If Only There Was An Opposition Political Party

The Weekly Standard reports:

An Iranian journalist writing about the nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran has defected. In an interview Amir Hossein Motaghi, has some harsh words for his native Iran. He also has a damning indictment of America's role in the nuclear negotiations.

“The U.S. negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal," Motaghi told a TV station after just defecting from the Iranian delegation while abroad for the nuclear talks. The P 5 + 1 is made up of United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, plus Germany.

Sounds like treason, except for the "black guys who look out for big corporate interests" exception to the treason law.  If only Republicans wanted to pursue their partisan interests, they would be opening impeachment hearings.  I am glad that I don't live somewhere likely to be attacked; Iran is  going to nuke the areas with strong liberal populations, and they are going to be astounded that their president assisted in their own destruction.

To their credit, French gays are beginning to support  the National Front:

Beauvais France ((AFP) - Sebastien Chenu, a former gay activist, does not seem a typical member of France's far-right National Front (FN), a party accused of deeply reactionary views with a history of homophobia.

"The National Front is the only party whose leader is a woman and its deputy leader is gay," he points out over a glass of Chablis in Beauvais, the northern town where he is standing as a candidate in local elections this week.

Despite opposing same-sex marriage and touting traditional family values, Chenu says the FN under leader Marine Le Pen is actually more open to minorities than mainstream parties.

"Marine Le Pen represents a sort of absolute freedom in a political world that is very policed, where everyone resembles each other. She has come in and shaken things up," he says.

But it is not long into talking with Chenu that the limits of that freedom become apparent.

Asked about Muslims and Roma migrants, Chenu quickly reverts to common FN tropes.

Roma "poison the daily life of Parisians"; immigrants "reproduce cultures that destabilise areas of towns... It's not for us to integrate them, it's for them to assimilate themselves," he says.

Gay support for the FN is rising: a recent Ifop poll showed 26 percent of homosexuals in Paris supported the party, compared with 16 percent of heterosexuals.

I suspect the throwing gay people off buildings thing is beginning to cause French gays to reconsider the merits of replacing Frenchmen with Muslims.