Republicans Holding Airport Security Hostage To Protect ICE's Thuggish Behavior

Our airports are currently a mess. It can take four or five hours (sometimes longer) just to get through the TSA checks. This means many people are missing their flights because they arrived at the airport only two or three hours early. 

Why is this happening? Because TSA agents are not being paid. Congressional Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security unless ICE agents were required to rein in their thuggish (and sometimes even illegal) behavior. That was reasonable, and supported by most of the public (who are upset by ICE actions).

The problem is that ICE is not the only part of the government funded under the Department of Homeland Security. Airport TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard are also funded by DHS money. This gave the Republicans the opening they needed to try and protect ICE from needed reforms. While ICE got extra money from the last funding bill (and can continue to operate), TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard did not. 

That means airport security agents are not being paid, the Coast Guard is not being paid, and disaster victims are not getting the help they need. The most immediate problem (the one making the national news) is the long lines at airport security. That is intentional - as Republicans want to use that to try and force Democrats into abandoning reforms to ICE. 

But those long lines at airports are not really the fault of Democrats. Democrats have repeatedly offered to separate and fully fund TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard. Congressional Republicans refused. They know the American people want the reforms to ICE, and refusing to fund TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard is the only pressure they have to protect ICE from the reforms.

Don't believe any Republican who tells you the long airport lines are the fault of Democrats. They are not. Those lines exist because the Republicans want them to exist - and they think the American public is stupid to believe their lies about it.
 

U.S. Airports Seized A Record Number Of Guns In 2022

From CBS News:

Transportation Security Administration officers have confiscated 6,301 firearms from airport passengers so far in 2022 – the highest number recorded since the agency's inception. Of those guns taken at airport security checkpoints, 88% were loaded, the agency announced Friday.  

The TSA said that it expects to have confiscated about 6,600 firearms by the end of year, which would mark a 10.5% increase from the 5,972 firearms seized in 2021, which was also a record. 

The agency also reported Friday that it was raising the maximum civil penalty for a firearms violation from $13,910 to $14,950. 

The top 5 airports for firearm stops so far this year, according to TSA, were: 

1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport – 438
2. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport – 371
3. Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport – 286
4. Nashville International Airport – 203
5. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport – 184

Nashville had the highest rate of firearm confiscation per capita, according to a TSA spokesperson. 

This Is Not Funny !

After all the trouble Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers put you through at an airport, how would you feel if they then made you the butt of a prank or joke? That's just what happened to a student at the Philadelphia airport.

Rebecca Solomon is a 22 year-old student who was returning to the University of Michigan on January 5th. As her bags were being screened at the airport, a TSA worker suddenly pulled a plastic bag of white powder out of the case holding her laptop computer. He demanded to know where she had gotten it.

The girl was horrified. Had a terrorist slipped some kind of explosive into her luggage? Had a smuggler slipped some drugs into her bags? She stammered for an explanation she did not have. Solomon later wrote in her student newspaper, "He let me stutter through an explanation for the longest minute of my life. Tears streamed down my face as I pleaded with him to understand that I'd never seen this baggie before."

Then the TSA worker smiled and said it was his. Solomon said he "waved the baggie at me and told me he was kidding, that I should've seen the look on my face. I had been terrified and disrespected by an airport employee. He'd joked about the least funny thing in air travel."

She's right. If she had been the one pulling the "prank", she would have been arrested and very possibly served significant jail time. But he thought it was really funny when he did it. Well, it wasn't funny. Ms. Solomon did the appropriate thing. She demanded to see a supervisor and filed an official complaint.

At least the TSA seems to have acted in an appropriate manner. TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis would not say whether the worker quit or was fired, but did say he no longer worked for the TSA. She went on to say, "TSA viewed this behavior to be completely inappropriate and unprofessional. The employee was immediately disciplined by TSA management at the Philadelphia airport."

That was the least they could do.

TSA Gets New Uniforms

Today marks a change in airports all over the country. Today the Airport Screeners will begin wearing their new uniforms. Oops, I forgot. We're supposed to call them Transportation Security Administration Officers now. They were insufferable enough in their old uniforms. I can imagine what they'll be like now that they're dressed like police officers.

The federal security director at DFW Airport said, "On September 11th , every officer will begin wearing their new uniform and badge. TSA is introducing uniforms more reflective of the critical nature of their work and of the high standards our officers must uphold to keep over 2 million passengers safe every day."

I just don't buy it. These are SCREENERS, not peace officers. When a peace officer is needed or an arrest must be made, the police are called and that's as it should be. I don't have a problem with these people screening luggage and passengers, but I don't see why they must be dressed as something they're not.

I think our Republican leaders would be happy to put all federal employees in nice shiny uniforms to fit their impending police state.