Whining from the left: Trump will play hardball and Dems will get the blame for failing to fix affordability and corruption

 On MSNOW this morning, there was some hand-wringing that Trump will veto every bill sent to him that would lower prices, and they will fail, look ineffective, and lose in 2028.  Trump, the deal maker, is threatening to make a deal to drop investigations into corruption in exchange for not vetoing Dems ' legislation.    The key is who will get the blame for the Dems ' failure to act.  Will it be those who favored working with Trump or playing the blame game and forcing through legislation that would make life more affordable?    Come on, whiners.  It is not a question of one or the other: deal with Trump or play hardball. In the blame game, it is a two-step process:. Throw Trump a softball: the chance to veto t or o agree to whatever the Dems send him. Step twp: then make a big deal of who is the real villain here. That is the hardball. There is no doubt Trump will play hardball. The strategy is for both "love your neighbor advocates "to go first, while the Dems as a whole are keeping the faith that Trump to be true to his form, never admit defeat, and stop the libs at any cost.  After all, he thinks he has nothing to lose because he will never face voters again. As self-serving as he is, he will not care what happens to the GOP in 2028 even if his hardball backfires on them.

What the whiners forget:

1. Do you really think if you drop hearing on Trump's corruption, he would sign Medicare for all ( or the more likely version: Medicare for those 55 and older )or reverse his tariffs, or withdraw from Iran,, and restore the cuts to  SNAP, Medicaid, and the ACA? That would be out of character because it would be admitting he was wrong. He never does that. The assumption is that the remaining GOP Senators up for re-election in 2028 will not stonewall what the House sends them and that the Senate majority leader can forge the coalition or destroy the supermajority 60-vote filibuster rule.

2. Look at the exit polls; My guess, in my touching bases with former Trump supporters who voted blue, corruption and Epstein were even more important, or just as important a motivator to them, than affordability alone. The disgust factor was powerful, whether they were turned off by his failure to make life more affordable, or by the fact that he was corrupt, padding his pockets, or hiding Epstein files.. As one Marie Antoinette cabinet member clone insinuated, in so many words, it was to let them eat beans if they could not afford beef. If Dems fail to at least pick the easiest several corrupt practices that expose Trump's worst corruption, and/or come up with legislation that plugs loopholes,  they will for sure lose that issue and look ineffective and useless..  Dems cannot afford to drop their oversight hearings. Corruption was just too big a factor in the midterms.

3. It depends on who gets the blame in the next two years on how effective, speaking with one voice, to make sure Dems made a good-faith effort and to paint Trump as the villain  after they give him a chance to play nice. Yes, it is important who the (new )Senate majority leader is if the ultimate winner in the blame game will be the Dems. It must be the one who can keep this broad coalition on the same track,  bring enough  GOP Senators along, and communicate that to the voters. 

Is America becoming the new Taliban? Sharia law and islamphobia post Nov.3, 2026

 As soon as the Blue Tsunami became a reality, some of my MAGA friends began expressing fear that the election of Muslims to Congress and the Senate would lead to the imposition of Sharia Law on all of us.  My first response was to suggest they learn more about it and the likelihood of it happening. My conclusion boils down to this: so long as we have separation of church and state and uphold the First Amendment, it will never happen.   

Sadly, though, within the Evangelical Christian movement there are those who do not believe in separation of church and state. However,  as the religion they advance is theirs and their specific theology.  Among those are Speaker  Johnson : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/15/mike-johnson-separation-church-state-misnomer.  Others in the administration, per Google search,:

• "Brooke Rollins (Secretary of Agriculture): Sued in May 2026 by Department of Agriculture employees represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State after issuing an Easter message to agency workers that compared them to Christ's disciples. [1]
"Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense): Cited by watchdog groups and reports for delivering religious messaging and participating in or launching agency prayer services during work hours. [1]"

 The Texas Board of Education attempted to push evangelical religious beliefs into school curriculum and on Nov. 3, that board was replaced by Democrats in the jaw-dropping midterms. https://baptistnews.com/article/texas-board-of-education-gets-huge-pushback-on-religion-infused-curriculum/. 

https://www.tpr.org/podcast/texas-matters/2026-11-06/texas-matters-the-state-board-of-education-flips-will-a-blue-texas-go-green-and-how-elon-musk-lost

I revisited some of my past postings and columms that were carried in the local newspaper.  It is indeed possible that the promotion of Stephen Miller to the position of Trump's chief of staff on Nov. 6, 2026 will get praise from those who fear Muslims in government. Not only is Miller known for shaping the cruel ICE policies that caused the revolt on Nov. 3  of former Hispanic supporters of Trump, and  Texas turning blue,  he is the chief architect of Trump's Islamophobia rhetoric and orders as well..  One of my Facebook pages lit up Nov. 4 with memes of fear of Muslims who were elected to Congress and the Senate. There are still those within MAGA who fear that the US will be governed by sharia law.." Just you wait and see" fear.  My answer to these is first, learn about what sharia law is about and why the First Amendment would stop it just as it would stop Catholic Canon Law or a variety of Jewish religious laws from becoming the law of the land, and then take a deep breath before mongering more fear.   For education on the issue, I will not repeat the content, but Congress has already had some say and thoughts that should be considered as a first step in dealing with such fears.I recommend it:   https://theconversation.com/what-is-sharia-law-and-why-is-it-so-controversial-in-the-united-states-294224

With the leak of the majority opinion draft that would end Roe v. Wade, the issue of the rights of women in a variety of situations is a political and cultural hot potato again.  I found this in my blog in 2011 in a reaction to anti-women rights measures springing up in some southern states Its thesis is that perhaps Sharia law is not to be feared as the law of the land, but that there are those within our own country who want to impose sharia-like law in the US.  That is more to be feared.  The parallels did not escape me then.  So from 2011; a column published in the Sky Hi News:Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Update: 11/8/2026: https://theconversation.com/what-is-sharia-law-and-why-is-it-so-controversial-in-the-united-states-294224?fbclid=IwY2xjawVdcr9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mBWJyaWQRMXJiYWlqdGJJYVB2Q1BkdTVzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEfX3_Ve8e2z25ylFYEp1HQC06_4FDUul5q8iDSeFqQLbPiDzktsYvqjirzdMg_aem_YuDoDkIC_ki88skCzlQk2A

Column for March 2,2011: Fear Sharia law? Women have more to fear in the US now.

Terrified of Sharia law? We women only need to look closer to home to find some Republicans who want to put us back into the Middle Ages. 

The Shariaphobia would be comical if it were not such a pervasive talking point in right wing media. Last November, citizens of Oklahoma voted to outlaw Sharia law in their home state. Execution of it was immediately put on hold by the courts as unnecessary. No one was ever contemplating considering Sharia law in court rulings.

Shariaphobia is spreading to more open minded states, as well. I received a mailing from conservative Colorado former Senator Bill Armstrong giving us a choice between our constitution or Sharia law. The thesis? Freedom of religion should not be extended to Muslims since they promote violence. Both the Oklahomans and Armstrong's writer exhibit extreme ignorance of the uneven and selective cherry picking application of Sharia law that varies from Muslim country to country. They also have a basic lack of understanding of the primacy of secular laws in the US.

For those not familiar with Sharia law, it is a system of religious based law not found in the Koran, but it was written by those who interpreted the Koran (some would argue falsely) to restrict the rights of women to own property, to divorce among other anti-women measures. Where Oklahomans and everyone else caught up in this paranoia go off the rails is that our Federal and State laws always trump local religious “laws.” Just ask the Mormon sect who try to get away with polygamy and rape of underage girls about that.

So long as women have the vote in the US, Sharia law stands a chance of becoming the law of our land less than an ice cube surviving in a cauldron of a volcano. Our secular democracy, with separation of church and state, is likewise our greatest protection from anything like Sharia law being imposed on us unwillingly as part of an established official religion. We need to guard that protection provided in our Bill of Rights with vigilance. Besides, Muslims constitute less than 1 percent of the US population and even if they were united in a goal to turn us all into Muslims, they have a long way to go.

What women ought to fear, however, is a home grown, real, and immediate threat: some members of the Republican Party and even in some cases, official GOP policy itself. Our gains we have fought for and won since the ‘60's are threatened by them now.

A Georgia state legislator wants to change the legal term for those who were victims of rape, stalking and domestic violence from “victim” to “an accuser.” Such female victims would no longer be referred to as victims, reviving the age old prejudice used as a defense by men that it was always the woman's fault. Glad he did not propose throwing stones at the “accusers.” At least that.

In Congress, Republicans have proposed that hospitals would allow a woman to die rather than perform a lifesaving abortion. Yesiree. They want to let government take away doc's and a woman's discretion to decide who would have a right to life.

Here's one for the Taliban books: Maryland Republicans ended all money for low income preschool programs because “women should really be home with kids, not out working.” Whatever happened to welfare reform that put welfare women to work? What are we back to: Nazi era “Kinder, Kuchen, Kirche” (children, kitchen, church)?

This one is great for horse lovers but not for female humans: In Congress, Republicans voted on cutting all federal funding from Planned Parenthood and are promoting eliminating all funds for federal family planning programs. However there is a bill introduced by a Republican to provide contraception for wild horses.

Just tell me it is not true, Republicans. Spare me from GOPhobia.

To comment go to http://www.skyhidailynews.com/. Documentation is posted at www.mufticforum.com/footnotes.

Islamophobia is a thread in Trumpism that predates years before his riding down on the golden escalator and wnning his first term.  9/11 kicked it into high gear and it was still a hot issue when my column on it was published in 2011.  With the leak of the majority opinion draft that would end Roe v Wade, the issue of the rights of women in a variety of situations is a political and cultural hot potato again.  I found this in my blog in 2011 in a reaction to anti-women rights measures springing up in some southern states Its thesis is that perhaps Sharia law is not to be feared as the law of the land, but that there are those within our own country who want to impose sharia-like law in the US.  That is more to be feared.  The parallels did not escape me then.  So from 2011; a column published in the Sky Hi News:Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Update: 11/8/2026: https://theconversation.com/what-is-sharia-law-and-why-is-it-so-controversial-in-the-united-states-294224?fbclid=IwY2xjawVdcr9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mBWJyaWQRMXJiYWlqdGJJYVB2Q1BkdTVzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEfX3_Ve8e2z25ylFYEp1HQC06_4FDUul5q8iDSeFqQLbPiDzktsYvqjirzdMg_aem_YuDoDkIC_ki88skCzlQk2A

Column for March 2,2011: Fear Sharia law? Women have more to fear in the US now.

Terrified of Sharia law? We women only need to look closer to home to find some Republicans who want to put us back into the Middle Ages. 

The Shariaphobia would be comical if it were not such a pervasive talking point in right wing media. Last November, citizens of Oklahoma voted to outlaw Sharia law in their home state. Execution of it was immediately put on hold by the courts as unnecessary. No one was ever contemplating considering Sharia law in court rulings.

Shariaphobia is spreading to more open minded states, as well. I received a mailing from conservative Colorado former Senator Bill Armstrong giving us a choice between our constitution or Sharia law. The thesis? Freedom of religion should not be extended to Muslims since they promote violence. Both the Oklahomans and Armstrong's writer exhibit extreme ignorance of the uneven and selective cherry picking application of Sharia law that varies from Muslim country to country. They also have a basic lack of understanding of the primacy of secular laws in the US.

For those not familiar with Sharia law, it is a system of religious based law not found in the Koran, but it was written by those who interpreted the Koran (some would argue falsely) to restrict the rights of women to own property, to divorce among other anti-women measures. Where Oklahomans and everyone else caught up in this paranoia go off the rails is that our Federal and State laws always trump local religious “laws.” Just ask the Mormon sect who try to get away with polygamy and rape of underage girls about that.

So long as women have the vote in the US, Sharia law stands a chance of becoming the law of our land less than an ice cube surviving in a cauldron of a volcano. Our secular democracy, with separation of church and state, is likewise our greatest protection from anything like Sharia law being imposed on us unwillingly as part of an established official religion. We need to guard that protection provided in our Bill of Rights with vigilance. Besides, Muslims constitute less than 1 percent of the US population and even if they were united in a goal to turn us all into Muslims, they have a long way to go.

What women ought to fear, however, is a home grown, real, and immediate threat: some members of the Republican Party and even in some cases, official GOP policy itself. Our gains we have fought for and won since the ‘60's are threatened by them now.

A Georgia state legislator wants to change the legal term for those who were victims of rape, stalking and domestic violence from “victim” to “an accuser.” Such female victims would no longer be referred to as victims, reviving the age-old prejudice used as a defense by men that it was always the woman's fault. Glad he did not propose throwing stones at the “accusers.” At least that.

In Congress, Republicans have proposed that hospitals would allow a woman to die rather than perform a lifesaving abortion. Yesiree. They want to let government take away doc's and a woman's discretion to decide who would have a right to life.

Here's one for the Taliban books: Maryland Republicans ended all money for low income preschool programs because “women should really be home with kids, not out working.” Whatever happened to welfare reform that put welfare women to work? What are we back to: Nazi era “Kinder, Kuchen, Kirche” (children, kitchen, church)?

This one is great for horse lovers but not for female humans: In Congress, Republicans voted on cutting all federal funding from Planned Parenthood and are promoting eliminating all funds for federal family planning programs. However, there is a bill introduced by a Republican to provide contraception for wild horses.

Just tell me it is not true, Republicans. Spare me from GOPhobia.

To comment go to http://www.skyhi

dailynews.com/. Documentation is posted at

www.mufticforum.com/footnotes.

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/11/who-is-this-stephen-miller-he-is-now.html

Who is this Stephen Miller? He is now, next to the President, the most powerful man in government

Yesterday, Stephen Miller was promoted to Donald Trump's chief of staff. This was Trump's response to the blue tsunami... raising his middle finger in a salute to what voters did on Nov. 3.  Trump is so distracted by building monuments to himself that he now has a lieutenant, an assistant he can trust to run the executive branch. If Miller is true to his past, he will pave the way to continuation of Nov.3  results into the 2028 presidential cycle.   So who is Stephen Miller? From my January 2026 blog post: 

The real shame is that so many Americans share or tolerate his (Trump's) racism.

The other shame is that his racist whisperer is in his ear daily and given a permission slip to proceed. Stephen Miller, on his staff, has a long history of white nationalism. If anything, Miller's contribution to the Trump regime is his anti-immigrant stance, including using the cruelty of family separation as a tool and in deporting immigrants without due process. He is viewed as an extremist in these sensitive matters. Given his anti-immigrant reputation, I doubt if the Bill of Rights and the civil rights-related amendments would be high on his required list of curriculum topics. The Southern Poverty Law Center tags him as an extremist.https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/stephen-miller/. Miller is in charge of this ICE project aimed at ridding the country of as many brown people as he can under the pretext that migrants are criminals, when 70 percent of those they grab have no criminal record.. ..but are brown and are both American citizens and who only committed a misdemeanor of being undocumented. Miller's campaign involves eliminating the birthright citizenship of those born in the US and cleansing them from this country.

The next two years after the blue tsunami lis about the 2028 elections: The campaign begins now.

 The race for 2028 begins now. The biggest challenge Dems will face is to prove they have a plan to deal with affordability that makes sense and to blame Trump’s veto pen if they fail. The immediate cures will be ending the Iran war and rolling back tariffs as well as ending the Ukraine conflict that does not cave into Putin . All of those caused the high prices of fuel and groceries. What happens to health care will be the biggest issue I predict in 2028. . However, the bad taste in the mouth that will bleed over into 2028 will also be MAGA ‘s sexism and racism and the stench of corruption.

The new crop up of and down the ballot winners full of diversity and driven by a desire for economic fairness Nov 3. will be motivated to put up intense fights. That was their answer to the racist white Christian nationalism of the Trump regime and shifting the costs of living to everyone who was not super rich. The biggest winner in the midterms was not a ballot item but democracy that worked to restore control of, by, and for the people and stopped the slide into authoritarian rule by a wannabe strongman governing by fear and revenge and trampling into dust the rule of law, helped by his merry band of tech and big business oligarchs.

Will capitalism survive? I can hear it now as shrieks of horror that the DSA will take us over. The DSA was successful because it stuck to its public plank of affordability and economic fairness. I did not hear support for its other plank of ending capitalism. They did not get a mandate for that. What I do think is that after the dust settles, capitalism will emerge healthier.

Crony capitalism run by oligopolies and only interested in profits is what drove Marx and gave wings to the Soviet-style dictatorship, where means of production were in government control with central planning. That in time failed to produce enough financial success to sustain its socialist agenda of free everything. DSA plank differs little from this economic system, but the democratic word in their title means people vote to have that system instead of the Stalinist method of brutal force to stamp out all but the proletarians.

Capitalism does best when the free market sorts out the losers and winners because there is competition that determines the best practices. Bribery, pay-to-play, monopolies, and advantages given to the ruler's supporters are capitalism's enemies. In addition, many services demanded by ordinary constituents are not profitable, but capitalism based solely on profits will also not provide them either. Safety nets and basic services demanded by the masses need support, and tax policy is what provides that. .The balance between social services and capitalism varies from country to country, and voters will determine that balance in a democracy. For those concerned about communism, the quickest way to that is for capitalism to fail to address its problems within a democracy like ours.

The one sector that will likely do more than just fill in the gaps that capitalism cannot provide will be health care. That one may go left...but the discussion will be between full Medicare for all or some version that will extend Medicare and Medicaid to younger age brackets.. To pay for it will take an adjustment in the tax system built to protect the ultra-wealthy. France often rates the greatest consumer satisfaction with their socialized medical system. I had the opportunity to ask the French ambassador to the US years ago how the French tolerated the tax system, and the answer was they felt they were getting their money's worth. That's a judgment call, and the debate in Congress in the next two years will tell us where health care falls in that balancing act in the US. At minimum, the cuts to all those health programs may get restored. How far it goes to provide Medicare for All is yet to be seen, but polls suggest there is majority support for the concept. In the middle, it may be to move health care providers to become not-for-profit. Americans may have had enough of profiteering at the expense of their health care.

Even then, with expansion in Medicare, there may be gaps in the ability to pay co-pays, as it is with Medicare now. Private insurance still should be allowed, but at least the system should be built so that no one has to go broke to get the health care they need to pursue living that modern medicine can provide. Within that system, formularies and competitive bids to provide pharma and procedures can be used to bridle the obscene profits private health provides . Innovation and research should be well funded,too The good news is that Medicare provides the outline of the system so it does not need to begin from scratch, and we know the cost of administration. per participant. The other good news is that the cost of many subsidies may be offset to some degree by expanding the pool to include more healthy young participants, reducing the cost per member by spreading the risk widely.

https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/current-and-historical-public-opinion-on-medicare-for-all-and-other-national-health-plan-proposals/