Free Republic

The idea to form the North American Union as a super-NAFTA knitting together Canada, the United States and Mexico into a super-regional political and economic entity was a key agreement resulting from the March 2005 meeting held at Baylor University in Waco, Tex., between President Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin.

Getting on the right government list can make you wealthy. That's the gist of what Alphonso Jackson, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told a group of influential minority business leaders in Dallas on April 28. During that talk Jackson warned HUD contractors against criticizing President Bush. A Dallas Business Journal report on his comments has led to a political firestorm, calls for his resignation, a formal probe by the HUD Inspector General and an apology from Jackson. Because of intense interest in that April 28 talk, here are additional details of Jackson's comments, which included the story of...

BOSTON — If the National Security Agency (NSA) is indeed amassing a colossal database of Americans' phone records, one way to use all that information is in "social-network analysis," a data-mining method that aims to expose previously invisible connections among people. (snip) That level of cooperation confirmed the fears of many privacy analysts, who pointed out that AT&T is already being sued in federal court in San Francisco for allegedly giving the NSA access to contents of its phone and Internet networks. The suit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and based on documents from a former AT&T technician, says...

May 12, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday denied that government spooks are "mining or trolling through the personal lives" of Americans, amid an uproar over revelations that the National Security Agency maintains massive databases of Americans' telephone calls. (snip) The allegations first surfaced in a little-noticed class-action lawsuit. It was filed against AT&T in San Francisco in January by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group. The complaint provides stunning detail about secret rooms in the company's nerve centers where mysterious equipment has been installed by NSA to tap into fiber-optic "nodes." The lawsuit charges that AT&T gave...

President Bush accuses those of us who want to secure America's borders and fully enforce our immigration laws of lacking "compassion." Huh. Well, I have yet to hear an ounce of compassion from President Bush for America's countless casualties of lax immigration enforcement. Where's the sympathy for innocent, law-abiding citizens who have lost their lives at the hands of illegal aliens and their open-borders enablers? Nope, we haven't heard a word about the victims as the White House pours on its unadulterated pro-illegal alien rhetoric and "undocumented workers do the jobs Americans won't do" propaganda -- all in support of...

HAWLEY, PA (April 25, 2006) – 9/11 Families for a Secure America member Peter Gadiel, along with other families who lost loved ones to murders committed by illegal aliens, held a rally at the White House Monday to deliver over 570,000 petition signatures to demand that President Bush enforce immigration laws. Gadiel, who lost his son, Jason Gadiel, on 9/11 in the north tower of the World Trade Center, 103rd floor, made the following statement: “Families of Americans murdered by illegal aliens held a rally outside the White House on Monday, April 24th, to demand that the president start enforcing...

HOUSTON -- A gunbattle at a drop house for undocumented immigrants probably involved rival smugglers fighting for control over a group of newly arrived immigrants, Houston authorities said. Police found a group of 15 immigrants huddled in a locked closet when they responded to reports of gunshots at the house on Veenstra near Airline in northwest Houston. The immigrants included 10 Mexicans, three Hondurans and two Guatemalans. Police said as many as 15 shots were fired Monday at about 6 p.m. They spotted guns inside one of two houses on the property before finding the immigrants in the closet. Police...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate compromise on an overhaul of immigration law appeared to get bogged down late on Thursday in the face of opposition by some Republicans who say it would give amnesty to lawbreakers. It appeared unlikely the Senate would approve before a two-week congressional break on Friday the radical immigration reform that would give millions of illegal immigrants a chance to earn U.S. citizenship. The bill's backers expressed fear that failure to enact the legislation before lawmakers leave for their spring break could hurt its chances in a congressional election year. Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist...

INVASION USA High-school coach fired for aiding illegals' cause English prof: 'We gots 2 show the U.S. that they aint (expletive) with out us' ** A junior-varsity baseball coach at Cesar Chavez High School in Houston has been ejected from his sports duties after using his position to advocate the cause of illegal aliens. Rudy Rios admits he used a district copier to make fliers encouraging Hispanic students to attend a rally protesting restrictions on illegal immigration. According to the Houston Chronicle, the fliers read: "We gots 2 stay together and protest against the new law that wants 2 be...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Wyandotte County, Kan., prosecutors filed charges Wednesday in a wreck that killed a former football coach at Olathe North High School. David K. Bassore, 51, of Liberty, was driving home from work Monday on Interstate 35 near the 18th Street Expressway exit when his pickup truck was clipped by a Dodge Neon. Bassore's pickup went off the road, rolling twice before it stopped on its side. Bassore was thrown from the vehicle. He died at the scene. Prosecutors charged the driver of the Neon, 16-year-old Raul Cabrera, of Shawnee, Kan., with one count of involuntary manslaughter...

Texas lawmakers said mass protests in Dallas and other cities haven't moved the immigration debate much, with some expressing irritation at the widespread student walkouts. (snip) "It is offensive and outrageous for people who have broken the law to demand to be treated equally," said Rep. John Culberson, a Houston Republican who said federal authorities should have deployed buses to round up illegal immigrants at the marches. "It's as if we had mass protests of trespassers after they're caught, demanding the same rights as homeowners."

House conservatives yesterday issued a dire warning to President Bush and Republican leadership that they will pay a devastating political price if they proceed with a guest-worker program or anything resembling amnesty for illegal aliens before securing the borders and enforcing existing immigration laws. "They will remember in November," Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, said of voters nationwide. "And many of those who have stood with our Republican majority in the last decade are not only angry, many of them plan to be absent from the polls" this year when the entire House and one-third of the Senate is up...

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will face protests and Muslim resentment over the Iraq war when she visits northern England this week. (snip) Rice had been scheduled to visit a mosque in the city until the invitation was withdrawn on Wednesday. No one at the Masjid al Hidayah mosque was available for comment but the Foreign Office confirmed the cancellation, saying it was a pity. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the largest lobby group for the country's 1.6 million Muslims, said there was widespread opposition to U.S. foreign policy and Rice's visit. "This particular U.S....

CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush reassured Mexican President Vicente Fox on Thursday he was committed to getting the U.S. Congress to approve broad immigration reforms, including a guest worker program. (snip) "I'm committed to having a comprehensive immigration bill on my desk, and by comprehensive I mean not only border security, a bill that has border security, a bill that has security enforcement in it, but a bill that has a worker permit program in it," Bush said. Republicans are split on whether to back Bush's call for sweeping reforms to create a guest worker program...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - American forces are damaging the ancient city of Kish and must withdraw from the 5,000-year-old archaeological site, an Iraqi ministry said Thursday. The Ministry of State for Tourism and Antiquities Affairs said U.S. forces had set up a camp in Kish, near Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. In a statement, the ministry said the U.S. military was preventing anyone from entering this important archaeological site to assess the damage, which was not specified. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

Gen. Tommy R. Franks climbed out of a C-130 plane at the Baghdad airport on April 16, 2003, and pumped his fist into the air. American troops had pushed into the capital of liberated Iraq little more than a week before, and it was the war commander’s first visit to the city. (snip) Huddling in a drawing room with his top commanders, General Franks told them it was time to make plans to leave. Combat forces should be prepared to start pulling out within 60 days if all went as expected, he said. By September, the more than 140,000 troops...

(CNSNews.com) - A federal judge in California dismissed a "public nuisance" lawsuit against a gun manufacturer and a gun distributor on Monday, invoking a new federal law intended to protect the gun industry from politically motivated lawsuits. The National Rifle Association said this is the first time a judge has used the new law (the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act) to stop an attempt to hold the gun industry responsible for the acts of criminals. The lawsuit blamed Glock and gun distributor RSR for the criminal actions of white supremacist Buford Furrow, who in 1999 shot and killed...

The Bush administration will renew its effort to find out what people have been looking for on Google Inc.'s Internet-leading search engine, continuing a legal showdown over how much of the Web's vast databases should be shared with the government. Lawyers for the Justice Department and Google are expected to elaborate on their opposing views in a San Jose hearing scheduled Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge James Ware. (snip) The case has focused attention on just how much personal information is stored by popular Web sites like Google - and the potential for that data to attract the interest...

The Dubai-owned company that promised to surrender its U.S. port operations has no immediate plans to sell its U.S. subsidiary's interests at Miami's seaport, a senior executive wrote Monday in a private e-mail to business associates. (snip) "As for the 'pending situation,' I myself am not aware of anything about it that would alter the ownership of POMTOC, so unless one or both of our esteemed partners have separately advised you that they plan to sell their interests, you should assume for your own purposes of managing the company that ownership of POMTOC is not going to change," Scavone wrote.

DUNN, N.C. - North Carolina health officials are investigating the death of a woman who died last week of a flesh-eating bacteria three days after accidentally jamming her hand in a wheelchair while working at a nursing home. Nursing assistant Sharron Bishop, 44, died Feb. 27. A doctor said a rare flesh-eating bacteria may have entered her body through a thumb injury and she turned from healthy to fatally ill. (snip) Sharon Bishop complained on Feb. 24 about a swollen thumb. She had jammed it at work and worried that she had dislocated it. David Bishop took her to Betsy...