Free Republic

The Atlanta Roundtable held its second session on October 17, 2001 to discuss the future of North American integration in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Gordon D. Giffin, Vice Chairman of Long, Aldridge & Norman and former U.S. Ambassador to Canada, and Robert A. Pastor, Professor of Political Science at Emory University, led the discussion. [SNIP] A transformation occurred in Mexico with the election of Vicente Fox. He met with President Bush on September 4 and proposed a very broad agenda: legalizing anywhere from three to seven million illegal immigrants, expanding temporary migration from Mexico, increasing cooperation in law...

CANCUN, Mexico – President Bush will take a break from Washington's rancorous immigration debate today when he arrives in Cancun for a summit of North American leaders to discuss border, trade and security issues. Bush will meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox, the leader who has pushed him hardest to improve the treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States. Advertisement It could be Bush's final formal meeting with Fox, whose successor will be elected in July. And it will be Bush's first meeting with new Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The talks are a follow-up to last year's “three...

Telegram to President Eisenhower, 1957.Little Rock Ark Sep 30 The President The White House We the parents of nine Negro children enrolled at Little Rock Central High School want you to know that your action in safe guarding their rights have strengthened our faith in democracy. Now as never before we have an abiding felling of belonging and purposefulness. We believe that freedom and equality with which all men are endowed at birth can be maintained only through freedom and equality of opportunity for self development growth and purposeful citizenship. We believe that the degree to which people everywhere realize...

Max Borders: Joining me is Thomas P.M. Barnett, author of the new book, Blueprint for Action. It's a follow-up to the phenomenally successful The Pentagon's New Map. Welcome, Tom. Thomas Barnett: Thanks for having me. Borders: Before getting into the details of your new book, Blueprint for Action, would you mind going over the "Core-Gap" thesis, the foundation for your first book? Barnett: The first book really began out of work I was doing for the Office of Secretary of Defense, helping them think about the international security environment, post 9/11. And my charge was to come up with a...

When the leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada announced last March that they had agreed on the terms of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, questions were raised as to what would be the scope of this new accord. Was the partnership different from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994? Would it be a continuation of NAFTA? Or would it nullify NAFTA and replace it with a more up-to-date relationship between the three countries? Some of the language used in the documents outlining the partnership reflect new...

SIERRA VISTA — Fear is keeping Pvt. Kyle Lawson awake at night — not of the enemy, but of his fellow soldiers. For weeks, the 19-year-old Tucson native has been sleeping on a cot in his drill sergeant's office to protect him from further attacks because he is gay. He's already had his nose broken — and says he also was threatened with a knife — after a friend let Lawson's secret slip at a party attended by members of the 309th Military Intelligence Battalion, a training unit at Fort Huachuca 75 miles southeast of Tucson. Lawson now feels he...

On December 21, 1961, when I returned from Afghanistan, I kissed the ground at New York City's Idlewild Airport. I weighed 90 pounds and had hepatitis. Although I would soon become active in the American civil rights, anti-Vietnam war, and feminist movements, what I had learned in Kabul rendered me immune to the Third World romanticism that infected so many American radicals. As a young bride in Afghanistan, I was an eyewitness to just how badly women are treated in the Muslim world. I was mistreated, too, but I survived. My "Western" feminism was forged in that most beautiful and...

The fourth Summit of the Americas was a success because the democratic leaders of the Western Hemisphere reaffirmed the importance of strong democratic institutions and sound macro-economic policies, says John Maisto, U.S. national coordinator for the Summit of the Americas. The summit was held November 4-5 in Mar del Plata, Argentina. In November 16 remarks at George Washington University in Washington, Maisto outlined the results of that summit as well as the challenges ahead in the Western Hemisphere. He said that going into the summit, the United States wanted to reaffirm the importance of strong democratic institutions, to emphasize the...

PARIS, Nov. 17 - In the search for explanations for the riots that have rocked France, some politicians and intellectuals are pointing to a novel one: polygamy. In an interview with RTL radio on Wednesday, Bernard Accoyer, the parliamentary leader of President Jacques Chirac's Gaullist party, the Union for a Popular Movement, called polygamy "certainly one of the causes, though not the only one" for France's worst unrest in four decades. He blamed the former Socialist government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin for being "strangely lax" in enforcing the ban on polygamy. Pierre Cardo, a deputy in Parliament from Mr....

Islamic Jihad: The Conclusive Case The Romans conquered the barbarians—and the barbarians conquered Rome. So it goes with empires. And comes now the penultimate chapter in the history of the empires of the West. This is the larger meaning of the ritual murder of Theo Van Gogh in Holland, the subway bombings in London, the train bombings in Madrid, the Paris riots spreading across France. The perpetrators of these crimes in the capitals of Europe are the children of immigrants who were once the colonial subjects of the European empires. At this writing, the riots are entering their 12th night...

The next time you buy gasoline, look at the pump and you will likely see a warning about the fuel additive MTBE, which California has determined "presents a significant risk to the environment." In 1994, MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) was identified as the source of a strange smell and taste in tap water by communities across California. Following a host of scientific studies, MTBE was found to be hazardous to both human and environmental health. So in 1999, after a rigorous multiyear public process, Gov. Gray Davis, with bipartisan support from the Legislature, acted to phase out the use...

QUITO (AFP) - Ecuador's state-owned oil firm is producing at half capacity, and may have difficulty resuming normal output due to damage caused by protestors, Energy Minister Ivan Rodriguez said. Production resumed Sunday after President Alfredo Palacio deployed troops to Ecuador's Amazon basin, but oil infrastructure was badly damaged, officials said. "What happened is worse than a war," said Rodriguez, estimating economic losses of 400 million dollars to the impoverished Latin American nation by year end. Some of the wells were so badly damaged, "it is possible they cannot be recovered," he said, adding that Petroecuador was operating at 50...

Frank Taylor, retired State Police chief and director of the International Law Enforcement Academy in Roswell, was in Ruidoso this week to acquaint local business leaders with the Academy’s structure and objectives. While here Taylor made a guest appearance on KRUI AM with Tim Keithley and spoke to some 100 people gathered at the Tuesday luncheon of Ruidoso Rotary. “We gave a quick overview of the Academy’s program to the Rotarians,” Taylor said when he stopped by the Ruidoso News. “We also wanted to convey what part their community plays in the Academy’s success. “Ruidoso is a catch-all. It offers...

Canadian hog numbers may be off by nearly 500,000 head. Inaccurate statistics reported by the Statistics Canada, can affect production decisions by U.S. hog producers, said Steve Meyer, Paragon Economics, Des Moines, Iowa. "With the focus on Canadian-American trade (cattle), it is probably time to look at the flow of pigs from Canada thus far in 2005," he said. The number of Canadian hogs into the United States has slowed over last year even with duty-free trade rules in place. Still, Meyer said when comparing Canadian hog slaughter and export statistics, 458,417 hogs are unaccounted for. "Where did those pigs...

Government and business leaders in Guatemala applauded the U.S. House of Representatives for its approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) early Thursday, saying it will bring more jobs and foreign investment to the region. However, environmental and farmer organizations say the treaty will cause greater unemployment and more migration to the U.S. CAFTA will remove most tariffs from goods traded between the U.S., five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. It is expected to take force as early as January 1, 2006. The news brought mixed reactions in Guatemala, one of the six countries included in...

While Central American exporters celebrate the passage of CAFTA, local reaction remains cautious and disappointed. Hoyt Bailey, former executive vice president of Dover Textiles and president of the Dover Foundation, said he was not surprised the Central America Free Trade Agreement made it through the House of Representatives. “The big surprise to me was making China a most favored nation,” Bailey said. “CAFTA is miniscule compared to making China a viable trading partner. [CAFTA] is just another way of taking American jobs away from real, working-class people. It’s very discouraging to see our manufacturing strength go to other countries.” One...

The House of Representatives today approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in a vote of 217 to 215. The vote is a major victory for President George Bush and the Republican House leadership. However, it comes at the expense of increased partisanship and mounting disarray in the conduct and management of U.S. trade policy. Before the treaty comes into effect, ratification by Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica is necessary, and this is not guaranteed. The congressional debate over CAFTA has proved the most inflamed and controversial since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. Economic...

Washington, DC – “Buy American” laws and similar state and federal legislation would be gutted by CAFTA procurement rules that prohibit all laws that give a preference to domestic or local businesses according to U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood, who says CAFTA Article 9 overturns every state and federal law that requires federal, state, and local government agencies to buy American products, or use American workforces. CAFTA Article 9.2. No Party (Nation) may treat a locally established supplier any less favorably than another locally established supplier on the basis of degree of foreign affiliation or ownership, or …on the basis that...

Official: Agreement would threaten U.S. immigration laws TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- If the Central American Free Trade Agreement- Dominican Republic gets a thumbs up from the House of Representatives this month it will likely serve as the next stepping stone to a Western Hemispheric free-trade zone similar to the European Union. The North American Free Trade Agreement, now 10 years old, got the ball rolling connecting Canada, the United States and Mexico under one free-trade umbrella. Should CAFTA-DR pass, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic will increase the scope of free trade to the northern...

Mr. OTTER. Mr. Speaker, I join the three previous speakers tonight, and I rise today in the urgent interest of America's sovereignty and the primacy of our laws and the Constitution. They are under attack, Mr. Speaker, by the Central American Free Trade Agreement that will soon be considered by this Chamber. In fact, even referring to CAFTA as a ``trade agreement'' is a misnomer. Yes, it involves trade; but its influence on our economy, our legal system, and our way of life would be much more serious and sweeping than the benign term ``trade agreement'' suggests. At its core,...