Pretty much all that is mentioned here is eerily reminiscent of the end of the Soviet "empire" up till 1985, what with huge amounts of public national spending going to an increasingly ineffective military, a relative decline of production in the private sector, a decline in education, incoherent presidents, increasing control over the general population, judicial system subject to increasing pressure from government, increasing media censorship (in the US case largely self inflicted), increasing trade deficit,various branches of government competing for power, war in Afghanistan (as also stated in the article) and now also an economic crisis of enormous proportions.

Seems like you need a Michail Gorbachev and some glasnost and perestroika in the US. I find that rather ironic don't you ?