Patch

In 1999, Emirates officials were happily commiserating with bin Laden in Afghanistan. According to the Sept. 11 commission, these officials also provided "one of the Taliban's only travel and financial outlets to the outside world." This, at the same time as the Emirates rejected U.S. requests to crack down on terrorist financing.

Two Sept. 11 terrorists came from Dubai. Emirates banks funneled money to the Sept. 11 hijackers, and the Los Angeles Times has reported on allegations that, before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Dubai Islamic Bank funneled money to al Qaeda.

Port security is the real issue. It's been known ever since the 9/11 attacks that the nation is most vulnerable at its ports. But the planned takeover of a London-based port management firm by Dubai Ports World won't have much effect on that.

The White House is right when it says that anti-terrorism security at the nation's maritime facilities will continue to be handled by the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, not by any employees of the Arab-owned port company - all of whom, incidentally, must be U.S. citizens. But the administration has reduced the budget for Customs and the Coast Guard, in large part to finance the Iraq war and offset the cost of its tax cuts


Our government's process of approving foreign takeovers of American companies through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States was (is) entirely secret. When Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about the Dubai Ports deal at a hearing on Feb. 15, Chertoff declined to answer because the committee's work was "classified." Treasury Secretary John Snow told another congressional committee that he was not permitted to discuss specific transactions considered by the foreign investment panel.
(Now isn’t everything classified and secret? Except maybe port security?)
Why shouldn't the public have a right to know about the deliberations of this interagency committee? Hasn't the secrecy surrounding this decision aggravated the uproar it has caused?
(Talk about a couple of good questions)

White House spokesman Scott McClellan -- boy, I don't envy him his job these days -- said a president whose main calling card is his devotion to keeping our nation secure hadn't paid any attention to this issue until the past "several days." In other words, a subject Bush displayed such passion about the day before was also a subject he had just learned about. Does this happen often?


The greater and more immediate danger is that as soon as the Dubai company takes over operations, it will necessarily become privy to information about security provisions at crucial U.S. ports. (Information that if it would come to you, would put you in one of those secret prisons that Bush keeps around the world.) That would mean a transfer of information about our security operations -- and perhaps even worse, about the holes in our security operations -- to a company in an Arab state in which there might be (?) employees who, for reasons of corruption or ideology, would pass this invaluable knowledge on to al-Qaeda types.

That is the danger, and it is a risk, probably an unnecessary one. (I guess it would be.)

President Bush insisted that the deal would leave our ports safe. "People don't need to worry about security," he said.

This coming from a President that for security reason wants to know what books I’m checking out of the library. As Pogo said "We have met the enemy and he is us."

" 'This was a sound business decision,' said a senior Republican operative of the Dubai deal.
(Well that’s reassuring)

Here's a good question; Has the White House has put its free-trade economic agenda above concerns that go to the heart of fears in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, world?


"There's an inherent American fear that their ports are vulnerable and they are made even more so by this deal," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council.
(I wonder why?)

There is a huge disconnect to President Bush’s words on terrorism and his actions to prevent it. A disconnect that grows daily and this port deal shows this disconnect. But, then again, there is a huge disconnect between everything he says and what he does.



America's largest companies expect the federal government to pay them about $4 billion over the next four years to help keep their retiree health plans alive at a time when such benefits are increasingly on the chopping block, according to a new study by Credit Suisse First Boston.
The money is due to start flowing to employers this month as part of Medicare's new prescription drug benefit. When Congress authorized the Medicare drug benefit, it also agreed to start subsidizing the drug component of employers' retiree health plans, to keep them from shifting their retirees into the government program. (This I suppose is free enterprise at work.)

Now you know why there isn’t any money for Social Security!!!

And by the why, all you Kids if you haven’t, I urge to try and decide what Medicare plan would be best for your.parents. (I can tell you this, your parents don't have a clue.) Put yourself on some kind of needed medicine, and then pick the plan that’s best for you. Lots of luck on this one. Also on this subject, why do Americans accept giving these Billions of $$$$ of subsidizes for Companies to NOT provide you with health care but will absolutely freak out giving 4 billion dollars to Medicare to provide it?

This just came in, 0300 Saturday, 2/25/06 ( After promoting the wide choices available to the elderly and disabled for Medicare drug coverage, the Bush administration is now considering limiting those options. (AP))
Surprised are you?

Patch

Elsewhere, the White House said today that it would issue its own report on the response to Hurricane Katrina, written by the author James Frey (BorowitzReport)

Patch also thinks the US Hockey Team should be given back to Collage players for the next Olympics.

Books: "The known World" by Edward P. Jones, a novel about Blacks owning slaves in pre-civil war Virginia.

More news.

February 23, 2006
JERUSALEM --Vets at the Biblical Zoo have a tall order -- stopping a baby boom among giraffes.
After the giraffe population tripled to nine in recent years, outgrowing the zoo on the edge of Jerusalem, the most fertile female -- Shavit -- has been put on birth control.

(MY GOD, has anyone notified the Pope or Pat Robertson???)