Look at that headline picture. Look at how wrecked that is. Look. Destroyed for something that was ostensibly for the country’s 250th birthday, except it wasn’t. It was for bullsht. It was for something that could be considered the opposite of what our country used to stand for. It was an obvious lie. This was not for America’s birthday. It was for something else. With gratitude for Raw Story:
President Donald Trump marked his 80th birthday last Sunday with an unprecedented Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event on White House grounds, but by Friday onlookers were stunned when photos emerged showing the damage left behind on the Ellipse, often referred to as President’s Park South. “The UFC event has destroyed the grass on the Ellipse in front of the White House,” bluntly noted John Jackson, a podcaster, writer and U.S. veteran of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in a social media post Friday evening.
This was going to happen. Yes, they put down plywood to cover the grass. A stable footing is necessary for all the crap they had set up just for the fights, let alone seating. It was out there too long. And now the grass in the Ellipse is dead. Is Trump going to pave that over, too? Use it as a 999-person outdoor patio? Okay, not really, although we couldn’t put it past him. It’s going to take a lot of money and a lot of sod, and at least a year before it comes back.
Captured by Reuters’ Aaron Schwartz on Friday, an aerial photograph shows the once-green Ellipse – a 52-acre park just south of the White House South Lawn – with slivers and patches of green grass amid a sea of brown. The White House’s South Lawn also suffered damage, with a White House spokesperson telling USA Today that $1 million will be spent restoring its grass.
“In the 250th year anniversary of USA the White House and [its] surroundings look so terrible,” wrote José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, the disaster-relief food nonprofit organization, in a social media post on X to his more than 1 million followers. “Is so sad to see.” //// And Luis Moreno the former U.S. ambassador to Jamaica, quipped that the damage to the Ellipse perfectly encapsulated the Trump administration. “Perfect metaphor for what he’s turned our country into,” he wrote Friday in a social media post on X.
Isn’t it, though? An orange cartoonish man-child is decimating our country. Now, getting rid of him won’t fix anything, but America can be fixed. Relationships with other nations are going to take longer, if it can be done at all. It’s gut-wrenching to think of how far Trump has made us stray from the real America, whose 250th birthday is this year. Look at how much Trump has changed the White House alone. The lawn is a perfect metaphor.
See you soon!
Friends, I know everybody begs you for money. I promise you that, of all the outlets bugging you for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a bunch of old, disabled people, except one writer in his mid-50s. But the rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the ability to continue our quest to tell the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
