With Dubai set to gain access to large US ports, it’s important to give information about this latest sale. Democrats have been against a deal that sells UK based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to United Arab Emigrates Royal Family owned Dubai Ports World. The problem does not lie in the fact that this is an Arab nation. But once I heard this, I had reservations. Apparently, Bin Laden was not targeted in 1999 because he was meeting with the UEA royal family. I’m not sure this is a company that should be operating our ports anymore. But Republicans seem hell-bent on getting this deal through. In fact, the president has threatened to veto any legislation to block the deal. Why is he so set against creating security problems? As an excuse to use the Patriot Act, NSA Spying, the War in Iraq, and almost doubling the military budget? I think that’s a good theory.

What I think should happen is that Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. should be bought. By the US Government. Why would we outsource our port security? We monitor our aircraft and airports, police with public police officers…why not protect our own ports? I think terror can be fought with some common sense moves, not by sending out sacrificial lambs to divert fire from America to Iraq.

In a move to distance himself from President Bush, Lieberman put his support behind....President Bush.

Democrats send a letter to the president, asking what specific policies he was going to put in place to curb our “addiction to oil.” This echoes the thoughts of many consumer groups, calling Bush’s recent obsession with our oil problem as merely a cosmetic campaign, not real policy. And sure enough, our imports from the Middle East are set to rise by 50% over the next two decades.

Democrats in the letter refused to detail how they would do it, or offer any advice on the subject. They could have pointed to Hillary Clinton’s initiative to become energy independent by 2020 (That’s 5 years before bush wants to reduce from only the Middle East, a small supplier to the US), or the Apollo Initiative, which creates 3 million jobs in the process. Lets step up Democrats, we’re clearly the only party that can put out plans to really help cut back on our oil use, just let everyone out there know.

The Supreme Court will rule on later term abortions soon, the first time an abortion case will come before the recently changed court. There is little doubt how they will vote also. The case comes from the “partial-birth abortion ban act” in 2003. “Partial-Birth” abortions are not aborting a part of the fetus, or aborting a fetus when it is halfway out of the mother, as the name would suggest. Instead, it refers to dilation abortion methods. These are rarely used, almost always to preserve the health or life of the mother. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban in 2003 was never enforced, because the Supreme Court struck it down because it didn’t leave an exception for a woman’s health. The Supreme Court also said, 9-0, that the entire law wasn’t unconstitutional, only the lack of an exception for woman’s health made the law unacceptable. I assume this will be changed and the law will be enacted. The concern is that this will also ban second trimester abortions that are on less developed fetuses.

I personally have no problem banning 3^rd trimester abortions with an exception of woman’s health matters. I’d love to have no abortions, but there is not an infrastructure in place for everyone to get the proper assistance in raising a child. It’s not easy to find an adoptive family. Orphanages were recently found to be much less helpful to a child’s growth than foster parents are. Also, we have pharmacists who decline to distribute birth control and contention over the morning-after pill. If birth control and education of it were readily available, and funding was in place to help a poor mother raise a child herself (fully funding head start, child care funding), then abortions will decrease. Abortion will never stop, like prohibition didn’t work – it’ll only become less safe if made illegal.