Friday miscellany! (DailyKos's decline, Panamanian law enforcement, Mandarose, and other goodies!)

• Panamanian officials have arrested a CIA station chief who is wanted in Italy for the disappearance of an Imam in Milan in 2003. To be honest, I'm surprised that more people haven't been arrested for our shenanigans during the War On Terror. Not to mention, by the way, the Cold War.....


• Opponents of Texas's anti-abortion law promise to file a lawsuit to strike down the law. Of course they do - and here's what will happen. The law will be stricken by the courts as a blatant violation of Roe and Webster. Texas will appeal. Several appeals later, we will have a Federal Court of Appeals precedent that can be used in other states. Eventually, two appellate courts will disagree, and SCOTUS will have to take up the question of whether the states can ban elective abortion after 20 weeks (which they most certainly can, per Roe) and whether they can make it practically illegal for clinics to operate. That second question has the pro-choice movement scared to death. If I had to guess right now, the present court would rule 5 to 4 that the states cannot put onerous regulations on abortion clinics - but that depends on Kennedy.


• Anti-Putin blogger turned Russian opposition leader navalny is free while his conviction is under appeal after intense international pressure. Unsurprisingly, he has posted about it (awful translation).


• I slowed down political blogging on LiveJournal after 2008, as my long-time readers know. My reasons for doing this were twofold: first everybody had moved to FaceBook, and second, DailyKos was doing a much better job than I could. Well, both of those factors have changed. In the case of FaceBook, I have come to the realization that excessive posting of interesting articles, memes, and so on, is actually really annoying and not condusive to keeping up my relationships with friends and family. In the case of DailyKos, it's because most of the good bloggers have either left for greener pastures or been driven away by mob mentality, and the rest have descended into mindless cheerleading for the Obama administration. We deserve better than that.


• By the way, many of these same criticisms apply to MSNBC.


• Tonight, Mandarose (2) premieres. My friend C was the assistant director for this project, and has a cameo as well. I worked on this project as a PA, and through that made friends with both Josie Newhall and Mandy Anderson. Tonight's showing is sold out, but there's a second one on July 24th. Hope you can make it!

Harry Reid, Abortion, and Being Blind to Symbolism.

Harry Reid has agreed that a vote on a ban on abortions after 20 weeks can go ahead in the United States Senate.

Realistically, this measure will never pass. There aren't enough Democratic votes in the Senate. If there were, Obama would never sign it.

But after Texas's battle over a similar ban, the GOP was effectively re-branding themselves as the Coat Hanger Party. At least, they were, until the Senate Majority Leader decided to give the GOP some cover.

Stupid move, Harry.