Any airport in the US is effectively federal property because the TSA does security in all airports, the FAA controls most surface movement and all takeoffs and landings, and in International airports, the CBP controls the port of entry.

And I hate to break it to you but removing the TSA doesn’t mean we revert back to pre 9/11 days. Security at airports is still governed by the Aircraft Operator Standard Security Program which defines the screening requirements, but not necessarily who must complete them.

Trump will be under a lot of pressure from capital not to do this, I suspect, because it would absolutely crater tourism.

Assuming he TACOs, and dems hold strong (sob), I would be looking for one of two scenarios.

Most likely, airports revert to post 9/11-pre TSA setup. Same basic experience, and probably even the same people, but a different uniform. Remember Huntleigh? Argenbright? You may still see these logos on the arms of wheelchair pushers or janitorial staff, but for a long, long time, they operated the checkpoints too. Between maybe the late 80s and up until 9/11, there was still screening but it was much more lax. Basic screening was likely introduced after Pan Am flight 103, and while there were metal detectors and x-rays, anyone could go through, which is what made all the sappy last minute airport reunion scenes possible.

After 9/11, the AOSSP was updated again with much more stringent security requirements, but at first the screening was still done by those vendors - provided at least one specially trained airline representative Ground Security Coordinator was present at the checkpoint. I was a GSC once upon a time, and I don’t think the TSA took over all of the checkpoints until maybe 2005. Though I’m not still current on the AOSSP, I’m fairly certain all of the policy that would enable a complete reversion back to this model is still in place. Airlines at each airport would share the cost of the contract.

Back then, a bunch of Huntleigh Employees suddenly became TSA employees. We might see a bunch of TSA employees become Huntleigh employees.

Or potentially, Trump will split the difference and just make the TSA screeners ICE employees. That’s probably a LITTLE less likely to spook travelers, so it could be a face saving compromise, but more likely he will do something like the first option and spin it as cutting government bloat and a partnership with job creating business leaders.

I mean, look. Who among us, am I right?

One small sense in which I’m proud of my younger self is that I had a similar insight to this around like 11, and pretty much decided then and there that I wasn’t going to pay to wear someone else’s logo (excepting bands & similar) and I would avoid wearing someone else’s logo if I wasn’t being paid to.

And I’ve pretty much stood by that. I’ve made some exceptions for smaller companies that I felt were doing something positive and worth promoting, or for open source things.

Gotta give the man his money’s worth.

Oh I can hear the voice now.

I think it is a legit good and funny costume but I am myself a dad and therefore cannot be trusted with these things.

Man I sure wish so many of these didn’t resonate with me so well.

Thanks. I wasted a year on Duolingo and got very little idioms, just some supposedly common sayings like das is schnee von gestern, oder es kostet nur einen apfel und ein ei.

Honestly, ich_iel has done more for my understanding than Duolingo did, but it is still almost nil.

Isn’t it closer to “we are looking for you”?

Damn I should have scrolled down literally at all.

When I was a kid there was a Transformers cartoon show and every time they transformed there would be this “BE-boo-babu-babu-BEEP” sound effect.

And so yeah.

That does seem to be increasingly the fashion among a certain kind of person.

Not with that attitude

*yet

I’ll be honest, especially outside of their typical context, like the White House or haunted houses, ghouls would make me feel threatened too.

Thank you. I struggle to balance hope and appropriate skepticism.

Are you implying that the laundry room fire was set on purpose by some of the sailors?

Genuine question. It seems plausible and I’m not sure why I took the official story at face value but I haven’t seen anything to contradict it myself.

I genuinely thought for a second it was some heretofore unknown to me Linux build that evoked that horrible windows UI

Just want to take a moment to appreciate the creativity within constraints.

Geeeeeez, just reflecting for a minute on the fact that things like this are still happening in 2026 leaves me feeling hollowed out.

I want to empathize with them, and appreciate what they must be going through in this photo. Waiting to die. Waiting to die for doing the right thing.

It is so galling, so gut-wrenching, any successful empathy is painful, I want to move on to other things.

But I’m sitting here just reading about it, on the internet, safe in my home. The very least I can do is sit with this and try to imagine how they must be feeling. My passing discomfort is not even a fraction, not even in the same equation, as what these fellows are going through for doing the right thing.

But then I also have to reflect on the trajectory of my country and ask myself honestly, am I ready to wait to die for doing the right thing?

I hope that I am.