Daily Archives: May 20, 2017

TEHRAN --Iran voted for a new president on Friday, with results yet to come in. The campaign had a familiar theme: The populist facing the incumbent.

This race came down to a clear choice between the current moderate President Hassan Rouhani, whose promises for liberal reforms appeal to young people, and the hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, a populist who has promised his working-class base cash handouts and millions of jobs.

One key thing Iranians are voting on is how their country will relate to the U.S. and the rest of the world, with openess and cooperation led by Rouhani, the reformist, or with suspicion and hostility under the conservative Raisi.

Crowds in Iran supporting presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi.

CBS News

Thirty-eight years ago, revolutionary Iranian students held 52 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy. Their spokeswoman was Masoumeh Ebtekar.

Today, she's one of Iran's vice presidents. She's done something of a 180 over the years and now hopes for better relations with the U.S.

Are they likely to come under President Trump, who is on the record as saying that Iran is a hostile presence, a problem?

"He's also changing a lot of his positions as well," Ebtekar says. "He's also making a lot of U-turns."

Masoumeh Ebtekar, the spokeswoman for the students who held 52 Americans hostage at the Iranian embassy, is now one of Iran's vice-presidents.

CBS News

Ebtekar says she hopes Mr. Trump will adjust to the realities when it comes to positions on Iran.

Realities like the nuclear deal, which was backed by millions of voters in Iran who hope it was the first step toward even stronger ties with the U.S.

But another reality is that -- at the moment -- there's absolutely no sign the Trump White House is sharing the love.

In fact, the U.S. added some fresh sanctions against Iran this week, so the signs are that things are about to get decidedly frosty.

2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Iranian presidential election pits liberal reformer against hardliner - CBS News

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Posted: May 20, 2017 12:01 AM

If self-delusion were magic, average liberals would be David Blaine, David Copperfield and Houdini all rolled up into one. Most of what they say has no relation to what theyre doing, the policies they push rarely work and logic might as well be a strange, alien language to them. Since thats the case, explaining all the things liberals get wrong about themselves could easily be the topic of my second book (Heres a link to my first one), but since we only have so much space to work with in a column, here are the top five.

1) Liberals Are Better Than Everyone Else: If theres one thing that liberals are sure of beyond all others, its that they are better, smarter and more capable than everyone else by virtue of being liberals. As the great Thomas Sowell has noted:

The presumed irrationality of the public is a pattern running through many, if not most or all, of the great crusades of (liberals) in the twentieth centuryregardless of the subject matter of the crusade or the field in which it arises. Whether the issue has been overpopulation, Keynesian economics, criminal justice, or natural resource exhaustion, a key assumption has been that the public is so irrational that the superior wisdom of (liberals) must be imposed, in order to avert disaster. The (liberals) do not simply happen to have a disdain for the public. Such disdain is an integral part of their vision, for the central feature of that vision is preemption of the decisions of others.

No matter who you are or what you do, there are always tens of millions of liberals who believe they have a better idea of what you should be thinking, feeling and spending your money on. Of course, that sense of smug superiority coupled with the disastrous results of liberal policies would almost be comical, except for the destruction in real peoples lives that is left in the wake of liberal policies.

2) Liberals Are Victims: Wrong. Liberals are bullies. In fact, theyre the worst kind of bullies -- bullies who believe that theyre the victims. Those are the worst kind of bullies because they believe theyve already been wronged and therefore almost anything they do in retaliation is justified. Of course, being wronged may mean someone disagreed with them, voted for a candidate they dont like or simply didnt want to give up more of his income for a liberal program. Liberals are the epitome of the Stop Bullying Song from South Park -- aggrieved bullies looking for a victim they can claim wronged someone so they can try to destroy him in the name of tolerance.

Bullying isn't cool. Bullying is lame.

Bullying is ugly and has a stupid name.

For a healthy world, bullying's unfit.

And I think I know what we should do to i-it.

Do do do do do to i-it.

Let's all get together and make bullying kill itself.

Bullying's an ugly thing

Lets shove its face in the dirt and make bullying kill itself.

3) Liberals Are Rebellious: If some nerd standing in the middle of a Star Trek convention shouted, Star Wars is inferior to Star Trek and then wanted everyone to pat him on the back and tell him how courageous he was for doing it, people would laugh. Yet liberals surround themselves almost entirely with other liberals, get liberalism served up to them at school, watch liberalism on TV at home, hear liberal messages from their favorite celebrities and musicians, get their news from MSNBC and the Daily Show and then want all the other libs doing the same thing to laud them for their courage because they say, I dont like Donald Trump or Good for Colin Kaepernick for protesting during the national anthem! Look at how Im fighting the power by saying the same thing as the New York Times, Washington Post and Lady Gaga! As Greg Gutfeld said, Liberalism is the one-way ticket to backslapping approval among the cool kids, which makes it about as rebellious as a divorced dad getting an earring from the local malls Piercing Pagoda.

4) Liberals Are Tolerant: The LEAST TOLERANT people in America outside of maybe the God Hates F*gs wackos are liberals. Dont believe that? Try being a conservative whos invited to speak on a college campus, a black man who likes Donald Trump or a gay American who opposes gay marriage and see how that goes for you when you interact with liberals. Think about the fact that there are college professors, actors and reporters who have to hide their ideologies because it would hurt their careers to have their liberal colleagues know they dont agree with everything Michael Moore has to say. The most abusive people in America when it comes to women? Theyre liberal men talking to conservative women. Incidentally, the second most abusive group are liberal feminists who claim to represent all women. Liberals are habitually nasty, dishonest and vindictive toward people for no other reason than because theyre incapable of tolerating even a politely offered dissenting viewpoint.

5) Liberals Are In Favor Of Progress: Liberals are so sure that theyre in favor of progress that they call themselves progressives. Meanwhile, theyve been pushing variations on the same economic agenda for 80 years even after socialism became so discredited that even the red Chinese started moving toward capitalism. Their ideas on free speech at college campuses? They believe in shutting down the speech of people that disagree with them, with violence if necessary, just like Mussolini. By the way, did you know Mussolini was widely acknowledged as a lefty even by other liberals until WWII kicked off? Liberal Democrats finally reached the same place on race in the 1960s as conservative Republicans were during the Civil War, then pretended they were the good guys all along. Once you get beyond that, what do you have? A reflexive hostility toward morals and Christianity that has been around for decades and a bunch of libs who arent sure what gender they are trying to come up with creative new things to be offended about.

See more here:

The 5 Biggest Things Liberals Get Wrong About Themselves - Townhall

CNSNews.com

Poll: Americans Liberal on Many Moral Issues, But Not Abortion, Porn, Adultery CNSNews.com (CNSNews.com) -- In its latest annual Values and Beliefs poll, Gallup found that strong majorites of Americans are very liberal on certain moral issues, such as birth control, divorce, sex outside of marriage, homosexual relations, and having children ...

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Poll: Americans Liberal on Many Moral Issues, But Not Abortion, Porn, Adultery - CNSNews.com

BBC News

Election 2017: Will the Liberal Democrats win over young voters? BBC News The Liberal Democrats have launched a manifesto aimed at younger voters - but will this entice them back after the party's controversial coalition with the Conservatives and U-turn on tuition fees? "I think the problem the Liberal Democrats have to ... and more »

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Election 2017: Will the Liberal Democrats win over young voters? - BBC News