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Oh, dear. This is probably not the symbolism the White House wanted. 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.” Earnest said...

John Brennan was sworn in today at the White House. He was confirmed as the new CIA director yesterday. ... He does not appear to have placed his hand on a Bible, a Torah, a Koran, or other sacred religious text as he said the oath.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Rand Paul, ladies and gentlemen, is actually doing a filibuster as we speak. He's doing a talking filibuster. He's actually on the floor of the Senate trying to shut it down. This is over the nomination of John Brennan to be the next CIA director. What Rand Paul is upset about is the domestic drone program that everybody in the regime says is perfectly fine. Obama and Eric Holder say, "Yeah, we're perfectly content with a program of having drones in the air domestically." Eric Holder, the attorney general, refused to say that Americans cannot be killed...

On Wednesday afternoon, Christopher Anders, Senior Legislative Council at the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington D.C., spoke with Breitbart News exclusively about Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster of the John Brennan nomination to CIA director over the administration’s failures to answer questions about domestic use of drones. Anders backed Paul to the hilt, and was highly critical of the Obama administration.

YESSen. Paul filibuster: 8 hours, 20 minutes

Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) took to the Senate floor today to filibuster President Obama’s nominee for CIA director, John Brennan, as well as to challenge the administration’s policy on drones. Paul began speaking at approximately 11:47 this morning, and we will keep updating this post with highlights from the senator and others.

On the eve of Tuesday afternoon’s vote by the Senate Intelligence Committee on the confirmation of John O. Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the White House agreed to provide more information both on the legal basis for targeted killings and on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans last September. With a committee vote set for a closed session beginning at 2:30 p.m., senators will get access to all Justice Department legal opinions on the targeted killing of Americans, the committee’s Democratic chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, said in a statement. Two such...

John Guandolo : President, Guandolo Associates Robert Spencer Jihad Watch

Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee finally received yesterday what they had demanded for months — and it may have turned into an anti-climax. The White House allowed access to internal e-mails of the Obama administration regarding the preparation of talking points for Susan Rice after the attack on our Benghazi consulate, which some suspected would show that the Obama administration had changed the information to downplay terrorism as the basis of the attack. According to Chad Pergram at Fox, though, the e-mails don’t show anything like that (via Kevin Glass): Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee today received a...

It could have been easy. January 22 was not a good day for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it could have been far worse. The 2013 parliamentary elections meant that for the first time in his long political career, he would be leading the largest in the Knesset. Though his joint Likud-Beitenu list won only 31 seats — around 23% of the vote — Israel’s center-left was fractured and it always appeared certain that Bibi would keep his job. After all, despite his party’s underwhelming performance, there appeared to be two options for coalitions he could easily form. The...

The White House is preparing to cede more ground to Senate Republican foes and hand over documents related to the Benghazi attacks to try to secure the confirmation of John Brennan to run the CIA, POLITICO has confirmed. After releasing official timelines, an investigation and sending Cabinet officials up to Capitol Hill for hearings, now the Obama administration has agreed to surrender email messages between top national security officials that discuss how to describe the Sept. 11 attack, a Senate aide confirmed Friday evening.

The Obama administration is refusing to hand over full details of its targeted killing programme in order to ensure John Brennan takes up his post as head of the CIA, according to a report. The White House is said to be considering handing over details of the Benghazi scandal to Republicans rather than give up the secrets of its drone strikes. The move is infuriating Democrats who have long called for full disclosure of classified legal memos in relation to targeted killings. nstead President Obama seems content to risk their wrath to win more support for Mr Brennan.

Yesterday Sean Hannity interviewed on his radio show Jack Murphy and Brandon Webb for their new book Benghazi: The Definitive Report. I’ve clipped a portion of their interview below which describes something very different than what we’ve ever heard about what led to the attack on the ‘consulate’ and the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods. In short there were two operations going on in Benghazi, neither of which Stevens nor the CIA [Petraeus] were made aware, that made the situation on the ground in Benghazi far more dangerous than they even knew....

Senator Rubio, It is my understanding the GOP plans to fold next week and allow Hussein to appoint Hagel as SecDef. I hope I am wrong, and if I am, please disregard. I watched the stumbling fool give non-answers to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. I know the GOP months ago asked for clarification to his possible contacts with radical Muslim groups. His recorded remarks over the years drip with anti-Semitism. With Hagel at Defense, Brennan at CIA, our military will be eviscerated, Israel will be destroyed and Obama's Muslim Brotherhood allies will reign supreme from Morocco to...

As the details about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, continue to emerge, a new ebook claims to unveil what it says are the “both uncomfortable and unsatisfying” facts surrounding the events leading up to, during and after the attack. Some have already said the details included in ”Benghazi: The Definitive Report,” which was released Tuesday by authors Jack Murphy, a former Army Ranger and member of the 5th Special Forces Group, and Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL, are “shocking but hard to prove.” Webb is the editor-in-chief of SOFREP.com (the Special Operations...

Obama with his “we can’t wait for Congress to act” ... there is one man who wields more power than Obama: CIA appointee John Brennan. ... recently discovered that Brennan, running something akin to a fiefdom with his drone assassination program, has the power to decide who lives and who dies and doesn’t have to provide evidence to any entity that the “target” presents any threat to America—even if they are an American—even if the American is living in the United States ... the United States, leading up to the 2011 Libyan civil war had been flooding Libya with literally...

Folks, don’t look now but the pieces of the Benghazi puzzle are starting to come together. Check out this video from Tom Trento – the same guy who interviewed John Guandolo last week about John Brennan’s alleged conversion to Islam. Before scoffing at the conversion, ask yourself if Brennan HAD converted to Islam, would he have had an interest in shipping weapons from Libya, to Turkey, then on to Syria to help the Brotherhood fight Bashar al-Assad? The answer to that question is an emphatic yes. “The threat of Islam is predicted all over the Bible, read and study Walid...

Sen. Rand Paul told USA Today Wednesday that he is prepared to put a "hold" on John Brennan's nomination to head the CIA and to filibuster it if necessary until the administration responds to his questions about the use of drones in the United States. The Kentucky Republican said he would do "whatever it takes" to block Brennan's confirmation until he directly answers whether American citizens legally can be killed by drone strikes within U.S. borders. ...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Richard Burr, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that the CIA has “flatly refused” to give some Benghazi-related documents to the committee, which is conducting an investigation of the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the State Department and CIA personnel and facilities in Benghazi, Libya. Sen. Burr made the assertion last week at the confirmation hearing for John Brennan, whom President Barack Obama has nominated to be director of the CIA. Brennan currently serves as the president's counterterrorism adviser. “Mr. Brennan, as you know, the committee's conducting a thorough inquiry into the...

Amid the Administration’s rush to: apologize for and disregard America’s founding principles; financially and militarily support America’s enemies like Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhood entities (read “Egypt”); embrace noxious regimes like Iran; handle the assassination of the U.S. Ambassador in Benghazi in Carteresque fashion; shrink America’s nuclear capabilities as well as the fighting forces of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps; and host terrorists in the White House while simultaneously allowing known Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood operatives to serve inside DHS, it should be no surprise to readers that President Obama has nominated a John Brennan to be the next Director of...