Free Republic

<p>WASHINGTON — Airline pilots are stepping up their campaign to pressure the Bush administration to train more commercial pilots to carry guns in the cockpit.</p> <p>Fewer than 200 pilots have been deputized to carry weapons since November, when Congress ordered the government to start a program for pilots who want to be armed when they fly.</p>

<p>World Airways received permission from the Transportation Department on Friday to fly passengers and cargo between Washington Dulles International Airport and Iraq.</p> <p>Resumption of airline service is a milestone in Iraq's recovery from war, said Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta.</p>

Clintonistas on 9/11 Commission Hunt for Bush Cover-up Two members of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks who excoriated the Bush administration for its handling of the disaster during public hearings this week are said to be aggressive Democratic partisans with close ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Complaining that the presence on the commission of high powered Washington lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste and former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick all but guaranteed that the investigation would target the Republican White House, the Wall Street Journal observed last December that the two 9/11 probers were "Democratic partisans [who are] one...

WASHINGTON -- According to high-level administration sources, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta was scheduled to follow former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill as the second Cabinet member to be fired by President Bush until illness landed him in Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Mineta, a 71-year-old former congressman from California, is the only Democrat in Bush's Cabinet. He was saved from dismissal when a staph infection followed surgery last August to relieve persistent back pain, hospitalizing him for several weeks. He was operated on again Jan. 24, and remains at Walter Reed at this writing. Although Transportation officials say Mineta...

<p>Transportation Security Administration employee Stacie Sidhu , helps a passenger get to his flight as she deals with congestion in terminal A.</p> <p>A lost man wandered past security screeners through an exit and into a boarding area at San Jose airport Sunday, forcing officials to evacuate nearly 2,000 passengers from Terminal A and delaying flights on one of the busiest travel days of the year.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP)--After a 14-month impasse, U.S. and Mexican officials will see if they can establish common ground on ways to revamp laws governing Mexican migration to the United States. Migration issues is one of the topics Secretary of State Colin Powell and five other senior Bush administration officials will deal with Monday and Tuesday during talks in Mexico City. Powell and his colleagues will be looking for progress in persuading Mexico to repay a huge water debt based on a 1944 treaty. Mexico's inability to pay the debt has angered many Texas ranchers. A major concern for Mexico is the...

A tale of two lawsuits Two sets of families of 9/11 victims filed suit in federal court, this summer, seeking to prove that culpability for the attacks goes beyond Osama bin Laden's al Qaida. One group went after bin Laden's family business, members of the Saudi Arabian royal family, and the nation of Sudan, demanding $116 trillion. This faction made lots of news. The second group filed suit against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation. These families are only suing for $7 billion dollars, but the...

"Miss, please take a sip of that beverage." Only halfway through my cardboard cup of Fresh Fields coffee and therefore a bit slow, I furrowed my brow in response to the request. My hesitation annoyed the uniformed men at Reagan National, who glared at me and repeated themselves. "You're going to have to take a sip of the beverage if you want to get on the plane, Miss." Miss? I'm married now. "When am I going to be a ma'am?" I wondered silently. But this was no time for random thoughts. There was serious business at hand: Whatever was in...

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - The new acting director of the Transportation Security Agency says he is "hesitant" about proposals to train and voluntarily arm commercial airline pilots with deadly weapons to defend against terrorist attacks. Adm. James Loy, acting Undersecretary for Transportation Security, made the statement to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Thursday morning. "I need to learn about this and get up the learning curve very quickly," he said of proposals that the TSA screen, train, and arm pilot volunteers to serve as a last line of defense against potential terrorist hijackings. "I can say that...

Hollings' refusal of 9-11 widow's gun testimony triggers media attention Saturday, July 27, 2002 BY SCHUYLER KROPF Of The Post and Courier Staff The story of the South Carolina senator who said "no" to the widow of the 9-11 airline pilot is fast gaining national attention. Democrat U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings rejected a request by Ellen Saracini to testify at Thursday's Senate hearings in favor of letting airline pilots be armed in the cockpit. Her husband, Richard, was the captain of United Flight 175, the second plane to crash into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Hollings, D-S.C., opposes...

In a dramatic turnaround, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has ordered the new head of the Transportation Security Administration to study options for arming the nation's 70,000 commercial pilots with "lethal force" capabilities. "It is under discussion in terms of should we take another approach," Mineta told the House Transportation Committee's aviation subcommittee during testimony on Tuesday. "I have asked [TSA Administrator James Loy] to take a look at this to see whether or not there is some alternative, even if it is lethal weapons." Loy, former head of the U.S. Coast Guard, replaced John Magaw as head of TSA last...

"I'd promised myself, around the end of 2000, that I'd back off on my favorite target -- the GOP -- for a while, not because they deserved it, but because Silverfoot Junior and his oily entourage could be trusted to demonstrate to everybody's satisfaction what I'd been saying for years: Republicans are no better friends to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights than their fellow criminals on the other side of the aisle."

After only six months on the job, the head of the new Transportation Security Administration, John Magaw, is gone. McGaw became a favorite target of critics who rightly complain his department is responsible for all those odd changes we've seen at the airport lately. [At the Phoenix airport the other day, I saw guards checking an eight-year-old boy for guns and knives. My mother keeps asking why little old ladies are the only ones that seem to get frisked at the gate.] It was Magaw who made the decision that pilots would not be allowed to carry firearms. Word...

Just on air.... news alert that Magaw resigned, replaced by deputy, former USCG commandant James Loy (sp?)....

The Coming Air Service Crunch "Every American is willing to pay the price for better airport security" For nine months, we've heard this pabulum drooled out from government hacks, pandering reporters, and from passengers interviewed at airports. It sounds, well, so patriotic. The only fly in this PR ointment, as most airports and airline employees know, we don't have better airport security. But we are paying a price. In fact, never has the nation paid so much to get so little. Bad leadership is expensive. Tolerance of it is even more expensive. We can point to the obvious examples. The...

I have no doubt that jet planes still remain vulnerable to hijackings and terrorism, especially after recent press reports and information provided to me by a major airline pilot. Last week, it was revealed that terrorists may be stealing pilot uniforms and identifications, and have been trailing pilots in Europe. And on March 29 of this year, terrorists may have been testing our airline defenses to undertake another bold attack. Those who think al-Qaeda is finished with jets are wrong. We know, for example, that a shoe bomber tried to blow up an American Airlines flight. Past experience also...

The Bush administration has clearly lost the momentum that seemed irresistible in the wake of September 11, when all ambiguity was blown away on a date that shares infamy. The prospect of hanging concentrates the mind, as Dr. Johnson famously said, but nothing is permanent. Nothing much has happened since September 11, so a lot of us have stepped down from the gallows and back to the carefree life. Some of the things the government has done - color-coded warnings, streets-closings to make motorcades safe, warnings of suitcase bombs posted from Moscow - have hardly helped. The lick-and-a-promise approach to...

Texas Straight Talk directory Project FREEDOM Undersecretary John Magaw, the chief of the new Transportation Security Administration, has been very busy lately. He just spent $410,000 of your tax dollars installing lavish fixtures in his new office suite at the Transportation department headquarters. The Washington Post reports that "With its plush carpeting, mahogany stained doors, crown molding, and state-of-the-art conference room equipped with $109,000 worth of audio equipment, it has struck some visitors as ‘a little bit over the top.’" Incredibly, Magaw managed to spend about $132 per square foot on his new digs, more than the cost of new...

<p>Critics have been quick to seize upon the ``Phoenix memo'' as evidence that the Bush administration may have had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. The memo purportedly warned of ``Middle Eastern men'' taking flight training at American schools.</p> <p>Not so fast Woodward and Bernstein wannabees. In the first place, we cannot evaluate the administration's or FBI's handling of this memo until we know better how many similar reports and memos the government was receiving at the time. This memo stands out now because it turned out to be correct. But just as the government received many -- often conflicting -- signs of a possible Japanese attack before Pearl Harbor, picking out the accurate warning from amid the chatter is often possible only in retrospect.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- The government has cut training for federal air marshal applicants and put new hires on flights without requiring the advanced marksmanship skills the program used to demand, USA TODAY has learned.</p> <p>During a Senate hearing Tuesday, Transportation Security Administration head John Magaw cited the expertise of marshals in explaining his opposition to allowing pilots to carry guns. ''The use of firearms aboard a U.S. aircraft must be limited to those thoroughly trained members of law enforcement,'' he said.</p>