This is mostly by Charlie Sykes, but the original article is chopped up by ads and promos. So read at FB:
Trump’s obsession with the ballroom is pathological. I’m reading that he can’t get through a meeting about anything without it turning into a talk about the ballroom. And then there’s this:
“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” Trump claimed in a Truth Social post on Sunday morning. “It cannot be built fast enough!”
Top secret? Next he’ll be telling us the ballroom will come with a cloaking device to make it invisible. He has also been talking about moving most Washington functions, including the White House Correspondents Association dinner, to the ballroom. I don’t think the WHCA would agree to that. Maybe they’ll play the Army-Navy game in there, though.
After the Saturday sort-of assasination attempt, the DoJ decided to play hardball.
In a letter posted to social media by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the DOJ pressed for the National Trust for Historic Preservation to drop its “frivolous lawsuit” against the Trump administration after Saturday’s incident, which prompted the evacuation of the president and high-profile administration officials from the gala.
“If your client does not dismiss the lawsuit by 9:00 AM on Monday, the government will move to dissolve the injunction and dismiss the case in light of last night’s extraordinary events,” the letter continues.
The National Trust did not withdraw its lawsuit. Late yesterday the DoJ asked a federal judge to lift his order halting construction of the ballroom. Several news stories compared the motion to one of Trump’s rambling Truth Social posts. But I don’t think anything else much has happened.
And be sure to read Paul Waldman, Kick Him Right in the Ballroom.
In other news: James Comey was indicted again, this time for taking a picture of seashells arranged to spell “86 47” and posting it on social media somewhere. Yes, people, that’s how far we’ve fallen. Trump’s DoJ bozos actually got an indictment for that.
The charges, approved by a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina where Comey allegedly took the photo, include making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, according to court documents.
"picture of seashells arranged to spell “86 47”"
What twenty, thirty or so million people arranged all kinds of things, cotton balls, feathers, dog treats, beer cans, use your imagination, to spell out 86 47 and posted it to their Instagram, Twitter, faceplate accounts! Wouldn't that be awesome!
Trump is jealous of Saddam Hussein who had many gloriously kitschy ballrooms.
Vacuous is a great word, the kind of word that portends a pending implosion. Implosion is also quite a word itself being in violent opposition to the much more common but also violent explosion. Without the word vacuous in your vocabulary, one might need to resort to the 'giant sucking sounds' Ross Perot often drawled about. He appealed as a politician to those whose personality descriptors warrant the word vacuous. As our state has a lot of point and grunt types, he got many votes here.
Sorry about the comment. I thought it best to go with that and let 'kick him right in the ballroom' hang untouched for someone else to play with.
I feel like "we" should collect videos of people insisting that calling Dr. Tiller a baby killer did not have any effect on the gunman, no, the gunman was 100% responsible. And we should also collect clips of people saying how their sacred second amendment is for killing tyrants.
Then, miraculously, we'd point out that the Repubs don't care about language, if they support "baby killer" and ask "doesn't it sound like a lot of gun loving folks might see Trump as a tyrant, what with the illegal wars, murders, etc.?" And they'd all realize the objective justice in our position, and… yeah.
Real life ain't like that, but, damn it, it should be.
If a picture of seashells arranged as "86 47" is a death threat, then the MAGA morons riding around with the decal on the back of their trucks showing Biden hog tied and restrained should be charged with issuing a kidnapping and death threat as well. But that was just fun and games, a joke.
Heather Cox Richardson called it out well in a recent video. 45 is flailing out at anything, he needs some kind of win in the face of bad polls, rising prices, and the various disasters he's created and can't extricate himself from. Expect more as his presidency circles the drain.
I think Democrats need to run on the ballroom issue. WHY do we need it? If you need cancer treatment that you have no insurance to cover, does the thought of a gaudy ballroom give you peace? What about food insecurity for families? Your child is hungry – will they feel better if you show them pictures of the gold trim? Contrast the obsession with vanity and the struggle of ordinary people to survive. Trump is too stupid to realize that voters do NOT want the focus on entertainment for the ultra-rich.
As usual, the MSM misses a major point. We live in a democracy, and it's wrong for the president to live in a bubble, insulated from the people. DJT insists on that bubble and wants to imprison or expel anyone who challenges his views. We can draw from the example of a republican president who was shot at twice in a single month.
"Despite both close calls, President Ford refused to pull back from public life. He continued making appearances and speaking directly to Americans, telling reporters he believed it was the duty of a president to maintain that connection with the people."
The 'people' Trump wants the ballroom for are not average, working Americans.