Dems Vow Roll Call Vote On TSA Nominee Delayed By Sen. Jim DeMint

Good move.
A better move would have been to do it about 6 months ago and then monthly from then on until there was enough votes.
Not just politically, but practically. Good governance is often good politics.
What other nominations need a roll call vote right now?

I'm glad to see the strong language from DeMint. Perhaps if more senators called each other "disgraceful," stupid ideas of comity that always result in Republicans taking advantage of Democrats would die out.

Keel haul that dirtball

Do it for Max Cleland

Nobody should play politics with the appointment of the TSA head, and DeMint's behavior is reprehensible. He should just explain his views on the floor of the Senate and state his opposition by voting 'no' on the confirmation --and be done with it. Placing a hold on the nomination does not make anyone safer.
Having said that, there is a point to be made for TSA workers not to unionize: the fear is that by letting TSA workers unionize, they will be impossible to lay off when technology enables their replacement. I don't want tax dollars to go to pay for twenty TSA workers that are doing the work that could be better done by a state-of-the-art wave scanning machine. What's worse, the government is not going to spend millions of dollars buying the new equipment knowing that no savings are possible through layoffs because the unions won't allow the TSA scanner positions to be eliminated. As a result, unionization of TSA workers may well result in a severe slowdown in the adoption of the equipment (which could more effectively and efficiently prevent attacks).
In short: since I help pay for the TSA, I'd rather invest in new machines and get rid of unnecessary workers than allow the workers to unionize and continue paying for all their salaries once their positions have been made obsolete by new technology. In any case, DeMint is even preventing this debate from taking place at all, so shame on him.

DeMint's argument is typical dishonest right-wing crap. All their arguments translate to "we won't allow X because X will or could somehow lead to Y and nobody likes Y". We can't allow gay marriage because it'll lead to bestiality. We can't allow legalization of pot because it'll lead to surgeons being on LSD during operations. We can't allow a public option because it'll lead to the destruction of America. (Actually, ALL Republican arguments translate to "X will lead to the destruction of America"...)

Democrats are furious that DeMint (R-SC) blocked the confirmation over a question of whether Southers would allow collective bargaining for TSA screeners. They believe that if Democrats had delayed a national security nominee under a Republican president, their party would be excoriated.

Yea, except the Democrats never got on CNN and MSNBC excoriating DeMint for this hold until the attempted Christmas attack. The Democrats need to get much, much better and more vocal about calling out nonsense like this, the hold on Dawn Johnsen, etc. Unless and until they do they will continue to face obstruction. Shoot, if Harry Reid could've long ago called a cloture vote on the nomination, he should have, just as he should on any other nominee that has a hold from a solitary Senator on his or her nomination.

Republican hypocrisy is always entertaining:

http://bit.ly/85PdvK