Republicans Want Billion Taxpayer Bucks For Bunker Baby's Ballroom Boondoggle
Please, bunker baby, a billion to quit busting our balls!
Buntin’ bulldozers, Boopsie! A judge might have ordered progress on Donald Trump’s bunker baby sheik-chic techno-freak bribe-boosting-ballroom to stop last month, but you know how Big Boss Clown always bets: he doubles down, calls a techbro who wants some lawsuits let go, or a guy who knows a guy who can Roy Cohn Trump his bone. Or Trump sidles up to the secret drive-through shadow-docket window of a certain Supreme Court six to stomp his Florsheims at them, and most of the time they say yes, of course, whatever you want, you cheeky Federalist Society Moses, you!
BUT, oh noes, when it comes to the one thing Trump wants most of all, fantasizes about, demands new AI renderings of all day and pounds about on Truth Social all night, Trump’s Rosebud, his BALLROOM, it seems his usual channels have run dry. And so now he must turn to Congress, hat in hand, to ask for their permission. And also apparently one billion dollars of your taxpayer money!
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Say what now? The funding is tucked into the Senate Judiciary Committee’s portion of the reconciliation package, the bill’s language says it’s for “security,” so we guess the Republican reasoning is that anyone who votes against that wants Trump to get shot at for a fourth time, probably by some illegal immigrant Joe Biden drove over the border in his Corvette.
Explains Fox News:
The funding is tucked into the Senate Judiciary Committee’s portion of the reconciliation package, which tees up nearly $31 billion for ICE, $3.5 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), $2.5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and just shy of $1.5 billion for the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pitched his portion of the bill by bucking Democrats’ desire for “open borders” and their push to defund the police.
BUUUTTT:
The funds won't actually go toward building the ballroom, but instead would be doled out to the Secret Service and is explicitly meant for “security adjustments and upgrades,” within the perimeter fence of the White House “relating to the East Wing Modernization Project,” including “above-ground and below-ground security features,” according to the legislation.
See, haters, it’s not going to funding his ballroom, just its walls and security features and whatever else Dear Leader convinces them is wise and good and safe.
(Like … balllllroooms?)
Whatever the parameters, one thing seems clear, it sounds like Trump’s billionaire suck-ups are not going to be paying the $200, $350 million or BEELYON dollars. (Unless the price tag suddenly gets high enough to accommodate their generosity.) Regardless, so much for “no charge to the taxpayer” and “by the way, no government funds,” and “under $200 million” and "completed by 2029.”
You can watch many supercuts of him saying things of that nature over and over, if you’re nasty like that. And if so, one is surely enough.
TWO TRUMP APPROVAL-RATING POINTS AGO!
Funny how when it comes, to, like, a rescue plan for Spirit Airlines so the people’s sky pony does not get murdered by the gas prices Donald Trump himself hath made, the government doesn’t just have billions “lying around.” Guess JD Vance turned over an extra-lucky couch cushion, to find enough to buy a chunk of the St. Petersburg Winter Palace under there.
And this ask, tucked between the pages of a $70 billion ICE funding bill, could not possibly come at a better time ... for Democrats, progressives, and the increasingly dissatisfied Low-Information Lawrences who base their voting on how much it costs them to buy a bag of pork rinds, fill up a Ram HEMI, and schedule a root canal.
Back on up and roll up your sleeves, clear your throats and start singing, Affordability Progressives, loud enough to be heard over the rumble of coal-rolling and some Lee Greenwood! Your time to shine! Don’t let Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bogart the booming market in calling out Trump bulldozing the “historic jewel of the American people” to build an “ornate castle” of “waste, fraud and abuse” while his fellow citizens can barely pay rent.
As Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride put it: “My constituents can’t afford fucking groceries or utility bills, and he now wants to spend taxpayer money on a ballroom?”
At least if Trump must have his ballroom, he is now being forced to do it properly, which is a good idea for a whole lot of reasons, beyond the blatant corruption and security issues of having the project executed by Trump’s friends who are trying to curry favor with him.
Well, kind of properly, as he has already been blabbing out state secrets about its security features, in a bid to secure his our money. And some professional-type security people who have seen the plans have opined that they are “tactically flawed,” uh oh.
As a contractor told us only yesterday — as we were attempting to exchange dollarmoney for a 90-foot-by-five-foot wood fence and two gates in Baltimore City — it is for a reason cities and insurance companies demand that real licensed and bonded contractors pull permits and check out land records before they dig, even if the records are are pre-1900 and only exist on parchment, and even if just to replace an existing fence for which the documentation and permits had already been produced and approved by the same zoning board a mere decade ago. That reason is not because Mayor Brandon Scott is a Communist who despises all progress and wants to waste everyone’s time and money until the proles go about in sack-cloths, but because there are all kinds of things under the ground in places that have had people building on them since 1750-something. Buried power and sewer lines, for instance!
What if some new cement, even getting poured into a pre-existing existing hole, seeps down an extra inch or two and ruptures a gas line, then a worker lights a cigarette, sprays up his mullet with Aqua-Net, and farts? Who is going to get sued then? Not you, Patty Picket Fence! Then he handed me an estimate for $7,426.
Alternatively, one could just call up the guy your realtor friend knows with a one-word nickname like “Ditto,” give him 50 $20 bills up front, and hope and trust that he knows enough of what he’s doing and enjoys his life and reputation around town as the Go-To Guy enough not to blast himself and the rest of the block to kingdom come. Or, for $75, he’ll just take away the dog that caused the problem in the first place, and even smile and nod as you tell the children Mister Ditto is taking Farfel off to a nice farm where he will have more space to play.
Not that any decent person would ever.
That was the move that career real estate developer cum President Donald J. Trump was apparently hoping to pull, with his ballroom and also his entire career, by getting some guys to tear a place down first, erect a giant flagpole, and then later ask for the permission and work up the plan for what to build in its place second. And get the taxpayers and insurance companies to pay for it.
Same as he ever was. But now no judge will allow it, and no architect, engineering firm or contractor who wants to stay in business will touch it with a 10-foot I-beam.
And finished by 2029, LOL. I will be lucky to have a five-foot-tall pressed-pine French gothic-finished fence built by 2029, at the rate it’s going!
[NBC / Washington Post gift link / WSJ gift link / Oregon Live / Fox News]
For $1 billion, they could probably restore the East Wing. Would be a better use of the money.
White House needs Ballroom you say? Somebody call LBJ's tailor!!