Senate

Morning Must Reads: Assange

By Adam Sorensen | @adamsorensen | December 2, 2010 | +

–Julian Assange fronts this week’s newsstand issue of TIME. Inside: Massimo on how overclassiffication created the secrecy beast, Fareed Zakaria on how the cables show competent diplomats in action, Crowley on the designs to slaughter sacred cows and Nancy Gibbs on Palin’s push to the past.

–Extending all the Bush tax cuts temporarily still looks like how the standoff is going to break.

–The White House will push numbers to back up its case on extending unemployment benefits.

–Andy Stern takes his turn on the deficit podium.

–Chatting with Jay Leno, Mitt Romney jokes about the Fox News primary and showcases an on-message TSA joke.

–Not a good sign for Tim Pawlenty’s national ambitions: most of his money is coming from within Minnesota.

–He’s getting proactive with his potential pardon problem.

–Ovide Lamontagne sets himself up as a Granite State player.

–Glen Bolger argues Republicans don’t have to worry about losing the House.

–Practicality and management, not optics, take center stage at an RNC chair candidate forum.

–The committee’s money woes pile up.

–John Ensign shakes loose the DOJ probe and probably feels much better about his looming re-elect.

–Ben Tribbett alleges string-pulling to get Virginia a delegate convention and Tim Kaine on the ballot to replace Jim Webb in ’12.

–Goldman Sachs sees sunny skies ahead.

–And Arnold Schwarzenegger is the second most famous immigrant in California.

What did I miss?

E-mail Adam

Related Topics: 2012, bush tax cuts, 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Economy, Republican Party, Senate, White House

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  • gysgt213
  • http://izzy100.wordpress.com izzy100

    International Subversives
    .
    The Wahington Times
    December 1, 2010
    .
    WikiLeaks leak-meister is confirmed anti-American leftist
    Hardly a word has been written or spoken about the motives of the WikiLeaks’ chief leaker. Australia’s 39-year-old Julian Assange was 19 years old when the Cold War ended.
    .
    His parents were well-known on the left and ran a touring theater company. His mother remarried in 1979 to a man who belonged to a controversial New Age group. In the late 1980s, Mr. Assange was a member of a crack hacker team that called itself International Subversives.
    .
    Australian acquaintances say he was bitterly disappointed by the outcome of the Cold War with a resounding global victory for the United States and its allies. Mr. Assange then began identifying with the defeated “progressives,” from the pensioned-off millions – on starvation stipends – of the old Soviet nomenklatura to the innocent dupes who never realized that the World Peace Council was a KGB-controlled organization (documented in post-Cold War Russian files that opened briefly before the KGB’s successor organization sealed them again).
    .
    There are tens of millions in both the Third and First worlds (e.g., former Communist Party members and their “progressive” fans) who firmly believe the “evil empire” is the United States with what even leading Wall Streeters – e.g., Pete Peterson – call “animalistic and carnivorous capitalism.”
    .
    The post-Cold War generation of “progressives” – the word that once gave communists respectability the world over – likes to cite Karl Marx’s prediction that capitalism eventually would sow the seeds of its own destruction. They also welcome anything that weakens the United States. Their new hero is Mr. Assange.
    .
    The world’s most repressive regimes – e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea – are the least of Mr. Assange’s concerns. The fount of all evil, as he sees the world, is the United States.
    .
    WikiLeaks’ master leaker, who clearly relishes anything that hurts the United States, is a throwback to Vietnam-era haters who despised the U.S. government and happily smeared America’s image throughout the world.
    .
    Mr. Assange’s media partners in the Western world were selected with one yardstick: impeccable liberal credentials. The Washington Post wasn’t liberal enough – and got squeezed out in favor of the New York Times, along with France’s Le Monde, Britain’s Guardian, Germany’s Spiegel and Spain’s El Pais.
    .
    Whatever a U.S. diplomat hears or says in conversations with local government officials and colleagues from other countries now runs the risk of being published and read by thousands of people from dozens of countries. Such conversations are bound to be governed by the fear of public exposure. America’s diplomatic relations with friends and allies, Mr. Assange will be pleased to hear, have been severely damaged. Not permanently, but at least for a while.
    .
    Some say Mr. Assange does not seem to understand that the United States is still the behind-the-scenes catalyst for resolving tough regional and global issues. And that he has made it harder to resolve critical issues around the world by making the U.S. a less trusted interlocutor. The flip side of the coin says “International Subversives.” They seek global chaos to spawn a New World Order. It’s also called the totalitarian temptation, which has existed from time immemorial.
    .
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/1/international-subversives/print/

  • Art Pepper

    Extending all the Bush tax cuts temporarily still looks like the standoff is going to break.

    Two questions:

    1) This keeps getting described as a “compromise.” So what are the Democrats getting in return? (Nothing, that I can see…)

    2) Will the tax cuts be paid for under pay-go? If so, what are we cutting from the budget?

  • allthingsinaname

    “His parents were well-known on the left and ran a touring theater company. His mother remarried in 1979 to a man who belonged to a controversial New Age group. In the late 1980s, Mr. Assange was a member of a crack hacker team that called itself International Subversives.”
    .
    Oh my no?! What an opening. MY God his mother remarried and is well known on the left! That discredits him right there.
    .
    I do not know about their mothers but how many GOPers are well known on the left? Hey Palin is well known,
    .
    Gives us break.

  • grape_crush
  • sacredh

    Timothy McVeigh was from the right and his parents were christians. That doesn’t mean sh!t either.

  • grape_crush
  • freeinpa

    procedural slip up= job incompetence.
    .
    With staff and lawyers in the thousands, one maybe naively should expect that a given body actually knows how to perform their job functions.
    .
    Seems we may have found more money to cut from the budget. Fire the incompetent staffers.

  • Art Pepper

    McCain calls study on gays in military flawed

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2013575694_apusgaysinmilitary.html

    I didn’t see that one coming! /sarcasm

  • http://izzy100.wordpress.com izzy100

    And the Swamp Liberals jump in to defend their new Hero “Julian Assange” as they say they love America just not in its present form.
    .
    A lawyer who does substantial work for George Soros’s OSI [Open Society Institute] has come forward to represent Mr. Assange.
    .
    Good old George, the Godfather of the Liberal Movement. Why are we not surprised that George is involved with Assange. But George loves America, just not as an independent country. George is a pure leftist and wants a new world order under Socialism and a one world government.

  • http://therealestamerican.wordpress.com therealestamerican

    “They seek global chaos to spawn a New World Order.”
    .
    Yes! Novus ordo seclorum! “New World Order”! Its right there on the Great Seal!
    .
    Thomas Jefferson (a libertine) and the Free Masons have been planning to immanentize the eschaton since the 17th century! George Soros (a secret member of the Illuminati and the Bilderberg Group) continues that plan to this day!
    .
    If it wasn’t for other Real Americans like Rupert Murdoch and the owners of The Washington Times, we’d still be living in ignorance of Their Plan! Thank the baby Jesus for The Washington Times!

  • Art Pepper

    freep: This would be a minor procedural hiccough if the GOP were not so vehemently against safe-to-eat food.

  • grape_crush
  • squirmz

    (2.4) LOL best book ever!

    beware the fnords!

    but seriously. this guy assange is a tool. i won’t cry too hard when punishment comes calling.

  • http://therealestamerican.wordpress.com therealestamerican

    And the Swamp Liberals jump in to defend their new Hero “Julian Assange” as they say they love America just not in its present form.
    .
    Don’t worry, Izzy, we know who the Real Americans are!
    .
    I’m glad you put his name in quotes. I have always been suspicious if that’s his real name. I spent several hours rearranging the letters in his name and came up with “Alias Jean Snug”. This might be the key to his REAL identity. Does anyone know who ‘Jean Snug’ is?

  • allthingsinaname

    “Does anyone know who ‘Jean Snug’ is?”
    .
    It is code word for tight pants

  • http://therealestamerican.wordpress.com therealestamerican

    The arabic phrase for ‘tight pants’ is ‘Ḑyq as-Srāwyl’ which, when pronounced with a thick accent, sounds a lot like “Omar Farooq al-Nigeri” who was the Underwear Bomber.
    .
    Tight pants. Underwear bomb. I think you’re on to something allthings. Something big.

  • allthingsinaname

    Oh I love this code cracking business! So we should be on a lookout for someone with high pitched voice for two obvious reasons?

  • artraveler

    The tax cuts add about $0.4 trillion a year to the deficit that I thought was a Tea Party issue. Which is it guys, tax cuts and blow the deficit more than your hero George Bush did with his two wars and Medicare D plus the tax cuts or that “responsible government” that you were bringing to Washington..

    Your taxes have never been this low and yet you railed against the Democrats on “tax and spend” while you prefer to “borrow and spend”.

    Bring back the Reagan tax levels and let’s fix the deficit. Everything else is just posturing for the cameras.

  • deconstructiva

    Catherine Mayer’s overview of the Ireland mess –
    .
    http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2034386,00.html

  • freeinpa

    “The tax cuts add about $0.4 trillion a year to the deficit that I thought was a Tea Party issue”
    .
    No it adds zero to the deficit. Spending adds to the deficit. Tea party folks also believe it is more beneficial to have the money in a productive part of the economy instead of a non-productive inefficient part of the economy called federal spending.
    .
    The left keeps complaining about Medicare D why don’t they repeal it?

  • freeinpa

    We us conservative love eating unsafe food.

    See how stupid your premise is when it is said out loud

  • apr2563

    Last week Salon listed the 30 most hacky political pundits in the media.
    This week they list the 10 most hacky Christian media pundits.
    http://www.patrolmag.com/2010/11/politics/the-ten-worst-christian-media-hacks-5-1/
    .
    http://www.patrolmag.com/2010/11/politics/the-ten-worst-christian-media-hacks-10-6/
    .
    Let’s hear it for D’Souza, number 1.

  • apr2563

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/12/after_secrets
    .
    The Economist feels people are missing the point regarding Wikileaks. The technology is here. Now not just the government can snoop but people can snoop on the government. Get use to it.

  • sacredh

    “And the Swamp Liberals jump in to defend their new Hero “Julian Assange” as they say they love America just not in its present form.”
    .
    I said on here the other day that I thought he should be tried and executed. Hardly either a defense or hero worship.

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