The New York Times' Lede Blog carries both reports of new unrest in Iran and e-mails scoffing at the idea.  Ahmadinejad rebukes President Obama.  The twitter feed #iranelection carries reports of strikes and protests but also more desperate sounding pleas not to lose interest in the protests.

At least the White House has rescinded the July 4rth invitations to Iranian diplomats to join in our celebrations.

Reports of new clashes between protestors and the regime's security forces are leaking out.

I will discuss with Cyrus Nowrasteh and Betsy Gillen Nowrasteh, director and writers of The Stoning of Soraya M on today's program in hours two and three. 

My new Townhall.com column celebrates ABC's Jake Tapper's attempt to pin the president down on the absurd claim that the "government option/public plan" won't impact people's insurance coverage.

Tapper didn't succeed, but perhaps the folks at ABC will try and get a straight answer out of the president tonight.  A government option/public plan will lead private sector employers to dump their employees into that plan, so millions of Americans will lose the insurance and the doctors they presently have and greatly value.

The latest from our favorite anonymous ad exec:

Hugh:

The first time I wrote you I was beside myself over the glaringly obvious fact that the GOP simply doesn't understand how to craft communications that connect emotionally and culturally to popular culture, or, well, most people.  Not long after my very first letter to you, I read a post in Big Hollywood that echoed my sentiments.  It's not enough to understand how the tools of new media work.  Understanding the tools is a single step in the process.  It's about crafting content that resonates. If you want to get technical, it's about concepting, ideas, copywriting, art direction, direction, editing, lighting, camera work, shot selection, typography, casting, and, well, a general expertise with the craft.  It requires both skill and talent. 
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Edward Luttwak believes the mullahs of the Khatemei/Ahmadinejad faction are doomed:

 

At this point, only the short-term future of Iran's clerical regime remains in doubt. The current protests could be repressed, but the unelected institutions of priestly rule have been fatally undermined. Though each aspect of the Islamic Republic has its own dynamic, this is not a regime that can last many more years.

But the theocrats are not going to go quietly, and the "special courts" that are being established to deal with demonstrators will brutal and no doubt last as long as the regime does:

A senior official of Iran's judiciary, which is controlled by the ruling Shiite Muslim clerics, said Tuesday that a special court would try detained protesters, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

"Those arrested in recent events will be dealt with in a way that will teach them a lesson," the official, Ibrahim Raisi, was quoted as saying. "The rioters should be dealt with in an exemplary way, and the judiciary will do that." Raisi did not elaborate.

Every tool at the disposal of the West must be used to expedite the collapse of the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad regime.  If general strikes develop, they will need publicity, and the president needs to keep up the rhetorical pressure he displayed yesterday.  (The 4rth of July invites do need to be canceled.) 

Average Americans wondering what they can do should visit Fandango and buy tickets for The Stoning of Soraya M which opens this weekend.  I will have Cyrus Nowrasteh and Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh in studio for two hours today to discuss the film and the regime.  I wrote my Washington Examiner column this week on how the movie's success can send a message, so please support it by attending this weekend or by buying a ticket even if you can't get to one of the theaters until next week.

Continue to follow the latest from inside Iran via the #iranelection hast tag at search.twitter.com.

 

Sign on to help stop the massive energy tax being pushed through the House this week at AmericanSolutions.com.  American Solution's chairman Newt Gingrich joins me at 3:20 to discuss Speaker Pelosi's attempt to jam the bill through despite its enormous price tag.

The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens has an op-ed on the theological challenge to Khamenei/Ahmadinejad that should be read and forwarded.  In it he interviews a Shiite imam with extraordinary credentials, Mohsen Kadivar.  Mr. Kadivar believes there are factions within the Revolutionary Guard prepared to side with the demonstrators, the one development that most agree would shatter the regime quickly. 

The decision of the Guardian Council to refuse to annul the election signals the demonstrators that there will be no compromise.  The messages at Twitter point to strikes outside of Tehran and of a demonstration tomorrow.  The White House can be counted on to, well, change the subject?

I could devote every hour of every show to any of these three subjects given the significance of each.  Because each is pressing forward, I juggle between them.

On Tuesday's show I'll host Newt Gingrich for a three segment conversation on the proposed massive energy tax masquerading as a "cap-and-trade system."  Background is here at the American Solutions website.

I'll also return to the growing consensus that the Obama/Pelosi/Reid push for a "government option" or "public plan" is a disaster for American health care.  Today I taped an interview with Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School, co-author of The Innovator's Prescription.  The interview will air on July 6 along with two other in-depth conversations with experts in the field of genuine health care reform, just as Congress returns from its break to begin the debate in earnest.  What is being pushed through the Congress is a radical restructuring of American medicine that will both break the bank and cripple the effective delivery of quality medical care.  People have to get involved now if they are to have any role in the outcome.

Sign the petition to stop the "government option," and check the TeaPartyPatriots website for a tea party in your area organized around the defeat of this massive expansion of the state.

Finally, and of greatest consequence to the globe, is the turmoil in Iran. The transcripts of my interviews from today's program with Senator Jon Kyl and with AEI's Michael Rubin will be posted here later.  Rubin especially offered a sober assessment of the prospects for the protestors.   Tehran is a "holding its breath," writes the Times' columnist Roger Cohen.  If the protestors pause for long, their savage suppression will be a near-certainty. 

Time is also running out to do whatever can be done for the courageous Iranians opposing the ruthless regime.  There isn't any real debate over which side is right in Iran, and there shouldn't be a "split" in the U.S. over whose side we are on or how to calibrate our response. 

There is perfect clarity.  The only question is whether there is the political courage to express it.

A wonderful and eye-opening book that is must reading for critics of President Obama's attempt to massively expand the central government and to govern via moral rehtoric. Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness' author Joshua David Hawley will be a guest on today's show.

My new Washington Examiner column is about the powerful new movie The Stoning of Soraya M, and the message its success this weekend will send to the mullahs.

Follow updates from Iran via #iranelection at search.twitter.com.

Jennifer Rubin sees signs that President Obama may be "pivoting" towards a more full-throated defense of the protestors in Iran.  That would be very good news with which to begin a week of extraordinary significance for Iran and the world.

Suddenly the push to radically rewrite the rules of American medicine is at a critical juncture.  Last week's announcement of cost estimates for the president's plan of between $1.5 and $2 trillion sent Democrats reeling.  Over the weekend it became obvious that July would see an enormous push by the proponents of the Obama/Pelsoi/Reid "government plan" or "public plan" to complete the jam down before additional erosion in support in the center occurs.  Every bit of news is being used to turn attention away from the pricetag. The turmoil in Iran is actually helping the president by diverting attention from the staggering costs of his proposals and from the whoppers he has been telling, such as this bold deception from his AMA speech:

 If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. (Applause.) If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. (Applause.) No one will take it away, no matter what.

This is patently false, as a "government option" will result in millions of Americans being dumped by their employers into that plan.  The president's willingness to obscure this crucial point tells you everything you need to know about his health care rhetoric: It cannot be trusted.

The Obama/Pelosi/Reid Plan has to be defeated, and quickly.  Here's what you yourself need to do.

First, sign the online petition opposing Obamacare.
Read More...

Very few Americans have followed Iran more closely than Michael Ledeen.  As the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad faction closes its grip on outbound information flows, Ledeen continues to get information which is far more likely to be reliable than any other American source.

The New York Times' report of a " bitter rift among Iran’s ruling clerics" would be great news except no one --no one-- outside of the regime is in a position to be able to verify such a report.  The Washington Post notes "a rare show of criticism" of Khamenei by "the speaker of Iran's parliament, Ali Larijani," but that is also a very thin bit of evidence on which to build a deep division within the ruling elite.

If any western government has reliable information on what is happening throughout the country, it would be a great assistance to the protestors to find some way of pushing that out into the mainstream and doing so in a fashion that made it credible.

From the New York Times:

With police on the streets demonstrating a willingness to injure and even kill, one question political analysts and opposition members were beginning to ask was whether it was time to shift strategies, from street protests to some kind of national strike. It was unclear if the opposition had the support or organization, especially within the middle class, to carry out such a measure, but a strike would be immune to the heavy hand of the state and could wield leverage by crippling the already stumbling economy, analysts said.

It is hard to imagine a revolution succeeding by passive action, especially given the twittered warnings of night-time round-ups and hospital arrests indicating a state security strategy of reducing the numbers of dissidents every night.  Some of the tweets repeat rumors that the army is turning, and others announce a Sunday afternoon demonstration. (Here's the clock for current time in Tehran.) 

The slow shuttering of Western media doesn't mean that the turmoil isn't continuing, just that the Iran-to-The West information flow is drying up.  One key thing that the Obama Administration and other governments could do is release their knowledge of what is going on in the streets --there are lots of ways to do this without leaving fingerprints if that was the goal-- so that those images and that information could be sent back into Iran via the social media platforms.

From his new column:

Khamenei has taken a radical risk. He has factionalized himself, so losing the arbiter’s lofty garb, by aligning himself with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against both Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition leader, and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a founding father of the revolution.

He has taunted millions of Iranians by praising their unprecedented participation in an election many now view as a ballot-box putsch. He has ridiculed the notion that an official inquiry into the vote might yield a different result. He has tried pathos and he has tried pounding his lectern. In short, he has lost his aura.

Cohen candidly admits what is the truth about the situation for everyone participating in it and certainly for media "covering" it in the haphazard ways that happen when totalitarians control the media:  "I don’t know where this uprising is leading. I do know some police units are wavering."

Would that Cohen's last statement be true and not just a wish.

The first YouTube video that shows the first police/IRG/Army unit on the side of the protestors will be the moment at which we will know that the June 12 Revolution is closing in on triumph.  If the power holding up Khamenei and Ahmadinejad fractures even a bit, the crumbling could be as rapid as happened in Eastern Europe in 1989.

The possibilities for the region if Iran became democratic are almost too great to imagine, with the greatest of them being the avoidance of any sort of conflict between Israel and the mullahs.  CNN and FoxNews have gone wall-to-wall today on the turmoil, and it deserves every minute of it.  President Obama's statement today was a big step in the right direction, and tomorrow's Sunday shows will hopefully provide more evidence of the Administration's decision to throw in with the forces for freedom. 

The tweets at #iranelection are painful to read, and the videos of the beatings and the murders are a testament to the amazing courage of the protestors who are laying down their lives for freedom.  It is an incredible and moving drama, and one that will profoundly impact the lives of every American.

For background, see the two articles by Mark Steyn and Reuel Marc Gerecht below, and visit the Transcripts page for conversations from this week's show with Steyn and Gerecht as well as Rich Lowry, Stephen Hayes, Christopher Hitchens, Victor Davis Hanson, Claudia Rosett, John Podhoretz, Michael Totten, Michael Rubin, Bill Kristol, and Michael Ledeen.  

"Neutrality Isn't An Option" by Mark Steyn.

"The June 12 Revolution" by Reuel Marc Gerecht.