Record Guns at Airports, Republican Admits Truth About Protests
The David Pakman Show - October 15, 2021
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TSA Confiscates Record Number of Guns from Passengers
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that the agency has confiscated a record number of firearms from airline passengers at airports this year. At the same time, security and airline staff are dealing with a record number of belligerent passengers, largely because of masking rules and other pent-up aggression from the pandemic. TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in an interview, “we've had many more incidences where there are passenger disturbances both in checkpoints and onboard aircraft. That makes it more important that there are no guns involved.” The agency reported catching 4,600 firearms at check points so far in 2021, a majority of which were loaded. One of the people caught trying to bring a gun onto a plane was Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn, who unsurprisingly did not face any consequences for doing so. It should be common sense that firearms wouldn’t be allowed on planes but there are plenty of people who simply don’t have any common sense or think that they can get away with it.
OOPS: Fox Guest Says Quiet Part Out Loud About Anti-Mask Protests
Republican operative David Avella went on Fox News and said the quiet part out loud about anti-mask protests in Florida schools. Avella is the Chairman of GOPAC and said he likes the demonstrations at school board meetings because they’ll make the situation at schools seem so chaotic that parents will decide to pull their kids out of public schools. With enrollment at public schools down, the right-wing state leadership can use it as justification to cut funding and prop up private and charter schools instead. Avella said point blank on the Fox show Outnumbered, “this is going to be a boom for private schools, for charter schools, for home schoolers who are going to look for an alternative other than in the public school. And there are plenty of wonderful organizations out there that provide scholarships for kids to go to charter schools.” Avella is giving the game away with this statement and it likely would have been wiser for him not to say this at all and simply let it happen. The Republican strategy with regard to government services has long been to cut funding so that the programs fail and then that can be used as justification to cut funding even more. The public school system in Florida is the right’s next target and they’ve developed a plan to carry through with it.
From yesterday’s show:
Reporter Asks Jen Psaki About Package Delivery
The Post Office has been functioning quite poorly over the past year, in large part because Trump crony Louis DeJoy has taken over as Postmaster General with the goal of gutting the agency. But now, Republicans are turning around and blaming Joe Biden for long delivery times and the prediction that many gift orders won’t arrive by the holiday season unless they’re purchased well in advance. Case in point, reporters are asking White House Press Secretary about the slow delivery times and suggesting Biden has it within his power to turn things around. CBS News correspondent Ed O'Keefe asked Psaki earlier this week, “based on everything being announced today, can this administration guarantee that holiday packages will arrive on time?” The Press Secretary responded, “we are not the Postal Service, or UPS, or FedEx. We cannot guarantee. What we can do is use every lever at the federal government’s disposal to reduce delays. . .” Some people went after Psaki over this statement, believing the government is the Postal Service. But it is actually an independent agency under the executive branch and President Biden only has limited control of their operations. At this point in time, he can’t even impact who’s in charge of it.
From yesterday’s show:
Unemployment Claims Hit Pandemic-Era Low!
Jobless claims in the United States are now at their pandemic low in what could be pointing to the economy making its early stages of a full recovery. The Labor Department released its weekly numbers yesterday, showing 293,000 new jobless claims, compared to the 320,000 new claims that it expected. There were 2.59 continuing claims, down from the expectation for the week of 2.67 million. These positive indicators show that the talking points about people being lazy and spoiled by enhanced unemployment benefits are not playing out. Predictions that there would be a mass exodus from the workforce over vaccine mandates also don’t seem to be coming true, as we are seeing people return to work now as expected. Certainly there is more work to be done to get to full employment and there are other indicators that are more concerning for the overall health of the economy. However the doomsday scenarios that were predicted by many folks, especially on the right, simply aren’t happening.
More on the show:
--Caller wonders whether progressives will affect Democrats' ability to pass the infrastructure deal
--Caller from Mexico wonders if it's safe to come to the United States
--Caller asks about billionaires going into space
--Caller questions if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would be more dangerous than Donald Trump
--Caller discusses housing affordability
--Caller talks about disinformation in the Spanish-speaking community
--Caller is a military servicemember stationed in Turkey
--David responds to viewer emails
--On the Bonus Show: It's time to end the debt ceiling, Merck wants to charge Americans $712 for taxpayer-developed COVID drug, Republicans trying to repeal vaccine mandates for other diseases, and much more...
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I am reading Peril (by Bob Woodward & Robert Costa). The Jan 6 insurrection was a LOT more serious than the fall of democracy. We were perilously close to a nuclear strike from China because they (and the rest of the world) saw that the U.S. was weak and unstable. The other countries envisioned a nuclear threat that could be taken by an unstable president who was stark-raving mad. It was compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis--that's how close we were to nuclear annihilation. At any moment, Trump could have blown up the world. But instead, he was being entertained by TV on the riots outside. It was exactly like Bin Laden laughing and cheering on the 9/11 attacks. Trump was GLEEFUL about what was happening, completely unaware that North America could be nuked back to the Stone Age at any minute. Nancy Pelosi was the only one who saw the bigger picture. SHE knows more about national security than the president of the U.S. So THIS is what we should be talking about.