A message, I’m passing to you:

Eric | June 16, 2009

The following was sent to me. I have no idea who wrote it, but think its good to share with the rest of you:

Warning, new twitter feeds are most likely government members trying to spread misinformation, ignore them! Also, there is a handful of good twitter feeds, but please do not publicize their usernames, they are in enough danger as it is and they don’t need more publiclity. Those in the know will c/p their entries. Major timeline overhaul, including what has unfolded in the last few hours.

This seems to be helping quite a few people, so I’ll go ahead and repost it in every threads with some adjustments. Sorry, this has reached the level of TL;DR but I really am trying to cram the most relevant information and speculation only. Everything is updated as events unfold, especially the timeline and what will happen in the future.

Suppression of Dissent – The Players

Currently, there are either two or three groups who are suppressing the students on the ground that you’ll read about throughout this thread:

1. The Basij
2. Ansar Hizbullah (which I will refer to as Ansar)
3. Lebanese Hizbullah (Unconfirmed but highly probable. Der Spiegel, based on a Voice of America report, says that 5,000 Hizbullah fighters are currently in Iran masquerading as riot police, confirming the independent reports. Many different independent reports and video point that way. Even in the last hours other independent twitter feeds have declared witnessing thugs beating on people while shouting in Arabic; I will refer to them as Hizbullah)

- The Basij are your regular paramilitary organization. They are the armed hand of the clerics. The Basij are a legal group, officially a student union, and are legally under direct orders of the Revolutionary Guard. Their main raison d’être is to quell dissent. They are the ones who go and crack skulls, force people to participate in pro-regime demonstrations, and generally try to stop any demonstrations from even starting. They are located throughout the country, in every mosque, every university, every social club you can think of. They function in a way very similar to the brownshirts.

They were the ones who first started the crackdown after the election, but it wasn’t enough. While they are violent and repressive, they are still Persian and attacking fellow citizens. A beating is one thing, mass killings another.
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SCOTUS slams on the brakes

Eric | June 8, 2009

Finally, someone has stopped the madness. Ruth Bader Ginsberg has halted the sale of Chrysler to Fiat. Hopefully, the taxpayer will not be left holding the bag as the bankruptcy court and appeals court think we should.

News flash: bankruptcy is NOT about preserving the operations of a company. It never was. Bankruptcy is about the secured creditors getting the maximum return on their assets. If that means the operation continues, then so be it. Otherwise, the assets are sold so that the secured creditors get their money back.

The implications of trashing the interests of the secured parties are massive. First, this undermines the rule of law. Bankruptcy law has always placed the interests of the secured parties ahead of all others. This ensures that businesses can get financing they critically need since the lenders are first in line to recover their funds.

Second, lack of security will discourage investment in businesses that critically need it. Who will want to lend money if the contracts that protect that loan can be tossed at the whim of the executive branch? Its simple: no one.

Overall, the Obama administration has been turning this country into a banana republic. It started with the bullying of retirement funds over the chrysler case, the appointment of various “czars” with little to no congressional oversight and attempts to ram legislation through with little or no debate. Lets hope that SCOTUS will stand firm.

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