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He, he, I am having a ball listening to Rush Limpballs trying to spin the port issue.
Now liberals are 'racially bias' because they will let a British Company own American Ports but not a country that helped finance 911.
I wouldn't brag about it. Guess you like the economy when he wasi would vote for him
President. Like paying 21 percent interest to buy a home. He was
a real winner, he was. He should just keep on building houses. I
Love the way he cut that great deal with North Korea under the
Clinton Administration. Yeah, vote for him. He is your type.
He, he, I am having a ball listening to Rush Limpballs trying to spin the port issue.
Now liberals are 'racially bias' because they will let a British Company own American Ports but not a country that helped finance 911.
From the NY Times
If President Bush follows through on his threat, he'll be making a strange choice for his first veto after more than five years in office. After giving a pass to a parade of misbegotten Congressional initiatives and irresponsible budget packages, he'd be choosing to take a stand over the right to hand control of operations at major American ports to a company based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and controlled by that government.
....
Nevertheless, Congress is right to resist the ports deal, in which the company, Dubai Ports World, would take over the British company now running these operations. The issue is not, as Mr. Bush is now claiming, a question of bias against a Middle Eastern company. The United Arab Emirates is an ally, but its record in the war on terror is mixed. It is not irrational for the United States to resist putting port operations, perhaps the most vulnerable part of the security infrastructure, under that country's control. And there is nothing in the Homeland Security Department's record to make doubters feel confident in its assurances that all proper precautions will be taken.
The Bush administration has followed a disturbing pattern in its approach to the war on terror. It has been perpetually willing to sacrifice individual rights in favor of security. But it has been loath to do the same thing when it comes to business interests. It has not imposed reasonable safety requirements on chemical plants, one of the nation's greatest points of vulnerability, or on the transport of toxic materials. The ports deal is another decision that has made the corporations involved happy, and has made ordinary Americans worry about whether they are being adequately protected.
Looks like W can spell VETO after all.
No I couldn't spell it before, but thanks for the tip.
V-E-T-O
Oh my, we own you an education. I don't think so. Just don't go to
graduate school unless you can afford it. No body promised you a rose
garden.
Free trade should not be sacrificed in the name of false security. Anyone who thinks this deal will mean thousands of terrorists steaming through our borders to blow up is probably the same type of person who sends out emails to boycott Exxon gas stations to stop terrorism.
It doesn't take thousands to commit a terrorist attack.
This is much ado about nothing. It's not like the ports are going to be overrun by Arab longshoremen.
Seriously, has anyone ever seen an Arab longshoreman?
I don't think he was trying to spin anything. He, himself, said he wasn'tHe, he, I am having a ball listening to Rush Limpballs trying to spin the port issue.
Now liberals are 'racially bias' because they will let a British Company own American Ports but not a country that helped finance 911.
to sure where he stood on the issue. What he said made a lot of sense.
Nothing really changes except management. Same workers, same security
and as he said same Unions. (Did you hear the call from the union guy?).
Who do we get to run the docks, no American companies do this sort of
thing. Besides, from what he was saying they are only running a portion
of the docks, if I heard correctly. Not the whole port. I blame the media
in this case, once again they have failed to tell the whole story, just
enough to get everyone riled up. Slowly but surely we will get the
complete picture. I hope.
first of all
secondly, didn't say anyone Owed me anything. just wanted to point out to you that for 20-somethings in the US , the financial climate doesn't look quite as rosy as it does for you old-timers for whom we 20-somethings foot the bill.
Maybe going to an ultra expensive college and not chosing a major that would of payed off that ultra expensive loan might just be all your fault. But that's just me you know.
no, on the contrary. You should of gone to college to earn as much as a garbage disposal man.
but, like i said. It was your choice. You obviuosly was ok with being in debt for many years when you took that loan.
Well, first, I doubt if you are footing anyones bill right now. Second, wefirst of all
secondly, didn't say anyone Owed me anything. just wanted to point out to you that for 20-somethings in the US , the financial climate doesn't look quite as rosy as it does for you old-timers for whom we 20-somethings foot the bill.
oldtimers footed the bill for you whippersnappers for many years.
Now if it is any comfort, I think college is very expensive, way overpriced,
and especially the books. Course books have always been overpriced and
try and sell them back......lol.....seems they changed them for the next
bunch. I may have some I will sell real cheap. The think I hate most is
that in many colleges/universities the so called Profs don't teach, they
have some assistant do that, they just show up on occasion.
If current republicans are quick to point out that when some part of the economy or foreign policy today is not going well it's because it began during the "Clinton" administration - wouldn't the proper response to this be that the problems with the economy at that time began durin the Nixon/Ford administrations? Real winner this president is..................
Well dummy, Nixon was the first to open up talks with the Chinese. Might
want to read some of his books. He was really very knowledgeable on
foreign affairs. He just got caught doing what all Pols did.
plenty of other reasons to boycott them. Isn't it funny how they just had the richest quarter of any company in the history of earth?boycott Exxon gas stations to stop terrorism.
what the does that have all to do with anythignWell dummy, Nixon was the first to open up talks with the Chinese. Might
want to read some of his books. He was really very knowledgeable on
foreign affairs. He just got caught doing what all Pols did
Nixon and China. Well I would bet most of what you are wearing right now was
made there. And most of what you buy is made there......but why am I not
surprised you don't realize that.
dan might learn something from this...
Nothing gets adrenaline coursing quite as quickly as a good scare story. All the more so if terrorism is part of the plot. That's the genre du jour in Hollywood, and now apparently in Washington, too.
How else to explain the frenzy over the Bush administration's decision to let a company controlled by the United Arab Emirates operate shipping terminals at six major U.S. ports? Politicians from New York to Miami are stampeding to the cameras to denounce the deal and to the courts to undo it.
The hysteria is bipartisan. Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., warned that the deal would outsource port control to a "country with long involvement in terrorism." Rep. Peter King (news, bio, voting record), R-N.Y., wondered how the company would guard against "infiltration by al-Qaeda." Congressional leaders and several governors piled on, seeking to block the deal, which President Bush vehemently defended.
Never mind that the deal was announced 13 days ago and had been rumored for months. Never mind that Congress could have reviewed it at any time. Never mind that revoking it could have significant ramifications in the Arab world. And never mind that a little patience might have allowed time to get the facts straight.
Using the terrorist boogeyman to attract cameras has more political appeal.
The facts are pretty simple. Dubai Ports World, an international shipping company controlled by the UAE, an oil-rich Persian Gulf state and one of America's few allies in the Middle East, purchased a British shipping company and with it contracts to manage a small number of the terminals at major ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami.
Many foreign companies, including ones from Singapore and China, operate U.S. shipping terminals. Even so, government agencies - not the companies - remain in charge of inspecting cargo and ships. The dock workers are generally unionized longshoremen. And no one is farming out security to an Arab nation. In fact, many of the Dubai firm's top executives are American, and the firm has worked with the USA at other ports.
Think of it this way: Airlines, including foreign ones, lease gates and even whole concourses at major airports. Saudi Arabian Airlines and Emirates - yes, an airline based in Dubai - pay to use available gates at New York's John F. Kennedy. And always, the federal and local authorities handle security. It works just about the same way in ports.
Of course, thinking of the Dubai deal logically wouldn't allow lawmakers to score political points with hysterical predictions.
The uproar in Congress does raise one useful question: What is the government doing to secure ports? The major threat is that a terrorist could smuggle a radioactive "dirty bomb," nuclear device or another weapon of mass destruction in one of millions of cargo containers that land on U.S. docks each year. If lawmakers want to prevent that, here are a few real concerns they've been ignoring:
• Congress' investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, has issued more than a dozen reports since 9/11 revealing huge gaps in just about every shipping security program the government runs.
• A program to inspect high-risk, U.S.-bound containers at foreign ports misses many of its targets; others get inspected but not very effectively, the GAO found.
• An effort to issue federal identification cards to more than 5 million transportation workers has barely started. The Transportation Security Administration has issued just 4,000 "prototype" cards so far.
• Radiation sensors deployed in some foreign ports are not "capable of detecting a nuclear weapon or a lightly-shielded dirty bomb," according to security expert Stephen Flynn of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Yes, Congress is welcome to take a hard look, unvarnished by political gamesmanship, at the involvement of Dubai Ports World in a sensitive industry. But it could do far more for security by working to fix the broad vulnerabilities in shipping.
Both tasks would be easier if lawmakers got down to business, instead of tripping over each other on the way to the cameras.
Extremely convenient, too convenient, purposely convenient?, that this firestorm arrives right in the middle of the NSA/Exec-uncontrolled-wiretapping firestorm.
"Both tasks would be easier if lawmakers got down to business"
those tasks wouldn't even be necessary if dubya/ head/Exec who execute the nation's security had gotten down to the business of securing America's ports of entry rather than starting a bogus Repug war in Iraq.
The ONLY securities the Repugs care about, really spend $Bs to assure first/last/always, is the financial security of the rich and corps and the political security of the Repugs.
A little article I thought summed things up nicely.
================================================== ===============
Going overboard
By Jonah Goldberg
Feb 24, 2006
Did you hear the one about Cheney, a priest and a rabbi walking into an Arab-run port?
No? Too bad, because the brouhaha that has replaced Cheney-mania is a lot less entertaining. This week brought a strange bipartisan convergence over, of all things, the commercial management of U.S. ports.
Bipartisan consensus is often a troubling sign, particularly when it's on an issue few know much about. It was prompted by the Bush administration's decision to defend the bid by Dubai Ports World, based in the United Arab Emirates, to buy the British-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which currently runs six U.S. ports. The deal was unanimously approved by the administration committee charged with reviewing the national security implications of foreign acquisitions.
In response, Republicans and Democrats alike have gone batty.
For five years, Republicans have chanted "trust the president" on national security. They even won elections on the issue. For nearly five years, Democrats have said President Bush should use more carrots and fewer sticks in his diplomacy in the Muslim world. They argued that we need to reward our allies with trade and trust (except when we actually did it in places such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). Liberals lectured that equating "Muslim" or "Arab" and "terrorist" is not only bigoted but counterproductive, in that it will feed the "root causes" of terrorism.
But suddenly, virtually all leading Republicans and Democrats - with the laudable exception of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. - now argue that Bush can't be trusted on national security, that our Arab ally the UAE should go suck eggs, and that racial profiling of foreign firms is just fine. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., now even thinks Halliburton should run the ports. And Jimmy Carter is backing the White House.
At this rate, Barbra Streisand will soon be holding benefit concerts for Pennsylvania's conservative Sen. Rick Santorum.
The one guy clearly sticking to his principles is CNN's Lou Dobbs. But that's because he went bonkers a long time ago. The perfectly coiffed millionaire anchor has anointed himself the defender of Joe Sixpack, opposing every manifestation of globalization (save for CNN International, of course). He's perfected the art of the highbrow demagogue, maintaining a perpetual state of shock about how those fat cats are giving guys "like us" the shaft.
So it's not surprising that Tailgunner Lou insists that the review process that allowed the port deal to go through didn't take into account national security. Of course, for the author of "Exporting America," it is axiomatic that all outsourcing, downsizing or free-trading is against national security.
In response to the port decision, Dobbs ran one of his typically less-than-scientific online polls: "Do you believe national security should play a role in the national security review process?" He knew this was like asking "Do you think prostate exams should screen for prostate cancer?" He just didn't care.
And that's the point: Few politicians - or commentators - seem to care about the facts.
So here are a few, in no particular order: The Dubai firm wouldn't be handling security - the U.S. Coast Guard would continue to do that; unionized American longshoremen would still to do all of the loading and unloading; the ports in question were already foreign-owned, as are countless other ports in the United States; and if the U.S. had rejected the Dubai bid, a Singapore firm would probably have gotten the contract from the Brits instead.
Democratic and Republican politicians respond by insisting that the UAE is a bad country full of bad Muslims and Arabs, while Britain is a nice country where everyone likes us. I'm as Anglophile as they come, but you might have noticed that Britain has a surfeit of jihadi nut bags, such as the guys who blew up the Underground and want to behead Danish cartoonists.
Besides, the same Dubai company bought CSX's American port business in early 2005, and nobody seemed to care then. So, why now?
Well, Bush is in the second-term doldrums, and presidential wannabes are taking advantage of what was, in retrospect, a political - but not a policy - blunder. The White House's tepid defense of the Danish cartoons sent the message to some that Bush is going a bit wobbly. Democrats have found a populist route to zing Bush from the right for a change. The war in Iraq, the war on terror, the bombings abroad and the increasing arrogance of Europe all produce, if not screaming isolationism, the desire to keep all that junk "over there."
Port security is a serious concern, but scapegoating Dubai is a distraction. And if we're going to argue about distractions, we might stick to the entertaining ones.
So did you hear the one about Cheney doodling a picture of the prophet Muhammad?
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
Copyright © 2006 Tribune Media Services
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Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...24/187702.html
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Here is another article worth reading on the port deal. You know the really funny
part dimm-o-craps said we didn't have a problem with the Arab world. We just
needed to work with them. We should never profile, no never. Hmmmm, what are
we doing now, Mr. dimm-o-craps? And do we now have a problem with middleeastern
countries?
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Port security frenzy: Real concern or real grandstanding?
By Stuart Rothenberg
Feb 23, 2006
While Democrats and Republicans vent their anger over the Bush Administration’s decision to allow a United Arab Emirates-based company from taking “control” of America’s east coast ports (from a British company), I have a question: Exactly what responsibility and authority does this UAE company have? Specifically, how is U.S. security weakened?
I don’t know, and I bet 99.5% of the people discussing the “threat” don’t know. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet most of us have no idea what managing a port entails.
But that hasn’t stopped people from ranting about the Administration’s decision to approve the British-UAE deal.
CNN political commentators Donna Brazile (on the left) and Bill Bennett (on the right) agreed that it is a terrible thing. Pennsylvania Representative Bill Shuster (R) wrote a letter to the President expressing concern about the deal. Representative Max Burns (R-Ga.) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) are worried. Both House Homeland Security Committee chairman Peter King (R-NY) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are demanding the President reverse his decision. I guess this is the bipartisanship we’ve all been longing for, huh?
Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley (D), who just coincidentally happens to be running for governor, went absolutely bonkers over the deal.
"I am calling upon President Bush to reverse the outrageous, the reckless, and the irresponsible decision to turn over American ports to foreign governments," said the Mayor, who didn’t exactly sound like a model of thoughtfulness and reason.
Talking of “turning over” American ports to a foreign company that apparently is controlled by a foreign (Middle Eastern) government raises the specter of terrorists flowing through the ports of New York, Baltimore and Miami. But with the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Customs and the Department of Immigration and Naturalization still firmly in U.S. control, it’s far from clear how that sale threatens U.S. security or enables terrorists to gain access to the U.S.
What we have here is a small dose of real concern and a huge amount of grandstanding by legislators, Republican and Democratic alike.
Democrats smell an opportunity to appear tougher than the President on national defense and homeland security, enhancing their generally weaker credentials on fighting the war against terror.
Republican legislators realize that they cannot allow Democrats to seize the one issue that the GOP has had an advantage on since September 11, 2001. And GOP members of the House and Senate even get an issue on which they can “stand up to” Bush, a hard-to-pass-up opportunity since the President’s job ratings remain weak.
The White House probably does deserve blame – blame for not seeing that his decision could easily be demagogued and turned into a political issue. Now, fairly or unfairly, the President is on the defensive and some in the media have started to pile on, as did CNN’s Jack Cafferty, who never allows reason or logic to interfere with his analysis.
The President does not have to change his decision if he believes it to be correct. But he needs to make the case that the new company will not be in a position to aid terrorists, and that it will continue policies and procedures (both involving personnel and operations) to keep America’s ports safe, and to enhance that safety and security.
Still, the President is taking a political hit, and given his current standing, it’s a hit that he cannot afford.
Stuart Rothenberg is editor of The Rothenberg Political Report, a non-partisan newsletter that handicaps U.S. House, Senate, and gubernatorial elections, and a columnist for Roll Call.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
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Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...23/187501.html
Xray, what I don't like is the fact that the Bush admin kinda slid this deal under the door and hoped nobody would notice. When people did notice and started asking serious questions, Dubya gave his patented "I don't need to tell you jack about what we do around here" response.
That's his MO. He tries to sneak past the American public (who allegedly voted for him twice) but when confronted with questions about his actions, he stonewalls.
I don't get that drift at all. The media is the one who dropped the ball.
They were so interested in Cheney and his hunting incident that they
completely ignored this deal, and still haven't completely filled the American
people in on the deal. Just leave stuff hanging out there.
You really have to dig to get to the bottom of everything. LIke the first
headlines I read about the thing was that they were going to "buy and own"
the ports. That isn't correct. The are buying the rights to operate/manage
some of the docks in the ports named. Nothing is really changing. I to was
opposed to the first reports that came out. But as I have read about
things and dug up some of the facts, I don't see much changing except
it will be run by a different "overseas" company. Secondly, this company
already operates ports all over the world, guess they could ship about
anything they want into the US already, couldn't they? They will have
zip to do about security.
After checking and reading about things, I just think this is a lot to do
about nothing.
Also, there are no American companies that do this kind of thing any
longer, so who do we get. Britian has many traitors in its own
government. Remember Burgess who spied for Russian for years and
he was a bigshot in MI5, their elite spy agency.
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