Last month the Bush Administration reneged on its May 4, 2001 promise to uphold a roadless area conservation rule protecting 58 million acres of national forests. Sadly, this is more than just the latest example of a White House with more flip-flops than a Jimmy Buffet concert. It is, according to the National Environmental Trust, the biggest giveaway to the timber industry in history. Pristine wilderness areas will be offered up for development and logging in 2006 unless respective governors elect to battle Washington. Good luck there. But with lumber prices jumping 55% in a year, W. simply couldn’t resist replicating the windfall that $45/bbl oil is visiting upon the energy industry.

Upon hearing that the Federal Reserve raised interest rates again, the President fired up the engines on Air Force One, headed back to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School and hid for seven minutes behind pages of “The Pet Goat.” This rate hike may just prove the death knell for a listing economy that added a scant 32,000 workers in July. Even the legion of economists who had predicted well over 200,000 new hires couldn’t miss the downward revisions to the May and June payroll figures that vaporized 70,000 jobs. Maybe that’s why June consumer spending fell .7% – the largest dip since 9/11 – and May durable goods orders dropped .9%. Second quarter GDP grew an anemic 3%, well down from the previous period. Despite increasing the cost of money, the Fed conceded that, “In recent months, output growth has moderated and the pace of improvement in labor market conditions has slowed.” No kidding. Meanwhile, desultory news from the building sector could eviscerate the easy money designated for timber corporations. Housing starts fell to the lowest level in a year while building permits shrank 8.2%. June construction spending slipped and May numbers were revised from an increase to a loss.

The stock market, too, is tasting the pain with the technology laden NASDAQ puking up 12% in the last six weeks, and the Dow slumping wearily below 10,000. Yet no one is hurting more than John Q. Public. Wage growth is slowing just as inflation is picking up (Q2 GDP deflator up 3.2%) and bankruptcy courts are swollen with middle-aged, white-collar deadbeats. Record debt levels – both personal and governmental – mean that things can hardly improve. “This year,” says Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, “more people will file for bankruptcy than will graduate from college [and] more adults will file for bankruptcy than will be diagnosed with cancer.” White House spokesman Scott McClellan swiftly fired back, “These statistics are not going unnoticed. The President’s Clear Skies Initiative is designed to double sulfur dioxide emissions and increase fivefold the amount of mercury in the environment. With any luck, we’ll have those cancer rates up in no time.”

Leading psychotherapist Zack Stanley postulates the capital must be overcome by post-traumatic stress syndrome because both Bush and Cheney are reacting to unfavorable news by mirroring their actions of September 11, 2001. Cheney you will recall spent that infamous day in an undisclosed location ordering the Air Force to shoot down commercial airliners. Halliburton’s recent $7.5 million settlement with the SEC for “materially misleading” accounting during Cheney’s reign no doubt triggered the Veep’s flashbacks. It didn’t help that Bush is on record assaying that, “If you lead a corporation, you have a responsibility to serve your shareholders, to be honest with your employees. You have a responsibility to obey the law and to tell the truth.” And so while the lifeless body of Ronald Reagan lay in state, Cheney’s trigger finger began to twitch. Police in the U.S. Capitol had ordered an evacuation because an unidentified aircraft violated restricted airspace and seemed headed straight for The Hill. Fortunately, Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher’s plane touched down at Reagan National Airport before Cheney could scramble the interceptors. Fletcher’s plane had a broken transponder that had been reported earlier to the FAA, which told the pilot to proceed anyways. Of course, no one alerted the folks at Homeland Security who use a different radar-tracking system.

And the skies still aren’t safe as a shareholder suit against Halliburton continues to wend its way through the courts. A $6 million settlement reached by the company and three of four investors marshalling the case has been delayed because presiding U.S. District Judge David Godbey stepped down after disclosing that his children owned company stock. Godbey noted that he looked forward to his new role as a plaintiff but was planning to travel by train until the matter is finally resolved.