There has been much ink spilled and hot air vented recently about the introduction of a certain Iranian general to the business end of a precision-guided munition.  This was not the first special delivery the general received from America.  As part of the Iran nuclear deal, the U.S .government flew pallets of cash to the Tehran airport.  This load of...bills was supposed to be a down payment on peace.  Didn't work out.  Shocker.

Those pallets groaned under the weight of $150 billion, likely unloaded from the plane by straining fork trucks.  How best to make that figure more concrete?  If you divide $150 billion by 330 million Americans, that works out to about $450.  Four hundred fifty dollars is my share of the payola. 

Barack Obama shoved his sticky fingers into my pocket and dragged out $450.  He then stacked it in bundles with $450 from each and every other citizen, shrink-wrapped them all on pallets, and sent them off like an Amazon package.  

What did Iran do with my $450?  I don't have a good idea of how much in explosives $450 will buy, but it's probably enough to make a reasonably big boom.  Iran must get a bulk discount after all.  How many IEDs did my $450 pay for?  Think about that the next time you see a veteran short a leg or an eye.  Or maybe it bought electronics to guide a rocket onto a school in Israel.  Or there might have been a big sale on torture implements at Tehran's most popular hardware store.  Pliers, aisle nine.  Cordless drills and blow torches on the endcaps.

I, for one, can think of better uses for my nine little green portraits of Ulysses S. Grant.  And those uses are more aligned with Trump's special delivery than Obama's.