| USA Today | 0 | |
| CNN | 0 | |
| AP | 0 | |
| Jen Rubin | 0 | |
| Fox News | Source: Powerful Sedative Propofol Found at Michael Jackson’s Mansion |
0 |
Audacity of Truth
Flyswatter in Chief:
"He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him during the interview...he swatted his hand and he said ‘I got the sucker’...it was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment."- The NYT's John Harwood, describing Obama's killing of a fly - 6/16/09
Hysteria over UAE port deal continues
By all accounts, this story is leading the pack in the blogosphere in terms of discussion (see Memeorandum for more). Quite frankly, yours truly is beyond rehashing it at this point because some of what I have to say isn’t really fit for print.
Two posts on the poll-driven GOP move to take a vote on the port deal that caught my attention today: AJ Strata’s post on GOP “mob think” and Flopping Aces’ post criticizing the shameless political opportunism coming from the GOP-led Congress.
The hype surrounding this deal and lack of real honest discussions about it coming out of Congress have made me reconsider whether or not I even still want to be a part of the Republican party. I can’t recall in modern history a more shameless pandering to a constituency based on emotional arguments than this one on our side of the aisle. Don’t be surprised if one day I blog about how I decided to change my party affiliation to “Independent.” Like many other Republicans, I’ve put up with a lot of things I’d rather not have (like runaway spending, for example) out of the current crop of Republicans in Congress but honestly I’m almost to the point where I’ve had enough.
Update I: Jonathan R. at GOP Bloggers is on the same wavelength.
Update II: House and Senate GOP leaders have informed the President that the UAE ports deal is doomed.
Update III: CNN breaking news at the top of their page: Dubai-owned company has decided to transfer fully the U.S. operation of P&O ports in North America to a U.S. entity, according to Sen. John Warner.
I’ll post a direct link as soon as it becomes available.
Update 4: Here is the direct link:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A United Arab Emirates-owned company has agreed to turn over all of its operations at U.S. ports to an American entity, Sen. John Warner said Thursday.
Reading a statement from DP World on the Senate floor, Warner, a Virginia Republican, said the reason is “to preserve” the strong relationship between the UAE and United States.
The announcement comes after congressional leaders reportedly told President Bush that the deal for DP World to assume some operations at six U.S. ports appeared dead on Capitol Hill.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, delivered the news to Bush during a meeting Thursday at the White House, two Republican sources said.
Here’s Fox’s reporting on the story:
WASHINGTON — After Republican congressional leaders warned President Bush that both the House and Senate both appear ready to block Dubai Ports World from taking over operations at several U.S. ports, the company announced Thursday that it would give up its management stake in the deal.
The announcement was a blow for Democrats, who were pushing for a Senate vote on an amendment that would halt the deal. If they succeeded in that vote, Democrats could then claim a big election year win in the area of national security — an area Republicans generally have a stronger track record on.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., read a statement from DP World executives on the Senate floor Thursday, announcing the concession.
“Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve that relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the U.S. operation of P&O Operations North America to a United States entity,” DP World’s chief operating officer, Edward H. Bilkey, said in the statement.
With the latest DP World news, many members of Congress who thus far have been critical of the deal may be much more positive toward it.
Here’s the WaPo link.
Related Toldjah So posts:
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Trackbacks
46 Responses to “Hysteria over UAE port deal continues”
Comments
Blogads
Disclaimer: The views expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of ST's advertisers, nor do their opinions necessarily reflect ST's. Stats
- Actually sanity, she isn’t really doing anything as of yet, and as a result so far it qualifies as just “show boating”. According to the Commander of the guard there, her bill changes absolutely nothing, until she actually issues some commands, and even then it might be just to act as “observers”, in which case they might as well save the tax payers the money and stay home. I’ll reserve judgement.
- Bang
As soon as we get rid of the electoral college the population centers in the United States will have the power that they should have. That would be both coasts if your looking at a map. This country must move forward and that move requires that Peace be the norm, not war, as is the case now. Peace
Not only did you leave the back door open, you must’ve put out a sign for free cookies and it thought it read free hookahs.
Bang- Up at the top in your 2:00 pm post was the closest I’ve heard anyone come to explaining the financial logic of this issue. Can you add additional info for us common folk?
I still have yet to understand why so many don’t/can’t get past the fear issue about security. It has nothing to do with who owns or operates the terminals. At the risk of sounding redundant- 100% American owned/operated terminals 9/11 proved that point hands down, did it not!
What is it that’s so evasive regarding understanding the security issues.
Everyone, I dare say even steve wants better security and we’ve lots of room for improvement in that department. The UAE investment has zero impact on security, as I understand it.
LOL Hey Steve the Electoral College is written into the body of the Constitution, it cannot be overturned by a law. You would have to open a new Constitutional Convention, which since you need conservatives for the votes on that, will NEVER happen.
Now to all the Dems out there that believe this was about security. It is time that you stick to your beliefs and write a law that says there can be no foreign management of any terminal in any port in the United States of America. Seems like that is the only way we will be “secure”. I feel safer already, don’t you?? Where did I leave my Jello and my nail gun???? – Lorica
Ohhh and lastly I don’t think it is time to give up being a conservative, or a Republican. I do believe that GW’s constant backing of moderates is now biting him in the tushie. It is time for the Republican party to become a truly conservative party. Sorry but is there another way??? Since Republicans have to fight any given day on 2 fronts, Dems and Media, why do we need the 3rd front of our “moderate” brothers in arms. LOL What is the old saying, with friends like these…..???
In defense of steve
When it refers to the …population centers… I’m not sure how this impacts the cardboard houses under the bridges and in the parks but steve can explain it better as soon as returns from his incoherency class
“THAT WOULD BE BOTH COASTS IF YOU’RE LOOKING AT A MAP.”
What if you’re not looking at a map? 
Inquiring minds want know. 
- Well Forest I count myself as “common folk” too. The really dumb thing about the whole port fiasco is that many of the port stations are already owned by other companies in other countries, and always were, before and after 9/11.
- This is an investment issue. If I own stock in GM, I doubt anyone would be worried I was going to be able to have them change the car designs for me, or for that matter expect to be involved in any of the day to day on the ground operations, any more than any other stockholder. That just isn’t the way it works. The same US Coast guard would handle all security. The same management on the ground would be in place. The same long shoreman would handle all port work. So absolutely nothing about the ports themselves would have changed.
- Now if the idea of any non-American corporation holding investment in critical operations like say our ports or airports, etc, bothers people, well that’s an entirely different argument.
- That’s not what the Democraps were pushing. They were Demagogging the issue with fear mongering, and the Liberal press of course was carrying their water.
- One minute they were berating Bush for not “reaching out” to our moderate Arab neighbors, but the instant they thought they had a political issue they could make brownie points on, they did a Kerry 180.
- But either way the end result is the same. On the flip side we need investment to offset the imbalance of trade, either by others buying our products, or value investments in American enterprises. Maybe this was not a big investment, but this sort of isolationism is a tendency of the left so I’m suspicious when I hear them start talking about “Those foreigners”. They just naturally hate the “global economy” system because it also globalizes welfare nanny state questions, and anything that may screw up their beloved entitlement programs gives them hives.
- Liberals don’t have a clue anyway concerning economics, except tax and give away programs. That should have been evident to everyone who reads ST regularly, when we were treated the other day to an euridite essay by one of the resident trolls explaining in impeccable logic that doing nothing is preferable to a no risk opportunity to double your retirement fund. It really is remarkable how backward the left tends to be in areas of economics in general. Its no wonder no one trusts them with money issues.
- Profiling bigotry, as we’ve seen with this port investment non-issue, is only acceptable when a Liberal does it.
- Bang
“If I own stock in GM, I doubt anyone would be worried I was going to be able to have them change the car designs for me, or for that matter expect to be involved in any of the day to day on the ground operations, any more than any other stockholder”..but we’re not talking about a small minority shareholding position here; rather, a 100% ownership position. Ask Rick Waggoner if he thinks Kirk Kirkorian ownership position will have no effect on operations…and his position is a lot less than 100%.
>Last I heard the AZ governor ordered
>troops to the border to help protect it.
Not really… they’re just doing vehicle and computer maintenance. They’re not patrolling or protecting anything. But it really sounds good to tell the voters, “I sent the National Guard to the border!”
>the population centers in the United
>States will have the power that they
>should have
Poor Steve. The electoral college was set up precisely so that the population centers couldn’t dictate to the rest of the country. The wisdom of the Founding Fathers in protecting us from people like you is awe-inspiring.
Bang wrote, “Well Bak… the Teflon Lady launched a full frontal attack on the whole issue of border security by damning the idea of our soveriegnty and right to protect our boders as “Police statist tactics” by an out of control Adminsitration.
Yes. I saw that.
And yes. That won’t win her favor with “legal” hispanic voters.