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Anyone thinking that this will remain at 300 million should look at trump history
Or the history of this ballroom. The first time I read it it was 200 million. Then 250 million, then now it's 300 and before this year is over it'll have crossed the 500 million line
They're already talking $350M lol
The monument to corruption has cost overruns before demolition is even complete
He'll stiff all the contractors, especially the small ones that can't sue him, and keep the money. He thinks that makes him a good businessman.
Building regulations, inspections and certifications are woke socialism, don'tyouknow. They might even be terrorism at this point.
Does anyone actually think the 300 million is being spent on the ballroom? When all of his crimes shake out in the scope of history, we'll learn that maybe 100 million went to the ballroom and at LEAST 200 million went into his own pockets. I guarantee it.
And if not, enough relatively inexpensive bottles filled with gasoline could make it structurally unsound.
Honestly I would respect the contractors so much if they make it where it has to come down
The only right thing any next president can do after being elected is to demolish the shit out of that thing and restore the Whitehouse to exactly what it was.
We'll call it a 300 million oopsie. Well, 500 million oopsie. I mean, 700 milli... Okay, we'll call it a billion dollar oopsie.
We'll live, the US will live, a billion dollar is almost pocket change for the US government in that respect, the cost of a B1 bomber if I recall correctly, and we'll have one less reminder that the US populace happily and with eyes open lead the entire world to the edge of oblivion.
Tofu Dreg v2: American Boogaloo
My bet is on it never getting completed. It's going to be a running grift over the next few years. There will be delay after delay after delay with multiple "independent" contractors rolling through to deal with whatever the current delay is. Those contractors will be chosen via a competitive bid process,. The company bidding the highest kickbacks to Trump being awarded the contract. At the end of the Trump administration, anything actually constructed on the grounds will need to be torn down due to engineering failures, and multitudes of bugs planted by foreign spy agencies.
Winchester Mystery WhiteHouse
yep, just like the wall
I don’t doubt there will be a grift involved, but he sure seems to be in a hurry to build it.
No grift? A 300 million mcmansion?
I'm confused. Which ballroom... Do you mean the Epstein ball room? That would make sense.
The Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom?
Have you ever seen The Towering Inferno?
They cut all kinds of costs to get it done cheap and quick, with bribery and embezzlement etc etc and, well, it's called the towering inferno for a reason.
If so then, I give you The Epstein's Ballroom.
It'll be slapped up quick. Tarted up in gaudy cheap gold paint.
The costs will have ballooned massively by then, but the companies involved won't ever be paid. Yet a cursory look from an accountant will show that the cash went to the paedos shell company of some form.
It'll start falling to pieces within a few years, if not straight away, then it'll be a race to knock it down safely before it collapses and kills someone.
The most shocking thing about this would be if it turns out to be a good building that's built to last, without corruption etc. AND the companies involved get paid.
I need to ask seriously:
are they doing a rush job? Any info on the technical/commercial aspect of all this?
It does seem likely. Considering this admin's track record.
Given the preliminary basic design and conceptual failures, it seems highly likely this project is destined for major problems
Embarrassing Flaws Emerge in Trump’s New White House Design
Construction on Donald Trump’s controversial new White House addition is off to a disastrous start if his model of the glitzy East Wing ballroom is anything to go by.
Plans shared by the MAGA administration suggest “a hurried process,” the New York Times reports, noting that a miniature mock-up of the 90,000 square foot annex, proudly unveiled to the press Wednesday, featured some truly bizarre architectural features.
These include a staircase leading up from the South Lawn directly into a brick wall, and at least two woefully misaligned windows that appear to open out onto one another.
Demolition of the existing structure, which began Monday, has prompted fierce outcry as cranes and backhoes were seen tearing down sections of exterior cladding and ripping windows off their hinges at one of the most instantly recognizable historic sites on the planet, with the scale of destruction now even visible from space.
The White House can’t seem to decide how many guests the new ballroom will accommodate, with official estimates ranging from 650 to 1,350 people. Once Trump has flattened the old East Wing, he has toyed with naming the $300 million new venue after himself.
Though the plans were first announced months ago, backlash to the actual start of construction has been swift. Critics, like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, have lamented what they describe as the president treating the physical structure of the nation’s highest office as if it was his own personal backyard.
“To take literally a wrecking ball to the White House… it’s grotesque, just grotesque!” the Morning Joe host said Tuesday. “It’s not yours! You rent it from the American people for four years.”
Others have compared the Trump administration’s work on the building, which the president had previously promised would leave the existing structures untouched, to ISIS’s desecration of historic sites and artifacts during the terrorist group’s brutal reign across parts of Syria and Iraq.
“The first reaction I had was, what the f---? It’s not OK. The White House doesn’t belong to Donald Trump—it’s a federal building, a taxpayer building, belonging to the American people,” archaeologist Matthew Vincent, who spent two decades documenting the recovery of artifacts looted by the Islamic extremist movement, told the Daily Beast.
“What he’s doing is horrific and done without any oversight or acknowledgment from the bodies that should oversee this—and certainly not with the American people,” he added.
The NYT says Trump has indeed failed to follow established procedure for renovations on White House grounds, bypassing the usual reviews from federal groups like the National Capital Planning Commission.
JFC. I'm with every statement and feeling of outrage here. Possibly most of all this one:
“It’s not yours! You rent it from the American people for four years.”
Seems to apply to most things this admin is doing.
They're not sharing any info, because there seems to be no clear plan as this NYT article clearly shows (lots of pictures):
Will President Trump’s East Wing ballroom hold 650 people, or 999, as Mr. Trump said this week? Or maybe it will hold 1,350 people, according to a drawing Mr. Trump held up in the Oval Office this week.
The East Wing was demolished this week, but the ballroom design is still in flux, even though construction was slated to begin in September. The project is supposed to be completed before the end of Mr. Trump’s term at a cost of $300 million — $100 million more than the previous estimate.
And you can bet your kidneys that the final cost will be much higher - if they finish it. (I'd love to see a half-completed skeleton to remind us of the horrors of the Trump regime.)
They keep shooting themselves (and the country) in the foot, then make sure that body part does not show up in the photographs.
Now that I've established that we're on the same page, I do have a tiny niggle:
one of the most instantly recognizable historic sites on the planet
Sorry, but no. Not even in the top 10. Without the inevitable American flag (and iron fence) I could not distinguish it from many other neoclassical buildings. And that's something I always liked about it; it's not as pompous as many other seats of power around the world.
Would be a good structural test, when the president and all his donors are under it's roof.
Also, the companies that do the actual work won't get paid. And in court it will turn out they only charged a fraction of the money allocated for the project. The rest went in ol'Donnies pockets.
I’m not taking that bet. I’d be homeless
And this country only builds opulent ballrooms for rich people, not homeless shelters
A real estate grift, you say?
Yeah. Shutting down the government wasnt distracting enough, so they demolished the fucking white house as misdirection - but of course we can expect embezzlement and corruption from the construction job.
With Trump, he'll go out of his way to create opportunities for a grift
Which is likely what this was originally intended to be, but it also happens to intersect with an opportunity to stroke his ego and get his narcissistic supply by building a monument to himself in the process.
Of course he's going to prioritize and fast track such a project
I think it'll either not get completed, or there will be all sorts of problems that arise after he dies.
Assuming he lives long enough it'll probably open relatively quickly, bare bones, things like the kitchen won't be large enough or even available, he'll rent some "gold" tables and chairs and have "the best" opening ever.
Then it will sit incomplete until someone decides to fix it in a future administration. Hopefully they can just tear down and fix the interior, but probably not.
The problems will include mysterious coils of wire/parabolic reflectors/resonating cavities embedded in the foundations, presumably to help the Russians/Saudis/whoever spy on the situation bunker underneath.