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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OK, so now Bill O'Reilly is just acting bizarre.

Remember how, on Tuesday, O'Reilly invited on Sen. Tom Coburn to demand he explain his recent criticism of Fox's health-care coverage (particularly the claim that failure to obtain health insurance will now result in jail time), and then proceeded to lie blatantly about what had been said on Fox News in that regard:

O'Reilly: OK, but can you tell me one person on Fox News, just one, who has told this audience that they'll go to jail if they don't buy health insurance.

...

O'Reilly: Well, why then was it legitimate to bring in Fox News in the discussion, when, No. 1, you don't know anybody on Fox News -- because there hasn't been anyone -- that said people will go to jail if they don't buy mandatory insurance.

...

O'Reilly: Well, tell me, what -- because it doesn't happen here. And we researched to find out if anybody on Fox News had ever said you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody's ever said it.

Note the language: O'Reilly is clearly insisting that NO ONE at Fox had EVER said any such thing. Not "had said it after the health-care bill had passed." Just EVER.

Because on his show last night, rather than admitting the error and moving along, O'Reilly instead doubled down and insisted that he was still right and Coburn was wrong -- even though we (and many others, most notably Media Matters and MSNBC's Countdown) were able to show plenty of video of plenty of Fox talkers in fact saying "you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance," perhaps most notoriously Glenn Beck on O'Reilly's own show.

Here's what O'Reilly claimed in his opening Talking Points Memo segment:

O'Reilly: Once again -- once again! -- NBC News has highlighted dishonest propaganda from the far-left Media Matters outfit. Sadly, Time Magazine also participated in the sham.

... Now Senator Coburn admitted he may have made a mistake, but to be fair, the mistake is understandable. Because last fall, when jail time was on the table, Fox News reported it, as we should have! Listen to these sound bites:

[Video clip: ABC News interview with President Obama, Nov. 9, 2009]

Jake Tapper: Do you think it's appropriate to have the threat of jail time for those who refuse to buy insurance?

Obama: You know, what I think is appropriate is that, in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance, and if you don't you're subject to some penalty.

[Video clip: Nancy Pelosi press conference, Nov. 9, 2009]

Reporter: I'm just trying to understand -- if you don't buy health insurance, you go to jail?

Pelosi: Well, there is -- I think the legislation is very fair in this respect.

All right, as we all know, the prison option was taken off the when the final Obama-care bill was being debated. And that's what we were talking to Senator Coburn about! The final bill debate! Not all that stuff! So what I said was absolutely true and nobody at Fox News reported inaccurately about the Obama-care prison situation. Nobody!

Sure, Bill. And your dog ate your homework, right?

It's a fact: O'Reilly claimed, pure and simple, that "nobody [at Fox] ever said" that you'd go to jail for failing to buy health insurance -- and plenty of people at Fox in fact said just that.

Indeed, O'Reilly compounds his original lie here by lying about whether there was a "prison option" in the Obama-care bill at all in the first place: There WAS NEVER A 'PRISON OPTION.' Watch those clips he runs carefully: Neither Obama nor Pelosi support the concept of jail time, but instead claim that the legislation treats people fairly. The questions asked in the clips themselves were based on a false premise: The penalty for failure to buy insurance in that legislation, just like the final version that passed, is a not imprisonment or arrest, but simply a tax -- and failure to pay taxes is a matter for the civil courts. The claim that "jail time" was on the table was an utterly false smear back then -- just as it was even more provably false after health-care reform passed.

Indeed, O'Reilly is simply fabricating when he tries to claim that "we all know" a "prison option" was "taken off." Does anyone know WTF he's talking about?

But that, believe it or not, is not even the most bizarre thing O'Reilly did in this segment. He followed this up by lecturing sternly -- without even a hint of irony or self-awareness -- on the threat posed to the health of the nation by news media who blatantly and nakedly lie, without remorse.

That's right, projection's not just for theaters:

O'Reilly: The importance of this is that you, the everyday American, are now being lied to on a regular basis by people working for huge corporations -- and nothing's being done about it. A voter-driven republic -- a voter-driven republic -- cannot survive if lies supersede the truth.

Continue reading »

The late Vic Chesnutt -- Flirted With You All My Life

On Christmas Day, Vic Chesnutt took his own life at the too-young age of 45 with an overdose of prescription pills. Vic carved out a small but not insignificant career as a folk musician, despite being a paraplegic, the result of a single car crash at 18. I thought of Vic as I looked at this week's roster of bobbleheads. Vic's music was darkly funny, and odd, and poetic, and it never let you forget that life for his was all about pain.

Mr. Chesnutt tackled death and mortality head-on in his lyrics, as in "It Is What It Is," from his new album "At the Cut":

"I don't worship anything, not gods that don't exist/I love my ancestors, but not ritually/I don't need stone altars to hedge my bet against the looming blackness/that is what it is."

In recent interviews he contemplated the challenges he faced as a wheelchair-bound paraplegic with inadequate health insurance and mounting medical bills.

"I'm not too eloquent talking about these things," Mr. Chesnutt told the Los Angeles Times this month. "I was making payments, but I can't anymore and I really have no idea what I'm going to do. It seems absurd they can charge this much. When I think about all this, it gets me so furious. I could die tomorrow because of other operations I need that I can't afford."

This needless death shouldn't have happened. And had our government representatives and leaders had the courage, foresight and fortitude to truly do what was right for all Americans--universal health care--it might not have happened. I wish that I could share the story with the bobbleheads and their enablers in the media to keep them from diverting the discussion to things that don't matter and for concerns that should come above the health of American citizens.

Robert Gibbs has the trifecta of ABC/CBS/NBC happening, presumably to talk about health care, but Janet Napolitano of Homeland Security is also a late booking to the shows. I'm guessing she'll be talking about the latest "terrorist" attempt. You can bet that the Republicans will be laying on thick the fear-mongering, with Mitch McConnell on This Week, Peter King on Face the Nation and Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press. Would that we could confront these guys with Vic Chesnutt's sad legacy and make them understand how their games affect people's very lives.

ABC's "This Week" - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Gibbs; Reps. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Peter King, R-N.Y.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Gibbs; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.; Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Andrew Card, former Bush White House chief of staff; John Podesta, former Clinton White House chief of staff and head of the Center for American Progress; Govs. Mitch Daniels, R-Ind., and Ed Rendell, D-Pa.; George Evans, mayor of Selma, Ala.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Russian President Dmity Medvedev, Malcolm Gladwell.

CNN's "Amanpour" - Amira Hass, Ha'aretz "Occupied Lands" correspondent, and former diplomat Aaron David Miller,discuss peace prospects in the Middle East. Al Qaeda in Europe: Christiane looks beyond the Middle East, to al Qaeda's growing influence in Europe.

"Fox News Sunday" - Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.; Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Arlen Specter, D-Pa., Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

On Face the Nation yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman said that he not only wants to strip out the public option, but also the Medicare buy-in at fifty-five.

"You have to take out the Medicare buy-in. You have to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the class act which was a whole new entitlement program that will in future years put us further into the deficit," Lieberman told CBS' Bob Schieffer Sunday.

"I want to tell you, we could pass a health care reform bill this week with more than 60 votes and it would be bipartisan if we just took a few things out of the bill as it is today," said Lieberman.

Lieberman wants to pass a Republican health care package, which is no plan at all. This bitter man is hijacking the entire health care reform effort for no other reasons than his petty, narcissistic agenda. He is a traitor to the liberal policies that once, as a vice-presidential nominee in 2000, he would have never signed onto.

Greg Sargent comes up with video proof which exposes Lieberman of being a bad-faith participant in health care negotiations. Holy Joe just three months ago was saying that he supports a Medicare buy-in plan. Oh, my!

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What would David Broder say about that?

In the vid, Lieberman appeared to go further than the current Senate deal, which would expand Medicare to those aged 55-64, saying he supported the idea of expanding it to people aged 50 and over. Lieberman referenced his proposal along these lines during the 2006 campaign, and added:

“My proposals were to basically expand the existing successful public health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid…

“When it came to Medicare I was very focused on a group — post 50, maybe more like post 55. People who have retired early, or unfortunately have been laid off early, who lose their health insurance and they’re too young to qualify for Medicare.

“What I was proposing was that they have an option to buy into Medicare early and again on the premise that that would be less expensive than the enormous cost. If you’re 55 or 60 and you’re without health insurance and you go in to try to buy it, because you’re older … you’re rated as a risk so you pay a lot of money.”

It’s not entirely clear that Lieberman was offering a full-throated current endorsement of the proposal, but his tone is clearly positive and approving. It’s yet another sign, as if you needed one, that Lieberman’s current opposition to the Senate proposal doesn’t appear to have any roots in a genuine policy disagreement.

It appears that Holy Joe wants to destroy health-care reform because his feelings have been hurt by liberals who disagreed with his warmongering behavior. The pettiness he holds dear to his heart is being used to destroy any chance that working-class Americans will be getting meaningful health care reform. You can't go lower than that.

Again it boils down to leadership, and President Obama and Harry Reid have not led this fight well from the beginning. They knew they had to deal with Joe, so he was bowed down to. The problem is that he felt no repercussions after he threw his full support to John McCain in the 2008 election. "He's with us on everything except the war," was what Harry Reid said. How did that work out for ya, Harry? Joe is destined to destroy health-care reform altogether.

Digby writes:

People need to send the link to this to all the press and the villagers they can think of to show just how perfidious their favorite "man of integrity" is being on this. Thy won't care about the substance, but this helps expose Lieberman's pettiness which villagers always find uncomfortable. (The exposure, not the pettiness.)

The PCCC has set up another action against Lieberman:

Please sign this petition to progressive Senators Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Roland Burris, and Sherrod Brown:

PETITION: "Don't let Joe Lieberman win! Americans need you to stand strong and block any 'compromise' without a strong public option. If necessary, demand that Sen. Harry Reid and President Obama support budget reconciliation and pass a bill with just 51 votes -- at which point, Joe Lieberman will be irrelevant and the public option can be made even stronger."

Key Democrats have said they won't support a bill without a strong public option:

Please sign on to it. The more we expose him as a fraud the better.

Joe's wife is also a major player in Lieberman's thinking process and part of his obstructionism that is responsible for Joe's switching of positions and trying to hold health care hostage.

Matt Yglesias writes:

That said, I agree with Chris Bowers that in a lot of ways the real story here is that the Senate leadership has, at every step of this process, underscored that a “reconciliation” path to a health care bill is off the table. That means Lieberman has unlimited control over what happens, and no incentive to compromise, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’s being uncompromising. Can’t liberals be just as stiff-necked as Lieberman? Sure, they could. But liberals members do have an incentive to compromise—the tens of thousands of people who die every year for lack of health insurance. The leverage that Lieberman and other “centrists” have obtained on this issue (and on climate change) stems from a demonstrated willingness to embrace sociopathic indifference to the human cost of their actions.

Grist: Watergate redux: Break-ins reported at another top climate research center

The Nation: Is Erik Prince "graymailing" the US government?

Newsifact: Joe Lieberman: No one will connect the dots about my lucrative post-Senate career

darrel plant: Big Buck Twilight Peacekeeper

Mainstream Baptist: Stonehenge Reloaded

Stinque: Talibunny's parents held captive as props for book tour

his vorpal sword: Indiana racist email story expolodes

Andy Worthington: Three innocent men released from Gitmo

Shakesville: What's wrong with (not just young people) everybody now

naked capitalism: How well has the Federal Reserve performed for America?

Open Left: Post Office zip code change prompts Insurance industry to attempt jacking up rates

Respectful Insolence: Quackery at HuffPo