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Just hitting the newswire:
"The CIA has uncovered an al Qaeda plot to crash 1 fully-loaded 747 every other day for a full year and to continuing crashing 747s until the world bows to this terrorist group's demands. It is estimated that over the course of a year this would result in about 45,000 deaths."
Emphasis added
Source
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What's almost as (more?) disturbing is that -- according to anonymous sources -- when the Obama Administration disclosed this plot to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and laid-out its plan to begin, at least begin, thwarting these attacks, Republican members of those committees objected strenuously to the Administration "interfering" in al Qaeda's plans. According to leaked reports, Republicans on Capitol Hill are holding fast to their belief that "The Market" would be better suited to manage this crisis.
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Another story on this plot and the death toll it would entail.
While the Administration had hoped that preventing these 10s-of-1,000s of deaths would not create political rifts and would, in fact, be a subject upon which leaders of all political persuasions could agree, it now appears likely that Republican leaders will seek to block any and all Obama-lead efforts to dismantle the al Qaeda plot and, in fact, will trumpet its obstructionism as a reason for Americans to vote Republican in upcoming November elections.
Sources say that after months of attempted negotiations with Capitol Hill Republicans, negotiations that have time and time again proved fruitless, the Administration and Democrats are now committed to "going it alone" and doing whatever the White House and cooperative Members of Congress can do to prevent at least some of the doomed airliners from plummeting from the sky. Administration sources say that the President has been "in a state of shock" for some months owing to his disbelief that "Republicans could just sit back and watch these people die."
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UPDATE. In the comments below "nailmaker" corrects me and my reporting on this horror:
Plane crashes hurt the air travel industry. Keeping low-income families or individuals with preconditions uninsured benefits the health insurance industry.
There is no cognitive dissonance in preventing plane crashes and blocking health insurance reform. Not to someone without a conscience.
Thank you, nailmaker. Your point is, indeed, well-taken.