Snow on the Mexican Trucking Situation

Tony Snow has weighed in on Mexican big rigs rolling across our southernmost border into our country.

I suppose it should come as no surprise that the outgoing White House press secretary would be in support of this "experiment" sponsored by the President.

From WorldNetDaily:

Snow not buying Hoffa's 'disaster' description
Teamsters want Bush administration's Mexico truck program stopped
Posted: September 1, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

The outgoing spokesman for President Bush says the U.S. Department of Transportation is trying to make sure that any trucks and truckers on U.S. highways are safe.

Tony Snow, who announced his plans to leave the White House post in two weeks, added that he doesn't believe what the president of the Teamsters Union has to say about the issue actually would be impartial.

He was responding to a press briefing question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House. Kinsolving asked: "Teamsters President Hoffa has called the Bush administration's test program to allow Mexican trucks unrestricted access to U.S. highways, in his words, 'a disaster; all we're asking is that Mexican trucks and truckers meet the same standards as American trucks and drivers.' My question: Why do the Teamsters have to go to court to try to make Mexican truck drivers meet the same drug screening, physical evaluations and hazmat certifications as U.S. truckers?"

The Teamsters and other organizations went to court this week to try to obtain an order halting the program, and the Bush administration has responded with a request that it be allowed to move forward.

"There are a number of things that the Department of Transportation is involved in, in trying to maintain and ascertain and guarantee the safety of any trucks that are on U.S. highways," Snow said. "I don't think that I will buy lock, stock and barrel what the president of the Teamsters Union has to say about possibly competing trucking operations."

The Bush administration's court response to the request by the Sierra Club and Teamsters to block the program, scheduled to begin this weekend, was that the two organizations didn't have standing to ask for the halt, since they cannot prove the pilot program will harm them.

The two groups opposed the program, to involve 100 Mexican trucking companies with the possibility of bringing thousands of Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways, citing safety concerns and competition with U.S. truckers.

Mexican trucks and truckers already are allowed into the U.S., and the administration said 4.5 million trips are made each year. They are, however, limited to a short zone along the border, while the new program would erase that limit and give them virtually unrestricted access nationwide...

On an upnote, however, there ARE SOME laws that have been on the books for some time that are FINALLY going to be enforced...so they say:

Truck drivers will be required to read, speak English
By LYNN BREZOSKY
The Associated Press

HARLINGEN -- Interstate truck and bus drivers across America may find themselves pulled off the highway if state troopers or vehicle inspectors find they can't speak English.

The requirement has been on the books for decades, but enforcement has begun before Mexican trucks are allowed in the U.S. interior as of Thursday.

"We have found people in violation of this for a number of years, and we're working feverishly to correct it," said John Hill, head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Since 1971, federal law has said that commercial drivers must read and speak English "sufficiently to understand highway traffic signs and signals and directions given in English and to respond to official inquiries."

Hill said the language deficiency was found mostly in the commercial zone that varies from 25 miles to 75 miles north of the Mexican border, but since inspectors there are bilingual and Mexican truckers are not allowed past that zone, it hasn't been an issue.

But after more than a decade of legal wrangling, U.S. highways are opening up.

The North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 called for Mexican and U.S. trucks to travel freely throughout one another's nations, but the provision was stalled by labor unions and environmental groups' arguments that the trucks are unsafe...

NAFTA has been around for a number of years, but has it been a good thing? How many U.S. factories have moved their operations to Mexico, costing American workers their jobs? Has that benefited the families of those workers? I don't think so.

North American Union Already Starting to Replace USA
by Jerome R. Corsi
Posted: 05/30/2006

In March 2005 at their summit meeting in Waco, Tex., President Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin issued a joint statement announced the creation of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP). The creation of this new agreement was never submitted to Congress for debate and decision. Instead, the U.S. Department of Commerce merely created a new division under the same title to implement working groups to advance a North American Union working agenda in a wide range of areas, including: manufactured goods, movement of goods, energy, environment, e-commerce, financial services, business facilitation, food and agriculture, transportation, and health.

SPP is headed by three top cabinet level officers of each country. Representing the United States are Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Representing Mexico are Secretario de Economía Fernando Canales, Secretario de Gobernación Carlos Abascal, and Secretario de Relaciones Exteriores, Luis Ernesto Derbéz. Representing Canada are Minister of Industry David L. Emerson, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety, Anne McLellan, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pierre Stewart Pettigrew.

Reporting in June 2005 to the heads of state of the three countries, the trilateral SPP emphasized the extensive working group structure that had been established to pursue an ambitious agenda:

In carrying out your instructions, we established working groups under both agendas of the Partnership – Security and Prosperity. We held roundtables with stakeholders, meetings with business groups and briefing sessions with Legislatures, as well as with other relevant political jurisdictions. The result is a detailed series of actions and recommendations designed to increase the competitiveness of North America and the security of our people.

This is not a theoretical exercise being prepared so it can be submitted for review. Instead, SPP is producing an action agreement to be implemented directly by regulations, without any envisioned direct Congressional oversight.

Upon your review and approval, we will once again meet with stakeholders and work with them to implement the workplans that we have developed.

And again, the June 2005 SPP report stresses:

The success of our efforts will be defined less by the contents of the work plans than by the actual implementation of initiatives and strategies that will make North America more prosperous and more secure.

Reviewing the specific working agenda initiatives, the goal to implement directly is apparent. Nearly every work plan is characterized by action steps described variously as “our three countries signed a Framework of Common Principles …” or “we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding …,” or “we have signed a declaration of intent …” etc. Once again, none of the 30 or so working agendas makes any mention of submitting decisions to the U.S. Congress for review and approval. No new U.S. laws are contemplated for the Bush administration to submit to Congress. Instead, the plan is obviously to knit together the North American Union completely under the radar, through a process of regulations and directives issued by various U.S. government agencies.

What we have here is an executive branch plan being implemented by the Bush administration to construct a new super-regional structure completely by fiat. Yet, we can find no single speech in which President Bush has ever openly expressed to the American people his intention to create a North American Union by evolving NAFTA into this NAFTA-Plus as a first, implementing step...

And we wonder why our borders are not more secure?

More updates as things develop.

Previous postings in this continuing series:

18 wheels and a dozen...Jose's?

Pig Pen this here's the Gringo Duck...

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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Presenting the Rubber Chicken Award

The Rubber Chicken Award

The rubber chicken has been a standard prop in many situations throughout the years. Vaudevillian comics used them extensively, they are seen in movies, there is even a site for sending rubber chicken cards.

One of the best uses of the rubber chicken is to bonk someone over the head with it. The media is FILLED with people who deserve to be smacked about the head and shoulders with a rubber chicken from time to time, some of them need it on a daily basis.

The process for choosing the Rubber Chicken Award is a very simple one. The headlines are perused for the week and the person who is deemed as the most ridiculous and does the most to undermine the integrity of United States is chosen for nomination. There are plenty to choose from.

Our first award of the Rubber Chicken will be George Soros, major funder of MoveOn.org and several other organizations whose goal is the undoing of the United States, the foundation of the North American Union, and general doer of mischief that leads to the undermining of our National Interests. This man could be Lex Luthor.

From About.com

Do we have to listen when the billionaire speaks?
George Soros Addresses a Jewish Audience

George Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to London as a child, is ranked the 28th richest person in the United States (with a fortune valued at $7 billion) by Forbes magazine.

In November 2003, for the first time ever, the billionaire spoke to a Jewish audience at the conference of the Jewish Funders Network. Many people were dismayed by his call for “regime change” in the United States, his talk of funding projects in “Palestine" and the Geneva Accord, and his ideas about the cause of anti-Semitism.

Soros said European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States. “There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that,” Soros said. “If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish,” he said. “I can’t see how one could confront it directly.”

(...)

“Let’s understand things clearly: Anti-Semitism is not caused by Jews; it’s caused by anti-Semites,” said Elan Steinberg, senior advisor at the World Jewish Congress. “One can certainly be critical of Bush policy or Sharon policy, but any deviation from the understanding of the real cause of anti-Semitism is not merely a disservice, but a historic lie.”

In addition to his unhelpful ideas, Soros has given scant money to Jewish causes. Soros said he has not given much to Jewish or Israel-related causes because Jews take care of their own, so that his financial clout is better directed elsewhere...

Not quite the rosy picture his own authorized bio suggests:

George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management, LLC and founder of The Open Society Institute. He was born in Budapest in 1930. He survived the Nazi occupation and then fled communist Hungary for England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics. He then settled in the United States, where he accumulated a large fortune through the investment advisory firm he founded and managed. Mr. Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979. He has established a network of philanthropic organizations that are now active in more than 50 countries. These organizations are dedicated to promoting the values of democracy and an open society. The foundation network spends about $400 million annually...

From The Traditional Values Coalition:

Atheist George Soros Funds MoveOn.org

August 27, 2004 – Capital Research Center "Foundation Watch" has published a two-part series on atheist and one-worlder George Soros and his financial support of MoveOn.org, a leftist web site dedicated to the election of John Kerry as the next president.

The CRC notes that MoveOn.org is actually three different organizations: a nonprofit educational group; a lobbying organization; and a political action committee. Soros and other millionaire liberals have poured as much as $15 million into this group. MoveOn.org also gets money from the Iraq Peace Fund and other left-leaning foundations...

From American Patriot Journal:

George Soros, Postmodern Villain

The following article was written by Srdja Trifkovic about how George Soros has influenced Eastern Europe after the demise of the Soviet Union.

The reason I find this article interesting is that it is hard not to draw a parallel between what Soros’ Open Society agenda has done in Eastern Europe and what Soros and his Secular Progressive soldiers are trying to, and in some cases succeded, in the United States of America.

George Soros, Postmodern Villain
by Srdja Trifkovic

George Soros was born in Budapest in 1930 but, today, spends most of his time in New York City. Not much is known about his early years. He is the only eminent “holocaust survivor” who has been accused of collaboration with the Nazis. In 1947, he managed to sneak through the Iron Curtain, and, the official story goes, “he landed penniless in London, but by hard work and sheer genius, he rose to become one of the planet’s most successful investors and richest men.”

Mr. Soros’ peculiar moral values, political views, and ideological preferences would be immaterial without the money that he can spend promoting and imposing them. The bulk of that money-currently estimated at not less than seven billion dollars-was earned in the minus-sum game of currency and stock speculation, contributing nothing to the creation of wealth and making millions of ordinary people poorer in the process. His offshore Quantum Fund-legally headquartered in Curacao, beyond U.S.-government supervision-specializes in speculative investments to take advantage of deliberately induced political and economic weaknesses of different countries and regions. In an interview with the Swiss weekly L’hebdo (May 1993), Soros outlined his strategy: “I speculate on discrepancy between the reality and the public image of this reality, until a correctional mechanism occurs, which approaches these two.”

His profits are staggering. On September 16, 1992, he famously made a billion dollars in one day by betting against the Bank of England and the pound sterling. In July 1997, he contributed to the Southeast Asian financial crisis by shorting the Thai bath. In early 2000, he supposedly suffered losses on tech stocks, but some analysts now suggest that the burn of the NASDAQ was controlled and that Soros helped to start the fire. By last November, he was betting the U.S. dollar would plummet. As the London Independent reported (November 28, 2003), his activities were contributing to a growing belief on Wall Street that the dollar would slide even further.

There is nothing new in Soros’ approach to making money or in the ability of such a person to make an impact, invariably detrimental, on his host society’s morals and culture. What is new with Mr. Soros-in addition to the implausible claim that a private speculator could get as far as he has unaided by any established financial interests-is his systematic, concerted effort to use a large part of his fortune to promote his peculiar social and political views. He does so through a global network of “nongovernmental organizations” named after himself and active primarily in Eastern Europe but also in Africa, Latin America, and the United States. At age 75, money is not his object but his tool. He has used it to develop a well-coordinated global operation centered on the Open Society Institute (OSI) in New York, which funds a network of subsidiaries in over 50 countries.

George Soros, ladies and gentlemen. Financier of the erasure of international borders in favor of a singular centralized global government. Winner of the Wake Up America's first presentation of the Rubber Chicken Award.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

Another Wounded Veteran speaks about anger at Congress and Victory:




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Pig Pen this here's the Gringo Duck...

C.W. McCall may have my hide for that one. The original lyrics from the song "Convoy" are "Pig Pen this here's the Rubber Duck and I'm about to put the hammer down."

Like a high school drama queen arriving late to the prom so that everyone will see her, the dinosaur media has finally decided to report on what I've brought to your attention back in January.

From ABC news:

Mexico trucks to roll on U.S. highways

By John Crawley
Sep 1, 2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration can proceed with a plan to open the U.S. border to long haul Mexican trucks as early as next week after an appeals court rejected a bid by labor, consumer and environmental interests to block the initiative.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco late on Friday denied an emergency petition sought by the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and consumer group Public Citizen to halt the start of a one-year pilot program that was approved by Congress after years of legal and political wrangling.

The Transportation Department welcomed the decision and said in a statement that allowing more direct shipments from Mexico will benefit U.S. consumers.

The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement approved broader access for ground shipments from both countries but the Clinton administration never complied with the trucking provision. A special tribunal ordered the Bush administration to do so in 2001.

"This is the wrong decision for working men and women," Jim Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, said in a statement after the court ruling. "We believe this program clearly breaks the law." The Teamsters represents truckers that would be affected by the change.

And so do I.

More as it develops.

That it has been pushed back to the 6th rather than having started today as originally slated is a good sign, however, in my mind. It gives more time for this insanity to be fought.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

[Update] More at Reuters.


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