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Schumer Introduces Bipartisan Alternative To Sham Dubai Compromise

By Judd Legum on Feb 27, 2006 at 11:11 am

The administration is desperate to “avert an impending political showdown” with Congress about the UAE port deal. Over the weekend, the White House worked out an arrangement with Dubai Ports World whereby the company would “voluntarily” submit the sale of port operations to an additional 45-day review.

The showdown has not been averted. The review, under current law, would be meaningless. The report would be secret. Only President Bush and the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) would get to review it. Both Bush and CFIUS have already decided the deal does not present any national security concerns.

Today, a bipartisan group of 10 members of Congress will introduce legislation that will give the review some teeth. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) talked about the legislation this morning on Good Morning America:

SCHUMER: Well, I’m not sure we have a truce. Our legislation, which is bipartisan, five Democrats, five Republicans — we’ll introduce it today on the floor of the Senate — says do the 45-day review that’s necessary, but it also says give Congress, not just the president, the findings and let Congress have an opportunity — 30 days — to disapprove the deal. That’s what’s needed, because the president has already decided. He said he’s for it. So he has the verdict already, and now he’s having the trial.

Any member of Congress who supports a meaningful review of the transaction should support this legislation.

UPDATE: More details on the bill from Sen. Robert Menedez (D-NJ).

Politics

ThinkFast: February 27, 2006

By ThinkProgress on Feb 27, 2006 at 8:57 am

ThinkFast is a new feature of ThinkProgress. (It’s still a work in progress – let us know what you think.)

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. In 2004, “the net worth at the 90th percentile was $831,600 — or 62 times the net worth of the 10th percentile, which was $13,300.” In 2001, the top ten percent had 57 times as much as the bottom ten percent.

Two-thirds of the $3.27 billion in donations raised after Hurricane Katrina has been spent, leaving less than $1 billion that “will need to be stretched over years to rebuild lives and reconstruct the social fabric of the Gulf Coast.”

In 2004 and 2005, inspectors at the Sago coal mine said that 90 percent of the hundreds of safety and health violations endangered only one person. “Fines go up “” by hundreds and potentially thousands of dollars “” if an inspector finds numerous people at risk.”

Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-NY) “is soliciting political contributions by in effect scalping tickets for NCAA ‘Sweet Sixteen’ games at Washington’s sold-out MCI Center for more than 30 times face value.”

Pentagon auditors found that Halliburton billed the Army for “more than $250 million in charges as potentially excessive or unjustified.” The Army has decided to pay the company almost the full amount anyway. Only $10 million will be withheld, because, according to an Army spokesperson “the contractor is not required to perform perfectly to be entitled to reimbursement.” Read more

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