alt Hacker News"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
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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.
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 up in the Obama years was whether a president can choose not to enforce a law like immigration. If congres’s laws can be ignored than what power do they have?
Genuine question. Does anyone have a constitutional framing for the duties of the executive branch in prioritizing enforcement or implementation of law?
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum...
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?
There's a bit of background at https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5152723-donald-t....
If there are better third-party reports, let me know and I'll add to this list. The above is just the first one bestowed by Google.
If you're wondering why the President can essentially write his own laws when that's not how our system is supposed to work, it's because the President gets extra powers whenever we're in a state of national emergency.
We've been in a state of national emergency since 1979.
this is impacting scientific research to the point that people are scrubbing the word "gender" from their papers to avoid their research programs getting flagged by the doge gestapo
"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" - ah, one of those Government things where the title is exactly what it is not. "Department of Justice", there's another.
>A White House Liaison is to be installed in every independent regulatory agency to enforce direct presidential control
Wow. Literally installing political officers in agencies.
Wait DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is real?? I live an ocean apart from the U.S and all this time I thought it was a meme.
Who is actually behind all these executive orders?
Do they all originate by the President saying "I want X" in reaction to something, and lawyers figuring out how to do X?
Do some of them originate with a wishlist of some extremist think tank or powerful people, and they finally found a President who'll rubberstamp them?
Other?
“ Sec. 7. Rules of Conduct Guiding Federal Employees’ Interpretation of the Law. The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. The President and the Attorney General’s opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties. 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, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General.”
This does not bode well for that country’s democracy.
This EO, combined with his proclamation that "He who saves the country does not violate any law" paint a very concerning picture. This has, historically speaking, been the language of tyrants. No President is above the law, nor does the President "interpret" the law; that is the domain of the Judiciary.
“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins”
More firings of those who refuse to break the law...
Direct link to the order : https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensu...
In short, Trump is claiming full and direct authority and control over any and all federal agencies, with the express directive of "The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. "
Basically : L'État, c'est moi.
I think a lot more American need to read the Constitution.
This 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.
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?
In Germany the legal executive branch is “Weisungsgebunden” which mean it follows the lead of the politicians instead of acting on own behalf. Because of this international warrants which come from Germany do not get followed since they can’t be trusted.
It would be better to have independent judges but hey it doesn’t lead to a dictatorship and the end of the world directly as propagated everywhere.
SCOTUS bears a tremendous amount of responsibility for Trump's power grab. Its immunity-granting ruling means that it's extremely difficult to stop a President who decides to simply ignore the law.
Even if you think Trump is a "good guy" who is "doing the right thing", he's setting precedents whereby a President who is a "bad guy" could turn dictator, and then what? Literally the only option is impeachment, but the Senate has never convicted because there are enough senators who are afraid of a highly vindictive politician (and now his billionaire BBF) who __will__ go after them and whip up his base against them. If only they were more concerned about the country than their own re-election, but too few are willing to make that sacrifice.
(this couldn't be farther than the truth from all I've seen Trump do, but just entertaining the thought here)
This will probably get flagged, but if you read this, spent a few minutes trying to understand the gravity of this specific EO. Every federal employee even in independent agents must and will jump when Trump says so. Even if he asks them to do something illegal (close the congress! Jail a democrat!), they must follow his orders. Because HIS interpretation of the law cannot be superseded.
Historic times we are living in.
When the history books are written, this executive order, along with the past few weeks of actions, will be seen as the seeds of the 2nd American revolution.
The USA had a solid 250 year run but technology, money, and greed have unfortunately undone the very core of what America stood for.
We cannot know at this point where this is going, but it seems like fascism is the inevitable course. My fear is that if you combine that path with the power of the US military, the world is in for a very scary time.
Is anyone still doubting that what's happening is the actual death of American Democracy? Anyone still willing to argue that this is about freedom and cutting waste?
From a person who watched a single man taking over a whole country over, US is going down the same path.
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
In other words, "I will interpret the law for you, from now on. Don't attempt to read the law yourself."
Not incidentally, both the FTC and SEC have ongoing investigations or enforcement actions against companies owned by Elon Musk.
What a coincidence
I wonder when he's going to go after the Fed.
It may be a good time to study how Stalin came to power in the USSR. It wasn't through the political establishment, but by taking absolute control of the bureaucracy.
5a - consistency with the President not the law. Classic principle of Russia and the likes.
This is a power grab that is unprecedented.
No one left to investigate Trump himself or his followers, no control, no means of ensuring a fair election…
An independent regulatory agency are established by law and function outside direct executive supervision. That’s the whole purpose: they’re supposed to be non partisan.
But there’s a loop hole - this independence isn’t codified. Rather an executive order from 1993 (12866) required federal agencies to submit proposals to OMB but exempted regulatory agencies. Today Trump is closing that loop hole.
So if that’s not congress’s intent (which I’m sure is not) then they will need to pass a law soon making these agencies independence from the president explicit
This creates strong associations to „Machtergreifung“ and „Gleichschaltung“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung
The Nazi term Gleichschaltung (German pronunciation: [ˈɡlaɪçʃaltʊŋ] ⓘ), meaning "synchronization" or "bringing into line", was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler—leader of the Nazi Party in Germany—established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society "from the economy and trade associations to the media, culture and education".[1]
There is no direct counterpart in Englisch Wikipedia for:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung Mit Machtergreifung (auch Machtübernahme oder Machtübergabe) wird die Ernennung des Nationalsozialisten Adolf Hitler zum Reichskanzler durch den Reichspräsidenten Paul von Hindenburg am 30. Januar 1933 bezeichnet. Hitler übernahm an diesem Tag die Führung einer Koalitionsregierung von NSDAP und nationalkonservativen Verbündeten (DNVP, Stahlhelm), in der neben ihm zunächst nur zwei Nationalsozialisten Regierungsämter bekleideten (Kabinett Hitler); dies waren Wilhelm Frick als Reichsinnenminister und Hermann Göring als Reichsminister ohne Geschäftsbereich. Zusätzlich zur eigentlichen Ernennung umfasst der Begriff die anschließende Umwandlung der bis dahin schon seit 1930 durch Präsidialkabinette geschwächten parlamentarischen Demokratie der Weimarer Republik und deren Verfassung in eine nach dem nationalsozialistischen Führerprinzip agierende zentralistische Diktatur.
Nachdem am 1. Februar das Parlament in Berlin, der Reichstag, aufgelöst worden war, schränkten die Machthaber in den folgenden – von nationalsozialistischem Terror gekennzeichneten – Monaten die politischen und demokratischen Rechte durch Notverordnungen des Präsidenten ein. Als entscheidende Schritte auf dem Weg zur Diktatur gelten die Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat (Reichstagsbrandverordnung) vom 28. Februar 1933 und das Ermächtigungsgesetz vom 24. März 1933. Der Reichstag verlor damit praktisch jegliche Entscheidungskompetenz. Neben vielen anderen wurden nun auch Parlamentarier ohne Gerichtsverfahren in Konzentrationslagern eingesperrt und gefoltert.
If people think that we are safe because it is a democracy, and Trump was somehow elected, let's not forget that Russia is also a democracy and Poutine was also elected and re-elected.
Now we can be scared because it shows that "votation" doesn't prevent dictators to grab the power to abuse if it for their own good.
‘Executive order’ is starting to sound like the compilation of Garrett calling out ‘emergency crisis’ in Community in the two worlds with the Model United Nations, S3E02 iirc.
Why do you think they are called "Independent Agencies"?
Can we work on our definition of "Independent Agency"?
The founders of this country intentionally did not create a "King" role.
Wonder how long it'll take for the media outlets to start blaming Biden again, "well he should have put protections in!"
My high level take on this saga is: welcome to the Chinese century.
It's very common for companies that are failing to adopt uncreative reactive strategies that hasten their collapse. Look at the history of Kodak for some good examples. MAGA is that for the United States -- respond to the challenges of the new century by going back to the 1950s. MAGA (and Project 2025) is going to turbocharge American decline.
The pathetic thing is that while the US (like everyone else) has significant problems, it was not "failing," but we decided to do this anyway largely because of culture war panic bullshit.
Before this, America was in a place where it could credibly have continued to hold onto its global power. Its higher birth rate combined with a high immigration rate from all over the world meant its demographics were much better than China's. It was the world's #1 destination for high skill immigrants. The dollar is the global reserve, and that's hard to unseat due to network effects. Its military is still the most powerful. It still has an edge in many areas of high technology. Its universities are still arguably the best. It's still arguably the center of global pop culture.
Now it looks like we will systematically forfeit all that. We'll close our borders to general migration and will no longer be an attractive destination for skilled immigration. By removing reproductive rights I predict we'll actually decrease the birth rate by driving people to sterilize themselves (already happening) and driving a further wedge between genders (see the Korean 4B movement). The dollar will start losing ground. Our military may stay dominant for a while but will gradually slip with everything else. We'll gradually lose our technological edge to brain drain and lack of high skill immigration. We're going to run some kind of culture war purge on the universities or maybe even defund the best higher education system in the world. We'll lose our cultural edge because right wing culture warriors will drive away all the artists.
Imagine Germany without Naziism where they drove away or killed all their intellectuals. Imagine if Weimar Germany with its incredible intellectual and cultural scene had recovered economically and remained functional. They had the greatest minds in physics, philosophy, psychology, mathematics, and many areas of engineering. It's likely that without Hitler Germany would have developed the microprocessor, ArpaNet and Silicon Valley would have been German, the Germans would have landed on the Moon, etc.
Muscular reactionary politics is a cult of what looks strong, not what is strong.
We have a government that has been completely capture by the elite. Democrats are the oligarchs good cops offering performative resistance while ultimately consenting to anything that boosts their brokerage accounts and re-election budgets, while republicans are the oligarchs bad cops, directly weakening regulation of those with power, protections for those without, and systematically destroying any force that can stand up to the insanely wealthy. Republicans are setting the wealthy up for the mass privatization of public property and services as well as the purchase of all the assets firesold to sustain life during a disaster, like your parent's house when social security/medicare doesn't cover the cost of living, or like farmland that isn't profitable to farm because it's too expensive to import fertilizer.
The elite capture is multiplicitively damaging because the elite own nearly all major media outlets. WaPo, NYT, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Neutrality is implicit support for power over justice. Justice requires challenging those with power, because those with power are the default victors in conflict. Evil wins when good men do nothing.
The Hacker News algorithm is easily gamed. Downvoting and flagging will sink any post, but resigned consent to a fait accompli is the win condition for this coup. The less they are publicly challenged, the easier it is to seize power without resistance. The easier it is to keep exercises of power unchecked.
State AGs and members of the house of representatives are making public official statements with the power of their office that we are experiencing a coup. This is historic.
I really wish dang would privilege more of these discussions about the end of constitutional rule from the automatic downward moderation of controversy and flagging.
The number of largely independent media platforms which allow for open and public discussion without major algorithmic influence is few. Failing to challenge power, submitting to it, or protecting yourself from attention is the easy thing to do, and right now we all have the privilege of doing so, but this slow moving disaster will seep into every area of our lives as the scaffolding of trust is eroded and the lack of consequences for those who exercise arbitrary power will make it a winning strategy to take advantage of people.
I understand hacker news is a place for curiosity, but curiosity is not allowed when obedience is demanded, and that is what authoritarians do, demand obedience. Maintaining one day's curiosity at the cost of tomorrow's defeats the goal of being a place for curiosity. The right to question authority... the right to be curious must be defended.
You guys are lucky to have biology on your side.
Statistically, Trump will be in charge for about 10 years max, before the Grimm Reaper creates a power vacuum. (I can't wait for his creative interpretation of the 22st.)
At this point, options will be open again.
May some real lawyers have a jab at this.
Good luck.
I am duly elected and I set the laws, and interpret the rules as I please - as a duly elected representative with spineless Congress.
Signed
Your neighborhood dictator
In many other countries people would take to the streets and protest until they get a new government if something like this happened.
Perhaps you should try it?
Trump lies through his teeth with every word and is easily manipulated by sycophants. He is a bully and a sociopath. Everything he does is to benefit himself.
He is making himself complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Ukraine because he believes Putin more than his own country's intelligence.
I am independent and not a Democrat or a Republican because they are two sides of the same coin.
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In 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 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'
This can potentially enable an end run around congress and the courts in that the President can easily choose to interpret laws in a manner inconsistent with the intent of congress and courts. Now, we can argue the point and say that presidents have already done so in the past and that congress/courts should have been more specific. However it quickly gets into the issue of the impossibility of congress or the courts anticipating and specifying every detail to avoid a 'hostile' interpretation.
This part of the EO says the president's opinion is the law as far as the executive branch is concerned. Given that the executive branch implements the law, this would imply that the president's interpretation is all that matters. The other two branches have no real role left to play. Given the supreme court's ruling on presidential immunity, this is a dangerous level of power concentration.
Even if you support the current president's goals and objectives, setting up the president as the sole power center is an inherently unstable system. Nothing prevents the next president from having a radically different opinion. There is a very good reason why the founding fathers built in an elaborate system of checks and balances.