The Turn of The Screw

Islamic terrorists hijacked our planes and flew them into the World Trade Center in the name of allah, killing thousands of our colleagues, friends and family and now, almost ten years later a $100 million, fifteen story mosque is poised to be built on the site of Ground Zero in NYC. A measly six hundred feet from where the Tower's once stood. Mayor Bloomberg (New York's three-term mayor) strongly supports the building of the mosque. His reasoning is incoherent. Each time he speaks I see Neville Chamberlain. And we know how that turned out for the British and for the world.

In May of this year, Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, was shot and killed by an illegal alien on his own property. The murder brought to national attention what Arizonan's already knew, the thousands (cumulating to millions) of illegals pouring across our southern borders are not just a national security and economic disaster, they are a potential danger to Arizona citizens. Governor Jan Brewer subsequently signed a bill into law which enforces the current Federal law the Feds aren't enforcing. Our president called the Arizona law "misguided" and the United States Government (joined by the Mexican government) is now suing Arizona. If the Federal government's actions weren't so reckless and frankly, ridiculous, the situation would make great late night comedy. It undoubtedly will anyway--that is until someone else gets killed.

There is a greater connection here it should be noted. Illegal aliens who happened to also be terrorists were responsible for the attacks on 9/11. An illegal alien murdered Mr. Krentz. Murder. Terrorism. Does the motive really matter? The result, as we know, is the same.

Despite an unprecedented level of disapproval Congress continues to pass legislation in the still of the night, increasing the burden of regulation and government invasion into our lives and especially our pocketbooks. The latest financial reform bill is characterized best by the Wall Street Journal:

Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, those Fannie Mae cheerleaders, played the largest role in writing the bill. Congressman Paul Kanjorski even offered a motion to memorialize it as the Dodd-Frank Act. It's as if Tony Hayward of BP were allowed to write new rules on deep water drilling.

The Federal Reserve, which promoted the housing mania and failed utterly in its core mission of monitoring Citigroup, will now have more power to regulate more financial institutions and more ability to dictate the allocation of credit.

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Associated Press

Barney Frank (l.) and Chris Dodd

The Treasury, which bailed out institutions willy-nilly without consistent rules, will now lead the Financial Stability Oversight Council that will have the arbitrary power to define which financial companies pose a "systemic risk" and which can be shut down without recourse to bankruptcy. Willy-nilly will now be the law.

And the SEC, which created the credit-ratings oligopoly and missed Bernie Madoff, will get new powers to decide how easy it should be for union pension funds to get their candidates on corporate proxy ballots.

Oh, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They aren't touched at all, even as they continue to lose billions of taxpayer dollars each quarter.

The foxes are guarding the hen house. And though this drama is rich in irony, complete with the necessary ingredients of mystery and intrigue, corruption and mind-bending injustice, this drama is not fiction. It is our future and grand history mushed into one majestically, tragic plot with a collection of B and C-movie actors turning the screws. On us, the people.

I've read the book and I, for one, don't like the way it turns out.