The good:
The Trump
administration was hit Thursday with a new lawsuit from survivors of
Jeffrey Epstein over what they say was a “deliberate” oversight from the
Justice Department (DOJ).
“The United States, acting through the DOJ, made a deliberate policy
choice to prioritize rapid, large-volume disclosure over protection of
Epstein survivors’ privacy,” the plaintiffs in the lawsuit said,
according to a report from NBC Los Angeles.
“[The
DOJ] outed approximately 100 survivors of the convicted sexual
predator, publishing their private information and identifying them to
the world. Survivors now face renewed trauma. Strangers call them, email
them, threaten their physical safety, and accuse them of conspiring
with Epstein when they are, in reality, Epstein’s victims.”
In its recent release of millions of Epstein-related documents, the DOJ accidentally
exposed the identities of several victims, redacting the material only
after discovering the errors. The oversight stands in direct violation
of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandates victim-identifying
information be redacted.
The plaintiffs are seeking from the
Trump administration a minimum of $1,000 in damages per survivor, and
have also named Google in their lawsuit for allegedly “refusing victims’
pleas to take down” search results that reveal victims’ personal
information.
“No
survivor of sexual abuse should have to live in fear that a stranger
can type their name into a search bar and instantly find out about their
worst trauma,” said Julie Erickson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, in a
statement last week, per NBC Los Angeles. “Yet that’s exactly what
happened here.”
The pedophile- protecting rats should be facing criminal charges for doing this to keep victims from coming forward -- and that's exactly what these bastards intended.
The bad:
... The
war is at a critical point. If there is no deal between the Americans
and the Iranians, Trump has very few choices. He could declare victory,
saying America has destroyed Iran's military, therefore it is mission
accomplished, and that opening the Strait of Hormuz is not his
responsibility. That could melt down world financial markets and horrify
his already disgruntled allies in Europe, Asia and the Gulf. A wounded,
angry Iranian regime would have plenty of scope to put more pressure on
the world economy.
More likely, Trump
would decide to escalate the war. The Americans have more than 4,000 US
Marines on ships heading to the Gulf, paratroopers from the 82nd
Airborne on standby and are discussing further reinforcements.
No-one
is talking about a full-scale invasion of Iran, but it is possible the
Americans will try to capture islands in the Gulf, including Kharg
island, Iran's main oil terminal. That would involve a series of
challenging and dangerous amphibious landings. That might even suit
Iran, which wants to drag the Americans into a longer war of attrition.
Iran calculates that the regime's capacity for pain is greater than
Trump's.
Trump has found in Iran that he is coming
up against the limits of his power. The Iranian regime has a different
definition of victory and defeat than he does. For them, mere survival
is victory.
But now they are hoping
for more, believing that control of the Strait of Hormuz gives them new
leverage to make demands, perhaps even to make strategic gains. The
Iranians have demanded, among other things, a promise not to be attacked
in future and recognition of their control of the Strait of Hormuz as a
price for opening it to all shipping. [snip]
The longer the war continues, the greater
the consequences for the region and for the wider world. One leading
Iran analyst, Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group told me they
could be "catastrophic".
In 1956 the
United Kingdom and France went to war alongside Israel after the
Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, a
global waterway that was as significant a chokepoint for the world
economy as the Strait of Hormuz is now. They attained all their military
objectives but were forced to withdraw by President Eisenhower of the
United States.
For the British, it was the beginning of the end of their imperial domination of the Middle East.
America
is faced by the rise of China. When the history is written of their
competition to be the world's strongest power, Trump's badly planned war
against Iran might be seen as a turning point, a waystation of decline,
as Suez was for the United Kingdom.
Our kakistocracy comes through again. Here's another opinion on why the "excursion" is likely to be an operational success, but a strategic failure.
The ugly:
Architects are warning that President Donald Trump’s ballroom vanity project has disastrous design flaws.
The
National Capital Planning Commission, which Trump has stacked with
loyalists, is expected to take a final vote on the ballroom on April 2.
But the president has already entirely demolished the East Wing to make
way for the new event space.
Ahead of the vote, the New York Times
published a piece on Sunday by a trained architect, fine arts expert,
and urban planning writer who warned about serious flaws in the ballroom
mockups.
The authors warned that the ballroom has “fake
windows on the north side,” columns that “block interior ballroom view,”
and an “unnecessarily big” rooftop area.
The
Times story also warned about “its stairs lead nowhere,” as several of
the staircases from the ground appear not to be connected to a way into
the ballroom.
The ballroom, as it stands, is set to be more
than three times the size of the White House, which will disrupt the
historic property’s symmetry, the experts also noted.
“The
hurried reviews, with construction cranes already swiveling above the
White House grounds, are an abrupt departure from how new monuments,
museums and even modest renovations have been designed and refined in
the capital for decades,” the Times wrote. “And the ballroom will be
worse off for it, architects warn.”
The scale and scope of the project have changed
since the Trump administration first demolished the East Wing, once home
to the Office of the First Lady and her staff. The White House has
maintained that the new ballroom’s $300 to $400 million price tag will
be “privately funded.”
The president’s vanity project has been met with immense public pushback. Around 98 percent of 32,000 public comments are against the construction of the ballroom, according to a review by the Times...
Stairs that lead to nowhere, fake windows, a giant blob attached to the White House. It all sounds like a metaphor, doesn't it? More here.
