SEARCH
DeMint: If TSA Workers Join Union, They’ll Let Terrorists In |
|
After the now infamous Christmas day “crotch bomber” episode on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) couldn’t keep his anti-union bile from bubbling out of his mouth.
DeMint, who has single-handedly bottled up the nomination of Erroll Southers to head the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), screeched that if TSA workers were allowed to unionize, terrorists clothed in plastic explosive-laden underwear or shoes or ball caps would begin blasting airplanes out of the sky on a regular basis.
BTW, the Obama administration supports the radical idea that TSA workers should be allowed to choose whether to join a union. Workers should have the choice, not officious senators.
Journalist Art Levine at Truthout talked with several security experts who blew DeMint’s twisted logic out of the water. And as Marshall McClain, who works a canine unit at LAX and is president of the Los Angeles Peace Officers Association, tells Levine:
My union card doesn’t sit between my bulletproof vest and my willingness to put my life on the line…His [DeMint's] claims about unionization and homeland security have no validity.
Read Art’s entire column here.
Check out Spencer Ackerman’s take on DeMint’s demented claims at The Washington Independent and Michael Whitney’s column on FireDogLake who calls DeMint’s claims “quite obviously, ludicrous.”
For more on TSA workers and unions, read our own James Parks’ coverage here and visit AFGE’s website for TSA workers here.
16 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Im thinking a woodchipper would come in handy for this pure piece of human garbage
‘Nonsense, Ridiculous’: NBCer Blasts DeMint For Opposing TSA Unionization
Imagine it being as hard to fire an incompetent airport screener as it is to fire an incompetent teacher. Think that might have any implications for our safety and security? Evan Kohlmann apparently doesn’t. In fact, the NBC terrorism consultant thinks opposition to unionizing the employees of the Transportation Safety Administration is “nonsense” and “ridiculous.”
Kohlmann made his comments on MSNBC this afternoon in the course of condemning Sen. Jim DeMint for opposing TSA unionization. The Republican senator from South Carolina has put a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers to head the TSA because of the nominee’s apparent intent to unionize the TSA.
David Shuster teed up Kohlmann’s tirade
DAVID SHUSTER: Sen. DeMint, Republican senator, said that the unionization of the TSA is a national security issue. Do you know of any national security analysts who feel the same way?
EVAN KOHLMANN: I think Jim DeMint needs to get his priorities straight. The national security issue is why intelligence reform has not taken place since 9-11 while all these folks have been at the helm [Bush's fault!] The national security issue is why we don’t have a head of a TSA in place while al Qaeda is attempting to bomb US airplanes. A national security issue has nothing to do with unions. He needs to get his priorities straight. He needs to wake up. Because this is nonsense. This is just ridiculous.
As a Concerned American Citizen We Should All Send Senator Jim DeMint our Dirty Underwear as a Reminder That Terrorism Is Alive and Well in this Country.
Sen. DeMint Unions and Union Bosses are NOT The Terrorists nor the Problem - The Problem Rests with Senators like YOU Who FEAR Unions More than the TERRORISTS!
SEND YOUR DIRTY UNDERWEAR TO:
Senator Jim DeMint
340 Russell
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-6121
Twitter : http://search.twitter.com/search?q=jimdemint
I’m all for unionizing, Obama picks, etc. HOWEVER… I think CHESLEY SULLENBERGER should Head the TSA. Capt. Sullenberger saved, not only the people on U.S. Airways Flight 1549, but also many depressed New Yorkers who needed a Miracle on the Hudson. FOR ALL I KNOW… Capt. Sullenberger has already turned down the job. IF NOT… I can’t help thinking that the President may need to rethink his decision.
They are reporting today that the underwear bomber might have been a deliberate act summoned by rogue parts of our intelligence industry,sympathetic to Cheney.This is TREASON and CHENEY should be interrogated using the same methods he forced on others
obama and congress need to be forcefully removed from office, they are destroying america. and they can take people like demint with them
Can anyone quote Mr Southers saying that unionizing TSA would be more important than actual security? OR even that he EVER spoke of encouraging unionization?
And I’ll point out that the last time I looked, unions were not only legal, but a strong supporter of America and all the good things it offers.
I know it’s popular in the GOP to blame unions for everything short of the Lindbergh kidnapping, but, I find it ridiculous to think 7% of employees in America have more power than the execs that run the businesses they work for.
Just as there are loopholes in every law, the Corporate American execs skate around union contracts easy as pie.
They just promise not to cheat anymore, over and over and over.
So, when the unions make corporate decisions, then they deserve the blame for the outsourcing, offshoring, and downright mismanagement.
Meanwhile, America waits for the OBSTRUCTINIST PARTY to allow America to do her business with the people we PUT IN OFFICE.
YOU THE MINORITY, SIT DOWN And SHUT UP, and allow Obama to sink or swim with HIS ideas and not your sabotaging every possible effort on his part.
DeMint is just another republican nut job. Let’s give Obama and company a chance to do things a different way than Bush/Cheney. Bush and company got us into this mess and it is going to take a long time to get back on better ground.
Bush did not get us in this he helped stop it now Obama is giving in to them.
All conspiracy theories aside, we should concentrate on the fact that union workers by and large have a stake in their jobs because of the better wages,benefits, and working conditions, and those perks are more likely to give their job performance a boost. Treat someone like a professional and they will behave as a professional. Every contract has a provision for progressive discipline—lazy managers are usually the cause of incompetent workers remaining on the job.
Working people need to realize what elected officials, such as Sen. DeMint, really are.
Then vote them out of office!
The true terrorists are morons like DeMint, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other hypocrites who claim to love this country, yetr would love to see us revert back to pre-NLRA days and maybe even revert to the days of slavery!
Corporations like Wal-Mart, Hyatt Hotels, Toyota, etc represent a much greater danger to the Amerian people than Al-Qaeda could ever present. The tragedy is they terrorize workers and their communities on a daily basis protected by the law!
In almost all cases, if you compare union to non-union in the same job catagory, the union job will have extensive training over its non-union counter part. DeMint’s observations are “demented” among any thinking people. Maybe we should “water board” the TSA agents for wanting to go union. Demint’s GOP cronies should really like that!
All workers have the right to organize…Most Union hands usually are better trained than their non-union counter-parts. So why would it be logical for a unionized screener to do their job worse than an un-organized one? Take a good look at what happened in NJ yesterday…or was it the day before…
It’s very simple, demint is a moron, and a example of why South Carolina Longshorman Workers formed there own Labor Party. And k2kelly, hardwroc, ChicanoWobbly, zebra8835, Wireman0191, great posts.
I am all for second chances, but do you put the fox back into the hen house?
In November, Southers assured Senators - under oath - it was an isolated lapse.
“Have you ever in the past misused your access to databases that the government maintains, other than the one incident that lead to this censure?” asked Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
“No, Senator, I have not,” Southers replied.
I guess you missed this: Southers had already admitted to a “grave error in judgment” 22 years ago: improperly using his position at the FBI to get a police official to run a background check on his then estranged wife’s boyfriend, reports CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.
I think this is top on the list of reasons folks are upset, not only the possible forced unionization.
If you live or know of someone who lives in SC, I urge you to support the Democratic senatorial candidacy of Mike Ruckes. He is running against Senator DeMented in the 2010 mid-term congressional elections. He is a former UAW member originally from Detroit and he is very pro-union. He is the only true progressive candidate out of the other Blue Dog Democratic challengers that he is currently up against for the nomination. His web site is http://www.mikeruckes2010.com. Check it out and tell your friends.