The second one has begun – following Fitch, Moody’s is now preparing to downgrade the US credit rating . Fitch already dropped from AAA to AA+ in August. Moody’s still gives a negative outlook – but it could also arrange a downgrade, especially if there is a US government shutdown.

The reasons for the decline are a huge budget deficit of $2 trillion and a sharp increase in public debt . This is also due to the fall in tax revenues against the backdrop of stagnation in many areas of the economy. And with soaring costs due to high inflation and military spending. It is becoming increasingly difficult to service the national debt – interest rates are rising, and other countries are reducing investments in US bonds.

A credit rating downgrade is long overdue – but it will only worsen the US budget crisis . For example, convincing China or Saudi Arabia to resume purchases of US treasury securities will become even more difficult. Demand for them is already falling quickly.

The White House immediately blamed this on Republican “extremists” in Congress . Although they are just demanding to cut costs. The Democrats don’t want to cut social services or the military, which is why the split in Washington is growing. And at one moment it can lead to a radical scenario – like a technical default in the United States.

In the meantime, Washington is mentally preparing for a possible shutdown on November 18 – if it is not possible to quickly approve the next short-term budget and prolong the agony for another couple of months. The split is so strong that there is no talk of adopting a full budget for the year ahead. The current budget crisis against the background of two wars threatens the most serious consequences for the United States.

by Gilbert Doctorow

To those who believe that I spend all my time watching news broadcasts and talk shows on Russian state television, let me open this essay by correcting that misperception. I also do keep an eye on major national broadcasters in Western Europe, including Euronews and the BBC. And, in spare moments, when I am not doing something more intellectual like reading and writing, I flip on CNN.

All of which leads me to a conclusion that is likely to shock readers of these notes in Europe and America: just as on the subject of the Ukraine war, so on the subject of the Hamas-Israel war, there is far more diversity of opinion aired on the American broadcaster than on its Continental counterparts. And that is exactly as it should be, because there is much more freedom of expression in the United States today than anywhere in Europe and Britain. [category cultural/ideological divide

I have several answers to the “why” that this assertion certainly will raise. The biggest reason is the one most readers will least suspect: Donald Trump. During the presidential race of 2016, candidate Trump said things in his public appearances which normal folks like you or me would never have said for fear of inviting a knock on the door from the FBI under charges of subversion. He got away with it as a candidate, he thereby liberated all of us, and then he continued speaking the unspeakable as President, with the net result that society was split down the middle and there was room for every political view to be published. In my own field of Russian affairs, the daily digest of our leading disseminator of writings by analysts and pundits, Johnson’s Russia List, went from being deadly boring for having content only supplied by Russia haters to being a garden of a thousand blooms.

Europe had no Trump. Europe was in 2016 and remains today a cemetery of the intellect. I have in mind not just peer group pressures for creative spirits to just shut up and not rock the boat. No, there are laws in Germany, France and elsewhere that push a fist down your throat if you go public with opinions on Putin, on sanctions and now on Palestine that are not in conformity with the local government line.

For the above reasons, European broadcasters today crop the news on Gaza to say only that Israel has a right to self-defense. Meanwhile, CNN is devoting a lot of air time to the suffering of the Gaza Palestinians under the ongoing hourly bombardments by Israeli ground and air forces that are grinding all residential areas of Gaza City into dust and that have uprooted at least 700,000 Palestinians in a forced move to nowhere in the southern half of the enclave.

Let me add another factor to explain the more serious journalism that subscribers to CNN are receiving compared to your average European television viewer: Black Lives Matter.

It is not in the least surprising that BLM have come out in support of the Gaza Palestinians, for reasons that go back to the Black Panthers. What they are calling for is an immediate cease-fire, urgent delivery of medical supplies, water, fuel, food into Gaza ramped up to at least the pre-October 7th rate of 200 trucks per day. American authorities are forced to accept the demonstrations of BLM in favor of the Palestinians lest all hell break loose in cities across the country.

I think of yesterday’s comments to the The Financial Times by the leading candidate to replace Mark Rutte as prime minister of The Netherlands, the current justice minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, on the dangers that the Hamas-Israel war poses for Europe, namely that cleavages in our society will open up. Regrettably, that is the mindset of an authoritarian if not purely fascist politician. When everyone is perfectly aligned and there are no nay-sayers tolerated, then freedom is dead.

The problem of conformism in Europe is not something new. In the past, democracy busting conformism was most common, perhaps, in Scandinavia, as I saw as a frequent business visitor to Sweden in the 1980s. My job required that I meet periodically with the factory management of our subsidiary there to coordinate marketing efforts. We talked about the target markets I was serving, Yugoslavia in particular, where my interlocutors went to promote product sales and also to pick up cheap eyeglasses and other personal and household necessities at a fraction of their cost in Sweden. We never talked politics, only about the pleasures of good raki. But then prime minister Olaf Palme was assassinated and over a lunch in the company cafeteria, my main contact told me “Thank goodness they’ve killed the s.o.b.” I was shocked, since I had never heard a word of criticism in Sweden directed at their politically correct, almost angelic leader. However, my talking partner, like most other managers at the plant was an engineer and he hated Palme for having destroyed the engineering and other departments of Swedish universities.

It is this destructive silence that I see around me in Europe. And so I say, three cheers for healthy cleavages in society that give life to representative democracy, and, at the present moment, three cheers for Black Lives Matter.

Governments, NGOs, and social media companies are using “disinformation” as an excuse to throttle free speech in violation of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a group of over 130 academics, activists, journalists, and free speech advocates have warned in an open letter.

Published on Wednesday, the ‘Westminster Declaration’ was signed by journalists Matt Taibbi, Glen Greenwald, and Julian Assange; psychologists Steven Pinker and Jordan Peterson; and actors Tim Robbins and John Cleese, among more than 100 other luminaries.

“Coming from the left, right, and center, we are united by our commitment to universal human rights and freedom of speech, and we are all deeply concerned about attempts to label protected speech as ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and other ill-defined terms,” the group wrote. [category cultural/ideological divide

The letter condemned government-led efforts to restrict free speech, naming the UK’s Online Safety Bill and ‘Hate Speech’ bills in Ireland and Scotland as direct threats to freedom of expression. It also denounced social media companies for filtering, labeling, and banning legitimate content at the behest of governments or NGOs.

The extent of this form of censorship was revealed with the publication of the ‘Twitter Files’ last year, which proved that the social media platform (since purchased by Elon Musk and renamed ‘X’) collaborated with the White House to remove factually correct information about Covid-19, colluded with the FBI to remove content the agency wanted hidden, assisted the US military’s online influence campaigns, and censored “anti-Ukraine narratives” on behalf of multiple US intelligence agencies.

In multiple cases highlighted in the ‘Twitter Files’, governments did not directly ask platforms to remove content. Instead, NGOs and academics played that role. In 2021, for example, a group of academics funded by the CIA, Pentagon, US State Department, and other agencies, pressed Twitter to ban users spreading “true content which might promote vaccine hesitancy.”

“We do not want our children to grow up in a world where they live in fear of speaking their minds,” the signatories wrote. “We want them to grow up in a world where their ideas can be expressed, explored and debated openly – a world that the founders of our democracies envisioned when they enshrined free speech into our laws and constitutions.”

The letter urged governments and tech companies to comply with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

In conclusion, the letter also called on the general public to “build an atmosphere of free speech from the ground up by rejecting the climate of intolerance that encourages self-censorship.”

via RT

Absolute neutrality – The Swiss want to lift sanctions against Russia.

The right-wing People’s Party, likely the future winner of the Swiss elections, has proposed enshrining “endless” neutrality in the country’s constitution. The People’s Party intends to collect 100,000 signatures by May and put this issue to a vote.

If the country’s citizens support this initiative, Switzerland may lift the sanctions imposed against Russia, Bloomberg reports. Elections will take place at the end of October. Switzerland may lift the sanctions imposed against Russia

SPACE BLOC: Germany, citing “security impact”, becomes part of US-led space exploration bloc as it signs Artemis Accords, designed by Washington to exploit Moon, Mars and other profitable and mineral-rich asteroids.

Germany joins Ukraine, India, Italy and others to become 29th nation to sign the Artemis Accords as US leads effort to divide space into (military) blocs.

The Artemis Accords were first launched and signed by eight nations in October 2020, with representatives of its signatory nations meeting in person for the first time at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris on September 19, 2022.

In terms of scope, the accords relate to activities on in orbit, on the surface, and in the subsurface of the moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids. It also covers the stable orbital points known as the Lagrangian points for the Earth-moon system and is applied to objects in transit between these celestial bodies and locations.

Co-led by NASA and the U.S. Department of State, the Artemis Accords are signed at a national level rather than on an organizational level, and countries that sign the accord do so on a voluntary basis. The question that arises though is: why is such a peaceful accord of global significance not conducted under the auspices of the UN as a global treaty? Because it is not envisioned to be an accord for the common good, but to rally the vassals to serve the One-Party interests.

According to NASA as of Aug. 1, 2023, the nations signed up to the Artemis Accords are as follows:

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. Bahrain
4. Brazil
5. Canada
6. Columbia
7. Czech Republic
8. Ecuador
9. France
10. Germany
11. India
12. Israel
13. Italy
14. Japan
15. Luxemburg
16. Mexico
17. New Zealand
18. Nigeria
19. Poland
20. Republic of Korea
21. Romania
22. Rwanda
23. Saudi Arabia
24. Singapore
25. Spain
26. Ukraine
27. United Arab Emirates
28. United Kingdom
29. United States of America

Is the Biden administration already preparing the public for the loss of Ukraine? Is the Biden administration changing the focus to the new wave of hysteria about the Covid Hoax as a cover up for the loss of Ukraine? It seems pretty much so. Is the loss of Ukraine a precursor to the dismantling of NATO, or at least its partial dismantling?

This is not about Covid but about the start of the collapse of the US hegemony. It is the introduction of a form of Martial Law and a new regime of authoritarian governance by the defeated elites. Where are we going from here? Nuclear war or regime change in the US?

Strange events are coming. We haven’t seen much, as of yet.

First, YouTube to Censor Content Contradicting WHO Guidelines YouTube has introduced a new “medical misinformation policy” that will censor any medical or health-related content that doesn’t align with claims made by the World Health Organization (WHO). YouTube earlier had a “COVID-19 Misinformation Policy” webpage that stated that the platform doesn’t allow any content that “poses a serious risk of egregious harm” and spreads “medical misinformation” contradicting what the WHO or local health authorities (LHA) say about the COVID-19 pandemic. The webpage now redirects to a “medical misinformation policy” page that expands the censorship rule to “specific health conditions and substances” rather than COVID-19 alone. Content that contradicts guidance on treatments, including promoting “specific harmful substances or practices” not approved by authorities or the WHO as safe and effective, also won’t be allowed on the platform. Claims that vaccines cause chronic side effects “outside of rare side effects” recognized by health authorities would be deemed as “vaccine misinformation” by YouTube.

Second, Biden Admin Preparing to Bring Back Full Covid Restrictions, Rollout to Begin Mid-September – Report. Whistleblowers from the TSA and Border Patrol have raised the alarm to Infowars that the Biden administration is setting the stage for full Covid lockdowns that will begin with incremental restrictions like masking TSA employees in mid-September.

The first source, a high-level TSA official confirmed and known to Infowars, reached out to Infowars and cited a Tuesday meeting in which TSA managers were told new memorandums & policies were being completed that would reimplement masking, starting with TSA & airport employees as early as mid-September.

The TSA official also said next week they will receive new guidelines on how the policy will escalate: by mid-October, mask-wearing will be required by pilots, flight staff, passengers, and airport patrons.

After hearing from the TSA manager, Infowars reached out to our trusted Border Patrol source who is also a manager. This source confirmed the same directives were being given to Border Patrol.

They were told it was not a matter of “if” but “when” official Covid numbers will go back up and they expect by mid-October a return to forced-masking policies that the Biden administration previously only reluctantly ended after massive pressure.

Both whistleblowers were told this rollout will be in tandem with the new Covid “variant” hysteria that the MSM has been reporting on this week.

by Megan Redshaw, J.D. via The Epoch Times
(Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock)

Experts are seeing a puzzling rise in cancer in people under 50 that appears biologically different from late-onset cancers. While some claim cancer rates have been rising for decades and attribute the increase to sugary drinks, lifestyle, and sleep disruptions, others say mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have caused an emergence of “turbo cancers”—and U.S. regulatory agencies have not addressed the ever-growing problem.

Although there is no official medical definition for what doctors are calling “turbo cancers,” the term is commonly used to define aggressive, rapid-onset cancers resistant to treatment—primarily in young, healthy individuals following COVID-19 vaccination. These cases often present in a late stage with metastasis and quickly turn fatal.

“What’s happening is these cancers we’re used to seeing, their growth patterns and their behavior are completely out of character … So ‘turbo cancer’ is something that wasn’t there and, all of a sudden, it’s everywhere,” Dr. Ryan Cole, a pathologist and CEO of Cole Diagnostics, said in an interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”

Dr. Cole told The Epoch Times in a later interview that he first noticed an uptick in certain types of cancers after the vaccine rollout in December 2020 and believes researchers are starting to understand how these cancers are occurring.

“Physicians are seeing multiple types of cancers in their day-to-day practices—and in young patient cohorts where you typically don’t see cancer. Although the increase in cancer has been blamed on missed screenings, you know it isn’t due to missed screenings because young people don’t typically get screened,” Dr. Cole said.

Cancers are increasing at a rate above what’s expected, and countless doctors and clinicians around the world have confirmed this. Their patients are cancer-free for years, but then after a booster, cancers “pop up,” he added. What’s unique about turbo cancers is that they do not respond to traditional treatment because the cells have been altered in the bone marrow, and the cells “aren’t doing what they’re supposed to.”

Studies and Case Reports of Cancer Following COVID-19 Vaccination

Studies and case reports of various cancers following mRNA vaccination are helping experts understand the potential mechanisms that may be allowing these cancers to proliferate.

In a recent Belgian study published in Frontiers Oncology, researchers presented the first case of malignant lymphoma in mice. Malignant lymphoma is a rare adverse event reported following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.

Two days after receiving a booster dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, one of 14 mice suffered spontaneous death. Upon examination, the 14-week-old mouse had abnormally large organs and cancerous lymphoma in the liver, kidneys, spleen, heart, and lungs. Although showing direct causality is complex, the authors said their findings add to “previous clinical reports on malignant lymphoma development following novel mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.”

In a January 2023 paper in Medicina, researchers presented the case of a 66-year-old man who developed swollen lymph nodes 10 days after receiving his third dose of Pfizer. After further testing, the patient was diagnosed with stage 2 non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). A literature review found eight additional cases of NHL that developed shortly after COVID-19 vaccination. Five lymphoma cases occurred after vaccination with Pfizer, one case after vaccination with AstraZeneca, one after the Johnson & Johnson shot, and one after vaccination with Moderna.

In an August 2022 Letter to the Editor in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology & Venereology, physicians described two patients diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma that developed from swollen lymph nodes following vaccination with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

The study’s authors found that diffuse large B-cell lymphoma “may rapidly grow” after vaccination with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and urged dermatologists to pay attention to swollen lymph nodes or masses near the injection site.

Swollen lymph nodes, or lymphadenopathy, is considered a common side effect of COVID-19 vaccination, more often observed following immunization with novel COVID-19 mRNA vaccines than other vaccines.

Lymphadenopathy is also an acknowledged “non-serious” adverse event of COVID-19 vaccination listed in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) fact sheets for health care providers for both Moderna and Pfizer’s monovalent and bivalent vaccines. However, pharmaceutical companies and U.S. regulatory agencies have not assessed whether there’s a link between vaccine-related lymphadenopathy and cancer.

A year after the vaccine rollout, researchers published a case report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of a healthy 39-year-old woman diagnosed with “vaccination-associated reactive lymphadenopathy” following vaccination with Pfizer’s vaccine. Six months later, she was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in her right breast—the same side of the body where she received her vaccination and experienced swollen lymph nodes.

Urgent Need to Determine Underlying Causes of Turbo Cancers

The exact mechanism giving rise to turbo cancers is unknown, and it’s unclear whether one or multiple mechanisms are responsible for these cancers, Dr. William Makis, an oncologist, cancer researcher, and nuclear medicine radiologist, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Dr. Makis provided the following several possible hypotheses for how mRNA COVID-19 vaccines could cause turbo cancers:

1. The current COVID-19 mRNA vaccines contain pseudouridine-modified mRNA,which attenuates or alters the activity of key proteins in the innate immune system, impairing cancer surveillance.

When activated, these key proteins, called toll-like receptors, can prevent tumorsfrom forming and growing.

1. Vaccination alters T-cell signaling that induces profound impairmentin type 1 interferon and cancer surveillance.

T-cells, a type of white blood cell, help the body’s immune system prevent cancer. Studies show that getting multiple shots increases the level of a particular antibody called IgG4, causing T-cell and interferon suppression, leading to an inability to keep cancer in check, Dr. Cole told The Epoch Times.

“Everyone gets atypical cells in their body every day, and having a surveillance system is important, but when the surveillance system is shut off, that allows these cells to go haywire. How long it stays suppressed, nobody knows, and these are the studies NIH (the National Institutes of Health) should have been doing,” said Dr. Cole.

1. The shift of the antibody IgG4 caused by repeated mRNA vaccination could create a tolerance for spike protein and impair the production of the antibodies IgG1 and IgG3 and cancer surveillance.

2. The spike protein produced by the body after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination may interfere with important tumor suppressor proteins—P53, BRCA 1, and two tumor suppressor genes.

3. The spike protein may interfere with DNA repair mechanisms.

4. The RNA from the COVID-19 vaccines may be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome.

5. Pfizer and Moderna vials found to be contaminated with plasmid DNA containing SARS-CoV-2 spike protein may integrate into the human genome.

6. The presence of the simian virus 40 (SV40) in DNA discovered in Pfizer mRNA vaccine vials may lead to cancers—most notably, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other lymphomas—as it did with SV40-contaminated polio vaccines.

7. mRNA-based vaccines may be triggering the release of oncogenes—oncomiRs or microRNAs, which can enhance or inhibit cancer development and participate in cancer biological processes, such as proliferation, invasion metastasis, angiogenesis, chemoresistance, and immune escape.

“I believe there is an urgent need to determine the underlying mechanisms of turbo cancers because, at this time, oncologists have nothing to offer patients who have developed a turbo cancer, and conventional cancer treatments offer minimal or no benefit,” Dr. Makis told The Epoch Times.

Mr. David Wiseman, a research scientist in pharmacy, pharmacology, and experimental pathology, told The Epoch Times in an email that neither Comirnaty—Pfizer’s fully approved version of its COVID-19 vaccine—nor Spikevax by Moderna has been evaluated for its potential to cause cancer.

On March 30, 2023, Mr. Wiseman and four other experts submitted a 27-page document to the National Academies Committee, an ad hoc committee tasked with reviewing relevant adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines.

Using the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)—a database co-managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and FDA used for reporting vaccine adverse events—Mr. Wiseman and his coauthors found an excess of cancer signals for COVID-19 vaccines from Dec. 14, 2020, to July 24, 2023, compared to all other vaccines for all years beginning in 1990.

A safety signal indicates a condition may be linked to a vaccine but requires further analysis to confirm an association.

The findings complemented the CDC’s Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) analyses obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that assessed adverse events reported from Dec. 14, 2020, to July 29, 2022.

A PRR compares reports of specific adverse events experienced after receiving Moderna or Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to those following vaccination with any other vaccine or all non-COVID-19 vaccines. The CDC’s PRR report detected cancer signals for colon cancer, metastatic breast cancer, metastasis to the liver, bones, central nervous system, lymph nodes, breast masses, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, B-cell lymphoma, and follicular lymphoma.

Mr. Wiseman said it’s clear from the FOIA documents that the CDC is aware of cancer reports and isn’t being forthcoming.

“Government agencies knew there were going to be cancers with these shots, and they were trying to cover it up, but the data is trickling out,” Dr. Cole told The Epoch Times, referring to 490 pages of communications obtained from the NIH through a FOIA request.

The CDC is supposed to report on morbidity and mortality—and when a pathologist diagnoses anything, he or she uses a diagnosis code, and it goes to the federal basis that’s reported to federal tracking agencies, Dr. Cole explained.

“All these data subsets should be easy to find if agencies would report what they have,” he said. “We could see statistical changes in diagnosis in the past two and a half years since shots were rolled out. The question is, why are other governments around the world not doing this?”

Sent from my iPad

by Tim Cushing via The TechDirt

Ever since the fall of 2018, the DHS has been threatening the American public with increased surveillance on top of the insults and intrusions TSA officers physically perform at security checkpoints.

The first inklings of this rollout came in the form of a Privacy Impact Assessment released by the DHS in September 2018. The assessment suggested there wasn’t enough privacy impacted to prevent the expansion of this program from international airports (where terrorism might be more of a threat) to domestic airports and wholly domestic flights, to ensure all citizens boarding aircraft were forced to interact with the TSA’s biometric collection/verification programs.

This was confirmed a month later, when the TSA announced the expansion of the program to extend past borders/international airports to cover PreCheck passengers and, finally, everyone else who hadn’t decided to opt in or had been forced to opt in by passing through an international airport.

Despite it being clear for a half-decade the DHS intends to subject all travelers to problematic tech, the DHS and TSA reps continue to pretend this collection/verification process is still optional. The TSA would prefer it be far less optional, since it will allow it to reduce the number of officers it employs and let machines do (most of) the work.

In fact, the TSA has said as much publicly. In March of this year, TSA administrator David Pekoske again noted the process is still (supposedly) optional, but that it’s not going to stay that way for long. How long that will be remains to be seen, but as Wilfred Chan reports for Fast Company, the rollout is continuing with hundreds more airports on the horizon.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is preparing to expand its controversial facial recognition program to around 430 airports over the next “several years” after finding “extremely promising” results from its pilot program, an agency spokesperson tells Fast Company. The expansion comes amid allegations by rights advocates that the agency is improperlycoercing travelers to participate.

The TSA is currently “assessing” the facial recognition program at 25 airports. TSA press secretary Robert Langston said this small sample size has been an unmitigated success, with the TSA’s algorithm reportedly matching people with a 97% success rate “across demographics.”

And the TSA still maintains the program is optional for travelers. And yet real world experience seems to indicate the TSA is just hoping everyone encountering the scanners believes it isn’t.

Out of 67 responses collected by Algorithmic Justice League this week, 60 travelers reported that they saw no signs warning that they would be asked to submit to facial recognition, and 65 travelers said that TSA officers did not ask them for consent.

“I didn’t know there was an option. It happened so quickly, and it didn’t seem like there was a choice,” one traveler wrote. “I hadn’t flown in 10 years and I was overwhelmed and didn’t realize what was happening.”

Another traveler said that they started to walk away after their traditional ID check was finished, only to be stopped and told to return to the camera. “I was not told I could disagree to it, and it was made to seem like it was a new procedure,” they wrote.

Others reported feeling there was no alternative option or that opting out would subject them to body frisks or detainment. So, technically optional, but with plenty of travelers being made to feel engaging with the TSA’s biometric scanners is the only real option.

The TSA doesn’t mind projecting success from an extremely small sample size of 25 airports. (And it says it will not be releasing the results of this limited study to the public, so we’re just expected to take it at its word.) But it does have a problem with other small sample sizes, especially when the majority of responses undercut the TSA’s “this is all extremely optional” PR statements.

When forwarded these accounts, TSA’s Langston dismissed their allegations. “While TSA cannot respond to a summary report that seems to lack statistical validity with 67 respondents, I can tell you that TSA’s two-year study was based in scientific rigor and that signs are posted at each podium highlighting the voluntary nature of participation and that if anyone expressed reservation at the podium, the officer is there to conduct a manual identification verification process with ease and without delay,” he says.

Statistics are only valid if you agree with them. That appears to be the TSA’s stance. Its press secretary insists that if anyone feels this scanning might not be optional, they’re free to “speak up.” This is an ignorant thing to say when it’s the TSA that gets to decide who gets to board a plane and/or how much additional scrutiny they’re subjected to. “Speaking up” is generally not the best way to get officious officers to wave you through security. But it’s a great way to ensure you’ll be spending a lot more time talking to people who believe you’re a troublemaker.

The only other evidence of the TSA’s side of the story presented by its press secretary is even further removed from “statistical validity.”

“[W]hat we’ve heard anecdotally is that people appreciate the convenience of being able to get through security with the image capture. People love these things.”

Riiiiiiiiight. I’m sure travelers are walking up to generally unqualified government agents with the power to take away their freedoms and thanking them for adding more surveillance tech to the flying experience. Anecdotally, the press secretary is full of shit.

The TSA wants every airport to be manned by facial recognition tech and every passenger to be mandatorily subjected to it. That’s the end goal. What we’re seeing now are just the waypoints en route to a massive, connected surveillance apparatus. I guarantee that once it’s fully in place, all the assurances the TSA has made about extremely limited data retention will evaporate. It’s just too tempting to collect it all and retain it as long as possible. And the DHS has never been praised for its willpower or its discretion.

From an anonymous comment:

This is a story of returning home to the US after a one year absence. The first part describes the experience the travelers had with the manager at the Spirit Airlines check-in desk and the subsequent letter of complaint to the airline. Even more telling of the state of affairs in the US is Part II.

A country, an economy, a society in a state of widespread breakdown and highly dysfunctional.

---

Part I

Letter of complaint to Spirit Airlines Customer Service. Flight confirmation: RJ4SPW.

On May 31, 2023, we presented ourselves at the check-in line for flight 338, after having checked in online but not being able to view or print the boarding pass.

The woman at the start of the line asked to see my passport. I showed her the passport, she marked it on her list, then I I asked, why do I need to show my passport in order to get in line to show my passport? There were very few people in line. This is stupid!

Then she asked for my wife’s passport. And I showed her my wife’s passport, and I said don’t you see that we are together?

She marked down my wife’s passport , and we went ahead to the check in.

Meanwhile we were approached by a woman who did not introduce herself but acted like a prison guard, (I’ll call her “the prison guard”) telling me that we have to present our passports to the woman at the line entry, which is what we just did. I said, I just did show her the passports.

The woman acting like a prison guard continued yelling, “listen to me! Don’t interrupt me. You need to present your passport”. I said again, I just did present the passports.

Next she called out to the check-in desk saying “Deny boarding!! deny boarding!” And in seconds a military police pulled us over and started talking to us in Spanish. I said I don’t speak Spanish, I’m a tourist. After that both of them were trying to lecture us for a few minutes, the prison guard woman yelling again and again that we did not present our passports.

Then, I called over the woman at the entry line with the list, and I asked her: “didn’t I present our passports to you ?” She said yes. She checked her list and showed it. “But you called me stupid”, she said. No, I explained to everybody, I did not say she was stupid, I was complaining about the system. And I have every right to an opinion, to my opinion! The system is stupid.

At that point the prison guard woman yelled, “Refund! no flight for you !” We were refunded and out on the street.

The entire event was an unprecedented abuse, totally out of place, unconstitutional and in contravention of the basic rights of travelers. We had business interests to attend to in the US. Besides anything else, such ill-treatment of customers is beyond any justification, norm, regulation. Throwing a U.S. citizen out in the street, in a foreign country, on top of falsely accusing us of some imaginary non-compliance or even discourtesy is a criminal act. The prison guard woman did not even inquire as to what happened.

Part II

We arrived back home in CR kind of dazed. Now, what?

OK, we’re not going to go “home”. We don’t need to go… But, wait a minute, I ordered a lot of stuff which is now being shipped to our house at the Lake, including a new iPad. What’s going to happen? Let’s see what options we still have. — Well, I actually found a different flight, $20+ less, for tomorrow with American Airlines. We have a new plan.

No check in, since we had the boarding pass, but I couldn’t stop myself from telling the guy at the help desk about yesterday’s story with Spirit. “Oh,” he said. “You were the guys, yesterday! and they called the police on you ?! No, they were wrong to do that,” etc. So that was a big story in the entire airport.

At the security check they asked me to take off my shirt. I had a shirt unbuttoned over a colored T-shirt and that was considered a security risk. I pointed out that he had his shirt on. He said, “I am the police and if you want to fly you take your shirt off”. I had to take the shirt off but I got away with telling him, “f’ the police”.

Meanwhile waiting to board our flight, we heard that the guys from Spirit were having a bad day. Due to a “computer glitch” all Spirit flights were cancelled indefinitely (it lasted more than for 6 hours as far as we know). Mayhem, chaos, distress for Spirit passengers across the entire world. God heard my curses for what happened the day before!

We arrived in Charlotte but had to wait almost an hour for the plane to have a gate available. Poor planning is evident immediately.

At the border control we were told that no paperwork was required — They use facial recognition technology. What?! Our guy at the booth is an older man. Thinking that this is a good sign, I tell him right away that facial recognition without our consent is unconstitutional, etc. He says, “so you don’t want to be photographed” ? “Well, how long are you storing these photos, where? I hope the Russians are going to win …” — That’s OK, he says, you can skip that. He then processes our passports and hands us a special yellow card. “Now you go to the office.” Ooops . . . that must have been a patriotic military veteran.

We had no baggage other than small carry-ons, mostly empty. At the “office” two bored lads are laughing. They don’t care. Out we go.

Now the plot thickens. First, we had to go through security screening again in order to board the domestic connection to NY. As usual we opted out of the X-ray/microwave machine (mostly in order to start a whole circus of pat-downs and in order to harass the whole staff, as I actually told them straight up).

We made it through, after instructing all of them that we need a revolution to hang all the criminal elites, starting with the demented president. Interestingly, quite a few agreed.

We rewardered ourselves with an ice cream and headed to the gate. Surprise, though – when we arrive at the departure gate for the connection to New York, there was nobody waiting. Oh! the flight was canceled due to “mechanical problems” – someone claims a flat tire! After a long wait in line at Customer Service, just before midnight, we got our vouchers for the 35 Km taxi drive to the hotel. Every close hotel was already booked by other canceled flights — No getting home today, for a second day.

Our taxi driver, a smart Ethiopian, explains: oh, this is nothing. Two days ago there were like 2,000 American Airlines passengers stranded in Charlotte overnight. Yesterday, there were only 900.

The taxi trip for the two of us alone for the one way, cost the airline over $40, plus the return next day, total, just under $100.

Had a good sleep and a good breakfast, all paid by AA. I should mention, this is South Carolina, and the breakfast room was populated with mostly blacks, mostly obese, oversized fat behinds, whichever way you look around.

In the morning, we called our Ethiopian friend for the drive back to the airport. How does he like life in the US? Oh, yeah, I like it, if you work hard you can make money, more freedom, everything is easy, you know. Really?… Well, yes, it’s true, it’s hard, I used to drive a big truck, an 18-wheeler, at over $2 per mile. Then there was no more work for me. A lot of the big trucks are mothballed. No business. They cannot even afford to maintain the batteries. Too expensive. “Do you have a family?” Yes, and two kids, here is a photo. “Are you not worried?” “I am very worried, I have a lot of responsibility… And, I know, it’s going to get only worse. I do see, the American blacks don’t work, and the country is spending money on Ukraine; why not on the Americans?”

Back at the airport. Security screening again. Same circus. Pat-downs. The guy who pats me down tells me just like the driver: “I know is going to be bad, I follow the events, and the stock market . . .” That reminds me of the famous quip: when your doorman gives you a stock market tip it’s time to bail out . . . This time I test positive for explosives. A different guy pats me down again. Same. Positive. Meanwhile I lecture everyone about the demented elies and why the US is going to be defeated by Russia. But they don’t know what to do with me. I keep laughing. So all of this technology and waste of money on your salaries? For what?

The manager comes. Nice guy. He doesn’t know what to do. He asks me if I would go through the X-ray machine? No way, I say, I opted out, but I offer that I can go through the metal detector. Oh, really, great! Let’s do that. I went through the metal detector like a fish through the water. No “beep.” Meanwhile we have a full staff conference to decide what to do with me. Including now the police chief, another woman.

What to do? I keep laughing, yes, the revolution, that’s what we need. – They let me go.

Finally, we even manage to get on board the plane. We’ll be home soon… Only that, not yet.

Just before take off, the plane stops. Now, what? The captain is very cordial and communicative. There is a storm in the New York area. We have to wait. I check the weather radar in New York on my phone. (That is a sign of the new technological democracy!) Not really. Some small patches of stormy rain, no big deal. I show that to the flight attendant. Look, there are no storms in New York. She snaps back: don’t you trust the captain? No, it is all incompetence, I tell her, as she walks away. Well, not that the captain is incompetent, the incompetence is of the whole country run by “affirmative action” hires – they have to employ minorities and women. Luckily, the captain is one of those reliable white men, and very on-the-ball.

The captain then says we’ll know in an hour whether we can make it within the 3-hour remaining window that allows the returning crew to fly or we need to disembark, cancel the flight or wait for another crew.

At just 1 minute before the 3 hour limit, the captain gets the go ahead, he pushes hard on the throttle and we take off at a blazing speed. And we make it home. End of story.

The moral of the story, coming back to the US after a long absence, we found the country decrepit on several levels, and on the verge of desintegration. Everything is very expensive*. Everybody is grumpy and surly. Incompetence prevails. Minorities are everywhere, all shades of black, brown and Asiatics, most of them sporting a chip on their sholders. Utter decadence in outlook. Young women and even not-so-young, mostly whites!, parading around the airport in short shorts, almost underwear, half naked, as the typical outfit; bad postures, bad bodies, and a lot of “no speak English”.

We found the local economy in grave condition. Prices at the supermarket are between double and triple last we knew. But worse than everything else, everywhere the working class is non-white, non-English. When trying to ask for something that was available a few years ago in the supermarket, they never heard of it. In the entire enormous supermarket we came across only 3 (older) whites. “You moved to Costa Rica?” – “Oh, how lucky you.”

*P.S. A few price comparisons:

A nonstop round flight San Jose to New York a few years ago, around $200. Today over $800. But one can get a discount price for a 1-stop flight at $375, if lucky.

A taxi ride from the airport to our house: 2 years ago = $70. One year ago = $100. Today: $140 and the guy was not happy with my tip of $14.

P.P.S. This is the response we received from Spirit: “I’ve shared your experience with our management team so they can investigate how our team performed and work to improve the service we provide to our Guests.”

P.P.P.S. We were just notified by American Airlines that our bags were delayed and that they will deliver them at no cost to our home . . . Nice. The only problem is that we have not checked any bag, and we are in good order. Thanks.