A number of significant economic statistics were announced yesterday: inflation hit a 71/2 year high; consumer earning power declined 3 1/2% from last year; and home foreclosures rose 55%.

Fueling these economic fires has been the soaring cost of the Iraq war and occupation.

Using credit cards, American taxpayers bought huge amounts of stock in Corporate America’s colonization of Iraq. After 5/12 years, the stock has depreciated dramatically, the cards’ principal, interest, and penalties have been reset to infinity, and margin calls are expected shortly.

Analysts following the company say the stock’s collapse is due to a number of factors: deterioration of good will in the American brand; soaring energy and consumer prices; the devaluation of the American dollar and the attendant difficulties of securing future financing; and, looming down the road, the forced sell-off of private and national American assets.

It’s like watching an economic train wreck in slow motion. But there is a silver lining. Given the huge toll that Iraq and Afghanistan has had on the Pentagon’s military readiness and the attendant deterioration of the American dollar, there’s simply insufficient political, military or financial or resources available to support the necons’ future imperial expansion plans. (Said with fingers crossed.)

The karma principle of causality continuity is…very close to the truth of the repercussional synthesis of all time-space actions in the Deity presence of the Supreme. -The Urantia Book

At a press conference today meant to display John McSame’s superior foreign policy credentials, the Rethuglicans‘ reality challenged presidential candidate either had a senior moment, or he believes that the corporatist media is so in the tank for him that he is free to utter even the most egregious hypocritical pronouncements and escape scrutiny.

Case in point: the roiling Russia-Georgia war. Scolds the morally correct McSame:

“[I]n the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.”

Excuse me? Has our corporatist media sainted war hero forgotten Afghanistan and Iraq, the invasion of both he so throatily encouraged?

Consider also his previous pronouncement on Georgia that an editor from Wikipedia pointed out contains copious amounts of plagiarized material from the Wiki site.

Guess we know now how McSame would answer that iconic 3:00 AM phone call— frantically try to get online to access Wikipedia.

McSame improvises as an EMF burst fries D.C.’s com circuits

The response from the Obama campaign is obvious— adopt the Rovian tactic of attacking an opponent’ perceived strength. The operative word here is, of course, perceived. As this and other numerous McSame foreign policy gaffes proves, McSame’s alleged expertise is a fiction to begin with.

Should be an Obama PR slam dunk.

                 Urban renewal project in beautiful downtown Baghdad

Chris Matthews‘ substitute host, McCain enthusiast Mike Barnicle, reacted incredulously Wednesday to a comment by Iraq war vet Jon Soltz, co-founder and chairman of VoteVets.org, that the so-called “surge” has not been a success. Pressed by Barnicle, who refelcts the corporatist media’s official narrative of the surge, Soltz made a number of arguments:

America is less secure as a result of our invasion of Iraq, the surge being just the latest chapter in a failed war and occupation.

Al Qaeda, identified by many including the Obama campaign as America’s top national security threat, is more powerful than any time since 9/11, having reconstituted itself in the Afghan-Pakistan hinterlands. (Lest we forget, AQ didn’t even exist in Iraq before the invasion.)

The US military, tied up on two war fronts, is overstretched and at the breaking point.

The ostensible goal of the surge, Iraqi political reconciliation, is nowhere near a reality, especially in the Kurdish regions.

An overall oil law and revenue sharing law still hasn’t been passed, highlighted by the intensifying ethnic fighting over oil-rich Kirkuk.

Soltz concludes that the problem isn’t overall troop levels but “regional strategic diplomacy”, one of those nuanced Obama concepts that escapes our corporatist media’s obsession with dumbed down narratives for the infantilized American voter. (For which we can thank an educational system that substitutes  dubious testing paradigms for critical thinking skills.)

Additionally, there are a number of other arguments that Soltz didn’t (presumably have time to) make.

Iran has been dramatically strengthened rather than weakened as the region’s presumptive hegemon.

The Turkish military has intensified its incursions into Iraqi sovereign territory.

Regional elections have once again been delayed.

A national oil law has not been signed.

There’s the huge problem of what to do about the 4 million Iraqis that have been forced from their homes, including the vast majority of the educated classes vital to rebuilding the country.

The decision by the political and military wings of Baghdad’s Shia (Mahdi) militias to lay low. Surprising what a couple of hundred high explosive missiles and bombs can accomplish when targeted at your military and civilian base.

The ethnic cleansing of Baghdad, courtesy of US financed death squads, for which former Iraq Ambassador John Negroponte of El Salvadoran death squads fame probably deserves some credit. That and the installation of 12 ‘ concrete blast walls has turned the city into a fortified warren of sectarian enclaves.

The decision by the Sunnis, made many months before the surge was even announced, to vanquish foreign fighters from their midst, the so-called Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Comes a time when the “enemies of my enemies” strategy becomes more a liability than an asset. Especially when our mutual enemy offers to put you on the dole of the American taxpayer, a perverse permutation of what we call in my neck of the woods– protection money.

Analogy wise, I live in Los Angeles where we have as many heavily armed gang members as the US has troops in Iraq. [Read more →]

Impact of two terms of Bush’s management of the US Economy

The Bush Administration today issued a mind boggling record deficit projection of $482 billion for 2009. And that’s not even counting the off-budget estimated $80 billion being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the cost of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and homeowner bailout bill.

That’s a yearly deficit of over one-half trillion dollars, most of it borrowed from strategic competitors like China and Kuwait.

Skyrocketing energy costs are only beginning to ripple through the economy, showing up as higher prices in everything from food to tires to pharmaceuticals.

Home foreclosures are up a staggering 250% (in LA), unemployment is rising rapidly, and even successful businesses with great credit history can’t get a loan.

The entire financial system, ranging from Wall Street, investment houses, to regional banks is in a deep freeze driven by the fact that no one knows what anyone’s paper assets are worth. The economy is so bad that Bush has been forced to betray his conservative base by doing an about-face (legacy pun intended) on the aforementioned bailout. Ayn Rand must be rolling over in her capitalist grave.

Obviously, this is bad news for all Republicans running for office this year. Despite the tragedy of Iraq and the increasing threat of a reconstituted Al Qaeda and resurgent Taliban in Afganistan and Pakistan, we’re back to “It’s the economy, stupid” as the overriding political issue of the 2008 election. And it’s hitting the McSame Campaign like a Democratic mule kick to the gut.

McSame has admitted that the economy is not his strong suit, and that he’s trying to make up it for it by reading the book by the man who did as much as anyone to create the current crisis, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. Kinda like asking a surgeon with a history of amputating the wrong limbs to take a little off the top.

McSame’s answer to the ruinous cost of energy— his flip-flop on off-shore drilling, is a classic case of bad timing, considering that oil billionaire (and Swift Boat funder) T-Boone Pickens is currently spending $58 million on an advertising campaign that states that we can’t drill our way out of the crisis.

Oh well, McSame can still run as Commander-in-Chief of the “surge.”

As for his snuggling buddy, George Junior, the latter can sleep easy knowing that once again he has bested his father, the previous deficit champ. By racking up the three largest deficits in US history, W. wins the gold, silver and bronze medals. Now it’s on to the Beijing Olympics, where he has volunteered to judge the synchronized waterboarding competition.

UPDATES

July 29 (Bloomberg) Merrill Lynch, the third-biggest U.S. securities firm, will sell $8.5 billion of stock and liquidate $30.6 billion of bonds at a fifth of their face value to shore up credit ratings imperiled by mortgage losses.

July 29 (Reuters ) Home Prices Fall in May, Erasing Four Years of Gains. ...S&P said the composite index of 10 metropolitan areas fell 1 percent in May, for a 16.9 percent year-over-year drop. Regions that saw some of the largest gains during the housing boom, such as Miami and Las Vegas, were the worst performing markets in May. Miami home prices fell 3.6 percent in May from April for a 28.3 percent annual drop. In Las Vegas, prices in May slumped 2.9 percent, for a 28.4 percent decline from a year earlier.

Photo of McSame’s Botched Nip/Tuck & Hormone Treatment Said to Resemble Trash Media’s Bat Boy

ABOARD THE DOUBLE TALK EXPRESS  (C.U. News) — In an effort to close the perceived and actual age gap between himself and his much younger rival for the presidency, presumptive Republican candidate John McSame has apparently taken the advice of his surgically and chemically-enhanced wife to do some enhancement of his own appearance.

But in this photo, allegedly leaked by a horrified member of McCain’s inner circle and sold at a handsome profit to Weakly Whurled NEWS, the operation and hormone treatments have gone terribly wrong. Luckily for his campaign, a full head and face mold was taken before the alterations, and a latex mask fabricated that preserved his prior appearance.

“It’s a temporary fix,” explained a campaign aide, who insisted on anonymity. “We’re worried that as the heat of summer increases, the mask will start to sag and deteriorate. We’re also worried about how it will hold up indoors under the klieg lights during the debates.”

McSame, who’s on record saying that he’s a twentieth century kind of guy, is wrestling with whether to ascribe his 64+ changes in position to shameless pandering, poor flip flopping impulse control, the after effects of five years of torture as a POW in Vietnam— anything but symptoms of advancing senility.

“If we can just push John Sidney over the finish line in November, we’ll be in the clear. After that, we’ll have all the power of the White House at our disposal. Look how well Reagan’s people disguised his Alzheimer’s during his second term,” said the aide hopefully.

Asked whether voters deserved to know the truth about McSame’s current condition, he replied:

“Look, the American people have experienced enough traumas during eight years of the Dick-Bush Administration. Iraq, Afghanistan, 9/11, the tanking economy, the extreme weather effects of global warming— they can only take so much.

“There’s just some change not worth believing in.”

Findings of the US Climate Change Science Program

While the vast amount of media coverage of Obama’s speech on national security today will focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, I would note what Obama himself says is the greatest single security threat to the US (and the world):

This immediate danger is eclipsed only by the long-term threat from climate change, which will lead to devastating weather patterns, terrible storms, drought, and famine. That means people competing for food and water in the next fifty years in the very places that have known horrific violence in the last fifty: Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Most disastrously, that could mean destructive storms on our shores, and the disappearance of our coastline.

This is not just an economic issue or an environmental concern - this is a national security crisis. For the sake of our security - and for every American family that is paying the price at the pump - we must end this dependence on foreign oil. And as President, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Small steps and political gimmickry just won’t do. I’ll invest $150 billion over the next ten years to put America on the path to true energy security. This fund will fast track investments in a new green energy business sector that will end our addiction to oil and create up to 5 million jobs over the next two decades, and help secure the future of our country and our planet. We’ll invest in research and development of every form of alternative energy - solar, wind, and biofuels, as well as technologies that can make coal clean and nuclear power safe. And from the moment I take office, I will let it be known that the United States of America is ready to lead again.

Never again will we sit on the sidelines, or stand in the way of global action to tackle this global challenge.

Over four years ago, the Guardian leaked an internal report, ordered by THE senior Pentagon official, Andrew Marshall, aka “Yoda,” that made this very point. Money quote:

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

Better late than never, I suppose….

Last week in a speech before Israel’s parliament, The Knesset, George W. Bush implied that Barack Obama was a terraist appeaser for his willingness to talk to evil doers like Iran and Syria. His foreign policy clones, John McSame and his Svengali adviser, Joe LIEberman immediately piled on, citing Barack’s inexperience and naiveté.

One has to wonder how they feel now that its been revealed that Israel is actively pursuing a peace agreement with Syria. And with Hamas, via the government of Egypt.

Or that Qatar has negotiated a deal between the government of Lebanon and the terraist Hizbollah to end its takeover of Beirut, on terms quite favorable to Hizbollah.

How about the vital role the government of Iran had in brokering a cease fire with the Shi’ites in the two month old explosion of violence in Basra and Sadr City in Iraq?  Not to mention its previous help in dislodging the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Then there’s the fact that the Bush Administration has negotiated an end to the nuclear weapons programs in of Libya and that charter member of the Axis of Evil, North Korea. And continues negotiations with Iran to reduce the overall level of violence in Iraq. Can you spell hypocrisy?

What are the war mongers to do, now? Well, they can always attack Iran before the election, capitalizing on the historical reluctance of the American people to change war horses in mid stream. Seemed to work in the 2004 elections.

I mean, wouldn’t you want an PTSD crazed experienced war hero like McSame, who did his level best to bomb the Vietnamese into the Stone Age, in the role of Commander in Chief? As opposed to, say, a wimp like Obama who thinks the willingness to talk is a sign of strength and not weakness?

To accept the Obama approach to foreign policy is to reject the neocons‘ glorious vision of the New American Century. How can the USA realize her manifest destiny to dominate the world (and its diminishing natural resources) during this unique unipolar moment in history if we allow other countries to play anything more than a supporting role in remaking that world in our own triumphant image?

To accept an Obama presidency would be a rejection of Biblical prophecy, at very best a delay in the apocalypse and the rapture! Wasn’t the US founded in part to destroy Islam, as John McCain’s (now rejected) “spiritual guide” Rod Parsley maintains ?

I’ll leave it the 20th century bard, Bob Dylan, to describe the moral and diplomatic bankruptcy of the last 7 1/2 years of the McSame approach to international diplomacy:

There’s no success like failure
and. . . failure is no success at all.

God how the dead men
Grin by the wall.
Watching the fun
Of the Victory Ball.

—Alfred Noyes

John and Cindy McCain, (who was not actually there but sent a clone), looking appropriately Hasidic at the Western Wall

Michael D. Shear, WaPo wrote:

JERUSALEM — What was supposed to be a somber visit by Sen. John McCain to the Western Wall this morning was marred by an unruly mob of Israeli photographers, police and tourists who threw punches at each other as they engulfed the Republican presidential candidate.

McCain was not hurt, but appeared rattled by the spasm of violence as he began a second day of meetings with high-level Israeli officials as part of a congressional trip to the Middle East and Europe.

The crush of people surrounded McCain (Ariz.) after he and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) briefly touched the towering wall at the base of the Temple Mount, where the Second Temple stood until its destruction nearly two thousand years ago. The senators placed notes in the cracks between the ancient stones, a common tradition. McCain declined through a spokesman to reveal what his note said.

We’re not going to tell you how we obtained the text of that note, suffice it to say that many Jews still consider the placing of such prayers to be desecration of the holy. McCain produced the note from his left suit coat pocket, and with a series of awkward looking jabs, he finally forced the note into a tiny crevice of the ancient wall.

Surprisingly, the note was not penned in McCain’s jerky scrawl, but appeared to be a first draft, printed off the computer in crisp, orderly, 18 point justified type. The note:

My Dear Western Wall Friends    Friend,

As you know, I’m the Republican nominee for president of the United States, and unlike my opponents Hillary Clinton, a woman, or Barack Hussein Obama, a black man, I’m ready from day one to lead the fight for what ever, for ever. But today I need your help, dear friend. (I feel like I’m talking to a wall , ha ha!) Some of my good Jewish friends say you are more than just a frakin’ stone wall venerated by a superstitious people. If this is so, I’d like you to know— not just how important it is to me that I’m the next president— but also the staggeringly huge sum of money I need to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, more importantly, to wage new wars against Syria and Iran, and probably North Korea.

Oh, remember that great song, Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran! Well it isn’t just a great song my friend, it’s my ticket to another historic war presidency! (Nothing changes an enemy’s behavior like bombs, my friend, and lots of them; remember I’ve personally dropped my share of bombs on evil men, women, and children, and I’d like to think you’re the kind of wall that would want to support my willingness to continue this important attack against the ever present threats to our national security.)

So my friend, I’m going to need to recruit some seriously enormous amounts of young cannon fodder, in order to wage more wars in the global fight against terrorism, in order to keep my country safe from our many enemies who hate our freedom, the radical Islamist extremist terrorists, the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Syrians, and our future enemies, the Chinese commies, the Russian commies, and, well, you know, anybody that won’t see things our way.

If you could grant me this grotesque amount of blood and capital, my friend, I will ensure that the war against a world full of terrorists is fought intelligently, with endless patience and resolve, using all the toxic instruments of national power and death I can get my hands on. And I will lead this fight with the understanding that to impinge more than we already have on the rights of our own citizens, or to further restrict the freedoms for which our nation stands will be done only as necessary, because to do so is to give terrorists the victory they seek.

In closing my prayer, let me say that John McCain believes that just as America must be prepared to meet and prevail against any adversary on every field of battle, we must also engage and prevail against them on the battleground of ideas. So if you have any great ideas, please pass them along to my advisers. In so doing, we can and must deprive terrorists of the converts they seek and teach the doctrine of hatred and despair.

Your old friend in the White House,

John McCain

PARAG KHANNA writes in “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony“. . .

It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.

Why? Weren’t we supposed to reconnect with the United Nations and reaffirm to the world that America can, and should, lead it to collective security and prosperity? Indeed, improvements to America’s image may or may not occur, but either way, they mean little.

And that is so because, not only did we not “reconnect with the United Nations,” but we remain clueless about the growing urgency of establishing the working rudiments of a genuine federation of all nations, bringing about a global government.

The cruel irony is, the nation of independent states who surrendered their sovereignty to a federal government and thereby created the strongest, freest nation on planet earth, has shown neither the moral insight or leadership ability to engineer the same workable model on a global scale. Instead, we have a moronic cowboy who takes democracy to other nations through war and occupation, killing a million or so of the natives in the process.

Condoleezza Rice has said America has no “permanent enemies,” but it has no permanent friends either. Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial counter-movements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order. That new global order has arrived, and there is precious little Clinton or McCain or Obama could do to resist its growth.

Yep; the hegemony wielded by Imperial America has done just as much to grow an “alternate world order” than anything Europe or China has done. Nor does it serve America’s interests to do anything to inhibit their growth. Perhaps when we find the collective wisdom to use the power jointly in an effort to insure peace throughout the world, we can begin solving the grievances smaller nations have concerning their place in the “alternate world order.”

The Geopolitical Marketplace

At best, America’s unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war “peace dividend” was never converted into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing — and losing — in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three.

And we will continue to lose. . . unless we recognize we all sink or swim together. Each passing year brings new urgency to solve the increasingly complex problems our interdependent world brings; and these problems will persist as long as we continue to cling to the illusive notions of unlimited national sovereignty.

The growth of political power must continue to encompass larger and larger segments of the total of mankind, until the stage is set for the final consummation of political growth— the government of all mankind, by all mankind, and for all mankind.

Urantia [earth] will not enjoy lasting peace until the so-called sovereign nations intelligently and fully surrender their sovereign powers into the hands of the brotherhood of men—mankind government. Internationalism—Leagues of Nations—can never bring permanent peace to mankind. World-wide confederations of nations will effectively prevent minor wars and acceptably control the smaller nations, but they will not prevent world wars nor control the three, four, or five most powerful governments. In the face of real conflicts, one of these world powers will withdraw from the League and declare war.

You cannot prevent nations going to war as long as they remain infected with the delusional virus of national sovereignty. Internationalism is a step in the right direction. An international police force will prevent many minor wars, but it will not be effective in preventing major wars, conflicts between the great military governments of earth.

As the number of truly sovereign nations (great powers) decreases, so do both opportunity and need for mankind government increase. When there are only a few really sovereign (great) powers, either they must embark on the life and death struggle for national (imperial) supremacy, or else, by voluntary surrender of certain prerogatives of sovereignty, they must create the essential nucleus of supernational power which will serve as the beginning of the real sovereignty of all mankind.

Peace will not come to Urantia until every so-called sovereign nation surrenders its power to make war into the hands of a representative government of all mankind. Political sovereignty is innate with the peoples of the world. When all the peoples of Urantia create a world government, they have the right and the power to make such a government SOVEREIGN; and when such a representative or democratic world power controls the world’s land, air, and naval forces, peace on earth and good will among men can prevail but not until then. —The Urantia Book

In a March 13th videoconference call, President Bush surprised U.S. military and civilian personnel as well as recently returning veterans of the Afghanistan War with his wistful responses.

“I must say, I’m a little envious,” Bush said. “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helpin’ this young democracy succeed.”

“It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, ya know, confronting danger. Yur really makin’ history, and thanks,” Bush said.

Bush sat at the head of a White House conference table that included a powered-down Dick Cheney, and lap dogs Robert Gates and John Negroponte. A Reuters reporter was actually allowed to observe the proceeding.

Bush, articulate as always, told U. S. Ambassador William Wood, “You’re looking beautiful but you’re not sounding too good.” Bush was allowed to have the remote control for this conference, and he masterfully increased and lowered the volume at will.

Sigh.