Trump cronies ridiculed for approving 'dangerously alien' arch

President Donald Trump's arch project just outside Washington, D.C. got initial approval from a planning commission stacked full of his appointees on Thursday, despite going against the 1910 Height of Buildings Act — but not over considerable and colorful objections from public comment, Meidas Touch's Scott MacFarlane wrote in a humorous takedown of the project Friday.

"Trump has stacked the NCPC with surrogates," wrote MacFarlane. "So a full approval is expected.…… No matter how 'dangerously alien' this whole project risks becoming."

The arch will sit just across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial, a location that was controversial from the beginning as veterans' groups worry it will block views of Arlington Cemetery. But that's far from the only issue, MacFarlane wrote.

"I’m reading through the public comments that’ve been submitted about President Trump’s huge Monumental Arch project near the National Mall," he wrote, and "there are still a tonnage of responses to sift through."

One that particularly caught MacFarlane's eye, he noted, was a summary from the National Capital Planning Commission that read, “Some commenters asserted that the arch is alien, oversized, inconsistent with the McMillan Plan, visually jarring, and hazardous within a high-speed traffic circle central to circulation along the George Washington Parkway, and that the proposal includes insufficient planning for increased visitation to Memorial Circle, inadequate pedestrian-safety measures, and insufficient parking and circulation capacity along the Parkway.”

"The Arch is gilded…. To give it an unambiguous Trump-y touch," MacFarlane continued, displaying a mockup image of the completed arch, and adding, "Note how small the people look."

At the end of it all, he added, he's just sure of two things: The Trump-stacked NCPC will fully approve the project, and "I’m totally using the team name 'Dangerously Alien' for my fantasy football team in September."