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The country is facing dire issues.... mounting chaos in Iraq, increasing threats on both U.S. borders, soaring gas prices... so just what is happening on The Hill this week? The AP reports "Senate to Tackle Gay Marriage Ban." Say what? Could this highly-charged political ploy be an attempt to attract our attention from the passage of other legislation this week?... like the "record-size emergency spending bill to continue U.S. military operations in Iraq" and hurricane relief.... an over $100 billion spending package. Or the legislation rolling back the estate tax with a potential cost of $1 trillion (yes TRILLION) over the first ten of the affected years . Does this make sound fiscal sense?.... spend more and take in less. Your government at work. Back to the highly-publicized marriage amendment..... Bill "I Want To Be Your President" Frist, GOP Senate Majority Leader, one to never miss an opportunity to brown-nose the GOP conservative base, rushed to place this time-wasting amendment on the floor schedule.

The race is on for the new Panderer-in-Chief. Pres. George Bush's "Jesus is the philosopher I most admire" style of election pandering to his right-wing religious base now seems tepid stuff.

Presidential wannabes are hotly vying for the Panderer-in-Chief crown.

Doctor-Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) jumped to the front with his senate-floor-announced video diagnosis of Terry Schiavo, playing to the meddling religious right. He over-pandered in initially opposing the Bush administration ports deal....but made a quick turn-around after a trip to the Bush Wood House, pander crown askew. He's currently trying to pander the illegal immigration issue but seems on uncertain ground.

The White House thinks it's onto something.....since they can't sell policy on substance, go for appearance!

So......Heeeeeeeere's Georgie!

Maybe the White House is getting its political ideas from the last episode of West Wing where Alan Alda, playing a falling-polls Presidential Candidate (GOP by the way), holds a long in-your-face press conference and turns public opinion.

Presto change-o! Polls heading up!

Good old Yankee common sense tells us that it is dangerous and wrong for a foreign government to be in charge of any of our seaports.

But common sense, and truthful motives, are in short supply in the Bush administration. We are now in a tornado of Dubai World Ports and United Arab Emirates spin by the Bush administration.

We are being told that Americans who object to this deal are Arab and Muslim bashing bigots. That we are destroying our trade relations with the Middle Eastern world. That Dubai Ports World used to support terrorist states, but since 9/11 they are our fast friends (see my "UAE Not US Supporter Since 9/11" and "Portsgate: Public Outrage be Damned" blogs). And most absurd, that there are more important issues.

The Bush administration strategy for implementing its agenda seems clear.

Slash and burn!

Go full speed ahead on all fronts knowing that while some things may be stopped, vast chunks of their agenda will get through. In this way they are quickly, and with total indifference to public outrage, dismantling years of progress in social policy, financial accountability, international relations and respect for the rule of law.

Just look at the damage from the audacious Bush agenda...the national debt and trade deficit, education, the environment, science, borders and ports, social programs, individual rights and freedoms, separation of church and state, defense policy, human rights....an all out assault!

Bet you thought the 2004 national election was over.

Not for unhappy Democrats in Alaska.

The Anchorage Daily News reported in January of this year that the state Division of Elections has refused to turn over its electronic voting files to the Democrats, arguing that the data format belongs to a private company and can't be made public.

The private company?

Does this sound right to you?

Associated Press - An official British inquiry into the 1997 death of Princess Diana in a high-speed car crash has found no evidence of foul play it was reported Monday.

The last part of this news article says: "French officials have said all traffic cameras on the road that Diana's car took, and within the tunnel, were not working the night of the crash. But Monday's Daily Express newspaper challenged that finding, saying a woman was caught speeding by a camera in the Pont d'Alma tunnel moments before Diana's crash."

About seventy percent of the world's international foreign currency reserves are held in U.S. dollars. Iran is seriously considering establishing an Iranian Oil Bourse in competition with the U.S. owned New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE).There are three oil markers that establish price, the West Texas Intermediate crude, Norway Brent crude and the UAE Dubai crude. Iran would thus be establishing a fourth oil marker, and this marker would be priced in the euro. If Iran persists in creating this bourse in euros, the "petroeuro" would undercut the "petrodollar" and drastically diminish the dominance of the dollar in the international foreign currency reserves.This is important because the U.S. depends on the dollar foreign-currency reserves to sustain budget deficits through the sale of the Treasury debt. If the dollar in foreign-exchange portfolios from oil sales fell it would create a crisis in the American economy.The dollar since the administration of Richard Nixon is no longer backed in gold. The Islamic world recognizes this weakness.  In addition to the push for a petroeuro, many in the Muslim world want to establish the gold dinar as the currency in which to conduct international oil transactions. Malaysia issued their gold dinar in 2002.The U.S. needs to strengthen its international trade dollar to preserve its value and stability in the international oil market. To not do so risks a drop in international petrodollar holdings that would thus shred U.S. social programs like Social Security.So President Bush was left with choices. Rein in our national debt, dependence on oil and strengthen the dollar and thus our social net. Or, go to war with countries threatening the petrodollar (like Iraq who trading oil in euros with UN approval) and dismantle the social net. Bush chose war and dismantling.The Iranian Oil Bourse is supposed to open in March. Israel is having elections in March. Israel has set a March deadline for resolution of Iran's nuclear threat. The Bush administration is making a port agreement with the United Arab Emirates thus establishing a vital national interest with a nation in Iran's backyard.

Seems like the perfect March storm is brewing.

Why is George W. Bush so dug in and inflexible in his support of the takeover of P&O by the United Arab Emirates-controlled Dubai Ports World? To the point of threatening his first veto ever.The UAE is rich in oil and natural gas reserves. It has been in a long and continuing dispute with Iran over ownership of three small but oil-rich and strategically-placed islands in the Straits of Hormuz, the Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb. These three disputed islands were effectively occupied by Iranian troops in 1992. In 1996 the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) proposed the dispute over these islands be resolved by the International Court of Justice, an option supported by the UAE and rejected by Iran. In December 2001 the GCC issued a statement reiterating its support of the UAE's sovereignty of these islands and declared Iran's claims as "null and void." The Straits of Hormuz sits at the narrowest point of the 600-mile-long Persian Gulf through which 80% of the oil produced in the region is transported by tanker. At one point this "jugular vein" for the world's economy is just 34 miles wide between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.The takeover by UAE's DP World of operations in important U.S. ports appears to be intertwined with the Bush administration's lust for oil and its strivings for influence over Middle Eastern political matters. With the United States as its close ally, the stage will be set for an “urgent” and “necessary” pre-emptive attack on Iran in order to protect the UAE from an “imminent threat to our interests and national security.” Sound familiar?

In other words, the Bush administration is setting the stage to embroil us in a larger, much more deadly war in the Middle East.