Thursday, June 25, 2009
"At about 1730 in front of Sa'di metro station, plain clothes officers were shooting, and I myself saw four people die. I was lucky to get away unharmed. How can they claim they are not killing anyone?" he wrote. He said he thought many people were being killed, wounded and arrested but they were all "taken away by plain clothes officers... there is no trace left of them, and obviously no news agency can report this". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8118616.stm
Step by step, Iran’s leaders are successfully pushing back threats to their authority, crushing street protests, pressing challengers to withdraw or to limit their objections to the disputed presidential election and restricting the main opposition leader’s ability to do much more than issue statements of outrage.
Two weeks after Iran’s disputed presidential election, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the top challenger, issued an angry statement Thursday that underscored his commitment to press ahead — but also his impotence in the face of an increasingly emboldened and repressive government.
Mr. Moussavi does not have a political organization to rally, and during the height of the unrest he attracted a large following more because of whom he opposed — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — than because of what he stood for, political analysts said.
“I am willing to show how election criminals have stood by those behind the recent riots and shed people’s blood,” Mr. Moussavi said in a statement posted on his Web site. “I will not back down even for a second because of personal threats and interests from defending the rights of the people.”
Perhaps the most important question now is whether the leadership can paper over the deep divisions that the election has widened within Iran’s political elite, which present the most serious threat to the system in its 30-year history.
There were still signs of widespread public anger and resentment toward the leadership, but no organization to channel it, political analysts said.
The hard-line leadership appears to have intimidated some opposition figures into stepping back from the defiance and confrontation that have upended Iran over the past two weeks. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/world/middleeast/26iran.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
John McCain: Asked whether "there's any doubt what side President Obama is on" in Iran, answered, "I know what side I'm on. I'm on the side of the people. I'm not on Ahmadinejad's side or Mousavi. I'm on the side of the Iranian people and I'm on the right side of history." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/23/mccain-wont-say-obama-is_n_219774.html
The McCain of 2008- he of voting against his immigration reform bill, violating campaign finance reform bill that bore his name, silenced on torture, playing to The Ignorant- is back.
And, he’s not the worst: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), blames the Iranian deaths on Obama
The California Republican, appearing on MSNBC's The Ed Show, said that the president "ratcheted up the language a little bit" during his press conference on Tuesday. But, he added, "If [Obama] would have been talking even a little bit tougher a few days ago we might not have seen the violence and bloodshed of this repressive regime in Tehran in the last two days." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/23/video-gop-congressman-say_n_219858.html
Health Care: Some Democrats ‘coming home’ Moderate Republican / conservative Democrat Arlen Specter came out for the public option. Now, conservative Dem Rockefeller sounds like the partisan he should be
On Thursday, Rockefeller admitted he expects little bipartisan support.
"There is a very small chance any Republicans will vote for this health-care plan. They were against Medicare and Medicaid [created in the 1960s]. They voted against children's health insurance.
"We have a moral choice. This is a classic case of the good guys versus the bad guys. I know it is not political for me to say that," Rockefeller added.
"But do you want to be non-partisan and get nothing? Or do you want to be partisan and end up with a good health- care plan? That is the choice." http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/200906250731
Climate Change Bill: Passage in Doubt: Blue Dog Dems balk at supporting
Key House Democrat Diane DeGette, D-Colo., who has been counting votes for leadership on the landmark climate bill, said Thursday that Democrats didn't yet have the support to pass the legislation set for a Friday vote.
Democratic aides not related to leadership offices told Dow Jones Newswires an official leadership whip count earlier in the day showed the bill was short 30 to 40 votes, putting the bill's fate into jeopardy. Many of those were not hard 'no' votes, but undecided.
"We're getting closer every minute... but we're not there yet," DeGette said.
The National Farmers Union threw its support behind a landmark climate bill Thursday, giving House leadership a boost in its effort to find enough votes.
The climate and energy bill is a defining Obama Administration policy, one that would transform the way the nation uses energy by capping greenhouse gas emissions and creating a market to buy and sell the right to emit gases such as carbon dioxide.
"It's going to be a close vote," President Barack Obama said in a nationally televised speech in which he again urged House legislators to pass the legislation. The president has dispatched Thursday his top climate official Carol Browner to Capitol Hill for last minute arm-twisting.
Elizabeth Friedlander, a spokeswoman for the National Farmers Union, said the group's backing should be able to win a number of the undecided members of rural midwestern states, many of whom sit on the Agriculture Committee.
Those Farm Belt lawmakers, many of whom are also members of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats, had been holding the bill hostage until earlier this week, when they won over major concessions for the agriculture industry.
A Blue Dog aide said while there's not been a Blue Dog caucus decision to vote as a bloc against the bill, there are a significant number who aren't going to cast a "yes" vote.
That included members such as Charlie Melancon, D-La.; John Barrow, D-Ga.; Jim Matheson, D-Utah; John Salazar, D, Colo.; and Mike Ross, D-Ark. http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200906251539dowjonesdjonline000906&title=key-house-democratdont-have-votes-for-climate-bill-yet
Sanford: A lost (in love) puppy at his press conference, he actually was at his most appealing, speaking positively and regretfully about the two important women in his life. The affair itself pails aside the wildly inappropriate disappearance from political family and wife-sons Family, and arguably more so in comparison to his trying to deny important aid to his constituents when he pushed to reject federal stimulus funds.
Michael Jackson’s death removed Sanford from the headlines and Republican leader Rush Limbaugh bails him out: It’s all Obama’s fault:
"This is almost like, 'I don't give a damn, the country's going to Hell in a handbasket, I just want out of here,'" Limbaugh said. "[Sanford] had just tried to fight the stimulus money coming to South Carolina. He didn't want any part of it; he lost the battle. He said, 'What the hell. I mean, the federal government's taking over -- what the hell, I want to enjoy life.'"
Limbaugh added, "The point is, there are a lot of people whose spirit is just -- they're fed up, saying, 'To hell with it, I don't even want to fight this anymore, I just want to get away from it.'"
A listener apparently sent Limbaugh an email during the program, asking if he was kidding about the White House's economic policies being responsible for Sanford's affair. "No!" he said, adding that the governor may have realized, "The Democrats are destroying the country; we can't do anything to stop it."
Jackson- denied a childhood, never an adult, truly bizarre- in turn helps us not focus on The Wars- the Iraq Occupation and its upcoming transition (below) and the drone attack that killed an estimated 60 civilians in Afghanistan.
The Obama administration has concluded the risk of a security collapse in Iraq is too slight to slow plans for withdrawing U.S. troops. In the run-up to June 30, the deadline for U.S. combat troops to leave Iraqi cities, the nation has been rocked by big attacks, including a bombing Wednesday evening in the Sadr City district of Baghdad that killed more than 50.
Still, intelligence analysts, policy advisers and military officers in Washington and Iraq said in a series of interviews that they believe the threat of renewed sectarian warfare is receding — even with the transfer of security control from U.S. to Iraqi hands.
At stake in that judgment is not only Iraq's hope for stability after six years of war, but also an early verdict on President Barack Obama's decision to do less in Iraq in order to do more to turn around the war in Afghanistan.
The next milestone on the path to U.S. military disengagement is next Tuesday's deadline for American combat forces to leave Iraqi cities, including Mosul, which has been a hotbed of insurgent activity. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090625/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_leaving_iraq_5
-R
