Failed Trump assassin warned gender dysphoric people they needed to buy guns

The failed Trump assassin, or suspected assassin, Cole T. Allen who tried to take out our president at the White House Correspondents' Dinner had gone on social media to encourage even more transgender people to buy guns than who already is packing. He worried the Trump administration might ban gender dysphoric people [those mentally ill individuals who sadly believe they were born in the wrong body, once it became a left-wing craze] from owning firearms.

Of course that is ridiculous because it's totally unconstitutional. 

A Bluesky account suspected to be Allen’s posted a CNN [Communist News Network] article, “Trump DOJ is looking at ways to ban transgender Americans from owning guns, sources say,” with the caption “Best time to buy a gun was <greater than or equal to your state’s waiting period> days ago Second best time is today.”

The September 2025 CNN article discussed a mass shooting that took place at a Minneapolis Catholic church in August, carried out by a “23-year-old transgender woman.” The article says the Department of Justice was “weighing proposals to limit transgender people’s right to possess firearms” and framed this potential move as “a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s fight against the rights of transgender Americans.”

There have been a number of recent high-profile shootings in the past several years with ties to transgenderism, leading the Trump administration to examine the relationship between transgenderism and violence. Some of the confirmed U.S. mass shootings involving transgender perpetrators (broadly defined) are listed chronologically:

September 20, 2018 – Aberdeen, Maryland (Rite Aid warehouse)
Perpetrator: Snochia Moseley (26, transgender man). Killed 3 coworkers, injured 3 others, then died by suicide.

May 7, 2019 – Highlands Ranch, Colorado (STEM School Highlands Ranch)
Perpetrator: Alec McKinney (16, transgender boy; legally Maya Elizabeth McKinney at birth), with an accomplice. Killed 1 student, injured 8 others.

November 19, 2022 – Colorado Springs, Colorado (Club Q nightclub)
Perpetrator: Anderson Lee Aldrich (22, identified as nonbinary). Killed 5, injured 17.

March 27, 2023 – Nashville, Tennessee (The Covenant School)
Perpetrator: Audrey Hale (28, transgender man). Killed 6 (3 children, 3 adults), then killed by police.

August 27, 2025 – Minneapolis, Minnesota (Annunciation Catholic School/Church)
Perpetrator: Robin Westman (23, transgender woman; born Robert Westman). Killed 2 children, injured ~18 others (fired through church windows during Mass), then died by suicide.

February 16, 2026 – Pawtucket, Rhode Island (Dennis M. Lynch Arena, high-school hockey game)
Perpetrator: Robert Dorgan / Roberta Esposito / Roberta Dorgano (56, transgender woman). Killed 2 family members (ex-wife and son) and injured 3 others in a targeted family dispute, then died by suicide.

One caveat is that many of these transgender shooters had documented mental health issues with prior warnings and/or other complicated factors that we generally see with all mass shooters.

Claims of “dozens” or “disproportionate” rates often rely on unverified cases, broader active-shooter counts (including non-public or non-mass events), or disputed identifications. 

In general, transgender individuals tend more often to be victims of violence rather than perpetrators of same. 

Meanwhile it seems clear, at least to this writer, that Cole Allen, while apparently quite intelligent, is also quite crazy and thankfully, a very poor planner of violent assaults.

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We Have Allen's Manifesto

Unless you've been living in a hermetically-sealed room on the moon, or perhaps Somalia, you are probably aware that the White House Correspondence Dinner (WHCD) was disrupted by a man named Cole Allen, a 31-year-old man from Torrence, California when he attempted to breach security and shoot people, most likely President Trump, and others in his administration. Fortunately, he was stopped after shooting a Secret Service agent in his tactical vest. 

Allen was tackled and taken into custody. Both he and the agent were taken to the hospital for non-life- threatening injuries.

While the motive is being sold to us as unknown, Allen apparently attended a "No Kings" rally and later admitted to targeting President Trump, his lovely wife Melania, Vice President JD Vance, and other top officials and congressional folks who attended the dinner.

Like all good psychopaths, Allen wrote a manifesto and we have a copy (via NY Post):

Hello everybody!

So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused.

I apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for “Most Wanted.”

I apologize to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency (by the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly DO need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status.)

I apologize to all of the people I traveled next to, all the workers who handled my luggage, and all the other non-targeted people at the hotel who I put in danger simply by being near.

I apologize to everyone who was abused and/or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.

I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it. Again, my sincere apologies.

On to why I did any of this:

I am a citizen of the United States of America.

What my representatives do reflects on me.

And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.

(Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)

While I’m discussing this, I’ll also go over my expected rules of engagement (probably in a terrible format, but I’m not military so too bad.)

Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest

Secret Service: they are targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible (aka, I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who *aren’t*

Hotel Security: not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me)

Capitol Police: same as Hotel Security

National Guard: same as Hotel Security

Hotel Employees: not targets at all

Guests: not targets at all

In order to minimize casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls)

I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

Rebuttals to objections:

Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.

Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.

Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.

Objection 2: This is not a convenient time for you to do this.

Rebuttal: I need whoever thinks this way to take a couple minutes and realize that the world isn’t about them. Do you think that when I see someone raped or murdered or abused, I should walk on by because it would be “inconvenient” for people who aren’t the victim?

This was the best timing and chance of success I could come up with.

Objection 3: You didn’t get them all.

Rebuttal: Gotta start somewhere.

Objection 4: As a half-black, half-white person, you shouldn’t be the one doing this.

Rebuttal: I don’t see anyone else picking up the slack

Objection 5: Yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

Rebuttal: The United States of America are ruled by the law, not by any one or several people. In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything so unlawfully ordered.

I would also like to extend my appreciation to a great many people since I will not be likely to be able to talk with them again (unless the Secret Service is *astoundingly* incompetent.)

Thank you to my family, both personal and church, for your love over these 31 years.

Thank you to my friends, for your companionship over many years.

Thank you to my colleagues over many jobs, for your positivity and professionalism.

Thank you to my students for your enthusiasm and love of learning.

Thank you to the many acquaintances I’ve met, in person and online, for short interactions and long-term relationships, for your perspectives and inspiration.

Thank you all for everything.

Sincerely,

Cole “coldForce” “Friendly Federal Assassin” Allen

PS: Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone.

Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.

What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing.

No damn security.

Not in transport.

Not in the hotel.

Not in the event.

Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance.

I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.

The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.

Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.

Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.

Actually insane.

Oh and if anyone is curious is how doing something like feels: it’s awful. I want to throw up; I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and never will, for all the people whose trust this betrays; I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.

Can’t really recommend it! Stay in school, kids.

It appears that Cole Allen is a mentally ill, narcissist whose fifteen minutes of fame should land him life in the slammer. What a schmuck.

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White House Correspondents' Dinner.shooter had a manifesto

In a conversation with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, President Trump praised the "unified" response of guests and law enforcement after a gunman opened fire at the Washington Hilton, injuring a Secret Service agent and forcing the evacuation of the entire Cabinet during the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

The suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting told law enforcement after his arrest Saturday night that he intended to target Trump administration officials, senior federal law enforcement sources confirmed to Fox News.

Authorities identified the suspect as 31-year-old scumwafer Cole Allen, of Torrance, Calif. He prepared a manifesto outlining his intent and shared anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric on social media. As the dinner was underway, Allen allegedly rushed a Secret Service checkpoint at the Washington Hilton while armed with multiple weapons and opened fire, striking a Secret Service officer in his ballistic vest. 

Agents returned fire and tackled the shooter to the ground. The suspect and the injured officer were transported to a hospital. The Secret Service agent is expected to recover and the Democrats are expected to find a way to blame Trump.

This incident adds to a growing list of threats against President Donald Trump, including two confirmed assassination attempts and a recent incident involving an armed intruder at Mar-a-Lago.

Overnight, the FBI and local law enforcement secured Allen’s home in Torrance, California. A federal judge in the Central District of California is expected to approve a search warrant, which would allow investigators to search the residence.

The White House said Sunday that Allen’s brother contacted the New London Police Department in Connecticut prior to the shooting. He reported that Allen had sent family members an alleged manifesto outlining his intent to target administration officials.

Officials also said Allen’s social media included anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric. President Trump, speaking on Fox News’ "The Sunday Briefing," described Allen as "a very troubled guy," citing the manifesto. He said that if the White House had the ballroom he wanted, this would have never happened. 

He's probably right.

Allen’s sister, Avriana Allen, told investigators in Rockville, Maryland, that her brother had made increasingly radical statements and often spoke about doing "something" to address issues in the world.

She said he had purchased two handguns and a shotgun, which he stored at their parents’ home without their knowledge, and that he regularly trained at a shooting range.

She also told authorities that Allen was affiliated with a group called "The Wide Awakes" and had attended a "No Kings" protest in California, indicating that in all likelihood, he is a dedicated Democrat.

Investigators believe Allen traveled from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., by train, with a stop in Chicago, according to acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche. He said the investigation is ongoing and that more details are expected as formal charges are filed.

Blanche also noted that while the motive remains under investigation, authorities preliminarily believe Allen was targeting administration officials.

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White House Correspondence Dinner: what we know about the shooter

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Cole Tomas Allen (aka Cole Thomas Allen, aka Cole Allen) 31, is from Torrence, California and is, of course, the "suspect" in the shooting incident at the White House Correspondence Dinner at the Washington Hilton, historically remembered as the same hotel where in 1981, then-President Ronald Reagan was the target of an attempted assassination.

Allen was a guest staying at the hotel. He was armed with a shotgun, handgun and several knives when he charged a security checkpoint outside the ballroom where the event was to take place and guests had gathered.

He exchanged gunfire with Secret Service and other law enforcement and fired at least once (some say several times). He struck a Secret Service agent in his bulletproof vest and the agent was hospitalized and expected to recover. There were no other injuries reported. Allen was quickly subdued and taken into custody--he was not shot--and was transported to Howard University Hospital for evaluation.

President Trump, Melania Trump, JD Vance and other officials were immediately evacuated. The President later called the shooter a "lone wolf" and praised the Secret Service.

The dinner will be rescheduled.

Allen, we know, worked as a part-time teacher/tutor at C2 Education, a test-prep and tutoring center in Torrence, CA, where he was named "Teacher of the Month" in December 2024. He has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Caltech and master's in computer science from California State University-Dominguez Hills (around 2024-2025).

Public records reveal that he donated $25 to a Kamala Harris supporting PAC in October 2024, and although California voting records do not show a party affiliation, it's unlikely that he votes Republican.

Allen appears to have acted alone and the motive is currently being investigated. It's possible that he doesn't like President Trump, but that's only speculation based on his behavior. How he was able to access the area is also being investigated and is probably related to him being a guest of the hotel.

FBI agents have been at his Torrence home.

He is being charged with using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer, but more charges are expected.

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New York's East Village voted for Comrade Mamdani by 70%, now suing him

Comrade Mamdani

Leftists sometimes [however rarely] experience the misery that their cherished policies inflict on the rest of us in a direct manner. That's happening right now in the East Village, where they voted in massive numbers for the Marxist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, only to have him decide that they would be among the first to be punished. 

Mamdani’s fellow Twelver Shi’ite, the Ayatollah Khomeini, also allied with the Communists, only to imprison and kill them after he took power. Now Mamdani wants to inflict violent and criminal homeless people on the affluent leftists of the East Village. 

The idea is to demoralize and threaten them until they will support the authoritarian policies that are the heart and center of leftism. Well, it could not happen to a nicer bunch, but they are just toward the beginning of the line. There will be many more victims to come. As H.L. Mencken said in "A Little Book in C Major (1916): "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

East Village residents who voted for New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani by a 40-point margin are now suing to stop a building in their neighborhood from becoming a temporary homeless shelter.

The lawsuit, filed with the New York City Supreme Court on Monday, shows hesitation even among Mamdani supporters about the cost of implementing some of his plans.

News of the lawsuit has prompted conservative mockery online, with figures like Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-TX) noting the irony of Mamdani’s supporters turning on the fruits of his administration.

“Oops,” Sen. Ted Cruz said in a post to X.

“No one is more ‘not in my backyard’ than white progressives. This community voted for Mamdani in a landslide but don’t want to live with the consequences,” Michael Henry, a former New York attorney general candidate, wrote on social media.“Not shocked,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said in a post.

Election District 45, the area that includes East Village, voted for Mamdani in a 70.1% victory over independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, who garnered just 26.0% of the vote. It was one of those "hold your nose and vote" situations with these choices.

Even so, 10 residents joined the Village Organization for the Integrity of Community Engagement (VOICE) in their suit against the city after Mamdani announced plans earlier this year to turn a building at 8 East 3rd Street into a citywide intake shelter to house homeless adult men.

The filing argues the city fast-tracked the process without proper environmental and legal safeguards.

Can I get an Allahu akbar!

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And another one bites the dust

The late, not great, Alireza Tangsiri

There have been loads of eliminations by the IDF of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, Basij leaders, nuclear scientists, heads of the air force, ballistic missile scientists, government spokesmen, and many others. 

Well now, the long list recently got longer by one additional scumcrumpet with the announcement by Israel that it had removed IRGC naval commander, Alireza Tangsiri, from the game of life. Tangsiri was the guy who organized the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and now he is with his virgin Capra aegagrus hircuses.

The IAF strike killed Tangsiri in Bandar Abbas, adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz. The IDF and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed it after an Israeli official informed The Jerusalem Post earlier on Thursday.

Israeli defense sources have confirmed to the New York Post that the strike that killed Tangsiri took place early Thursday morning at 3 a.m. local time. The sources said that a number of Tangsiri’s top naval aides were killed in the same attack.

In a video statement issued on Thursday, the prime minister said Tangsiri had “a great deal of blood on his hands” and was the person “who led the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.” . . . Tangsiri was widely seen as taking an increasingly aggressive stance in recent weeks on Iran’s actions in the Gulf, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, but now his stance is forever prone.

Last week he threatened retaliation against US facilities in the region, warning civilians and workers to stay away. 

“Our list of targets is updated. Oil facilities associated with America are now on par with American bases and will come under fire with full force,” Tangsiri said at the time, before being blown into fish chum.

Scary stuff, no? Too bad that Admiral Tangsiri couldn’t be around to see how even more of his ships, now amounting to more than 100, and among them 92 percent of Iran’s largest warships, are now at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

After Israel’s first main attack on Iran on October 26, 2024, when the IDF destroyed almost all of Iran’s air defenses, the Iranians promised a terrible revenge. Like the Monty Python Black Knight's call for retaliation, it never came. 

Then the Iranian regime rolled their shoulders, grabbed their crotches and threatened that if Israel launches any further attack on their country they would “wipe Israel off the face of the earth forever.” All bluster.

Why wait for another attack by Israel? Wasn’t that 12-day aggression by the Jewish state enough to justify an Iranian response that would end the Jewish state’s existence? If Iran was so all-powerful, why did it refrain from responding to that Israeli attack? 

The IRGC has its excuse: according to its version of events, Iran delivered a terrific blow against Israel in that war and has no need to respond further unless of course the Israelis were foolish enough to attack Iran again. Then Iran would not only repeat its previous “victory” but would wipe Israel “off the face of the Earth.” 

Yet another attack came and Am Yisrael Chai, baby. 

And now Alireza Tangsiri, author of yet more threats on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is dead.

Alireza Tangsiri did his best for his home team, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was the naval mastermind who carried out the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, directed maritime attacks on civilian structures and military targets in the Gulf Arab states, and supported the Houthis with intelligence that will be wasted on that group of cretins.

Who’s next on the IDF’s To-Do List?

The crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, has his own sources of information inside Iran. Many Iranians are fed up with the regime and have been for decades.

They have seen the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in the nuclear program go up in smoke. The tens of billions of dollars that Iran has spent on supporting its proxies with weaponry and money, especially Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have similarly evanesced as a result of Israeli attack.

Finally, the crushing blow delivered by the IDF to Iran, and then the further damage done by the American bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, have so demoralized many members of the IRGC that some of them now want out. Also, not getting paid for their terrorism doesn't help the morale very much either.

They can no longer support a regime that has destroyed the country’s economy, with more than 30 percent of Iranians now living below the poverty line, that crushes peaceful dissent, and has misspent hundreds of billions of dollars both on failing proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah) and on a nuclear program that has just been demolished.

They sense the regime is crumbling and want to get out while there is still time.

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Guess who's running for re-election after resigning: un-freaking believable

What follows is stranger, and certainly funnier, than fiction.

Former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), who resigned from Congress before she was officially kicked out, is doing something so shameless, so typical of D.C., and I hate to admit it, something quite funny: she is running for re-election to her old seat. 

It creates another headache for Democrats, as Sheila was engulfed in a scandal where she reportedly stole millions in relief aid from FEMA. It was a lengthy investigation by the House Ethics Committee, and it became clear she was done when the most vocal left-wingers on the Hill were calling for her removal (via NOTUS):

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the embattled, now-former congresswoman who resigned from Congress this week ahead of potential expulsion, plans to defiantly run for reelection. Cherfilus-McCormick filed on April 17 to run again for her seat, and a campaign aide confirmed to NOTUS she is running — as a Democrat.

Cherfilus-McCormick stepped down from office Tuesday, a half hour before the House Ethics Committee was scheduled to recommend punishment on an array of charges. The panel had previously found her guilty of 25 ethics violations, including allegedly stealing $5 million dollars in federal disaster-aid funds used to bolster her 2021 campaign as well as campaign-finance violations.

The committee had been investigating Cherfilus-McCormick for two years, issuing 58 subpoenas, interviewing 28 witnesses and reviewing over 33,000 documents.

Cherfilus-McCormick also faces criminal charges regarding the federal relief funds she received during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this month, a judge granted her a trial-date extension to February 2027.

In the meantime, she is running for the south Florida seat. 

Her resignation left the 20th Congressional District seat vacant and it is unclear when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to fill the vacancy. The Republican-led Legislature is also debating whether to redraw district maps in the state.

Look, only in the swamp does a politician get caught with her hand in the FEMA cookie jar for millions, get chased out by her own side, and immediately decide the voters deserve another shot at her. The Democrats must be thrilled to have this walking ethics indictment on the ballot again. Nothing says "we've learned our lesson" like running the same scandal-plagued candidate right back out there. South Florida is in for quite the show.

Who does she thinks she is anyway; a Somali businesswoman from Minnesota?

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There's a new guy actually running Iran and he's an obstacle to peace

Happy-Go-Lucky Ahmad Vahidi

After the US-Israeli airstrikes had shaken the very foundations of Iran’s leadership and left dozens of its top officials dead in the opening phase of the conflict, one figure emerged from the shadows to seize control of the Islamic Republic. This was no moderate reformer or reluctant pragmatist, but a terrorist and opportunist in waiting who had long prepared for such a moment.

Major General Ahmad Vahidi, the happy-go-lucky commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, gathered his inner circle and assumed direction of both the military campaign and the negotiating effort. Analysts noted the shift immediately. As soon as Vahidi, now a spritely 67, and his allies took charge, Iran hardened its position still further. 

Officials refused outright to join peace talks with the United States this week, while Tehran intensified its attacks on vessels attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Vahidi, long sanctioned by the West and tied to terror attacks in Argentina, embodies the most extreme faction within the regime, so don't let his religious zabiba [A zabiba (Arabic for "raisin") is a dark, hardened callus on the forehead of some Muslims, known as a prayer bump or "devout sign"] make you think otherwise.

He has pushed aside Tehran’s so-called moderates, including those nominally leading negotiations with America. Even if Washington were somehow to extract a deal from Iran’s delegation, that agreement would carry no weight so long as Vahidi and his hardliner scumcrumpets remain the true power behind the throne. And with the gay junior Ayatollah laid up uni-legged, and probably looking like ten miles of bad road, there is nobody else running things for the regime.

Vahidi had commanded Iran’s goose-stepping, Hitler-esque elite Quds Force in the 1990s. In that role he laid the groundwork for Iranian influence across the Middle East before passing the position to the terror mastermind, the late but not forgotten Qasem Soleimani. Together, Vahidi and Soleimani helped create the network of proxies that now stretches from Lebanon to Yemen, most notably the Hezbollah terrorist group. 

Unlike the last two IRGC chiefs, Vahidi moved comfortably between the military and political worlds. He served as defense minister and interior minister under different administrations. Last December the now dead Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed him deputy chief of the IRGC. When Khamenei and former IRGC Chief Mohammad Pakpour were killed in US-Israeli strikes on 28 February, Vahidi rose to the top like a log in a cesspool, if you know what I mean.

The question that now hangs over Tehran is simple: who is really in charge in Iran? 

Following Khamenei’s death, Vahidi championed the late leader’s unimpressive gay son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as successor, despite reports that the old ayatollah had never intended him for the role due to his embarassing sexual taste and less than desired cognitive abilities. 

Mojtaba was injured in the 28 February strikes and has not been seen in public since. Khosro Isfahani, research director for the Washington-based National Union for Democracy an Iran think tank, offered a blunt assessment.

“If Mojtaba is alive, and that is a big if, he is just a sock puppet. He is the first AI-generated supreme leader in human history,” Isfahani told The Post, referencing the fake photos the regime had posted of Mojtaba following his appointment. “He has zero political capital, zero public support, and zero sway over the decision-making. The regime has and will continue attributing statements to him,” Isfahani added.

Vahidi’s grip on the negotiating team became unmistakable when he installed Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, an IRGC veteran and secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, into the delegation earlier this month. Zolghadr’s task, according to the Institute for the Study of War, was to ensure the team followed the IRGC’s hardline instructions. He fulfilled that role with ruthless efficiency. When Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi appeared to hint at possible concessions in the first round of talks, Zolghadr promptly reported him.

“Zolghadr sent a complaint to senior IRGC leaders, almost certainly including Vahidi, that Araghchi had surpassed his mandate during the negotiations by expressing flexibility regarding Iran’s support for the Axis of Resistance,” the ISW said of the initial peace talks. “Zolghadr’s anger caused senior leaders in Tehran, including former IRGC Intelligence Organization Chief and long-time member of Mojtaba’s inner circle, Hossein Taeb, to call the negotiating delegation back to Tehran,” the think tank added.

Iran’s delegation has still not returned to Pakistan to resume talks with the United States. The message is clear. Vahidi and his allies, not the diplomats or the figurehead supreme leader, now dictate the course of the Islamic Republic. The regime’s most extreme elements hold the reins, and they show no intention of loosening their grip as they continue to get their butts kicked by US and Israeli forces.

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