Dave Janda looks at the Obama-Pelosi-Reid health care bills, the unaccountable panels empowered to oversee them, and the frightening lengths to which the Democrats have gone to guarantee they last forever. His conclusion? This is a weapon of mass destruction worse than any Al Qaeda attack.
To make matters worse, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) identified language in the Senate version, which should make every American question the underlying purpose of this legislation. On Page 1020, referring to The Medicare Advisory Board, the Senate version states:
“It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”
It becomes evident this legislation is not about creating affordable, available and quality based health care. It is about controlling every American’s life.
Speaking of Al Qaeda, Claudia Rosett wonders why Obama refers to the Christmas Day bomber as “an isolated extremist” when his connections to Al Qaeda are clear.
[I]n the same statement [Obama] went on to say that “This incident, like several that have preceded it, demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist.”
At what point, in Obama’s scheme of the universe, did Abdulmutallab qualify as “isolated?” By the time Obama spoke up, Abdulmutallab himself had already confessed to U.S. authorities that he’d trained with al-Qaida bomb-makers in Yemen. Weeks earlier, Abdulmutallab’s father had warned U.S. officials that his son had become radicalized by Islamic extremists and might be in contact with terrorist groups. Before the attack, the name of the “suspect” was already listed in the ample company of some 400,000 likely terrorist affiliates, if not on an actual no-fly list. By the time Obama spoke, al-Qaida’s Yemen franchise itself was chiming in to take credit for the Christmas airliner demolition plot.
On Tuesday, Obama backtracked–sort of. While not actually repudiating his words about an “isolated extremist,” he referred obliquely to “al-Qaida and other extremist networks around the world” (their salient characteristics, in this philosophy, are neither terrorist nor Islamic, but simply global and extreme). But that was a sideshow to his focus on the two reviews he’s ordered: of U.S. air travel screening procedures and of the U.S. terror watch list.
So the problem, apparently, is not with terrorists conspiring to attack the US, but with our own internal controls. As long as we only look inward to combat terrorism, we’ll never see the threats coming from the outside.
An excellent piece by Dan Aronoff points to the significant role that the US trade deficit played in the housing bubble, and suggests that part of the solution to our economic woes will be addressing the trade deficit directly.
[T]he underlying, indispensable factor driving the low rates and increasing the capital available, appears to have been the massive increase in offshore capital inflows. Bernanke and Paulson were correct to identify the Asian savings glut as the locus causes of the bubble. We can go further and assert that it was mercantilist intervention on the part of Asian nations, principally China,that fueled the growth in the US trade deficit that generated the influx of foreign capital. Hence, it should be recognized that the US economy will continue to be plagued by asset bubbles until its trade deficit is permanently reduced.
While we’re on the subject of housing, John Batchelor embeds a video from Jim the Realtor looking at how much foreclosed realty $3.25 million will buy you in San Diego.
