so wait... now we're OUTSOURCING assassination attempts?

The CIA has a long and glorious history of flouting international law by engaging in state-sponsored assassinations. (Apparently, those crazy folks at the United Nations think that people, EVEN people the U.S. government doesn't particularly like, deserve a fair trial before being summarily executed.) So, when Leon Panetta finally told Congress that the CIA had been developing plans to assassinate senior Al Qaeda operatives since 2001, it really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. However, news broke yesterday that the CIA had actually hired Blackwater USA (yes, that Blackwater USA) to assist with these attempts to locate and kill high-level terrorists. That's right, the CIA is now outsourcing assassinations.

Furthermore, this was all part of a "top secret" operation--so secret, in fact, that Cheney ordered that it had to be kept hidden from lawmakers (you know, like the ones on the Congressional Intelligence Committee). Yet, despite falling into the Bush administration's grossly expanded category of things that must be concealed from the legislature, the CIA, in its infinite wisdom, decided that large parts of this ultra-secret plan could not only be revealed to but also carried out by a private corporation with an (at best) contentious human rights record.

albany gets back to work - or why state government really doesn't need more power

After a five-week standoff between Republicans and Democrats (two Democratic defections left both parties with 31 members, an evidently untenable situation in state politics) in the New York Senate, the legislature returned to work yesterday. What brilliant compromise led to the resumption of government during the worst economic crisis this country has seen since the Great Depression? None. Instead, one of the idiots who defected in the first place, Pedro Espada, Jr., returned to the Democratic fold. The best part? In the new leadership structure, Mr. Espada will serve as majority leader. (Don't worry, that might not actually mean anything in state politics. But apparently it was enough to convince Mr. Espada to return the Democrats rather than face marginalization a proposed power-showering agreement between one Democratic faction and the Republican party).

The debacle in the New York Senate is merely the most vivid recent illustration (the very fact that Sarah Palin managed to be elected governor of an entire state was probably enough for me) of why transferring more power to the states might not be the brilliant idea Republicans make it out to be. (Or, you know, used to make it out to be until they discovered the wonderful uses of a large government, like unlimited military spending). Throw in Governor Sanford's mysterious week-long disappearance (later, he admitted, due to an affair with an Argentinian woman) and Governor Palin's puzzling resignation (as far as anyone could gather from her rambling speech, the perseverance of the military inspired her to step down in the face of adversity, or at least in the face of bad press and the prospect of being a lame duck governor) and it's a wonder anyone could support shifting more power to this set of politicians. The federal government is not, obviously, the model of brilliance and efficiency (but, then again, as we've all learned in recent months, neither is the private sector), but it is increasingly clear that it remains far superior to state legislatures, at least in terms of marginal functionality.

"death to the dictator"

After an 11-day lull, thousands of Iranians took to the streets again (despite numerous threats of retribution springing from the reigning regime) to commemorate the tenth anniversary student uprising of 1999. At the time, the riots, in response to hundreds of basiji storming the University of Tehran after a reformist demonstration, posed the greatest challenge to the government since the Islamic Revolution. Naturally, those tremors pale in comparison to today's persisting turmoil in the wake of the contested election.

Sadly, the Iranian government appeared to be as good as its word. In the midst of regime's continuing rhetoric about the foreign media agitators (whose journalists have conveniently been banned from the country), it has continued to crack down ever more brutally on those who dare to continue to protest. The demonstrators were greeted with hoards of riot police and basiji militiamen who beat them back with batons, tear gas and gun butts. The government seems determined not to back down -- but every night millions of Iranians continue to climb to their roof tops to shout "Allah'u Akbar" (a la 1979 Islamic Revolution).

more clerics break with khamanei

Despite the increasing crackdown on the opposition (complete with alleged confessions of top reformists officials), a prominent group of religious leaders, Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, declared the contentious election and the new government to be illegitimate yesterday. Furthermore, the released statement went on to call upon other mullahs to stand against the election results and likened the 20 protesters killed during the opposition demonstrators to the martyrs who died for the cause of the Islamic Revolution. The group not only directly defied the rule of Ayatollah Khamanei, whose word is supposed to reign supreme, but also continued to strengthen the allegorical connection between today's reformers and those of the Islamic Revolution (and, by logical, extension between today's government and that of the Shah). Naturally, the group in question has no real political power, but the symbolic significance of this act should not be overlooked -- the fact that an Association created by Khomanei himself has now turned against his successor is momentous indeed.

Meanwhile, of course, the Iranian government continues its increasingly ludicrous attempts to paint Mousavi as an American agent. Today, the Kayhan newspaper published a damning editorial in which its editor-in-chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, accused Mousavi of "terrible crimes," including murdering innocent people, holding riots, co-operating with foreigners and acting as America's fifth column." Such an editorial (despite its appearance in one of Iran's most prominent newspapers) is unlikely to actually sway anyone's views, especially given the close relationship between Shariatmadari and Khamanei. However, it does serve as an increasingly overt threat that the Iranian government intends to arrest Mousavi if he continues his steadfast refusal to back down.

another abortion exception

The wonderful thing about the technological advances of the last 100 years or so is that the private words of our former presidents can be preserved for posterity. Or for the renewed humiliation of the American public decades after these men have left office. Of course, Nixon (with his paranoid penchant for recording his own criminal dealings) probably takes the cake in terms of providing a virtually unlimited amount of increasingly embarrassing insights into his private thoughts. The latest, of course, emerge from 150 hours of newly released Oval Office tapes in which our 37th presidents discusses his ambivalent feelings about Roe v. Wade:

There are times when an abortion is necessarily. I know that. When you have a black and a white. [Pause] Or a rape.

Can't wait for the release of the George W. Bush White House text messages.

if there were a major breach, we could annul the election--thank allah THAT didn't happen

The Guardian Council (unsurprisingly) declared that it would not nullify the vote. Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesperson for the Council, offered the following reassurance:

If a major breach occurs in an election, the Guardian Council may annul the votes that come out of a particular affected ballot box, polling station, district, or city. Fortunately, in the recent presidential election we found no witness of major fraud or breach in the election.

Well, that's a relief... Because some people might have thought that the voting discrepancy of 3 million in 50 cities that the government actually admitted might qualify as a "major breach" in "a particular affected ballot box, polling station, district, or city."

a method to khamanei's madness?

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the events in Iran is the increasingly bizarre behavior of the Guardian Council and Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, beginning, of course, the decision to tamper with the election in the first place. The Iranian government is not typically in the habit of directly rigging elections (after all, the "republic" bit of the Islamic Republic of Iran conveniently grants the Guardian Council the "responsibility" of weeding potential candidates who are not sufficiently committed to the cause). Furthermore, Mir-Hossein Mousavi was more or less greeted as the poor man's version of the more charasmatic Khatami, the reformist former president of Iran from 1997 to 2005 who bowed out of the 2009 election. Evidently, however, the Green Wave appeared to have attracted sufficient fervor to transform the unlikely Mousavi into a symbol threatening to justify rigging the election.

Yet more surprising still is the decision to pair the increasingly violent crackdown on the opposition protests with the admission that there were substantial "irregularities" (to the tune of 3 million votes or so) in the voting process. While this appears to be an attempt to tow some sort of middle ground, it is impossible to imagine that the Iranian government actually believes that admitting to such widespread (and almost certainly intentional) fraud will do anything other than bolster the opposition's resolve by further delegitimizing the election.