The Parisian Week from Hell Continues

Today on NRO

JONAH GOLDBERG: The Paris attack puts the Western world in a bad spot. A Win for the Jihadists.

ELIANA JOHNSON: Many in Romney's circle would love for him to challenge Jeb Bush. Establishment vs. Establishment.

RICH LOWRY: The attack on Charlie Hebdo was not just on an institution but on a value. The Crisis of Free Speech.

JOHN FUND: R.I.P. to Martin Anderson, the man who set historians straight on Reagan . 'Reagan's Seeing-Eye Dog'.

SLIDESHOW: Winter Warriors.

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty

January 09, 2015

The Parisian Week from Hell Continues

Bloodshed early in the week, followed by a fast-moving manhunt and the perpetrators surrounded. Feels a lot like Boston 2013, doesn't it?

Two brothers suspected in a newspaper terror attack were cornered inside a printing house northeast of Paris on Friday, taking a hostage and telling police they "want to die as martyrs," a lawmaker said.

Security forces streamed into the small industrial town of Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris, in a massive operation to seize the men suspected of carrying out France's deadliest terror attack in decades. One of the men had been convicted of terrorism charges in 2008, and a U.S. official said both brothers were on the American no-fly list.

Authorities evacuated a nearby school around midday Friday after the suspects agreed by phone to allow the children safe passage, town hall spokeswoman Audrey Taupenas told The Associated Press.

"They said they want to die as martyrs," Yves Albarello, a local lawmaker who said he was inside the command post, told French television station i-Tele.

At least three helicopters hovered above the town. Nearby Charles de Gaulle airport closed two runways to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff, an airport spokesman said.

The town appealed to residents to stay inside their houses.

Except this ugly story has a few more chapters to go:

French police are now linking the shooting of a female officer on Thursday with the brothers suspected of the Charlie Hebdo attack, according to AFP.

Police had not previously connected the murders of 12 people in Paris on Wednesday morning to Thursday's shooting in Montrouge, just south of the capital.

But it has now emerged the Montrouge suspect was a member of the same jihadist group as brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.

But wait, there's more!

Separately, Reuters reported that there has been a shootout at a Kosher supermarket on Friday in eastern Paris, with one person wounded in the attack.

If you're in Paris these days, be really, really careful. These may be coordinated, or they may just be attacks of opportunity; it seems any and every nut with a grievance against the West or Jews thinks it's open season to target anyone or anything they deem insufficiently submissive to their worldview.

Kind of like the mood of the cop-haters in New York City.

New Study Confirms Your Suspicion: You Got a Bad Deal from Obamacare

Hey, how about that Obamacare success story?

Although the Affordable Care Act has not led to soaring insurance costs, as many critics claimed it would, the law hasn't provided much relief to American workers either, according to a new study of employer-provided health benefits.

Workers continue to be squeezed by rising insurance costs, eroding benefits and stagnant wages, the report from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund found.

Nationwide, the average contribution an employee made to an insurance premium in 2013 and the average deductible together represented 9.6% of the median income of American households with members under age 65.

That is up from 8.4% in 2010 and nearly double the 5.3% that households were paying for employer-provided health coverage in 2003.

"Workers are paying more but getting less protective benefits," the report's authors noted. "Although the Affordable Care Act offers a platform from which to build, securing a more affordable future will likely require action beyond those reforms, focusing on costs of care, particularly for the privately insured."

Democrats keep insisting Obamacare is a good law that helps people. A majority of Americans keep coming to a different conclusion.

If You're Not Feeling the Economic Optimism, You're Not Alone

We could all use a booming economy. And if you feel like the recent cheery economic statistics aren't reflecting reality in your community, you're not alone:

Unemployment is down, GDP is up, and the White House is betting that Americans will finally start feeling the effects of the economic recovery. But in Colorado, it's just not enough yet, said participants in a focus group conducted on behalf of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

"The simple fact is, regardless of what the numbers say, there's a lot of hurting people out there," said Rick Lamutt, a 40 year-old independent. "You've seen on the news, 'Everything's fine, the economy's great, there's jobs everywhere!' Well, if you want to make $9 an hour, you can go get a job, but if you want to make a wage that can support your family, good luck."

Charlie Loan, a 52 year-old independent who leans Republican, agreed.

"The media tells us that unemployment is down considerably, but that's not the feeling that I get from talking to my friends and family across the country," he said.

The twelve participants in the focus group, which was moderated by pollster Peter Hart, described the state of the country as "cloudy" and "gloomy."

A bright spot for many participants, though, was sinking gas prices. Nine of the 12 participants said that the low price of fuel has made an impact on them.

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