Argo

I finally saw Argo this weekend at the AFI. It's about the Iranian hostage crisis in the late seventies, Ben Affleck directed and starred. It's a very well made movie accurately that recreates the street protests and violence in Iran at the time. The movie focuses on six foreign service employees that escaped the U.S. embassy when it was attacked by protesters. The six hide out in the Canadian Ambassador's house where C.I.A operative Tony Mendez finds them in order to get them out of the contry. There is incredible tension created in scenes at the Tehran airport where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard interrogates Mendez and the six americans. Mendez plans to get the americans out by giving them fake identities as Canadian film scouts for a movie called Argo. I won't reveal anything else, but suffice it to say the movie is very good and I reccomend it.

I was very impressed when in the narration at the beginning, it was admitted that the violent and chaotic situation in Iran was due to a coup funded by the U.S. in the fifties which deposed a democratically elected leader in favor of a repressive monarchy all in the interest of cheap oil. However, throughout the movie, more mainstream views about Iran developed. By the end of the movie, the Revolutionary Guard are villians and nothing more. Because of this it is important to remember that the culpability of the hostage crisis, and even the entire violent ismlamist uprising sits squarely in the hands of the United States.

                                                                        
Ben Affleck as Mendez

The Fiscal Cliff

For a long time I really did not understand what was going on with the fiscal cliff that was all over the news recently. I think that now that it has passed I have some limited understanding, here's what I have learned:
This supposed crisis centered around three things that were scheduled to happen on the new year. First, the Bush tax cuts were going to end, this would raise taxes on all americans and significantly shrink the amount of spending money in the pockets of middle class people. This would have been a bad thing, however what the President wanted to do was to extend the tax cuts for people of all incomes but the top one or two percent. This would keep most people from being affected by the change and would increase revenue for the government. Second, a sequester was planned to take place, this meant that $1.2 trillon would be cut from the federal budget. This was agreed on as a cocession to republicans during the debt ceiling negotiations last year and would have damaged losts of government programs like Medicare and Social Security. Finally, the estate tax was set to expire. This is a tax on large inheritances. There were other things that were also being negotiated such as unemployment benefits and the capital gains tax, but these three were the most important. If left unchecked, it was pretty clear that these deadlines would shrink the economy significantly.
After lots and lots of negotiating, dealing, and backstabbing an agreement was reached, but not till after the new year. This means we did actually go over the fiscal cliff, but nothing really happened. A few days after the new year congress passed a deal agreed upon by Mitch McConnel and Joe Biden. This deal continued the tax cuts for everyone making less than $450,000, continued the estate tax at 40% for inheritances over $5 million, and delayed the sequester for two months. This deal was generally liked by all involved and so there wasn't much trouble putting it through Congress even though Eric Cantor and other conservative republicans threatened to block it. It does, however mean that there will be more negotiations in two months over the sequester, so it's not over yet.



John Boehner