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For two hours today, I attended a superb workshop sponsored by the Hudson Institute, focusing on an important new book, "China: The Gathering Threat" by the late Dr. Constantine Menges.

Panelists included Bill Gertz (Defense and National Security reporter for The Washington Times), William Hawkins (Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council), Michael Pillsbury (Senior Fellow for Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University), and Al Santoli (President and Director of the Asia America Initiative).

Al Santoli wisely observed that the Communist Chinese takeover of the port facilities at both ends of the Panama Canal sent a message to all Latin America that they had to deal with the emerging Red Chinese reality in the Western Hemisphere.

Since then, Latin American governments have entered into military training relationships with the PRC’s "People’s Liberation Army".

I urge you to buy "China: The Gathering Threat" published by Nelson Current owned by my friend, Sam Moore, Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Archduke Otto von Habsburg (now 92 years of age), the head of the former Austro-Hungarian imperial house, visited Washington recently.

The reports of his time here reminded me of the opportunity I and my colleagues had on TCCF’s "Visit to the New World Order – Geostrategic/Cultural/ Financial Tour" in 1993 when we dined with the Archduke at a hotel restaurant in Munich.

Von Habsburg and I disagreed about the value of the European Union. He said its purpose is "to keep Germany down and Russia out".

I wrote to Dr. von Habsburg on November, 1993: "This is to formally convey to you our profound appreciation for the brilliant tour de’horizon which you afforded us during our visit to Munich. It was an honor to be with you, and a privilege to benefit from your wisdom and experience."

As I arrived in Salt Lake City for a meeting of the Executive Committee and National Committee of the Constitution Party, I was reminded of my first trip to Utah, in 1967 when I was working as an assistant to Republican National Chairman Ray C. Bliss. Chairman Bliss sent me to reconnoiter the political situation in Utah, and I had a good meeting with Dick Richards, the Utah GOP Chairman, who subsequently became Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Following my time in Utah, I was privileged to take the Golden Zephyr, which traveled through over winding tracks from Utah through Colorado to California. It was a trip I will never forget and some of my children have, in later years, joined me on that beautiful train ride.

On one occasion, my daughter, Alexandra, and I took the Zephyr from Chicago to Oakland.

En route to Utah from Dulles Airport, I was able to say hello to Sonny Jurgenson, the former Redskin football great, and I had a good chat with John Clark who is very active in the movement to control illegal immigration.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States asserts that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Once again, President Bush has ignored, or set aside, his oath of office in which he is sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States. As reported in The Washington Post (p. 1, April 29, 2005), "President Bush called on Congress last night to curtail future Social Security benefits for all but low-income retirees in an urgent new effort to address the popular program’s shaky finances."

Clearly, discrimination on the basis of economic status is unconstitutional, in that it cancels "equal protection of the laws".

According to The New York Times (4/22/05), "associates of Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, said he had expressed reservations about Mr. Bolton (nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) in conversations with at least two wavering Republican senators."

I have never been an intimate of Colin Powell, but I did have the opportunity to engage in contentious discussions with him in the 1980’s when he was a junior member of President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council staff and I, as head of The Conservative Caucus, was permitted periodically to discuss Reagan policies with officials of his administration.

Powell was always on the liberal side of U.S. policy, in my view advancing an agenda which undercut the anti-Communist Contras in Nicaragua and abetted both the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and the Marxist FMLN in El Salvador.

There is a reason he is the "darling" of the establishment media. He has almost always been on their side and too seldom on ours.

The April 19 Washington Times carries an article by Pedro San Juan, former political affairs director in the United Nations Secretariat and author of the forthcoming book, ‘U.N. Gang", to be published by Doubleday.

I have not seen Pedro in a number of years since I first met him while I was on the staff of the Republican National Committee (1966-1968).

Pedro came up with the idea for a new organization to be called "Close Up", by means of which high school and college students from all over America would be brought to Washington, D.C. to learn more about the operations of government.

Pedro assured me "Close Up" would be non-partisan and it seemed to me to be a good idea. Accordingly, I acceded his request that I line up prominent Republicans to be co-sponsors of the "Close Up" idea.

This was to be an entirely private sector operation. Sometime later, however, Pedro got the idea that the program could reach many more people if it were subsidized by the Federal government. At that point, I could no longer endorse the work of "Close Up" which, by its acceptance of government money, was teaching participants to tolerate and, indeed, applaud unconstitutional "politics as usual".

On various occasions, I have spoken to "Close Up" faculty members and students conveying that message, but, as a result of the stand I have taken, I am no longer a welcome participant.

Today, I forwarded to Congressman Jim McCrery, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives, 13,800 Petitions supporting Congressman Ron Paul’s bill, H.R. 858, the Social Security for Americans Only Act. This is in addition to 57,700 Petitions previously delivered on the same subject.

The Petition reads:

Whereas, the Social Security system was designed to assist AMERICAN seniors living in AMERICA;

Whereas, Social Security is expected to begin running deficits as soon as 2018; and

Whereas, adding tens of thousands of Mexicans to the list of Social Security beneficiaries will likely move up this deficit date; and

Whereas, diversion of U.S. Social Security funds to non-citizens could drain as much as $345 billion from Social Security revenues during the next 20 years; and

Whereas, paying Social Security benefits to those who used fake Social Security numbers and worked here in the United States illegally will only result in more law-breaking and additional financial burdens on U.S. citizens.

Therefore, I, the undersigned, do hereby urge that you co-sponsor and help enact the "Social Security for Americans Only Act".

When Congress voted this past December to approve George Bush’s request for a $1.2 billion loan to Kofi Annan to redecorate and refurbish the U.N. Headquarters on Turtle Bay in New York City, it did so in opposition to the wishes of the members of The Conservative Caucus (TCC) and others who considered this supposed loan to be unconstitutional, unwise, and excessive.

On at least one score (the excessive cost), Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Donald Trump agree with us.

According to New York Magazine (4/25/05, page 13), Mr. Trump is going "to try to save the U.N. some money on remodeling its headquarters. According to Trump, the project’s estimated price tag of $1.2 billion means ‘somebody is either very stupid or very crooked’...Trump offered to do the job for less than half that: ‘ The U.N. hasn’t responded."

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