Another View On TSA Agents

DHS denies CNN report that hundreds of TSA agents working without pay during shutdown are calling in sick

BY TAL AXELROD - 01/05/19 08:53 AM EST 517

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The Department of Homeland Security on Friday denounced a CNN report that found hundreds of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers are calling out sick as they work without pay during the ongoing partial government shutdown.

“More #FakeNews from @CNN. Security operations at airports have not been impacted by a non-existent sick out," Department of Homeland Security spokesman Tyler Houlton tweeted Friday evening.

"CNN has the cell numbers of multiple @TSA public affairs professionals, but rather than validate statistics, they grossly misrepresented them,” he claimed.

CNN's report, which was based off of several interviews with unnamed TSA and union officials, noted that callouts had notably increased at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and North Carolina's Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham airports. 

Sources described the callouts to CNN as protests over a paycheck delay resulting from the TSA’s lapse in funding amid the partial government shutdown. A union official, however, told the network that officers are calling out sick for practical reasons, such as not being able to afford child care while their paychecks are up in the air.

A TSA spokesperson acknowledged that absences have increased recently, but insisted security will not be affected. 

“Security effectiveness will not be compromised and performance standards will not change,” the spokesperson said Friday in a statement to The Hill. “Wait times may be affected depending on the number of call outs.” 

The spokesperson added that “screening wait times remain well within TSA standards” and that 99.8 percent of more than 2.2 million passengers on Thursday had wait times of less than 30 minutes. 

Approximately 25 percent of the government shut down on Dec. 22, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce, Justice, Interior and State. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have either been furloughed or forced to work without pay for the time being.

TSA Workers Not Showing Up. The Damage Of Government Employees

Hundreds of TSA officers aren't showing up for work because of the gov't shutdown

'This will definitely affect the flying public'

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

 AARON COLEN

Transportation Security Administration officers are calling out from work in higher numbers as the government shutdown continues and forces them to work without pay, according to CNN.

A federal worker pay period ended Friday, meaning workers could begin missing paychecks if the shutdown continues. They were paid last week and would normally get paid again on Jan. 11.
How many? Different airports have seen varying levels of increased absences. TSA employee union president Hydrick Thomas said as many as 170 employees have called out each day this week at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
A Texas TSA official said call outs have increased by 200-300 percent at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. North Carolina TSA union president Mac Johnson said Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham airports have seen 10 percent more call outs, and also said the absences are "creating a vulnerability."
Why are they calling out? Some federal officials told CNN the absences were in protest of delayed paychecks. Others have said some TSA employees can't go to work because they can't afford childcare during the shutdown, or they've had to find temporary non-government jobs to pay the bills.
"The problem of call outs is really going to explode over the next week or two when employees miss their first paycheck," a DFW union official told CNN. "TSA officers are telling the union they will find another way to make money. That means calling out to work other jobs."
What's the impact? TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said the absences have not yet caused a significant disruption in TSA's ability to perform security functions.

"Call outs began over the holiday period and have increased, but are causing minimal impact given there are 51,739 employees supporting the screening process," Bilello said in a statement. "Security effectiveness will not be compromised and performance standards will not change."
Bilello said additional absences in coming days and weeks could result in longer lines as some airports may have to close some TSA lanes.
Thomas said he thinks the shutdown and resulting absences will impact travelers.
"This will definitely affect the flying public who we are sworn to protect," Thomas said.

Tlaib Should Never Have Become A Congresswoman

Did She Blow The Big

 Surprise? Why Are

 Democrats ‘Livid’ At 

Rashida Tlaib?

Matt Vespa

|

 @mvespa1

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Posted: Jan 04, 2019 8:50 PM

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Freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) went on the warpath last night. Concerning President Trump, she was quite clear what she wants to do. She wants to go in and “impeach the motherf**ker.” The media tried to ask her questions today about the remarks, she declined. From her social media posts, it looks like she has zero intention of apologizing. And why should she?  She’s part of the progressive left, they want Trump gone, and she was honest about it. It’s absurd. It’s crude. It’s not going to happen. It’s all of those things, but at least someone was honest about what they wanted to do. Well, apparently, House Democrats are “livid” at Tlaib (via Politico):

House Democrats are furious that an incoming freshman’s expletive-riddled statement about impeaching Donald Trump has suddenly upended their carefully crafted rhetoric on their plans to take on the president.

[…]

Rank-and-file Democrats, immediately fearful of the damage the comment could cause, unloaded on their new colleague Friday morning. Republicans, they argued, would hold it up as proof that Democrats are playing politics rather than pursuing genuine oversight of the president — even if the GOP never showed interest in investigating Trump scandals while it was in power.

“Mueller hasn’t even produced his report yet!” said Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. “People should cool their jets a little bit, let the prosecutors do their job and finish the investigation.”

“Inappropriate,” added Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.). “As elected officials I think we should be expected to set a high bar… It’s not helpful.”

Even Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who introduced an impeachment resolution earlier this week, was shocked. His eyes bulged in disbelief when a reporter read him Tlaib’s comments and he was speechless for several seconds.

After he regained his composure, Sherman said that kind of language is detrimental to the cause: “That’s not language I would use … I think the office of the presidency should be treated with respect.”

Party elders also sought to calm talk of impeachment without criticizing Tlaib directly. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, called Talib’s comments “inappropriate” and said, “We need to be patient.”

That’s the key right there: “we need to be patient.” House Democrats want to impeach Trump. They’ve introduced multiple articles over the past couple of years. This is what they want. Why? Well, because he beat Hillary Clinton. That’s the reason. The Russian collusion nonsense isn’t going to materialize. Sorry, Democrats—it’s a myth. It will never happen. It’s been over a year since Special Counsel Robert Mueller began looking into this. So far, there is zero evidence to suggest the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. And in this town that leaks like crazy and a media that will eventually find something trying to be hidden—no one can keep a secret anymore—we would have found something. What we did find is serial incompetence among the elite media to cover this White House, who have also peddled story after story claiming to be Russia bombshells that only end up being massive nothing burgers. It’s crap. So, that being said, why are House Democrats mad at Tlaib when she said what they all want to do?

Gender Selection Is Not A Reason For Abortion!

Supreme Court weighs whether to hear first challenge to Roe v. Wade since Kavanaugh joined bench

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Tribune News Servicehare

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday weighed whether to hear a case involving the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, the first direct challenge to abortion rights the court has faced since Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh took his seat.

The case involves an appeal from Indiana, which seeks to enforce a state law that forbids abortions by women who cite Down syndrome, or the sex or race of the fetus, as a reason for ending a pregnancy.

Justices reviewed the matter privately Friday but were not expected to announce whether they will take the case until next week at the earliest.

When Justice Anthony Kennedy was on the court, state lawyers did not seek to challenge Roe v. Wade, since Kennedy had voted to uphold the right to abortion decades before. But Kavanaugh, who replaced Kennedy on the court, has been seen as more conservative and open to limiting or overturning the right to abortion.

Indiana wasted no time in lodging its appeal. On Oct. 12, a week after Kavanaugh was sworn in, state lawyers urged the court to revive a 2016 state law and “uphold Indiana’s authority to put end to eugenics abortions.”

The state’s appeal argues that “technological advances have improved … prenatal testing that screens for Down syndrome and other fetal abnormalities,” resulting in most women choosing abortion when they receive such a diagnosis.

The law, signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence, “responded to the alarming trend of disability-selective abortions” by making it illegal for women to seek to end a pregnancy based on a “diagnosis or potential diagnosis of the fetus having Down syndrome or any other disability.” The only exception would be for a “fetal condition that … will with reasonable certainty result in the death of the child not more than three months after the child’s birth.”

A federal judge blocked the law from taking effect in 2016, and the 7th Circuit Court in Chicago in a 3-0 ruling declared it unconstitutional. The judges said the Supreme Court’s past rulings, beginning with Roe v. Wade, made clear that a woman and her doctor, not the state, may decide whether to abort a pregnancy before the fetus is capable of living on its own.

But in June, two of President Donald Trump’s new appointees, including Judge Amy Coney Barrett, joined a dissenting opinion that urged the appeals court to reconsider its ruling. Judge Frank Easterbrook said the Supreme Court had not directly ruled on a “eugenics statute” like the Indiana law.

“There is a difference between ‘I don’t want a child’ and ‘I want a child but only a male’ or ‘I want only children whose genes predict success in life,’” he wrote.

A separate provision of the law would have required abortion facilities, including Planned Parenthood clinics, to dispose of fetal remains through burial or cremation, and not as medical waste. But the appeals court was split 5-5 and could not reopen the case.

Indiana’s lawyers then asked the Supreme Court to review the case of Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana. They said several other states, including Ohio, have adopted similar laws, but none of them have gone into effect.

Jennifer Kalven, an ACLU lawyer, said she thought it was “very unlikely to the court will take the case. There is no split in the circuit courts on this question, which is a typical reason the court takes case. And allowing a state to pry into a woman’s reason for seeking an abortion strikes at the very heart of the woman’s right to make this private decision for herself.”

In their meeting behind closed doors, the justices also considered dozens of other appeals.

Last month, the justices split 6-3 in refusing to hear an appeal from several conservative states, including Indiana, that sought to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood clinics. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented. But it takes four votes to grant an appeal.

— David G. Savage
Los Angeles Times

The Democratic Mantra

Mitt Romney Is A Lightweight!

Threatening A "Talker" Is Indeed Crazy

Conservative Icon Goes Into

 Hiding After Death Threats

• 2019-01-03 
• Source: AAN 
• by: AAN Staff

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Radio talk show firebrand Michael Savage is taking precautionary measures after one of his favorite restaurants received an email threatening violence unless the owner denied him service.

Per Fox News:

"I DEMAND THAT YOU REFUSE TO ALLOW MICHAEL … IN YOUR F***ING RESTAURANT AGAIN," reads a portion of the email obtained by The Washington Times. "HE IS A RACIST WHITE SUPREMACIST PIECE OF S**T."

The email reportedly went on: "I OWN 3 GUNS AND I CAN DO SOME SERIOUS F***ING DAMAGE. I WILL KILL AS MANY OF YOU RACIST-SUPPORTING/ENABLING WHITE SUPREMACISTS AS I F—ING CAN."

Savage, who told The Times he is accustomed to receiving death threats, said the severity of the email has prompted city, state and federal law enforcement agencies to take the threat "very seriously."

"Over the years, I have received many threats and have chosen to ignore them," Savage said. "However, given the violent, vile times we are living in and the specific nature of this threat, both I and some serious agencies are taking this threat very seriously."

Savage said the authorities have a suspect they are investigating.

Read more at http://americanactionnews.com/articles/conservative-icon-goes-into-hiding-after-death-threats#RMj1DLj8LTjWGEGf.99

Is This The Beginning Of The End?

Dem Will File Articles of Impeachment Against Trump

• 2019-01-03 
• Source: TTN
 
• by: TTN Staff

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**Tell Congress to Build the Wall**

Democrat Congressman Brad Sherman is wasting no time introducing articles of impeachment against President Trump. The Congressman from California will introduce the legislation on the first day of the new Congress in which the Democrats hold the majority in the House.

According to Fox News:

A California congressman is introducing articles of impeachment against President Trump on Thursday -- the first day of the new Democratic majority in the House.

Rep. Brad Sherman is reintroducing the impeachment articles that he first filed in 2017 with Democratic co-sponsor Rep. Al Green of Texas, a spokesman said.

“He will be introducing the same articles he introduced last year once the House is in session this afternoon,” Sherman spokesman Shane Seaver told Fox News.

The move is one of several indications that despite the go-slow approach of Democratic leadership, some in the rank-and-file will be eager to launch impeachment proceedings now that they're in the majority. A Detroit Free Press op-ed co-authored by incoming Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan, said the House does not need to wait for the outcome of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe "before moving forward now with an inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives on whether the president has committed impeachable 'high crimes and misdemeanors' against the state: abuse of power and abuse of the public trust."

A measure failed in the previous Congress and even failed to gain Democrat support. Democrat leadership have yet to commit to pursuing impeachment.

Read more at http://trumptrainnews.com/articles/dem-will-file-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump#x1Mt9fIBMkdlIw0L.99