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Parents in El Paso, Texas say they were shocked to find out that a teacher at Hughey Elementary asked their children to depict airplanes flying into buildings, explosions and people jumping to their deaths to remember the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"We had to draw the boom cloud, the planes hitting, and people jumping out of the windows," the daughter of Ivie Gremillion recalled.

The girl's drawing shows people jumping out of burning buildings and yelling, "Help!" and "I love you!" One student's drawing obtained by KFOX had the writing, "One way ticket to heaven."

In another picture, the terrorist pilots are laughing as they fly planes into the World Trade Center.

"That's something that kids should get in trouble for drawing," Gremillion said. "That's people being murdered, committing suicide."

According to the El Paso mom, the teacher taught students that "the Afghans did this because they hate all of us and want to kill all of us."

A neighbor's son was so distraught after the Monday assignment that he did not want to go to school the next day.

"He was under the impression that this happens every 9/11," Gremillion explained.

To make matter's worse, Gremillion's husband is being deployed to Afghanistan later this year.

"She like, 'My dad's going to die,'" she said her daughter told her. "I would like a counselor to go in there and re-explain all this to that class."

"The way she worded [it] is just teaching racism and hate for an entire nation, and that's not OK," Gremillion insisted.

El Paso Independent School District confirmed to KFOX that students were asked to draw pictures of 9/11 after a class discussion about the tragedy.

"EPISD is very concerned about the images that were drawn in response to a lesson on the events of September 11," district officials said in a statement. "District and campus administrators are investigating the specific assignment and are interviewing the personnel involved."

"We regret the insensitivity that this action may have caused and wish to assure our community that we will act swiftly in this matter and will take any and all appropriate action. We extend our sincere apologies."

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From this Tuesday's Morning Joe, former Gov. George Pataki really was not happy with author Kurt Eichenwald's new book, 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars, or his op-ed which Susie wrote about here -- 9/11: When The Facts Didn't Fit Their Neocon Fantasy.

Unfortunately for him, Pataki managed to make a fool of himself while going after the author and throwing a bit of a fit on the show, because he freely admitted he hadn't read the book and didn't intend to. Nothing like conservatives sticking their fingers in their ears and going lalalala I can't hear you when someone's trying to tell them something they don't like. Eichenwald did a good job of pushing back at Pataki's assertions that the book was just intended as a hit piece on the Bush administration, actually read a few passages from the book and told Pataki that the most positive feedback he's gotten on the book is from members of the Bush administration.

I'm not sure where Scarborough slithered off to while this segment was airing, but he was no where to be found. I guess he wasn't so worried about one of his guests being attacked by another one, like we saw when he had so much concern for Reince Priebus when Chris Matthews jumped on him for the birtherism and racist dog whistles.

Partial transcript below the fold via:

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The hosts of Fox & Friends took advantage of the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 on Tuesday to accuse President Obama of forgetting God and not telling Americans to pray for the dead -- even though the president had issued a proclamation doing just that only four days earlier.

"Eleven years ago after the attack on America, the president calls for a moment of silence, but he does not call for the word 'God,'" co-host Gretchen Carlson asserted. "So some people are asking, why is God being left out again?"

"Get this," co-host Steve Doocy later added. "Does the president of the United States call on people to pray for those lives lost? No, he calls on people to observe a moment of silence and then go out and do some community service. He proclaims today as Patriot Day, a national day of service and remembrance and go perform community service to remember those who lost their lives."

"He does say at the end of it, that he signs it on the 10th day of September on the year of our Lord 2012," Carlson noted. "So, God is mentioned there, but no mention of the word God anywhere in his message to the American people."

As Media Matters pointed out, Obama had followed the tradition of Patriot Day proclamations issued by President George W. Bush, who did not include the word 'God' in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

But the hosts of Fox & Friends failed to mention that on Friday, the president had issued another proclamation with the word "God" and declaring "National Days of Prayer" from Sept. 7 through Sept. 9.

"On these days of prayer and remembrance, we mourn again the men, women, and children who were taken from us with terrible swiftness, stand with their friends and family, honor the courageous patriots who responded in our country's moment of need, and, with God's grace, rededicate ourselves to a spirit of unity and renewal," the proclamation said. "On September 11, 2001, in our hour of grief, a Nation came together. No matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family."

"NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Friday, September 7 through Sunday, September 9, 2012, as National Days of Prayer and Remembrance," the president said. "I ask that the people of the United States honor and remember the victims of September 11, 2001, and their loved ones through prayer, contemplation, memorial services, the visiting of memorials, the ringing of bells, evening candlelight remembrance vigils, and other appropriate ceremonies and activities."

At the end of Tuesday's Fox & Friends segment, co-host Brian Kilmeade also observed that no elected officials would be speaking during Tuesday's 9/11 memorial ceremony.

"I think it's also good just to keep politics out of this in this election year," Kilmeade said.

"I think that's a great idea," Doocy agreed.

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As Americans were remembering the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Sunday was criticizing President Barack Obama for withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, but at the same time, he acknowledged that public opinion would not stand for an escalation of military force.

"Whether we should have gone to Iraq or Afghanistan, I believe we should have," McCain told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "I don't think we should ever forget that those attacks originated in Afghanistan. And I think we did the right thing there. But I also think we have learned a lot of lessons and frankly I don't think you are going to see the United States of America in another war in that part of the world."

"You have criticized president Obama for his decision to pull all of the U.S. surge troops, 30,000 troops out of Afghanistan by a year from now, by next September," Wallace noted. "That will leave 70,000 on the ground, but all the surge troops will be gone. What about the argument that we have seriously degraded the Taliban, we have eviscerateed al Qaeda, that Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, will never be a reliable partner? And the argument that you hear from both Republicans and Democrats, it's time to focus on home?"

"I understand why people would want to focus on home," the senator replied. "On the issue of the troop withdrawals, I try to support the president as much as I can... But there is no military person anywhere that recommended that these withdrawals would take place before the second fighting season. There is no military person that doesn't believe we need a residual force in Iraq far in excess of the size that apparently is being planned. In Libya, that conflict could have been over a long, long time ago if we had used the full weight of American air power.

"You have can't lead from behind in this country. And the fact is there is a perception in the world, rightly or wrongly, that the United States is in the decline and that we are in many ways withdrawing to Fortress America. We can't afford to do that."

Wallace went on to ask how McCain could be sure the U.S. would never again be at war in the Middle East.

"I don't think american public opinion would stand for it," McCain said, but added that the U.S. would be at war in the area for a long time.

"I am confident that the things we stand for and believe in overtime will prevail over the forces of evil, but it is going to be a long hard struggle."

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Well this is just stupid and pointless. That Major League Baseball had former Yankees' manager Joe Torre deliver this wrong-headed move rather than commissioner Bud Selig is so typical of them.

The clip above is edited from 9/11 Baseball Remembers, with the first games in New York following the events of 9/11/2001. No doubt MLB lawyers will be calling in a few moments.

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball denied the New York Mets' request to wear baseball caps Sunday night honoring New York emergency service departments for their game against the Chicago Cubs on the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Joe Torre, MLB's executive vice president for baseball operations, told The Associated Press in a phone interview the decision was made to keep policy consistent throughout baseball.

"Certainly it's not a lack of respect," Torre said. "We just felt all the major leagues are honoring the same way with the American flag on the uniform and the cap. This is a unanimity thing."

The Mets wanted to wear caps honoring police, firefighters and other first responders like the ones they wore on Sept. 21, 2001, in the first professional sporting event in New York after the World Trade Center collapsed 10 days earlier. And they spoke with Torre on several occasions over the course of the last month.

Keith Olbermann is pissed off about it.

Those bloodless MLB individuals have been down this path before. Ten years ago, Bud Selig’s initially ruled the Mets and Yankees could not wear the caps during games. The Mets ignored the threat, and MLB decided to give them a pass for a game or two, and then the Mets kept wearing them, and MLB wisely backed off their nonsensical decision. Tonight’s ruling reminded everybody that at the moment of the nation’s greatest grief, MLB’s money-making instinct was unhindered by the blood and destruction and fear.

At least in 2001 the sport was smart enough to shut up. Not this year. MLB first blocked the Washington Nationals from wearing military caps in tribute after a disaster in Afghanistan last month. Then came this decision, complete with in the kind of stupidity that would make a megalomaniac proud: they blamed it on MLB Vice President Joe Torre, the native New Yorker who wore these caps at the end of the 2001 season. So if it hadn’t been shameful already, pinning it on Torre made it doubly shameful.

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Folk singer Paul Simon remembered the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 by singing the song that first propelled the duo Simon & Garfunkel into popularity.

Simon wrote "The Sound of Silence" in 1964, a year after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The song took on a different meaning at 10:41 a.m. ET Sunday as Simon performed it at Ground Zero.

"Hello darkness, my old friend / I've come to talk with you again"

In their first 2001 episode after the 9/11 attacks, Simon had performed "The Boxer" on NBC's Saturday Night Live.

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Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld isn't letting go of his talking points that support the U.S. invasion of Iraq following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Exactly 10 years after those attacks, Rumsfeld suggested to CNN's Fareed Zakaria Sunday that Iraq had been "hospitable" to al Qaeda before the U.S. invaded the country.

"There's no question that al Qaeda and Zarqawi and people were in Iraq," Rumsfeld argued. "They aggregated there."

"If we hadn't invaded, they wouldn't have been there," Zakaria pointed out.

"We don't know that," Rumsfeld insisted. "You don't know that. I don't know that."

"But they went in to fight us. So since we weren't there, why would they have gone into Iraq?" Zakaria countered.

"Why have they gone into Yemen and Somalia?" Rumsfeld asked. "Why do al Qaeda go anywhere? They go where it's hospitable."

"Right, and Iraq hadn't been hospitable," Zakaria said.

A Department of Defense Inspector General report declassified in 2007 debunked claims that Pentagon official Douglas Feith had made in order to bolster the Bush administration's case for war, that there was a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

"The Feith office alternative intelligence assessments concluded that Iraq and al Qaeda were cooperating and had a 'mature, symbiotic' relationship, a view that was not supported by the available intelligence, and was contrary to the consensus view of the Intelligence Community," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said in a statement.

In fact, George Piro, the former FBI agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein, confirmed to CBS News that the Iraqi dictator had viewed Osama bin Laden as a threat.

In 2008, President George W. Bush admitted to ABC's Martha Raddatz that al Qaeda had not been Iraq before the invasion.

"Yeah, that's right," Bush agreed. "So what?"

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Many Americas have criticized former President George W. Bush for sitting silently in a classroom for seven minutes after learning the country was under attack on Sept. 11, 2011, but his former chief of staff isn't one of them.

Andy Card told CNN's Anderson Cooper Sunday that he was "pleased" with how the former president responded.

"I was a little bit surprised that he reacted so calmly when I said words that were so outrageous, but I actually was pleased with how he reacted," Card explained.

"I said, 'A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack,'" he recalled. "And then I stood back from him so that he couldn't ask me a question. And I kind of thought he might turn and look at me and start to talk, and I didn't want want him to do that. So, I was pleased that he focused on the students."

In 2007, HBO's Bill Maher called for Bush to be impeached over his initial inaction that day.

"What could be more important for a president of the United States to do than to react at that moment when he hears the words, 'The country is under attack'?" Maher asserted.

For his part, Bush has argued that he was trying to "project a sense of calm."

So says Alex Pareene at Salon.com. I don't know but I'll take his word for it. I wasn't able to bring myself to watch more than the first 30 seconds.

And yes, that is Herman Cain (the amateur gospel singer) singing. Reports are he did it in one take, almost as if this garbage was something to be proud of..

So, Joe Scarborough only produced the second-grossest 9/11 "tribute" video I've seen this week. Herman Cain's presidential campaign produced this monstrosity, in which Cain croons "God Bless America" over footage of the 2001 attacks and their aftermath.

Just a warning: If you don't want to see graphic images of the events of 9/11, including multiple shots of the second plane hitting and the towers collapsing, don't watch this video. (Also, don't turn on your TV this entire weekend.)

I don't even know what to say. I guess Cain can now brag that he's a former pizza magnate and crass exploiter of tragedies for political gain.

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MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, has a new country song calling for the U.S. to bring home troops sent into war after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"In an endless war / Tell me please how many more have to die / Before my sweet boy comes home," Scarborough sings in "Reason to Believe."

The accompanying music video was created by JAM, a production company owned by Scarborough and Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski. It was released by Sony Records.

"It's critical that we remember the heroes of 9/11 and those who are still fighting in an endless war," Scarborough told The Huffington Post. "They need to come home. It's time."

But Scarborough wasn't always against the war effort.

"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types," the MSNBC host said in April 2003. "I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war..."

"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."