February 28, 2007

Why Have So Many U.S. Attorneys Been Fired?

 
It Looks a Lot Like Politics  

By Adam Cohen  
 
Carol Lam, the former United States attorney for San Diego, is smart and tireless and was very good at her job. Her investigation of Representative Randy Cunningham resulted in a guilty plea for taking more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors and a sentence of more than eight years. Two weeks ago, she indicted Kyle Dustin Foggo, the former No. 3 official in the C.I.A. The defense-contracting scandal she pursued so vigorously could yet drag in other politicians.

In many Justice Departments, her record would have won her awards, and perhaps a promotion to a top post in Washington. In the Bush Justice Department, it got her fired.

Ms. Lam is one of at least seven United States attorneys fired recently under questionable circumstances. The Justice Department is claiming that Ms. Lam and other well-regarded prosecutors like John McKay of Seattle, David Iglesias of New Mexico, Daniel Bogden of Nevada and Paul Charlton of Arizona — who all received strong job evaluations — performed inadequately.

It is hard to call what’s happening anything other than a political purge. And it’s another shameful example of how in the Bush administration, everything — from rebuilding a hurricane-ravaged city to allocating homeland security dollars to invading Iraq — is sacrificed to partisan politics and winning elections.

U.S. attorneys have enormous power. Their decision to investigate or indict can bankrupt a business or destroy a life. They must be, and long have been, insulated from political pressures. Although appointed by the president, once in office they are almost never asked to leave until a new president is elected. The Congressional Research Service has confirmed how unprecedented these firings are. It found that of 486 U.S. attorneys confirmed since 1981, perhaps no more than three were forced out in similar ways — three in 25 years, compared with seven in recent months.

It is not just the large numbers. The firing of H. E. Cummins III is raising as many questions as Ms. Lam’s. Mr. Cummins, one of the most distinguished lawyers in Arkansas, is respected by Republicans and Democrats alike. But he was forced out to make room for J. Timothy Griffin, a former Karl Rove deputy with thin legal experience who did opposition research for the Republican National Committee. (Mr. Griffin recently bowed to the inevitable and said he will not try for a permanent appointment. But he remains in office indefinitely.)

The Bush administration cleared the way for these personnel changes by slipping a little-noticed provision into the Patriot Act last year that allows the president to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for an indefinite period without Senate confirmation.

Three theories are emerging for why these well-qualified U.S. attorney were fired — all political, and all disturbing.

1. Helping friends. Ms. Lam had already put one powerful Republican congressman in jail and was investigating other powerful politicians. The Justice Department, unpersuasively, claims that it was unhappy about Ms. Lam’s failure to bring more immigration cases. Meanwhile, Ms. Lam has been replaced with an interim prosecutor whose résumé shows almost no criminal law experience, but includes her membership in the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

2. Candidate recruitment. U.S. attorney is a position that can make headlines and launch political careers. Congressional Democrats suspect that the Bush administration has been pushing out long-serving U.S. attorneys to replace them with promising Republican lawyers who can then be run for Congress and top state offices.

3. Presidential politics. The Justice Department concedes that Mr. Cummins was doing a good job in Little Rock. An obvious question is whether the administration was more interested in his successor’s skills in opposition political research — let’s not forget that Arkansas has been lucrative fodder for Republicans in the past — in time for the 2008 elections.

The charge of politics certainly feels right. This administration has made partisanship its lodestar. The Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran revealed in his book, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” that even applicants to help administer post-invasion Iraq were asked whom they voted for in 2000 and what they thought of Roe v. Wade.

Congress has been admirably aggressive about investigating. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, held a tough hearing. And he is now talking about calling on the fired U.S. attorneys to testify and subpoenaing their performance evaluations — both good ideas.

The politicization of government over the last six years has had tragic consequences — in New Orleans, Iraq and elsewhere. But allowing politics to infect U.S. attorney offices takes it to a whole new level. Congress should continue to pursue the case of the fired U.S. attorneys vigorously, both to find out what really happened and to make sure that it does not happen again.
 
 
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

 Related Articles:

White House and Justice Department are questioned over their firings of 7 U.S. Attorneys,...Investigations begin,...  

Lawmakers pushing to strip Gonzales of his power to name replacement U.S. attorneys  



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February 24, 2007

Did Corruption Force CIA Boss To Quit?

 

Poker, Prostitutes and Bribes
Poker, Prostitutes and Bribes
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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February 22, 2007

Globalization and the Decline of Detroit

 
The Decline of Detroit
By Steve Schifferes
 Globalization Reporter
BBC News, Detroit  



Globalization has been a powerful force that has accelerated change in the world economy over the past half-century.

It has affected the fate of companies as much as countries. And nowhere has been the change more dramatic than in the US car industry.
 The Big Three are facing their greatest challenge ever in their entire postwar history
 Professor Garel Rhys, Cardiff University 

Fifty years ago, American car companies dominated the world, especially the mighty GM, the world's biggest industrial company, many of whose factories were based in Flint, Michigan, 40 miles north of Detroit.

GM in decline

For the grandparents of Claire McClinton, who made the journey from the poverty of the rural south to Michigan just after World War II, it was like arriving in another world.

"None of their children ever went hungry, we all had a good education, we had good jobs, and owned our own home. We thought we were living the American dream," she told the BBC.  

Claire's whole family followed in their footsteps and became "Flintsones," working for GM - and so did Claire.
They were loyal members of the autoworkers union, the UAW, which won increasing benefits for its members, with average wages of more than $50,000 plus overtime.

"We respected the union then," she said. "We believed it was the union that had delivered us the American dream."

In the 1950s the Detroit area had the highest median income, and highest rate of home ownership, of any major US city. But times are very different now.

GM, under pressure from its competitors, is no longer making money in the American car market - and it has been closing plants all across Flint.
 GM WORKER'S VIEW
We thought we were living the American Dream
 Claire McClinton, third generation GM autoworker, Flint, Michigan  

Now there are only 6,000 GM workers in Flint, compared to 100,000 at the peak, and the town and workers are suffering.

"Flint has the highest rate of unemployment, poverty and homelessness in Michigan," Claire told me.

She works in a shelter feeding the poor, and would like her union to get more involved in the community. And she is not sure how much longer she will have a job - and if she retires, whether she will have any benefits.

GM has already told the unions it wants to cut the generous retirement and health care benefits it promised its workers in the halcyon days of success.

The company does plan to build more car plants in the future - but in emerging markets like China and India, not in the United States.

Toyota rising

But 400 miles south of Flint, another group of car workers are feeling very different.

They work in Toyota's huge Camry factory in Georgetown, Kentucky, and receive, by their standards, generous pay and benefits.

Toyota is the fastest-growing car company in the United States, and it is building a new factory every year to keep up with demand.

And it is set to overtake GM this year as the world's largest car company by sales.

For Laura Wilshire, from Ashland, Kentucky , life is good.

"This is the top notch job in the area," she told the BBC.
 TOYOTA WORKER'S VIEW
 This is the top notch job in the area
 Laura Wilshire, Toyota worker, Georgetown, Kentucky  

She doubled her salary when she joined Toyota, and the company provides a good health care plan for her family, including dental coverage for her two children.

And she says that Toyota has also helped to provide better schools for her children by putting money into the town's budget.

She says more is expected of workers at Toyota than her previous job in a convenience store, but she doesn't mind taking responsibility.

"If a seatbelt isn't right, I stop the line until it is fixed - that is an important issue as it could affect people's safety."

Toyota encourages workers to take personal responsibility for defects, and to work together to fix them.

That attitude has given them a well-deserved reputation for quality and reliability - and the Camry has been the best-selling car in America for the last ten years.

Toyota has no trouble hiring the right sort of workers - 100,000 people applied for the 3,000 jobs when the plant opened in 1990.

Laura says she feels sad when she reads in the papers about what is happening to autoworkers in places like Flint.

Dominance to decline

Now, according to Professor Garel Rhys of Cardiff University, the US Big Three are facing their greatest challenge ever in their entire postwar history.

What has led to the decline of US car manufacturers in their home market?

While it was inevitable they would eventually lose their monopoly position, their failure to adapt their production methods and meet changing consumer tastes has accelerated their decline.

In 1955, the world looked like a very different place.

Four out of every five cars in the world were made in the US, half of them by GM.

No other car companies had the capital or the know-how to enter the global car business.

GM's main US rival, Ford, was half its size. The largest foreign carmaker, VW, was little bigger than GM's own German subsidiary, Opel and only had one model - the VW Beetle.

And Toyota was not even on the horizon. It made 23,000 cars in 1955 in Japan, compared to 4 million manufactured by GM in the US.

Innovation and experiment

But the near-monopoly conditions in the American market bred complacency - and the assumption that the American lead in technology and marketing was unassailable.

According to Stephen D'Arcy, head of Global Automotive Practice at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, in the long run "the US monopoly was an unsustainable anomoly."

In the 1950s and 1960s, US firms failed to innovate in the design of cars, preferring to make money by increasing the size and weight of their vehicles by adding extras like air conditioning, power steering, and fancy sound systems.

It was left to European manufacturers to develop disc brakes, rack-and-pinion steering, air-cooled and diesel engines.

And the mass production system discouraged innovation because it was so expensive to introduce fundamentally new models.

Meanwhile, Toyota was also making a virtue of adversity, changing its production system to become leaner and more efficient than its rivals.

Oil crisis

It was the oil crisis in the 1970s that first illuminated the problems of US automakers.
 Lean production:
It is easy to say you will do it, but harder to actually implement it
James Womack, author, The Machine that Changed the World  

For the first time, smaller cars were the rage, and US consumers found that cars like the Toyota Corolla were an attractive alternative to big American cars.

Imports of Japanese cars soared in the 1980s, to the chagrin of the US companies and the unions alike, taking nearly one-quarter of the US market.

And when the companies pressured the US government into limiting imports from Japan, Toyota and Nissan started building car plants in the US.

By 2005, these Japanese "transplants" were producing 4 million cars a years, one-quarter of US output, and more than GM.

The Japanese located their plants in low-wage, non-union areas of the US and brought new, more flexible production methods as well.

As a result, they could make money on smaller cars and change models more frequently.

The US car companies tried and failed to design a competitive small car.

They also experimented with Japanese production methods but neither seemed to do the trick and close the quality gap.

According to James Womack, author of the influential book The Machine that Changed the World, it was easy for everyone to say they accepted lean production, but much harder to actually implement it.

The SUV craze

If the 1980s was a decade of fear, the 1990s represented a false dawn.

With oil back at $10 a barrel, the US companies thought they had the answer to the Japanese threat - the SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle).

As light trucks, SUVs were protected by a 25% import tariff and also escaped government rules laid down to boost fuel efficiency.

SUV sales soared from one to four million with 60% of the Big Three's sales - and nearly all of their profits - coming from SUVs.

The SUVs transformed the fortunes of Chrysler, dominating with its Voyager minivan and Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Ford which had the best-selling SUV, the Ford Explorer.

Abandoning cars proved a costly mistake for Detroit when it became clear in recent years that environmental concerns were here to stay.

Last year,the price of gasoline in the US reached a record $3 per gallon in most states.

As a result, SUV sales slumped, and the sale of smaller vehicles rose.

At this year's Detroit Auto Show, Ford and GM made it clear that they were taking the environment seriously, and produced electric-powered concept cars.

But these cars are years, if not decades, away from reaching the public, while Toyota is already rolling out its hybrid electric-petrol engine across its entire range.

Downsizing lessons

In 2006, both Ford and GM finally accepted they would never dominate the US car market as in the past.

They both announced huge downsizing programmes, cutting 70,000 jobs between them.

And Chrysler - now owned by German firm Daimler - also announced its own downsizing programme and is effectively up for sale.

There is real doubt in the industry that all three can survive.

GM hopes to survive as a global car company which increasingly operates outside the US.

And Ford may survive by selling some of its more profitable European subsidiaries.

But even if they manage this, it is sad end to what was once a central element in the American industrial dream.


 
 
 
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February 19, 2007

White House and Justice Department are questioned over their firings of 7 U.S. Attorneys,...Investigations begin,...

 
6 of 7 Dismissed U.S. Attorneys Had Positive Job Evaluations

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer


All but one of the U.S. attorneys recently fired by the Justice Department had positive job reviews before they were dismissed, but many ran into political trouble with Washington over issues ranging from immigration to the death penalty, according to prosecutors, congressional aides and others familiar with the cases.

Two months after the firings first began to make waves on Capitol Hill, it has also become clear that most of the prosecutors were overseeing significant public-corruption investigations at the time they were asked to leave. Four of the probes target Republican politicians or their supporters, prosecutors and other officials said.

The emerging details stand in contrast to repeated statements from the Justice Department that six of the Republican-appointed prosecutors were dismissed because of poor performance. In one of the most prominent examples, agency officials pointed to widely known management and morale problems surrounding then-U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan in San Francisco.

But the assertions enraged the rest of the group, some of whom feel betrayed after staying silent about the way they have been shoved from office.

Bud Cummins, the former U.S. attorney in Little Rock, who was asked to resign earlier than the others to make way for a former White House aide, said Justice Department officials crossed a line by publicly criticizing the performance of his well-regarded colleagues.

"They're entitled to make these changes for any reason or no reason or even for an idiotic reason," Cummins said. "But if they are trying to suggest that people have inferior performance to hide whatever their true agenda is, that is wrong. They should retract those statements."

The decision by Cummins and some of the others to speak out underscores the extent to which the firings have spiraled out of the Justice Department's control. Officials initially sought to obscure the firings even from some senators, and have since issued confusing signals and contradictory information about the episode.

For example, one source who was familiar with the episode said last week that an eighth U.S. attorney was asked to resign in December along with the others. The unidentified prosecutor is negotiating to stay in the job, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of those discussions.

The end result is an unusual spectacle in which Democratic lawmakers are bemoaning the firings of Republican-appointed prosecutors. The political pressure has become so great that Cummins's successor in Arkansas, former White House aide J. Timothy Griffin, announced on Friday that he had decided not to submit his name to the Senate for a permanent appointment.

Lawmakers from both parties are pushing to strip Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales of his power to name replacement U.S. attorneys for an indefinite period, although Republicans blocked that proposal in the Senate last week. The House Judiciary Committee is planning hearings on similar legislation in March.

"I don't know how they could have mishandled this any worse," said one of the fired U.S. prosecutors, who declined to be quoted by name because he feared repercussions.

"There always have traditionally been tensions between main Justice and U.S. attorneys in the districts," said Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "But it does seem like there's an effort to centralize authority in Washington more than there has been in the past and in prior administrations."

Most of the firings came on Dec. 7, when senior Justice Department official Michael A. Battle -- a former U.S. attorney himself -- called at least six prosecutors to inform them that they were being asked to resign. Battle was apologetic but offered little in the way of explanations, telling some that the order had come from "on high," according to sources familiar with the calls.

In addition to Ryan in San Francisco, the prosecutors who were called that day included Carol S. Lam in San Diego, John McKay in Seattle, David C. Iglesias in New Mexico, Daniel G. Bogden in Nevada and Paul K. Charlton in Arizona. Cummins had been informed of his dismissal last summer but stayed until December.

The breaking point for Cummins and the others was testimony this month by Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the six U.S. attorneys in the West and Southwest had been dismissed for "performance-related" reasons and that Cummins had been pushed out to make room for Griffin.

That testimony "was the moment the gloves came off," said one fired prosecutor who declined to be identified.

Five of the dismissed prosecutors -- Bogden, Charlton, Cummins, Iglesias and McKay -- told reporters that they were not given any reason for their firings and had not been told of any performance problems. Only one of the fired prosecutors, Ryan in San Francisco, faced substantive complaints about turnover or other management-related issues, officials said.

Justice Department officials in recent days have sought to clarify the performance comments, saying the dispute is mired in "semantics." The officials said McNulty was referring to policy differences between the Bush administration and some of its employees. One official also said that the department had not made a list of replacements ahead of time.

"When you are setting national policy, you cannot have U.S. attorneys setting their own policies," said a Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Bogden and Lam are among a handful of declared independents who worked as U.S. attorneys in the Bush administration. The rest of the group are viewed as moderate Republicans who have sometimes been at odds with their Washington bosses or more conservative Republicans.

In Seattle, for example, local Republicans complained to Gonzales about McKay's decision not to intervene in the disputed Washington gubernatorial race in 2006, which a Democrat eventually won by 129 votes.

Lam was the target of repeated complaints from conservative House Republicans, who asserted that she was lax in enforcing immigration laws. The Justice Department also points to drops in the number of firearms cases filed by her office.

Charlton in Arizona clashed with the Justice Department's headquarters on at least two occasions over murder cases in which he opposed seeking the death penalty, including one that prompted an outcry from Navajo groups opposed to the use of capital punishment. He was overruled in both cases, officials said.

"There was no public controversy about any of these; any controversy was within the Justice Department," said J. Grant Woods, a Republican and former Arizona attorney general.

But the cases that have gotten most of the attention among Democrats in Congress involve public-corruption investigations. In San Diego, Lam oversaw the probe that resulted in the guilty plea of then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a Republican. Two others connected to that case, including a former senior CIA official, were indicted two days before Lam left the job on Thursday.

Bogden in Nevada and Charlton in Arizona were also in the midst of investigations targeting current or former Republican members of Congress when they were fired. And in New Mexico, Iglesias's office had been examining alleged wrongdoing involving state Democrats.

Gonzales, McNulty and other Justice Department officials have strongly denied that those investigations played a role in the dismissals.

"The department's commitment to pursuing prosecuting public-corruption cases is clear," said spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos. "Any suggestion that removal of these particular U.S. attorneys was political or in any way would harm ongoing investigations is 100 percent false."

Copyright 2007 The Washington Post Company

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February 18, 2007

Lawmakers pushing to strip Gonzales of his power to name replacement U.S. attorneys

  

White House Is Reported to Be Linked to a Dismissal 

By David Johnston

 

WASHINGTON - A United States attorney in Arkansas who was dismissed from his job last year by the Justice Department was ousted after Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, intervened on behalf of the man who replaced him, according to Congressional aides briefed on the matter.

Ms. Miers, the aides said, phoned an aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggesting the appointment of J. Timothy Griffin, a former military and civilian prosecutor who was a political director for the Republican National Committee and a deputy to Karl Rove, the White House political adviser.

Later, the incumbent United States attorney, H. E. Cummins III, was removed without explanation and replaced on an interim basis by Mr. Griffin. Officials at the White House and Justice Department declined to comment on Ms. Miers’s role in the matter.

Paul J. McNulty, the deputy attorney general, said at a hearing last week that Mr. Cummins had done nothing wrong but was removed to make room for Mr. Griffin. It was not known at the time Mr. McNulty testified that Ms. Miers had intervened on Mr. Griffin’s behalf.

Her involvement was disclosed on Wednesday by Justice Department officials led by Mr. McNulty, who held a closed-door briefing for senators on the Judiciary Committee after Democrats criticized the dismissals of 7 to 10 United States attorneys as politically motivated.

Ms. Miers, whose resignation as White House counsel was effective Jan. 31, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

At the briefing, Justice Department officials denied that the White House had been involved in any of the other dismissals, suggesting that the department had acted on its own after advising the White House of its intention to remove incumbents.

Democrats have said the removals represented an effort to make room for rising political favorites of the Bush administration and to be rid of independent-minded prosecutors, all of whom had been appointed by President Bush.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said that he was not satisfied by the Justice Department’s explanations at the briefing.

“Yesterday’s briefing by the deputy attorney general did little to alleviate our concerns that politics was involved and, in fact, raised those concerns,” Mr. Schumer said. “Some may have been fired for political reasons because they may have not done what Justice Department wanted them to do.”

Justice Department officials have said that because United States attorneys are presidential appointees they may be replaced at any time without a specific reason, although they have said that none were removed for pursuing politically sensitive cases.

Another United States attorney asked to resign was Carol C. Lam of San Diego, who departed on Thursday at the request of the Justice Department. Two days earlier, Ms. Lam announced two indictments, including one against a former high-ranking Central Intelligence Agency official, in a corruption inquiry that began with last year’s guilty plea by a former Republican representative, Randy Cunningham, who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

Karen P. Hewitt, an assistant in Ms. Lam’s office, was named Thursday to serve as the interim United States attorney in the Southern District, while Scott N. Schools, a general counsel in the Justice Department, will fill the interim role in the Northern District, in San Francisco.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said in a statement on the Senate floor Thursday that Ms. Lam had been dismissed despite a strong record of prosecutions.

“Ms. Lam has had a distinguished career, and she served the southern district of San Diego well and everyone in that district knows that,” Ms. Feinstein said. “I regret that main Justice does not. I am quite disappointed that main Justice chose to remove her, especially given the ongoing work in which the office is involved.”


 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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February 15, 2007

White House Officially Insane,...

 
White House slams carpooling,
new road fees better
By Tom Doggett

Carpooling won't do much to reduce U.S. highway congestion in urban areas, and a better solution would be to build new highways and charge drivers fees to use them (?), the White House said on Monday.

"It is increasingly appropriate to charge drivers for some roadway use in the same way the private market charges for other goods and services (?)," the White House said in its annual report on the U.S. economy.

While some urban areas have designated roads for vehicles with two or more passengers, those high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes are often underused because carpooling is becoming less popular, the administration said.

Based on the latest data supplied by the White House, only about 13 percent of motorists carpooled to work in 2000. That compared with 20 percent of daily American commuters in 1980.

"This trend makes it unlikely that initiatives focused on carpooling will make large strides in reducing vehicle use," the White House said.

Building more highways won't reduce congestion either, unless drivers are charged a fee (?), according to the administration.

"If a roadway is priced(?) -- that is, if drivers have to pay a fee to access a particular road -- then congestion can be avoided by adjusting the price up or down at different times of day to reflect changes in demand for its use (?)," the White House said. "Road space is allocated to drivers who most highly value a reliable and unimpaired commute."

Critics of such fees argue that road tolls would make new highways reserved mostly for wealthy drivers, who are more likely to travel in expensive, gas-guzzling vehicles.

But the White House said urban road expansions should be focused on highways where drivers demonstrate a willingness to pay a fee that is higher than the actual cost of construction (?), allowing communities to avoid raising taxes on everyone to build the roads.

The administration argued that congestion pricing is already used by many providers of goods and services: movie theaters charge more for tickets in the evening than they do at midday, just as ski resorts raise lift prices on weekends. Similarly, airlines boost prices on tickets during peak travel seasons and taxi cabs raise fares during the rush hour.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Posted by EvansMediaUSA at 19:27:44 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

February 13, 2007

Current Candidates would surrender America's Borders,.....

 
Presidential Frontrunners
Would Surrender America's Borders
 
Looking at the potential presidential frontrunners for both the Democrat and Republican parties reveals that virtually everyone of them would surrender America's borders. Not one of the presidential frontrunners from either party would protect our borders against illegal immigration. Just the opposite. They would continue George Bush's policy of wide open borders, including his determination to grant amnesty to illegals. In other words, when it comes to protecting our borders, there is not a nickel's worth of difference between the two major parties' leading presidential contenders.

Democratic presidential frontrunners include John Edwards, Barak Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Republican frontrunners include John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani.

In fact, virtually every Democratic candidate, and even the vast majority of Republican candidates, would provide no relief to America's border problems. And, yes, that includes Sam Brownback and Newt Gingrich. Notable exceptions include Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, and Tom Tancredo, with Tancredo at the head of the class.

Obviously, should Hunter, Paul, or Tancredo miraculously win the White House, the push for a North American Union (NAU) complete with a NAFTA superhighway and a trilateral, hemispheric government, would be stopped dead in its tracks. For this reason, the GOP machine (and the insiders who control it) will never allow someone such as Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, or Tom Tancredo to obtain the nomination.

It's time the American people faced a hard, cold reality: no matter who the two major parties nominate in November 2008, the push for open borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, and the NAU will continue unabated. In other words, anyone one believes that unimpeded illegal immigration (and related issues) just might be the biggest threat to our national sovereignty and security (and count me as one who does) will not be able to vote for either the Republican or Democratic nominee in 2008. It's time to start preparing for that reality now.

Does that mean that Republicans should not do everything they can to help Tancredo, Paul, or Hunter gain the nomination? Of course not. If the vast majority of the GOP rank and file would get solidly behind these three men, one of them might have a chance of succeeding. However, the track record of the GOP faithful is not very reassuring.

Instead of supporting principled, uncompromising men of integrity, such as the three men named above, Republican voters will doubtless buy into the party mantra of pragmatism and help nominate another spineless globalist such as currently occupies the White House, which will leave us exactly where we are now.

So, here is the sixty-four million dollar question: What will principled conservative voters do in 2008? My hope and prayer is that after failing to receive their party's nomination, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter (or at least one of them) will leave the party and bring their (his) followers to the Constitution Party (CP). In all likelihood, the CP will have ballot access in over 45 states. It is already the third largest political party in the country and is currently the fastest growing political party in the nation. A national leader such as Paul, Tancredo, or Hunter would provide the CP with a very attractive alternative to the globalist candidates being offered by the two major parties.

By nature, I am not a single issue voter. However, I am sensible enough to realize that there are currently a handful of issues that will literally make or break America's future. And right now, the illegal immigration and emerging North American Union issues are at the very top of the list. Further failure on these issues will mean the end of America as we know it. And I mean very soon.

Regardless of what Hunter, Paul, and Tancredo ultimately do, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who believe we must protect America's borders, stop the burgeoning North American Union, and secure our national sovereignty must be prepared to abandon the two major parties' presidential nominees in 2008 and support an "America First" third party candidate. Even a virtually unknown candidate with limited experience, but someone who understands the issues and has the backbone to do what is right, would be head and shoulders above what the two major parties are currently shoving down our throats.

Better start preparing yourselves for it now, folks.


 
(c) Chuck Baldwin
 
 
CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK
 
 
 
 
Posted by EvansMediaUSA at 11:33:44 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

February 10, 2007

The NAFTA Super Highway and North American Union is WRONG for America,...

 

A NEW AMERICA?
LOU DOBBS:


THE DANGERS OF THE NAFTA SUPER HIGHWAY
AND THE
NORTH AMERICAN UNION

CLICK TO VIEW

 

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

 

 

Posted by EvansMediaUSA at 11:58:52 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

NAFTA Super Highway will devastate America's Middle Class

 

NAFTA Super Highway Map

This map is a conceptualization of the Super Highways now underway to connect the United States, Canada, and Mexico to help bring about the creation of a North American Union similar to the European Union.

Map information source: fina-nafi.org (North American Forum on Integration)


 The map's travel corridors show the desired routes of the new Super Highways as proposed by the North American Forum on Integration (NAFI) — a group of wealthy industrialists, academics, and politicians whose aim it is to break down barriers to the North American Union. The main actors in NAFI are members of the Council on Foreign Relations or related organizations based in Mexico and Canada.

NAFI, whose first objective is to make "the public and decision-makers aware of the challenges of economic and political integration between the three NAFTA countries," is following the country-integration plan of the European Union. That plan used the idea of "free trade" to make steps toward integration sound appealing to the public. Though the North American Union would devastate the American middle class, the Super Highways are being touted as facilitating free trade and bringing about prosperity in the three countries.

NAFI's vision is being enacted right now. But YOU can help stop it.  Eighty separate, but interconnected, "high priority corridors" are being initiated in the United States. To find a complete list of the 80 intended Super Highway projects, go to http://www.aaroads.com/high-priority/table.html.

For a more detailed interactive map click here:

http://www.nascocorridor.com/

 

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

 

Posted by EvansMediaUSA at 08:28:33 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

February 06, 2007

Stop The NAFTA Super Highway Now

 
Coming Through! The NAFTA Super Highway

By Kelly Taylor
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.


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.

Tell your representative and senators to "Stop the NAFTA Super Highway Steppingstone to a North American Union" by phone, fax, or e-mail. Go to www.capwiz.com/jbs/home/ for contact information and a sample letter.


 

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

New American


CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

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