The Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium.
It has a 1,000 person capacity, more than Trump's absurd proposed ballroom.
Showing posts with label 2025 White House Vandalization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2025 White House Vandalization. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2026
The huge hosting space the Federal Government already has in Washington, D.C.
The Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium.
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 131st Edition. Ballroom Blitz
Since the White House Correspondence Association's Dinner attack, Donald Trump has gone full gonzo on his pet project, a ballroom.
In the United States of 2026, with a massive deficit, declining world status, a war its loosing, a culture that's moved beyond balls, only Trump and his acolytes, most of whom have never been in a ballroom, care about this project. Probably for that reason we're hearing all sort of excuses on why this is an absolute necessity. It's for the safety of the President and for a military command and control bunker.
Both of which are two really good reasons not to build it.
Underneath the ballroom would be a giant command and control structure. It would replace the secret but not so secret Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) dating back to World War II. The PEOC was itself an example of paranoia. It was probably much more useful during the Cold War than it was during World War Two.
It probably is obsolete. Times change.
All of which is a good reason not to build it.
The fact of the matter is that since the start of World War Two security and privilege has attached to the office of the President at an ever increasing rate. Special cars, special aircraft, a dedicated helicopter and a house with a bunker.
In recent years some paranoid Americans who like to imagine the world turning to shit, by which they mean the United States as the rest of the world doesn't count, have built their own bunkers. It's fun. It provides them with a false sense of security. But they can't launch wars.
The President can and he's launched two so far with a third nearly inevitable. Surrounded by security as he is, he probably feels perfectly safe, although the dinner attack would tend that isn't really true. Anyhow, people feeling perfectly safe do dumb and destructive things.
Trump himself is a perfect example of that. His income has made him feel perfectly safe from economic disaster and convinced himself that he's an intelligent man. And during his administration men who raped teenage girls have been safe, due to their association with him. The amount of financial oddities going on during Trump's administration has shown that lots of people associated with him feel pretty safe doing things they would not otherwise do.
And Trump has felt free to participate in a war that murdered the oppositions political leadership.
Nobody should feel that safe.
That is, I realize, as shocking thing to say, but a leader should, at least to some degree, share the fate and dangers of his people. Lots of Americans go about their daily activities knowing they could be killed at random and nobody is going to do anything about it. Servicemen in the Middle East no doubt knew right from the onset that they were not safe from Iranian attacks. Quite frankly, Americans here in the United States aren't free from Iranian attacks either, we've just been oddly lucky so far.
The President of the United States, whomever he is, ought to be in the same situation as the rest of us, no matter who he is. No one man is that valuable such that he should benefit from billions of dollars of effort to set him aside in safety from the people he serves.
And the same for the military. We have command and control facilities already. We have enough. If we don't, well, that would be odd and so be it.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 130th Edition. Narratives
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Ballroom Batshit. A demented president goes full bonkers. The 25th Amendment Watch List Fifteenth Edition and Court Watch Part VI.
This is so insane, it's not clear which category of trailing thread to put this in, so we'll give it its own post of dishonor.
It appears pretty clear that Trump himself penned part of this pleading that's being filed as a motion over the ballroom. The lawyers who signed the pleading should be ashamed.
cont:
This is not normal.
Last prior editions:
Republicans. You have reached July 20, 1944. You can either act with the insurgents and save your party (maybe) or go down in the bunker and destroy it for a generation, or more.
Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, 2027, 25th Amendment Watch List, Donald Trump, Health, July 20 Plot, Nazi Germany, Republican Party, The Madness of King Donald
Labels: 25th Amendment Watch List, Apostolic Christianity, Catholic, Christianity, Chuck Gray, Donald Trump, Megan Degenfelder, Mental Health, Pope Leo XIV, religion, The Madness of King Donald, The Second Trump Administration
Sunday, April 26, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 128th Edition. Attempted assassination at a pointless event.
The 127th edition of this was teed up to go before last night's White House Correspondence Dinner, or this would be that edition. Having the other one ready to go, I went ahead and ran it.
I didn't realize anything had happened right away until I went upstairs and my wife was watching a little of the news feed. It was fairly typical with the press doing the usual "oh gosh, who could the target have been" routine. We all know who the target was, Donald Trump.
This is a tragedy, even though nobody was hurt, thankfully, for a variety of reasons, one being that while there are now questions about how the assailant "got so close" (in a country armed to the hilt, Trump probably comes surprisingly close to armed people every single day), what this accomplishes once again will be to help rally people around Trump. I know that's not supposed to be the first observation, but it's quite true.
Trump has been sinking like a rock in popularity but people rally around somebody who is attacked. And in the MAGA camp, where quite a few people believe that Trump is on some sort of Devine mission, it'll be seen as proof of that.
That this occurred is not a surprise at all. Trump is an illegitimate President who vomits hatred on a nearly daily basis. He inspires hatred of him and is likely the most hated American President since Abraham Lincoln. He is a horrible human being.
None of that justifies an attempt at murder, but it's not surprising the attempt was made. What's additionally interesting, fwiw, is the far right of this country effectively adopted the concept of tyrannicide during both Biden's and Obama's terms in office, so in a way, that set the table for something like this to occur in a way that didn't exist when there were attempts on prior Presidents.
With this attempt, depending on how you look at it, Trump holds the record for the most attempts on a Presidents life. Having said that, if you limit that to while a figure is in office, he's tied with Ford if you regard him as being presently in office.
I probably would have skipped mentioning the dinner as its shameful that it even occurs anymore.
Some outside commentary on it:
Inside the Ballroom: Chaos and Confusion
That article by a reporter who was there.
Surreal? Maybe, but by this point in Trump's illegitimate reign I suspect a lot of people are like me. We know that this was a horrible event but it hardly even registered on the attention meter. Trump so dominates the news with his horrible behavior that even when its directed at him, it's hard to really get too worked up about it.
Again, I don't condone this, and the effect will aid Trump, who needs to be removed via the 25th Amendment.
About the dinner itself, a lot of people, myself included, flatly feel that it should have been cancelled, or at least Trump should not have been invited. He treats the Press horribly, and yet there they are, worshipping him.
Aid and Comfort to the Enemy
The recklessness of the White House Correspondents’ Association’s self-own
A cartoon:
The WH Correspondents' Dinner
Unethical and tone deaf
Apparently J.D. Vance and sycophantic today Mike "Toady" Johnson were at the event. Of interest, the Secret Service rushed Vance off first.
That's interesting.
If that comes up again, I'm sure there will be some solid explanation, but I wonder if its just not a combination of fatigue on the part of security as well. Vance and Trump probably have separate security details and Trump's is probably numb from having to be around such a horrible person constantly.
On clearing the room, the excessive number of iPhone cameras anymore means everything is photographed to the hilt and then over analyzed. That's already happening, but as horrible as something like this is, it can lead to some semi assuming photographs, none of which would be the slightest bit amusing if you were there.
One is that Kennedy Jr. appeared to leave his wife behind as he was escorted out to safety. His wife, actress Cheryl Hines, later explained that her formal dress hindered her ability to get out and she had to be carried.
Stephen Miller basically shoved his wife out, which is understandable, but photographically unfortunate too, as he was leading her while behind her and his hand was unfortunately placed for control on her upper torso, um, well anyhow.
On the post scene photographs, one security figure is clearly carrying a SIG M17 in the same photograph as a female security officer carrying a Glock 19. The M17 is way larger. It had the conventional iron sights.
The man carrying it was way larger than the female officers as well. I know that in 2025 a person isn't supposed to feel these things but in at least two of the Trump attempts a female secret service officer has been present and just the photographs don't inspire confident in me. That's probably just me. Anyhow, well. . .
Well, a slight addition.
Since the decline in sartorial standards, Secret Service officers are absurdly easy to pick out. They're always wearing dark suits. I have a photograph of Theodore Roosevelt from 1903 or so in which a Secret Service officer is wearing tweed and a newsboy cap. Much harder to pick out. The women are even easier to pick out as women don't normally wear dark business suits.
Glocks leave me unimpressed as well. M'eh.
Trump promised to reschedule the event, which of course, wasn't his to schedule in the first place.
Trump offered some comments from the White House. Included in those were that the military is demanding the ballroom.
The military probably doesn't normally provide any sort of security to the President at all, although the man with the M17 is interesting as he was clearly in some security role, and was not in the Secret Service, and probably in the military. That aside, the military probably doesn't give a rats ass about the ballroom in this context. Trump just makes crap up.
What does seem to be the case is that there's a giant bunker being built under where the ballroom is supposed to go, but won't. We only know the details of that which we know as Trump can't stop his verbal diarrhea.
It is an interesting aspect of this however is how much of the White House destruction was motivated by a military request, and then taken advantage of by the White House, if it was.
I'll add that building giant bunkers leads to an inflated sense of self worth on the part of everyone involved. That part of this project ought to be halted as well.
One final note. Most people who attempt to assassinate Presidents are nuts. This is notable as by an large, their efforts are incredibly poorly done. This is true of nearly every historical assassination attempt. Of all of them, Lee Harvey Oswald's was by far the most competent attempt, which is probably why people insist it must have been a conspiracy.
Not that this isn't already happening here. I've already read claims that this attempt, and all the prior ones, on Trump's life were staged. They weren't, but something remarkable here is that Trump, Vance and Johnson were all present, which is stupid. The argument would be that you know they were staged, as the government would never be so dim as to put the first three people in line for power in the same public room.
Oh yes it would.
Rubio was there too.
Given the line of succession, if a competent attacker was president, Chuck Grassley might now be President. That would assume a lot of skill that most attempted assassins really lack, which is a good thing for everyone. Indeed, even well trained assassins tend not to pull regime change off, as the repeated German Army failures on Hitler demonstrate.
It does demonstrated a lot of hubris, however. We are presently at war with a country whose entire leadership was assassinated early on. Murdering the leadership of opposing combatants is generally regarded as beyond the Pale in war. We did not do it in World War Two, and our opponents didn't attempt it either. The targeting of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in Operation Vengeance during World War Two is still controversial. It was well known that Trump would be at this event and it was likely known that members of his cabinet would be too. That Iran did not regard the event as a target of opportunity says a lot about their restraint, and frankly, their intelligence. They could literally have decapitated the administration and left a person so old in charge that he would have had to resign. I don't know how many members of Trump's cabinet were in fact there. Maybe all of them.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 127th Edition. The Dipshit Edition. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus decides the a General officer of the U.S. Army is too "woke" to be the President of UW.
Saturday, April 25, 2026
Court Watch, Part V.
Expect a major hissy fit.
I think we can confidently assume this project is dead, and that some lesser more useful construction will take place after Trump is out of office.
The judge ruled that the plaintiff was likely to prevail as the administration likely lacks the authority they tried to exercise here.
They should refund the money and Trump should pay for this destruction himself.
April 1, 2026
Trump's executive order on mail voting is set to face legal challenges
April 2, 2026
From the CST:
Basically the judge decided the issues in the two matters weren't sufficiently identical for consolidation.
On other matters:
Lex Anteinternet: Courthouses of the West: Donald Trump attends oral...: Courthouses of the West: Donald Trump attends oral arguments in Trump v. Ba... : That's the birthright citizenship case. Trump's goi...
I posted this yesterday.
Courthouses of the West: Donald Trump attends oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara
Courthouses of the West: Donald Trump attends oral arguments in Trump v. Ba...: That's the birthright citizenship case. Trump's going to lose this case, which will be another example of the wheels coming off of h...
Donald Trump attends oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara.
That's the birthright citizenship case.
Trump's going to lose this case, which will be another example of the wheels coming off of his administration. His presence at the Court will not impress anyone, let alone the Justices. Trump seems to have lost any sense that he's not that impressive to about 70% of Americans.
His attendance is, frankly, appalling.
Cont (April 1, 2026)
JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH: Do you think Native Americans today are birthright citizens under your test and under your friend's test?
D. JOHN SAUER, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: I think so. I mean, obviously, they've been granted citizenship by statute ...
GORSUCH: Put aside the statute. Do you think they're birthright citizens?
SAUER: No, I think the clear understanding that everybody agrees in the congressional debates is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright citizens.
GORSUCH: I understand that's what they said. But your test is the domicile of the parents, and that would be the test you'd have us apply today, right?
SAUER: Yes, yes. So, if a tribal Indian, for example, you know, gives up allegiance to ...
GORSUCH: Are tribal members born today birthright citizens?
SAUER: I think so, on our test, if they're lawfully domiciled here. I'm not s—, I have to think that through, but that's my reaction.
GORSUCH: I'll take the yes. That's alright.
Gee Louise, this administration is really something.
It turns out that Trump left after Justice Jackson pretty much eviscerated the solicitor, D. John Sauer, who was sent to argue this. Sauer's career really ought to be over for such a lame argument that was so obviously legal deficient. He's a former Missouri solicitor and, more important, one of the lawyers who was willing to represent Trump in the past.
April 14, 2026
Trump predictably lost his defamation suit against the Washington Post.
And perhaps something will happen on Gray's ignoring Wyoming's voter confidentiality laws.
April 17, 2026
An attempted end run to fund the garden shed was again blocked by the Federal Court.
April 21, 2026
Kash Patel has sued The Atlantic claiming that an article that claims he has an alcohol problem is defamatory.
April 22, 2026
April 25, 2026
This is sad, but not unexpected, news.
The thing that really gets me here is the remarkable photograph of the three principal female figures in this contest on the abortion side. There they are, sharing a good laugh, while supporting infanticide.
Abortion is flat out murder, there's no two ways about it. Something about this made me look up the ages of the women in the photograph.
Burkhart was born in 65 or 67. . . apparently people aren't really sure. Anthony in 66-68. Lichtenfels, whom I once knew, probably around 61-62. So they all grew up in the 60s and 70s when abortion was really gaining ground. It certainly did that. A huge number of babies are murdered in the Western world, including the U.S., every day. The seas of blood on that score outstrips anything the Nazis or Soviet Communists did. It's part of what's corrupted the United States and given us our current era.
What I wondered about generationally doesn't pan out, however. Support for abortion is pretty strong across generations in this country, although obviously not so strong that the legislature here doesn't keep trying to legislate against it.
What the legislature needs to do is to work to repeal the health care self determination provision of the state constitution that paranoid far righters got inserted into it several years ago. If they did, we wouldn't be having this argument now.
Court Watch, Part IV.
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Court Watch, Part IV.
Weston County, Wyoming, courthouse.
The Justice Department has sued California to block new congressional district boundaries approved by California voters last week.
It's leaving the Texas crap districts alone, however.
In Utah, a Court blocked an effort to prevent their new commission designed districts, which features, gasp, a Democratic seat.
Cont:
Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate links Jeffrey Epstein had to prominent Democrats and institutions including former President Bill Clinton and former treasury secretary, Larry Summers. Read as he bounces off the wall in panic like a grade school dodge ball. Bondi, of course, a loyal sycophant, appointed a prosecutor.
November 15, 2025
Wyoming Supreme Court Pauses Judge's Order For More School Counselors, Computers
November 17, 2025
* * *
November 18, 2025
A Federal Court in Texas has blocked the state from using its recently redrawn Congressional District map.
Oops.
This will be appealed, but if the decision is upheld it would mean that the five GOP (probably) seats that the state added won't be, while California, in a recent election, added five.
Oops.
Additionally, early indicators are that Texas Hispanics are following the national tread and are becoming disenchanted with the GOP, so some Texas districts may swing Democratic on their own.
Oops.
All of this could mean that the 2026 election could see the House not only swing Democratic, but perhaps massively so, and that some of the Returning Republicans are no longer big fans of Trump, to which those survivors will be reassessing their loyalty to Trump.
November 21, 2015
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, and Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan, all veterans, released a video urging member of the armed forces not to follow illegal orders. Donald Trump is now threatening them with prosecution for sedition, and the death penalty, which is ironic, as Trump is a seditionist.
A Federal Court ordered the illegal Trump deployment of National Guardsmen to Washington D.C. to come to an end.
November 24, 2025
The North Dakota Supreme Court upheld the state's abortion ban, causing abortion to again become illegal in the state.
cont:
Federal criminal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were dismissed after a finding the prosecutor was not lawfully appointed.
December 3, 2025
Two well known names from the state's Republican politics.
December 4, 2025
Family of Colombian man killed in U.S. strike files human rights challenge
December 5, 2025
Headline in CST:
Court allows Texas maps
A Federal grand jury declined to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on mortgage fraud.
December 12, 2025
The DOJ failed a second time to indict Letitia James
cont:
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued to stop construction of the giant White House ballroom.
December 16, 2025
December 18, 2025
December 29, 20205
Sued For Defamation, Former State Senator Says WyoFile Should Be Sued Too
December 31, 2025
Deposition testimony of Jack Smith.
From the deposition:
President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol…does not happen without him.
January 6, 2026
The big news, of course, is that an illegitimate foreign head of state has been indicted in the United States brought here in a raid by an illegitimate head of state who has experience with the criminal justice system himself.
Total bogosity.
In other news, and in more bogosity of a sorts, the National Rifle Association is suing the NRA Foundation, a trust that benefits the NRA in what partially can be attributed to an ongoing inter NRA feud.
That things were going wrong at the NRA was pretty evident for quite some time. Things are still going wrong at the NRA. The organization was run for decades by Wayne LaPierre who followed in the footsteps of Haron Carter in fundamentally changing the organization.
Carter rose to power in the organization in 1977. Prior to that date the organization had been agnostic on gun control. Following that it moved to being an ardent opponent.
It was under Wayne LaPierre, however, that the organization became radical, frequently using extreme claims to raise funds. His personal life a bit of a mystery, but he was undoubtedly successful in building up the NRA which became effectively a fundraising arm of the Republican Party, which it remains in spite of LaPierre's fall in a corruption trial. While LaPierre is gone, the current NRA maintains the script, even though its numbers are falling dramatically off. It will, for instance, no longer issue a print edition of the American Rifleman starting this year.
What exactly this trial entials I don't know. It'll be interesting to watch. It's already accused the Foundation of being run by the disgruntled.
At any rate, while NRA concerns about gun control were well placed into the 1990s, the supposed threats they posed were really waning by late in that decade and the organization has been crying wolf for years. Gun owners know that and have been dropping out of it, tired of the message that Stalingrad is right around the corner. Moderate Republicans who are horrified by Trump have not been impressed with NRA's ongoing drumbeat for him. The LaPierre tactics that lead to its rise, and fall, foreshadowed the rise and tactics of MAGA to some degree, and like a lot of things touched by Trump, the organization appears to be dying. In recent years, it's support for Trump have lead to claims of hypocrisy by some on the left.
A sad thing is that the NRA really does do some very important firearms work. It supports shooting programs, matches and range safety in a major way. There's nothing to replace it in these areas.
January 8, 2026
Wyoming Attorney General To Ask For One Last Chance To Defend Abortion Bans
January 10, 2026
Weston County clerk subpoena was valid, court filings argue: The Natrona County District Attorney maintains the Wyoming Legislature was acting in its legal authority.
Odd news here:
Casper Man Pleads Guilty To Making Violent Threats Against Jewish Organization
January 13, 2026
Sen. Mark Kelly has filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to reverse Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s letter of censure and effort to potentially demote him. Kelly will win the suit.
January 17, 2026
I have to wonder if this:
Will influence the United States Supreme Court, which is about to rule on the legality of Trump's tariffs. A sane ruling would strike them down as illegal. If they were thinking of supporting them, as of right now they knew that Donald Trump is Bat Shit Crazy and ought to be reined in with a curb bit until he gags.
He's nuts.
Maybe this will influence the Court.
February 18, 2026
Last edition:
Court Watch, Part III.
Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2025 White House Vandalization, California (Los Angeles), California National Guard, Court, Court Watch, The Second Trump Administration, transgenderism, University of Wyoming, Wyoming (Glenrock)
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