A few more footnotes
Still running around getting ready for the up-coming Christmas Holiday, but here are a few comments:
- On Wikileaks - there was a headline today somewhere on the web that stated the founder of Wikileaks "feared" the U.S. government was positioning to prosecute him for publishing tens of thousands of classified cables provided to him by a disgruntled gay soldier upset about don't ask/don't tell. Well...you have to be a flipping moron not to know that the US was going to find a way to come at you for something like this. What did he expect? A Hallmark flower bouquet? Assange and his followers are cyber versions of the fringe anarchist movement that tries to disrupt G-7 meetings and so forth. These kooks are just out to harm Governments in general and don't give a crap about "collateral damage". Also, as far as I am concerned that gay soldier who released all these documents in a tantrum should face the death penalty for treason.
- In my last post I asked where the other shoe was in the tax extension deal - that Congress wasn't doing anything meaningful to reduce the deficit spending that is angling to doom this country without any of our enemies firing a shot. Well, while there is some movement on this front, with Republicans pushing back on the budget bill, there are still many problems on the Republican side that need to be addressed. Some Republican was on TV recently - I don't have the time to do my usual research - and he was challenged by a reporter when he declared he was going to vote against the budget and all it's earmarks. The reporter observed that the Republican had earmarks of his own in the budget bill, and he was now declaring his intention to vote against himself. The Republican shot back that the American people sent a clear message this past election day and that's why he was going to vote 'no'. Inside the beltway this makes all the sense in the world, but the larger point I see here is why didn't this Republican know that the Government spending was totally out of control before the American people sent him an election-gram? So that this guy got the message I guess is a good thing, that the message needed sending at all is bad, very bad. Not surprising mind you, but still very bad.
- On Obama and tossing aside his leftist socialist base in compromising with conservatives to extend the current tax rates for all for another 24 months - Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later get squish just like grape. At least Obama wasn't bashful about his self-motivated reasons for the compromise on taxation of wealthy Americans - it wasn't about economics, it was entirely and exclusively about saving his own neck. If the nation is not that stupid, there is no saving that neck from the 2012 election. He might as well had walked left side and stayed relatively "safe".
- Part of that compromise is that Republicans gave Obama his extension of unemployment benefits. This is a tuffy - I know plenty of people who are unemployed and are hurting. However, I still think there is some merit to the reasoning that many of these people who are unemployed are milking the system for all it's worth. Sometimes the best love is tough love - there comes a point in time where those who are chronically unemployed have to pick themselves up and do whatever they have to do to get gainful employment. If all you ever wanted to be was an accountant, and you can't find a job as an accountant - time to let the dream go and do something else. Yeah I know it's easy to say and hard to do, but I've been faced with career dilemma's myself, and I hesitated only a little in deciding to let one career path go and embrace another. So far (knock on wood), I have been unemployed only three weeks over the course of my entire 20+ years as a working man. Those who resist change are inevitably broken by it.
A classified document that is leaked to the public is still classified. When a person that does not have the requisite clearance and a need to know reads a classified document they violated Executive Orders 12958 and 13292. You, and tens of millions others, can now be arrested thanks to Wikileaks and other media that published classified documents.
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Since I didn't republish any of the classified cables, but merely observed that Assange is a moron and implied he's an asshole, I do not fall into the hopper of those who risk prosecution for publishing State secrets. Ann Coulter makes the case for prosecuting Assange on her latest blog post. She does a better and far more compelling job than our God-awful Attorney General. Give it a read http://www.anncoulter.com/
I have a relative hard time believing that it's a mere coincidence you can't spell that douchebag's last name without "ass".
Aside from the above - as for millions being eligible for prosecution - think man, think! There is truly safety in very large numbers.
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