PUBLIC SAFETY IS ABOUT TO GO THE WAY OF THE DODO

Slaughter v. Trump The latest Trump administration SCOTUS ‘triumph’ to gain yet more unfettered power. Since 1935 SCOTUS has said the president does not have the power to fire members of independent agencies created by Congress. Except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” But we know precedent has no further meaning to the conservative majority on the court. Their 2024 Donald J. Trump v. United States decision supported Trump’s position that a president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed in the course of official presidential duties. As defined by him. Now SCOTUS has handed the presidency complete control over the officers in the executive branch. To include all the independent agencies established by Congress. Officers that Congress has been placing in the executive branch since the Washington administration. That’s since we’ve been a democracy folks. The government lawyer told the court that the president must be able to remove officials in the agencies because “the President must have the power to control and…the one who has the power to remove is the one who…is the person that they have to fear and obey.” Fear and obey. Throughout our history, both Congress and the president have agreed that some governmental functions should operate outside of party politics. Financial management, workplace safety, consumer safety, addressing environmental hazards, and managing nuclear energy, for example, should not depend on who is in office. Or blind loyalty. Or quid pro quo. But on judgment, expertise, and the public good. Their decision undoes centuries of political practice by concluding that all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution from the git go. SCOTUS gives this president a power that the English Crown, against whom we revolted, never had. The president is now above his once-coequal branches. Now instead of a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, a president now has license to act in sanctioned defiance of those same laws. Unchecked power to remove any head of any independent agency. To make the agencies to bend to his will. To play by his rules, or else. Now, even if we the people elect members of Congress who create agencies to protect our interests the president can gut them. As legal analysts observed, Trump’s new powers will let him fire commissioners at agencies including… Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Environmental Protection Agency. Consumer Product Safety Board. Federal Communications Commission. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Securities and Exchange Commission. Nuclear Safety Board. Federal employees have been free from political interference for 150 years, but now…”The spoils system is back, baby!” But not to worry. When hearing of the decision Trump assured us… “To me, compared to the Save America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.” This decision is going to be fatal y’all.