Posted on 07/15/2014 9:24:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
Do you remember when President George W. Bush, in 2005, held a summit meeting with the "three amigos" to promote the free movement of people and goods across our borders with Canada and Mexico? The Council on Foreign Relations then spoke of "building a North American community" with a common "security perimeter" and "labor mobility" among our three countries.
Texas planned to build a massive North American Free Trade Agreement superhighway that would begin at its southern border with Mexico and eventually reach northern U.S. cities. The Kansas City Southern Railway bought a Mexican railroad and began branding it as the NAFTA railroad, with the goal of carrying Chinese products from Mexico's Pacific Port of Lazaro Cardenas all the way to Kansas City, Missouri.
The prospect of an economic union with Mexico, which could eventually become a North American Union modeled on the European Union, rightly alarmed many Americans. Texas Gov. Rick Perry was forced to abandon his NAFTA superhighway, and President Barack Obama quietly removed Bush's Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America from the White House website.
But the NAFTA railroad, now called the Kansas City Southern de Mexico, is up and running. Thanks to the exclusive reporting of Dr. Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily, we learn that this train is now playing a major role in bringing tens of thousands of young Central American immigrants into our country illegally.
Americans have been aghast at the sight of unending waves of people, ranging in age from babies in arms to tough, tattooed teenage men. The trip north is no joy ride: riding on the top of moving freight cars for hundreds of miles, preyed on by bandits. Those who take this harrowing trip call it "La Bestia" (the Beast) or the "Train of Death."
How were these desperately poor people able to travel the distance of more than a thousand miles from their homes in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to the U.S. border? The answer, apparently, is that they were allowed to hitch a ride on the NAFTA train that is owned and operated by an American company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Kansas City Southern Rail Network.
Obama, predictably, is demanding that American taxpayers foot the monstrous bill. A mere billion dollars or two won't be enough. Obama's first demand is for $3.7 billion, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Considering all the entitlement programs these kids will eventually soak up, from public school education to medical care, this is easily a trillion-dollar problem. American taxpayers will again be the ones left holding the bag.
This is the background for an astonishing article recently published by three of our most famous billionaires: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Sheldon Adelson. The three men, whose combined worth approaches $200 billion, say they are putting aside their political differences (Adelson is a Republican; Gates and Buffett are Democrats) to demand immediate so-called immigration reform.
The billionaire advice-givers tell us the immigration "impasse certainly depresses the three of us," but a vacation trip to sunny Murrieta, California, might have lifted their spirits. The administration sent agents dressed in riot gear there to confront residents opposed to the busloads of illegal immigrants being driven there.
The three amateur political wannabes of Adelson, Buffett and Gates could have offered to provide some of their own luxury real estate to welcome the many busloads of illegal kids. That would provide much-needed relief for average Americans from the very depressing news that hundreds or thousands of teenagers living here without legal permission and who cannot speak English might soon be dumped in their small town.
Instead of explaining how these immigrants will find jobs at a time when so many Americans are unemployed, the three billionaires instead focus on their own desire to expand a cheap supply of college graduates who are foreigners. Misnamed "talented graduates," these immigrants are no more talented or entrepreneurial than American-born graduates.
This racket of giving visas to foreign students (sometimes falsely labeled "the best and the brightest") has enabled Gates and the ultra-rich to hire foreigners at less cost, with less risk of competition, than fully qualified Americans. The oversupply of foreigners willing to work for lower wages has made it impossible for average American wages to increase in more than a decade, and our middle class has fallen below even Canada's.
Fortunately, Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions pulled the curtain down on the amateur hour by observing, "It is clear that three of the richest billionaires in the world have no clue what Congress owes to the American people." Sessions could have added that the trio of politically clueless businessmen should first tell us what they are willing to fund before demanding phony immigration reform at the expense of American workers and taxpayers.
Then don’t post a comment that we are “trading our jobs for free” on a public forum.
I won’t be running anything I post on this site by you.
Then don’t state that you don’t wish to continue, either.
“I don’t think Putin is the second coming. I wouldn’t want to be ruled by him but he’s definitely not as bad as the Globalist trash says he is ...”
If you think a reconstructed Soviet Union is a good thing, then I suppose you would like Putin. Having lived the first 40 years of my life during the Cold War, I’ll take a pass.
Well you did manage to divert the discussion away from the foolish claim that NAFTA had nothing to do with the illegal immigration that followed it, I’ll grant you that.
But then the fantasy world inhabited by libertarian bean counters has no concern over illegal immigration anyway. We used to get treated to the WSJ’s annual 4th of July demand for a “There Shall be Open Borders” amendment, at least until some of their Open Borders fans from Arabia flew the planes into the Twin Towers.
9-11 didn’t change the desire of Bartley and Gigot for a wide open border, it just made them shut up about it.
Which makes me wonder if the geniuses who support NAFTA ever figured out why Clinton and Gore were such heavy promoters of it. I guess they think that Clinton and Gore were the second coming of the anti-corn law league.
Shut down the railway operation for a month, and watch numbers rapidly decrease.
I’d say we need to review NAFTA, and refocus on what it really did to the US economy. Nothing improved...we simply lost jobs and control over our nation.
I don't care where it began Rick supported and promoted it.
Speaking of foolish claims, where is Schlafly’s evidence that NAFTA is responsible for illegal immigration apart from the fact that some of them hop on top of a train to get here, and Texas tried to expand its highway system?
Back then, that was the essence of the GOP. Move away from taxes to user fees(tolls). Get the govt out of it and let the private sector build and operate the roads. In the 90s they knew that ending pay as you go would be controversial but they had no idea that anyone would oppose the roads.
So what happened? A populist wave swept thru the GOP and the populists opposed the roads. Behind the scenes there were groups such as developers, large cities, and others who were fomenting the populist opposition.
Now, here it is several years later, and the populist wave is wider and taller than it was then. Now, the populists are not just willing to challenge on issues, but are trying to take over the republican party.
“Speaking of foolish claims, where is Schlafly’s evidence that NAFTA is responsible for illegal immigration apart from the fact that some of them hop on top of a train to get here, and Texas tried to expand its highway system?”
It’s already been mentioned several times.
NAFTA opened the Mexican market to cheaper American grain. Thousands of Mexican farms were put out of business. The unemployed Mexican farm workers headed north in a huge surge. The chain migration from this continues to the present.
Empirical evidence only seems foolish to the ideologue.
So all that Mexican produce I see on the shelf at the grocery store . . . reduced illegal immigration because those Mexican farmers found a new market and needed the employees? Idiot.
“So all that Mexican produce I see on the shelf at the grocery store . . . reduced illegal immigration because those Mexican farmers found a new market and needed the employees? Idiot.”
Produce isn’t corn or wheat which may be news to you. I realize that you think numbers reveal all but sometimes real world details are significant.
The produce we import from Mexico comes from Mennonite communities and large farms.
The small farms that used to raise grain for the Mexican tortilla trade were put out of business and the farm hands who ran them came to the US in a wave of illegal immigration.
” Idiot”
I’m sure that word occurs to many freepers who read your posts.
And in other words, I really appreciate your efforts to make the corn, wheat, and other produce I consume more expensive so that Mexicans have jobs.
You must really pack away the frijoles y maza to be worried that you won’t be able to afford your Taco Bell without NAFTA.
I’m sure that patriotism is the least of your concerns but your affected sentiment is heart warming.
In California we are very concerned whether or not Mexicans have jobs in their homeland.
Then work on closing the border to illegal immigration, instead of blaming trains for them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.