I have an additional favorite political commentator who is on a par with Heather Cox Richardson. Here he is again!!! Thanks to Forgottenman for sending me this video.
President Trump’s demolition of the East Wing has struck a nerve in Washington and beyond.
Wednesday was breezy, bright and autumnal in Washington — the perfect backdrop for a stroll to the White House to watch the swift demolition of the East Wing.
I heard it before I saw it: the thrum of construction equipment and a loud rat-tat-tat that could have been digging or drilling. As I weaved through a group of schoolchildren posing for photographs in front of the main residence, I could see the arms of two excavators bobbing around, too tall to be hidden by the thick white fence erected around the fresh construction site. Behind them, a cloud of dust obscured the clear air.
It wasn’t so long ago that Trump was promising his plan to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the grounds “won’t interfere with the current building.” In fact, my colleague Luke Broadwater reported today that the entire wing, which is historically the domain of the first lady, will be razed in the project, and the price tag would increase to $300 million, $100 million more than initially estimated.
Images of the demolition, which began on Monday, have rocketed around the globe, swiftly becoming political fodder and a perfect Rorschach test for a deeply polarizing presidency.
“This is Trump’s presidency in a single photo,” wrote Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, on X, above a picture showing roof tiles and windowpanes cascading from the facade of the wing, having fallen victim to the excavators’ jaws. “Illegal, destructive, and not helping you.”
The project has left historians and architects deeply alarmed. The National Trust for Historic Preservation on Wednesday urged officials to pause until it could go through the “legally required public review process.” Last week, Trump seemed to suggest to donors that “no approvals” were required for the project.
Trump’s allies insist that the images show a president shaking up Washington, just like he promised. In a sign of awareness that they could not entirely ignore the criticism of the project, though, administration officials called the uproar “manufactured outrage” in a release that detailed other renovations on the building over the years.
“He’s the builder-in-chief,” the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said brightly on Fox News on Tuesday. “In large part, he was re-elected back to this People’s House because he is good at building things.”
Trump, ever the developer, has certainly spent a lot of time building things at the White House. He paved over the lawn in the Rose Garden to create a patio. He has added gold filigree to the Oval Office and ornate chandeliers to the Cabinet Room, remaking the White House with an indelible imprint of Mar-a-Lago maximalism that is all but certain to outlast his presidency.
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Getty Image
Given the task of writing with no set prescribed topic, my mind always goes to stories of the past. It serves them up like medicine—a treasured dose that blows away the control of a world too bent on bad news. They trigger gratitude for a simpler world that had recently dispensed with Hitler’s threat. Our country had regained control of the world, along with a union of nations bent on peace and the worth of every man, no matter what color or nationality or faith—practices seventy years later again considered something to prompt a shooting match with bigger guns as a new führer (this time our own) practices his strength, his guns aimed at whom? Next time, perhaps you. Perhaps me.
Words for the Sunday Whirl were: serve medicinal gratitude mind triggers blow control shoot practice treasure you stories
Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, Sep 29, 2025
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) left a meeting with President Donald J. Trump this afternoon without a deal to keep the government open past the last day of the fiscal year, which is tomorrow: Tuesday. The president and Vice President J.D. Vance appeared to consider opening up negotiations over extending the premium tax subsidies for healthcare insurance that will expire at the end of 2025 because of the budget reconciliation bill the Republicans passed in July, but they insisted the Democrats must fund the government before talks begin.
“We think when they say ‘later,’ they mean ‘never,” Schumer told reporters. He noted that Democrats had asked repeatedly for meetings about the measure and the Republicans refused, so Democrats had no input on the continuing resolution. Jeffries pointed out that far from being willing to work with Democrats, House Republicans have left town. “House Democrats are here,” he said. “Senate Democrats are here. The Senate is ready to act. House Republicans [are] on vacation right now…. They’re not serious about actually reaching a bipartisan agreement that meets the needs of the American people. If House Republicans were serious, they’d be here right now.”
Schumer told reporters that in their discussions, Trump did not appear to be aware that Americans are facing huge increases in their healthcare insurance payments because of the budget reconciliation bill.
Tonight, Trump’s social media account posted a deepfake video of Schumer and Jeffries speaking to reporters. In the doctored video, Schumer talks with Mexican music playing in the background, while Jeffries stands beside him wearing what appears to be a colorful Mexican sombrero and sporting a mustache with the ends waxed and turned up.
In the video, Schumer’s image is made to say: “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke, trans bullsh*t. Not even Black people want to vote for us anymore, even Latinos hate us. So we need new voters. And if we give all these illegal aliens free healthcare, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us. They can’t even speak English, so they won’t realize we’re just a bunch of woke pieces of sh*t, you know? At least for a while, until they learn English and they realize they hate us too.”
When Lawrence O’Donnell asked Jeffries to comment on the video, he responded: “It’s a disgusting video and we’re going to continue to make clear: bigotry will get you nowhere.”
Jeffries continued: “We are fighting to protect the healthcare of the American people in the face of an unprecedented Republican assault. On all the things, Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, Republicans are closing our hospitals, nursing homes, and community-based health clinics, and have effectively shut down medical research in the United States of America. Clearly, Donald Trump and Republicans know that they have a very weak position, because they are hurting everyday Americans while continuing to reward their billionaire donors, just like they did in that one big, ugly bill with massive tax breaks. Democrats are united in the House and the Senate, and the point that we’ve made will continue to be clear. We are fighting to lower the high cost of healthcare, prevent these dramatically increased premiums, copays, and deductibles that will take place in a matter of days unless Republicans are willing to act in terms of renewing the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”
Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported today that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has been leading the administration’s strikes on boats that the White House claims were smuggling drugs to the U.S., although it has offered no evidence of that claim either to lawmakers or to the public. Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times reported that “[i]n an interview, one woman who identified herself as the wife of one of the dead men said that her husband was a fisherman with four children who left one day for work and never came back.”
Tomorrow is not only the last day of the fiscal year, it is also the date Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth set for what was to be his own highly unusual meeting with more than 800 military leaders and their senior enlisted advisors. Hegseth did not specify the purpose of the meeting. Since he called it hastily last week, news reports have suggested that he intended to talk to the generals and admirals about “soldier ethos.” Now Trump says he intends to go to the meeting himself and give the military leaders a pep talk.
We’ll see.
Noah Robertson, Tara Copp, Alex Horton, and Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post reported today that eight current and former officials have told them there is a deep rift between the political appointees at the Pentagon and the military leaders there.
The journalists report that in a reordering of U.S. military priorities, Hegseth is withdrawing forces from Europe, reducing the concentration of power and consolidating commands abroad while focusing on using the military in the U.S. and neighboring countries. According to the reporters, General Dan Caine, Trump’s hand-picked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shares others’ concerns about the reworking of U.S. priorities.
Also tomorrow, as Michael Sainato of The Guardian reports, the resignations of more than 100,000 federal workers will take effect as part of the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce. Those leaving say they were forced out through fear and pressure from administration officials, reminding Sainato of the comment from Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, who wants to destroy the modern government. Last October he said of federal workers: “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down.… We want to put them in trauma.”
This year’s cuts to the government workforce will mean the loss of at least 275,000 workers, the largest decline in civilian federal employment in a single year since World War II.
—
Notes:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/29/stephen-miller-venezuela-drug-boat-strike
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/world/americas/venezuela-mood.html
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/26/politics/hegseth-generals-meeting-warrior-ethos
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/29/president-trump-administration-news-updates-today
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/28/us-mass-resignation-federal-workers
Bluesky:
onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3lzzerqujmk25
Here is Heather Cox Richardson’s substack sit:
Forked Tongues
These messengers speak words
that can slap you awake,
then abandon you
as they return
to the problems
of the privileged rich.
For Weekend Writing Prompt: Speak (limited to 22 words)
For Fibbing Friday, the task at hand is: These are characters in pantos or animated movies, but who would you nominate for the role (fictitious or real person)/
Note: Because I had never heard of Pantos before, I am going to write a description of what characters I can find on the Internet before I cast the role.
1. Widow Twanky. (Male) A traditional pantomime dame. She has a reputation of being a strict mother but neither son takes her that seriously. She runs the town launderette and is always complaining about being overworked but really she does very little. She speaks loudly and dresses the same way): D0NALD TRUMP
2. Buttons. (He is typically a male servant of the household): DAN SCAVINO –Trump’s former golf caddy (really), now deputy head of staff at the Whitehouse.
3. Cinders. (She dreams of attending the royal ball and marries the prince): MELANIA TRUMP
4. The Beast. DONALD TRUMP
5. Gru. (The main character of Despicable Me.): DONALD TRUMP
6. Cruella de Vil KRISTI NOEM
7. The Fairy Godmother RICHARD GRENELL presidential envoy for special missions since 2025.
8. Abanazar. (the primary villain, an evil sorcerer, in the traditional British pantomime version of Aladdin. He poses as Aladdin’s uncle to trick him into retrieving a magic lamp): ELON MUSK
9. Carabosse ( The wicked antagonist): PUTIN
10. King/Queen Rat. DONALD TRUMP AND MELANIA
Mr. Trump is such a fine actor that I had to cast him in a number of roles. Pretender to all, master of none.
My friend Brad sent me this. Don’t know where he found it, but I must pass it on:
BREAKING: The White House melts down and attacks music legend Jack White after he insults Donald Trump’s “disgusting” and “vulgar” redecoration of the White House
“Jack White is a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career,” claimed White House spokesman Steven Cheung.
“It’s apparent [White]’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House,’” Cheung added.
this is Jack’s response…
“Listen, I’m an artist and not a politician so I’m in no need to give my answer or opinion on anything if I’m not inspired or compelled, but how funny that it wasn’t me calling out trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc. his ridiculous ‘wall’ construction, his attacks on the disabled, his attempted coup and mob insurrection and destruction of the sacred halls of congress, his disparaging sexist and pedophilic remarks about women, his obvious attempts at distraction about being a close personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein and his inclusion in the Epstein files, his ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty, his attempts to dismantle healthcare, his obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un, his nazi like rallies, his attempts to sell merchandise and products like Goya beans through the office of the President, his fake ‘gunshot to the ear’ that he showed no medical records or photographs of, his constant, constant, constant lying to the American people, etc. etc. etc.”
“No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the f*cking DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults,” he continued. “How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get? ‘Masquerading as a real artist’? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here’s my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being.”
“He’s masquerading as a christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy,” he wrote. “He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole
after loophole and grift after grift.”
“His staff of professional liar toadies like Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt have been covering up and masking his fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis,” White went on. “And I have ‘ample time on (my) hands’? That orange grifter has spent more tax payer money cheating at golf than helping ANYONE in the country. Improve. Anything. There is no progress with him, only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy.”
“So maga folk, enjoy your concrete paving over of the rose garden, your 200 million dollar ballroom in the White House, and your gaudy ass gold spray painted trinkets from Home Depot, cause he ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremacist country club rich idiot agenda,”
“Wow, he hates who you hate….good for you, be proud of yourselves, how christian of you all,”
“The only way you can support this conman is because you are a victim of the 2 party system and you ‘defend your guy no matter what he does.'” he wrote. “No intelligent person can defend this low life fascist. This bankruptor of casinos. This failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc.”
“This man and his goon squad have failed upwards for decades and have fleeced the American people over and over,” wrote White. “This professional golf cheat, this grifter who has hundreds of thousands of deaths from his inaction of the pandemic on his hands, this man that the majority of the country somehow were fooled into supporting and voting into office (through the flawed electoral college) and their love of reality
television stars.”
“Being insulted by the actual White House that this particular conman leads is a badge of honor to me, because anyone who trump supports and likes is a villain who gives nothing to their fellow man, only takes what can benefit themselves,”
“And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit, I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief,”
“I was raised to believe that we defeated fascism in World War II and that we would never allow it again in the world. I don’t always state publicly my political opinions, and like anyone I don’t always know all of the facts, but when it comes to this man and this administration I’m not going to be like one of the silent minority of 1930’s Germany. This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that’s not an exaggeration, he’s dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis, and we. all. know. it. -JW III… ‘To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.’ – Theodore Roosevelt”
Heather Cox Richardson, Aug 27, 2025 Letters from an American
Today, for the second time in as many days, President Donald J. Trump suggested that Americans want a dictator. In a meeting in the Cabinet Room that lasted more than three hours, during which he listened to the fulsome praise of his cabinet officers and kept his hands below the table, seemingly to hide the bad bruising on his right hand, Trump said: “The line is that I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’”
With Trump underwater on all his key issues and his job approval rating dismal, the administration appears to be trying to create support for Trump by insisting that the U.S. is mired in crime and he alone can solve the problem. The administration’s solution is not to fund violence prevention programs and local law enforcement—two methods proven to work—but instead to use the power of the government to terrorize communities.
There is a frantic feel to that effort, as if they feel they must convince Americans to fear crime more than they fear rising grocery prices or having to take their children past police checkpoints on their way to school… . .
To see the resst of this article, go HERE
Our Emperor’s New Clothes
How do we mentor our burgeoning youth
in these times of unequalled stretchings of truth?
Teach them to sort out these rash acts of treason,
to approach them with heart and strain them through reason.
Teach them hating is wrong and exclusion is selfish—
that plastic’s destroying our coral and shellfish.
That medical care should be something for all
and that hoarding of wealth brings a country’s last fall.
Teach them the future is theirs to decide.
Teach them the truth of whom to deride.
Teach them that facts being taught by their teachers
may rival what they’re being taught by some preachers
and those who would rule to win their own gain,
lining their pockets again and again
with tax cuts that only extend to the rich
while the trickle-down theory develops a hitch.
Teach them to sort out rhetoric from fact.
Teach them to care and to vote and to act
to stretch out the privilege to blanket us all.
We are not alone on this spinning great ball.
Our former meddling and incredible gall
is why we’re considering building a wall
to keep out the hungry and frightened downtrodden
who come to us weary, exhausted and sodden.
They ask for asylum and our protection
from dictators who have prompted defection
much as many Americans are fleeing south
to avoid the stupidity and the vile mouth
of the dictator who is now ruining our land
with illogical thinking and truth that is canned.
Who will mentor whom in this crazy new world
once the last hateful invectives are hurled?
Our world has been sold out for profit and gain—
overseen by leaders opportunistic and vain.
Perhaps it’s our youth who will now mentor us
to sort out the truth from this internet fuss.
As in the old legend, They’ll teach the uncouth
to forsake propaganda for naked truth.
It’s hoped that our youth wake us up from our doze
to point out the truth of our Emperor’s new clothes!!
The Weekly Challenge Weekend prompt is “burgeoning.”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 