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I have no idea how he has been allowed to do it
He won the election, became the President, and then gets to decide stuff. Not saying he's making good decisions, but it's because he won the election.
He hasn’t, but as far as King Drumph is concerned, he can do anything he wants, whenever he wants, and won’t take no for an answer, going ahead and demolishing the East Wing is him saying, effectively, “now what are you gonna do, hmmm?”
Same as allowing Texas to demand the Shuttle Orbiter to be removed from the Smithsonian, despite it actually belonging to NASA, and who gifted it to the Smithsonian, which is not a Federal entity.
He's building a mausoleum for himself. The 21st century equivalent of a pyramid.
Well, if he suddenly disappears, it won’t be the patio they’ll be looking under…
It's a shocking waste of public funds
It ain’t the public who’s paying for it. It’s businesses who are coughing up the money, like dangling keys in front of a toddler, to keep his tiny little mind occupied so he doesn’t go an another deranged rant telling them they’ve got to shift entire manufacturing plants from Asia to America overnight.
He won the election, became the President, and then gets to decide stuff. Not saying he's making good decisions, but it's because he won the election.
As far as the ballroom goes, there are much more important things to worry about than that.
the various phases of the building of the Whitehouse seem to be attributed to presidents - the collonades we Jefferson apparently. The East Wing, depending on context, is attributed to either FDR or his wife, in that amongst other things it houses the First Lady's office and wider department reflecting an expansion in that role during Elenor Roosevelts tenure. But the building is mostly the 'visitor centre' part of the complex - it's where you arrive if you take a public tour. But it also serves the purpose of of hiding a great big underground bunker as it was built at the dawn of the Cold War. So while presidents get involved in choosing some of the prettier elements and cut the ribbon at the end it seems to me presidential terms are too short for any sizeable changes or additions to be conceived and executed during one (FDR served 4 terms but he could only have expected to serve one at a time). The east wing expansion was probably, really an initiative of the military and the building you see is really just there to hide their infrastructure.
The key difference here is unlike previous presidents (even unlike his own previous term) Trump is doing very little 'president' work - he presents the impression of doing work - signing things that look like work and holding them up to the camera - but he's all but stopped attending all the functional elements of government - he's signed a record high number of presidential orders but actually delivered a record low volume of legislation. He should be at twice weekly national security briefings - he's attended 5 since January. He's got time to involve himself in this because he as withdrawn from much of the actual role of 'president'
the National Parks Service having some sort of oversight, but "something, something Woke, something, something DEI" would doubtless kick in first.
theres also the trifling issue of the government being in shut down - so there functionally is no National Parks Service or any other agency with oversight at the moment
Apparently the Presidential bunker is being worked on as part of the redevelopment.
It might not be being paid for by taxpayers dollars, but it is being paid for by Big Business, and such a "gift" presumably results in favours* in return.
Leavitt had caused a bit of a fuss in the US having stated that the ballroom is Trimps priority at the moment. Not the shutdown, not the loss of access to food, or health care.
*there is some speculation that Trumps cancellation of sending ICE and the NG into San Francisco was due to the Silicon Valley peeps not wanting any of that shit in their backyard.
The east wing expansion was probably, really an initiative of the military and the building you see is really just there to hide their infrastructure.
I'm not saying you're wrong - it sounds like you know what you're talking about and I don't have the first clue -but surely if you were building a secret military base then the dead last place you'd want to build it is as a semi-detached to what's left of the Whitehouse?
Looks like the demolition may have taken out quite a bit more than the initial images showed:
Yup, looks like it is the whole of the East Wing. So much for not touching that part of the building.
Aside: I've been to the Pentagon. During the Cold War the USSR believed that "The Pentagon" was the bit in the middle rather than the infrastructure around it. Though she didn't say so explicitly, the tour guide strongly implied that this was in no small part due to propaganda/misinformation spread by the USA.
It's a hotdog stand.
Workers at the Pentagon used to joke that they had the most heavily guarded hotdog stall in the entire world. 😆
(Incidentally, should you ever find yourself in DC, I'd recommend the tour before Trump decides to turn it into the Hexagon. It's an astonishing place for many reasons beyond the ones you'd immediately expect.)
Unless it's in the near future... there are no tours currently because of the "shutdown".
Public servants aren't being paid... while they watch the White House being literally torn down to satisfy the vanity of their... er... King?
It might not be being paid for by taxpayers dollars, but it is being paid for by Big Business, and such a "gift" presumably results in favours* in return.
It is paid for by us taxpayers as those donors will offset it against their tax bil
I'm not saying you're wrong - it sounds like you know what you're talking about and I don't have the first clue -but surely if you were building a secret military base then the dead last place you'd want to build it is as a semi-detached to what's left of the Whitehouse?
I guess where it needs to be is the fewest number of steps from the Oval Office possible. It’s not secret it’s just there because militarily you need to have a place of safety for the president and cabinet
it is also of course the place Trump fled to prior to his ‘holding bible upside down outside a church’ episode during his first presidency