Two week mark of the Trump presidency: attempted rule by fear and favor

 To take the standard of the Department of Justice it had until recently, to administer prosecutions "without fear or favor'.is a good standard of how the rule of law should work in order to be as fair and nonpartisan as possible.  It is also a standard for democracy as a whole and describes the ideal fairness standard for which it strives. By the two-week mark of the Trump presidency, Trump has turned that worthy goal upside down, and he is attempting to create a regime using fear and favor to gain power and to keep it.  

This is just the beginning with Trump's opening salvo of decrees and executive orders. The pushback has not begun. We do not know how effective the pushback will be. It will come from the courts and from the voters in the midterm election in two years, which could reinforce the legislative branch, giving them a backbone with a different party in the majority., and restoring some degree of the balance of powers. It could also come from the streets, given the passions and anger Trump has awakened.  It could be propelled by Trump's decisions that result in higher living costs and inflation, disillusioning some of Trump's 2024 voters.

Who is Trump favoring?  Trump is the dream ruler for billionaires. He promises to lower taxes on rich people and free them from administrative constraints on rich people's ability to become richer. These barriers the already rich want to control or eliminate were designed to protect consumers and the environment and to cut the ability of the government to provide help to those unable to help themselves, the sick, the elderly, and racial and societal minorities, Head Start,  and children with poor nutrition. One of the regime's first acts: fire the head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Next, they will attempt to eliminate civil service employees by reclassifying through regulation F, removing protections from political pressures, and replacing them with loyalists to Trump or the ideology of Project 2025 so that government rulings are in step with their priorities. Already executed in Trmp's first week: the end of DEI and the firing of all employees associated with the program. The plan laid out in Project 2025 was to eliminate DEI (diversity) goals in hiring and promotions as if it is to make white males who claimed they were the victims of discrimination the sole government rulers again as they were before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. 

The attempt has virtually neutered Congress so far, with the GOP majority nodding heads or being silent and turning over their power to Trump to do as he pleases. Trump and Musk ignored the Constitution and laws that define the executive branch's role in "faithfully executing" the laws and funding Congress passed. Instead, they are attempting to become the controller of the purse in the place of the legislature.

How could this happen? Trump uses the tools of the powers of government to discipline his followers to comply by threats to primary them if they are House members and to destroy those he sees as political enemies by using the DOJ to bankrupt them by filing criminal action (without even probable cause) against anyone else.  Trump's revenge against anyone who had anything to do with bringing criminal charges against him since 2020 may satisfy his hateful instincts, but it also serves as making an example of how he would treat those he sees as his foes and how he keeps his supporters in line.  It is a rule by fear in political messaging as well. Fear of "others" who are not white males and are immigrants has been the leading drumbeat of his campaigns since he first entered national politics. It has been a successful message and strategy. Trump knows what works, and he knows the soul of his core supporters.

Trump is attempting to rule by favor, as well, as he places in power as a reward for loyalty and campaign contributions, primarily the very rich. Top of the favors he promises are lower taxes, with loss to the treasury offset by a reduction in government and national security services and regulations protecting consumers and the environment.  By placing his loyalists up and down government agencies, he can offer those favors to those who have proved their loyalty to him and his priorities.

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-fires-rohit-chopra-wall-street-consumer-protection-rcna190444?

https://www.yahoo.com/.../invitation-foreign-actors-bondi... Yesieree bob, voters do not need to know what China, Iran, or Russia are doing to help MAGA win in any elections, right? WRONG.

Keeping democracy is more valuable than voting for tax advantages

Memo to my well-heeled friends: Let me say something about priorities and values. Keeping democracy is more valuable than voting for tax advantages. I am not poor. I will leave my children some inheritance. What I want is to leave them a democracy of the kind I grew up with so they can enjoy the same freedom I have had to chart my own life. That is the most valuable inheritance my generation can leave them. I am old enough to have seen what fascism caused, and I have had personal day-to-day experiences with a dictatorship. Trump and those who only care about the power and wealth they have if they get back in power would, yes, destroy the kind of democracy I have enjoyed to regain power. I wish on no one a wannabe dictator beholden to the white Christian nationalist agenda and methods of subversion of the administration of laws and their intent to give the autocrat and his loyalists an advantage. I am White and Christian, and so are my children and grandchildren. Their future shaped by demographics will be in a multicultural, multi-racial society where the best way to maintain domestic peace, stability, and prosperity is with a democracy that includes all, is fair to all, and does not attempt to give priority to an extreme religious group and a 1950's Jim Crow racial suppression as outlined in Project 2025. Trump's attempt to distance himself from such forces as the Heritage Foundation represents has no credibility since he is so transactional. He will cut any deal that enhances his power and keeps him there, as his flip-flop on Florida's abortion ban so recently graphically illustrated. Economies never thrive in those kinds of governance when the country is mired in hateful, revengeful, and tribal conflict, where only those craving power get there and stay there when they meet the ideological litmus test of the ruler instead of the excellence of their abilities. Four years again of Trump and new political circumstances that differ from his first term will only bring such turmoil, instability, and uncertainty that chaos is too kind of a word to describe the damage he will do.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritarian-presidential-election-f27e7e9d7c13fabbe3ae7dd7f1235c72

I found my soul mate last night in Chicago

 I found my political soulmate last night in Kamala Harris. I never quite fit into one or the other strict party lines. Harris was strong on national defense and America's leadership in the world. Like her, I had a background in prosecution and use of regulations for battling consumer fraud and unfair trade practices and a deep understanding of what freedom means.She is mostly an economic populist, not a racial or cultural one like MAGA.. I had first-hand experience in dictatorships, married to an immigrant seeking freedom to be what he wanted to be. She hit all of those high notes, delivered with words that Ronald Reagan could have uttered. His name was invoked by many speakers at the DNC convention. Even on social issues, the theme of the entire convention was freedom, or as Gov. Walz phrased it, "mind your own damn business". That was about as libertarian as it gets. Where there was a coming together between our political blocks was a recognition that immigration was indeed a crisis, and she offered the humane solution, the bi-partisan solution Trump torpedoed. Red, white blue, and the flag and patriotism and love of the country were regained as also accepted and promoted as a Democrat value. Democracy of the traditional American concept was defended and exhorted. Law and order were again values upheld by a career prosecutor, as Kamala Harris has been. Where there was a departure, and even that was limited, was what action and finance needed to solve middle-class hardships and seek opportunity, and that help can come from the government. Even that degree of help was tied to affordability, not free stuff, but is given according to ability, requiring paying part of it. The one free stuff exception was feeding the hungry, breakfast and lunch for young students ( lunch was also offered me in Oklahoma in the 1950s). The other obvious visual departure was the inclusiveness of all Americans in the political process, regardless of race or gender, as contrasted by Trump, who dog-whistles his appeals to only white Christian nationalists as he proposed to favor and rule as constructed in Project 2025. The one fundamental departure from the conservative philosophy of Reagan is a rejection of the trickle-down tax policy, which never worked and has resulted in a handful of billionaires getting richer while growing the national debt while claiming the US cannot afford the middle-class relief Harris proposed.

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Donald Trump's tax dodge

The New York Times was slipped a 1995  personal tax filing of Donald Trump's and the paper printed it.  Since Trump has refused to make his tax returns  public, or the next 18 years' worth either,  the leaked returns leave us with a lot of questions , speculation and a gliimpse into his character and priorities  He is his own priority  since his tax proposals benefit him and he is proud he pays no personal income taxes.

 The 1995 filings show nearly a billion dollara loss and a loophole only those big investors in real estate can use, one that could possibly save him from paying personal income taxes from then until at least now.  He has not disputed that he has paid no income taxes, but instead  he said  in the first presidential debate, it was just proof of how smart he was  His surrogates, including Rudy Guiliani,  went a bit farther, calling him a" genius"..

The question is: how does this help the middle clase and rust belt workers?  He says "trust him; he will fix it" because he knows the tax code so well.  While what Trump did may not have been illegal, he should not be let off the hook so easily.   Hillary Clinton's best line Oct. 3:  "That's putting the fox in charge of the hen house door".  

1.The most damning  part of the returns  was revealing that that he lost a billion in that one year which was the same year there was a boom in real estate.  What sort of a business man is that?  If he is so smart, why not prove it by releasing his  other tax returns .  He  should now be eager to prove that he is so smart.   Or maybe it might show that he used the loophole in subsequent years.  So long as he fails to release his tax filings, we will never know.

If he claims that he has the fiduciary responsibility to investors and his family by using tax loopholes to reduce costs and maximize profits, then a loss of a billion hardly shows responsibility to investors or his own family.  What it does show  he truly made whopping bad judgment calls in  that particular year.

 2.  He should be pinned down on whether he would roll back the same tax loophole that  could benefit him  for the next 18 years. He has a huge conflict of interest in this one.  Will the real estate loss carried forward still be permitted in his "reforms"?  That is the specific loophole which allows him to avoid paying personal taxes  for  the  years following the loss he claimed? So far that loophole is not included in this tax reform plans. The tax system may be rigged but he has not plans to change that particular rigging. 

3.   By not putting his  Trump, Inc. investments into a  blind trust that fits any standard definition,  as he is proposing to do , he will still be benefitted in his  post presidency, assuming  by how  well his children run his business. .  . Talk about a conflict of interest, this is truly epic.
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4. . His adoption of the GOP trickle down tax plans  is the same ones that contributed to thec middle class  being left behind in the past. .  The theory is give the upper 1 or 2% tax breaks, and they will invest more and stiumulate the economy The trickle rarely has happened.  . Even former  GOP Congressman and host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe,  Joe Scarborough, has called “thirty years of trickle down economics,  B___ S___”.

5. His "modified" flat tax  proposal would still make the 1% even richer.  His proposed reduction to a  15% cap on capital gains taxes is no guarantee that the middle class would benefit because there is no mechanism to force any trickle down. It  depends upon whether reducing capital games does stiumulate the economy,  a debatable theory which has not played out in modern history.  Middle class folks without millions to invest would see no direct benefits, but those who have looked at it agree Donald Trump and his family and others like him would gain much.  

6. It would be easy to  paint Trump's  trade policiy proposal to raise duties and tariffs as  good for  those in the rust belt whose jobs went overseas.  However it could be harmful to others, especially in Colorado. Most states are not in the rust belt and Colorado is booming because of our high tech sector.  Our state and its workforce has adjusted to the new tech economy.  There are 11 million others engaged in international trade who would be put in jeopardy with retaliatory  trade policies.. Retaliatory trade actions  from those kept from exporting to the US may not  be just confined to like industries: they could also impact Colorado's beef and grain exports, too. . A recent New Yorker article actually  quotes  the head of Moody Analytics who   makes some statistical projections about job growth under a Trump presidency which show more job losses than gains..

 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/president-trumps-first-term

http://www.ushistory.org/us/59b.asp

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/times-publishes-trump-95-tax-return-documents-show-nearly-1b-n658051

Who do you trust is the right question

In (Romney, Obama) we trust?  Pick one and ask ourselves whom we can trust to do what. Here is a case for trusting Pres. Obama over Gov. Romney .  Obama is on to something when he couches Romney’s last minute  90 degree turn to the center on both domestic and foreign policy issues  as “Romnesia” . Making  “who do you trust?” is  the logical follow up question Obama is now asking .

 The question we should be asking ourselves  is  which Romney  can we trust to  show up in the White House if he is elected?  Whose interests will he represent  in negotiating the profound budget reduction issues and in making the judgment calls on foreign policy in a very dangerous world?

We can trust Obama to carry on, to support legislation that even Congress stopped in his first term.  His newest “pamphlet” on his plans for the next term is simply a compilation of these.    Staying the course will also  12 million jobs in four years anyway, according to two of our most respected business analysts. 

The GOP’s favorite  line is that Obama  did not live up to   promises so  he has failed  to earn your trust by his own measure .  That has a hollow ring since so many of those promises  Obama  made were uttered  before he  was sworn in and the depth of the recession was  known.  Otherwise, the stimulus did create 3 million jobs as promised; the auto industry bailout worked, and the health care law was passed. The economy did not fall into the Great Depression 2, as it was headed in 2008,  and the current  trend lines show recovery in every sector, including jobs. . On foreign policy, Obama’s  pledge to get Bin Laden, to keep us safe from attack , and to get us out of our long wars have been or are being kept.

When Congress flipped into  Tea Party control in 2010, the GOP in Congress was able to block any of  Obama’s remaining agenda, from short term job creation to a Grand Bargain on deficit reduction.

Do we believe Romney’s true moderate self has emerged and we should take  his last most current position  as the real deal, even though it contradicts the position he held the prior  month?  Or do we look at it as a candidate willing to do what  it takes to be elected,  realizing the track he was on for the past year of campaigning was not winning?  Or do we consider to  whom he is beholden?

 Romney has shown no consistent allegiance to ideological values or even economic realities , abandoning them and supporting them when it advances his political fortunes or caters to his political backers. He even proposes an  age old political ploy of proposing a tax reduction to the middle class, even though there is no mathematically plausible possibility  to pay for it.

  If he dreams of a second term,  Romney will have to  live up to his obligations to the advisers and  supporters who are  responsible for his success to date.. They  are Tea Party people, big corporations and the wealthy, and neo cons   who have  supported intervention in  middle east conflicts  in the Bush administration. By his friends shall you know him.

What we can trust Romney to do is  to carry   through on commitments he made through the primaries and  the general election campaign  that have not changed:   overturn Roe v Wade, repeal of Obamacare, keeping 27 million in the ER for health care  ,  restoration of high costs for women's health and senior’s medication, and  elimination of  the guarantee  that Medicare will cover future health care costs .We can trust Romney to favor the “job creators”, the code word for the already wealthy,  in any tax reform , budget proposals and regulatory policy negotiations.

How candidates' first impressions count and how policy positions fortify them

My column in the Sky Hi News today..
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Copyright 2012 Sky-Hi Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. January, 24 2012 3:01 pm

Felicia Muftic: This long trial by fire

Sky-Hi Daily News

The cost of modern presidential campaigns is staggering, and the money flowing into the process is corrupting.

The length of it is brain-numbing, but there is an offsetting value. This long trial by fire gives us greater insight into the candidates' character, perspectives, priorities, and background that soars beyond the issue of the moment.  We get a better initial impression of which direction his/her knee will jerk, and how that translates into policies that affect us.

Publicly stated Issue positions and platforms are still important because they support or contradict first impressions . A wealthy candidate may be “of and by” a certain background, but what that candidate is “for” could either contradict or validate first impressions. We have had many wealthy presidents who still advocated policies benefiting the less fortunate. Mitt Romney does not fit that mold.

Barack Obama in 2008 made some good initial impressions: In ringing rhetoric and quiet interviews he convinced Americans he understood them because his life story of coming from a white, struggling middle class family of loyal American grandparents. He was of, by and for policies that recognized the declining income of the middle class relative to the upper 20 percent that began years before the Bush crash of 2008.

That impression, fortified by supporting policies, trumped the attempt by the Republicans to paint him as an angry black, or a secret Muslim who would sell out America to the  jihadists.

Familiarity can also bring contempt. Documented character flaws could be Newt Gingrich's Achilles heel, but so far it has not stopped him. It is yet unknown how that would translate on the national stage when contrasted with Romney's or Obama's living the ethic of family values.

Romney is coming across as not being comfortable in his own skin. He seems to be a person who fears that if voters realize what a cold-hearted, privileged businessman he is, they would not believe he has their good interest at heart. His caginess about releasing his tax returns and discomfort with his 15 percent personal income tax indeed plays right into the hands of the Occupy Wall Street movement that  raised the awareness of the unfairness of income disparity.

An initial impression of Romney as a rich guy disconnected from the middle class is backed up by what policies he supports. They are not for the middle class. On public record is his throwing Romneycare under the bus, dumping it on the states with no requirement to make heath care affordable to many more than can pay for it now. On his website he promotes a tax structure that decreases taxes on the rich and increases taxes on some poor. Missing is how he will pay for increasing spending on the Pentagon, a more interventionist foreign policy, and reduction of the wealthy's income tax contributions to the Treasury. His priorities would leave little money for investment in education to enable the middle class to achieve their American dreams or to provide infrastructure job creation or to fund block grants to states to provide services, in spite of his lip service to those goals.

Romney has been a flip-flopping pig in a poke when it comes to Social Security and Medicare. He has changed views and now differs from the remaining GOP field by not yet subscribing to their “privatization” or “replacing it with savings accounts invested in Wall Street.” His disquieting solution: Let's sit down and talk.

However, for sure he wants to make employees pay entirely for their own unemployment insurance by investing it in a savings account. He proposes no safety net if those unemployment savings accounts run dry . He rests most solutions on his brand of job creation proposals, lax regulation of business and lower taxes for the well off, the very same policies that led to the middle class's income disparity and the economic disaster Obama inherited.

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