Calls for retribution against Julian Assange, the Australian activist whose WikiLeaks organization released 250,000 sensitive State Department cables over the weekend, are nothing new. In October, after a previous document dump, The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg actually wondered aloud why the Assange was not yet, well… dead. This time around, Assange’s critics still can’t agree on the means or the end — but they do hold one belief in common: WikiLeaks must be permanently silenced.

Here are four of the most extreme suggestions — so far — for how the U.S. government should handle Assange:

1. Even before the latest document leak, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., was on television claiming WikiLeaks presents “a clear and present danger to America” and touting the necessity of classifying it as an official terrorist operation under the Espionage Act. That declaration would allow the government to “seize their funds” and eventually shut the organization down. Fair to say, King wants that declaration.

2. Dana Perino, the former Bush White House press secretary, echoed King’s sentiments on “Fox and Friends” on Monday — and argued that the U.S. should also “go after his [Assange’s] personal and financial assets,” not just those of the organization, so as to “put the squeeze on him.”

3. Bing West at The National Review wasn’t content to simply bring the WikiLeakers into custody. “Whoever provided the material to WikiLeaks,” West says, “should be prosecuted under the death sentence, regardless of his of her alleged motivations or mental worries.”

4. Calling Assange an “anti-American operative with blood on his hands,” Sarah Palin wrote on her Facebook today that the WikiLeaks founder should be “pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda.” Whether that means dead or alive is unknown, but, for what it’s worth, there is no proof Assange’s actions have led to violence. Details, who needs ‘em?

When Ed Schultz, the exuberant progressive cheerleader who hosts a nightly MSNBC show, exhorts his viewers to “Get your cell phones out,” brace yourself — chances are a comically slanted question is coming.

Since its debut more than a year ago, “The Ed Show” has featured a text message poll. After a lengthy, often impassioned monologue from the host, viewers are asked to text their replies, with the results announced at the end of the hour. It’s a harmless gimmick and “Ed” is hardly the first show to use it. But Ed’s poll has a unique twist: More often than not, 85 percent or more of the audience will come down on the same side — Ed’s side.

Upon learning last week that federal agents were at his door, Jack Johnson, the Prince Georges County (Md.) executive, allegedly gave his wife some odd instructions: “Put it in your bra and walk out or something.” The “it” was $79,600 of cold, corrupt cash, which the FBI says it ultimately recovered from Mrs. Johnson’s underwear. (It’s also not counting a $100,000 check that authorities suspect Johnson’s wife flushed down the toilet.)

George W. Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” is due to be released Tuesday (with the obligatory national TV interview, conducted by Matt Lauer to air tonight), but most of the good stuff is already circulating on the Web. What have we learned so far?

• Bush is still linking Saddam to WMD: Sure, he no longer tries to prove Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, but as David Corn points out, that hasn’t stopped him from subtly implying that the “homicidal dictator” (correct) was still in the process of “pursuing WMD” (wrong).
• He “did consider” replacing Cheney in 2003: Because the vice-president was a “lightning rod of criticism,” Bush admits he contemplated taking Cheney up on his offer to leave the administration after the 2004 elections. It was, he wrote, a chance to demonstrate to Americans who was really “in charge.”
• Kanye West’s post-Katrina comments hit hard: George Bush’s presidency covered all corners of controversy, but what was the “all-time low”? Seven words uttered in a state of panic by a hip-hop star: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
• Cheney’s friendship factored into the Scooter Libby decision: After Libby was found guilty of lying under oath during the Valerie Plame trial, Cheney believed Bush owed it to the vice-president’s chief of staff to offer him a full pardon. Bush, of course,  ultimately commuted Libby’s sentence — but now admits that he was worried this compromise might complicate his friendship with an “angry” Cheney.
  
• His mother showed him the fetus of his would-be sibling: Barbara Bush suffered a miscarriage when her son was a teenager, and afterward opted to show the fetus, which she was storing in a jar, to her then teenage son. Bush considers the incident key to his pro-life stance, telling Lauer “there’s no question that affected me, a philosophy that we should respect life.”
• He explicitly permitted waterboarding:  Bush’s presidency was marked by a prolonged legal and ethical debate over whether waterboarding is a legitimate interrogation technique or a form of torture. Bush himself wasn’t so conflicted. When the CIA asked permission to use the tactic during the questioning  of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged 9/11 attacker, his reply was painfully terse: ”Damn right.”
• He thinks his Texas governorship prepared him for 9/11: In the moments after he first heard about 9/11, the president famously sat silent. But that was anger, not shock, he now says. So why did he sit motionless? He knew “people were going to be watching my reaction. And I’d had enough experience as governor of Texas …  to know that the reaction of the leader is essential in the first stage of any crisis.”
• A bioterror scare in 2001 prompted fears that Bush had been infected: On a trip to China shortly after 9/11, Cheney asked Bush to enter a tent, along with Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. The issue? The toxin botulism had been detected inside the White House. Cheney told Bush that he might be infected (although he wasn’t.) And why the tent? “Because Chinese listeners cannot penetrate the tent.”
• He takes a shot at his old political foe, John McCain: Bush says McCain, who “suspended” his presidential campaign during the Wall Street meltdown, missed an opportunity to wield the financial collapse to his advantage during his presidential campaign. “In periods of crisis,” Bush writes, “voters value experience and judgment over youth and charisma.” But, Bush concludes, McCain didn’t handle “the challenge in a statesmanlike way.”
• Putin’s got a big dog: As Maureen Dowd noted in her Sunday column, Vladimir Putin once bragged to Bush that his dog was “bigger, stronger, and faster” than Bush’s beloved Barney.  “[You're] lucky he only showed you [the] dog,” Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, later told Bush.
• He was a “dissenting voice” on Iraq: Despite the rushed resolutions in Congress and the U.N., Bush  maintains he was reluctant to go to war and that he “didn’t want to use force” unless entirely necessary. That said …
• He also will not issue an apology for the Iraq war: “Apologizing would basically say the decision was a wrong decision,” he tells Lauer.

Ron Artest may seem like an odd choice for a series about sanity. After all, “sane” is just about the last word many would use to describe the Los Angeles Lakers forward whose career has been marred by controversy after self-imposed controversy. From brawling with fans to boozing at halftime to requesting time off to pursue a rap career, Artest has long established himself as one of basketball’s more bizarre figures.

On Friday, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade defended Bill O’Reilly’s recent Whoopi-walkout-inducing comments on “The View” (“Muslims killed us on 9/11″) by explaining that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.” The remark generated enough uproar that Kilmeade felt it necessary to make this terse apology today: