“Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., did the impossible last week: he reached a new low in American politics. Previously, Swalwell mocked a female senator after she complained about being threatened by leftists. However, even on the Swalwell scale, it is hard to measure the depths of a member who calls for potential presidents to pledge to demolish the Trump ballroom as a litmus test for office. Consider that for a second. According to Swalwell, Democrats will only consider politicians who promise to destroy a $300 million building to appease the lowest common denominator of their party.”

And check out some of the comments on this rather short post.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/photos-inside-making-trumps-ballroom-look-construction-progress

Why are the Democrats so mad that Trump is doing the building, which may be completed before he leaves office? Because “Under Democrat Congress control the project would be over a billon not including change orders and would take 10 years to complete if that. The Democrats are mad for not getting any payola.”

I doubt it. A trackhoe with the right end effector on the boom is pretty effective, quick, and safe way to demolish temporary light construction buildings. A water mist can be used to suppresses/control demolition-prodeced dust. Get er done.

I assume you’re aware that the East Wing is a separate building and of fairly recent vintage, and that the ballroom will enable the White House to host large official functions without the present need for tents and port-a-potties for the guests:

The East Wing of the White House complex was built in 1902, significantly expanded in 1942 …

The first small East Wing was built in 1902 during the Theodore Roosevelt renovations, as an entrance for formal and public visitors. This served mainly as an entrance for guests during large social gatherings, when it was necessary to accommodate many cars and carriages. Its primary feature was the long cloak room with spots for coats and hats of the ladies and gentlemen.

The two-story East Wing was designed by White House architect Lorenzo Winslow and added to the White House in 1942 primarily to cover the construction of an underground bunker, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). Around the same time, Theodore Roosevelt’s coatroom was integrated into the new building and became the White House Family Theater.

Later, offices for correspondence, calligraphers and the social secretary were placed in the East Wing.

First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in 1977, was the first to keep her own office in the East Wing. The social office prepares all of the invitations and written correspondence for every event held at the White House. …

Later on October 22, Trump told reporters during an Oval Office event, “We determined that after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world, we determined that really knocking it down, trying to use a little section, you know, the East Wing was not much. It was not much left from the original” and “In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure.”

The next day, on October 23, photos from the Associated Press showed that the entire East Wing, including the East Colonnade and the White House Family Theater, had been demolished. However, plans have been made to restore the Family Theater so it is “modernized and renovated.”

Even the WaPo seems to think it’s okay to do this.

Why do you care how much it cost to do it? It’s not taxpayer money; it’s donors.

Next it was “250 million” and “we’ll just be taking down the facade of the East Wing” in September.

Now, it’s 300 million and the entire East Wing is rubble. There don’t seem to be any consultations with planning committees, no effort at historical preservation or attempt to reuse artifacts like the marble floors or the crown molding, not even basic safety precautions for the demolition workers like hard hats or asbestos removal masks. Even taking pictures is banned.

Gee, I wonder why people are upset. /s

I noticed that the first time she said “china,” but the second and later times she did not append the “r” — perhaps the training slipped for a moment?

Per Art Deco > “People who attended boarding schools or finishing schools prior to about 1955 often have a distinctive accent.”
And pronunciation is a large part of that.

For my own amusement, I have a story about our Welsh choir director who would sing a phrase to us, and then wonder why the daft Americans insisted on “hearing” an “r” at the end of some Welsh words (where none actually appeared), and thus mishearing, misspelling, and mistranslating the actual words in the song.

I told him that American singers were always, always, always told NOT to sing the final “r” of a word unless it was meant to be rolled (which is never on an Anglo-Saxon-descended word, but customary in almost every other language).

So whenever we hear a neutral phoneme at the end of a word (uh, or schwa), we always assume there is a silent “r” following it in the printed lyric.

That seemed to make sense to him.

Mrs. Kennedy’s voice was indeed interesting. She had the Northeast/British habit of adding “r” to words ending in “a,” in this case, the Truman and Eisenhower “chiner.”