A DAY OF DESTINY FOR IRAN

Mass Rallies Planned, Violent Crackdown Expected
"I Will Participate In The Demonstrations... Maybe They Will Turn Violent.
Maybe I Will Be One Of The People Who Is Going To Get Killed..."

Poem for the Rooftops of Iran - June 19th, 2009

Khamenei tells Mousavi to toe the line over election or be cast out

Ella Flaye in Tehran, Catherine Philp and Martin Fletcher
The moderate Iranian leader who says that he was robbed of victory in last week’s presidential election faces a fateful choice today: support the regime or be cast out.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has told Mir Hossein Mousavi to stand beside him as he uses Friday prayers at Tehran University to call for national unity. An army of Basiji — Islamic volunteer militiamen — is also expected to be bussed in to support the Supreme Leader.
The demand was made at a meeting this week with representatives of all three candidates who claim that the poll was rigged, and it puts Mr Mousavi on the spot. He has become the figurehead of a popular movement that is mounting huge demonstrations daily against the “theft” of last Friday’s election by President Ahmadinejad, the ayatollah’s protégé.
Mr Mousavi, 67, is a creature of the political Establishment — a former revolutionary and prime minister who would like to liberalise Iranian politics but has never challenged the system in the way his followers are doing. It was unclear last night what he would do or even whether the protests would die away if he backed down. Yesterday tens of thousands of demonstrators packed into the Imam Khomeini Square in Tehran — named after the founder of the Islamic Republic — for another massive rally, this one to mourn protesters killed in Monday’s clashes with pro-government militias.
Men, women and children from all backgrounds came dressed in black, with green wristbands, the colour of the Mousavi campaign, and staged a two-hour vigil. Some held banners bearing the names or pictures of the dead, and placards proclaiming “My martyred brother, we will get back your vote” or “We have not had people killed to compromise and accept a doctored ballot box”.
There was near silence until Mr Mousavi arrived with his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, and the throng broke into chants of “Mousavi! We support you!” With almost ecstatic fervour, the traditional lament for Shia Islam’s most important martyr, “Ya Hussein! was answered by the defeated presidential candidate’s forenames “Mir Hossein! LinkHere

Fox News Complains About ABC's "Unprecedented Access," Ignores Their Own

Karl Rove says that what ABC is doing has never been done before! Sean Hannity claims journalism is dead! Gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, vows to run counterprogramming, loud noises!
But, of course, this whole thing is ridiculous. Didn't Fox News enjoyed "unprecedented access" to the the White House during the presidency of George W. Bush? And wasn't that access so unprecedented that Bret Baier, of Fox News, stood in front of teevee cameras, declaring it to be unprecedented? And didn't Baier get to go mountain biking with President Bush and fly around on Air Force One and stuff? And didn't Fox also get "unprecedented access" to the Vice President as well? Jesus, wasn't it only weeks ago that NBC News had unprecedented access to the White House, where they all bought hamburgers and plugged Conan O'Brien's move to the Tonight Show? Yes, of course, all these things are true. But here's a mashup video from Daily Kos, that shows the total absurdity of these claims that ABC is getting "unprecedented access" to the White House. LinkHere

Must be a case of "It’s Okay If You’re Fox News."

Anyway, maybe now everyone can drop the whole issue of unprecedented territorial pissing and maybe do an analysis of health care reform policy on the merits, which would actually be without precedent!

Ohhhhh that is good, the ghouls are out in force, ranting and raving

Night of the living neocons
The shameless fools whose Iraq folly empowered Iran's hard-liners are back, smearing Obama as an appeaser

June 18, 2009 Like Rasputin, the unhinged "Mad Monk" whom they sometimes seem to have adopted as an intellectual role model, the neoconservatives who brought us the Iraq war refuse to die. Although they have been figuratively stabbed, poisoned, shot, garroted and drowned, they somehow keep standing, still insisting that history will vindicate George W. Bush's glorious crusade. In a world governed by the Victorian moral code conservatives claim to uphold, they would be shunned, shamed and forbidden to appear on television or write Op-Ed columns. But because Beltway decorum apparently requires that disgraced pundits be given a permanent platform to bray their discredited theories, the rest of us are condemned to listen to their ravings.
What caused the neocons and their fellow travelers on the right to sit up in their coffins this time is the almost certainly rigged Iran election and the massive unrest that has roiled the country in its aftermath. Outraged that Obama has not behaved like their hero Bush and begun loudly rattling his saber, the neocons have denounced him as -- you guessed it -- an appeaser. In a piece titled "Obama's Iran Abdication," the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, that bastion of unreconstructed neocon lunacy, attacked Obama for not supporting the Iranian protesters more vigorously and derided his "now-familiar moral equivalence" in citing the 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled Iranian leader Mohammad Mossadegh. In an Op-Ed two days earlier, the paper's Visigothic editors, who have been calling for the U.S. to bomb Iran for years, took the opportunity to climb into the Wayback Machine to pay homage to one of George W. Bush's greatest hits. "It turns out that the 'axis of evil' really is evil -- and not, as liberal sages would have it, merely misunderstood," sneered the editors, suggesting that the crackdown should make Obama rethink trying to strike a grand nuclear bargain with Iran.
In his own attack on Obama, Sen. John McCain also rushed to resurrect Bush's Axis of Evil line, saying, "Look, these people are bad people and I know that it was unpopular to call them part of an axis of evil or whatever it was, but we just showed again that an oppressive regime will not allow democratic elections, free and democratic elections."
Neocon stalwart Danielle Pletka also made a not-so-subtle attempt to use the turmoil in Iran to justify Bush's invasion of Iraq. In a piece in the New York Times, she and fellow American Enterprise Institute pundit Ali Alfoneh wrote, "Encircled by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, besieged from within by disgruntled citizens, the supreme leader has turned to a bellicose strongman to preserve the system that elevated him." Earth to Pletka: George W. Bush is not president anymore, and even if he still was, the U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are not going to attack Iran. It would be more accurate to say that the soon-to-depart U.S. troops in Iraq are encircled by Iranian forces than the other way around.
The nadir of neocon idiocy, however, may be a piece by Robert Kagan that appeared in Wednesday's Washington Post. Titled "Obama, Siding With the Regime," it argues that because Obama wants to begin negotiations with Iran as soon as possible and does not want to appear "hostile to the regime," his "goal must be to deflate the opposition, not to encourage it." In other words, Kagan is saying that Obama would prefer to rush into a deal with a repressive, anti-Western Iranian regime than do what he is in fact doing, which is to recognize that U.S. meddling is counterproductive and wait and see what government emerges from Iran's current turmoil. That Kagan adduces no evidence for his bizarre assertion is hardly surprising, because there is none. Kagan's real purpose is to smear Obama as a craven appeaser, and the only way he can do that is to paint a ludicrously crude caricature of Obama and the foreign-policy realism he has embraced. LinkHere

CA GOP Voter Registration Firm Head Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud

Source: BRAD BLOG, LA Times
Head of CA GOP Voter Registration Firm Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud
FLASHBACK VIDEO: Brad covers arrest with 'Fox News Alert' on FNC last October amidst phony ACORN brouhaha...
What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item...
The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation.
Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address.
And what they didn't bother to mention in that story?...Amongst other things, the fact that Jacoby and Young Political Majors were hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state...
FULL STORY, FLASHBACK VIDEO: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7237
Read more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7237

‘US officials linked to AQ Khan’s N-network’

Source: Express Buzz
WASHINGTON: Top US officials allowed Pakistan in the 1980s to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons and were aware that the A Q Khan nuclear network was violating American laws, a US based watchdog has told the US Congress, citing a former CIA whistleblower.
Danielle Brian, executive director of Project on Government Oversight, told a Senate panel that CIA officer Richard Barlow, who then worked for the Pentagon, was fired for suggesting that the Congress should be made aware of the situation relating to Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
...
“The brave, honest public servants deserve better than this second-class system.” Bringing up Barlow’s findings, Brian said that working as a CIA counter-proliferation intelligence officer in the 1980s, he learned that “top US officials were allowing Pakistan to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons, and that the A Q Khan nuclear network was violating US laws”.
...
“Top officials at the DoD (Department of Defence) continued to lie about Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Barlow objected and suggested to his supervisors that Congress should be made aware of the situation. Because Barlow merely suggested that Congress should know the truth, Barlow was fired,” she said. LinkHere

If you don't freeze them, no more money, no more weapons

Lieberman to Clinton: Israel won't freeze settlements

Source: Haaretz
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday that Israel could not accept the Obama administration's demand to "completely" halt activity in West Bank settlements.
"We have no intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria," Lieberman said during his talks with the secretary of state in Washington. "Everywhere people are born, people die, and we cannot accept a vision of stopping completely the settlements. We have to keep the natural growth."
...Clinton reiterated that the U.S. viewed a total settlement freeze as "important and essential" step toward achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
She said that special Mideast envoy George Mitchell would look at a "number of critical concerns" regarding settlements. LinkHere

On Health Care, Americans Trust Obama And Dems Far More Than GOP: Poll

When it comes to reforming the U.S. health care system, Americans are more confident in Barack Obama (58%) and Congressional Democrats (42%) than Congressional Republicans (34%), according to a Gallup Poll released today.
Of the eight prominent health care actors, Republicans are least trusted, behind even insurance companies, who have garnered 35% of the nation's trust.
According to the study, doctors hold the confidence vote by a notable margin, winning over 73% of Americans, ahead of health care professors and researchers, at 62%.
The results come two days after President Obama delivered a major speech to the American Medical Association, pitching his reform agenda. The AMA, an influential lobby comprising of doctors, has thus far been hesitant to support the president's public health care alternative.
Also today, Republicans in Congress released their counter-proposal to the Democratic health care plan. As reported by Roll Call, it's pretty thin: LinkHere

Ensign Quits Senate Leadership Post After Admitting Affair

Ensign Mistress's Son Was Paid By GOP Senate Committee During Affair

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada has stepped down from his leadership post one day after admitting he carried on a marital affair with a woman who was on his campaign staff.
Ensign conveyed his decision in a phone call with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who said he had accepted the resignation.
Ensign was chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking spot in the leadership.
He remained away from the Capitol during the day, and aides declined to answer additional questions about the affair.
A timeline issued Tuesday said Ensign was involved in a "consensual affair" from December, 2007 through August, 2008. There has been no indication of why the senator decided to announce his infidelity when he did.

Former Waterboarders Join The Ranks Of The Unemployed (And The Rest Of Your Scritti Politti)

ALWQB

Ten Dollars says these guys used to pick on small animals when they were children.

Remind you of anyone else, the one that resided in the White House for eight years.
And you know another thing, away from the subject. About Iran it is hard to tell the difference in the 2000 election of Georgie to the White house , or Ahmadinejad in Iran in 2009. Georgie was selected by the supreme court in 2000, and Ahmadinejad was selected by Khamenei in 2009.
I sure as hell wish there was a revolution in 2000, and we would have been spared the war in Iraq a Sovereign Nation, Guantanimo, Torture, Katrina, and a World Wide Economy collapse

Ryoki
Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen
Soon to be on Fox news, or have a book out and a speaking tour. The real criminals in our country are not punished. Their made into celebrities.

Ahh, this recession. It's brought so many people so much misery, what with the rampant unemployment and the fact that we're all not eligible for TARP bailouts, for some reason. But I wonder who will spare a thought for the recently unemployed waterboarding experts? You've heard of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, right? One day, they're straight up dunking terrorists, to find ticking time bombs. The next, they're just like everyone else, hunting for a job! The CIA has reportedly cut its ties to the two psychologists credited for being the architects of the CIA's brutal interrogation program after 9/11, a news report said yesterday. Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen, who suggested and supervised waterboarding at secret prisons around the world have been told their services are no longer needed. Mitchell and Jessen, according to their associates, boasted of being paid $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the use of the technique on top al Qaeda suspects.
Boasted! Hey, you would too! All that scrilla was "largely tax-free and did not include expenses, which the agency also paid for."
Nice work if you can get it, though you shouldn't be able to, because it's completely deranged!
LinkHere

Holder Wants As "Complete A Report" On Bush Lawyers As Possible

Attorney General Eric Holder restated his intention on Wednesday to release a comprehensive report, declassified to the fullest extent, on the legal advice provided by the Bush administration in its authorization of enhanced interrogation techniques.
Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder said that delays in releasing the findings of the Office of Professional Responsibility's (OPR) investigation into former President George W. Bush's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) was the result of administrative obstacles and not political foot-dragging or objections from the CIA
"No it is not," he said, when asked if CIA interference was a factor in delaying the publication of the OPR report.
"It is our hope to release as complete a report as we can," Holder said. "And one of the things that I think we want to do is declassify as much of this report as we can so that when people read it... they will have a full feeling for what it is, how the lawyers in the OPR dealt with (the investigation) and what is the basis of the conclusions that they reached."
Holder's remarks came in response to questioning from Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who noted that the Senate had been told more than a year ago of a pending investigation into the legal rational used by the Bush administration lawyers.
The Attorney General's testimony came on the same morning that the Washington Post reported that the CIA was pushing the Obama White House to suppress key findings of a separate report by the agency's own inspector general. That report is believe to show that the torture of terrorism suspects had not yielded strong or operational information. LinkHere

Carter 'distressed' by Gaza visit

Source: BBC
Page last updated at 11:19 GMT, Tuesday, 16 June 2009 12:19 UK
Former US President Jimmy Carter has said he had to "hold back tears" while viewing destruction on a visit to Gaza.
He is due to meet leaders from Hamas, which controls Gaza but is considered a terrorist group by western countries.
The veteran politician is expected to hand over a letter for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from his family.
He condemned "deliberate" destruction in Israel's January offensive, but also expressed sadness over Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli towns ...
LinkHere

Palestinians 'treated like 'animals': Jimmy Carter

By Joseph Krauss – 6 hours ago
GAZA CITY (AFP) — Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday denounced the deprivations facing Palestinians in Gaza as unique in history, asserting that they are being treated "like animals."
"Tragically, the international community too often ignores the cries for help and the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings," he said as he toured the war-torn, blockaded Gaza Strip.
"The starving of 1.5 million human beings of the necessities of life -- never before in history has a large community like this been savaged by bombs and missiles and then denied the means to repair itself," Carter said at a UN school graduation ceremony in Gaza City.
He was referring to the blockade that Israel and Egypt have maintained on Gaza since June 2007 when Hamas, a group pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state, violently seized power in the territory ... LinkHere

State Dept. Spoke To Twitter About Keeping Iran Online

WASHINGTON — The State Department this week asked Twitter to postpone a scheduled maintenance shutdown of its service to keep information flowing from inside Iran amid the growing crisis over its disputed election, three U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The officials said the department intervened with Twitter executives to urge them to delay a planned shutdown of the microblogging site that would have kept it offline for 90 minutes during what would have been daytime on Monday in Iran.
The request was apparently honored by Twitter, to ensure Iranians would be able to communicate with each other if other communication avenues were shut down during that brief postelection period.
The move also allowed the U.S. government to maintain access to eyewitness accounts of what is happening on the ground in Iran, the officials said. Iran has been roiled by protests after hardline incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced the winner over opposition challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Twitter announced on its Web site Monday that it had rescheduled the maintenance shutdown citing "the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran."
Twitter postponed the maintenance one day. LinkHere

Iranian Artists in Exile: An Open Letter to the World

Iranian Artists in Exile: An Open Letter to the World

The video below is passed along by reader Lili. It is powerful, but perhaps not as much as the note she wrote accompanying it: The [video] is important because it is a very eloquent communication indicating how many members of the worldwide Iranian diaspora community feel and it is important to share this message with the world whose attention is currently fixated on the Iranian plight. I am an Iranian by birth whose family fled Iran 30 years ago as a result of the 1979 revolution and have not set foot back in Iran due to the political situation which makes it impossible to do so for me and my family. Now, as an adult, I am witnessing these events which are awakening within me feelings that I didn't know I had or didn't know the extent to which they were present and I feel compelled to speak up for all of my fellow Iranians, as well as for all members of the human family who are being oppressed throughout the world, to make sure that their struggle is not in vain. Here's the Iranian Artists in Exile Facebook page.

"EMERGENCY MEETING" Top Clerical Group That Can Unseat Khamenei Reportedly Summoned... "The Very Foundation Of The Islamic Republic Is Up In The Air Right Now"

2:01 AM ET -- Aslan: Rafsanjani calls "emergency" meeting of Assembly of Experts. If true, this is a bombshell. Appearing on CNN last night (video below), Iran expert Reza Aslan reported this:

There are very interesting things that are taking place right now. Some of my sources in Iran have told me that Ayatollah Rafsanjani, who is the head of the Assembly of Experts -- the eighty-six member clerical body that decides who will be the next Supreme Leader, and is, by the way, the only group that is empowered to remove the Supreme Leader from power -- that they have issued an emergency meeting in Qom.

Now, Anderson, I have to tell you, there's only one reason for the Assembly of Experts to meet at this point, and that is to actually talk about what to do about Khamenei. So, this is what I'm saying, is that we're talking about the very legitimacy, the very foundation of the Islamic Republic is up in the air right now. It's hard to say what this is going to go.

Aslan's scoop is also reported by the Farsi-language Rooyeh.

The reader in Iran who tipped me off to this sent a follow-up note:

jesus christ dude,

I'm [in my 30s]

and never thought of it, let alone witnessing it as it unfolds.

I'm going nuts.

HOLY SHIT !!!

An informed Iranian-American had a different take. "I think Rafasanjani is not going to ask for Khamenei's removal, but is bluffing to force Khamenei to drop support of Ahmadinejad." Here's video:

1:45 AM ET -- Never saw this in Sturgis. A rally in Isfahan, Iran on Monday, led by a crew of bikers.

Obama Hits Fox News: "Entirely Devoted To Attacking My Administration"

President Obama, in a wide-ranging interview with CNBC's John Harwood that covered the economy and the turbulent Iranian election, took a shot at Fox News when asked about media coverage of his young administration (H/t Politico for the video clip):
"I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration...That's a pretty big megaphone. You'd be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front," Obama said. LinkHere


Pastor Drake Prays For Obama's Death: Prayers of Hate From Rightwing Pulpits

Only in America would they give this Wanker the time of day

Ensign Called Clinton Infidelities "Embarrassing," Opposed Gay Marriage

Ensign Whacked Clinton For His Infidelities, Called Them "Embarrassing" For Country

Sen. John Ensign's admission late Tuesday that he had an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer over the course of nine months doesn't seem likely to cause the type of wall-to-wall coverage that similar marital slip-ups have in the past.
But it should, at the very least, re-open the longstanding debate over how much attention should be paid to a politician's personal life. And when it comes to this topic, Ensign's own record of denouncing the affairs and misconducts of other pols could come back to haunt him.
During the height of the scandal surrounding Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Nevada Republican denounced the president's conduct as "an embarrassing moment for the country."
'I think we have to feel very sad for the American people and Hillary and Chelsea,' he said.
Weeks later, Ensign would call on Clinton to resign. "I came to that conclusion recently, and frankly it's because of what he put his whole Cabinet through and what he has put the country through," he was quoted saying at the time. "He has no credibility left," he added.
At the time, Ensign was in a tight Senate race with incumbent Harry Reid, an election he would ultimately end up losing. And he didn't shy away from trying to exploit the moral trip-ups in Clinton's personal life to benefit himself and the GOP. LinkHere

White House Wins On War, IMF Funds

LinkHere

IRAN'S TOP CLERIC DENOUNCES ELECTION

Islamic Revolution
Historic Parallels To Today's Protests In Iran

One of the day's most important developments -- that Iran's most senior cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri had denounced the election results -- wasn't given nearly enough attention. Here's some more coverage from McClatchy Newspapers: McClatchy Newspapers:
"No one in their right mind can believe" the official results from Friday's contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi's charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers "in the worst way possible."
"A government not respecting people's vote has no religious or political legitimacy," he declared in comments on his official Web site. "I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to 'sell their religion,' and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God."
=======
What I have witnessed." A powerful note from a female medical student in Iran, translated from Farsi by a trusty reader.
It's painful to watch what's happening.
I don't want anything to do with what has been said this far, as I neither have the strength nor the resilience to face all these unfathomable events.
I only want to speak about what I have witnessed. I am a medical student. There was chaos last night at the trauma section in one of our main hospitals. Although by decree, all riot-related injuries were supposed to be sent to military hospitals, all other hospitals were filled to the rim. Last night, nine people died at our hospital and another 28 had gunshot wounds. All hospital employees were crying till dawn. They (government) removed the dead bodies on back of trucks, before we were even able to get their names or other information. What can you even say to the people who don't even respect the dead. No one was allowed to speak to the wounded or get any information from them. This morning the faculty and the students protested by gathering at the lobby of the hospital where they were confronted by plain cloths anti-riot militia, who in turn closed off the hospital and imprisoned the staff. The extent of injuries are so grave, that despite being one of the most staffed emergency rooms, they've asked everyone to stay and help--I'm sure it will even be worst tonight.
What can anyone say in face of all these atrocities? What can you say to the family of the 13 year old boy who died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?
This issue is not about cheating(election) anymore. This is not about stealing votes anymore. The issue is about a vast injustice inflected on the people. They've put a baton in the hand of every 13-14 year old to smash the faces of "the bunches who are less than dirt" (government is calling the people who are uprising dried-up torn and weeds) .
This is what sickens me from dealing with these issues. And from those who shut their eyes and close their ears and claim the riots are in opposition of the government and presidency!! No! The people's complaint is against the egregious injustices committed against the people.

6:00 PM ET -- AP's revenge. They just put this out on their photo wire:

In this Feb. 8, 1979 file photo, an Iranian soldier is carried by supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini at a massive demonstration for the religious leader. In the foreground are demonstrators attempting to prevent an AP photographer from showing the soldier. In background is the Freedom Tower. Iran's Islamic regime has survived a devastating war with Iraq, strong American sanctions and blanket international isolation in its 30 years of power. Iran's system does not appear in any immediate danger from the presidential election results unrest. But the clerics are clearly paying close attention to the street anger - the same street anger that they themselves used three decades ago in their revolution to bring down Iran's ruling Shah.
LinkHere

You can follow Nico's ongoing coverage here

Obama Warns Wall St: Don't Forget How Close We Were To The "Abyss"

By Robert Schmidt
June 16 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, warning Wall Street not to forget how it almost caused the financial system to collapse, said “sensible” new rules are needed to tighten oversight and restore confidence in U.S. markets.
“Wall Street seems to maybe have a shorter memory about how close we were to the abyss than I would have expected,” Obama said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today at the White House. “All we’re doing is cleaning up after the mess that was made.”
The president will tomorrow unveil his proposal for revamping financial regulation, an effort likely to result in the most sweeping overhaul since the 1930s. Many of the changes will need to be approved by Congress, where jurisdictional and ideological clashes may delay and alter the shape of final legislation. Obama wants to sign the law by year-end, fulfilling a top domestic priority.
Crafted by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers, Obama’s plan would put the Federal Reserve in charge of regulating companies whose collapse could damage the entire financial system. It would also create a new agency for overseeing consumer financial products, such as mortgages and credit cards.
The proposal encompasses areas ranging from derivatives to executive pay to the mortgage-backed securities that helped fuel the housing boom and then touch off the credit crisis.
‘Rules of the Road’
“We now need some sensible rules of the road so that people aren’t taking exorbitant risks,” Obama said. LinkHere

ABC Responds To "False" RNC Attack On Planned Health Care Special

"false premises".

The healthcare special is set to air on June 24. LinkHere

Holder: DOJ Will Do All It Can To "Deter Violence" Against Abortion Providers

Attorney General Eric Holder offered his most forceful condemnation to date of the murder of George Tiller, a Wichita, Kansas doctor who ran a women's clinic that provided late-term abortions, using the occasion to issue a broad warning about the rise of violent extremism.
Speaking at the Washington Lawyers' Committee conference on Tuesday, Holder pledged that the Department of Justice would do all it could to "deter violence against reproductive health care providers" and prosecute those who committed such acts.
"Neither our respect for the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech nor our clearest hope for common ground can justify the violence that we saw in Kansas," Holder said. "We will not tolerate murder or the threat of violence masquerading as political activism. Let me be clear, the Justice Department will use every tool at its disposal to protect the rights ensured under our constitution and we will do all that we can to deter violence against reproductive health care providers and prosecute those who use such violence to the fullest extent of the law."
The remarks were part of a broader call to action against the violent acts, which have sent shock waves throughout the country in recent weeks. Holder also addressed the recent shooting of a National Holocaust Museum Security Guard by an 88-year-old white supremacist as well as the killing of an American soldier at a recruitment center in Arkansas. LinkHere

The Southern Uneducated GOP Morons and their HATE slurs, hopefully that is why they will not get back into the White House for the next 50 years.

Michelle Obama Gorilla Comment: NAACP Demands "Proper" Apology

(AP) The state NAACP is demanding an apology from a former South Carolina official whose Internet posting suggested a gorilla that escaped from the Columbia zoo was an ancestor of first lady Michelle Obama.
NAACP president Lonnie Randolph said Monday that former Election Commission chairman Rusty DePass has not offered a "proper" apology. Randolph says the NAACP isn't giving DePass undue attention, rather decrying racially charged commentary against the Obamas.
Minutes after the gorilla's escape was reported, DePass posted: "I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless."
The Facebook posting was captured on a South Carolina politics blog. DePass did not immediately return a call Monday, but he told WIS-TV that the posting was a joke. LinkHere

Tennessee GOP Staffer Emails Racist Obama "Spook" Photo
Historical Keepsake Photo: Tennessee GOP Staffer Emails Racist Obama "Spook" Photo

Sherri Goforth, an executive assistant for Tennessee State Rep. Diane Black (R-Gallatin), sent this picture out to other legislative staffers:
The email was headlined "Historical Keepsake Photo."
One staffer who received the email publicized it online: LinkHere

Irandecision 2009 - Election Results

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Irandecision 2009 - Sham, Wow
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Irandecision 2009 - Election Results
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

Ahmadinejad In Russia Blasts US, Declares An End To The "Age Of Empires"

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (AFP) - Iran's under-fire President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday sat alongside world leaders at a summit in Russia, defiantly proclaiming the age of empires was over and attacking the United States.
In a show of confidence after the worst riots in his country in a decade, Ahmadinejad made no mention of the violence or his hotly disputed re-election victory in his address to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting.
"The international capitalist order is retreating," the hardline president told the leaders, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and China's Hu Jintao, gathered in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
"It is absolutely obvious that the age of empires has ended and its revival will not take place." LinkHere

BRIC Nations Meet, Call For Monetary Diversity

YEKATERINBURG, Russia — The leaders of four major emerging economies _ Russia, China, Brazil and India _ apparently failed Tuesday to reach consensus on reducing the dominance of the U.S. dollar despite growing calls for an alternative global reserve currency.
The four, seeking a greater role in global financial institutions, held the first summit of the so-called BRIC grouping after two days of meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, another group that Russia has sought to use to reassert its role on the global stage.
Moscow tried to mount a new challenge to the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pushed his call for more global reserve currencies.
"No currency system can be successful if we have financial instruments denominated in just one currency," Medvedev said. "We must strengthen the international financial system not only by making the dollar strong, but also by creating other reserve currencies."
He said that new ones will take long time to emerge, but that "The main reserve currency, the dollar, has failed to serve its purpose."
Later, Medvedev and the other BRIC leaders issued a statement that called for a more diversified international monetary system and a greater role for their four nations in making major global financial decisions.
A reformed financial and economic architecture should be based on a "democratic and transparent decision-making and implementation process at the international financial organizations," the statement said.
Notably, however, the statement made no explicit criticism of the dollar, and contained no reference to developing new reserve currencies.
The cautious wording appeared to reflect China's concerns that any anti-dollar statements could erode the value of its currency reserves.
Analysts said the BRIC proposals were premature and could exacerbate the global crisis.
The BRIC statement does not pose any real threat to the dollar, said Brian Dolan, chief currency strategist at Forex, since it "did not propose any concrete steps toward diversifying away from the dollar," LinkHere

Claims of student massacre spread

Tehran University looked as calm as any summer campus. So much for the latest rumours of a bloodbath. Another piece of Iranian fiction, served up on YouTube. Scarved female students were moving through the university's great black iron gates. I asked my driver, Ali, to drop me off at the corner so I could prowl the college bookshops on Engelob Street, I was looking for a volume of modern Persian poetry for a friend. I did not at first hear the man at the cash desk, motioning out the door.
I peered out. The gates of the university were now shut. Behind them was a crowd of hundreds of young men and women, many wearing scarves over their mouths. I crossed the road. And the banners behind those forbidding gates told a frightening story. "Today is a day of mourning," one of them read. "Dignified students are mourners today." "Police, shame on you, shame on you." "Tell my mother – she doesn't have a son any more."
I walked up to the gate. Young female students were crying. So were some of the young men. "We don't want a government by coup," another poster read. "Tehran University dormitory has been coloured with students' blood," another said. LinkHere

Robert Fisk: Iran's day of destiny
Fisk witnesses the courage of one million protesters who ignored threats, guns and bloodshed to demand freedom in Iran

It was Iran's day of destiny and day of courage. A million of its people marched from Engelob Square to Azadi Square – from the Square of Revolution to the Square of Freedom – beneath the eyes of Tehran's brutal riot police. The crowds were singing and shouting and laughing and abusing their "President" as "dust".
Mirhossein Mousavi was among them, riding atop a car amid the exhaust smoke and heat, unsmiling, stunned, unaware that so epic a demonstration could blossom amid the hopelessness of Iran's post-election bloodshed. He may have officially lost last Friday's election, but yesterday was his electoral victory parade through the streets of his capital. It ended, inevitably, in gunfire and blood.
Not since the 1979 Iranian Revolution have massed protesters gathered in such numbers, or with such overwhelming popularity, through the boulevards of this torrid, despairing city. They jostled and pushed and crowded through narrow lanes to reach the main highway and then found riot police in steel helmets and batons lined on each side. The people ignored them all. And the cops, horribly outnumbered by these tens of thousands, smiled sheepishly and – to our astonishment – nodded their heads towards the men and women demanding freedom. Who would have believed the government had banned this march?
The protesters' bravery was all the more staggering because many had already learned of the savage killing of five Iranians on the campus of Tehran University, done to death – according to students – by pistol-firing Basiji militiamen. When I reached the gates of the college yesterday morning, many students were weeping behind the iron fence of the campus, shouting "massacre" and throwing a black cloth across the mesh. That was when the riot police returned and charged into the university grounds once more.
At times, Mousavi's victory march threatened to crush us amid walls of chanting men and women. They fell into the storm drains and stumbled over broken trees and tried to keep pace with his vehicle, vast streamers of green linen strung out in front of their political leader's car. They sang in unison, over and over, the same words: "Tanks, guns, Basiji, you have no effect now." As the government's helicopters roared overhead, these thousands looked upwards and bayed above the clatter of rotor blades: "Where is my vote?" Clichés come easily during such titanic days, but this was truly a historic moment.
Would it change the arrogance of power which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demonstrated so rashly just a day earlier, when he loftily invited the opposition – there were reported to be huge crowds protesting on the streets of other Iranian cities yesterday – to be his "friends", while talking ominously of the "red light" through which Mousavi had driven. Ahmadinejad claimed a 66 per cent victory at the polls, giving Mousavi scarcely 33 per cent. No wonder the crowds yesterday were also singing – and I mean actually singing in chorus – "They have stolen our vote and now they are using it against us." LinkHere

Reza Molavi: The genie may not go back in the bottle

The official result of the Iranian election has left Iranians as well as Iran-watchers in the West baffled, disgusted and bewildered. Perhaps from the start, however, Mirhossein Mousavi was destined to fail. He hoped to combine the articulate energies of the liberal upper- and middle-classes with the business interests of the bazaar merchants. But his campaigns conducted via text messages and Facebook were irrelevant to the rural and working classes, those struggling to make ends meet, day in, day out. Although Mr Mousavi tried to appeal to them by addressing the problems of inflation and poverty, they were not convinced. And one should remember that Iranians living in the fringes of the major cities and in the villages, while not enjoying the same ability to talk to the international media, constitute a large proportion of the voting public. LinkHere

The American Empire Is Bankrupt

By Chris Hedges
June 15, 2009 "Truthdig" --- This week marks the end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That’s over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful.
Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America’s imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.
There are meetings being held Monday and Tuesday in Yekaterinburg, Russia, (formerly Sverdlovsk) among Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The United States, which asked to attend, was denied admittance. Watch what happens there carefully. The gathering is, in the words of economist Michael Hudson, “the most important meeting of the 21st century so far.” LinkHere

AIG lawyer: Ex-top exec plundered retirement plan

Source: AP
AIG lawyer: Ex-top exec plundered retirement plan
By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer – 6 mins ago
NEW YORK – The former top executive of American International Group Inc. plundered an AIG retirement program of billions of dollars because he was angry at being forced out of the company, a lawyer for AIG told jurors Monday at the start of a civil trial.
Attorney Theodore Wells told the jury in Manhattan that former AIG Chief Executive Officer Maurice "Hank" Greenberg improperly took $4.3 billion in stock from the company in 2005, after he was ousted by the company amid investigations of accounting irregularities.
"Hank Greenberg was mad. He was angry," Wells said in U.S. District Court of the emotional state of the man who, over a 35-year-career, built AIG from a small company into the world's largest insurance provider. He said the saga is a story of "anger, betrayal and cover-up."
Wells said that Greenberg, within weeks of being forced out in mid-2005, gave the go-ahead for tens of millions of shares to be sold from a trust fund. The fund was set up to provide incentive bonuses to a select group of AIG management and highly compensated employees that they would receive upon their retirement. LinkHere

2 Japanese carrying $134 bil worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy

Source: Japan Today
ROME —
Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.
According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds. LinkHere

Panetta Vs Cheney

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Iranian Election Ciffhanger?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Leaked election results show Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came third

Source: Telegraph U.K.
Iran's reformist presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has called off a major rally to protest last Friday's election results, amid claims police had been cleared to open fire on protesters.
Mr Mousavi's cancellation of the protest came as sporadic disturbances continued around the Iranian capital, and reports circulated of leaked interior ministry statistics showing him as the clear victor in last Friday's polls.
The statistics, circulated on Iranian blogs and websites, claimed Mr Mousavi had won 19.1 million votes while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won only 5.7 million.
The two other candidates, reformist Mehdi Karoubi and hardliner Mohsen Rezai, won 13.4 million and 3.7 million respectively. The authenticity of the leaked figures could not be confirmed. LinkHere

Lugar Gives Obama An 'A' For Foreign Policy

The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.:
WASHINGTON - President Obama merits an "A" so far in his approach to American foreign policy, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said Monday. But he cautioned that tone alone doesn't solve deep and complex world problems.
Lugar, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, met with a group of journalists for an hour. In response to a question about how he'd rate Obama's performance in the international arena, Lugar said he'd give the new president a top grade.
He said the Obama administration's policies are not much different from the Bush administration's, but his approach is different.
"The idea of being more inclusive and reaching out, alliances, working with the international comities, his own vigor in going all over the world giving these speeches in the first few weeks or months of the administration are really remarkable.
"However, the same galaxy of problems that faced President Bush in his last year still face President Obama. They're the kind of disputes that are not likely to go away just by having a simple conference or another treaty." LinkHere

Amen to that, only this is another time, another President, thank the Lord

We Have No Standing to Complain About Election Fraud

Who are we to gripe about Iran's arguably rigged election? We most likely elected the wrong guy in 2000.
If the Supreme Court had not hastily short-circuited the Florida recount, we might know for sure whether another tally could have confirmed what we now know to be true -- that most of the state's voters really intended to elect Al Gore. Or we might have seen some meaningful scrutiny of suspiciously late-arriving military overseas ballots that actually delivered George W. Bush's last-minute margin of victory.
Under the circumstances we probably ought to leave the outrage about Iran's questionable balloting to nations with a better established record of putting the real winners in office. LinkHere

Obama's AMA speech

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

LinkHere

OBAMA: IT WOULD BE WRONG TO STAY SILENT

One Dead, Many Injured After Iran Paramilitary Open Fire...
AP: Pro-Mousavi March In Tehran Stretched Five Miles Long

The Uprising

Girl gets shot in Tehran

CNN's Rick Sanchez Defends CNN's Iranian Election Coverage




Guy gets shot in Tehran

Mousavi Addresses Crowd in Tehran

rahpeymayi tarafdaran Mir Hossein Mousavi Enghelab Azadi - meydan

15th June 2009 millions protest in iran against election fraud in Iran

Iran: Hundreds of thousands defy rally ban


15 June 2009 Iranians protest against election results - TABRIZ

LinkHere

Holocaust Museum Shooter's Son Speaks Out: I Wish Dad Had Died Instead

Judge: Shooter Can't Appear In Court

WASHINGTON — The son of a white supremacist accused of killing a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said Monday the shooting was unforgivable and he wished his father had died instead.
Erik von Brunn told ABC's "Good Morning America" that he and his father James didn't like each other. The interview followed ABC's release Sunday of comments by the son that his father had long burdened their family with his white supremacist views and that James should have died in the attack.
"I loved my father. But what he did was unforgivable," Erik von Brunn, 32, said. LinkHere

Haaretz: Dennis Ross Being Ousted As Obama Envoy To Iran

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent
Dennis Ross, who most recently served as a special State Department envoy to Iran, will abruptly be relieved of his duties, sources in Washington told Haaretz. An official announcement is expected in the coming days.
The Obama administration will announce that Ross has been reassigned to another position in the White House. In his new post, the former Mideast peace envoy under President Bill Clinton will deal primarily with regional issues related to the peace process.
Washington insiders speculate that a number of reasons moved the administration to reassign Ross. One possibility is Iran's persistent refusal to accept Ross as a U.S. emissary given the diplomat's Jewish background as well as his purported pro-Israel leanings. Ross is known to maintain contacts with numerous senior officials in Israel's defense establishment and the Israeli government.
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem surmised that another possibility for Ross' ouster is his just-released book, "Myths, Illusions, and Peace - Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East."
Ross, who co-wrote the book with David Makovsky, a former journalist who is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argued against a linkage between the Palestinian issue and the West's policy against Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Ross and Mokovsky also raised the possibility of military action against Iran. LinkHere

"Do Republicans have higher moral standards than Democrats?"

Remind you of another Pycho, on Faux News, only older?

Rusty DePass, South Carolina GOP Activist, Says Escaped Gorilla Was Ancestor Of Michelle Obama

Innapropriate?

LinkHere

Republicans step up the anti-Obama-speak

Republicans in Washington are offering up some of the strongest language yet in their efforts to distinguish themselves from the 5-month-old Obama administration’s economic policies.
In recent weeks, GOP leaders and rank-and-file members have offered stinging rebukes of the Democratic control in Washington in terms that Democrats say have gone over the line.
Last week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor said Obama’s handling of the faltering U.S. auto industry is “almost like looking at Putin's Russia.”
That came as Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) was drawing heat from Democrats for saying that he told Chinese leaders that “the budget numbers that the U.S. has put forward should not be believed” and that Congress would spend more than what is contained in the budget.
Just days before, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said at a fundraising dinner for House and Senate Republicans that Obama’s efforts to stimulate the economy and save automakers have “already failed.”
Democrats contend that Republicans have jumped the shark and staked out such an extreme position against the administration that they should no longer be taken seriously.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said after Cantor’s comments this week that the approach is alienating even members of the Republican Party.
A USA Today/Gallup poll last week showed 38 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents viewed the GOP unfavorably.
“When Republicans have no ideas and no leadership, they resort to personal attacks and bank on failure,” Van Hollen said. “It’s no wonder that recent polling shows that one-third of Republicans hold an unfavorable view of their own party.” LinkHere

Stealing the Iranian Election

Top Pieces of Evidence that the Iranian Presidential Election Was Stolen LinkHere