on the Cancun environmental conference. Maybe this afternoon.
Ed
Ps: Don't you love the description of the pro-Wilileaks hackers and
'activists' as "notorious"?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/world/europe/06wiki.html?ref=world
Hundreds of WikiLeaks Mirror Sites Appear
By Ravi Somaia
NY Times News: December 5, 2010
LONDON - The battle lines between supporters of the whistle-blowing Web site
WikiLeaks and its detractors began to form on Sunday, as supporters erected
numerous copies of the site on the Internet and the United States put
pressure on Switzerland not to offer a haven to the site's founder, Julian
Assange.
Since several major Internet companies cut off services to WikiLeaks in
recent days, activists have created hundreds of mirror sites, Web sites that
host exact copies of another site's content, making censorship difficult.
The collective Anonymous, an informal but notorious group of hackers and
activists, also declared war on Sunday against enemies of Mr. Assange,
calling on supporters to attack sites companies that do not support
WikiLeaks and to spread the leaked material online.
For more of this report, click on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/world/europe/06wiki.html?ref=world
***
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/opinion/06krugman.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a212
Let's Not Make a Deal
Paul Krugman
NY Times Op-Ed: December 06, 2010
Back in 2001, former President George W. Bush pulled a fast one. He wanted
to enact an irresponsible tax cut, largely for the benefit of the wealthiest
Americans. But there were Senate rules in place designed to prevent that
kind of irresponsibility. So Mr. Bush evaded the rules by making the tax cut
temporary, with the whole thing scheduled to expire on the last day of 2010.
The plan, of course, was to come back later and make the thing permanent,
never mind the impact on the deficit. But that never happened. And so here
we are, with 2010 almost over and nothing resolved.
Democrats have tried to push a compromise: let tax cuts for the wealthy
expire, but extend tax cuts for the middle class. Republicans, however, are
having none of it. They have been filibustering Democratic attempts to
separate tax cuts that mainly benefit a tiny group of wealthy Americans from
those that mainly help the middle class. It's all or nothing, they say: all
the Bush tax cuts must be extended. What should Democrats do?
The answer is that they should just say no. If G.O.P. intransigence means
that taxes rise at the end of this month, so be it.
Think about the logic of the situation. Right now, the Republicans see
themselves as successful blackmailers, holding a clear upper hand. President
Obama, they believe, wouldn't dare preside over a broad tax increase while
the economy is depressed. And they therefore believe that he will give in to
their demands.
But while raising taxes when unemployment is high is a bad thing, there are
worse things. And a cold, hard look at the consequences of giving in to the
G.O.P. now suggests that saying no, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire on
schedule, is the lesser of two evils.
Bear in mind that Republicans want to make those tax cuts permanent. They
might agree to a two- or three-year extension - but only because they
believe that this would set up the conditions for a permanent extension
later. And they may well be right: if tax-cut blackmail works now, why
shouldn't it work again later?
America, however, cannot afford to make those cuts permanent. We're talking
about almost $4 trillion in lost revenue just over the next decade; over the
next 75 years, the revenue loss would be more than three times the entire
projected Social Security shortfall. So giving in to Republican demands
would mean risking a major fiscal crisis - a crisis that could be resolved
only by making savage cuts in federal spending.
And we're not talking about government programs nobody cares about: the only
way to cut spending enough to pay for the Bush tax cuts in the long run
would be to dismantle large parts of Social Security and Medicare.
So the potential cost of giving in to Republican demands is high. What about
the costs of letting the tax cuts expire? To be sure, letting taxes rise in
a depressed economy would do damage - but not as much as many people seem to
think.
A few months ago, the Congressional Budget Office released a report on the
impact of various tax options. A two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts, it
estimated, would lower the unemployment rate next year by between 0.1 and
0.3 percentage points compared with what it would be if the tax cuts were
allowed to expire; the effect would be about twice as large in 2012. Those
are significant numbers, but not huge - certainly not enough to justify the
apocalyptic rhetoric one often hears about what will happen if the tax cuts
are allowed to end on schedule.
Oh, and what about confidence? I've been skeptical about claims that budget
deficits hurt the economy even in the short run, because they undermine
confidence in the government's long-run solvency. Advanced countries, I've
argued, have a lot of fiscal leeway. But anything that makes permanent
extension of obviously irresponsible tax cuts more likely also sends a
strong signal to investors: it says, "Hey, we aren't really an advanced
country; we're a banana republic!" And that can't be good for the economy.
Last but not least: if Democrats give in to the blackmailers now, they'll
just face more demands in the future. As long as Republicans believe that
Mr. Obama will do anything to avoid short-term pain, they'll have every
incentive to keep taking hostages. If the president will endanger America's
fiscal future to avoid a tax increase, what will he give to avoid a
government shutdown?
So Mr. Obama should draw a line in the sand, right here, right now. If
Republicans hold out, and taxes go up, he should tell the nation the truth,
and denounce the blackmail attempt for what it is.
Yes, letting taxes go up would be politically risky. But giving in would be
risky, too - especially for a president whom voters are starting to write
off as a man too timid to take a stand. Now is the time for him to prove
them wrong.
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