Julian Assange Is Not A Freedom Fighter

I believe there are very few secrets that a government should keep from its people.  That being said, Julian Assange crossed a line when he released a quarter of a million diplomatic cables passed onto him from Pfc. Bradley E. Manning. 

Some of the cables have identifying information about elders in Afghanistan that are actively helping the United States.  Even with the names redacted, enough information remains to endanger those that we will need to rely on when we leave the country so that it is even marginally better than before we invaded it.  Assange is a third party on these cables, not knowing the full extent of what should be redacted to protect the identities of those who may be put at risk.  In the cited article, the Taliban actually thanks Assange for letting them know who to target. 

When the judiciary rules on free speech, they often strike down laws that do not restrict speech but could be said to have a "chilling effect" on speech due to onerous requirements.  Assange's release of diplomatic cables could very well have a "chilling effect" on other countries which may want to share information off the record.  With two hot wars winding down, Iran pursuing a bomb, and North Korea launching offensives on South Korea, we need as much diplomatic leverage as possible.

Although Assange maintains no damage is done by his leaks, he maintains that he has stores of unredacted and damaging documents that he will release if he is imprisoned or in any other way held responsible for what he has done. 

Currently Assange is in jail for unrelated sexual assault charges stemming from, supposedly, his refusal to wear a condom despite two girl's wishes.  Others say the condom was not part of the charge while  Michael Moynihan of Reason.com, who lived in Sweden for many years, says that overly radical rape laws in Sweden can charge me for merely rejecting a woman's wish to wear a condom even if consensual sex follows. 

Some of the people defending Assange include MSNBC's Keith Olberman who believe the women are US operatives that lured Assange into a "honey trap."  Olbermann's source for this information was an article on the far-left website Counterpunch by the writers Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett.  Shamir is a fringe writer who has devoted his professional life to exposing the supposed criminality of “Jewish power," a paranoid anti-Semite who curates a website full of links to Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi sites, defenses of blood libel myths, and references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Note:  For those who don't know, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was published by the Russian Empire in 1903 supposedly revealing a Jewish plot for world domination.  The text was conclusively determined to be fraudulent anti-semitic propaganda in 1921.   

 Olbermann later tweeted that he regretted citing the article and repudiated the author. 

It seems very likely that Assange could be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 and some lawmakers of both parties have endorsed the idea.  Assange seems to get a pass from the same people who decried the Climategate E-mail dump and the outing of non-covert operative Valerie Plame.  He is even an early favorite for Time's Man-of-the-Year.  Just because Assange used the Internet to disseminate his intercepted cables does not make him any more noble than anyone else who has ever revealed state secrets.  Assange is not a freedom fighter, he may well have put America and her allies in danger and he belongs in a jail cell.

T (S) and A!

Anyone planning on flying this holiday season is in for an awkward choice.  Due to the latest security measures put in place by the TSA you can either walk through a full body scanner which takes pictures of you without that pesky clothing that you put on that morning in the way or you can opt for the enhanced pat-down complete with groin check.  If it sounds ridiculous and Orwellian, that's because it is.

An example of an actual body scan picture

Although they've only been in place for a short time, The U.S. Marshals Service recently admitted saving some 35,000 images from a full body scanner at a federal courthouse in Florida.  Understandably many people do not want to have their picture taken without their clothing on (I mean, that's why we wear it, right?) with the possibility that their image could be saved for posterity so there is an alternative.  The alternative is getting an enhanced pat-down including a groin check to move through security.  John Tyner found this out the hard way when he shot this youtube video after opting for the pat-down.  After the pat-down was explained to him he now famously stated, "Don't touch my junk" and had a conversation with the TSA supervisor before leaving the airport and deciding not to fly.  He was later told he had to pay an $11,000 fine (referenced in the video) but that has since been rescinded.

 

Of course everyone wants to be safe while flying but the politically correct route of looking for bombs and not bombers is causing nuns and 3 year olds to be subjected to groin checks. I guess we should be lucky they drew the line at our crotch, the DHS reports a terrorist tried to hide a bomb in his anal cavity last year.

So what is the alternative in a time where a terrorist could very well have a bomb sewn into his underpants?  The Israelis have been the target of terrorism since long before 9/11 and they don't pat down every person who gets on a plane.  They have a few minutes of conversation with each passenger to determine who needs extra scrutiny and who does not.   Critics of this policy believe that the screeners would target Muslim men at a higher rate than other races but as Mona Charen points out, some terrorists have been blond-haired, blue-eyed females so anyone who raises flags on the initial check should be pulled aside regardless of race. 

We can make airline travel much less intrusive without trampling on the civil rights of any one group (or all groups, as it stands now) but the White House seems reluctant to even try the Israeli style security for fear of discrimination.  In fact Janet Napolitano, head of DHS, says the scanners could be expanded for use on trains, boats and the subway system.  All this makes me pine for the days when the closest the government came to impinging on my civil rights was tapping overseas phone calls.  I guess the Left forgot their "passion" for civil rights the day they got elected. 

Less We Can!

Meteoric, historic, a tidal wave, all of these terms have been used to describe the recent midterm elections.  Most surprising of all, these words are actually pretty good descriptors of the events of November second.  Pundits opined that the midterm could be a repeat of the '94 elections when Republicans gained 52 House seats and control of that chamber.  Some conservative pundits shushed other conservative pundits, worried that such rosy optimism would suppress turnout and cause the Republicans to lose seats they would have gained otherwise.  As of the current count right now Republicans have won 60 seats in the House, their largest sweep not since 1994 but since 1938.  State legislatures broke big for Republicans as well, not only was the sweep a large one but now the total percentage of Republican state legislators is the largest it has been since 1956.  With all these Republicans now in power, does that mean that we are headed towards fiscal sanity?  Well, probably not.

Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have introduced legislation to end earmarks, the pet projects that Senators and Congressmen attach to bills with little to no oversight.  Last year earmarks cost taxpayers $17 billion.  Although that sounds like alot of money, that's less than one-half of one percent of the annual budget. 

Republicans are also touting that they will cut government waste, fraud and abuse from the budget but if economics teaches us anything it is that government is inherently inefficient and rife with waste, fraud and abuse because government is a non-profit driven monopoly.  With no incentive from either competition or profit, there is no incentive to be efficient.  Although some Republicans have talked about privatizing various functions of the government, no broad based support exists to do this.

What about the deficit commission that recently released its report advising some tax raising measures like doing away with home mortgage interest deductions and some cost cutting measures such as reforming entitlement programs?  Doing away with the home mortgage interest deduction might very well tank the real estate markets (again) and would effectively raise taxes on the middle class in the midst of a recession.  Reforming entitlements is a great idea and the only one likely to put a dent in the budget. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense spending and interest on the debt add up to more than 80% of the annual budget.  Any serious talk of cutting spending must include these sacred cows.  Of course, how serious could the commission be on reforming entitlements when they made no suggestion of repealing the latest one, Obamacare?  Also, Americans have no appetite for cutting entitlements.  Among the signs at Tea Party rallies about cutting spending are also signs that say "Get The Government Out Of My Medicare!"  When asked generally, Americans want the government to cut spending but when asked on specifics still consider 80% of the budget untouchable. 

Entitlement reform is not coming anytime soon and it would be a miracle to even preemptively reform Obamacare, forget repeal.  Republicans may slam the brake on this administration's big spending ways by virtue of gridlock but there's no sign that they want to turn the car around.  Worse yet, there's no sign that Americans want them to.  As Alexis de Tocqueville said, "In a democracy, we get the government we deserve." 

Funny Birthday Card

I've been celebrating my birthday over the weekend with my family and fell behind on my post schedule.  This week's column will be up no later than Wednesday with next week's column going up no later than Sunday.  In the meanwhile, I figured I would share a humorous birthday card I received from my parents.

Front of Card

Inside of Card

F.A Hayek and John Maynard Keynes Rap Battle For America's Future

Since Republicans have taken the House and are already talking about combating Obama's Keynesian economic model with their own (somewhat more) Hayekian one, I figured it might be time to dust off this gem.  This video of  two economists dressing up as Hayek and Keynes and rap-battling is too bizarre not to pass on:



For those who don't know, John Maynard Keynes was FDR's main economic advisor during the Great Depression and advocated big government solutions like the stimulus we are using today.  F.A. Hayek was an Austrian economist who advocated free markets and laissez faire government.

The video is a bit buggy as an embedded object so you can also find the source video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk

Pre-Election Post-Mortem

With only 2 days remaining until the election, it is hard to watch TV, listen to the radio, talk to coworkers or even drive down a stretch of road without being reminded of how deeply divided an election this promises to be.  It is the job of politicians and pundits to convince voters every two years that this election is the most important election in your lifetime.  Even knowing the game, I'm convinced that this upcoming election is the most important of my lifetime and that the following will be even more significant. 

This election will be conservatives' last chance to defund Obamacare.  RCP shows Republicans with at least a 7 seat lead in the House even if the Democrats win every single toss-up race, and Republicans will likely take most of those, increasing their lead considerably.  RCP also shows the Senate being competitive but likely staying in Democratic hands.  The Senate not reverting control is more a of function of our electoral system than Democrat's popularity, only a third of the Senate is up for election. 

Although much maligned, the Tea Party is worthy of some credit for this wave that threatens to end Obama's agenda.  While we have them to thank for Christine O' Donnell (who believes mice are being cross-bred with humans in secret American laboratories and that they are creating rodents with "fully-functional human brains."), Sharron Angle is in a toss-up race against Reid in Nevada and Rand Paul has a comfortable lead against Conway in Kentucky.  The Tea Party could also be an effective force in gubernatorial and more local races in ways that could be monumental.  Just by installing some leaders to help Paul Ryan turn the party around, the Tea Party's wins could more than make up more their losses.

The 2012 election, of course, would be to remove Obama from the White House.  Most Presidents in modern times have been granted two terms, even those who performed poorly in their first term (ie. Clinton, Eisenhower, and Truman).  The counterexamples, Carter and Bush (41), tend to be disregarded even by members of their own party.  In the bellweather state of Ohio, 50-42 would prefer to have Bush back in the White House rather than Obama.  Of course these polls are done just to make a stark comparison, Bush can't run but who would have predicted polling like that in 2008?

Note to my readers:  On Sept 19, I endorsed Christine O' Donnell for Senator in my Are You A Good Witch Or A Bad Witch? post.  The torrent of background information released on her since then has convinced me that she is truly unfit for the Senate although still not as bad as Joe Biden, who previously held the seat.  I have endorsed a total of two candidates since beginning this blog, both of which either have lost or will lose.  In keeping with that tradition I renounce (or is that "refudiate"?) my endorsement of O' Donnell and endorse Jim Rash (L) for US. Senator from Delaware. 

Regurgitating The Apple

I am in State College, PA this weekend as a groomsman in my friend's wedding.  So this week I'm phoning it in. 

Evan Sayet was a liberal Manhattan Jew who became a conservative shortly after 9/11.  The following video is a speech of this comedian giving a mostly serious speech at the Heritage Foundation.  His speech, Regurgitating The Apple, has been called the unified field theory of liberal thought.  It explains liberal's power bias/victim mentality and how it is based on the idea that to discern between good and evil or even the behaviors that lead to success vs. the behaviors that lead to failure is not discernment but discrimination and must be avoided at all costs.



His speech is loosely based on the book, The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom.  Its a great read if anyone is interested. 

Congratulations Joe and Kristen, I have never met two people who were made for each other more than you two are.  I am honored to know you both, to call Joe my brother, and to be a groomsman in your wedding.  I wish you all the happiness that life surely has in store for you.