Ted ‘Cancun’ Cruz quietly reneges on ‘abolish the TSA’ promise, pushes private airport security and screening for political VIPs
The Great Unwashed should neither be seen nor heard, only taxed… at least according to our electeds, who largely (if not entirely) view themselves as political royalty instead of civil servants and representatives. Case in point: We American citizens are $34 trillion in debt and have no border, but we didn’t get that way because of constitutional conservatism. Rather, an amorphous Uniparty political structure, ostensibly operating as two separate parties with different values and ideologues, has undermined the founding principles and betrayed the tax-paying public.
Here’s just the latest example: Ted Cruz, after making the abolition of unconstitutional agencies a core pillar of his political runs, has quietly reneged on his campaign promises and done an about-face; as Politico reported on Saturday, Cruz recently crafted a legislative amendment, one he’s attempting to affix to a “major aviation policy bill” that would provide to lawmakers “a dedicated security escort at airports, along with expedited screening outside of public view.” Oh, and if approved, the amendment would also extend the “same special treatment” to federal judges and Cabinet members, as well as a limited number of their family and staff.”
As an item at the New York Post noted, “TSA already gives members of Congress ‘Get out of grope free’ cards to avoid checkpoint hassles.” If you’re wondering how that happened, here’s the rest of the story:
In 2010, TSA turned airport checkpoints into ‘constitutional twilight zones’ with ‘enhanced patdowns’ and whole-body scanners that irradiated travelers while taking birthday-suit photos.
The following year, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the House of Representatives’ second-most powerful Democrat, bitterly complained: ‘We’ve had some incidents where TSA authorities think that congresspeople should be treated like everybody else.’ Clyburn warned: ‘I think we need to take a hard look at exactly how the TSA interact with members of Congress.’
TSA hustled to placate the political elite.
…
TSA ‘compiled vast whitelists of individuals’ who ‘are automatically eligible for expedited screening at airports,’ including members of Congress and federal judges, the ACLU noted.
Politicians also benefit from PreCheck and CLEAR programs that most travelers have chosen not to purchase.
TSA spends $800 million a year for air marshals, but almost half of them are designated for standby for flights by members of Congress — despite zero aviation threats on most such flights.
One veteran air marshal groused in 2021 that the DC field office ‘was almost exclusively dedicated to VIP services for Congress.’
The Air Marshal National Council formally complained that TSA had turned its program into a ‘concierge service’ and ‘baby-sitting’ for members of Congress, who exploited the program even for personal flights with no tie to official business.
(No doubt, we the tax slaves paid for those “PreCheck and CLEAR programs” cited above too.)
Also see below, as noted in the Politico piece:
But the head of a nonprofit representing airport police said Cruz’s proposal would be ‘a burden to airport police agencies,’ especially because federal budgets already do not adequately fund airport police units. It would also divert police from ‘crime suppression and security functions at airports, which is our fundamental duty,’ said Kevin Murphy, executive director of the Airport Law Enforcement Agencies Network.
Not only is there no money to add additional costs (see the National Debt Clock here), but it would divert already budgeted debt-spending for law enforcement agents from focusing on things that are far more important to the American public: “Federal statistics reflect that 70% of victims are trafficked through airports” (although I suspect that number is much higher), and with no southern border, we know there are terrorists here. Shouldn’t airport security personnel focus their efforts on doing everything they constitutionally can to make sure the millions of flights coming and going are terrorist-free?
Cruz’s amendment is one of the most ridiculous excuses to point a gun at my head I’ve ever heard—after all, when you levy a tax, or add expenses to a ballooning national debt, you’re extorting money by force, and with the threat of violence. If I were to figuratively die on the hill of not paying my federal income taxes (which are completely unconstitutional), what’s going to happen? Well, I’m going to literally die, when the armed IRS agents kick my door with the lead consequences.
While some taxes might be necessary, they should at least pass a sniff test of “Is this reason enough to point a gun at someone’s head?”
So as Mr. Cruz points the gun at our heads so he, the rest of the D.C. caste, and their families can have red carpet treatment when forced to share public amenities with the peasants, we have to ask ourselves: Does it pass the sniff test?
Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.