Return of Iran Uprising: Day 28

After more than a week of relative calm, the populus is back up in arms and the streets again filled with smoke and spattered with blood. Today was apparently an anniversary of a student uprising (EDIT: 1999 Student Protests).

Sullivan as always is as up-to-minute as possible. Including links now to Nico Pitney. Pitney's reporting indicates large crowds, larger than expected:

(via Robert Mackey): The regime assumed that with Khameni's speech last week forgiving the protesters, and arresting all the reporters and heads of reformist movement, the issue of unrest was resolved. Today's marches and protests are not supported by Mousavi, Khatami, and Karoubi. It is a grassroot uprising meant to let the Islamic regime know the people will not be silenced.

Makes one forget about... hmm, something about someone quitting somewhere (I've gotten to the point Re: That Crazy Lady's coverage is overdone, so I'm currently in the Ignore phase).

Stay Green.

CIA Lying to Congress? Color me Not So Shocked

Via Steve Benen at Washington Monthly (with MSNBC making big hay out of it last night to boot. Oh and the Bold highlights are mine):

In May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the CIA had misled Congress years ago on the use of waterboarding. Republicans were apoplectic -- the very idea that intelligence officials would mislead lawmakers was so despicable, some GOP leaders suggested Pelosi should resign. Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) said Pelosi had launched a "massive attack on our intelligence community," and added that it's "outrageous" for the Speaker to "call our terror-fighters liars." Newt Gingrich seriously argued that the Speaker's comments increased the risk of a terrorist attack against the United States.

The whole mess caused something of a media frenzy, and the Speaker's poll numbers tanked.

Perhaps it's time to revisit the question of whether the CIA has a tendency of being less than truthful with Congress.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed "significant actions" from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had "misled members" of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. "This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods," said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.

In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.'s alleged deceptions. But he said, "We wouldn't be doing this over a trivial matter."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) added that his committee "has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to." Spencer Ackerman, who was among the first to report on this (if not the first), has a copy of the full letter from the Democrats on the committee.

Aw, gee. Congress being lied to. Like that's never happened much before. /sarcasm

This is why I've posted an amendment idea to state "Lying is NOT Protected Speech" (Because some bastards interpreting the First Amendment seem to think lying is okay), and to state that any elected official or civil servant (basically ANYONE IN GOVERNMENT) caught lying be 1) suspended without pay, 2) investigated for the lies, and 3) removed and banned for life from government if proven there was intent to lie.

Palin Is Insane

Actually I'm just saying that so I can get sued by her lawyer. Bwhahahaha. Anything to increase interest in this blog...

But seriously, you have to ask WHY? Why did she resign her governorship? Why so sudden that it caught even her staff unprepared?

Best theories I can think of:

1) Palin genuinely wanted to leave the national spotlight. After months of public bashing, especially all the salacious stories about her kids, she's had enough. In this, I wouldn't blame Letterman, which was sooooo last month, but the more recent Vanity Fair article that painted such an unflattering light and exposed how unpopular she was getting inside her own state.
Problem with this theory: This doesn't entirely jibe with what we've seen of Palin's psyche, and with her ambition. Ambitious people don't quit like this: not haphazardly, always with a plan, always with something right there waiting for them that would be a bigger better prize. If this is true, a run for the Presidency is clearly out of the question, because a hostile primary contest against the other likely contenders (Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty) would be just as spiteful as what she's been getting this past year. So if this is Palin's reason for leaving now, then she's left for good, and there is no presidential run in her future...

2) Palin felt confined in the governorship job and felt resigning would free her to run a national campaign. Let's be realistic: Alaska is a sparsely populated state miles away from the country's centers of power (DC, NYC, LA, even Chicago and Atlanta). Anything she does of any merit wouldn't impact a whole lot of people, and other than basic management needs - improving schools, child care, and other social services that Republicans simply don't do - there's little reason to use Alaska as a state-level laboratory for policy innovations (too small a population to be useful). When she talked about being a "lame duck" during her resignation speech, this was partly what she's referring to: knowing that she wasn't going to run for a second term in 2010, there's nothing left at her job to hold her interest or provide opportunities to show off to the nation any leadership skills she thinks she has.
The other part of this theory is the idea that this frees her up to run a national campaign. It surely does: no more need to hang aboot Juneau, she can travel nationwide to fund-raise for herself and for others during midterms. She can get any number of gigs: big-ticket name for the guest speaker circuit; talk show on FOX (who else would take her?); lecturer/part-time college professor at a major poli-sci university; Las Vegas greeter; anything else that would appeal to her interests and keep her name on the front pages. She could argue that it would be unfair to split her time between governing and campaigning, and besides, others have quit before to focus on campaigns.
Problem with this theory: The certainty that she quit her governor job TOO SOON. Palin could well have waited until the 2010 midterms were over to see what the revamped landscape would be like, what the GOP fortunes would be like, and still have 2 full years to campaign hard for funds. As a popular figure for the Far Right, getting money should never be a problem (well, until her next gaffe...). As for being a "lame duck" even lame ducks can get things done during their last few months in office, by being proactive, by being effective, by getting members of her own party to join in efforts that would A) look good in the papers and B) show that she was still working hard for her paycheck. As for others who quit their jobs to focus on campaigning... that never really worked out well, for example Bob Dole's quitting the Senate so he could focus full-time on his 1996 Presidential campaign. And in Dole's case, he quit only after securing his nomination, after 20-plus years of effective leadership in the Senate and after proving his mad skills. Most people in politics who quit their job usually did so - like Obama quitting his Senate seat after November 2008 Election Day - because they'd won a higher office. Palin's sparse resume didn't give her the luxury of quitting what has been her highest-value job, one she's barely had for 2 years and quit on with another 1 1/2 years to go.
Palin's opponents are going to have a field day with this if she does run in the 2012 primaries. What are now the three major candidates - Romney, Huckabee and Pawlenty - don't have a problem looking like quitters: Romney declined to run a second term as Governor but still finished out his term; Huckabee's governorship started by finishing out his predecessor's term (guy was convicted of a felony and forced from office) and getting elected twice on his own, completing both terms; Pawlenty doesn't face term limits in his state, but is currently insisting to finish out his second term by 2010, leaving him two good years to fund-raise for the 2012 Presidential campaign.

3) There was a scandal coming. This was the first thought amongst Palin's critics, and the early circumstantial evidence pointed to it:

• Palin scheduled the press conference so suddenly that even local media rushing to the scene barely made it.
• Said conference was sparsely attended, her handlers apparently unable to round up a good-sized crowd to cheer her on such short notice.
• The speech Palin gave was best described as "rambling": relying too much on cliches that ran against each other; points being made that were never followed up later on in the speech; signs that the speech wasn't vetted or edited by professional speechwriters.
• The fact the speech was delivered on a Friday, traditionally known as a Dump Day when politicians simply 'dump' damaging facts/reports/notices because the mainstream media is set to take the whole weekend off (and what a weekend this was, Fourth of July when EVERYBODY including Mark Sanford sorry including the Comedy Central crew was going to be on vacation).
• The basic fact this was coming completely out of the blue: usually politicians send out feelers, drop hints, promote unusual legislation, start acting in certain ways that suggest moving on to other things, stuff like that. Local media - which is supposed to have their ears to the ground - hadn't been picking up any signs this was going to happen.

Combine all that with the fact Palin and her family (and in-laws) had faced and were facing a series of ethics probes and criminal charges. There was also a rumor (promptly denied by the FBI by the way) that Palin was facing federal indictments involving the company that built an expensive sports complex in Palin's hometown - it's this rumor that Palin's lawyer is threatening to sue people over. But considering Palin's seemingly hasty resignation, the rumor did deserve a quick review for debunking...
Problem with this theory: as Huckabee mentioned this Sunday, EVERYBODY at the state level gets hit with ethics probes, usually by disgruntled rivals looking for any means to drive you from office ("I had constant ethics complaints filed against me, even by newspaper editors, and a lot of it was because if they can’t attack you on policy...they just absolutely bombard you with personal attacks and keep you tied up in court...") Palin had for the most part survived most of the ethics challenges, although I think there's still one or two still under review. And that reported FBI probe into Palin's house supposedly built by the company that built her town's sports complex was debunked after a few phone calls. Unless there's a completely new scandal no one but Palin and a few others know about, this isn't the reason Palin's quitting...

4) Palin is batsh-t insane. Something in her ego simply told her to jump ship and swim for shore.
Problem with this theory: You'd think somebody in her family and circle of friends would check on her medications...

And thus did the GOP 2012 Doomwatch march on...

Iran: Clerical Group Challenges the Election

Via Sullivan via the NY Times, news is out that the the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom are calling the tainted presidential election illegitimate:

The editorial was written by Hossein Shariatmadari, who was picked by the supreme leader to run the newspaper.

The clerics’ statement chastised the leadership for failing to adequately study complaints of vote rigging and lashed out at the use of force in crushing huge public protests.

It even directly criticized the Guardian Council, the powerful group of clerics charged with certifying elections.

“Is it possible to consider the results of the election as legitimate by merely the validation of the Guardian Council?” the association said.

Perhaps more threatening to the supreme leader, the committee called on other clerics to join the fight against the government’s refusal to adequately reconsider the charges of voter fraud. The committee invoked powerful imagery, comparing the 20 protesters killed during demonstrations with the martyrs who died in the early days of the revolution and the war with Iraq, asking other clerics to save what it called “the dignity that was earned with the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs.”

What does this mean? It means Rafsanjani's finally gotten at least one group of clerics to openly criticize Khamenei and his ilk. Past that, this is still a long slog ahead. Khamenei is not about to back down (he's gotten to the point where any admission of "Oops, shouldn't have done that" is gonna collapse his own little empire). But this also gives the protesters in Iran hope...

Well, You Won't Have Sarah Palin To Kick Around Anymore...

...at least not until she thinks the coast is clear for 2012... Somewhere in Hell Nixon is smiling...

Palin's resignation from the governor's job in Alaska came completely out of the blue. Sure, the past month for her has been a bit tabloid-ish, what with all the battles with David Letterman and all, leading up to the Vanity Fair article that painted her in the most unflattering way possible, and with renewed chatter about how she contributed to an imploding McCain presidency run. But of the Republican Governors having a bad week or two, Palin wasn't really in the running: Sanford (Remember, Mark, Michael Jackson Died For You) and Schwarzenegger were better bets to use this Friday dump day to run screaming for their lives.

Instead, Palin quickly announces that she'd be making a statement this afternoon. Immediate thoughts were that she was A) openly responding to the Vanity Fair article, or B) openly beginning a primary run for the Republican Presidential ticket for 2012. Then word leaked that she was leaving the governor's job.

And then she had the presser. The best word to describe it is "rambling." The only ones viewing this as a shrewd career move are Bill Kristol and Kathryn Lopez... and those two aren't exactly the wisest or learned of the Villagers. When the Ace of Spades guy is saying you're toast, you're toast.

'Cause Palin's big job has been this governorship. She's only had this one term, and she's not even finishing it. Being Mayor of Wasilla may lead you to Juneau, but that alone doesn't lead to the White House. If she was willing to just finish this one term, it wouldn't look bad. But this... she's QUITTING before her job's even supposed to be done, breaking her 4-year lease with the people of her state of Alaska. How is this gonna compare to others in the running for 2012, especially Romney or Huckabee? Even if she was quitting just to immediately focus on a campaign for 2012, it wouldn't look good. 2012 is THREE YEARS down the road, more than enough time to pace herself as Governor AND Candidate, get the ball rolling while focusing on duties at home until 2010, yadda yadda.

The chatter now is that for Palin to resign so suddenly, and in such a haphazard manner, suggests that a massive scandal (bigger than Sanford???) was coming down the pipeline. Schadenfreude doesn't entirely cover this just yet, because there's still too many questions (especially WHY?) to be satisfied in any way about this.

And Sanford still hasn't really dodged a bullet, even though for a second I considered that possibility. Sanford now combines with Palin as part of a newly growing meme: the GOP Candidate Doomwatch. Which potential 2012 Candidate is gonna ruin his/her chances next?

Iran. The Twitters Have Dwindled. The Streets May Be Calm...

...but there's still outrage among the Iranian population. It's just we are seeing the signs of the theocratic junta's willingness to outlast and overwhelm the peoples' anger. Sorta like "We'll see who rusts first," where in the short-term the Khamenei hard-liner faction survives. But in the long term, it all depends on how well Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and their cronies can pay off the Revolutionary Guard. People's support for the regime will be as slight as possible. It also depends on the back-room politics still in effort: rumors abound that Rafsanjani is working overtime to get enough clerics to turn against Khamenei.

Meanwhile, Iran's hatred of the British spilled over into a game of diplomatic brinkmanship, each country expelling or recalling ambassadors, and Iranians arresting UK staff. While it doesn't change much - Europe's general outrage isn't going to frighten a mullah class that hates the West already - it does escalate the isolation Iran is going to be getting from the rest of the world over this election sham.

And so, we turn our attention to Honduras. Aw dammit, not Central America AGAIN! You'd think they'd have fixed their "free dictatorship" systems decades ago...!

Battleground Iran, Day 13

From what I'm seeing from the Sullivan livetweets, and also from Nico Pitney's updates (he's a must-read on this as well), the violence in the streets is getting worse, and it's not just one-way as it looks as though the protesters are pushing back.

The pro-Khamenei/Amhadinejad people are moving forward on an 'official' inauguration by next month, clearly confident that they will prevail in this, but Nico's reporting that more than half of the Parliament members invited to a celebration snubbed the event (180 MPs did not show out of 290), clearly showing a deep split at the higher echelons of the Iranian government. I really doubt a lot of people outside of the Revolutionary Guard will show up for such an inauguration... heck, they might be a little busy elsewhere at the time...

Baharestan Square, Iran

Reports of a massacre.

If wishes were horses... A wish to get in Khamenei's face for five minutes, and explain to him how he's already lost the Iranian people, that with every dead body there's family members and friends who will rise up, that sooner rather than later the regular army is going to rebel because it's their brothers and sisters dying in the streets, that he needs to stop the violence himself, that there are other ways... But it's too late now. There are no wish-granting djinn, there is no way some shmuck like me could wrangle a visit, there is no one who can talk sense into a dictator once he's got bloodlust in his heart.

Quick asides to other issues of the day

Having blogged constantly about Iran lately, I'd like to take a moment to look about at the rest of the political sphere of activity and make a few comments:

* The whole Obama-Asked-Nico issue is a non-story. As staged set-up questions go, this doesn't rise to the level of that whole Gannon fiasco. One, Nico Pitney is a real editor/reporter working for a real news/politics blog. Two, Nico posted beforehand he was going to the Obama presser to ask a question emailed to him from an Iranian. Odds are Obama and/or his staff saw that and knew it was coming away. And Three, considering how screwed up the Mainstream Media is nowadays, why NOT ask a blogger?

* I vaguely recall once thinking South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford could have made a decent Veep candidate for McCain in 2008. But then he had that brainfart on national television where he couldn't recall a single good thing McCain did as a Senator. And then when Obama pushed for a stimulus package that went towards funding projects at the state level, Sanford openly fought it trying to score political points on the national stage. Problem was, his OWN STATE REPUBLICANS fought back BECAUSE THE STATE NEEDED THE MONEY (personally, I have met people moving from South Carolina to Florida because the job market in SC is worse than in FL... what the hell?). And now, Sanford got caught disappearing for roughly six days. Lemme count each point out on this one:

• Sanford ditches his own security detail.
• Sanford doesn't alert his own Lt. Governor that he's going off for the weekend, and doesn't leave instructions or a telephone number in case of emergency. Basically, leaving South Carolina leaderless for what turned out to be six days.
• Sanford leaves his wife and kids at home. Doesn't let his wife know where he's going.
• Sanford is gone during Father's Day, basically ignoring his four sons. Nice Family Values gesture there, boss.
• Sanford's staff claims they don't know where he is.
• Sanford's cell phone is traced to being used in Atlanta before he completely vanishes. Officials find someone who spotted him boarding a flight at the airport.
• Sanford's staff then claims he's gone hiking on the Appalachian Trial. Problem is, that's 2,000 miles and 11 states long.
• Sanford finally returns Wednesday. And it turns out his staff lied - or he lied to his staff - about where he was. Sanford had gone to Argentina (!). Odder still, the U.S. embassy in Argentina didn't know, noting it was odd for any elected official not to check in with them.
  

There's about five things wrong here. One: Sanford basically abandoned his post without securing any emergency plans to cover his absence. Two: He doesn't even tell his own family where he's going. Three: People have lied at some point - either Sanford or his staff, maybe both - about where he went. Four: He went overseas to do something, but we can't be sure of what. Five: At any point of this going on, no one on Sanford's side of the situation showed any sign of common sense.
And Sanford is acting like he's going to run for President in 2012? Not if he's acting crazier than Palin.

UPDATE: Sanford just had a press announcement. He wasn't hiking. He wasn't in a fugue state (where a person under stress suddenly goes atraveling and doesn't snap out of it until he/she is in Mexico or in this case Argentina). And he wasn't "Going Galt".
Sanford was off on a f-ck run.
He's apparently resigning as head of the Republican Governors Association or some such thing (does that leave Crist or the Governator in charge? I mean, other than Palin and Jindal, who's left?). He ought to be resigning from a few other things, especially his job. Idiot didn't think his overseas journey through, did he? If he was smarter, or craftier, he'd have left the Lt. Gov in charge, at least pretend to go to hiking, and bring his Argentinian girlfriend to him to a secluded lakeside cabin in North Carolina or something. Sheesh. Instead, he pulls this crap, forcing everyone to question what, when, why, where and who, basically forcing himself to admit to this affair. IDIOT.
Also, running off for some nookie ON FATHER'S DAY??? I don't think his kids should have to get him any more Father's Days presents ever again.

* It seems rather crazy that the Democrats are gonna try for bipartisanship on the healthcare reform and environment reform bills they're trying to pass when the Republican side is offering no concessions and want to force the Democrats to water their own bills down into non-relevance.

* I've tried to get my parents to rely on more than one news source - and they do read the two local papers but I don't think that closely - but I'm catching them watching Glenn Beck. I can handle them watching the other Fox Not-News talking heads, especially since my dad did admit that O'Reilly was a blowhole, but BECK??? As such, my parents are highly miffed about the Walpin firing, during one dinner visit I basically just sat there and nodded and hummed while they griped at how partisan the firing was. Then I went and checked online through various other websites and news sources about this. TPM had a decent concise review I'm linking here. Where the Far Right is yelling conspiracy and investigation and criminal charges, a more balanced review showed that both sides were in the wrong: Obama is apparently supposed to give Congress notice to any IG firing; Walpin's conduct during the AmeriCorps/Kevin Johnson probe was questionable and partisan enough to have others involved in the investigation (especially US Attorney Lawrence Brown) complain about it. Mom, Dad... Obama may have screwed up the firing, but Walpin ain't a martyr.

Now, back to your previously scheduled Iran updates.