Categories
crime and punishment First Amendment rights media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

A Suit of a Different Color

Donald Trump has threatened to use lawsuits against people he says are lying about him. Even if elected President.

Well, enter the third Mrs. Donald Trump, Melania. She is suing Britain’s Daily Mail* for suggesting that she may have worked as a “part time escort in New York,” explains the BBC, “and met husband Donald Trump, who is now running for the White House, earlier than previously reported.”

We know from published nude photographs that she was in the U.S. before the time specified by her presidential-​hopeful husband. And for some, those nude photographs lend credence to a rumor about escort service work. (She’s made money for being photographed in sexual congress before.)

The Daily Mail has withdrawn its article, insisting that it had not “suggested the sex work claims were true but said that, even if false, they could affect the US presidential campaign.” Sounds like a defense to me.

Earlier this week I confessed to my lack of accounting expertise. Now I should do the same regarding law. Yet, the claim by the Trumps’ lawyer, Charles Harder, seems hard to take seriously — that is, that the defendants’ statements were “so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs. Trump that her damages are estimated at $150 million dollars.”

Really? That much?

Besides, it’s her husband’s career on the line. And a sex morals rumor about Mrs. Trump wilts next to the long list of rumors and established fact in the scandal department of actual candidate (and former First Lady) Mrs. Bill Clinton.

Seems with either major party candidate, we’re guaranteed a soap opera … and full employment for lawyers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* She is also suing an American blogger.


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Melania, Donald, Trump, daily mail, scandal, sex worker, illustration

 

Categories
education and schooling folly ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Toiletarianism

President Obama and other politicians are taking a wide stance over the nation’s public restrooms. Important bathroom policy will finally be determined at the highest levels.

Last week, public educators nationwide received a legalistically-​worded letter from the Departments of Justice and Education explaining how to legally treat transgender students under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. CNN boiled it down to “Fall in line or face loss of federal funding.”

Friendly federal “guidance” comes after dueling lawsuits between the Feds and North Carolina over that state’s House Bill 2, which establishes statewide restroom regulations. Those regs require that transgender folks use the bathroom appropriate to the sex listed on their birth certificate (whether Kenyan, Canadian or other).

Obama wants Americans to choose the restroom matching their self-​chosen “gender identity.” Conservatives seem most worried that his policy is so loosely defined as to allow non-​transgender male persons to simply claim to be transgender in order to shower with the girls volley-​ball team or lurk in the powder room.

“Have we gone stark raving nuts?” questioned Sen. Ted Cruz, proclaiming: “Grown adult men, strangers, should not be alone in a bathroom with little girls.”

In California, there’s legislation to force businesses to make “all single-​stall public restrooms” gender neutral. “Let’s make a clear statement that, if you want to go pee, by all means help yourself,” argued the proposal’s author.

Transgender people should be treated with care and respect, as should every person. But do we really need a national bathroom policy designed for maximum division in an election year?

Before politicians solve today’s glaring non-​problem in public restrooms, they should solve a real problem first.

Just one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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toilet, bathroom, trans, transgender, sex, gender, law, folly