I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts calling it the Great Replacement .
The Trump administration is planning to demolish the entirety of the White House’s East Wing as early as this weekend, two senior administration officials told CBS News, part of a project championed by President Trump to add a ballroom to the complex.
Mr. Trump said Wednesday that the ballroom will cost $300 million — up from the $200 million figure that White House officials initially cited. The White House says the project will be funded entirely by private donors, some of whom have pledged seven or eight figures.
Construction crews were spotted tearing down part of the East Wing’s facade earlier this week .
The demolition work marks a reversal from earlier this year, when Mr. Trump said the 90,000-square-foot ballroom project “won’t interfere with the current building.” The East Wing was built in 1902 and renovated in 1942.
But, hey, at least someone in the admin is dancing, tap dancing that is.
It was always the case that the East Wing would need to be “modernized” to enhance security and technology, administration officials said. But during the process of planning the new ballroom, it became apparent that the best option would be to demolish the entire structure.
Why is any of this news? I guess it’s because it’s the White House. It’s certainly not because the felon is doing a damn thing differently than he’s ever done before regarding a construction project.
I believe Gerrymander is an out-of-date term. Perhaps we should start calling it Splattering in honor of the pooper-in-chief.
North Carolina is the latest Republican-led state to reshape a congressional district in hopes of boosting the GOP’s chances of keeping the House in next year’s midterms.
The North Carolina House on Wednesday passed a new congressional map that shifts the state’s major battleground Democratic-held House district and makes it more favorable to conservatives, following the state Senate’s approval one day earlier. And while the state has a Democratic governor, his veto power is limited and he cannot reject a standalone map.
North Carolina Republicans are targeting Democratic Rep. Don Davis, whose victory in 2024 was a rare bright spot for Democrats.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, said in a statement that the map “was clearly drawn to dilute the voting power of Black voters by dismantling the Black Belt to stop North Carolinians from holding Trump and House Republicans accountable for ignoring the needs of hardworking Americans.”
In a statement obtained by CBS News, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said state Republican lawmakers “rigged the state’s congressional map after being ordered to do so by Donald Trump,” adding that it was a “morally corrupt move” that was “part of a long line of desperate schemes to steal the midterms.”
Jeffries also said in a news conference Wednesday that Democrats plan to “sue immediately,” saying they believe the new North Carolina maps “clearly violate the voting rights.”
North Carolina Republicans are championing the map. Before the redraw passed, the state House GOP Majority Leader Brenden Jones said during a speech that “the end result is a congressional map that should perform to elect 11 Republicans,” from North Carolina, rather than the 10 that serve in the U.S. House right now.
War Criminal Hegseth thinks he’s giving marching orders to the military.
The Pentagon is barring nearly all Defense Department personnel, including military commanders, from talking to Congress or state lawmakers unless they have received prior approval from the agency’s office of legislative affairs, according to a memo signed this month by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and obtained by CNN.
“Unauthorized engagements with Congress by [Defense Department] personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives,” says the memo.
The directive applies to the civilian leaders of each military branch, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all combatant commanders and Defense Intelligence offices. The memo, dated October 15, does carve out an exception for the Pentagon Inspector General office, the agency’s internal watch dog.
In reality, it seems a lot of the brass are simply marking time .
Do you know what you find on cattle farms? Yep. Lots of bull!
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Wednesday that American cattle ranchers “have to get their prices down,” and that the tariffs he’s enacted are “the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades.”
“The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible!” the post continued, adding “It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”
The president’s comments come amid increasing concern from American farmers about the negative effect Trump’s trade war with China is having on their ability to sell their crops, and his comments Monday that the U.S. could buy beef from Argentina as prices for U.S.-grown beef continue to rise .
Please, someone parse this gibberish for me.
“We would buy some beef from Argentina,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. "If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down, because our groceries are down, our energy prices are down. … The one thing that’s kept up is beef, and if we buy some beef now, I’m not talking about that much from Argentina. That would help Argentina, which we consider a very good country, a very good ally in a place.”
Speaking of food…
Summer Kerksick waited in line for two hours Tuesday to receive a box of canned and dry goods at a food bank event for federal workers amid the ongoing government shutdown .
“With my rent due next week, I can take anything I can get,” Kerksick, a federal contractor and market research analyst with the Rural Export Center in the US Department of Commerce, told CNN.
“I haven’t gotten a paycheck this month, so the free groceries is very important, very helpful,” she added as she stood outside the event, which was organized by a DC food bank and a local religious group. “I’ve got to save every dime at this point.”
Kerksick is among the roughly 1.4 million federal employees who have been furloughed or are now working without pay.
Lawmakers have yet to reach an agreement to pay federal workers. GOP Sen. Ron Johnson introduced a bill that would only pay those who are being asked to continue working through the weekslong shutdown, while Democrats are pushing for all federal workers to be paid.
Capital Area Food Bank, which partnered with No Limits Outreach Ministries to host Tuesday’s event in Landover, Maryland, said it served more than 370 households — more than double the number of federal workers it was expecting. The event required federal employees to show their work ID to receive food.
“I’m overwhelmed by the line,” said Oliver Carter, the pastor at No Limits Outreach Ministries and organizer of the event. “I didn’t think we were going to have this many federal employees.”
Is anyone in the CF doing anything besides cosplaying?
A Republican openly laughed at Pete Hegseth over a stunt in which the defense secretary tried to cosplay as Tom Cruise’s Top Gun character.
Adam Kinzinger, a former Illinois congressman who was one of two Republicans on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack, mocked Hegseth while sharing a preview clip of his ride in the back seat of a Navy F/A-18 fighter jet.
“Bahahahhahaha they really are not saying but kind of trying to imply to people that he flew it,” Kinzinger, a former Air National Guard officer, posted on X.
Hegseth took part in a fighter jet demonstration on Sunday at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada, alongside Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine. While former fighter pilot Caine flew his own F-16 fighter jet, Hegseth was instead placed in the passenger seat of an F/A-18 Super Hornet, the same jet flown by Cruise’s character in the 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick.
We can thank CNN for reminding us about the felon’s history of racism.
Political commentator Keith Boykin brought out receipts for fellow “CNN NewsNight ” panelist Batya Ungar-Sargon on Monday after the journalist and author dismissed Donald Trump ’s racism.
Boykin swiftly responded to Ungar-Sargon after she called it “appalling” that Trump hasn’t condemned leaked texts from Paul Ingrassia, one of his nominees, in which he describes having “a Nazi streak” and remarks on his hope that the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday gets “tossed into the seventh circle of Hell.”
“Because Donald Trump has a history of racism himself,” replied Boykin, a former White House aide to Bill Clinton.
“No, that’s not true,” said Ungar-Sargon, a NewsNation host and self-described “MAGA Lefty .”
“Are you kidding me?!?” Boykin hit back.
Boykin proceeded to shred Ungar-Sargon’s claim by noting that Trump “started his career with racism.”
“In the 1970s, he was sued for housing discrimination . In 1989, he was a part of the — he led the lynch mob against the Central Park Five . In the 1990s, he was sued by casino workers for racial discrimination,” Boykin began.
“He led a five-and-a-half-year campaign against Barack Obama for allegedly not having an accurate birth certificate. Donald Trump came into office talking about he was, he was going to ban Muslims and he called Mexicans — were supposedly bringing drugs —.”
There are more examples at the link. I suppose I should not call it a history of racism since that could imply he’s no longr racist. The accurate term is a life of racism .
Some outfit finally did give the felon a peace award.
Earlier in the day, Trump accepted the Architect of Peace Award from the Richard Nixon Foundation during a private ceremony in the Oval Office. The honor, established in 1995, is awarded to “individuals who embody his lifelong goal of shaping a more peaceful world,” according to the foundation’s website .
It puts him with the likes of former President George W. Bush, who won the recognition last year, as well as other recipients such as former Secretary of States Henry Kissinger and Mike Pompeo.
(I think the other two points in that link–presidential ranking and number of wars stopped/prevented–have alreaddy been covered.)
University of Virginia caves in the latest battle of the felon’s war on education.
The Justice Department said Wednesday it has reached a deal with the University of Virginia to pause several civil rights investigations into the institution’s admissions policies and alleged discrimination.
The deal is the first to be reached with a major public university following the Trump administration’s agreements with three private Ivy League schools.
The administration was probing the school for possible racial discrimination, diversity, equity and inclusion programs and failing to address campus antisemitism. University of Virginia President James Ryan in June resigned from his post in response to pressure from the administration to step down.
DOJ officials touted the agreement as an effort to protect students and faculty from discrimination based on race, sex or national origin.
The university agreed to abide by a DOJ memo outlining guidance for recipients of federal funding and ensure the institution will not discriminate based on race in its university programs, admissions and hiring. The school will also send information and data to the department on a quarterly basis through 2028, and the president of the institution will personally certify its compliance.
I offer the following in tribute.
Nope, it’s not hyperbole to say he’s going to try to stay in office.
It was clear from the outset that Donald Trump’s administration would include high-ranking government officials who either endorsed his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, or refused to publicly admit he lost.
The president continues to hammer a baseless narrative that the election was rigged against him, vowing publicly that it must never “happen again” as he deploys officials to prepare for midterm elections with the balance of power in Congress — and his agenda — at stake.
Before she was tapped as Trump’s “election integrity” official at the Department of Homeland Security, Heather Honey reportedly told a group of right-wing activists in March that the president could declare a “national emergency” to effectively take control of local election administration.
She said the move would follow an “actual investigation” of the 2020 election, if it revealed “manipulation” of the results, according to The New York Times
“We have some additional powers that don’t exist right now,” she said. “[W]e can take these other steps without Congress and we can mandate that states do things and so on.”
scudsucker:
Jou fis keel poes
Dankie! That’s a great addition to my invective inventory.
