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Senator DeMint Uses Botched Bombing to Attack Organized Labor
Who's Running the TSA? No One, Thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint
WASHINGTON — An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration — if there were one.
Soft on terror, but tough on unions. DeMint's objection creates a procedural hurdle that could take three days of debate and test votes to overcome, or could potentially be limited if Democrats offered DeMint a compromise. No one was taking conciliatory stance on Monday, however. One called DeMint's opposition "disgraceful."(AP)
The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up
President Barack Obama's nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA
workers joining a labor union.
As al Qaida claimed responsibility Monday for the thwarted attack and President Barack Obama made a public statement about it, Democrats urged DeMint to drop his objection and allow quick confirmation of nominee Erroll Southers, a counterterrorism expert, when the Senate reconvenes in three weeks.
Obama, speaking from Hawaii, where he and his family are vacationing, told Americans, "We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable."
Obama warned anyone plotting against the U.S. from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or elsewhere that he doesn't intend to rest at simply strengthening defense.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee announced a hearing to be set for next month to examine how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian whose name was in a terrorism database, boarded a plane with explosive material.
"Why aren't airline passengers flying into the U.S. checked against the broadest terrorist database and why isn't whole body scanning technology that can detect explosives in wider use?" said committee chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent.
Meanwhile, Florida Republican Rep. John Mica said in a statement that the TSA had grown lost and bloated in bureaucracy and called for a review.
Mica also said Congress "must change the process by which TSA administrators serve. There has been no TSA administrator for nearly a year and the next one will be the fifth in eight years. Running a security agency with a revolving door is a recipe for failure."
Janet Napolitano, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, of which the TSA is part, made the rounds of morning television news programs on Monday, backing away from her initial stance that the system had worked in averting attack.
She told NBC that "our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."
Southers, a former FBI special agent, is the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department assistant chief for homeland security and intelligence. He also is the associate director of the University of Southern California's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, and he served as a deputy director of homeland security for California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Two Senate committees have given Southers their bipartisan blessing. An acting administrator is in place pending his confirmation.
Marshall McClain, the president of the Los Angeles Airport Peace Officers Association, said that the Senate should have acted sooner to confirm Southers.
"Friday's terrorist attack on U.S. aviation makes it all the more imperative that there be no further delays in filling this crucial position," he said.
DeMint said in a statement that the attempted attack "is a perfect example of why the Obama administration should not unionize the TSA." He wants Southers to clarify his stand on unionizing the TSA, a shift that Democrats support.
Without collective bargaining, DeMint said, the TSA has "flexibility to make real-time decisions that allowed it to quickly improve security measures in response to this attempted attack."
If organized labor got involved, DeMint said, union bosses would have the power "to veto or delay future security improvements at our airports."
He urged Obama to "re-think" supporting unionizing the TSA "and put the interests of American travelers ahead of organized labor."
DeMint also wants a Senate floor debate and roll call votes, not confirmation by consent as the Democrats sought.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., hadn't scheduled a floor vote for Southers before the Senate left town on Christmas Eve.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Monday that the majority leader is working with the White House to get Southers confirmed "as quickly as possible" and charged that "Republican obstructionism has prevented TSA from having the leadership in place that the organization deserves."
DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton said that Obama didn't nominate Southers until September, and he charged that Reid "has been too busy trading earmarks for votes on health care" to deal with DeMint's concerns.
DeMint's objection creates a procedural hurdle that could take three days of debate and test votes to overcome, or could potentially be limited if Democrats offered DeMint a compromise. No one was taking conciliatory stance on Monday, however. Manley called DeMint's opposition "disgraceful."
Lesley Clark contributed to this article.
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23 Comments so far
Show AllDemint, being an GOP insider, knows that the whole "terrorist" thing is just a moneymaking scam.
But those unions is full of real live commies!
And do not forget they are corrupt because the corportocracy says so!
The TSA union is responsible for the blunders in security, not the agencies that design and run the intelligence and procedures? Blame the union. HA HA HA HA HA.
This is a classic Naomi Klein disaster. Make up or utilize a scary scenario. Then use the situation to dismantle something that provides democracy or rights for the average person. Would it help airport security if the wages and working conditions of TSA personnel were reduced from their current opulent standards?
Does anyone in their right mind blame the police and fire unions for crime and arson? When you call 911, do you request a non-union responder?
If you want to look outside the specifics of procedures, then take a good look at what our growing military incursions are doing to the reputation of the US. Our violent and disrespectful behavior in the Middle East, Africa and South America are not building the kind of public good-will and cooperation that effective police work requires.
I am sure that DeMint thinks that further tax cuts for the very rich will highly enhance airport security.
Joe
Before I call 911 I check who has the best rates. I'm so glad they privatized everything. None of that socialist stuff for me.
Joe
I believe That DeMint does not want the TSA to be unionized. It is not a union now. He is not arguing to reduce their pay or anything else as I understand it.
As to it being a bloated, inefficient arm of "Homeland Security" I think anyone that has been thru an airport knows that.
Its more a jobs program than a security force.
The thing that would generate some security is full body scanning, which the Republicans have opposed at all times.
Hi there - the point of contact TSA employees, the ones that screen you in the airport, are unionized into the AFGE. Security in general is a job of last resort for those with little education and training but solid work habits. If there were no union, they would be paid even less and protected not at all.
Joe
yes they would be unionized at afge already, demint is just being obstructionist
he was also the one who held up the confirmation of tammy duckworth who lost two legs in iraq
yes they would be unionized at afge already, demint is just being obstructionist
he was also the one who held up the confirmation of tammy duckworth who lost two legs in iraq
So you actually support this further affront on one's privacy along with unwanted x-ray dosage? No thanks. Why not simply get the US military to quit pissing so much of the world, instead.
And the TSA is most definitely unionized, under the AFGE, of which I'm a proud dues-paying member myself.
Better dead than red!
odoco
This idiot should be impeached and imprisoned. HE IS THE NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT.
Yeah, those commie unions are destroying everything. Seriously, Raygun is smiling in his grave. Dismantle all the manufacturing facilities and send those union jobs overseas. Now everything is made in COMMUNIST CHINA. Go figure.
DeMint's state of South Carolina is the intermediary state where jobs move from union shops in northern states before they are exported to China.
The latest example is Boeing moving airplane assambly from Washington State to South Carolina before moving airplane assembly to China.
I wonder who SENATOR Jim DeMint is really working for and what compensation he gets?
And this bit of blatant hypocrisy really gets to me:
"Obama warned anyone plotting against the U.S. from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or elsewhere that he doesn't intend to rest at simply strengthening defense."
Hey, Stupid. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Mr. President. Did it ever occur to you and your cohorts that if we wouldn't bomb and kill civilians from all of these countries and exploit the hell out of every resource they have, that they might not hatch "terrorists"?
I think they've got a real gripe.
But further, I think, this whole thing was a put-up job. How convenient to mask the Gaza March and Israel and Egypt's disgusting contentment in keeping food and medicines and personal support away from these suffering people. And the U.S. going along with it ... All of you leaders are past disgusting, and Israel's leaders are not fit to kiss the asshole of a pig.
How convenient to justify attacking Yemen because of all those bad people who are against us.
All the women knitters in this country should pick up their knitting needles and start knitting like Madame DeFarge, and if you don't know who she is, look it up.
If you do know and you agree, maybe start building some guillotines. And let's go for the top on down. And if you don't know who are the puppetmeisters at the top on down, look it up.
It's getting time. Really it is.
Who's doing this cartoon? Gahan Wilson? And if you don't know who he is, yeah, yeah, look it up.
Pissed beyond measure.
/cm
Pissed beyond measure, as we all should be. Good for you for speaking your mind. It is a stinking game run by stinking liars and we can get mad or.....pull our energy out of the game. The ironic piece is, the upper 1% have managed to persuade the rest of us that their capital is more valuable than our labor. In the universe I inhabit, they need us more than we need them. Unfortunate that they have so successfully managed to (deliberately) divideus and pit us one against the other, obscuring the otherwise obvious source of the real threat.
General strike. no exclamation point. we have the the power we choose to use.
This is how "Politics" is done - you find something the "other guy" wants and you stick it to him, you make him pay and pay and pay - THAT'S what the Dims have thrown away. "New Democrats Swallow" - THAT'S WHY YOU NEVER VOTE DIM AGAIN - they're not only gutless, they're incompetent politicians except at taking bribes from people who rape us to death. NO DIMS EVER AGAIN. Vote for a cabbage it will do less harm.
"An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day" and Al Qaeda purportedly claimed responsibility?
Like with the July 5 or July 7, 2005, London bombings, which provably were not and could not have been committed by the persons we were, according to our governments, supposed to believe were guilty? Plenty of the strong and very thorough explanation for why it could not have been the accused individuals has been online for a good while now, although I'm not sure of the date when it was posted. Doing Web searches on "London Bombings" for search term, quoted, and possibly adding 2005 for an extra term, will produce plenty of links.
Or like the bs plot for liquid bombs to be used to blow up an airliner leaving from England or someplace else in England, while I'm pretty sure this was after the above bombings, which did happen? The liquid bombs plot was proven to be more government bs.
Or like people set up by the FBI to be accused of plotting terrorist attacks, like the six or seven Americans in Florida who we were supposed to believe planned to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, when it's the FBI actor working undercover who got these individuals to even minorly aspire to committing such an attack? It was all bs and the work of the FBI.
And people who are Arab or Muslim wnating to carry out terrorist attacks and doing so often or regularly claim to be Al Qaeda, but aren't of Al Qaeda. We've known this for years. People who aren't of Al Qaeda and want to commit acts called terrorism should stop claiming to be of Al Qaeda. All such morons do by falsely claiming to be of Al Qaeda is fuel the U.S. empire's war on the world. It's bad enough when, and if, the real Al Qaeda claims responsibility for acts of terrorism, non-Al Qaeda people committing acts of terrorism and claiming to be responisble as well as to be of Al Qaeda just make the whole world's situation worse.
Osama bin Ladin denied responsibility for the 9-11 attacks, was head of Al Qaeda at the time, and his words surely applied for everyone in his group of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan with him. Iow, his denial of responsibility would have also meant that Al Qaeda wasn't responsible for 9-11. And this is what the whole wars since 9-11 are based on at the root, so we don't need joker terrorists falsely claiming to be acting with or for Al Qaeda. We need the wars to fully end and troops, all US forces, overt and covert, military, CIA, and private sector withdrawn.
We have been able to know for ..., well, since 2001, that the war on Afghanistan was NOT justifiable and that it was criminal. One of the simple ways of knowing that it's always been criminal is to refer to the two related UNSC resolutions, neither of which approves of recourse to war. The resolutions condemn terrorism, but only authorize police-like investigations to determine who the guilty persons were and to then arrest them, at worst kill them, if they put up violent resistance.
See resolutions 1368 and 1373.
http://www.un.org/docs/scres/2001/sc2001.htm
I learned of these resolutions and links, but which didn't work for me, from the following important article.
"September 11, 2001: America and NATO Declare War on Afghanistan
NATO's Doctrine of Collective Security"
by Michel Chossudovsky, Dec 21, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16573
You'll certainly appreciate reading this article by professor Chossudovsky and it is very important.
We also know that the U.S., in its own law, doesn't permit taking war to another country or state that has not attacked the US, and Bush clearly stated before attacking the then Afghan government run by the Taliban that the Taliban had had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks.
Again, Osama bin Ladin denied responsibility for 9-11, but, and furthermore, the U.S. has never formally or officially charged him for this crime.
All we've had is mostly lies and criminal war; no constitutionally abiding Presidents, Congresses, Senates, military officers in command in the war zones, the JCOS gangster officers, etcetera.
Did the government set up another patsy, this time to pretend the alleged terrorists were going to blow up the plane on Dec. 25th, again? Or was there no real bombing plot at all, again?
Check out what's been excellently proven and disproven about the "London Bombings". You'll love or greatly appreciate what you'll learn from this investigative reporting and the complimentary research or analyses. They really do appear to have been a secret government piece of work or orchestration; the bombings, that is.
I am surprised he did not find a way to blame it on women who have abortions. I am sure they work on that angle.
DeMint is a rabid Palinite (possibly a new political tag)
So this arse hole is throwing a fuck into your security
show because he's anti- union?
As we say, "Ye fellers are Fucked".
Maybe it's all street theater(including said Nigerian)...
I am not amused.
Looks like organized labor is being set up as the new terrorists. If you check it out you will find the labor movement called the Wobbleys were demonized about 100 years ago and many were shot and hanged as commies and today they would be branded as terrorists. Well first they came for the commies and then the Muslims and then labor unions and then....
yes, Midnight Rider, and this comment could also address recent columns on education...
where, in the educational spectrum, is it emphasized that rights are won and lost by violence? instead, the notions of fairness and discussion and compromise are promoted, while, in the street, the fair, compromising discusser is being handed his teeth and eyeballs...or tased, microwaved, shoved, beaten, cuffed and jailed...
I love goodness, but I can't help but think that our emphasis on goodness as an EFFECTIVE philosophical outlook must be intensely scrutinized, as badness, meaning violence, certainly seems to be more EFFECTIVE to me...
also, our bias toward goodness, in general, leaves us disadvantaged when trying to imagine the workings of the violent mind...if it even occurs to us to do so...
unions, good things (in the abstract), are forged by violence, as violence is used to suppress them...if unions are dying, lack of violence may be responsible...
the fact that they don't violently prevent you from voting, that they, rather, encourage you to do so, should be enlightening...
the changing planet, of course, will render many of these topics moot...violence, however, will remain the tool of choice, the most effective tool, where behavior modification is concerned, as long as humans are...
It's A holes like DeMint who have turned the south into a third world country complete with uneducated idiots and those who still cling to their Christian fantasies! Because that's the only hope they have for a better life!
Switch your party registration to third party ...
On January 13 th
"Either you are part of the Solution, or you are part of the Problem"