Musk's return on investment in Trump has just begun

This is about as self-serving as a billionaire can get. Musk plans to abuse his newfound power as Trump's DOGE to protect plans for a new financial service from consumers and to remove safety requirements for Tesla.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-put-277-million-into-the-election-now-he-s-200-billion-richer.  That is a return on investment of the century.  Musk is planning to turn his X (formerly Twitter) into a financial services platform similar to Venmo, but offering far more  serivces.. https://www.pymnts.com/financial-apps/2023/musk-x-will-encompass-users-entire-financial-life-by-2024Eliminating guardrails, allowing Musk to abuse customers as he sees fit in providing financial services is in his best interest, but not in consumer or public interests.Musk sees the Consumer Financial Protection  Bureau as redundant and unnecessary. I see it as the only viable guardrail to keep consumers from being victims of illegal and unfair treatment by powerful banks. “When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life,” Musk said during a company all-hands call last week, per a report by the Verge.“If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.” Imagine a power like the one he represents trying to sell consumers on "efficiency" and DOGE that eliminates consumer protections from financial service providers while he is planning to launch a financial services project as far-reaching as this.  This is beyond corrupt,  using his relationship with Pres. Elect Trump to get it done using the cover of eliminating duplicative agencies to save taxpayer money. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/06/doges-musk-ramaswamy-try-to-sell-congress-on-huge-spending-cuts.html 

Update: 12/21/24   This is what the CFPB is doing, for example, that local and state consumer regulators do not have the ability and resources to do. CFPB sues JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo over Zelle payment fraud

Another Musk self-serving plan: Musk is unsafe at any speed. Musk plans to use his power to remove safety regulations that damage Tesla's interest. Trump team set to end key vehicle safety rule opposed by Elon Musk's Tesla: report

Add this to the already extensive stranglehold billionaires have in media and what we can hear and see to get our news. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Democracy has an oligarch problem. Musk is a player.

More on CFPB:

This, from   https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/resistance-is-not-enough-democrats-have.html   .....                billionaire Elon Musk in charge of Trump's current thinking about cutting "duplicative and unnecessary agencies" has just targeted the recently instituted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . (CFPB)Unnecessary for whom? Certainly not necessary for a billionaire. Duplicative of what agency? It was set up to do what other agencies had failed to do or had the power to do. Per Google AI, The FTC's Bureau of Productions for Consumer Protection ICFstops unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent business practices by collecting complaints and conducting investigations, suing companies and people that break the law. developing rules to maintain a fair marketplace. I spent over 20 years as an executive with consumer protection agencies, one similar to the CFPB on the local level, and a credit counseling agency (non-profit) , dealing with debt, foreclosure, and local, public, and private agencies attempting to help consumers deal with these kinds of financial problems. However, when we attempted to alert the Federal Trade Commission about a pattern of civil fraud, there was no easy way to do it nor was there a focus at the FTC to deal with consumer complaints.  Musk does not have a clue of how important the Bureau is. Per the bureau:

• 4 million+ consumer complaints received responses
• $20.7 billion+ in financial relief as a result of CFPB actions
• 205 million+ people eligible for financial relief and their current target: credit card and bank junk fees.

 

That is a good reason why billionaires should not be making such policies.https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-calls-abolishing-consumer-finance-watchdog-targeted-by-republicans-2024-11-27

Alarm bells are ringing as Trump has indicated a potential desire to turn the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, into a political weapon and to set interest rates per political considerations.  If the Fed begins to raise interest rates as inflation raises its ugly head again, Trump may try to replace the members with loyalists so he could control interest rates to make his regime look good politically. That move would be fought tooth and nail by business interests. The Federal Reserve has the only tool available to fight inflation. They control an overheated economy using interest rates. While high interest rates post-COVID were politically painful, in the long run they have brought inflation down to nearly 2%, an annual rate economists consider healthy.

 Elon Musk's current relationship will likely run into conflict with Trump over tariffs and the environment (Tesla and batteries are important to him, and they depend on environmentally sensitive customers)  Musk also understands science and its value to Space X.  Cuts of government service runs counter to his business tech orientation which is highly dependent on science and data collecting. How that plays out will be a fascinating drama to watch. V Conflict with Trump's team members have already begun. Musk, top Trump adviser clash over Cabinet picks

Possibly an area of conflict between Musk and Pres. Trump is if Project 2025 is implemented. Eliminated as unnecessary are whole agencies at the EPA. . ‘Agencies To Be Deleted’: Vivek Ramaswamy Says DOGE Will Pursue ‘Mass Reductions,’ Fight Bureaucratic ‘Pushback’  In MAGA'S mind, environmental and climate research is unnecessary. Global warming is a hoax, per Project 2025 and Donald Trump. They must think if it is not collecting data that is reported in the media, global warming will go away. Besides, these regulatory agencies cut into corporate profits, and those agency cuts are needed to offset the tax breaks to the rich that will bloat the debt and deficits.  Project 2025 proposes to eliminate any reference to man-caused global warming in government agencies including eliminating agencies who keep track of such unnecessary stuff since there is no global warming man causes.  Among those on the cutting block are possibly  Boulder's National Atmospheric Research labs, and NOAA's chief research facility also located in Boulder, Colorado. . https://www.noaa.gov/about-our-agency  

Interesting, however, is that Trump's pick for energy czar is from Denver, who believes there is climate change, but it is not a crisis. https://www.denverpost.com/2024/11/19/chris-wright-colorado-energy-secretary-nominee

 On the other hand, Elon Musk may see a business opportunity. He already has billions worth of government contracts, especially in space travel, exploration, and rockets. That is his business model. It is taking over stodgy government agencies and replacing them with money-saving contracts under his control and for profit. Running science agencies would more than benefit his bottom line and the automotive and space agencies that already make him the richest man in the world. Trump's victory brought Tesla and Musk 70 billion dollars. It also means that those agencies would serve him, but not the public interest. and competitors.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/11/elon-musk-is-70-billion-richer-since-trump-victory-due-to-tesla-surge.html 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/16/elon-musk-trump-treasury-tariffs/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/climate/trump-noaa-climate-data-weather.html

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/research/other-research-initiatives/environmental-guid

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/07/what-project-2025-would-do-to-climate-policy-in-the-us/

 

Trump's "drill baby drill" The answer""better energy to power America. That's our future".updated 9 1 2024

The MAGA right chants that only oil can or should meet future needs when they cheer Trump's"drill baby drill." Here's an answer to that. The "drill baby" should be replaced by "better energy to power America" because we need to stop being victims of foreign oil cartel price setting, foreign wars, and the disasters of climate change. Those are the challenges in our future, and oil drilling, the answers of the past,  will not meet them.

Update: Sept. 1, 2024

Why are the prices at the pump still so high? They are not, per most recent news ). Reality check: prices at the pump now are less than a dollar more per gallon than they were in December 2019, just before COVID struck and Trump was president. The Democrat response so far to "drill baby drill" has been that we are pumping more oil than ever. This is correct, but it sounds evasive and does not seem to be connected to pump prices consumers are experiencing.  https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/30/business/gas-prices-labor-day-inflation/index.html  

For Trump, " drill, baby, drill" is a chant that appeals to Trump's base supporters. It makes sense to them, but it is nonsense. The "drill baby drill" Trump's answer to prices is a simplistic Our problem is not a supply of crude oil; we already have so much we are exporting. BS that he hopes he can get away with because the answer is complex. No president, Biden, Trump, or Harris can control the price per barrel of oil. The prices are set in worldwide markets by oil cartels and many other factors as the above CNN article describes. However, presidents can cushion the impact on consumers by being smart about it. They are becoming more energy-independent, technology savvy, and innovative while taking temporary measures as needed, including using less environmentally damaging bridges in the future, like natural gas. Yes, it is a matter of supply v demand. The US currently does not have a supply problem that drives prices up. International events and the pandemic have caused wild swings in gas prices at the pump beginning in 2020.  Biden deserves credit for releasing the strategic reserves and increasing oil pumping

The goal should be meeting "energy needs " and not "oil" needs. Going greener adds to "energy" production, not subtracts from it.,  while oil and natural gas serve as a bridge to a greener future. Natural gas, at least, is less polluting than gasoline. Nuclear and hydrogen power are important parts of the future and are green. Thanks to Biden's leadership, wind, solar, and batteries are becoming cheaper more prevalent, and efficient, and more of them are made in America. This greater reliance on "green" will increase in the future. It is in our national and consumer interests that we stop being victims of foreign oil cartels while addressing global warming disasters as we are experiencing now. Note Harris's reversal from opposing fracking for natural gas to supporting it, which shows a pragmatic flexibility to meet immediate needs as they arise.

  Demand crashed during COVID as drivers to work and schools sheltered in place, beginning in the US in February 2020, and prices dropped likewise. Two years later, Russia invaded Ukraine and Europe, supply crashed, and the US had to wean itself off of Russian oil, as did Western Europe.  Worldwide prices spiked; Biden released oil reserves, increasing the US supply, and now the oil reserves have been replenished, though the rest of the world is still filling theirs.  

Strategic oil reserves: Question: Why not fill them with cheaper oil during COVID-19 than now? Answer: the reserve tanks were already almost at legal capacity during Cvoid. The crisis arose when Russia invaded Ukraine two years later, creating a worldwide oil shortage. Biden released our reserves to counter the resulting price spike and pumped more oil, as well.

Strategic oil reserves are where we store extra oil if some unusual demand..like the war in Ukraine and Europe and America had to wean themselves off of Russian oil. Simultaneously, the oil cartels who determine the price per barrel raised their prices, too. Biden released strategic reserves, pumped more oil in the US, kept gas prices among the lowest in the world, and refilled the strategic reserves. It was a slow process because the capacity of where we store reserves and the ability to accept refills were issues. It would have been great to have filled reserves with COVID-19 cheaply, but the problem was Ukraine, and we answered by pumping more oil.

. Simply:: the US does not have an oil supply problem at this time. More oil supply is not the answer at this moment. In the future, it is not the answer, either.. The issue is not that we lack supply that drives the prices; the cartels do. Elsewhere, the rest of the world is still refilling their reserves while many still weaning themselves off Russian oil. We are now the largest oil producer in the world. We are exporting oil, too. Good timing, too, since a war could break out any time in the Middle East thanks to the Israel-Gaza-Iran issues.

Update 12/15/24: Another reason why drill baby drill will not reduce prices at the pump. Gist of the article: supply and demand are set internationally so that even producing more oil will not affect prices at American pumps..

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/why-trump-s-plan-to-drill-baby-drill-is-unlikely-to-cut-gas-prices-and-fix-inflation/ar-AA1vTbWR?ocid=socialshare&pc=HCTS&cvid=4f3b3ab166db4229a26467654ff223d8&ei=21

g

THEHILL.COM

Biden administration says it has replenished strategic oil reserve after Russia war drawdown

(Souce of retaill gas prices at the pump:.https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W )

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-other-big-shift-in-the-presidential-race/ar-AA1oNm9v?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=2a9d137f33bb45f69834150e005f55c3&ei=15

What Trump plans for his second term and how he will do it

 This is not the prattling of a madman, but it is what he plans to do and the plank he will run on, with stealth or right out in the open for all to see.  He learned much from his first term and is determined not to repeat it.  His plans are straight out: to end democracy as we have known it and to become a dictator within four years.   This is not a fantasy; he could pull it off. Poll: Biden’s standing hits new lows amid Israel-Hamas war (nbcnews.com).Trump: 46%; Biden 44%. Believe him; he has been upfront on it, and it is being used as a sales pitch to recruit his campaign workers now.  The groundwork is already being laid by the misnamed Heritage Foundation, and money is being raised. Donations have surged to groups linked to conservative Project 2025 (nbcnews.com)  The related groups have issue agendas that would roll back any legislation that hurt their special interest groups or ideology.  Project 2025's issues agenda: Analysis Exposes Trumpian Project 2025 as 'Far-Right Playbook for American Authoritarianism' (commondreams.org)  in which it finds their agenda is to elevate Christian nationalism, gut civil service, reverse progress on racial, eviscerate LGBTQ+ rights, restrict reproductive freedom, roll back climate action, end "woke" military, overhaul public education, and curb human rights?  These are the money backers that would come into power as Trump, on his part, replaces those who are disloyal with his appointments, including replacing 50 thousand civil servants who do not pass the loyalty to Trump and MAGA and get purged and using the FBI and DOJ to go indict opponents, and continue to use fear of retribution to any in the federal government who would oppose him, while using the military to put down public demonstrations who object.  The damage to our foreign policy and the fear a Trump repeat would do to national security and the security of our allies is also major. Alarm bells are ringing worldwide..Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024 (economist.com).    Donny Deutsch, 11/20/23 on Morning Joe, the advertising guru, rang a bell with me when he said "to go for the gut" in Biden's campaign. "Trump is dangerous; Biden is safe". This depends on Biden and backers educating voters about why Trump is dangerous and convincing them, as well.  So far, not enough voters have gotten that message and will not, until Biden and his supporters start drawing that contrast as a major theme.

 The Heritage Foundation wants to bring to the end the heritage of our kind of democracy.  It is the diametric opposite of the Federalist Society, which was basically state rightist. Trump's plan is to make the executive branch the governing tool over all the other branches, judiciary and legislative..  His first order of business is to get revenge against those who had and are opposing him.  It has nothing to do with issues or improving citizens' lives. Justice for him means getting revenge against his opponents of the past.  However, those organizations backing his proposals also have an issues agenda that is just plain scary.

From the New York Times article section headings: https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-2025-second- If you can get the article, each paragraph contains links to Trump's own words made in public and how he tried before to do something similar.  If you get hit with the paywall, here is a summary, with some comments by me in italics.:

"Trump wants to use the Justice Department to take vengeance on his political adversaries."..  In an interview with Univision he declared" he could, if someone challenged him politically, have that person indicted,"   ‘That’s insane’: CNN panel on what Trump said he would do if re-elected (msn.com)

Alarm bells are ringing as Biden's support among Hispanics is eroding .  Biden's surprising vulnerability: non-white working-class voters (axios.com)(my own comment: Univision's new owner is aiming to turn Hispanics into Trumpsters on the basis that the ills they are escaping are socialism. The real evil is a dictatorship, socialist or communist or fascist, and the message to Hispanics is that they are trading one dictatorship for another one. (This mindset, fear of "socialism" as in Venezuela and Cuba, played a major motivation for Miami turning red and in Florida as a whole:  Listen up, Hispanics: Trump considers their kind who are here "illegally" as "vermin" who are adulterating "our blood". What sort of fools are Hispanics to swallow this?s.) Univision Anchor Leon Krauze Exits After Network's Trump Interview (variety.com)  However, Biden's loss is now reaching past those recent immigrants from Cuba and Venezuela, per the Axios article, but not as much as the Florida situation reflects in other states. GOP rides Latino support in Florida as Miami-Dade turns red | AP News

Related  NYT article section head: "He intends to carry out an extreme immigration crackdown"  with sweeping raids, using military funds to camps to hold undocumented detainees (including those already here for decades), declaring public-health emergency law to shut down the border, ending birthright citizenship.     (My comment: Nearly every family I know with documented and legal members also has those Trump would consider illegal and subject to being sent to his detention camps, including Dreamers)

From the NYT section heading: "Trump has plans to use US military force closer to home", including using federal troops to crack down on protests and to intercept and detain undocumented migrants, using the insurrection act to get around possie comitatus laws forbidding using the active military to enforce domestic laws.  (My comment: General Mark Miley refused to use active troops either for January 6 or against civil unrest, but Trump has already said he should be executed for his treason ...committed against Trump: Mark Milley says Trump disrespected US military with execution comment | CNN Politics )

NYT section head: " Trump and his allies want greater control over the federal bureaucracy and work force"...which to alter civil service rules and "enabling him to fire thousands of federal workers and replace them with loyalists" and a related NYT section head: "Trump allies want lawyers who will not restrain him:" including replacing Federalist Society lawyers. 

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: 2024 is about Putting Trump First, not about putting America First,

Trump called his political opponents 'vermin' echoing language used by Hitler : NPR

Trump's anti-immigrant comments draw rebuke | CNN Politics

Trump heads to US-Mexico border as he escalates anti-immigrant rhetoric | CNN Politics

Trump Threatens Wide Use of Military Force Against Protesters (voanews.com)

Trump Suggests That Mark Milley Deserves Execution - The Atlantic

Opinion | A short history of President Trump’s anti-Muslim bigotry - The Washington Post

Trump's second-term agenda: deportations,  trade wars, civil servant firings | Reuters

Trump compares political opponents to 'vermin' who he will 'root out,' alarming historians - ABC News (go.com)

Are Florida’s Hispanic voters moving more to the right? – WFTV

A personal note: Why am I so interested in the Hispanic community.  My father's grandmother was from Spain, and as a child in eastern Colorado (Brush, Ft. Morgan, Hillrose), his family was bilingual. When I moved to Colorado in 1963, I made it my mission to help Hispanics get a leg up politically and economically in the community, and I began volunteering. My physician husband's closest associate was a Hispanic GP from southern Colorado practicing in Denver. His OB-GYN  practice was bilingual, as well. He was from southeastern Europe and a culture similar to his patients. Every governmental agency I headed or provided community relations services non-profit and private, offered bilingual services, and involved local Hispanics on staff.  I was cabinet and staff for nearly 8 years in the Federico Pena administration when he was Denver's mayor. My largest client as a PR consultant for almost 15 years was auto dealer Mike Shaw, who hailed from the Rio Grande Valley with deep Hispanic roots in Texas. He is a philanthropist at heart, focusing on helping Hispanic youth, among many other disadvantaged, get an education.  A few years ago, he was named National Dealer of the Year by his trade association (NADA) and was the first minority owner of dealerships to be so honored.  We did not share the same political party affiliation, but we shared his philanthropist goals. 

Wildfires heat up partisan politics and the global warming debate

(This replaces a prior version first published on 8/8/18)
A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News August 14-15, 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion/muftic-wildfires-heat-up-partisan-politics-and-the-global-warming-debate/

Here I am sitting in my living room above Fraser, Colorado with my view of Byer’s Peak some 10 miles away across the Fraser River Valley disappearing  in a smoky haze and watching television reports of the devastating record breaking Carr /Mendocino Complex fire in northern California.  Colorado wildfires' smoke plumes blowing my way are fueled by beetle killed  trees the like of which I have never seen in my fifty years of full and part time living in the valley. Does it have anything to do with global warming or climate change?  Yes. There is a relationship, but politics color our opinions and actions and it depends upon whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or a Green. Partisan views get in the way of believing scientific evidence and shaping effective and rational policies. The Trump administration is the leader in denying the science.  A March 2018 Gallup poll found that Democrats take global warming seriously, Republicans are skeptical with 69% of Republicans say global warming is exaggerated.

With a warming globe, whether wildfires are caused by lightening  as two near my home were, or were started by human activity, the problem is the increase in fuel . If you ever tried to get a campfire or a fireplace logs catching fire, you know dry fuel ignites easier, burns hotter, spreads faster.  Global warming temperatures cause early snow melt and ground and foliage to dry out in California .   In Colorado, beetle killed gray ghosts of lodgepole pines occupy much of the mountain landscape and fuel many wildfires.  Per   the US Department of Agriculture,  warming winters have not killed off the beetles  as they once did and dense growth makes it easy for insects to infect the next tree. World meteorologists  agree that rates of wildfires burning forests have not been seen for at least the last 10,000 years. 

In recent years, producers of coal, oil, and gas (fossil fuels) have poured massive amounts of money into GOP candidates and elections. To promote an anti-climate change mantra. the Trump administration not only pulled out of the Paris Climate accord, it has purged any White House reference to global warming/climate change.  August 5, Donald Trump ignorantly tried to claim California wildfires were caused by a environmental policy engineered  water shortage, but reservoirs were full. In addition, the Trump administration has filled policy making bodies with fossil fuel executives who either deny global warming is occurring or contend that fossil fuels are not the cause.  His pro fossil fuel appointees have been taking taking steps  to weaken rules regarding coal powered plant  and future automobile emissions standards.

 Some believe global warming  is  just a natural cycle. No.  It is the speed and extremes that are unnatural. It is a data proven fact that the globe has rapidly  heated up by two degrees since the industrial revolution began 150 years ago and predictions are the earth will heat up two degrees more by the end of this century.  Per NASA, 97% of scientists agree it is"" extremely likely" the warming is caused by emissions by humans. Gases act like a greenhouse roof  and keep heat from released to space ,so the earth warms. Per the Environmental Protection Agency,  the gases released by burning fossil fuels are the "largest source "of these greenhouse  gases (carbon dioxide). There are those who call this "fake science", but  Kate Marvel, writing for the magazine Scientific American’s blog   summed up the scientific community rebuttal to the science deniers ” ....overturning that understanding would take a radical paradigm shift that would call into question much of what we know about physics and chemistry."


This is only a summary of the issues,  but for those who want to know what  the main sources that influenced me  are
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/climate-change-make-wildfires-spread-factor/ 
https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/bark-beetles-and-climate-change-united-states 
https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/07/30/how-climate-change-is-making-disasters-like-the-carr-fire-more-likely/?utm_term=.00af8f63ad54
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/07/trump-climate-change-deniers-443533
 ttps://blogs.scientificamerican.com/hot-planet/open-and-shut-case/

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/drought-and-heat-exacerbate-wildfires

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-to-roll-back-car-emissions-standards/2018/04/02/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-leaders-climate-change.html?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/231530/global-warming-concern-steady-despite-partisan-shifts.aspx
http://time.com/5358661/donald-trump-california-wildfires-water/
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-cabinet-climate-deniers-2ff87aba57ec/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ryan-zinke-tells-california-how-to-stop-wildfires-cut-down-trees_us_5b712e75e4b0ae32af996079
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/colorado-scientists-warn-of-links-between-climate-change-and-worsening-wildfires/

“Noah Deffenbaugh researches the connection between climate and extreme weather as a professor of Earth System Science at Stanford University. He said the longer fire season in California is related to climate change because global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions has increased the average temperature by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

"We're getting warmer and warmer conditions around the globe but certainly here in California and in the western United States we're getting earlier melting of snowpack," Diffenbaugh told ABC News' Brad Mielke on the "Start Here" podcast. "That means that when those warm conditions happen in the summer and fall all the vegetation is even more dried out and that means that when lightning strikes when a spark from a from a car or a campfire hits the ground that the vegetation is more dried out there's more fuel available."https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/climate-change-make-wildfires-spread-factor/

Observers believe the Green vote in 2016 helped the GOP win by contributing to Democratic party losses in at least three key rust belt states and the recent indictments of Russian’s manipulation of US social media showed they supported the Greens to divert votes from Democrats.  In the August 5 Ohio District 12 Congressional special election, Greens garnered 1% of the vote, enough to harm the Democratic candidates’ margin in a razor thin result. The Greens’ own intentions are inadvertently helping “the other side’.  

http://theweek.com/speedreads/789179/meet-spacey-green-party-candidate-who-may-cost-democrats-win-ohios-special-election 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/17/indictment-russians-also-tried-help-bernie-sanders-jill-stein-presidential-campaigns/348051002/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/green-party-votes-made-the-difference-in-the-presidential-election/2016/12/05/68899908-ba38-11e6-ae79-bec72d34f8c9_story.ht

Be careful what you wish: Trump hurricane budget; impeachment downsides

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, September 13, 2017; additional footnotes were added during week

The political world is not a Disney movie. Not all stories end with  a handsome prince or finding true love.  Sometimes politics  gives you the wicked witch instead.  Hurricane relief  and the specter of impeachment are two cases risking the witch effect.

The role of government suddenly had a new meaning to those who believed no good comes from Washington, DC.  Those who once shouted states rights and were  and deficit hawks,  suddenly found themselves demanding federal money no matter what the impact was to federal finances. Harvey  and Irma gave them  a dose of reality.  Sometimes only the federal government has resources to deal with the magnitude of a disaster.

Ideologically driven  dreams  pre Harvey and Irma proved foolish when the Administration advocated  reducing the ability to respond to natural disasters as part of budget  and regulation reductions. President Trump presented his budget wish list to begin October 1 in the form of a “blueprint”. In it, he asked for. $667 million to be cut from  from the  FEMA pre-disaster mitigation grant program and require all grants to be matched by non-federal funds.. Even before Harvey, there was evidence that $1 in mitigation saves  $4 in later damages. The budget proposed by the Trump administration  for forecasting hurricanes  has a 17% cut.

More foolishness: Trump’s proposed budget called for the elimination of the federal flood insurance program which made flood insurance affordable. I recall  a good  friend who survived Katrina and  who had that flood insurance and was able to rebuild even though his home was severely damaged.. While only 20% of Harvey’s victims have flood insurance, it will be their welcomed salvation. It is not only coastal areas that benefit , but  in Denver parts of the neighborhood in which I once lived were on floodplains that qualified for the subsidized, underwritten insurance. Floods are not unknown in Colorado like  Boulder and northern Colorado experienced in 2013.  

The left’s dream is  that Donald Trump will be impeached.   Reasons I suspect are mostly politically motivated.to stop  Trump’ agenda of dismantling the Obama legacy,  his racism,  or a contempt for his persona. Alone these are not  the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard for impeachment in the Constitution. Whether he is fit to serve refers to the 25th Amendment and the process to determine fitness..  Former  Director of National Intelligence  James Clapper added gravitas to the  impeachment movement when he questioned Trump’s fitness, calling Trump’s Phoenix  post Charlottesville divisive   speech “downright scary and disturbing”. . Heavyweight Democratic leaders have differed from impeachment advocates.  In August  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) California   proposed “ patience” for Donald Trump to learn  and  said  he could  become a “good “ president..  David Axelrod,  former Obama adviser, opined  that with  30% plus  of voters still supporting Trump, an attempt to impeach him could be viewed as a  bloodless  coup  and a danger to the constitutional process. In June, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told impeachment talkers to “calm down” and wait for “solid proof”.  That makes sense. . The   most credible proof of misdeeds  or exoneration is Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s  investigation of the Russian connection. Any sabotaging of  the investigation by Trump or the GOP should be fought tooth and nail.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-trump-impeachment-talk-dangerous-163932468.html?.tsrc=fauxdal

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-feinstein-trump-comments-impeachment-20170901-story.html

http://www.newsweek.com/harvey-trump-fema-budget-disaster-preparedness-hurricane-657237

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/5/nancy-pelosi-says-to-calm-down-over-calls-for-dona/

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/23/politics/james-clapper-trump-phoenix-rally-don-lemon-cnntv/index.html

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/08/hurricane-forecasting-is-a-casualty-in-the-war-on-climate-science/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/everybody-baffled-trump-rescinding-flood-protection-rules-senator-says-165246845.html

http://billmoyers.com/story/dangerous-case-donald-trump-robert-jay-lifton-bill-moyers-duty-warn/#.Wb1WldCZgGI.email

http://eliotdaley.com/why-donald-trump-lies-so-much/

http://time.com/4875093/donald-trump-goldwater-rule-history/