Just a few hours after Joshua Tree National Park announced it will close for at least a few days to assess and maintain the park after three weeks without proper staffing due to the Trump Shutdown, CNN reports that TSA officers, who are going without pay, are calling out from work at Palm Springs and other California airports which is having a negative impact on aviation security.
An email obtained by CNN written by Martin Elam, the deputy federal security director of five California airports including Palm Springs, acknowledges that Trump’s Shutdown is making flying less safe at Palm Springs International.
The internal email states that the excessive absences by TSA officers currently working without pay has “adversely impacted security operations,” according to the CNN report.
In Palm Springs, a pilot and flight attendant have also called in sick, in addition to the number of TSA union workers.
In the email, Elam warned employees of possible disciplinary action at the Palm Springs airport in response to unscheduled absences as the absences are impacting security.
Punishing people for not coming into work when you are not willing to pay them sure seems like a shitty way to run a government, but then that’s where we are.
As he New York Times noted over the weekend, “The Wall” was simply a “mnemonic device” thought up by a pair of political consultants to remind Donald Trump to talk about illegal immigration while on the campaign trail in 2016 – in which Trump would proclaim that Mexico would pay for it. He is now requesting over $5 billion of American taxpayer money to get started on construction.
