Political Pistachio
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Demonstrations in Iran continue after the collapse of Iran’s currency and long-standing public discontent. Widespread strikes and student protests across Tehran and multiple provincial cities has been met with violent responses by government security forces.
Reports of live fire and tear gas has confirmed the reality that the government is not only cracking down on the protesters, but they are using lethal force that has so far resulted in the deaths of possibly as many as 20,000 people.
Iranian officials publicly defend the government’s approach. Independent analysts indicate the internal structural strains have reached a “critical threshold,” as the country experiences chronic water and energy shortages.
The pressure has been building for years. This is an echo of the Iranian civilian uprising in 2009 that Barack Obama admits his administration made a “mistake’ in not supporting. “Every time we see a flash, a glimmer of hope, of people longing for freedom, I think we have to point it out. We have to shine a spotlight on it. We have to express some solidarity about it,” he said.
President Trump has taken the opposite tact in a robust embrace of everyday Iranians. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” Trump wrote in a post. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
While President Trump has not revealed his strategy, Iranian dissidents have cheered his statements. Among the tactics used by the United States, tougher sanctions will likely be one of them, though military forces are in the region and at the ready.
Obama was afraid of offending the Iranian leadership, but Donald Trump believes in using a firm hand internationally, and siding with those seeking liberty, which is why he was quick to make it clear where he stood when it came to the protests against the Iranian regime. President Trump’s actions against Iran have served as key influences on the rising unrest. Back in July of 2025 he sent B2 bombers to strike against Iran’s nuclear-weapons-making facilities, and in 2020 he sent American forces into Iran to successfully kill Qassem Soleimani, the general in charge of Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Trump administration has also indicated they are willing to augment those actions to embrace Iran’s protesters. A carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed to the region, and while military action seems to be on the table, President Trump has been engaging Iran’s government through diplomatic channels. President Trump has indicated that the United States would “act accordingly” if repression continued. Iran has denied the execution of protesters, and the administration is monitoring the clashes in Iran closely and has warned allies against economic ties with Iran.
Iranian leadership has warned against the American president “meddling” in the internal political affairs of Iran, while also blaming Trump for the unrest. “Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of U.S. interests,” Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker and current secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X, as reported by CBS. “The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”
In a discussion with an individual who fled Iran in 1982, I was told that there is very little public support for the Islamic regime in Iran. “Persians hate the Arabs for bringing Islam to the region, and only abide by Islamic law out of fear.” According to my contact, pro-U.S. sentiment is strong in Iran, and Christianity is the fastest growing religion in the Middle Eastern country.
According to Ali Safavi, one of the leaders of the Iranian opposition, “…for 46 years, the Iranian regime and its leaders, including Khamenei, have been engaged in acts of genocide and crimes against humanity, and unfortunately, the inaction of the international community in all these years only emboldened them in these atrocities.” Safavi said he did not believe the United States would need to commit any troops or military power for regime change to occur in Iran. “The overthrow of the ruling dictatorship is only possible at the hands of the people of Iran and the organized resistance, a responsibility that the resistance units and rebellious use are striving to fulfill. And toppling this regime, of course, requires neither foreign troops, nor foreign funding. Instead, the international community, the European Union and the U.S. should recognize the right of the Iranian people to topple this regime and so, in this context, and a decisive statement of support for what is happening in the future of Iran today, is certainly encouraging to the Iranian people.”
Safavi had indicated the rest of the world can help the opposition movement with a few actions. He has called upon Europe to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist group like Trump did in 2019. He has called upon all Western countries to expel all Iranian diplomats. He has urged the United Nation’s National Security Council to express support for the Iranian people and to condemn Tehran’s crackdowns. He has called for the imposition of a ban on all Iranian banking globally, including ending the country’s ability to conduct transactions in the SWIFT banking system. He has called for a worldwide ban on Iranian oil sales.
Former CIA analyst and National Security Chief of Staff Fred Fleitz told Just The News that President Trump needs to quickly revamp the messaging on its foreign-facing radio and TV networks like Voice of America and Radio Liberty so that the Iranian people know of Trump’s support, something that they often can’t see because much of social media and Western news is blocked in the country.
“The Iranian regime does not want the people to know that protesters are being killed. We have to get the message into the country that this is happening, because if the people know that the regime is responding to their peace of protesters by killing protesters, which the regime doesn’t want to know about, these demonstrations could snowball,” he explained.
Fleitz said the current protests may not be strong enough yet to topple the regime, but could rise to that level soon.
“I think it’s a significant threat,” he said. “It has not yet reached critical mass to become a revolution, or something we can say will overturn the regime. But it is getting stronger,” he said.
“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” Trump wrote in a Jan. 10 post on Truth Social. “The USA stands ready to help!!!”
The president’s message has remained consistent since that post, calling the Iranian regime “religious Nazi henchmen,” and stating that the regime’s “brutality against the great people of Iran will not go unchallenged. Make Iran Great Again.” Trump’s rhetoric, according to Senator Lindsey Graham, has become a symbol of solidarity with demonstrators. He urges people to publicly stand with Iranians calling for change.
Protesters have torched government buildings and the Al-Rasul mosque in Tehran, the latter a symbol of the Islamic regime. In a video released of the burning mosque, chants of “death to the dictator” and “death to Khamenei” could be heard. Exiled Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi issued a message calling on supporters to continue demonstrations and called for nationwide strikes in key sectors, including transportation and energy. He also appealed to members of Iran’s security forces to slow and disrupt what he called the regime’s “machine of repression.”
The protests were sparked in late December 2025, and continue to evolve becoming the most sustained nationwide challenge to the Islamic Republic since the dawn of the regime nearly fifty years ago.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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By Douglas V. Gibbs
If you can’t use your guns, you have no defense against tyranny. If you need a background check to buy bullets, they know who has guns. If you can’t conceal carry, it doesn’t matter if you own a gun.
Men are the greatest threat to tyranny, especially the ones who vote in a higher percentage for liberty. That is why there is a war against white men.
The family is the most basic and important building block of a virtuous and free society, which is why attacking parental rights is in full swing.
A redistribution of wealth is one of the most basic tools of communism. Reparations is one of the ways to make it happen, in America, since classic economic class warfare is not an option in a free society. The way the tariffs were before Trump took charge was a global from of a redistribution of wealth, as well.
When corruption runs rampant, fraud becomes a means of moving funds. When their own allies deviate from the narrative, even they become a target. Truth becomes a lie, and lies become the truth – you know, like when they try to convince you that men can get pregnant, and federal law enforcement are the Gestapo.
They are trying to protect their control over our monetary system, preserve their power structure, and they are even willing to go after our sacred right to worship and get as violent as they want to achieve their goal of eliminating the opposition. The end-game is revolution, so there is no limit to how far they are willing to go, nor how many of those who they believe to be their opposition they are willing to eliminate.
And if you catch on – If you believe anything I have told you – If you are willing to realize that there is more going on than what we see on the surface – And you try to do anything about it – Then you will be branded as a conspiracy theorist, and be targeted. But, isn’t liberty worth it?
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
First, we must remember: They only show you what they want you to see. Second, they lie. Whenever someone tells me that they read or heard something about politics or the news, my first question is, “From whom?”
According to the mainstream media, a number of polls are showing that President Trump’s immigration policies are slowly losing public support, including among Republicans. Initially, President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda received great support. His appearance upon the political scene back in 2015 was anchored by his immigration policy that included the deportation of illegal aliens. His opponents have framed his immigration policies as tyrannical, and Hitleric. They figure if they say it often enough, you will begin to believe them.
Except, Trump’s policies regarding immigration are as popular as ever.
If you won’t believe their lies, then they need to convince you that your neighbors believe what they are saying. Perhaps that will wear you down and make you turn against Trump. So, they now offer polls saying that the popularity of President Trump’s immigration policies, particularly regarding the use of ICE, is wavering. The problem is, that also is false.
According to a new poll from CBS News, President Trump’s approval rating among Republicans stands at a solid 90%.
That is interesting. How is it that CNN, and MSNow, and ABC, and NBC all claim Trump’s popularity is wavering, and I’ve even seen some of their polls say his popularity is under 50% among Republicans, yet CBS’s poll says he’s at 90%? And the thing is, it’s much higher than even CBS used to report.
CBS has done something different than their mainstream cousins. The new head of CBS News is Bari Weiss. She’s not a conservative, per se, but she is a straight shooter. When ideology is set aside, the truth can be amazing. When you push away the lies, the reality is, President Donald Trump is the most popular President in U.S. History, aside from perhaps George Washington.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Nekima Levy Armstrong, leader of the Racial Justice Network and a former president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, was arrested for leading a group of agitators into a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota. The incursion on church-goers during Sunday Services was an organized, coordinated attack, according to Pam Bondi of the Department of Homeland Security. She also indicated that attacks on places of worship will not be tolerated. Chauntyll Louisa Allen has also been arrested; a St. Paul school board member and leader of Black Lives Matter Twin Cities. The invasion of the church by anti-ICE agitators consisted of between 30 and 40 agitators, shouting “Justice for Renee Good!” as they stormed around church attendees. In videos of the incident, as the pastor attempts to tell them to leave, the agitators chanted, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!”
Constitutionally, while the activists claim they were exercising their First Amendment Rights of Freedom of Speech, the Constitution in that amendment also enumerates the Freedom of Religion. A right stops being a right when it interferes with another right – like the right to swing one’s arms stops at the tip of another’s nose, or the right to go through an intersection stops at the edge of another’s bumper.
Armstrong states she does not regret her actions. “We are unapologetic about going into the church,” Armstrong told Democracy Now. They attacked the church based on the belief that the pastor works with ICE, calling it a “conflict of interest.” While in the church they accused any support for ICE “un-Christian” of the church goers.
Not only are the perpetrators of the church attack not sorry for what they did, but according to the Daily Signal, anti-ICE protestors do not condemn the action. Indivisible Twin Cities is one of the groups behind the organization of the street protests, and have encouraged “ICE Watch” groups who monitor and track ICE agents with the aim to not only disrupt ICE activities, but to prohibit ICE agents from conducting their operations.
A group called “Defend the 612” also organizes “ICE Watch” activities, and hosts a “de-arrest primer” encouraging activists to physically prevent law enforcement from carrying out arrests. The group also encourages stalking ICE while honking and blowing on whistles when they are sighted, with the aim to create “traffic jams and slowdowns.”
Other groups involved are Unidos MN, The Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Democratic Socialists of America, all communist and all anti-Christian.
Minnesota political support of the anti-ICE activists includes Minneapolis’ district attorney office, the mayor’s office, and Governor Tim Walz. Jamael Lundy, the intergovernmental affairs coordinator for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office posted on Facebook that the church invasion was a case of “good trouble,” adding, “When Minnesotans say we want ICE out, we mean it, right?” Lundy is running to represent District 65 in the Minnesota Senate, and posed with the church invaders, including disgraced journalist Don Lemon who live-streamed the invasion of the church, after their invasion of the church. Lundy serves as a liaison between Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and the state legislature, and Moriarty’s campaign has received more than $500,000 from political groups funded by anti-Christian George Soros.
The Department of Justice is investigating the incident and has suggested that the FACE Act, a law passed to attack Christians for their peaceful protests outside of abortion clinics, applies to the case of the anti-ICE agitators entering the church in St. Paul. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison disagrees, defending the church invasion and calling any prosecution against the activists “a stretch.” Ellison stated, in defense of the agitators, “Chanting cannot be a crime; it’s freedom of expression.”
Again, a right stops being a right when it collides with another right.
The DOJ has also suggested using the KKK Act, which addresses when the threat of force or violence is used to deny a person or group of their human rights and/or civil rights.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard condemned the anti-ICE protestors, calling the disruption of a church service, “demonic.”
Gabbard said, “One of the main reasons I left the Democrat Party was because of their hostility towards God and those who have faith in or are trying to cultivate their love for God. Those so-called ‘protestors’ who tried to intimidate and terrorize innocent women, children, and men in the Minneapolis church is just another example of their hostility towards God and His worshippers. Such behavior is demonic and should be condemned by everyone, and those who took part in such intimidation tactics should be held accountable.”
The violent activities in Minneapolis are being encouraged by ICE Watch posts using language like, “by any means necessary,” urging their supporters to “embrace militancy.” Shortly after that language went out, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz also encouraged residents to “resist ICE,” and accused the Trump Administration’s agents of carrying out a “campaign of organized brutality.” These calls for violence come as activists use their vehicles as weapons, and one agent was attacked by three illegal aliens, once with a shovel and the other with a broomstick.
The ICE Watch guide given to agitators uses language like “fascist,” “Zionist enemies,” and instructs activists that the goal is, “keeping our eyes on the enemy and knowing their movements…surrounding police cars to dearrest our comrades…communication about our opponents’ movements.”
At one point, also, Anti-Islam activist and Jan. 6 prisoner Jake Lang was attacked and stabbed during a protest in Minneapolis, receiving repeated blows to his neck and the back of his head while another threw an unknown liquid on Lang and the crowd, and was seen bloodied when he finally broke free from the crowd. He was again mobbed at his vehicle as it was surrounded to prevent him from leaving. One attacker attempted to open the door to possibly drag Lang from the vehicle in a Reginald Denny fashion. Lang later posted that his body armor blocked the stabbings.
Don’t forget that the ICE Protests are not only happening in Minneapolis. The blood-thirsty raging violence has been appearing in nearly two dozen states.
How is it that Americans are willing to go to such demonic extremes? Is it possible this goes deeper than mere politics? Is it possible that the Cultural Marxism trying to transform our country is more than just the moves of a communist infiltration. Could the infiltration be something greater? Perhaps, demonic? Is it possible that this is not just politics, but a raging case of spiritual warfare?
As the revelations unfold, I don’t believe I will be alone in my thoughts about this for very long.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Drawing Fire
By Douglas V. Gibbs
When my website manager told me that my site was being hit harder than any of the others he oversees, targeted by waves of Russian and Chinese bots, I wasn’t surprised. In fact, my first thought was simple: when you’re over the target, you get the most flak.
And what is the “target” I’m over? It isn’t me. It’s the ideas I champion, ideas that authoritarian systems have always feared.
Christianity proclaims that every human being is created in the image of God, endowed with inherent worth, moral agency, and responsibility. That single truth is incompatible with any system – communist, collectivist, or globalist – that seeks to reduce the individual to a cog in a state-managed machine.
For regimes built on centralized control, these ideas are not merely inconvenient, they are subversive.
My call for a virtuous society is not a nostalgic slogan, and simply a reference to Benjamin Franklin’s critical quote, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” It is a direct challenge to the modern technocratic worldview that believes human behavior can be manipulated, nudged, or coerced into compliance.
Virtue is voluntary. Virtue is internal. Virtue is incompatible with state dependency.
A people who govern themselves morally do not need to be governed heavily politically. That is why collectivist systems historically work to erode virtue: the more fragmented and morally confused a society becomes, the easier it is to control.
The Constitution, properly understood based on original intent, places strict limits on government power. It decentralizes authority, divides it, binds it with chains of enumerated powers, and provides checks and balances to ensure it remains in its cage. It assumes a moral, self-governing people. It rejects the idea that elites, committees, or international bodies should dictate the lives of free citizens.
To globalists, this is intolerable.
A nation anchored in constitutional limits cannot be absorbed into a global administrative order.
A people who understand their natural rights cannot be easily manipulated. A society grounded in faith and virtue cannot be remade into a collectivist utopia where the people become faceless autonomous animals in the field pulling a plow.
And that is why voices like mine draw fire. Not because I am powerful; but because the ideas I defend are.
If you were an authoritarian regime, what would you fear?
These are the pillars of a free society. They are also the natural enemies of communism and globalist ideology.
So when bots swarm my site, I don’t see it as harassment. I see it as confirmation.
The ideas I teach, Christian virtue, constitutional originalism, and the dignity of the individual, are precisely the ideas that topple tyrannies. They always have.
And that is why they are afraid.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary