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"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

whitehouse.gov

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Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#151

This is obviously alarming, and if used to disregard the Judiciary's interpretation of law, unconstitutional. But I'm puzzled by the exemption of the Federal Reserve and FOMC. He's previously beefed with them, and would presumably find the additional leverage useful. Why explicitly exclude them?

Inflation is an extreme handout to the wealthy. Money is by definition zero sum, otherwise the word "inflation" would have no meaning. There are good questions around what an over leveraged loan is, but fundamentally, the supply of money is to some degree fixed at any given moment. The wealthy and powerful keep their money in tax benefited, inflation tracking assets. Many of those assets are stocks, and a major busin…

> Inflation is an extreme handout to the wealthy.

Debatable.

But the opposite, deflation, hits the poor much harder.

It was deflation, the gold standard, and the insistence of balanced budgets that caused revolutions all over the world:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity:_The_History_of_a_Da...

It was dropping prices that caused ferment in the US:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Gold_speech

It was FDR getting off the gold standard and balance budgets that helped the US recover:

* https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-money-makers-how-roosevelt-...

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24945314-the-money-maker...

> Money is by definition zero sum, otherwise the word "inflation" would have no meaning.

I have no idea what this even means.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#152
post #135
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not hyperbolic. In one month Trump has taken full unchecked power on almost anything. In 4 years, you won’t vote, that’s a given.

So when 4 years pass and we’re still voting, are you going to admit you are hyperbolic and divorced from reality?

Sure. As long as:

- there are non Republican candidates to vote for

- the right to vote hasn't been crippled somehow

- elections are fair

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#154

The only rebuttal I see in the media is that congress set these up to be “independent”. But our government doesn’t have independent branches. In fact that sounds a lot like “unelected and unaccountable”. So which branches are these agencies under? Is it in the judicial, legislative, or executive - and if it’s in the executive why can’t the chief executive manage business? On the other hand, one of the issues brought…

Not unaccountable, just requiring the cooperation of multiple branches to remove.

Cooperation which has been deemed too transparent, too vulnerable to actually caring about what is being destroyed.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#155
post #128

This new administration lays bare what we've known all along - the legislative gridlock and dysfunction in the house of representatives and senate has made them completely incapable of governing -- the least productive in a generation. This is opened up an opportunity for a well funded strongman, and the checks and balances that were intended to protect our democracy are now mere suggestions.

This is the sad reality of oligarchy. Red/blue culture wars appeal to some people because they would prefer an authoritarianism that at least pretends to have their back 50 percent of the time over rich people (their employers) who have their back 0 percent of the time.

No one wants (and I don’t think anyone should want) bipartisanship, not really. Bipartisanship means the rich get everything they want—efficiently. It means the meetings of the club we aren’t in happen on time and no one ends up with a black eye. That’s also an unacceptable outcome. Of course, it can be argued that the outcome we are getting is basically the same thing, but with cheap depressing entertainment and widespread governmental dysfunction.

Of course, anyone who thinks voting for any of these right-wing figures will end oligarchy is delusional. Their charisma comes from the fact that, because they hate basically everyone, they also incidentally hate many of the other oligarchs. But nothing good happens when people vote for hate, and none of these pricks will ever end oligarchy since they are all part of it. The Nazis truly did present themselves as somewhat socialist (it was in the name) in the early 1920s to gain their first followers, but as soon as they were in power, they realized they had more to gain by siding with the industrialists and against labor, which is of course what they did.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#156
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people that are freaking out are missing that this applies to the executive branch, over whom the President has already perfectly well established. Literally the first statement of article 2 of the US Constitution (which lays out the power/rules for the executive branch) is "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." The main point of this executive order is…

> It required the judicial to completely defer to the executive branch in cases where the laws around executive departments (generally relating to the the limits of their regulatory power/authority) were ambiguous. Why doesn’t congress do its job and write laws that do things?

Because the republicans punish their own when they reach out to support bipartisan efforts.

Even right now, congressmen have been threatened with being primaries if they don’t toe the line.

There has been multiple decades of very public efforts to degrade and break the American system. Ever since watergate.

Congress was broken.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#157

As Americans that believe in the Republic, what exactly are we supposed to do about this? Should we continue to implore congress to take action against this lawless behavior?

> As Americans that believe in the Republic, what exactly are we supposed to do about this?

If you are in a red state/district, first step would be to contact your elected federal rep(s) and tell them that you're displeased.

Use language like "Trump was elected to correct Biden's overreach, but he's now overreaching in a much worse way." Put it in language where you frame things like a 'Constitutionalist' and 'limited government'. The stereotypical small-government, Originalist GOPer.

If you come off sounding like a Democrat they'll probably ignore you, but if the (so-called) 'grass roots' MAGA folks are thought to be upset then you'll probably get more traction.

Or you'll just be ignored regardless.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#158
post #141

As Americans that believe in the Republic, what exactly are we supposed to do about this? Should we continue to implore congress to take action against this lawless behavior?

The actual answer here is to exercise actual power. Oligarchs are always greatly outnumbered. The only thing that is genuinely effective is mass movement. A coalition of labor unions could shut down all of Elon and Trumps businesses in hours. Block the entrances to the factories. General strikes, boycotts, that kind of thing. It’s not actually that complicated. Instead the modern Democratic Party is in love with appe…

The modern Dem party, is sadly boring and correct.

I think they need to split their approach into two.

One for to keep Their base energized.

One to use the system and protect itself. The courts, the local elections.

What is being taken out are the systems that run the country. The dems have to be the one to defend it.

But frankly, I think the battleground is a media battleground.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#159

As Americans that believe in the Republic, what exactly are we supposed to do about this? Should we continue to implore congress to take action against this lawless behavior?

I called both my senators' offices yesterday, because I still haven't gotten a response to my emails from a few weeks ago. Still waiting to hear back.

I also told them that working on legislation for protecting George C Marshall's house, and protecting bourbon, are not valuable uses of their time given the destruction currently being waged on the US Government.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#160
post #128

This new administration lays bare what we've known all along - the legislative gridlock and dysfunction in the house of representatives and senate has made them completely incapable of governing -- the least productive in a generation. This is opened up an opportunity for a well funded strongman, and the checks and balances that were intended to protect our democracy are now mere suggestions.

This is the sad reality of oligarchy. Red/blue culture wars appeal to some people because they would prefer an authoritarianism that at least pretends to have their back 50 percent of the time over rich people (their employers) who have their back 0 percent of the time. No one wants (and I don’t think anyone should want) bipartisanship, not really. Bipartisanship means the rich get everything they want—efficiently. I…

Bipartisan efforts are what makes Congress work.

It’s this loss that plagues Congress.

Bipartisanship is what was jettisoned by the republicans to ensure that they would always be able to blame democrats for the failure of the government.

Even during Obamacare, when they adopted a Republican plan, Romney had to distance himself from it. Despite all the efforts for Bipartisan outreach - for all the concessions, the republicans couldn’t stand with the dems.

The Dems must always be wrong.

Bipartisanship means you have to spend more effort to get more people on your team.

Partisanship means you just have to get on board with one party.

So how is bipartisanship the problem?

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