What to Expect if ObamaCare Goes All the Way
It passed the House tonight. Still lots of hurdles ahead. Anyway, this Martin Feldstein piece from the Washington Post is a couple days old but still timely: Obamacare could have the unintended consequence of raising health insurance premiums and causing a decline in the number of people with insurance. Here’s why: A key feature of the House and Senate health bills would prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions. The new coverage would start immediately, and the premium could not reflect the individual’s hea

2012 Levels the Sistine Chapel but Spares the Kaaba
Bill Donohoe writes about an admission by director Roland Emmerich: When we got word recently that the movie “2012” depicts the Vatican being blown up, along with the famous statue from Rio, Christ the Redeemer, we were unmoved. Why? Because this occurs during the end of the world in a massive destruction. This kind of sensationalism, we reasoned, is standard fare for director Roland Emmerich: he is the guru of the “blow ‘em up” genre of movies. But now we’ve learned that while Catholics get theirs, Muslims are spared. Out of fear, of course. Emmerich is more

Will This Be the Weekend That ObamaCare Dies?
With the announcement today that the House vote on ObamaCare will likely be delayed past Saturday (because Pelosi does not have the votes), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder whether the entire effort is on the verge of collapsing. Lingering issues over abortion funding and immigrant access to government healthcare are getting all the headlines. And perhaps some finessing over these issues is all that stands in the way of the bill passing in the House. But the real threat to the success of ObamaCare is lurking right beneath the surface. In truth, most Democrats in the House like the bill

Unemployment at 10.2%
From Politico: Democrats – headed into an historic health care vote this weekend — got smacked in the face with a 10.2 percent unemployment rate in October, the government reported Friday. The jobless rate is well above the 9.9 percent that economists expected and breaks the psychological barrier of 10 percent, topping double digits for the first time in 26 years. It’s the last headline the Obama administration wanted to see going into the House healthcare vote, and White House officials were already heading to the airwaves Friday morning to talk up the economy. In all, employers

7 Killed, 20 Wounded at Fort Hood in Texas
This just broke. Here’s a link to a live feed from the local NBC affiliate: Officials told NBC DFW that one gunman is in custody and a second was on the run. KCEN-TV is reporting the gunmen were in military uniforms and that the second gunman is surrounded by police in a building on the post.  KCEN is reporting that one policeman is down and that the gunman has a high-powered rifle