Free Republic

Wall Street in Crisis by Gary Kah On September 15th, Lehman Brothers, one of this nation’s oldest and most prestigious banking firms filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This represents the largest financial failure in U.S. history and will produce enormous ripple effects. It will impact our economy and markets more than any of the other negative financial developments of the past year. Why? Lehman owed its creditors a staggering $613 billion. Those parties will now be unable to regain their funds, nor spend or invest them elsewhere in the economy. The money has evaporated! The Feds balked at rescuing the...

Time to PIN THE TAIL ON THE DONKEYS!!! McCain has opened up a winning issue, and he and Sarah need to beat Obama on the head. Here are a few suggestions on challenges/questions for Obama: When will you stop embracing the failed economic policies of Freddie and Fannie and throw Raines and Johnson under the bus? When will you return the contributions from Freddie and Fannie to the American Tazpayer? When will you show presidential leadership and demand that all others in your party return the contributions they received? When will you stop blaming Bush for failed economkc policy when...

THE HIDDEN AGENDA OF OBAMA AND McCAIN? PART DOS (Please see “The Hidden Agenda of Obama and McCain? Can You Spare an Amero?” [posted on my website on September 1st, 2008] ) I voted for George W. Bush in 2000 by choice. I voted for him in 2004 by default. As an old aunt used to say to express her utter contempt for someone, should the NAU take full effect in my lifetime and not in his, I will make every effort to pee on his grave. Say what you will about Wikipedia, it sometimes gets things straight as in...

When: The Islamists obtain a nuclear weapon, they will use it against the United States or one of our allies. When: Our politicians shamelessly finish selling-out to get the Hispanic-American vote, the Mexican Army and its drug cartels will completely control parts of formerly U.S. sovereign territory. When: Liberals enthusiastically give national health insurance, free education, drivers licenses, and sanctuary, to illegal aliens, they not only dishonor the rule of law, but spit in the face of the millions of immigrants who came here legally and proudly became U.S. citizens. When: Conservative and reasoned talk radio is silenced, your voice,...

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead, says Robert A. Pastor, the American University professor who for more than a decade has been a major proponent of building a North American Community. "The new president will probably discard the SPP,"

TEA has until the end of January to change program for secondary schools.

U.S. rescues Fannie, Freddie Treasury Department raises credit line, has power to buy companies' stock. Fed will open discount-lending to two government-sponsored mortgage lenders. Paulson calls for new regulatory controls.

Mexico City, Official Residence The Presidency reported that President Felipe Calderón met Arizona Senator John McCain, who will be nominated as the US Republican Presidential Candidate in September, at the official Los Pinos residence today. The President remarked that Mexico trusts the United States will value the priority given to bilateral work on migration, trade, development, regional competitiveness and security as the means for promoting the well-being of both societies. President Calderón confirmed his government’s intention of continuing to collaborate on all issues of common interest, including the prevention of and response to natural disasters and pandemics, food security and...

CorridorWatch, a Fayette County-based group that has been active in opposing the Trans-Texas Corridor plan, wants to go beyond the Sunset Advisory Commission’s recommended shakeup of state transportation leadership. The group, led by David and Linda Stall, recommends that TxDOT answer to an elected six-member board led by a chairman appointed by the governor. CorridorWatch makes it recommendation, along with various other reactions to the Sunset commission staff’s recent report on TxDOT, in written comments submitted as part of the sunset process. TxDOT, like all state agencies, “sunsets” after 12 years unless the Legislature acts to keep it alive. As...

OTTAWA -- Sen. John McCain traveled to Canada on Friday to offer a vigorous defense of the North American Free Trade Agreement, as his campaign sought to portray rival Sen. Barack Obama as inconsistent on free trade. "For all the successes of NAFTA, we have to defend it without equivocation in political debate because it is critical to the future of so many Canadian and American workers and businesses," McCain told a crowd of several hundred at the Economic Club of Canada. "Demanding unilateral changes and threatening to abrogate an agreement that has increased trade and prosperity is nothing more...

CONFER: The North American Union Over the past few years a majority of Americans have been quite disappointed with what’s happening at our Southern border. Millions of Mexicans have been allowed to illegally enter our nation and assimilate into our populace. Despite considerable uproar from legal, taxpaying citizens, our federal government has done almost nothing to rectify the situation. There has been some talk of increasing border security or maybe enforcing existing laws, but this “silent invasion” continues unchecked: For every one Mexican caught trying to illegally enter our nation, more than five make it through. This begs the question,...

A group supporting North American integration is holding its fourth annual "North American Model Parliament" for 100 university students from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The North American Forum on Integration, or NAFI, began is "Triumvirate" sessions Monday in Montreal's City Hall with a plan to conclude Friday.

AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT OTTAWA–Canada's border agency has lost track of 41,000 illegal immigrants, and this is "jeopardizing the integrity of Canada's immigration program," Auditor General Sheila Fraser says. Fraser said in her spring report released yesterday that the Canada Border Services Agency has issued warrants for the deportation of these people, but doesn't have a clue where they are or if they are still in Canada. "The agency's working inventory contains 22,000 individuals with enforceable removal orders, whose whereabouts are known to the agency. The remaining 41,000 cases are individuals with immigration warrants for removal, whose whereabouts are unknown to...

MONTGOMERY The state Senate may have been locked down for most of the year, but it did find time to endorse a widely discredited urban legend spread by the John Birch Society. The upper chamber passed a joint resolution April 10 sponsored by state Sen. Rusty Glover, R-Semmes, claiming that Canada, Mexico and the United States are moving toward a "North American Union" and working on construction of a "NAFTA Superhighway" to link the countries and report edly destroy their sovereignty. "It's about retaining independence," said John McManus, the president of the John Birch Society, in a phone interview Mon...

Each day, I make the dreaded drive down Interstate 35 to go to work in Fort Worth. Each day, I slug through the snarl and sludge of ceaseless traffic, which intensifies my growing desire to commit hari-kari, or at least incites a vehement curse of the highway gods. Certainly, we in Texas need more lanes, more roads, more rails, more something to deal with the ever-expanding urban population and growing international commerce. Yet how do we solve our transportation needs without carving up the countryside like some congratulatory cake? Or should the construction of a superhighway-rail-utility corridor even concern us?...

The Issue: There is a strong movement underway to create a new North American “framework” that links the U.S., Mexico and Canada in ways that are a direct threat to the sovereignty of the United States. The centerpiece of current efforts is the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) -- a trilateral arrangement made without Congressional approval to facilitate economic, legal and political integration in this new North American “framework.” Citizen Petition Grassfire.org is conducting this Citizen Petition opposing these developments to build a North American “framework” -- including the SPP, the NAFTA superhighway and efforts to encourage open borders “migration”...

Officials say the government will replace its highly touted "virtual fence" on the Arizona-Mexico border with new towers, radars, cameras and computer software. They're scrapping the brand-new $20 million system because it doesn't work sufficiently.Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff officially signed off on the program just two months ago.But with the decision, Customs and Border Protection officials are acknowledging that the program to detect illegal immigrants doesn't work well enough to keep or to continue tweaking.Critics say the system is highly flawed, but officials say it's only a demonstration project.

OBAMA SAID: "Well, I don't actually think there are Council On Foreign Relations 'MEMBERS...' He thinks we are STUPID!

THE YEAR 2008 may enter history as the time when the Democratic Party lost its way on trade. Already, the party's presidential candidates have engaged in an unseemly contest to adopt the most protectionist posture, suggesting that, if elected, they might pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared her intention to change the procedural rules governing the proposed trade promotion agreement with Colombia. President Bush submitted the pact to Congress on Tuesday for a vote within the next 90 legislative days, as required by the "fast-track" authority under which the U.S. negotiated...

On the verge of next week's North American summit in New Orleans, a Canadian think tank has suggested renaming the "North American Union" to renew progress toward continental integration in the face of mounting criticism. A paper entitled "Saving the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership", published last month by the Fraser Institute in Canada, contends President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper have decided to expend no more political capital in pursuing "the bust" that has occurred because of the "brand" of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America or SPP. The solution, the authors argue, is...

Several Oklahoma legislators are concerned that individuals and organizations are quietly working on plans to create a privately-operated tollway in Oklahoma. Many referred to Spain-based Cintra, which has been involved in the development of a proposed Trans-Texas Corridor. Cintra also took over the operation of the Indiana East-West Toll Road from the Indiana Department of Transportation in 2006. Oklahoma State Sen. Randy Brogdon and state representatives Eric Proctor, Richard Morrisette, Scott Inman and Charles Key all expressed concern that efforts to open up Oklahoma to a privately operated tollway system were being kept out of the view of the general...

For Peyton Gilbert, the battle over the Trans-Texas Corridor is reminiscent of the moment in 1836 when Lt. Col. William Travis drew a line in the sand at the Alamo and invited those willing to fight thousands of Mexican soldiers to step across. "That line in the sand is the Trans-Texas Corridor, and it's a threat to our sovereignty again, just like at the Alamo," said Gilbert, 14, who is from Whitehouse, near Tyler. Gilbert was among a large crowd of people who marched down Congress Avenue to the Capitol on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against the proposed highway-rail-utility corridor...

I have some good news to report. Washington is finally getting serious about building a border fence. Some $23 million has been allocated for engineering teams that will focus on smuggling tunnels and building a sturdier, impregnable border fence. The resources of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been directed to help with the project. That's the good news. The bad news is that the border fence is not between the U.S. and Mexico. It is the fence separating the Hamas-cidal maniacs in the Gaza Strip from their Arab neighbors in Egypt. That's right. It turns out that fences...

What is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative? The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) will require all travelers to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda who have historically been exempt from passport requirements, to present a passport or other approved document that establishes the bearer’s identity and citizenship in order to enter or re-enter the United States. WHTI is designed to strengthen border security and facilitate entry into the United States for U.S. citizens and legitimate international visitors while minimizing the social and commercial impacts on international travelers and U.S. citizens, particularly residents living along the border. Why is...

A report from a prestigious U.S. think-tank released Sunday argues that Canada and the U.S. should work together with the aim of creating a common market for commerce and labour by 2030 for the states and provinces in the Great Lakes basin. It also takes aim at obstacles to trade in the region, such as traffic congestion at the Ambassador Bridge linking Windsor and Detroit. The Brookings Institution, in a paper entitled the Vital Connection, Reclaiming Great Lakes Economic Leadership in the Bi-National U.S. Canadian Region, notes that even though the manufacturing base of the region has eroded in recent...

Topeka — Agreements with Mexico and Canada are setting the stage for construction of a huge highway that will gobble up Kansans’ property and jeopardize U.S. security, representatives from a wide range of groups said Monday. “Through incrementalism, apathy and inattention, our national sovereignty is being sacrificed on a cross of greed, socialism and globalism,� said state Rep. Judy Morrison, R-Shawnee. Morrison has introduced House Concurrent Resolution 5033 urging Congress to withdraw from further participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement and Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. At a hearing before the House Federal and State Affairs...

Plots by Communists to infiltrate America. The disintegration of borders and rural areas. Citizens mobilizing and rising up against government agencies and big business. It all sounds like the plot for a summer blockbuster, but it's something that could be happening in your own backyard. These were just a few of the topics addressed in the "How to fight the TTC" workshop, held Monday at the Pitser Garrison Civic Center in Lufkin. The conference served as an informational meeting aimed at informing citizens and local government officials how they can unite in trying to stop the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project....

Mexican truck drivers allowed to travel throughout the U.S. under a Bush administration demonstration project may not be proficient in English, despite Department of Transportation assurances to the contrary. A brochure on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's website instructs Mexican truck drivers, "Did you know … You MUST be able to read and speak English to drive trucks in the United States." Still, at the Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing Tuesday, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and DOT Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III reluctantly admitted under intense questioning from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that Mexican drivers were being...

WASHINGTON -- A largely unreported meeting held at the State Department discussed integration of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in concert with a move toward a transatlantic union, linking a North American community with the European Union. The meeting was held Monday under the auspices of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, or ACIEP. WND obtained press credentials and attended as an observer. The meeting was held under "Chatham House" rules that prohibit reporters from attributing specific comments to individual participants. The State Department website noted the meeting was opened by Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and...

It’s not the kind of endorsement that a Republican presidential candidate should welcome. But former Clinton State Department official and alleged Russian dupe Strobe Talbott says that Senator John McCain and Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are all “moderate pragmatists” in foreign policy “with the demonstrated ability to reach across party lines.” This is “good news,” says Talbott, who is an advocate of world government. Can our media stop talking about race, sex and gender long enough to examine whether the American people will be given a choice or an echo on foreign policy issues this November?...

Topic: Globalism The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is planning on building a new super highway system called the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC). The Trans-Texas Corridor will not be just another interstate and will it will be used by more than just automobiles. It will include 10 lanes for traffic, two high speed rail tracks, four standard rail tracks, utility lines, oil pipelines, and gas pipelines. The Trans-Texas Corridor will consist of many corridors segments that are 1,200 feet wide, with each mile consuming 146 acres of land. This land is currently ranch and farm land that is being taken by...

Heated comments flew around the room as more than 175 citizens gathered to voice their opinions at the TxDOT open house and public hearing on the I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor held at the Humble Civic Center on Feb. 28, 2008. Congress designated I-69 as a high priority corridor in 1991 and again in 1998. In 2002, TxDOT unveiled the Trans-Texas Corridor project to accommodate Texas' future transportation needs. The TTC is a part of a 4,000-mile system of rail lines, truck and car lanes and concentrated utility routes to improve international and intrastate movement of goods and people from Canada to the...

WEST PALM BEACH — Was the death of a popular middle school principal an accident or was it vehicular homicide? An accident, a jury has now decided. Jurors returned not-guilty verdicts this afternoon in the case against Cesar Mejia, a 32-year-old driver who prosecutors say blew through a red light striking the vehicle of Western Pines Middle School principal Margaret Campbell, killing her. Mejia's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Shawnee Lawrence, had argued before jurors that Mejia was driving the speed limit and in no way, shape or form wanted to run a red ight and kill another human being. "Tragic?...

The proposed Trans Texas Corridor did not find any fans, or any support, in Fort Bend County this week. At public meetings hosted by the Texas Department of Transportation in both Katy and Rosenberg, speaker after speaker, many in emotional tones, voiced their opposition to the proposed transportation corridor. No one spoke up in support of the proposal at either meeting. The Tuesday night session took place at Katy High School’s Performing Arts Center with over 200 residents in attendance. The evening before at the Rosenberg Civic and Convention Center, a similar crowd showed up to voice their opinions. In...

The debate in Texas over a proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads that will parallel the state's existing highway system is heating up More than 10,000 people have attended public hearings across Texas to discuss the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which has also been dubbed the "NAFTA superhighway." It is a project that is expected to cost an estimated $183 billion over 50 years. (hear audio report) Terry Hall with the group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom warns the project will create widespread eminent domain abuse and involve foreign control of public infrastructure. "They're taking huge swaths of land, up...

A handful of Kendleton residents were among several dozen to speak out against the Trans-Texas Corridor at a public hearing Monday night in Rosenberg. “I personally think it's a slap in the face for Texas to take the land for pennies on the dollar, to put a road on it and to make you pay a toll for it,� said Jeremy West, one of the speakers from Kendleton. The Trans-Texas Corridor is a proposal for a network of highways, rail lines and utilities throughout Texas that would be financed by private interests who would seek to profit through tolls and...

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal. Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas. The U.S. military's Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation...

HEMPSTEAD -- The Trans Texas Corridor may be the most controversial highway ever built in Texas. That is, if it ever gets built. All month, there have been public hearings throughout the area where people have been showing up in droves to oppose it. People don’t drive very fast on Odis Styers’ family ranch near Hempstead, but TxDOT wants that to change. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful,” Styers said. “It’s a shame a road is gonna mess it up.” The road is the Trans Texas Corridor. The plans call for it to come through here, and with it: separate lanes for...

American and Canadian patriots scouring the Internet for the latest on the North American Union (NAU) may be missing a huge resource. Politicians and the mainstream media still brand as conspiracy theorists those who suspect a European Union style NAU is destined for Canada, the United States and Mexico. A Canada Free Press (CFP) reader reminds us “Mexico has its own Security and Prosperity (SPP) websites. Mexico’s SPP websites are called (ASPAN) (Spanish).” “Just because we’ve been defending (and attacking) on so many other fronts doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten the North American Union a.k.a. the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP),”...

HOUSTON -- It did not take long Tuesday for the Texas Department of Transportation to find out what the Houstonians at a public hearing thought about the proposed 600-mile Trans-Texas Corridor, KPRC Local 2 reported. "George Washington, Sam Houston would vomit on you people," one attendee said. Chris Zora, who opposes the plan, attended the hearing at the Arabia Shrine Center in Southwest Houston. "I'd like to see a show of hands here of anybody that approves of this corridor," Zora said. "Is there anyone in this room who approves of this corridor? Raise your hands if you approve of...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday decried anti-immigrant perceptions in the United States and argued that Mexican immigrants complement American workers. On his first trip to the U.S. as Mexico's president, Calderon said he is working to combat anti-Americanism in Mexico and to improve job prospects there to reduce migration. He said he hopes that Americans resist anti-Mexican sentiments. "The worst thing that happened in this country is this anti-Mexican or anti-immigrant perception of people. We need to contain this," Calderon said after a speech at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "I need to change...

While facets of a proposed NAFTA Superhighway may indeed fall within the myth category, the idea is not really a laughing matter. Certainly, anything that prompts 43 congressmen, including three presidential candidates, to co-sponsor a resolution decrying it must have a grain of truth to it. History is replete with examples of far-fetched notions -- like putting a man on the moon -- turning into reality. And the idea of seamless travel encompassing the United States, Mexico and Canada is anything but fanciful. Inquiries about the NAFTA Superhighway have taken on a life of their own. Congressmen are hearing about...

ROBSTOWN, Tex. — Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever. But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.� Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the...

Many Americans who seek to consider which candidate to vote for in upcoming Democratic Party Primaries may wonder which front runner candidate can they trust to best represent the expressed political party values: Hillary Clinton, John Edward or Barack Obama? These values and related policy agenda supposedly include defending America's "middle class'; affirming labour and equality rights; increasing accessibility to healthcare insurance with other social issues; protecting America's natural environmental heritage; redressing Global Warming; and getting America out of the costly Iraq War, which would free up needed public resources for domestic economic recovery. All the Democratic frontrunners have been...

The People's Republic of China, long lauded by America's enemies as the world's next economic power, will be the country that will force the creation of the `North American Union' (NAU). Kofi Annan's former pointman, Canadian Maurice Strong, has been boasting from Chinese soil that China soon would be replacing America as economic king, using the jingo that's the official language at Turtle Bay. The billions of dollars China has invested in the flagging American economy will be worthless. They will have to negotiate the exchange rate to the new amero. This will then force the creation of the North...

What would Americans think, then, of a member of Congress who introduced legislation, not to improve health care in the United States, but to improve health care in Mexico? What would Americans think, then, of a member of Congress who introduced legislation, not to improve health care in the United States, but to improve health care in Mexico? Even more unbelievable, the senator who sponsored the bill is not on the verge of being thrown out of office for this odious piece of legislation. No, the senator who introduced the bill, Senator John McCain of Arizona, is on the verge...

A North American deal made in the dark, asserts federal NDPer Concern over Canadian sovereignty is growing as New Democratic Party MP Peter Julian lectures citizens on a national tour. The disquiet is stemming from a little-known extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement that doesn't require parliamentary approval and whose meetings take place behind closed boardroom doors. The "dialogue," known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, was instigated in Mar. 2005, with a goal of increasing security and prosperity by harmonizing standards between Mexico, the United States and Canada. However, the partnership, which is neither...

<p>Over the weekend there was an as yet little-noticed incident in Bridgeton, Mo., just outside St. Louis. Sen. Hillary Clinton addressed a town hall meeting there and was taking questions from the audience.</p> <p>One elderly woman rose and was asking the Democratic candidate about a rumored economic union among the United States, Canada and Mexico that is widely-discussed, feared and abhorred among conspiracy fanciers. The woman said the president planned to implement the secret agreement in 2010.</p>

Urges U.S. to withdraw from Security and Prosperity Partnership A state lawmaker in Utah has introduced a resolution encouraging the U.S. to withdraw from the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and any other bilateral activity that would move the country toward an EU-style continental merger. Republican state Rep. Stephen Sandstrom introduced House Resolution 1 to the Utah legislature this week after a similar measure passed the House last year by a 47-24 vote but was blocked by a Senate committee just before the session's close. "I feel confident we will get this resolution passed this year," Sandstrom told...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush sought on Monday to ease the embarrassment of his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina by turning the world spotlight again on New Orleans. To a standing ovation from Congress, the U.S. president said: "Tonight I am pleased to announce that in April we will host this year's North American Summit of Canada, Mexico, and the United States in the great city of New Orleans." Bush said he would invite the leaders of neighboring Canada and Mexico for their regular "Three Amigos Summit" in the city which has been slow to recover from...