I knew they would; but here’s the story anyhow.
Category: News
Change?: President Obama ready to sign order to Executive Order to Allow Indefinite Detention of Terror Suspects
This broke last night and the Liberal Blogosphere about went nuclear.
Via The Washington Post:
Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.
Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.
After months of internal debate over how to close the military facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the prison by the president’s January deadline.
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order.
“Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order,” the official said. Such an order could be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should be prosecuted or released.
The Justice Department has declined to comment on the prospects for a long-term detention system while internal reviews of Guantanamo detainees’ cases are underway. One task force, which is assessing detainee policy, is expected to complete its work by July 21.
In a May speech, President Obama broached the need for a system of long-term detention and suggested that it would include congressional and judicial oversight. “We must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can’t be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone,” he said.
Shall we start calling him President George W. Obama? It sure sounds like it. When the Conservatives AND Liberals are calling this plan a disaster; something is dreadfully wrong.
Should be interesting to follow.
As always Memeorandum has the round up.
Cap and Trade-Gate
Quite honestly, I can fit the head on a pin, when I honestly know about this “Cap and Trade” bill that Congress is trying to ram through. So, instead of sitting and writing about crap I know zero about, I will quote people that do know about it.
Hey, At least I am honest.
Wall Street Journal writes:
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.
If you haven’t heard of this politician, it’s because he’s a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country’s carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)
Ed Morrissey, Who’s a hell of bunch more informed on this sort stuff than I; Writes:
All of the increase will get passed to consumers. Democrats hope to buffer that through targeted subsidies, but the AP neglects to mention that mechanism — because that money also comes from consumers. Business costs always get passed to the purchaser in the form of higher prices, and anyone who argues that they don’t either have no understanding of business and pricing or has a desire to sell snake oil to the gullible.
Cap-and-trade is a tax, one imposed through an artificial scarcity model onto an industry that drives the economy. The AP reports the CBO and EPA cost estimates without mentioning that those predictions only cover the actual mechanical costs of cap-and-trade. They do not predict the economic impact on American families from the loss of economic power as energy becomes more scarce and expensive. This bill will lose the US 2.5% of its GDP each and every year in the years after the first decade of implementation.
King Canute knew better than to believe his advisers when they told him that he was powerful enough to affect ocean levels. Unfortunately, this administration and the Democratic Party don’t have the sense Canute did.
Greenpeace does not even like the Bill, but not for the reasons you might think:
Washington, D.C., United States — In advance of tomorrow’s vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act in the House of Representatives, Greenpeace USA Deputy Campaigns Director Carroll Muffett issued the following statement:
“Since the Waxman-Markey bill left the Energy and Commerce committee, yet another fleet of industry lobbysists has weakened the bill even more, and further widened the gap between what Waxman-Markey does and what science demands. As a result, Greenpeace opposes this bill in its current form. We are calling upon Congress to vote against this bill unless substantial measures are taken to strengthen it. Despite President Obama’s assurance that he would enact strong, science-based legislation, we are now watching him put his full support behind a bill that chooses politics over science, elevates industry interests over national interest, and shows the significant limitations of what this Congress believes is possible.
“As it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.
“With many others in the environmental, faith and consumer rights communities, Greenpeace has expressed tremendous concern about the role of offsets in this legislation. Unless strictly controlled, the abuse of offsets could prevent real emission reductions for more than a decade. The decision to move authority over offsets from EPA to the Department of Agriculture further reduces the likelihood that such controls will be maintained and increases the likelihood they will undermine real reductions.
This legislation sends a strong and unmistakable signal to the world that the United States is not yet ready to show the leadership necessary to reach a strong agreement at Copenhagen in December. Already, we are seeing the impact of this signal as one country after another retreats from the aggressive targets needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.
We call on the Congress to reject this bill and begin immediate and urgent work on legislation that treats seriously the dire threat of climate change. We call on President Obama to move beyond rhetoric and deliver on his commitments to “restore science to its proper place” and to lead the world in addressing climate change.
Yeah, I know what your thinking; (Fuck Greenpeace!) and I agree. I just thought I would add their take on it.
Investors Business Daily Editorials Writes:
Not since a misguided piece of legislation imposed tariffs that turned a recession into a depression has there been a piece of legislation as bad as Waxman-Markey.
The 1,000-plus-page American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) is being rushed to a vote by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before anyone can seriously object to this economic suicide pact.
It’s what Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, might call a “man-caused disaster,” a phrase she coined to replace the politically incorrect “terrorist attack.” But no terrorist could ever dream of inflicting as much damage as this bill.
Its centerpiece is a “cap and trade” provision that has been rightfully derided as “cap and tax.” It is in fact a tax on energy everywhere it is consumed on everything it is used to make or provide.
It is the largest tax increase in American history — a tax on all Americans — even the 95% that President Obama pledged would never see a tax increase.
It’s a political bill that could come to a vote now that a deal was struck with farm-state legislators concerned about the taxation of even bovine flatulence.
As part of the agreement reached Tuesday night and announced by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Beverly Hills, agricultural oversight for cap-and-trade was transferred from the Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Farmers hope the USDA will be less intrusive. The EPA has been tasked by a Supreme Court ruling to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from your nostrils to your lawn mower. This even covers the emissions of barnyard animals, including the methane from cows.
The American Farm Bureau warns that cap and trade would cost the average farmer $175 on every dairy cow and $80 for beef cattle. So farm-state politics trumped climate change.
I guess you can see, by what is written here; that this bill is no good for anyone. Higher Taxes, Businesses being punished; Not good, not good at all.
There are quite a few bloggers covering this topic and are more informed about it than I. Here they are: QandO, Vox Popoli, Pundit & Pundette, Michelle Malkin, The Sundries Shack, The Foundry, AmSpecBlog, Gateway Pundit, A Blog For All, American Solutions, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Cold Fury and The Other McCain, Weekly Standard, RedState, Pajamas Media, Riehl World View, : The Jawa Report, The Strata-Sphere, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Pundit & Pundette, The Volokh Conspiracy, QandO, Classical Values, AmSpecBlog, Commentary, The Other McCain and Michelle Malkin
Oy!: You'd think they would learn; perhaps not….
Think the Democrats will learn from their prior mistakes, and won’t make them again?
Perhaps not:
(Reuters) – Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.
In March, Fannie Mae (FNM.N)(FNM.P) said it would no longer guarantee mortgages on condos in buildings where fewer than 70 percent of the units have been sold, up from 51 percent, the paper said. Freddie Mac (FRE.P)(FRE.N) is due to implement similar policies next month, the paper said.
In a letter to the CEO’s of both companies, Representatives Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner warned that a 70 percent sales threshold “may be too onerous” and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments, according to the paper.
The legislators asked the companies to “make appropriate adjustments” to their underwriting standards for condos, the paper added.
In an interview with the paper, Weiner said the rules have “had a real chill on the ability to get these condos sold,” at a time when prices of condos have fallen enough to attract potential buyers.
via Fannie, Freddie asked to relax condo loan rules: report | Reuters.
This is the same sort of stupidity that got us into the mess that we are in now. You would think that the Democrats in question would learn from their prior mistakes. So much for that idea. :roll:’
Of course, when you’re dealing with a party, that has been taken over by people, who are essentially Communist-lite in nature. What do you expect?
Sigh: Why do Christians do stupid stuff like this?
Disclaimer: In the interest of full disclosure; this author of this article, that being myself, is a Fundamentalist Baptist. I wholeheartedly reject the doctrine of laying on of hands and casting demons out of people. Please see this Statement of Faith here, to see what I believe. (Please note, I do NOT attend this Church!)
The Story:
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (WPIX) – A video which shows an exorcism of a teen to drive out apparent “homosexual demons” has sparked outrage among several gay rights activists.
The video, which was posted on YouTube, features church elders from the Manifested Glory Ministries Church in Bridgeport performing the exorcism on the 16-year-old boy.
“Right now I command you to leave!” screamed one of the church leaders involved with the exorcism in the video.
The teenager is seen rolling around on the ground, moaning and screaming – at one point he even vomits.
Although it was never confirmed to be a gay exorcism, repeated references to the subject’s sexual orientation suggests it was.
“Right now in the name of Jesus, I call the homosexuality, right now in the name of Jesus,” a church elder is heard screaming to the teen.
It’s unclear when the 20 minute video was made or if the teen suffered any physically injuries from what appeared to be near seizures.
Meantime, advocacy groups for gay youths are calling the video abuse and want authorities to get involved.
Robin McHaelen, executive director of True Colors said she plans on reporting the incident to the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, according to the Associated Press.
The video has since been taken down from YouTube, however the footage is still making its rounds on the internet.
via Apparent Gay Exorcism in Conn. Church Causes Outrage – WPIX.
First of all; This Church is to blame for the good part of this story. In this day of Anti-Christian sentiment in this Country and rampant Liberalism; you never, ever, post a video of this sort on youtube or on a website. In only can cause you extreme grief, as you can see here. Second of all, I have reason to believe that this little video was, as are most of the theatrics in “Pentecostal” Churches; most likely faked.
Just as well, I believe that if there is any sort of penalty for this little incident; it is to be known that this Church, because of their foolish actions of putting it on the internet, is to blame. In other words, they should have known better.
(H/T Drudge)
Andrew Sullivan Praises Obama; gets attacked by Wilsonian Republicans as an Anti-Semite
I will be the first to admit, there are times when Andrew Sullivan gets under my skin. But this is not one of this times. Sullivan has gotten attacked by Wilsonian Republicans, because someone dared to point out their pro-war mentality. The reason they are attacking him, is because he invoked a word, which is commonly used to describe that faction of the Republican Party. That word is “Neo-Cons”, Which is generally what they are. Former pro-war Democrats or intellectual classical liberals who left the Democratic Party, because of their opposing of the civil rights act and other such related events.
Anyhow, here’s what Sullivan said, I’ll bold and underline the parts that sent the “Neo-Cons”, if you will; into a tizzy:
Did you notice how many times he invoked the word “justice” in his message? That’s the word that will resonate most deeply with the Iranian resistance. What a relief to have someone with this degree of restraint and prudence and empathy – refusing to be baited by Khamenei or the neocons, and yet taking an eloquent stand, as we all do, in defense of freedom and non-violence. The invocation of MLK was appropriate too. What on earth has this been but, in its essence, a protest for voting rights? Above all, the refusal to coopt their struggle for ours, because freedom is only ever won, and every democracy wil be different: this is an act of restraint that is also a statement of pure confidence in the power of a free people.
Well, I guess now, the word “Neo-Con” is now code word for “Jew Hater”. Which is so absolutely funny. Because these bloggers are the same bloggers, who decry the race-baiting of the far left; only to do it themselves, when it comes to Jewish people. Since when does using a term, such as Neo-Con or Neo-Conservative constitute a racial slur? Sorry folks, but that is nothing more than race baiting in it’s purest form. You should all be ashamed. So, next you hear Wilsonian Republicans, like Michelle Malkin and those of her ilk, decrying the race baiting of the left, just remember; they do the same thing, when it comes to the Jewish people.
Neo-Con a racist term…. Please, as if! 🙄
Update: Please note: I originally ended this article with a rather crass term used amongst African-Americans; and I see that “The Daily Paul” linked in; and for that I am grateful. Anyhow, I changed the ending. I understand that not everyone out there gets my type of “I grew up in inner city Detroit” sort of humor. So, to those who were offended; I apologize. Again, thanks to the folks that linked in from the Daily Paul.
Round up of the race-baiting right: Don Surber, This ain’t Hell …, Riehl World View, Moe_Lane’s blog, Althouse and American Power
New t-shirt on Blog store….
Iran's election showdown begins; Neo-Conservatives continue to goad our President
It appears that the Iranian Islamic powers that be are beginning to clamp down on the dissent in that Country. The New York Times Reports:
TEHRAN — In his first public response to days of mass protests, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly warned opposition supporters on Friday to stay off the streets and raised the prospect of violence if the defiant, vast demonstrations continued.
Opposition leaders, he said, will be “responsible for bloodshed and chaos” if they do not stop further rallies.
He said he would never give in to “illegal pressures” and denied their accusations that last week’s presidential election was rigged, praising the officially declared landslide for the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as an “epic moment that became a historic moment.”
He spoke somberly for more than an hour and a half at Friday Prayer to tens of thousands of people at Tehran University, with Mr. Ahmadinejad in attendance. His sermon was broadcast over loudspeakers to throngs in the adjoining streets, and the crowds erupted repeatedly in roars of support. Opposition supporters had spread the word among themselves not to attend.
“Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, according to a rendering by the BBC. “This questions the principles of election and democracy.”
There was no immediate response from opposition leaders.
The article continues on and I personally encourage you to read it. This is all shaping up, just as I thought it would. Iran’s supreme leader is calling the shots; as always. This is why I basically removed the green from my twitter account. Because I knew it was pointless to support the protesters in Iran. The will of the people is just not respected in that country, the will of the Islamic Government is.
Meanwhile, the Wilsonian, Warmongering, and now highly discredited wing of the Republican Party still continues to goad our President in to entering the fray in Iran. The recently sold Weekly Standard continues it’s pandering to the Zionists abroad:
Fourth, now, today, is another opporunity for President Obama to speak. Mousavi has been threatened, as have the thousands of protesters. The ayatollah offered no conciliatory language for the protesters or the West. There was no talk of redoing the stolen election, or giving Mousavi a seat at the table. Obama has gone out of his way not to “meddle” in this affair, thinking that America’s “meddling” may compromise efforts to negotiate with the Iranian regime going forward.
What has been the reward for America sidelining itself? More condemnations from the regime that Obama wants to negotiate with. That same regime may be on the verge of an even more violent convulsion.
That quote up there is why the American people voted the Neo-Conservatives out of power and put in a outright socialist President. Because of that nonsense quoted up there. As a I said in my Blog entry/column that I sometimes write, America should stay out of the affairs of Iranian Government:
I have noticed that some of my Neo-Conservative counterparts have been goading the President of the United States for not taking a more vocal stance against the Iranian Government and by proxy, the Islamic leaders of that Country. In case that sounds a bit familiar, these people are the same people played cheerleader to President Bush’s decision to go into Iraq. Hence my reasoning for disliking the Neo-Conservative wing of the Republican Party; Not because of some idiotic Hatred of the Jews; but because of the Wilsonian, warmongering stance of those types of Conservatives.
As a Paleo-Conservative, my feelings about Iran are this that the United States of America should stay out of the affairs of the Iranian Government. If the Iranian people want to overthrow that Government, let them do it. If the Iranian people want to topple that Islamic regime, let them do it. The less the United States becomes involved in that situation, the better. The same kind of meddling with the affairs of other Governments has gotten us into other situations in the past. The list is quite long — Korea, Vietnam, Both Iraq Wars, World War I, and so on.
After I wrote that entry, I realized that I had not stated well enough as to why we should not get involved with the situation in Iran. The answer simply is this; say the Iranian people do overthrow the Islamic Government in that Country, an anti-Islamic Revolution, if you will; then there is a Democratic or Parliamentary Government established there. If at anytime that Government is overthrown and an Islamic Government is placed back into that Country; guess who will get the blame for overthrowing the previous Islamic Government? The United States will; that’s who! The Neo-Conservatives, in their blind and quite foolish desire to go to war with every country that rejects their foolish Zionist agenda; have forgotten one thing, Arabs hate us already, and they will really hate us, if the United States is seen to be meddling in their internal affairs. It is too bad that this Country, and more specifically the Republican Party and it’s Wilsonian, Neo-Conservative wing have not learned that lesson. Had they learned it long ago; those trade center towers would still be standing.
Others: BBC, Telegraph, MoJo Blog Posts, Wall Street Journal, The Lede, The Cable, Democracy in America, Maggie’s Farm, Michelle Malkin, New York Magazine, Jihad Watch, Hot Air, democracyarsenal.org, Washington Post, Wonk Room, Outside The Beltway, Wolf Howling, The BLT, A Blog For All, Salon, On Deadline, The Daily Dish, The Washington Independent, ATTACKERMAN, Gateway Pundit, FP Passport, Danger Room and The Huffington Post and more via Memeorandum
The Iran Situation Continued
Iranian Twitter users, inside and outside of Iran: (Via I Like Patterns)
Bushehr:
Rasht:
Shiraz:
Tehran:
Kamyar
madyar
Amin Abbaspour
Abdul-Azim Mohammed
Farhad
Parham Doustdar
Mohammad Ramezanpour
crash
Sajjad A. Mohammed
Yashar Khazdouzian
Mohamadreza
S T
Iran Election 2009
TehranBureau.com
MirHossein Mousavi
jim sciutto
Raymond Jahan
Parastoo
Thomas Erdbrink
Bahador Nooraei B.
William Yong
Bahram K
Alireza
persiankiwi
HamedUnknown:
mary moto
Alavi
duckdaotsu
Farnam B. (not Tehran)
Gita (not Tehran)
Iran
Shahrzad
Pouyan
mehdi assadi
VahidOutside Iran:
Muhammad Ghaffari
TwitPersia
Vote for Iran
Naseem Faqihi
RK
Elizabeth Tsurkov
Nasser Weddady
fustat
Neysan Schaefer
Neysan Zolzer
Update #2: Christopher Hitchens on the Election in Iran and he does not mince words!
Update #3: U.K. Times Reports:
Chanting Allahu akbar” — God is greatest — and “Ahmadi, we love you” the army of hardliners poured into central Tehran in a massive show of strength for President Ahmadinejad.
After a weekend of violence by supporters of his relatively moderate challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, this was an exercise designed to reclaim the capital’s streets in the name of the establishment.
“The protesters are lying. There was no cheating,” declared Farang Kamalwand, 39, a woman in a chador who had travelled 450 miles by bus from Lorestan.
“We came to prove to people outside this country that we love and support our President,” said Karamollah Rahimi, a builder who had spent nine hours travelling from Lordegan
[…]
The exuberance of last week, when Mr Mousavi appeared to be heading for a spectacular victory, turned to terror in the space of a few hours on Friday night as the regime unleashed its forces on the opposition.
All weekend, late into the night, squads of 30 or 40 riot police tore round the capital on motorbikes, roaring along pavements when the roads were blocked, and waded into crowds of chanting Mousavi supporters with their batons. Others charged up streets on foot, or rode around in black Toyota Land Cruisers. They used teargas, rubber bullets and stun grenades, and by Saturday night they had been joined by marauding bands of basiji — volunteer paramilitaries — waving the national flag and chanting Ahmadinejad slogans.
Nobody was spared. The Times witnessed an old woman in a long black chador being beaten in a doorway after she hurled insults at the police, a teacher clubbed to the ground by a basij as he tried to protect his demonstrating students and countless protesters carried away with blood streaming from their wounds.
One human rights activist called it a “Tehran Tiananmen”, referring to China’s brutal suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989.
Mousavi aides accused the regime of mounting a “coup détat”. His supporters retaliated by throwing stones, smashing windows, setting fire to buses and rubbish skips, and making barricades of burning tyres. “Mousavi is our President,” they chanted, and “What happened to our vote?” It was the worst unrest in the capital since the student riots of 1999.
There were reports of demonstrations in Tabriz, Siraz and other Iranian cities, but they were impossible to confirm because the regime all but shut down the telephone system. It blocked text messages, Facebook and several opposition websites to prevent Mousavi supporters from mobilising en masse.
The BBC and other news websites were jammed. Foreign journalists were denied extensions to their visas, ensuring that most would have to leave today or tomorrow.
Opposition newspapers were ordered to carry positive headlines dwelling on Friday’s massive turnout, but some refused. One that supports Mousavi ran a story about Mother’s Day on its front page by way of protest. Another, which supported Mehdi Karoubi, another of the four candidates, mocked the election with a headline proclaiming: “Karoubi comes fifth”. IRIB, the monopoly state broadcaster, has scarcely mentioned the riots.
Mousavi supporters are torn between fury, fear and despair. The green ribbons, headbands, shirts and bandanas with which so many were festooned last week have vanished — to wear them now would invite a beating.
Such nice people those Iranian Government thugs, no? 🙄
Update #4: ABC News International Reports:
A spokesman for Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi says his camp will keep pushing to change the results of Friday’s election that gave incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad a landslide win.
“We are going to stay in the streets and ask the mullahs to give fatwas that Ahmedinejad is not our president. We are going to ask the Leader, through the will of the people, to change his mind,” said Mostafa Makhmalbaf, who is speaking to the foreign press on Mousavi’s behalf from his home in Paris.
“I don’t think we can do a total Revolution in Iran but we can make some change,” he told ABC News, describing what would be an unprecedented reversal for the Islamic Republic.
Mousavi’s campaign claims the announced outcome, which gave Ahmedinejad 63 percent of the vote, was fraudulent.
Ahmedinejad and state election officials, some of them his appointees, have said the election was fair and accurate, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei confirmed Ahmedinejad’s landslide win on Saturday morning. “The most magnificent contemporary election took place on Friday in Iran … to us this [complaint] lacks any legal base, and to our nation as well it is without any legal value,” Ahmedinejad said today at a victory press conference. International observers have pointed to irregularities; the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, noted a handful of concerns including a lack of data made available to support the overall count.
Makhmalbaf said the campaign urged governments around the world not to accept Ahmedinejad’s election as president.
“He is a coup d’etat man,” said Makhmalbaf, referring to the election results as “a state of fascism.”
Mousavi has called for the results to be dismissed and a new vote taken. His camp has planned a rally for Monday, marching from Tehran’s Engelab to Azadi Squares. Mousavi himself and former President Mohamed Khatami, his political backer, plan to attend the event.
Over the weekend, protests were met with a harsh response from riot police, who attacked demonstrators with batons and tear gas.
“People are like fire nowadays. Whatever Ahmedinejad does it will be worse. Saturday morning the city was in shock. Now in the coming days you’ll see a change,” Makhmalbaf said.
Makhmalbaf clarified rumors that Mousavi was under house arrest, saying there was no official detention but that police were keeping watch on his home, exerting enough pressure to keep him indoors.
Read the rest of that one, it is quite interesting.
Closing this Live Blog and will post more, as it comes in.
Update #5: Part III of this Blog is here
The Obligatory Iran Elections Posting
The Iranian elections are upon us. I have two words to say about that; big deal.
This is why feel this way, because the Country of Iran is an Islamic Republic. Meaning the Islamic clerics there make the big decisions. Unlike the Country of Turkey, which is a Parliamentary republic. What this means is this; as long as there is a influence in that country by the Religious leaders, that Nation is not truly free.
The sick and sad part is that there are people in this very country here, that want to turn America into the Christian version of Iran. They basically want to turn America into a theocratic Christian Republic. All the while claiming that is what America was founded as. Which is blatantly false; America was founded as a Constitutional Republic that gave homage to a “God”; not Jesus Christ, but a “God” and not a Christian or Theocratical Republic as it so stupidly and patently falsely reported by those who are of a Zionist mentality.
So, while I think that it might be a good thing that there is a possibly that there might be a new “leader” in the Country of Iran. I just do not see any great and major change in the makeup and ideological stance in that Country.
As always Memeorandum has the round on this story.
