I wonder when he's going to go after the Fed.
After his policies crash the market and he blames it on them, of course.
"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
781–790 of 1001 posts
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#782As 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 think that the most effective way to get change would be if the economy tanked, that's the one thing the electorate seems to be motivated by. A general strike would be one way to do that, but I doubt that one could be organized on any meaningful scale. I'd love to be wrong about that.
I'm trying to restrict my spending as much as possible. No new car, no vacation (or at least nothing big), limiting eating out, etc. I'm cutting back on as many unnecessary expenses as I can, and being mindful of what businesses I do spend my money on.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#783This whole situation really goes to show that both the judiciary and the legislature need to be greatly expanded -- probably by 10 fold or more. Even if you greatly reduce the size of the federal government.
The executive employs approximately 3,000,000 employees. The federal judiciary only employs about 30,000 total, and the legislature about 20,000 total. The sheer velocity with which the executive can ram through questionable directives *and have them executed upon* (despite the law) means the other "co-equal" branches of government are always potentially on the back foot. It's just a personnel game. Trump has only highlighted how absurdly easy it is to abuse this imbalance.
And after the Chevron and Trump decisions, it's only going to get worse and worse. I do think these Federalist Society types who pushed these unitary executive theory ideas have now created a monster. They've created a situation where the executive has immunity to simply apply the law however it wants, clogging up the judiciary with civil and federal suits, and where the Congress cannot pass laws fast enough or with great enough specificity to avoid defying Chevron or avoid executive misapplication. Meanwhile the executive has long since moved on from the original issue to the next 10 issues, and the next 10, and the next 10, while the courts and the Congress are still only getting started on the first few problems. And the executive will never really get "punished" for these actions because of its supposed immunity.
And presidential elections don't really help with this problem. Because one president has 4 years to drastically reshape everything, and the next president will spend all of their 4 years reverting it, dropping all the previous suits, creating its own litany of new suits, and rinse and repeat. The hysteresis of this process is too long and leads to instability and chaos.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#784[flagged]
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#785Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The disincentives that have always prevented the executive from blatantly violating the law are still in force and unchanged. They have been functional through 250 years of Presidents testing the limits of their authority. Can you elaborate on what those disincentives are? I am thinking: - Impeachment - Charged with a crime, found guilty, sent to jail. It seems like this one is no longer possible due to Trump v. Un…
Similar to Roe v Wade and Chevron, they'd need to overturn Trump v. United States and then charge him with crime (or contempt). So there is a ball in the judicial branch if they get pushed too far. Just extra steps. The 4th one is us getting a retroactive watergate effect where republicans wake up and approval plummets. There's a non-zero chance Trump steps down if he pisses off everyone. This only happens with some…
>> Similar to Roe v Wade and Chevron, they'd need to overturn Trump v. United States and then charge him with crime (or contempt). So there is a ball in the judicial branch if they get pushed too far. Just extra steps.
_Who_ would charge him with a crime? Prosecution is the responsibility of the Executive branch via the Department of Justice. The only option the court would have is Contempt, and I don't see that being particularly effective.
The only legal avenue this order leaves open is impeachment, and because that requires a 2/3rds majority in the Senate, there's all sorts of ways to prevent it. Even if the republican senators started to oppose him, the DoJ could be used to threaten and investigate senators who step out of line. Or a violent mob could be used to interrupt the impeachment vote.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#786Wonder how long it'll take for the media outlets to start blaming Biden again, "well he should have put protections in!"
When inflation starts to be a problem again (it's already rising) they'll still blame him. Fascism requires scapegoats. Ironically, that is their downfall too, because they are utterly incapable of introspection and self-improvement.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#787[flagged]
"The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. " Of course down below it says something like "subject to applicable law". Nevertheless I think the scary sentence will be stricken by the supreme Court
Watch them do nothing about it.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#788In general, people are going to interpret this EO with their own lens. Unsurprisingly, reasonable people may disagree on the merits of the EO as a whole. However this part of the EO is pretty concerning > 'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch' and later > 'No employee of the executive bra…
>setting up the president as the sole power center is an inherently unstable system. But that is what the Constitution specifies (Article II Section 1): > The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. I find it funny people either don't know this or are intentionally ignoring it. The entire power is vested in one person, who can delegate the enforcement of it to lower officers. >…
All three branches of the government are beholden to the Constitution as a whole, and to each other based on the Constitutional roles and their expressions of their roles.
All government actors individually are also responsible to the Constitution and its expression by all three branches first, before any loyalty to anyone else. In the same branch or not.
Even before the current top office holders of the executive branch, congressional majorities, or Supreme Court justices.
Saying that a President’s personal interpretation of Congress’ laws or the courts precedence, completely overrides any individual executive employees good faith understanding and responsibility to the Constitution, laws, and judicial rulings is madness.
There will be disagreements within a branch that will need to be worked out. The president certainly has more power and deserves special respect. But his helpers must stand firm with the constitution first.
Settling Constitutional level disagreements within a branch is a desirable process. The president, and all government actors, need pushback when they start running into the weeds, and vetting when their take seems Constitutionally risky or outright invalid. Taking into full account all valid standing orders, laws and rulings.
The Presidents most important advisors are subject to Senate approval precisely because they are supposed to be loyal to the Constitution and laws first.
If the president says he believes arresting disagreeable members of the Supreme Court is Constitutionally supported because yadda, yadda, yadda, you don’t do it.
If the President directs the Vice President not to certify an election, because he interprets that role as active and worthy of pauses and delays to settle issues the President deems Constitutionslly important during an election…
But you the Vice President, after careful thought and consultation believe your role is ceremonial, you fulfill the ceremony.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#789Earlier quoted context omitted.
They put out a whole playbook called Project 2025, developed by a bunch of insane people at the Heritage Foundation. Trump lied and said he didn't know anything about it. Now they're doing it.
Actually, he said during the Kamala debate that it had "some good ideas and some bad ideas" to my recollection.
[deleted]
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#790Earlier quoted context omitted.
Protest and revolt. Government for the people and by the people
A majority of Americans voted for Trump. There was a pollster who was on CNN a day or two ago who looked into people who voted for Clinton and Biden in 2016 and 2020, but then for Trump in 2024. These people were (of course generally speaking) happy with Trump's performace so far this term. There frustration with the Democrats was what they perceived as a lack of action, and they see Trump as "moving fast". It's clea…
> A majority of Americans voted for Trump
Not true. A majority of the Americans who chose to vote voted for Trump.