Do you like shell games?
You know, that’s the con game where something is placed under one of three shells and the con artist shuffles the shells (or cups; sometimes it’s cups) and you place a buck down to guess which shell the object is under. If you’re correct, you win money. If not, you lose your dollar and invariably, the sucker always loses his dollar.
Well, in reading two separate news stories today, I see that Don “the Con” Trump is up to his old tricks and the American public, as a group, is the sucker.
The first story, from the BBC poses the question of who will pay for Trump’s gaudy $250 MILLION BALLROOM
The second story, from The Guardian, carried headline that said, “TRUMP SAYS HE HAS FINAL SAY ON PAYING HIMSELF $230 MILLION FOR PAST INVESTIGATIONS.”
Now, let’s run the numbers.
In that BBC story, Trump said anonymous donors would be willing to spend some $20 million on the ballroom’s construction and that he (Cadet Bon Spurs) would “personally” pay for a significant portion of the construction cost.
Let’s see, the estimated total cost is $250 million. “Anonymous donors” will chip in about $20 million. That leaves $230 million for Trump to pay.
Now, how much does he say the federal guvmint owe him for those investigations, Oh, yes, it was $230 million, wasn’t it? My, what a coincidence.
A PBS STORY quoted the Trumpster as saying “no public money will be spent on the ballroom.”
So, where does the $230 he says he is owed come from if not the public?
But perhaps we should ask such questions because TACO Don also said “nothing would be demolished during construction,” yet, we’re already seeing the razing of the East Wing.
AFTER
Welcome to mathematics 101 in Trumpworld. Not as bad as lowering drug prices by “1500 PERCENT” or the “300 MILLION DEATHS” from drug overdoses last year – but bad, nonetheless.
Louisiana Voice 
That Trump is demanding the MAGA cowards hold firm in letting millions of people lose their health insurance (on the basis of lies that it goes to illegals) while also claiming the American people owe him $230M in “repayment” for attempting to hold him accountable is unsurprising and completely in character for him. Trump is an irredeemably corrupt piece of soulless shit. But that cowards in Congress and 75 million voters support and approve of it is what shocks the rest of us and that devotion to Trump is what makes MAGA a fascist movement. My voice is small and unimportant in the grand scheme of things and I’m already on my downhill side. But for the rest of my life the political right will always be the MAGA party of fascism and I will support any politician or any policy with the goal of eradicating every vestige of the illegitimacy of MAGA fascism from American life, except as an object lesson for our descendants.