WHO’S REALLY PAYING FOR THE BILLIONAIRES’ BALLROOM?

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Yesterday’s Trail Mix Live with Jamie, Jack, and Carolyn lit the fuse on this one. What started as a casual chat turned into a full-blown investigation—tracking the billionaire donor list behind Trump’s new White House ballroom project.

Now we’ve got receipts:
a 90,000-square-foot “renovation,” a demolished East Wing, and a donor roster stacked with defense contractors, crypto moguls, and corporate giants with plenty to gain.

They call it a renovation. We call it a coup with chandeliers.

Inside the Playlist:

  • Who’s Really Paying for Trump’s New Ballroom?
  • Inside Edition Proves the East Wing Story Hit the Mark
  • Trump’s $300 Million “Renovation” | Coup with Chandeliers
  • Trashing the White House for Real
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105 thoughts on “WHO’S REALLY PAYING FOR THE BILLIONAIRES’ BALLROOM?”

  1. the several following comments are today’s collection from the “laugh or lament” files by ‘toonists and comics on the demolition

    Attribution: Let them eat cake by John Darkow, Columbia Missourian


  2. The Secret Service tried to block journalists from filming the demolition of the East Wing of the White House, President Trump angered America’s cattle ranchers with a plan to buy more meat from Argentina, and Amazon is trying to put a good spin on news that robots will replace a large percentage of the company’s human workers.


  4. Seth addresses Trump’s plan to build a glass bridge to connect the White House and his ballroom, the FBI arresting Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and more in his monologue for Thursday, October 23, before taking a closer look at Trump not delivering on his biggest campaign promise.


  6. Jimmy addresses the latest news, like the White House ballroom donor list featuring companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft, one of the Louvre security cameras being pointed the wrong way during the jewel heist and Tinder adding a mandatory facial scan verification.

  7. Attribution: Napoleon Trump distracted as Putin pulls heist by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Ontario, Canada

  9. The Epstein Ballroom saga continues. WaPo.

    The work also drew thousands of tourists to Pennsylvania Avenue this week to watch — or rather listen to — the heavy machinery. The Trump administration has restricted the public from most vantage points, ordering employees of the adjacent Treasury Department not to share photos and escorting away journalists trying to shoot video.
    …
    The White House did not respond to questions about the trucks traveling to East Potomac Park. But officials defended the administration’s disclosures about the project, despite shifting details about the ballroom’s cost, capacity and scope.

    “The president has been incredibly transparent,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Thursday. “I would reject any notion otherwise when it comes to this ballroom project.”

    When Leavitt introduced the project to the public in July, she said the wing would be “modernized,” not demolished. Trump said then that it would cost about $200 million and hold 650 guests, estimates that have increased to $300 million and nearly 1,000, respectively.

    Transparency? You tell me. Oh, those lips…

  10. Considering that krasnov has somehow gotten a demolition company to remove a portion of the White House without any outside input or controls, I am waiting for the construction to begin. What are the odds the construction companies have russian roots?

  12. Yes, BlueB, targeting the construction companies for harassment is the job now. The local demolition company is freaking out, had to take down their website and quit answering phone calls.

  14. Zelensky arrives in London ahead of ‘Coalition of the Willing’ summit

    President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in London on Oct. 24 as the city prepares to host a meeting of the “Coalition of the Willing,” a European-led initiative launched by the U.K. and France.

    The coalition, formed earlier this year, aims to establish long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, potentially including the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force once the war ends.

    The London gathering is expected to focus on how allied nations “can further strengthen Ukraine’s hand and cripple Russia’s ability to continue to wage war,” the British government said. … more at link

  15. It is the Epstein Ballroom because it’s only going to be there to distract from releasing the Epstein Files. But it needn’t be the only sobriquet applied to the large pig trough they’re building. Can you imagine the heating bills for that place . Whooo-eee.
    And heated/Air conditioned year-round, of course.

    Maybe the Nazi Dancing Room home of the Goose Stepper’s Ball

    or The Fascist Fantasy Dance Hall
    Or The White Trash Palace
    Or

  17. on the probable origin of the bigly bad ballroom with bunker below i.e. dictator decor and drumpf’s future führerbunker and führerhauptquartiere

    thanks BiD for reminding us of the original one in last thread:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerbunker

    The Führerbunker (German pronunciation: [ˈfyːʁɐˌbʊŋkɐ] ⓘ) was an air raid shelter located near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex constructed in two phases in 1936 and 1944. It was the last of the Führer Headquarters (Führerhauptquartiere) used by Adolf Hitler during World War II.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/demolish-white-house-east-wing-ballroom-trump-cost/

    The bunker under the East Wing will also be upgraded, sources told CBS News. The White House Military Office is handling the renovation of the bunker, which is known as the President’s Emergency Operations Center.

  18. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/demolish-white-house-east-wing-ballroom-trump-cost/

    The bunker under the East Wing will also be upgraded, sources told CBS News. The White House Military Office is handling the renovation of the bunker, which is known as the President’s Emergency Operations Center.

    *ps – The estimated cost of the EPSTEIN Ballroom and Führerbunker is now $350 million.

    Everything needs to be labeled EPSTEIN. Elon MuskRat got an EPSTEIN contract for Space-X to blow up rockets in the launchpad. Peter Thiel’s Palantir got an EPSTEIN contract to surveil everyone in the US. Ross Ulbricht got an EPSTEIN pardon from Jeffrey’s best friend Don-Old for drug trafficking.

    Notice that Michael Wolff, like Hunter Biden, has gotten tRUMP & Melania to back down from their legal threats about Melania’s EPSTEIN visa…because the last thing they want is legal discovery.

    Jack Smith is stepping up, too.

  19. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jack-smith-conditions-for-congressional-testimony_n_68fb51cfe4b0bc7dc61f9aa7

    Former special counsel Jack Smith, who secured two indictments against Donald Trump, said he is willing to testify before Congress in open hearings as long as the U.S. Justice Department commits “that he will not be punished for doing so.”

    In a letter addressed to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, respectively, Smith’s lawyers said their client wants to publicly set the record straight on his prosecutorial work on the Trump cases.

    “Given the many mischaracterizations of Mr. Smith’s investigation into President Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Mr. Smith respectfully requests the opportunity to testify in open hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees,” the letter states.

    “To that end, Mr. Smith needs guidance from the Department of Justice regarding federal grand jury secrecy requirements and authorization on the matters he may speak to regarding, among other things, Volume II of the Final Report of the Special Counsel, which is not publicly available,” they added.

    While the DOJ delivered Smith’s report on his charging decisions related to the Trump 2020 election interference probe, a judge blocked the release of the report’s second volume related to the classified documents investigation.

    *Vampires go poof when the sun shines on them.

  20. Epstein’s Ghost is in charge of our government.

    The Ghost of Epstein is calling the shots.

    You KNOW that this construction is a massive theft of and distribution to cronies of taxpayer money. It’s graft and grift from top to bottom.
    Pure theft.

  21. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/23/trump-white-house-ballroom-construction-cost-overruns/86852361007/

    A list of donors to the ballroom the White House shared with USA TODAY shows contributions have come in from American corporations in the tech and defense industries that have business before the government, as well as from wealthy individuals.

    The corporations include Palantir, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Comcast, Google, Booze Allen Hamilton and Meta. Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group, a global alternative asset management company, is listed as an individual donor. Also included are members of the Trump administration, including Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who is listed as the Lutnick Family.

  22. Sturg – You’re not wrong. tRUMP’s best friend’s ghost is keeping the government closed, jeroing folks from getting SNAP benefits to eat, keeping the Rep from AZ from being sworn in, deploying NG onto our streets and every other bad thing to distract from the EPSTEIN files.

    It’s almost like the pressure is being turned up until folks actually riot like they did on J6 to invoke the Insurrection Act, and EPSTEIN’s ghost is the thing tying it all together.

    What’s to keep the Orange Adolf from tearing down the rest of the WH, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial?

  24. it’s the “Epstein Shutdown” and the “Fuck You Ballroom”

    you’re welcome 😊

    (…because accuracy matters)

  25. If the donors take a tax write-off on their donation, won’t that mean that much less in revenue to pay the nation’s bills and help reduce the trillions of debt which the rest of us must continue to shoulder? Plus we still will be obligated to pay the gigantic utilities and maintenance bills on the monstrosity.

    in other words ULTIMATELY, WE ARE FOOTING THE BILL not those donors.

  26. I can go with either explanation and denomination of the ballroom. I’m of the belief that every big, controversial thing coming out of the WH as long as DOJ hasn’t released the Epstein files is engineered specifically to distract from that fact.

  27. trump is already a king and you all are trying to save something that’s already dead

    no easy fix

    people don’t behave like these people behave if they think they’re ever going to be held to account, they are planning that they won’t. They are not planning on giving you a chance to hold them to account.

    but they are planning, make no mistake

  28. He would indeed have everyone believe that he is already a king, but there are serious chinks in that armor which at some point, no matter his present peregrinations, machinations, and general seeming immunity WILL change the course of this muddy ugly river of sewage this coarse brigand has wrought.
    Remember the Napoleon. When they ALL gang up on your ass……faggitaboutit.
    For it is written.

    (I know….I also remember the Octavian)

    (But then, Octavian was a youngster tutored by one of the most sagacious military/political minds of historical record)

  30. i’d like to say “who cares about the White House” because honestly i don’t and i’m not the only person that will assert that the demolition isn’t the worst regime offense thus far, but it is definitely a test to see if he can indeed get away with anything he wants

    but hey, best laid plans and all that 🤷‍♂️

  32. I’m more disgruntled by the destruction of Jackie’s Rose Garden.
    The balls room is just another chunk in the armor.

  33. in the mob they make you get your hands dirty so you can’t get out

    There is no going back for these former moderate Republicans now Defenders of the Indefensible

  38. I’m not saying that trumpie isn’t trying to be king…. but he’s not there yet.
    I’m still watching MSNBC with their constant criticism of him and their parade of Democratic politicians criticizing him. A king would pull the plug on that channel ASAP.

  40. Whoops…..this ain’t Anon, this is von Stuhr

    In the Democrats you talk a great game and gleefully tap dance on the great poll numbers but when the election looms, the ice cream turns to feces.

  41. You are correct RR but i’m not sure about MSNBC’s future. After Trump started trashing Comcast CEO Brian Roberts the company severed MSNBC from NBC News (soon changing the name to MSNow) and put it up for auction, no reported bidders so far. Probably why their best talent are starting their own independent podcasts. Trump has stopped talking about Roberts.

  42. Democrat’s fatal flaw was trying to appeal to the better nature of a very cynical, angry people

    people kind of suck lately if you hadn’t noticed

    you fine people are all AAA #1 quality humans, it seems you may be outliers

    also, the consensus seems to be that screens-from-birth at all times has really done a number on “the youth” and i won’t dispute it

    China knew, regulated it proactively

  45. Craig,
    Here is that liberal sounding Josh Hawley quote I was talking about yesterday.
    Interesting when a Republican rising star is saying things that are indistinguishable from major leftist pols.

    From the Missouri Independent news group.

    At the Senate committee hearing, Hawley said Boeing’s stance in the Missouri strike negotiations reflects how the company has been “stripmined for parts” from what it used to be.

    “This is a company whose planes have literally been falling out of the sky in pieces in recent years,” Hawley said. “Why is that? I think we all know why. Because they won’t commit to safety standards. They won’t pay their workers well, but they pay their CEO and their C-suite more than ever before.”

    Democratic U.S. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts echoed Hawley’s criticism, saying the company’s “union busting is a threat to aviation safety.”

    “Over the last 30 years, Boeing has transformed from a company known for safety excellence to a company with its safety record in shambles,” Markey said. “At the same time, the company, which was once working in partnership with its unions, has turned hostile.”

    Markey said the company’s refusal to agree to a fair contract with striking machinist workers “makes you wonder how Boeing can ever expect to restore its safety culture.”

    Independent U.S. Bernie Sanders of Vermont asked Arnold what message it sends workers when the company’s CEO earns $18 million for four months but says they don’t have enough money to negotiate a fair contract with the workers “producing some of the most sophisticated fighter planes in the world.”

  48. CC…….that’s another democrat thing…..they’
    win all these bellwether elections leading up to the big one in which the party so often falls on its face when it’s most important that it not.
    Don’t mind me, I’m just dissing my gruntles.

  49. Happened to be listening to MoJo on my way back to the office and some Gooper Senator was praising beef export trade deals with Japan and Korea supposedly arranged by D,OA. Stupid fuck was praising the high price of beef as showing how strong the beef industry is. Funny, I didn’t hear him mention the Argentinian beef import deal. Most clueless interviewee I’ve heard in a very long time – and it takes some doing to cross that threshold.

    Oh, and D,OA got his widdwe feewings hu’t by the Ontario ad playing Reagans words disparaging tariffs as job killing, so he’s cancelling trade talks with Canada? Watch those lumber prices skyrocket. God, I hate living in a country run by a moron.

  52. do we have a mathematical tally of the worst case scenario of red state gerrymandering and accounting for California’s potential attempt to mitigate it?

    Wait, you fooled me into buying into the premise that we’re going to have legitimate elections, nice one

  53. if we aren’t in a post political reality, what I believe the message that should be repeated the most loudly and the most often isn’t Epstein and isn’t the fuck you ballroom, it’s what Pogo said:

    “the bailout of Argentina was more than the proposed ACA subsidies”

  54. Not to worry, everyone – the inflation report is good news. WaPo.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt note that Friday’s report showed inflation came in just below economists’ expectations. “This is good news for American families,” she wrote on X.

    Honest to god, do not give this idiot anything sharp to play with.
    The article notes that food, fuel and housing inflation, which items are excluded from the CPI, are at 3.6% for housing, fuel and utilities, and Cobb News Media reports that the CPI for September separately showed prices for the pair logged year-over-year increases of 2.7% and 3.7% ( for food prepared at home and eaten out, respectively). Miss Piggy’s calling for her lipstick.

  55. Whenever a Repug says something sane, I call their office & thank them. Positive reinforcement. The negativity/stick of calling them shameful cowards hasn’t done anything. I am on a list. LoL

  56. https://apnews.com/article/melania-trump-michael-wolff-lawsuit-epstein-e5a52952be556d2976d5aeaf6e40b1db

    Author Michael Wolff claims in a lawsuit that First Lady Melania Trump threatened to sue him for over $1 billion in damages if he didn’t retract Jeffrey Epstein -related statements he recently made about her.

    In his lawsuit, Wolff said Melania Trump and her husband, President Donald Trump, “have made a practice of threatening those who speak against them” with costly legal actions “to silence their speech, to intimidate their critics generally, and to extract unjustified payments and North Korean style confessions and apologies.”

    He said the threats “are designed to create a climate of fear in the nation so that people cannot freely or confidently exercise their First Amendment rights.”

    According to the lawsuit, the threats are also meant to shut down inquiry into the couple’s involvement with Epstein, the notorious financier who killed himself in a New York federal jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

  58. About that beef.
    Let me explain a couple of things. American beef tends to be the higher quality beef, a lot of Choice and Prime cuts but not a lot of hamburger, although the burger produced is quite tasty.
    The US can not produce enough hamburger to meet the consumer demand so we import hamburger. This also includes beef sausages and hotdogs. The 3 major countries we import from are Argentina, Brazil and Australia. Notice that one of those countries has pissed off Trump and he has slapped a 50% import tax on all goods coming from that country, a country that is the major supplier of our ground beef.
    This isn’t about the high price of steak, this is about the Donald Trump tariff.
    I can see how people may be confused because this story is being written up, not by farm reporters but by political reporters. People who’s closest approach to the beef industry is a prime steak, when their well paid political operative lover offers to pay for dinner. So approaching it from a Washington pov the reporter doesn’t talk to a real cattle rancher but to a Spokes critter/lobbyist for a cattle industry group.(whatever that is) Of course, the spokes critter is outraged!
    This is Trump trying to do a managed economy, it is also a prime example of why managed economies don’t work. Because, eventually, you get somebody in charge who can’t manage their way across a busy street. That would be now.
    Jack

  59. If you were to completely eliminated hamburgers from every restaurant in the USA for one week I wonder how many cows that would be.

  62. That would be about 2000 quarter pounders per cow.
    If I was more interested I would look it up. The department of Agriculture use to have a lot of those stats but that was preTrump. Who knows what shape it is in now.
    I used to say I’ll Google that. But since I no longer use google for serious searches and “duckduckgo” is to awkward type and makes you sound really goofy when you use it as a verb.
    I’m looking for a good replacement word for google. But I’m not looking too hard.

    Jack

  64. Craig
    That would be one of those “working too hard” things. Framing the question is 90% of the work.
    Unless you use google. Then 90% is scrolling.
    Jack

  65. Jack, not having any tie to the beef industry beyond what is in Kroger and Walmart (and Stemple’s farm when Mr. Stemple butchers beef and brings it to the farmer’s market), I have to rely on what’s in the news and what I can dig up online. Listening to the Senator who talked as if D,OA is a master beef trade negotiator, I have no second thoughts about ignoring that shit. I figure that the Cattleman’s Association has its close ties with industrial beef industry and is biased in that direction, so I take whatever is there with a grain of salt. As a result I report what I hear and comment on the source if I have an opinion abut that source. If I have to refrain from spitting coffee on the screen (or in today’s case, instrument panel) I generally feel I can dismiss what I’m hearing out of hand. All I can say about the Senator suckup is that he’s more concerned with D,OA’s management of the market to benefit US beef producers than he is with his beef consuming constituents. Oh, and I do like me a burger or meatballs from time to time, and don’t like to pay out the ass for the GB to make them.

  69. BTW
    When I told my nieces and nephews about getting banned by tictok, I didn’t get a look of disbelief but more of apprehension, as in “oh god what now”. I think they have full confidence is my ability to stir shit up.

    Jack

  70. Hmmm, speaking of inflation….WaPo.

    Average Obamacare premiums are set to rise 30 percent, documents show
    The price increases — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years.

    Premiums for the most popular types of plans sold on the federal health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov will spike on average by 30 percent next year, according to final rates approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and shown in documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

    The rise in prices — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years. The higher premiums, along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies, mean millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026…

    Think this means anything with respect to average Americans’ budgets? And WTF is it with gasoline prices? Wednesday I put gas in my car at $2.65.9; today I filled up at $3.09.9 – at the same station. I’m guessing the $2.65.9 was an outlier since if I ignore it gas has been in the $3 to $3.20 range over the past couple weeks.

  71. Pogo
    I started to say that would have been the summer gas formula but then I realized that gas should be coming down now not going up. Back in the day when I drove a lot and paid more attention. In KC to reduce summer polution, they changed the formula and as I remember it went up 15 cents in May and dropped the same amount in the fall. Everyone always noticed the spring increase but few noticed the drop. Human nature I guess. Now I drive so little that I don’t pay any mind. A couple of years ago my Sam’s club credit card offered a 5% discount on gas purchases. After the first month I was a excited to see just how much it saved me. It was then I realized just how little driving I do in a month.

    Jack

  73. The Fascist-Republicans in Congress are still lying about the shutdown. Here’s an example from an email received today:

    “Our Men and Women in Uniform Aren’t Pawns in Chuck Schumer’s Games

    Yesterday, Senate Democrats voted against Senator Ron Johnson’s (R-Wisconsin) bill, which would have provided paychecks for military service members and “excepted” federal employees who have worked without pay during the 23 days the government has been shut down.

    This is unconscionable. The brave men and women of our military risk their lives every day to defend our freedom — and they deserve better than to go without pay while Democrats play politics. Chuck Schumer’s party showed heartless indifference to military families today and federal workers, including members of their own staff, by blocking their pay to push funding for illegal aliens’ healthcare.

    Republicans stand united with President Trump against this America-Last agenda.”

    *So much BS!

  74. Project 2025 Would Allow Financial Disaster To Bolster Wall Street’s Bottom Line

    “Project 2025 Would Allow Financial Disaster To Bolster Wall Street’s Bottom Line

    New CAP analysis gauges the potential effects of a present-day financial disaster on workers and the economy if a far-right plan to put short-term gains for Wall Street above long-term prosperity for American families is successful.”

    *It’s all by design. Who could unravel an economy faster than failed businessman, Donald J. tRUMP?

  76. Anon, that’s why I enjoyed hanging out with 200,000 like minded people last weekend in DC. We are not alone.

    The girl said that’s why she went to Woodstock.

  78. https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/nx-s1-5584959/inflation-september-shutdown-social-security

    The COLA increase for next year is higher than the 2.5% increase that Social Security beneficiaries got this year, but it’s below the 3.1% average over the past decade, according to the SSA.

    Consumer prices rose 3.0% in September from a year ago, slightly below forecasters’ expectations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). On a month-to-month basis, prices rose 0.3%, cooling slightly from the 0.4% inflation reported in August.

  79. Will Orange Adolf even be topside in 2028?
    His mind is oatmealing (it’s a verb) and he’s had two episodes where he disappeared for about a week each time. The only proof of life was his fat-ass double in the golf course.
    BananaNazi’s babbling is just as Sturg suggested, Epstein’s ghost driving them to deflect from the awful stuff of the powerful.

    Bannon looks like a case of leprosy caught a mild case of human…and he is in the EPSTEIN file.

    https://nypost.com/2025/07/25/us-news/former-trump-advisor-made-15-hours-of-video-with-epstein/

    But as an avalanche of reports uncovered more lurid details of Epstein’s world of questionable financial dealings and proclivities for sex with underage girls, he had one regular visitor at his huge townhouse at East 71st street — Steve Bannon.

    It certainly didn’t hurt that Epstein could add him to his payroll — Bannon had recently fallen foul of President Trump by criticizing his family in a book and abruptly left his position as chief strategist at the White House. This resulted in his deep-pocketed benefactors cutting him off.

    Previous reports have confirmed the tapes were of Epstein preparing to bolster his reputation, but in the clamor to release government files on Epstein — who was found hanging in his Manhattan prison cell in August 2019 as he awaited trial over sex trafficking charges — many are wondering why Bannon has not been compelled to release the tapes.

    In a bid to hype up what he has, earlier this year Bannon was hawking the tapes as a documentary, saying he had hoped to get Netflix involved and call the show “The Monster”.

    “He was one of the leading underwriters of scientific experiments in the world, a lot of that is dealing with a thing called Transhumanism.”

    Although the first reports of their association only date back to 2017, it is possible they knew each other much longer.

    “Why would Bannon meet with Jeffrey Epstein both at his New York home and in Paris after Epstein was convicted on sex crimes in Florida?” said Roger Stone in an X post earlier this month. “Why would he coach Epstein for his 60 minutes appearance?”

  80. JUST IN: Hegseth Sending Aircraft Carrier to Latin America’s Coast in ‘Major Escalation’

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is sending an aircraft carrier to the coast of Latin America in what’s being called a “major escalation” of the Trump administration’s war on alleged “drug boats.”

    The Pentagon will send the USS Gerald Ford to the area, where the U.S. has been conducting military strikes on boats suspected of running drugs to the U.S., according to the Associated Press, which called the move a “major escalation.”

  82. Thus removing it from where?

    To adapt Perot’s giant sucking sound, where is that carrier leaving a vacuum?

    We don’t have to show you any stinkin’ FILES!

  83. I have not been in jail on Bluesky and MySpace. Other than that, my contributions have kicked a few shins going back to the good old days of IRC with me being in jail for a while or needing a new name and address to rejoin the fray.

    Little known is I wrote a couple times a week for Huffington Post, way back around pre-2K.

  86. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-newest-time-covers-nazi-inspiration-revealed/

    Time Photo Secretly Subverts Trump Cover With Nazi Reference

    The Daily Beast has learned that the composition on the new Time cover is inspired by Arnold Newman’s 1963 photograph of Alfred Krupp, the German industrialist and convicted Nazi war criminal. That portrait, published by Newsweek, has long been considered among the most psychologically charged images ever produced for a weekly news magazine.

    Krupp, the heir to Germany’s most notorious arms-manufacturing dynasty, oversaw factories that used more than 100,000 enslaved laborers during World War II, many of whom were brought in on trains from Eastern Europe. Among the laborers were also prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates and children.

    His plants built tanks, artillery, and the massive “Big Bertha” howitzer that became synonymous with the Nazi war machine. He was convicted of war crimes by an American military tribunal at Nuremberg in 1948. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison, but was released after serving less than three years when his sentence was commuted by the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.

    When Newman finally agreed to photograph Krupp, he did so on his own terms. He placed the industrialist on a raised platform amid a bleak industrial backdrop, told him to clasp his hands and lean forward, and lit his face from below—a technique more often reserved for horror films than portraiture. The Krupp photograph depicted a businessman whose wealth and industrial empire were inseparable from political brutality.

    Trump’s body language in the Voss composition usefully covers up a hand often ravaged by bruises, as well as protecting the president’s fragile ego by obscuring his neck. However, the image also speaks to a macabre history with the Krupp nod.

  87. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2125803/putin-nato-war-nuclear-fleet-arctic

    Russia is preparing for war with NATO by amassing attack submarines and nuclear weapons in the Arctic Circle, according to Norway’s Defence Minister. Tore Sandvik said his country was aware of increased weapons development on Russia’s Kola Peninsula.

    “They [the nuclear weapons] are not only pointed towards Norway, but towards the UK and over the pole towards Canada and the US.”

    The Kola Peninsula lies on Russia’s extreme northwestern flank in the Arctic Circle.

    Norwegian officials also believe that Putin is trying to exert total control over two vital shipping routes that would be critical supply lines in the event of a war.

    *BB – Putin’s eyes look sickly in this photo.

  88. I admit I did not pay attention to the raid on the NBA. There is one thing that is very distinct with the NBA, one thing that the current administration does not like, one thing that the low intelligence of the cohort wants to state that the raided people are less than they are. It is that many of the NBA players are Black. Yup, to make Epstein Files go away is to setup a raid of Black folk in the NBA.

  90. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jackie-kennedys-grandson-jack-schlossberg-slams-trump-for-pouring-concrete-where-she-planted-flowers/

    Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s grandson is slamming President Donald Trump

    “My grandmother saw America in full color—Trump sees black and white,” Schlossberg said. “Where she planted flowers, he poured concrete. She brought life to the White House, because our landmarks should inspire and grow with our country.”

    Trump destroyed another piece of the Kennedys’ White House legacy this week.

    He demolished the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden—along with the entirety of the White House’s East Wing—to make space for his 90,000 square foot ballroom.

    The garden had sat just outside of the East Wing Colonnade and was partly maintained by the first ladies who succeeded her.

  91. Apologies to Jamie, but I hope Toronto wins the World Series. I don’t want the athletes’ pilgrimage to tRUMPsky for a photo op to happen.

  93. BiD
    I want my Dodgers to win and then refuse to go to the WH because they need to have dinner with Newsome that night!

  94. https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/billionaires-preparing-for-end

    The tech billionaires are still doomsday prepping. And as the BBC reports, it seems that AI is making some of them more paranoid than ever that society as we know it might soon crumble.

    “We’re definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI,” Sutskever reportedly once told the OpenAI team, according to the journalist Karen Hao’s book Empire of AI.

    Many of these folks are putting their money where their mouths very often are: Altman, for instance, is known to have a stockpile of guns, gold, sprawling properties, and other resources he can turn to in the event of AI-inflicted armageddon.

    AI for therapy, life advice, conversation, friendship, and romance — and, in many cases, enter into destructive, unhealthy relationships with the emotive AI bot that cause tumult in their real lives.

    Following obsessive interactions with chatbots, some have ended up divorced and in custody battles; others have ended up jobless and even homeless; others have been involuntarily committed and even jailed; even more, minors included, have died.

    *Here’s the widespread damage, and it’s the tech bros who are responsible:

    The demands of building, training, and powering AI are also taking troubling tolls on the environment, and mass job loss due to automation is a real threat that’s already impacting many workers.

    *This is what causes society, at large, to collapse.

  96. This has been a growing fear for me. What happens to a society when there are far fewer jobs than the people who need to work to survive. We have been disguising this condition in the developed nations with service jobs (people who don’t create anything just serve other people). AI is wiping out those functions.

    Way back when the plague wiped out a similar imbalance and various diseases, famines etc held us at a billion or so, and then along came vaccines.. Covid got cured too fast to even make a dent in the unneeded. Something has to go boom.

  97. Donold is already 80. He’s in the middle of his 80th year at this moment. Next June 14th will be the end of his 80th year. 79 has already bit the dust.

  98. https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_c03feb90-860d-4ceb-a1c4-f587187d85d3.html

    President Donald Trump and his administration plan to inform Congress about using the military to target drug traffickers, but stopped short of saying they would ask for authorization to use military force.

    “We may go to the Senate and we may go to the Congress and tell them about it. But I can’t imagine they’d have any problem with it,” Trump said Thursday at a White House roundtable discussing his plans to use the military to go after drug traffickers at sea and on land.

    Democrats and Republicans have raised questions about the legality of the strikes and asked for more information from the administration, including legal justification.

    Also on Friday, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Colombian President Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego for alleged drug activities, effectively cutting off access to the U.S. financial system to Petro, his wife, his son, and a close associate.

  104. How much longer can MAGAt Mike refuse to swear in the new Rep from AZ?

    Is this just a test to see what happens if all of the gerrymandering and buying of voting machines gives Dems a House majority? Will Repugz just refuse to leave?

    In addition to a destructive tenant in our White House, will we have Republican squatters in the US House?

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