Rov_Scam
20hr ago
That's the only explanation I can think of. I did a time-restricted search for "melania epstein" and the only story that came up was a Chicago Tribune piece about the email from January 30. This tells us three things:
- The email is not a new revelation
- There was very little coverage when it was first discovered
- There is no recent reporting Melania was responding to
If someone released potentially damaging information about me, and no one cared, I wouldn't call a press conference for the specific purpose of denying the allegations. Especially if I wasn't normally calling press conferences. In any event, it seems to have worked, somewhat, as the story was mentioned on a radio news program I heard on the way home and while I didn't hear the actual segment, that's one segment that won't be discussing Iran, which otherwise dominated the discussion.
Rov_Scam
23hr ago
No but that relies on the fallacy that sanctions are an effective tool for preventing a country from getting a nuke. Pakistan wasn't under sanctions, but they got nukes in 1998 despite having an economy of approximately the same size as Iran's, and much worse per capita. North Korea got nukes despite being under US sanctions for years and being one of the poorest countries in the world. I don't see what killing generals has to do with their nuclear program. The "scientists" you're referring to are literally one guy. And he was killed by the Israelis, who weren't party to the agreement.
Rov_Scam
23hr ago
I thought I was giving you a layup there but instead you decided to wander even further off into fantasy land by claiming that the war aims were now that Iran, at the threat of bombing, will turn into normal, friendly, prosperous state. Of all the various contradictory objectives Trump has given for this war so far, I have not once heard him suggest any of this. Neither have I heard any other politicians suggest this, nor have I heard anyone in the media suggest this. Because the elephant in the room that you conveniently ignore is that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed, causing oil prices to spike and wreaking havoc on international shipping. Trump hasn't figured out a way to force it open other than through a ground occupation of the coast, which he is unwilling to do, and has thus resorted to making threats. Pretty much everyone who knows everything about Iran has been saying that this was the likely outcome for the past 20 years, but Trump figured he knew better and that by making things go boom the Iranians would just give in.
Now that Trump has hit that tripwire, repoening the strait is priority number one in the immediate term. If he does nothing, the strait remains closed indefinitely. If he invades the coast, he takes a huge political hit for putting boots on the ground and while the strait will eventually be reopened, it will take a while, and will only stay open so long as US troops are there to protect it. Meanwhile, energy prices, which are already elevated due to futures speculation, are going to rise even further once we start seeing actual supply cuts. The only thing that matters right now is getting the strait reopened. You can load up your wishlist with all the items you want, but all of that's negotiable, and Iran has the upper hand. Trump can bomb all the power plants he wants, but it won't reopen the strait. Trump assumed that taking out Iran's navy, missile power, etc. would keep them from closing it, but the people who are actually taking the risk of transit aren't going to attempt it without permission from the Iranian government.
A friend of mine was in charge of signs and pavement markings for PennDOT District 6 before his retirement a few years ago. I once engaged him as an expert witness in a traffic case, just because I liked the idea of bringing in an expert to fight a speeding ticket. I'll have to ask him if there are any signs that annoy him, but he seems more irritated by poor implementation. A town near where he grew up made a bunch of traffic "improvements" that PennDOT thought were necessary but everyone else was against, and when the project was complete he drove down there to take a look and said that whatever other problems there were with the plan they got the signs wrong. He refuses to go into Pittsburgh because he doesn't like the way they do their signs.
In other sign-related news, there's an increasing problem, mostly in rural areas, of people, and especially large trucks, getting stuck on bad roads. This is the inevitable result of people blindly relying on GPS, not realizing that it will direct them onto anything open for vehicular traffic regardless of surface, winter maintenance status, etc. Some municipalities have responded by posting signs that say "No GPS Route" on roads where this is a particular problem. My friend told me that these were not MUTCD approved signs, and that they were posted on local roads (that don't strictly follow Federal guidelines) and not state roads, but that he thought that the MUTCD should adopt something similar, since one of the most frequent constituent complaints he received was trucks getting stuck on roads they had no business being on.
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