presidential elections

In what amounts to a referendum on President Hassan Rouhani’s leadership, voters in Tehran turned out overwhelmingly for moderates in closely watched parliamentary elections that may serve as an important signal for where Iran is headed.

Pro-Rouhani candidates are set to sweep all 30 of Tehran’s parliamentary seats. The 290-member body is dominated by hard-liners, but that looks set to change under the President, whose decision to negotiate with the US over the country’s nuclear program was an enormous political gamble.

In the past several years, many trees have been felled and pixels electrocuted in the service of discussion about the impact of Hispanics on the American electorate. No one knows for sure which way they’ll vote in the future but everyone is interested in discussing it. Curiously, though, an even larger political shift is taking place yet receiving almost no attention whatsoever from political reporters—the emergence of post-Christian America.

There are two opposing narratives among Republicans to explain how their party’s standard-bearer has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, despite GOP dominance in state legislatures and governor’s mansions across the country.

Submitted by Gregory Copley via OilPrice.com,

The Government of Turkey has now put itself in a position whereby it must act rapidly and precipitously to avoid moving to an ultimately losing strategic position in the war against Syria, which could result in being forced back to fight a full-scale civil war to prevent the break-up of the State into at least two components, one being a new Kurdish state.

Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Donald Trump won more votes in the Iowa caucuses than any Republican candidate in history.

Impressive, except Ted Cruz set the new all-time record.

And Marco Rubio exceeded all expectations by taking 23 percent.

Cruz won Tea Party types, Evangelicals, and the hard right.

Trump won the populists and nationalists who want the borders secure, no amnesty, and no more trade deals that enable rival powers like China to disembowel American industries.