Are you having trouble keeping track of all of the ways that President Donald Trump is desecrating Washington, D.C., with his signature blend of shoddiness, cronyism, bad taste, and grift?
There are many, so we should all forgive ourselves for not catching his latest White House project: a new helipad.
Of course, like most things with this administration, we only learned about this by accident when people saw construction crews on the South Lawn.
Not to sound too much like “kids these days,” but listen, kids: There was once a time when adding something like a helipad to the White House would have been discussed well in advance.
The contracting process would have been transparent and lengthy enough to allow for actual bidders, not handpicked “donors,” we would know how much it was really going to cost, there would be construction permits, the normal district preservation groups would have weighed in—you get the picture.
Instead, we’ve got this.
This little project is ostensibly fully funded by a “donation” from Lockheed Martin. Did I mention that this is also not how things were when the government wasn’t run by having private companies bribe the president to cover the construction costs for his pet projects?
read more