Have we lost ALL accountability from our civil servants?



U.S. for sale to foreigners by Texas hold'em rules
Officials at secret confab learn of 'lawyer feeding frenzy' over release of infrastructure



Establishing public-private partnerships that give away control of U.S. infrastructure to foreigners is like playing the casino game "Texas hold'em," a top Texas Department of Transportation official told the EuroMoney conference meeting yesterday in the plush Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

James Bass, the chief financial officer of TxDOT, was speaking on the second day of a two-day seminar devoted to teaching state government officials how to lease public assets to foreign investment interests.

"Sure, you can expect political objections," Bass told the conference, "but if you play your cards right, you'll win."

WND reported last week EuroMoney shut out WND from the conference, refusing the $1,999 registration fee because WND was "too political" to attend.

Throughout the conference yesterday, various attendees telephoned WND to provide detailed, inside accounts on conference proceedings.

As WND has reported, campaign contributions to Gov. Rick Perry paved the way for TxDOT to build the Trans-Texas Corridor, a four football-fields-wide truck-car-train-pipeline to run parallel to I-35. In the PPP deal, Cintra, a Spanish investment concern, will own the toll rights on the superhighway for 50 years after it is built.

Speaking to the conference about a deal in Colorado, Denver attorney Edward Icenogle said, "It was a lawyer feeding frenzy."

"We had so many lawyers involved in the deal that we almost ran out of law firms in Denver to hire," he said.

Icenogle is a lead lawyer for the 11-mile Northwest Parkway, a Denver-area toll road that locals widely call the "Billion Dollar Boondoggle."

Hostile questioners from the EuroMoney conference audience pressed Icenogle to justify millions of taxpayer dollars required to hire the "army of attorneys" needed to structure the Northwest Parkway private-public partnership, or P3, deal.

Icenogle rejected characterizing the Northwest Parkway as a "conspiracy of lawyers," but he did concede the P3 deals were lawyer-intensive, generally demanding complicated revisions of state law and negotiations with foreign attorneys in multiple languages.

Icenogle appeared on a panel giving an update to the Northwest Parkway, along with Karen Stuart, the mayor of Broomfield, Colo., who is leading the move to lease the toll road under a P3 deal with Portugal and Brazil.

Stuart defended a move to accept some $500 million from a private investment consortium composed of Portugal's Brisa Auto-Estradas and their Brazilian partner Companhia de Concessoes Rodoviarias. The foreign firms want to operate the toll road under a 99-year lease in which they would receive the tolls.

At the conclusion of the Northwest Parkway panel, a questioner from the audience asked Stuart why, if the P3 deal was so good for the Portuguese and Brazilian investment concerns, was the project taken from public ownership?

Stuart answered that there were complex risks involved in getting enough toll-road riders to cover construction costs.

Locals in the Denver area joke that children should use the Northwest Parkway central lanes as bicycle paths given the lack of motorists.

Critics in Colorado argue the Northwest Parkway is bankrupt and Fitch, a bond rating agency, has downgraded some $420 million in outstanding Northwest Parkway bonds to CCC+ grading, with a "negative" rating outlook, a status usually reserved for junk bonds.

Ray Medina, president of Citizens Involved in the NW Quadrant, has been quoted as criticizing Broomfield for making "a poor decision to financially support an ill-conceived toll road," arguing the Northwest Parkway has "saddled Broomfield taxpayers with a huge debt that the Broomfield government is scrambling to find a way out."

Stuart defended the deal but was forced to concede the Northwest Parkway was struggling to meet traffic projections and its high tolls remain a barrier.

The conference ended with Mark Florian and Gregory Carey, managing directors from Goldman Sachs, explaining how state lotteries and sports stadiums could be privatized to foreign investors under P3 deals.

Elizabeth Rao, assistant general nanager and head of "FasTracks" at RFD transit in Denver, told the group her department retained outside lawyers and hired additional staff as they prepared to explore P3 foreign financing to privatize Denver's light rail.

Rao claimed the savings to the taxpayers would only be in the range of about 5 percent after the deal was done.

Approximate 300 attendees, including officials from state and city departments of transportation, listened for two days as lawyers and investment bankers explained the legal documents and financing structures needed to sell a wide range of public infrastructure to foreigners.

"Under P3, the USA is up for sale," a conference attendee told WND by telephone at the conclusion of the meeting. "Whatever the public now owns – roads, ports, waste management water systems, rail lines, public parking facilities, airports, even lotteries and sports stadiums – are up for grabs and the only requirement is that the foreigners have the cash."

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57857

Pretty scarey huh soscorpio? It's happening right under our noes too...noooone to the wiser.

Excellent article btw.

quote:

Pretty scarey huh soscorpio?

Yeah, sure is.

We'll soon be wondering...."What the fucque happened?"

The writing is on the wall that America is FAR down the road of losing Her sovereignty.

Thomas Jefferson

"Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted
with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to
their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power
in the individuals and their families selected for the trust.
Whether our Constitution has hit on the exact degree of control
necessary, is yet under experiment."

The answer of course Scorp is YES, it apperars we have.

The question then is what (effectively) can we DO about it? Is there some really effective way that we can mandate and REQUIRE greater accountability from our "servants" than what we now have? (Waiting 2-4-6 years to do anything--if you're lucky--is simply not working very well)

Is it time for a grassroots constitutional convention? As I understand it, there is an "ongoing" actitity for that very thing, that is only a few states short of making it happen. But getting those few states on board, is like pulling eye teeth. We must also be aware that such a thing is exceedingly hazzardous, as legally, the whole constitution is in jeopardy and can be modified or even discarded. It's a really big deal and not something to be taken lightly.

Other than a constitutional convention...any other good ideas? (For you political historians, did Jefferson have any suggestions as to HOW we could effectively maintain such control?)

quote:

We must also be aware that such a thing is exceedingly hazzardous, as legally, the whole constitution is in jeopardy and can be modified or even discarded. It's a really big deal and not something to be taken lightly.

The deck is stacked against us.

I believe the aboloshment of the federal reserve is the ONLY way to end the enslavement we are in. Many will laugh at the use of term "enslavement", but what else can it be called?

There is so much being done judicially behind the scenes that when the time comes to declare martial law on America, the powers of that act and the actions from our local police forces will be "justified" as being legal.

Our local police forces before becoming federalized was to protect us against tyranny from the fed's.

Our educational system, I believe was designed to dumb us down to the might of the Constitution and the rights it gives america's citizens.

Now our "rights" have a price tag. Actual Rights have no price tag, they come from God and were meant to never be taken away.

We are sitting on the front row to the greatest political takeover ever seen by mankind. (that's not anti-bush, that is anti-establishment. It crosses party lines and has been instituted incrementally by every president these last 80+ years.)

Power hates the US Constitution.

God Bless America!

quote:

Power hates the US Constitution.

Bravo soscorpio. You are exactly right.

Indeed this issue is not relegated to party lines. It is ALL Americans or nothing....and the nothing is coming soon if there isn't a change.

Isn't this just more "privatization"?

Amazing that World Nut Daily is "outraged", this is the kind of stuff the candidates they carry water for have been promoting all along.

quote:

Isn't this just more "privatization"?

Amazing that World Nut Daily is "outraged", this is the kind of stuff the candidates they carry water for have been promoting all along.

Public officials are in no position to privatize the assets of American infrastructure.

Instead of concluding we need more toll roads, how about a full open disclosure of the taxes coming in that were put in place to pay for these things. (is the gas tax being used for what it was mandated to be used for? Is revenue from lottery sales being used for what is was mandated for? so on, so forth)


I don't understand who you think WND carries water for? Although they have a broad spectrum of journalists (isn't every daily supposed to?), I've concluded they "carry water" for the US Constitution.