Frank Bruni, "Comey, Clinton and This Steaming Mess": Hillary's Steaming Turd

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In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Comey, Clinton and This Steaming Mess," Frank Bruni writes of the discovery of new emails "pertinent" to the investigation of Hillary's email practices while she was Secretary of State:

"What a steaming mess, and that’s a comment partly on this specific situation but also on this election, which has devolved into a junkyard of innuendo, lies and conspiracy theories. Trump doesn’t bear all the blame for that, but he bears an ample share of it."

A "steaming mess"? Actually, a "steaming turd" that was dropped by Hillary and never cleaned up. Sure, Donald is a poster boy for those many Americans suffering from severe narcissistic personality disorders, but Hillary's email scandal has nothing to do with him.

Sorry, Frank, but pin the blame where it belongs.

Frank Bruni, "How Facebook Warps Our Worlds": Just Facebook? Consider the Damage Done by Obama!

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In an exceptional New York Times op-ed entitled "How Facebook Warps Our Worlds," Frank Bruni writes:

"We construct precisely contoured echo chambers of affirmation that turn conviction into zeal, passion into fury, disagreements with the other side into the demonization of it. Then we marvel at the Twitter mobs that swarm in defense of Sanders or the surreal success of Donald Trump’s candidacy, whose historical tagline may well be 'All I know is what’s on the Internet.'"

First, my philosophy regarding Facebook: Just say no! Sure, I use it to identify myself on rare occasions for purposes of writing comments on the Internet, but beyond that? I have no Facebook friends, and I haven't had a visitor in months (years?).

Back now to Bruni. Odd that he uses the words "echo chambers of affirmation" in the paragraph quoted above without mentioning Ben Rhodes, Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications. Earlier this month, in a New York Times Magazine article entitled "The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru," David Samuels wrote (my emphasis in red):

"In this environment, Rhodes has become adept at ventriloquizing many people at once. Ned Price, Rhodes’s assistant, gave me a primer on how it’s done. The easiest way for the White House to shape the news, he explained, is from the briefing podiums, each of which has its own dedicated press corps. 'But then there are sort of these force multipliers,' he said, adding, 'We have our compadres, I will reach out to a couple people, and you know I wouldn’t want to name them — '

. . . .

As Malley and representatives of the State Department, including Wendy Sherman and Secretary of State John Kerry, engaged in formal negotiations with the Iranians, to ratify details of a framework that had already been agreed upon, Rhodes’s war room did its work on Capitol Hill and with reporters. In the spring of last year, legions of arms-control experts began popping up at think tanks and on social media, and then became key sources for hundreds of often-clueless reporters. 'We created an echo chamber,' he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. 'They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.'"

Did you read George Orwell's "1984"?:

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."

Orwell was off the mark by some 30 years.

Frank Bruni, "Five Big Questions After a Vulgar Republican Debate": The Size of Trump's Penis Isn't the Problem. It's His Ego.

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"Look at those hands, are they small hands? And he referred to my hands, 'If they're small, something else must be small.' I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee."

- Donald Trump, Republican Presidential Debate, Detroit, March 3, 2016

Have you ever visited a psychiatric institution? Many years ago, a family member, who was studying for his Ph.D. in psychology, spent a summer working at one, and I spent an afternoon visiting him there. I drove away shuddering. Yesterday, after watching Donald Trump examine his hands during the Republican Presidential Debate in Detroit, I also found myself shuddering.

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Five Big Questions After a Vulgar Republican Debate," Frank Bruni says of the Detroit debate:

"Does the size of Donald Trump’s penis matter?

I’m not being cheeky. I’m not being shocking. I’m noting something that we cannot lose track of, should not shrug our shoulders about and must not gloss over: Trump has succeeded at nothing as fully as he has at infusing the presidential race with a vulgarity that’s absolutely breathtaking.

He has done so well at dragging his rivals so far down into the sewer with him that portions of what we watched on Thursday night were a fetid farce. We actually witnessed an interchange — in the first 10 minutes, no less — about how well endowed (or not) he is.

It’s worth stopping for a second, letting that sink in and wondering what it says about our country and political process right now."

Bruni is right. This "debate" transcended any norms to which I am accustomed. This is more akin to professional wrestling, something that Trump knows better than foreign policy.

Ariel Durant once wrote, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." Has that time come for America?

Gail Collins, "Hillary, Bernie and History": Women Can Be Just As Rotten as Men?

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Yesterday, in the aftermath of comments from Madeleine Albright ("There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!") and Gloria Steinem ("When you’re young, you’re thinking: 'Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie,'"), Ruth Marcus declared in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Hillary Clinton needs to figure out how to talk to women — and fast":

"Feminism doesn’t mean imposing a moral obligation on women to vote a certain way. It means trusting them, not demeaning them, when they choose the candidate they like best, male or female. Even if their mothers disagree."

Marcus's opinion piece followed on the heels of Frank Bruni's New York Times op-ed entitled "Feminism, Hell and Hillary Clinton":

"Clinton’s gender indeed matters. Just as you couldn’t properly evaluate Obama’s arc without factoring in race, you can’t see her accurately without recognizing that she’s a woman of her time, with all the attendant obstacles, hurts, compromises and tenacity.

That informs — and, ideally, illuminates — her perspective. And her presidency would carry a powerful, constructive symbolism that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.

But those are considerations among many, many others in taking her measure and in casting a vote. To focus only or primarily on them is more reductive than respectful, and to tell women in particular what kind of politics they should practice is the antithesis of feminism, which advocates independence and choices."

Well said, Frank.

Gail Collins's "contribution" to the debate over Albright's and Steinem's remarks? In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary, Bernie and History," Collins concludes (my emphasis in red):

"It took almost 40 more years before a woman won a major presidential primary. That was, of course, Clinton in 2008 in New Hampshire. She didn’t win the election, but she was so credible, and finished so strong, that the nation came away believing a woman in the White House was a completely normal idea.

If the younger voters who are flocking to Bernie Sanders don’t share their elders’ intense feelings about needing to elect a woman president right now, it’s partly because Hillary Clinton helped create a different world. So no matter what comes next, everybody’s a winner."

Hillary "helped create a different world"? Yeah, right. No mention by Collins of the acceptance by the Clinton Foundation of millions of dollars in donations from Saudi Arabia, a country which whips and imprisons gang rape victims.

And no mention by Collins of Hillary's tweet on November 22, 2015:

"Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported."

Which was followed by Juanita Broaddrick's tweet on January 6, 2016:

"I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73....it never goes away."

In addition, there's the small matter of Hillary's honesty as perceived by the American electorate. As reported by Chris Cillizza in Washington Post article entitled "Hillary Clinton has a major honesty problem after New Hampshire":

"Hillary Clinton has an honesty problem.

That point is driven home hard in the exit poll following Clinton's 22-point drubbing at the hands of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. More than one in three (34 percent) of all New Hampshire Democratic primary voters said that honesty was the most important trait in their decision on which candidate to support. Of that bloc, Sanders won 92 percent of their votes as compared to just 6 percent for Clinton."

Bottom line, Hillary Clinton has proven that female politicians can be just as despicable as male politicians. Collins writes:

"Strong as the emotions are in the Clinton and Sanders camps, both sides have to feel sort of chipper when they look over at the Republicans, who are engaged in something between professional wrestling and Godzilla Versus Rodan."

In fact, the real battle between Godzilla and Rodan will arrive if Hillary is nominated by the Democrats and runs against Trump in November. And in this case, no matter what comes next, everybody’s a ... loser.

Frank Bruni, "Feminism, Hell and Hillary Clinton": Will Anyone Ever Again Pay Her $500,000 to Speak? No Way in Hell!

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Following Hillary's New Hampshire primary debacle, Frank Bruni writes in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Feminism, Hell and Hillary Clinton":

"Clinton’s gender indeed matters. Just as you couldn’t properly evaluate Obama’s arc without factoring in race, you can’t see her accurately without recognizing that she’s a woman of her time, with all the attendant obstacles, hurts, compromises and tenacity.

That informs — and, ideally, illuminates — her perspective. And her presidency would carry a powerful, constructive symbolism that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.

But those are considerations among many, many others in taking her measure and in casting a vote. To focus only or primarily on them is more reductive than respectful, and to tell women in particular what kind of politics they should practice is the antithesis of feminism, which advocates independence and choices."

Thank you, Frank!

Hillary is toast. Will anyone ever again pay Hillary $500,000 for a speech? No way in hell.

The real loser in New Hampshire? Anyone who ever paid money to the Clinton Foundation, hoping to gain influence over or access to the next president. Sorry, boys and girls, a bad bet. Your horse just came up lame.

Joe, opportunity is knocking.

Frank Bruni, "The Clintons’ Secret Language": Electioneering for Hillary From The Times

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I am looking at the home page of The New York Times, and under "The Opinion Pages" on the upper right hand of the screen, I read: "Frank Bruni, The Clintons’ Secret Language, Bill and Hillary have a marriage like any other — it’s unknowable from the outside."

Whoa! Bruni actually said that the Clintons "have a marriage like any other"? I don't think so. Go to his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Clintons’ Secret Language," where Bruni declares:

"We know nothing of other people’s marriages. Nothing at all."

Hey, if we don't know anything about other people's marriages, how can anyone say that the Clintons' have a marriage like any other? In fact, Bruni does not say this. Instead, Bruni concludes:

"We’re certain that social climbing or religious devotion is a couple’s glue, when what matters more is the secret language of goofy endearments that they speak. Or the unremarkable daily rituals that they’ve grown to relish. Or the tempo of his speech. Or the timbre of her laugh.

And when we come to our sweeping conclusions, we’re not perceiving but projecting, and we’re using couples to cling to our idealism or validate our cynicism. It’s a foolish game under any circumstances. It’s a dangerous one en route to the election of a president."

The Clintons' "unremarkable daily rituals"? Go ahead, Frank, tell me a few of them? Make my day!

More to the point, unlike other couples, the Clintons need to put an end to the speculation concerning the nature of their relationship. If Hillary is elected in November 2016, will Bill accompany her to the White House, even if the couple is no longer intimate? And if Bill is or has recently been involved with other women, does this not possess the potential for future security problems involving, for example, blackmail? Could it not otherwise detrimentally affect Hillary's future ability to function as president?

Similarly, if Hillary is having, or has had in recent years, an intimate relationship with someone other than Bill, and this is not revealed prior to the election, could this also pose future security problems for the United States? Shouldn't the public know whether or not she is having or has had any such relationship?

No one is forcing Hillary to run for the highest office in the land, but if she wants the job, she had best be ready to accept a higher level of scrutiny of her personal life, notwithstanding efforts by America's media to avoid asking about her marriage.

Frank Bruni, "Marco Rubio Doesn’t Add Up": What About Hillary's Profit From Cattle Futures?

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Marco Rubio Doesn’t Add Up," Frank Bruni observes with regard to Rubio's quest for the Republican presidential nomination:

"Reasonable people can’t stomach the thought of Trump or Cruz as the nominee. We can’t accept what that would say about America, or what that could mean for it. Rubio is the flawed, rickety lifeboat we cling to, the amulet we clutch. He’ll prevail because he must. The alternative is simply too perverse (Trump) or too cruel (Cruz)."

Good point, Frank.

But what of the "alternative" that Hillary represents? A liar (e.g., telling the parents of the Benghazi victims that the attack on the diplomatic compound stemmed from a videotape, not to mention her claim that she came under sniper fire when landing in Bosnia in 1996)? A hypocrite (e.g., someone willing to accept millions of dollars of donations to her foundation from Saudi Arabia, a nation which whips and imprisons women who have been gang raped, while contending that women's rights are at the center of her agenda)?

And let's not forget how she turned a $1,000 investment in cattle futures into almost $100,000 after 10 months. Beginner's luck? I don't think so.

What does this say about America?

Frank Bruni, "The Juicy Subplots of 2016": Has Hillary Been Faithful to Bill?

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Juicy Subplots of 2016," Frank Bruni informs us that the identity of America's next president "eclipses" all other political questions. In that regard, Bruni writes of expectations that Bill Clinton will soon begin to campaign for Hillary:

"All of that was a fresh reminder that his proper role in, and impact on, his wife’s candidacy is unsettled and unclear. He remains both wildly charismatic and maddeningly undisciplined. He connotes both prosperous times and cynical scheming.

There’s no legitimate worry that his presence might eclipse and diminish hers, but the two of them together root her candidacy as much in the past as in the future. So how to deploy and integrate him? Is it controllable?"

How to "deploy and integrate" Bill? Indeed.

Forgive me for repeating myself, but yesterday I agreed with The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus that Hillary is trying to have it both ways when she allows her husband, who abused women yet otherwise is perceived as a successful American president, to campaign on her behalf. This is not far afield from claiming that women's rights are at the center of her agenda, after having accepted millions of dollars of donations to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia, which by any standard oppresses women.

However, I did not agree with Marcus that "What happens inside a marriage is the couple’s business, and no one else’s, even when both halves crave the presidency." If Hillary were to be elected in November 2016, would Bill accompany her to the White House, even if the couple is no longer intimate? And if Bill is or has recently been involved with other women, does this not possess the potential for future security problems involving, for example, blackmail? Could it not otherwise detrimentally affect Hillary's future ability to function as president?

Similarly, if Hillary is having, or has had in recent years, an intimate relationship with someone other than Bill, and this is not revealed prior to the election, could this also pose future security problems for the United States? Shouldn't the public know whether or not she is having or has had any such relationship?

No one is forcing Hillary to run for the highest office in the land, but if she wants the job, she had best be ready to accept a higher level of scrutiny of her personal life, notwithstanding efforts by America's media to avoid asking about her marriage.

Unless, of course, this should also be treated as a matter of "Don't ask, don't tell."

Frank Bruni, "How ISIS Defeats Us": Dracula to the Rescue?

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In a seemingly sensible, balanced, New York Times op-ed entitled "How ISIS Defeats Us," Frank Bruni begins:

"I DON’T know how we win the war against ISIS.

But I know how we lose it. The last week has been a thorough and demoralizing education in that.

We lose it with a response to the Paris carnage and a discussion about the path forward that’s driven by partisan grievances and posturing rather than a mature, nuanced attempt to address Americans’ understandable anxiety and acknowledge that we may not be doing the right things or enough of them."

Bruni doesn't know how to win the war against the Islamic State? Well, fortunately or unfortunately, Russian President Putin thinks he knows how to win. Although Russian air strikes in Syria were initially focused on non-Islamic State rebel forces, including US-backed insurgents, that has all changed after ISIS took down a Russian passenger plane over Sinai on October 31 with a bomb that  killed 224 people. Putin responded to the attack on the A321 jet by declaring:

"Our military work in Syria must not only continue. It must be strengthened in such a way so that the terrorists will understand that retribution is inevitable."

And "true to his word," Putin is now carpet-bombing the Syrian city of Raqqa, which had served as the capital of the Islamic State's would-be caliphate. How many ISIS fighters and civilians have died in the attacks on the city, which once had a population of some 220,000? No one knows.

As you might be aware, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" was based upon a historical figure named Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, who, in his battles with the Ottoman Empire, took to impaling Turkish prisoners of war in order to dispirit enemy forces. Well today, a new Vlad has arisen - actually his name is Vladimir - who is not willing to brook any sh*t from ISIS.

How does the US win or lose against ISIS? Sorry, Frank, the whole situation has spun entirely out of American control.

Frank Bruni, "The Exploitation of Paris": In Fact, Obama Is to Blame

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In fact, it was a disaster waiting to happen. And yes, Obama is to blame.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Exploitation of Paris," Frank Bruni objects to responding to the massacre in Paris "with an unsavory opportunism instead of a respectful grief." Specifically, Bruni writes:

"Well, apparently President Obama’s justly profound concern about rising temperatures is proof of his inadequate attention to terrorism and an indictment of his ability to do triage overall.

Or so I gather from a column written by Roger L. Simon for PJ Media. Simon characterized Obama as "a ludicrous man who thinks the world’s greatest problem is climate change in the face of Islamic terror."

Does battling the latter prohibit battling the former?

Simon also mentioned that Obama had once referred to the Islamic state as 'the jayvee team' and had sought to scale down American military commitments abroad. While I question the usefulness of bashing Obama within 24 hours of the Paris attacks, I acknowledge that his past and present assessments of the Islamic state and his readiness (or not) to use American might are fair points of debate in the context of Paris and how we respond to it."

Actually, Obama's responsibility for the catastrophe in Paris extends far beyond the president's neo-isolationism.

As some who read this blog know, a "bit" of my past professional life involved counter-terrorism. And although I was troubled by Obama's reference to the Islamic State as "the jayvee team," this characterization was the least of my concerns.

A coordinated terrorist attack of the kind witnessed in Paris demands money. And from where has funding in support of the Islamic State come? Currently, revenues from the sale of oil and gas are crucial to the functioning of the Islamic State. However, long before there were oil revenues, there were contributions flowing to the Islamic State from wealthy citizens of Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. As Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen declared in 2014:

"Our ally Kuwait has become the epicenter of fundraising for terrorist groups in Syria. A number of Kuwaiti fundraisers exploit the charitable impulses of unwitting donors by soliciting humanitarian donations from both inside and outside the country, cloaking their efforts in humanitarian garb, but diverting those funds to extremist groups in Syria. Meanwhile, donors who already harbor sympathies for Syrian extremists have found in Kuwait fundraisers who openly advertise their ability to move funds to fighters in Syria.

. . . .

Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally, has for many years openly financed Hamas, a group that continues to undermine regional stability. Press reports indicate that the Qatari government is also supporting extremist groups operating in Syria. To say the least, this threatens to aggravate an already volatile situation in a particularly dangerous and unwelcome manner.

. . . .

Private fundraising networks in Qatar, for instance, increasingly rely upon social media to solicit donations for terrorists and to communicate with both donors and recipient radicals on the battlefield. This method has become so lucrative, and Qatar has become such a permissive terrorist financing environment, that several major Qatar-based fundraisers act as local representatives for larger terrorist fundraising networks that are based in Kuwait."

What have Obama and friends done to prevent this funding? Obviously not enough. After all, some 11,000 US troops are stationed at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which Michelle Obama visited less than two weeks ago, and the president wouldn't want to offend the host country, even as it plays both sides of the fence.

Hillary Clinton? As reported in an International Business Times article entitled "Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton's State Department" by David Sirota and Andrew Perez, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have "all donated to the Clinton Foundation and also gained State Department clearance to buy caches of American-made weapons even as the department singled them out for a range of alleged ills, from corruption to restrictions on civil liberties to violent crackdowns against political opponents." Charming.

"Unsavory opportunism instead of a respectful grief" on my part? I don't think so. I'm just angry as hell.

Frank Bruni, "Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Debate Magic": Ignore Those "Damn" Emails

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Debate Magic," Frank Bruni writes of Tuesday's Democratic debate:

"But she was seldom rattled, though the discussion of her use of a home-brewed server for her emails as secretary of state did prompt a visible stiffening of her posture, a conspicuous strain in her smile. Will she ever, ever find language that takes full ownership of her mistake and that puts real flesh on her continued claim that she’s being as transparent as possible?

It was possibly her worst moment.

It was perhaps Sanders’s best. Surprisingly, he called for an end to talk about the emails, saying there were more important issues to focus on."

Indeed, Sanders delighted Hillary & Co. with his declaration, "I think the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails." However, as observed in an October 11 New York Post editorial entitled "Fresh evidence keeps sinking Hillary Clinton’s email defense":

"The FBI’s probe has now expanded to include another private server she used, a backup service with Connecticut-based Datto Inc.

And now the Associated Press has confirmed that her main server was the target of repeated cyberattacks from China, South Korea and Germany. And those came after she left office, when her team belatedly agreed to use some threat-monitoring software.

In other news, a FOIA request from the watchdog group Citizens United has uncovered the fact that Hill’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, was forwarding classified info to the Clinton Foundation — so staff there could support Bill Clinton’s work in Africa.

Add to this new details about Hillary’s emails with longtime aide Sidney Blumenthal — emails that somehow didn’t make it into the data she finally handed over once word broke that she’d failed to share her work product with the government.

Her extensive communications with him include the naming of a CIA source (obviously classified) as he pushed for action in Libya — action that would benefit his clients."

Sorry, Bernie, but I think we must await a determination from the FBI before dismissing Hillary's failure to safeguard American government communications, because the United States is indeed not Denmark. Hillary's 2016 Republican opponent will not be so kind.

Frank Bruni, "The Joe Biden Delusion": Honesty No Longer Matters

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Yesterday, I had a discussion with a family member, who told me that she would be pleased if Hillary became the next president. "She's smart," she told me. "Yes," I agreed, "but she's also dishonest and unscrupulous." The family member, however, was ready with a rejoinder: "The emails were confidential, not top secret." Was I surprised by her response? Not in the least. You see, honesty as it relates to the Clintons ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman"), doesn't resonate with or matter to many voters.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Joe Biden Delusion," Frank Bruni tells us that he hopes Joe Biden will not challenge Hillary for the Democratic nomination because . . . he's too honest and unconstrained:

"Where others say too little, he says too much. Where others depend on extravagantly compensated swamis to contrive their authenticity and coax them toward it, Biden needs help tamping down his irrepressible self.

. . . .

He rolls his eyes. He reaches out with his hands. He talks and talks, in sentences that sometimes go too far, with words that haven’t been weighed as carefully as they could be. The route from his brain to his lips is direct and swift. None of the usual traffic cones there.

Sometimes this is enervating. Mostly it’s endearing. For better or worse, it’s not the means to a promotion, not for this remarkable man at this remarkable time."

And if more surprises surface from Hillary's server? Can a $2.5 billion campaign deodorize the overpowering stench wafting from a river of raw sewage? Maybe, but it remains to be seen.

Go for it, Joe. If Trump takes the Republican nomination, this time you might just get lucky.

Frank Bruni, "Gay and Marked for Death": No Mention of Iran

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Gay and Marked for Death," Frank Bruni tell us of a special United Nations Security Council meeting on L.G.B.T. rights, but remarkably manages to make no mention of Iran. Bruni writes:

"Although Monday’s discussion isn’t a formal one that Security Council members are required to attend, it’s nonetheless the first time that the council has held a meeting of any kind that’s dedicated to the persecution of L.G.B.T. people, according to Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations.

And it’s an example, she told me, of a determined push by the United States and other countries to integrate L.G.B.T. rights into all discussions of human rights by international bodies like the U.N.

. . . .

The Security Council meeting, which the United States is co-hosting with Chile, will focus on the Islamic State’s brutality against gays as a way of getting countries who might not be sensitive to the plight of gays, but who have profound concerns about the Islamic State, to pay attention."

The focus of the Security Council meeting will be on the Islamic State's brutality against gays? Question: Why is the Security Council also not focusing also on the barbaric conduct of the Islamic Republic of Iran? In an August 20, 2014 Front Page Magazine article entitled "An Execution Wave Against LGBT Iranians," Dr. Majid Rafizadeh observes:

"As the Obama administration continues to communicate and diplomatically negotiate with Iranian officials in Vienna, New York, and elsewhere, President Obama has not even slightly expressed his concern about the unfair actions, executions, discriminations and prosecutions of LGBT individuals, as well as the increasing repressions of women under the Rouhani administration. Where do the Islamic Republic’s human rights abuses belong on President Obama’s agenda?

Two weeks ago, two Iranian men, Abdulla Ghavami Chahzanjiru and Salman Ghanbari Chahzanjiri, were executed in the southern part of the Islamic Republic for reasons that included 'consensual sodomy.' According to the Daily Beast, 'Their deaths are part of a wave of executions in Iran, with more than 400 in the first half of 2014 alone, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights.' One of the Iranian sources pointed out that Chahzanjiru and Chahzanjiri were executed in order to 'promote community safety' as well as to 'reduce the suffering of the victims.'"

Executions in Iran in 2015? As reported by Amnesty International:

"The Iranian authorities are believed to have executed an astonishing 694 people between 1 January and 15 July 2015, said Amnesty International today, in an unprecedented spike in executions in the country.

This is equivalent to executing more than three people per day. At this shocking pace, Iran is set to surpass the total number of executions in the country recorded by Amnesty International for the whole of last year.

'Iran’s staggering execution toll for the first half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale,' said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme."

But there is no mention of Iranian savagery against gays by Bruni or Power. I wonder why . . .

Frank Bruni, "How Hillary Is Winning": The Horses Aren't Even Out of the Gate

Etymology of "Shoo-in"

"The term originated in the early 20th century. The earliest instances relate to horse racing, with the shoo-ins being horses that are destined to win through either dominance or race fixing."

- Grammarist

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "How Hillary Is Winning," Frank Bruni makes it appear that Hillary is a shoo-in to win the presidency in 2016. Bruni writes:

"That’s a clear takeaway from several surveys of voters released last week. They showed that despite her email shenanigans, despite the ethical muddle known as the Clinton Foundation, despite the growing confusion about whether the Hillary Clinton of 2016 will be of an ideological piece with the Hillary Clintons of yesteryear, voters will gladly take her, considering the alternatives.

According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, she was six points ahead of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in head-to-head contests with either. She was 10 points ahead of Scott Walker."

Whoa, Frank! Allow me to remind you of a March 19, 2007 CNN article entitled "Dems favor Hillary Clinton for 2008, poll shows," which informed us:

"Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to lead the pack of Democratic presidential hopefuls, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday.

. . . .

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 37 percent of registered Democrats said they would vote for Clinton as the Democratic 2008 nominee, while 22 percent named Obama. Fourteen percent went with Gore, and 12 percent backed Edwards.

. . . .

Gore has apparently gained support since his triumphant appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony -- in a January poll, only 10 percent said they would vote for him.

But he has said he has no plans to run, and with his name out of the mix, Clinton's support jumps to 44 percent -- a gain of 7 percentage points, compared with a gain of only 1 for Obama."

Or stated otherwise, it's May 2015, and the horses aren't even out of the gate.

Frank Bruni, "From ‘Hamlet’ to Hillary": Helping Narcissists Become President

"God has given you one face and you make yourselves another."

- Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

The true face of Hillary Clinton? Has anyone ever seen it?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "From ‘Hamlet’ to Hillary," Frank Bruni tells us of the life and career of Joel Benenson. Bruni writes:

"Benenson, 62, majored in theater at Queens College, part of the City University of New York. He thought he’d be an actor, but for most of his 20s co-owned a beer distributorship in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

And now? He’s one of the country’s leading pollsters and political strategists. He played a key role in Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential races and is doing likewise in Clinton’s 2016 one."

Wow! Can you imagine? Helping Obama, a narcissist with no executive experience, win two terms as president of the United States! "Change"? No, it didn't happen, although Obama is still attempting to assist Khamenei in obtaining an arsenal of atomic weapons to be used against Israel within the next decade.

Hillary? Also a narcissist who stands for . . . herself. Personally, I would prefer beer over Hillary, although I would probably end up drinking away the profits.

Bruni tells us of the advice that Benenson has for young people:

"'Don’t think about what you want to do for the rest of your life,' he said. 'Think about what you want to do next.' Maybe, he said, you 'have a big goal out there and pursue it, but along the way, that line from A to B is not a continuum. The key will be identifying what you are passionate about in each of those steps along the way.'"

Fascinating. I am going to take the next plane to Baltimore–Washington International Airport and let the youth of Baltimore know of Benenson's wisdom . . . not. Regrettably, not everyone has the possibility to pursue his or her passions.

Frank Bruni, "Christians Loving Jews": Thank Goodness for a Little Love in the World

In a nonjudgmental New York Times op-ed entitled "Christians Loving Jews," Frank Bruni examines the depth of support of America's evangelical Christian community for Israel, as evidenced by their leaders' turnout for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech to Congress. Explaining this support, Bruni writes:

"Some evangelical Christians’ interest in Israel reflects an interpretation of the Bible’s prophetic passages that’s known as premillennial dispensationalism. It maintains that the End of Days can play out as God intends only if Jews govern Israel and have reconstructed a temple on the Temple Mount, where there’s now a mosque.

But just a subset of evangelicals subscribe to that. Others are motivated by their belief, rooted in scripture, that God always intended Israel for Jews and that honoring that and keeping Israel safe is a way of honoring God. God’s blessing of America, they feel, cannot be divorced from America’s backing of Israel.

. . . .

The attacks of 9/11 and the spreading threat of Islamic extremists have further strengthened American evangelicals’ sense of kinship with Jews in Israel, whom they see as crucial partners in fighting butchers who have recently singled out Christians for slaughter."

Bruni compares the support for Israel of evangelical Christians with that of American Jews:

"JEWS in the Democratic Party are more divided on the actions that conservative Israeli leaders like Netanyahu have taken in defense of Israel than evangelical Christians in the Republican Party are."

However, Netanyahu is not as conservative as Bruni thinks. As reported last week by The Times of Israel in article entitled "New document said to reveal PM’s concessions to Palestinians," we learned that a draft document has emerged indicating that Netanyahu was willing to make meaningful compromises to reach peace with the Palestinians:

"According to the document, Netanyahu agreed to negotiate a peace deal on the basis of the 1967 borders, with land swaps; to acknowledge Palestinian aspirations in East Jerusalem; to evacuate settlers from the West Bank; and to allow those who so choose to remain under Palestinian rule."

These are dark days for Israel when France must force Obama to stiffen his demands before reaching a nuclear deal with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei, providing Iran with the ability to manufacture an arsenal of atomic weapons without any constraints after the passing of 10 years.

Israel is deeply indebted to America's evangelical Christian community for its continued survival.

Maureen Dowd, "Jeb Bush’s Brainless Trust": The Revenge of King George III

While talking with my 90-year-old father the other day, he irately declared that he will never vote for "Hope" and "Change" again. I quietly explained to him that he will not have another opportunity to vote for Obama, who in another two years will be hitting the lecture circuit and the golf course, and passing the unsightly mess he made over to some new narcissistic opportunist.

New opportunists? In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Jeb Bush’s Brainless Trust," Maureen Dowd expresses her disdain for the Republican and Democratic 2016 front runners, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Dowd writes:

"Like the Clintons, the Bushes drag the country through national traumas that spring from their convoluted family dynamic and then disingenuously wonder why we concern ourselves with their family dynamic.

Without their last names, Hillary and Jeb would not be front-runners, buoyed by networks of donors grateful for appointments or favors bestowed by the family."

Unfortunately, Dowd fails to make reference to a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Foreign Government Gifts to Clinton Foundation on the Rise" by James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus, which last week disclosed:

"The Clinton Foundation has dropped its self-imposed ban on collecting funds from foreign governments and is winning contributions at an accelerating rate, raising ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up her expected bid for the presidency.

Recent donors include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline."

Hillary is being funded by the UAE, Oman and the Saudis? From whom won't she take money?

Incidently, Dowd is not the only Times columinist criticizing Jeb and Hillary today. In an op-ed entitled "Hillary, Jeb and $$$$$$," Frank Bruni concludes:

"We articulate misgivings about how much of Clinton’s or Bush’s thinking may be rooted in the past. But the bigger issue, given the scope of not just their own political histories but also their relatives’, is how heavy a duffel of i.o.u.s each of them would carry into office.

Their prominence is commensurate with their debts. And only so many of those can be forgotten."

But are Jeb and Hillary to blame? Or is it a system that has spun out of control, and notwithstanding the fact that the nation is faced with crushing debt and escalating international savagery, it foists such nauseating choices upon the populace?

King George III most certainly is guffawing from his grave.

Frank Bruni, "The Virus of Cynicism": Or the Cancer of Hopelessness?

Should Americans be more afraid of the Ebola virus or the incompetence of the Obama administration?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Virus of Cynicism," Frank Bruni observes:

"Ebola is his presidency in a petri dish. It’s an example already of his tendency to talk too loosely at the outset of things, so that his words come back to haunt him. There was the doctor you could keep under his health plan until, well, you couldn’t. There was the red line for Syria that he didn’t have to draw and later erased."

But is current unhappiness in the US only about cynicism, incompetence and a lack of confidence?

I remember how, when I was 15 and wandering the streets of Chinatown in San Francisco, I watched on a storefront television as Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. Where has America traveled since then?

US national debt is fast approaching $18 trillion, but where are the achievements that can be attributed to this spending? In fact, hope and pride have flown the coop, and have been replaced by greed and narcissism.

Shh! Don't tell the Chinese! Who knows what will happen if they demand back their $1.3 trillion from the American government . . .

Frank Bruni, "Lost in America": No We Can't!

Perhaps you recall that in a recent blog item I observed, "Am I just growing grouchy with age, or has the world truly taken a turn for the worse?"

Well, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Lost in America," Frank Bruni writes:

"More and more I’m convinced that America right now isn’t a country dealing with a mere dip in its mood and might. It’s a country surrendering to a new identity and era, in which optimism is quaint and the frontier anything but endless.

. . . .

It’s about fear. It’s about impotence. We can’t calm the world in the way we’d like to, can’t find common ground and peace at home, can’t pass needed laws, can’t build necessary infrastructure, can’t, can’t, can’t."

Meanwhile, the United States has grown dependent upon Qatar, a country the size of Connecticut that funds Islamic terrorism, to broker deals with the Taliban and the al-Nusra Front.

"Yes we can!"?

Last week, if you had listened carefully to the gentle breezes blowing over the Farm Neck Golf Club Golf Course in Martha's Vineyard, you might have discerned the wearisome whispers of "No we can't!"

Frank Bruni, "Hillary Clinton, Barbed and Bellicose": VOTE FOR GRANNY!

Okay, Obama went golfing in Martha's Vineyard as the world burned, but not before providing the captain of his New York Times cheerleader squad, Thomas Friedman, with his attempt at explaining away the current global wildfire (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/thomas-friedman-obama-on-world-making.html).

Was it pure accident that over the same weekend, The Atlantic published Jeffrey Goldberg's interview of Hillary Clinton (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/jeffrey-goldberg-hillary-clinton.html), in which she all but branded the president a nincompoop? We are left to wonder whether Hillary's declaration that "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don’t do stupid shit' is not an organizing principle" interfered in any way with Obama's putting. Probably not. After all, Obama wasn't willing to allow a few beheadings and crucifixions by ISIL, or ten thousand Yazidis dying of thirst on a mountain, to stand in the way of his vacation.

Today, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary Clinton, Barbed and Bellicose" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/opinion/hillary-clinton-barbed-and-bellicose.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0), Frank Bruni begins by acknowledging that Hillary is running for president, but this has never been the question. Rather, the real issue is whether we can believe anything that she says.

Well on his way to writing himself into the history books as one of America's worst presidents, Obama appears, from his beloved links, to be indifferent to his fate. Hillary, on the other hand, must decide when and to what extent to distance herself from the disaster being wrecked upon the United States by the first invertebrate ever to occupy the Oval Office. As Bruni cleverly portrays Hillary's dilemma:

"The question is whether she can belittle Barack Obama as much as she must in order to win, but not so much that it plays as an act of sheer betrayal."

What's the poor woman to do? Her paid political advisers obviously made up their minds long ago. But how will voters ultimately respond to this carefully calculated ambush of her former boss? Again, as stated by Bruni:

"If decisions made while she was still the secretary of state were flawed, is she blameless? Sure, her job, like any appointee’s, was to implement the chief executive’s vision, to follow his lead. But it was also to lobby and leave an imprint. Is she conceding that she didn’t do that effectively enough?"

Indeed, Hillary spent four years accumulating frequent flyer miles and accomplished . . . nothing. My guess is that she miscalculated. Disloyalty will not win her approval.

And in a world that is more concerned with appearance than substance,  how might Hillary fare against a youthful Marco Rubio in another two years? Of course, she could consider the dermal fillers and Botox route blazed by John Kerry (now making himself scarce on a seven-day trip to Afghanistan, Burma, Australia, the Solomon Islands and Hawaii, after a disastrous attempt to mediate Israel's conflict with Hamas), or she might attempt to exercise down the size of her pant suits, but the years are inevitably cruel to all of us.

Bottom line: "Vote for Granny!" just isn't going to cut it.

[See also: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/david-brooks-clinton-obama-and-iraq.html]