(Update 8/8/2024 Why I am giving focus to consumer and environmental issues: Thanks to Gov. Tim Walz, I now have a name to what I have been philosophically for the years I have been active in politics and business: I am a kitchen table populist..and, like Harris, earned my spurs in a prosecutor's office as director of the DA white collar crime and consumer affairs unit.. When some 40 years ago, I ran for mayor with a platform of combatting Denver's brown cloud, protecting neighborhood quality of life, and safe from being a commuter's freeway through them with alternative transportation and mass transit. I did not win, but came in 2nd in a field of 13, and still continued advocating for consumers and neighborhoods (taking a view protection case to the US Supreme Court), a radio talk show host, and as Denver's Clerk and Recorder, part of duties as an election commissioner, expanding voter access to minority neighborhoods. Later, I was an executive with a non-profit debt counseling service. I was inspired by having married an immigrant with no command of English and had to take over the family's financial management.. It was a wake-up call to learn all I could to be competent. I wrote a book on the subject, The Colorado Consumer Handbook, which is now out of print. )
How Project 2025 plans to sabotage and destroy environmental and consumer protections. They do it by replacing the administrative state with their ideological loyalists.; They are poison pills, time releasing for years after Trump is long gone. The part of the administrative state Project 2025 document contains a plan to dismantle the government mechanism that protects consumers and the environment from unfair, dangerous, fraudulent practices in whatever they buy, the air they breathe, the truth of the advertising they see and hear, the water they drink, the media you access, the financial credit they use, and even access to abortion and birth control.. The mother of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, is already taking applicants to replace civil servants and appointees. Lists are prepared to begin on Day One of the second Trump administration. Invoking Schedule F or similar acts will permit 50K civil servants to be replaced by ideological fellow travelers.
If you breach the New York Times paywall, you will see how the Heritage Foundation screens for ideological purity to their cause and the questions they ask of applicants. It is similar to how the Supreme Court became the Trump Court by engineering the appointees. Like the Supreme Court, those ideologues will be in power for years after Trump leaves office. . Look at the job application to stack federal agencies with those ideologically pure to the Project agenda: It also reveals what plans the Heritage Foundation has for each and every part of the Federal government. .https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/01/us/politics/project2025-heritage-foundation-administration-application-questionnaire.html
Even if Congress does not revise laws or courts get involved, they still can reach their goal of removing or sabotaging consumer and environmental protections. This is why big businesses love Trump; they resent and detest having to comply. By appointing MAGA loyal flunkies to these regulatory agencies, the proverbial foxes at the hen house door, what we have taken for granted for 50 years, will be crippled if they even survive as agencies. Judgment calls about compliance with existing laws and rules or impact on citizens vs. business interests will not motivate ideologues but whether they support the goals of the one in control, the president, when federal agencies are the designated administrators. The Constitution requires the executive branch to faithfully carry out the legislation passed by Congress. That means that the priority changes to compliance with the law to comply with their ideology and the demands of the president, Trump, and desire to keep their jobs, which will be in jeopardy if they do not. Project 2025 is designed to take away consumer and environmental protections and influence decisions even on abortion and birth control. by replacing technical experts in these agencies with those pledging loyalty to Trump and the Project ideology rather than abiding by the intent and purpose of the agencies, making judgment calls, ignoring consumer complaints, and sabotaging the enforcement of the laws. If the agencies are open, the result is to stack the cards against the rest of us, normal, common, regular people. The only tool left is to sue on a case-by-case basis...and we know what that means with the Supreme Court firmly in the hands of MAGA and the cost of any litigation. Like Roe vs Wade, we consumers have had these protections on the books for 50 years. We just take it for granted until we get screwed when they are sabotaged or removed, and then it is too late to fix it until enough get screwed by the thousands of unkind cuts over many years.
A note:. the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity protects the president from being prosecuted for crimes if they commit them as part of their official duties. It may or may not extend to those with "executive privilege". That is subject to definitions and judgment calls and left mostly undetermined.. However, it does not protect all the federal ministers in the executive branch who may commit crimes. "I just was following orders" is not always a sure defense for those not protected by the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decisions by the Trump-aligned super majority.
The recent Chevron decision by Trump's dominated Supreme Court further kneecaps the power of agencies that issue rules and regulations now after extensive hearings and public input to interpret the laws Congress passes. Project 2025 throws very technical issues at the courts, where judges are ill-equipped to grasp the arguments' concepts or validity. This damaging delegation was approved under the banner of laws interpreted and enforced by unelected officials. Likewise, with Chevron, un-elected judges will be calling the shots. Still, they are not educated or equipped with the technical or scientific knowledge the decisions may require and cannot sort out the BS from the actual situation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/opinion/project-2025-trump-administration.html
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Google summary:"Under Project 2025, agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education would be “eliminated,” and others, like the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and Justice Department, would be put under the president's control.2 days ago
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