How Convenient: NOW Petraeus Admits The Obvious — An Increase In Iraqi Violence
Just disgustingly political. Blames everything on Ramadan . . .
Los Angeles Times Story . . .
IMPORTANT: Microsoft’s Secret Hidden Updates
Over the past 3-weeks, more and more confirmation has been coming out about Microsoft forcing “updates” onto YOUR system — whether you allow it or not!
The reason I call them “updates” is because no one is sure exactly what Microsoft is installing on your computer.
This is also true regardless of whether you have completely turned-off automatic updates.
In other words, Microsoft is hijacking your computer and installing whatever it wants without your permission and you are just left to “trust” Big Brother’s partner that it has only your interest at heart.
I DO NOT TRUST MICROSOFT and I do not trust anyone to be looking out for me when they install software on my computer secretly or worse, in violation of my specific settings. That’s usually called malware, especially when their stealth software interferes with your system. And, make no mistake, their “updates” are causing a rash of problems — especially with the horrible Vista OS.
Here are some stories about this for further reading:
Windows Secrets Blog . . .
eWeek Microsoft Watch Blog . . .
What The Hell Is Microsoft Doing To My Computer?
Automatic ‘Automatic’ Updates
More About Bush & The Secret “War Tape”
As I wrote about several days ago . . .
Slate Magazine offers a new twist — analysis of how we can use this smoking gun to better help elect a stable President next time.
By Fred Kaplan
September 28, 2007
The Spanish newspaper El País recently published the transcript of a February 22, 2003 conversation between President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister José María Aznar — a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq — and it confirms some (though not all) of the most dreadful accounts and suspicions about Bush’s intentions and nature.
The crucial exchange, in this respect, comes toward the end of the conversation, when the two leaders are discussing the magnitude of changing Saddam Hussein’s regime by force.
AZNAR: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.
BUSH: I’m an optimist because I believe that I’m right. I’m a person at peace with myself. It was our turn to face a serious threat to peace.
Here, in three sentences, is the first lesson on how to assess the current crop of presidential candidates: Don’t pick anyone who utters, or seems capable of believing, those three sentences.
“I’m an optimist because I believe that I’m right.” There’s a delusional tautology to this sentence. (Bush is quoted as making similar remarks in Robert Draper’s book Dead Certain.) To the extent that sensible people are optimistic about something, it’s not because of a belief, much less a belief in their own wisdom; it’s because the facts at hand—or perhaps their experiences with similar situations—suggest that a positive outcome is likely. Bush had no experiences, on any level, with anything like war or Iraq. Nobody would give money to a stockbroker who says that he’s optimistic about his investments because he believes he’s right (not even that he generally is right, just that he believes he’s right). Nobody should vote for a would-be president who talks like this, either.
“I’m a person at peace with myself.” Taken by itself, this can be a reassuring sentiment. A leader should be comfortable with power, assured at making decisions. But combined with the first sentence, it’s the sort of thing that might be uttered by … well, by George W. Bush.
“It was our turn to face a serious threat to peace.” Beware the politician who sees his life as an appointment with destiny. Ditto a president who thinks it’s his “turn” to do anything, much less to go to war and save civilization. Elsewhere in the transcript, Bush talks of being “guided by a historic sense of responsibility,” of looking ahead “some years from now,” when “History judges us.” History walks on two feet, as Karl Marx wrote (in one of his least Marxist pronouncements). All that anyone, including a president, can do is make the best judgments and take the wisest actions, given the circumstances, resources, and options at hand. History can be a useful guide, but it’s neither a force nor a judge. (Or if it is, its rulings are hardly definitive. Debates still rage, after all these centuries, over the relative merits of Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson.)
Another lesson that a president-wannabe, and those of us deciding which one to vote for, could take from this transcript: Never overestimate your own power.
Prime Minister Aznar—who, it is worth noting, favored going to war—keeps urging Bush to wait a little longer before invading, in order to assemble a broader coalition. “I agree,” he says after Bush tells him it’s time to put a stop to Saddam’s dithering, “but it would be good to be able to count on as many people as possible. Be a little bit patient.”
“My patience is over,” Bush replies. “I don’t even think about [waiting] beyond mid-March.” The other members of the U.N. Security Council, he says, “have to know” that friendship with the United States is at stake. If Chile doesn’t go along with a war resolution, the Free Trade Agreement is in trouble. If Angola falters, its leaders should forget about receiving funds from the Millennium Account. Vladimir Putin should know “that his attitude is jeopardizing” U.S.-Russian relations.
Bush didn’t realize—nor did most of his top advisers—that the United States, while still powerful, no longer had the leverage to play this kind of hardball. He was in no position to offer, or therefore to withhold, security guarantees. These countries could go, and have gone, elsewhere for trade deals. And as for Russia, skyrocketing oil prices and the resurgence of national industries allowed Putin to behave without much fear of Washington’s wrath.
An additional lesson that one could glean from these transcripts: Never let timetables for mobilization determine decisions about war.
At the beginning of the transcript, Bush says of Saddam, “We have to get him right now. … There are two weeks left. In two weeks, we’ll be militarily ready.” This seems to be at least one reason Bush doesn’t “even think about” postponing the invasion past mid-March. His attitude is: Unleash the dogs of war when they’re ready; and “in two weeks,” by mid-March, they’ll be ready.
Bush’s decisions weren’t entirely mechanical, of course. The evidence is strong that he had decided to go to war as far back as late May or early June of 2002, about nine months before his conversation with Aznar. But the timing of actually launching the invasion does appear to have been determined by when the invasion would be ready for launching.
This distinction isn’t academic, because the transcript has Bush telling Aznar the following:
The Egyptians are talking to Saddam Hussein. It seems that he’s indicated that he’s willing to go into exile if they let him take 1 billion dollars with him, and all the information that he wants about the weapons of mass destruction. Gadaffi has told Berlusconi that Saddam Hussein wants to go.
Aznar asks if there’s any possibility Saddam could be offered a deal to go into exile “with some guarantee.” Bush replies, “No guarantee. He’s a thief, a terrorist, a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Theresa [sic].”
Rumors were floating around at the time of a deal in which war would be averted if Saddam went into exile (where, by the way, he would be much more vulnerable to assassination). But this transcript reveals, for the first time, I think, that there actually were offers on the table and that Bush was well aware of them.
Such a deal was clearly unacceptable to someone of Bush’s optimism and self-righteousness (and blood-thrist). It would have been a huge risk even to a more levelheaded president. But would such a president have casually brushed it aside, given the alternative of a war that would spill much blood and treasure in the brightest of scenarios? (At one point, Bush tells Aznar that a war will cost the United States $50 billion. He turned out to be off by a factor of almost 20; but even at $50 billion, the alternative of an exile deal would have been worth at least considering.)
The transcripts also reveal the shortcomings of a trait that has long been detected by Bush-watchers: his inattention to detail and his failure to enforce high-policy decisions. In talking about the war plans, he tells Aznar, “We’re already looking at a post-Saddam Iraq, and I believe there’s a good basis for a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and a civilian [sic] society that’s relatively strong.”
As Bush was soon to discover, there was no plan for a “post-Saddam Iraq” at all — except for one, laid down by Paul Bremer as Order No. 1 of the Coalition Provisional Authority, to demolish that “good bureaucracy” by firing every bureaucrat who was in the Baathist Party, even those who joined only because membership was required to get a job.
Bush wasn’t lying about his intention to retain the bureaucracy. As we now know, in early March, the National Security Council—in a meeting of principals, with Bush in charge—approved a postwar policy that drew the line on the issue: Baathists above a certain level, probably around 5 percent of officials, would be barred from government work; those below that level, most of the rank-and-file, would be allowed to stay. It is still not known who reversed the decision (probably Vice President Dick Cheney, perhaps Bush himself under his prodding), but reversed it was—and no one was punished for it.
Finally, the transcript puts Bush in a slightly redemptive light on one matter. It suggests—just as the much-misread Downing Street Memos also suggested—that he genuinely thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Several times, he says, “Saddam isn’t disarming” or words to that effect. Aznar agrees. “Saddam Hussein hasn’t cooperated, he hasn’t disarmed,” the Spanish leader says at one point. “We should make a summary of his failed obligations and send a more elaborate message.”
But the fact that Bush believed his distorted intelligence only highlights a deeper failing in his administration, in his character—and a sterner demand on the voters in the coming election. It’s not enough to pick someone who’s honest. The next president also has to be realistic, skeptical, curious, and experienced; he or she has to be decisive but also smart.
Fed Bailout Only Helps The Reckless Rich
Chartsky.com Has Been Ranting About This For Over A Month
At least it’s finally starting to trickle into the corporate media . . .
By Allan Sloan
Fortune’s Senior Editor-At-Large
September 28, 2007
(Fortune Magazine) — One of the core principles of the U.S. medical profession is the Hippocratic oath, the most famous part of which is “Do no harm.” It’s too bad that the governors of the Federal Reserve Board don’t have to take such a pledge when they assume office, because their recent interest rate cut has done a lot of harm to those of us who’ve managed our finances prudently.
Even though the Fed’s stated reason for cutting short-term interest rates by half a point was to help keep the economy from falling into recession, anyone who’s been paying attention knows that a major motivation - if not the major motivation - was to try to calm the turbulence that has been roiling the markets since August.
The players in the biggest trouble, of course, were the ones who’d taken the biggest fliers in junk mortgages, ultra-risky leveraged buyouts, and other financial esoterica that proved to be malignant.
The stock market, which had been begging for a bailout and hasn’t ever seen an interest rate cut that it didn’t like, responded to the Fed’s half-pointer by running prices up. Ben Bernanke, the Street decided, is just what the doctor ordered.
However, if you look at the financial markets’ overall reaction to the Fed move - not at just the stock market’s reaction - you realize that as a result of the cut, those of us who keep score in dollars and didn’t need to be bailed out are less wealthy than we were in terms of anything other than our home currency.
Why? Because the rate cut contributed heavily to the dollar’s recent sharp drop in the currency markets - parity with the Canadian dollar, for God’s sake! - and to the price spike in hard assets like gold, silver, copper, and oil. So our wealth, relative to these other things, has diminished.
And wait, there’s more. Even though the Fed has cut short-term rates, long-term rates, which it doesn’t control, have risen in reaction to the cut. So whatever economic benefits may flow from lower shortterm rates will be partly offset by the rise in long rates, which are at least as important to the economy as short rates.
Finally, consider this. Even though Bernanke’s cut may mean that some junk mortgages will reset at lower rates, the cost of large, high-quality fixed-rate mortgages, which are tied to long rates, will be higher than they’d otherwise be. (Yeah, penalize the people who are prudent - way to go!)
When I talk about prudent people being penalized, I don’t mean just the decline in their wealth in terms of anything other than the dollar. I’m also talking about the price paid by investors who wouldn’t play the subprime mortgage game and thus got lower returns than players who took bigger risks.
The folks who didn’t get carried away (and avoided huge losses) look smart today - but they looked prudish and foolish until the housing bubble finally popped.
Bush Further Angers Rest Of World On Environment
Reason #12 America Is Disliked Or Hated Around the World . . .
Other Countries Call Bush Speech A “Charade”
By Ewen MacAskill
Saturday, September 29, 2007
George Bush was castigated by European diplomats and found himself isolated yesterday after a special conference on climate change ended without any progress.
European ministers, diplomats and officials attending the Washington conference were scathing, particularly in private, over Mr Bush’s failure once again to commit to binding action on climate change.
Although the US and Britain have been at odds over the environment since the early days of the Bush administration, the gap has never been as wide as yesterday.
Britain and almost all other European countries, including Germany and France, want mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse emissions. Mr Bush, while talking yesterday about a “new approach” and “a historic undertaking”, remains totally opposed.
The conference, attended by more than 20 countries, including China, India, Britain, France and Germany, broke up with the US isolated, according to non-Americans attending. One of those present said even China and India, two of the biggest polluters, accepted that the voluntary approach proposed by the US was untenable and favoured binding measures, even though they disagreed with the Europeans over how this would be achieved.
A senior European diplomat attending the conference, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting confirmed European suspicions that it had been intended by Mr Bush as a spoiler for a major UN conference on climate change in Bali in December.
“It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade,” the diplomat said.” I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He [Mr Bush] was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure.”
Attorney General Nominee Would Recuse Himself On Guliani Issues
Once again, the public is being played with.
The true test on recusal is whether this guy’s impartiality (of which has has none) could be expected to be directly or indirectly affected by his past representation of Guiliani.
And, of course, since he will control all aspects of their “confidential” work, we will never know how many things were done “indirectly” to help Guiliani or sweep things under the rug or just plain stall until it was too late for public disclosure to matter any more.
Angry Supreme Court Justice With An Agenda
Most Justices have an agenda, but we’re supposed to pretend they will “impartially” decide cases and the charade of confirmation exists to see whether they can obviously lie or stone-wall well enough for the Senate to pretend they will be fair.
Now, Justice Clarence Thomas settles old scores (really dignified for a United States Supreme Court Justice, huh?) in an angry and vivid forthcoming memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the “mob” of liberal elites and activist groups that he says desecrated his life.
Can we stop pretending he has been anything but angry and vindictive since he was installed years ago?
More Garbage From Limbaugh
Pill-Popping Comedian Slanders U.S. Troops
I used to get angry at Rush Limbaugh but it’s obvious he is just an angry, delusional man who gets paid to attract attention, like a carnival huckster.
But still, there’s only so much I can take. So I never listen to Rush Limbaugh anymore.
I’m told by very reliable sources that in his zeal to draw attention to himself, he has slandered good Americans — yet again — simply because they have a point of view that fails to support his adopted neo-con agenda.
During the September 26th broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh called U.S. soldiers who advocate America’s withdrawal from Iraq “phoney soldiers.”
Groveling for his audience, he added a few drive-by insults of ALL Democrats before smearing the patriotism and bravery of these troops who dare have an opinion different than his. He even told the caller (who didn’t agree with Limbaugh) the caller was lying about serving in the military before he hung-up on him! However, a second caller, who did spew the neo-con talking points was a hero who should be thanked for his military service.
First, they ALL should be thanked for their service — whether their opinion matches Limbaugh’s or not.
But I won’t hold my breath waiting on a Congressional censure against Limbaugh for his nationally broadcast anti-patriotic garbage like they broke their necks to hang on MoveOn.org for actually calling a spade a spade . . .
Nope. Clear Channel Communications is behind the gas-bag comedian (it owns Premiere Radio Network which syndicates his daily carnival act) and we know our Senators and Congressmen don’t usually do anything that makes a big corporate donor mad. They save their fake indignation for lone targets that are easier-pickins’.
Limbaugh’s quote has been highlighted below. This is from the September 26 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: Mike in Chicago, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER 1: Hi Rush, how you doing today?
LIMBAUGH: I’m fine sir, thank you.
CALLER 1: Good. Why is it that you always just accuse the Democrats of being against the war and suggest that there are absolutely no Republicans that could possibly be against the war?
LIMBAUGH: Well, who are these Republicans? I can think of Chuck Hagel, and I can think of Gordon Smith, two Republican senators, but they don’t want to lose the war like the Democrats do. I can’t think of — who are the Republicans in the anti-war movement?
CALLER 1: I’m just — I’m not talking about the senators. I’m talking about the general public — like you accuse the public of all the Democrats of being, you know, wanting to lose, but –
LIMBAUGH: Oh, come on! Here we go again. I uttered a truth, and you can’t handle it, so you gotta call here and change the subject. How come I’m not also hitting Republicans? I don’t know a single Republican or conservative, Mike, who wants to pull out of Iraq in defeat. The Democrats have made the last four years about that specifically.
CALLER 1: Well, I am a Republican, and I’ve listened to you for a long time, and you’re right on a lot of things, but I do believe that we should pull out of Iraq. I don’t think it’s winnable. And I’m not a Democrat, but I just — sometimes you’ve got to cut the losses.
LIMBAUGH: Well, you — you –
CALLER 1: I mean, sometimes you really gotta know when you’re wrong.
LIMBAUGH: Well, yeah, you do. I’m not wrong on this. The worst thing that can happen is losing this, flying out of there, waving the white flag. Do you have –
CALLER 1: Oh, I’m not saying that. I’m not saying anything like that, but, you know –
LIMBAUGH: Well, of course you are.
CALLER 1: No, I’m not.
LIMBAUGH: Bill, the truth is — the truth is the truth, Mike.
CALLER 1: We did what we were supposed to do, OK. We got rid of Saddam Hussein. We got rid of a lot of the terrorists. Let them run their country –
LIMBAUGH: Oh, good lord! Good lord.
[...]
CALLER 1: How long is it gonna — how long do you think we’re going to have to be there for them to take care of that?
LIMBAUGH: Mike –
CALLER 1: How long — you know — what is it?
LIMBAUGH: Mike –
CALLER 1: What is it?
LIMBAUGH: Mike, you can’t possibly be a Republican.
CALLER 1: I am.
LIMBAUGH: You are — you are –
CALLER 1: I am definitely a Republican.
LIMBAUGH: You can’t be a Republican. You are –
CALLER 1: Oh, I am definitely a Republican.
LIMBAUGH: You are tarnishing the reputation, ’cause you sound just like a Democrat.
CALLER 1: No, but –
LIMBAUGH: The answer to your question –
CALLER 1: — seriously, how long do we have to stay there –
LIMBAUGH: As long as it takes!
CALLER 1: — to win it? How long?
LIMBAUGH: As long as it takes! It is very serious.
CALLER 1: And that is what?
LIMBAUGH: This is the United States of America at war with Islamofascists. We stay as long — just like your job. You do everything you have to do, whatever it takes to get it done, if you take it seriously.
CALLER 1: So then you say we need to stay there forever –
LIMBAUGH: I — it won’t –
CALLER 1: — because that’s what it’ll take.
LIMBAUGH: No, Bill, or Mike — I’m sorry. I’m confusing you with the guy from Texas.
CALLER 1: See, I — I’ve used to be military, OK? And I am a Republican.
LIMBAUGH: Yeah. Yeah.
CALLER 1: And I do live [inaudible] but –
LIMBAUGH: Right. Right. Right, I know.
CALLER 1: — you know, really — I want you to be saying how long it’s gonna take.
LIMBAUGH: And I, by the way, used to walk on the moon!
CALLER 1: How long do we have to stay there?
LIMBAUGH: You’re not listening to what I say. You can’t possibly be a Republican. I’m answering every question. That’s not what you want to hear, so it’s not even penetrating your little wall of armor you’ve got built up.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: Another Mike, this one in Olympia, Washington. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER 2: Hi Rush, thanks for taking my call.
LIMBAUGH: You bet.
CALLER 2: I have a retort to Mike in Chicago, because I am a serving American military, in the Army. I’ve been serving for 14 years, very proudly.
LIMBAUGH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER 2: And, you know, I’m one of the few that joined the Army to serve my country, I’m proud to say, not for the money or anything like that. What I would like to retort to is that, if we pull — what these people don’t understand is if we pull out of Iraq right now, which is about impossible because of all the stuff that’s over there, it’d take us at least a year to pull everything back out of Iraq, then Iraq itself would collapse, and we’d have to go right back over there within a year or so. And –
LIMBAUGH: There’s a lot more than that that they don’t understand. They can’t even — if — the next guy that calls here, I’m gonna ask him: Why should we pull — what is the imperative for pulling out? What’s in it for the United States to pull out? They can’t — I don’t think they have an answer for that other than, “Well, we just gotta bring the troops home.”
CALLER 2: Yeah, and, you know what –
LIMBAUGH: “Save the — keep the troops safe” or whatever. I — it’s not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.
CALLER 2: No, it’s not, and what’s really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.
LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.
CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they’re willing to sacrifice for their country.
LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined –
CALLER 2: A lot of them — the new kids, yeah.
LIMBAUGH: Well, you know where you’re going these days, the last four years, if you signed up. The odds are you’re going there or Afghanistan or somewhere.
CALLER 2: Exactly, sir.
North American Union
This is long, but you’re not going to hear a single word about any of it in the corporate propaganda media . . . and it tells a sick story about a President just as hell-bent to sell our sovereignty as he was to invade Iraq.
President Bush is apparently not satisfied with hurting this country only through his wars of aggression.
He is secretly pushing a merger of the United States, with Mexico and Canada, into a new North American Union. Part of that will be to replace the U.S. dollar with a new currency, the Amero. The super-highway linking Mexico, the United States and Canada is part of the grand plan too.
Just Google “North American Union” and you can read for days . . .
While many play word-games to imply this is nothing more than a tin-foil hat conspiracy. I know it’s not.
A Congressman from Virginia knows it’s not either.
Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) introduced H.C.R. 40 which is titled, “Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada”
Listen, you need to find out what this group of rogues is trying to do to our great country. They have sold out to the bankers and corporations and are trying to deliver our great nation up on a platter for profit.
Congressman Goode was recently asked if the president was risking electoral success for the Republican Party in 2008 with his insistence on pushing for North American integration via the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP.
“Yes,” Goode answered. “You won’t hear the leadership in the Republic Party admit it, but there are many in the House and Senate who know that illegal immigration has to be stopped and legal immigration has to be reduced. We are giving away the country so a few very rich people can get richer.”
How did he react when President Bush referred to those who suggest the SPP could turn into the North American Union as “conspiracy theorists”?
“The president is really engaging in a play on words,” Goode responded. “The secretary of transportation came before our subcommittee,” he explained, “and I had the opportunity to ask her some questions about the NAFTA Superhighway. Of course, she answered, ‘There’s no NAFTA Superhighway.’ But then Mary Peters proceeded to discuss the road system that would come up from Mexico and go through the United States up into Canada.”
“So, I think that saying we’re ‘conspiracy theorists’ or something like that is really just a play on words with the intent to demonize the opposition,” Goode concluded.
Goode stressed that the Bush administration supports both a NAU regional government and a NAFTA Superhighway system: “The Bush administration as well as Mexico and Canada have persons in the government in all three countries who want to a see a North American Union as well as a highway system that would bring goods into the west coast of Mexico and transport them up through Mexico into the United States and then in onto Canada,” Goode confirmed.
The Virginia congressman said he believes the motivation behind the movement toward North American integration is the anticipated profits the large multinational corporations in each of the three countries expect to make from global trade, especially moving production to China.
“Some really large businesses that get a lot from China would like a NAFTA Superhighway system because it would reduce costs for them to transport containers from China and, as a result, increase their margins,” he argued.
“I am vigorously opposed to the Mexican trucks coming into the country,” Goode continued. “The way we have done it and, I think, the way we should do it in the future, is to have the goods come into the United States from Mexico within a 20-mile commercial space and unloaded from Mexican trucks into U.S. trucks. This procedure enhances the safety of the country, the security of the country, and provides much less chance for illegal immigration.”
The United States Department of Transportation has begun a Mexican truck “demonstration project” under which 100 Mexican trucking companies are being allowed to run their long-haul rigs throughout the U.S. as you read this. I have truck driver friends who tell me it’s already causing serious problems because the Mexicans cannot read English road signs and they intentionally fail to follow speed and safety regulations — since there’s no way to enforce those laws when they are back in Mexico 2-3 days later.
Previously, Mexican trucks have been limited to a 20-mile commercial zone in the United States, with the requirement that goods bound for locations in the U.S. beyond the 20-mile commercial zone be off-loaded to U.S. trucks.
This is all a major sell-out of our country in favor of greedy corporations and, thankfully, the Washington politicians are more afraid of getting booted right out of their cushy “jobs” and are not supporting the plan.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., successfully offered an amendment to the Department of Transportation Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations bill to block DOT from spending any federal funds to implement the truck project.
Dorgan’s amendment passed 75-23, after Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., changed her vote to support Dorgan.
By a voice vote, the House passed an amendment offered by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., to the DOT appropriations bill comparable to Dorgan’s, designed to block the agency from using federal funds to implement the truck project.
DeFazio chairs the House transportation subcommittee that oversees motor carriers.
“With the Trans-Texas Corridor, which I would say is part of the NAFTA Superhighway system, and with this NAFTA plot with the Mexican trucks just coming in and not loading off to U.S. trucks, they will just drive right over the Rio Grande and come on over into Texas,” Goode argued. “A lot of these Mexican trucks will be bring containerized cargo from the west coast of Mexico where they will be unloaded in Mexican ports to avoid the fees and costs of unloading at U.S. ports.”
“So, when you look at the total package,” he continued, “we do have a NAFTA Superhighway system already in place. There are those in all three countries that believe we should have a North American Union and the Security and Prosperity Partnership, in my opinion takes us down that road. And I am vigorously opposed to the loss of our sovereignty.”
Why, WND asked, do so many congressmen and senators insist on writing and telling their constituents that they don’t know anything about the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or that SPP working groups are really just to increase our competitiveness?
“In the House, a strong majority voted to provide no money in the transportation funding bill,” Goode responded. “I commend Congressman Duncan Hunter for submitting an amendment to the Department of Transportation funding bill [which] got over 360 votes that said no funds in the transportation appropriation measure, prohibiting Department of Transportation funds from being used to participate on working groups that promote the Security and Prosperity Partnership.”
“So, I think a majority the House, if you had an up or down vote on the SPP, would vote down on the SPP,” Goode concluded. “But some still say, and it’s a play on words, that we don’t have a Security and Prosperity Partnership that will lead to a North American Union. I don’t think they can say anymore that we don’t have a Security and Prosperity Partnership arrangement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, because that was done in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005, and the recent meeting at Montebello was to talk about it further.”
All meetings to discuss this are always held in private with no media allowed anywhere near.
For example, on August 21, 2007, in one of a dozen or so meetings the corporate media has refused to tell you about, George W. Bush, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, and Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper all met privately at The Fairmont Le Chateau, literally in the middle of the Quebec woods, to discuss the Security and Prosperity Partnership while various public advocacy groups, environmental groups, labor unions – and the press – were physically excluded by the military.
Should SPP working group meetings be open to the public?
“I wish they were,” Goode responded. “If it is as the Bush administration says, ‘We’re not planning any North American Union,’ then why wouldn’t those meetings be open, why wouldn’t you let the media in?” Goode asked.
“But some of the very big corporations want the goods from China to come in here unchecked,” he continued. “It costs money for U.S. trucks to transport Chinese goods from West Coast ports like Los Angeles or Long Beach. But if you can have a Mexican truck and Mexican truck driver, that’s going to be cheaper. And it’s all about the margins. The margins relate directly to how much money the multi-national corporations are going to make.”
Has the Senate debate on the Dorgan amendment brought the issues of the NAU and NAFTA Superhighways more to the attention of the Senate?
“I think so,” Goode said. “That debate had a very positive effect. You had grassroots support calling the Senate on the Dorgan amendment.
“The Bush administration engages in the same play of words with all these issues,” Goode added. “Take a look at the Kennedy-McCain comprehensive immigration reform, which the Bush administration has now tried to jam through the Senate not once, but twice.
“The Bush administration claims it’s not [amnesty] when you let someone stay in the country and give them a path to citizenship,” Goode pointed out. “Well, that’s their definition, not my definition, and not the definition of the majority of the public. The majority of the public called in and buried the amnesty bill because of public pressure. Public pressure also got de-funded the pilot program on Mexican trucks in this country.”
So should the U.S. pull out of the SPP?
“Yes,” Goode answered, “but the best way to end SPP would be to have a chief executive that wouldn’t do anything with it.”
What does Goode think of the state legislatures that are passing anti-NAU, anti-NAFTA Superhighway and anti-SPP resolutions?
“If enough state legislatures pass resolutions like that, it surely should have an impact on the House and the Senate,” Goode said.
“President Bush’s position is that we need to carry out NAFTA and we need to have this free flow of goods with Mexico and Canada,” Goode explained. “Well, Bush’s approach involves a derogation of our sovereignty and it also undermines the security and the safety of the country.
“It will be much easier for a truck to get a container on the west coast of Mexico and haul in a biological or radiological or nuclear weapon than it would be if you are going to have to unload the trucks on the Texas-Mexico border and put the goods and material in a U.S. truck,” he continued.
“The problem is that the NAU, NAFTA Superhighways and SPP all go back to money,” Goode stressed. “The multinational companies want their goods from Mexico and China because they want the cheap labor.”
Credit to Jerome Corsi and World Net Daily
ISPs Selling Your Information Again
Wonder which one, the CIA or NSA, provided the “seed money” for this venture?
According to the company’s CEO, “We only look at consumer sites - not ones that are sensitive. So if you go to a sex site, we don’t track that. If you look up something for HIV positive, we don’t look at that. But if you are planning travel to the South of France or are researching a Lexus SUV, we do track that.” Uh, yeah . . . right.
In the past, when ISPs have attempted to make money off their users’ clickstream data, they have met with fierce objections. Now, a new company, NebuAd, is asking ISPs to provide not only clickstream data, but also your personal information such as physical location — and they then want to use this data to target ads to you.
This technology, known as deep packet inspection, allows NebuAd to not only see what web sites people visit but also what queries those users enter into search engines, and which web sites they go to from those searches.