You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (853)

PLAYS: (1519)

What on earth is going on here? On "This Week" this morning, Biden shrugs off possible Israeli action against Iran with "Whattaya gonna do?". But Joe, while Israel is certainly a sovereign nation, it's one that's heavily subsidized by the United States and we certainly do have a say. Didn't you just give them the go-ahead signal to bomb Iran?

Seems to me this is the moral equivalent of sending detainees to other countries to be tortured and then saying, "That wasn't us!"...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there will be engagement -- if the Iranians want to...

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: If the Iranians seek to engage, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, the clock is ticking...

BIDEN: If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the offer is on the table?

BIDEN: The offer's on the table.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.

Is that the right approach?

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?

BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.

What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.

If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?

BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we can't dictate, but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.

BIDEN: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1361)

PLAYS: (6996)

Wolf Blitzer asks Fareed Zakaria if he agrees with former CIA agent Bob Baer's assessment that there has been a military coup by the revolutionary guard in Iran. Zakaria is not as willing to use the word coup, but does feel that there is some conflict between the clerics in Iran.

As Zakaria points out, the dynamics of those conflicts and the ease with which they can be blamed on American interference is exactly why it was wise for the Obama administration to be cautious with their rhetoric.

BLITZER: One Middle East expert says what we're seeing unfold in Iran right now isn't just a government crackdown, but an actual coup by the country's elite revolutionary guard.

ZAKARIA: Do you think it's pretty clear that the government has the ability to really consolidate power and crackdown on this?

BAER: Fareed, I'm quite sure there's been a military coup d'etat by the Islamic revolutionary corp in Tehran. They're taken over. And the fact that the Basij came out so quickly. They could have only done that on orders from the IRGC. The fact that Ahmadinejad's a former IRGC officer, he has the backing of senior officers. I think what we've seen is a military coup against the old clerical establishment.

BLITZER: Let's bring in Fareed Zakaria to join us now. Fareed, what do you think? You are an authority on this subject?

ZAKARIA: I think that Bob Baer is on to something. I'm not sure I would use the word coup, you know, that strongly, but there is no question what we're witnessing in Iran is the displacement of the old clerical establishment and the rise to power of some new clerics, but mostly a group of people who have much closer ties to the military, to the intelligence organizations, to the police, and to the Basij. So what you're seeing is a kind of consolidation of a pure military dictatorship, losing the trappings of the Islam and the ideology as much.

And by the way, this is very much part of Ahmadinejad's strategy when he is now attacking America. It is an attempt to consolidate power and to move beyond the debate about what's going on in Iran.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (115)

PLAYS: (148)

While discussing what the United States should do if the crisis in Iran turns into another Tiananmen Square, McCain responds that the U.S. should follow the lead of the French, who we all know Republicans love so much, the Germans and the Brits. McCain says that the death of Neda might be a defining moment in history and the end of the tyrannical regime in Iran.

When asked if we should negotiate with them if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remains in power, of course Mr. Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran doesn't think so. McCain also says the we can't trust the Iranians because they've "violated fundamental human rights upon which this nation (The United States) was founded".

As someone who formerly chaired and remains a member of the Indian Affairs Committee in the Senate, I wonder if Senator McCain has ever asked any of his American Indian constituents if they'd agree with that statement? He might want to ask the African American community as well. I don't think being kept as slaves qualifies as honoring someone's basic human rights.

John McCain made some similar statements and additional history revision on Sean Hannity's show last week.

Continue reading »

Naturally, voters are going to be even more suspicious that they've admitted this much:

CAIRO — Iran’s most powerful oversight council announced on Monday that the number of votes recorded in 50 cities exceeded the number of eligible voters there by three million, further tarnishing a presidential election that has set off the most sustained challenge to Iran’s leadership in 30 years.

The government continued with a two-track approach in its showdown over the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even as the powerful Guardian Council acknowledged some irregularities in the June 12 election, it insisted that the overall vote was valid. At the same time, security forces stepped up their threats to treat protesters as criminals seeking to destabilize the country.

A group of as many as a thousand demonstrators at Haft-e-tir Square in central Tehran was quickly overwhelmed Monday by baton-wielding riot police and tear gas shortly after the Revolutionary Guards issued an ominous warning on their Web site saying that protesters would face “revolutionary confrontation.” Opposition leaders said the next move may be civil disobedience or a general strike.

The legitimacy of the vote remains at the core of the dispute. On Monday, the Guardian Council sought to help validate the outcome when it announced there had been discrepancies in 50 cities, which it said involved up to three million votes, not enough to overturn the landslide election margin that the government had announced for Mr. Ahmadinejad. But the recognition of a broad discrepancy between the number of recorded votes and registered voters in some districts only fueled suspicions that the election — and the Guardian Council’s arbitration of it — was unfair.

“I don’t think they actually counted the votes, though that’s hard to prove,” said Ali Ansari, a professor at the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and one of the authors of a study of the election results issued by Chatham House, a London-based research group.

UPDATE: It is now being reported that her name was Neda Agha Soltan.

The girl in the video below is called Neda Agha Soltan. born 1982, she was a philosophy student. Neda's body has been given back to her family by the police under the condition that there is a quick and disrete / secret / low profile funeral. The Mosques in Tehran are under pressure not to accept the funeral proceedings for Neda. Already the original ceremony at Masjed Al-Reza Mosque located on Niloufar Square was cancelled. It was scheduled for 4.30pm tomorrow. The man with the striped shirt is her father.

The indiscriminate killing of a young woman named Neda in the streets of Tehran today [Saturday]. What we know of her is from this caption to the video seen below the fold, and an entry on Mir Hossein Mousavi's Facebook page which describes her father watching his daughter die.

CNN has been running a snippet from the YouTube video with her face pixilated, they say out of respect, just another faceless and nameless Iranian shot dead in the street by her government.

STRONG WARNING: The video below is graphic.

YouTube

امروز، سی خرداد، ساعت 7 بعد از ظهر این دختر جوان توسط لباس شخصی ها کشته شد

Basij shots to death a young woman in Tehran's Saturday June 20th protests

At 19:05 June 20th
Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st.

A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.

The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me.
Please let the world know.

Facebook

Faranak Zarrinabadi at 6:18pm June 20
Khameneie!You called yourself,the father of all orphans of Iran-Iraq war,but here you made a father witness the martyrdom of his daughter,in minutes,in his arms.You took away a mans,but Iran's daughter.He didnt believe it at first,saying:Neda,dont be afraid,dont be afraid..then when blood covered her face,he came to and cried:Neda,stay..Neda,stay... Read More!....The doctor who was there was helpless as the shot was in the chest.My dear Neda,you are now loved by all more than ever,my tears are nonstop for you,but you died for Iran to be free and Im proud of you,may you rest in peace in heaven.And you Khameneie,you will certainly pay for this and definitely go to hell!

(Nicole: Out of respect for C&L readers who may not want to subject themselves (or others around them) to disturbing images, I've moved the header photo still of Neda to below the fold. Our apologies to those who felt it too graphic for the front page.)

Continue reading »

Subtitled version of "INJA KOJAST INJA IRAN AST SARZAMINE MANO TO" (link below) - a woman speaking about the state of her country while filming the rooftop shouting of "Allah-o Akbar" in Iran on Friday June 19th.

Iran, the whole world is watching.

original link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oM6l9PO6Yo

The subtitles in the video above are a little different, and in my opinion, a little better than those below, which I copied from NIACblog. Both are enormously moving. Tomorrow is indeed a day of destiny.

Today Friday 18 June 1388 [2009]
Tomorrow Saturday is very important; Day of destiny.
Tonight the screams of “God is great” [Allah-o Akbar]
is louder than on any other night.

Where is this place?
Where is this place that all paths are closed? All doors are shut?
Where is this place that no one helps us?

Where is this place that we shout out our words with only silence?
Where is this place?
Where is this place that its people’s only call is to God?
Where is this place that its cry of Allah-o Akbar ["God is Great"]
Grows louder and louder every minute?

Every day I wait to see if at night
The cries of “God is Great” grows louder or not.
I tremble as I hear them getting louder and louder.
I do not know if God trembles too or not.

Where is this place that we the innocents are stuck in [imprisoned]?
Where is this place that no one can help us?
where is this place that we are only shouting out our words with silence?
Where is this place that the youth are killed and people stand in the street and pray?
They stand in the blood and pray.
Where is this place that people are called [vagrants] trouble makers?

Where is this place?
Do you want me to tell you?
It is Iran.
It is my home land and your home land.
It is Iran.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1306)

PLAYS: (5319)

More video from today in Tehran. This gives a much better representation of the scope and magnitude of it all. And also the possible repercussions when millions go to the streets in protest.

We're supposed to keep the LNMC apolitical, but David Wild's new list of songs for Ahmadinejad is too good to pass up.

At your own risk, here's my Playlist For A Total Dick-Tator: Songs To Put You In The Mahmoud:

"Elected" - Alice Cooper
"The Clampdown" - The Clash
"The Winner Takes All" - Abba
"Psycho Killer" - Talking Heads
"Boom Boom Pow" - Black Eyed Peas
"The Bitch Is Back" - Elton John
"Little Man" - Tom Waits
"Know Your Enemy" - Green Day
"Heartless" - Kanye West
"Hoedown Throwdown" - Miley Cyrus
"Frail Grasp On The Big Picture" - The Eagles
"So Small" - Carrie Underwood
"Bastard" - Ben Folds

I can't believe he forgot Short People by Randy Newman, Steal Away (The Night) by Ozzy Osbourne, or Wild in the Streets by the Circle Jerks.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1167)

PLAYS: (2422)

Hundreds of thousands are now marching in the streets of Iran against the election results. They're headed toward Revolution Square, perhaps literally.

UPDATE: The BBC is now saying the rally was 1-2 million. The video above was from earlier. The picture below was from later today when the crowds really began to swell.

(Sky News) Tens of thousands of supporters of Iran's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, have defied a ban to attend a rally in Tehran after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a landslide victory in the presidential elections. Sky's Tim Marshall reports

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (801)

PLAYS: (2011)

That Richard Perle and Frank Gaffney, two of the neocon cheerleaders for the disaster in Iraq, would blame President Obama for the election fraud in Iran is unsurprising. That once and future Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney of all people would parrot the charge is hilarious. After all, from his repeated conflation of Shiite and Sunni to his aborted crusade for disinvestment from Tehran and other jaw-droppers, Mitt Romney's pronouncements on Iran have been a comedy of errors.

Just days after he slammed President Obama's unprecedented and widely praised address in Cairo, Romney appeared on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopolous to lay Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's apparent sham reelection at Obama's feet:

"The comments by the president last week, that there was a robust debate going on in iran, was obviously entirely wrong-headed. What has occurred is the election is a fraud, the results are inaccurate, and you're seeing a brutal repression of the people as they protest. ... It's very clear that the president's policies of going around the world and apologizing for America aren't working. ... Look, just sweet talk and criticizing America is not going to enhance freedom in the world."

Of course, comic pandering to the Republican Party's conservative base won't enhance freedom in the world, either. And to be sure, it certainly hasn't helped candidate Mitt Romney in the United States.

Consider, for example, Romney's 24 hour disinvestment campaign in early 2007, an effort cut short by revelations his own former employer had recent business dealings with Tehran.

Continue reading »

I don't know what to say. Isn't rioting in the streets the appropriate reaction when your country is taken over through election fraud? What's the alternative, to reward theft? We've already seen what that did here!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has defended his "completely free" re-election as Iran's president, amid violent clashes on the streets over claims of election fraud.

Mr Ahmadinejad condemned the outside world for "psychological warfare" against Iranians during the election.

Thousands have protested against the result, burning barricades on the streets of Tehran and clashing with police, who responded with tear gas.

Reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi urged his supporters to avoid violence.

Speaking on national television, Mr Ahmadinejad praised the Iranian people for choosing to "look toward the future" rather than returning to the past.

"This is a great victory at a time and condition when the whole material, political and propaganda facilities outside of Iran and sometimes... inside Iran, were total mobilised against our people," he said.

He blamed "foreign media" for instigating a "full-fledged fight against our people".

"Nearly 40 million people took part in a totally free election," he said.

However, the official result, which gave Mr Ahmadinejad a resounding victory - 63% of the vote against 34% for Mr Mousavi - brought the worst violence seen in Tehran for a decade, correspondents said.

The BBC's John Simpson saw secret policemen being attacked and chased away by protesters, which he says is extremely rare.

Some of the protesters in Tehran wore Mr Mousavi's campaign colour of green and chanted "Down with the dictator", news agencies report.

Well, right now it looks like they may have gotten their wish. From The Young Turks before anyone knew the "outcome" of the election. Cenk takes the war mongers to task for hoping Ahmadinejad wins the election, because they want war with Iran.

As Cenk pointed out over at Daily KOS after he recorded this segment, the Iranian Elections Were Obviously Rigged.

It's going to be interesting to say the least to see how the neocons are reacting to the election "results" on the Sunday shows. As Spencer Ackerman points out though, the last thing the United States needs to be doing right now is getting into the middle of this, regardless of whether we agree with the election outcome or not.

As usual the blogosphere has done a better job of following this story than our sorry excuse for a "main stream media" in the United States. Example one being Andrew Sullivan , among others, who has done a very good job of following the events that have occurred over the last few days, and Tweets coming in from Iranians who were watching the events first hand.

I think democracy in Iran would be a wonderful thing, but I'm worried about what type of bloodshed may occur there in order for it to happen. My heart goes out to all of those young people there who are trying to do what they can to bring change to that country. I think in the long run even if they don't win this battle, the younger generation in Iran is going to bring change there eventually as long as the neocons don't get their way.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1220)

PLAYS: (4415)

Reza Aslan takes Chris Matthews to task for fear mongering on Iran. Matthews seemed positively flummoxed when Aslan pointed out to him that our own intelligence agencies have said that Iran is years away from developing a nuclear weapon, and that Iran might actually have a reason to be afraid of Israel. Matthews also seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding why those in power might want to hype the threat of Iranian nukes for political purposes. Imagine that.

MATTHEWS: Reza, what good does speaking the truth do -- and he has spoken it in terms of our relationship with Iran -- do to our relationship with Iran?

ASLAN: You know, he mentioned the CIA coup of 1953, which most Americans don`t know anything about, but which, I got to tell you, is like the core event, the ur-event of the 20th century as far as Iranians are concerned. It`s their revolutionary war, civil war all wrapped up into a single thing. And to hear a president even mention it, let alone acknowledge it in that way, had a huge effect in the cafes in Iran.

Let`s face it, you know, what Iranians want, and this has been proven over and over again -- just yesterday, a poll came out from Terror Free Tomorrow showing 77 percent of Iranians wanting to open up relations with the United States. This is not just about sort of a better international relationship with America, it`s about Iran`s own domestic situation.

As you know, the economy in Iran is on the verge of collapse. You`ve got a 26 percent inflation rate, you know, 13 percent unemployment rate. They need America in a way that they haven`t before, and it seems like for the first time in many, many years, both sides, both Iran and America, are ready. You know, in the `90s, Iran wanted to talk to America. America wasn`t ready. Later on...

MATTHEWS: Reza, You know, I worry about us facing a situation that could be horrendous, which is to have to choose between living with a bomb in the hands of the Iranian mullahs or -- I mean a nuclear bomb -- or going to war with them in a way that causes hatred for another thousand years, not just a decade or two. And that scares me.

ASLAN: Neither of those are likely. Neither of those are likely scenarios.

MATTHEWS: How so?

Continue reading »

Wow, Iran is actually more like America than I thought! I wonder when the president's going to send in his thugs to shut down the vote count?

TEHRAN, June 13 -- Iran's election commissioner declared Saturday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a decisive victory in most of the country's electoral districts in Friday's presidential election, but the incumbent's leading challenger protested the results, charging widespread vote fraud and vowing to resist a "dangerous manipulation" of the balloting.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who waged a heated campaign against Ahmadinejad's bid for reelection, urged his supporters to reject a "governance of lie and dictatorship."

"I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation," Mousavi said in a statement posted on his Web site Saturday. He said the announced results were "shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran's sacred system" and represented "treason to the votes of the people." He warned that the public would not "respect those who take power through fraud."

Mousavi made the comments after Iran's election chief, Kamran Daneshjoo, said on state television that Ahmadinejad received nearly 21.8 million votes, or more than 63 percent, of the nearly 34.4 million valid votes cast in 346 of Iran's 366 electoral districts. He said Mousavi received 11.7 million votes, or 34 percent.

However, officials delayed without explanation an expected announcement of the complete results, which news agencies said suggested intervention by Iran's Islamic authorities to tamp down a potentially volatile situation.

Riot police cordoned off the Interior Ministry, which directed Friday's voting, and stood guard around key government buildings.

Plainclothes officers fired tear gas to disperse a cheering crowd outside Mousavi's campaign headquarters after the pivotal presidential election ended in confusion, with both sides claiming victory.

UPDATE:

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario – The U.S. on Saturday refused to accept hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim of a landslide re-election victory in Iran and said it was looking into allegations of election fraud.
"We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran, but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a news conference with Canada's foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon.

Minutes after Clinton spoke, the White House released a two-sentence statement praising "the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians," but expressing concern about "reports of irregularities."

h/t The Polical Carnival and LandlineTV.

Obama and his crew set up a meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to discuss a nuclear deal. Obamtourage is not endorsed by Mark Wahlberg.

Cast:
Marcus Wright -- Barack Obama
Ben Rodgers -- Joe Biden
Doug Mand -- Rahm Emanuel
Craig Rowin -- Turtle
Jen Bartels -- Hillary Clinton
Justin Brown -- Hillary's assistant
Gil Ozeri -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Lucia Aniello - Mahmoud's assistant
Nicole Shabtai - Office Girl 1
Janette Johnson - Office Girl 2
Sunita Deshpande - Office Girl 3
Marcia Mitchell - Office Girl 4
Samantha Gurewitz - Office Girl 5

Crew:
Directed by Paul Briganti
Director of Photography -- Cory Dross
Idea by Jennifer Statsky
Script by Saj Pothiawala
Set Designer: Elaine Haswell
Set Photographer: Glenn Boozan
PA Coordinator: Jared Neumark
AC/Grip: Marcos Herrera
PA: Mike Schroeder
PA: Andrew Ford