The Water

REPORT: Trayvon Martin's girlfriend lied… http://t.co/9BzP9oKxzs

— NEWS MAKER (@NEWS_MAKER) March 5, 2013

ORLANDO – […] Attorneys for George Zimmerman were expected to ask his judge this morning to order the state’s most important witness, the young Miami woman who was on the phone with Trayvon Martin just before he was shot, to produce medical records.

However, defense lawyer Don West made a startling claim shortly after the hearing began: The state had revealed, before the hearing, that there are no medical records.

The woman, the defense lawyer said, “misrepresented” in a sworn statement that she missed Trayvon’s funeral because she had been hospitalized.

“In fact, she lied,” West said.

Prosecutor John Guy confirmed there will be no medical records, effectively confirming that there was no hospital trip. (more…)

Those pesky “rebels” that Hillary, Obama, Powers and Rice supported – the ones who killed Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi – you know, the ones we really didn’t know what their ideology was but we sent them missiles and guns n’ stuff,…. well, they’re back at it again....

[Hat Tip WeaselZippers] LIBYA – Libyan Islamists detained 48 Egyptian Christians in Benghazi last week, torturing them and using acid to burn off tattoos of the cross, according to family members. The Christians, who are peddlers, were arrested by Islamist Salafists in Benghazi, who said they had Christian icons at their marketplace stalls, according to Mideast Christian News.

The men were later reportedly freed and await deportation, but their family members back home told the Egyptian press they were abused while held, initially on charges of proselytizing. “When the residents of the village told me that he was imprisoned, I embraced his sons and told them they would not see their father again,” Fardoos Salib, the mother of Coptic farmer Atif Kamel, told Egyptian newspaper al-Watan. (more…)