Daily Political Wire 11-29-2010

George Wenschhof

Press Begins Reporting on latest WikiLeaks Document Dump - over a quarter of a million U.S. Diplomatic cables are part of the overall documents to be reviewed. Major newspapers from around the world were given the information as the website Wikileaks.org was under a cyber-attack yesterday that was jamming access to their website. Their website is now up and running and the cables can be accessed here.

There is so much information, it will take months for it all to be released. Makes you wonder how only the one man accused could have obtained so much information.

Amazing details have been released so far including disclosure of a U.S. military Internet "Siprnet"where much of the information was taken from. Seems as though the no-so secret Internet had over 3 million cleared to use it. The Guardian has more here.

Early revelations include U.S. embassy officials offering bribes to foreign countries to take terrorist prisoners from Quantanamo Bay, Saudi Arabia King Abdullah wanting the U.S. to attack Iran, as well as snippets on Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.

Also damaging was information on how the U.S. state department asked diplomats to spy on their UN counterparts. The NY Times has more here and the Huffington Post has more here.

One lesson sure to be learned by the Diplomats quoted in the released cables is to not put in writing what you don't want to read in the newspaper tomorrow - a lesson hopefully learned by political operatives years ago in the early days of using email to communicate.

Stay tuned as this is a story that will keep going for some time.

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Begins Trip to Central Asia and Middle East Today - should be interesting as many of the leaders she will be meeting are mentioned, in a not so flattering way, in the documents released by wikileaks.org. Reuters.com has more here.

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EU Approves 113 billion (85 billion Euro) to Bail Out Ireland - this action follows the aid package to Greece with Portugal and Spain next on the list of countries under the euro in dander of collapse. Watch to see how the markets respond today. Bloomberg.com has more here.

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Lame Duck Session to Resume Today - less than a month remains on the lame duck session and many bills are up in the air.

The Senate Ratification of the START treaty, the extension of the "Bush tax cuts", D.A.D.T., the DREAM Act, extension of long term unemployment benefits, and a bill to continue to fund government are part of what will be a busy agenda.

Look to see the House take up unemployment benefit extension today as the current benefits run out tomorrow for several million Americans.

Tomorrow, President Obama tries again to work toward bipartisan cooperation when leaders of Congress will be invited to the White House for discussion and dinner. the rescheduled meeting comes two weeks after Republican leaders said they were unable to attend an earlier planned meeting.

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Rangel Wants Reprimand and not Censure - after being found guilty of 11 charges, the House Ethics committee recommended censure. Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) will appeal to the full House for a reprimand. Politico.com has more here.

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