Jim DeMint gets support for TSA nominee hold

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Jim DeMint gets support for TSA nominee hold

By MANU RAJU & JOSH GERSTEIN | 1/12/10 4:38 AM EST

Passengers line up to pass through a TSA security checkpoint.
Photo: AP


Republicans are stepping up their effort to block Erroll Southers from becoming head of the Transportation Security Administration, turning the nomination into a larger debate over labor unions, the Obama administration’s vetting process and national security.


When the nomination comes to the Senate floor — perhaps as early as next week — Republicans plan to reopen debate on whether 40,000 of the TSA’s airport personnel should be given the right to collectively bargain. Then they plan to pivot to a larger, national security discussion, claiming Southers would hurt the TSA, which has been under scrutiny since the Christmas Day terror attempt.


Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), whose hold on Southers helped prevent the Senate from confirming him before the holiday recess, told POLITICO that he’s “afraid what we’re going to see is this rampant incompetence” at the TSA because of what he said was inadequate vetting.


DeMint, who often fights lonely battles in the Senate, is gaining support for his hold on Southers.


Sen. John McCain and five other Republicans last week wrote a sharply worded letter to the White House, charging that Southers submitted “erroneous, and possibly misleading, information regarding ethical violations” when he worked for the FBI. A member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), also announced that he would try to block the nomination, ensuring that 60 votes will be needed to confirm Southers to the post.


Other top Republicans seem to be itching for a battle against a nominee who has suffered a series of rough media reports.


“After a year of nearly no discussion about the threat America faces every day, Republicans are eager to have a debate about improving national security,” said a senior GOP leadership aide. “We certainly hope Democrats understand that the American people don’t believe confirming a controversial TSA chief and calling it a day gets the job done.”


In addition, Republicans said that the White House’s acknowledgment that it was unaware of a conflict in Southers’s testimony until after the nomination process began shows a weakness in the administration’s vetting process.


Adding to the list of problems, new questions are now being raised over whether Southers’s role as a homeland security adviser for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign gave the White House misplaced confidence in Southers’s truthfulness.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will file a motion to break any Republican filibuster shortly after the Senate convenes next week, and Democrats are eager to make the case that the GOP is holding up Southers to score political points at a time when the failed Christmas Day bombing underlined the nation’s vulnerability to airline security.


Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, said that the GOP is “playing a very dangerous game that’s doomed to failure” and that it’s a “pathetically obvious political ploy designed to score cheap political points that just highlights how out of touch the Republican Party is.”


Southers has an extensive career in security. He currently works as a senior official for homeland security and intelligence for the police division of Los Angeles World Airports and as an associate director of the University of Southern California’s security studies program. He previously worked under Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a deputy homeland security director and at the FBI as a special agent.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31369.html

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Obama TSA Nominee Erroll Southers Calls Pro-Life Advocates Terrorists in Video

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 11, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama's nominee to head the agency charged with keeping American travelers safe from terrorism thinks pro-life advocates are terrorists. A new video shows Transportation Security Administration nominee Erroll Southers including pro-life advocates in a list of terrorist groups.

The new video from 2008 shows Southers responding to a documentary-style interview question about terrorist organizations.

The documentary asked Southers, "Which home-grown terrorist groups pose the greatest danger to the U.S."

Southers explained, "Most of the domestic groups that we pay attention to here are white supremacist groups. They're anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist type in nature, identity oriented."

"Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity oriented," he continues.

Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, has put a hold on the nomination of Southers to head the TSA, and the new video is likely to expand opposition to his nomination.

Erick Erickson of the Red State blog posted a response to the video blasting Southers for his targeting of pro-life advocates and Christians as terrorists.

He said there is "new and far more troubling information about Mr. Southers caught on video. According to Erroll Southers, pro-life Christians and our support of Jews is a bigger threat to national security than Al Qaeda."

"Southers, in 2008, said he was more worried about 'Christian identity' terrorist groups inside the U.S. than Islamic terrorists. What are 'Christian identity' terrorist groups? White-supremacists naturally. The KKK. And the Southern Baptist Convention," Erickson added. "Southers identifies pro-life groups and anti-government activists as particular problems."

Erickson also applauds DeMint for stopping the nomination.

"Had [he] not put a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers to be the head of TSA, he might have been confirmed by the Senate without any serious digging into his background," he said.

http://lifenews.com/nat5861.html

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Erroll Southers is profiling. I am a christian, white male, anti-abortionist and for smaller non-obtrusive government. I guess I'm his type of terrorist. and proud of it!

[Linda Maddox]

Senater Jim DiMint stands up for us once again. He is fighting to keep us safe, and protect our Freedom!