In the United States in 2009, more than 10.2 billion trips were taken on transit trains and buses. So far, the nation has not experienced a major transit attack since Sept. 11, but the March 2010 Moscow subway bombings and earlier train attacks in London and Mumbai show that we must be prepared.

Yes, I do agree we need health care reform; however, this bill badly misses the mark. Congress can and must do better for the American people.

Sometimes I - I try not to read too many fiction or novels.

It's not an Israeli model, it's a TSA, screwed-up model. It should actually be the person who's looking at the ticket and talking to the individual. Instead, they've hired people to stand around and observe, which is a bastardization of what should be done.

Under the Obama administration, TSA has been operating without an administrator for a year and a half. After the president's first two choices failed to meet expectations, a new administrator, John Pistole, was finally approved on Friday. Unfortunately, it will be the fifth administrator in eight years.

We're not trying to harass the average American. We need to convert this now to a risk-based system, with TSA concentrating and focusing on intelligence, on security, setting up again the parameters of which we do this.

Other countries, such as Israel, successfully employ behavior detection techniques at their airports, but the bloated, ineffective bureaucracy of TSA has produced another security failure for U.S. transportation systems.