Governor Perry has been and always will be a complete hypocrite: threatening to secede from the Union, using federal money to balance his state budget (then blaming Congress for providing the money), and engaging in the usual Know Nothing race baiting.
Gorilla says: “Maybe the check’s in the mail!”
While Ben frets about nonexistent inflation, or the threat of nonexistent inflation on future nongrowth:
Unemployment claims are back to nearly 430K!
First quarter growth is an anemic 1.8%, and that’s considered better than expected!
Gorilla says: “While our leaders do absolutely nothing, America has already achieved our President’s level of shrinkage!”
And is neither asked nor says anything at all about unemployment at his first regular press conference.
The Fed is failing its unemployment mandate miserably, but all anyone in the press wants to talk about are the stupid things that are totally unimportant to US economic growth: the deficit, fuel prices, and nonexistent inflation.
Gorilla says: “So, it’s another accountability free dodge for the man currently battling Bill Miller for the silver medal on the podium with Greenspan as the three worst Fed Chairmen in history!”
The Palestinians, that is, who have reached an Eqyptian-brokered “reconciliation” that will lead to new elections and a new government.
The big immediate question is: who will win? Fatah or Hamas?
And it is that Palestinian choice that will determine the medium-term negotiating possibilities, if any:
If Hamas wins, the US will have to make a choice: deal with a “terrorist” organization or accept that peace is as dead in the water as it appears to be.
If Fatah wins, Hamas will have to make a choice: cut the best deal you can for Palestinian statehood or resume lobbing bombs into Israel.
The current Israeli government is clearly not serious about peace and will not make or be pressured into any choice: they will try to fix the election for Fatah, but ultimately if Hamas wins, Israel will continue happily along the intransigent trail for another decade until demographics force a deal.
Gorilla says: “It’s not exactly hopeful, but it’s not completely hopeless!”
Since the unprofessional Washington press corps never talks about issues and only reports on horse racing, it’s no surprise that the volume of horseshit is rising.
Take failed deck chairs, rearrange, stay course to pointless iceberg.
Henceforth, the phrase “except for nonwhite peoples from around the world” shall supercede all previous clauses.
This time, it’s Greece (again), with a deficit well in excess of previous promises/forecasts.
Why? Because revenues and economic growth are (shock, shock!!!) way down in light of the ridiculous austerity measures insisted upon by Germany and her bankers.
Will we learn anything from this, start a jobs program, and get off our ludicrous deficit fetish? 25 million unemployed Americans can only hope, but our leaders refuse to lead.
Gorilla says: “Time to leave the Euro before the moussaka really hits the fan!”
“No fire in my belly, but plenty of racist pigs remaining for Know Nothings to nominate!”
In Syria, the massacres go on.
What the difference is among Syria, Bahrain, and Libya remains a deep mystery. Unlike Gaddafi, where we’re fighting mostly for Sarkozy’s reelection and oil, the US has far greater strategic interests in getting rid of the Assad family and assisting the Saudis and their clients to become less thuggish.
Defeating Syria’s army shouldn’t be terribly difficult, but everyone’s worried about chaos: Jordan doesn’t want refugees, Israel, Iraq and Iran don’t want an unknown quantity, and Lebanon wants to stay out of the way.
Gorilla says: “Events, dear boy, events, and we’re well behind them!”
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