“A last chance to avert war with Iran played out Thursday in Geneva, where Trump administration officials told Iranian counterparts they must not take certain steps needed to build a nuclear bomb.
It didn’t go well.
As the U.S. delegation laid out its position that Iran couldn’t enrich uranium for the next 10 years, the Iranian side balked, said a senior Trump administration official who described the meeting on condition of anonymity.
Iran has an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium, Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, told the Americans. And the U.S. has an “inalienable right” to stop you, Steve Witkoff, a member of the U.S. delegation, replied.
After having heard the U.S. demands, Araghchi started yelling at Witkoff, who was accompanied at the meeting by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, among others, said the senior official.
“If you prefer, I can leave,” Witkoff said.
Araghchi’s representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Afterward, the American delegation reported back to Trump what had happened. Trump was “nonplussed,” the senior official said.
By Saturday morning, the U.S. was at war.
…
“They weren’t willing to stop their nuclear research,” Trump said. “They weren’t willing to say they will not have a nuclear weapon. Very simple.””
“Violent clashes between protesters and security forces in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi and in the country’s north left at least 22 people dead and more than 120 others injured as demonstrators supportive of the Iranian government attempted to storm a U.S. Consulate on Sunday
…
The violence came after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
…
In addition, 12 people were killed and over 80 wounded in clashes with police in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region when thousands of protesters angered by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran attacked the offices of the U.N. Military Observer Group and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP)”
Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is limited, but not closed. In the Red Sea, shipping could go a longer way around, but there is no alternative route for shipping in and out of the Persian gulf. This will likely increase the price of oil.
“Pike’s bronze likeness was not donated by a Southern historical society or heritage league, nor funded by a Jim Crow–era government. It was privately commissioned by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of Washington, D.C., as part of a fundraising effort that began in the 1890s—years before the wave of Confederate monument construction. The statue honors Pike not for his service to the Confederacy but for his postwar work as a legal scholar, philanthropist, and advocate for the rights of indigenous tribes. This is emphasized by depicting him in civilian garb and holding a book rather than wearing his dress blues and brandishing a rifle.”
“The well-documented problem with these kits is that the compounds they test for are not exclusive to illicit drugs and are, in fact, found in dozens of legal substances. That is to say, they’re better at telling if something isn’t a drug than if it is one. This is why they’re used in laboratory settings as preliminary screeners. But in the criminal justice system, they’re considered probable cause to make an arrest.
As a result, many people have been arrested for absurd items. Over the years, officers have jailed innocent people after drug field kits returned “presumptive positive” results on bird poop, donut glaze, cotton candy, and sand from inside a stress ball.
…
Despite appearing easy to use, the tests can still be performed incorrectly or produce muddy results, which leaves suspects’ fates to the subjective opinions of police officers.”
“Trump appointees who defy the president’s will are showing the courage of their convictions, applying the law as they understand it rather than reflexively deferring to the politician who gave them their jobs. But Trump, who takes it for granted that justices vote the way they do for political reasons, neither understands nor appreciates judicial independence.”