It's only a matter of hours before a Michelle Malkin files a criminal complaint against this kid's mother, don't you think?

The mother of a Maryland second-grader who questioned First Lady Michelle Obama about the Obama administration's immigration policy will not be deported, federal officials said Thursday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not take action against the mother, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“ICE is a federal law enforcement agency that focuses on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes criminal aliens who pose a threat to our communities," spokesman Matthew Chandler said in an e-mail. "Our investigations are based on solid law enforcement work and not classroom Q and As.”

On Wednesday the little girl asked Obama why the president was "taking everybody away that doesn't have papers."

"That's something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers," Obama said.

"But my mom doesn't have any papers," the student said as the first lady ended her answer.

The exchange went viral almost immediately and provided the most unscripted, "real world" moment of an otherwise over-scripted series of events in honor of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's state visit.

In an interview conducted in Spanish after the event, the 7-year old girl told a reporter: “I’m a big girl and I don’t want to be left with nothing. I could almost die.”

“My mommy wants papers so that she can be here legally, so that she doesn’t have to go to Peru,” the girl said (according to a rough translation by the bilingual Eye.)

Ed.: Sure enough, the disappointment is palpable at Malkin's place.

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As Art Linkletter useta say ...

"My mom said … Barack Obama is going to take away everybody that doesn't have papers," one girl told the first lady.

"Yeah, well, that's something that we have to work on, right?" Mrs. Obama replied. "To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That's exactly right."

The girl countered, "But my mom doesn't have any."

"Well, we have to work on that, we have to fix that and everybody's got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens. That's right," Mrs. Obama said before moving on to the next question.

I know Rahm Emanuel and his Blue Dogs wanna put immigration reform off for as long as they can. But I'm not sure how long they're going to be able to. The real-world pressure to solve this mess is mounting. And the best part is: progressive solutions will work.

As the LA Times piece notes:

"This heartbreaking exchange says more about the current state of the immigration debate than the remarks of the two presidents in the Rose Garden," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigration reform group, noting that deportations nationally have gone up under Obama.

The Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency says its priority is to remove illegal immigrants who are violent criminals. But it maintains a goal of 400,000 deportations this year, which would be a record. Most of those people would not fall into the criminal category, agency statistics show, and some probably would include parents of children who are U.S. citizens.

No doubt the right-wingers will demand that federal officials track down this little girl's mother and deport her posthaste. Sounds like a job for Stalkin' Malkin.

Stories on mainstream sites that begin with "sources tell..." but do not name those sources usually end badly. This one is no exception. Because OMG, can you believe this? Faisal Shahzad has been on a Homeland Security List since 1999!!! CBS News says it, so it must be true, right? As usual, the answer is yes, and no.

The Department of Homeland Security and concept of 'no-fly' lists were not born until 2002 -- November 25, 2002-- to be exact, when President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act. Here's a handy timeline.

CBS News Investigates, in their own words:

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list - Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) - between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.

Well, that doesn't really square with the large headline saying he was "ON A LIST", does it? Sometime between 1999 and 2008 is not "since 1999", no matter how you spin it.

TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law.

Yeah, not so much on the purpose of the TECS database, CBS. Here's the official word from the DOJ archives on what TECS is. TECS II is a container database for specific data on people entering and leaving the US. The key passage:

As noted above, IBIS is a multi-agency database of lookout information that was initiated in 1989 to improve border enforcement and facilitate inspection of individuals applying for admission to the United States at ports of entry and pre-inspection facilities. IBIS is a joint effort of the INS, the Customs Service, and the Departments of Agriculture and State.11 It combines lookout information from 27 agencies into the Treasury Enforcement Communications System II (TECS II) database. The system, created and maintained by United States Customs Service, supports federal agencies by collecting information on individuals suspected of illegal activities.

TECS II was created to maintain and receive information on persons entering the United States and now serves as the central database for IBIS.

I can see why the CBS News Investigates person was confused. Use of the generic term "the system" could certainly lead one to conclude the reference was to TECS II. It could also lead one to conclude that the IBIS database is the "lookout" database which is part of the larger system combining Treasury Enforcement Data. Whatever it was, it was initiated in 1989, and the TECS database contained the IBIS database.

I'm mostly disturbed by the 30-point bold headline on the CBS.com site and article suggesting some sort of failure on someone's part because this man may have landed on a list years before the DHS was even a glimmer in Cheney's eye.

Yes, he was in a database. So am I. So are you. So what? He brought cash into the country in excess of $10,000. Maybe they suspected him of dealing drugs. Who knows? The existence of a name on a list is evidence of absolutely nothing beyond evidence of a list. And a name.

(h/t The Political Carnival)

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Fox News' anchors seemed eager to assure viewers today that the plane-crash attack on IRS offices in Austin this morning was not an act of domestic terrorism.

Oh really?

Now, it's true that Homeland Security officials originally released this statement:

“We believe there’s no nexus with criminal or terrorist activity”

They later amended this to just say "terrorist activity." Fox's Catherine Herridge also reported that Homeland Security officials had briefed President Obama on the incident, and that he had been told "this was not an act of terrorism."

So how did Fox's anchors interpret all this?

Greg Jarrett:

And the president was told this was not an act of terrorism. We have not received word, though, as to whether the F-16s are still airborne, just in case, until the Department of Homeland Security and the military is absolutely satisfied that this is the act of a single individual who used a dangerous instrumentality, to be sure, a plane, as a weapon.

And it is akin, I suppose, Megan, to, you know, somebody who gets angry at a workplace, and takes a gun, or a knife, and goes in and begins to attack people. This is unusual because instead of a gun or an automobile, it was indeed an airplane. But it has happened before.

Megyn Kelly:

Our Homeland Security contacts telling us, this does not appear to be terrorism in any way that that word is conventionally understood. We understand from officials that this is a sole, isolated act.

Well, this is true only if the conventional understanding of the word "terrorism" has now been narrowed down to mean only international terrorism and to preclude domestic terrorism altogether.

Since when, after all, is attempting to blow up a federal office as a protest against federal policies NOT an act of domestic terrorism?

Continue reading »

Fred Hiatt, always watching those tricksy Democrats for an opportunity to poke them in the eye, complains in his paper that it's really been the Democrats who have been politicizing national security, not the Republicans. In particular, he points to the sudden silence regarding the mandate for 100 percent cargo screening that Congress laid on the Department of Homeland Security in 2007.

Port security hasn't been in the news lately, so you could be forgiven for not seeing a connection between Brennan's incendiary charge and shipping containers. But not so long ago, Democratic politicians were absolutely convinced, or so they claimed, that President George W. Bush was putting the nation in grave danger by failing to inspect every container that arrived on our shores in a cargo ship.

Sen. John F. Kerry lambasted Bush during the 2004 campaign for screening only 5 percent of incoming cargo. After Bush's reelection, Sen. Robert Menendez helped shepherd through Congress a bill mandating 100 percent inspection by 2012 and said that anything less "is irresponsible and downright negligent." Then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Bennie Thompson -- now chair of the Homeland Security Committee -- piled on.

--------

Fast-forward to the Obama administration; screening policy hasn't changed. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano signaled more than a year ago, and confirmed in December, that the 2012 deadline mandated by law will not be met. The technology doesn't exist, she explained, and neither does the money. In fact, the administration's 2011 budget reduces funding for cargo inspection overseas and for pilot programs aimed at reaching the 100 percent goal.

The reaction from Democrats? Near silence. Rep. Thompson, at the end of a statement praising Obama's homeland security budget, allowed that he was "disappointed" on the matter of container screening. Menendez wrote to Napolitano last March expressing "concern," and a spokesman told me he is writing another letter. A Nadler spokesman said that "since we haven't had an official pronouncement from the administration" that the deadline won't be met, "we haven't made an official response."

---------

So was the nation not in imminent danger when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was pursuing a policy identical to Napolitano's, and getting beat up for it? Were Democrats, in Brennan's shocked words, "misrepresenting the facts to score political points?"

They were, of course. But there's a more serious point than noting that both sides do it. Democrats were playing politics with national security -- but they also were raising legitimate questions about al-Qaeda's ability to smuggle in a nuclear device. As Obama reduces the screening budget, the real danger may be the lack of serious oversight from Democrats who once raised alarms.

Now you may need a moment to just get past Fred Hiatt's tactic of misdirecting the Brennan issue on the Repubs' flagrant politicization of whether the FBI should turn the Underwear Bomber over to the military for "enhanced interrogation" or on the general issue of Republican hypocrisy on, oh, so many things - national security and otherwise. But this issue of cargo scanning is particularly interesting, in that while the original House resolution was sponsored by a Democrat and cosponsored by 205 others, it did in fact pass the House with 68 Republican votes. Interesting how 128 House Republicans were able to vote against a bill titled "Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act."

The Senate agreed to the conference report by a vote of 85-8. The eight Republican Senators who decided that the US government should not implement the 9/11 commission's recommendations included those true patriots Jon Kyl, Liz Dole, Tom Coburn, Jim Inhofe, Jim DeMint, Lindsey Graham, John Barrasso, and Michale Enzi. You know, the usual wack-jobs. To be clear, this public law wasn't just about cargo screening, but also a number of other homeland security initiatives (including the stand-up of a National Biosurveillance Integration Center, WMD proliferation prevention, and enhancing interagency coordination on defenses against rad/nuke weapons).

That said, the idea that the US government should physically scan every cargo container entering the United States was and continues to be an extremely bad one. It was an issue that was not carefully considered, that was generated in the heat of discussions about "nuclear terrorism," without regard to the cost and impact of its implementation. It was always a bad idea, and Big Business knew it was a bad idea. It would delay shipments and increase costs, and those are Bad Things, even when homeland security is the issue. Republicans understood this, and while many supported the passage of this bill, they took no action to actually push the Bush administration into doing anything about its delay on implementing the cargo screening actions.

So now the Dems are in charge, it's their people in DHS who have to explain that they can't meet the public law's requirements, given the state of technology, the potential cost of implementing such a strategy, and the potential impact on the flow of economic goods. And the Dems are quiet in Congress. Shocked? I'm not. Maybe it's sinking in that this was not a well-thought out plan, that its basis for being (interdicting nuclear weapons or radiological material) was perhaps more emotional than logical. Instead of pointing out the obvious, that this was a bipartisan screw-up and perhaps we need a better, less emotional approach to homeland security, Fred would rather politicize the example to poke the Dems in the eye on national security. Because the Repubs have been such good stewards of national security and aren't at all hypocrites. What an asshat.

Hey Fred, why don't you hire more previous Bush administration officials to write for the Post? Your op-ed page isn't conservative enough with regular entries from George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Kathleen Parker, Bob Kagan and William Kristol. And then there's that f***in' retard Michael Gerson.

Graphic courtesy of BlueGal

Okay, I'm going to 'fess up that I'm extremely cranky this morning. On the advice of my doctors, I decided to start the new year with a two week detox--no caffeine, no alcohol, no meat, only whole grains and organic vegetables. Understand that coffee is one of my major food groups, so I've not quite stopped jonesing for that morning cuppa to feel the benefits of the detox yet. So maybe I'm not in the best frame of mind for the Sunday shows. It's clear that the Underpants Bomber is going to be the big topic of the day, but it's also clear that we're not really interested in discussing the subject honestly. As Media Matters notes:

Among the guests appearing tomorrow will be Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) on CNN's State of the Union. Will guest host Gloria Borger ask DeMint about his vote against the FY 2010 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which included $4,358,076,000 in funding for screening operations by TSA, $1,116,406,000 of which was specifically for explosives detection systems? [Senate Vote #323, 10/20/09]

Or how about his vote against the Improving America's Security Act of 2007, which implemented recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, including several provisions related to airline security? [Senate Vote #284, 7/26/07]

Of course those questions won't be asked. Jay Rosen came up with a fairly simple (yet completely maverick) solution for the Sunday shows: fact-check your guests:

I think the situation calls for cynicism. But I have to admit that is not much of a call. So instead I propose this modest little fix, first floated on Twitter in a post I sent out to Betsy Fischer, Executive Producer of Meet the Press, who never replies to anything I say. "Sadly, you're a one-way medium," I said to Fischer, "but here's an idea for ya: Fact check what your guests say on Sunday and run it online Wednesday."

Now I don't contend this would solve the problem of the Sunday shows, which is structural. But it might change the dynamic a little bit. Whoever was bullshitting us more could expect to hear about it from Meet the Press staff on Wednesday. The midweek fact check (in the spirit of Politifact.com, which could even be hired for the job...) might, over time, exert some influence on the speakers on Sunday. At the very least, it would guide the producers in their decisions about whom to invite back.

The midweek fact check would also give David Gregory a way out of his puppy game of gotcha. Instead of telling David Axelrod that his boss promised to change the tone in Washington so why aren't there any Republican votes for health care? ... which he thinks is getting "tough" with a guest, Gregory's job would simply be to ask the sort of questions, the answers to which could be fact checked later in the week. Easy, right?

The beauty of this idea is that it turns the biggest weakness of political television--the fact that time is expensive, and so complicated distortions, or simple distortions about complicated matters, are rational tactics for advantage-seeking pols---into a kind of strength. The format beckons them to evade, deny, elide, demagogue and confuse.... but then they pay for it later if they give into temptation and make that choice.

Fact-checking, what a novel concept.

ABC's "This Week" - John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism; Sens. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, and Susan Collins, R-Maine; Reps. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Journalists' roundtable.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Brennan; former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; former CIA director Michael Hayden; Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Katty Kay, Dan Rather, John Harris, Helene Cooper. Topics: Which of Seven Tough Storylines Will Take Hold Against Obama in 2010? What Are the Big Political Predictions for 2010?

CNN's "State of the Union" - Brennan; former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, chairman of 9/11 commission; Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Fran Townsend, a former White House homeland security adviser for President George W. Bush; Richard Ben-Veniste, 9/11 commission member; former CIA official Michael Scheuer.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - As we approach the 1st anniversary of President Obama's inauguration, a look back at his first year in office. Did he meet the challenges? Plus, Fareed's conversation with Tom Ricks on the Battle of Wanat and what it means for the troops heading to Afghanistan. Finally, a new conversation with Asia expert Kishore Mahbubahni on whether China's economic and political strength will continue to grow and what that means for the rest of the world.

CNN's "Amanpour" - Women for sale; Afghan opium.

"Fox News Sunday" - Brennan; Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.

So while I shake off my coffee blues, what's catching your eye this morning?

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Xenophobic Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, has raised a lot of eyebrows. Besides his very public hatred of Hispanics, he's also established ties with a Neo-Nazi group in his home state. Arpaio's obliteration of civil rights has finally caught up with him and the Obama Administration is finally pushing back:

A controversial Arizona sheriff known for taking a hard line against illegal immigrants has been stripped of some of his powers in what he described as a political move by the Obama administration.

Under a two-year-old agreement with the federal department of homeland security, Arpaio and his deputies had been authorised to enforce federal immigration law by arresting suspected illegal immigrants in the field and by checking the immigration status of people arrested on other offences.

But after drawing thousands of complaints and a civil rights investigation from the justice department, Arpaio was this week stripped of his federal authority to make immigration arrests. County attorney Andrew Thomas, one of Arpaio's supporters, condemned the "setback in the fight against illegal immigration". Read on...

This is a positive sign and I applaud the White House for taking making this happen. It's long overdue.

Tom Ridge wants to have it both ways. He sat on his hands then to save his job and now he wants to get paid again. Remember, he could have made a difference. Now he describes the terror alerts he propagated as "political" when he has a book to sell, but it's not sitting well with a lot of us, especially when he already knew that in 2004.

First, the timing of terror alerts raises questions that aren’t adequately answered.

If there’s no intent to benefit the president in a re-election year, Ridge should say more than “we don’t play politics” at the Department of Homeland Security.

Especially after doing a virtual campaign ad by announcing “new” threats just after the Democratic convention and praising “the president’s leadership in the war against terror.”

And it wasn’t said off the cuff or in answer to a question. It was said in prepared remarks.

It makes Ridge more salesman than guardian, more political servant than public servant.

Same with failing to divulge the full context of information on potential terror sites later revealed as three to four years old.

How does pushing the president while holding back the truth give anyone confidence “we don’t play politics”?

Maybe he’s told what to say, when and how, and maybe that’s why he wants out. A source close to Ridge tells me the relationship between Ridge and the White House “isn’t what it used to be.” Still, it’s his gig.

Homeland Security Official Arrested

WOW:

"The deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday for using the Internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl, authorities said. Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested at his residence in Maryland on charges of use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of harmful material to a minor. The charges were issued out of Polk County, Fla. Doyle, of Silver Spring, Md., had a sexually explicit conversation with what he believed was a 14-year-old girl whose profile he saw on the Internet on March 14, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said in a statement...read on"

Update: John has more about his role in Airport security.

"Frank Figueroa...read on"

Is this a third? From MSNBC:

Michael Burks: My father was a police officer. I was a police officer. I work for the Department of Homeland security. I understand you guys have a job to do and I’m not trying to tell anything else other than that. I swear to God, as God as my witness, I’m wearing a St. Michael’s medal right now, okay? I was not going to do anything with her.

(h/t jpg)