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Polling in Iran Shows Real Support for Ahmadinejad — The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey …
Discussion:
Behind the Numbers, New York Times, Gateway Pundit, FiveThirtyEight, Wall Street Journal, The Moderate Voice, Shadow Government, The Daily Dish, Open Left, Abu Muqawama, BBC, Jules Crittenden, Outside The Beltway, The Independent, Commentary, Sadly, No!, Daniel W. Drezner, Sister Toldjah, Agence France Presse, The Atlantic Politics Channel, The Mahablog, Registan.net, The Atlanticist, Obsidian Wings and Danger Room
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Iran protest cancelled as leaked election results show Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came third — 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.


Iran's Disputed Election — Following up from last Friday's entry about Iran's Presidential Election, Tehran and other cities have seen the largest street protests and rioting since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Supporters of reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, upset at their announced loss …
Discussion:
The Spirit of Man


Shots fired at huge Iran protest — Huge crowds cheered Mir Hossein Mousavi when he appeared at the rally — Shots have been fired at a rally in Iran where hundreds of thousands of people were demonstrating against last week's presidential election results.
Discussion:
CNN, Fox News, niacINsight, Time, Reuters, CBS News, Jihad Watch, PERRspectives, The Duck of Minerva, ShortWoman, Xinhua News Agency, On Deadline and Guardian


Ahmadinejad won. Get over it — Without any evidence, many U.S. politicians and “Iran experts” have dismissed Iranian President Ahmadinejad's reelection Friday, with 62.6 percent of the vote, as fraud. — They ignore the fact that Ahmadinejad's 62.6 percent of the vote in this year's election …


Top Cleric Calls for Inquiry as Protesters Defy Ban in Iran
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The Lede, Aljazeera, The Daily Dish, Feministing, Wall Street Journal, Danger Room, QandO, Gawker, Washington Post and Reuters

‘Extraordinary Amount of Wishful Thinking’ by US
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Associated Press, MoJo Sections, American Prospect, The Atlanticist, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Confluence and Washington Post

Why is Dennis Ross being ousted as Obama envoy to Iran? — 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.
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Dennis Ross, Out As Special Envoy To Iran; Was He Ousted Because He's A Jew Or A Bit Hawkish On Nukes? — The news that Dennis Ross, long time State Department strategist and peace processor, is being bounced as special envoy to Iran comes from an article by Barak Ravid in the reliable (at least on these matters) Ha'aretz.
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Commentary

“Conservatives” Are Single-Largest Ideological Group — Percentage of “liberals” higher this decade than in early '90s — PRINCETON, NJ — Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Commentary, Democratic Strategist, Hot Air and The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Obama rejects single payer — An effective rhetorical tack on Obama's campaign was casting his health care plan as a middle ground between private sector greed and a government takeover, and in an address to the American Medical Association today, he took a version of that tack in selling his public plan to that tough crowd:
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Cheney: I Hope Panetta Was ‘Misquoted’ in Claiming My Wish for Attack — After the CIA director apparently told The New Yorker that he thinks the former vice president is crossing his fingers for another attack on America, Dick Cheney says he hopes his “old friend” didn't really say those words.
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MSNBC
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Kristol: Memo to Conservatives — There have been very good grounds to criticize President Obama's foreign policy so far. There will be much more to criticize over the next three and a half years. — But he is our president. We could be at an historical inflection point in Iran.
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The Iranian election: Barack Obama's cowardly silence
Discussion:
Hot Air, Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Nice Deb, The American Pundit, AMERICAN DIGEST, lgf 2.0, BuzzFlash.org, Swampland and CBS News

The Case for Financial Regulatory Reform — Over the past two years, we have faced the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. The financial system failed to perform its function as a reducer and distributor of risk. Instead, it magnified risks, precipitating …
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Details Set for Remake of Financial Regulations
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Felix Salmon, John Gapper's Business Blog, The New Republic, Clusterstock, The Market Ticker and MoJo Blog Posts

Exclusive: House Dems Planning Major Changes To Secret CIA Briefings Of Congress — In a move that could spark another fight with the GOP over CIA intelligence and secrecy, House Dems are quietly preparing to make major changes to the ways the CIA briefs Congress on covert actions …


Fareed Zakaria GPS Redeems CNN's Iran Coverage — A couple of years ago, I was at a party, locked deep in conversation with a former producer at CNN. And I recall that one of the things we had talked about was the media's coverage of Hurricane Katrina. I remember telling …
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Pol: Gorilla is ‘related’ to First Lady … A prominent South Carolina Republican killed his Facebook page Sunday after being caught likening the First Lady to an escaped gorilla. — Commenting on a report posted to Facebook about a gorilla escape at a zoo in Columbia, S.C., Friday …

Pundit Glenn Beck on ‘Common Sense,’ More — Radio and television personality Glenn Beck was online Monday, June 15 at 1 p.m. ET to discuss his new book, “Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine.” — Chicago: Glenn, On June 6 you said" …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, The Huffington Post, Think Progress, Get Energy Smart! and The New Republic

Realism and Iran — The brutal apparent fraud taking place in Iran puts the Obama Administration, and anyone who cares about both American security and human rights, in an extremely difficult position. For eight years, George W. Bush maintained that there was no tension, let alone contradiction …
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A Letter to the President from Joe Solmonese — Ed. Note: This morning HRC President Joe Solmonese sent a letter to President Barack Obama responding to the administration's brief that argues for the Defense of Marriage Act to be upheld in court. The letter follows and is available in PDF:


Is Sonia Sotomayor Mean? — · The White House is fond of pointing out that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has more years on the bench, as a trial court and appellate judge, than any previous Supreme Court nominee. — With that record comes not just hundreds of written opinions, but thousands of oral arguments.