it's only a matter of time before they make me put a red crescent on my sea monster floaty when I go to the beach. It is worse than we thought...
Posted on 03/10/2006 7:37:43 AM PST by Solson
WASHINGTON - A Dubai-owned company will control 23 American ports - not six - as a result of the deal approved by a Bush administration panel in January. The takeover of the British company Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. involves almost every major Atlantic seaport from Portland, Maine, to Miami and along the entire Gulf Coast, according to an attorney fighting the deal. The list includes Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, which have handled about 40 percent of the war materiel the Army has shipped to combat theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also includes Norfolk, Va., home to most of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic fleet, along with three seaports in Louisiana that handle massive shipments of crude oil. In the spreading controversy, it was known that the British firm being bought by Dubai Ports World runs operations at New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. Attorney Joseph Muldoon III represents Eller & Co., a Miami-based shipping firm that is fighting the transaction here and in Britain's highest court. In an interview, the attorney said Eller & Co. does not want to become an unwilling partner of DP World's Miami operations. Muldoon told The News he unsuccessfully appealed two months ago to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., whom he knows personally, and also saw staff members for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to stop the sale on national security grounds. "I'll check it out," Muldoon quoted Warner as responding. "Finally, I went to Sen. [Charles E.] Schumer because he is a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the Treasury Department board which approved this thing. If this hadn't been for Sen. Schumer," Muldoon said in an interview, "this issue would never had gotten any traction. "My client, and I personally, believe that the seaports of this country should not be run by a foreign government," Muldoon said. He said claims by the Bush administration that security is not involved is a myth. "The port operator is the one who lays out the security plan," he said, "and the Coast Guard and other government operations follow suit." In London, Eller & Co. attorneys have been given the right to appeal the deal by Britain's highest court. It was not until Muldoon called Schumer's office three weeks ago that it bloomed into an issue that threatens the president's hold on Republican majorities in the House and Senate. "I had an instinct about this situation," Schumer said, "and it was to keep it as bipartisan as possible. So I went first to [Sen. Tom] Coburn [R-Okla.] and he was very concerned." Muldoon said "Schumer was hanging out there all alone on it until" Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., announced his opposition. King is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Both national and statewide polls indicate the planned takeover of operations of American ports has helped plunge Bush to the lowest ratings of his presidency. A New York poll done by the Republican-oriented Strategic Vision LLC gives Bush an overall approval rating of 24 percent. National polls have Bush at between 36 and 39 percent. In the state survey, 81 percent of respondents think an act of terrorism is more likely if the Dubai ports deal goes through. Although the Bush administration officially approved the deal Jan. 16, DP World, the company owned by rulers of the United Arab Emirates, has requested the United States conduct a 45-day review of the transaction in an effort to defuse opposition. Schumer and King are sponsoring nearly identical bills that would empower Congress to block the deal if Congress is dissatisfied with the results of the review. Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence, was an early supporter of King's bill, which now has 97 co-sponsors. Backers include almost the entire state delegation. e-mail: dturner@buffnews.com
Bureau assistant Sara Blumberg contributed to this article.
It's called sarcasm
With Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in charge, we don't have much to worry about. Now if the Democrats ever go back to their roots.....that could be another story.
So not suprised, ping.
I saw this yesterday; not sure what it means:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1593184/posts?page=1867#1867
LOL!
So an American Business lobbied the American Government.
So what??? There's nothing un-American about that!!!
"No right [should] be stipulated for aliens to hold real property within these States, this being utterly inadmissible by their several laws and policy."
--Thomas Jefferson: Commercial Treaties Instructions, 1784.
Dunno. Kreitzer...the attorney for Eller is part of the law firm of Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod
This will turn out to be one of the most successful Political propaganda ploys in history.
Dude, get a grip on yourself. It’s a business deal that fell apart amid some bad public relations. It’s not the end of civilization.
taking over at least the US Senate not only possible but probable.
Yikes. Nobody bases their vote on the success or failure of a port management business deal. You're way too emotionally invested in this.
so you won't mind if an American company lobbies in order to support NAFTA, as well as beneficial outsourcing deals to Mexico and India, right?
Agreed and I would like to add that they are very hateful bunch of people and they do not know how unpleasant and despicable they look to the majority of voters.
That's somewhat naive.
Go back to DU.
I don't like Schumer or anything he stands for but I don't think he is on the take. He is probably one of the more honest politicians out there.
If this fiasco shows noting else it reveals that people are obviously still obsessed with terrorism. Even if the polls don't reflect it.
This will be used in the 2006, 2008 campaigns....no doubt about it. And it all could have been avoided if someone had realized the seriousness of the issue as it relates to the WOT in the beginning.
If that isn't enough, this can be used by the terrorists as propaganda by showing the extreme fear and bigotry of the so called majority of Americans.
This was a major disaster.
....
The Wall Street Journal’s Neil King and Greg Hitt report this morning that the hysteria surrounding the proposed takeover of five U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World has its origins in a lawsuit.
Eller & Co., a small stevedoring firm (the Law Blog enjoys that word so much we would like to write it again — stevedoring) based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is engaged in a legal dispute with its partner at the Port of Miami, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation, the company that Dubai Ports World wants to acquire.
Eller has reportedly filed lawsuits in both the U.K. and the U.S. against P&O, and yesterday in London, a judge delayed approving the takeover of P&O by Dubai Ports because of Eller’s lawsuit.
Representing Eller in the lawsuits is Michael Kreitzer of Miami’s Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod. Kreitzer has also helped Eller’s lobbying effort in Washington. The story suggests that Eller was largely responsible for stirring the pot within Congress, which gave the P&O-Dubai Ports deal little attention until Eller started briefing its members.
Another attorney in Connecticut who helped Eller’s lobbying effort, Alan Neigher of Westport, Conn., told the WSJ: “We thought the purchase of P&O was a very bad idea. It endangered our operations in Miami. It raised enormous questions about port security — and still does.”
But it appears that although the national security concerns over the deal have been weaved into Eller’s legal strategy, the crux of its dispute with P&O is a contractual one having nothing to do with the Dubai deal. A 52-page complaint filed against P&O on February 17 seeks “to rectify egregious breaches of fiduciary duty, self-dealing and concealment of material facts” on P&O’s part.
P&O declined comment to the WSJ.
Companies who outsource production to Mexico and India are no longer "American".
They are "transnational" and their lobbyists should be registered as foreign agents.
it's only a matter of time before they make me put a red crescent on my sea monster floaty when I go to the beach. It is worse than we thought...
" I must disagree. I think that is a little dramatic. The most successful ploy in history???? This is a port deal, nothing more, nothing less. Won't even be remembered by most people in 2 months."
Get your head out of the sand.
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