Bang Bang Ballroom

The very first thing Donald Trump talked about after the shooting was his stupid illegal ballroom

I think the mentalist who was scheduled to host last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner should have received combat pay. Not because of an assassination attempt, but for having to roam through Donald Trump's empty head.

I don't believe last night's assassination attempt was staged or fake. I do believe there was a serious assassination attempt at last night's WHCD dinner. I don't want to jump into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But from what we know at this point, the assassination attempt may not have been on Trump's life, but maybe just on any cabinet member’s life that the attempted shooter could've found, or at least that's how it sounds from the bits of his manifesto. I have read.

I do believe it was extremely shitty for Donald Trump to use the assassination attempt as an argument for his stupid illegal ballroom that is currently being held up by a court. Sure, it would have been a much safer event for politicians if the event had been held in a restrictive confine such as the White House rather than a working hotel with over 1100 rooms. But the lack of a tacky Maga-Lardo-like ballroom created by tearing down the East Wing of the White House doesn't prevent events from being held at the White House.

That said, the White House Correspondents' Dinner is not a government event. It is hosted by the White House Correspondents Association, and has been held at the Washington Hilton for years without incident. And let me get ahead of MAGAts who will use the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan at the hotel as an argument for the ballroom, as that did not happen during the WHCD dinner.

Trump cannot be allowed to use last night-near tragic event as a reason to ignore his breaking the law to build his pet project of an ugly ballroom. He can't be allowed to use last night's near-tragic event to circumvent oversight of this ballroom. He can't be allowed to use it to avoid telling the public how much money he's raised for the project and who has contributed to it. All of that is currently being kept secret by the Trump regime. Remember that despite being invited to this dinner by journalists, he is an enemy of a free press and transparency.

Scott Jennings, a MAGAt and a CNN contributor, should not be allowed to use last night's near-tragic event to go after Democrats as he politicizes the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which needs to be held in check over the tactics of ICE. He argues that the Secret Service is not being funded during this shutdown, but fails to mention that the agents are still being paid. Fuck you, Scott Jennings, you dishonest fuck. CNN, when you have breaking news, you should only have real journalists on the air. Not Kool-Aid drinking ass heads like Scott Jennings. Isn't it bad enough we have to stomach Wolf Blitzer?

Fox News and MAGAts should not be allowed to make Donald Trump and members of his administration heroes from this. Nobody was in danger. The Secret Service did their job when they found the potential shooter, but they never should have allowed him to get as close as he did.

The White House Correspondents Association never should have changed the format of the dinner in hopes that Donald Trump would finally attend. As I mentioned in the first paragraph. The night’s entertainment and host was a mentalist. They may as well have invited someone to make animal balloons because I'm not sure there's substance to having a dinner hosted by a mind reader. I would argue that the dinner could have been hosted by a clown, but that would have been redundant.

Usually, the dinner is hosted by a comedian who roasts the president and people in the room, from politicians to members of the press. And while Donald Trump once attended this dinner while Obama was president, he was too cowardly to attend while he was president during his first term or last year, the first year of his second term. A comedian was not the host last year, which was probably the WHCA's attempt to get Trump to attend then.

Don't get the impression that Donald Trump can take a joke because he was a subject of a roast on Comedy Central years ago. He was able to set the rules for that event, with one of them being that none of the comedians could make fun of his wealth or cast any doubt as to the extent of it.

And why would Donald Trump be afraid of a comedian at last night's gala? Maybe he's afraid a good comedian will point out his racism, his sexism, his failed war with Iran, or bring up his assault on women, or his attacks on the Capitol, or that he lost the 2020 election, or that he's about to lose the 2026 midterms, or his theft of classified information, or his 34 indictments, or his constant grift of the Oval Office, or that he lied over 35,000 lies during his first term, or joke about the bruises on his hands or his cankles, or bring up the fact that he is an enemy to a Free Press, which he has called the “enemy of the American people.”

Since his return to office, Trump has sued media outlets for telling the truth, like his lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for publishing his lewd birthday card for Jeffrey Epstein. The Pentagon is banning reporters for not reporting the way they want news reported. The White House has banned the Associated Press from the press room for not referring to the large body of water at the southern end of the United States as the “Gulf of America.” Trump has ordered an end to all federal funding of PBS television and National Public Radio. He has moved to dismantle the federal agency that funds overseas news broadcasts in authoritarian countries. He calls real news outlets “fake news” while giving broader access to Fox News, and occasionally Newsmax, which give him softball questions and never challenge his answers, no matter how much he lies.

He has been particularly nasty toward female reporters, and in a span of just two weeks last November, he yelled, “Quiet piggy,” at Bloomberg correspondent Catherine Lucey while she was asking him a question about Jeffrey Epstein. He berated ABC News correspondent Mary Bruce as “a terrible person and a terrible reporter“ and threatened to take away ABC’s broadcast licence after she asked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He attacked New York Times journalist Katie Rogers over an article about his health and stamina, calling her “a third-rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out.”

The WHCA should never have invited Donald Trump unless he was brave enough not to face a would-be assassin, but to be able to handle being in the same room with a comedian. As it stands now, he often can't stand to be in the same room as a smart female journalist.

The WHCA should not allow Donald Trump to dictate to them how they hold their annual event. They should not bend to his will, or they’re going to be stuck with a night as boring as when he hosted the Kennedy Center Honors. Snore! They also shouldn't allow him to be the one to decide when the rescheduled event takes place, which he says will be within 30 days.

Maybe they should not bother.

News alerts: a lot of people like to send me articles and news updates. I appreciate that, as I may not catch everything, especially the more obscure stuff. I have asked a couple of people in the past to stop because one was sending me shit from propaganda outlets, and another one decided it had to go from news updates to recommendations of music, movies, and whatnot. But generally, sending me news articles is fine and appreciated because it means you care about what I'm doing here and you want me to know about them.
However, if it's a huge, honking, breaking news event, like a tsunami hits Tokyo, or a giant bat eats London, or someone tries to assassinate the president of the United States, you can save your time because I have those kinds of news alerts already from several different sources (NYT, Washington Post, CNN, BBC, etc). In fact, I have too many news alerts, and it gets to the point that it's kind of annoying. So, just FYI.

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