Federal times: Draft Republican platform: Cut 10% of workforce, privatize TSA

Thats to nice how about kellhulling, then soaking in alcohol all the meantime smoking a cigerette or 50.

 

no just use 100mph tape so when it fails gravity takes over.

 

Now being highlighted in the largest papers ...

Washington Post: GOP platform seeks privatization of airport security

Unemployment in the private sector too high?​

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One way to improve that is to turn thousands of federal jobs over to corporations.​

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That’s what Republicans call for in the platform they adopted this week in Tampa.​

The platform says Transportation Security Administration “procedures — and much of its personnel — need to be changed. It is now a massive bureaucracy of 65,000 employees who seem to be accountable to no one for the way they treat travelers. We call for the private sector to take over airport screening wherever feasible and look toward the development of security systems that can replace the personal violation of frisking.”​

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That plank drew this retort from Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee:​

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“Like much of the Republican platform, the provision calling for privatization of the TSA workforce is not based on an understanding of the facts. Private screeners are in place today at 16 airports and enforce the same policies, use the same procedures, and operate the same machines as screeners employed by the Federal government. There is no evidence that the use of screeners who are paid by a private company would improve security or produce a savings for the taxpayer.”​

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He added this ominous note: “On September 11th [2001], screeners at our airports were employed by private companies — a return to a pre-9/11 status for screeners would not improve aviation security or assist national security.”​

Duh ... But it works the other way around, too, Bennie: 9/11 didn't happen because of the screeners. The private screening that we had before 9/11 was at least as good as what we have today, and without the ritual abuse of the passengers.

"If you want to professionalize, you have to federalize" (quote from piece of Sen. Dassel) didn't exactly work out that way.

TSA has become a sick culture that needs to be obliterated, and replacing it with smaller private screening companies is the best way to do that.

 

Hey Bennie FYI another 9/11 will never happen because everyone one on the plane will take out said idiots. Only thing that will be needed is a wet clean up crew and new carpet.

 

Or, maybe not. What happens when the American public has been so cowed by their government and the glad handed blue gloves that they lose confidence and the will to fight? Not too farfetched. Under the Mongolian onslaught, the populace of Persia was so cowed that there was an incident where one Mongol soldier by himself robbed and slit the throats of 19 Persians who were armed, but too afraid to turn on him.

 

Not to far fetched, but all is not lost as long as those will stand up to bullies and put them in there place.

 

So why haven't there been more Smufs turning blue in the fact to match the shirt?

 

American voters, who have felt powerless against the allegedly invasive screening methods used by an expanding TSA, got an unexpected gift from a very unexpected place last week.

At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., the party adopted a platform that included a pledge to reform the TSA.
I’m not making this up.
Republicans reining in the TSA. Who would have thought?
Here’s the actual platform language:

While the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks brought about a greater need for homeland security, the American people have already delivered their verdict on the Transportation Security Administration: its procedures – and much of its personnel – need to be changed.​

It is now a massive bureaucracy of 65,000 employees who seem to be accountable to no one for the way they treat travelers. We call for the private sector to take over airport screening wherever feasible and look toward the development of security systems that can replace the personal violation of frisking.​

It’s the first time since the TSA’s creation a decade ago that any major political party has taken an official stand on the agency, and it marks a real turning point. Until now, the cause of TSA reform has been marginalized to a few activist legislators on both sides of the aisle.
But with this document, all that changes.
Disclosure: I’m a registered independent. I disagree with many of the Republican party’s platform issues. But on the issue of TSA reform, I stand with the GOP.
Something needs to be done. Now.
Will the Democrats follow? We won’t know until their official platform is adopted at their national convention in Charlotte next week. (I doubt it. The early buzz on its platform, and a look at previous position papers, suggests the TSA remains a non-issue. But we can hope.)
The TSA’s critics aren’t exactly doing backflips. Because while almost everyone can agree with the first few sentences of the Republican platform section on the TSA — that the agency is in need of reform, and that it’s a “massive bureaucracy” that seems accountable to no one — there’s no consensus on what to do about it.
The TSA’s most hard-line critics want to eliminate the agency, replacing it with private airport security. Others say the agency should be reformed but remain part of the federal government.
Almost no one is publicly saying the agency works just fine as it is. To claim the TSA is doing a good job protecting America’s transportation systems in the face of widespread complaints, lawsuits and its own paper trail of misdeeds, would probably be political suicide.
As usual, it isn’t what candidates are saying, but what they aren’t saying, that’s the problem.
Pretending the TSA isn’t an issue would be foolish, an indication that a candidate is tone-deaf and out of touch with the reality of traveling in 2012.
Yet even acknowledging the TSA is an issue can be politically risky, too. Consider the latest dust-up between Texas Rep. Ron Paul and TSA agents in Clearwater, Fla., last week.
Coincidence? I doubt it.
The only ones who benefit from remaining silent on the issue of the TSA is the TSA bureaucracy and the subcontractors and lobbyists who have made a fortune from our collective fears.
Everyone else loses. The voters lose, because they get four more years of an incompetent, overpriced and dishonest agency “protecting” us from a nonexistent threat, critics will point out. The incumbents, should they be re-elected, will also lose — more specifically, their legacies will be tarnished because they will always be remembered as the ones who failed to curb a wasteful and abusive federal agency.
Like it or not, the TSA already is an election-year issue.
If Democrats, independents and Green Party candidates remain silent on the problems of the TSA, then we should all be prepared for another four years of abuse at the hands of an agency that is, by most accounts, of control.
And the nominees who ignore the reality of traveling today should prepare themselves too — for a probable electoral defeat.

 

Michael Chertoff is a Romney advisor.

That's all we need to know about a GOP-controlled TSA.

Chertoff put the strip searching Rapescanners in the airports to begin with. This nonsense is going nowhere under Romney. I predict it will only get worse.