eminent domain
Taking from the Middle Class to Give to the Rich
Kay Brooks writes, powerfully, about how the city of Nashville is trying to take an elderly woman’s property in order to benefit a wealthy out-of-town developer. Says Brooks:
“The city needs to quit being the gun at the head of Miss Joy. Citizens need to realize that if we don’t stand with Miss Joy ‘our property rights’ won’t be worth the paper the deed is printed on.”
Amen to that. Frankly, the area the city claims is “blighted” – the legal justification it needs to force Miss Joy to sell property that she doesn’t want to sell – isn’t blighted at all. Her property is neat, tidy and home to a functioning business.
If the city of Nashville can use “eminent domain” laws and a specious claim of “blight” to steal this one old woman’s property in order to enrich an out-of-state developer, property rights have ceased to exist in the city of Nashville in any meaningful sense of the phrase.
Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court hastened the death of private property rights in America three years ago with their dreadful ruling in the Kelo case, in which the court ruled that municipalities could use eminent domain to take property for virtually any reason the municipality deemed to be in the “public interest.”
That ruling was handed down three years ago today.
Update: While writing the above post I got to wondering where Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama stands on eminent domain abuse and the Kelo ruling. While I couldn’t find any official statements, I did run across an interesting story about how Obama campaigned at a rally last year in Fairfield, Iowa, a rally that drew appreciative crowds from nearby Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa. That’s a real, incorporated, town, folks. It’s run by followers of the Hindu-related cult led by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi*. Now, how did a Google search for “obama kelo” lead me to that story? It seems the peace-loving vegetarians of Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, have threatened to use eminent domain to force some pig farmers off their land. It seems the town of Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, doesn’t like pig farms. (They also don’t like English – the city’s official language is Hindu Sanskrit.)
*The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is unrelated to the great Yogi Berra or even Yogi Bear.
US MILITARY TARGETS SOUTHEAST COLORADO Part 3
Deanna Spingola
June 1, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
After the $1.4 billion purchase of ConAgra by HM Capital Partners LLC (formerly Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Incorporated) they retained ConAgra’s president, John Simons, and named the newly-acquired company Swift & Company to honor “one of ConAgra’s ‘ premier brand names.” ConAgra, still extant, has a huge product line.[1] In 1989, Thomas O. Hicks co-founded Hicks, Muse & Company, a private equity firm specializing in leveraged acquisitions.[2] HM has acquired media, food, oil, gas, energy, and financial services and benefits from numerous government contracts through Sodexho. Reinventing Government (REGO), both state and federal, has enabled well-connected corporations to amass fortunes and power at the expense of the taxpayers, especially independent middle-class citizens who produce tangible goods.
Private property rights, via numerous tactics, have been abused, altered and are in the process of being abolished (the first plank of the Communist Manifesto). The U.S. Constitution, a protective document, has been surreptitiously supplanted by the U.N. Charter, the vehicle to global governance – the real objective of the dismantling of the middle-class through property, job and lifestyle seizure.
With the consent of the leadership of both morally bankrupt parties, the U.S. adopted the following recommendations from the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I), held in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1976: a national policy on population distribution according to available resources; public land control or ownership in the public interest with equitable distribution of benefits while assuring environmental impacts. Land, a scarce resource, should be subject to public surveillance or control for the common interest. Governments must exercise full jurisdiction over land and freely plan the development of human settlements.[3] Habitat II was in 1996.[4] When you see the words public or common interest, think Communism, a political system wholly financed and supported by international bankers.
Agenda 21, also endorsed by the leadership of both parties, was created at the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) also known as the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from June 3 to June 14, 1992 under the direction of Maurice F. Strong, Conference Secretary General.[5] [6]An objective of Agenda 21 “is to improve the social, economic and environmental quality of human settlements and the living and working environments of all people, in particular the urban and rural poor.” The government will make all lifestyle decisions.
A follow-up meeting, called World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) convened from August 26 through September 4, 2002. Agenda 21 is a very well-organized plan to reinvent and regionalize government beginning with the “rural-cleansing” of America and those referred to by the elite ruling class as resource-draining, expendable useless eaters.[7] The concept of sustainable development came from the constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1977), Chapter 2, Article 18 where it discusses the need “to protect and make scientific, rational use of the land and its mineral and water resources, and the plant and animal kingdoms to preserve the purity of air and water, ensure reproduction of natural wealth, and improve the human environment.”[8]
Bill Clinton’s Executive Order #12852 of June 29, 1993 established the President’s Council on Sustainable Development which consisted of not more than 25 members chosen by the president.[9] This council, under Al Gore, functioned until June 1999 and successfully implemented the U.N.’s Agenda 21.[10]
REGO, said Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton, means “to change the way our governments work to fit a different time and…come together behind our common purpose.” To facilitate change, The Government Performance and Results Act became law on January 5, 1993 establishing the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR), also known as the National Performance Review, similar to the Republican’s Grace Commission of 1982. Peter Grace founded Citizens Against Government Waste in 1984. It sounds good; taxpayers would not oppose ending government waste. Al Gore, convening with a group of 250 unelected civil servants later presented, to congress, 384 recommendations with 1,250 specific actions which required bureaucratic agencies to implement two-thirds of the recommendations.[11]
By September 7, 1993, official guidelines were established. Gore transferred many government activities to the private sector and attempted to corporatize the federal government while allowing profit-motivated corporations, “trusted partners in enforcing laws,” to “comply voluntarily with federal laws and regulations” actually a ploy to demolish food-safety, clean air regulations and other consumer safety measures.[12]
REGO uses Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) composed of corporations, tax-exempt foundations and Non Government Organizations (NGOs) to alter the balance of power and diminish congressional responsibility while enlarging executive power and downsizing and shifting power from the federal to the local level.[13] Shifting power to the local level almost sounds constitutional – but has nothing to do with states’ rights. Rather a plethora of authoritarian agencies, staffed by unelected, decision-making low-level smug bureaucratic minions, function under the direction of the Executive Branch with little, if any, oversight from Congress.
In a Public-Private Partnership public assets are surrendered to corporations. Occidental Petroleum “funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars ($470,000) [14] in campaign contributions” to Clinton and Gore. To reward their generosity, Gore facilitated “Occidental’s acquisition of oil drilling rights in the Elk Hills National Petroleum Reserve, part of the Kitanemuk people’s traditional lands, outside of Bakersfield, California” a federal oil resource. It was the largest surrender of “public lands to a private corporation in American history. It tripled Occidental’s U.S. petroleum reserves.” Within five years, Occidental had destroyed 100 native archaeological sites, “including ancient burial grounds.” However, Gore, the self-serving professed environmentalist “authority”, benefited through his control of “between $250,000 – $500,000 worth of Occidental shares through a family held trust.”[15]
Hooker Chemicals, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Company, one of the worst corporate polluters in the world, refused to accept liability for the 21,000 tons of chemical waste that they buried at Love Canal.[16] Ultimately, Occidental Petroleum Corporation was sued by the EPA in 1995 and agreed to pay $129 million in restitution.[17] Given their abundant assets and political clout, it was a small price to pay. Gore paved the way for whatever environmental crisis we face today. That is what globalists do best – they create a crisis and then offer a predetermined solution that citizens would have previously rejected.
In 1996, the Clinton Administration passed a bill privatizing the U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a government-owned corporation. William Rainer, a large donor to the Presidential Inaugural Committee in 1993, headed USEC’s board of directors when they decided to accept $1.9 billion from private investors in 1998. Rainer was rewarded – he was appointed chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Gore’s biggest contributors enjoyed a “$75 million bonanza. Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Company, Merrill Lynch & Company, Inc. and Goldman Sachs & Company collectively raked in at least $42 million in underwriting fees.” However, it placed the management of contaminated facilities into private hands.[18]
Gore claims that he turned the Pentagon into a “well-run business.”[19] Actually REGO simply intensified the Pentagon accounting debacle and nicely benefited well-connected military contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin (repeatedly upgraded NORAD) – another example of Public-Private Partnerships. In 1998, the General Accounting Office and the War Department discovered that “the Pentagon had made more than $2.3 trillion worth of bookkeeping errors. The Pentagon has likewise misplaced “nearly $120 billion worth of equipment,” including trucks, tanks and ships. Financial crimes at the Pentagon were/are rampant.[20]
On January 14, 1999, Gore held the first global REGO council which “included high-level representatives from nearly 40 countries.” Gore promoted “three key government reinvention initiatives – civil service improvement, children’s well-being and measuring customer satisfaction.”[21] Customer satisfaction is an interesting phrase unless you consider Public-Private Partnerships. Global councils have been held, since then, on a yearly basis. Gore’s fix-all inspiration for the crisis/solution globalist tactic came from David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, co-authors of Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector. Osborne presented his paper at the UN’s 7th Global REGO forum, Building Trust in Government, held in Vienna from June 26-27, 2007.[22] Recently, Osborne wrote a paper Reinventing the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism to assist Louisiana in their post-Katrina transformation.
An expanding global network of NGOs successfully operates as strident hired mobs to apply pressure to politicians and “provide the appearance of popular support” for “world governance.” Their “orchestrated clamor” is deliberately designed to appeal to political and corporate leaders. “The political and corporate leaders – according to plan – then ‘respond’ to the ‘will of civil society.’”[23] Actual community essentials which do not generate profit are sacrificed as public monies are appropriated by profit-minded, consumer-seeking corporations.
REGO is now on the Republican fast track, the party most adroit at initially deceiving the masses by their conservative claims. The concept of a Public-Private Partnership was thoroughly tested on the taxpayers of Arlington, Texas by George W. Bush. Later, Bechtel, Halliburton, Blackwater, HM Capital Partners LLC and the coffers of a multitude of other candidate-contributing corporations would be greatly enriched through their cloaked Public-Private Partnerships.
Karl Rove, the power-loving master manipulator, early-on urged Bush to run for the Texas governorship. Rove claimed that ownership of the Texas Rangers would be Bush’s 1994 “ticket to the big time” giving him widespread “exposure” and credibility after a series of business failures (a family characteristic? – Neil (scroll down) and Jeb, here and here).[24] The Bush brothers were frequently rescued by rich family friends, apparently intent on exploiting political connections.[25] They are also regularly absolved by “thoughtful” government agencies. Bush’s share of any team profits would later increase to 11 percent when the other syndicate members had recouped their investment – doubtless an indulgent elite-by-birth benefit?[26]
George Bush and a group of investors, including Spectrum 7 business partner, William O. DeWitt Jr. (father once owned the St. Louis Browns and the Cincinnati Reds) and Fort Worth financier Richard E. Rainwater, bought the Texas Rangers for $86 million on April 21, 1989 from Eddie Chiles, a Bush family friend. Bush paid $606,302 for 1.8 percent of the Rangers after borrowing $500,000. He repaid that loan when he “fortuitously” dumped Harken stocks in June 1990, one week before Harken announced an overall loss of $23.2 million. For 34 weeks, he failed to inform the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about this transaction despite the law that requires prompt disclosure of insider sales. On March 8, 2002, while campaigning to get brother Jeb re-installed as Florida governor (January 5, 1999 – January 2, 2007), Bush said: “Corporate officials should not be allowed to secretly trade their company’s stock. Every time they buy or sell, they should be required to tell the public within two days.”[27]
No charges were filed against the U.S. president’s son. The SEC general counsel, Texas Attorney, James Doty, handled the Bush syndicate’s 1989 purchase of the Rangers. Harken and Arbusto (Bush’s first company) had some interesting investors – like Ghaith R. Pharaon, the second largest shareholder in CenTrust Bank which failed in 1990 costing the taxpayers $1.7 billion. He is wanted for questioning for his role as front man for the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).[28] George Soros was also an investor.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) sued Richard Greene (Arlington’s mayor 4/4/1987-5/6/1997) for his participation, as president of Sunbelt’s Arlington branch, in the Sunbelt Savings Association scam which lost between $2 and $3 billion for American taxpayers and had cost the Feds $297 million just to investigate. Sunbelt’s owner, Edwin T. McBirney, agreed to plead guilty to fraud for his four-year lending spree.[29] In October 1990, Greene, in writing, guaranteed that Arlington taxpayers, rather than the owners, would pay $135 million towards the larger, more elaborate stadium that the team’s new owners wanted in order to maximize their profits, the whole reason for their venture. The FDIC lawsuit quickly evaporated and all Mayor Greene paid was a paltry $40 thousand – no more questions and apparently no long-term consequences.[30] It’s not what you know but who you know. Rules differ for certain segments of society. Greene was appointed EPA Regional 6 Administrator, effective March 31, 2003, by George W. Bush.[31]
Consequently, on October 24, 1990, the syndicate announced their sweetheart deal, for a Public-Private Partnership, with the city of Arlington for a new state-of-the-art facility. A Master Agreement was entered into on December 4, 1990 between the City of Arlington, Texas, a municipal corporation of the State of Texas and the Texas Rangers, Ltd., a Texas limited partnership.[32]
On November 13, 1990, the “City” called a referendum vote to authorize the levy and collection of an additional one-half cent sales and use tax within the City to be used to repay the Bonds amounting to $135 million. Arlington would hold the Referendum on January 19, 1991. A favorable vote was essential to enact the enabling legislation to authorize the transactions.[33] Arlington spent $150,000 on a public relations campaign with brochures, telemarketing and a “Hands Around Arlington Day” to convince the voters to approve of this tax increase.
Greene and Bush spoke from the pulpit of Arlington’s Mount Olive Baptist Church. Bush claimed “A vote for the tax would be a vote for contracts for African American businesses.” No minority contracts were ever awarded.[34] With minimal opposition, citizens voted two-to-one for approval of the tax increase. “Between the sales tax revenue, state tax exemptions, and other financial incentives, Texas taxpayers handed the privately owned Rangers more than $200 million in public subsidies. Taxpayers didn’t get a return from the stadium’s surging new revenues. The profits went almost exclusively to the team’s already wealthy owners.”[35] That is how Public-Private Partnerships work. For his managerial and spokesperson efforts, Bush was paid an annual salary of $200,000.[36]
Additionally, according to the legal agreement, the Rangers retained all monies from “the concessions, parking, signage, sublease revenues, naming allowances, and any and all other revenue produced within the Facilities and would assume ownership of the stadium for $60 million after the bonds were paid. The City agreed that the Facility Lease Tract would be exempt from the sign ordinance of the City for signs within the Facilities.”[37] Baseball, a government-protected monopoly, has an exemption from all federal antitrust laws.
Legislation, signed by Democratic Governor Ann Richards, was enacted to create the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority ASFDA (incorporated April 11, 1991) a quasi-governmental entity, a component of the City of Arlington which would give power to issue the necessary bonds and exercise eminent domain. ASFDA hired Hutchison Boyle Brooks & Fisher, P.C. to plan strategy, financing and to figure out how to minimize the amount of cash Bush and his partners had to spend. According to documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity the owners simply had to target the land they wanted. Then Mike Reilly, hatchet man real estate broker and Rangers investor, would offer to purchase the parcels of land at prices well below their market value. If the owners rejected his offer, AFSDA could seize their private property and a government court would determine the price.[38] Condemnation of private property, especially since the Kelo decision of June 23, 2005, is rampant. Although the foregoing seems irrelevant to the attempted land grab in southeast Colorado (or any other state) – it isn’t.
Bibliography: Reinventing The Government Corporation by A. Michael Froomkiin
Click here for part —–> 1, 2, 3,
Footnotes:
1, Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst And Booth Creek Management Complete $1.4 Billion Acquisition Of Fresh Meat Business Of ConAgra Foods
2, Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Names Three New Partners, Adopts New Firm Name
3, United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, See also HABITAT: United Nations Conference on Human Settlements
4, Human Settlements (Habitat II)
5, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)
6, United Nations’ Local Agenda 21 (LA-21) and Communitarian Development Programme by Niki Raapana
7, National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) – April 1974
8, Prince Charles, the Sustainable Prince by Joan Veon
9, Federal Register / Vol. 58, No. 126 / Friday, July 2, 1993 / Presidential Documents
10, President’s Council on Sustainable Development
11, National Partnership for Reinventing Government (formerly the National Performance Review), A Brief History by John Kamensky, January 1999
12, Al Gore: A User’s Manual by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Verso 2000, pgs. 172-187
13, The United Nations’ Global Straightjacket by Joan Veon, 2000, pgs. 62-104
14, Al Gore’s Teapot Dome by Alexander Cockburn, July 17, 2000
15, Some Inconvenient Truths About Al Gore by Stephen Marshall, May 26, 2006
16, The Love Canal Tragedy by Eckardt C. Beck, January 1979
17, Occidental To Pay $129 Million In Love Canal Settlement
18, The Buying of the President 2000 – Albert Gore, Jr., The Center for Public Integrity
19, Al Gore: A User’s Manual by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Verso 2000, pgs. 172-187
20, Hold the Oven Cleaner by Alexander Cockburn; See also: Al Gore: A User’s Manual by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Verso 2000, pgs. 172-187
21, 1st Global Forum on Reinventing Government, January 14, 1999, White House Press Release
22, 7th Global Forum on Reinventing Government
23, The United Nations Exposed, the International Conspiracy to Rule the World by William F. Jasper, 2001, pgs. 79-81
24, How George W. Bush Scored Big With the Texas Rangers by Charles Lewis, January 18, 2000
25, Bush Name Helps Fuel Oil Dealings By George Lardner Jr. and Lois Romano, Washington Post, July 30, 1999
26, One Thing is Crystal Clear: Clear Channel is a Subsidiary of Bush, Inc., April 18, 2003
27, The Buying of the President 2004, Who’s Really Bankrolling Bush and his Democratic Challengers – And What They Expect in Return by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity, pg. 132
28, George W Bush: ‘War on Terror’ aka ‘War for Oil’
29, Business Digest: Saturday, December 22, 1990
30, Joe Conason’s Journal, Bush expresses confidence the SEC will clear Cheney, but could that be seen as applying pressure on the agency? July 17, 2002, See also: Big Lies by Joe Conason, Thomas Dunne Books, 2003, pgs. 146-170
31, Richard E. Greene Appointed EPA Region 6 Administrator
32, Master Agreement Regarding Ballpark Complex Development
33, Ibid
34, Team Player, Texas Monthly By Joe Nick Patoski, June 1999
35, Right on the Money: The George W. Bush Profile, The Buying of the President 2000, Part 2 of 3
36, Team Player, Texas Monthly By Joe Nick Patoski, June 1999
37, Master Agreement Regarding Ballpark Complex Development
38, Right on the Money: The George W. Bush Profile, The Buying of the President 2000, Part 2 of 3
© 2008 Deanna Spingola – All Rights Reserved
US MILITARY TARGETS SOUTHEAST COLORADO
PART 1 of 3
Deanna Spingola
May 11, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
Property seizures in other countries are considered totalitarian. When they occur at the hands of the corporate-controlled U.S. government they are apparently condoned and even facilitated by the courts whose job it is to reign in this kind of abuse. The monopoly media, including “conservative” talk radio, is an information filtering system masquerading as “news.” They habitually conceal government land grabs and other privatization schemes like the current controversy in southeastern Colorado. The army is attempting to seize property, claiming they need extra land to better prepare the troops. What’s really behind this patriotic-let’s-help-the-troops endeavor? Call it what they will, land seizure is land seizure and violates the public trust.
What is it about Colorado and the military? In 1989, George H. W. Bush’s administration wanted to store dangerous radioactive waste at the Pueblo Army Depot but the state wisely objected.[1] Toxic waste disposal is no longer an unmanageable issue – well-connected arms manufacturers use it for bombs and bullets – kind of a double whammy – if the bullets and bombs don’t kill them, the lethal residue causes widespread cancer and horrific birth defects for future offspring of those who absorb, inhale or swallow the deadly dust. The Pentagon and their private contractors suppress the noxious nature of depleted uranium. Earlier, they didn’t tell troops about Agent Orange. And the citizens of Anniston, Alabama weren’t told about PCBs.[2] There are thousands of such examples. The government consistently protects corporate profits rather than citizens.
Even though the Pentagon owns/occupies 31,700,692 acres in the U.S. and its territories and another 32,408,262 acres in foreign countries for a total of 64,108,954 acres, they claim to be strapped for a training area. The Department of Defense Base Structure Report (221 pages) dated September 30, 2006 (last report available) reveals that the Pentagon owns 577,519 structures worth over $712 billion situated on 86 bases in U.S. territories, 823 bases in foreign lands and 4402 military bases and/or military warehouses in the U.S. Their report boasts – “the Department of Defense remains one of the world’s largest ‘landlords.’”[3] As a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, we have added at least 13 new military bases in the Middle East, ostensibly for the Global War of Terrorism (GWOT). The U.S. has literally surrounded Iran. There are about 63 countries with U.S. bases and thousands of U.S. military personnel (out of about 1.5 million) in 156 countries.[4]
According to another report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, dated April 10, 2008, the army claims they need to restructure and rebuild which will require at least $190 billion for equipment through fiscal year 2013.[5] In 2007 alone, in order of rank, the Pentagon paid the following, often no-bid contracts: (1) Lockheed Martin Corp. $12,679,523,202; (2) Boeing Co. $7,300,000,000; (3) Northrop Grumman Corp. $6,821,000,000; (4) KBR Inc. (a spin-off of Halliburton) $5,517,070,621; (5) Science Applications International Corp. $4,412,146,628; (6) Raytheon Co. $4,068,752,346.[6] Given these massive figures, one would justifiably trust that America is well-armed, impenetrable and protected.
However, trust is not a word that one would associate with any government function. There are “151 current members of Congress” who have personally invested millions of dollars in companies that have received large defense contracts. Some of those companies are probably listed above or in any of the other top 100 companies. This provides some evidence of why “our representatives” favor corporations; it pays better and that’s in addition to hefty campaign contributions.[7]
Currently, the military (all branches) occupies 483,440 acres in Colorado.[8] Fort Carson, an army post on 137,412 acres of range land located in southeast Colorado, is considered one of the world’s premier locations to train and prepare soldiers for battle.[9] The post had a total population of 10,566 in the 2000 U.S. Census and is located in both Pueblo County and El Paso County, Colorado. The census also revealed that there were 1,679 households and 1,620 families residing on base. There were 2,663 housing units.[10] During World War II, the base functioned as a prison camp for non-threatening German, Italian and Japanese-American citizens whose lands had been seized.[11]
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was previously located one mile west of Fort Carson at the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. NORAD provides selective response to air, missile, and space attacks over U.S. and Canadian airspace. A faulty system must have failed miserably on 9/11 because no one was reprimanded or fired for incompetence. But wait; there was an upgrade in 1987 at a cost of $968 million and another one by Lockheed in 1993.[12] Lockheed also received NORAD upgrade contracts in April 1999.[13] Then after 9/11, the government spent about $700 million to upgrade the early warning systems at Cheyenne Mountain.[14] By March 2005, thanks to Lockheed, NORAD had a newly refurbished, $14-million state-of-the-art control room – NORAD now “includes a station that receives Federal Aviation Administration data, flight plans and access to 50 FAA radars and 20 air-traffic control stations. NORAD can even tune into commercial airline radios and listen to chatter about unruly passengers.”[15] On July 28, 2006, it was announced that NORAD would relocate from Cheyenne Mountain to Peterson Air Force Base, also in Colorado. After the move, the government awarded another upgrade contract to Lockheed worth about $800 million.[16] Meanwhile the levees, the bridges and thousands of America’s roads are dangerously riddled with deepening pot-holes.
With the implementation of the Department of Defense’s Military Housing Privatization Initiative of 1996,[17] Fort Carson was selected as the Army’s model for the development of the privatization initiatives.[18] Privatization is the process of transferring ownership of resources and land from the public and private sector to fat-cat corporations who usually pay no taxes.[19] Congress privatized the people’s money with the treasonous Federal Reserve Act of 1913, placing the control of money into the hands of international banking families who have deliberately debauched our currency. The FED, a private corporation and a complicit Congress, wishing to retain power and popularity, have spent America into bankruptcy – paid for by the people’s labor, land, resources and blood.
On February 10, 1998, the Defense Department, the enforcement arm of Wall Street [20] notified Congress that they were transferring $15.82 million to the Fort Carson Family Housing Limited Liability Corporation, a division of J. A. Jones, a subsidiary of Philipp Holzmann AG, a Germany-based construction company that used concentration camp labor during World War II. The Fort Carson Family Housing Limited Liability Corporation of Charlotte, N.C. “won” this whopping contract worth more than $3 billion over the span of the contract.[21] See how much Philipp Holzmann AG and others were gifted just in 1999. Between October 1, 1997 and September 30, 2003, out of $900 billion authorized expenditures, Philipp Holzmann AG received pentagon contracts amounting to $1,723,275,972. “Half of all the Defense Department’s budget goes out the door of the Pentagon to private contractors.”[22] Other funds, 25%, apparently cannot be accounted for.
The private corporation built 840 new single and multifamily structures and revitalized existing structures. Rent for these ‘privatized” units, now paid to the contractor is set at the soldier’s Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). Philipp Holzmann AG also built and maintains the roads, day care centers, schools, parks, picnic areas – literally all the infrastructure. The 50-year contract came with a renewable option of 25 years.[23] The new and refurbished housing would provide housing for a total of 2,663 Fort Carson military families. Additionally, the Department of Defense has other privatization projects worth billions.[24]
Even before 9/11, expansion of the military as well as increased corporate take-over of public military facilities was part of the game plan. “Since 1997, Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) has directed each of the Services to develop an installation-level plan to respond to the growing need for quality affordable housing for military personnel by the year 2010. The Army’s initial plan, completed in September 1998, called for the privatization of about 85,000 Army Family Housing (AFH) units over 5 years at 43 US locations.” The army’s billions-of-dollars housing privatization program is known as the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) and is worldwide.[25] See the entire program here, scroll down to view the full implications.
Located 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson is the Piñon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS). The $26 million dollar “purchase” was completed on September 17, 1983 through the government’s use of eminent domain. It was opened in the summer of 1985 to provide critical maneuver lands for larger units.[26] The relocation of 11 landowners who refused to sell required an additional $2 million. Their land was acquired through the detestable process of condemnation, aided by the very people who are supposed to make us “secure in…our “houses.”[27] [28]
The government’s eminent domain power, the Takings Clause (or the Just Compensation Clause), is part of Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – …“nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” This clause is not a positive power grant allotted to the government. Instead, it imposes a strict limitation on the government. The Constitution was designed to protect individual rights from an abusive government. The founding documents clarify that “the government’s only legitimate power is to secure the rights that are guaranteed to the people.”[29]
Just compensation means fair market value, moving expenses, and any “losses incurred while you establish yourself elsewhere.” “The victim must be ‘made whole’ meaning that he is economically no worse off as a result of the taking.” For decades, “public use” meant just that – use by the public. However, the Takings Clause has been “transformed and perverted. Today, ‘public use’ means ‘public benefit.’”[30]
The eminent domain floodgate of abuses opened early in the twentieth century with the 1936 New York City Housing Authority v. Muller case which forever changed American property rights – public use became public benefit. The court, ignoring private property rights and apparently biased against the poor, decided that “slum clearance” was a public benefit. This “sociological experiment” established an “acceptable means of perverting the Takings Clause.” This was a “front for violating private property rights to acquire land for their pet projects.”[31]
This led to the despotic condemnation process which later enabled the Rockefeller (one of the Federal Reserve banking families) land grab of a thirteen-block tract of Manhattan which was unlawfully condemned in order to erect the World Trade Center Complex. Read about it here. The Port Authority issued tax exempt bonds which would completely fund the project.[32] The Port Authority privatized the Center on July 24, 2001 for a fraction of its value by leasing it to Larry Silverstein’s private corporation – lucky for him that he heavily ensured them against terrorist attacks.[33]
In 1981, General Motors, another wealthy corporation, directed the government to condemn the 465-acre community of Poletown, a suburb or Detroit, Michigan so they could build an assembly plant. GM got their plant while “3,468 people were displaced and had their homes confiscated by the government. The Constitution’s public use requirement was intended to protect against just this sort of usurpation.”[34] One thousand residences, six hundred businesses and numerous churches were bulldozed.[35]
About half of the land for The Piñon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS) was seized through the condemnation process. “In 1983 the unwilling sellers were pretty much on their own, battling to hang on to their homes. They wrote letters and attended meetings for the procedurally required Environmental Impact Statement. But in the end they were just a handful of ranchers, forced to move off of their land by the power of the United States Army.”[36]
Victims of eminent domain rarely receive “just compensation” and often face endless litigation fighting for the constitutional rights the government is supposed to regularly protect. Private property abuse is rampant! According to the Castle Coalition, there were 10,382 governmental attempts to condemn private property in the last ten years.[37]
Apparently, because of the money-siphoning (626 billion dollars in 2007) [38] Global War of Terrorism, the Department of Defense wants to greatly expand the Piñon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS). In June 2007, the Army released the Phase I map identifying the first 418,000 acres they want to acquire. “When combined with the current 235,896 acres of training space there, the Piñon Canyon site would become the Army’s largest training ground.”[39] The Army indicates that they want as much as 2.5 million acres, the entire southeast corner of Colorado because it simulates some of the terrain in Afghanistan and Iraq.[40]
On May 3, 2007 Governor Bill Ritter signed Colorado House Bill 1069 withdrawing the state’s consent to the federal government in their quest to acquire land through eminent domain for their expansion of Piñon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS).[41]
Constitutional statutes were designed to “protect the citizens against the abuse of power” by government agents. Unfortunately, a majority of elected officials have shirked their constitutional, decision-making responsibilities to highly-paid private contractors, who have taken over much of the government’s responsibilities. The problem is, these contractors are not covered by constitutional laws – therefore they are not culpable. Federal agencies do not exercise oversight, demand accountability or set performance standards for federal contractors. Effective Congressional investigations are rarely convened.[42]
This is a much bigger problem than the dedicated ranchers of Colorado. But for them, it is their life and their livelihood. The next time you are enjoying a hamburger or a steak (if you can still afford one), thank a rancher, the government didn’t produce it. If the government can target Colorado’s ranchers, they can target anyone! Oh and that land grab – it has nothing to do with training soldiers!
Footnotes:
1, U.S. Seeks to Store Nuclear Waste at Army Bases to Save Plutonium Plant, By Keith Schneider, November 10, 1989
2, Monsanto Knew About PCB Toxicity For Decades
3, Department of Defense, Base Structure Report, FY 2007
4, U.S. Military Troops and Bases Around the World
5, Restructuring and Rebuilding the Army Will Cost Billions of Dollars for Equipment but the Total Cost Is Uncertain, Highlights, April 10, 2008, United States Government Accountability Office, testimony before the Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives
6, Top 100 Federal Prime Contractors: 2007
7, Congress members invest in Defense Earn Millions From Companies With Military Contracts By Anne Flaherty
8, Department of Defense, Base Structure Report, FY 2007
9, Fort Carson
10, Fort Carson
11, Fort Carson
12, Cheyenne Mountain Complex
13, Spacecom Upgrades for the Future by Daniel Verton, April 8, 1999
14, Military to Idle NORAD Compound Operations Will Move to Nearby Base, But Cold War Bunker to Stand Ready By T.R. Reid, July 29, 2006
15, Colorado Springs Independent, NORAD touts readiness Officials show off new control room, March 10, 2005
16, Seabrook, MD— Lockheed Martin Team Wins Primary Role on NORAD-USNORTHCOM Contract Vehicle, July 9, 2006
17, The Residential Communities Initiative (RCI)
18, Military Housing Privatization Initiative: A Guidance Document For Wading Through The Legal Morass by Capt. Stacie A. Remy Vest, and Chapter 169. Military Construction And Military Family Housing, Approved February 28, 2008
19, How to earn $3.5 trillion and pay zero taxes By David R. Francis, April 19, 2004
20, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order by Michel Chossudovsky, pg 11
21, Fort Carson Awards Housing Privatization Contract
22, Outsourcing the Pentagon, Who benefits from the Politics and Economics of National Security? By Larry Makinson, March 31, 2006
23, Office of Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Military Housing Privatization Initiative
24, Fort Carson Awards Housing Privatization Contract
25, Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, Army Family Housing Master Plan, February 2003
26, Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS)
27, Bill of Rights
28, Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS)
29, Constitutional Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78
30, Ibid
31, Ibid
32, Bonds: Port of New York Authority to Raise $100-Million by John H. Allen, The New York Times, February 28, 1968.
33, Killing Several Birds With One Stone By Deanna Spingola, February 12, 2006
34, Constitutional Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78
35, Landmark Eminent Domain Abuse Decision, July 31, 2004, John Kramer or Lisa Knepper
36, Army Threatens the Seizure of Private Property by Doug Holdread, June 29, 2006
37, Constitutional Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78
38, The Worldwide Network of U.S. Military Bases by Prof. Jules Dufour, July 1, 2007
39, Squeeze over a Colorado canyon, October 29, 2007
40, Army Threatens the Seizure of Private Property by Doug Holdread, June 29, 2006
41, Ritter Signs Piñon Canyon , school safety bills, Rocky Mountain News, May 3, 2007
42, Shadowboxer by Jason Peckenpaugh, 11/15/03 who was quoting The Shadow Government by Dan Guttman and Barry Wilner, 1976
© 2008 Deanna Spingola – All Rights Reserved
U.S. Military Targets Southeast Colorado – Part 1 of 3
04/21/08
Deanna Spingola
Property seizures in other countries are considered totalitarian. When they occur at the hands of the corporate-controlled U.S. government they are apparently condoned and even facilitated by the courts whose job it is to reign in this kind of abuse. The monopoly media, including “conservative” talk radio, is an information filtering system masquerading as “news.” They habitually conceal government land grabs and other privatization schemes like the current controversy in southeastern Colorado. The army is attempting to seize property, claiming they need extra land to better prepare the troops. What’s really behind this patriotic-let’s-help-the-troops endeavor? Call it what they will, land seizure is land seizure and violates the public trust.
What is it about Colorado and the military? In 1989, George H. W. Bush’s administration wanted to store dangerous radioactive waste at the Pueblo Army Depot but the state wisely objected. [i] Toxic waste disposal is no longer an unmanageable issue – well-connected arms manufacturers use it for bombs and bullets – kind of a double whammy – if the bullets and bombs don’t kill them, the lethal residue causes widespread cancer and horrific birth defects for future offspring of those who absorb, inhale or swallow the deadly dust. The Pentagon and their private contractors suppress the noxious nature of depleted uranium. Earlier, they didn’t tell troops about Agent Orange. And the citizens of Anniston, Alabama weren’t told about PCBs. [ii] There are thousands of such examples. The government consistently protects corporate profits rather than citizens.
Even though the Pentagon owns/occupies 31,700,692 acres in the U.S. and its territories and another 32,408,262 acres in foreign countries for a total of 64,108,954 acres, they claim to be strapped for a training area. The Department of Defense Base Structure Report (221 pages) dated September 30, 2006 (last report available) reveals that the Pentagon owns 577,519 structures worth over $712 billion situated on 86 bases in U.S. territories, 823 bases in foreign lands and 4402 military bases and/or military warehouses in the U.S. Their report boasts – “the Department of Defense remains one of the world’s largest ‘landlords.’” [iii] As a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, we have added at least 13 new military bases in the Middle East, ostensibly for the Global War of Terrorism (GWOT). The U.S. has literally surrounded Iran. There are about 63 countries with U.S. bases and thousands of U.S. military personnel (out of about 1.5 million) in 156 countries. [iv]
According to another report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, dated April 10, 2008, the army claims they need to restructure and rebuild which will require at least $190 billion for equipment through fiscal year 2013. [v] In 2007 alone, in order of rank, the Pentagon paid the following, often no-bid contracts: (1) Lockheed Martin Corp. $12,679,523,202; (2) Boeing Co. $7,300,000,000; (3) Northrop Grumman Corp. $6,821,000,000; (4) KBR Inc. (a spin-off of Halliburton) $5,517,070,621; (5) Science Applications International Corp. $4,412,146,628; (6) Raytheon Co. $4,068,752,346. [vi] Given these massive figures, one would justifiably trust that America is well-armed, impenetrable and protected.
However, trust is not a word that one would associate with any government function. There are “151 current members of Congress” who have personally invested millions of dollars in companies that have received large defense contracts. Some of those companies are probably listed above or in any of the other top 100 companies. This provides some evidence of why “our representatives” favor corporations; it pays better and that’s in addition to hefty campaign contributions. [vii]
Currently, the military (all branches) occupies 483,440 acres in Colorado. [viii] Fort Carson, an army post on 137,412 acres of range land located in southeast Colorado, is considered one of the world’s premier locations to train and prepare soldiers for battle. [ix] The post had a total population of 10,566 in the 2000 U.S. Census and is located in both Pueblo County and El Paso County, Colorado. The census also revealed that there were 1,679 households and 1,620 families residing on base. There were 2,663 housing units. [x] During World War II, the base functioned as a prison camp for non-threatening German, Italian and Japanese-American citizens whose lands had been seized. [xi]
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was previously located one mile west of Fort Carson at the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. NORAD provides selective response to air, missile, and space attacks over U.S. and Canadian airspace. A faulty system must have failed miserably on 9/11 because no one was reprimanded or fired for incompetence. But wait; there was an upgrade in 1987 at a cost of $968 million and another one by Lockheed in 1993.[xii] Lockheed also received NORAD upgrade contracts in April 1999. [xiii] Then after 9/11, the government spent about $700 million to upgrade the early warning systems at Cheyenne Mountain. [xiv] By March 2005, thanks to Lockheed, NORAD had a newly refurbished, $14-million state-of-the-art control room – NORAD now “includes a station that receives Federal Aviation Administration data, flight plans and access to 50 FAA radars and 20 air-traffic control stations. NORAD can even tune into commercial airline radios and listen to chatter about unruly passengers.”[xv] On July 28, 2006, it was announced that NORAD would relocate from Cheyenne Mountain to Peterson Air Force Base, also in Colorado. After the move, the government awarded another upgrade contract to Lockheed worth about $800 million. [xvi] Meanwhile the levees, the bridges and thousands of America’s roads are dangerously riddled with deepening pot-holes.
With the implementation of the Department of Defense’s Military Housing Privatization Initiative of 1996, [xvii] Fort Carson was selected as the Army’s model for the development of the privatization initiatives. [xviii] Privatization is the process of transferring ownership of resources and land from the public and private sector to fat-cat corporations who usually pay no taxes. [xix] Congress privatized the people’s money with the treasonous Federal Reserve Act of 1913, placing the control of money into the hands of international banking families who have deliberately debauched our currency. The FED, a private corporation and a complicit Congress, wishing to retain power and popularity, have spent America into bankruptcy – paid for by the people’s labor, land, resources and blood.
On February 10, 1998, the Defense Department, the enforcement arm of Wall Street [xx] notified Congress that they were transferring $15.82 million to the Fort Carson Family Housing Limited Liability Corporation, a division of J. A. Jones, a subsidiary of Philipp Holzmann AG, a Germany-based construction company that used concentration camp labor during World War II. The Fort Carson Family Housing Limited Liability Corporation of Charlotte, N.C. “won” this whopping contract worth more than $3 billion over the span of the contract. [xxi] See how much Philipp Holzmann AG and others were gifted just in 1999. Between October 1, 1997 and September 30, 2003, out of $900 billion authorized expenditures, Philipp Holzmann AG received pentagon contracts amounting to $1,723,275,972. “Half of all the Defense Department’s budget goes out the door of the Pentagon to private contractors.” [xxii] Other funds, 25%, apparently cannot be accounted for.
The private corporation built 840 new single and multifamily structures and revitalized existing structures. Rent for these ‘privatized” units, now paid to the contractor is set at the soldier’s Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). Philipp Holzmann AG also built and maintains the roads, day care centers, schools, parks, picnic areas – literally all the infrastructure. The 50-year contract came with a renewable option of 25 years. [xxiii] The new and refurbished housing would provide housing for a total of 2,663 Fort Carson military families. Additionally, the Department of Defense has other privatization projects worth billions. [xxiv]
Even before 9/11, expansion of the military as well as increased corporate take-over of public military facilities was part of the game plan. “Since 1997, Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) has directed each of the Services to develop an installation-level plan to respond to the growing need for quality affordable housing for military personnel by the year 2010. The Army’s initial plan, completed in September 1998, called for the privatization of about 85,000 Army Family Housing (AFH) units over 5 years at 43 US locations.” The army’s billions-of-dollars housing privatization program is known as the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) and is worldwide. [xxv] See the entire program here, scroll down to view the full implications.
Located 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson is the Piñon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS). The $26 million dollar “purchase” was completed on September 17, 1983 through the government’s use of eminent domain. It was opened in the summer of 1985 to provide critical maneuver lands for larger units. [xxvi] The relocation of 11 landowners who refused to sell required an additional $2 million. Their land was acquired through the detestable process of condemnation, aided by the very people who are supposed to make us “secure in…our “houses.” [xxvii] [xxviii]
The government’s eminent domain power, the Takings Clause (or the Just Compensation Clause), is part of Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – …“nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”. This clause is not a positive power grant allotted to the government. Instead, it imposes a strict limitation on the government. The Constitution was designed to protect individual rights from an abusive government. The founding documents clarify that “the government’s only legitimate power is to secure the rights that are guaranteed to the people.” [xxix]
Just compensation means fair market value, moving expenses, and any “losses incurred while you establish yourself elsewhere.” “The victim must be ‘made whole’ meaning that he is economically no worse off as a result of the taking.” For decades, “public use” meant just that – use by the public. However, the Takings Clause has been “transformed and perverted. Today, ‘public use’ means ‘public benefit.’” [xxx]
The eminent domain floodgate of abuses opened early in the twentieth century with the 1936 New York City Housing Authority v. Muller case which forever changed American property rights – public use became public benefit. The court, ignoring private property rights and apparently biased against the poor, decided that “slum clearance” was a public benefit. This “sociological experiment” established an “acceptable means of perverting the Takings Clause.” This was a “front for violating private property rights to acquire land for their pet projects.” [xxxi]
This led to the despotic condemnation process which later enabled the Rockefeller (one of the Federal Reserve banking families) land grab of a thirteen-block tract of Manhattan which was unlawfully condemned in order to erect the World Trade Center Complex. Read about it here. The Port Authority issued tax exempt bonds which would completely fund the project. [xxxii] The Port Authority privatized the Center on July 24, 2001 for a fraction of its value by leasing it to Larry Silverstein’s private corporation – lucky for him that he heavily ensured them against terrorist attacks. [xxxiii]
In 1981, General Motors, another wealthy corporation, directed the government to condemn the 465-acre community of Poletown, a suburb or Detroit, Michigan so they could build an assembly plant. GM got their plant while “3,468 people were displaced and had their homes confiscated by the government. The Constitution’s public use requirement was intended to protect against just this sort of usurpation.” [xxxiv] One thousand residences, six hundred businesses and numerous churches were bulldozed. [xxxv]
About half of the land for The Piñon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS) was seized through the condemnation process. “In 1983 the unwilling sellers were pretty much on their own, battling to hang on to their homes. They wrote letters and attended meetings for the procedurally required Environmental Impact Statement. But in the end they were just a handful of ranchers, forced to move off of their land by the power of the United States Army.” [xxxvi]
Victims of eminent domain rarely receive “just compensation” and often face endless litigation fighting for the constitutional rights the government is supposed to regularly protect. Private property abuse is rampant! According to the Castle Coalition, there were 10,382 governmental attempts to condemn private property in the last ten years. [xxxvii]
Apparently, because of the money-siphoning (626 billion dollars in 2007)[xxxviii] Global War of Terrorism, the Department of Defense wants to greatly expand the Piñon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS). In June 2007, the Army released the Phase I map identifying the first 418,000 acres they want to acquire. “When combined with the current 235,896 acres of training space there, the Piñon Canyon site would become the Army’s largest training ground.” [xxxix] The Army indicates that they want as much as 2.5 million acres, the entire southeast corner of Colorado because it simulates some of the terrain in Afghanistan and Iraq. [xl]
On May 3, 2007 Governor Bill Ritter signed Colorado House Bill 1069 withdrawing the state’s consent to the federal government in their quest to acquire land through eminent domain for their expansion of Piñon Canyon Manuvere Site (PCMS). [xli]
Constitutional statutes were designed to “protect the citizens against the abuse of power” by government agents. Unfortunately, a majority of elected officials have shirked their constitutional, decision-making responsibilities to highly-paid private contractors, who have taken over much of the government’s responsibilities. The problem is, these contractors are not covered by constitutional laws – therefore they are not culpable. Federal agencies do not exercise oversight, demand accountability or set performance standards for federal contractors. Effective Congressional investigations are rarely convened. [xlii]
This is a much bigger problem than the dedicated ranchers of Colorado. But for them, it is their life and their livelihood. The next time you are enjoying a hamburger or a steak (if you can still afford one), thank a rancher, the government didn’t produce it. If the government can target Colorado’s ranchers, they can target anyone! Oh and that land grab – it has nothing to do with training soldiers! Stay tuned for parts two and three.
[i] U.S. Seeks to Store Nuclear Waste at Army Bases to Save Plutonium Plant, By Keith Schneider, November 10, 1989
————–
[ii] Monsanto Knew About PCB Toxicity For Decades
[iii] Department of Defense, Base Structure Report, FY 2007
[iv] U.S. Military Troops and Bases Around the World
[v] Restructuring and Rebuilding the Army Will Cost Billions of Dollars for Equipment but the Total Cost Is Uncertain, Highlights, April 10, 2008, United States Government Accountability Office, testimony before the Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives
[vi] Top 100 Federal Prime Contractors: 2007
[vii] Congress members invest in Defense Earn Millions From Companies With Military Contracts By Anne Flaherty
[viii] Department of Defense, Base Structure Report, FY 2007
[ix] Fort Carson
[x] Fort Carson
[xi] Fort Carson
[xii] Cheyenne Mountain Complex
[xiii] Spacecom Upgrades for the Future by Daniel Verton, April 8, 1999
[xiv] Military to Idle NORAD Compound Operations Will Move to Nearby Base, But Cold War Bunker to Stand Ready By T.R. Reid, July 29, 2006
[xv] Colorado Springs Independent, NORAD touts readiness Officials show off new control room, March 10, 2005
[xvi] Seabrook, MD— Lockheed Martin Team Wins Primary Role on NORAD-USNORTHCOM Contract Vehicle, July 9, 2006
[xvii] The Residential Communities Initiative (RCI)
[xviii] Military Housing Privatization Initiative: A Guidance Document For Wading Through The Legal Morass by Capt. Stacie A. Remy Vest, and Chapter 169. Military Construction And Military Family Housing, Approved February 28, 2008
[xix] How to earn $3.5 trillion and pay zero taxes By David R. Francis, April 19, 2004
[xx] The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order by Michel Chossudovsky, pg 11
[xxi] Fort Carson Awards Housing Privatization Contract
[xxii] Outsourcing the Pentagon, Who benefits from the Politics and Economics of National Security? By Larry Makinson, March 31, 2006
[xxiii] Office of Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Military Housing Privatization Initiative
[xxiv] Fort Carson Awards Housing Privatization Contract
[xxv] Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, Army Family Housing Master Plan, February 2003
[xxvi] Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS)
[xxvii] Bill of Rights
[xxviii] Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS)
[xxix] Constitutional Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78
[xxx] Ibid
[xxxi] Ibid
[xxxii] Bonds: Port of New York Authority to Raise $100-Million by John H. Allen, The New York Times, February 28, 1968.
[xxxiii] Killing Several Birds With One Stone By Deanna Spingola, February 12, 2006
[xxxiv] Constitutional Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78
[xxxv] Landmark Eminent Domain Abuse Decision, July 31, 2004, John Kramer or Lisa Knepper
[xxxvi] Army Threatens the Seizure of Private Property by Doug Holdread, June 29, 2006
[xxxvii] Constitutional Chaos, What Happens When the Government breaks its Own Laws by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, pgs. 65-78
[xxxviii] The Worldwide Network of U.S. Military Bases by Prof. Jules Dufour, July 1, 2007
[xxxix] Squeeze over a Colorado canyon, October 29, 2007
[xl] Army Threatens the Seizure of Private Property by Doug Holdread, June 29, 2006
[xli] Ritter Signs Piñon Canyon , school safety bills, Rocky Mountain News, May 3, 2007
[xlii] Shadowboxer by Jason Peckenpaugh, 11/15/03 who was quoting The Shadow Government by Dan Guttman and Barry Wilner, 1976
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April 21, 2008 Deanna Spingola has been a quilt designer and is the author of two books. She has traveled extensively teaching and lecturing on her unique methods. She has always been an avid reader of non-fiction works designed to educate rather than entertain. She is active in family history research and lectures on that topic. Currently she is the director of the local Family History Center. She has a great interest in politics and the direction of current government policies, particularly as they relate to the Constitution. © Copyright 2006 by Deanna Spingola Deanna’s Web Site
Post by way of: The Peoples Voice
NAFTA Superhighway: Progress on the Trans Texas Corridor Continues
Wednesday, April 09, 2008 by: Barbara L. Minton
(NaturalNews) An article carried by Reuters, March 10, 2008, datelined Madrid reports that the Spanish company Cintra said it had closed financing to build segments 5 and 6 of its SH-130 toll road between San Antonio and Austin, Texas in the U.S. It plans to invest $1.36 billion in this leg of the project.
In a statement to Spain’s stock market, Cintra said $197 million of the investment came from consortium partners and the rest from a bank loan and debt from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The newly financed segment is part of the Trans Texas Corridor, a 4,000 mile plan of super toll ways. The Corridor plan calls for a superhighway with 12 passenger vehicle lanes, 4 truck lanes, 2 passenger train tracks, 2 commuter train tracks, 2 freight train tracks, underground lines for water, natural gas, petroleum, telecommunication fiber optics, and overhead high-voltage electric transmission lines and towers.
Plans also include gas stations, garages, restaurants, hotels, stores, billboards, warehouses, freight interchanges, inter-modal transfer areas, bus stations, passenger train stations, parking facilities, dispatch control centers, maintenance facilities, pipeline pumping stations, and toll booths.
The Trans Texas Corridor is the largest engineering project ever undertaken in Texas, costing over $180 billion dollars.
A consortium led by the Cintra Concesiones Infraestruturas SA, known as Cintra, announced the contract to build the Trans Texas Corridor in December, 2004, and said it expected to develop 6 billion U.S. dollars of motorway projects during the following five years as part of the project.
In order to complete this project, the state of Texas will take ½ million acres, including some of the richest farm land in the state called “Blacklands”. The typical section of the highway will require 146 acres of right of way per mile. The total anticipated right of way for the 4,000 miles of corridor is 584,000 acres.
The Trans Texas Corridor project authorizes a Commission to take private land from its current owners to lease for commercial, industrial or agricultural purposes. This is a massive transfer of ownership from private to state owned, and puts the state in the position of being in direct competition with private business.
It also takes business away from hundreds of Texas communities by limiting traveler access and providing State contract concessions. It also takes land off county and school district tax rolls, requiring local taxpayers to absorb the difference.
Critics of the Corridor claim that it will change the face of Texas, and compare it to a terrifying nightmare. According to Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, “Texas should not be sold out to foreign interests. Texas farms and ranches should be for Texas farmers and ranchers. We should not let a European consortium take our Texas birthright. Our leaders should not be asking us to give them our land and then insist we should have to pay to drive across it.”
The Trans Texas Corridor is seen as the first leg of the NAFTA superhighway, first purposed in 2002. When completed, the NAFTA superhighway will allow cargo from the Far East to enter the U.S. through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas and proceed straight to the new Smart Port complex in Kansas City. From there it will be dispersed into the U.S. or continue northward into Canada, crossing both borders with only electronic checkpoints.
The NAFTA superhighway is one feature of the North American Union, which will effectively create a North American trading block by erasing the borders between the U.S., Mexico and Canada resulting in free, unimpeded movement of people and goods across those borders. It is also a political union that would integrate the governments of the three countries, as well as an economic union with the intention of equalizing the wages and standard of living of all but the ruling elitists.
See: The North America Union – You Could Be Voting Your Rights Away, (http://www.naturalnews.com/022707.html)
Other Sources in addition to Reuters article:
Cintra signs contract for Trans-Texas Corridor, investment of 1.3 bns usd update, Forbes, June 30, 2006.
Trans Texas Corridor Catastrophe, Texas Toll Party website.
About the author
Barbara is a school psychologist, a published author in the area of personal finance, a breast cancer survivor using “alternative” treatments, a born existentialist, and a student of nature and all things natural.
http://www.naturalnews.com/022974.html
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