Today, in Operation Clusterfuck Response to WikiLeaks, PayPal has permanently suspended the organization’s account. Per the Gray Lady:

As the release of hundreds of thousands of United States diplomatic cables brings more attention to WikiLeaks, commercial entities on the Internet have come under increased scrutiny for their business relationships with the organization.

Meanwhile, read The Economist’s Democracy in America columnist’s take on the brouhaha.

UPDATE: The Swiss are refusing to bend to U.S. and French pressure to knock Wikileaks.ch off the tubez.  Cue up your Sound of Music soundtrack.

Friday’s Nice Liberal Thought for the Day, from Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly:

President Obama established the Democratic baseline on tax policy quite a while ago — permanent cuts for those making less than $250,000; Clinton-era top rates for the wealthy — and he’s stuck to it for nearly two years, including through the election season. The president appears poised to yield to GOP demands now, which is unfortunate, but is largely a reflection of what transpired on Capitol Hill, where Dems chose to stray from the baseline Obama had already set.

Well, that’s certainly a perfectly reasonable explanation.

So, how’s this for a perfectly reasonable response:

We don’t care.

That is to say, we hold Democrats collectively responsible for the most colossal squandered opportunity of our adult life.

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Confession – I used to hang out at Elaine’s once in a while in the early 2000s, and I met one of my myriad girlfriends there. Talked with Elaine a couple times – always a gracious host. And they could cook risotto right – the true test of a restaurant.

(AP) – Elaine Kaufman, the colorful restaurateur whose East Side establishment, Elaine’s, became a haven for show business and literary notables, died Friday at the age of 81.

Ms. Kaufman died at a Manhattan hospital of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and pulmonary hypertension, according to a statement issued by the restaurant’s representative.

Her restaurant, featured in Woody Allen’s Manhattan, is the oldest of the old school on the island.

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Don’t know where to get Jezebel’s version of this video, but you can watch it here. Pallin’s crew basically turns the music back on to avoid questions from a CNN reporter. I also think I heard: “get them out of here.”

[ CNN Flash video not available. ]

Can she hide forever and still get elected again?

“The Library of Congress has blocked access to the Wikileaks site on its staff computers and on the wireless network that visitors use, two sources tell TPM.”

Need another sign that this country is headed off a cliff? The ascendence of Birthers, Tenthers, Thirteenthers, and other GOP imbeciles not enough for you?  Check out this bit of revisionism:

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Remember Sarah Palin’s infamous death panels lie which was intended to derail the Health Care Reform Act? The charge was that under so-called “Obamacare” government burocrats would have authority to determine which needy patients live and die based on an economic calculus that weighs those individuals’ potential benefit to society against the cost of their treatment. The lie grew out of a dishonest representation of the President’s call for comparitive effectiveness studies on medical treatments that would save the government money by identifying and steering patients towards the most effetive treatments for their ilnesses. The theory was that ineffective treatments are simply a waste of money, and patients will most likely benefit from avoiding them. The death panel lie was so outrageous yet so pervasive that it was crowned Politifact’s Lie of the Year for 2009.

Well, fast-forward a year and guess what: we’ve finally got those death panels Sarah Palin warned us of. But don’t expect Palin, the GOP leadership or Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks to raise a fuss. That’s because these death panels are in Arizona and are a result of the GOP led legislature deciding that discontinuing Medicaid funding for certain organ transplants –even though this would mean almost cetain death for some 100 indigent patients–  was well worth the $4.5 million a year savings it would bring:

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