Is this a dull-witted regime occupying the building formerly called the White House?
I say yes!
After Dippy Donny’s regime shuttered the U.S. Institute of Peace earlier in 2025 and left the building empty and the work undone, the regime now renamed the building the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace. Perfectly droll of this administration, who are all pretense and no substance when it comes to peace and finding peace. Trump always believes he can bully others into peace. “Take our deal, or else.” He claims he’s ended 60 billion wars, including several that ended before his father was born. (Yeah, that last sentence is some hyperbole, right there.)
But an empty building is a great symbol of an empty head and their empty efforts.
Meanwhile, the Roberts Court hurriedly and unsurprisingly ruled the Texas partisan gerrymandering was right on! Yeah, that’s good, the hard right court said.
We also have more insight into Trump’s thinking and planning, or the lack of it, is what I should write. A new architect has been brought in to work on Trump’s new ballroom. That architect will submit their submit official plans to the National Capital Planning Commission ‘soon’.
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Initially estimated to cost $200 million, Trump said in October that the new ballroom would cost about $300 million. The entire amount is being paid by donors, including him, he said. It’s “going to be probably the finest ballroom ever built, and we’re doing it to no cost to the country,” Trump said then.
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Isn’t that just like Trump? “Look how great and grand my building will be. All for just $200. Oh, wait maybe more.”
Sounds like Trump had more of a concept of a ballroom. Just like he has more of a concept of a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act.
I’m beginning to believe the great Trump Wall will be finished first and Mexico will pay for it before the ballroom is finished.
O-oh say, can you see, how affordable everything is getting? New reporting is about rising energy costs. Before we jump into the rising costs, let’s look back at 2024, when Duplicitous Donny was campaigning and making promises:
“We’re going to get your energy prices down. We’re going to get your energy prices down by 50%.”
PBS NewsHour, Trump speaks at campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, YouTube
(August 17, 2024).
More at Doggett.house.gov
Now, let’s look at what’s going on in 2025 after almost eleven months of Trump rule.
Stephanie Tate couldn’t figure it out. After three years of living in her new Illinois home, her winter energy costs last year suddenly spiked to $400 per month.
She had three different technicians come to look at her HVAC system and furnace, but nothing was wrong with it. She had her home insulation inspected and found no issues. She installed new, energy efficient windows to stop cold air from leaking into the house.
“It still didn’t make a dent,” she said.
In the summer, her bills were even higher, driven by the cost of the electricity needed to run her air conditioner. Tate tried to use her heat and cooling sparingly in hot and cold months.
“In the winter, I keep my heat well below 68 — and it gets cold here, so you just bundle up,” Tate said. “In the summer, my AC is at 75. I’m dealing with a little warm weather inside my house.”
Diving into her bills, Tate found something surprising. Her electricity bill’s delivery fees — the costs customers pay to help maintain electric infrastructure like the poles and wires carrying power to their homes — were often just as high as the cost of the electricity she used.
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“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “You’re paying more for everything right now, and the electrical costs — the way they increase so exponentially and so quickly is stunning to me.”
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The nation’s electricity infrastructure is old, and utilities across the country have recently been pouring money into upgrading it; in just five years, US utilities increased their spending by $5 billion on transmission (the massive high-voltage towers carrying electricity from one region to another) and another $16 billion on distribution (the smaller substations, poles and wires).
Electric utilities are making “essential investments” to strengthen the grid, said Drew Maloney, president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, an electric utility trade group.
“Our electric grid is America’s most important machine — and we have to make sure it works reliably every day for families, businesses, and local communities,” Maloney said in a statement to CNN.
Part of that investment is driven by new demand growth. Electricity demand in the US used to be pretty flat. Now, demand is exploding primarily from data centers, along with new manufacturing and home and vehicle electrification. Power demand from data centers alone is projected to reach 106 gigawatts in the next decade, according to a report from research firm BloombergNEF.
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As I read it, residential consumers are funding the need for new electricity for corporations building new facilities that need a lot more energy. That will make those corporations more money, and greater profits, and pay less taxes. And those CEOs will see higher pay and greater bonuses and pay less taxes while Stephanie Tate and other Americans fund the growth.
That’s how it goes in Trump’s United States. Bend over and grab your ankles, if you’re less than a billionaire. As Trump himself warned you, “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!)”
How long will it take us to take the lesson to heart that Trump does not give a shit about anyone except the ultra-wealthy and himself?
Michael Seidel, writer 