TSA Agent: We’re not safe

March 11, 2013

Writer

An expose on the TSA confirms what we already knew instinctively: we are not safe. When the supervisors are most concerned about whether or not their screeners are chewing gum (a big no no apparently) you know we’ve got issues. Not only that but felons are getting jobs at the TSA. Brilliant.

More on this story at TheBlaze.

Transcript of the segment from radio is below:

GLENN: All right. Let me go to the story up on TheBlaze. A former Newark TSA agent tells us the obvious: We're not safe. If you've ever flown in or out of Newark, New Jersey, you know that. This is not going to come as a shock to you. But if you've never been to Newark, hey, congratulations on that. That's a very good thing. But if you've never been to Newark, I swear to you I have been where the person, they check your driver's license and this even they don't even look up to match your face on the license. They don't do it. They never look up.

PAT: You'll put the bag through the machine and nobody even looks at the monitor. Nobody's even looking at it.

GLENN: Okay, so ‑‑

PAT: They are talking to each other.

GLENN: This is an expose, the employees, this is from a former TSA employee. There are those employees who could never keep a job in the private sector who are working at the TSA in Newark. I wouldn't trust them to walk my dog, and these are the people that Janet Napolitano says ‑‑ she constantly says these are the first class, first line of defense in the war on terror. If that's true, you're dead if you fly out of Newark, New Jersey. I mean, I almost ‑‑ but I just wanted to get through. I almost had a ‑‑ I almost had a scene because I'm standing at this, you know, check‑in line and I had flown in and out of Newark over and over again and where they check your ID, right behind them is a plate glass window and it looks to the skyline of New York where the World Trade Centers would have been. And so you're ‑‑ and this woman didn't even look at my face. And I about snapped. I about snapped. And the guy standing next to me said, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Because he could feel it coming. And what I wanted to say was, "Turn around for me. Don't even look at my face. Just turn around and see that place right in the skyline where the buildings should have been? Could you at least look at someone's face as they're going through? What is the point of looking at their driver's license if you're not matching it with the person who just handed it to you?" But they're $15 an hour employees. And in Newark, New Jersey, who's living on $15 an hour?

PAT: Guy tells the story about one screener who didn't come to work for four weeks. Just didn't show up for four weeks. When he finally reappeared, he asked for another week off. The answer was no, you just took four weeks off. So what did he do? He took another week off and still didn't get fire.

GLENN: Well, they can't replace them.

PAT: They can't replace them.

GLENN: Who's going to work there? Do you know how low your self‑esteem would be if you had any ‑‑ you know what one of the big things with the TSA guys, according to this, according with the supervisors, according to a former TSA employee in Newark, one of the big things that drives the employers nuts is gum‑chewing. And so they go and they check the employee: Are you chewing gum? And they had one guy ‑‑ this TSA employee said, "I witnessed the boss coming over and saying, "Open up your mouth. Open it up." It's a mint, jack. It's a mint. "Open it up. I want to see it." And made him open up and show him that it was a mint and not gum. I mean, that's what you are worried about: Gum‑chewing? It's a pretty nasty, pretty nasty look at the bottom of the barrel.

STU: Yeah, Marsha Blackburn, the congresswoman, released a TSA report of the 50 most dangerous officers. I mean, there's ‑‑ we're talking offenses like rape, you know ‑‑

GLENN: Oh, this is the one from last week where they were ‑‑

STU: I think this is.

GLENN: Yeah, last week where they're talking about how they are employing now former criminals.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Felons. Felons. Not misdemeanors. Felons are getting a job at the TSA. That's exactly what I want to do. I want to put felons, I want to give them a badge and have them ‑‑ I mean, because they can ‑‑ they are beyond reproach. There's no way, there's no way, you know, a bunch of ex‑felons are going to, you know, take money making $15 an hour, take money and let somebody on the plane with something nefarious. No way.

STU: And this is the problem. There's a lot of good TSA employees and they do a lot of good things but you have people ‑‑ when you have the government or union running these things, you get people who are convicted of child pornography and keep their jobs. Private businesses don't allow that.

GLENN: Yep.

STU: They get rid of you when you do crap like that. When you steal from passengers, they get rid of you. When you're through the government, it's such a process to do that, it becomes completely inefficient and you have lists like the 50 most dangerous officers.

GLENN: Well, you know what? The cities that don't have ‑‑ do we have a list, Jeffy? Can you stop looking at your cancer screening? Do you have breast cancer?

STU: No.

GLENN: Seriously maybe you have breast cancer.

JEFFY: No, I felt for lumps this morning. I'm good.

GLENN: Did you? Good. Could you look, could you look at the cities that have said we don't want TSA?

STU: San Francisco's one of them.

GLENN: San Francisco is one of them.

STU: You know, you'd think of all places San Francisco would love the government intervention but even they have opted out of it. You can opt out.

GLENN: No, no, people who like government intervention are generally those, those people that want government intervention elsewhere but not for them.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: They will accept everybody else, but we're smart enough to live on our own. Did you hear, if you are ‑‑ if you're a federal worker or if you have any kind of, you know, retirement plan, if you're a teacher or a cop or anything else, what's the one city you want to live in? Because they're giving I think double the amount to the, actually putting it into the kitty. Everybody else, nobody's getting ‑‑ they are not putting anything into your kitty now anymore. You're not getting your healthcare. You're not getting your retirement benefits, gang. I got news for ya. It doesn't work. The system doesn't work. It won't happen. Because there are too many people on retirement and not enough people coming up. They need like 12‑to‑1 and we're already down to, like, 8‑to‑1 and another five years it will be down to 4‑to‑1. You just can't afford all the retirement. And so what they've been trying to do is, "Hey, put all this money in for investment because then it will grow." But nobody's putting the money in for investment anymore except for one city. And it makes sense: Washington, D.C. If you work in Washington D.C., you have the best chance of getting your retirement. Now, why is that? Well, you want the people in Washington D.C., you want the Feds to be fat and happy. That's why they make more money, almost double. When you include the benefits, almost double the amount of money that you make is made by a federal worker. Almost double. And it is ‑‑ it's shockingly horrifying that these are our public servants. But if you're trying to get somebody who is loyal to the money and will work through anything and will fight the hardest to make sure there's no cuts, you want the federal workers to be the ones. Keep growing that base fatter and fatter and fatter and make sure the ones who impose all the laws, the ones who really are the ones who enforce it, make sure it's enforced, make sure they have their retirement covered. Everybody else, you're on your own.

Could China OWN our National Parks?

Jonathan Newton / Contributor | Getty Images

The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

EXPOSED: Why the left’s trans agenda just CRASHED at SCOTUS

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

You never know what you’re going to get with the U.S. Supreme Court these days.

For all of the Left’s insane panic over having six supposedly conservative justices on the court, the decisions have been much more of a mixed bag. But thank God – sincerely – there was a seismic win for common sense at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It’s a win for American children, parents, and for truth itself.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s state ban on irreversible transgender procedures for minors.

The mostly conservative justices stood tall in this case, while Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson predictably dissented. This isn’t just Tennessee’s victory – 20 other red states that have similar bans can now breathe easier, knowing they can protect vulnerable children from these sick, experimental, life-altering procedures.

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying Tennessee’s law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. It’s rooted in a very simple truth that common sense Americans get: kids cannot consent to permanent damage. The science backs this up – Norway, Finland, and the UK have all sounded alarms about the lack of evidence for so-called “gender-affirming care.” The Trump administration’s recent HHS report shredded the activist claims that these treatments help kids’ mental health. Nothing about this is “healthcare.” It is absolute harm.

The Left, the ACLU, and the Biden DOJ screamed “discrimination” and tried to twist the Constitution to force this radical ideology on our kids.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court saw through it this time. In her concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett nailed it: gender identity is not some fixed, immutable trait like race or sex. Detransitioners are speaking out, regretting the surgeries and hormones they were rushed into as teens. WPATH – the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the supposed experts on this, knew that kids cannot fully grasp this decision, and their own leaked documents prove that they knew it. But they pushed operations and treatments on kids anyway.

This decision is about protecting the innocent from a dangerous ideology that denies biology and reality. Tennessee’s Attorney General calls this a “landmark victory in defense of America’s children.” He’s right. This time at least, the Supreme Court refused to let judicial activism steal our kids’ futures. Now every state needs to follow Tennessee’s lead on this, and maybe the tide will continue to turn.

Insider alert: Glenn’s audience EXPOSES the riots’ dark truth

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

Glenn asked for YOUR take on the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, and YOU responded with a thunderous verdict. Your answers to our recent Glennbeck.com poll cut through the establishment’s haze, revealing a profound skepticism of their narrative.

The results are undeniable: 98% of you believe taxpayer-funded NGOs are bankrolling these riots, a bold rejection of the claim that these are grassroots protests. Meanwhile, 99% dismiss the mainstream media’s coverage as woefully inadequate—can the official story survive such resounding doubt? And 99% of you view the involvement of socialist and Islamist groups as a growing threat to national security, signaling alarm at what Glenn calls a coordinated “Color Revolution” lurking beneath the surface.

You also stand firmly with decisive action: 99% support President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to quell the chaos. These numbers defy the elite’s tired excuses and reflect a demand for truth and accountability. Are your tax dollars being weaponized to destabilize America? You’ve answered with conviction.

Your voice sends a powerful message to those who dismiss the unrest as mere “protests.” You spoke, and Glenn listened. Keep shaping the conversation at Glennbeck.com.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

EXPOSED: Your tax dollars FUND Marxist riots in LA

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

Protesters wore Che shirts, waved foreign flags, and chanted Marxist slogans — but corporate media still peddles the ‘spontaneous outrage’ narrative.

I sat in front of the television this weekend, watching the glittering spectacle of corporate media do what it does best: tell me not to believe my lying eyes.

According to the polished news anchors, what I was witnessing in Los Angeles was “mostly peaceful protests.” They said it with all the earnest gravitas of someone reading a bedtime story, while behind them the streets looked like a deleted scene from “Mad Max.” Federal agents dodged concrete slabs as if it were an Olympic sport. A man in a Che Guevara crop top tried to set a police car on fire. Dumpster fires lit the night sky like some sort of postapocalyptic luau.

If you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

But sure, it was peaceful. Tear gas clouds and Molotov cocktails are apparently the incense and candles of this new civic religion.

The media expects us to play along — to nod solemnly while cities burn and to call it “activism.”

Let’s call this what it is: delusion.

Another ‘peaceful’ riot

If the Titanic “mostly floated” and the Hindenburg “mostly flew,” then yes, the latest L.A. riots are “mostly peaceful.” But history tends to care about those tiny details at the end — like icebergs and explosions.

The coverage was full of phrases like “spontaneous,” “grassroots,” and “organic,” as if these protests materialized from thin air. But many of the signs and banners looked like they’d been run off at ComradesKinkos.com — crisp print jobs with slogans promoting socialism, communism, and various anti-American regimes. Palestinian flags waved beside banners from Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and El Salvador. It was like someone looted a United Nations souvenir shop and turned it into a revolution starter pack.

And guess who funded it? You did.

According to at least one report, much of this so-called spontaneous rage fest was paid for with your tax dollars. Tens of millions of dollars from the Biden administration ensured your paycheck funded Trotsky cosplayers chucking firebombs at local coffee shops.

The same aging radicals from the 1970s — now armed with tenure, pensions, and book deals — are cheering from the sidelines, waxing poetic about how burning a squad car is “liberation.” These are the same folks who once wore tie-dye and flew to help guerrilla fighters and now applaud chaos under the banner of “progress.”

This is not progress. It is not protest. It’s certainly not justice or peace.

It’s an attempt to dismantle the American system — and if you dare say that out loud, you’re labeled a bigot, a fascist, or, worst of all, someone who notices reality.

And what sparked this taxpayer-funded riot? Enforcement against illegal immigrants — many of whom, according to official arrest records, are repeat violent offenders. These are not the “dreamers” or the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. These are criminals with long, violent rap sheets — allowed to remain free by a broken system that prioritizes ideology over public safety.

Photo by Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg | Getty Images

This is what people are rioting over — not the mistreatment of the innocent, but the arrest of the guilty. And in California, that’s apparently a cause for outrage.

The average American, according to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, is supposed to worry they’ll be next. But unless you’re in the habit of assaulting people, smuggling, or firing guns into people’s homes, you probably don’t have much to fear.

Still, if you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

The left has lost it

This is what happens when a culture loses its grip on reality. We begin to call arson “art,” lawlessness “liberation,” and criminals “community members.” We burn the good and excuse the evil — all while the media insists it’s just “vibes.”

But it’s not just vibes. It’s violence, paid for by you, endorsed by your elected officials, and whitewashed by newsrooms with more concern for hair and lighting than for truth.

This isn’t activism. This is anarchism. And Democratic politicians are fueling the flame.