Liberty
Matters News Service
October 17, 2007
Don't Lose Sight of LOST
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a second hearing on the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) last week. Senator Richard Lugar, Ranking Member said in his opening remarks: "As Admiral Patrick Walsh, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations and former commander of the Fifth Fleet, testified (Sept 27): 'Right now, where I sit, we have a deficiency, by not being party to the Law of the Sea Convention, and it is one that we must correct. This Convention is valuable to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen and it's time we joined the Convention, and we owe it to them.' If we fail to ratify this treaty, we are allowing decisions that will affect our Navy, our ship operators, our off-shore industries, and other maritime interests to be made without U.S. representation. If the United States does not ratify this treaty, our ability to claim the vast extended continental shelf off Alaska will be seriously impeded." Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, disputed Admiral Walsh's statement. If the Senate ratifies the LOST convention, "the odds are roughly 155 to 1 that the LOST tribunal [U.N. International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea] would vote to cede U.S. claims to the North Pole and its oil riches to the Russians." Only two people who are against LOST were allowed to testify October 4. Frank Gaffney Jr., president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy, told the Committee that President Reagan was right that LOST was, and is wrong. Mr. Gaffney said that it is "frankly appalling to me that the present approach to Senate consideration of this accord amounts to little more than a rubber-stamp…a determined effort to keep the American people in the dark about what is going to happen to their rights, their constitutional, representative form of government and our national interests until after LOST is ratified and is too late to do anything about it." Fred L. Smith Jr. President and Founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute also was critical of the Senate saying; "[The] Senate of the United States is the world's greatest deliberative body, but this hasty effort to rush through a fatally flawed treaty does you no credit. We do the world no favor by allowing this textual and legal dinosaur to stand in the path of mankind's future." President Bush is pushing hard for LOST and has sent his minions to lobby for the destruction of the sovereign United States of America. The citizens of this country must stand firm against Bush's determination to place the U.S. under the control of global government. Waste no time in contacting your senators to demand they reject LOST. According to the American Policy Center, a vote to ratify will take place before the Christmas recess. Contact information is provided at this location: americanpolicy.org To view the October 4, 2007 LOST testimony before the Senate Foreign Committee, go to: http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2007/hrg071004a.html.
What Mexicans Know That Americans Don't
The NAFTA Superhighway is no secret in Mexico. Mexican leaders talk openly of the coming highway and the melding of Canada, Mexico and the United States. The Bush administration has consistently denied that plans exist for the superhighway or a North American Union. As late as last August, when the three heads of state met at a posh resort in Canada to discuss details of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, President Bush denied anything of the sort was being planned. But the governor of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon tells his countrymen that he and Gov. Rick Perry have had extensive talks about extending the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) into Mexico, all the way to the Pacific coast. "We have had interaction with the governor of Texas," says Governor José Natividad Gonzáles Parás, on the official web site. "We have had a very productive relationship with Rick Perry, who is also interested in what we can do to continue that which is known as the Trans Texas Corridor, that in reality is the corridor of North America, the Trans North America Corridor…" Gonzáles Parás is working to make the city of Monterrey an inland port to receive goods from the Chinese Communist controlled port of Lazaro-Cardenas. Mexican trucks would then carry the Chinese containers into Texas through Laredo and up I-35 to the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio port and on to the Kansas City SmartPort. Gonzáles Parás said when he met with Perry in Austin last May, Perry agreed TTC should extend through Laredo into Mexico just as the Mexicans plan to expand their leg south into Columbia. "For this strategic project to be accomplished," Gonzáles Parás continued, "we have been working with the federal government in Mexico as well as holding discussions with the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of State in the United States." The official U. S. response to questions about the superhighway and North American Union is to demonize those who raise the issues. There is no plan for an Amero to replace the dollar either, according to U.S. officials. The truth, however, was revealed during Larry King's interview with former Presidenté Fox last week. A listener asked Mr. Fox about the possibility of one currency for Latin America. Fox answered that he and President Bush had agreed to establish the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) and the plan would include adoption of a regional currency. "Long term, very long term," Fox said. "What we proposed together, President Bush and myself, is ALCA (Area de Libre Comercio de las Américas), which is a trade union for all the Americas." President Bush continues to make secret deals with foreign leaders to scuttle U.S. sovereignty, both by land and by sea. Now that Fox has let the cat out of the bag about the NAU and the Amero, Americans are finally learning what the Mexicans have known for quite awhile.
Mexican Gov't Reveals Plans for
Trans North American Corridor
Ex-Mexican prez: 'Amero' on the way
Stop the Clean Water Restoration Act
H.R. 2421, The Clean Water Restoration Act, is on its way through the
House. Rep. James Oberstar, (D-MN) said he introduced the bill to restore the
Act to the original purpose intended by Congress. Sen. Russell Feingold,
(D-WI), has introduced a companion bill in the Senate, S. 1870. Oberstar and
other big-government zealots are annoyed that the Supreme Court ruled the
federal government does not have unlimited power to regulate every puddle and
pool in the U.S. The cases, Solid Waste of Northern Cook County v U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, (2001) and Rapanos v U.S. (2006), forced the government to
more narrowly interpret "navigable waters" of the U.S. Oberstar misleadingly
claims his bill will restore the Clean Water Act, when in reality it expands it
beyond any reasonable interpretation. H.R. 2421 inflates "the limits of federal
power to an extreme not matched by any other law, probably in the history of
this country," according to one law expert. Quoting "The Coalition Letter on
the Clean Water Restoration Act," sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
last week; "the bill would give federal agencies authority over 'all interstate
and intrastate waters' including non-navigable waters. Further, the bill's
reference to 'activities affecting these waters' could give federal agencies
the ability to assume expansive authority over not only water, but land and the
air, too." Contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives immediately and tell
them to vote NO on H.R. 2421 and S. 1870. Don't let big government get any
bigger. To contact your U.S. Congressman, go to:
www.house.gov/writerep. For your
U.S. Senators, go to:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.
Resolution of the Menard County
Underground Water District Opposing HR 2421 and S. 1870
Coalition Letter
on the Clean Water Restoration Act
Dems Dust Off Mammoth Wilderness Bill
East coast lawmakers are optimistic their wilderness bill H.R. 1975, the North American Ecosystem Protection Act, (NREPA) will receive favorable reviews during its upcoming hearing, Oct. 18. The bill, sponsored by Connecticut Republican Christopher Shays and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, would lock up 23 million acres in the western U.S. as wilderness. NREPA supporters seek to shut most of the public out of millions of acres of public land to protect grizzly bears, bull trout and lynx. Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Michael Garrity said the wilderness designation would create high-paying jobs through restoring old roads and clear cuts. The measure enjoys the support of east coast and left coast legislators whose constituents won't be affected, but precious little from westerners. The NREPA "wildland recovery project" would affect seven million acres in Montana, 9.5 million acres in Idaho, five million acres in Wyoming, 750,000 acres in eastern Oregon and 500,000 acres in eastern Washington. U.S. Senator Max Baucus, (D- MT) is not amused. "Max doesn't favor the top-down approach to resource management, let alone someone from New York telling Montana how to manage public lands," said Baucus spokesman, Barrett Kaiser. Backers have been trying to get the bill into committee hearings for the last 13 years, but Republicans blocked their efforts. Now the bill will be heard Oct. 18 by the National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee. "NREPA's time has come," Rep. Maloney predicted. Another urgent issue on the horizon is the National Heritage Area Designation problem. A Coalition Letter signed by 110 organizations and individuals protesting heritage areas, was sent to key House and Senate leaders Sept. 4. The letter explained that heritage areas are managed by the National Park Service and special interest NGO's, to the detriment of private property. They become a sink-hole for pork and they never go away. "National heritage areas corrupt the principle of representative government and this inherently local function by giving unelected, unaccountable special interests the authority to develop land management plans and federal money with which to finance their efforts" the letter read in part. Congressman Denny Reberg from Montana wants everyone to go to his website and send him an email of your opposition to this legislation prior to Thursday. Go to: http://www.house.gov/rehberg/survey.shtml and help him fight this battle.