What you don't hear in the news: North American Union

Building the Global Beast The Iron and the Clay Daniel 2:41-43 "In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. "As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. "And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery. Daniel 7:3-8 "And four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from one another. "The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man; a human mind also was given to it. "And behold, another beast, a second one, resembling a bear. And it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth; and thus they said to it, `Arise, devour much meat!' "After this I kept looking, and behold, another one, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird; the beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. "After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns."While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boasts. EU-style union coming to a continent near you 'Working groups led by DHS should now [be] driven by a single agenda: the SPP' WORLDNETDAILY - March 21, 2007 A memo signed by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff implements a controversial program condemned by critics as a precursor to a European Union-style partnership with Mexico and Canada. The document shows the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, is being directed at the highest level of the Bush administration, says the public interest group Judicial Watch, which obtained it and other documents through a Freedom of Information Act request. The Sept. 22, 2005, memo describes the agencies within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for executing the security agenda of the SPP. Titled "Implementation Memorandum for the (SPP)," the document says the SPP "has, in addition to identifying a number of new action items, comprehensively rolled up most of our existing homeland security-related policy initiatives with Canada and Mexico, and ongoing action and reporting in the various U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico working groups led by DHS should now be driven by a single agenda: the SPP." "These new records prove the Security and Prosperity Partnership is being directed by officials at the very highest levels of the United States government," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. Fitton said Americans "should know that the SPP is a core policy initiative for many agencies in our government, including the Department of Homeland Security." The records obtained by Judicial Watch also contain an information paper describing 10 "Prosperity Pillar Working Groups" http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/dhs06-978spp14mar07_001.pdf and the organization of the "U.S.-Mexico Critical Infrastructure Protection Work Group." Judicial Watch said that unlike previous records produced by other federal agencies, the DHS records are heavily redacted, blocking out names of the U.S., Mexican and Canadian government officials carrying out the partnership's agenda across all three countries. The DHS also released a 10-page chart listing 36 "SPP Security High-Level Working Groups" that include the "Mexico-U.S. Repatriation Technical WG," the "Mexico-U.S. Intelligence and Information Sharing WG," and the "Canada-U.S. Cross Border Crime Forum." In October, as WND reported, about 1,000 documents obtained in a FOIA request to the SPP showed bureaucrats from agencies throughout the Bush administration meeting regularly with their counterparts in the Canadian and Mexican governments to engage in a broad rewriting of U.S. administrative law and regulations. WND first reported the SPP activity last summer, showing the Bush administration had launched extensive working-group activity to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada. The groups, working under the North American Free Trade Agreement office in the Department of Commerce, are to implement an agreement signed by President Bush, then-Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005. The trilateral agreement, signed as a joint declaration not submitted to Congress for review, led to the creation of the SPP. An SPP report to the heads of state of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, -- released June 27, 2005 -- lists some 20 different working groups spanning a wide variety of issues ranging from e-commerce, to aviation policy, to borders and immigration, involving the activity of multiple U.S. government agencies. The working groups have produced a number of memorandums of understanding and trilateral declarations of agreement http://www.spp.gov/report_to_leaders/index.asp?dName=report_to_leaders . http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54796 Commerce chief pushes for 'North American integration' WORLDNETDAILY - By Jerome R. Corsi - March 24, 2007 While the Bush administration insists the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership http://www.spp.gov/ is just a dialogue with Canada and Mexico, a State Department cable released to WND shows Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez pressing to implement major trilateral initiatives to help "capture the vision of North American integration." The cable was among some 150 pages of State Department SPP documents recently released to WND under a Freedom of Information Act request. Howard Phillips, who has formed a coalition to block development of a "North American Union" and formation of NAFTA superhighways, told WND the document "makes clear that the agenda of SPP is to pursue major economic integration that redefines U.S. businesses into a 'North American' definition." "By leading with economics, SPP is crafting a North American regulatory structure that transforms U.S. regulations by 'harmonizing' them with Mexican and Canadian regulations, all without specific congressional approval," said Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus. The State Department communiqué, dated May 20, 2005, documents a March 13, 2005, meeting between Gutierrez, Mexican Secretary of Economy Fernando Canales and Canadian Privy Council Assistant Secretary Phil Ventura. The meeting was held just prior to the announcement of SPP at the trilateral summit with the country's three leaders in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005. The cable notes Gutierrez opened the discussion by stressing that the July 23, 2005, "Report to Leaders" needed "to show results" that would be "enduring and create an on-going process." Gutierrez suggested each working group should propose one "big ticket" issue, rather than the "50-60 smaller initiatives" that were then in the SPP "matrix," allowing the "SPP ministers" to capture the attention of the "SPP leaders" with major North American integration goals that were both tangible and important. "This memo gives us an important 'behind the scenes' look at the trilateral bureaucratic process that gave rise to the "Report to Leaders http://www.spp.gov/report_to_leaders/index.asp?dName=report_to_leaders . The 2005 "Report to Leaders" on the SPP website, Phillips noted, resulted from a detailed process of trilateral bureaucratic meetings that led to cabinet-level discussions within the three governments. The end result, he said, was for the report to "focus on the major SPP working group initiatives that could advance the goal of North American integration." Phillips contended a "close reading of the document makes a lie of the SPP 'myth vs. facts' http://www.spp.gov/myths_vs_facts.asp contention that SPP is just a 'dialogue.'" "The document quotes Canada's Ventura as stating that the three countries should prepare a joint document declaring their trilateral intention to 'integrate' a list of industries, including automobiles, pharmaceuticals, textiles, furniture, and steel," he argued. "Ventura said the more 'trilateral integrated' industries that could be listed, the better." - - - - http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54857 Mexico To Get "Sovereign Territory" in Kansas City; America's Heartland CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW NETWORK - By Phyllis Schlafly - April 4, 2007 Grassroots Americans of all parties and economic classes rose up out of their political apathy a few months ago and forced President Bush to reverse his administration's decision to allow a Middle East government to own America's major ports. But the push for foreign ownership continues: the next port scheduled to be taken over is Kansas City, Missouri. Even though public schools stopped teaching geography a couple of decades ago, most Americans (especially residents of the Show Me state) are surprised to learn that Kansas City (where the only waves are "amber waves of grain") is a port. We are also surprised, and shocked, to discover that Mexico will be running its own inspection facility. The plan, shrouded in secrecy, has been in the works for at least three years, but it is now coming to light because of the diligent use of Missouri's Sunshine law by concerned citizens. Joyce Mucci and Francis Semler forced the release of the emails from Kansas City to Mexico, including one admitting that "The space [in Kansas City] would need to be designated as Mexican sovereign territory." SmartPort spokesmen are now running away from this written admission, blaming "the problems and pressure the media attention has created." However, the stubborn sovereignty issue won't go away; the plan does involve setting up Mexican customs officials in downtown Kansas City. The mechanism for this deal is a "nonprofit" business economic development corporation called Kansas City SmartPort Inc., whose president is Chris J.F. Gutierrez. The deal calls for Kansas City to lease the valuable property at 1447 Liberty Street. As laid out on SmartPort's website, the plan is to enable cheap-labor products made in Communist China to travel in sealed "containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico," through "a ships-to-rail terminal at the port of Lazaro Cardenas in Mexico," then up "the evolving trade corridor" to Kansas City, Missouri, where they would have their first inspection. A Kansas City SmartPort brochure explains further: "Kansas City offers the opportunity for sealed cargo containers to travel to Mexican port cities with virtually no border delays." A key purpose of the project is to take jobs away from U.S. longshoremen in Los Angeles and Long Beach who earn $140,000 a year and replace them with Mexican laborers at $10,000 a year. U.S. truck drivers and railroad workers will likewise be replaced by Mexicans. - - - The last piece in finalizing this project is getting the U.S. State Department to approve the Mexican operation on U.S. soil by signing off on what is called the C-175 document. It has already been approved by U.S. Customs. Meanwhile, NASCO (North America's SuperCorridor Coalition), another non-profit business organization, has taken on the mission of building an "international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system" from Lazaro Cardenas through Kansas City and up to Winnipeg, Canada. This will allow Mexican trucks to haul goods along a 12-lane superhighway through the heartland of the United States. http://www.christianworldviewnetwork.com/article.php/1787/Phyllis_Schlafly Abolition of Electoral College under way Change would give control of White House to handful of states WORLDNETDAILY - By Bob Unruh - April 6, 2007 A movement is sweeping the nation that could eliminate the Electoral College in national elections, and with it much of this country's republican form of government, instead giving unstoppable control over the White House to any coalition the major population centers would choose to create. Maryland's state legislature already has given approval to a proposal that would, in conjunction with other states' efforts, eliminate the college, and similar plans have already been approved by single legislative houses in Hawaii, Colorado and Arizona. In seven more states – Washington, Montana, California, New Mexico, Louisiana, West Virginia and Connecticut – the plans have been endorsed by legislative committees. And in 28 more states the proposals have been introduced while legislative writers in another eight states are working on plans, according to a report from the group called National Popular Vote, which is lobbying for the change. The procedure to elect a president in the United States, although it had happened in the past, became an issue for activists when in 2000 George W. Bush collected fewer popular votes than Al Gore, but because of the concentration of those votes in key states, collected the necessary 270 electoral college votes for the presidency. Electoral college votes are equal to the size of a state's congressional delegation, and are awarded based largely on the winner of the popular vote in those states. However, an analysis of the issue by Wallbuilders, a Christian organization with expertise in historical and constitutional issues, said the argument that the electoral college system is unfair to voters and "individual votes are meaningless" doesn't hold up. "Interestingly, because of the electoral college, the opposite has been true," the group's report said. "As the Florida situation proved, individual votes are tallied – sometimes several times." And it quoted Curtis Gans, of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, who said getting rid of the electoral college would reduce political campaigns in the United States to "television advertising" and "tarmac." "There would be virtually no incentive to try to mobilize constituencies, organize specific interests, or devote any resources to such things as voter registration and education. … What we would have is a political system that combines the worst of network television with the worst of the modern campaign," he concluded. Wallbuilders noted that given a direct democracy – one person with one vote and winner-take-all – "candidates would logically spend their campaign courting voters in the most populous urban areas such as Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C., Miami, Seattle, etc., rather than visiting cities in more rural areas – cities like Wichita, Birmingham, Amarillo, Cheyenne, Springfield, Tulsa, etc." The group said under the electoral college system, "it is possible that a candidate can win the presidency by carrying a majority of only the 11 most densely populated States (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina and either Georgia or Virginia). However, under a system of direct elections, this number could be reduced to even fewer states, particularly if they happen to be the largest states and could deliver overwhelming margins of victory, such as Washington, D.C., did for Gore by the lopsided 86 to 9 percent margin." In Maryland, the measure is expected to be signed soon by Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, and it would designate the state's 10 electoral college votes to be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote – no matter who would have collected more votes in the state. There was opposition. A report in the Washington Post noted that Del. Anthony J. O'Donnell, R-Calvert, the House minority leader, wondered if the state's voters are prepared "to allow someone else to determine where Maryland's votes in the electoral college go?" In Arkansas, the House has passed the plan, and in Hawaii it was the state Senate. In Colorado, the state Senate actually became the first state legislative house in the nation to approve the plan. A year ago, California's legislature approved the plan, as did individual legislative houses in Louisiana, New York, Colorado, and Missouri, but the proposals moved no further at that point. But Common Cause, in a website statement, said the change is needed. "The current system for electing our president no longer serves America well. The state-by-state method … divides the country into so-called 'safe' states where voters are all but ignored while the election is determined by a relatively small number of swing voters in 'battleground' states… "When our nation selects a leader that does not have the support of the majority of its citizens, we are a weaker country for it," the group said. Officials say besides the 2000 election, during the elections of 1824, 1876 and 1888, the winner of the popular vote was not the same as the winner of the electoral college vote. That is what the system was designed to do, Wallbuilders said. In Colorado, the plan was carried in the state Senate by Majority Leader Ken Gordon. "It is revolutionary, I admit. It is called democracy. I know some people are concerned. It is a big change … but I believe that if the framers of the Constitution were around now they would favor a woman's right to vote, they would oppose slavery and they would support electing the president by majority vote." But Wallbuilders noted that – along with proposals to have Congress or the state legislatures choose a president – the idea of a national popular vote was discussed by the authors of the Constitution. "This idea was rejected not because the framers distrusted the people but rather because the larger populous states would have much greater influence than the smaller states and therefore the interests of those smaller states could be disregarded or trampled," Wallbuilders said. "Additionally, a nationwide election would encourage regionalism since the more populous areas of the country could form coalitions to elect president after president from their own region. With such regional preferentialism, lasting national unity would be nearly impossible." Wallbuilders said the electoral college specifically was chosen to maintain a republican form of government, as opposed to a strict democracy. And it provides more influence to areas with lesser populations. For the same reason, Congress was set up with representation based on population in the House, and representation based on the states in the Senate. "Consequently, in the Senate, Delaware has the same power as California with each State having two votes; but in the House, Delaware’s single vote often is completely negated by the fifty-two from California. Because of this different source of strength in each body, the votes in those two bodies on the same piece of legislation may be dramatically different. In such a case, before that legislation may become law there must be some compromise — some yielding of the Senate to the will of the population and some yielding of the House to the will of the States," Wallbuilders said. In the 2000 fracas, for example, Gore won the popular vote by carrying concentrated urban areas: he carried only 676 counties, while Bush carried 2,436 counties. The electoral college was set up to recognize both interests, and maintain a balance, Wallbuilders said. Further, the U.S. Constitution forbids America from becoming a democracy, and John Adams noted that, "There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55064 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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