REVOLUTION IN IRAN AND THE RETURN OF REZA SHAH
Time Magazine April 25, 1938
The apparent discovery last week (4/23) of the mummified remains of Reza Shah (1878-1944) by Iranian archaeologists must have sent chills up and down the spine of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Reza is the symbol of the kind of government most Iranians want: secular, tolerant, modern. His name has often been chanted in the nationwide demonstrations that have continued unabated for weeks.
We don’t get anything approaching a decent picture of the national tumult -- foreign journalists are forbidden to travel outside Tehran -- but I asked a well-informed Iranian if he could tell me where the demonstrations were going on, and he said “it’s easier to tell you where there aren’t any.”
The country is convulsed, and the “return of Reza Shah” will be widely taken as an omen.
PUTIN IS NO LONGER A GEOPOLITICAL CHESSMASTER
The end of April was extraordinarily rich in high-profile international events—and Russia was conspicuously absent from all these dynamics.
The president of South Korea and the North Korean dictator planted a pine tree of peace just to the south of the ceasefire line that still divides these two states.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid a state visit to Washington, DC (an oak tree was duly planted), and his overtly friendly talks with United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday (April 24) were followed-up by the visibly less cordial exchanges with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who traveled the same route on Friday.
Foreign and security ministers of the G7 met in Toronto, Canada, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held a ministerial meeting on Friday, greeting the newly confirmed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Putin had no role in any of this and much much more.
THE SPIRIT OF FAKE NEWS
QUESTIONS TRUMP’S LAWYERS NEED TO ASK ROBERT MUELLER
What Mueller really is
Robert Mueller has plenty of questions for President Trump, and maybe he will get to ask them. Most of them are perjury traps rather than real questions for the president.
Surprisingly, they contain very little that wasn’t in the public domain though prior leaks. In other words, the president is not a target because they have nothing implicating him, and so they want to use the interview to create such material.
But the conduct of the investigation by the special counsel and his team has raised a lot of questions as to its foundation, conflicts of interest, fairness and methods.
If you believe the last Harvard Caps-Harris Poll, much of the public supports Robert Mueller going forward with his investigation, although the Washington Post reported yesterday (5/01), “The number of people who say the Mueller investigation should continue is shrinking.’
That shrinking would no doubt continue if Mr. Mueller were required to answer a few questions himself. In a deposition under oath with threat of perjury. Such as:
IF ONLY HILLARY HAD WON
There are lots of possible counterfactuals to think about had Hillary Clinton won the presidency as all the experts had predicted.
The U.S. embassy would have stayed in Tel Aviv. “Strategic patience” would likely still govern the North Korea dilemma. Fracking would be curtailed. The — rather than “our” — miners really would be put out of work. Coal certainly would not have been “beautiful.”
The economy probably would be slogging along at below 2 percent GDP growth.
China would be delighted, as would Iran. But most important, there would be no collusion narrative — neither one concerning a defeated Donald Trump nor another implicating a victorious Hillary Clinton.
In triumph, progressives couldn’t have cared less whether Russians supposedly had tried to help a now irrelevant Trump; and they certainly would have prevented any investigation of the winning Clinton 2016 campaign.
In sum, Hillary’s supposedly sure victory, not fear of breaking the law, prompted most of the current 2016 scandals, and her embittering defeat means they are not being addressed as scandals.
COMMIE DAY
What May Day should be, happy and joyous
What Commies and the Fascist Left have done to May Day
Berlin, Germany. For millennia, especially here in Europe, the First of May was a happy, joyful celebration of life after winter, with dancing around a Maypole and crowning a pretty girl with flowers as Queen of May.
I grew up in California. When we were kids, my sisters would always get up early to pick flowers, and leave them in a basket at the front door for Mom, our family’s Queen of May.
Today is a national holiday in Germany, as it is in over 30 other countries in Europe and dozens of other countries around the world. But not as May Day.
Instead, it’s called International Workers Day. Since it was the invention of Communists in 1889, it should be called Commie Day. Only Communists could take an innocent celebration of springtime and turn it into celebration of murder, terrorism, hate, and envy.
Here’s the story. It begins not in Europe but in America.
REVOLUTION IN IRAN AND THE RETURN OF REZA SHAH
Time Magazine April 25, 1938
The apparent discovery last week (4/23) of the mummified remains of Reza Shah (1878-1944) by Iranian archaeologists must have sent chills up and down the spine of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Reza is the symbol of the kind of government most Iranians want: secular, tolerant, modern. His name has often been chanted in the nationwide demonstrations that have continued unabated for weeks.
We don’t get anything approaching a decent picture of the national tumult -- foreign journalists are forbidden to travel outside Tehran -- but I asked a well-informed Iranian if he could tell me where the demonstrations were going on, and he said “it’s easier to tell you where there aren’t any.”
The country is convulsed, and the “return of Reza Shah” will be widely taken as an omen.
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/27/18
Have a napkin handy. The glass this week is filled to overflowing.
Democrats are tearing their hair out because we got very strong evidence yesterday that North and South Korea are burying the hatchet, the Norks will give up their nukes and ICBMs.
After CNN went to great lengths to give the credit for the historic meeting at Panmunjom between Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in to the Norks, South Korea’s foreign minister told Christiane Amanpour that “clearly credit goes to President Trump.”
If the Norks keep their word, this will be the greatest diplomatic triumph in modern American history, acknowledged Trump hater James Fallows.
Senate Dems tried to block the nomination of CIA Director Mike Pompeo, the key negotiator with the Norks, as Secretary of State, because they’d rather have Americans under the threat of a nuclear strike than permit President Trump a diplomatic triumph. They failed.
************ Possibly even more consequential news is the cultural revolution sparked by Kanye West and Chance the Rapper as they blaze a broad, smooth trail for blacks to follow as they walk away from the Democrat plantation.
“Big things are happening and eyes are being opened for the first time in decades,” President Trump tweeted today.
************
The muh Russia narrative suffered fatal blows. The DNC punched itself in the nuts trying to breathe life into the corpse. The end of the Mueller probe is imminent.
THE TTP PORTUGAL SUMMER RETREAT
What are you doing this Fourth of July? You may be spending it with friends and family, of course.
But if not, consider that it’s on a Wednesday this year, the middle of the week, so you may be able to get the week off. If so, how about celebrating the Fourth with your fellow TTPers in the most enchanting – and safest – country in Europe?
You first learned about Portugal’s history and why Rebel and I call it California in Europe back in January 2014. We held three TTP Retreats there in that year and it’s time we had one again.
In the years since, Portugal has been discovered as the coolest “must-see” destination in all Europe. That’s because Portugal has got everything. Fabulous climate, beaches, food, wine, history, charm up the yingyang, and the sweetest, nicest people in Europe.
This is an intimate get-together of no more than a dozen TTPers to discuss the world in depth with me. And I might as well give you a warning up front.
In addition to learning more about the world than you thought possible in under a week, you run the risk of falling head over heels in love with Portugal. I describe it as utterly captivating, and once you are there you’ll easily understand why.
THE LEFT WANTS ANOTHER FRENCH REVOLUTION
When legal bloodhounds and baying critics fail to take out Trump, what’s next? The Left’s “Resistance” wants Trump’s head — on the chopping block.
On the domestic and foreign fronts, the Trump administration has prompted economic growth and restored U.S. deterrence. Polls show increased consumer confidence, and in some, Trump himself has gained ground.
Yet good news is bad news to the Resistance and its demonic continued efforts to stop an elected president in a way it failed to do in the 2016 election.
As the Resistance goes from one ploy to the next, it ignores its string of failed prior efforts, forgetting everything and learning nothing. Are we reaching a point in the so-far-failed Resistance where little is left except abject violence in the manner of the French Revolution?