Posted on 02/20/2006 5:33:05 PM PST by Sunshine55
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle yesterday threatened a congressional investigation of a deal to give control of six U.S. seaports to an Arab company, while one key Republican said the Bush administration's security reassurances were not adequate.
Democrats also are threatening legislation to block foreign governments from operating U.S. ports.
"I think we've got to look into this company. I think we've got to ensure ourselves that the American people's national-security interests are going to be protected," said Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat. "And frankly, I think the threshold ought to be a little higher for a foreign firm. There can't be a choice between profits and protecting the American people."
The classified deal would let Dubai Ports World (DPW) of the United Arab Emirates run ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami. London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which had been running the six ports, was bought last week by the government-owned DPW.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
This deal stinks.
I'm not surprised since schumer appeals to people who get their news in soundbites and do no research on their own.
We have seen Islamists chopping off people*s heads, raping women and girls, murdering Christians, slashing throats, cutting THEIR OWN CHILDREN*S heads during Ashura, and killing THEIR OWN PEOPLE while rioting over some stupid cartoons! We KNOW it*s violence, but Bush doesn*t, so we have to question his judgment on allowing that very religion to control our ports. In fact, I don*t think ANY foreign country should control our ports!!!
Which one was American owned and big enough to do the job P&O does, and DP World wants to do?
Ha! Man you are so on, and thanks for keeping us on task.
CFC, I have looked everywhere and found the same information you did. There really isn't much choice (particularly since the Singapore and Hong Kong cos. aren't interested in the US port business).
Mad_Tom has a list of port management companies, but the vast majority (I didn't check them all) are Port Authorities who don't subcontract their container management, or companies that don't even deal with containers (like the cruise lines).
My only question is how did so many people get whipped up into a frenzy about something they don't understand, and may not even matter?
I keep hearing about "physical assets". What exactly will they own? The cranes? Forklifts? Warehouses? What are they gonna do, put the entire coast on a boat and leave? What?
A combination of several factors, IMO. A group of people that look at this as yet another way to score political points of their own at the expense of the administration, as well as (so far) an abyssmal job by the administration of explaining the details, as well as a stunning lack of awareness on their part of just how most Americans are going to look at this post 9/11.
But most of all, once again, the media has to take most of the blame. They have completely abdicated their duty to inform us about the issues of the day, choosing instead to serve as the propaganda arm of the DNC and help them push a radical left-wing agenda, the only goal of which is to completely destroy the Bush Administration and eliminate the Republican Party as an electoral threat forever. So instead of getting news and information about this port deal, all we get is continuing coverage of Dick Cheney's hunting accident, as well as the vilest rumor-mongering about the accident being passed off as news. Oh yeah, we also get our daily dose of leaked national security secrets.
Rove can't be this clueless, so my guess is that he has been pushed to the side by other interests.
Whatever, it's not a good time to be shorting Reynolds Aluminium. Lord knows how much tinfoil "deals" like this sell.
Ivan Eland makes sense out of it: Dubai Ports World: Commercial Racial Profiling
Yes, I have been wondering exactly what happened about 6 months to one year ago. To me, something changed in his approach, his decisions, etc. Even the SOTU speech was pretty flat.
Wondering if his 'advisors' are now out of touch or if he has switched advisors, or if they are distracted. The port thing is the best example. For the life of me, I cannot understand why that takeover was approved!!
Of course - the media. They're left wing liberals, and just like the other Dems, Dem political success means more than our security, economic success, or anything.
But what's with the Conservatives who think trashing the Bush Admin. is a good move? It's fine to argue priorities and programs, but on some issues (like this port deal and immigration policy), it's been more trash from the so-called Conservatives than from the Left-Wing moonbats. If they really think a left-wing admin. would be satisfying - well, all I can say is that they're too young to remember Carter. :-)
Check this out...
Pixie Grismore
Mary Beth Grismore, 26 years old, was strangled May 3, 1978 in Ohio. Her body was found in the trunk of a car. Mary Beth was known by her friends as Pixie for her sunny disposition. Patrick Ralston came under suspicion after he admitted to having a romantic affair with Pixie. Both Pixie and Ralston were married to someone else at the time, but decided to have a farewell get together and end their relationship. This meeting took place at the Holiday Inn in Cloverdale, Indiana on February 16, 1978.
In an effort to get the FBI looking in another direction, Ralston stunned the FBI with a story that Pixie had told Ralston she had met with Sen. Birch Bayh in a bar at an Indianapolis motel, they partied and Pixie slept with the senator. The FBI confirmed that B.E. Bayh of the U.S. Senate did indeed stay at the Indianapolis Airport Holiday Inn on the date given by Ralston. At this time of Pixie's tryst with Sen. Birch Bayh, his wife, Marvella, was dying of cancer.
snip
"Even though then-Sen. Bayh headed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was in charge of the oversight committee that supposedly supervises the CIA, NSA and, oh yeah, the FBI, all their investigation couldn't catch the killer -- or killers. But at least the investigators kept Pat Ralston's romantic connection to the victim, and especially her association with former Sen. Bayh, as a closely held secret."
Sen. Birch Bayh subsequently became the Governor of Indiana and boss of any of Indiana's state police agencies that might have investigated Pixie's murder. The Bayh political dynasty continued when his son, Evan, was elected as Governor of Indiana for two terms (1989-1997). While Governor, Evan Bayh appointed one of the witnesses in the case, P.A. Mack, known as his father's "fixer-upper" as a trustee at Indiana University and Patrick Ralston as head of Indiana's Department of Natural Resources in 1989.
snip
http://tinyurl.com/lybla
******
The grisly saga of Pixie Grismore
Was her murder 20 years ago covered up by politics?
Editor's note: This story is excerpted from the November issue of Dispatches magazine, the monthly sister publication of WorldNetDaily. Annual subscriptions to Dispatches are $36 and individual copies of the November issue are available for $3 at WorldNetDaily's secure online storefront.
By H.J. Halterman
© 1998 WorldNetDaily.com
Two years ago, on a Windy City evening in the month of August 1996, Indiana's then-Governor Evan Bayh appeared before the delegates gathered in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention to deliver the keynote speech that would finalize the nomination and re-election of William Jefferson Clinton to the presidency of the United States. It was a high point in Bayh's political career, a steppingstone, perhaps, to greater things, and it was surely an event in his life which would have brought special pride to his mother -- had she lived to her son's special evening.
His father, former Sen. Birch Bayh, had survived to share that moment in history with his son, and he must have carried enough parents' real pride to make up for his late wife's absence.
http://tinyurl.com/gxd8r
Well, that's surprising. A bipartisan discussion on what to do. I guess the Dems are thinking of bringing some ideas to the table this time ...now that the problem is in their front yard.
I always thought Americans were America's #1 asset.
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-APO-1333&idq=/ff/story /0001%2F20060221%2F0451509104.htm&sc=1333&floc=NW_1-T
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Republican governors are threatening legal action to block an Arab company from taking over operations in major U.S. ports and some GOP lawmakers say the deal should be closely examined.
New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich on Monday voiced doubts about the acquisition of a British company that has been running six U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.
Good for them! May have a second look at Pataki for President.
This has probley already been mentioned but here it is again then.
To deny this deal the Democrats must use "Racial Profilng", this company and country have not been implicated in any terrorist activity, only that they share the same religion and race as the terrorists.
And of course had Bush rejected this deal the Democrats would be on the other side of this issue right now.
Looks like the Bush administration is having another "Harriet Miers" moment.
"I keep hearing about "physical assets". What exactly will they own? The cranes? Forklifts? Warehouses?"
Yes, among other things. They also own rail and truck terminals.
"What are they gonna do, put the entire coast on a boat and leave?"
Cranes can be removed--they are rather expensive, and can be used elsewhere. Warehouses can be locked up. Terminals can be shut down.
"What?"
They can simply deny permission for anyone else to use the facilities while this mess is litigated, unless they get an extremely generous buy-out offer. Or they can simply demand unreasonably high rent.
Ownership of property gives you the right to control its use--or to not use it at all.
Try unloading a container ship without cranes, and with nowhere to store the containers, and no way to move those containers out of the port.
No multiply that by a hundred or so.
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