House rejects creation of federal work force for screening (Airport Security)

StLtoday.com ^ | 11-1-01 | Jim Abrams

[FairWitness]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House rejected a plan Thursday to turn airport screening operations over to federal employees, handing a major victory to the White House and its Republican allies.

The 218-214 vote to defeat the Senate-passed, Democratic-backed alternative set the stage for passing a GOP aviation security bill that would allow screening to be contracted out to private employers. A vote on the Republican bill was to come later Thursday evening.

[jwalsh07]

maybe, but the company(s) whose responsibility it is to protect the skies from terrorists gave us 5,000 dead people.

You must be referring to the CIA, FBI or some other federal agency because the terrorist scumbags broke NO laws while boarding those planes. Bos cutters were not ILLEGAL to carry on board. I've been carrying pocket knives my entire life and I have flown frequently.

[VA Advogado]

Unions have created a bunch of self-centered lazy whiners.... And they all sit on their butts and wonder why the big companies are moving out of the U.S.....duh!

LOL you must be a hardworking Teamster. Every other union member has drank the koolaid and would never let those words pass over their keyboard.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

That was the vote to reject the Senate version of the bill.

The vote for the Republican version was 286 yeas vs. 139 nays. Something like 70 DemocRATs voted for the Republican version. Two Republicans voted against it.

Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering how the heck a defeated bill was going into conference as per the article?! ;-)

[JessicaDragonet]

This is about what it's always about.....money! The airlines don't want to spend the money to make their product or their services safe...they want the taxpayers to do it. I think they should have to shoulder the expense...but like the Health Department overlooks resturants...the government should oversee the safety of the flying public.

[upchuck]

Best thing to happen since 9/11. I'm sorry, but 28K MORE feds is just too much. And NOBODY could even begin to quarantee feds could have stopped 9/11. Private cops overseen by the gvt wouldn't have stopped it either.

[jwalsh07]

Delay is the man, when he calls I donate. If the senate calls I tell them exactly where do put the donations they do get.

[jojonomo55]

BTW, the spin is starting already. The GOP has all but killed any chance of airline security. The skies wont be safe to fly this holiday season. Blame the GOP. Etc...

Is it true? Open to ones perspective. Will it hurt the GOP? With the popularity of bush right now, maybe not, and maybe that is what the house GOP is counting on. But there are a lot of uninformed people out there that are going to buy this spin hook line and sinker, whether it is true or not, and this might be real damaging to the party as a whole. There are a lot of scared people out there who would have felt a lot better with federal employees (me included) and this just might sink in with them.

[Eva]

A former neighbor of mine was in charge of the new FAA Securtiy division that was set up following the downing of TWA 800. The man was incapable of managing our little homeowners' assoc. and unable to control his wife. It is no wonder that the FAA security division was inept. I have no doubt that any gov't agency would be the same. (He was also the crash investigation team)

[jwalsh07]

But the competing bills had much in common. Both would allow pilots to carry guns if they are trained and choose to do so. Both would strengthen cockpit doors, screen checked bags and deploy more air marshals on flights.

Good deal.

[VA Advogado]

Mica warned that if the House decided to make baggage screeners government workers, ``you can go home and tell your constituents, 'What we did is, we created the biggest bureaucracy in a generation'.''

But Iowa Republican Rep. Greg Ganske (news - bio - voting record), co-sponsor of the House bill to make baggage screeners government employees, asked why doing that should be considered ``an evil thing.''

If this quote isn't enough to keep Ganske out of the Senate (against Harkin) I dont know what is. Please join Conservatives for Harkin

[Bogey78O]

Yup there are a lot of uninformed people. They just don't know they are uninformed. **coughyoucough**

[jwalsh07]

There are a lot of scared people out there who would have felt a lot better with federal employees (me included) and this just might sink in with them.

Thats why the folks here at FreeRepublic coined the term sheeple.

[FairWitness]

Did a search just before hitting the post button, and the exact title didn't get a hit.

One of the frustrating things following recent improvemnts to the Free Republic is that it seems harder to search to see if a story has already been posted. I don't know if everyone realizes, but different sources can publish the EXACT same story, word for word, but under a different title. Titles are apparently made up by a separate person(s) from who writes the story. Therefore, a title search can often miss the story if it was posted from a different source (i.e., AP versus STLtoday). It used to be possible to also search on source and author, but either that doesn't work anymore or I haven't learned the new way to do it (someone enlighten me?). On the other hand, as big as Free Republic has become, it is easily possible to miss a story if it is only posted once so I don't get too upset by duplicates (easy for me to say, I don't pay the bills here).

[VA Advogado]

The man was incapable of managing our little homeowners' assoc. and unable to control his wife.

It's the latter that's most concerning. :)

[jokemoke]

you must be a hardworking Teamster. Every other union member has drank the koolaid and would never let those words pass over their keyboard.

Bingo! Very proud Teamster, I might add.

[goodnesswins]

Obviously, since you've only been here since Oct. 20, 2001, you haven't had the opportunity of being educated. Please do a little research into the Medicare, Social Security, Welfare etc. systems (run by federal workers) and consider how well they have worked over the last 50 years.

[jimtorr]

Well said, piasa! Bravo!

[6ppc]

Both would allow pilots to carry guns if they are trained and choose to do so.

Pretty good, but I'd like to see it required. As a practical matter, I'll bet 95% or better will eventually carry. Pilots are regular guys. It'll become a status symbol, who's got the slickest rig! Also, investing in security management and training companies looks like a no brainer right now.

[Brimack34]

I saw Lott on Hannity and he was glad this passed yet the senate passed it 100-0 sounds to me like the Clinton Impeachment. What up with that? Let the house repub's fry. So the senate Rebub's look good.

[VA Advogado]

Bingo! Very proud Teamster, I might add.

LOL you guys rawk.