Who gave money to Trump to destroy the White House East Wing so he can build his obscene vanity ballroom

The Billionaire’s Ballroom, Perfectly Suited to this Second Gilded Age

Robert Reich 

In the first Gilded Age, which ran from the 1890s through the 1920s, captains of American industry were dubbed “robber barons” for using their baronial wealth to bribe lawmakers, monopolize industry, and rob average Americans of the productivity of their labors.

Now, in a second Gilded Age, a new generation of robber barons is using their wealth to do the same — and to entrench their power.

The first Gilded Age was an era of conspicuous consumption. The second is an era of conspicuous influence. 

The new robber barons are having their names etched into the pediments of the giant new ostentatious ballroom Trump is adding to the White House.

They already own — and influence — much of the news Americans receive. And they are eager to promote their views.

Marc Benioff, the billionaire founder and CEO of Salesforce, told The New York Times that Trump should send the National Guard to San Francisco. (After his remarks drew condemnation from many of the city’s civic leaders, he apologized. He seems about to get his wish nonetheless.)

Marc Rowan, the billionaire chief executive of Apollo Global Management, is the force behind Trump’s recent “compact” calling on universities to limit international students, protect conservative speech, require standardized testing for admissions, and adopt policies recognizing “that academic freedom is not absolute,” among other conditions. The Trump regime dangled “substantial and meaningful federal grants” for universities that agree.

(It didn’t work. Seven of the nine universities approached rejected the deal.)

Billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone, is also shaping the Trump regime’s campaign to upend American higher education. Schwarzman has emerged as a key intermediary between Trump and Harvard University.

Other of America’s new robber barons are rapidly consolidating their control over what Americans read, hear, and learn about what’s occurring in our country and the world. They include Jeff Bezos; Larry Ellison and his son, David; Mark Andreessen; Rupert Murdoch; Charles Koch; Tim Cook; Mark Zuckerberg; and, of course, Elon Musk.

Perhaps the new robber baron’s most lasting impression on the U.S. government will be the lavish White House ballroom Trump is constructing — a 90,000-square-foot, gold-leafed, glass-walled banquet room that will literally overshadow the so-called People’s House.

It will not be an assembly hall, dance hall, music hall, dining hall, village hall, or town hall. It will be a giant banquet and ballroom designed to accommodate 650 wealthy VIPs.

Trump claims that the East Room, the largest room in the White House, is too small. Its capacity is 200 people. He doesn’t like the idea of hosting kings, queens, and prime ministers in pavilions on the South Lawn.

Trump’s real intention is to have the White House resemble Versailles.

Potential billionaire donors have already received pledge agreements for “The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House.” In return for donations, contributors are eligible for “recognition associated with the White House Ballroom.”

Their names will be etched in the ballroom’s brick or stone edifice.

Trump last week hosted a dinner at the White House for the project’s donors, which included representatives from Microsoft, Google, Palantir, and other companies, as well as Schwarzman, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and other billionaires.

Meredith O’Rourke, a top political fundraiser for Trump, is leading the effort, paired with the Trust for the National Mall, an organization that supports the National Park Service.

The trust’s nonprofit status means donations come with a federal tax write-off.

Construction began Monday. Trump is now literally taking a wrecking ball to the White House — sending parts of the East Wing’s roof, the building’s exterior, and portions of its interior crumbling to the ground.

It seems fitting that in this second Gilded Age — an age of conspicuous influence and affluent access — the People’s House will be replaced by the Billionaire’s House. 

Read the list of White House ballroom donors:

• 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

Great campaign

Trump's plan to invoke the Insurrection Act

Too bad Bobby Jr. is outlawing mRNA vaccines

mRNA vaccine shows promise for treating age-related macular degeneration

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Institute of Science Tokyo 

An mRNA vaccine developed by researchers from Japan suppressed abnormal blood vessel growth or neovascularization in the retina of mouse models. Neovascularization is a condition that is caused by age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of vision loss for elderly people. The vaccine can be delivered intramuscularly and is as effective as current therapies that require frequent eye injections, offering a more comfortable and easier-to-administer alternative for treating AMD and other neovascular eye diseases.

One of the leading causes of vision loss in people over 60 years is age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a condition that affects nearly 200 million people worldwide. One form of the disease, known as wet AMD, is caused by the growth of abnormal vessels in the eye, a condition known as neovascularization. 

These blood vessels leak fluid buildup in the retina, which gradually leads to vision loss, if left untreated. At present, the only way to slow this process is through regular injections of anti-angiogenic drugs that stop the formation of blood vessels directly into the eye. However, these must be taken regularly, and a few patients stop responding to the treatment.

Fighting to save coffee and chocolate from climate threats

Consumers already hammered by Trump tariffs as climate change threatens availability

By Tom Cassauwers

In the hills above Matagalpa, Nicaragua, farmer Juan Pablo Castro has been growing coffee for 25 years. His two-hectare farm, dotted with citrus trees, is typical of the smallholdings that supply much of the world’s beans. But in 2023, he began to see the first direct effects of climate change on his crop.

“Because of drought, we got so-called vain beans,” explained his son, Jeffry Castro. “Instead of a cherry containing two beans, as is normal, the pod is either empty or has only one misshapen bean.” 

These lighter beans, considered defects, float away during the washing process and can spoil the taste and aroma of the final cup.

Another climate-driven problem is a rising incidence of coffee leaf rust. This fungal disease (Hemileia vastatrix) causes yellow-orange spots on leaves, weakens plants, and is one of the biggest threats to global coffee production.

Jeffry now works as a technician in an experimental station run by the Nicafrance Foundation, a Nicaraguan development organization collaborating with EU-funded researchers to protect the future of coffee and cacao.

How best to use the National Guard - for disaster relief or to occupy American cities?

Natural Disasters Are a Rising Burden for the National Guard

By Marianne Lavelle

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

The National Guard logged more than 400,000 member service days per year over the past decade responding to hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters, the Pentagon has revealed in a report to Congress.

The numbers mean that on any given day, 1,100 National Guard troops on average have been deployed on disaster response in the United States.

Congressional investigators believe this is the first public accounting by the Pentagon of the cumulative burden of natural disaster response on the nation’s military reservists.

The data reflect greater strain on the National Guard and show the potential stakes of the escalating conflict between states and Donald Trump over use of the troops. Trump’s drive to deploy the National Guard in cities as an auxiliary law enforcement force—an effort curbed by a federal judge over the weekend—is playing out at a time when governors increasingly rely on reservists for disaster response.

In the legal battle over Trump’s efforts to deploy the National Guard in Portland, Oregon, that state’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, argued in part that Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek needed to maintain control of the Guard in case they were needed to respond to wildfire—including a complex of fires now burning along the Rogue River in southwest Oregon. 

The Trump administration, meanwhile, rejects the science showing that climate change is worsening natural disasters and has ceased Pentagon efforts to plan for such impacts or reduce its own carbon footprint.

The Department of Defense recently provided the natural disaster figures to four Democratic senators as part of a response to their query in March to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding planned cuts to the military’s climate programs. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who led the query on behalf of herself and three other members of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, shared the response with Inside Climate News.

Trump's use of AI-generated videos offer a mirror into his mind

A psychiatrist's view of how Donald Trump poses a serious and imminent treat 

Dr. Bandy X. Lee

(Please be forewarned that I will be talking a lot about feces further below.)

Donald Trump has set many records in protests. The day after his 2017 inauguration was the Women’s March, the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, with a turnout somewhere between 6 and 7 million people in over 600 U.S. cities and more than 80 countries.

In June and July 2020, between 15 and 26 million people in the United States participated in Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Protests occurred in over 2000 U.S. towns and cities and more than 60 countries on every inhabited continent. Geographically, it was the largest global civil rights movement in human history.

Now, the No Kings protests, also known internationally as the No Dictators or No Tyrants protests, on June 14 and October 18, 2025, broke records as well. The June 14 event mobilized demonstrations in over 2100 cities and towns across the U.S., by 4 to 6 million people—which places it on par with or possibly surpasses the Women’s March (which was estimated at 3.3 to 5.6 million in U.S. attendance). For October 18, 2025, reporters cite 7 million participants in more than 2700 locations across the U.S., signaling considerable scale and spread of opposition. It is certainly the largest demonstration against a U.S. president in all history.

Donald Trump, more than anyone, would find these facts intolerable—and the level of narcissistic injury, rage, and stress-related regression are visible in an artificial intelligence-generated video he posted on his Truth Social site that evening. It depicts him flying in a “King Trump” fighter jet, wearing a crown, dropping what appears to be excrement on U.S. protesters.

Commentators remark (if they do at all) that it is, “shocking”, “insane”, and “infantile”; most do not have words. Yet, we must recognize that we cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand. To appreciate truly the ominous meaning of the extraordinary expression, and to handle and properly prepare for what it entails, we must develop greater psychological literacy—for this is not simply child’s play or an ostentatious display.

In fact, in early Freudian analysis, feces held specific meaning (though strange in imagery or terminology, if one were to spend just a little time in the psychiatric setting, one would quickly learn how illuminating Sigmund Freud’s observations are and why he is considered a genius—the connections he has made are simply clinically uncanny). Feces, associated with the “anal stage,” denote control, autonomy, and self-exertion.

As a brief introduction, here is an overview of what Freud called, “the psychosexual stages of development”:

1. Oral stage (birth to age 1)

2. Anal stage (ages 1 to 3)

3. Phallic stage (ages 3 to 6)

4. Latency stage (ages 6 to 11)

5. Genital stage (adolescence to adulthood)

The science is clear

It's true

Trump’s attempt to gut special education office has some conservative parents on edge

Let this sink in: special education for disabled children is a "Democrat program" according to Trump

This story was originally reported by Sara Luterman of The 19th. Meet Sara and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.

80+ years ago, Dr. Seuss could see Trump and
 his America First push coming

The Trump administration’s decision to lay off most employees within the U.S. Department of Education’s special education office was described by the president this week as part of cuts to “Democrat programs that we were opposed to.” This was news to many conservative parents of disabled children, as well as disability policy experts. 

More than 7.3 million children in all 50 states rely on special education services, which are partially funded and enforced by the federal government.

“Special education is a nonpartisan program. Special education services are provided to any student with a disability, regardless of political party,” said Maria Town, executive director of the nonpartisan American Association of People with Disabilities. 

A federal district court judge in Northern California on Wednesday granted an emergency order to temporarily pause the mass layoffs that occurred throughout the federal government. 

If the gutting of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, proceeds, Town and other disability advocates said there is no way the Department of Education can continue to fulfill its responsibilities to enforce the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The act — known by its acronym, IDEA —  guarantees students with disabilities the same right to public education as students without disabilities. 

Town pointed out that during the first term of President Donald Trump, a Republican, the office determined that Texas, a Republican-led state, had illegally placed a cap on the number of students who could receive special education services in each district. Texas lawmakers lifted the cap in 2017, after receiving pressure from the Department of Education. 

Bottled Water May Pose Serious Long-Term Health Risks

Using it regularly introduces tens of thousands of microplastic and nanoplastic particles into the body each year.

By Patrick Lejtenyi, Concordia University

The tropical beauty of Thailand’s Phi Phi islands is not the kind of place where most PhD journeys begin. For Sarah Sajedi, however, it was not the beaches themselves but what lay beneath them that sparked her decision to leave a career in business and pursue academic research.

“I was standing there looking out at this gorgeous view of the Andaman Sea, and then I looked down and beneath my feet were all these pieces of plastic, most of them water bottles,” she says.

“I’ve always had a passion for waste reduction, but I realized that this was a problem with consumption.”

Sajedi, BSc ’91, decided to return to Concordia to pursue a PhD with a focus on plastic waste. As the co-founder of ERA Environmental Management Solutions, a leading provider of environmental, health, and safety software, she brought decades of experience to compliment her studies.

Her latest paper, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, looks at the science around the health risks posed by single-use plastic water bottles. They are serious, she says, and seriously understudied.

Sarah Sajedi with Chunjiang An: “Drinking water from plastic bottles is fine in an emergency but it is not something that should be used in daily life.”

McKee is the least popular Governor in the country

McKee faces lowest approval rating among state governors in Morning Consult survey 

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current

Gov. Dan McKee received the dubious distinction of having the lowest approval rating of any governor nationwide, according to Morning Consult’s quarterly survey. 

The findings published on Oct. 15 paint a grim picture for Rhode Island’s sitting governor, who scored favorable marks with 4 in 10 voters surveyed by the global consulting firm. It’s also the lowest approval rating and highest disapproval rating McKee has faced in quarterly polls by Morning Consult since he became governor in 2021.

Among state governors, McKee had the third-highest disapproval rate — 44% — behind Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds at 53% and Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills at 45%.

Unlike Reynolds and Mills, though, McKee must win back voters next year in order to secure another term as governor. Reynolds has already announced she won’t run for reelection, while Mills just announced her campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. 

McKee’s campaign did not immediately respond to inquiries for comment on Tuesday. 

Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott boasted the nation’s highest approval rating — 75% — while Connecticut’s Ned Lamont and Massachusetts’ Maura Healey, both Democrats, came in the top 10, with 63% approval for Lamont and 59% for Healey. New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte had a 53% approval rating.

The governor has been plagued by low approval ratings for more than a year — many polls showing even less favorable results than Morning Consult.

His 2026 Democratic opponent, Helena Buonanno Foulkes, came out with a leading edge over McKee in a hypothetical primary, though most voters remain undecided, according to a recent survey by the University of New Hampshire.

Trump wants $230 million direct payment from the government for investigating his past crimes

‘Straight Grift’

Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams

Donald Trump is facing fresh allegations of attempting to corruptly profit from his office after The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Republican is demanding that the US Department of Justice pay him about $230 million in taxpayer dollars for previous federal investigations into him, and his allies at the DOJ are expected to make the final decision.

Trump filed the administrative claims—which are submitted to the department for potential settlements to prevent lawsuits in federal court—before he returned to the White House earlier this year, people familiar with the matter told the newspaper. However, the president nodded to the legal battle in public comments at the White House last week.

Actually, the whole family did, looting the Trump Foundation for personal
gain. They agreed to a plea deal with Attorney General Letitia
James in 2019 that required the dissolution of the Foundation,
a $2 million fine and restrictions on the family from ever starting
another charity. Trump recently ordered the Justice Department to
 bring felony charges against AG James to retaliate for her
various successful prosecutions of Trump

“They raided my house in Florida. It was an illegal raid,” the president said beside Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche—Trump’s former lead criminal defense lawyer and one of two people who can green-light such settlements.

“I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said, I’m sort of suing myself. I don’t know,” Trump continued. “How do you settle the lawsuit? I’ll say, Give me X dollars, right? And I don’t know what to do with the lawsuit. It’s a great lawsuit. And now I won—it sort of looks bad. I’m suing myself, right?”

As the Times detailed Tuesday:

The first claim, lodged in late 2023, seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the FBI and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the claim has not been made public.

The second complaint, filed in the summer of 2024, accuses the FBI of violating Mr. Trump's privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents. It also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution in charging him with mishandling sensitive records after he left office.

The cure for everything

The art of the deal