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"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
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Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#242The 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…
It’s a false narrative that Obama was soft on immigration and even earned the nickname “deporter in chief”. In some ways he was even harder than Bush during the post 9/11 response. www.migrationpolicy.org/article/obama-record-deportations-deporter-chief-or-not It’s astounding the regularity over the last 100 years that conservatives have used immigration narratives to fire up their base regardless of what statistical…
It's complex.
Obama may have deported lots of people, but Trump famously used the same institutions to detain and torture minors indefinitely... Which of those is "harder" against immigration?
It's the same issue that is happening now. Biden deported a lot more people, but he focused on people entering the US or caught doing something. Trump is deporting a low fewer people, but he randomly taking people from their homes, workplaces and schools. Which one do you think appears "harder" on TV?
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#243The 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…
If your question is whether the “independent” agencies are Constitutional, the answer is yes. Congress makes the laws and the laws can constrain the behavior of the President. If the law says the President cannot fire someone, or interfere in an agency’s work, then the President cannot. So who are such agencies accountable to? Congress. Just like the president is accountable to Congress.
Congress can only make laws if they don’t infringe on the constitution. If they want laws that aren’t constitutional, they have to make constitutional amendments, which is probably never going to happen ever again because of how dysfunctional they are and have been for decades.
The president has a lot of constitutional protection to run the executive branch, though obviously congress has ways to pass laws and influence that, too.
The president isn’t accountable to congress but there are checks and balances both ways
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I wonder who you saw debating that. It looks really settled down and unanimous to me. Inflation is extremely harmful to poor people. The only debate I see is about whether the Austrian school has a point and merely printing money is already harmful or if harm comes only when prices increase. Also, > But the opposite, deflation, hits the poor much harder. Yes. Two different things can be true.
> I wonder who you saw debating that. It looks really settled down and unanimous to me. Inflation is extremely harmful to poor people.
The debate is about the alternatives / counter-factuals: would >0% inflation? How do those two compare to ~0% (e.g., 2%, the Fed target) inflation?
There's a reason why I linked to articles on the topic of the 'cross of gold' and austerity. We've had other ways of doing things in the past and are on the current system for a reason.
A lot of folks seem to want to get rid of the Fed, get back to gold, mercantilism (which is basically what Trump's tariffs are attempting), and generally go back to the 1800s way of doing money/finance:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression
Try reading Project 2025's chapter on the Federal Reserve:
> Free Banking. In free banking, neither interest rates nor the supply of money is controlled by the government. The Federal Reserve is effectively abolished, and the Department of the Treasury largely limits itself to handling the government’s money. Regions of the U.S. actually had a similar system, known as the “Suffolk System,” from 1824 until the 1850s, and it minimized both inflation and economic disruption while allowing lending to flourish.[23]
[…]
> As in the Suffolk System, competition keeps banks from overprinting or lending irresponsibly. This is because any bank that issues more paper than it has assets available would be subject to competitor banks’ presenting its notes for redemption. In the extreme, an overissuing bank could be liable to a bank run.[!] Reckless banks’ competitors have good incentives to police risk closely lest their own holdings of competitor dollars become worthless.[24]
* https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHA...*
Yay! Bank runs!
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#245The 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…
> But our government doesn’t have independent branches.
In theory it does, that is the whole idea and genius of the constitution.
In fact at the moment it does not, because Trump has so captured the Republican party that the legislature has almost no power to stand up to him. The Supreme Court has a long history of judges aligning with the political party that seated them, and Trump put 3 of them into their seat.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#246[flagged]
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#247The 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…
In a democracy the three branches are independent. Democracy is not just 'you get to elect the guy on top', it also attempts to preserve the rights of the population. If the population does not have rights, democracy soon becomes very fake. E.g., I don't like this or that party so I throw anyone in jail during election day if I know that they would vote for the wrong party. The general principle is that if a person/organization has too much power they will generally find a way to abuse it. The famous split-up in three branches is employed to a greater or lesser extend in all countries where the rights of the population are respected.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is quite similar to anyone familiar with prussia, berlin and the constituent national assembly of 1845 in the context of the historical power struggle between vichy merchant classes and their royal monarchs during the advent of the steam era. it seems the same play is being made in 2025 at the advent of AI and Tech supremacy as it comes to a headroads with the death of traditional US neoliberalism. Tech is more…
Can we drop the "tech" prefix from our neo-feudalism? Technology is necessarily a progressive force, and feudalism is necessarily a stagnatory conservative structure. The "Tech Supremacy" group is visibly opposed to technology, and it's reflecting more and more on society as they gain power.
> Technology is necessarily a progressive force
Technology is a tool. It is not a culture or a system. In fact, I think state and corporate use of technology for things like surveillance, censorship, frankly pointless jobs that somehow attract VC money, mass propaganda and social media access, data tracking and advertising and behavior modelling to a T, hypothetical pointless-job-destroying-AGI, etc. that are currently in vogue are part of the conservative structure. Technology means moving, but is this outwards or inwards movement?
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the problem with people being OK with executive overreach when "their team" is in power. Eventually, and in fact about 50% of the time - the OTHER team is in power.. and may just push the overreach further. We should desire that the legislative side actually legislates and each branch of the government holds the other two in check, regardless of partisan control. Further having our judicial branch become open…
That’s why the current administration is going to make sure the other side doesn’t get in power again.
I'm debating on whether they will manage to stir up enough chaos to suspend the constitution, or whether there will be enough independent thought left in the military to oust them when the time comes for new elections - although I can't rule out Russian-style elections, one-man one-vote, and his vote is what counts.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#250This 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.
Gridlock, disfunction, and completely incapable of governing are a bit loaded, but other than that, a slow moving legislature was a feature built into the system — not a bug.