Site: Cintel Corp casas-inteligentes.info

I had taken the picture for the Albuquerque News, edited by Mark Acuff, and other photographs of the event were also published in Albuquerque Hard Times edited by Jack Webber. Someone passed the picture along to the Democrats without my permission.

Webber told me recently, that he doesn’t specifically recall the incident, but throwing his hands up said, “I’ll plead guilty. Either Acuff or I probably did it.” Acuff, who is now deceased, bought the El Independente newspapers from Filo Sediillo who was the Democratic Party leader at the time, Webber said.
This is Webber, above top, then editing Hard Times and now, below, as the New Mexico House Chief Deputy Clerk preparing for the opening of the Legislature. Acuff and Webber were political pros who were also journalists. However, at the time they couldn't hold a candle to the old pro, Fred McCaffery.

In 1973 I moved to the Washington, D.C. area where I did a still photo essay on Domenici's first few weeks as Senator for KOAT TV. I returned to DC and did some Capitol Hill freelancing and then got into law enforcement. My view of national politics broadened.

I experienced the Watergate era and attended the testimony of Nixon’s White House Counsel John Dean to the United States Senate’s, “Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities,” more commonly referred to as the Senate Watergate Committee. Sen. Montoya, above, sat as the junior Democratic member.

I was present at the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives' impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon on Monday July 29, 1974. The committee voted on a second article of impeachment, adopted 28-10, for "repeatedly" failing to carry out his Constitutional oath.

Over the next few days the House Judiciary Committee voted on two more articles of impeachment. Before the committee’s report could come to the full House of Representatives for a vote of four articles of impeachment, left, Nixon resigned and Vice President Gerald Ford became President August 9, 1974.

The White House fence of the period is illustrative, still standing, but suffering a bend or two.

When I returned in the summer of 1976, to join the Albuquerque Police, I saw New Mexico politics in a different light.

New Mexico is the fifth largest state, at 121,593 square miles. It is the 45th in population density.

According to the US census data the population of New Mexico was: in 1970 just over a million, 1980 – 1.3 million, 1990 – 1.5 million, 2000 – 1.8 million, and currently the population is estimated at just over two million people.

The federal government sends more than two dollars for every tax dollar collected in New Mexico; the highest rate for any state in the country.

The federal government controls almost 42 percent of the land; the ninth largest percentage of individual states; the eight states with larger percentages are all western states.

What isn't mountainous area is a vast arid landscape, which limits agriculture to river valleys and aquifer fed irrigation areas. Even a little rainfall will bloom up the dessert floor, exploding it with vibrant colors.

The lack of a civilian-manufacturing industry base means the military has been the economic cornerstone for the state.

With clear blue skies and a lot of empty land New Mexico became the testing ground and practice ranges for the Army and Air Force. Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories began as part of the World War II Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb, first tested at what is now White Sands Missile Range.

New Mexico has a long and rich history of a military presence starting with the existence of first nation or aboriginal people, which included warring factions.

The Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado y Luján, were looking for El Dorado, Quivira, and the seven cities of Cíbola. Coronado visited a pueblo near what is now Bernalillo, in the winter of 1540-41. In the harsh winter light, adobe, the main construction material of the pueblo, above, appears the color of raw gold and might be the basis of the legendary cities of gold.

In 1598 Don Juan de Oñate Salazar, sculpture above in Albuquerque, colonized what is now the state.

Conquistadors used military might and their religion to dominate the area like Quarai Mission, above, (which is now part of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument) until the pueblo revolt of 1680. Twelve years later, the Spaniards returned, less violent and more accepting of the pueblos.

After Mexican Independence from Spain, in 1821, there was a minimal governmental presence from the south and it only lasted some 27 years.

The United States took possession after the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, which began with the annexation of Texas into the Union.

Half of what is today New Mexico, east of the Rio Grande, was the western part of the Texas Republic after the 1836 revolution with Mexico; even Santa Fe and Albuquerque were officially Texas.

Upon acquisition from Mexico, the New Mexico territorial boundaries were redrawn and ran from the present day eastern border with Texas westward to California. It included parts of Colorado, Nevada, and most of Arizona, minus the Gadsden Purchase.

Above the New Mexico territory was the Utah territory which ran from about the continental divide in Colorado west to California in what is now most of the states of Utah and Nevada, and also parts of Colorado and Idaho.

The US government had military installations all across the area to protect travelers from murdering tribes, outlaws, and rustlers.

In 1916, Pancho Villa, who has been described as everything from a bandit, to revolutionary, to military general, attacked the small southern town of Columbus, just across the border from Mexico. In the battle, 18 Americans, eight 13th Cavalrymen and 10 civilians were killed.

US President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to initially lead 4,800 men on the Mexican Expedition to capture Villa. Pershing reportedly considered the 11-month effort a failure.

Two significant things happened militarily: the first use of airplanes for aerial reconnaissance, and the failure of effective use of cavalry troops as opposed to the use of automotive transportation. The above full size sculptured replica of a Curtiss JN-3 Jenny biplane, one of the 10 airplanes making up the 1st Aero Squadron in Columbus.

In more recent times, the state was home of numerous training facilities, air bases and munitions camps.

Current Air Force Bases are: Kirtland, at Albuquerque, Holloman, at Alamagordo, and Cannon, at Clovis. Army facilities includes White Sands Missile Range and much of Fort Bliss Military Range.

The New Mexico Air Guard has been in operation since after WWII, but is losing its F-16 airplanes and is struggling to maintain an aircraft mission. In the late 1960s the Guard was flying F-100s, above, and the unit served a tour in South Vietnam with a very high mission accomplishment record.

New Mexico is an isolated outpost of the country, being admitted as the 47th state in January 1912, only three weeks before Arizona was admitted as the last state in the lower continental North America.

An Arizona Territory was the topic of discussion as far back as 1851. The original proposal was to divide New Mexico, north – south.

During the Civil War the southern portion of the New Mexico Territory was made part of the Confederate States of America. Congress in 1862 redrew the dividing line longitudinally, separating the territories east – west, to deny the Confederate status.

Arizona decided to join the United States on the fiftieth anniversary of the Confederacy's formally making the territory part of the South. The symbolism is not lost today by the acts of the state in its political acts based on race and ethnicity.

Albuquerque grew to become the largest city after the railroad expanded through the state.

Yet, to travel to a comparable sized or larger city, one has to travel to: El Paso, Texas, 270 miles south, Phoenix, Arizona, 426 miles west, Denver, Colorado, 449 miles north, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 544 miles east.

With 22 Indian tribes, a large Hispanic population, a relatively small African-American presence and minor numbers for various other people, ethnicities, races, and nationalities, New Mexico has the largest percentage of a minority groups of all states in the country making it the only "minority-majority" state.

The African-American history in New Mexico is punctuated by cowboys and Cavalrymen, termed by Indians, as "Buffalo Soldiers." When you watch John Wayne in old John Ford Westerns of the late 1800s, and the cavalry coming to the rescue in the nick of time; the movie is probably not being historically accurate; more likely those troops were African-Americans led by white officers.

The width and depth of diversity from aboriginal to indigenous people by virtue of the pre-Colombian, Spanish colonization, and later an independent Mexico, created a strong cultural and religious influences on establishing state politics for more than 300 years before a significant migration of anglos.

This is a church procession during the Santa Fe Fiesta in 1966 from the Cathedral parading a statue of Mary under armed escort of the city police.

With the imposition of the traditional Anglo-Saxon governmental model, territorial rule and statehood came into existence which differed from the form of government associated with the Spanish – Mexican governments.

This differing models haven't always melded smoothly along the well established and often entrenched cultural lines. Though the differences are often subtle, tensions commonly associated with racial and ethnic overtones are not as pronounced here as they have been in other areas of our society. Differences exist and some problems are apparent, but because the openness of our state's diversity, their seems to be fewer hard and fast applications of outward racial prejudice or problems which have occurred in other parts of the nation.

Many other states are also influenced by such cultural histories. The best examples may be: Louisiana’s French influence, Hawaii’s royal existence, Maryland’s original Catholic settlers, Massachusetts’ Puritanical forbearers, Utah's Mormons, and Oklahoma's Indian Territory.

My take is that New Mexico's isolation and lower economic situations continue to cause it to suffer from a wild-west mentality.

I have recognized a few things I choose to share with newcomers to help understand potential culture shock.

I wrote to Nikolewski:

Welcome to New Mexico; I offer you a few things that all newcomers sooner or later must learn:

1. Mañana in Spanish means tomorrow, however in New Mexico, it means "not today." No guarantee of tomorrow, just for sure it won't happen today. It shouldn't take you too long to encounter this one, but when you do remember the real New Mexico definition.
2. Former Civil War Union General Lew Wallace, author of "Ben-Hur" and was New Mexico's 11th Territorial Governor from 1878–1881, said:

   "Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico."

3. New Mexico is where Democrats act like Republicans and Republicans act like Democrats.

Lieutenant Governor is a Constitutional position and would require a Constitutional amendment to change its position. New Mexicans are not averse to changing the Constitution and having a citizen legislature, it might be also willing to accept a citizen Lt. Governor.

The mushy language about, " facilitate and promote the cooperation and understanding between the people of this state and the agencies of state government,” actually defines an ombudsman's role.

If you noticed, Diane Denish's pre-primary campaign TV ad about the Housing Authority whistleblower, claimed Denish acted, investigated, and eventually four people were indicted.

I’m not much of a fan of Jim Scarantino, or his New Mexico WatchDog postings.

However, on June 3, 2010 Scarantino wrote, “Denish Corruption Ad False and Misleading Part I.”

Scarantino wrote:

Democratic Candidate for Governor Makes Herself a Witness in Major Criminal Case

An ad from the Denish for Governor campaign claims she ‘investigated’ corruption in the New Mexico Housing Authority and states that today people are under indictment and the housing authority has tough oversight because Diane Denish wouldn’t back down. A lawyer in the Housing Authority case says there is not one shred of evidence Denish was involved in any investigation. And the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office says, ‘The Attorney General’s Office is solely responsible for the criminal investigation which led to the indictments in the housing authority case."

Scarantino went on to write a second post:

No Way Out for Denish
Denish’s ad, which she necessarily approved, states unequivocally that she conducted an investigation into District III Housing Authority corruption. Under questioning from defense counsel, Denish may try to side step. But defense counsel have the ad itself. Either the ad is true or Denish is lying, will be the argument. If Denish does not disavow the ad, then defense counsel will pursue her documents. If Denish continues to insist the ad is true, but can’t turn over any documents to support that claim, defense counsel will have even more to work with. They will seek sanctions and argue that documents have been destroyed or are being withheld from the defense. Denish may well be placed on the stand and under oath asked in open court to either deny or affirm the accuracy of her campaign ad. And if she doesn’t disavow her ad completely, she will then be asked under oath to explain why no records of any kind exist of her highly touted investigation into Housing Authority corruption. And this is just the pre-trial skirmishing.

I did 27 years as a law enforcement officer and have been a adjunct professor in public administration. Denish’s claim as investigating, simply by listening, within the “mushy” ombudsman's role to the whistleblower’s story then passing on the information to the Attorney General as the proper criminal investigators meets my definition of conducting an investigation.

You wrote:

Third, the state attorney general acts is (sic) second in line to the governor. That’s what Arizona uses.

The New Mexico Constitution chain of command is: Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, then Senate Pro Tempore, then Speaker of the House.

In Arizona, the Secretary of State takes over if the Governor leaves office because Arizona has no lieutenant governor; if you’ll remember, Secretary of State Jan Brewer became Governor when Gov. Janet Napolitano, was picked by President Barack Obama for Secretary of Homeland Security last year; not the Attorney General.

You point out the cost of security, but you should know that Denish has not received the statutorily required security unless she is acting as Governor when Bill Richardson is out of state. I know because she is my neighbor, living four houses up the block from me.

I believe that Minnesota‘s Professor David Schultz’ V-8 moment, you point out, applies to New Mexico, and maybe even more so than Minnesota‘s situation. (Schultz’ V-8 moment was that Minnesotans wanted a lt. gov. for the jobs the additional office affords through appointment.)

Denish is pushing more odds than just trying to be the first woman to be governor; there is little history of a standing lieutenant governor then being elected governor in this state, though many have tried.

A half million dollars politically, won’t be seen in New Mexico as a significant amount of money….

Second Case

My blogging buddy, Ched MacQuigg has picked up on Scarantino’s claim that Denish had done no investigation, nor made a record of any investigation she might have done.

MacQuigg’s complaint was the ad was deceptive and misleads the ordinary citizen into thinking that Denish had been more involved than she actually was.

The word “investigation” is defined by Blacks Law Dictionary as:

The process of inquiring into or tracking down through inquiry. Mason v. Peaslee, 173 C.A.2d 587,343 P.2 805, 808.

For all Scarantino’s bluster over the word “investigated”, even if Denish only listened to Williams, the whistleblowers choice of the word meets “the process of inquiring into,” part of the definition.

Scarantino quotes the Attorney General’s Office as being solely responsible for the criminal investigation; operative word criminal.

This is the Attorney General’s Office Government Accountability Division Director Ann Badway and she filed an entry of appearance on July 10, 2009. for the State in the Gallegos case.

There is no further requirement to particularly do anything else to satisfy the definition to which Scarantino eludes.

Analysis

Diane Denish’s campaign ran an ad, “Denish: Spearheading Government Reform.”

The ad begins with a graphic, “’Whistle-Blower’ Frances Williams,” and her image saying:

“Five million dollars were just wasted… Five million dollars squandered.

Voice over a (1) graphic composed of several layers starting with a US currency bill, with parts of a copy of a Second Judicial District Court, County of Bernalillo, State of New Mexico filing with partial case numbers CR 2009 2948, AGO # 747 037PC and CR 2009 2949 the words Fraud and Embezzlement are in large type, the top layer is a moving quote “Abuses at Every Level”:
(1) In order to read the case history, you have to refresh the screen, enter, I accept, and reenter the URL code, http://www.nmcourts.gov/caselookup/app?component=cnLink&page=SearchResults&service=direct&session=T&sp=SD-202-CR-200902947

When whistleblower Frances Williams uncovered corruption at the housing authority, (2) she needed some one to take up Santa Fe insiders she turned (3) to Diane Denish.

(2) A second graphic flashed from white, has a picture of the West facade of the State Capitol building with a quote, “Potentially one of the worst scandals in New Mexico history”, by “former Rep. Dan Foley (Roswell)”, above the Albuquerque Journal banner eagle and a date of March 13, 2007.

(3) A video pans from right to left past two men with Denish between them speaking.

Williams went on to say:

Diane listened to me… She was outraged... She took action. She investigated.

Voice over video of Denish speaking at a podium with the Great Seal of the State of New Mexico” on the front of a podium with two microphones in front of an American flag and parts of three male heads as an audience, with a gray slash across image from lower screen left slightly upwards to mid-screen right, with black print, “Denish “Spearheading” Push for Reform” and an AP logo under the slash, “Associate Press 2/15/07”. (4) Denish is shown in a quick panned close-up, (5) then in a four person pan shot, from left to right, of her speaking at a table between two men; an African-American and an Hispanic and an African-American woman to the right.

Voice:

Today four people are under indictment (4) and the housing , (5) authority has tough oversight because Diane Denish wouldn’t back down.

Denish and a Hispanic man walking through a brightly sun lit hallway with leather covered benches as the man holds an open file while Denish speaks and gestures in a zooming in shot. Then there is a zooming in three shot of Denish speaking and pointing with the same man and a woman. There is a horizontal banner, “www.DianeDenish.com/whistleblower”

Williams went on to say:

She has the courage of her convictions… She will get it done.

The tag line appears:

Paid for by the committee to elect Diane D. Denish, Inc., Ted F. Martinez, Chair.

A final sweeping shot from lower right to upper left of Denish appears with a dissolving from left to right and flashing white and red, “Diane Denish” appears in the lower right quarter of the screen above the Federal Communications Commission’s legally required tag line.

There were sixteen edits in the 30-second ad, which uses the white flash edit technique to separate various parts of the message. The white flash is known to have a visceral effect, especially to males. It catches their attention reinforcing the message. White flash edit is considered to be unethical for its psychological manipulation. However, it is very popular and considered effective.

For every political message, campaigns produce material to justify claims asserted, in this case Denish’s contentions were in a document called. “Housing Authority Ad Back-Up.”

On Denish’s website she relates the story of her interaction with Region VII Housing Authority Commissioner Frances F. Williams who is called a whistleblower.

Williams began calling elected officials and newspapers to make her case. And when Williams called Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, she took action. According to Williams: “Diane did what nobody else had the courage to do. Without missing a beat, Diane took action. That meant standing up to members of her own political party, but Diane didn’t care – she was determined to clean up the Housing Authority and protect housing for thousands of New Mexicans who didn’t have a voice.”
That’s exactly what happened. Diane contacted State Sen. Mary Kay Papen (D-Las Cruces) and worked with her to craft legislation to bring unprecedented oversight to the Housing Authority. Republican State Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones (now a GOP candidate for Governor) sponsored a House version of the bill.

www.DianeDenish.com/whistleblower

Personal Experience

I learned the hard way as a police officer that simply listening to information that had already been passed on to assigned investigators in the September 10, 1980 murder of Albuquerque Police Officer Phil Chacon, above, constituted an “investigation” for the purpose of administrative discipline.

I worked with Chacon in the Chief's Office under Bob Stover; Chacon in Community Affairs while I was in the Public Information office.

This is the Phil Chacon Memorial Southeast Area Command Sub-Station at 800 Louisiana, S.E., it was named after the deceased officer.

Chacon was off-duty visiting a woman's shelter as part of his community services assignment, when two boys, living at the center, told him of an armed robbery at a shoe store across the street. Chacon was unarmed and riding his personal motorcycle, he gave chase to the suspects' car. Only a couple of blocks away, the car stopped, Chacon got off his motorcycle, and he was shot to death.

The investigation led by the homicide unit faltered. A parallel armed robbery investigation was more aggressive and split from the lead investigation. It might be termed that they went "rouge."

I was asked by a white-collar union official to assist in filing an administrative appeal for a civilian records clerk who was being disciplined for sharing information from a police report about her stepson with her husband. The stepson was providing questionable information to investigators while telling his father he had no problems with the law. The police report’s accounting (a public record) begged to differ with the son’s version about his character. Police administrators attempted to silence the records clerk to protect their flimsy criminal case.

The case was made more flimsy by the armed robbery detectives who were pursuing a "prime suspect.” They infiltrated a man, whom I had arrested on a felony fraud charge, as an informant next to their suspect.

The detectives traded away the signature fraud case of mine, and coerced their informant into cooperating.

The detectives never consulted me. Had they, I would have advised them the informant was legally useless because of the prior conviction for prior signature crime. Such a crime is the equivalent of perjury. Convicted perjurers may not testify except in their own defense; his use as a potential witness was worthless.

A State District Court jury convicted the prime suspect, Van Bering Robinson, of first-degree murder in Chacon’s death. The State Supreme Court reversed the conviction and a second trial resulted in an acquittal.

Robinson named the City, APD and the detectives in a civil action when he successfully sued for violation of his civil rights.

For havening conducted an “unauthorized investigation,” I received a two-day suspension and a 30-day assignment to Internal Affairs to “learn how the department ‘worked.’” I never served the assignment; the powers that be didn’t want me anywhere near IA. Though I would spend more than 30-days time in the Internal Affairs unit as a union representative for dozens of officers through the rest of my career.

Three of the four armed robbery detectives went on to attain rank; one to sergeant, one to deputy chief of police, and another, Joe Polisar to chief of police, above.

Polisar, a native of New York rose as a "Golden Boy" through the department's ranks weathering some of the strongest political storms. In addition to the Chacon murder case, he was the commander of the intelligence unit that was involved in conducting investigations of political leaders and prominent citizens with no legal reason to believe they were involved in any criminal activity.

Being married to the cousin of Mayor Martin J. Chávez, who appointed him chief, might not have mattered. Though Chávez said he had never met Polisar before interviewing him for the job of Chief; the statement was about the only surprising thing. Had Chávez admitted the nepotism, the 18 other documented relatives, through blood or marriage, in the police department, might not have laughed so hard. Polisar's wife, Liz Chávez, above, was also a mid-level manager for the City of Albuquerque. She is seen here supporting her husband during a difficult meeting of the Public Safety Advisory Board during his reading a lawyer prepared report about a number of recent police involved fatal shootings and resulting changes to the department's use of force policy.

Scarantino, right, makes an assertion that Denish did no investigation; it might be based on his own biased definition that an investigative case must come from a law enforcement agency containing: police reports, statements, transcripts of interrogations, diagrams, medical records, crime scene photographs, and other forms of evidence, scientific laboratory reports, fingerprints, mug shots, arrest records of suspects, and the like.

Scarantino filed an inspection of public records request, wanting to see the investigative documents Denish produced. Denish made no record, but that doesn't mean she hadn't investigated.

There is an old axiom about lawyers:

when the evidence is against you, pound the law,
when the law is against you, pound the evidence,
when the law and the evidence are against you, pound the table.

There is information available to bolster Scarantino’s claim that the Denish ad, specifically William’s use of the word “investigated”, and the campaign’s choice in keeping the word in the ad, endorsing its sentiment as a fact.

Scarantino, among others (Denish, below, included) is a thief; he steals my photographs to enhance his postings.

Denish reported receiving, "$10,000 each from Emily's List, a national political action committee that helps female Democratic candidates...."

However, on January 14, 2010, in a more in depth accounting, the The New Mexican's Steve Terrell posted:

Denish's largest contributor on this report was Emily's List, a national political action committee that supports female Democratic candidates who favor abortion rights. The PAC gave Denish two contributions totaling $55,000. Earlier in 2009, Denish reported another $10,000 from Emily's List, meaning the total is at least $65,000. In 2008, the PAC raised $43 million for its candidates.

My photo of Denish appeared on Emily's List page for the Lt Gov. When I sent a bill to EMILY's List, their lawyer, in a response only another attorney might be gullible enough to accept, wrote:

First and foremost, EMILY’s List respects the intellectual property rights of others.

Without admitting any wrongdoing, our client has removed the Photo from its site at www.emilyslist.org, and appreciates you bringing this matter to our attention.
We assume that this action will resolve this matter. EMILY’s List was not aware of your claimed rights in the Photo, which was posted for a brief period of time and was used only in the context of our clients nonprofit charter. For all these reasons, we believe our client’s removal of the Photo should resolve this matter.

Clearly if EMILY’s List does not respect intellectual property rights, or they wouldn't have felt compelled to write a letter. And removing a picture from a site after its use can demonstrate an impact does not resolve anything.

I would have licensed the Denish campaign use of the picture for a reasonable fee, because it was not being used in a negative ad. However, instead of contacting me after EMILY’s List had the picture removed, they have simply ignored me.

There is such an irony attached to this picture. The State Republican party produced an attack ad against Denish last year using my picture. When contacted, the GOP said they didn't think it was my picture because they located it on EMILY’s List and thought it was a Denish campaign owned picture. The GOP paid their bill.

State Representative Janice Arnold-Jones R – Bernalillo County, introduced legislation House Bill 997, on February 7, 2007, to repeal the regional housing law. The duties and authority of the Regional Housing Authorities would have shifted to the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority.

The Health and Government Affairs Committee unanimously passed the bill with a minor amendment on February 22. It then went to the Business and Industry Committee where it passed, then the bill was postponed indefinitely; the bill never made it to the scheduled Appropriations and Finance committee and died at the end of the session.

Arnold-Jones is a member of the interim committees: Mortgage Finance Authority Act Oversight, she is also an advisory member of the New Mexico Finance Authority Oversight Committee.

Arnold-Jones abandoned her chair in the House to run in the GOP primary for governor finishing last in a five-person race. The five candidates were: Petet Domenici Jr., Allen Weh, Arnold-Jones, Doug Turner, and Susana Martinez. Arnold-Jones will be replaced when a newly elected legislator, Conrad James, who faced no primary opponent and Democrats fielded no rival candidate.

As a matter of full disclosure, I provided access to my photographs, archives and video to Arnold-Jones during her primary campaign.

Senator Mary Kay Papen (D) Dona Ana County also introduced legislation, Senate Bill 519, on January 24, 2007.

Papen’s bill, SB 519 passed the Senate, 36-1, and the House, 64-0.

Papen is a member of the Senate Finance committee, among others. She is also a member of several interim committees: the New Mexico Finance Authority Oversight committee, of which she is the Chair, and the Legislative Finance committee and is an advisory member of the Investments Oversight committees.

Arnold-Jones said at a public meeting that she and Papen were in communication as they put together their individual legislation for each house. Though they were not mirror bills, as Arnold-Jones legislation stalled, Papen incorporated portions of the House Bill. Denish did not become involved with Papen’s bill until late in the legislative process, Arnold-Jones said.

Denish signed the piece of legislation as the acting governor.

The bill was signed March 28, by Denish. “Governor Bill Richardson applauds today’s signing of Senate Bill 519 Regional Housing Authority Reform, by Lt. Governor Diane Denish,” a press release stated. “I’d also like to acknowledge Lt. Governor Denish who pushed tirelessly for this bill.”

On the other side of the political divide, The Denish campaign released its first post Republican primary attack ad claiming two things: that GOP gubernatorial candidate Dona Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez, left, has the worst homicide conviction rate of all DA’s in the state, and that when Martinez ran for DA, she had promised “We will not plea bargain a DWI case,” according to a September 5, 2004, Las Cruces Sun-News headline.

The first part of the ad, Martinez’ homicide conviction rate was rapidly challenged and apparently debunked to the point that the Denish campaign has removed it from her site.

Though in a June 07, 2010 press release entitled “Hypocrisy Alert,” the Denish campaign called out Martinez’ 800 plea bargained drunk driving cases.

According to a prominent New Mexico political commentator, “She had flatly said a couple of years ago she would not plea bargain felony DWI cases, but she did.” [Blog, New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan, 5/20/10] Martinez still has not explained why she broke this pledge.

The no plea bargain pledge just can’t be kept by a practicing district attorney, in this age of constrained governmental resources and time-limits imposed on prosecutors and the number of cases to be tried. It’s simply not pragmatic. Plea-bargaining is an indispensable part of the criminal justice system.

Sometimes the original charges filed by police are inflated or found by the district attorney’s office to be greater than the evidence eventually is capable of proving.

The reality of making a case in court, especially where records of prior convictions must: be located, verified, placed under seal, introduced, and into evidence, often times run into bureaucratic and jurisdictional nightmares. The element of how many prior DWI convictions must be proved and is routinely problematic. The number of arrests and even convictions found on a suspect’s rap sheet will not suffice for the court, under the rule of law, but is fertile ground for newspapers and candidates alike. Oft times the decision is to plea-bargain the case that can be made or lose the original charge for a lack of evidence. The public might not understand it, but the half a loaf is better than no loaf at all.

According to Las Cruces Sun-News headlines:
District attorney [Greg Valdez] will run for re-election (7/1/95)
Fired ADA [Susanna Martinez] awarded $122,000 (7/27/95)

According to Martinez' biography, in 1996 she defeated then DA Greg Valdez 59% - 41%.
In 2000 Martinez beat Kent Yalkut 51% - 49%
In 2004 Martinez beat Valdez again 60% - 40%
In 2008 Martinez was unopposed and got 100%

The parsing of a single word in political advertising comes off as an attempt to portray opponents in a negative light. The first blush may seem to indicate something that upon closer examination does not convey the same meaning.

Final Thoughts

There is the old saying that “politics make strange bedfellows.”

In New Mexico, “strange” would be a kind word.

Nikolewski, interviewing the Senate Finance Committee Chair John Arthur Smith D – Hidalgo, Luna and Sierra Counties, is welcome. Rob jump in anyways, the water’s fine, if you can find any.

For the fifth largest state, we only have about 250 square miles of surface water, and that considers one river, the Rio Grande, above, which, runs the length of the state, 440 miles, while a second, the Pecos, runs over 300 miles. The headwaters of the Pecos comes out of the aspen groves of the southern peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, east of Santa Fe and above the village of Pecos.
Water is more precious in New Mexico than the value of El Dorado or the seven golden cities of Cibola.

New Mexico, where there is an unofficial autumn contest to see who can generate more hot air; the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta or our politicians during campaign season.
Yes, New Mexico welcomes almost everyone, you just aren't always made to feel that way. Political Tectonic Shift: Energy Policy under the North American Union (NAU)
by Mary-Sue Haliburton
Global Research, October 2, 2006
Pure Energy Systems News
Email this article to a friend
Print this article
Traditional combustion-energy paradigm is over-represented at secret high-level negotiations under North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

Scheduled to begin to exercise power authority by 2007, the SPP will place three nations in the continent under “harmonized” laws and a unified administration. If that is not stopped – and we appear to be past the tipping point – will any of us recognize our society? And will it still be possible to shift the energy paradigm under such a political paradigm shift?

The North American Energy PolicyIn recent decades, with government cooperation, a business-supported bias has enforced use of combustibles as the primary form of energy for transportation, heating and to a large degree, electrical generation as well. When oil prices rose far enough to cause the public to gripe, the government would step in, providing rebates and subsidies – out of the taxpayers’ own money of course. On this archaic technology we have built an entire system of infrastructure and interconnected business that resists change. In addition to this obvious publicly-known bulwark in favour of the oil industry, there was an undeclared "North American Energy Policy" in effect. To nip in the bud any technologies that might reduce its dominance, certain highly-placed individuals would intervene to ridicule the inventions, and to block even proof-of-concept experiments.

(Ref. 1) In a process underway for decades in secret, and more recently coming to the brink of emergence, the three nations currently occupying the continent of North America are to be merged economically, and, to a greater extent than any of their respective populations yet realize, politically.

This is known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). On March 23 in 2005, the SPP agreement was signed formally by the three government leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. (Ref. 2)Political Tectonic Plates ShiftingWhether it is “only” a new layer of government that will be overlaid on top of existing ones, or whether the unified administration will ultimately replace the existing three governments in Ottawa, Washington, and Mexico City, the SPP represents a violent shakeup of the ground we thought we had under our feet.

A tsunami of daily-life consequences will flood over everyone as well, as all areas of financial and social law are to be “harmonized” to make it easier for business.

To those setting up this continental administration, borders are simply a hindrance to commerce. Modeled on the European Economic Community (EEC), the North American Union (NAU) seeks to minimize and ultimately to eliminate such inconveniences.

Because elected officials participate along with the CEOs of oil businesses in the working groups and councils which are finalizing the details, the official stance is that the push toward this union is a “democratic” one. All that is missing from their apparent working definition of that word is a mandate from the electorates of the three countries. Many Canadians voting in the January 2006 election were led to believe, based on the campaign slogans of Steven Harper, that they were voting for a nationalist leader.

He claimed he would “stand up for Canada” – all the while clearly planning to do the opposite. Under working groups and the “North American Competitiveness Council” (NACC), a single administration for the continent is already being set up, with ministries and secretariats of its own.

It is not yet publicly known exactly what form this will take, but the political and social traditions of each country are on the table -- or maybe the chopping block. The plans are to be completed by the end of 2006. Within one to four years, residents of all parts of North America will be facing a monolithic administration – most likely without any of our original constitutions, and possibly without our familiar political party setups and legal systems. This is not a wild conspiracy theory, nor is what little has been published based on guesswork. The union of North America is the official policy of the U.S. government.

(Ref. 3) Government Secrecy: U.S. Administration’s MisinformationThe U.S. government describes this incoming merger in neutral, non-threatening terms as a co-operative partnership (ref. 4), but many observers are suspicious that it involves a tighter union than what has been described in official communiqués. The SPP actually establishes a "totally new state corporate rule over the entire North American Continent."

(Ref. 5)With great effort, some individual Americans have ferreted out the background and ramifications of the agreement, comparing public announcements with what is actually happening in Congress and in verifiable news reports. These individuals accuse the government of covering up a traitorous agenda to eliminate the constitution and the nation itself. The government's own myth-debunking website (ref. 6) alleges that no agreement was ever signed. In refutation of that official misdirection, Tom DeWeese’s (ref. 7) article about the cover-up lists news reports of Bush, Fox and Martin in fact signing the SPP agreement in 2005 in Waco, Texas.

And on March 31, 2006, a second agreement was signed in Cancun by Bush, Vicente Fox and Steven Harper, the new Prime Minister of Canada. The politicians’ photo-op and signing were a formality; the real negotiations had been ongoing among high-level government and industry representatives in the preceding years. Only a brief summary of the agreement was announced, stating six priorities to ensure that the union would be in place by the end of this year. Notably, the agreement calls for "collaboration" amongst business executives and governmental agencies for “energy security" as a continental policy exercise.DeWeese lists more examples of how the government's official statements are contradicted by the facts.

For example, to counter the claim that the SPP "won’t change our court system or legislative process and that it respects the sovereignty of each nation," DeWeese outlines the total lack of Congressional oversight as indicating that the SPP is not respecting the existing system. If the existing system were being respected, why would the planning and implementation be so secretive, and government statements not supported by facts? And if it’s for our benefit, why aren’t politicians, who love to show how much they are achieving for their constituents, promoting it in glowing terms? DeWeese concludes, "The United States is the most unique nation on earth.

We were created out of a radical idea that free people, with their freedoms protected by the government would be happy and prosper beyond imagination. The idea worked. Now, the Bush Administration is ignoring this historic fact to “harmonize” us with Canada and especially Mexico, which is not a free country; has no [right of] property and has just proved its unworthiness of conducting free and fair elections. At risk are our culture, our wealth, and the once proud American way of life."In short, the same lack of honesty which Al Gore ascribed to both Democrats and Republicans in not telling the public enough about energy policy (Ref. 8: speech text) has also been at work to hide the nature and effects this trilateral negotiation that is bringing the NAU into effect.

The public in three countries are not being told enough about the process (in as many languages) to know whether to take action against it, and if so, of what kind. American Media: Very Few Voices Raised On June 21st, 2006, viewers of CNN’s Lou Dobbs’ program, would have heard this chilling announcement:

"President Bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it, and he took the step without approval from either the U.S. Congress or the people of the United States." (Ref. 9) Given that statement’s tone of doom, it’s not hard to see why the government’s website is issuing soothing denials. This is quoted in “Creating the North American Union” by Dennis Behreandt, which appears on The New American website as well as in its current issue of the Magazine.

On the invited list of participants at a secret planning conference in Banff, Alberta, September 12-14, 2006, was one Mary Anastasia O’Grady, described as a “Journalist for Wall Street Journal (Area Specialist)”.

(Ref. 10: list of attendees) Apparently the business-oriented readers of that publication may be treated to some future reports that might reflect tips obtained as inside knowledge. But this doesn’t amount to disclosure of the NAU agenda in any broad sense.

We may see some Wall Street insiders being touted for their very astute market “predictions” about what is going to happen with resource stock prices, but they will not be discussing the politics of union or its social implications, other than the usual talk of how borders and “protectionist” laws get in the way of business. No other journalists were present either inside that meeting or outside the hotel making observations at a distance, or at any other of the meetings since the SPP signing was announced at the press conference in March. The silence from the media is deafening.

Despite having an overtly and publicly pro-NAU website, the spokesman of the North American Forum which sponsored the event, John Larson, excused the secrecy on the grounds that because attendees were promised privacy, reporters could not be told about the conference. And for the same reason he refused to confirm who had attended, let alone what they discussed in secret. (Ref. 11)The strongly right-wing John Birch Society, which continues to sound alarm bells, regards supporters of the NAU as communists and enemies of freedom.

They might be surprised to find that their allies in Canada who also strongly oppose the continental union are doing so because they see it as too right-wing due to its avowed purpose of terminating Canadian social programs such as universal Medicare. It’s the far-right-wing Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), currently in power, which is promoting the NAU. Its officials who attended the conference are toeing the secrecy line; and its leader co-signed the May 2006 agreement. This “strange-bedfellows” aspect of the issue puts the usual left vs. right dichotomy into perspective.

The old concepts are nearly irrelevant when it comes to whether people support the continental amalgamation or not. It’s all about concentrating power over larger and larger areas into fewer and fewer hands, and theories from all parts of the left/right spectrum are advanced both to justify and to attack the monster country that is being created. We need new language to discuss this, and on a different level. Government Secrecy: Canadian officials silentOrganizers of the event in Canada were the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, an elite club of Canada’s richest CEOs, and the Canada West Foundation, a very right-wing and pro-SPP think-tank based in the Alberta oil patch. We Canadians have been encountering total stonewalling from our own government on the subject.

Even recent and current Prime Ministers, who know perfectly well what is going on, have refused to discuss it. And because they have not permitted the issue to arise during any recent election, there is certainly no mandate from the Canadian public to negotiate an agreement to terminate the country. Stockwell Day, a former leader in the Conservative (or as it was then called, Alliance) party, and now Minister of Public Safety in the Conservative federal government, was an active participant in Banff.

His office is flatly refusing to answer questions from journalists. This was disclosed by the founder of the citizen watchdog group Council of Canadians, Maude Barlow, who has pointed out that it’s the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) which lobbies the government and continually pushes the notion that because the economies of the two countries are already partly integrated, Canadian “domestic laws are essentially redundant.” (Ref. 12).

Her concern is that the idea of redundancy of our laws will be extended to the government itself, and that because its government is seen as redundant, Canada itself will be made to disappear. Not a journalist with a job to protect, Barlow is nearly the only person to crack the barrier of media silence. And because her “Op-Ed” piece was published in only two Canadian newspapers (though undoubtedly it was offered to many more), that didn’t amount to much more than a squeak. Her article is hard to find online unless you are a paid subscriber to the Calgary Herald; at the time of writing the complete text was available in full only by email and within a frame article on a Toronto-based independent blog site.

(Ref. 13) Because Barlow is determinedly “non-political” in that she has never joined or endorsed a political party, perhaps this tiny chink in the stonewall of silence was permitted in order to imply that it’s only the “fringe” that worries about national sovereignty, and thereby to suggest that it’s not something to worry about. .

Currently, the political scene in Canada is occupied with electing a new leader for the Liberal Party. Most candidates for leadership started out blissfully unaware of the impending continental union, which could render their party superfluous within four years. After many attempts to reach them through their campaign teams, and buttonholing two of them in person, I got one candidate, Bob Rae, to agree that Canadians should be able to vote on this, and to promise to look at the information about it.

Another, Gerard Kennedy, has issued a campaign message on September 27th by telephone to the party members calling on them not to go down the same road as the Harper conservatives. A third candidate, former Environment Minister Stéphane Dion, gained the endorsement and campaigners of David Orchard, a former leadership candidate who perennially calls for Canadian independence. (Ref. 14) But the leading contender for head of the Liberal Party is still considered by the big-money “party machine” to be Michael Ignatieff. In policy he’s a clone of former leader Paul Martin, who signed the SPP in 2005.

Ignatieff, who has lived south of the border for about three decades and reflects in his writings the opinions of the Bush administration on continentalism, returned to Canada for no other reason than to keep the NAU on track by means of a leadership bid. He’s the one who gets the promotional write-ups in the print media, and lots of air-time for his campaign slogan “nation building”. Exactly which nation Ignatieff is building, he has not specified. He is letting his followers assume that this is Canada; our only hope is that nationalist candidates at the convention will be willing to raise the spectre of continental merger and make it the key issue. Only if Canadians can get to vote on whether to keep our country might it be possible to derail the NAU juggernaut, at least for a while.

Canadian Media Complicity The Canadian media has been completely silent on the issue, including the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which used to investigate stories the privately-owned media ignored. In a revealing phone message, award-winning CBC news producer Mark Harrison told a Canadian-sovereignty activist that previous coverage of negotiations toward continental integration had triggered "national self interest" that appeared to stop it.

And since the CBC didn’t think this continental agenda was going ahead, it didn’t see a reason to cover the story, he concluded. (Ref. 15) The fact that Harrison also brought up the “One World Government” indicates that he’s assuming it’s all a “conspiracy theory” which can by definition be ignored. It’s not out of line to read between lines here, and wonder whether the news directors were told to keep the SPP quiet until it’s already a "fait accompli".

Then their role would be to tell us that this union is for our own good. Given that journalists are naturally curious people, one wonders how journalists in a news organization worthy of the name can ignore all these high-level meetings and the signed agreements. It’s inexplicable, unless there have been orders come down from above. More recently – perhaps after receiving complaints like the one above -- the CBC did briefly and belatedly mention the Banff conference.

Because no Canadian journalists were notified about it beforehand, there was no possibility, after it was all wrapped up, of obtaining statements from attendees, or even photos of the bigwigs arriving and departing. However, an anonymously-authored report on the CBC website quotes a taxi driver in Banff as expressing outrage that this “assault on democracy” was taking place in his own backyard.

(Ref. 16)Internet Activism in CanadaSome Canadian activists belong to splinter parties which arose due to frustration with media silence in the face of the rapid erosion of national sovereignty. These people have been working to discover the facts, and are circulating by email and on websites what is being carefully excluded from mass-market news.

A group called "Vive le Canada" (French for "long live Canada") cites polls showing that Canadians want more distance from the Bush Administration and its policies, especially foreign policy. However, the preceding Prime Minister ignored what the public was saying in many polls, and even borrowed the name of the agreement signed in 2005 from the Canadian financial establishment's "Security and Prosperity Initiative".

Their plan, and the process of “deep integration” have gone ahead rapidly while Canadians, like Americans, mostly remain in the dark. A task force has created a continent-wide customs union with a common approach to trade, energy, immigration, law enforcement and security that would virtually eliminate existing national borders. As of 2002, military integration was implemented. Although officially the war in Afghanistan is now being called a NATO operation, Canadian soldiers are under American command there. Harmonization of all other areas of law and commerce is already going ahead as well. Quebec’s civil law is based on Napoleonic code which they value as part of their perception of themselves as culturally unique, while English common law which is the basis of law in other provinces. Quebeccers, some of whom support the NAU, have not yet been told about the harmonization of laws. They make take a dim view of this if their language, culture and legal system are not going to get special protection in the unified North America. A comprehensive timeline of the progress of deep integration and the creation of the North American Union (NAU) can be read at the Vive le Canada website.

(Ref. 17).Freedom of Speech on the InternetFor those who do not have the habit of automatically believing what they see or hear from the mass media, there is “Indy-media” – a concatenation of mostly individuals whose small voices have been accessible on the internet – so far – but only if you know enough to look for them. Although there is often an admixture of paranoia and far-out or left-field ideas, there are also well-founded warnings and reports of opposition activity from these sources. Some propose, and take, specific political actions of the traditional kind. Suggestions range from impeaching the current president, or running for office on a ticket for doing so, to organizing an independent local economic system based on issuing “scrip” as a means of exchange – if you don’t want to use the new “Amero” dollar that will replace the three national currencies.

(Ref. 18) Don’t laugh. That is exactly how the original thirteen colonies functioned economically; they issued their own “scrip” (notes exchangeable for goods), which is what ran afoul of the colonial power’s desire to control all banking, and triggered the famous American Revolution. The feisty gadfly Alex Jones has been warning his radio listeners and internet readers for several years about the decline of democracy and future tyranny, and in the darkest terms. He argues that the “security” the new powers want to establish means “police state” and Nazi-like abuses by those in authority. (Ref. 19) Jones encountered this sort of treatment himself in spades when he crossed into Canada to try to get first-hand reports of a meeting held by the “Bilderbergers” at a hotel in Ottawa, Canada in June of 2006. That group consists of wealthy power-brokers and bankers, and the top-level politicians who apparently receive their marching orders from the international financial leaders. Because of a complaint by the Bilderberger group against him, Jones was detained and interrogated by Canadian customs officials.

They acted more like security cops, throwing wild accusations of drug dealing or porn trafficking at Jones and screaming at him. It was only when some journalists arrived to interview Alex, and vouched for him, that he was finally released. (Ref. 20) Those journalists got questioned as well. And none of those mass-media journalists was in evidence when “indy-media” videographer and retired economist Jeremy Wright (ref. 21) arrived to meet Alex, and recorded part of his monologue delivered in a lonely vigil in front of the closed face of the swank hotel. The internet itself is mostly owned by the same huge corporations that control the mass media.

It is already extensively surveilled, and sites which provide alternative news inconvenient to those in power, or which explain alternative energy theories or inventions, are often spammed or subjected to hacking or other forms of interference. A few independent site managers have the smarts to monitor who is monitoring them by studying visitor logs. (Ref.) Since most people go online chiefly to search for entertainment news and bargains, to play games or gamble, and to engage in frivolous chatter, the few who engage in serious alternative news analysis have so far been tolerated as preserving the illusion of free speech.

And because they are also often dependent on donations even to maintain their websites, they don’t have much ability to promote their viewpoints. If a unified continental administration turns out to be more police state than benevolent dictatorship, that laissez-faire attitude could change. The concern is that harassment could develop into total censorship, blocking the ability of political dissenters to voice their opinions. To prevent this loss of freedom, national constitutions and amendments supporting personal rights must be upheld. Because the NAU process is so secretive, the status of existing national constitutions is in question, and the tendency to favour big corporations well established.

Some phone and cable companies AT&T, Verizon and Comcast have already proposed to “gut” this free exchange of ideas, seeking “to remake the information superhighway into their private toll road.” (Ref.) Web inventor and copyright-holder Sir Tim Berners-Lee advocates “Net Neutrality” as “essential to democracy” as well as vital to economic productivity. (Ref. 22) Various “net freedom” groups have formed to defend this basic principle. Leaked Document: the ParticipantsA long-time activist in the Canadian independence movement, Mel Hurtig, publisher of The Canadian Encyclopedia, apparently used his own connections to obtain an early version of the agenda for that high-level SPP meeting that took place in the luxury Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, September 12-14, 2006 in Banff, Alberta. The hotel is known as a spectacular (and pricey) tourist resort in the mountains near the famous jewel-like, green-tinted Lake Louise. Vive le Canada activist Susan Thompson has circulated this document widely through email networks such as that reached by the nationalist Canadian Action Party.

In the view of CAP leader Constance Fogal, a lawyer, this SPP group is already functioning as a "government de facto" (Black's Law Dictionary page 824), or
"a government of fact. A government actually exercising power and control in the state as opposed to the true and lawful government; a government not established according to the constitution of the state, or not lawfully entitled to recognition or supremacy, but which has nevertheless supplanted or displaced the government de jure. A government deemed unlawful or unjust, which nevertheless receives presently habitual obedience from the bulk of the community."

Due to the secrecy and exclusion of the public from the process, she further suggests that the participants are operating as traitors to the electorates who put them in office. Again she cites Black's Law Dictionary, which defines "Traitor" as "One who, being trusted, betrays; one guilty of treason." (Ref. 23)The leaked document obtained by Hurtig contains along with the agenda of topics, for the first time a comprehensive list of the movers and shakers who are re-writing the political map of the continent, and who are by-passing the political systems of three nations to do it.

Officials of the Country of North AmericaAt this secret convention, co-chaired by George Schultz, former Secretary of State (U.S.), Peter Lougheed, a former Alberta premier, and former Mexican Minister of Finance Pedro Aspe, were many leaders and CEOs from oil companies, universities, pro-business think tanks, and the military. (Ref. 24: participant list) A few names and their associated titles indicate that a continental proto-government has already been set up. A Mexican, Gerónimo Gutiérrez, holds the title of Deputy Foreign Minister for North America. Under what authority could such a position be created, other than by the as-yet-unveiled Country of North America complete with its own head of state and cabinet? Who's the “Foreign Minister for North America?” Who’s the President?

There has been speculation on some websites as to which individuals have been named to other posts in the administration of “North America”, but so far, none has supplied references to support these assertions or guesses. There is also a secretariat for "Western Hemisphere Affairs", suggesting further planned econo-political consolidation, probably over the heads of, and without the consent of, the nations in South America.

Mock Parliament for Youth Promotes NAUSponsor of the secret Banff conference was the North American Forum, a group specifically dedicated to bringing about unification of the continent in one political body. Their website describes their pet project to bring the next generation on board: a simulated North-American parliament called the Triumvirate. The first annual “interparliamentary simulation of North America” took place in the Canadian Senate Chambers in Ottawa, May 23-27, 2005. The second was in Mexico City, May 21-26, 2006. (Ref. 25).

According to the plan for rotating the event among the three existing nations, the next “Triumvirate” will be in Washington, D.C. in May of 2007, and they will be inviting 100 university students. The site describes it thusly: “The Triumvirate is a unique parliamentary exercise that annually brings together a hundred university students, from Canada, Mexico and the United States, in order to simulate, during five days, a parliamentary meeting between North American national and sub-national parliamentarians, joined by journalists and lobbyists.” (Ref. 26) Presumably the “sub-national parliaments” referred to on the NAF promotional web page are the currently-sovereign governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, which will become sub-parliaments under the NAU. Can this North American Union be Stopped?Without an immediate and overwhelming groundswell of political will from a MAJORITY within the general populations of each of the three countries, it is difficult to see how the already-far-advanced union of North America can be disentangled.

The corporate media’s silence seems calculated to make sure that no rumbles of disturbance will wake the sleeping giant of public opinion and derail the union this time. News might stir up the emotions of people who cling to old and, according to the planners, outdated loyalties. No matter how many credible and high-level individuals oppose an official dogma (ref. 27), if the mass media does not report their testimony, the public can be kept in a state of acquiescence with the policy or situation they are trying to challenge.And the mental laziness of many who believe only what’s been on the nightly TV news, and reject every other idea remains the majority opinion, the massive popular political awakening required to stop the NAU may not occur in sufficient numbers, if at all.

Too many people still associate their love of country with support for Big Oil. Due to Canadian soldiers dying in Afghanistan, the Harper government is using the slogan “support our troops” (against alleged foreign terrorists) in the same manner as the Bush Administration.

The Canadian Action Party is countering by adding “bring them home” to the slogan. (Ref.) Knee-jerk responses buttressed by anomalous emotional intensity are routine against any hint that the elected government might not be acting for the best interests of the nation. To a suggestion that long-term manipulation of the system for their own benefit by certain wealthy families and individuals (ref. 28) has been able to override the famous checks and balances on which the American constitution has always depended, there is usually an apoplectic reactions from the complacent media consumers. They are simply unable to believe that this could or would happen, and because that belief is unassailable, may not be exercising the needed vigilance to ensure that the system does not become perverted. Media giants have, of course, spent big bucks hiring very convincing and handsome news anchors, and heavily promote the notion of placing trust in these individuals.

A servile philosophy has grown around the idea of the news anchor as the source of all truth, even if it’s based on sloppy reasoning. (Ref. 29) Intellectual sleaze is a foundational principle of the billion-dollar business of selling news, or “infotainment”. As long as the news sells, it doesn’t even matter whether it’s true. The ideal of journalism as serving the public and their right to know is often held up as the highest expression of the human right of “free speech”.

However, corporate ownership of the media is now so concentrated that “free speech” has become “expensive speech”. Some analysts have shamelessly argued that it’s only the owner of the means of disseminating the news who has the right to decide what is published therein.

The “human right” of freedom of speech is derided as a “communistic” belief, and free speech upheld as a property right. In his comprehensive article “Personalizing the Impersonal: Corporations and the Bill of Rights” Carl J. Meyer analyses how the notion of corporate personhood has insinuated itself into the law, and how rights once regarded as “inalienable” for human beings have been pried away from people and given to corporations. (Ref. 30) It is within this distorted, but officially-sanctioned legal context, that the “Competitiveness Council” and other private working groups and think tanks are developing the plans for a corporatized North America – without that pesky Constitution and Bill of Rights.

If only a minority protests against a powerful police state, the dissenters could find themselves classified as terrorists, and treated accordingly. A Harmonized Energy Policy for North AmericaOne main objective of the NAU negotiations is to create a single energy policy for the continent by "improving transparency and regulatory compatibility." (Ref. 31) “Regulatory compatibility” is easy to understand as "harmonized” laws; i.e. everyone has to follow the same rules. The part that’s less clear is the “transparency” referred to in this statement.

Of course it’s transparent to the CEOs and politicians who are working at that level, but is the other side of the coin that complete opaque secrecy we are seeing at present?Creating such a harmonized energy policy falls to the Working Groups and Councils which are setting up this unified continental administration. In the absence of policy statements being issued, we have to infer – by logical reasoning from available evidence – what would be the probable outcome of a panel discussion at which the chair is Clay Sell, Deputy Secretary of Energy, the Moderator is N. Murray Edwards, Vice Chair of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.

(a lobby group for the oil and gas companies), and in which the panelists include high-level representatives of Suncor and Pemex. Also participating was David Victor, Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at the Center for Environmental Science & Policy. (Ref. 32: Text of Leaked Document – Meeting Agenda – sent by email ) Yes, there’s one guy on that panel to speak for sustainability, and his organization makes a friendly noises toward wind and solar energy. (Ref. 33) Though that sounds hopeful, it’s not convincing. Note that it’s a panel discussion, not a debate between opposed parties. In this genre of meeting, how far could one person tilt the discussion in the direction of magnetic symmetry, or any other non-fuel or zero-emission energy? The answer would be “not much” if you can see that the personnel scale is heavily weighted toward the consumable-resource end.

My experience of attending various panel discussions staged by government and representing the corporate world’s agenda is that panelists routinely spout the dominant philosophy of the meeting’s sponsors. The minority representative is present only as a foil for that; his job is to convince any doubters in the audience to get on board by arguing himself into compliance.

And if you add to this unbalanced scale the understanding that the oil industry as a whole has latched onto the idea that “sustainability” is best expressed by sequestering carbon dioxide, you get “no possibility” of cutting-edge technology being permitted to enter a marketplace controlled by the NAU’s single harmonized policy, let alone becoming widespread or standard. What is meant by “sustainable” in their lexicon is liquefying CO2, trucking it to the oilfield, then pumping it into the ground. (Ref. 34) This tactic allows the owners to squeeze out more oil from wells with diminishing output, thus extending their profitable life. Meanwhile, the practice simultaneously allows the petroleum vendors to claim that they have cleaned up CO2 – thus achieving “zero emission” or close to “carbon-neutral” status for their industry.

Of course sequestering applies only to large fuel-burning operations such as power plants. Collecting CO2 from fuel-powered vehicles would be much more complicated and expensive. This sanguine theory is meant to give everyone the message that we cango right on burning oil with climatic impunity, according to cheerleaders for the technology. One such is Dr. Mark Jaccard, a professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, a name that encapsulates the association between the wholesale harvesting of fuel resources and of “managing” the environment, which the oil industry wants in impress into the public mind through its feel-good environmental self-promotion. (Ref. 35) Jaccard’s book Sustainable Fossil Fuels has received a lot of friendly media attention, such as an interview on CBC Radio (Ref. 36) , and was awarded the Donner Prize for its contribution to public policy.

(Ref. 37)Sustainability through sequestering CO2 is a public-policy winner according to the corporate worldview, and the oil business is cheering all the way to the bank. This Banff session “Toward a North American Energy Strategy was to feature a keynote address by Donald Rumsfield, the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Rumsfield is noted for his close cooperation with the Bush administration’s agenda of going to war for oil. Given who he is, and who his audience was, what are the odds that Mr. Rumsfield treated his corporate cronies to a rousing speech demanding that the nation turn to alternative, non-combustion forms of energy on a rapid and large scale? Somewhere between nil and zero, perhaps?

It’s highly unlikely that the North American Union being promoted by oil executives and politicians will represent any shift toward the myriad of clean energy modalities as understood by the “free energy” researchers (including more conventional solar, wind, and geothermal free energy sources, as well as more exotic sources such as from magnets or zero point energy). When a leading scientist at NASA, Dennis Bushnell, can muse publicly about detonating a super-volcano to stop global warming in a last-resort scenario, (Ref. 38) it suggests a kind of brinksmanship or cowboy mentality toward the environment on the part of people in such responsible positions. Are they willing for the combustion paradigm to continue to dominate the economy until the climate problem worsens so far that such a destructive act would even be contemplated?

Common sense would dictate adopting fuelless energy systems long before the problem progressed that far. If common sense based on what is good for humanity were basis of present and future choices about energy technology, well and good. Under the NAU, which principle will predominate? Given who’s in charge of it, the oil-company bottom line is more likely to be the deciding factor in energy policy. It’s not surprising that the NASA Chief Scientist would also assert, “there’s no government conspiracy.”

I’m a skeptic about that statement. The Eleventh HourIn general it seems that it’s still only a few individuals who are willing to face potential jail terms, loss of employment, lawsuits (ref. 39) and other penalties not yet specified for opposing the continental unification agenda. This does not bode well for the future of energy technologies that arise from outside of, and could potentially reduce the profits of, the powerful oil interests which have involved themselves at the steering level of creating the North American Union.

Will we see “more of the same” from the new Bush-Administration-on-Steroids? Or will there be an intensified crackdown against alternative technologies as an alleged threat to national security (i.e. a threat to the political and economic ascendancy of oil companies)? This might make past suppression of new energy inventions and inventors (ref. 40) look like a polite tea-party. Little time remains in which implementation of the SPP continental administration could even be challenged legally or politically. By next year, even the court systems and laws may have changed. Will the people we have known as Canadians, Mexicans, and – yes – Americans exit the world stage, “not with a bang but a whimper”? (Ref. 41: Poem by T.S. Eliot.)

Those who don’t want that fragment of lament to be their epitaph will have to shift gears now, and hit the ground running. It would make the ultimate political face-off if a serious attempt were to be mounted to defeat the NAU. On one side are middle-of-the road greenies like Al Gore who accepts the idea of sequestering CO2 while advocating a total freeze on carbon emissions. Aligned with him on this issue would be the fringed edge of research: tinkerers who make Joe Cells, fiddle with magnetic motors, and theorize about zero-point alternatives. These people usually do not have the resources to build prototypes let alone to to hire engineers for design optimization and for securing independent certification of performance. Arrayed against them are the media-and-oil conglomerates who have politicians in their deep pockets, along with the resources to fund whatever they want. In contrast, the independent researchers with shallow pockets will find themselves on a collision course with the new and even more powerful continental administration. It is capable of putting a damper on alternative clean-energy technologies which might be able to avert the onrushing climate disaster and eliminate any need to toy with the idea of setting off super-volcanoes. The trend toward seeking and embracing clean energy certainly is gaining momentum. Is this North American Union an act of desperation by an industry that’s been feeling threatened? A sort of final hurrah of big oil and corporate government? What the inventors and clean-energy researchers also have in their shallower pockets, however, is eternally-springing hope.

And passion. This passion for freedom and for the health of the planet’s biosphere may yet rise up in a tidal wave to carry them forward. It won’t happen without everyone’s making a personal decision to get involved in the issue.

It will take setting aside personal rivalries and combining the efforts of all who want to see a cleaner environment achieved through creativity and new science. There may be a personal price to pay for taking a stand, but even people who don’t feel courageous can draw strength joining with others of like mind. Let’s seek an outcome that is for the highest good of all. # # #REFERENCES:

Ref. 1: http://pesn.com/2006/08/03/9500295_wireless_transmission/ - See especially Act III, scenes 4 & 6, and Act IV, Scene 3.Ref. 2: http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050408203411606 - The three leaders cannot all be referred to as “head of state” which applies only to Presidents Bush and Fox. Although recent Prime Ministers have been acting nearly as if they were head of state, in Canada officially this status still belongs the Queen, via her representative the Governor-General. Ref. 3: http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4213.shtml Ref. 4: http://usinfo.state.gov/wh/americas/mexico/trilateral_meeting.html Ref. 5: http://www.safehaven.com/article-5480.htm Ref. 6: http://www.SPP.gov Ref. 7: “The Bush Administration’s efforts to cover up the North American Union: Myths, Facts - Truth? (Federal Observer; Sept. 20, 2006)Ref. 8: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/9/18/154846/236 - Text of Gore’s speech, and reader comments. See also coverage at PESN.com: Will Carbon Freeze Be Enough? Ref. 9: http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4213.shtml Ref. 10: List of participants at the Banff Conference. Ref. 11: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2006/09/21/secret-meeting.html Ref. 12: http://www.canadians.org/...Ref. 13: The text of Barlow’s article “Integration talks kept in the dark” is within an independent blog article about censorship at http://chandrasutra.wordpress.com/2006/09/23/welcome-to-it-red-shirts-secret-meetings-and-censorship/ Ref. 14: http://www.davidorchard.com/online/2do-index.html Ref. 15: email 1 September 2006, circulated in Canada by leader of Canadian Action Party.

Transcription of recorded call (listen):
"Hi there, it's Mark Harrison from the CBC calling; you'd sent a note asking for a call back about why we are not doing anything on the North-American Union and the NAFTA Highway. Ummm.

Several years ago there was a big push to a, sort of a broader union, and it died on the, sort of on the shoals of national self-interest. And I don't imagine we'll be doing more on this one until there is an indication that this will be moving forward."Ummm... and that... doesn't.... seem apparent at the moment but if there is any indication that it is moving forward and anything towards a One World Government under the United Nations we'll certainly be doing something on it but... ahhhh... we are not there yet in our opinion... ahh hh... thanks for the call. Take care. Bye now."
Ref. 16: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2006/09/21/secret-meeting.html - this link is also live from the New American site current-issue index.Ref. 17: http://www.vivelecanada.ca/... Ref. 18: http://educate-yourself.org/lte/savingamerica13sep06.shtml Ref. 19: http://www.infowars.com/police_state.html Ref. 20: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/... Ref. 21: In a meeting that evening between some visitors from out of town and Wright, who calls himself a “recovering economist”, I was able to see this footage. Alex expressed his objections to secret meetings loudly through a bullhorn, asserting that he doesn’t fear the powerful.

The police remained out of the frame, and no faces ever appeared in the hotel’s windows. Jeremy Wright produced the video “Celsius 911”, which is available from http://www.globaloutlook.ca/videos2.htm.Ref. 22: See article “Web Pioneer: No Internet Without Net Neutrality” posted September 28th, 2006, by tkarrRef. 23: “Whistle Blower Releases Secret Agenda of NAU meeting in Banff, Alberta, Canada Sept 12-14, 2006” - Email from C. Fogal to mailing list of Canadian Action Party, September 20, 2006 5:57:23 EDT.Ref. 24: Participant list at NAU meeting in Banff Ref. 25: http://www.fina-nafi.org/eng/fina/presentation.asp?count=eng Ref. 26: http://www.fina-nafi.org/eng/triumvirat07/... Ref 27: http://patriotsquestion911.com/ Ref 27b: http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/.../CAP_Truth_Shirts_Movement_for_Peace.aspRef 28: http://www.freedomisforeverybody.org/skullandbones.php Ref. 29: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Review:David_R._Hawkins:Truth_vs_Falsehood Ref. 30: http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/mayer_personalizing.html Ref. 31: http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4213.shtml Ref. 32: Text of leaked document - Banff NAU working agenda.Ref 33: http://cesp.stanford.edu/ Ref. 34 http://www.oread.ku.edu/Oread03/Dec12/oil.html

- Also reported on Discovery Channel Canada 27 Sept 2006 is a pipeline-fed oilfield using sequestered CO2.Ref. 35 Canadians are currently being subjected to a particularly lame PR ad which extols the virtues of the Shell Oil company for its intention to serve humanity’s need for energy by removing the oil from the Alberta Oil Sands and then “returning the land to nature” by “putting the sand back.” They pat themselves on the back for “reclaiming the land for tomorrow”. The high-sounding blather omits mentioning that the result of that process will be to create a sand desert in place of the brush ecosystem that exists there currently. Well, I suppose a sandy desert is “natural” in their minds; after all, it’s the kind of setting where oil is found in the Middle East.

But it’s not natural in the Canadian landscape. Ref. 36: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/05-06/mar04.html Ref. 37:

http://www.emrg.sfu.ca/sustainablefossilfuels/ Ref 38: http://pesn.com/2006/09/26/9500240_COFE_report Ref. 39: http://www.alternet.org/story/24293/ Ref. 40:

http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Suppression Ref. 41:

Famous conclusion of T.S. Eliot poem from which Al Gore quoted lines at a transitional point early in his speech. The complete text can be found online. Does that poem summarize how our civilization will be remembered (if it’s remembered at all)?

See also

Energy Suppression - index at PESWiki.com
More stories by Mary-Sue Haliburton
PESN (Pure Energy Systems News) - Feature stories on cutting-edge energy technology.
Free Energy News (.com) - Daily, cutting-edge energy technology news from around the world
PESWiki Latest - Newest pages in the publicly-editable energy directory.

Free Energy Now™ - 1-hour, in-depth, live interview, each Saturday, 4:00 - 4:55 Mountain.

This Week in Free Energy™ - Seven-minute blurb each Sunday, 7:53 - 8:00 pm Mountain.

Global Research Articles by Mary-Sue Haliburton
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization.To become a Member of Global ResearchThe CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified.

The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact:

crgeditor@yahoo.com www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues.

The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes.

If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.For media inquiries:

crgeditor@yahoo.com© Copyright Mary-Sue Haliburton, Pure Energy Systems News, 2006 The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=HAL20061002&articleId=3363
Privacy Policy
© Copyright 2005-2007 GlobalResearch.caWeb site engine by Polygraphx Multimedia © Copyright 2005-2007