Posted on 10/07/2006 3:56:30 AM PDT by Man50D
WASHINGTON – There are mixed signals coming from Mexico about the fate of a proposed mega-port in Baja California for mainly Chinese goods that would be shipped on rail lines and "NAFTA superhighways" running through the U.S. to Canada.
The port at Punta Colonet, planned as a major container facility to transfer Asian goods into America's heartland, got at least a temporary setback when a Mexican businessman announced a competing project in which he was seeking to secure mineral rights in the area.
Gabriel Chavez, originally one of the principal movers behind the port plan, now says there are significant amounts of titanium and iron to be mined offshore – a project he considers more important than the port.
Mexican ports czar Cesar Patricio Reyes placed a moratorium on further work toward port planning for three or four months while the government explores ways to make everyone happy.
It is no secret the Mexican government is still committed to the port plan. A map from the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies shows the proposed goods route into a North American community.
According to transportation officials in Arizona, one of the sites considered for a rail line from Punta Colonet, the Mexican government has released an official directive stating its intention to create a new marine facility there -- about 150 miles south of the U.S. border.
The port at Punta Colonet, when completed, is expected to rival the biggest West Coast ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, both heavily congested now.
Bringing goods into a Mexican port would mean lower costs for foreign shippers because of cheaper labor and less restrictive environmental regulations.
Hutchison Ports Mexico, a subsidiary of the Chinese company Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., is keeping reports about progress on the venture close to the vest.
Only recently has the port become a source of controversy in the U.S. as Americans begin questioning highway and rail projects criss-crossing the country – many of which are designed to carry product from Mexico to the U.S. and Canada on the so-called "NAFTA superhighways."
Resentment is building inside the U.S. because of what appear to be secretive plans made outside normal government policymaking channels about immigration, border policies, transportation and integration of the three North American nations.
Transportation Secretary Maria Cino has promised to release plans within months for a one-year, NAFTA pilot program permitting Mexican truckers beyond the limited commercial zone to which they are currently restricted.
The program will likely involve about 100 Mexican trucking companies, the Department of Transportation says.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement – NAFTA – the borders were to open partially to truckers from both countries in 1995. Full access was promised by 2000. Because of the restrictions on Mexican trucks, the Mexican government has imposed limits on U.S. truckers.
The U.S. restrictions were placed by the Clinton administration in response to demands from the Teamsters union, which said Mexican trucks posed safety and environmental risks. Currently, the U.S. permits Mexican truckers only in commercial zones close to the border that extend no further than 20 miles from Mexico.
While the American Trucking Association supports opening the border, other unions have joined in opposition with the Teamsters. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association came out this month in opposition to any Mexican truck pilot program.
Todd Spencer, the association's executive vice president, said the program would jeopardize safety on U.S. roads and would lead to an influx of cheap Mexican labor.
"A move by the U.S. Department of Transportation to open U.S. roadways to Mexican trucks puts the interest of foreign trade and cheap labor ahead of everything else, including highway safety, homeland security and the well being of hardworking Americans," Spencer said.
In a letter to the Interstate Trade Commission, Spencer wrote: "The net effect of admission of Mexican trucks into the U.S. marketplace would undoubtedly be negative. The supposed benefits to consumers from speculative reductions in shipping rates would be offset by the societal costs that are difficult to measure, but are easy to identify."
Raising more suspicions that such plans are leading to a future integration of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, a high-level, top-secret meeting of the North American Forum took place this month in Banff – with topics ranging from "A Vision for North America," "Opportunities for Security Cooperation" and "Demographic and Social Dimensions of North American Integration."
Despite "confirmed" participants including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Central Intelligence Agency Director R. James Woolsey, former Immigration and Naturalization Services Director Doris Meissner, North American Union guru Robert Pastor, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Energy Secretary and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and top officials of both Mexico and Canada, there has been no press coverage of the event. The only media member scheduled to appear at the event, according to documents obtained by WND, was the Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady.
The event was organized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Canada West Foundation, an Alberta think-tank that promotes closer economic integration with the United States.
The Canadian event is just the latest of a series of meetings, policy papers and directives that have citizens, officials and members of the media wondering whether these efforts represent some sort of coordinated effort to implement a "merger" some have characterized as "NAFTA on steroids."
Last week, government documents released by a Freedom of Information Act request revealed the Bush administration is running what some observers see as a "shadow government" with Mexico and Canada in which the U.S. is crafting a broad range of policy in conjunction with its neighbors to the north and south.
Wrong, as usual. As you may or may not remember far enough back, I didn't want to believe it... but remembering the Xlinton escapades...and knowing that where there's smoke there's often fire... I concluded that the smoke certainly warranted Congressional investigation...and appropriate oversight.
It's the CONSTITUTIONAL thing to do. But of course, you know neither our history or Constitution...just like some occupants of the Executive Branch apparently.
Despite their ignorance, I never expected the Executive Branch to deploy a full spread of stalls and point-blank refusals to lawful information requests. The failure to comply anywhere close to fully with the FOIA requests dramatically increases legitimate public concern for the veracity of disavowals that were issued. Disavowals which have now evidently been debunked.
There was sufficient corroboration within even the "sanitized" and "select" documents released supporting the Corsi/Schlafly speculations.
One can only surmise that the withheld documents are even more explicitly (and politically embarassingly) frank in their admissions.
So go fly your black helicopter out of here...and don't let your tinfoil hat get caught in the rotor-blades.
The fact of the matter is, you do not know what is in the released documents . . . feel free to react that I am "Wrong, as usual," when I point out that you are acting as though you know.
"One can only surmise that the withheld documents are even more explicitly (and politically embarassingly) frank in their admissions." No, one cannot. Your inability to see the range of possibilities is what brings forth the comments about black helicopters and tinfoil.
Nope.
You are simply devoid of facts altoghether on these kinds of calumnies you decry against conservatives. Indeed you are Wrong as usual. Only more so than usual. And, not out of "acting", as do you. Perhaps you are unaware that I have already read the following FOIA responses obtained by Judicial Watch at their website. I commend it to you. I found it illuminating, and find I am sympathetic to Corsi's preliminary reviews thereof.
Section I - SPP Contact Lists and Organization Charts
Section II - SPP Regulatory Cooperation Symposium
Section III - SPP Meeting with Commerce Secretary Gutierrez, March 15, 2006.
Section IV - Launch of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), May 26, 2006.
Section V - Final Recommendations of the U.S. Section of the NACC.
Section VI - Launch of the NACC with SPP Ministers, June 15, 2006.
Section VII - NACC Documents
Section VIII - Prof. Robert A. Pastor’s Seminar on Building a North American Community, September 21, 2005.
At 9:09am, you commiserated with Kimberly GG about how your perceived opponents “won’t actually spend any time to acknowledge the FOIA responses.” You observed that they “just feint, dance, feint, dance and back up” calling them a “Stall operation,” and “thugs.”
At 9:33am, (and in response to my suggestion that it’s impossible to “acknowledge” something one hasn’t seen, and that you are acting as though you’ve seen something others have not), you propounded that you:
“never expected the Executive Branch to deploy a full spread of stalls and point-blank refusals to lawful information requests. The failure to comply anywhere close to fully with the FOIA requests dramatically increases legitimate public concern for the veracity of disavowals that were issued. Disavowals which have now evidently been debunked.”When I observed a second time that you are acting as though you know what is in the documents while others do not, at 11:48am, for the first time you admit that you are speaking of documents that Judicial Watch received as a result of a FOIA request. I thought that the government was refusing those requests, but let’s not digress.
All morning I thought that you were referring to Jerome Corsi’s FOIA request, of which nothing is known. No matter, apparently you couldn’t be bothered to be more specific. Lost upon you is the notion that maybe this “thug dancer stall-operation” is thugging, and dancing, and stalling, BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.
All morning, you were in possession (defined as “having access to”) the documents you accused others of avoiding, yet you didn’t lift a finger to provide them. Absence of evidence, of course, being central to your argument that something is being hidden.
Let me repeat, for effect: you held the documents close to your vest, yet you argued that something sinister is afoot because they are not being acknowledged.
So here we are, afternoon in the Midwest. We now know that somewhere in the Judicial Watch documents is evidence of some amorphous “disavowals” that “have now evidently been debunked.” Care to point them out?
I must admit, asking folks on your side to cite to particulars when you present a document most often is a request ignored (witness texastoo’s hurried evacuation of this thread when asked about his DOT memo), but I’ll continue trying. Personally, I think that making a point and then moving backwards isn’t very effective, but if that’s the route you choose, be my guest. Let’s see some of that evidence (this morning: suppressed/this afternoon: released) that you claim is being avoided.
I'm pinging some others to this comment, thinking that they might see something I've missed, or can find a better way to explain to you that you're being transparent.
Don't you know? It's not the NAU that's the conspiracy. It's the NAU conspiracy theorists that are working for the government.
It was all laid down in a documentary this past Wednesday.
On South Park, no doubt.
Yep. It's a government conspiracy, alright.
I didn't notice, but now that you mention it, the conspirators did tend to have very circular heads.
I love when they did that. They first spam the thread with an interminably long post.
Then they say, "How can you argue with THAT?" If you try to focus on one point, they either leave the thread (to start a new one, has it started yet this weekend?) or try to redirect to another issue.
Only the government could think of a fiendish plan such as that.
That's Paul's M.O., he thinks quantity makes up for low quality.
1. Spam the thread.
2. Refuse to elaborate.
3. Change the subject.
4. Complain of "thread-crapping."
The Commerce Dept refused to hand over about some 80% of the requested documents. So its clearly not a digression. And the documentary non-performance should not have been news to you, if you had bothered reading anything, which you haven't been doing...as evidenced by your attempted "summary" of my contributions proves. Thus proving my point about you guys feinting without actually acknowledging the documents.
You are thugs.
As for your pathetic last gasping argument you then demand proof from me, when you still haven't read anything (still further confirming my point):
...somewhere in the Judicial Watch documents is evidence of some amorphous “disavowals” that “have now evidently been debunked.” Care to point them out?Care to read Robert A. Pastor's contribution to the S.P.P.? It's there right in black and white. His CFR Task Force "Toward a North American Community" which discusses how to evade and undermine U.S. sovereignty and defacto implement the North American Union has been incorporated into the SPP agenda. Surprise. A smoking gun right under your nose. It's hardly the only one, but it is likely dispositive.
Especially since it is Robert Paster's disengenuous talking points issued in the recent disavowals sniffing at the supposed "myths" against of the SPP...on behalf of the Commerce Dept.
Gee, how did they...and he... get there???
Of course, you will call it all a coincidence...
Your tag line tends to confirm it. So much for your lame sarcasm.
Ah, I see. It's not your failure to cite to a passage that supports a particular fact, but my failure to read everything you've posted and find it myself. Have you ever considered asking someone's help in making your arguments for you?
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