John Hammel of International Advocates for Health Freedom joins me on Monday's broadcast. Subjects will be CAFTA and Codex Alimentarious.

"CAFTA is NAFTA on steroids!" That's how one experienced trade attorney describes the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

And CAFTA is on the move. This morning, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee endorsed CAFTA, sending it to the full Senate for a vote which will likely take place in two days. The vote will be close, but pro-CAFTA forces believe they have enough votes to get it passed by the Senate. If they do, they will claim "momentum" and get the U.S. House to vote on it soon thereafter.

The pro-CAFTA forces aren't really for true free trade. They are for global managed trade...because that is what CAFTA (like NAFTA) really is. Think about it. Why does it take over 1,000 pages to define free trade?

We've had over 10 years of NAFTA so we should know what to expect with CAFTA. Again, "CAFTA is NAFTA on steroids!"

CAFTA fits hand-in-glove with the world-government agenda to make the U.S. just another client state. How?

Consider: CAFTA article 10.16.3 places the United States under the jurisdiction of international tribunals supervised by the United Nations.

Consider: CAFTA article 10.5.2(a) states that these international tribunals must use "customary international law" as established by the "principle legal systems of the world" when deciding cases.

Welcome to the United Nations' world court system!

And then there's the unconstitutional granting of "fast track" authority to the president. Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to regulate international trade. But CAFTA, like NAFTA, treats the U.S. Constitution as a relic.

We already suffer from the World Trade Organization and its international bureaucrats. CAFTA will add another layer of unaccountable world elites who will tell us what we can and cannot do.

Even the French understand the critical importance of national sovereignty. They recently rejected the proposed constitution of the European Union. Remember that the E.U. started as a trade agreement in 1957, and now it is a regional supra government.

NAFTA. CAFTA. And then the Union of the Americas.

We strongly urge a "no" vote on CAFTA. Tell your U.S. senators to reject CAFTA.

To send your messages, go here.

Kent Snyder
The Liberty Committee
http://www.thelibertycommittee.org
For Health Freedom,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
556 Boundary Bay Road
Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA
http://www.iahf.com
Email: jham at iahf dot com
800-333-2553 N.America
360-945-0352 World

"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort.... This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."

"Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes."

"...the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

"from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

"Ultimately, property rights and personal rights are the same thing. The one cannot be preserved if the other be violated."

WASHINGTON (AP) - A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America - was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

The case was one of six resolved by justices on Thursday. Among those still pending for the court, which next meets on Monday, is one testing the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commands on government property.

Writing for the court's majority in Thursday's ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens said local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community. States are within their rights to pass additional laws restricting condemnations if residents are overly burdened, he said.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including - but by no means limited to - new jobs and increased tax revenue," Stevens wrote.

Stevens was joined in his opinion by other members of the court's liberal wing - David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. The bloc typically has favored greater deference to cities, which historically have used the takings power for urban renewal projects that benefit the lower and middle class.

They were joined by Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy in rejecting the conservative principle of individual property rights. Critics had feared that would allow a small group of homeowners to stymie rebuilding efforts that benefit the city through added jobs and more tax revenue for social programs.

"It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area," Stevens wrote.

O'Connor argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

Connecticut residents involved in the lawsuit expressed dismay and pledged to keep fighting.

"It's a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country," said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would refuse to leave his home, even if bulldozers showed up. "I won't be going anywhere. Not my house. This is definitely not the last word."

Scott Bullock, an attorney for the Institute for Justice representing the families, added: "A narrow majority of the court simply got the law wrong today and our Constitution and country will suffer as a result."

At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."

Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.

Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, D-New London, a former mayor and city council member who voted in favor of eminent domain, said the decision "means a lot for New London's future."

The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.

Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.

New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.

City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.

New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.

Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.

The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.

"Arizona's first commercial hydroelectric power plants ceased operation today as part of a unique endeavor between APS, government agencies, Native American tribes, conservation groups and academia. By closing the Childs and Irving hydroelectric power plants in central Arizona, full water flow was restored to Fossil Creek after nearly a century of restricted flows. The Childs and Irving power plants, located in a remote area between Strawberry and Camp Verde, were considered an engineering and logistical marvel when constructed almost 100 years ago. The small hydroelectric power plants provided energy essential to Arizona's growth, powering the booming mining operations in Jerome and the Bradshaw Mountains, and later energized the growing communities of Prescott and Phoenix. In 1999 and in concert with the Yavapai-Apache Nation, American Rivers, Arizona Riparian Council, Center for Biological Diversity, The Nature Conservancy and Northern Arizona Audubon Society, APS decided to decommission the Childs and Irving plants and restore full flow to Fossil Creek at the cost to APS of about $13 million. Despite the cost of decommissioning and lost revenue from plant operations, APS determined that restoring Fossil Creek to its natural flow outweighed the business benefits provided by the facility....[more]

Happy father's day to all of the dads out there -- including my own. Thanks for your sacrifices over the years.

The House voted Wednesday to block the government from requiring labels that would tell shoppers from what country their meat comes. Congress already had postponed the labeling from its original date of 2004 to September 2006. The House action would stop the Agriculture Department from spending money on the new requirement. The postponement was part of a $100 billion spending bill for food and farm programs in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. The House passed the bill by 408-18 vote Wednesday. Western ranchers had counted on the labels to help sell their beef, Rep. Stephanie Herseth said. "Instead, the large meatpackers have rallied to kill this program because they don't want American consumers to discover how much meat in the grocery case is actually imported," said Herseth, D-S.D. Rep. Denny Rehberg, a rancher, said Texas cattle producers are fighting the labels because they do not want shoppers to know that the cattlemen buy cheap Mexican calves to fatten and sell in the U.S....[more]

An innovative conservation easement struck between Fremont County ranchers Tony and Andrea Malmberg, the Wyoming chapter of The Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Conservation Service will protect almost 5,000 acres of wildlife habitat. By providing protection from future development, the conservation easement means that sage grouse and their chicks can migrate each spring from nests on Twin Creek Ranch south of Lander to summer range in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains n- 20 miles and a thousand-foot climb over the rough hills and rocky escarpments that form a transition zone between the Winds and the Red Desert. "We'll be able to keep a functional ranch intact, without selling off important pieces," said Tony Malmberg, whose family began ranching the property more than 25 years ago. Completed on Wednesday, the conservation easement used the USDA's Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, which is administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service and The Nature Conservancy....[more]

Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke Pearce and U.S. Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, are promoting an effort to raise $2 million in private money to help shield 80,000 acres of forest near northern Idaho's St. Joe River from most development....[more]

If you were a stockholder of a bank and its managers kept telling stockholders they would have to "write off" the loans they had made because the borrowers were in no position to repay them would you fire the management for incompetence? If you are a taxpayer, particularly an American taxpayer, you are a stockholder in such a bank -- the World Bank -- to be specific.

The World Bank was set up in 1944 (along with the International Monetary Fund) to assist with post-World War II reconstruction. Its mandate is to reduce world poverty and promote economic growth but, in fact, many of its activities have had precisely the opposite effect. ...

This week, Paul Wolfowitz took over the World Bank presidency from James Wolfensohn. And the World Bank has just set a 60-year record of failure. If Mr. Wolfowitz decides he would like to break the mold and become a successful World Bank president, first he will need to get the bank out of the "lending" business.

Most of the lending has only propped up government monopolies and underwritten government inefficiencies and corruption. (Many objective observers, including several former high-ranking Bank officials, believe it should be abolished but, unfortunately, neither the Bush administration, nor Congress nor officials in other rich nations have the guts to do so.)

Without a responsible rule of law that protects private property rights, incentives and free markets, there can be no sustained development. [more]