There’s a reason why, as you know, airlines don’t push each others’ safety records as a competitive issue in advertising. If you’re in the flying people around at 30,000 feet in the air business there are just some issues you don’t want to get into. And that’s what came into my head when I saw how these new wannabe RNCs are competing on the basis of who you can trust not to use your hard-earned rightwing dollar on faux lesbian bondage clubs and $1000 a night hotel rooms.
This morning we saw an web ad from the National Republican Trust with the tag line “Got Trust?” Take a look. It couldn’t be much more explicit. (And not in the faux-lesbian bondage kind of way…)
Modern day Republican Party still struggling with the slavery issue.
Neo-Confederates disagree over whether Virginia Gov. Bob McConnell’s apology is an insult to their, ahem, cause — or if he, like Lee himself, pushed things as far he could before an honorable surrender. Read our interviews with two members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans here.
ABC is reporting that federal air marshals tonight subdued a man on a flight from DC to Denver who appeared to be trying to light a shoe-bomb. There doesn’t seem to be any question he was trying to light his shoe on fire; they’re apparently still trying to confirm that explosives were involved.
But here’s the kicker. Mohammad al Modadi is a diplomat in the Qatari Embassy, with full diplomatic immunity.
(ed.note: I should have said more explicitly that the plane landed safely and no one appears to have been injured.)
Late Update: We’ve got a rapidly changing story here. The latest news is suggesting the possibility that this was some sort of misunderstanding, perhaps a joke on the part of the man taken into custody. More as we learn more.
Okay, this story has moved pretty rapidly. It was initially reported as an attempted shoe bombing. Next the idea was that it was what can only be called a very ill-considered joke on the part of the man taken into custody. Now it seems the guy in question was smoking in the airplane restroom and when the plane crew asked what he was doing he said something that sounded like he was saying he was lighting his shoe on fire. As you might expect, at that point all hell broke loose.
The reports remain contradictory — whether he making a joke or simply misunderstood. But no one seems to believe he was trying to detonate anything. And they’ve apparently determined that there were no explosives involved.
Late Update: If nothing else, in the spirit of DWB, I think this incident may give rise to a new slang acronym EIATSAPBWA — Extremely Ill-Advisedly Trying to Smoke in an Airplane Bathroom While Arab.
‘Diplo Immunity Ain’t Kryptonite, Buddy’ Update: This is really turning into quite a tale. This graph from the Times …
A federal official said that the passenger went to the bathroom to smoke a cigarette,and was confronted by air marshals on board the plane. He understood he had diplomatic immunity, and made sarcastic comments that they took as a threat, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
I mean, are we really to believe that this guy took his having diplomatic immunity as free rein to crack a joke about need to light his shoe bomb? I’m curious whether under international law a diplomat can be expelled from a host country simply for being a raging c@#k.
The Southern Republican Leadership Conference kicks off today New Orleans, where several of the party’s 2012 presidential hopefuls will be making appearances. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
The elderly mother of the guy charged with threatening Nancy Pelosi:
Greg has — frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas and that are not consistent with myself or the rest of the family and — which gets him into problems. And apparently I would say this must be another one that somehow he’s gotten onto either by — I’d say Fox News or all of those that are really radical, and he — that’s where he comes from.
More here.
Mr. Johnson, the blue Sesame Street muppet, made a special guest appearance as Michael Steele last night on The Daily Show. Watch.
Former New Orleans cop explains how police gunned down unarmed civilians in post-Katrina incident. Shocking stuff.
Far-Right Iowa Rep. denounces Humane Society for secret vegetarian agenda.