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This blog reflects my views of current political issues.. It is also an archive for columns in the Sky Hi News 2011 to November 2019. Winter Park Times 2019 to 2021.(paper publishing suspended in 2021) My Facebook page, the muftic forum, posts blog links, comments, and sharing. Non-political Facebook page: felicia muftic. Subscribe for free on Substack: https://feliciamuftic.substack.com
Blog postings are continuously being edited and updated.
Whether public funds should be used to support either publicly funded tech/trade schools or research universities is not a choice between the two. We need them both. One for research and development, and the other for the application of what universities have discovered and developed.
Often, research efforts do not make a practical profit for years or fail in blind alleys, but are responsible for breakthroughs that separate us from "old school" to new, better, more efficient, and effective ways of doing things. Here are some R and D discoveries and inventions that originated in research universities: "the world wide web and Gatorade, to pivotal innovations, such as X-ray technology, birth control pills, and the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, famous inventions from higher education institutions" https://blog.halo.science/modern-day-inventions-university-r
Someone needs to take the financial risk and still be funded while undertaking research and development. .Often, there is no profit generated while doing it. That is what research institutions do so well. Still, they require investments by the government and the private sector for R&D. Without research and development for applications, technology would still be back in the nail, hammer, and hand wrench, and diseases would remain spreading, dependent on those who can treat the symptoms or watch patients die.
Those in trade-related education have the opportunity to be educated on how to utilize the latest tools developed by research upon graduation or certification. Usually, years of experience are required to hone their skills. If they do not keep learning new things, they could be left behind by those who adopt them.
For-profit trade schools are ever problematic. Some are certificate mills with no real value in the labor market, and others are worth the tuition. Apprenticeship programs like unions provide are winners. Therefore, I only referred to those publicly funded tech/trade schools now mostly tied to community colleges, mostly locally and state-funded. That was the choice Trump, himself famous for fraud in Trump University, tried to make when he threatened to divert federal contract funds from Harvard R&D and allocate them to trade schools. https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/trade-school-advocates-cheer-trump-threatens-redirect-harvard-federal-funds Let's just let other countries become the innovators and lead us into the new tech and scientific future, right?
Here is what I learned from watching my own children and grandchildren learn and enter the workforce.
My own children hold profession-oriented master's degrees, and all four grandchildren (and their spouses) are involved in or have completed higher education graduate degrees that will enhance their income and/or their pursuit of happiness throughout life. Some will be paying off student loans for years to come. I have both a Harvard and 2-year community college certificate holders in my very immediate family. The pursuit of happiness is a personal preference, and some individuals prefer the intellectual challenges of higher education and the higher salaries that accompany it. In contrast, others derive pleasure from a job well done, even if it is physically demanding. Within my family are now or have been physicians, other healthcare service providers, investment bankers, business consultants, marketing data services, a skilled transportation bus and airplane mechanic, an elementary school teacher, warehouse supervisors, nonprofit administrators, restaurant managers, culinary chefs, a mathematician, and a computer scientist.
Those headed for higher education can think in abstract, deductive terms and/or deal with students and coworkers. Some are just born educators. Others are born to be analysts of complex things. Others, such as those who repair things and solve problems, are fascinated by how machines and systems function. Most possess the talent to apply their special skills, using tools and up-to-date knowledge, to what they know from experience. Some individuals possess both kinds of talents, which is a blessing because they have such a wide choice of professional lives to pursue. To each their own. All are able to make a living doing what they enjoy. In some instances, the skilled, tech-educated make as much or more than those with a more basic liberal arts higher education. They are the skilled ones who have received a trade education, learning how to keep up with new skills and advances in technology that have often been first developed in the research halls and laboratories of higher education. Learning new skills is a lifelong pursuit in an era of rapid discoveries and rapid obsolescence. They will be the ones who survive AI.
The smartest thing I did in mentoring young trade-oriented family members was to equip them early, over 30 years ago, with computers, and I insisted they become computer literate. This, in turn, enabled them to learn more effectively and efficiently and apply this knowledge to their trades. Keeping up with innovations is key to success in the trades long after individuals obtain their community college certificates or even the school of hard knocks.
The rule of law enforced through federal courts is the only power left to stop pretender dictator Trump and save our democracy. Even that is in jeopardy. Congress has a clause in the Big Beautiful Bill that would remove the only court enforcement tool of any ruling: doing away with federal courts' ability to issue criminal contempt, resulting in fines and jail time. The Trump DOJ is attempting to halt the ability of federal courts to issue temporary restraining orders nationwide while gathering more information to inform its ruling. Courts with any power to enforce the rule of law are now an endangered species.. Democracy is on life support if any of these anti-judiciary measures are allowed to stand. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Keeping track of Trump court cases: updated continuously to 5/29/25
Every other way to block Trump's ascendency to full dictatorship is virtually defanged or, as an institution, has shot itself in the foot...some within five months of taking office, including the Supreme Court, Congress, the Democratic Party, the executive branch, internal watchdogs, and whistleblowers.
In the meantime, people in the streets need to educate and demand. That is a saving grace if it moves public opinion. Cudos to 50501 and Indivisible. Also flexing their muscles are Democrats who are state attorneys general, who have filed numerous cases to protect the separation of powers when they claim Trump oversteps his authority. The recent one on tariffs is one example. https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-trump-regime-plot-to-break-rule-of.html How Trump plans to break the rule of law. Act like a dictator until the Supreme Court okays his acts
In the meantime, Trump acts like a dictator and dares the judicial branch to stop him. He continues to issue edicts, threats, and executive orders that are either blatantly or arguably unconstitutional. His DOJ arrests judges and directs Congress to impeach those who dare rule against him, testing the ultimate will of the Supreme Court, the majority he appointed, and even to defend what is left of the power of the judiciary. His strategy: he wins by losing in the courts so he can tell his MAGA crowd he tried and got stopped by liberal, woke judges he himself appointed or some GOP president before him did. If he wins a few in court, he, of course, shouts to the heavens that he is a winner.
The Constitutional crisis will happen when the Trump regime is ordered to bring back those wrongfully sent to the El Salvaor prison. There are now two cases where the Trump regime admits they were deported by administrative error: the Abrego Garcia case and one more: Trump Admin Blames 'Administrative Errors' After ICE Deports Wrong Man - Newsweek Jordin Melgar Salmeron
Remember when the MAGA movement demanded we have a "strong leader" for a president and Trump was the one? Trump has spent the first 5 months of his presidency defying the courts and the Constitution. There is evidence that even some of his voters believe he is a "dangerous dictator". The term "king" was not used in a recent poll, but the term "dictator" was. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-poll-dangerous-dictator-2066852 The majority of those surveyed agreed Trump is a dangerous dictator, but even his base think so as well: "Among voters who once supported Trump but say they now regret it, 55 percent said they view him a dangerous dictator. That number climbs to 68 percent among nonvoters who regret not participating in the election. "
The big one happened 5/28/ 25 when the international trade court on a 3-0 decisions (including a Reagan and a Trump appointee) stopped Trump's tarffs on the basis that he did not have the power to do it because there was no national emergency under the war powers act that he claimed there was. The Trump regime immediately filed an appeal, which will end up in the Supreme Court. Trump had been counting on "his judges" putting gratitude to being appointed to their positions by him to hand down decisions favorable to him. His mob mentality has been in for a shock. Judges have been more loyal to the Constitution than to him. https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-trade-court-0392dbd59f548e49ad4f64254ae3f94a
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Every other way to block Trump's ascendency to full dictatorship is virtually defanged or has shot itself in the foot...some within five months of taking office.
At the top of the list: the Supreme Court issued a ruling that Trump is immune from criminal prosecution while performing his official duties (undefined). Free at last, Trump and his venture into cryptocurrency, accepting a $400 million gift from a king, among recent developments, can disregard the immorality clauses and charges of bribery, and then boast that they are legal because they are transparent. No wonder he can be so arrogant. He can get away with it. This one act, granting Trump immunity, has also laid the demise of the rule of law and the federal judiciary itself. The Supreme Court may be the only ones who can save themselves and the judiciary, as well,by drawing lines in the sand dictators cannot cross in future rulings.. Supreme Court 'distraught' as Trump uses ruling to emasculate justices: expert
Impeachment will not result in Trump's removal, even if the House turns blue in 2026. The Senate is in no danger of turning blue. Even if the balance changes a bit and the House impeaches, the supermajority of 2/3 of the senators is required to remove Trump so that is still a pipe dream, since only a third of the Senate is up for election at a time.
The cabinet, which could remove a disabled president, determining he is a mental case, is filled with loyal billionaire sycophants.
GOP House members, up for election every two years, are either scared to death of being primaried in their gerrymandered safe districts or live in Trump's thrall to ever be a profile in courage. The only tool left for Democrats is to win the House back in the midterms so they can hold hearings and expose the corruption that is in the open or hidden. Impeachment? Another vehicle, since it only requires a simple majority vote, will follow the same path as the other two impeachments. What Democrats could do if they gained a majority or persuaded enough GOP moderates in both houses in 2026 is pass laws that codify protections for elections, the rule of law, and the separation of powers.
The Democratic Party is in the midst of a civil war between the upstart youngsters and the geriatric leaders. No grand orator has emerged from any corner of the party except for AOC and Pete Buttigieg, which may not be easy for whatever is left of swing voters to swallow. It cannot even come up with a decent campaign slogan that says why Democrats are better, other than just being anti-Trump.
Trump's loyal base is cast in the cement of agreeing with whatever racist dogwhistles Trump utters, or are self-interested business people looking for low taxes and less regulations, or billionaires and oligarchs able to buy whatever election suits them, or the unconscious and ignorant low information voter of what it is like to lose a democracy.
Our democracy is hanging by a thread and the only hope in sight is to stop the attempts to cripple the jddicial system or a deep recession which wakes up even MAGA. Thankfully, Trump will be done and gone by 2028 unless he can finagle a destruction of the term limit clause in the Constitution or use the DOJ to manipulate election results and claims he won a losing election.
Past postings that give details to some comments above:
Here is AI Google answer to my inquiry if Trump is attempting to cripple federal courts issuing temporary restraining orders: Yes, the Trump administration and its Department of Justice are actively working to address and potentially limit the issuance of nationwide injunctions and temporary restraining orders (TROs) against federal policies.
Here's a breakdown of their actions and arguments:
1. Challenging Injunctions in Court:
The DOJ has actively appealed and challenged nationwide injunctions and TROs in various federal courts, including circuit courts and the Supreme Court.
They argue that these injunctions are overly broad, inappropriate for temporary measures, and may exceed the authority of district judges.
For example, the administration appealed a TRO that temporarily halted planned reductions-in-force (RIFs) within the federal government, arguing the plaintiffs' delay in bringing the case made the TRO inappropriate.
2. Advocating for Supreme Court Intervention:
The Trump administration is seeking the Supreme Court to take action and clarify the scope of nationwide injunctions, urging the court to limit their use.
They contend that such injunctions, especially those issued by district judges, can be seen as "judicial overreach" and impede the executive branch's ability to implement policies.
Arguments include that the current situation with nationwide injunctions is "toxic and unprecedented".
3. Implementing Policies to Counter Injunctions:
President Trump signed a memorandum instructing federal agencies to enforce Rule 65(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
This rule mandates that parties seeking injunctions or TROs provide financial guarantees (security) to cover potential costs and losses if the court later deems the injunction wrongly issued.
The administration believes this will deter "frivolous lawsuits" and hold litigants accountable.
4. Public Statements and Calls to Action:
Both President Trump and other administration officials have publicly criticized nationwide injunctions and called on Congress and the Supreme Court to take action.
They view these injunctions as frustrating the implementation of policies supported by voters and disrupting the balance of powers.
Context:
The number of nationwide injunctions issued against the Trump administration has been significantly higher compared to previous administrations, according to analyses.
This trend has intensified the debate about the use of nationwide injunctions and the appropriate role of the judiciary in reviewing executive actions.
The Trump administration's efforts to address this issue are ongoing, with lawsuits and legislative proposals currently being considered.
Update: 5/27/25 The significance of Germany allowing Ukraine to use German missiles to strike deep into Russia is to send the only kind of message Putin understands...So far Ukraine has been constrained to shorter-range missile use, so Russia just moved its military bases and infrastructure used to attack Ukraine out of the West's self-imposed limits. Putin's attack using missiles on civilians in Ukraine may have backfired and caused the war to expand.
Not only has Germany pledged 3 billion euros for Ukraine's defense, but they have also given the go-ahead to Ukraine to use their supplied weapons to strike deep into Russia. This is going on as Trump calls Putin crazy for intense missile strikes into Ukraine, and Putin responds by calling Trump, in certain words, stressed out. Face it: neither Ukraine nor Russia is ready for peace talks when both believe they can win. Ukraine is now bolstered by both EU money pledges and Germany's rearmament. Trump needs to act 1)by renewing US military aid to Ukraine and 2) the sanctions package with bipartisan support in Congress to put money where his mouth is... give time for Germany and the EU to put into effect arms production and rearmament.
Per comments by Richard Haas and David Ignatius on MSNBC 5/27/25 on the German go-ahead for Ukraine to use long-range German missiles to strike deep into Russia is significant because there have been limits to the range until now. Russia has responded by moving their military infrastructure out of range. Now, those military bases are in range.
Both Haas and Ignatius believe that Trump is being played and belittled by Putin. Bromances do not work when dictators like Putin think appeasement and fawning are symptoms of weakness, and only what counts is threats/use of power. Sanctions are not the most effective kinds of power, but unleashing missiles sends the real message.
One of the real quandaries facing American culture and politics today is the White male backlash against the past 60-plus years of the Black civil rights and women's equality movements. Anti DEI measures are now official government policy as the Trump regime attempts to force down the throat of education institutions, corporate America, and all of the executive branch of the federal government with their anti-DEI edicts and requirements. Trump and some of his advisors imply, if not openly in words, but in their political actions and policy goals, that White men are by their nature superior to any women and men of color. Publicly, this is not stated public policy, but by their deeds, we can deduct.
The anti-DEI movement has its roots in claiming that what we once called "affirmative action" discriminates against white men and therefore does not get us the best quality we need to run the government and the military... Hiring by "merit" standards is preferable to the DEI they now tout. It is a standard that Trump's appointees do not exemplify, but give their support to, anyway.
Whatever you think of their ideological purity, incompetence was never the main thrust of criticism of any Democratic or Republican appointees to important cabinet posts in my memory, and it was particularly diverse in the Obama and Biden years. If Trump was out to prove the superiority of his race over others, he just illustrated the opposite with some of his very unqualified cabinet appointees, most of whom got his attention as FOX commentators or outspoken MAGA boosters in other positions of power or campaign contributors.
Touting meritorious hiring as the better standard supported by those so opposed to anti-DEI is, in reality, a deceptive cover for racial and sexist attitudes, as the practices of the Trump administration and appointments in the first 100 days exemplify. Merit was not the characteristic of excellence for these appointments to positions of great power.
Watching the very white across-the-board appointees to positions of power, cabinet and staff appointees of the Trump executive branch, is visual evidence of Trumpist inclinations. Women are included if they meet a certain standard of being ready for FOX TV types. Other than that deviation from the white male supremacist attitude, women are still not the preferred hire throughout today's US society. Per a very balanced and down the middle discussion by USA Today of the anti-DEI ideology of Trumpist rule, and not necessarily the rule of law. "Today, white men still dominate the corridors of power.Even with recent gains, Black Americans are outnumbered 12 to 1 by white people in executive roles." https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/03/04/trump-dei-backlash-explained/81170427007/.Still, white males feel discriminated against, having to compete for power with women and men of color.
Given the constant reports of ignorance of laws and the agencies Cabinet members were appointed to lead,(looking more like they were chosen for a TV reality show), the first 100 days do not prove the point that White people were superior just because of their White race. ( Being a billionaire was also a criterion for appointment approval, as well.) Incompetence was right there to observe on TVespecially exemplified by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's feigned or real lack of understanding of the, fith and 14th amendments of the Constituion regarding due process and deportations, and stumble bumble Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's abuse of his cell phone for reporting very sensitive military operations in real time. Anti-science Robert F Kennedy Jr, as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a frightening example of quacks determining what citizens should believe about immunizations and other issues. Heaven help America if we are faced again with a COVID-like crisis because RFK, Jr. will not be trusted to help. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s FDA Commissioner Marty Makarty Wants Diabetics to Get Cooking Classes Over Insulin is his newest quackery.
Topping the charts was Elon Musk's total lack of understanding of the mission of government agencies when he took his chainsaw to them without any regard to what services they provided people needed. If there was a pattern, those that got the brunt of his DOGE act were those right wing conservatives had been trying to axe for years that provided "socialist" safety nets to the least of those able to care for themselves or protections against corporation practices that screw consumers and the environment. Musk's incompetence was his lack of knowledge of the wheels of government. This was coupled with self-serving motivation of subversion of agencies of which he disapproved, or harmed his businesses, with the protection of consumers from bad business practices. While he never found large quantities of abuse, feeding kids who are hungry any place in the world, those who are too sick or too old, who need health care, were a de facto waste of money, worthy of his chainsaw.
Above, all uppity women of any color or white need not apply for a job in the Trump administration. They should be especially targeted for retribution by using or abusing the power of the executive branch, calling for their impeachment and jail, particularly if they are judges ruling against Trumpist edicts. Especially singled out for revenge by using abuse of power are educational institution that permits the expression of divergent views on racism and DEI. Only one view is to be taught: anti-DEI.
Using Harvard as an example of their revenge against a powerful center daring to stand up for their rights on teaching DEI and anti-DEI both (academia has a way of permitting debate and a variety of views ), has fortunately been temporarily restrained by a federal judge. At stake are First Amendment rights and due process requirements of contract law, research rights and funding of disease causes and cures, and the denial of foreign student visas. It is as if every foreign student were a Hamas supporter, as anti-Semitism was used as a pretext for their crackdown on Harvard. This over-the-top abuse of power will probably not stand in courts, but it will serve to put every other institution on notice that they, too, could be Harvard. From the Trump administration's view, public opinion will be on their supporters' side. Anti-pointy heads have been a streak of the political right as long as I can remember, dating back to the Adlai Stevenson campaign loss in the 1950s. Yes, I am that old.
(Note: I am a white Christian woman who has lived long enough, born in one of the reddest states in the union, served in public office, to be sensitive to certain smells emitted by certain public administrators and elective officials.)
How much of this anti-DEI stuff is Trump himself just being a racist? It was he himself ranting against brown migrants on one hand and welcoming white migrants from South Africa and Norway on the other. In campaigning in New England and Iowa in the presidential campaign of 2024, it was Trump himself who condemned immigrants at the border for "adultering our blood," straight out of Mein Kampf. At Iowa rally, Trump doubles down on comments about immigrants poisoning the nation’s blood | PBS News
Without DEI, "we risk reverting to environments where homogeneity is the norm, bias and discrimination go more unchecked and the status quo remains unchallenged, where our nation will increasingly default to the belief that competence and privilege lie first and foremost with white men," said Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, president of the Christian nonprofit Sojourners.
How stupid do some politicians think voters are? They think you are a bunch of fools. They are hoping you don't learn the pictures Trump showed of dead farmers in South Africa to prove genocide are of the dead in Congo. The dire cuts to health care for the poor, elderly, and disabled to pay for tax cuts to the rich will not take place until right after the 2026 midterms, thinking it will protect those from defeat who voted for the Big Beautiful Bill's cuts. The exact words Medicaid and Obamacare are not words easily found in the Big Beautiful Bill, so some lie and say there are no cuts, but over 9 million low-income individuals will lose their health care. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has exposed them buried in the legislative gobbledegook. The bill will also increase the deficit by $4 trillion. The GOP radicals say cuts are not enough, and the reason is waste, per the CBO, fraud, and abuse, with no evidence that even Musk could find, but the reason the debt increases past and present is due to tax cuts to the very rich. It is really clear who cares about whom in this bill. Per the CBO, the tax cuts would cause 3.8 trillion added to the debt, while the cut to health care and food supplement programs would "save" 1 trillion over the life of the legislation. It also may trigger $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, as well, over 10 years.
The hanky panky with the South Africa picture propaganda video is one with a long string of others pointing to bad White House staff work. It is what happens when incompetent or fawning loyalists advise their president instead of steering him away from bogus pictures that blow up in his face later. Add to that the photoshopped knuckles of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, allegedly showing gang tattoos. Fooled you?
Even if staff did catch the fraud, would it have made any difference? Trump has a long record of deceptive sales tricks. He is a real estate salesman posing as a president and a history of a film flam artist as well.. Step right up, folks, don't look at the videos; those were peaceful looky-loos on January 6. Step right up, folks: Forget I called cryptocurrency a fraud; it makes me and my kids rich, and I have nothing to do with it. Step right up, folks: we are at war with Venezuela, so forget the 5th Amendment due process requirements for deporting migrants. Step right up, folks: I've got a great diploma for you for graduating from Trump University. Step right up, folks: Russia didn't invade Ukraine; Ukraine started the war with Russia. Step right up, folks, I didn't ask Qatar for the $400 million 747; they gave it to me out of the goodness of their heart; no strings attached, ever. Step right up, folks: I'm not a white nationalist. Ok if Norwegians and South Afrikaner farmers migrate to the the US; those brown and black migrants are rapists and murders, anyway. We 've got a national emergency at the border and criminal agitators rallying folks against me; maybe it's time to call in the active military. Remember the Central Park Five and Obama's fake birth certificate? I've been wise to such people for years and it was Gen. Milley's fault I didn't have the army shoot demonstrators in the legs.
Fascism in action: Trump administration takes retaliatory action against Harvard for ideological reasons...they refused to bow down to demands to purge faculty and course instruction that reflected Trump's anti-DEI ideology. A quarter of Harvard students are international. Harvard's ability to conduct research is likewise being crippled. Harvard will take this to court...but the lesson for the rest of US universities Trumpism sends is loud and clear. Fold, or you too will be Harvard.
Fascism and soviet communism have in common some of the same dictatorial methods. The last time I saw that happen was in communism. Communism and fascism use the same techniques to control the heart and minds of their citizens. I was a first-hand witness to how communists gained control of universities in Berlin and in Yugoslavia when I was a student in Berlin in 1958. The result was a brain drain as the best and the brightest fled East Germany for the academic West, and it is why the Wall was built a couple of years later.
Action speaks louder than words. Trump, from Charlottesville to now. Trump is revealing himself as a closet white nationalist. On his election in 2016, neo Nazi's raised their arms in salute. They saw him as one of theirs. Were they wrong?. Trump has done nothing to dispel this opinion. In fact, he gives the impression that he is at heart a white nationalist because of the pattern of his actions, while his words give a reasonable excuse to cover what increasingly appears to be his real intent. The evidence for my deduction is the consistency of his actions. I am hard pressed to find any of Trump's actions that do not fit into this pattern of behavior. At every opportunity, from the Golden escalator to admitting white Afrikaners to the US while expelling brown and black migrants from the US, is a stark piece of evidence. (Remember when he welcomed Norwegans as his preferred immigrants in his first term?)The object of his disaffection consistently is people of color, brown or black. Consistency of action is evidence of his intent and bias. I fear, however, am stating the obvious in writing this.
Trump's anti-immigrant MAGA-pleasing policies and anti-DEI policies are being enforced by his DOJ and defying edicts. Trump constantly gets beaten down for violating the Constitution in the courts...but he gets brownie points with the part of his base who are also in sympathy with white nationalist policies. He is winning their support even by losing. The anti-DEI policies are being implemented by the Project 2025 authors he appointed to key positions in his administration. He is making the effort, and the "woke" disloyal to him judicial bench is the villain, which he also bullies and threatens on immigrant matters carried out by "his" DOJ or loyal federal prosecutors. Arresting a judge for helping an immigrant avoid ICE in her courtroom and charging a Black member of Congress are very recent examples ..Letting out of jail all, pardoning or commuting sentences of violent January 6 white rioters is a glaring fact that is hard to ignore.
How much of this anti-DEI stuff is Trump himself just being a racist? It was he himself ranting against brown migrants on one hand and welcoming white migrants from South Africa and Norway on the other. In campaigning in New England and Iowa in the presidential campaign of 2024, it was Trump himself who condemned immigrants at the border for "adultering our blood," straight out of Mein Kampf. At Iowa rally, Trump doubles down on comments about immigrants poisoning the nation’s blood | PBS News
As Trump fights for his big beautiful bill, there is one word that describes it: irresponsible ...irresponsible for the national debt and for those who need health care they cannot afford. It should be renamed as A big irresponsible bill. The main culprit, tax breaks for the rich. The word, irresponsible, should be tied to any criticism of this legislation and those who support it. From my dear friend Google AI, summing up the Congressional Budget Office of their findings. The CBO is a nonpartisan service to Congress members. Here's a summary of the CBO analysis of the "Big Beautiful Bill," also known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which is the subject of discussion and analysis in the provided search results:
One big part of the bill is the Golden Dome development, which is geared to the same defense against missile attacks like that Israel has with their Iron Dome. I am no expert on such technology, but I do have a question. If this takes years to develop, will the technology or the goal be obsolete when it is done, and will this be able to handle the real threat that hovers over us in near outer space, not just from missiles lobbed from China or Iran ? Is anyone looking at this, or is this just being glossed over as sounding good?
Overall Impact per Google AI:
Increased Deficit: The CBO estimates the bill would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over a decade, driven primarily by tax breaks, according to Fortune.
Income Inequality: The bill's distributional effects favor higher-income households. The CBO estimates household resources would decrease by 2-4% for the lowest-income decile (mainly due to cuts to Medicaid and SNAP), while increasing by 4-2% for the highest-income decile, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Key Provisions and Effects:
Tax Cuts: The bill includes significant tax cuts, particularly benefiting wealthy Americans, that are the main driver of the deficit increase, according to Fortune.
Medicaid and SNAP Cuts: The bill proposes cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aimed at reducing spending by $1 trillion over a decade, according to Fortune.
The CBO estimates these cuts could lead to more than 7 million people losing Medicaid coverage.
Extending 2017 Tax Cuts: The bill would extend the Trump administration's 2017 tax cuts, contributing to the projected increase in the national debt.
Other Provisions: The bill also includes provisions related to border security, such as funding for the border wall and hiring more enforcement officers, and new tax deductions for tips, Social Security benefits, and overtime pay.
Note: This is a preliminary CBO analysis, and the bill's legislative text and potential impacts are subject to change as negotiations continue in Congress.
The "Golden Dome" refers to a new, ambitious space-based missile defense system planned for the United States. It's designed to protect the country from long-range and hypersonic missile threats, and is inspired by Israel's Iron Dome.
Here's a more detailed look:
Purpose:
The Golden Dome aims to create a layered defense shield that can detect and intercept missiles at all stages of flight, from before launch to their final descent.
Features:
The system is envisioned to include ground and space-based capabilities, potentially involving a large number of satellites for tracking and attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers.
Inspiration:
While inspired by Israel's Iron Dome, the Golden Dome is significantly broader in scope, aiming to protect the entire U.S. territory from advanced missile threats.
Implementation:
The project is expected to be completed within three years and cost approximately $175 billion. The U.S. Space Force is expected to play a central role, according to SpaceNews, and defense contractors like SpaceX are reportedly vying for involvement.
Political Context:
The Golden Dome initiative is a major part of President Trump's vision for deterring adversaries from attacking the U.S. homeland.
Criticism:
Some experts have expressed concerns about the project's timeline, feasibility, and cost, according to Wikipedia.
This is a terrific summary and analysis by former Colorado Supreme Couirt Justice Mike Bender of many things that the Trump administration has been doing and the "Great Big Beautiful Bill" passed by the House of Representatives this week.
Just before 7:00 this morning, the House of Representatives passed the Republicans’ megabill by a vote of 215 to 214. All Democrats voted no. Two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, joined the Democrats in voting no. Chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus Andy Harris of Maryland voted “present.” The measure now advances to the Senate.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the bill cuts at least $715 billion in healthcare spending, mostly from Medicaid, and $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, causing more than 2.7 million American households to lose benefits. Because the massive debt increase in the measure triggers a 2010 law requiring offsets, it will cut Medicare, as well, by an estimated $500 billion.
Economist Robert Reich points out that Americans making between about $17,000 and $51,000 will lose about $700 a year. On average, Americans with incomes of less than $17,000 will lose more than $1,000 a year. But if you are among the top 0.1% of earners, you’re in luck: you’ll gain nearly $390,000 a year.
The measure roughly doubles the current annual budgets of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in what Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council notes is “the single biggest increase in funding to immigration enforcement in the history of the United States.” It increases ICE’s detention budget from $3.4 billion a year to $45 billion through September 2029, a staggering 365% increase on an annual basis that would permit ICE to detain at least 100,000 people at a time.
It increases ICE’s budget for transportation and removal operations by 500%, from the current $721 million to $14.4 billion. It also calls for $46.5 billion for construction of barriers at the border, including completing 701 miles of wall, 900 miles of river barriers, and 629 miles of secondary barriers, and replacement of 141 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers.”
This bill highlights a truism: In the United States, racism has always gone hand in hand with the concentration of wealth among the very richest people.
By driving white fear of a darker-skinned other, elite southern enslavers convinced the poor white farmers who lost their land in the cotton boom of the 1850s to vote for politicians who insisted that the primary responsibility of the federal government was to protect human enslavement.
In an extraordinary meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa at the Oval Office yesterday, President Donald J. Trump echoed the language of enslavers in 1859 almost explicitly when he insisted—falsely—that white South Africans are facing white genocide. As Tim Cocks and Nellie Peyton of Reuters explain, the conspiracy theory of white genocide in South Africa has circulated among fringe groups of white South Africans since the end of apartheid in 1994. It claims white deaths in a country with a high murder rate are deliberate ethnic cleansing, although data collected by white farmers themselves shows that since 1990, murders of white people make up only 1% of the total number of murders.
But Trump sidekick Elon Musk has embraced the theory, and Trump is pushing it, offering a fast track for asylum to white South African “refugees.” Yesterday, with Musk in the Oval Office, Trump showed to the cameras a picture of people moving body bags, and said “[t]hese are all white farmers that are being buried.” In fact, it was a picture from Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, showing humanitarian workers burying bodies in a war zone.
The administration's immigration policies exacerbate racism, using it to undermine the rule of law on which the Constitution rests. Notably, the administration has ignored the concept of due process guaranteed by the Constitution, with rendition of migrants to prison in El Salvador based not on a review of their cases but simply on the claim—without evidence—that individuals are gang members.
Stories of immigrants arrested by ICE without any criminal history continue to surface, even as administration officials insist those individuals are dangerous criminals. Fewer than half of those swept up outside of Nashville last week had criminal records, although U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called them “violent criminal illegal aliens” and attacked Nashville’s Democratic mayor Freddie O’Connell as being “pro-open borders.”
Yesterday Judge Brian Murphy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that the administration “unquestionably” violated a court order when it rendered eight men convicted of violent crimes to South Sudan. The court had ordered the administration to give the men due process before taking them to a country other than their own. McLaughlin called the judge’s ruling “deranged.”
Taking down the rule of law would permit MAGA officials to persecute their political opponents, indicting congressional representatives, for example, as it has recently done to Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ). It would also permit the concentration of wealth and power without fear of breaking the law.
There is the open corruption, as when the Trump administration officially accepted a 747 as a gift from the Qatari government yesterday, despite the constitutional prohibition against taking gifts from foreign governments. Trump currently says he will not use it after he leaves office, but since Air Force officials say it will take years and up to a billion in taxpayer money to secure it for use by a president, it seems unlikely that he accepted the plane simply to become an exhibit in an as-yet-unstarted Trump presidential library.
And then there is the more hidden corruption.
Last week, David Yaffe-Bellany and Eric Lipton of the New York Times called attention to the announcement by a struggling technology company with ties to China that it had secured funding to buy $300 million of Trump’s cryptocurrency $TRUMP. It appears the company is hoping to curry favor with the president.
Zach Everson of Forbes noted that the Trump family controls about 60% of World Liberty Financial, a decentralized financial platform that produces the USD1 stablecoin, a kind of cryptocurrency that fluctuates less than most cryptocurrencies because it’s pegged to the dollar. World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin began trading yesterday on KuCoin, an exchange headquartered in the Seychelles and banned in the United States after it admitted to violating laws against money laundering and agreed to pay a $300 million fine. A spokesperson for KuCoin told Everson that it had reached out about carrying USD1 after the coin “demonstrated strong demand in certain regions.”
The racism and the corruption are coming together tonight as the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP coin join the president at a private dinner. A Bloomberg analysis of the top 25 wallets shows that 19 are owned by individuals from outside the United States, and many of the winners are companies looking for access to the president. Many of them dumped their $TRUMP coins as soon as they made the cut for the dinner.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reported today that 50 of the people attending Trump's dinner tonight hold crypto assets with names from the alt-right, including Pepe the Frog and swastikas, or that have names that are racist or antisemitic, including the n-word and “F*CK THE JEWS.”
Their language echoes that of the elite enslavers of the 1850s—and for that matter, the Ku Klux Klan members of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the American Nazis of the 1920s and 1930s, and the segregationists of the years after World War II. And just like the elite enslavers in the 1850s, MAGA leaders want to get rid of laws that make it harder for them to monopolize the nation’s wealth and power and are using racism to get voters to support them.
Also like their predecessors, MAGA leaders are getting a significant boost from the United States Supreme Court. In a decision made today on the so-called “shadow docket”—the emergency docket in which the court makes decisions without arguments or briefs and which previously wasn’t used for major rulings—the court made it clear it is willing to abandon the idea of independent agencies. Since 1935, the court has upheld Congress’s right to appoint the heads of independent agencies and has said that the president cannot fire them without cause. Today, in an unsigned two-page order, the court paused orders by federal judges allowing board members at two independent agencies to stay even after Trump tried to fire them.
This is an extraordinary step toward the idea of the “unitary executive,” a theory Republicans began to embrace in the 1980s that because the president is the head of one of the three unique branches of government, any oversight of that office by Congress or the courts is unconstitutional, although in fact presidents since George Washington have accepted congressional oversight. It gives Trump control over the independent agencies that currently run much of the government, agencies like the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board—both part of this case—and also the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and so on.
The six justices who handed down today’s order tried to say that the Federal Reserve Board is different from other agencies because it has a “distinct historical tradition,” so Trump can’t just fire its head, Jerome Powell. Trump has made it clear he wants to fire Powell, but that removal would make financial markets even more precarious than they already are.
The dissent, written by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, notes that “the majority’s order…is nothing short of extraordinary” and “favors the President over our precedent.” The court has abandoned 90 years of precedent under the emergency docket, and misrepresents the case as one about the interests of two employees in keeping their job.
In fact, the liberal justices say, “the interest at stake is in maintaining Congress’s idea of independent agencies: bodies of specialists balanced along partisan lines, which will make sound judgments precisely because not fully controlled by the White House.”
