by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
This past July a blathering Donald Trump told America that he was adding a grand ballroom to the existing White House structure, one that would accommodate 650 people, cost $200 million, and be paid for by his billionaire and corporate buddies. He also said the new ballroom would be separate from the White House, not touching it, and no damage would be done to the highly historic and iconic building, the actual White House.
Of course. as with everything Trump says, most of the things he said about the project in July are proving to be blatant lies. Now the administration is saying that the new addition will accommodate 999 people and cost $250 million. Yesterday heavy equipment came onto the grounds and began demolishing what looks to be a big chunk of the East Wing. Whoops E. Daisy! So much for not touching the existing structure. Photos of our nation's history being knocked down and hauled away by what are probably non-union construction workers are all over the internet this morning.
The new structure will be 90,000 square feet and have a larger footprint than that of the existing White House.
It is unclear, at least to this cranky old typist, whether any formal approval has been given for Trump's vanity ballroom or not. (Congress was not even consulted on the matter.) The project should have been approved by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), a group with five members - three appointed by the President, and one of those three chairs the commission, and two by the mayor of Washington, DC. There are also seven "ex-officio" members of the board who serve from federal agencies. A Google AI search this morning revealed that formal approval for the project has not yet been issued by the NCPC. (That sounds like a strategy a shady property developer might employ: hurry and knock down the old one and then they will have to let us build the new one.)
The approval may have yet to be drafted or signed, but the desecration and destruction of a portion of the building that has housed every US President and his family since John Adams has begun. The excavators are already on site and destroying our heritage with wild abandon as they rush to promote the glory of Donald John Trump. They have to hurry on the ballroom project because they will soon be needed in the construction of the new Arc de Trump on the Virginia side of Arlington Memorial Bridge just across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial. Trump wants his Arc finished in time for the nation's 250th birthday bash. Will he bother with getting his new tribute to himself approved by anyone?
It is unclear whether the billion dollars in US government-funded renovations to the new plane that was gifted to Trump by the Qatari royal family will be finished in time for the birthday festivities or not.
Meanwhile, most American public school teachers are being shamelessly underpaid, the nation's air traffic controllers aren't being paid at all, and multiple states are expecting to run out of food assistance money for children in need next week - while Donald Trump goes on basking in his on glory and playing golf on the public dime.
The White House does not belong to Donald Trump and neither does any US government property. He is a temporary resident. The White House and all US property are owned by the people of the United States of America - all the people! If I owned a house and some deadbeat renter began knocking it down without asking me first, I would be damned mad. In fact, I am damned mad!
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