Trump's Wag the Dog War is costing $1 billion a day
And it's all about making you stop paying attention to the allegations that Trump raped a 13-year-old.
The hand-wringers out there keep wondering aloud what Trump’s motivation for the war against Iran could possibly be. Oh, look no further. The DOJ—which is about to be investigated by a Senate subcommittee for how it’s investigated (or hasn’t investigated) the Epstein mess—finally released the “lost” or “duplicate” files of a girl who gave evidence to the FBI about a sexual assault of her by Donald Trump when she was a teenager. She accuses Trump of forcing a sex act on her when she was as young as 13.
NBC News summarizes as follows:
In a series of 2019 interviews with the FBI, the woman said she was a sexual assault victim of Jeffrey Epstein. She also alleged that she was assaulted by Trump in the 1980s when she was between the ages of 13 and 15.
The newly released interviews describe the allegations in detail. They include how the woman says her mother was blackmailed by Epstein and that for years after the alleged abuse from the disgraced financier, she received physical and verbal threats that she believed were directed by Epstein. She also told the FBI that Epstein “drove her and/or flew her to either New York or New Jersey” where she went to a “very tall building with huge rooms” where she said Trump sexually assaulted her, according to the FBI interview summaries.
The woman initially contacted federal law enforcement shortly after Epstein was arrested in 2019 with a lengthy description of how he assaulted her on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, when she was 13 years old in or around 1984, according to a summary of the FBI interview that was previously released by the Justice Department.
The FBI determined that the woman’s initial allegations against Epstein were significant enough that it followed up with her for three additional interviews.
This girl’s mother was subsequentlyl extorted by Epstein, to the point that to pay him — remember, he’s already raped her daughter—she embezzeled money to satisfy his demands. She would up in prison for it.
The investigation into this matter, I am reminded, was happening during Trump’s first term. Somehow, all this went quiet.
Wag the Dog
This is why Trump started the Iran war. Now, apparently convinced that there is no Nobel Peace Prize in his destiny, Trump has decided to start a war to deflect attention from a direct accusation of rape by a minor.
Not that I’m an admirer of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has killed hundreds of thousands of its citizens over its tenure and jailed and tortured many more. I am not.
America’s Proxy War for Israel
But this is a proxy war we are fighting on Israel’s behalf. Why? What has Netanyahu got on Trump? Or is it just that AIPAC has poured so much into electing this convicted rapist that he owes them?????
Israel has already engaged in genocidal warfare in Gaza. The ICC has called its withholding of food a war crime and has indicted Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet he is welcome at the White House, despite the indictment.
Meanwhile, criticizing Israel at all often gets the speaker branded as anti-Semitic. An “Antisemitism Awareness Act” made it all through the House in 2024, by a huge margin, and it conflated criticism of Israel with racism and hatred of Jews. In 2025, the act was amended to remove that false accusation, but much damage to free speech has already been done. Universities have been threatened by Trump and fined, students have been blocked for receiving their diplomas, and protests of Israel’s abuses in Gaza—including withholding food and medicine—have been shut down, with arrests, fines, and jail time.
Now American blood is shed to fight Israel’s war against Iran for her. And the cost, other than the seven already dead and the dozens injured, many seriously?
Robert Reich:
We’re spending huge resources on this war — so far, roughly $1 billion per day, or $41,666,667 per hour, $11,574 per second.
And we are squandering materiel at a staggering rate, driving up oil prices, wrecking the Middle East, gutting shipping into the Persian Gulf, and destroying any notion that America is a trustworthy nation or a reliable partner for peace.
ALL TO TRY TO CONTROL THE NEWS CYCLE AROUND THE LATEST NEWS BUBBLING UP FROM THE EPSTEIN CESSPOOL.
The Drapes of Wrath
Meanwhile, Trump’s press conference about the war with Iran devolved, of course, in to his usual rambling self-aggrandizement, as Paul Krugman points out:
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman
Trump just held a press conference about war with Iran, and spent much of it talking about drapes and his ballroom. I guess those are the drapes of wrath???
And as a parting note of misery, Trump is acknowledging that Jared Kushner talked him into going to war. This would be Jared Kushner who wants to build a luxury resort down the Gaza coast and who chums up with Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia and whose father, a former jailbird, Trump made an ambassador, and who is married to Ivanka. Kushner is now negotiating with Iran.
Constitutional scholars point out that this is illegal.
Quel surprise!
PS wouldn’t it be useful if there were laws about nepotism in legal matters? Thinking of the massive greed/grift/ corruption of the Trump Family Crime Syndicate. Rule #1: money 💰 is restrained in campaign finance; power eminates from intellectual expertise, not complete apathy of the human condition, anywhere on Earth 🌍.
Ben Ferencz was a great communicator/ arbiter and activist for peace in a most complicated history of religious conflict. Thank you so very much for the history lesson, the fall out of which continues today, 03/11/2026. Seems to me there will be no end to these quarrels and intolerance as long as human beings, imperfect, inhabit the Earth 🌍. But we hold onto hope 🕊️ and try anyway. The gruesome outcome of war is a great motivator to try. ❤️🥰