Back almost three months ago there was a viral email stir kicked off by a guy named Ted Petruna who claimed to have singlehandedly thwarted a Muslim terrorist hijacking attempt on an AirTrain flight out of Atlanta. The tale had Muslim men “in full attire” preparing to hijack the plane but taking advantage of their alleged special pre-jihad right to watch porn before they got down to business. And there was a weird series of arguments and altercations before Petruna and an unnamed fellow passenger swung into action to put the would-be hijackers in their place and saved the day.
The right-wing blogs had a field day claiming a government cover-up of the terrorist hijacking “dry run” before some rather glaring inconsistencies began to emerge in Petruna’s story. Like, for one, that Petruna was apparently not even on the plane.
TPMMuckraker has now obtained new FAA documents from the investigation of the incident. And as expected, no porn, no hijacking and no Ted Petruna. But something did happen on that flight.
Justin Elliott has the details.
Not sure it’s time to pop any corks quite yet. But TPM Reader AB makes a good, interesting point about the Sorba incident at CPAC …
You know, one thing struck me about the clip from the CPAC meeting with Chris Sorba and his pseudo macho, but fundamentally infantile, homophobic rant.
As you alluded to, give credit to the audience for the fact that he was vociferously booed.
But really — really — think about that.
Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) says President Obama shouldn’t resort to the “nuclear option,” i.e., a majority vote, which Republicans used repeatedly under President Bush.
Lot to live down for allowing a majority vote on the jobs bill.
Here at TPM we started the week with a key question: just what happened over the last four weeks that got us from Health Care Reform seeming more or less dead till now when it seems like something pretty close to the whole pre-Scott Brown enchilada is likely to pass? This morning Brian Beutler explained the curious story of how a couple outside groups and a handful of endangered senate Democrats managed to revive the fortunes of the Public Option in a surprisingly organic and out-of-nowhere way. The other question that has intrigued me even more is: just what was going on at the White House? Read More
The son of a founder of Hamas was reportedly a key informant for years for Israel’s security service.
Final passage of the jobs bill in the Senate is expected today. That and the day’s other news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
You’d think that once the Governor of Nevada and his wife revealed they were getting a divorce, it wouldn’t be such a big problem that he was seeing another woman. But Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) is such a hound that he just ain’t any governor or any pol. From his alleged assault of a woman in a parking garage back in 2006 to the girlfriend-texting scandal in 2007 and 2008, Gibbons really gets around — all the while peppering his antics with completely superrogatory and preposterous statements, likely his recent and deeply TMI claim that he hasn’t had sex in 15 years. And now a local TV station has caught him red-handed — so red-handed he just had to ‘fess up — taking the texting woman with him to the National Governor’s Association meeting in Washington after repeatedly denying it.
Some important historical context on the use of reconciliation to enact health care reforms.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), until now one of the more reliable votes for a public option, reiterates his opposition to passing it via reconciliation.