THE DAILY BLADE: Another Obama Administration “Miscalculation”
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee released a chart comparing the number of jobs the White House projected that the massive, $787 billion American Recovery And Investment Act of 2009 would create (3.46 million) against the number of jobs lost in the seven months since the “stimulus” bill passed (2.7 million) - a net difference of 6.2 million jobs that never materialized or have vanished. Only one state out of 50 gained jobs – but the 1,800 jobs created in ND falls 78 percent short of the Obama administration’s projection of 8,000 jobs.
The national unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent last month, up 0.1 percentage point from August and 3.6 points from September 2008, according to the U.S. Labor Department. The states with the highest levels of unemployment include MI (15.3 percent), Nevada (13.3 percent), RI (13 percent) and CA (12.2 percent). Compared to the number of jobs that the White House expected would be created in these states, MI has 246,000 fewer, NV has 67,000 fewer, RI has 20,500 fewer and CA has a whopping 732,400 fewer.
How Is Airline Safety Like Healthcare?
In his autobiography, "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters," Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger “paints an ominous picture of the airline industry, describing an atmosphere where cost-cutting is increasingly valued over safety, and passengers are largely unaware of the implications,” reports the San Jose Mercury News. He tells the paper, "The margins above minimum (safety standards) are not as robust as they once were," and says he wants to leverage his celebrity to be a vocal advocate for airline safety.
Now, extrapolate the consequences of cost-cutting in the airline industry to healthcare and here’s what you get: A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that a minimally invasive technique to perform radical prostatectomy reduced post-operative hospital stays from the three days required for traditional prostate cancer surgery to two days. However, men undergoing the new procedure were 40 percent more likely to be impotent and 30 percent more likely to be incontinent. It is important to note that the minimally invasive procedure was designed to save costs, not to improve outcomes – so it should come as no surprise that it succeeded in doing what it was meant to do. Good for insurers – including Medicare – but not so good for patients. But then, that seems to be the point of healthcare “reform.”
We Fight Them Over There So We Don’t Have To Fight Them Over Here?: Part IV
American and European counterterrorism experts are warning that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are becoming increasingly successful in recruiting Westerners to attend jihadi training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, reports The Washington Post:
European security officials have warned for many years of the threat posed by homegrown radicals who have gone to Afghanistan and Pakistan to wage jihad. Officials in some countries, such as Britain, said they have successfully cracked down on the number of would-be fighters going to South Asia. But others, such as Germany, are seeing a significant increase and struggling to contain it.
In the past, such volunteers were largely self-motivated and had to find their own way to South Asia. Today, however, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have developed extensive recruiting networks with agents on the ground in Europe, counterterrorism officials said. The agents provide guidance, money, travel routes and even letters of recommendation so the recruits can join up more easily. …
Another sign of the internationalization of the recruitment networks is the small but growing participation of U.S. residents. …
In July, U.S. officials announced that they had apprehended Bryant Neal Vinas, 25, a resident of Long Island, N.Y., who has confessed to traveling to al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan and firing rockets at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. …
Last month, the FBI arrested yet another U.S. resident, Najibullah Zazi, and accused him of plotting a bombing in New York. Zazi, 24, an Afghan national who has lived in New York since he was a child, traveled to Pakistan last year.
In the latest instance of homegrown terrorism, Tarek Mehanna, 27, who lives in a tony suburb of Boston, has been charged in federal court with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. According to the Complaint, Mehanna conspired with two other men between 2001 to 2008 to "kill, kidnap, maim or injure" American soldiers, two politicians serving in the White House who are no longer in office (authorities refuse to name them, but you can take an educated guess) and shoppers in malls.
In this case, the three co-conspirators were not recruited for jihad - they were repeatedly rejected by terrorist training camps - but were allegedly self-motivated holy warriors, The Associated Press reports:
Authorities say the men's plans - in which they used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps - were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said. …
The three men often discussed their desire to participate in "violent jihad against American interests" and talked about "their desire to die on the battlefield," prosecutors said. But when they were unable to join terror groups in Iraq, Yemen and Pakistan, they found inspiration in the Washington-area sniper shootings and turned their interests to domestic terror pursuits while they plotted the attack on shopping malls, authorities said. …
Mehanna, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in November and charged with lying to the FBI in December 2006 when asked the whereabouts of Daniel Maldonado, who is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for training with al-Qaida to overthrow the Somali government.
Mehanna told the FBI that Maldonado was living in Egypt and working for a Web site. But authorities said Maldonado had called Mehanna from Somalia urging him to join him in "training for jihad."
Authorities said Wednesday that Mehanna and his conspirators had contacted Maldonado about getting automatic weapons for their planned mall attacks.
It goes without saying that Muslim civil rights groups have rallied around Mehanna.
The Stiletto Scoops Michelle Malkin
[W]e should all hope that Obama accommodates himself to the venal brand of D.C. corruption we’re all used to, rather than replacing it with the thuggish brand of Chicago corruption that is an order of magnitude beyond outrageous.
- “Chicago On The Potomac,” The Stiletto Blog, December 17, 2008
The Obama-induced stupor is over. Better late than never. Nine months of thug tactics, cronyism, left-wing racketeering, and Chicago-on-the-Potomac have taken their toll.’
- “America Waking Up To Culture Of Corruption,” Michelle Malkin.com and this interview with Sean Hannity on October 14, 2009 (among others)
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