Feds stonewalling on 'superstate' plan?

Agency fails to respond to FOIA request on 'North American union'

The U.S. Department of Commerce appears to be stonewalling 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 apparently could lead to a North American union.

The plan is being implemented through an office within the Department of Commerce as the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," under the direction of Geri Word, who is listed as working in the department's North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, office.

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, the White House has established executive branch working groups documented on the Commerce website SPP.gov. The Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, was issued as a joint press statement by President Bush, Mexican President Vincente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005.

Commerce has missed a statutory requirement to respond to the FOIA request, filed by author Jerome R. Corsi, within 20 businesses days.

In an e-mail from Bobbie Parsons on behalf of Robert Dolan, the department acknowledged receipt of the FOIA request on June 19. WorldNetDaily first reported Corsi’s FOIA request June 20.

Robert McGuire, attorney for Corsi, emailed Commerce Monday, notifying the agency of the statutory violation in their failure to respond.

Yesterday, McGuire received an e-mail response from Brenda Dolan, the departmental Freedom of Information and Privacy Act officer.

Dolan wrote:

The International Trade Administration, which is a bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was assigned lead action on your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request number CRRIF 06-376, for information concerning the Prosperity Working Groups. I have contacted Linda Bell, FOIA officer, ITA regarding the status of your pending FOIA request. I will provide the status of your pending request as soon as I receive word from Ms. Bell.

McGuire told WND that this response was unacceptable.

"The Department of Commerce skipped a deadline required by law," he explained. "The act's 20-day requirement relates to the department as a whole, not its sub-units."

McGuire also told WND he had copied Bell on his original e-mail copy of the FOIA request.

"I used Linda Bell's e-mail address as listed on the DOC website and her email bounced back," he said. "DOC has especially poor grounds for the delay, especially since DOC sent the request to Ms. Bell internally as well."

Corsi believes the department is stonewalling the FOIA request.

"The Bush administration does not want the American public to know how far along the creation of a new regional government, the North American union, is proceeding behind closed doors," Corsi said. "President Bush is acting as if he believes the U.S. Constitution is nothing more than a meaningless piece of paper. The American public have a right to know what the executive branch is doing with SPP and the FOIA request was designed to get that information released."

Attorney McGuire was equally firm.

"We thought we might encounter some recalcitrance," he explained to WND, "but I am frankly shocked that we had received no response at all. The department acknowledged its receipt of our request on June 19. The requirements of the Freedom of Information Act are quite clear: The government is allowed to respond to a FOIA request in many ways, but the complete failure to respond within 20 business days is simply not an option."

North American Union Is No Conspiracy

by Jerome R. Corsi

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 against a vaguely defined “conspiracy theory” whose proponents Mr. Hawkins neglects to identify except to point fingers at Lou Dobbs, Diane Alden, and me.

Hawkins begins by characterizing the argument that the NAU is being created as a “conspiracy theory.” As I argued in the debate on the blog, this technique is an attempt to discredit the argument by ridicule. What Mr. Hawkins wants readers to assume is that any writer arguing the NAU proposition has to believe by definition that behind the NAU movement are the illuminati, or that Bigfoot is the “brains behind the NAU.”

The tactic was well described by radical socialist Saul D. Alinsky whose 1971 book “Rules for Radicals” asserted that: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule.” Mr. Alinsky was wrong on this, as he was on many political arguments. Ridicule can be countered by pointing out that ad hominem articles are usually all that is left for those who cannot muster the arguments to defeat a debate opponent on point.

Mr. Hawkins, you do not have to characterize statements by those of us who advance the NAU argument as “hysterical quotes” or arguments that are “not true at all” in order to position yourself to make the arguments you want to make.

To set the record straight, I believe there is no convincing evidence that a second assassin positioned behind the grassy knoll killed JFK, nor do I see definitive scientific evidence that the Loch Ness monster exists. I do find credible evidence, however, to advance the argument that the Bush administration is quietly creating the trilateral structure in administrative law of the NAU. The key action is going on within the executive branch in SPP.gov working groups. The goal seems to be to make the NAU a fait accompli without having to present the proposition first to the American public or the U.S. Congress for debate and approval. Far from being a conspiracy, the evidence for these contentions is “hidden” in the open, much of it published on government websites.

Mr Hawkins advances five “claims” which we will examine here in the order in which his article presents them. I will state the claims as Mr. Hawkins phrased them.

Claim #1: There is a Council of Foreign Relations report called, “Building a North American Community,” that’s being used as a “blueprint” for a merger of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.

First, there is a CFR task force report under that title that was issued in May 2005. Moreover, there was a relatively neglected “Chairman’s Statement” under the title “Creating a North American Community” that was issued earlier, in March 2005.

Mr. Hawkins states that he telephoned Lee Feinstein, who is the executive director of the CFR task force program. Mr. Feinstein denied that the CFR reports in question called for the creation of a “superstate.” Moreover, Mr. Feinstein expressed uncertainty that anyone in the Bush administration was reading the report, paying any attention to it, or using it as a “blueprint.”

While Mr. Feinstein may head the CFR program, we find no mention that Mr. Feinstein participated on the task force of either of the CFR reports documented above. Nor do we find any evidence that task forces organized under Mr. Feinstein's office have a requirement to consult him or seek his views, advice or approval before issuing their reports.

Mr. Hawkins is non-responsive to the argument I advanced in the blog debate that a scientifically conducted content analysis would most likely show correspondence between the CFR reports in question, the activity documented by the Department of Commerce website (SPP.gov), and the writings of a person who was task force vice chair for the reports in question, Dr. Robert A. Pastor of American University. Regardless of denials expressed by any CFR executive or even a task force member, the documents in question should speak for themselves.

There are too many correlations among these evidentiary sources to document them fully here. To cite one correspondence as an example, we note that the CFR May 2005 report called for the immediate creation of a “North American Advisory Council,” described on page 31 as an “independent body of advisers,” composed of “eminent persons from outside government, appointed to staggered multiyear terms to ensure their independence.” In the May 27, 2005 press conference announcing the release of the May 2005 CFR task force report, Robert Pastor argued for the creation of some “lean institutions,” one of which was described as a “North American advisory council made up of eminent individuals from all three countries, appointed for terms that are longer than those of the governments, and staggered over time.”

The idea for a “North American Commission” surfaced in Dr. Pastor’s 2001 book titled "Toward a North American Commission," where on page 187 he recommended that the advisory group be “composed of distinguished individuals who are appointed by the three governments but are not in any of the governments.” The homepage at SPP.gov concludes by noting that President Bush, President Fox, and then-Prime Minister Martin of Canada announced at their March 2005 summit at Waco, Texas, “the creation of a North American Competitiveness Council to fully incorporate the private sector into the SPP process.” Then, on June 15, 2006, the NACC was created. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez convened the first meeting of the North American Competitiveness Council, organized exactly as Dr. Pastor and the May 2005 CFR task force report had recommended.

Another correspondence that a content analysis would reveal is the formation of a North American Investment Fund. Robert Pastor discussed this idea in his 2002 speech to the Trilateral Commission in which he argued for just such a fund. Next, the May 2005 CFR task force report argues for the creation of a North American Investment Fund on page 14. The acknowledgments section of this CFR report thanks Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) for contributing to the task force meeting in New York in 2004. Finally, on June 29, 2006, Sen. Cornyn introduced S. 3622 into the Senate, a bill calling for the formation of a North American Investment Fund. Always the discussion was the same -- to create a new North American investment fund that would supplement World Bank funds expended in a trilateral effort to develop Mexico economically.

In the blog debate with Mr. Hawkins, I pointed out that on page 3 of the May 2005 CFR report, the task force referenced the March 2005 SPP declaration and wrote: “The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.” Given this sentence, we advance the argument that the CFR task force stated openly the intent to lay out a plan, or “blueprint,” for how the U.S. government should proceed to “pursue and realize” the partnership the Waco, Texas declaration had put into effect as of March 23, 2005. We also argued that the correspondence between the areas identified for trilateral agreement in the May 2005 CFR report and the trilateral executive branch working groups established under SPP.gov correspond quite closely.

All this we consider strong evidence that the May 2005 CFR was a blueprint for SPP.gov, a blueprint which is following the intellectual structure Dr. Pastor has put forth in his many years of labor to bring the NAU into existence. These correspondences are empirical documentary evidence, independent of the assertions of any particular executive who may have a personal agenda that informs their statements of denial.

Claim #2: “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.” – Jerome Corsi

Here Mr. Hawkins cites the executive director of NASCO, who asserts that NASCO is merely a trade organization that is not part of a conspiracy to build NAFTA super-highways. Mr. Harkins’ argument here is identical to his argument in the first claim: he references the denial of an executive as a statement of proof that their organizations are not involved in the alleged activity. The argument suffers the same deficiency: What is the proof the executive is not issuing a self-serving denial conveniently design to deflect public examination and criticism?

Mr. Harkins’ argument, however, is once again non-responsive. We have argued repeatedly that NASCO members are actively involved in building components of what we argue will emerge as a NAFTA super-highway on the model of the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC-35). We issued a challenge for NASCO to prove their point by repudiating the publicly stated plans of NASCO members, including the Texas Department of Transportation and the Kansas City SmartPort. We charged that NASCO added “debunking” sections to their homepage and website as a public relations make-over designed to deflect criticism. So far, NASCO has not responded, and neither has Mr. Hawkins.

Claim #3: A customs facility in Kansas City is going to become Mexican territory!

Here Mr. Hawkins begins by offering some personal praise, subtly packaging yet another ad hominem attack as professional admiration by characterizing the Mexican customs office being built in Kansas City by KC SmartPort as “a brilliant idea.” He points out that KC SmartPort officials assert that the purpose of the Mexican customs facility will only be to check “outgoing vehicles,” i.e. exports, which evidently Mr. Hawkins believes should give us no reason to object. Finally, Mr. Hawkins relies upon the testimony of yet another potentially self-interested executive, Tasha Hammes, a KC SmartPort marketing manager, who is associated with the Kansas City Area Development Council. Ms. Hammes asserts that the facility will be U.S. sovereign territory leased to Mexico. For Mr. Hawkins, that statement alone ends the debate on the issue.

Again, Mr Hawkins is non-responsive. We have examined internal emails of KC SmartPort executives that were obtained under a Missouri Sunshine Law. We have quoted from these emails to show that KC SmartPort officials communicating with each other in what they most likely assumed were never-to-be-public writings that the Mexican customs facility might just have to be considered Mexican sovereign territory. Moreover, the internal emails document that the question will remain open until KC SmartPort receives approval from the U.S. Department of State of the C-175 form KC SmartPort submitted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to receive approval on the Mexican customs facility proposal. Mr. Hawkins failed to comment on this internal email evidence that we have presented and argued.

Claim #4: The United States, Mexico, and Canada are going to merge their currencies into something called an Amero.

Again, Mr. Hawkins begins with another form of the ad hominem discrediting argument, belittling anyone who would believe this claim that an Amero is in the works. He writes: “It’s always difficult to reason people out of something that they weren’t reasoned into in the first place and therefore, it’ll be very difficult to convince people who believe in this claim that it’s not going to happen.”

Moving beyond the personal attack, Mr. Hawkins once again advances executive statements to disavow the claim that the Amero is being contemplated by the U.S. government under the Bush administration. Mr. Hawkins notes that President Bush has never advocated this idea. Mr. Hawkins also notes that he spoke with David Bohigian at the Commerce Department who issued a flat denial that SPP was working on merging American currency with that of our neighbors. Again we note, that executive statements are not conclusive when the executives issuing a statement may have a self-interest in advancing a denial.

We have repeatedly argued that the NAU is being put in place incrementally, by executive action that is not explicitly stated in public speeches or advanced through legislation debated in Congress. We have cited the conclusions of Christopher Sands of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the leaders of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada have committed to a process of bureaucratically led negotiations that will result in trilateral political integration, rather than proceeding through a process of open or public integration that going to the publics of the three countries or their legislatures would entail.

Mr. Hawkins agrees that creating the Amero is an explicit agenda item that Dr. Pastor has actively pursued, so we are spared having to document this point by reference to Dr. Pastor’s many writings and statements arguing for the creation of the Amero. Mr. Hawkins is once again non-responsive to our argument that a large body of academic literature exists arguing the desirability of creating a North American monetary union, whether or not the trilateral currency is named the Amero.

We noted that the updated SPP.gov listing of working groups describes a new “Financial Services Working Group” such that the top-level description does not produce sufficient detail to determine if trilateral integration of currencies is on the agenda, or not.

Even in the creation of the European Union, the creation of the Euro took some time. The European Council meeting in December 1995 in Madrid settled upon the Euro as a definitive name for the new European “unique currency,” even though the origins of the EU can be traced back to the Treaty of Rome in 1957. We expect the actual creation of a NAU unified currency will take several years after the NAU itself is fully realized.

Claim #5: The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is the government entity that’s working on merging the United States, Canada, and Mexico!

Predictably, Mr. Hawkins establishes his denial of this claim by referring to executive testimony. David Bohigian at the Commerce Department evidently also told Mr. Hawkins that SPP was just “like a discussion you’d have with your neighbors,” not a treaty or agreement to merge currencies or erase borders. We note the contrast between this statement and the stonewalling the Commerce Department is doing with our FOIA request to see the composition of the SPP.gov working groups, as well as the trilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding being written by these working groups with Mexico and Canada. If the activity in SPP.gov were truly as innocent as Mr. Bohigian asserts, why has SPP.gov resisted posting on the Internet the information our FOIA request is seeking to have released for the public to read?

A close examination of SPP.gov documents that many areas of law and regulation that previously were the purview of the U.S. laws alone are evidently being rewritten by executive branch working groups as new trilateral administrative laws and regulations, without first being submitted to Congress for oversight, new legislation, or other forms of legislative approval.

For instance, the 2005 Report to Leaders on the SPP.gov website documents trilateral agreements to issue biometric ID cards to North American “trusted traders” who will apparently be able to use these cards alone to move freely throughout North America, able to live and work where they choose, without any other specific visa or border crossing documentation. This and the “trusted trader” trilateral agreements later described in the document are highly suggestive of the conclusion that SPP.gov is effectively erasing our borders with Mexico and Canada, even if that explicit purpose is never announced or admitted.

Mr. Hawkins also cites Tony Snow’s press conference denial that the Bush administration intends to merge the U.S. into the NAU. Retractions or restatements by White House press secretaries whose prior briefings were incomplete, or whose information given to the public needed otherwise to be restated are numerous in all modern presidential administrations, Democratic and Republican alike.

Mr. Hawkins argues that the creation of the NAU would require an explicit Constitutional process, possibly even a Constitutional Convention. Again, Mr. Hawkins is non-responsive to our argument that the legal and regulatory infrastructure of the NAU is being created by the executive branch in a de facto manner. Nor did he respond to our example that we already have Chapter 11 tribunals under NAFTA that could evolve into acting like the kind of North American dispute resolution institution described frequently in the writings of Dr. Pastor, as well as in the CFR May 2005 task force report.

Finally, Mr. Hawkins concludes with an admonition that we should be happy SPP.gov is working with our neighbors to improve our security and our prosperity and we shouldn’t worry about a non-existent “vast conspiracy to create a North American Union.” The “don’t worry” part of this “don’t worry, be happy” formula is delivered in the last sentence, where Mr. Hawkins cannot resist one last ad hominem shot. I will refrain from repeating the sentence but I will note that the arguments over the NAU gain credence the closer we look at them. I encourage Mr. Hawkins to rely less on personal testimony derived from involved participants and to spend more time studying and arguing from the extensive evidentiary body of SPP documents which many of us who are examining these questions have linked to in our various articles.

I conclude here as I concluded in the blog debate. I am grateful to Mr. Hawkins for continuing this debate. Challenging the arguments on the NAU should only draw more public attention and scrutiny of the many important issues being debated. I would only encourage Mr. Hawkins to drop the invective, which in the final analysis ends up being less abusive to those of us arguing the NAU than it is to himself.

Red China Opens NAFTA Ports in Mexico

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 by Kansas City Southern. Kansas City Southern’s Mexican railroads has positioned the company to become the “NAFTA Railroad.”

Right now, the cost of shipping and ground transportation can nearly double the total cost of cheap goods produced by Chinese and Far Eastern under-market labor. The plan is to reduce those transportation costs by as much as 50% by using Mexican ports.

Cost-savings will be realized by bringing the goods into the U.S. at mid-continent. Equally important is that the substantially reduced cost of using Mexican labor in the ports and to transport the goods once off-loaded. Mexican workers undercut Longshoremen Union port employees on the docks of Los Angeles and Long Beach, just as Mexican truck drivers undercut the Teamsters and Mexican railroad workers undercut United Transportation Union railroad workers. By using the Mexican ports, the international corporations managing this global trade are able to avoid the U.S. labor union workers who otherwise would unload the ships in west coast ports and transport the Asian containers into the heart of America by U.S. truckers or U.S. railroad ground transport moving east across the Rocky Mountains.

In April 2006, officials of the Port Authority of San Antonio traveled to China with representatives of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, and Hutchinson Port Holdings to develop the Mexican ports logistics corridor. The goal of the meetings in China was described by the March 2006 e-newsletter of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio:

In January of 2006, a collaboration of several logistics entities in the U.S. and Mexico began operation of a new multimodal logistics corridor for Chinese goods entering the U.S. Market. The new corridor brings containerized goods from China on either Maersk or CP Ships service to the Mexican Port of Lazaro Cardenas. There, the containers are off loaded by a new world class terminal operated by Hutchinson Ports based in Hong Kong. The containers are loaded onto the Kansas City Southern Railroad de Mexico where they move in-bound into the U.S. The containers clear U.S. customs in San Antonio, Texas and are processed for distribution.

Hutchinson Whampoa, a diversified company that manages property development and telecommunications companies, with operations in 54 countries and over 200,000 employees worldwide, is also one of the world’s largest port operators. Hutchinson Ports Holding (HPH) owns Panama Ports Co., which operates the ports of Cristobal and Balboa which are located at each end of the Panama Canal. HPH also operates the industrial deepwater port of Lazaro Cardenas in the Mexican State of Michoacan, as well as the Mexican port at Manzanillo, also along the west coast of Mexico, north of Lazaro Cardenas.

The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio was created in 1994 to promote the development of San Antonio’s inland port. The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio and the Port Authority of San Antonio are both members of NASCO, an acronym for the group’s formal name, the North American’s SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. A Kansas City Star newspaper article posted on the website of the Kansas City SmartPort, another NASCO member, shows the importance of San Antonio’s inland port to the developing NAFTA Super-Highway and NAFTA railroad corridor emerging along Interstate I-35. According to reporter Rick Alm, San Antonio envisions the opening of a Mexican customs office in their inland port, a move that has been pioneered by Kansas City SmartPort:

Under this area’s arrangement [establishing a Mexican customs facility in the Kansas City SmartPort], freight would be inspected by Mexican authorities in Kansas City and sealed in containers for movement directly to Mexican destinations with fewer costly border delays. The arrangement would become even more lucrative when Asian markets that shipped through Mexican ports were figured into the mix. “We applaud the efforts of Kansas City and the Mexican government in developing a Mexican customs facility there,” said Jorge Canavati, marketing director for Kelly USA [former name for San Antonio’s inland port established on the former site of Kelly Air Force Base]. He said a Mexican customs function for KellyUSA “is something that is still far away … We may be looking at that” in the future.

A world map on the North American Inland Ports Network (NAIPN) on the NASCO website graphically highlights in yellow the trade routes from China across the Pacific ocean, to Mexico at the ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, entering the U.S. through San Antonio.

A Free Trade Alliance San Antonio 2005 summary of goals and accomplishments documents the direct involvement of the Bush administration into the development of San Antonio’s inland port NAFTA plans. The following were among the bulleted points:

• Organized four marketing trips to Mexico and China to promote Inland Port San Antonio and met with prospects. Met with over 50 prospects/leads during these trips.

• Continued to pursue cross border trucking by advocating a pilot project with at least two major Mexican exporters as potential subjects. Worked with U.S. Department of Transportation, Dept. of Homeland Security and U.S. Trade Representative on this concept.

• Working with Mexican ports to develop new cargo routes through the Ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Candenas.

• San Antonio is on the route of the Trans-Texas Corridor planned to be built along I-35 from Laredo, Tex., on the Mexican Border, north through Dallas, en route to the Oklahoma border.

The development of a China-Mexico trade route reflects a fundamental shift since the passage of NAFTA. At the peak in the mid-1990s, there were some three thousand maquiladoras located in northern Mexico, employing over 1 million Mexicans in low-paying, assembly sweat-shops. Today, even Mexican labor is not cheap enough for the international corporations seeking only to maximize profits. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, that bubble has burst and the maquiladora activity is down over 25 percent from the peak as the international corporations have found even cheaper labor in China.

As the Port of San Antonio evidences, linking NAFTA inland ports with NAFTA super-highways and NAFTA railroads is an important part of the development plan for the emerging global free trade economy. San Antonio officials by working with the communist Chinese to open Mexican ports for NAFTA trade evidence that plan. International capitalists are now determined to exploit cheap Mexican labor, not so much for manufacturing and assembly, but as a means of saving port and transportation costs in the North American market.

The Bush Administration seems on-board with the plan, aiming to increase corporate capital gains in NAFTA markets rather than worrying about the adverse consequences to Mexican low-skilled workers or to the U.S. labor movement that transferring increasing amounts of manufacturing and assembly to China entails.

by Jerome R. Corsi

MEXAMERICANADA: It’s coming

by Robert B. Murray
Guest Opinion

Our senators should stand strong against a movement to destroy American sovereignty.

It is likely you haven’t heard about it unless you obtain your news from the internet. The newspapers, radio, and television have chosen to ignore the plan—introduced by the Council on Foreign Relations—to create a North American Union similar to the European Union.

President George W. Bush, President Vicente Fox of Mexico, and former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin agreed in March 2005 to create this union by executive regulations and agreements rather than by treaty to bypass Congress. Twenty working groups were formed and are well on their way to establishing a super-government for North America that will not be bound by our Constitution. The web site for this new bureaucracy—located at www.spp.gov—provides a look at their plans and accomplishments thus far. The plan is to have this arrangement implemented by 2010.

Behind its innocuous title, the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” the United States will surrender its Constitution. According to Jerome R. Corsi, an author and political commentator, our nation-state prerogatives would be superseded by the authority of a North American court and parliamentary body and our dollar would become the “Amero.”

One of the most visible steps already under way is the plan for a N.A.F.T.A. superhighway. 1,200 feet wide, stretching from Lazaro Cardenas on the west coast of Mexico, entering the United States at Laredo, Texas, and continuing straight north to Winnipeg, Canada, with another route to Kansas City thence north easterly to Detroit and Montreal.

Containerized goods from Asia will be offloaded onto Mexican trucks, with Mexican drivers, and distributed throughout the economic system. Go to www.nascocorridor.com to view the plan and progress. There will be no internal boundaries to restrict the flow of people, goods or services.

This and more is occurring without Congressional oversight, but is naturally funded with our state and federal tax dollars. Why have Senators Craig and Crapo said nothing about this odious plan to destroy our sovereignty?

Robert B. Murray is a native of Caldwell, Idaho

Impact of the North American Union in US markets

US MARKETS

The Conference Board said July’s consumer confidence rose to 106.5 from 105.4 in June. The present situation index rose to 133.0 from 132.2, while the expectations index edged up to 88.8 from 87.5.

Sales of existing homes fell 1.8% n June one of the 3 best selling months of the year. The inventory of unsold homes rose to a record 6.8-month supply at the June sales rate, the highest since July 1997. The median price has risen 0.9% in the past year to $231,000, the weakest price growth in ten years. Sales were flat in the West and Midwest, off 2.3% in the south and off 3.5% in the Northeast. Median prices of single-family homes are up 1.1% y-o-y, while condo prices fell 2.1%. Single-family home sales fell 0.9% and condo prices are down 2.1%.

Foreclosure filings in Massachusetts increased 66% in the second quarter. That is 4,292 notices of foreclosure, up from 2,585 y-o-y. Filings rose 30% in the first quarter. Past due mortgages are 3% versus 4% nationwide. Much of the trouble comes from ARMS on second homes.

We can’t believe Arlen Specter (R-PA), who is not running for reelection, is going to do something decent and right. He says, “we will submit legislation to the US Senate, which will authorize Congress to undertake judicial review of signing statements with the view to having the President’s acts declared unconstitutional.” Bush has issued 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to reverse, interpret or disregard laws on national security, on constitutional grounds. The practice destroys the separation of powers. The American Bar Association says he has signed more than 800. The man, Bush, who would be dictator.

The North American Union is a de facto treaty that was never submitted to the Senate for ratification. This union will include a tri-national North American Union ID card. At a June hearing before an immigration subcommittee, a Department of Homeland Security counselor touted the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. He said under the North American Union’s “Security & Prosperity Partnership” people entering or leaving the US from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean or Bermuda present either a new document called a “Passport Card” or other documents to be named, which will meet certain standards to be determined. This requirement would also apply to Americans, who currently do not need a passport to travel to those countries. George and the neocons are brazenly laying the foundation to turn the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) into a back-door tri-national ID system. If an enhanced driver’s license is used then Mexico and Canada would have to meet all of the US criteria. Such a move would have to have legislation to that effect passed by Congress. This is just another attack on our constitutional rights in order to treat us like sheep.

What is the Guardians of Liberty? It’s about three million hardcore George W. Bush neocon backers, sort of like an SS or Gestapo - the anointed followers. This is the next Bush-Republican project and guess what, it will be funded via a Netherlands-Antilles secret corporation, called “Trilateral Communications Ltd.” What a fitting title. Of course what we are looking at is a corporation that was funded via black ops-drug operations during Iran Contra. This corporation is part of the Trilateral Investment Group, which finances the neocon juggernaught. This is what finances the insiders within government and keeps elitists in office in the perpetuation of wealth, power and world government. This is the black bag group who do all the dirty work and dirty tricks. It goes all the way from character assassinations, to phony criminal charges to murder. Thus the financing and organizing of this wildly devoted fascist group comes from people who have continually broken the law and gotten away with it. This group is what you always suspected existed but couldn’t prove it. This is the product of the last 30 years of Republican power and how it was financed. It is no wonder Lyn Nofziger didn’t want me contaminating Ronald Reagan with the truth in 1965. This is the group as a whole that believes that if you do not support the neocon fascist movement you are undemocratic, treasonous or a seditionist. Now you can well understand why we cannot any longer live in the US. We wouldn’t last two weeks, we are protestors, and seekers and messengers of the truth, something this swine can’t stand. These people will turn these Guardians of Liberty into useful zombies. This will be sold all in the guise of patriotism. After it gets going then the spy on your neighbor – KGB – Stasi – program will go into action. Then they’ll have vast dossiers on millions of Americans, just this time it is not the communist at the helm, it’s fascists. If you let it be, this will be your tomorrow...

Super-Corridor to oblivion

There is growing concern about the proposed "Super-Corridor" from the southern tip of Mexico to Canada. The project, under way for more than a decade, is just now being introduced to the public. And the public doesn't like what they are hearing.

Confusion about the project is rampant because it is still primarily a concept, in the planning stages, and most of the final decisions will not be made for some time. Several very important decisions, however, have already been made.

TheNorth American International Trade Corridor Partnership has officially amalgamated with the North American SuperCorridor Coalition, or NASCO, to promote the development of a trade corridor designed to expedite the flow of trade through the North American continent.

NASCO is a not-for-profit lobbying organization that has received $2.5 million in congressional earmarks from the Department of Transportation to promote the corridor concept. Its 24-member board of directors includes county commissioners from four Texas counties, an Oklahoma state senator and a member of OK-DOT, two officials from the Texas DOT, attorneys, a couple of construction company officials and an official of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce. Membership fees range from $500 for an individual up to $25,000 for government entities. Membership includes several U.S. government entities.

NASCO claims that "There are no plans to build a new NAFTA super-highway – it exists today as I-35." This, however, is at odds with reality.

On Dec. 16, 2004, the Texas Transportation Commission, well represented in NASCO, entered into an agreement with a consortium called based in Spain, with tentacles into several other countries. The Comprehensive Development Agreement is open-ended (up to 50 years) and provides for many options along the way.

The goal is to build and operate a privately funded toll corridor that includes up to 10 lanes of car and truck traffic, rail lines, pipelines and utilities, including communications systems. The current agreement is limited to Texas, but fits nicely into the master plan being advanced by NASCO.

It also fits nicely into the vision of the Council on Foreign Relations' recent report, "Building a North American Community," which advocates "unlimited access to each other's territory" (page 47), including allowing Mexican or Canadian companies to freely enter the United States to compete with U.S. trucking companies, hauling freight between U.S. cities.

This, of course, is essential to the creation of the North American Union, the goal of the Security and Prosperity Partnership. This partnership includes enhanced border crossings for trade and for individuals, using a new SENTRI program being developed by the U.S. Customs Department.

This massive transformation of the United States of America into the North American Union is well under way. It is being implemented with the blessings of the last three presidents, key congressmen, and the most powerful business and professional government leaders.

There's one small problem: No one asked the American people if they want this transformation.

The entire concept has never been presented to Congress, nor to the American people for reflection, discussion, debate and approval. Instead, powerful lobbying groups, such as NASCO and others, present small segments of the concept wrapped up in a package of financial benefits, and then "sell" the idea in installments. Each installment is a baby step toward the North American Union, which is similar to the European Union – both key elements in the structure of global governance.

The fundamental transformation is to our system of governance; we are moving from the system of representative government set forth in the U.S. Constitution to a system of collaborative policymaking by professional bureaucrats and business leaders. This outcome is precisely what the President's Council on Sustainable Development called for in its 1993 We Believe Statements:

"We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions; more rapid change; and more sensible use of human, natural and financial resources in achieving our goals." (Statement No. 8)

What we really need are elected officials who listen to their constituents and refuse to be steamrolled or bought by professional bureaucrats and business leaders.

The Texas Transportation Commission can withdraw from its agreement with Cintra-Zachry at any time. Perhaps the voters in Texas can call for a referendum to see if the people really want this Super-Corridor. The people of Texas could, once again, play a vital role in saving the United States.

H. Lamb

The NAFTA Super Highway

The planned NAFTA Super Highway would radically reconfigure not only the physical landscape of these United States, but our political and economic landscapes as well. (Click here to tell your representative and senators to "Stop the NAFTA Super Highway Steppingstone to a North American Union.")

Kelly Taylor is an Austin-based writer and filmmaker, and the producer of a politically based TV talk show.

All across America, mammoth construction projects are preparing to launch. The NAFTA Super Highway is on a fast track and it's headed your way. If you don't help derail it, you may soon be run over by it - both figuratively and literally.

The NAFTA Super Highway is a venture unlike any previous highway construction project. It is actually a daisy chain of dozens of corridors and coordinated projects that are expected to stretch out for several decades, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and end up radically reconfiguring not only the physical landscape of these United States, but our political and economic landscapes as well.

In Texas, the NAFTA Super Highway is being sold as the Trans Texas Corridor. In simplest terms, the TTC is a superhighway system including tollways for passenger vehicles and trucks; lanes for commercial and freight trucks; tracks for commuter rail and high-speed freight rail; depots for all rail lines; pipelines for oil, water, and natural gas; and electrical towers and cabling for communication and telephone lines. One of the proposed corridor routes, TTC-35, is parallel to the present Interstate Highway 35 (I-35), slightly to the east, running north from Mexico to Canada. Its present scope is 4,000 miles long, 1,200 feet wide, with an estimated cost of $183 billion of taxpayer funds. It runs through Kansas City.

Integration vs. Independence

How would all of this affect you, your family, and your community? Let us count the ways. One of the most striking features of the proposed Super Highway is the plan to do away with our borders, as evidenced by the joint U.S.-Mexico Customs facility already under construction in Kansas City, Missouri. A U.S. Customs checkpoint in Kansas City? But that's a thousand miles inside America's heartland; isn't the purpose of U.S. Customs to check people and cargo at our borders?

Ah, but the mere asking of that question shows that you're still operating under the old paradigm that sees the United States as an independent, sovereign nation. However, that paradigm began to change following passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. NAFTA, which was sold to the American public as a simple trade agreement, was actually far more than that, setting in motion a process for the gradual social, economic, and political "integration," or merger, of the three NAFTA countries - Canada, the United States, and Mexico - into a North American Union.

In 2005, this merger process became more explicit and aggressive when President Bush, Mexico's President Vicente Fox, and Canada's Prime Minister Martin launched what they call the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). Any serious study of the SPP will clearly reveal that its ultimate aim is the dissolution of the United States into a North American Union patterned after the increasingly dictatorial regional government now running the European Union. Henceforth, under this plan, the borders between our nations will be incrementally erased in favor of a joint "perimeter" around all three countries.

One part of this plan calls for streamlining the flow of traffic from Mexico, including a massive increase in containers from China and the Far East offloading at Mexican seaports and then being transported by truck and rail into the United States via the new NAFTA Super Highway. These new cargo streams would cross the border in supposedly secure FAST lanes, checked only electronically until the first Customs stop in Kansas City!

What about all the repeated promises by the White House and Congress to make border security America's "top priority"? Moving Customs inspections hundreds of miles inland obviously contradicts those promises and incalculably increases the opportunities for smugglers (of drugs, illegal aliens, terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, and other contraband) to enter the country. Our borders are already incredibly porous and undermanned; securing the entire route from the Mexico-Texas border to Kansas City would require thousands more Border Patrol and Customs officers. Would these agents be provided? Could this route be made any more secure than our southern border? Does it make sense to effectively extend the border via this route when we are now doing such a poor job securing our existing border?

Under the Radar

Moreover, we can expect that similar inland joint Customs facilities, like the one in Kansas City, will be included in the other Mexico-to-Canada superhighway corridors. Of course, these corridors will not be secured, and the result - as intended - would be the de facto merger of immigration and Customs enforcement and the obliteration of the current national borders within the planned North American Union. That is precisely what one of the main architects of the SPP plan, Professor Robert Pastor of American University and the Council on Foreign Relations, has repeatedly advocated in his writings, speeches, and congressional testimony. (See sidebar on page 14)

How is it possible that something this radical has gone so far virtually unnoticed when illegal immigration and border security are among the hottest political topics of the day? The politicians and the private contractors who have been pushing this merger scheme intended it that way, knowing full well that adoption and successful implementation of the plan would depend on keeping it under the public radar.

Thanks largely to the investigative work of Joyce Mucci, who heads the Kansas City-based Mid-America Immigration Reform Coalition, and author/economist Jerome Corsi, the NAFTA Super Highway has begun to be a very hot topic. Using Missouri's Sunshine Law, Mrs. Mucci's group has pried loose a number of documents that are causing the public and private champions of the NAFTA Super Highway to squirm and stonewall. "They were going along great guns with this whole plan, with all of their high-powered politicians, law firms, PR firms, and corporate contractors - and virtually no opposition, until now," Mrs. Mucci told The New American. "We're just volunteers, so we don't have the money and influence they have, but we are digging out the truth." And she is hopeful that if enough taxpayers, voters, and property owners learn about all the horrendous ramifications of the Super Highway plan, they will shut it down before it can do the damage envisioned.

Super Highway Robbery

Aside from erasing our borders - which is no small matter in and of itself - the NAFTA Super Highway would profoundly impact Americans in many other ways. The ones who will be most immediately affected are those whose homes, farms, ranches, businesses, and communities lay in the paths of any of the planned routes. Millions of acres are scheduled to be paved over and that means using eminent domain to condemn lots of private property for the Super Highway corridors and rights-of-way.

But every American, ultimately, would be dramatically impacted by this onrushing scheme. How? First of all, in the pocketbook - with increased taxes and tolls. With an aggregate price tag of hundreds of billions of dollars - for projects in the U.S. and Mexico - enormous increases in federal, state, and local taxes are a certainty. To assist in financing the mammoth Super Highway, plans call for converting many current roads, which taxpayers have already paid for, to tollways for all motor vehicles.

If the NAFTA Super Highway goes through as planned, millions of Americans can expect to pay with their jobs as well. Just as the NAFTA trade policies have driven millions of jobs out of the United States, the NAFTA Super Highway will accelerate the job exodus. Although the Super Highway corridors are being sold locally as projects to ease congestion and facilitate U.S. economic competitiveness, their main purpose, very clearly, is to create an arterial network for speeding the delivery of manufactured products into the United States through Canada and Mexico.

Thus, U.S. taxpayers would have to pay for reduced transportation costs for foreign producers. In addition, the "continental" plan calls for U.S. taxpayers to pay hundreds of billions of dollars to extend this "infrastructure development" (highways, railways, bridges, power plants, telecommunications, seaports) through Mexico and Central America.

How will it do that? Under the Coordinated Border Infrastructure Program of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005 - A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) (whew!), U.S. funds apportioned to a border state may be used to construct a highway project in Canada or Mexico, if that project directly facilitates cross-border vehicle and cargo movement! Just think - your tax dollars may now be sent to Canada or Mexico to aid the entry of illegal aliens into the United States, like it or not.

Additionally, SAFETEA-LU allows U.S. states to use tolling on a pilot basis to finance Interstate construction and reconstruction, and to establish tolls for existing Interstate highways to fund the new Super Highway corridors. Austin, Texas, is already experiencing fierce struggles over converting its already-paid-for Interstate and state highways to toll roads, but few Texans understand that this new tolling is to be the mechanism for funding the leviathan Trans Texas Corridor. Since Austin has been identified as the pilot city in the nation for testing the new toll policies, you can assume that what passes here is coming your way.

This planned wedding of Mexico's cheap labor force with brand new infrastructure would make Mexico an irresistible magnet for all manufacturers now remaining in the United States. Even those companies who wanted to keep their operations here would likely be forced by cheaper competitors to join the exodus. The United States, until very recently the manufacturing capital of the world, will continue its downward spiral into increasingly dangerous dependence on foreign manufacturers for almost everything, even as burgeoning inflation makes everything more expensive, devastating much of our middle class.

Scores of Corridors

An additional Super Highway route known as the Interstate 69 corridor (TTC-69) would enter Texas from Mexico as three spur lines at Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville, which then will join together to head north through Houston, to Memphis, Tennessee, to Port Huron, Michigan, to Toronto, Canada.

Wait, there's more. To the west of the proposed TTC lies the proposed route of the Ports-to-Plains Corridor, running north from Laredo through West Texas, the Oklahoma Panhandle, to Denver and ultimately Canada. What? Another one? Yes, and plans are very advanced. Its website identifies this corridor as a NAFTA corridor alternative to TTC-35, the one paralleling I-35.

What does the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) have to say about this? Once again, stonewalling rules. In telephone interviews with congenial TxDOT employees, the expected mantra repeated to this writer is how necessary the corridor is to accommodate projected population and trade growth, and how beneficial it would be to the economies of Texas, the U.S., and Mexico. TxDOT's Public Information officer denied that the TTC was part of any bigger scheme of nationwide corridor building, and claimed that notion was simply misinformation. Yet in a June 30, 2001 article in the Austin American Statesman, the same spokesperson claimed the aforementioned Ports-to-Plains Corridor would be linked to existing Interstate highways in Denver as part of a NAFTA super corridor.

And that's not all. There's also CANAMEX, another super corridor like the TTC, which spans the West from Mexico to Canada going through Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. And we learn from the CANAMEX Corridor Coalition website that the number of congressionally designated high priority corridors in the United States has been expanded from 43 to 80! Yes, 80 corridor routes have been designated across the United States in an effort to speed the construction of infrastructure necessary for what the SPP calls "the streamlined movement of legitimate travelers and cargo across our shared borders."

Research on any High Priority Corridor will lead the reader into a hairball of studies, alliances, pricing programs, transportation acts, administration agencies, reports, committees, partnerships, and on and on, all designed, we believe, to obscure the real agenda. The idea for these 80 super corridors was not conceived to promote trade and better the economic development of all participating communities. When viewed in the aggregate, they can only be seen as a means to so thoroughly restructure and integrate the three countries so as to permanently blur the distinctions, and to make their merger into a regional government seamless and even appealing.

The NAFTA Super Highway is such an integral part of the continental merger plan that the entire scheme could be at least temporarily road-blocked if it does not proceed. If it does proceed, American government will no longer provide its time-tested protections against tyranny and socialism, as huge chunks of American law will be rendered void, and replaced by an incomprehensible mess of "trade" law. All rowers are needed at the oars, and immediately. If you've asked yourself why you did not know about a project of this magnitude, or where Congress got the authority to designate High Priority Corridors in the first place, your first job is to contact your representative and howl. Wake the town and tell the people, or the town will be paved over.

Germany's Fourth Reich Spreads its Wings Over the World

Those who strongly disagree with the "European Union" forging ahead, the Euro-skeptics, state sovereignty is under attack and that the EU is going backwards, descending into the darkness of fascism, not advancing democratic ideals but sacrificing them with impunity.

Rodney Atkinson, author of three books on the subject of Fascist Europe Rising (his most recent), led the charge, sounded the alarm, from a strictly secular point of view that interestingly matched what theologian Herbert W. Armstrong was warning about from a purely biblical perspective: the revival of the unholy Roman Empire is well underway and most remain oblivious to its inherent dangers.

Both the Bible and history serve as two witnesses that testify against the German-Jesuit dominated drive to control the European continent and then the world, enforcing a Pax Romana of sordid sorts.

Do you really think such a grand design would limit itself to Europa or restrain itself to remain a regional power? Truth is stranger than fiction.

Calls are increasing for the destruction of the European monster in the making, to abort the beast while it is still possible, due to legitimate concerns ranging from the fascist tendencies of the EU, its Nazi role model starkly laid out and exposed, and fears it will ultimately implode and impede Europe for years and drag the whole world down with it.

In Abolish The European Union, Robert Locke considers "The EU is a mortal threat to the civil liberties of those who live under it.... The EU is quite plausibly the nucleus of an aspiring soft-totalitarian world state; it is in fact far more likely to fulfill this role than the justly-despised UN. I apologize if this sounds alarmist, but history clearly teaches us to think ahead to the logical implications of things that are just beginning... there are signs that Europe is awakening to the monster in its midst."

Even "Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship"

"In a speech he delivered in Brussels Mr Vladimir Bukovsky called the EU a "monster" that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state."

Notice the reoccurring use of the word "monster" in reference to the rising beast in Europe. Germany is the head of the monster even though The Atlantic Times, among others, looks the other way and refuses to question: Germany Behind the Mask: Monster or Marshmallow? [http://i.ezinearticles.com/sites/ezinearticles/?id=138202] Even though Johannes Gross revealed his countrymen wear a mask. 'But the day may come when someone lifts the mask," he wrote. "... So long as we wear the mask, we remain hidden and continue to conceal the situation from ourselves.'"

Others fear the colossal failure of the European Union and its tragic consequences.

Why the EU Needs to be Destroyed, and Soon laments "The EU wants to recreate the Roman Empire and ends up creating the second fall of Rome."

Christopher Booker and Richard North, co-authors of The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive? believe the EU is destined to fail and would "leave a terrible devastation behind it, a wasteland from which it would take many years for the peoples of Europe to emerge" and conclude: "... the project Monnet had set on its way was a vast, ramshackle, self-deluding monster: partly suffocating in its own bureaucracy; partly a corrupt racket, providing endless opportunities for individuals and collectives to outwit and exploit their fellow men; partly a mighty engine for promoting the national interests of those countries who knew how to 'work the system'... The one thing above all the project could never be, because by definition it had never been intended to be, was in the remotest sense democratic."

However, biblical prophecy shows that the European Union will be highly successful, rich and powerful enough to enforce their economic, political and religious views upon the rest of the world, insisting all receive their mark of approval or else (Revelation 13:16-18; 17; 18).

"Corporatism is of course the basic building brick of all fascist systems," Rodney Atkinson notes in CORPORATISM - THE EUROPEAN DISEASE IS CATCHING [http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2006-01-05.html].

Apparently, Mr. Atkinson is right again as Jerome Corsi has been exposing how our Southern border blurs for global trade [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50451], in accordance to treacherous plans well underway to create the "North American Union" that merges Mexico, the United States and Canada, complete with the "Amero," all under "...the Strategic and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP. The SPP agreement was reached between President Bush, President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin during their March 2005 summit meeting in Waco, Texas. The Bush administration plan is to create a North American Union along the model of the European Union....".

Corresponding with Mr. Corsi about these developments by design at home and abroad, he responded:

"Common markets and free trade zones are forming across the globe. The North American Union is further along than we think. This is a fight we have to take on, otherwise the USA is gone."

That's the whole purpose of the globalists! No wonder President Bush doesn't give a hoot (remember the Bohemian grove?) about borders with Mexico. Many leaders have sold their souls, betrayed their people and backstabbed their countries.

Reuters Arthur Spiegelman, wrote on May 10, 1996: "Realizing they were losing the war in 1944, Nazi leaders met top German industrialists to plan a secret post-war international network to restore them to power, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence document. The document...says an SS general and a representative of the German armaments ministry told such companies as Krupp and Rohling that they must be prepared to finance the Nazi Party...when it went underground."

We are now witnessing the beast beginning to rear its ugly head again and come out from its exile, having taken firm root throughout the world. Germany's Fourth Reich is forming with partnerships around the globe, its Assyrian eagle looking both East and West as its talons are determined to clutch countries as prey and enslave all to their system.

The secret Nazis [http://ezinearticles.com/?&id=105789] are getting more brazen and will soon shed their corporate, political, educational and religious cloaks to openly promote their new emperor to oversee this international enterprise of elitists called BABYLON.

David Ben-Ariel is a Christian-Zionist writer and author of Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall. With a focus on the Middle East and Jerusalem, his analytical articles help others improve their understanding of that troubled region. Check out the Beyond Babylon blog [ http://beyondbabylon.blogspot.com ].