President Obama's statement this afternoon on Iran:

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples' belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

Timesman David Rohde, whose kidnapping by the Taliban last November in Afghanistan had been kept hush-hush by the Times and other media outlets, managed to escape his captors Friday night and is now safe with U.S. troops.

The New York Times reports that statistically speaking, Sonia Sotomayor is objectively not an activist -- though the label itself is meaningless. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Saturday Roundup.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: The Ayatollah Speaks

"Mr. President:

Momentum for universal health care is slowing dramatically on Capitol Hill. Moderates are worried, Republicans are digging in, and the medical-industrial complex is firing up its lobbying and propaganda machine ..."

Read the rest here.

All those anonymous claims emanating from the Ensign camp that the Hamptons were trying to extort him for money? Well, now Ensign's spokesperson says it was "exorbitant demands for cash and other financial benefits" made through an attorney and that the matter was referred to Ensign's lawyer.

Maybe the Hamptons' attorney is a klutz and botched the pre-lawsuit negotiations with demands that amounted to actionable extortion. But as the Las Vegas Sun has reported, neither the FBI nor local law enforcement is investigating any alleged extortion here.

So far this just looks like the usual run-up to a lawsuit. I guess Ensign gets more sympathy from his buddies in the Senate by telling them he's being extorted. You know how it is ...

Late Update: From TPM Reader AK:

Ensign's behavior may be questionable, but so is Hampton's. In his initial statement put out by his attorney, Hampton talks about a personal matter they were trying to keep private while five days earlier he wrote an odd and dramatic letter to a Fox News anchor trying to make this personal matter as public as possible.

No doubt.

The new "Congressional Sovereignty Caucus" -- opposed to "transnational bodies" that undermine America's "vibrant Judeo-Christian heritage" -- launches next week with an event featuring transnational players Oliver North, Frank Gaffney and Doug Feith.

A playbill of sorts for followers of the Ensign scandal: a photo gallery of the cast of characters and a timeline of the key events. Theatre glasses, anyone?

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

TPM Reader MM:

Isn't it funny that conservative who used to complain about Obama's use of rhetorical powers as "just words" now think his relative caution in speaking out about Iran is a deep betrayal of everything American?

While Norm Coleman was battling for his political life in 2008 in a race he ultimately lost to Al Franken by a mere 312 votes, his colleague John Ensign -- whose job as chairman of the NRSC was helping GOP senators like Norm get re-elected -- was off having an affair and finding jobs for his mistress' family.

Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) turns down personal meeting/courtesy call with Judge Sotomayor.

We noted yesterday that Sen. Ensign was backing off his staff's original claims that he came forward with the news of his affair because cuckolded husband Doug Hampton was trying to extort cash from the senator in exchange for keeping the story quiet. Ensign now seems to be conceding that he arranged for employment for Hampton during a period in which Hampton was repeatedly confronting him to demand Ensign stop sleeping with his wife. But now we're getting another version of just what prompted Ensign to come forward on Tuesday.

Five days earlier Hampton sent a letter to Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly asking her to help him expose Ensign's "heinous conduct and relentless pursuit" of his wife. "Please help me," he begged the comely Kelly.

He actually described one of the confrontations ...

In fact, one of the confrontations took place in February 2008 at his (Ensign's) home in Washington D.C. with a group of his peers. One of the attendees was Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma, as well as several other men who are close to the senator.

It's a pretty over-the-top letter, which is odd at some level since the affair had supposedly ended almost a year earlier. Interestingly, Hampton suggested that he only thought it was proper to bring the news to right-wing news organization. Now we're trying to find out how Ensign found out about the overture to Fox News.

If you want to keep up on the latest from TPM and what we're up to, be sure to join our TPM page at Facebook.

Just takes a moment. And you'll be filled with a feeling of inner peace.

I promise.

Iranian protestors call for solidarity with oppressed House Republicans. Jon Stewart reports.

There are actually two parts: one and two.

Sen. Ensign: Sure I helped my mistress' husband find work after he left my staff, but I do that for all my former staffers.

No public option in latest draft of health care reform bill from the Senate Finance Committee. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Duncan Black (aka 'Atrios') and Amanda Marcotte join our discussion of the future of the liberal blogosphere and Eric Boehlert's Bloggers on the Bus at TPMCafe Book Club.

WaPo editorialists imagine they're driving forward the Revolution in Iran and attack Obama for not joining them on the ramparts.

Jacob Heilbrunn picks apart the inanity.

Rep. Bachmann (R-MN) pledges not to fill out her census form as a challenge to government tyranny.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: The Digital Davids

When I went on the Colbert Report last night we just shot a few stills after the show. But a little more than two years ago I interviewed Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). And as part of spending time with him that day (sort of interviewing him and observing as he went from event to event) to went with him to his appearance on Colbert. And we shot some great video of Colbert coming back to the green room before the taping to chat with Kerry and sort of prep him for what he was in store for (very generous of the show's staff to let us). It was the first time I'd ever seen Colbert drop out of character. Very fun to see if you're a fan. Watch it here.

Walter Cronkite "gravely ill", says the Sun Times.

Arrest warrant issued for "Sir" Allen Stanford.

Thanks to TPM Reader WTM for the tip.

Late Update: 10:44 PM ... And he's in custody.

Marriage equality opponents in Maine hire the firm that ran the Prop 8 campaign.

With the party's brand in the dumps, a group of high-profile GOPers (including Rudy Giuliani, Steve Forbes and Colin Powell) have decided to rebrand themselves as motivational speakers under the 'Get Motivated!'. You can attend for a mere $4.95 or bring you whole office for a mere $19!

I suspect a lot of readers have followed the story of Libby, MT, since the Seattle Post-Intelligencer first reported, nearly 10 years ago now, on the epic asbestos pollution there by the notorious corporate polluter W.R. Grace and its predecessor. So I wanted to flag that the EPA yesterday declared a public health emergency in Libby, the first time the EPA has invoked that provision of the Superfund law since it was passed in 1980. Too late for the more than 200 people who have died there.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

We've reported out many of the details about one of the two new jobs Doug Hampton landed after leaving Sen. Ensign's staff last year in the aftermath of his wife's affair with Ensign -- as government affairs vp for an airline whose CEO is a big political backer of Ensign. Now Zack Roth takes a look at the other landing pad for Hampton -- the political consulting firm run by a former Ensign chief of staff that counts Ensign as one of its clients.

Sure not looking good at this moment.

For real time updates on all the news out of Iran bookmark our auto-updating TPM Iran Live Updates page right here. The most recent updates are also included under the "Crisis in Iran" rubric below and to your right.

Hoekstra spokesman: My boss didn't compare House GOPers to Iranian protestors ... But they are pretty similar.

Yesterday, you'll remember, clinically unselfaware Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) tweeted that the struggle of Iranian reformists was similar to the oppression faced by House Republicans when Nancy Pelosi won't let them bring enough amendments to the floor. That tweet triggered a wave of tweet heckling, as others mocked Hoekstra's unique mix of grandiosity and cluelessness. Eric Kleefeld rounded up some of the best of these counter-tweets in a post at TPMDC. But I hadn't realized until just now that folks were keeping up the ridicule in the comments section of the post.

This one was funny: "My mom made me carry the trash out to the alley. Now I know what the Bataan Death March was like."

It's almost developing into a niche Hoekstra-mocking art form. Kind of like a Haiku.

This one, this one and this one were pretty good too.

That South Carolina GOP big wig who had to apologize for a racist Twitter joke about Michelle Obama also served on a city council charged with promoting racial diversity. Guess it didn't really take ...

Sen. Ensign's out-of-the-gate story was that the husband of his former mistress was extorting money from him. That seemed questionable since extortion is a serious felony. And generally people get arrested for it -- which didn't seem to be happening with this guy. Now Ensign seems to be backing off that story.

If he made it up, why did he come forward now? And if so, does he take heat for a false charge?

The son of the couple in the Ensign love triangle, who previously worked for a brief time at the NRSC when Ensign was the chairman there, is now working for the same Las Vegas airline that employs his father as vice president for governmental affairs -- an airline whose CEO is a big political contributor to Ensign. Zack Roth has our exclusive.

Stranger and stranger.

Gary Sick says the scenes from Iran today look very much like those leading up to the 1979 Revolution. Massive but largely silent crowds, occasional outbursts of violence from nervous and antsy security services. The shining difference to Sick is the lack of the charismatic opposition figure that Khomeini played in 1979. This is a very illuminating analysis of the players guiding or perhaps trying to guide what's happening in Iran. It's Mousavi and Khamenei, with Ahmadinejad a largely ancillary passive player on the side, Sick argues. But each lacks command and charisma and both seem to be trying to keep up with rather than lead events.

Some of you probably know this. But there's been chatter out of Minnesota over the last 24 hours that the long-awaited state Supreme Court decision on the Coleman/Franken recount may be coming down today. And if it does there's a decent chance it will come down at 11 AM ET.

To be clear, this is just chatter. But it would be on schedule. So we're prepping for it here at TPM HQ. And needless to say, if and when it happens, we'll be bringing you the news as soon as it comes down, along with analysis of the decision and where the story goes from here.

Late Update: It's now 11:22 ET, and nada from the court, except the court clerk perhaps throwing some cold water on the rumors. --dk

On his first try at apologizing for his racist joke about Michelle Obama (said she was a relative of a gorilla), GOP bigwig Rusty DePass tried to blame the joke on Michelle herself. That doesn't seem to have gone over that well. So now he's trying a more abject sorry.

Former President George W. Bush deviates from his much-touted practice of not criticizing his successor to commit another crime against the English language:

I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work.

That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Josh does the Colbert Report. Watch.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

Got off to a rough start ...

But eventually we were cool ...

Tune in for tonight's episode.

TPM Reader LM not loving the architectural stylings of Chez Hampton:

What always strikes me about these mega mcmansions is, well, the incredibly bad taste: rooms too large, ridiculous over the top "faux" European furnishings. Is this considered "great living"? Great design?

Most of America's top architects would blanche at these so called "posh" surroundings. It strikes me that these lavish, badly designed, ugly places often fit the people who chose to live in them.

Oh Philip Johnson, Frank Lloyd Wright, and many others. You are rolling in your graves ...

Late Update: It's mafia chic, says TPM Reader LP:

Wow, reader LM is so right -- it is cheese-o-licious! Also, between the kitchen, the dining room off the main entry, and the furnishings, it looks *remarkably* like Tony and Carmella's house on the Sopranos. Go ahead, review a few episodes and you'll see what I mean.

The attorney for the former staffers in the Ensign love triangle released a statement this afternoon:

Doug and Cindy Hampton can confirm that they are the individuals referenced by Sen. Ensign during his press conference.

It is unfortunate the senator chose to air this very personal matter, especially after the Hamptons did everything possible to keep this matter private.

It is equally unfortunate that he did so without concern for the effect such an announcement would have on the Hampton family.

In time the Hamptons will be ready and willing to tell their side of the story. Until then, please respect their privacy.

A lawyer. An (alleged) demand for money. Tried to keep it private. Ready and willing to tell their side of story. I smell lawsuit.

The closer you look at the John Ensign love triangle, the stranger it becomes. Something just doesn't feel right about the allegation that the husband of the senator's love interest -- both of whom were staffers for Ensign -- was trying to run some sort of extortion hustle, which forced Ensign to go public and admit the affair.

First off, the two couples were reportedly close. Ensign and the husband, Doug Hampton, have been described as like brothers. Second, Doug Hampton was a, if not the, top staffer to Ensign. Third, Cynthia Hampton was treasurer of Ensign's own campaign, and he turned to her when a longtime GOP treasurer suspected of embezzlement was ousted from Ensign's leadership PAC. Even the Hampton's son worked for Ensign at the NRSC for a time.

Maybe all that can be explained away by the bad blood and toxic feelings that an affair would leave behind. Maybe. But as Zack Roth reports, even after the affair, after Cynthia had been reportedly paid a severance to leave Ensign's campaign, and after Doug left his Senate staff, Doug went to work for a Nevada-based airline whose CEO and his wife are big political contributors to Ensign and for the political consulting firm that represents Ensign. It's a very tangled web. My gut is there's more to this story.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra is getting mercilessly, but wittily, heckled on Twitter for comparing the plight of pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran to the House GOP minority. We've put together some of the best responses.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Jim Sleeper checks in with an on the ground report from a former student reporting from the streets in Tehran.

As noted earlier, it seems like one of the reasons Sen. Ensign's former mistress's husband (Doug Hampton) tried to shake him down for cash (at least that's what Ensign claims he did) was that the couple got in over their heads because of the mortgage crisis and the collapse of the Las Vegas real estate market.

That's not too surprising when you see the swank manse that seemed to have them up to their gills in debt.

Here's a special TPM Slideshow of Chez Hampton, the house that may have brough Sen. Ensign's career to a screeching halt.

If you're up for some late evening TV viewing tonight, I'm going to be on the Colbert Report.

With all the news this week, be sure to check out the TPMCafe Book Club we're hosting on Eric Boehlert's Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press. Here's Eric's latest post in the discussion, "The Liberal Blogosphere's Uncertain Future."

The White House has now given Congress its reasons for firing Corporation for National and Community Service Inspector General Gerald Walpin. Here's our latest report.

It's starting to look like Sen. Ensign's affair may have been forced into the public because the guy trying to extort a pay off from him got swamped in the mortgage crisis in the short-circuited Las Vegal real estate market.

When House Republicans succeed in their own 'color revolution', what color will they be?

And there's more. Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) expresses solidarity with Iranians on behalf of the group suffering repression that he belongs to ... the House GOP caucus.

Latest Tweet from Rep. Pete Hoekstra ...

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.

That one's so insane it may qualify to be added to the list of GOP social media embarrassments.

From Roll Call ...

House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn't know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.

House GOPers flatter themselves: We're an oppressed minority reduced to using Twitter just like the protesters in Iran!

Ensign DC office on lockdown.

Presumably we can all agree that all the Iranian protestors need to bring victory into their grasp is the good counsel and stiff upper lip of the DC neocons. Jacob Heilbrunn looks at the neocons' new war with Obama over Iran.

Only five House Republicans voted in favor of Obama's $106 billion war funding bill, which passed 226-202. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: Not a Good Idea to Meddle.

Courtesy of TPM Reader AD, a little nugget from 1999 in WaPo (emphasis added)...

Christian politicians and evangelical leaders commonly follow an unspoken rule not to meet behind closed doors with women staff members or travel alone with them. The Rev. Billy Graham, for example, has famously refused to be alone in a room with any woman except his wife since he married her in the 1940s.

Rep. Steve Largent (R-Okla.), a Christian conservative, insists a male staff member is present whenever he meets with a woman, his spokesman said. John Ensign, who is running for senate in Nevada will not be alone in a car with a woman

Slideshow: Michelle Obama hosts a night of Jazz at the White House.

Earlier this afternoon, Zack Roth reported on the murder charges against two leaders of 'Minuteman American Defense' stemming from an incident over the weekend in which they staged a home invasion in Arizona, killing reputed drug dealer Raul Flores, his nine year old daughter and wounding his wife. Beyond the brutality of the act, it's difficult to get a handle on just what Shana Forde, Jason Bush and Albert Gaxiola were trying to do. They broke into Flores's home in Arivaca, Arizona posing as police officers with what police say was the intention of killing him and his family, taking a large sum of money and stealing his drugs which they would then sell on the street for more money. The proceeds, it seems, would go toward funding their on-going anti-immigrant 'activism' and, more ambitiously, instigating a race war to overthrow the US government.

Read more »

Turns out that Sen. Ensign (R) is a longtime member of "Promise Keepers."

Seems like he may have stumbled a bit on promise 3 and promise 4.

Once Ensign admits to the affair, the lurid details lose a bit of their edge. If you're into lurid details (and sleeping with your employee's wife is pretty darn lurid). I'm more interested in what prompted this now? Was Larry Flynt on the prowl? The National Enquirer? For a guy who harbored presidential ambitions, this is tough blow to his hopes for 2012. So something had to give. What was it?

Late Update: Politico has more detail, including a reported demand for money from the husband of Ensign's lover:

Political insiders in the Senate and in Nevada told POLITICO that Ensign began an affair with a staffer several months after he separated from his wife. When Ensign reconciled with his wife, the sources said, he gave the aide a severance package and parted ways.

Sometime later, a Nevada source said, Ensign met with the husband of the woman involved and had what this source described as a positive encounter. Sources said that the man subsequently asked Ensign for a substantial sum of money - at which point Ensign decided to make the affair public.

Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) reportedly about to hold press conference to admit to extramarital affair.

Here's the announcement given to AP: "I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions."

Looking ugly. The affair was fairly recent, from December 2007 to August 2008, the AP reports -- and was with the wife of one of his Senate staffers. She worked on his campaign staff.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

You have to go all the way back to 2008 to find the same Republicans now voting against the new Afghanistan/Iraq war funding bill accusing some Democrats of not supporting the troops for voting against similar appropriations.

Bob Reich: Three Essentials of Financial Sector Reform.

Here's an editorial note from a Reuters piece we just ran in our news section.

(Editors' note: Reuters coverage is now subject to an Iranian ban on foreign media leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)

We've been noticing today how, despite the fact that a lot seems to be going on in Tehran today, it's much more difficult to get images or accounts of just what's occurring. It seems like the blanket ban on reporters leaving their offices may be having a big effect.

You may have missed it because of the news out of Iran this weekend. But a bizarre and horrific incident came to light over the weekend in which the leadership of one of the 'Minutemen' border vigilante groups (including Shawna Forde, pictured here) were arrested for a home invasion in which they tried to murder an entire family. The father and daughter were killed; the wife managed to survive. The father was reputedly a drug dealer and the idea was to kill the family, steal the money and take the drugs which would then be sold for more money. A fringe benefit, it seems, was that the mass murder could be pointed to as another example of mayhem on the border caused by an influx of illegals.

Now it turns out though that the suspects, in addition to having ties to 'mainstream' anti-immigration groups like FAIR and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, were also tied to white supremacist groups like the Aryan Nations and had a master plan to recruit a 'militia' of white supremacists who would pull other such home invasion stunts down in the southwest. Here's our report.

Gary Sick explains that that poll of the Iranian election -- which showed strong support for Ahmadinejad -- was actually taken mostly before Mousavi's campaign really took off -- early and mid-May. It's a solid poll, and taken under quite difficult circumstances. But it doesn't necessarily tell us where the electorate was immediately in advance of election day.

Do Republicans need to reconsider social networking? The GOP launched off the year with Twitter as the killer app that was going lead the party back to a Web 2.0 new majority. Mostly though, it's generated a series of train-wrecks, embarrassments and operatives having to apologize for using their Twitter accounts for racist jokes.

So today we've put together our list of the Top 7 GOP New Media FAILS so far this year.

The House GOP will vote en masse against the new war funding bill. What about the troops? For the House GOP, they take a back seat to sticking a finger in the eye of the IMF. That and the day's other news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds: Fraud in Iran?

You've probably seen the reports of the shooting that took place at the rally at which Mr. Mousavi spoke in Tehran yesterday. Al Jazeera and al Arabiya are now reporting that Iranian state radio has announced that seven people were killed along with many others wounded.

It's not immediately clear to me whether we should assume in this case that state radio would give artificially low estimates of the number who died.

Also of interest -- President Ahmadinejad decided to make the trip to Russia which had originally been scheduled for Monday. He arrived in Yekaterinberg a short time ago. That certainly seems like a show of confidence that his supporters have the situation under control -- at least on the immediate time horizon.

We've got a full menu of news we're trying to keep on top of today. But I wanted to let everyone know about some comings and goings here at TPM.

First, Associate Editor Lila Shapiro, who's been TPMCafe editor and doing about a hundred different other things at TPM for the last year is off to a new job at Huffington Post. We thank her for all her hard work and wish her the very, very best. Here's Lila's sign off post at TPMCafe.

You can remember Lila from her going away bash at TPM HQ (pictured below) or just go over to Huffpo and check out her headlines and news layouts.

Second, we've promoted Brian Beutler to become our new Congressional Reporter-Blogger at TPMDC. Brian's actually taken this week off which I guess makes sense to take a final breather before formally join the TPM reporting cult.

Third, we've hired former TPM intern Rachel Slajda to be our first of three new "news writers." Rachel starts next week.

And finally, fourth, we've promoted former intern Versha Sharma to be our first TPM 'Editorial Fellow.'

We expect to have several new hires to announce in the near future.

Daniel Levy and Amjad Atallah on the latest out of Iran.

Recent events suggest that Twitter and the GOP may not be a good match after all.

In these Internet chronicled events, there's a flurry of web video of events on the streets in Tehran. Click here to see our page with some of the 'best' video we've found on the web.

Also, see our slideshow of today's rally and rioting.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

So what's the deal with the whole Murtha / PMA / Visclosky / Kucera scandal? TPMmuckraker's Zack Roth takes a close look and brings us up to speed.

As if it weren't enough that a South Carolina Republican joked on Facebook that Michelle Obama's ancestors were gorillas (he didn't mean it in a pro-evolution kind of way), now we have a South Carolina GOP operative making his own racist Obama joke on Twitter.

They're doing GOP Chairman Michael Steele proud, too, using the social networking intertubes to make the GOP more relevant in the digital age. Nice work.

New information on the violence in Tehran today has been slow to emerge. But here, via McClatchy, is a video of one of the shooting victims, who was apparently wounded in the arm. The AP has the latest on the incident that was the focus for the violence:

Later, a group of demonstrators with fuel canisters set a small fire at a compound of a volunteer militia linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard as the crowd dispersed from the square. As some tried to storm the building, people on the roof could be seen firing directly at the demonstrators at the northern edge of the square, away from the heart of the rally.

An Associated Press photographer saw one person fatally shot and at least two others who appeared to be seriously wounded.

Late Update: We've compiled some of the other compelling videos to come out of iran in recent days.

Vaclav Havel expresses solidarity with Iranian demonstrators.

As you can see from our news update down to the right, Reuters has just moved a news alert quoting Mousavi saying he's not optimistic about the results of the review of the election results. That's probably a sensible viewpoint. But in a climate of crisis of course words are not simply isolated statements of opinion. They can have a profound effect on shaping the course of events. And it seems like a very funny thing for him to say in this context and at this moment since it seems to lower expectations for a reversal of what he and his partisans claim is a fraudulent election result.

Speaking entirely as an outsider to the intricacies of this drama, I would think he would want to be raising expectations, setting a high bar, to keep pressure on the regime.

Late Update: It's worth noting that this could well be a case where the nuance is lost in translation -- hypothetically he could be expressing contempt for the review, assuming it will amount to nothing and demanding more.

Pictures of events in Tehran from yesterday and today.

Malcolm Hoenlein seems to have taken it upon himself to project his hostility to President Obama as the opinion of most Jews.

An AP photographer on the scene reports at least one fatality and others with serious gunshot wounds after what appears to have been pro-government militia members opening fire at the aforementioned Mousavi rally in Tehran.

Late reports of shots fired at pro-Mousavi rally.

Some people still find "blacks as lower order primates" jokes funny enough to tell them publicly -- and aim them at Michelle Obama.

Sen. Grassley is asking for more details on President Obama's firing of that Inspector General.

The guy on the right is defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi. The guy on the left? Not sure who he is. But Fox News ran video of him at the big rally in Tehran today, and anchor Bill Hemmer identified him as Mousavi. Watch here. (Note that in a wider shot in the video a protester right next to our mystery guy is holding up a picture of the real Mousavi.)

Late Update: A TPM reader emails in to say that the guy on the left is Mohammad-Reza Khatami, and the resemblance seems pretty striking. So not a random protester, but another significant figure in the reform movement.

For much of the weekend it seemed that the Iranian reformists were set for one of those righteous defeats, in which a united phalanx of state power stands down rioting protesters who must be content that their defiance will lay the groundwork for change not today but at some unknown point in the future. But this morning we awoke to word that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has directed the country's Guardian Council to review claims that the election was tainted by fraud. And Mousavi himself reportedly appeared at a rally today in Tehran, his first appearance post-election.

Read more »

Addressing the Minnesota GOP convention over the weekend, Norm Coleman rallied the troops around denying Dems a magical 60th vote in the Senate.

Iranian President Ahmadenijad has claimed defiantly that his reelection was legitimate, but allegations of election stealing have sparked protests in the streets of Tehran. Does the Obama administration accept the results? And what does the outcome say about Barack Obama's push for reconciliation between the West and the Arab world?

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

The focus is on the evolving situation in Iran, but also today Obama pitches health care reform to the AMA's annual conference. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Bill Keller (editor of the whole operation) and Michael Slackman have a piece in Times arguing that Ahmadinejad and the hard line clerical establishment emerge from Friday's selection with a stronger hand than ever before. I'm curious whether others share that impression.

I guess you could wrench some reason for optimism from PM Netanyahu's speech today if you view it as an opening gambit, albeit couched in a lot of deal-breakers necessary to keep his rightist coalition intact. But that strikes me as a bit of a stretch. Most reactions in the US press are treating this as a major move by Netanyahu, endorsing the idea of a Palestinian state. But that seems doubly naive a) since that's been the premise of US policy for almost 20 years as well as a goal accepted by several Israeli governments and b) because Netanyahu's conditions amounted to deal breakers.

It's been a premise of all the negotiations that a future Palestinian state would have to have some real restrictions on 'heavy' weaponry and wouldn't be able to do things like invite foreign armies on to its soil. But what the Palestinian state Netanyahu described is something that lacks the key attributes that apply to almost all states, like statehood, for instance. It was a relabeling of what Netanyahu was pushing back in the mid-1990s, which is a sort of regional autonomy and self-government.

On the point of the need for the Palestinians to unequivocally recognize "Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people," a few thoughts.

I've seen a few different wordings of this in the press. And the English language advanced transcript sent out by the Israeli government press office, there are a few different formulations. What to make of it? There are things you say when you are trying to settle differences and things you don't.

All of the negotiations to this point have been premised on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

Where the rubber meets the road in a real sense is on the issue of refugees and a Palestinian right of return. The Israelis will never accept a right of return for every descendent of the refugees of the 1948. It would make Israel no longer a Jewish state. If that's the Palestinians condition, then really no deal is possible. But this is an issue that's been worked through in great detail at the negotiating table. And there've been a number of rough outlines of a possible compromise -- most of which allow a right of return in principle but satisfy the vast majority with compensation while allowing a small number to resettle in Israel, small enough not to substantially change the demographic make-up of the population.

Regardless of all these details, what Israel needs and has a right to ask for is a final settlement that, once all the compromises are made, recognizes the State of Israel and declares all the unclosed issues of borders and refugees closed forever. Facts and commitments are what treaties and negotiations and peaceful coexistence are made of. Getting the other side to ascribe to your national dreams and mythologies is too much to ask.

I hope I'm making the distinction clear. Perhaps it's a subtle one. But it's a critical one. Of course, any peace settlement will require the Palestinians to recognize Israel as what it is, a Jewish state, and put in the past any questions of whether a Jewish state, Israel, is legitimate in Palestine. But the upshot of Netanyahu's speech has him almost demanding the Palestinians themselves become Zionists.

I think before he was arrested but during the Second Intifada, I saw an interview with Marwan Barghouti in which he said that for peace the Israelis would have to give up the 'mentality of occupation.' That phrase has rattled through my head ever since. And that, I think, is what Netanyahu's speech was mainly about.

Late Update: Akiva Eldar, writing in Ha'aretz, puts it well ...

The demilitarization of the Palestinian state was mentioned in the Clinton guidelines, the Taba understandings and the Geneva accord, as was the right of return to Palestine, not Israel. The difference between these documents and the Bar-Ilan address is not only that the former recognized the Palestinians' full rights to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The real difference lies in the tone - in the degrading and disrespectful nature of Netanyahu's remarks. That's not how one brings down a wall of enmity between two nations, that's not how trust is built.

It's hard to believe that a single Palestinian leader will be found who will buy the defective merchandise Netanyahu presented last night.

The text of PM Netanyahu's speech today, as prepared for delivery.

It's about time someone said it.

From Jane Mayer's article on and interview with Panetta.

CIA Director Leon Panetta on Dick Cheney: "It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics."

It wouldn't be the first time an extremist got so twisted up trying to prove he was right about how to protect his country that he was willing to sacrifice some of his countrymen to prove it.

Vice President Biden expresses doubts about the Iranian election. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Sunday Roundup.