Free Republic

TOPEKA, Kan. - Democratic congressional challenger Nancy Boyda repeated concerns Wednesday about a proposed multilane superhighway that eventually could span the United States from Mexico to Canada, calling it a threat to Kansans. "There seems to be a plan to blur the border with the United States and Mexico," Boyda said, referring to a proposed 10-lane corridor parallel to Interstate 35 in Texas. Boyda has made the highway an issue in her effort to defeat incumbent Republican Jim Ryun in a rematch of their 2nd District race two years ago. While Ryun says immigration is the top issue on his...

Grass-roots Americans of all parties and economic classes rose up out of their political apathy a few months ago and forced President George W. Bush to reverse his administration's decision to allow a Middle East government to own America's major ports. But the push for foreign ownership continues: the next port scheduled to be taken over is Kansas City, Mo. Even though public schools stopped teaching geography a couple of decades ago, most Americans (especially residents of the Show Me State) are surprised to learn that Kansas City (where the only waves are "amber waves of grain") is a port....

After missing a deadline, the U.S. Department of Commerce finally has granted a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain complete disclosure of a congressionally unauthorized plan to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that critics say could lead to a EU-style alliance in North America. The plan is being implemented through an office within the Department of Commerce called the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," under the direction of Geri Word, who is listed as working in the agency's North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, office.As WorldNetDaily previously reported, the White House has established...

The Port Authority of San Antonio has been working actively with the Communist Chinese to open and develop NAFTA shipping ports in Mexico. The plan is to ship containers of cheap goods produced by under-market labor in China and the Far East into North America via Mexican ports. From the Mexican ports, Mexican truck drivers and railroad workers will transport the goods across the Mexican border with Texas. Once in the U.S., the routes will proceed north to Kansas City along the NAFTA Super-Highway, ready to be expanded by the Trans-Texas Corridor, and NAFTA railroad routes being put in place...

Some words just don't go together. For example, county commissioner and global conspiracy. If I heard that some dirty commies were plotting to overthrow our government, the first place I'd check would not be under the Tarrant County Courthouse dome. Most of our county officials would be lucky to overthrow a domino table. But there on the Web is Commissioner Glen Whitley's name in black and white, on loony extremist political pages from both the right and left wings, blaming him for promoting a Texas tollway that is portrayed as part of a sinister plot to merge Canada, Mexico and...

DENTON - "Grandma" lost her argument for a contrived ballot nickname. But Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn of Austin might have found a plank on which to build a campaign against Gov. Rick Perry. It's a plank 600 miles long and a quarter-mile wide. It's a giant, privately owned, multilane tollway that would part the Texas countryside the way the governor parts his ample hair. Strayhorn, a Republican running as an independent candidate, has criticized the Trans-Texas Corridor tollway plan loudly for months. So have the other principal challengers in this traffic jam of a race, novelist Kinky Friedman of Medina...

The contractors building the Trans-Texas Corridor – a massive statewide transportation network critics claim is an important part of the controversial proposed integration of the U.S. and Mexico – have made large contributions to the campaigns of Texas politicians, including Republican Gov. Rick Perry. As WND has reported, opposition is mounting to the little-publicized efforts by the Bush administration, aided by corporate and political elites of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, including the Council on Foreign Relations, to push North America into a European Union-style merger. Critics of the Trans-Texas Corridor see the massive project – ironically funded by Spain...

With virtually no mention in the mainstream media, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez convened on June 15, the first meeting of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), an apparently extra-constitutional advisory group organized by the Department of Commerce (DOC) under the auspices of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). A March 31 press release on the White House website, under the title “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America: Progress,” announced the formation of the NACC. The press release noted that the NACC would meet annually “with security and prosperity Ministers and will engage with senior government officials on an...

“Texans have a problem,” State Representative Larry Phillips said about the current statewide transportation system and its government-proposed solution, the Trans-Texas Corridors. “We can either address the problem, know what’s coming, and plan accordingly, or we can stick our heads in the sand and pretend it will go away.” Texas Governor Rick Perry proposed the corridor system in 2002. Texas Department of Transportation and other officials echo that sentiment and are looking at the TTC to offer long-term solutions for the masses. The TTC plan to date The Trans-Texas Corridor is a proposed multi-use, statewide network of transportation routes in...

In the eyes of the federal agents who secretly watched him, Alberto Zatarain was a drug dealer who made all the right moves. He had at least three aliases. He switched cell phones every month and drove ugly old cars to avoid notice. After dark, he holed up and watched TV inside a rented matchbox house in Richfield that rattled from low-flying jets. No clubs, no parties, no women. And every few months, when another runner came up from Mexico, Zatarain handed off suitcases of cash -- profits from a booming business that stretched from metro suburbs to farm towns...

NASCO has altered the organization’s website homepage, apparently in direct response to the North American Union series we have published here, including discussion of NASCO and NAFTA Super-Highways. NASCO appears to be reacting from recent publicity deriving from our argument that NASCO actively supports the goals of their members, including the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Kansas City SmartPort. TxDOT plans to start the first segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as early as next year and the Kansas City SmartPort plans to house a Mexican customs operation within their Inland Port design. These are new infrastructure developments...

Last Thursday in a radio interview with the 55KRC Morning Show in Cincinnati, Tiffany Melvin, executive director of North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition, told host Jerry Thomas that my June 12 Human Events article on NASCO was “absolutely inaccurate.” Melvin declined to be interview for this article, stating in an e-mail her current priority was to answer the “accusations, bad information, and false assumptions” in the June 12 article. “After I have a chance to get my life back and return to a normal schedule, I will contact you,” she wrote. “In the meantime, I will continue to respond to the...

A MASSIVE road four football fields wide and running from Mexico to Canada through the heartland of the United States is being proposed amid controversy over security and the damage to the environment. The "nation's most modern roadway", proposed between Laredo in Texas and Duluth, Minnesota, along Interstate 35, would allow the US to bypass the west coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to import goods from China and the Far East into the heart of middle America via Mexico, saving both cost and time. However, critics argue that the ten-lane road would lay a swathe of concrete...

Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn. Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of...

Kansas City is planning to allow the Mexican government to open a Mexican customs office in conjunction with the Kansas City SmartPort. This will be the first foreign customs facility allowed to operate on U.S. soil. City leaders voted last month to give the facility an innocuous name to hide its true identity as an arm of the Mexican government, staffed by Mexican officials. In fact, Kansas City is so enthusiastic about the opportunity, the cost of building the $3 million dollar facility for Mexico will be paid for by Kansas City taxpayers, not by the Mexican government. The current...

AUSTIN - Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, running for governor as an independent, was teed off Wednesday over Republican Gov. Rick Perry's state transportation commission chairman's remarks that a foreign-owned company could supersede local officials in deciding where new toll roads are built. Commission Chairman Ric Williamson, a Perry appointee and longtime friend, rejected pleas by North Texas leaders last week that a road-building consortium partly owned by a Spanish firm be forced to locate a new tollway system closer to the population centers in Fort Worth and Dallas. When courting private companies to construct highway projects, Williamson told about 100...

An environmental impact study released Tuesday indicates the most likely route of the Trans-Texas Corridor will travel east of Dallas, but a new rail proposition could bring TTC-35 infrastructure to East Parker County as well. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the narrowed eastern study area was identified as the preferred corridor alternative because it best supports the purpose and need for TTC-35. “The ultimate goal of TTC-35 is to relieve traffic congestion on Interstate 35,” said Gabriela Garcia, TxDOT public affairs specialist. The east corridor alternative also incorporates the most miles of existing highways and rail – 195...

Regional planners are considering three Collin County routes as options for the state's proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which would link Mexico to the Oklahoma border. The President George Bush Turnpike, Dallas North Tollway and the proposed Collin County Outer Loop are included on a Trans-Texas Corridor study conducted by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The agency manages the Regional Transportation Council, which allocates federal transportation funds. The agency developed maps for potential auto, freight and rail traffic. The state will narrow study options for the corridor's future in the next few weeks. No decisions on narrowing potential paths for...

Next time you're in a bottleneck on Interstate 35 and want to cuss someone, consider this: Those most responsible probably aren't within earshot. They include former President Clinton, whose signing of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement paved the way for a surge in truck traffic; Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, who helped convince then-Gov. Ann Richards to pull support for high-speed rail plans; and Ric Williamson, who as a member of the state House Appropriations Committee in the 1980s played a key role in diverting state gas taxes, a third of which now don't go to transportation. Such...

Webb County Commissioner Jerry Garza has been chosen to represent the United States as vice president of North America's SuperCorridor Coalition. "I am very excited to have been selected by the county as a representative, and then by my new peers at NASCO for the vice presidency," Garza said. "I think it's good for Webb County because we've always said how important transportation and trade efficiency are for the county. Webb County will also benefit from lobbying on the tri-national level." Garza is one of three vice presidents chosen to represent Canada, the United States and Mexico in the nonprofit...