Staffers at CPAC quickly scrambled to confiscate Russian flags with the word "TRUMP" written on the front that were being waved by attendees during President Donald Trump's speech on Friday.

Rachel Maddow has the story.

"I will be interviewed by @TheBrodyFile on @CBNNews tonight at 11pm. Enjoy!"

Ali Jr., 44, who confirmed his Muslim faith, was detained about two hours, despite telling officials that he's Ali's son and a native-born U.S. citizen, Mancini said. It was the first time Ali Jr. and his mother have ever been asked if they're Muslim when re-entering the United States, he said.

Editor,

Americans kill 30,000 of each other every year with the Second Amendment or drunk behind the wheel..

Yawn.  Price of liberty, etc.

Foreign terrorists kill fewer Americans than toddlers who find loaded guns.  Or falling trees.  Or lightning.  Or kitchen accidents.  Or drownings in community pools.

But terrorists!  Sky is falling!  We must spend billions and kill a lot of people in other countries to protect us from this non-threat.

I am a US Army veteran, E5, Honorable Discharge, because I accepted the responsibility that some people have to take risks to ensure liberty.  But that applies to all Americans, not just the young and physically fit who serve in uniform.  Now that I am out of uniform, I do not cower in my home because of the very real threats posed by guns and drunk drivers.  I am ashamed that paranoia over lesser threats posed by foreigners drives government policy.

Cowardice is now the new American standard.  When did the United States stop being the home of the brave?  When will Americans remember that freedom isn't free?

You know, I know you all know this, but the last time a president came to CPAC in his first year, it was Ronald Reagan.
(APPLAUSE) Saint Ronald in 1981

Bannon makes a funny  

I happen to believe, and I think many others do, he's probably the great public speaker in those large arenas since William Jennings Bryan.

Just like they were dead wrong on the chaos of the campaign and just like they were dead wrong in the chaos of the transition, they are absolutely dead wrong about what's going on today  

Prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia had asked the judge to let 13 other women testify, a list they developed after reviewing claims by nearly 50 of the accusers who have come forward in recent years. The defense objected to their testimony, saying the string of old "casting couch" claims are not unique to Cosby and therefore not part of "signature" behavior...

...The one witness who can testify says she was assaulted by Cosby in 1996 in Los Angeles.

NPR: DeVos, Defiant At CPAC, Walks A Fine Line On Transgender Rights

Over roast duck, yellow curry, and papaya salad, I had a long discussion last night with someone many of whose downriver Detroit relatives voted for the orange man.

Many of them are denying it now.  EdSec DeVos is roundly distrusted or hated.  Her conservative, fundamentalist brother refuses to insult Trump over the phone, warning her that the NSA is listening.  This from a guy who runs a successful software business; he's not an idiot.  Cousins who trumpeted for Trump pre election are now denying having voted for him.  An uncle, 75 years old, brags that he didn't vote for Trump; he "protest voted" against both candidates.  He's mortified when she tells him, "you voted for Trump."  

The Washington Post | February 24, 2017
He yelled `Get out of my country,' witnesses say, and then shot 2 men from India, killing one - "Authorities in Kansas filed first-degree murder charges against a man accused of opening fire in a bar there, killing one Indian man, injuring two other people and causing fears about bigotry to reverberate across the globe. According to witness accounts, the gunman reportedly told two of the people who were shot -- both Indian men who work for Garmin, the technology firm -- to 'get out of my country' before opening fire and had also used racial slurs during the Wednesday evening shooting."

http://tinyurl.com/zgwabo8

The contentious race that has split party members appears headed for a close finish.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and many of his allies are backing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a progressive firebrand and favorite of the left.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and other key figures from the Obama administration back former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

Democrats have done their best to quash the notion that the DNC chair race is a proxy war between these competing wings of the party.

One interesting candidate with a outside shot of winning would be

In just 24 hours, members of the Democratic National Committee will vote for their next chair. Supporters of Mayor Pete Buttigieg are there campaigning for him.

According to internal Trump administration correspondence seen by The Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security has decided at the last minute to block Khaled Khateeb from traveling to Los Angeles for the Oscars.

The White House also removed all of the data from its portal of searchable federal data. The site previously included data on everything from budgets to climate change to LGBT issues. It now displays a message telling people to: "Check back soon for new data."

It is not known if "Jim" is related to "John Barron" or "John Miller," the terrific PR man who sounded precisely like Trump, himself, who was a very boastful advocate for Trump.

Parisian Mayor Anne Hidalgo tried to allay the fears of "Jim" who was too scared to return to Paris, noting the increase in American tourism; and by President Hollande, who acknowledged the need for all to work, together, cooperatively against terrorists.

He said he estimates that wealthy investors who use high-priced advisers have wasted over $100 billion over the past decade.

To prove his point, Buffett recounted the first nine years of a 10-year bet he made that an S&P 500 index fund will outperform a collection of hedge funds. He made the wager with the money managers who own Protege Partners LLC a few months before the recession began in 2008 with both sides picking a charity that would get at least $1 million.

Buffett's chosen index fund has recorded an 85.4 percent gain over than time while the hedge funds delivered an average of 22 percent.

And the Razzie for the year's absolute worst movie goes to Dinesh D-Souza's paranoid equivalent of a mob hit on acid, "Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party," a monumental and richly deserving waste of celluloid which received a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Had you bothered to educate yourself by watching "Hillary's America," you'd have no doubt learned that the Democratic Party was single-handedly responsible for slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, the Ku Klux Klan, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the First World War, the Great Depression, the attack on Pearl Harbor, Vietnam and AIDS.

Meanwhile, the American Civil War was really fought between Democrats and Republicans, Hillary Clinton is a conniving super-villain who harnessed Bill's insatiable lust for vulnerable women because it allowed her to control him for her own political gain, and Barack and Michelle Obama were under the spell of Saul Alinsky, who was coincidentally a friend of Al Capone.

Does it all make sense to you now? If not, have another shot of Everclear, a bong hit laced with Angel Dust, and a sniff of model airplane glue.

Okay, getting back to Mr. D'Souza, he further received Razzies for Worst Actor (for portraying himself in the film as a self-styled political prisoner, having been convicted of felony-level illegal campaign contributions) and worst director (w/Bruce Schooley), so give the man a hand for hitting the trifecta.

Additionally, Becky Turner received the Razzie for Worst Actress for her (hopefully) career-defining turn as Hillary Clinton in D'Souza's cinematic bellyflop, in which she all too predictably booed and hissed at President Nixon on her TV in her dorm while surrounded by lesbians at Wellesley College. Next up for Ms. Turner, the lead roles in "Ninja Vixens" and "On Golden Blonde."

Tying "Hillary's America" with four Razzies is "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice," for Worst Screen Combo (Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill), Worst Supporting Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), Worst Remake / Prequel / Sequel / Ripoff, Worst Screenplay.

Early favorite "Zoolander 2" only managed to snag one Razzie, for Kirsten Wiig as Worst Supporting Actress.

Variety in our gene pool matters when we seek to understand why some people can dunk a basketball or compose a sonnet, and why some people persistently break the law. The effects of genetic differences make some people more impulsive and shortsighted than others, some people more healthy or infirm than others, and, despite how uncomfortable it might be to admit, genes also make some folks more likely to break the law than others.

Behavioral algorithms, are already being created, compiled from the massive amount of data we willingly hand over to our Overlords, Google and FaceBook.

Minority Report, and one of the Marvel movies both touched upon the benefits for society to take preventive action, one by using a algorithm, the other by psychic means.

Sort of eliminating the concept of free will and choices.

I do believe that science will eventually go there, if they haven't already, as expressed by another favorite of mine, Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Ian: Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. ... Ian Malcolm:

There continues to be a gross underestimation, even among politically aware liberals, of what we are really up against, and how to counter it. Increasingly, our fellow citizens are resorting to the concepts of fascism to describe the current situation, but this is not necessarily followed by any cogent reflection on what the political subject under fascism needs to do. Ordinary liberal prescriptions have no chance of success under a regime that has moved into an overt fascist mode; moreover, the unacknowledged continuities from the recent neoliberal past, which led to the fascist overture in the first place, mar any consistency of thought among intellectuals, activists and ordinary citizens.

The time has come to explore modes of existence that only make sense under a fascist regime, or rather, are the only modes that make sense under fascist conditions. Above all, the question of moral disengagement from any existing political practice must be taken seriously, and this includes so-called "resistance." Are there things that pass under the activist rubric today that are actually strengthening fascism rather than weakening it? If that is the case, then those activities must undergo severe scrutiny, because it may well be that what seems like activism is actually "passivism," and vice versa.

caseyOR: "I saw 'LaLaLand' and enjoyed it, but no way is it the Best Picture this year. In fact, of all this year's nominees, I would pug it near the end of the pack."

I enjoyed "La La Land" and had fun identifying the various places where it was filmed in my old stomping grounds, including one scene in the old hospital where I was born, Pasadena's St. Luke Medical Center (now closed.)

But the movie is a quintessential Hollywood love letter to both itself and L.A., and its innate appeal to the city's own cinematic narcissism is an unfortunate reason why many Academy members might have voted for it.

Now, "La La Land" is by no means a bad movie, and indeed in many respects is actually quite good. But is it really "Best Picture," given the quality of its competitors in that category? I don't think so.

"Moonlight" would be my personal selection, and "Hidden Figures" and "Fences" would also both be worthier than "La La Land." (I've yet to see "Lion.")

As for "Manchester by the Sea," its extraordinarily strong acting performances by Casey Affleck, Michele Williams et al., were almost overshadowed by the film's unfortunate tendency to belabor itself into tedium at key moments.

One flashback scene in particular went on interminably for what seemed like 10 minutes, when 90 seconds would've likely sufficed to inform the audience what happened. Further, much of this scene played out in slow motion, no less, accompanied by an overly maudlin classical music score, all of which served only to further browbeat its audience with the general pathos of the painfully extended moment.

The actors in "Manchester" deserve all the praise they've thus far received, but the film itself, well, probably not so much.