#eastwingdestroyed — Public Fediverse posts

November 2025 Grab Bag o’ Humour

Kudos to Demi Moore for correcting the pronunciation of her name. It’s not Deh-MEE like we thought many years ago. It’s Duh-MEE as she corrected us. And it does take courage to correct the public.

Especially if you know that 10% of people are going to say DUH!-mee. As well, a further 25% of people are going to say Dummy or DUM-Ee.

Not to mention at least 1% will know her name is mispronounced but think its the second name. They will say Deh-MEE MOR or Deh-MEE MOR-Ay.

Correcting this pronunciation may be hard, but Duh-MEE can handle it.

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24 Sussex Drive is supposed to be the First address in Canada. But first one prime minister discovered that repairs could be delayed to curry favour with the public. Then the next prime minister did the exact same. So eventually we are left with a rotting structure that no prime minister has lived in, in recent memory.

Not to be outdone, Donald Trump tore down the whole east wing of the White House in the United States. He says he is going to build a grand ballroom where the east wing once stood. But we all know Trump’s taste is toward the more garish.

Now Trump has set a new precedent for the next president. Perhaps the next president will tear it down to build something they think is better. Or maybe they like garish and will live in the ballroom while tearing down the west wing of the White House. Symmetry might demand two garish sides to the White House.

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A few weeks ago, Elon Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan show and blamed immigrants for many things wrong with America.

“Musk and Rogan blamed immigrants for everything from budget shortfalls to democracy itself” said the article I linked to.

Elon Musk should know, himself being probably the most high profile immigrant in the United States. Tax his immigrant billions and I bet there will be no budget shortfall.

I wish all the problems of the world would be this easy to solve.

#24SussexDrive #budgetShortfall #demiMoore #donaldTrump #eastWingDestroyed #elonMusk #grandBallroom #immigrants #joeRogan #ottawa #pronunciation #thePublic #theWhiteHouse

A demolition – The Washington Post

A demolition

The East Wing, the entrance to the White House for millions of Americans on official tours, the site of offices for every first lady for nearly half a century and the home of calligraphers who prepared thousands of invitations for White House state dinners, disappeared into a pile of rubble yesterday. It had stood for 123 years.

Built during the Theodore Roosevelt administration as an entryway for guests arriving in carriages, and rebuilt during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, the East Wing met its end under orders from Trump. He dismissed it this week as “a very small building” that was in the way of his planned 90,000-square-foot, $300 million ballroom. With it went the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and the East Colonnade, which connected the East Wing to the White House and included the president’s theater. “It’s not just a building,” said Laura Schwartz, the White House director of events in the Clinton administration. “It’s the living history.”

Meeting a need

Tearing down the East Wing to make space for the ballroom was an unfortunate necessity, said Gahl Hodges Burt, who was social secretary for three years under President Ronald Reagan. Since the largest spaces in the building have room for 200 seated guests at most, recent administrations have erected enormous tents on the South Lawn for ever larger state dinners.

“Putting up a tent does nothing but make people upset that they’ve come to a state dinner but they never get inside the White House,” Burt said. “The only bathroom facilities for a tent are porta-potties. Setting up a kitchen out there is hugely expensive. When the tent is up, the helicopter can’t land. And the grass dies.” (Ms. Burt was referring to the presidential helicopter, Marine One.)

Michael LaRosa, the press secretary to Jill Biden, lamented the loss but agreed that a ballroom was needed: “The French have the Élysée Palace, and here we are having a lawn party.”

A rich history

During its 123 years, two modern East Wing incidents stand out.

In 2009, in what passed as a scandal at the time, two uninvited guests and aspiring television reality stars, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, slipped into the first state dinner of the Obama administration. They rubbed shoulders with Vice President Joe Biden.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Secret Service agents grabbed Vice President Dick Cheney from his West Wing office and rushed him into a bunker below the East Wing, which had been built as a shelter for Roosevelt during World War II. Cheney headed underground the moment that American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

The East Wing never had the political importance or cachet of the West Wing, which houses the Oval Office. But it became prominent, and controversial, when Republicans denounced the expensive new construction, built partly to cover Roosevelt’s new underground shelter, as wasteful.

The first lady’s spot

The personality of the East Wing was always calmer and less intense than that of the testosterone-filled West Wing. Until Thursday, the ground floor housed the White House visitors’ office and the Office of Legislative Affairs, while the second floor was home to the White House Military Office and the offices of the first lady.

Presidents watched the Super Bowl and showed movies before their release in the theater in the colonnade, which was used as a coat check for big events. During holiday parties, a band would often play Christmas carols just outside the East Wing entrance as guests arrived.

Melania Trump visited the East Wing so infrequently during her husband’s first term that her empty office there was converted into a gift-wrapping room. It is unclear how many times she has been there in the second term, or if she had offered any feedback on her husband’s plans.

For more…

• The White House released a list of donors who are helping Trump pay for the $300 million ballroom he wants to build at the White House.
• “The Daily” podcast today is about the demolition.
• On late night, Stephen Colbert talked about the demolition.

Editor’s Note: This post was edited and posted from the email from The Washington Post.

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