"This week, the Supreme Court made clear that it was likely going to rule in favor of Donald Trump's right to summarily fire board members of supposedly independent regulatory agencies. If and when such a ruling comes down from the hard-right justices who dominate the court, it will unravel basic government structures and guardrails that have been in place for almost a century."
"In all the key government departments and agencies, Trump uses his hiring and firing powers to tame honorable public servants and to replace them with the most amoral, pliant, sycophantic-and frequently grossly incompetent-men and women he can find. It's as if he's been given a who's who of toadies and been told he can browse through the list to choose the very worst of the worst."
"Hence the extraordinary events of the past weeks. America's Caligula may not have made his horse a US senator, but he's had no problem making his horse's ass, willing to conjure up whatever war crimes du jour the boss orders, defense secretary. Witness the allegations that Pete Hegseth issued verbal " kill them all " orders regarding America's rampaging assassination campaign against alleged drug mules in the Caribbean and Pacific."
The Supreme Court appears likely to permit the president to summarily remove members of supposedly independent regulatory agencies, undermining nearly century-old institutional guardrails. Such a ruling would concentrate executive authority and enable capricious, corrupt, revenge-driven politicizing of government functions. The president routinely uses hiring and firing powers to replace career public servants with amoral, pliant, and often incompetent loyalists. Recent allegations include extreme conduct by senior appointees in overseas assassination campaigns. Racially demeaning language directed at Somali Americans has surfaced, and expected resignations from senior officials have not materialized, signaling weakened internal checks on presidential behavior.
Read at The Nation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]