What to make of Wikileaks, the organization that exposed more than 90,000 classified U.S. government documents about Afghanistan that are the subject of a front-page news article in today's New York Times?

NYU's Jay Rosen: "the world's first stateless news organization....Wikileaks is organized so that if the crackdown comes in one country, the servers can be switched on in another. This is meant to put it beyond the reach of any government or legal system."

An Obama "administration official," via Mike Allen's Politico Playbook: "It's worth noting that WikiLeaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan." (As opposed to, say, the New York Times?)

It's going to be interesting to see whether health-care providers respond to ObamaCare by going national. There are already a few for-profit hospital chains, and the Mayo Clinic is in Jacksonville, Fla., and Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz. as well as its original Rochester, Minn. location. But for the most part the big non-profit academic medical centers have stayed local; there's no UCSF in New York and no Mass. General in Philadelphia. Things may be starting to move in a different direction, though; the Tampa Bay Business Journal reports that All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., is being taken over by the Johns Hopkins health system, based in Baltimore, Md. Link via HIStalk.

The Securities and Exchange Commission this week announced a settlement with Dell and five present and former executives related to their public characterization of the company's earnings. The case centers on what the SEC calls "exclusivity payments" made by Intel to Dell in exchange for Dell's promise not to use its competitors' microchips. The complaint in the case is worth reading. Here's a key section:

In recent years, these payments have been the focus of at least five different government antitrust investigations, as well as a major private antitrust suit launched by AMD. The primary claim in these investigations has been that Intel was paying its customers to limit their purchases of AMD products. In Dell's case, the claim was that Intel·was paying Dell to boycott AMD entirely.

Toward the end of today's front-page New York Times article headlined "Federal Report Faults Banks on Huge Bonuses" comes this:

Mr. Feinberg then approached each of the 17 companies with his proposed remedy during conference calls over the last two weeks. The 11 companies that have fully repaid their bailout money are American Express, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Boston Private, Capital One Financial, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, PNC Financial, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo.

The six companies that have not fully repaid their bailout funds are A.I.G, Citigroup, the CIT Group, M&T Bank, Regions Financial and SunTrust Banks.

From Charles Krauthammer's column in today's Washington Post:

As John Fund reports in the Wall Street Journal, Sens. Jay Rockefeller, Kent Conrad and Tom Harkin are already looking forward to what they might get passed in a lame-duck session. Among the major items being considered are card check, budget-balancing through major tax hikes, and climate-change legislation involving heavy carbon taxes and regulation....

Yesterday we noted Senator Schumer's optimism that Congress would act on "comprehensive immigration reform" in 2011, after the midterm elections. Now another senior Democrat, Senator Kerry, is telling Bloomberg that a cap-and-tax climate change bill may also be on the table post-election — not in 2011 but in a lame-duck session: "If it is after the election, it may well be that some members are free and liberated and feeling that they can take a risk or do something."

An economist is warning in a newly published academic paper studying the American economy after World War II that "tax increases are highly contractionary." According to the paper, "the effects are strongly significant, highly robust." Who is the lead author of the paper? Why, none other than the chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer. You'd think she might want to mention this to her boss in connection with the tax increases that are scheduled to take effect in 2011.

Paul Caron's Tax Prof blog has the details.

The Wall Street Journal writes up a study showing that fewer Americans think college is a good investment. The Journal article doesn't get into the reasons, but there are quite a few possibilities. It could be that Americans are figuring out it really doesn't make sense to spend 4+ years and $200,000+ just to get a degree, which is what most students end up with, rather than real knowledge and thinking skills.

It could also be, though, that Americans are responding to changes in higher education finance.

The Obama Diaries, a new book by Laura Ingraham, is a combination. It's partially a satirical set of fictional "diaries" attributed to figures such as President Obama, Vice President Biden, and the first lady. And it's partially a straightforward text in the voice of Ms. Ingraham, a radio talk show host and former Supreme Court law clerk.

Occasionally, the humor of the diaries seeps into the straightforward part. One's taste for either part will depend in part on how much one appreciates jokes made at the expense of the appearance of Democratic women elected officials.

The latest installment of the Journo-list leaks show Ryan Avent, now an editor at the Economist, dispensing partisan political advice on how to spin Senator McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate: "I really don't think the experience argument needs to be made by the Dems. It's completely obvious to any reasonable person. Instead, hammer away at the fact that she has terrible positions on things like choice, and on the fact that she has no ideas on the issues important to people."

The Daily Caller is really doing a service in exposing this stuff.

A venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures, Fred Wilson, discloses that he and his partners hosted a fundraiser for Senator Schumer: "I was thrilled to hear Senator Schumer's optimism last night that we will get 'comprehensive immigration reform' in 2011, after the midterm elections." If this is as important to economic growth as Mr. Wilson apparently thinks it is, why wait? And if it is as big a political winner as its proponents apparently think it is (get that Hispanic vote!), why wait until after the election?

As the grandson of an immigrant, and as someone whose family might well have been killed by either the Nazis or the Communists in Europe had we not made it here to America, I'm a big proponent of immigration. Beyond my personal interest, I think it's good for economic growth. See, for example, the review on this site of the book Immigrant, Inc.

A screen-grab of Bloomberg News's Wednesday thought of the day puts elitism on display for all to see: "You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public." Right up there with "All the news that's fit to print" and "It shines for all" as far as editorial slogans go.

The Financial Times reports that John Paulson's Paulson & Co. hedge fund is opening up a fund that will be open to retail investors and that "will track its existing investment strategies":

Hedge fund investing is typically restricted to wealthy individuals and institutions only. But the new fund, which will be constructed as a so-called "Ucits" structure, domiciled onshore in Europe, will be open to anyone.

President Obama's remarks upon signing the Dodd-Frank financial "reform" bill in to law were strangely and perhaps unintentionally revealing:

Now, for all those Americans who are wondering what Wall Street reform means for you, here's what you can expect. If you've ever applied for a credit card, a student loan, or a mortgage, you know the feeling of signing your name to pages of barely understandable fine print. What often happens as a result is that many Americans are caught by hidden fees and penalties, or saddled with loans they can't afford.

That's what happened to Robin Fox, hit with a massive rate increase on her credit card balance even though she paid her bills on time. .... Well, with this law, unfair rate hikes, like the one that hit Robin, will end for good. ...With this law, students who take out college loans will be provided clear and concise information about their obligations.

Two more massage therapists have come forward to accuse Al Gore of inappropriate hotel-room behavior, the National Enquirer reports.