The Whole Delivery

The crackdown is going down in a major way in Iran. Mousavi is obviously worried . Speaking via his website, Mr Mousavi warned that such moves would lead Iran "towards a more violent atmosphere". Ahmadinejad is still rubbing it in the protestors face. Thankfully, most of the country's MP's didn't join him for his party . This is really tough to endure:

Photo from Reuters' John Kolesidis The stance just gets harder and harder from the Supreme Leader of Iran "I had insisted and will insist on implementing the law on the election issue ... Neither the establishment nor the nation will yield to pressure at any cost," Khamenei said. The emotion continues to grow in Iran. (Lots to come today, stay tuned)

Another deadly bomb in Iraq today. More Middle East negative news, as Pakistan forces fighting with the Taliban (remember them) leads to 44 people dying. Bill Maher gets hard at the corporate characteristics damaging the Democratic Party to the point that, "They are the new Republican." It's Saturday.........here is Obama's weekly address. And Luda! Saturday (Oooh! Ooooh!) - Ludacris

More later today of course...But enjoy the stuff below

Ed Schultz speaking truth to power this week, as he almost always does: Despite a 76% backing of the public of a public option in health care, Democrats are treating it more minority than the Minority Party itself. And the reason why is because insurance companies are in their pocket just as much as they are the Sad obnoxious Party. In Iran, Ayatalloh Khamanei has again, backed the results. And this time, he also includes a stern warning Iran's Supreme Leader has issued a stern warning that protests against the country's disputed presidential election results must end. In his first public remarks after days of demonstrations, Ayatollah Khamenei said the outcome must be decided at the ballot box, not on the street.He said political leaders would be blamed for any violence. TWD Cinema will be back today, with Year One and The Proposal coming out. And the reviews on them are half hearted, to say the least. Long day today as always. Let's get right into it.

Photo from Richard Perry of the New York Times It gets to a point with an important charge like this written , that there needs to be one definitive source saying this As tens of thousands of Iranian protesters take to the streets in defiance of the government in Tehran, officials in Washington are debating whether President Obama’s response to Iran’s disputed election has been too muted. Mr. Obama is coming under increased pressure from Republicans and other conservatives who say he should take a more visible stance in support of the protesters. Even while supporting the president’s approach, senior members of the administration, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would like to strike a stronger tone in support of the protesters, administration officials said. It is sad when a journalist has to question whether those sources form the New York Times of all papers are valid. But with the recent track record of that paper in this ...

The headlines for today:

Photo from AFP Why not? Anyway, lot's of things to do, let's get into it Update :And the clashes are going down with the militia, as seven people have died

After people all throughout, especially on Twitter, criticized CNN'S lack of an urgent response to what's going down in Iran, take a look at what their supposed "media critic" Howard Krutz said in response: A loser response from a loser indeed. And I don't care if i did call him a loser. He is one, and unless he changes his ways, will forever be.

It's no wonder why Frank Gaffney won a Straight Jacket Award last week , and a nutcase by the name of Richard Perle will win one soon. Richard Perle, a neoconservative and former Pentagon adviser, said Obama must share the blame for Ahmadinejad’s power grab. “Normally, when you unclench your fist it benefits the hardliners, because Obama appeared to be saying we can do business with you even with your present policies.” [...] “It underscores the folly of the president’s basic premise that the problem we have with bad actors around the world is that they don’t understand us,” said Frank Gaffney, of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank. “These people are thugs and they have been emboldened by our weakness.” And yesterday, we highlighted how thankful we should be that Mitt Romney isn't President of this nation . If Humpy Dumpy fell off the wall, they would find some way with their logic to blame Obama.

Photo from AFP People are bigging this up, but I have caution over this move . State television reported that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has upheld the election result, urged the Guardian Council to "precisely consider" the complaints. A spokesman for the 12-member council said they would meet Mr Mousavi and Mr Rezai on Tuesday. They are expected to decide on the complaints by next week. Josh Marshall is much more optimist than me, and almost sways me a bit On the face of it, Khamenei could call for a review and then decide that it all checks out and that's the end of it. But it's my experience that that's not how these things play out. When regimes ride these crises out successfully they almost always do so with a united phalanx. You simply do not grant the premise of the critics. Force, much as we like to think otherwise, is often quite efective. (See Tienanmen Square.) Once you do, once you legitimize the premise of the protests, which can quic...

With stupid statements like blaming Obama for the rigged election in Iran, you continue to see how this guy lost to John McCain last year, who ran the worst campaign in Presidential history just to remind you. Thankfully, Joe Scarborough had an occasionally moment of intelligence pop up again : You know, the law of unintended consequences came in again. I suspect that Cairo speech really scared the grand ayatollahs in Iran. If they were going to fix an election, this was the time to fix it, because the last thing they wanted to do was Barack Obama take credit for reformers winning in Iran, like they already have in Lebanon. And by the way, in the short term that's bad news for us. I think in the long term, though -- if the ayatollahs are seen stealing an election, as a result from what Barack Obama did in Cairo -- I actually think that's a positive for the United States and Iran in the long run.

A network getting scared because of a social network. Times really are changing, aren't they. Twitter users blasted CNN this weekend for a lack of coverage of the Tehran protests, with Iranian citizens claiming ballot fraud and taking to the streets. Twitter has proven a powerful tool for spreading news of developing events in the country, but it has also taken on the role of media watchdog: thousands of Twitter users adopted the hashtag #CNNfail to highlight a lack of Iran coverage from the news organization.

Photo from Al Jazeera Talks of Ahmadinejad changing the Constitution so he can be President for even longer, the man who is the most valuable economic source in this country (Rafsanjani) resigns, and Hossein, the challenger, is locked up. The news will continue on this later.

Nate Silver is one of the smartest people in the political world today. But not everyone can be fully astute all the times, and today was a rare, RARE case indeed Elections in thuggish, authoritarian states like Iran need be treated with the utmost skepticism and scrutiny. I can't say I have any real degree of confidence in the official results, which showed Ahmadinejad winning with some 62 percent of the vote . There is a statistical analysis making the rounds, however, which purports to show overwhelmingly persuasive evidence that the Iranian election was rigged. I do not find this evidence compelling. Nate uses that chart to show his beliefs. But Silver is painfully and stunningly wrong here. Way wrong. Silver decides to make a connection to U.S. elections as his basis, but it is a terrible comparison. There are strong rumors, and it really happened for sure, that the higher ups (Supreme Leader Khamenei and the others higher ups) didn't even count not some, and not even ma...

That appears to be the case. The election chief and the state media in Iran have declared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. But funny business is in full galore, and street protest are going down. More later, but the site has got to be defrosted and not dormant anymore today. Obama with his weekly address, again, pushing health care talk: And, as always, Luda! Saturday (Oooh! Ooooh!) - Ludacris Update : Mousavi has apparently been arrested . Wow.

More on this later.

Photo from Newscom/Sipa Press Imagine if Lex Luthor secretly wanted Superman to be okay. Or that Red Sox fans wanted the Yankees to win just so that the American League can have bragging rights. Or that Bill O'Liely wanted Keith to continue to making him look like the liar he is each night. You get all the analogies right now, because all three happening are totally unfathomable. And from pure common sense, you would think the same about American neo-conservatives (and some right wing extremists in Israel) wanting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to win today in Tehran and throughout. Unfathomable right? Well.......... They actually want Ahmadinejad to win it seems . Yup, you read right, they actually do. Now for some readers, this may not come as a surprise at all. But the others including myself, when driving into the last days of the now neck and neck race between the controversial president and his fierce challenger reformist Hossein Mousavi, it is at first totally unexpected to see the pe...

Are those they hate Ahmadinejad the most wanting him to nevertheless win his election? More on that later, as there are plenty of things to cover.