Maureen Dowd, "Trump’s Gold Lining": Sales of Female Pelvic Protectors Skyrocket

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In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Trump’s Gold Lining," Maureen Dowd informs us that Donald's election has reinvigorated the Times's circulation stats:

"Every time our daft new president tweets about the 'failing' New York Times, our digital subscriptions and stock price jump, driven by readers eager for help negotiating the disorienting Trumpeana Oceana Upside Down dimension rife with gaslighting, trolling, leaking, lying and conflicts."

Well, the Times is not alone in reaping the economic benefits of the Trump presidency. My understanding is that sales of pelvic protectors for female genitalia are going through the roof among women visiting the White House, given Trump's leaked "grab them by the pussy" declaration.

Will federal taxes on profits from the sale of female pelvic protectors make a dent in America's $20 trillion debt, i.e. some $808,000 per family, thereby making America great again?

Will America devolve into a dystopian Clock Work Orange society in which pelvic protectors are de rigueur?

Back to my dogs, who are impatiently waiting for a walk.

David Brooks, "A Gift for Donald Trump": Fraternity? How About a Slice of Moose Turd Pie?

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "A Gift for Donald Trump," David Brooks tells of the gift he would like to bestow upon Donald Trump. Brooks concludes:

"So, upon reflection, the gift I would give Trump would be an emotional gift, the gift of fraternity. I’d give him the gift of some crisis he absolutely could not handle on his own. The only way to survive would be to fall back entirely on others, and then to experience what it feels like to have them hold him up.

. . . .

I doubt that Trump will develop a capacity for fraternity any time soon, but to be human is to hold out hope, and to believe that even a guy as old and self-destructive as Trump is still 0.001 percent open to a transformation of the heart."

Fraternity? Heck, David, the man suffers from a severe narcissistic personality disorder and is incapable of change. That being the case, I would personally prefer to give the gift that keeps on giving: A freshly baked, steaming hot, moose turd pie (click on the link and listen, if you're in need of a laugh - we all are, these days).

And I would like to invite Barack, Hillary and Bill to the banquet, provided, of course, that I didn't run afoul of the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act.

Back to my broccoli and dogs ...

New York Times Editorial, "A Poison Pill for the Recovery": Alternative Facts

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In an editorial entitled "A Poison Pill for the Recovery," The New York Times attacks Donald Trump's order yesterday to roll back Dodd-Frank. Don't misunderstand me: Trump's directive is a disaster in the making, but let's take a closer look at the Times editorial, which continues to pay homage to Obama:

"[Donald Trump] has been lucky enough to inherit an economy that added 11.5 million jobs during President Obama’s tenure, the fourth-highest tally of the 12 administrations in the post-World War II era. There is, of course, much work still to be done: Growth in wages is not yet strong, and too many people are able to find only part-time work. But the foundation on which to build — economic growth, financial stability, monthly job tallies and low unemployment — is firm."

Ah yes, "the foundation on which to build" ...

But now consider what Andrew Soergel had to say in a July 16, 2015 U.S. News & World Report article entitled "Where Are All the Workers?":

"Americans are actually trickling out of work at an alarming rate. The country's labor force participation rate – which measures the share of Americans at least 16 years old who are either employed or actively looking for work – dipped last month to a 38-year low, clocking in at an underwhelming 62.6 percent.

Unemployed individuals who haven't actively looked for a job in the last four weeks, for any number of reasons, actually slip away from the Labor Department's unemployment calculations. So although the unemployment rate ticked down to a seven-year low of 5.3 percent in June, that number didn't do justice to the 640,000 individuals who exited the labor market last month and the nearly 94 million people who were neither employed nor looking for work."

Also consider that Obama left the United States with a crippling national debt of $20 trillion, or some $800,000 per family. Moreover, seven percent of that debt is held by China, a country with respect to which Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon declared in March 2016:

"We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years, aren't we. There’s no doubt about that."

Do you laugh or cry? Me? I'm headed back to my dogs and vegetable garden.

David Ignatius, "What does Israel want from America?": What Ignatius Isn't Telling Us

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You will recall that in a March 31, 2015 Washington Post opinion piece  entitled "Deal or no deal, the Iran talks have borne fruit," David Ignatius wrote:

"Whatever the endgame produces, it’s useful to focus on the process of negotiation itself, which is nearly as important as whether there’s a sustainable deal.

First, there is the fact of U.S.-Iranian engagement. For more than 18 months, Iran has been in direct talks with a power it once demonized as the 'Great Satan.' Iranian hard-liners certainly remain, but the nation that chanted in unison 'Death to America' is probably gone forever."

When I sent emails to Ignatius and provided evidence that he was wrong, he wrote back to me and declared:

"You miss my point entirely. What I said was that the NATION will never again chant it in UNISON. There will still be fanatical hardliners but they are beginning to be outliers."

Well, as we were informed last month by Majid Rafizadeh in a Gatestone Institute article entitled "Iran to Trump: Death to America Will Live On":

"Ideologically speaking, Iran's hardliners, primarily Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who enjoy the final say in Iran's domestic and foreign policies, have made it clear that Iran will not change the core pillars of its religious and revolutionary establishment: Anti-Americanism and hatred towards the 'Great Satan' and the 'Little Satan', Israel.

Supporters of Ayatollah Khamenei and the IRGC enthusiastically shouted 'Death to America' in response to a recent speech that Khamenei gave, applauding the 1979 hostage-taking and takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran.

Iran's major state newspapers carried anti-American headlines this week, quoting the Supreme Leader. In his latest public speech to thousands of people, which was televised via Iran's state TV, Khamenei made it clear that Trump's presidency will cause 'no difference' to Iran-US relationships. Khamenei pointed out that, 'We have no judgment on this election because America is the same America'. In his speech, Khamenei attacked President-elect Donald Trump and the American people. The Ayatollah called the US election 'a spectacle for exposing their crimes and debacles.'"

I missed Ignatius's point entirely? Yeah, right.

In any event, Ignatius is back again today with more rubbish in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "What does Israel want from America?" Ignatius would now have us know:

"President Trump’s embrace of Israel poses an unlikely dilemma for leaders of the Jewish state: They have to decide what they want from America, and on that question, there’s sharp disagreement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved to seize the Trump moment Tuesday by announcing that Israel plans to construct 2,500 housing units in West Bank settlements. Just two days before, he and Trump had what the new president called a 'very nice' phone conversation. 'We’re building — and will continue to build,' an emboldened Netanyahu proclaimed Tuesday."

But what isn't Ignatius telling us? As reported today in a Jerusalem Post article entitled "Israel Announces Plans to Build 2,500 New West Bank Housing Units" by Herb Keinon:

"Most of the new units will be inside the major settlement blocs, with [Israeli Defense Minsiter Avigdor] Liberman saying that only 106 are outside the blocs.

. . . .

Liberman said that, in parallel to these moves, he will bring for the security cabinet’s approval plans to establish a Palestinian industrial zone near Tarkumiya, south of Hebron. According to the statement, this will be one of the largest industrial areas in the territories."

Or stated otherwise, the overwhelming majority of the new units are inside existing settlement blocs that will remain with Israel in any deal involving land swaps.

And then there is that small matter of a new Palestinian industrial zone, which Ignatius fails to mention.

Yes, I know, these are inconvenient truths, and I am hardly surprised that they don't find expression in Ignatius's op-ed.

Donald Trump's Inauguration: Alternative Facts for an Alternative Universe

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Kellyanne Conway, adviser to President Donald Trump, gave birth to a new sound bite, i.e. "alternative facts," when justifying White House press secretary Sean Spicer's declaration on Saturday that "this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe."

In fact, Spicer was correct, period ... if you include the protesters. Apparently unbeknownst to Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler, "Facts are in the mind of the beholder."

Alternative facts for an alternative universe.

And now back to my dogs and my vegetable garden.

New York Times Editorial, "The Untimely Death of an Iranian Pragmatist": Duplicitous or Just Plain Stupid?

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In an editorial entitled "The Untimely Death of an Iranian Pragmatist," The New York Times writes about the passing of Iran's Ayatollah Rafsanjani:

"The death on Sunday of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has increased this uncertainty. A moderate in Iran’s factional political struggles, Ayatollah Rafsanjani worked hard to soften its anti-Americanism and encourage constructive engagement with the West."

Rafsanjani "worked hard ... to soften Iranian anti-Americanism? Fascinating. But consider what Michael Rubin writes in a Washington Examiner article entitled "Deceased Iranian President Rafsanjani was no moderate":

"Rafsanjani was a master strategist and an initiator of Iran's game of good cop-bad cop, but he was no moderate. He was well known for his corruption, affluence, and commitment to the Islamic Republic's genocidal ideology.

He was the father of the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program, having lobbied for it while chairman of parliament and then worked, alongside Hassan Rouhani, then-secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, to divert the peace dividend that Iranians might have enjoyed following the end of the Iran-Iraq War, channeling it instead into a covert nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program. For Rafsanjani, deterrence may not have been the end goal. On Dec. 14, 2001, for example, he suggested that Iran could use nuclear weapons to eradicate Israel, arguing that Iran had the strategic depth to absorb any second strike."

And as the Islamic Republic News Agency reported on July 6, 2015 in an article entitled "Rafsanjani: Forged Israeli regime to be wiped-off map one day":

"The chairman of the Expediency Council made the comment in an interview with Al Ahd news website affiliated to the Lebanese Hezbollah Movement.

In response to a question why the Zionist regime has done its best to prevent the path for reaching a nuclear agreement between Iran and the West, Ayatollah Rafsanjani said that even Tel Aviv knows well that Iran is not after acquiring nuclear weapons.

'By doing so the Zionist wish to keep Iran engaged in problems permanently, knowing that the Islamic Republic's political, economic, cultural and propagation status will all improve after such an agreement,' he said.

Asked about the future of the Palestinian nation, Rafsanjani said that he still believes that eventually one day the forged and temporary Israeli entity, which is an alien existence forged into the body of a nation and a region be wiped off the map."

Concerning Rafsanjani's attitude toward the US, have a look at Ali Alfoneh and Reuel Marc Gerecht's January 9, 2017 article entitled "The Death of Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a Machiavellian Prince" in The Weekly Standard:

"In the mid-1980s, Rafsanjani directed the Lebanese Hezbollah to engage in the hostage-taking of Americans and Europeans; with Rouhani again his point man, he used the hostages to acquire arms and spare parts from the United States. In his published daily journal, Rafsanjani mused over America's 'helplessness.'

Following the end of the war in 1988, and the death of Khomeini in 1989, Rafsanjani engineered Khamenei's succession as the Guardian Jurist. Lacking charisma and a clerical network, Khamenei seemed harmless and dependent. For a time, the arrangement worked: Rafsanjani got the credit for post-war reconstruction and the initiation of the then-secret nuclear-weapons program, while Khamenei remained a figurehead."

Rafsanjani also refused to countermand the death decree against author Salman Rushdie.

Rafsanjani was a moderate or pragmatist? Road apples!

Maureen Dowd, "White House Red Scare": Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder

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You can usually count on Maureen Dowd for a few laughs, at least when she's not visiting Saudi Arabia, and in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "White House Red Scare," she doesn't disappoint. Informing us that with the advent of Trump, Washington "is suffering pre-traumatic stress disorder,"Dowd observes:

"Can you imagine a scenario where two Republicans in a row lose the popular vote but win the White House with a shady helping hand? Can’t the G.O.P. win fair and square? Was it the Russians who turned Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania truly red?"

And all this while, I thought it was Comey.

The Russians turned Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania? Nah. In fact, I think it had more to do with the fact that only 11 percent of voters thought Hillary was honest and trustworthy. Or stated otherwise, the Republican party all but gave the Democrats the election by nominating Trump, but the Democratic leadership dropped the ball.

Speaking of balls dropping, did you happen to be in Times Square on New Years Eve and watch the ball drop? I wasn't there. You see, I'm waiting for another ball to drop, and sorry, progressives, it has absolutely nothing to do with my advancing age.

Do you recall Obama telling us on July 3, 2008:

"The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents - #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic."

Well, America's national debt now stands at $19.94 trillion (more than $61,000 for every man, woman and child), and it is rising by the second. When does it hit $20 trillion? Any day now, and when that ball drops and the US dollar effectively becomes toilet paper, we can silently watch as Washington bureaucrats, who should be suffering from "pre-traumatic stress disorder" from this one Obama legacy that can't be voted away, attempt to paper over the mess.