Free Republic

Whether or not Russian history is great or only stolen.

About 30 opponents of Gov. Rick Perry’s controversial Trans-Texas Corridor plan for superhighways statewide rallied at the McLennan County Courthouse Saturday morning, waving plastic bags of soil and vowing to resist any efforts involving eminent domain to seize their land for highway construction. “This is a little piece of my land,” Riesel rancher and farmer Robert Cervenka said. “And this is all they’re going to get from me without a fight.” Although some of those gathered at the steps of the courthouse were allied with independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn, others said they were for any political force capable...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced this week that their business resumption plans have been updated to reflect the analysis of a joint U.S.-Canada-trade exercise conducted last month in Detroit. CBP, along with its Canadian counterpart the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and local law enforcement representatives met with trade leaders in late July to discuss potential steps the governments and private sectors would take to keep trade moving in the event of a disaster or emergency situation. This exercise brought together approximately 70 individuals from CBP, CBSA, local law enforcement, emergency responders and trade representatives to discuss hypothetical emergency...

Dear Mr. President, Thank you for the letter you sent explaining the wonderful things the Republican party is doing for me and asking for money. A truely proper response would be too lengthy. As I wish not to take up too much of your valuable time, let me respond briefly and ennunciate the conditions under which the Republican party is eligible for what remains of my money. I will donate $250.00 to the Republican party upon verification of the following: 1. FairTax enacted and IRS disbanded. 2. Borders 100 percent secure, Illegals rounded up and sent packing, those who hire...

John Hawkins apparently has taken on a mission to prove that the Bush Administration is not creating a North American Union to replace the United States, or a new currency -- the Amero -- to replace the U.S. dollar. Recently, in a blog debate on this website, I exchanged views with Mr. Hawkins. When Mr. Hawkins declined to respond in what the editors termed “Round 4” of that debate, I concluded Mr. Hawkins allowed me to have the final word because he lacked a convincing rejoinder. Now, we see Mr. Hawkins wants to carry on the debate but this time...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying. On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.8 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road. An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years. Few people know that the tolls from the U.S. side of the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, go to a subsidiary of an...

Hockey may be Canada's national sport but now that we're all North Americans, local ties, it seems, are the casualty of international competitiveness. It's happening again with Canada's mining giants Inco and Falconbridge. If North American integration confuses loyalties, it also rallies those on the further reaches of the ideological spectrum. When the Canadian prime minister recently visited the U.S. president, Linda McQuaig coyly suggested in her Toronto Star column that the question isn't how well these two conservative soul mates get along, but "What are they up to?"In the U.S., arch-conservative Jerome R. Corsi, in his Human Events Online...

A Mexican customs facility planned for Kansas City's inland port may have to be considered the sovereign soil of Mexico as part of an effort to lure officials in that country into cooperating with the Missouri development project. Despite adamant denials by Kansas City Area Development Council officials, WND has obtained emails and other documents from top executives with the KCSmartPort project that suggest such a facility would by necessity be considered Mexican territory – despite its presence in the heartland of the U.S. The documents were obtained with the assistance of Joyce Mucci, the founder of the Mid-America Immigration...

UPDATE with environment report, financing details, tariffs structure MADRID (AFX) - A consortium led by Cintra Concesiones Infraestructuras SA said it has signed its first contract to build a section of the Trans-Texas Corridor toll road project in the US and will invest 1.3 bln usd. In a statement, Cintra said the 50-year concession is to design, construct and operate segments 5 and 6 of the SH 130 motorway between Austin and Seguin. The consortium is 65 pct controlled by Cintra and 35 pct by local constructor Zachry. Cintra announced the contract in Dec 2004, and said it expected to...