Warning to seniors: do not doze on the DOGE. It may be dangerous to your health or your pocketbook. The DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, who never had to worry about a social security check or getting ripped off by a lender for junk fees or dirty tricks, is now out to tinker with social security, health care, product safety, the environment, and consumer protections. Efficiency and abuse are always worthy targets of improving government, but if it results in taking away consumer protections or restricts eligibility and benefits, do not be asleep at the wheel. If it results in feathering Musk's pockets and cripples his competitors, that is corruption on steroids. As an older person myself, one of the most infuriating is having to deal with all kinds of technological bariers to solve a problem. Dealing with automation can be a non-starter. Demands of being tech savvy, having computer literacy, and the inability to talk to a human being about a problem is hard on older consumers who did not grow up with cyber. Cutting the government workforce will mean customer service will get even worse.
WELCOME TO THE BLOG 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.
Friday, December 6, 2024
Saturday, November 30, 2024
The problem is not religion, it is how Project 2025 abuses it
Project 2025, to be activated by Trump regime appointees, is how Christian nationalists plan to take over the government. Much evil has been done in the name of religion to gain political and economic power. That is not new to human history, sadly. https://kettering.org/project-2025-the-blueprint-for-christian-nationalist-regime-change/ Update: 1/16/2025: Trump is scheduled to sign 100 executive orders on Day One, including those the Heritage Foundation devised in their Project 2025 blueprint.
Project 2025 comes perilously close to violating the First Amendment. Instead of Congress being forbidden to establish laws, (" The First Amendment of the United States Constitution's wording on religion ( "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), the executive branch would do it de facto by executive orders and administrative rewrites.
Added 12/8/2024: Project 2025 also comes close to revving up racial tensions. The extent to which everyone blames racism for any policy disagreement is not surprising because racism is what drives the influential faction at MAGA as it also drives the fear on the left that the oppression they fought against in the civil rights movement is now in jeopardy.....The anti-DEI laced throughout Project 2025 is evidence that MAGA's hands are not clean.. The document now being activated with the Trump appointments is viewed by many, including me. as a plan perpetuated by and for white Christian nationalists who want to impose their unpopular policies on the majority, whether those of us with policy disagreements want them or not. They are doing this with subterfuge, executive orders, and appointing loyalists to their cause in place of civil servants to avoid taking their plans to court or Congress. It is a sneak attack on civil rights that will foment a backlash. Trump and Project 2025 plan to turn civil rights law against the vulnerable | Vox
Jesus brought a new message. The Golden Rule had always been part of the Jewish theology. Jesus, a rabbi, gave it a new and stronger emphasis in his sermons. He advocated peace, turning the other cheek, treating your neighbor as yourself, forgiveness, rendering unto Caesar, etc., and blessed those, the least of these, in the Beatitudes list. The current evangelical movement now preaches the opposite. It regales in cruelty (immigration family separation) and condemnation of others and uses politics as an instrument to spread their values that have little to do with Christ's teachings. White nationalists work under the banner of Christianity. Per some, Christian nationalists and White Christian Nationalists are the same In Project 2025, affirmative action has become a dirty word in an anti-DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) crusade. In the 2024 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris was attacked as a beneficiary of DEI policies, inferring she, a person of her races and gender, could only have risen to her positions thanks to DEI.,,racist dog whistles if there ever were.
https://advancingdei.meltzercenter.org/resources/the-impact-of-project-2025-on-dei-initiatives/
https://www.cswe.org/advocacy-policy/anti-dei-legislation-tracker/
https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrf-exposes-christian-nationalist-bent-of-trumps-proposed-cabinet/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-is-christian-nationalism-and-why-it-raises-concerns-about-threats-to-democacy
https://isps.yale.edu/news/blog/2022/10/understanding-white-christian-nationalism
https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/trumps-achilles-heels-unintended.html
https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrf-exposes-christian-nationalist-bent-of-trumps-proposed-cabinet/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-names-project-2025-architect-russell-vought-to-key-white-house-role
On the horizon is a long list of unpopular public policies that the Trump administration will try to implement. Many of those unpopular policies will be an unpleasant surprise because Project 2025's strategy and activation plans were ignored or because their media sources failed to report them or dismissed them as just jokes or wish lists. https://open.substack.com/pub/
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Resistance is not enough. Democrats have a winnng leg to stand on updated 12/14/2024
Resistance is not enough. Democrats have a winning leg to stand on that MAGA does not: It is economic fairness, the lack of which is underlying the demise and resentment of the middle class. Such economic populism can work both ways depending upon who gets the blame. In 2024 Trump won as more voted for cheaper and in 2025 we will get higher prices and much more: inflation per every economist on the planet. The fallout will not only be political, it will be painful for anyone who is price-sensitive. The last time we tried such a stunt was in the early thirties. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/smoot-hawley-tariff-act
That is the Democrat's messaging challenge: to make sure the Trump regime gets the blame when inflation happens and health care becomes more expensive again, as the cost of housing keeps on soaring, and grocery prices increase, making the Biden era look like the good old days.
In fact, if there was one issue that tipped the election to Trump, it was his promise to lower grocery prices. He made a big deal of it in his campaign, he promised he would, polls confirmed that was the reason he won, and now he is already admitting he will have a hard time rolling back grocery prices. In fact, the likelihood that grocery prices will inflate will be due to his tariffs on imports from Mexico and a labor shortage from farm to processing caused by mass deportations. https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-already-walked-back-221600205.html
Trump says it will be 'hard' to bring grocery prices down. Here's why. Already, Trump is blaming Biden, not COVID-19, not supply chain mess-ups, empty shelves, or stimulus checks causing more demand than supply. As Biden leaves office, grocery price inflation had been near zero for the past year. However, if grocery prices go south, tariffs and immigration mass deportations will be to blame,. The message must be more than "we told you so," but to tie it to Trump's own actions and deserved blame for whatever happened on his watch.
Update 1/20/2025 WORTH a read if you can getting through the paywall. My thoughts: if the the feds won't do it, states are trying.
To add insult to injury, the 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.
For simplicity in messaging, Democrats can paint the GOP (the Trump version) as the party of billionaires while the rest of us sacrifice what makes our lives easier in order to enable their tax breaks and deregulation. Perhaps, as others have called this, we could tag this as government by an oligopoly or use the Russian term oligarchs. Trump is still in charge, however, and he sees a benefit to his ego, the measure of his own wealth and influence. to be part of this peer group, and he owes them for important financing of his 2024 campaign.
If there is one policy issue that will cause a backlash by everyone, this is it. High tariffs equal high prices. Such inflation caused low-information voters to switch to Trump. It could also cause them to switch back to Democrats. Trump's campaign promises of reducing costs of living for those on a budget are doomed to failure if he makes prices higher and he sabotages what the middle class has taken for granted, access to affordable health care, consumer protections from corporate greed, and social security and Medicare for those who retire.
. In my early adulthood, the middle class could own a home, send kids to college, mom could be a stay-at-home one, and even maybe take a vacation. The income dad bought home was sufficient. Their buying power permitted it. Since the 1970's the trend to keep that going slowly died off as tax and perk policies, money (now dark, thanks to Citizen's United) from corporate and individually wealthy billionaires have flowed into the political system, sucking the middle class dry with their favoritism and self-interests. Now, they are the ones, yes, like Elon Musk, whispering in the ears of Trump. So long as Trump delivers on his promise to lower grocery prices, the stock market remains bullish, gas at the pump remains at under $3 and the cost of what the middle class buys becomes cheaper, no one cares if the oligarchs get richer.
Trump is now doubling down on tariffs on even our largest trading partners: Mexico and Canada, in addition to Asian countries, policies guaranteed to make nearly everything middle-class buys more expensive. If he continues with that insanity, the backlash will be more than palpable, but Democrats have to be able to seize the day, putting the blame where it belongs, and then make the case in simple terms they can make life better. They failed to do that in 2024. Saying and doing the same way over again won't work. They need to get their messaging methods and content retooled and refocused on what the electorate is feeling at the time.
The Democrats ' answer should be a return to their roots and re-establishing their historic posture of the party of those who are struggling to make ends meet. The history of the Democratic party used to be as a champion for those left behind. There is no hypocrisy here and plenty of credibility. Democrats can make the case in the next four years that rule by the ultra-rich on behalf of their corporate interests may talk the populist grievances and say "they feel your pain," but the walk they walk is just making themselves richer.
https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/elitists-v-simple-speakeducation-is.html
https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/trumps-achilles-heels-
https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/10/democracy-has-oligarch-problem.html
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R42615/6#:~:text=The%20Consumer%20Financial%20Protection%20Bureau%20(CFPB)%2C%20which%20formally%20started,the%20Dodd%2DFrank%20Act).
ttps://www.newsweek.com/will-trumps-tariffs-drive-inflation-1995274
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Could the Democratic National Committee become the voice of resistance: update Feb 1 2025 Ken Martin
updated: Feb 1 2025;Ken Martin elected next DNC chair God speed. He has the track record to do it.
Could the Democratic National Committee become the voice of resistance? The Democrats have got to be ready to promote and ride a backlash against the Trump regime with a coordinated message and then get their spokespersons with the same message on all of those media outlets.. The coordination must come from one political source orchestrating the strategy, such as the DNC or a Democratic Party Chair. There are two basic problems: one. Coming up with a message that all special agendas making up the DNC can agree on and avoid getting hung up on details and cultural issues. The other concerns are the mechanics and methods.
The message: To keep being tied up in knots, there should be a simple statement of the basic principles on which all of the party stands that all its various voices can agree. Such principles should be invoked as slogans or keywords in all responses and then repeated again and again. Jargon and references to even laws and constitutional provisions requiring a level of education should be treated as subpoints. Trump and MAGA are not keen on laws and the Constitution. Simple Engish using common words is used instead of political science terms (exception: democracy). The main point should be what X policy does to real-life coping, not whether it violates this or that law or constitutional amendment, Democrats can put it in terms of what economic opportunity does for all of the people. . If the DNC cannot agree on simple, attractive words, Democrats are in real trouble. The response to Trump's specific policies would always refer to those principles using keywords to describe the principles on which Democrats stand and how Trump violates them. Hammering in those appropriate keywords in every response should be included in any message.
My nomination for DNC chair is Pete Buttigieg. He is by far the best communicator in the Biden administration...and as a former mayor, he gets many issues those wrapped up in the Beltway speak do not get.. He personifies simple speak vs elitist speak. He also is a talented and able large organization administrator as he proved by being Secretary of Transportation. What Mayor Pete brings to the job fills the need most lacking in the DNC,if that is to lead the resistance. is communication in a style that reaches the grassroots and ordinary people.
TIME magazine had an interesting take on the election. https://time.com/7175545/trump-election-authoritarian-democrats-loss/ It made the point that voters wanted an authoritarian leader and were well aware of all of Trump's negatives and Project 2025. It also made the point that Democrats need to sell their values. Democrats should not assume that their values are either known or even valued by half of Americans. That means translating those values to how Democrats help Americans have a better life. It means better messaging. Lord knows Harris did her best to do it. Freedom signs were everywhere. However, promises of a better future lost to a painful post-COVID recovery of the past four years of the Biden administration. The opportunity will arise for Democrats as Project 2025 puts its feet to the metal with policies that harm Americans and make it harder for them. If Trump carries through with his tariff policy or yanks grandmother or mom undocumented migrants out of their families, inflation or cruelty may be more than many can tolerate, and Trump's core appeal of mass deportation and lower grocery prices will backfire.
This reminds me of discussions I had a few years ago with former East Germans about the change from oppressive communism to being integrated into a unified western Germany. "Yes", said one I remember. "It's nice to have the freedom of speech of a democracy, but life is harder without the perks Communism provided, especially totally without copays, higher education and health care, and a guaranteed paycheck." That shocked my fellow American travelers who overheard that conversation. Never assume everyone treasures liberal values of personal freedom and less government control life choices unless those values also address the reality of day to day existence. In 2024, fascist-like political parties promoting authoritarianism and anti-immigrants are on the rise across western Europe. Trump's return is related.
Here are some examples of messaging that could work in anticipated MAGA public policy failures. These are traditional Democrat values, but at least it is a sharper and simpler focus of putting those failures in perspective to sell the advantage of Democratic values in contrast with the predicted overreach of Trump.2. Not everyone wants to "blowtorch" government as MAGA undertakes "destruction of the administrative state". https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/24/trump-vow-to-blowtorch-disrupt-government-finds-appeal-with-americans/
Values Democrats can agree on and how they relate to public policy should not be that hard to list. Here are some suggestions.
Freedom
Opportunity
The methods of coordinating and reaching voters are equally important. Obviously, when most voters get their messages via social media or a wide variety of talk shows, podcasts, and YouTube, it is no longer enough to rely on cable shows and print media.
The old saw: I do not belong to an organization. I am a Democrat...does not work in this era of so many different ways people get information that shapes their views. Coordinating needs to be centralized and on the same page when those basic principles are applied. It could be done by the DNC, but the leadership and orientation of that should be credible spokespersons who are also ready and able for TV and the various channels of communication. It may have had a great, well-funded, organized get-out-the-vote ground game, but in the long run it made no difference in Nov.2024. The focus of the DNC must shift to messaging and coordination of that message. Good luck with that. My late husband served as a Democratic National Committeeman for twelve years and I was a fly on the wall. This shift in mission would not be easy. Fundraisers and special interest advocates permeate that body. What other organization is out there?y
It has to start now, not on the last 4 months of a campaign when voters' attitudes were already firmed up months and even years before.. The British use shadow cabinets. Shadow cabinet members are credible heavyweights like standing committees with designated spokespeople and are ready to go at a moment's notice. Members of Congress are not the best for this since they represent the interests of their constituents with their own more specific agendas. Congresspeople can still become the bullhorn, blowing the same tune to amplify and repeat and repeat again and again. Update: Concept also put forth 12/16/2024 by historian Tymothy Snyder https://grabien.com/file?id=2729108
This messaging is not just for the federal level. Since most politics are local, on-record votes by Congress people for policies that harm their constituents should also make news in House members' hometown media, print, radio talk, or social contacts. Federal administrative action harm can also be brought down to the state, district, and local levels. Trump is going to force GOP Congressional representatives to take votes that are unpopular in their districts under the threat of primarying the disloyal. Democrats should not let them off the hook with silence the time the harm is done, and again at the next campaign cycle, too.
https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/elitists-v-simple-speakeducation-is.html
Another interesting take if you have access to it. The "blowtorch" reference came from that.