A Day of Glass……. Corning’s Concepts

DHS and Obama Pol Hacs Interfere with FOIA Request Process

from the Daily Caller:

New emails and testimony from Department of Homeland Security FOIA officer Catherine Papoi reveal that a former Obama campaign staffer repeatedly asked Papoi and her team to redact portions of “politically sensitive” documents, as well as portions of documents that were already publicly available.

Papoi, who came under fire at DHS for complaining that “sensitive” FOIA requests were being vetted by political employees, testified on March 3 that Willard “Clint” Carte, a DHS attorney with the title of “confidential assistant,” attempted to block a FOIA request for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s calendar in which Napolitano’s secretary had referred to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as “Senator Clinton.” According to Papoi’s testimony, Carte asked that Clinton’s title be changed on the calendar in order to spare the department “embarrassment.”

“The front office wanted that changed before the response went out the door and we were pushing back saying that once you cast your net and retrieve a record, you can’t alter a record because of mere embarrassment,” Papoi said in her testimony.

According to Papoi, FOIA officers are told they can only “cast their net” one time. “Once you have retrieved the records, they lose…the living nature where they are evolving, and the statute requires that you retrieve the records and then process them,” she testified. “DOJ has also opined that you don’t cast your net twice, you cast once. You retrieve the records and you process them. So [the front office, where Carte worked] also suggested making the changes and then recasting our net, and it was explained that also was unacceptable.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/30/former-organizing-for-america-staffer-blocked-foia-requests-at-department-of-homeland-security/#ixzz1ID6cTOQ6

Toddler Twins Show Us the “Art of Communication”

Breaking the Debt Ceiling

“Now bear with us for a second: the most recently disclosed total debt was 14,211,567,662,931.23 as of March 28. This excludes the settlement of all of this week’s auctions which amount to $35 + $35 + $29 billion (including today) or $99 billion. Adding the two amounts to $14,310,567,662,931.23. As a reminder the debt ceiling is $14,294,000,000,000.00. In other words, the total US debt just passed the debt limit – break out the Champagne! Granted there is a buffer of $52.2 billion between the total debt and the debt actually subject to the ceiling, meaning that America is not in default, yet.”

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/treasury-sells-29-billion-bonds-bringing-total-settled-us-debt-14311-trillion-more-debt-ceil

Dear Mr. President: Ignore Us @ Your Peril, Sincerely, We The People

ACORN Front Group Uses Police to Silence Questions

http://www.foundingbloggers.com/wordpress/2011/03/video-behold-the-repression-inherent-in-the-system/

Trump and Geraldo Debate Obama’s Birth Certificate

     Using Interested Bystander’s line, Trump says that Obama should just release the Birth Certificate:

Pet Your Dog……, and Thank Your Mother

What did we do to deserve dogs? Is it because we always treat them kindly, never yell at them or kick ‘em? Or because we promise to pamper them and pick up their poop? Why did God decide to gift humans with such a loyal companion?

I have a typical teenager in my house; wakes up late, rushes through the chores, grabs his backpack and then hurries off to school. The dogs wolf down their chow, accompany him to feed the horses and wait outside the door on the wild chance they might catch a scratch behind the ears or a “good dog” as he passes by. The car drives off takin’ him to school. They watch with the faint hope that somehow it might breakdown or turn around and come back. Alas, after it disappears from sight they disperse deflated, maybe the way spectators do after a NASA launch, back to their mundane existence.

The dogs glimpse at me but unless I call, they plop down on the porch or go sniffing around the place for something, or anything. Killing time until … their boy comes home! At 3:30 p.m. they surround the returned car, jostling for position, lining up to be recognized, acknowledged, petted, loved.

If you were able to ask the dogs what they did all day, they probably couldn’t tell you … just piddling, chase a rabbit, find a bone, bark at the javalina, but mostly just wait.

And I doubt if they have any sense of how much time has elapsed since the boy’s morning departure. I mean, what’s time to a dog. Any consciousness of it disappears the instant the boy opens the car door. They live for the moment.

He scratches and rubs and pats them as they circle him, tails banging, tongues lolling, whimpers of ‘pet me, pet me!’, bobbin’ like seals in the water, all beggin’ for attention. Oh, and so sad when the teen, preoccupied with urgency, goes inside, pushing through his canine fan club without so much as a howdy. They are stunned; no, confused. “We’ve waited all day, however long that is,” they must be thinking, “Why didn’t he stop? Where did he go?”

But then their minds quickly reset and they resolutely lie down by the door, knowing their boy is home and they have a good chance of seeing him next time the door comes open, even if it is the next morning. And I watch all this drama, wishing I could impress on my son the importance of appreciating their devotion and how even a simple pat on the head lasts all day.

Then I remember my own youth and it wasn’t ‘til I was a grown man with teens of my own that it dawned on me to thank my Mother, to call her occasionally. So, I guess what goes around comes around.

Remember, there’s always time to pet your dog.

https://www.drafthorsejournal.com/read/spring2009/common-sense

Biden Team Locks Reporter in Closet During Event: A News Story EVERY Reporter Should Be Covering, But Aren’t

*** REPORTER CONFINED IN CLOSET DURING VEEP’S FUNDRAISER ***

Sat March 26 2011 17:04:37 EDT

Staffers with Vice President Joe Biden confined an Orlando Sentinel reporter in a closet this week to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests gathered for a Democratic fundraiser.

Reporter Scott Powers was the designated “pool reporter” for the vice president’s Wednesday visit to the massive Winter Park, Fla., home of developer and philanthropist Alan Ginsburg. The veep hadn’t arrived yet but most of the 150 guests (minimum $500 donation) had. They were busy noshing on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese and bacon deviled eggs, before a lunch of grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps.

Not so for Powers. A “low-level staffer” put Powers in a storage closet and then stood guard outside the door, Powers told the DRUDGE REPORT. “When I’d stick my head out, they’d say, ‘Not yet. We’ll let you know when you can come out.’

 

 ”

And no crustini for Powers, either. He made do with a bottle of water to sip as he sat at a tiny makeshift desk, right next to a bag marked “consignment.” Powers was closeted at about 11:30 a.m., held for about an hour and 15 minutes, came out for 35 minutes of remarks by Biden and Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, and then returned to his jail for the remainder of the event.

Powers’ phone didn’t work in the closet, but his Blackberry did, so he fired a picture of his impromptu prison to his editors, who posted a short blog item on the lack of freedom of the press under the veep’s control.

Powers didn’t mention his confinement in either of his pool reports that day, saying only that “press coverage was limited to a single pool reporter, filing on behalf of all local media, who was allowed to listen to the remarks but not given an opportunity to talk with anyone at the event.”

On Friday, Powers said, the home’s owner called him. “He said he had no idea they’d put me in a closet and was very sorry. He said he was just following their lead and was extremely embarrassed by the whole thing.”

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash7.html

NOTE: As of 3/26, the Orlando Sentinel had not acknowledged the incident, editors obviously preferring to keep the matter low key. From a journalistic standpoint, one would think that the entire matter would be screaming across the front page of the newspaper and the television stations picking it up. CRIMES were committed.

Geraldine Ferraro Passes Away @ 75

     A political iconic figure has lost her long battle with blood cancer.

     The family of Geraldine Ferraro announced this morning that the former Congresswoman, and the first female Democrat Vice-Presidential candidate, had passed away.

       Ms. Ferraro was the VP pick of Walter Mondale in 1984, and despite losing the election, her place in history was secured, and she has been an ardent voice in the political scene throughout the years.

       Providing the “fair and balance”, she has served as a Fox News contributor, appearing on Hannity, Bill O’Reilly’s “The Factor”, “On the Record”. Several months ago, she appeared with Gov. Sarah Palin, and discussed the parallels of their lives and careers.

       As Democrat strategist Susan Estrich said today regardless of your views, she was respected for her viewpoint.