The Democrats want the United States to play, perenially, on “defense.”
Conservatives want the United States to play, perenially, on “offense.”
The GOP, via President Bush in many unfortunate instances, appears to side with the Democrats and here is another example:
Mexican Truckers. Go here to read the text of the NAFTA agreement.
Is it any wonder that the Teamsters have taken umbrage over this glossed-over issue?
A lawsuit has been filed by the Teamsters against the Transportation Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration over a pilot plan to allow Mexican truck drivers – and trucks – access to U.S. highways.
As WND has reported, the government will have no access to whether those truckers have any criminal records, and the system is being set up to allow those trucks loaded with goods to cross the border in as little as 15 seconds.
The action was filed Monday in federal court in California, alleging the Bush administration’s program failed to publish proper, advance notice of the pilot plan and failed to allow an opportunity for public comment before the program takes effect.
Let’s Examine The Issue Further:
On February 23rd of this year, Mary Peters, Secretary of Transportation, announced that Mexican trucks will have full access to the US via a cross-border pilot program, starting later this month.
US trucks will be allowed to make deliveries into Mexico, whilst a “select group” of Mexican trucking companies will be allowed to make deliveries beyond the 20-to-25 mile commercial zones extant along our southwest border.
US inspectors will conduct in-person “safety audits” to make sure that “participating Mexican companies” comply with US safety regulations.
These regulations require that Mexican truck drivers hold a valid commercial driving license, carry proof that they are medically fit, comply with US hours-of-service rules, and be able to understand questions and directions in English.
Indications: “Some of these trucks may not have been completely and thoroughly inspected at the US-Mexico border due to current in-place procedures.”
But Wait, There’s More:
I wonder: has anyone considered that al Qaeda or other terrorists may attempt to portray themselves as humble Mexican truckers? But of course this is merely wild and specious conjecture; how dare we adjudge persons so? And why are Teamsters, the Golden Children of Democrats, objecting? And why are no Democrats objecting? Conflict? Hypocrisy? Why is the GOP collectively silent?
Also: considering the consistently-excellent record of Mexicans obeying American laws in general, might it be logical for us to extend this record of lawful compliance to those driving Mexican trucks as well?
Hey. Just some thoughts to consider.
Final thought based in BZ reality: President Bush, what in the hell are you thinking? I don’t hear you screaming against it, so I conclude your tacit condonation of the plan.
BZ
Gonna piss off a few of your readers if ya blast Bush for anything there BZ…
I know, I did it a long time ago, before 68% of the nation was on the band wagon, I saw thru the guy way back, and said so…
I don’t know WHY he does but I know Bush loves the wetbacks, loves em more than ANY American citizen, the ‘Stutterer in Chief’ is giving this nation away and refuses to do anything that remotely resembles border security, all the while allowing good men to rot in jail for doing their jobs, shooting wetback invaders and drug dealers…
A bigger Mexican loving traitor to this nation you will not find and this Mexican trucking thing is about to get a lot of people killed on the roads and highways of this nation…
Fred: you express yourself in language comfortable for you; I express myself in language with which I am comfortable. The two ends meet in the middle, enabling essentially the same mission.
I am beyond frustrated; there is an agenda here that, for some odd reason, I manage not to comprehend.
If some can shed light on the Overall Arching Effect, please educate me.
Absent a detailed and cogent response, Bush is merely a simple dupe for any number of Buzz Topics. He shines in a few but, these days, purposely steps in the most evil of political quicksand.
I just don’t understand.
BZ
Actually, BZ, on this one, the US Senate would have to act to abregate an agreed upon trade act, NAFTA. This was negotiated by Bush #1, and approved by both Houses of Congress during the Clinton Administration.
While I am sure the US government has in the past just ignored negotiated agreements on trade or any number of things, perhaps this time, our gov’t, GOP and Dem alike, have decided it may actually be in our best interests.
You know, with the short run nature of the shipping business, NAFTA is basically already obsolete.
The way Treaties work is that either the Senate or the President may step from them. They are *not* the Law of the Land, and any supporting legislation would fall once the Treaty was stepped away from. NAFTA was and is an awful deal as it does not help the US, makes Mexico forever able to escape from doing anything for its people, and opens up more unregulated and unchecked flow from the South to the North.
And remember that Hezbollah, Hamas and al Qaeda are actively recruiting in the Arab ex-pat communities in Central and South America.
It is not a question *when* the US gets hit, but how hard and how often.
We have seen automatic weapons fire from Mexico to the US, Mexican Federal Army over-running a US position, Mexican Federal Police aiding and abetting those crossing the border illegally. Plus captured a lovely individual from Canada taking three tons of pseudoephedrine to Mexico to be made into meth… that individual worked for Hezbollah.
The Islamic terrorist organizations are already here, already recruiting and already putting in place their trade network to finance terror *here*. This is not helped by making it *easier* for individuals to cross the borders nor weeding out the terror sympathizers already here. I don’t care where an individual comes from or what reason they are here illegally, be they Irish, Haitian, Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, Chilean, Romanian… they can all go home now and do it *right*.
Because not doing so is a death wish.
It is *not* humanitarian to say to a terror supporter and sympathizer: ‘well you do some work here, thats ok then.’ So sorry, I do not like that and the Law of the Land stands against that. I find this President unable to face up to that fact, and that these ‘good people’ who blithely break our laws need to be addressed as criminals first and prove that they are who they say they are. Then taken home. Which is *not* the US.
Just how much nerve toxin or bacillus anthrasis can be packed into a weaponized cargo container on a semi? How many AKs and RPG-7s can be smuggled in and have been already? We have already seen one street thug with a case of hand grenades caught in St. Louis. AKs turn up in some drug busts. These do not come from *nowhere*. Nor did the grey market goods ring in LA with connections to the Triads in LA… working for Hezbhollah. Perhaps FARC is using those connections to threaten Congress… shouldn’t take much considering how inept both parties have been at stopping terrorist sympathizers here in the US.
Free trade does not lead to freedom. That has been proven the case ever since that toxic idea started and has led to no good end since then. Time for the Right to get off of its high horse on that. And for the Left to recognize that being ‘humanitarian’ and bleeding heart to those that will do no good to the Nation leads to slitting of the Nation’s wrists and bleeding it dry.
Whatever did happen to the universal rights of man to be individual and form society? No taxation without representation? Is that Nation still around anywhere?
Seems to have gone missing.
Let me know if you see it anywhere.
We could use some of that clarity these days.
Before we are killed for the lack of it.
bigwhitehat said…
You know, with the short run nature of the shipping business, NAFTA is basically already obsolete.
***********************
It was a boondoggle right from the start, it’s all designed towards a One World thing… The North American Union, nothingless… Just a part of killing the USA and this time it’s not just GW Bush, NAFTA goes back a ways, it came into being under Daddy Bush, Mr. One World himself, and the nut didn’t fall far from the tree with Georgie…
North American Free Trade Agreement
Some pundits are theorizing that Teamsters and truck drivers shall eventually lose their jobs, pushed aside by cheap drivers. These same pundits say those jobs will be made up on the production side because more “free trade” means that American workers will have to “produce more” to keep up with Mexican and South American “demand.”
I am very unconvinced when it comes to this theory.
BZ
You will never piss me off for stating the truth as you see it BZ, because when you don’t agree with President Bush on an issue, you do it with class.
I don’t like, nor do I understand, Bush’s position on this issue either, and I have posted about it before. Why a politician whose residence away from DC is a ranch in Texas would not want to close the borders is something I’ll never understand.
We’re sort of on the same page. I posted about truckers today too.
PS: Perhaps if the president’s ranch were closer to the border he would have a completely different opinion on this issue.
Gayle: can you imagine the horror and frustration border ranch owners experience, on THEIR OWN PROPERTY, in the UNITED STATES, being shot at, assaulted, having illegals use their land as a urinal and fecal repository, trash repository, vandalized, etc? It goes on and on.
BZ
Class has nothing to do with it, BZ has called him as many kinds of asshole as I have…
Oh how I love the hypocrisy…
NAFTA was obsolete before it started.
Fred, you know we look at free trade completely differently. But I gotta agree with you a bit on NAFTA.
I can see making treaties with Canada but negotiating with third world countries is like marring children.
Were giving free reign that we don’t give our own truckers. We are soon to be buying fuel from Mexican refineries that we won’t allow at home because we regulate refineries so heavily that nobody will build them at home.
Free trade should start with freeing our own country.
BWH: Yes, yes YES! “Free trade” SHOULD begin at home!
BZ
“PS: Perhaps if the president’s ranch were closer to the border he would have a completely different opinion on this issue.”
Great idea, as long as it’s on the Mexican side of the border and he takes his “Bots” with him..
It’s called New World Order, that’s all he cares about.
LOL, Fred! I haven’t seen those posts so I still believe BZ has class. Perhaps I’m wrong as you seem to think, (sorry, BZ) but I don’t believe that makes me a hypocrite. 🙂
BZ, I don’t have to imagine it… I can see it for real if I choose. I’ve been down that way more than once. As you can probably imagine, lately I try to avoid going in that direction whenever possible.
Full and complete inspection of all cargo entering the US, along with people and vehicles.
Why Dept. of Homeland Security has been working on this since it was *formed*. Where the hell is it?
Formed on 1 MAR 2003 they have only had four YEARS to figure this out. Is it really *that* difficult?
How about getting a handle on what is *inside* containers on containerized ships? If Chinese can smuggle themselves here via that, then that means a lot of other stuff can also find its way here.
And why, exactly, should Mexican drivers of cargo be allowed into the US? Wouldn’t trans-shipping depots at the border give a good chance to inspect the cargo? And then allow American firms to haul it?
Since when did NAFTA mean that Mexico gets to send its unemployed north, because they can’t get rid of graft, corruption and bribery in their own?
What sort of “friend” of this Nation does that?
Or that allows automatic weapons fire from their side of the border into ours?
Or fires across the border at our civil police?
Can we get a President who will just do this very simple thing known as ‘enforce the laws’? You know, Chief Law Enforcement Officer for the Republic?
At this rate a good, hard-nosed Chief of Police would do a better job than *this*. Those that aren’t stuck in areas violating 6 Articles of the Constitution and a number of Amendments, that is…
The only thing that this President has done right is actually go after two Nations that were aiding those seeking to bring us down. I wish that he would use that as a *theme* and just keep right on going down the list because Mexico lands in the top 10 of that. Right behind al Qaeda, Iran/Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas, Syria, North Korea, FARC and Venezuela. Right after that is Mexico. FARC beats them by trying to assassinate President Clinton while he was in office. That should raise ire on the D side, but doesn’t for some reason.
I am seeing a real bad case of ‘missing survival instinct’ in Wash, D.C. Time to get out of Dodge as soon as can be done as al Qaeda *always* repeats attacks that don’t work out so well the first time around. I have this strange feeling we are in for re-runs very, very soon.
as if you are the rightfull owners of the great plains .
for tens of thousands of years the indians,Apaches, Comanches, Navajo, etc. etc. were the only ones living there.now you,whites from europe ,live there for a few hundred years,by stealing indian country and killing most of the indians(something you are good at,destroying life and people who have other ways of living then yours.think Vietnamese communism for example).
and now you claim that country as if it has been yours only and forever.what a joke.learn to live with it.power doesn’t stay in the same hands forever.not with the old Romans.not with you “rednecks”?
yes and I’m white.and from Europe.I know what I’m talking about.you are way too aggressive for my taste.try to learn a new dance.instead of the way of the gun.that gun will hunt you down.which is called karma.you will harvest what you’ve have sowed.if it is violence.you do the math.