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It's probably slightly more complicated than that
"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
791–800 of 1001 posts
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#792Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consider this hypothetical: a federal judge rules against the Trump administration's firing of the inspectors general and must offer the fired employees their positions back. The Attorney General says the judge overstepped his constitutional power and calls the ruling invalid. What should the person who would've rehired the employees do? Continue that hypothetical further: the case makes its way to the Supreme Court,…
What’s the solution you have in mind? Anyone in the Executive branch can interpret the law for themselves and disobey an order if they believe they have a legal basis to do so? That would be completely paralyzing.
That is why federal workers and the military swear an oath to the constitution of the united states.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#793In 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…
Even with a highly sympathetic Supreme Court it is hard to imagine this EO standing. It goes against the foundation of not only US law, but couple of hundred years of international democratic tradition in which allegiance is not to a person, but to the nation itself. US civil servants and military alike swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution not the president or their commander. Illegal orders are not o…
> It goes against the foundation of not only US law, but couple of hundred years of international democratic tradition in which allegiance is not to a person, but to the nation itself.
The United States had a spoils system of government administration until at least the late 1800s. The spoils system was still prevalent in many state and city governments until the mid 1900s.
This didn't mean officials were permitted to violate the law, but self-dealing and bald partisanship in administration was rampant, and of course violations of the law often went unpunished as administration officials had (and have) discretion to prosecute.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#794Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the Supreme Court and Congress has no enforcement power, though, what recourse is there?
I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. Whether it is as overt as a soldier refusing to follow an illegal order knowing they are risking court marshal, or as clandestine as mid-level bureaucrat slow-walking damaging policies, or people actually voting in local-to-national elections. Democracy is not a passive form of government.
Only recently has it become placid in the US. I expect social media also removes the desires to actually march or do something even louder. If Biden was this busy we'd be hearing a lot more "2nd Amendment!" talk.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#795[flagged]
Please point me to the EOs Biden signed that gave him absolute power.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#796Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am independent and not a Democrat or a Republican because they are two sides of the same coin. The only sense in which this is true: the GOP are fascist, racist authoritarians who have waged a decades-long war on the middle and lower class; the Democrats aren't. If you think the Democrats and GOP are equally bad, you're out of your mind.
I agree that they are not equally bad, and- Democrats since Carter have bowed to influence from neoliberal capitalists, and capitalism is is a "boom-bust-quit" cycle, which I see as narrow-minded and selfish. Clinton got away with undoing the 1933 Glass-Stiegel Act (separating stock market and banking? financial regulation to reduce boom-bust amplitude, anyway) in 1999 by selling a "third way" that was really just wa…
Yup, this is fair. But I'd also guess that deregulation of news media in the 80s(?), turning it into entertainment, tipped the scales in favor of news media that promoted fear/disgust, which, in turn, gave the GOP a massive advantage. The GOP progressively cornered the market on paranoiac lunacy probably after the Civil Rights act, Goldwater's defeat, and Vietnam. A boring journalistic environment, with legally enforceable objectivity, would have been good for the left. What we had instead -- an environment that rewards sensationalism and outrage, appealing to the amygdala -- was good for the right.
> under Biden the value of future lives was increased a bit
Could you explain this?
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#797Earlier quoted context omitted.
“No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law“ would seem to rule out, say, accepting a SCOTUS ruling against the President, should he insist it was wrongly decided.
If that were the case, then SCOTUS would just invalidate the EO.
SCOTUS can't just "invalidate" an Executive Order like how they can invalidate an unconstitutional law (judicial review). The court system doesn't work like that. No one would have standing to bring such a case, nor does the judicial branch have authority over executive branch internal communications.
What could happen is that a federal agency follows an EO in a manner contrary to law, and that action causes some sort of harm or loss to a person. That injured party could then bring a legal action against the agency and the Court could order the agency to cease that action. But it still wouldn't invalidate the EO.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#798Earlier 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…
> Eventually, and in fact about 50% of the time - the OTHER team is in power.. and may just push the overreach further. Are you sure this is going to be a fact, in the future? How likely is it, that the next elections will still be (somewhat) fair?
I would put the odds at 99.9% that the US will hold an election in 2028 and that it will be the international consensus that regardless of the outcome, the election will be decided fairly by the voters and will not be "hacked" or "unfair" as current and past fringe commentators have tried to present.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
Congress has all the enforcement power, they can impeach the president whenever they want. Will they? I don't know, he's already gone so far in constitutional overreach that he's making Nixon blush. Judiciary has more power than you'd think too. It's just that they try to act in good faith and generally do not want to throw people into civil contempt that often. The SCOTUS can even re-re-interpret the presidential im…
> Will they do this? so the question is why? The point about what they're legally allowed to do, and could do, is moot, if there's no will.
Judiciary is easy. They don't want to take drastic actions unless absolutely pushed. The entire idea is to be meticulous and try to avoid the political climate when making judgement. They are taking action but they havent taken their gloves off yet.
Congressional's reasons: your guess is as good as mine. Their majorities aren't that wide. moving 3 senators can affect policy, moving half the senators can get an impeachment trial. We'll see how things proceed there.
Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
#800In 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. >…
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