Tearing Down

Tearing Down

How the current administration loves to fire people;
Trump’s license to kill, from a man who wants the Nobel Peace Prize;
Heather Cox Richardson on Trump’s hate, and Russell Vought;
A Trump memo that casts atheists as terrorists; how other nations are issuing travel warnings about the US; and how a MAGA guy thinks the black oppression in America is their fault.

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The current administration loves to fire people. It’s another example of how they’re eager to tear down, since they don’t know how to build.

NY Times, 2 Oct 2025: After Declining to Give Trump a Sword for King Charles, a Museum Leader Is Out, subtitled “The departure of Todd Arrington, who led the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, came after the administration sought a sword from its collection as a gift for King Charles.”

Trump wanted to take an artifact out of a public museum, its collection the property of the US government, and the American people, and which does not belong to Trump.

Also:

Politico, 3 Oct 2025: Hegseth fires top Navy official, subtitled “Jon Harrison is the latest Pentagon official who Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has removed from office.”

With no particular reason given.

Reuters, 3 Oct 2025: FBI agent relieved of duty over refusing Comey perp walk, four people familiar say

The administration wanted the agent to arrange a “perp walk” in front of news media cameras.

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More about the president who thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.

Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 4 Oct 2025: Donald Trump believes he has a license to kill, subtitled “After saying the U.S. is at war, POTUS takes out another Venezuelan boat”

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And more about Trump’s hate, and Russell Vought.

Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, 3 Oct 2025: October 3, 2025

Although President Donald J. Trump has not appeared in public since Tuesday, his social media account has been posting up a storm. Just three weeks ago, administration officials were insisting that Democrats were responsible for hateful political speech. Trump’s account last night posted images of prominent Democrats, including former President Joe Biden, with the heading “THE PARTY OF HATE, EVIL, AND SATAN.” It went on to say: “The Democratic Party is Dead! They have no leadership! [N]o message! [N]o hope! [T]heir only message for America is to hate Trump!”

…

Russell Vought is not an elected official. He is best known for his contributions to Project 2025, a plan for gutting the U.S. government and installing a theocratic dictatorship. Project 2025 was so unpopular when it came to light last summer—only 4% of voters who knew about it wanted to see it enacted—that Trump insisted he had nothing to do with it. Trolling the American people with the idea that Congress has no power and Russell Vought is running the government to destroy it is an odd choice for a president who is already deeply unpopular.

With braggadocio about shooting up another boat off the coast of Venezuela.

And this, which is telling. Conservatives always believe in an ideal fantasy world in the past.

If Trump’s reliance on unelected bureaucrats to run his administration has led officials astray, another video posted by the Department of Homeland Security today seemed to offer a different window onto what the president is trying to accomplish. The video shows a bar with words in a font that mimics that of early video games, saying: “LIFE AFTER ALL CRIMINAL ALIENS ARE DEPORTED.” Behind the bar runs a series of images of the United States in the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. It shows Trump himself as a young man and what appears to be the Trump Tower in New York City in the early 1980s.

The nostalgic hope for reclaiming Trump’s glory days has tucked within it the McDonalds Mac Tonight moon image, an image used by white supremacists.

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Deference to the past. Declaring atheists are terrorists.