Louisiana Voice

That didn’t take long.

The price of Trump’s palatial ballroom, no doubt to feature plenty of gold, was originally priced at $200 million but in the few weeks since it was first announced, the cost as already risen by 50 percent, to $300 MILLION.

Could Trump’s tariffs be behind the increase?

No matter. It’s all being paid for by private donors.

Kinda like Mexico’s paying for the wall, right?

Well, maybe so, maybe not. The White House has released the donor list for the structure. Of course, the Epstein files still haven’t been released.

Following is the complete list of donors, though the White House conveniently omitted the amounts pledged by each of the sycophants:

• Altria Group, Inc.
• Amazon
• Apple
• Booz Allen Hamilton
• Caterpillar, Inc.
• Coinbase
• Comcast Corporation
• J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
• Hard Rock International
• Google
• HP Inc.
• Lockheed Martin
• Meta Platforms
• Micron Technology
• Microsoft
• NextEra Energy, Inc.
• Palantir Technologies Inc.
• Ripple
• Reynolds American
• T-Mobile
• Tether America
• Union Pacific Railroad
• Adelson Family Foundation
• Stefan E. Brodie
• Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
• Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
• Edward and Shari Glazer
• Harold Hamm
• Benjamin Leon Jr.
• The Lutnick Family
• The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
• Stephen A. Schwarzman
• Konstantin Sokolov
• Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
• Paolo Tiramani
• Cameron Winklevoss
• Tyler Winklevoss

Most of the donors appear to be individuals as opposed to corporations, though there are a few of those, as well.

You can bet the farm that those people/corporations are not writing checks out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s either because Agent Orange us using political leverage or because the donors want something in return.

Take Lockheed Martin, for example. Do you reckon they are going to get their contribution back in spades by fudging just a bit on their federal contracts?

Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon, T-Mobile, et al? They aren’t in the habit of being benevolent without expecting something in return.

And let’s not forget the CHEETO BANDITO’s demand that the federal government pay him $230 million to cover his costs in defending the investigations of his hoarding classified documents and a few other violations. Remember, Cadet Bone Spurs said the bulk of the cost of the ballroom would be paid by him, with no cost to taxpayers – like perhaps, $230 million?

Now we just have to brace ourselves for the next cost estimate increase.

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.

LouisianaVoice is in the last 10 days of its October fundraiser. It is one of only two fundraisers per year. The other is in April. There is a reason there is no paywall for LouisianaVoice: I want any information I have to be available to all, free of charge other than what some feel they can comfortably contribute twice a year. For a completely different reason, I accept no advertising other than a single ad from Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs. That’s because I (a) support indepentent booksellers and (b) do not wish to be obligated to a corporate “sponsor” the way some news outlets are.

I found the following meme online and thought I’d share it with you. I pretty well sums up my philosophy about my decision to ignore advice to establish a paywall:

So, if you feel you can do so, any contribution would be greatly appreciated. You may make a one-time contribution by credit card. by going HERE and scrolling down to the YELLOW DONATE button in the right-hand column.

Thank you for your consideration.

Journalist Stanley Nelson, known for his fearless investigations into unsolved Ku Klux Klan murders in Louisiana and Mississippi, will be honored Wednesday, Oct. 22, at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge, 5–7 p.m. The event, hosted by the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication, is free and open to the public.

Nelson, the longtime editor of the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for his investigations into unsolved Ku Klux Klan murders. In addition to covering regular news and putting out the paper each week, Nelson wrote 150 stories from 2007 through 2010 on Klan violence, including some identifying the likely suspects in murders in Ferriday and nearby Natchez, Mississippi.

Over the years, Nelson, who died June 5 at age 69, also worked with prominent national journalists, and several of them will speak about him at the Oct. 22 event. They include Hank Klibanoff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and podcast creator; Brad Lichtenstein, executive producer of “American Reckoning,” a documentary that aired on PBS in 2022; Joe Shapiro, an investigative reporter for NPR; and Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter whose work led to the prosecutions of Klan leaders in Mississippi.

Members of the families of two men presumably killed by the Klan—Wharlest Jackson, a civil rights leader in Natchez and Oneal Moore, one of the first Black sheriff’s deputies in the Bogalusa area—will attend the event, as will Nelson’s family. Former Manship School Prof. Jay Shelledy, who started the LSU Cold Case Project to pursue FBI files that could help Nelson, will speak, along with former students who worked closely with Nelson.

Nelson also wrote two books about the Klan and served as an adjunct professor at the Manship School, where he helped mentor dozens of students who have won regional and national awards for their own stories on civil rights cold cases.

“Once Stanley learned about the horrible things that had happened in his area, he could not stop digging into them,” said Christopher Drew, the current director of the LSU Cold Case Project. “He cared so much about the victims, and he did everything he could, including confronting some of the old Klansmen, to provide a greater sense of closure and justice.”

He was a graduate of Louisiana Tech University’s School of Journalism in Ruston.

How can the Speaker of the House, refuse to swear in a duly elected representative, as Mike Johnson is now doing with Adelita Grijalva, especially since new representatives normally are sworn in within 24 hours?

The same way Mike Johnson can continue to refuse any work or negotiations to be conducted, by refusing to have ANY House business conducted unless Democrats kneel down, kiss Trumps ring and allow millions of Americans to get hit with high increases in their healthcare coverage premiums.

I supposed one could ask why Mike Johnson has punted Congressional powers to the POTUS. Powers of the “purse strings” which is supposed to be the Houses power. The power to set tariffs, making taxation policy and, most importantly, allowing the Executive Branch to police itself as opposed to having Congress act as a check on Presidential powers. But I supposed Johnson isn’t fully to blame for that. The cowards in the Senate have a lot of blame to share.

We currently DO NOT have a functional Congress. And not just because of the polarization between the two major parties. But mainly because GOP Congressional members are very content to act as a rubber stamp for anything Trump puts in front of them. They cry all the time “but Biden had an auto pen” while THEY are Trumps “auto pen”. Just passing through whatever Trump wants regardless of how much damage it will do to even the GOP voting base. And then having to spin things to try to say how it’s the Democrats fault that the GOP passed, with 100% support, policies Trump wants. And some of those voters are actually either stupid enough or brainwashed enough to believe them.

Meanwhile, Trump is abusing the powers of the DOJ by having them go after people he hates personally with either malicious or plain ole bullshit cases. Congress is sitting by while Trump has Can’t keep a secret Hegseth direct the Navy to hit ships in international waters with missiles and claiming they are ALL 100% drug dealers. Meanwhile, they only let 2 survive because they were on a drug smuggling semi submersible. Meanwhile, somehow, not a single person has survived in the regular boats they went after. Not saying anything illegal has happened to regular civilians just out on a boat, but I am pointing out that it’s just curious.

Congress has ignored the Emoluments Clause by allowing Trump to accept a $400 million bribe plane from Qatar while his son in law is in talks with the Saudi’s over billion dollar deals.

There’s a LOT people can ask why Mike Johnson is doing or not doing things over. But the answers all come down to one thing. He is a coward ONLY interested in maintaining his position as Speaker of the House and cares nothing about those who voted for him, the Constitution or his responsibilities as a member of the House.