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Port Questions – Et tu Dole?

Port Questions – Et tu Dole?

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It turns out that former Majority Leader and Presidential candidate Bob Dole was hired last year as a legal consultant by Dubai Ports World to shepherd the deal through, courtesy of Alston & Bird.

Wife Sen. Elizabeth Dole says that she is "deeply concerned" about operations at six U.S. ports being controlled by Dubai Ports World (owned, in case you somehow hadn’t heard, by the United Arab Emirates – AUE). Congrats on her "independence" – I guess.

I have several concerns and questions about this whole situation, so I thought I’d weigh in.

I object to any port operations run by non-Americans. This is a national security issue.

The deal would allow Dubai Ports World to operate ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. They have been operated by a British company until now – why has no-one objected to that? With that in mind, some of the objections now seem to be to be shadowed by a tinge of racism. That said, and I think it should be acknowledged that it is a possible factor…

Almost 40 percent of the Army cargo deployed in support of military operations in Iraq flows through two of the ports in question. Why isn’t this a matter for military logistics or Homeland Security? Has this always been a private concern? If so, why? If not, how long has it been this way and why are non-Americans in charge at our ports? If this isn’t illegal, it should be.

I thought our policy was to limit dealings with nations that support terrorism. This is actually a state-owned company. They may be allies in some ways, but they do have troubling involvement with international terrorism, including:

– The UAE was one of three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

– The UAE has been a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea and Lybia.

– According to the FBI, money was transferred to the 9/11 hijackers through the UAE banking system.

– After 9/11, the Treasury Department reported that the UAE was not cooperating in efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden’s bank accounts.

Former CIA director Tenet told the 9/11 commission that the United States did not target Bin Laden at a camp in Afghanistan in February 1999 because he was meeting with the UAE royal family. What exactly are our ties here? Is there any connection to the royal family of Saudi Arabia that we’ve been protecting for so long?

It seems very suspicious to me that there are two White House ties on this. One is Treasury Secretary John Snow. The Treasury Department runs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S (the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World – giving it control of Manhattan’s cruise ship terminal and Newark’s container port)and he was also chairman of the CSX railroad company that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left to join Bush’s cabinet. The other is David Sanborn, who runs DP World’s European and Latin American operations and was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration. Conflict of interest, crony capitalism, anyone?

Of course, there is standard documentation of Presidential hypocrisy, this one from February 2004:

Part of doing our duty in the war on terror is to protect the homeland. That’s part of our solemn responsibility. And we are taking unprecedented steps to protect the homeland. In the 2005 budget, as the Secretary mentioned, we proposed increases in homeland security spending. And some of those increases are measures to protect our seaports. And that’s why I’ve come to this vital seaport, to remind people — to remind the American people, as they pay attention to the debates in the halls of Congress, that we have a solemn duty to protect our homeland, including the seaports of America.

Bush admits he had no knowledge of the deal before his administration approved it, but he has also threatened to veto any legislation from Congress to overturn the sale. Why didn’t he know? Why would he veto? What’s at stake here?

In a press briefing on the 21st Donald Rumsfeld also claimed ignorance of the deal, but as Secretary of Defense, he is a member of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States – who unanimously approved the sale on February 13. Huh?

Of course one must ask – how is Cheney involved in this? Here’s one connection – Halliburton has used an offshore subsidiary incorporated in the Cayman Islands (where the company has no oil and gas construction or engineering operations) to trade with Iran. Halliburton Products and Services, a Cayman islands firm headquartered in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, made over $39 million in 2003 (a $10 million increase from 2002) by selling oil-field services to customers in Iran. Offshore money laundering, trade with Iran, avoidance of America’s laws, presumably the usual Cayman Islands tax evasion… Is this just one clue to a much bigger picture? See also "All Roads Lead to Cheney" at Rense for information on a company called Prime Projects International Trading LLC (PPI). By the way, why is Halliburton still working for the US after ripping us off? Why was it awarded multiple no-bid contracts in the first place?

On CNN’s Late Edition (Feb. 19), Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff appeared, only to assert a right to government secrecy.

The discussions are classified. I can’t get into the specifics here…

Why is it ok for Chertoff to refuse to talk about any of this? How can it be "classified"? What information exactly could be entrusted to a foreign government but not shared with the American people?

So my larger question is – who gains from this deal? What is the back story? How could this be classified? It seems to me that this bears a fractal resemblence to numerous other situations this administration has been involved with – The Carlisle Group, Enron, etc.

Homeland Unsecured has a detailed report about how the Bush Administration’s ties to industry and hostility to regulation leave our country vulnerable by failing to secure the most vulnerable, high-impact targets in our country. The report is based on an analysis of five key areas – chemical plants, nuclear plants, hazardous material transport, ports and water systems. citizens who still manage to think that Bush is "strong on security" still haven’t gotten an accurate picture. His comfty appearance as a swaggering little-boy cowboy-wanna-be doesn’t have anything to do with the realities of his policies and priorities.

Some of the Repubicans, every watchful of re-election, are starting to listen to some of their constituents on these topics. What they won’t do for the right reasons, they might do for the wrong ones. I’m not sure how to feel about that exactly, but I do welcome any signs that there might be any no-saying to this increasingly fascistic, heartless war-for-profit administration.

 

As with many situations involving the Bush administration, we may never know the whole story.

Ralph Reed Lt Gov?

Ralph Reed Lt Gov?

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“Political consultant” Ralph Reed, who was in charge of President Bush’s southeast regional campaign last year and who also once ran the Christian Coalition, is seeking Georgia’s second-highest office in the 2006 election – Lt. Governor.

Ok, that’s it. That’s it. I somehow didn’t realize that this was happening. Ralph Reed? Ralph REED?

From The Nation:

When Ralph Reed was the boyish director of the Christian Coalition, he made opposition to gambling a major plank in his “family values” agenda, calling gambling “a cancer on the American body politic” that was “stealing food from the mouths of children.” But now, a broad federal investigation into lobbying abuses connected to gambling on Indian reservations has unearthed evidence that Reed has been surreptitiously working for an Indian tribe with a large casino it sought to protect–and that Reed was paid with funds laundered through two firms to try to keep his lucrative involvement secret.

Reed’s involvement with the casino effort followed his departure from the Christian Coalition in 1997 and his reinvention of himself as a corporate lobbyist and campaign hatchet man. One of his first clients was the Enron Corporation–a deal arranged by Karl Rove when George W. Bush was starting to think about running for President in 2000. Rove wasn’t ready to put Reed directly on a campaign payroll but presumably wanted to cultivate good will from Reed toward the coming Bush candidacy. Enron paid Reed’s Century Strategies more than $300,000 to generate support for energy deregulation. In the 2000 GOP presidential primary, Reed justified his big Enron fee by helping to smear John McCain during the South Carolina primary. Now McCain’s Indian Affairs subcommittee is investigating Indian gambling in the context of lobbying abuses, kickbacks and money laundering, with public hearings scheduled for early September.

Reed is in charge of Bush’s 2004 election campaign in the Southeast, including Florida. In 2000, he was paid almost $3.7 million for helping Bush. In 1995, when he was still exploiting intolerance and fear, Time did a story on him that included the cover line “The right hand of God.” Today God’s right hand seems to be holding dice and a bloody political hatchet.

According to the New York Times, Mr. Reed wrote in his book “Active Faith: How Christians Are Changing the Soul of American Politics” that Mr. Abramoff was “a conservative firebrand.” The men became so close that Mr. Reed sometimes slept on Mr. Abramoff’s couch and later introduced Mr. Abramoff to his future wife.

AmericaBlog also has some serious questions about why he was being paid by Microsoft.

Oh, no… uh-uh. No way. Not gonna happen. Not if I have to scream “wake UP, wake UP, wake UP” in people’s faces.

How can this happen? Don’t give me that trauma-theory about 9/11. People in New York voted for Kerry. don’t give me the scapegoat theory – Republicans have been misdirecting anger for a long time. What is it? The dumbing-down, infotainment, bad education? What is it? How can so many American’s have willed themselves blind? When they finally open their eyes, will it be too late? There is already so much corruption and thuggery.

Will there be a country left to recover?

Action: Resist the Newest USANext

Action: Resist the Newest USANext

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Democracy For America – Stop “USA Next”

The super right-wing fringe who have taken over our democracy have declared war on Social Security — and USA Next, a “front group” for radical conservatives aiming to destroy Social Security, has led the fight with bigoted, hate-filled ads. Why? They want to take down a major source of opposition – the AARP. So this group is set up to look like an alternative. If you’re a hardline retired Republican, it might appeal to you. But think about what they are all about.

Guess who they hired to publize their efforts? The familiar hatchet-men that ran the Swift Boat smear campaign against John Kerry. Their new ads will target the AARP, a group that millions of seniors rely on to defend their interests. You surely remember their internet version – using a photo of a same-sex marriage without permission and trying to imply the the AARP and its members were unpatriotic or somehow had an agenda about sexuality. This is sheer propaganda from the right – and it is very damaging. In August 2003, Health and Human Services fined United Seniors over half a million dollars for deceptive mailing practices, including misleading senior citizens into believing that United Seniors’ solicitations were official government communications. This is the organization your mom or grandmom are going to listen to on tv and hook up with? Not if I have anything to say about it.

We must stop this.

The petition will be delivered by local DFA Meetup groups to every TV station that tries to air the USA Next attack ads. Feel free to contact your networks yourself as well. I expect to see lots of ways to do so collectively – but there’s always the appeal of a personal touch…or a letter to the editor.

BlogPac has a nice long report on the group.

According to Tom Hughes from Democracy for America, “USA Next isn’t the only player — it is just one of dozens of entities that funnel money from corporations and right-wing billionaires into our political process. They have pledged to spend whatever it takes to dismantle Social Security. Their latest project: producing distorted polls to generate news coverage and “evidence” of support for their privatization agenda. It’s part of a coordinated effort by corporate interests and conservative ideologues to wage a multi-front war on Social Security. Fox News, of course, featured the results of the biased poll. But so did other news outlets — they need to be put on notice that they will be held accountable for airing USA Next’s distortions.”

Hold your media outlets accountable to you and to the facts. Even the dominated Senate is opposed to what USA Next would like to see – a privatized Social Security plan that requires deep benefit cuts and a massive increase in debt. The so-called liberal AARP caved to the Medicare plan last time around – I personally don’t think they are fighting hard enough for their members’ interests. This group, having seen how successful nastiness can be, is more interested in framing any competitor in terms of hate rather than in terms of what will most benefit their ostensible “clients.” Myself, I wouldn’t want to be in a seniors’ group that gets a huge chunka change from drug companies – a wee touch of conflict of interest there?

You can sign the petition here
http://www.democracyforamerica.com

Some information on USA Next

A descriptive article from USA Today

Jarvis’ group ran 19,800 TV ads last year supporting conservative causes and plans a similar campaign this year demanding that AARP “stop scaring seniors.”

From Media Matters (see also this bit about the misleading poll Brit Hume is so excited about):

Legendary conservative activist Richard Viguerie founded USA in 1991 to “bombard[] the elderly with tens of millions of solicitations, generating millions of dollars in fees for his private companies,” according to a November 12, 1992, New York Times report. Far from a grassroots seniors organization, USA’s “board and executives consist entirely of direct-mail experts and people active in conservative causes,” the Times reported, and that the organization had been criticized by members of both parties for “preying on vulnerable old people with statements that distort the problems facing Social Security and Medicare, especially by exaggerating the threat to current retirees.”

In 1995, USA worked with discredited Republican pollster Frank Luntz to craft a controversial memo on Medicare that referred to older Americans as “pack-oriented” and “susceptible to following one very dominant person’s lead” [Washington Post, 7/23/1995]. In 1998, then-Senate Finance Committee chairman Sen. William Roth (R-DE) described USA mailings that “told millions of senior citizens recent changes in Medicare posed a threat” as “a serious mistake. Roth added: “We are not here to try to scare senior citizens with respect to their health care” [Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2/27/1998]. In 2001, the Social Security Administration Office of Counsel to the Inspector General proposed a $554,196 fine against USA for mailing “at least 554,196 solicitations in envelopes that misused the Social Security Administration’s program words and/or letters in violation of section 1140 of the Social Security Act.” The Department of Health & Human Services Departmental Appeals Board imposed the fine in 2003.

Furthermore, Washington Monthly reported in May 2004 that “during the 2002 elections, with an ‘unrestricted educational grant’ from the drug industry burning a hole in its pocket, the group [USA Next] spent roughly $14 million — the lion’s share of its budget — on ads defending Republican members of Congress for their votes on a Medicare prescription-drug bill.” Other estimates vary, but all indicate that USA spent significant amounts on targeted advertising in support of Republicans during the 2002 congressional elections. The Associated Press reported that USA “was the nation’s biggest spender on political TV ads, paying nearly $9 million for ads mainly supporting Republican candidates.” The Center for Responsive Politics noted in December 2003: “Last year, the group reportedly spent $17 million to run political ads in tight congressional races.” The center also noted that USA “made $66,000 in PAC contributions during the 2002 election cycle, all to Republicans.”

Before joining USA Next in 2001, Jarvis worked for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. The Center for Responsive Politics reported that USA Next “has ties to the Republican party. … Other staff and board members worked as lobbyists for the Republican Party, are former GOP congressmen, or worked for conservative organizations such as Focus on the Family.

From AmericaBlog, March 10, 2005:

Judge grants Temporary Restraining Order against USA Next in anti-gay anti-AARP ad lawsuit

There was news today in the $25 million lawsuit of a gay couple whose image was stolen by USA Next and used in a high-profile ad campaign attacking the AARP’s position on social security legislation. In Washington, DC today, US District Judge Reggie Walton (an appointee of President Bush (41)) granted the gay couple’s request for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against USA Next. The TRO requires USA Next to cease and desist from further use of the couple’s photos for any purpose.

For continuing information, check in on There is No Crisis, especially their page of questions and answers about Social Security.