Free Republic

Rick Perry may just be the guy. The country's longest tenured governor, from its second-largest state, is generating a lot of buzz in conservative circles as he contemplates entering the wide open Republican presidential primary. There are plenty of reasons that Perry is an attractive option: he is a no-nonsense decision-maker with solid conservative credentials. A man who not only speaks about family values, but lives them, Perry's power to persuade voters to see things his way is proven -- battle-tested in a state known for independent-minded citizens. But what serious political analysts on both sides of the aisle will...

OTTAWA — The integration of North America’s economies would best be achieved through an “incremental” approach, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable. The cable, released through the WikiLeaks website and apparently written Jan. 28, 2005, discusses some of the obstacles surrounding the merger of the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico in a fashion similar to the European Union. “An incremental and pragmatic package of tasks for a new North American Initiative (NAI) will likely gain the most support among Canadian policymakers,” the document said. “The economic payoff of the prospective North American initiative … is available,...

GENEVA - The World Trade Organization has ruled against some U.S. labeling regulations for meat sold in supermarkets, saying they discriminate against foreign suppliers, people close to the case said on Thursday. The confidential interim ruling, if approved later this year, would deal a partial victory to Mexican and Canadian breeders frustrated in their attempts to export to the United States, and opens the way to scores of similar legal challenges, the sources said. A WTO spokesman said the interim report -- expected to be largely unchanged in its final version later this year -- was circulated to the United...

A top secret document released by WikiLeaks has unveiled a plan from a high level U.S. ambassador to pursue the creation of a North American Union, a merger of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. A North American Union is designed to rival the European Union, emphasizing a common currency, an integrated consumer and labor market, and "mutually beneficial" borders. Americans for Legal Immigration reported: The secret documents reveal a well developed plan that advocates secrecy, an incremental approach as not to alarm the public. The document clearly states, that the plan is to prevent US efforts to protect citizens...

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico - Police on Tuesday detained 513 undocumented migrants from Latin America and Asia who were crammed into two trucks bound for the United States, prosecutors in southeast Mexico said. The migrants, from Latin America, Japan, China, India and Nepal, "were traveling in inhuman conditions" in the southeastern state of Chiapas, near the Guatemalan border, the local attorney general's office said in a statement. Police stopped the trucks, carrying 240 and 273 people, on the outskirts of state capital Tuxtla Gutierrez early Tuesday, after they accelerated through a vehicle scanner at a police checkpoint, the statement said. Officers...

2) Establishment of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) The NACC is to be the council, junta of business executives and government ministers, who make recommendations for executive action. 3) Provision for North American Emergency Management Develop a common disaster response, for events whether natural or man-made; and there will be coordinated training and exercises, with the participation of all levels of government in all countries. 4) Provision for Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza Management Develop a comprehensive, science-based and coordinated approach within North America to avian influenza and human pandemic influenza management.

EL PASO - The 7th annual border security conference is set for El Paso on August 12th and 13th. It is titled "Re-envisioning the Border Community to Foster a U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity, Progress and Socio-Economic Development." High ranking leaders at the conference will include Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin, U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual and Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan. The even is free and open to everyone.

WASHINGTON - U.S. border cities are not experiencing spillover violence from Mexico, the new head of Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday. Violence in U.S. cities near Mexico cannot be compared with the level of lawlessness across the border, Commissioner Alan Bersin told reporters. Bersin also said that U.S. security measures on borders with Mexico and Canada should be carried out in a way that improves the efficiency of trade so that America can remain competitive globally.

The vehicle, which rear-ended a pickup truck south of Phoenix, was operating illegally from Mexico, authorities say. Sixteen people are injured. Reporting from Denver - A bus operating illegally from Mexico and traveling through Texas and Arizona to Los Angeles slammed into the back of a pickup truck and rolled over early Friday morning in the Arizona desert, killing six passengers and injuring 16, authorities said. "No one walked away unscathed," Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Robert Bailey said from the crash scene, about 30 miles south of Phoenix. The bus company, Tierra Santa Inc. -- which has offices...

The only byproduct of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) initiative is the U.S.'s role in providing security for the 4,000 miles planned toll road network of superhighway corridors creating a trans-continental land bridge to bring China, Mexico and Canada prosperity at our expense. Citizen outrage in Texas appears to have prompted TxDOT to issue its recent "No Build Alternative" to federal authorities. But Researcher Stephen Lendman who wrote a very definitive canon describing these proposed NAFTA river of trade routes through the heart of the U.S. remains skeptical. "It's only temporary," he said in a recent email. Poignant testimony...

How Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke are destroying the dollar — and perhaps ushering in the amero First under the Bush Administration and even more so under President Obama, the federal government has been seizing power and spending money as it hasn’t done since World War II. But as bold as the Executive Branch has been during this financial crisis, the innovations of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke have been literally unprecedented. Indeed, it is entirely plausible that before Obama leaves office, Americans will be using a new currency. Bush and Obama have engaged in record peacetime deficit spending; so too...

Laredo Community College got a visit from a Mexican congressman today who talked about Mexico’s stance on the United States immigration reform. Congressman Jose Medina says the immigration crisis is a human problem that begs a human solution and that the U.S., Mexico and other nations should work together to become one America on one continent. Medina also stated his own views on immigration reform. "I think legalization is the solution for people asking for permission to work legally in this country." Medina was elected as a member in Mexico’s lower house of congress in 2000.

DALLAS — Canada’s trade minister said Monday that some progress is being made on a nagging trade issue with the United States, while U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said a tangled dispute with Mexico over cross-border trucking and California Christmas trees might resolve itself next year. Welcoming Cabinet-level Mexican and Canadian trade officials to the city where he served as mayor, Kirk said language that removed funding for the Mexican truck program has been restored in next year’s budget bill. "We won’t be handcuffed by prohibitory language," he said. When the border was closed to 500 U.S.-certified trucks in a...

MEXICO CITY — The United States should reinstate a Clinton-era ban on assault weapons to prevent such guns from reaching Mexican drug cartels, former officials from both countries said in a report released Tuesday. The group, which includes two former U.S. ambassadors to Mexico, also said the U.S. should do more to stop the smuggling of firearms and ammunition into Mexico by stepping up investigations of gun dealers and more strictly regulating gun shows. The Binational Task Force on the United States-Mexico Border listed the assault weapons ban as a step the U.S. should take immediately to improve security in...

President Obama went to Guadalajara, Mexico, in August as part of his promise to "rejoin the world community" and become a "citizen of the world." He participated in a conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. These cozy meetings of the so-called three amigos used to be labeled the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The three North American heads of state met in Waco in 2005, in Cancun in 2006, in Quebec in 2007 and in New Orleans in 2008. After conservatives exposed the mischievous goals, the amigos accepted the Hudson Institute's helpful suggestion to change...

The leaders of the NAFTA nations -- President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Felipe Calderon -- will hardly be meeting as "Three Amigos" at their summit in Guadalajara tomorrow and Monday. Canada and Mexico have been particularly rattled not merely by the U. S. financial crisis but by the policies hatched to deal with it. Their economies were already being damaged by the United States' obsessive, if understandable, concerns with border security. Now even further damage is threatened by perverse climate-change and energy policies. The range of NAFTA concerns was expressed in a statement yesterday from the...

As a result of NAFTA, North America is already a well-integrated energy market with Canada and Mexico among the U.S.’s top energy trading partners.  Through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the North American Energy Working Group has further integrated a continental energy strategy.  Other initiatives are also pushing towards a single North American energy policy. The Western Governors’ Association annual conference was held in Park City, Utah on June 14-16, 2009. The meetings were attended by three Canadian western premiers.  Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall spearheaded plans to develop a cross-border Western Energy Corridor.  Both...

With President Obama expected tomorrow for the North American Leaders' Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, a coalition of American legislators and activists took a message to the Mexican media, denouncing economic partnerships that would undermine national sovereignty and blasting Obama's failure to keep his promises on transparency and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Howard Phillips, chairman of The Conservative Caucus and head of the Coalition to Block the North American Union, spoke to Mexican print, television and radio media about the summit, which was known in previous years as the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership, or...

— President Barack Obama meets this weekend with leaders of Mexico and Canada at a time when drug-related violence, swine flu and the economic crisis are slipping across North America's borders like never before. Obama, along with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, are expected to work on trade and immigration, drug trafficking and security, and clean energy during their first summit Sunday and Monday in ....Guadalajara. "The bottom line is that what affects our bordering neighbors has the potential to affect us all, so we want to be certain that we have the tightest and...

MEXICO CITY – President Barack Obama meets this weekend with leaders of Mexico and Canada at a time when drug-related violence, swine flu and the economic crisis are slipping across North America's borders like never before. Obama, along with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, are expected to work on trade and immigration, drug trafficking and security, and clean energy .. ... The summit — a part of the three nations' Security and Prosperity Partnership — was established five years ago by leaders who are no longer in office, .. The agenda is largely set by...

A senior Mexican official spoke with reporters today, in advance of the North American Leaders summit this weekend. The official, speaking on background, explain that this summit is basically laying the ground work for future endeavors, and advised not expect to see any obvious deliverables – that developing the relationship is essentially the goal. “No two countries are more important to each other’s security, prosperity, and well being than these two countries – simply by virtue of having a 2,000 mile border,” the official said. President Obama will meet with President Filipe Calderon and Prime Minister Harper – in bi-lats...

Ottawa, — Beginning 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 14, 2009, Mexican nationals will require a visa to travel to Canada, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced today. For the first 48 hours, Mexican citizens may apply for entry on arrival in Canada. After 11:59 p.m. EDT July 15, 2009, a visa will be required. Refugee claims from Mexico have almost tripled since 2005, making it the number one source country for claims. In 2008, more than 9,400 claims filed in Canada came from Mexican nationals, representing 25 per cent of all claims received. Of the Mexican claims reviewed...

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox was in San Antonio Friday, delivering a wide-ranging address about U.S.-Mexico relations that touched on trade, the drug war, comprehensive immigration reform and the United States' “mammoth” financial crisis that has spread worldwide. Fox also delivered a message of hope — hope that someday Canada, the United States and Mexico, indeed the rest of Latin America, would function like the European Union. “It's an extremely successful model,” said Fox, whose wife, Marta Sahagún, accompanied him. “My vision is to speed up the process of further integration.” Fox was in town to address the Congressional Hispanic...

Sheriff: Region needs crime lab, resources Local law enforcement needs a regional crime lab and more resources, Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar told U.S. Sen. John Cornyn during a closed-door briefing Saturday. "We're kind of running behind in DNA and ballistics tests because we're on a waiting list and at the mercy of other crime labs in the area," Cuellar said. "We have to go to San Antonio, where we have a six- to eight-month waiting period." With a regional crime lab serving Webb, Zapata and Jim Hogg counties, the District Attorney's Office could prosecute cases in a more timely...

ANDERSON — Civil unrest escalated Thursday while protesters stood outside the Anderson construction site of a city fire station and said the workers on the project were not documented as legal United States residents.

Being taught about famous people and events in Wisconsin history in Spanish is not how some Waunakee parents want their fourth-graders learning social studies at school. "We as parents have been in such an uproar over this," said Keith Wilke about the district’s elementary language program in which students learn Spanish by having the language integrated into social studies lessons for 30 minutes three days a week in first through fourth grades. "They’re force-fed Spanish." This is the third year for the program, which has added one grade a year since 2006 and is designed to continue until fifth grade....

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford tells Newsmax that the economic stimulus plan now before Congress is more pork than stimulus and a “huge mistake.” Sanford, who is chairman of the Republican Governors Association, also warned that dealing with the nation’s crushing debt will be “painful” — and said Republicans who voted against the stimulus package in the House should be “proud.”

“World, hold on. Instead of messing with our future, open up inside.” --Bob Sinclair Thomas Jefferson once said “when you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” As the global financial system pushes on a string, investors are desperately trying to hold tight. The New World Order is upon us, full of hope, promise and a fair amount of fear. In our recent discussion regarding the direction of our country, we noted the risks of catering to conventional wisdom and the implications for the U.S. dollar. The Minyanville mantra is to provide financial...

Indiscriminate kidnappings. Nearly daily beheadings. Gangs that mock and kill government agents. This isn't Iraq or Pakistan. It's Mexico, which the U.S. government and a growing number of experts say is becoming one of the world's biggest security risks. The prospect that America's southern neighbor could melt into lawlessness provides an unexpected challenge to President Obama's government. In its latest report anticipating possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse." "The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and...

The incident came as 16 other people were also killed in Mexico's northern state of Chihuahua in attacks the authorities believe are linked to the country's drug wars. "Hitmen cut off commander Martin Castro's head and left it in an ice cooler in front of the local police station," said a statement issued by the state justice authorities. His head was left in the town Praxedis with a message from the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. The police commander was abducted on Saturday, along with five other police officers and a civilian, only five days after starting his job. Six bodies...

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's Bimbo said on Thursday it had closed the $2.38 billion acquisition of the U.S. breadmaking unit of Canada's George Weston Ltd (WN.TO). The deal, announced early in December, will extend Bimbo's (BIMBOA.MX) U.S. presence coast to coast with one of the biggest acquisitions in its history.

Hundreds wait for hours to buy S.F. ID card Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, January 16, 2009 Hundreds of people stood in line for hours at San Francisco City Hall on Thursday to be among the first in the nation to receive municipal identification cards regardless of their immigration status. The cards, also available in New Haven, Conn., and being considered in other cities, have sparked fury among advocates of stricter immigration laws. They argue cities have no business declaring people residents if they are not in the country legally. But San Francisco officials and recipients of the cards...

Left-of-center nonprofits are getting the bailout they wanted from the U.S. government, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. The news comes a month after Independent Sector president Diana Aviv demanded it. Our lawmakers are intent on pissing away billions of dollars on utterly useless giveaways to their supporters in the liberal nonprofit establishment. The money will have virtually no positive impact on the economy, except perhaps that it might bolster employment at nonprofit groups. One of the more egregious line items is the $1 billion allocation for community development block grants (CDBG). These are slush funds that liberal groups like La...

The United States will need $1.6 trillion to repair damage to its infrastructure from a massive influx of immigrants, a new report reveals. In his report titled, "The Twin Crises: Immigration and Infrastructure," prominent researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein examines 15 categories of infrastructure: airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal , hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems. Rubenstein, a financial analyst and former contributing editor of Forbes and economics editor of National Review,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama will meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday. Obama transition officials said the visit was in keeping with the tradition of U.S. presidents meeting with their Mexican counterpart soon after winning election.

Trans Texas Corridor is dead, TxDOT says 10:50 AM CST on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News mlindenberger@dallasnews.com AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Transportation announced this morning that it has officially killed the Trans Texas Corridor, saying that despite the project's visionary aspects, "it is clearly not the choice of Texans." Direct link to article...

CorridorWatch, a Fayette County-based group that has been active in opposing the Trans-Texas Corridor plan, wants to go beyond the Sunset Advisory Commission’s recommended shakeup of state transportation leadership. The group, led by David and Linda Stall, recommends that TxDOT answer to an elected six-member board led by a chairman appointed by the governor. CorridorWatch makes it recommendation, along with various other reactions to the Sunset commission staff’s recent report on TxDOT, in written comments submitted as part of the sunset process. TxDOT, like all state agencies, “sunsets” after 12 years unless the Legislature acts to keep it alive. As...

OTTAWA -- Sen. John McCain traveled to Canada on Friday to offer a vigorous defense of the North American Free Trade Agreement, as his campaign sought to portray rival Sen. Barack Obama as inconsistent on free trade. "For all the successes of NAFTA, we have to defend it without equivocation in political debate because it is critical to the future of so many Canadian and American workers and businesses," McCain told a crowd of several hundred at the Economic Club of Canada. "Demanding unilateral changes and threatening to abrogate an agreement that has increased trade and prosperity is nothing more...

CONFER: The North American Union Over the past few years a majority of Americans have been quite disappointed with what’s happening at our Southern border. Millions of Mexicans have been allowed to illegally enter our nation and assimilate into our populace. Despite considerable uproar from legal, taxpaying citizens, our federal government has done almost nothing to rectify the situation. There has been some talk of increasing border security or maybe enforcing existing laws, but this “silent invasion” continues unchecked: For every one Mexican caught trying to illegally enter our nation, more than five make it through. This begs the question,...

A group supporting North American integration is holding its fourth annual "North American Model Parliament" for 100 university students from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The North American Forum on Integration, or NAFI, began is "Triumvirate" sessions Monday in Montreal's City Hall with a plan to conclude Friday.

MONTGOMERY The state Senate may have been locked down for most of the year, but it did find time to endorse a widely discredited urban legend spread by the John Birch Society. The upper chamber passed a joint resolution April 10 sponsored by state Sen. Rusty Glover, R-Semmes, claiming that Canada, Mexico and the United States are moving toward a "North American Union" and working on construction of a "NAFTA Superhighway" to link the countries and report edly destroy their sovereignty. "It's about retaining independence," said John McManus, the president of the John Birch Society, in a phone interview Mon...

NEW ORLEANS — Police expect protests but few problems when the two-day North American Leaders Summit gets under way Monday in New Orleans. It's VIP duty as President Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper get together to talk trade. But for the New Orleans Police Department, it's more of the same in a a string of high-profile, crowd-generating events early in 2008. The North American summit in Quebec last August drew several hundred protesters vocal on the war in Iraq and what they claimed was a gradual merging of the three countries. There also were...

Ever since former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton proclaimed that she and her husband were the victims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," "conspiracy" has been the hot word used to ridicule your opponents. When President George W. Bush wanted to avoid answering questions about whether the Security and Prosperity Partnership is the prelude to a North American Union connected by a three-country superhighway, he accused SPP critics of believing in a conspiracy. By definition, conspiracies are usually secret. There's nothing secret about right-wingers organizing to criticize the Clintons and their goals, and there's nothing secret about plans to morph the...

For Peyton Gilbert, the battle over the Trans-Texas Corridor is reminiscent of the moment in 1836 when Lt. Col. William Travis drew a line in the sand at the Alamo and invited those willing to fight thousands of Mexican soldiers to step across. "That line in the sand is the Trans-Texas Corridor, and it's a threat to our sovereignty again, just like at the Alamo," said Gilbert, 14, who is from Whitehouse, near Tyler. Gilbert was among a large crowd of people who marched down Congress Avenue to the Capitol on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against the proposed highway-rail-utility corridor...

What is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative? The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) will require all travelers to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda who have historically been exempt from passport requirements, to present a passport or other approved document that establishes the bearer’s identity and citizenship in order to enter or re-enter the United States. WHTI is designed to strengthen border security and facilitate entry into the United States for U.S. citizens and legitimate international visitors while minimizing the social and commercial impacts on international travelers and U.S. citizens, particularly residents living along the border. Why is...

The U.S. has built nine navigation systems for Mexico and Canada under the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America in an apparent first step toward establishing the satellite infrastructure needed to create a North American air traffic control system. The defining vision for North American air traffic control was articulated by then-Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta in a Sept. 27, 2004, statement announcing, "We must make flying throughout North America as seamless as possible if we are to truly reap the rewards of the expanding global economy."

Topeka — Agreements with Mexico and Canada are setting the stage for construction of a huge highway that will gobble up Kansans’ property and jeopardize U.S. security, representatives from a wide range of groups said Monday. “Through incrementalism, apathy and inattention, our national sovereignty is being sacrificed on a cross of greed, socialism and globalism,� said state Rep. Judy Morrison, R-Shawnee. Morrison has introduced House Concurrent Resolution 5033 urging Congress to withdraw from further participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement and Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. At a hearing before the House Federal and State Affairs...

Plots by Communists to infiltrate America. The disintegration of borders and rural areas. Citizens mobilizing and rising up against government agencies and big business. It all sounds like the plot for a summer blockbuster, but it's something that could be happening in your own backyard. These were just a few of the topics addressed in the "How to fight the TTC" workshop, held Monday at the Pitser Garrison Civic Center in Lufkin. The conference served as an informational meeting aimed at informing citizens and local government officials how they can unite in trying to stop the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project....

Mexican truck drivers allowed to travel throughout the U.S. under a Bush administration demonstration project may not be proficient in English, despite Department of Transportation assurances to the contrary. A brochure on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's website instructs Mexican truck drivers, "Did you know … You MUST be able to read and speak English to drive trucks in the United States." Still, at the Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing Tuesday, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and DOT Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III reluctantly admitted under intense questioning from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that Mexican drivers were being...

A handful of Kendleton residents were among several dozen to speak out against the Trans-Texas Corridor at a public hearing Monday night in Rosenberg. “I personally think it's a slap in the face for Texas to take the land for pennies on the dollar, to put a road on it and to make you pay a toll for it,� said Jeremy West, one of the speakers from Kendleton. The Trans-Texas Corridor is a proposal for a network of highways, rail lines and utilities throughout Texas that would be financed by private interests who would seek to profit through tolls and...